Okay. >> Like frozen. >> Okay. Well, good morning everyone and welcome to city council chambers. I love city council meetings and there's a lot of great electricity in the air and Miss Prime I think we are ready to go to work. >> Yes sir. Good morning and welcome to the presentation of the mayor's proclamations. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance since this morning to lead us in the pledge of allegiance we have Freda Vanderpool from Lorettto Academy at the invitation of city representative Lily Leon United States of America stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You caught us running and so I'm going to tell you a little quote and it goes like this. There they go. And I must catch up with them. So the leader in the back and you're way in the front. So we got to catch up with you. You're way ahead of us. >> Take a picture. Hold on. >> One, two, three. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] Miss Bryant, >> that brings us to the first proclamation and it is Texas Space Coalition Space Day El Paso. >> Okay, represent Nino, you're going to handle this one, but we'll let them get a chance to come up, right? And for those of you receiving a proclamation this morning, your group will have up to four minutes collectively to speak at the podium. >> Perfect timing. >> Welcome to city hall. >> Uh thank you all and uh thank you for your time and attention. Uh Texas Space Coalition is immensely >> He's going to read you a quick proclamation. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here. So proclamation for the city of El Paso, Texas. Whereas the Texas Space Coalition is hosting Space Tech El Paso STEP 2025, November 4th and through the 5th at the UTEP Advanced Manufacturing and Aerospace Center and the El Paso Community Foundation Foundation Room. And whereas Space Techch El Paso 2025, a premier space event in the Southwest, brings together space leaders from academia, industry, and government to drive innovation, create connections, and highlight the abundant and talented El Paso workforce, pro business environment, outstanding quality of life, and wild wide open West Texas skies. And whereas Texas space coalition as a nonprofit neutral integrator is building a space focused ecosystem to launch research and ignite workforce and economic development for the betterment of El Paso and the region. And whereas the Texas Space Coalition is propelling the space ecosystem in El Paso and taking LaRaa to the final frontier. Now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and the council of the city of El Paso that November 5th, 2025 shall be known as Texas Bay Scholation Space Day El Paso signed by the honorable mayor Bernard Johnson. CONGRATULATIONS. [applause] >> Good morning. >> Uh good morning, Mayor and Council. Thank you so much. It's uh just a tremendous honor and we are so excited to bring this uh capability to the region. Uh we're gathering uh uh academic leaders, government leaders and civic and uh industry leaders from around the state. We have companies as far as Houston up from Colorado uh from Albuquerque coming in uh for a conference. We got university uh representation from Houston, Alpine, Dallas, uh Albuquerque, uh Los Cusus, Los Cusus, and uh and of course here in El Paso. And uh we're just really excited to uh show off this beautiful city in the in the beautiful region. >> Very good. And and when does the uh the event start? >> All right, this evening uh hosted at uh UTEP's Advanced Manufacturing and Aerospace Center from 6:00 to 8. will have a welcome reception where we get to show off this crown jewel of uh state investment for uh the region. The uh 29 labs, the 93,000 square feet, uh some really amazing students are going to give tours and uh show off what they're up to. And then on Wednesday the 5th from uh uh we'll open up for some some coffee and social and network at 7:30 at the El Paso Community Foundation. and then a full day of uh keynote speakers uh panels and uh social uh networking in order to uh create connection for the El Paso community. >> Great. And and can you tell us a little bit more about the space coalition about incubating startups and all the things that you guys are are doing for Texas and space? >> Excellent. Well, we are uh we are honored to be a partner with the city as an entrepreneur serving organization under the boss program. Uh we had our first opportunity to brief uh federal grants through the small business innovation research grants with uh Pioneers 21, one of our partners. And uh we're looking for more opportunities like that as we're bringing uh companies in. A couple more today are making or one in particular today is making a decision about uh moving an office from Colorado to uh we hope El Paso. >> El Paso. Yeah. uh it's it's leading right now and we're excited about that and um we're [clears throat] uh we look to offer those services to both introduce uh local companies to the space industry and the space industry to all that El Paso has to offer. >> Yeah. Well, I I you know I'm very appreciative of the great work you guys are doing and as you know I I often talk about that you know if you're going to go to space you have to come through El Paso because we have SpaceX and we have Blue Origins to our to our east there. So going to space you have to come through here. So I think uh this is just the beginning of some really good times for you guys. >> Mayor Johnson, thank you so much for your support and it wouldn't happen without the great support from civic leaders like yourself and the rest of the city. Your economic development team has been spectacular. Thank you. >> Well, you're very welcome and congratulations. >> Thank you. [applause] What do I Allow our senator. [applause] Are you ready? One, two, three, And the next proclamation is Radford School's 115th anniversary. >> Represent Masaveto. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm really excited to >> look at this >> read this proclamation and to see some great friends in the audience for this. So read the proclamation and then you could speak. Mr. Costita [laughter] um proclamation city of El Paso. Whereas the proud members of the Radford school community gathered to celebrate the 115th anniversary of this treasured El Paso institution whose legacy has shaped generations of leaders, scholars, and citizens. And whereas founded in 1910 as the El Paso School for Girls, Radford stands as the oldest private school in El Paso. From its earliest days, it welcomed the daughters of American ranchers as well as young women from Mexico whose families sought refuge from the turbulence of the Mexican Revolution and entrusted Radford with their education and future. And whereas the school's first home, two modest residences along the Rio Grand gave way in January 1918 to a striking new building in the Austin Terrace neighborhood. Designed in the elegant Spanish Renaissance style, the three-story structure featured a graceful central patio, reading and reception rooms, dining halls, student and faculty quarters, and a soaring living room crowned by a circular window overlooking the city and the Franklin Mountains. Above its arched entrance, the school's enduring Latin motto, disco o servum, I learned that I may serve was proudly inscribed a guiding principle that continues to inspire Radford students and whereas renamed the Radford School for Girls in 1931. The campus flourished through successive expansions in 1937 and 1956. With the momentous transition to co-education in 1976, Radford broadened its mission and became one of the premier independent college preparatory schools in the southwest, serving a diverse student body and instilling a spirit of service, excellence, and resilience. And whereas the historic old residence now Rodrig Hall endures as both a cornerstone of campus life and a living testament to Ratford's rich heritage, symbolizing more than a century of perseverance, growth, and community impact. and now therefore be a proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso recognizing Radford School for 115 years of educational distinction, civic engagement, and its unwavering commitment to preparing new generations of leaders who embody the school's noble model. I learned that I may serve. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause] >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Thank you, Mayor Johnson and city council representatives. My name is Manuel Castrita and I am the executive director and head of school for Radford. I am humbled and honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Radford faculty, staff, but above all our students. Since its founding in 1910, Radford has played a key role in the education of the Borderland area. From its beginning as a school as a school for girls where ranchers and other notables could send their young daughters for a top-notch education to openings its doors in 1976 to young men to the present with a continued strong emphasis on a college preparatory route and rigor. Radford continues to be a strong educational pillar within our community. While a challenging career with a challenging curriculum at its forefront, Radford also provides its students a traditionrich experience dating back to the days of longtime principal and icon Dr. Lucinda Templan. Notwithstanding Mayfed, Ulog, Opera, and many other traditions. Ratford Day is in and of itself a seinal marker as they walk the halls for marker for all of our students. The annual call goes out to all of our alumni to return home and reminisce as they walk the halls of their old alma mater. And occasionally they still run into their old teachers. This year is not any different, but the difference is that it marks 115 years of legacy, tradition, history, but of all and opportunity for all of these youngsters. Thank you once again for this honor. This morning I'm joined by Radford Board of Directors Chair Carlos Martinez, faculty member Miss Ardondo, Miss Coral, Miss Rome Ree, Miss Glenda Gray, Mr. Josh Wils, and several of our students, Vida Hugger Guerrero. Say hi, Drake Swallen, and Anna Hero. >> Mayor, council, thank you so much for having us. Um, I know that you all have limited time and space when you all do these proclamations because everybody wants to be recognized and we're so grateful to be recognized by you all. Um, so thank you, thank you, thank you. Our our motto, as Mr. Gastrita said, is I learn so that I may serve. And as a product of Radford School, I I I hope I am at least partly a testament to that motto. And I hope that our students will one day be a testament to that model. Um as as you all are as well because you all are here in service of our great community and we're just so grateful for this recognition and thank you again. >> If if it pleased you, the students just wanted to say a few. >> Absolutely. >> Go first. We have another mic. [laughter] >> Okay, there's another. >> Hold on. Go to that one. >> There we go. Hello, my name is Drake Swallen. And what I like about Radford is that it like teaches you a lot of stuff to learn more and be uh smarter that way. So whatever college you want to go to, you can accept it. And yeah, Radford's just one really good school. [applause] >> [laughter] >> Hi, my name is Hana Faroh and I'm in fifth grade. What I like about Radford is the teachers. They're really nice, but also teach you a lot about the school. [applause] >> Hi, my name is Vari. I'm part of Radford's senior class. And one of the many things that I like about Radford is the AP curriculum that allows me to challenge myself every day. As well as Mr. Castrita has mentioned the traditions and the way Radford allows us to um have a family sense. Uh thank you. [applause] >> Well, congratulations on this 115 years and you know you're going to continue to do great things. But I want to make sure that I got my information right. Did I hear that every Radford graduate heads to college? >> Yes, sir. >> Is that correct? And 92% pass the AP. >> Correct. >> That is and also your average AT scores are about,90 12 almost 1,200 >> almost 1200 1250 >> that is incredible. Yeah. So a testament to you uh the faculty to the staff and to your students. So congratulations on 115 years. Let's go out and get another 115. Congratulations [applause] >> represent Fiero. >> Thank you, Mayor. >> Yeah, >> congratulations on 150 years. What a great um footprint thumbrint you left in our community. But mayor, this morning when I was walking in, I ran into my new friend Hannah, and she is the most polite, articulate young lady. In fact, she wrote my talking points for items 16 and 17 while we were in line. Thank you, [laughter] Hannah. represent Lemon. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you very much for joining us today. I would like to point out to my good friend, former colleague, Manny, you started teaching at Valley View Middle School just a few years ago, right? And you advanced and went on and did some fabulous things in the El Paso district. And congratulations. and Romy, you were also uh with us at one point in time. But most important is my good good friend Evelyn. Evelyn and I have had the opportunity to serve as judges for the National Spanish Spelling Bee for about 3 years now. And I I was very happy, Manny. She's an outstanding person that will bring so much wealth to the community and the school and all around. What a fabulous team. Congratulations kids and congratulations to you many felicades. Congrats guys. [applause] Thank you all. Thank you. And the next proclamation is the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee 10th anniversary. >> And while they're walking up, uh, Representative Roachcha, if you don't mind, I want my Kenyon Teal Middle School students to stand up. >> Where are you guys at? Come on. Don't be bashful. There we go. [applause] There's all the kids from Kenya Tio Middle School, and they came out to see how we performed city government. So they're part of the ACE program. Yeah. >> Welcome. Welcome. >> Yeah. Good to see you guys. >> Represent Rocha. >> Thank you, Mayor. And thank you all for joining us today. I believe let's see where is Luther. He was going to join you all as well. There he is. Thank you, sir, for for joining today, Luther. So, proclamation city of El Paso, Texas. Whereas the city of El Paso proudly recognizes the 10th anniversary of the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee established to advocate for the well-being, recognition, and inclusion of the veteran community across our city. And whereas since its founding, the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee has served as a vital bridge between local government, service organizations, and the veteran community, ensuring that the voices, experiences, and needs of those who served our nation are heard and represented in municipal decisionmaking. And whereas the original members Lynn Westbrook, Joe Fiero, Cyia Roachcha, she just left, didn't she? [laughter] Tommy Lloyd, Bill Sparks, Aldina Rosales, Danielle Salasar, Brian Kennedy, David Narees, and Daisy Torres laid the foundation for a legacy of collaboration, compassion, and service that continues to shape our city's approach >> to veteran affairs. And whereas through their leadership and dedication, the committee has championed initiatives that promote mental health resources, services waved by Sun Metro, community engagement, and self-care for veterans while fostering partnerships that strengthen support networks across El Paso. And whereas the city of El Paso commends the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee and its founding members for a decade of unwavering commitment to the men and women who have worn the uniform and for setting a standard of excellence in civic service and advocacy. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso that Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 shall be known as Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee Day. Congratulations. [applause] >> Good morning. >> Uh good morning, Mr. Mayor, city council members. Um good to see some familiar faces up there. 10 years ago, I was um kindly nudged by Mr. Sparks over here to my left to present this idea. And 10 years ago, this Marine stood up, wrote this thing out. In eight hours, I had like two weeks of wisders block and put this thing together. I am very, very honored and proud to see where it's at. If anything, as long as you're a veteran in need in this city, this county, this committee as well as this city council needs to rise to the occasion. I'm again, I'm very thankful and I will open the mic to any of the former members. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> mayor and council. I I know that you know I'm speaking to the choir here. El Paso has a very strong network for small business. We have a strong network of social services to help our neighbors. We also have a strong network of veteran services. Let me take you on the way back machine to the year before David Devarez got the committee. There was no public input to the city on veterans issues. There was no public input to the county on veterans issues. Now we have an advisory committee at every single level of government in our county and state. Senator went right out of my head. Rodriguez uh was working on uh the veterans list of services at the county got put up on the website. the city manager here immediately put up a set of services for veterans and all of that as a result of David Devirus pushing a little bit. So now we can say that we interact with Fort Bliss, we interact with the county, we interact with all social service agencies that have a veteran component and we push you to make sure that where there is no veteran component, you look to see if you can add a veteran component. Thank you for for your service. I know it's a little trit sometimes, but it changes in this room when we get an issue and you say, "Yeah, that's important." And we'll do it. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> So, David, do you want to introduce the rest of the team? They're being a little bashful there. >> Okay. Um, former uh committee member, Miss Westbrook. She handled pretty much our housing stuff. I have I'm been employed by William Bowmont Army Hospital. I work logistics division. I have with me Miss Major Chavis and who is a logistics officer and Ruby Contras who is the accounts officer under the warehouse that I work at. >> Very good. >> We have Miss Alina Hajair that was virtually. She would like to say a few words. >> Okay. >> Ma'am star six, please to unmute your microphone. Good morning. You have go ahead. Good morning. Good morning, city council and mayor. Um, thank you for having me here this morning. Good morning, Mr. Neades and Mr. Sparks from Dallas, Texas. It's an honor to be here this morning. Um, it's truly an honor to have worked with you guys for years on the things that were so truly important to our veteran community. And I appreciate everything that the city council and other governmental services have done for us. Thank you. And again, thank you guys so much for first of all for your service to to our country and all that you're doing for veterans. Quick question, how does someone get in touch with you guys? So, how does a veteran engage or what's the entry point? After we pushed for the Veterans Advisory Committee, the city manager at the time, Tommy Gonzalez, I embarrassed him by telling him any good manager [laughter] could find enough resources through technology improvement and management efficiencies to find one slot in city coun city hall for a veterans advisory uh office. And that turned out to be the military and veterans affairs office. Okay, Mr. Luther Jones right now is the man. And so he can tell you you start there. There's a calendar on the website of veteran issues. They connect veteran service organizations together. If we have an issue, we can come to our elected city council or we can go to Luther Jones and bring it up through the advisory committee. >> Very good. Luther, you want to say a few words? >> So, I just want to thank city council and thank these guys. They've laid the foundation for me. I've been in this military and veteran space for probably a decade now. I was born into it. Both of my parents were active duty, so I went on that whole trip. But when I returned to El Paso, the veteran support here in the community here is unreal. I've been around, you guys have been uh you guys have blessed me enough to send me to DC and Monterey, California and these different areas where we can go and try to grow our veterans program, but El Paso, we may not know it because we're in our own ecosystem. We are the shining star on the hill when it comes to veterans, uh taking care of our veterans, and it's because it starts with you guys and these guys back here. So, I'm the facilitator. I just play a role, make sure documents get filed and things get posted, but it's really these guys that have the support um and have kind of boosted me up and put me to the position. So, I just want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for what you guys done to this uh for this nation and for what you guys have done to this community. So, um I appreciate you guys. >> Very good. [applause] Again, congratulations on your veterans affair advisory committee day. And I'm going to ask uh my colleagues here on the DAS and everyone that's in the audience that that uh has served or are veterans that we stand up and give you guys a round of applause for your service. So thank you. [applause] [applause] >> Thank you guys. Got it. You got it. Thank you guys. almost wore that same jacket. >> And the next proclamation is epilepsy awareness month. >> Represent Lemon. >> Thank you, Mayor. Good morning. Do we have any representatives from the epilepsy proclamation that's being read today? Mayor, [clears throat] >> I guess not. I guess not. Let's read it any Oh, maybe there is. No, there isn't. Proclamation of the city of El Paso. Whereas epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. And whereas the condition affects individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life, presenting unique challenges for those affected and their families. And whereas approximately 3.4 4 million Americans live with epilepsy and one in 26 people will develop the disorder at some point in their lifetime. And whereas research publish published in neurology 2022 demonstrates that early public education campaigns can reduce seizure related injuries by up to 30% and improve medication adherence among newly diagnosed patients. And whereas El Paso's public school system serves over 70,000 students and recent district health surveys indicate that more than 300 students have been diagnosed with epilepsy, underscoring the need for schoolwide awareness and staff training. And whereas during the month of November 2025, the city seeks to increase community knowledge about epilepsy and the resources available to those impacted. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and the council of the city of El Paso, urging all citizens to learn more about this condition, support individuals and families affected by epilepsy, and participate in community efforts to promote awareness and understanding. The month of November 2025 shall be known as epilepsy awareness month signed by the honorable mayor Renard Johnson. [applause] >> So council, let's accept this on their behalf. >> Yes. >> Do you all want to stay? >> We can just stay up here. >> Let's go sign. Yes sir. Beautiful. All right. Ready. Smile. Ready. One. Two. >> [applause] >> And the final proclamation is El Paso Veterans Small Business Week. Representative Tjo. >> Thank you, Mayor. Good morning everyone. >> Come on. Good morning. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Okay. Can you all can come closer? >> Come on. Come on. [laughter] Come on. Come on. Come on. So this I I this you know I've been working with this group of individuals for the past several months putting together a program called Veterans Business Connect and it's for Veteran Smalls Business Week. So thank you all for being part of this. We'd like to uh honor you all with a proclamation and it reads, "Whereas the city of El Paso proudly joins communities across the nation recognizing National Veteran Small Business Week, honoring the entrepreneurial spirit and economic contributions of our service members, veterans, and military spouses. Whereas America's 1.6 6 million veteranowned small business exemplify excellence, integrity, and resilience, values instilled through service, and continue to strengthen our economy, create jobs, and foster innovation across every sector, including manufacturing. Whereas the theme of the 2025 National Veteran Small Business Week, honoring veteranowned Americanmade celebrates the ingenuity, craftsmanship, and leadership of veteran entrepreneurs who embody the best of American enterprises. And whereas Veteran Business Connect was created through community partners who united to empower and support veterans in their transformation from service to business ownership by providing access to mentorship training and essential support services. Whereas this collaboration includes dedicated partners such as the city of El Paso Veteran and Military Affairs, Texas Veterans Commission, Spectrum Reach, Economic and International Development Department, the business one-stop shop, Veterans Advisory Board, the El Paso Chamber, the El Pas the El Paso Hispanic Chamber, Rev Mortgage, El Paso Community Veterans Resource Center, the El Paso Small Business Development Center, and the US Small Business Administration. And whereas the city of El Paso honors the men and women who have served our nation and continue continue to serve our communities as leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs contributing to the growth and prosperity of our region. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso that November 3rd through 7th, 2025 shall be known as El Paso Veterans Small Business Week, signed by the Honorable Mayor Johnson. MAYOR JOHNSON. [applause] GOOD MORNING. >> GOOD MORNING. Good morning. >> Morning. >> Good. Good. Good. So, just want to thank Representative Tjo for this and all of you guys combined, but we've been working on this for a while and um this is one of those needs that uh may get overlooked. There may be a tremendous amount of veterans out there who need these kind of resources and they may be available just for the general public but just like we spoke about previous um veterans it's a unique group and sometimes it takes uh veterans to kind of pull other veterans along and I thought that the idea to bring in the keynote speaker the individual that you brought to be a part of this her being a veteran as well business owner I thought it was uh perfect and all of the community partners um like I said I was the facilitator in this just an assistant just kind of in the background pulling in some of my partners that I knew in the past. But I just want to thank you. This was a tremendous event, an idea that we need to put together. And it's not just one of those ideas that's just a one-off. This is something that we want to build upon, bring individuals in that we can kind of guide them throughout that process similar to the other things that the city is already doing. Um, so just a great idea and I really appreciate it, but I want to bring in these community partners because they're the ones that really made it happen. >> Who's next? >> Don't be bashful. Step on up. Go. Good morning, Liz Gonzalez, CEO from the El Paso Hispanic Chamber. It's an honor to be here this morning to celebrate veterans, National B National Veterans Business Week. Um, we support uh veteran businesses in our community and they form a big part of our uh economic development. So, we're very proud to be here this morning and we're excited to continue to support you. So, thank you so much for having us and for making us a part of this. >> Thank you. Hello. Good morning. Um, I want to thank the city council members for uh this wonderful morning. Uh, my name is Johnny. I'm with El Paso Community College. Uh, we represent and give resources to veterans that need it, that go back to school and uh are trying to get their lives situated. So, we greatly appreciate uh Miss Tjo uh for everything that you've done and for everything that you uh continue to do. Good morning. >> Good morning, mayor and council. The El Paso Chamber and the city of El Paso will be lighting the star green beginning tonight uh through Tuesday of next week. So, we ask all residents if you can put a green light um on your front porch to show support to the veterans, we would greatly appreciate it. And we want to thank all of our servicemen and women for all that they've done for our country and that everything that they continue to do. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Is that it? You guys want to introduce yourselves? The rest of the group. >> There we go. There we go. >> Hello, my name is I'm with the Business Onetop Shop. >> Hi, I'm Dio Trevinho. I'm one of the economic development leazison with Business Onetop Shop. Thank you for having us. Hello, my name is Camille Sanchez and I'm also an economic development liaison with the business one-stop shop. >> Good morning, mayor and council members. Uh Michelle Hernandez are here and also an economic development leazison with the businesses one-stop shop. Thank you all. >> Very good. >> Navy, programs manager at the El Paso Chamber. >> Good morning. My name is Alejandra Velasco. I'm the training coordinator with the Small Business Development Center. Good morning, mayor. Good morning, council. My name is Audrey Maruo. I'm the director at the El Paso Community Small Business Development Center. And just a little snippet now that I'm up here, right? So, we have a number of resources available to veteran owners or to veterans here in El Paso. So, when Repo reached out to us to get this together, it started small and it just took off. It boomed because of the fact that there's so many resources available, so many services available to help our veteran small businesses. So, thank you all. Thank you for this opportunity and I hope you all attend our event tomorrow. >> Good morning, Mayor Good, City Council Cardire, United States Army Veteran, and I'm also the director of the Veteran Resource Center at El Paso Community College. So, once again, we want to thank you all for this proclamation. We're looking forward to an outstanding event this week. We want everybody to come out and get connected to the resources, especially the veterans that are considering starting small businesses as they transition out of the military back into the community because this is very important for the economic development and empowerment here in our community. So once again, thank you. Happy Veterans Day to everybody and uh thank you. >> Very good. Very good. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Clarissa Miharees. I'm a business services coordinator with economic development and boss. Thank you for having us. [applause] >> Did we get everyone? >> There's one more. >> Is there one more? >> Yes. >> There we go. [laughter] >> Ma Tamayo, assistant director. Um, we over I oversee the boss program. So, just to remind the public if um they need any guidance on how to navigate the resources, we're here and we were happy to uh participate at the event tomorrow. >> Very good. Thank you, Representative Fier. [applause] >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much. You know, thank you all so much for what you do for our veterans and our community. You know, they they sacrifice their time. They sacrifice their lives for all of us sitting up here and everyone listening and watching. And I cannot thank you all enough for what you do. Mayor, I am a little bit biased. I think that the SBDC and the community college for >> excuse me, [laughter] >> have been doing such a great job for years and years and years. Even when I sat in the board and maybe one or two weren't even born yet, but um yes, it you do such a great job. You're able to bridge uh the veterans community with entrepreneur, the want to be entrepreneurs. Bridge them when when they need help in classes. bridging. I mean, it's this it's a truly a partnership that our community is so so special um to have you here with us and and mayor and if you ever need talking points, Audrey is great at talking points. [laughter] Thank you all each and every one of you for what you do. Thank you, [applause] >> Representative Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor. And congratulations to all of you. Thank you for supporting our our veterans and our community. I know earlier this year I had an event in District 1 and uh brought on board a veteran who happened to have a food truck. Got him set up in in the system with the city of El Paso so he could do more business with us. But that is what it takes, right? A network of people to bring us and uplift our community, especially our veterans. So, thank you, Representative Thjo, for this initiative. Um and I'm hoping that maybe we can organize a similar event in District 1. We do have a veterans group that just recently came together thanks to one of our constituents that stepped up. Um, so hopefully we can do this in district one as well. I'm looking forward to it and uh much success tomorrow. Thank you. >> Yeah. And just to show you the impact that veterans have on on the US and this economy, u 1.6 million veteranown uh small businesses. They generate over $1 trillion in annual sales and they employ over $3 million workers. That is incredible. So we got to get that number much higher though. there's plenty of room and and and uh thank you guys again for all that you're doing for veterans and and happy National Veterans Small Business Week. Congratulations, guys. [applause] Are you? >> Yeah. Huh? and council will begin with roll call at 10:00. We have about 8 minutes. Thank you. Sure. Good morning, Miss Prine and good morning everyone. We are ready to go to work. >> Yes, sir. Good morning, Mayor. And good morning. This is a meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Prom Chavez. Representative ADO, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Boyjo, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Proen, Fiero, Representative Lemon, and Representative Canales. It is 10:00 a.m. And will everyone please silence their electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by Pastor Bobby Garcia from Grace Christian Church. >> City Council, it's great to be here. Uh I think I want to keep coming back. I' I've never I've never ever in my life, and this is truth, have gotten greeted at the door with a cup of coffee. Amen. I want to have this guy talk to my wife. Amen. And uh and that's pretty good. And then this sweet young lady over here blessed us with some chocolates. I mean, I'll come every day if you want. Amen. All right. Praise God. I guess I'll read one verse from the greatest proclamation ever, and that's the word of God. Amen. Uh 1 Thessalonians 5 uh 16:17 says, "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Father God, in Jesus name, we come before your presence. Father God, we want to thank you because you're so good, Lord God. We thank you for such a a fine group of leaders for this great city of El Paso. Father God, we thank you for each and every one of them. Uh we pray for them, for their families, Lord God, for their personal well-being, Father God, for the well-being of this great city uh of El Paso, Texas, Father God, which I'm so proud to be part of, Father God. And Father God, we pray for uh discernment, for decision making, Father God. Lord God, that there'll be collaboration, Father God, between the council members for the benefit of the city, Father God. We thank you and we bless this day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you. God bless. All right. Did I get a picture, too? No. One two three. Pull that post. One two three. All right. >> Thank you, Pastor Garcia and council. Per the rules of order, no use of personnel cellular devices nor personal communication should take place on the day while the meeting is in session. Once you obtain the floor from the mayor, you may speak twice per debatable motion. Please speak into the microphone and refrain from side conversations at the day while the meeting is in session. For those of you joining virtually, please make sure your microphones are muted to reduce any background noise. That brings us to the consent agenda. >> Call to the public. We don't have that. >> I'm sorry. Yes, sir. You are correct. We don't have anybody signed up to speak on agenda items at this time. So, that moves us to call to the public. >> The El Paso City Council is local government body charged with serving the citizens and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge. The city council meetings are public meetings under the Texas Open Meetings Act. Public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of city council. All persons in attendance are expected to display civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting, profane, threatening, or abusive language. Public comment will not be used for personal attacks, nor may any member of the public use this form for political statements or campaigning. Please note that during call to the public, the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda. However, council may propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda. This morning, we have seven members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Elizabeth Crawford. Miss Crawford's topic is Jeremiah's wish and abortion. Good morning, Miss Crawford. You have three minutes. >> Thank you. Good morning. Thank you. I I've found it fascinating that in the news, our world's most powerful leaders, Presidents Trump, Putin, and she have made statements lately related to mortality, deaths, and their hopes. We're warned in God's holy word. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? I'd like to speak about the dying wish of a young man in Texas, Jeremiah. I will preface it by saying that for a true Christian, good deeds are not an attempt to earn salvation, but rather an expression of gratitude for the salvation already purchased for them at the cross of Calvary. Jeremiah, a 16, 17year-old kid, dying with cancer in 2017 and 2018. I never met Jeremiah, but I know his dad. I met his brother, Valiant, and others in his family. I met them several years back when I was serving for life in Jackson, Mississippi. Once the good-looking star of his football team months later, suffering day after day with excruciating pain from a super aggressive form of cancer. Jeremiah's family was in contact with Makea-Wish Foundation, which provides opportunity for dying children to do something that they think is super special. Go to Disney World, meet a famous person, and on and on. Jeremiah made a wish. He wanted a phone call with the Texas Governor, Greg Abbott. This was in 2017. Jeremiah was granted that wish. Jeremiah urged the governor, Greg Abbott, to do whatever he possibly could to abolish abortion in Texas. The governor said yes. He promised to do this. We are thankful. We are grateful to the governor of Texas for what he has done toward this goal in the state of Texas. Jeremiah realized the things that a normal teenager would ask for would bring temporal pleasure, but by God's grace, he chose to make a wish request for something with profound value, both temporal and eternal. The Apostle Paul describes the life of faith in this way. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Praise God that in the midst of excruciating pain, instead of self-pity and self-gratification, Jeremiah chose to stand up for the lives of thousands of babies in Texas. Thank you and hope you have a good day. Thank you. >> The next speaker is Ron Ko. Mr. Mr. Ko's topic is exercising his constitutional rights to the rescue 1983 animal services and will be followed by Barbara Valencia. Good morning, Mr. Ko. >> Good good morning. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Hope all is well. So, last week actually, one of the conversations we had is a meeting with Oscar and a and a conversation I had with somebody else that was there um about rules at ASAC, how they don't really call, you know, follow them. Uh, and one of the other comments that was made was, "I I think you ask questions you already know the answers to." Well, my reply to that was, "Of course I do. That's how I know when people lie." I think it's pretty basic. Um, speaking of that, we've had conversations about own dogs and the use of the term owned dogs. We had the previous person like to say that they were owned dogs running down the streets and attacking people. Um, just for rule of law, state of Texas, health and safety code 826002, stray means roaming with no physical restraint beyond the premises of an animal owner or keeper. Which means when a dog is running down the street, it's a stray unless it's on a leash. Now, the importance of that is because the Texas law is if the dog's a stray, it is required by the shelter to intake them, not a matter of opinion. Now, uh I did fill out your your questionnaire and I got to say I noticed quite a few things on that questionnaire that are actually already been decided on the original nokill plan that we did back in 2015. So, here's the thought. Considering it's never actually been replaced by policy and procedures, by everybody in here that knows about it, why don't we put it back in place? It worked. We had a reduction in intake in 2019 for the first time in El Paso history. Think about that. Where are we now? We're in a crisis. We're in a crisis because of the failed programs that we have been using at Animal Services. They need to end. They need to never come back. We need to ban Best Friends. Ban Austin Pets Alive. Ban the Hos Sheltering Plan. Let's protect our community. Let's protect their pets. Let's protect the strays of El Paso. We've had way too many critical dog attacks in the last five years. For five years, we've been running the same failed programs because people don't want to get qualified help in. We need to make a change. We need to have meetings to discuss what we need with these people that are trying to become the director for El Paso Animal Services because let's face it, guys, the people on the streets, we deal with this every day. We have the experience and the knowledge. the people that sit in desks that don't go out in the streets, you don't have the experience, you don't have the knowledge, and you don't belong making the decision. >> Thank you, sir. >> The next speaker is Barbara Valencia. Miss Valencia's topic is animal services. No liars here. Good morning, ma'am. >> Good morning, >> Barbara Valencia with Huckleberry Hound Dog Rescue. Last week, I mentioned how the vice chairwoman of ASAC stated during an ASAC meeting that Best Friends is giving us a large sum of money. Representative Canales has denied this, but I'm going to play you the vice chairman's ch vice chairwoman's own words, >> especially when they're getting millions of dollars. We are not allowed to talk against best friends, especially when they're giving millions of dollars. >> And just in case, let you hear it again. >> Millions of dollars. Millions of dollars. >> I know Ron doesn't lie. I know Chris, who spoke last week, she doesn't lie. Those are the vice chairwoman's words, not mine. There are no liars standing here in front of you. When the Best Friends contract ended, Paula Powell, the Southwest director of the Southwest district manager for Best Friends inbed Shelter Program, stated Best Friends funded funded heat relief with fans, cooling pads, and kitty pools for the shelter. These items don't cost millions of dollars. So again I ask who received this money and how was it spent? Chris Fez made an excellent point last week suggesting the committee should be completely restructured with new members. The ASAC committee should be restructured with new members. According to to the ASAC mission, this this sorry according to the ASAC uh mission statement, it aims to to advise, support, and advocate for the well-being of all animals in El Paso community. The community, this committee seems to have lost sight of this mission in support of a multi-million dollar organization known as Best Friends. instead of advocating for the animals in our community being forced to live, suffer, and die on the streets. Unlike others, those of us genuinely advocating for the animals have a strong moral compass, and we would never compromise the animals well-being in exchange for a bribe. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> The next speaker is Chris Bles. I don't see her here. We'll move to on to Wanda Helguson. Miss Helguson's topic is ground lease at El Paso International Airport. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Hello again, mayor, council members. As I hope you know by this point, my name is Wanda Helguson and I'm the executive director of Borderback. We are a nonprofit organization that serves to continue to coordinate emergency health care and disaster preparedness amongst our healthcare providers. I do believe that our hospitals and our EMS agencies, if asked, would attest to the contributions to in the regional coordination of time sensitive emergency healthc care events and our commitment to the community, the emergency health care system, and disaster preparedness. In August of 2012, the council approved a subleasase at the airport to a hanger owned by TJW Aviation. It was noted for the storage of hospital and emergency medical supplies along with disaster response equipment assets that could assist the airport in the event of a catastrophic incident such as a plane crash. In July of 2023, we were notified of the need to demonstrate aeronautical use of the hangar. We submitted a plan to the city that reflected guidance that was provided by the airport. After six months with no response, we received a notice of default. We resubmitted the plan and waited an additional eight months with no response, no return phone calls, no return emails, not even um communication regarding certified letters. It seems our attempts to cure the default was ignored. The termination of the ground lease came to the council on the June 24th consent agenda. We were notified of that termination July 9th. The city received an FAA determination almost a month after the termination. We remain unclear as to the exact questions posed to the FAA as a later conversation with us confirmed areas in our original intent to cure the default were not conveyed to them. When reporting information that we received from the FAA, rather than engaging, we were told by the city attorney's office that it was moot because the ground lease had already been terminated. The eviction notice we received October 1st was denied by the JP judge on October 9th, where the judge indicated that the city's termination of that lease was improper. unless a predetermined outcome is sought. I continue to wonder why after repeated submissions of the plan, the city does not engage as we continue to demonstrate our efforts to meet the requirements. I continue to hope for opportunities to work with the city to resolve any of these issues and move forward which with what has always been a colleial working relationship. I thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> The next speaker is Patricia Osman. Miss Osman's topic is transparency, first amendment civil rights of citizens and undue influence of donors and vendors on elected officials. Good morning, Miss Osman. You have three minutes. >> Yes. Hi. I hope you can hear me. >> Yes, we can. >> Uh the Thank you. uh the current city policies that will end up eventually going in from the city council, something that has stripped the rights of every taxpaying citizen in the city of El Paso through the way of neighborhood associations and how only the association president is notified of planning changes, zoning changes, anything that's going to happen in their area to meet your community notice requirement. Not every citizen that should be notified and most citizens are unaware that this is what the city has done to strip away their rights because people will come up to me and ask me, hey, this is going on. What can we do? But they have no idea spell what you all have placed in into a policy strip their rights away call to a city before I became an association president. You have to contact your association president and then they'll contact the city. only a city uh an association president receives a letter of notice of anything that's going on and that is what y'all have used to rubber stamp a lot of these projects zoning changes through the planning commission. Basically, you have stripped the rights away of every taxpaying citizen in this community who pays taxes to the city, the county, school district, hospitals, everything. All so that you could dole out taxpayer dollars, not your own, to your donors and contractors. That ordinance is going to be coming up in front of y'all and that needs to be switched. And that's also part of the issue within the purchasing department, within human development, within planning, within capital development. All of these departments have stripped away the rights of every citizen through this little policy you all have. Now, that is going to come up in front another ordinance to amend. It needs to be repealed so that the rights of the citizens go back so that you can stop rubber stamping contracts and dulling out our to your donors. This is shameful. This is how democracy dies by the policies put out by the back of the house, not just those on the das. Something needs to change. The first thing is that ordinance in regards to neighborhood associations needs to be repealed. Neighborhood associations can have a voice, but that should not be how you all give notice to anybody in El Paso. It's a violation of everybody's rights. Thank you so much. >> And the final speaker is Eduardo Chavez. Mr. Chavez's topic is city water quality. Good morning, Mr. Chavis. You have three minutes. >> Good morning. >> Morning, city council. >> Morning. >> You can relax. I don't come to complain. I don't come to ask for anything. I came more [laughter] I came more as a public announcement. You know, I was helping out my son get a job. And uh I don't know maybe God says me to do things but uh I started uh selling these uh water systems and uh solar systems but what I found out in uh this company I used to do it before as a hobby but I got back into it now I even more devoted into it. We got invit this company got invited to Dell city which is supposed to have such good water and uh with the earthquakes that we had it's uh been contaminated they got contaminated water there and I even got invited to Carlbat because our company is so good at giving good prices or good service at our water systems. But main thing what I found out you know when when I was a kid we used a bunch of us guys used to go on Saturday uh mad movies and you know I always would watch the movies I was always a critic of everything that was on the movies and I would see people there and I said the guys are always bald is that what I'm going to be when I grow up bald is that what I got to look forward to so I said you know and something came to me after I left Dell City I saw a lot of women that were losing hair some were bald I was raised by my grandmother. So I'm really partial to women. They if it wasn't for them would be nothing. But uh anyways um I went and did the solar system for my good friend uh people who does implants and all that and I was telling him how bad I felt seeing all these people that were losing their hair and everything. He said, "You know what? It's so easy. All you have to do is wash your hair, rinse the soap off, and then rinse it with alkaline water. the alkaline water will take on that's clogging up your pores. A lot of people have this thing that because they're get nervous and they they what they eat and whatever. It's not true. Try it. I you know I've been doing this for almost 4 years now and I've had people this lady at at uh Abundant Life. I was talking to I'm sorry but every time I see somebody now that's losing their hair I got to go and tell them. You know [laughter] my wife says one of these days somebody's going to slap you and knock you down because you're Matici. said, "Well, if I got to say it, I got to say it. I mean, if I got something good to say, I got to say it." That's the way I am. This lady came from about five rows uh behind uh in front of me. She heard me telling this lady in front of me that, you know, how she could get her hair back cuz she was a young young lady and everything. I had to tell her. She said, "You know what? It's true. I had cancer 5 months ago. Look at my hair. It's growing back." So trust me, it's something that many doctors don't tell you because the pH is what's getting us all this cancer and all this stuff inside of us. So be aware, drink alkaline water once in a while. Not because I'm selling it, but because I want to give it something that I hope it helps people, okay? But uh anyways, it was a change of agenda today, I guess. >> Thank you, Mr. Travis. >> Thank you, guys. Huh? >> Thank you, Mr. Chavez. >> Bless you. America. >> Thank you, Mr. Chavez. Council, that brings us to the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda will be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. Council may, however, reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. Mayor Proin. >> Thank you, Miss Prime. Move to approve the consent agenda with no modifications today. >> Second. >> All right. There's a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda with no modifications. Is there any discussion? >> All right. Hearing none. Seeing none, Miss Prime, please call for the vote. >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Poam Chavez, seconded by Representative Lemon to approve the consent agenda as posted. On that motion, call for the vote. I >> thank you very much in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. >> Okay, Miss Prime, let's take regular agenda item number eight. >> Yes, sir. Item number eight is a public hearing of an ordinance changing the zoning from GMU general mixuse to C1 commercial and imposing conditions. This is at property south of Artcraft. >> Second. >> All right. You guys want to see the presentation? >> I do. >> Okay. >> Good morning. >> Good morning, mayor and city council representatives. Luis Samura with planning and inspections. Um, okay. So item eight uh on the agenda today, it's a reszoning request for property located south of Artcraft. Uh here's an aerial view of the subject property. It is uh obviously uh east of west side uh located on Artcraft. Uh it's currently vacant. So current zoning is GMU. That's a general mixeduse uh district. The request is to resone from GMU toC1 which as it's a neighborhood commercial district. Uh as you can see we have uh surrounding single family homes uh zone R3 R2A uh and PR1 to the south which is currently vacant. Um to the west uh across west side we have property zone RF. Uh and actually we have a little portion right there at the corner that we currently uh city council approved a reszoning to see one as well uh not far ago. So the future land uh designation for this area is G4 suburban. So this uh sector is technically stable and looks for uh providing a limited uh I mean a uh additional missing civic and commercial uses. The com neighborhood commercial district will allow for that. So this is an alignment with that. Uh here we have the conceptual plan. This is not binding. This is just a proposal just to go through the request. Uh the proposal is to do kind of a a shopping center uh retail spaces on this property uh access. It's a little um restricted right now because of text. So right now we're asking uh kind of recommending a condition to have the applicant continue discussions with text about that access and asking to connect access to west side actually through that other property uh to the west. So again this is vacant. So this is the way it looks right now. Uh we have properties as mentioned to the across our craft uh their single family homes. the same thing to the east uh to the south again it is still vacant property right now and then to the west across west side it is currently vacant and again we did uh the city council did approve a resoning uh recently about at least at the corner of this property uh in regards to public input the applicant did notify the upper valley uh neighborhood association as uh as required once they submitted their application for the resoning with this notices to property owners within 300 ft. Uh at this time we have not really received any communication in support or position to this request. Uh here's the notice map. Those are all the properties that we had notified for of this request. So with this staff and zip plan commission recommends approval with conditions. Uh you have here the conditions. The first one is about making sure that the property is well connected, has access and need does provide access to other properties otherwise they may be landlocked in the future. Uh condition two is about uh requiring a detailed site plan to be reviewed by the city uh before allow approving any building permits. Condition three is to kind of limit the um consolidation of bars uh you know businesses that have their their main uh their main operation being from alcohol and having outdoor amplified sound and the last one is to not allow the new office warehouses in in this area. With this uh that concludes my presentation. >> Very good. Thank you. Any questions on this agenda item? All right, Miss R, we have a motion and a second. Please call for the vote. >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Prom Chavez, seconded by Representative Maldonado Rocha to adopt the ordinance on item number eight. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay, let's take agenda item number nine. >> Item number nine is a public hearing of an ordinance changing the zoning from R4 residential to A2 apartment. This is at 4806 Atlas Avenue. >> Represent move to approve. >> Second. >> There's a motion to second. Can we see the presentation? >> Yes, sir. >> Uh just for the record, Lisa with planning and inspections. So item nine on the agenda is a resounding request for property located at 4806 Atlas. Here we have the aerial imagery of the property. It's currently vacant. Uh this is located uh south of Dyer and east of US 54. It is approximately 35 acres in size. Uh current zoning is R4 which is a single family residential. Uh the proposal is to resone to A2 to allow for a multifamily development. [clears throat] Uh we have some single families and duplexes in the area. We have a duplex right to the east adjacent to this uh one to the west at the bottom and then everything else is kind of single family homes. Uh future languages map uh classification on this property G3 postwar uh same as the previous one. It it asked for uh adding missing civic and commercial uses. Uh here's a conceptual plan. Again, this is just as the previous one. This is not binding. This is more or less a proposal from the applicant. Uh so a proposal is to have again a multif family development, multiple units in in here. Uh I believe two stories. Uh again, currently the property is vacant. So this is kind of the the way it is right now, current conditions and as mentioned we have some single families around the area and duplexes. Um and then obviously that there are also some vacant land still around it. Uh as again as we started the application request uh from the applicant they notify the Logan Sunrise neighborhood association as well as the Mountain View neighborhood association. Uh so they were aware of the request. We did send notices to all property owners within 300 ft and at this time we have only received one email in support to the request with no position. [clears throat] Uh here you can see all the properties that were notified of the request. So recommendation from staff and city plan commission is to approve the resing request. >> Very very good. Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion on agenda item number nine? >> All right, Miss Bryan, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Aso, seconded by Representative Madon Rocha, and this is to adopt the ordinance on item number nine. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Agenda item number 10. Item 10 is discussion and action directing the city manager and city attorney to review the solid waste lean process and to take the necessary actions to extend the current period of time allotted to asssure the public has ample notice and opportunity to pay the reasonable expenses incurred by the city in weed abatement of private properties to bring them into compliance with chapter 9.04 the city code and avoid solid waste leans being placed on their property. This item is representative Madon Roch. >> Represent Rocha. >> Move to approve. Second. >> All right. Represent Roto. >> Thank you, Mayor. And and I'd also like to add an amendment on here, Miss Prime, please. Uh let me make sure I sent it to you. One moment. What I'd like to do is just uh keep everything as is. to strike out and to take the necessary actions to extend the current period of time allotted. So, I just sent that to you. So, the new um item will be read as discussion and action directing the city manager and city attorney to review the solid waste lean process to asssure the public has ample notice and opportunity to pay the reasonable expenses incurred by the city in weed abatement of private properties to bring them into compliance with chapter 9.04 of the city code and avoid solid waste leans being placed on their property. Is that your motion on the amendment? >> That's my motion. Yes. Motion to amend. >> Is there a second on the amendment? >> Second. >> Okay. And then I do have a a brief presentation on this just because uh and forgive me because I'm not the expert on the on the uh presentation piece, but if I could just show it because this this um piece which I know it is a direction and action item, but I think it it does provide a lot of information on what the current situation is with weed abatements and leans. So, if we go to the second slide, the weed situation. Uh, next slide, please. Thank you. There. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. We need to vote on the amendment first. We need to vote. Do we need to vote on the amendment first? Miss Prime, >> do we need to vote on the amendment first? >> There isn't a >> She's presenting it still. >> You haven't brought it to the You haven't restated it, so it's not before the council yet. Okay. >> Even though she had a motion in a second. >> If you once once you bring it to the >> Okay. Acknowledge it, then it comes. >> Thank you. >> So, we can discuss. Hang. Give me a second. Sorry about that. >> All those in favor? >> Oh, Miss Bryant. No, we're >> we have discussion. >> We're going to do this. >> You didn't acknowledge it. We didn't have to vote on it. You did acknowledge. >> Miss Bryan, call for the vote on this one. >> Yes, sir. And that >> I love amendments. That motion was to [laughter] made by representative Maldonado Roa, seconded by representative Beta Trejo, and this is to amend the posting language. And this is to strike out the words and to take the necessary actions to extend the current period of time allotted. This is to strike out those words from the motion on that amendment. Call for the vote. in the voting session and that motion passes six to2. Representative Pierro Lemon voting A. The remainder of council voting I. The motion carries. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Now back to the presentation really quickly. So the weed situation in uh in El Paso right now. There are there have been 26 dust storms in 2025. Rainfall average is above average right now, currently sitting at 9 in. Um, I worked well with with Nikki Bar. So, thank you so much, uh, Nick for for providing me this information. But just for the public to to be aware that there's 18 million square feet in the city of El Paso of medians, walking trails, islands, and culde-sacs, and I put like Pennsylvania Circle, if we're familiar with that area, there's a little park in that culde-sac, and roundabouts. The average cleaning time for weeds right now is one mile cleaned every 1 to one and a half weeks and there are right now 400 gallons of herbicide that are used per day. The reason that I bring this to you is because when it comes to what we have when it comes to the leans and the code enforcement and the process, these individuals or resources that are used to clean these properties, these private properties are being taken away from these 18 million square feet of medians and all the additional city property that need to be cleaned. So the sec the next slide please starts with code enforcement and code enforcement uh is roughly about 28 days total. It initiates with a call to 311 or code enforcement officer creates a ticket and again this is more for the public. This is not necessarily for counsel. Um if you already know it great. I learned a lot through this through this uh process going through this with uh Miss Neman, Miss Mack and with Mr. In 1 to two days, the ticket is created and then I'll go by CEO for code enforcement officer from now on. If there's no violations and everything's cleaned up, the case is closed. If violations are found, then a brush notice is posted on the property. The property owner or resident has 7 days to comply. The next visit, if there's no violations and the property is clean, the case is closed. If violations are found, then a final notice is posted and they are given an additional seven days to comply. On the next visit, again, if no violations are provided or notice, then the case is closed. If they are found, then the code enforcement officer will take pictures and present that to their supervisor. That typically takes anywhere from one to three days to send that over. the owner still has an additional or resident has an additional 7-day extension if requested. The next slide please. So that's about 28 days total on the code enforcement side. Environmental services department is about 28 days total. Also the final inspection comes in if they are if it's everything's cleaned up then the case is closed. If there is no compliance then the resident has an an option to extend an additional 7 days. The final inspection is done within 5 to seven days from that process. If no extension is requested, then a rid of entry is requested at that point. That takes from 2 days to one week for the municipal judge to sign off on. At that point, the property is scheduled for cleanup within two weeks from that process. Crews arrive and the property is cleaned, the case is closed. If it's still not cleaned, then environmental services department cleans it. And then it moves to the next slide which we get to finance, legal, and city council. On the finance side, all supporting documents go to them within one week from the cleanup. At that point, the resident is given 30 days to pay either in full or to make payment arrangements as little as $20 per month. At that point, if nothing happens, then it goes to legal. no payment arrangement, no payment, legal, um goes in and drafts a resolution and then the resident within this time frame can still pay. At that point, if they do not pay, then it comes to city council. The resident has not paid or made any payment arrangements at that time. City council approves it and it goes to a lean. And I go through this to say that on the next slide where you see the properties that have been cleaned month by month through October of this year is a total of 400 and and sorry for the pictures and I don't know if you can get to the next slide or not. It's a total of 435 properties that have been cleaned so far. properties that have been leaned within uh the city so far are a total of 339 and only 119 properties have gone into a payment plan. So this is super important for me to be able to understand where the the process in the lean starts and how much time has passed. The next slide was a department audit that um Nick did within his own department just at my request and I don't know if you can get to the next slide. It was a department audit and this shows the average day from cleanup to lean right now currently is 586 days. So that is through all that period of time the resident has had an opportunity to pay their cost to uh for the for the cleaning of their property. The average amount of a lean currently and this goes back to October of uh 2024 is $539. Now granted that's the average amount of the properties but all properties that were leaned this calendar year are included. So that includes all 400 over 400 properties. And the reason that I brought this uh up is because I mistakenly thought that there was possibly an opportunity for the city to do a uh to give a resident an opportune amount, maybe longer period of time to pay the amount on their on on the cost of their cleaning. Come to find out they have an average of 586 days to pay it before it goes to a lean. So at any point in time a resident has an opportunity to clean their property between the notice and before it goes to city council to a lean. Is that correct? Yes. Right, Miss Neman. So they have essentially I laid out the timeline for ESD and the timeline for um code enforcement and legal and city council and finance all to say that the any resident has on average 586 days to pay that off. So with that, um, that's why I made the the amendment to not include additional time for the resident or to give additional time for residents to pay before it goes to a lean considering there's all this addition all this time right now that exists within the process itself. But this is more for the process to get cleaned up. I know there's some opportunity and so that's where the the action comes in after a conversation with Miss with Miss Neman. So, thank you. >> Okay, questions on this amendment. Uh, Representative Fo, >> thank you, mayor. Um, I I'm confused. Are we adding days or subtracting days from >> We're not adding days or subtracting days. This is just to lay out the process. lay out what it currently is today. >> Miss back. >> Yeah. My understanding is that we're going to go through our process. We're going to understand whether there might be other opportunities for us to ensure that we are touching base with that owner. So there may be 500 days in between, but beyond that first 60 days or so, we may not be sending any more notifications out to them before they see the lean. So, I want to make sure that we can document whatever touch points happen between the time that we do that 30-day notice and the time that we're starting to develop that lean process to make sure that we are giving them ample opportunity to be able to sign up to be able to ensure that they are they are very clear that we're moving towards a lean process. So, we will document some of those pieces because we know what the buckets are, but to allow you to understand when those things happen. In addition, I think it would be helpful to understand how many of these actually get paid after we put a lean, you know, so it's a it's a process to get a lean put and so how much of that is still outstanding to the city. So m we are we're going to go through the first 28 days if I understand correct represent maldon the first 28 days then there's another 28 days and then there's another seven days and all these times I'm getting notices saying if you don't pay or make arrangements we're we're going to the judge is going to put a lean on your home. >> Correct. So, I I'm getting as a homeowner three notices that say this is serious and it's a potential lean. Potential lean. It's going to be a lean. And then I get a a notice saying it's a lean and I still have the opportunity in between all this to clean up. >> Correct. >> Thank you, Mayor Representative Lemon. Well, let me let me begin. And I'm not sure, Miss Dion, if it's you or if it's Laura, but as I was preparing for this meeting and looked at the agenda, items number 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 had zero backup. There's nothing in there. There's the filling out of the form that says why you got it on there, but there is no I'm sorry. Go ahead. But there is no actual backup information like that presentation that could have been the backup. We come in here and all we get is that little skeleton sketchy thing but we don't know exactly what it is. I certainly am confused. So I will share with you that I don't I think this is quite frankly unnecessary and I think it's an addition of work of time on people that are already stressed out. I take the solid waste I I think it's maybe incorrect to to claim that it's a solid waste leans because the leans are imposed when council approves it. For right now, this is just a list and if it's approved by the council, then the lean process continues. I've always found that these are really old. None of these happened two months ago, 3 months ago, during the rainy season or whatever. Some of these obviously many, many, many, many years ago. When we get this list, I look at district seven right away. And the first thing that I do is I go and some of these have addresses and I look at those addresses and try to cross reference with the owner. We're successful sometimes and are able to say, "Hey, did you know that you had a cleanup of your property?" And give them the information. Most of the times the answer is no. I was not aware. So then we follow through. We provide them the number and I walked through this process yesterday and I called the number 2126000000. And I spoke to Lesie and I said, "Let me do this as an exercise for my office. I'm calling you because my name, although it really isn't before somebody claims it is. Um, my name is on this list. Here's my address and it's got an amount. Um, what do I need to do or how does this work? What am I doing?" And Leslie said, "You can make payment plan to pay for this amount of of solid waste." And I said, "Okay, if I make my payment plans or if I pay for the whole amount, is my name and my property stricken from that list?" And she said, "Yes." And then I said, "Okay, thank you. Now, what if I didn't know it went to council and it was approved to be placed on the leans list?" Now what do I do? And then she told me that's the time when I call Delgado A Costa, the law firm, and make the payment arrangements with them to have the lean removed. Simple process. It's been in operation for many, many, many years. The concern that I personally have had in my district working has been that there are times where we really don't even have an address. it is a PID number and so consequently some of those can be trust funds or LLC's that are out there. Another thing that I discovered was through a friend who has numerous uh open space properties is that when the complaint comes in of the over weed grown or trash that the only place that they can put a notification when they come out there is on the first pole or something that's out on that property. there's no door to knock on and so that notification may simply fly away. So I understand and I was able to reach um a friend twice in cases like that. I think if we want to do something about it, I highly recommend we take action as individual representatives and work this process to get our constituents notification, knowledge of the of this uh solid waste um amounts that are due. I spoke to one person yesterday uh he called me back, Mr. Escobar, Jared Escobar. This property was his father's property. The father passed away. They're in the process of doing all the legal action to the home. Totally unaware that there had been a notification for cleanup. He was extremely thankful. He said he would take care of it. So I believe I strongly believe the process works. The process in place is accurate and that we are I don't think we should continue with anything other than that. Thank you very much. represent representative Chavez. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, and thank you, Representative Rocha, for uh not only bringing this item, but also for engaging the city manager, the city attorney, and Nick, of course, and all the work that he's doing with environmental services. We appreciate your work. Um, in terms of the the leans, Miss Mack, as you review this process, I would just like to maybe have a special consideration for bike lanes, um, and maybe expediting a little bit more from code enforcement on that process just because sometimes they do take a little bit longer on abuing properties to clean those trees up and it's interfering with people on their bikes. And maybe we can have a conversation about that later. But um I don't know if part of the process in terms of reviewing this is, you know, maybe some abuing properties are um just a little more important than others in terms of of arterials and other areas like that in our city. >> Okay. We're going to be taking a look at the ordinance and talking about how we do weed management in the next couple of months. I think that fits within that a little bit more. to understand how we're really clear on definitions and responsibilities. That was something that the team and I talked about wanting to do before we get to um the spring. But for this item, I think these are things, as the representative said, have been in the queue for quite some time. And I don't think it would be in this chapter, but I'm happy to take that action and ensure that we have it as a part of that other process that we're already >> Yeah. And and what I'm wondering is if if the leans process as we clean it up if if changing it a little bit would maybe um incentivize people to clean um their areas a little faster. I don't know. Does that make sense? Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Representative Rocha. >> Representative Rocha. >> Thank you, Mayor. And and I think that that part of it is that, you know, I agree with Rep. Lemon that that it's possible for all of the council members to come up and get the lean list and then you make your calls to your constituents. All of that takes money. When it goes to finance and those hours worked to be able to get that resolution as it goes to as it moves through legal, as it goes to the judge, as it comes back, all of that is a resource. And it would be great if we could cut that off before it even gets to that point. So the purpose of this is not to sit here and say, well, you know, we we do our due diligence already and we call the property owners on here to avoid getting on the lean. But by that time, all of that resource and money has already gone into the process. So, it would be great and and I've spoken with Nick about this and with Miss Mack and Miss Neman to try to create a process that's streamlined to create a framework that is exactly where I can say step one and step two. If you all have gone through that process of trying to to do the um look to see what to do if this or if this if that doesn't happen and you're going through your your array, you'll see it's really messy right now. It is a process and it is in place and it has been in place for a very long time. Excuse me, for a very long time. Thanks to Nick, we've been able to to get some reporting now where we will where I'm I'm sure you all have been receiving now, the the monthly um the clean cleanups that have been happening, the leans that have also been happening, the average amount of days that each property has been in, you know, has been given be in order to pay it before it went to a lean. All of that was part of the conversations that we had. And so the purpose of this isn't to recreate the wheel. It's to clean it up. It's to be able to say 311 called on this date. Code enforcement went out on this date. The resident was provided this on this date. It was pro just like they take pictures. Now it becomes part of a record to be able to sustain the credibility of everything that we do by saying there there are people that call my office that say they never received the notice and I have to take them at their word at face value. So, I want to be able to to see where that process where this process is every step of the way that it already exists, but it's really messy right now. And so that's part of the reason that this item is being brought today, so that Miss Neman and Miss Matt can create with together with Nick be able to create that framework where there's no question we'll be able to tell all the times that we actually reached out to that individual, whether it was by mail, whether it was a posting at their property, whether it was certified mail. All of that will be able to be listed out and and that was the purpose of this item. Thank you, mayor. >> Represent Nino. >> Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Reproa, for bringing this forward as well. I have one quick question. Um, the 435 properties that are mentioned on slide it doesn't have slide number um slide six. Was that specifically just for weed abatement or is that for I'm trying to understand in regards of solid waste lean is it are we talking just about weed abatement or are we talking about other new installs >> good morning >> good morning Nicholas I with environmental services um that includes weed abatement and trash removal could so it could either be or both >> okay um no I think this is a great conversation I know that, you know, in conversation with with Ma with Miss [clears throat] Mack, um there's been multiple properties in district 5, like on Charles Foster, that have had uh you know, large weeds that have gone four or five feet tall and they are in these subing properties and sometimes, um I know there was one request that took over a year for them to be cleaned. Um, and I know that I've talked to Miss Mack in regards of trying to be more proactive of, you know, some of these. I know our current policy is that we don't really get involved until the actual weed is over 12 ines. Correct. And I think that often times brings a challenge. Um, are we looking into I don't know if this could be a question to Miss Mack. would you come forward and give us like a better understanding of what you all analyzed and what you came up with in the uh for us to move forward or I'm trying to envision what what are the next steps after this >> that's the plan I think there is from my perspective there's been um some confusion in terms of the interpretation of the ordinance particularly when we talk about abuing properties in addition as we're talking about taking care of the major um traveled streets within the city of El Paso and how we be more responsive to that. We want to make sure that the code reflects that. Um you'll be seeing some presentations from Sun Metro regarding um um new routes and in some cases we're seeing that the weeds have grown onto the sidewalks. That means that people can't travel to get to even the bus stops. And so we just want to make sure we can kind of take a comprehensive look to make sure it's plain, it's clean for people to easy for people to understand. I'm pretty sure we haven't taken a look at the code for quite some time. It may not be major changes, but it may it will be an opportunity for you all to consider some things that may just be easier for people to understand. I'm certainly not looking to take on all that responsibility across the city because, as the rep said, we have a lot of responsibility, but we want to be have the balance between getting things cleaned up and having them be presentable to the people who are making the complaints and their neighbors versus um, you know, giving people time to to be able to pay and and see ourselves as being responsive. And so we really want to have that move forward and then have that be language that we push out as we're talking about the spring season and how we do a better job of cleaning. Nick mentioned that we could have inserts in the water bill. You know, there are things that we can just sort of get a little more education out there around some of these key issues for the community. >> No, great. Thank you for that. And I I'm looking forward to those future conversations. I know there's other items that will be coming forward including the adopted street. So I know that's a big conversation that many of us have had. So, thank you and thank you reproin. >> Represent Fiero. >> Thank you, Mayor. Miss Mack, uh, we had a phone call in our office a few months ago uh from a business owner whose property was was cleaned by Nick's team and um he was upset that he got a bill. He never received notice. I uh this is the first time um seen or hearing of this. If I would have known, I would have taken care of it. We called I'm not sure whose office our office called and they gave us the date when the first the first notice was posted at their building. The second notice when there was a certified letter sent to the business and even to the business owner's home. Uh was this a unique case or is it or is this how we we're doing things right now? >> That's the normal process. >> That's the normal process. Okay. Thank you. Represent Nino. >> Thank you, mayor. One more question. These 435 properties is it part of there's clean El Paso. So, it goes to ESD and it becomes clean El Paso, right? Is am I understanding that? >> Clean El Paso is part of environmental services. Okay. >> And the 435 properties are cleaned by our beautifification group. Uh as you can see over the year, it's um that that everything's been done through that that group. question for you and can you remind me? There has to be there's like a limit of cost in order for us to clean a property, correct? It has to be like $250. >> There's a minimum cost to go out there just with the time, equipment, and employees. And it's I believe it's right now it's $29 there. >> $29. And when the property is the cost for us to actually clean that is under $29, what happens in that situation? No, >> that's the minimum cost. That's the minimum cost. That's the minimum cost regardless. The minimum is 29. >> Yes. To get the staff, equipment, and everybody out on site. That's the minimum cost. >> Okay. I'm just trying to put pieces together based on conversations and this item. So, thank you for that. >> And it's on the notice, sir. So, when I post a notice, it will say, you know, this is the minimum amount. And so, please clean your property. And so, people know that if we're going to come back and you haven't done that, they know that the starting cost is it begins there. And it says per hour on the notice, too, isn't it? >> Or something like that. I >> I saw it on Next Door, y'all. [laughter] >> Okay. Thank you. No more. >> All right. Any further questions? Okay, Miss Price, I think we need to take the original item. >> Yes. This is to approve the direction as revised and it's it's to direct the city manager and city attorney to review the solid waste lean process to asssure the public has ample notice and opportunity to pay the reasonable expenses incurred by the city and weed abatement of private properties to bring them into compliance with chapter 9.04 the city code and avoid solid waste leans being placed on their property. The motion was made by representative Malon Rocha, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez, and this is to approve as revised. On that motion, call for the vote. And the voting session and that motion passes 6 to2. Representative Spro Lemon voting nay. The reminder of council voting I. >> Okay, let's take item number 11, which is my item. >> Yes, sir. Item 11 is discussion and action to direct the city manager to issue a solicitation for a consultant to assess the purchasing and strategic sourcing department. The solicitation should provide for best practices, findings recommendations revisions and updates to existing processes, policies, and manuals to ensure continued compliance with regulations. >> All right. Is there a motion to approve? >> Motion approved. Second. >> Okay. Um the reason that I put this on this agenda, we were here last Tuesday when we had a very healthy discussion with our purchasing department and I know that our purchasing department that is a very complicated process that that we go through. So and the reason I don't have any backup presentation is this is just to hire a consultant. So, um this will this agenda item will allow our city manager to hire a um an outside firm to come in and take a do a really deep dive on our processes with purchasing and uh our strategic sourcing uh department. It will allow them to do a study, produce reports, offer suggestions on improvement based upon best practices. So this will also allow them to look at our scoring system, the way we score procurements. We can keep what's good and then we can pro we can improve on what's not working. And this is in no means a reflection on the job that our purchasing and our strategic sourcing department is doing. But we what we can do I don't believe Miss Mack that we haven't looked at this since 2015. Is that correct? >> Correct. council brought an action in 2015 and we start we had an RFP that was issued in May of that same year and I think they adopted the policies in 2016. >> Okay. So yeah, again this is an opportunity because a lot of us on the dis calls from constituents about the purchasing and how does it work and what areas we can improve. So that's why I place this on the agenda and I think we can always improve a a process and again we'll keep what's working and we'll we'll improve on what's not working. So, with that said, uh, Representative Fier. >> Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, uh, first and foremost, thank you for putting this item on the agenda. There's been, um, opinions, uh, in regards to purchasing up here. Um, and again, you mentioned, and thank you for mentioning it. It was nothing personal. I think it's a tremendous staff, and they do the very best they can um, with information that will only get better. uh this I think this will will help them uh with best practices the other the other cities our size are using and we'll be able to streamline and and make it a more efficient department but again uh the way I read this and and thank you for bringing up Miss Lemon that there was no backup but u the way I read this there was um it's not anything personal >> it's how to how to make their job better correct >> and how to make it a better relationship between us and the vendors uh to to the city. >> That's exactly right. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Representative Rocha. >> Thank you, mayor, and thank you for bringing this item to to council today. It's something that um Rep. Chavez and myself have been working on for several months now, and we just completed the construction um forum two weeks ago, week and a half ago. So, you know, thank you to the staff for for really stepping up and being able to to help make that happen. Uh there's there's a a lot of of um pride that I have in the way that you all conducted that forum and I've had a lot of feedback in regards to it. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what this process and what this consultant will bring uh because we can always none of us are perfect and so there's always room for improvement on processes. That's that's the huge thing. uh whether it's minimizing the amount of time that it takes or just documenting the process itself and being consistent. I think that will definitely help. So, I'm really looking forward to it. I would like to move to make an amendment to this >> which I know I've spoken to you mayor as well >> and Miss Prine I have this on here. So the item still reads a discussion and action to direct the city manager to issue a solicitation for a consultant to assess the purchasing and strategic sourcing department. The solicitation should provide for best practices, findings recommendations provisions and updates to existing processes, policies, and manuals to ensure continued compliance with regulations. I'd like to add the consultant shall also review, incorporate, and build upon the feedback and work already completed, including input provided by city council members during the work sessions conducted on July 21st, August 4th, and August 18th of 2025. feedback received from the constructive procurement feedback forum, the upcoming professional services procurement feedback forum, and any additional input from relevant community stakeholders. Both the construction procurement feedback forum and the professional services procurement feedback forum must be convened prior to the completion of the consultant's final deliverables, whether in the form of a report, a set of recommendations, or other work product. and the consultant's final deliverables shall include and reflect the feedback gathered through these forums and other stakeholder engagement processes. >> Okay, there's a motion in a second. Representative Chavez, >> is this >> um >> on the amendment? >> No, on the amendment. No, I'm going to talk on the original. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Mayor. >> Okay. Any discussion on the amendment, Miss Prime? Yes sir. So the motion was made by representative Maldonado Rocha, seconded by Mayor Proteim Chavez, and this is to amend the language to include the following. The consultant shall also review, incorporate, and build upon the feedback and work already completed, including input provided by city council members during the work sessions conducted on July 21st, 2025, August 4th, 2025, and August 18th, 2025. feedback received from the construction procurement feedback form, the upcoming professional services procurement feedback form, and any additional input from relevant community stakeholders. Both the construction procurement feedback form and the professional services procurement feedback form must be convened prior to the completion of the consultant's final deliverables, whether in the form of a report, a set of recommendations, or other work product. and the consultant's final deliverables shall include and reflect the feedback gathered through these forms and other stakeholder engagement processes. >> Okay, call for the vote >> on that amendment. Call for the vote. >> I have a quick question >> on the on the amendment. >> Yeah, Miss Brian, hang on. uh represent uh Nino, >> Miss Mack and and Miss Ms. Neman, what we're doing here is giving you pretty much the scope of work. Is that what we're coming together with? >> Very broadly, which is appropriate. And so then it allows us to go into the level of detail that we need to in terms of those key areas. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> And this follows along with some of the things that um >> uh Claudia actually talked about in her presentation that she wanted in terms of her scope of work. This really just gives her the uh additional support to be able to get that done quicker. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, Miss Bryan. >> Yes, sir. The voting session is open, council, and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. >> Okay, Representative Chavez. >> Okay. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you so much for bringing this item forward, Mayor. Um, you know, I echo what you said and what Representative Fiero said, what Representative Rocha said. You know, this is something that we have worked on collaboratively as a council, but also as a team with all the the city staff. I know that procurement has been, you know, a conversation many times in my office. We did have three very productive, I think, work sessions from Claudia, our purchasing director. Um, and then we also had this great event a couple weeks ago for the construction feedback forum. The community was very excited to be engaged and to be a part of that feedback forum. Um, and we have yet to determine all of the feedback that we received from that event, but um, I spent my my day with them there at the convention center and I was happy to see that there was a lot of engagement from our community. We are going to have a second forum for professional services. So, I think that's also going to be very meaningful for our community. Um, again, I just want to reiterate the fact that the city staff has has really gone above and beyond in trying to receive this feedback both through our work sessions and through these forums. and now through this item that you've brought forward. So I think this is going to be um just a a really positive you know change and into what we can improve in our system like you just mentioned there is a lot of good that we are doing but of course there is always room for improvement especially for a process that hasn't been reviewed in 10 years right so this is something that that we welcome not only for from our community but feedback from from city staff as well that has been working hard in this role for a long time. Um I know that I've spoken to Miss Max several times and I just want to you know put on the records a few things that I have brought forward um in terms of of procurement. You know things like uh average time to pay out bids. Uh comparison chart of time to issue out bids versus other public agencies. Postponement of public bid openings. uh contracts to uh contractors um that that you know like we just mentioned last week at at our council meeting that we had these contracts that we're awarding during council meetings, raiders criteria, overview of vendor performance reports, what's known as the VPR reports, project reference forms, PRF forms, uh resources that are offered to biders post election to provide them necessary information to learn about their proposals. Um, these are kind of like the review process after people put in bids. Um, overview of buy boards, our RFQ and RFP processes. Uh, let's see, our overview of Higher El Paso first policy, and of course, you know, our purchasing process review. So, these are just like a few bullet points that we've discussed um over these last few months. And so, I'm really really looking forward to the results of this of this con uh uh consultant's work. So, thank you to council and thank you to city staff again for for just uh being on board with this. >> Thank you, Representative. >> Thank you, mayor. >> Represent Canelis. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you, mayor. I just had a couple questions. Um, >> this there's nothing listed on the amount and source of funding. Uh, is this a solicitation that we had budgeted for FY26? >> We do not. And depending on what the cost comes back as, we'll ensure that we do the appropriate budget transfer before that bid is awarded. >> Uh where would that source of funding likely come from? >> Right now, more than likely contingency >> out of contingency. Okay. Um that's my only question. Thank you, mayor. >> Okay. Uh Miss Prime, we have public comment. >> Yes, mayor. We have Miss Patricia Osmond. Miss Osman, star six, please to unmute your telephone. You have three minutes, ma'am. >> Now, I've spoken previously in regards to the problems that we have within the purchasing department. I hope this solicitation isn't just local. It's not listed in any backup nor any motion. But there are a lot of issues, not just what the audit department found. We still currently have employees in the purchasing department who are responsible for handing employees contracts for contracts out of their own department which is an ethics violation. Those same purchasing employees are still there. They still give presentations to y'all. So the people giving y'all advice are the same people that are practicing basically the moridas the kickback processes that have been happening. And I can say that with full confidence because I have documented proof of that. Miss Mack is fully aware of that. Miss Ne is fully aware of that because they received a lot of those emails. some of that proof because there was HR reports, there was ethic reports made back then and those employees are still there. This should not be a policy and any changes to make it easier for the rubber stamping of contracts, the the kickbacks to occur and and my representative there is fully aware of this too for district 2. He was aware of all of this when the last city council was made aware of everything. He knows the problems that happened that I personally incurred. And yet those people are still there. You have too many people within the back of the house. And I'm not saying on the diet, but in the back of the house that are free and loose with contracts as long as they get kickbacks so that they put over in front of you, whatever. You have no idea what is happening in the back of the house as long as they just tell you this is what it is. And you're all just like, "Oh, well this is how we were revised." Yet there is documented proof that the same people committing these same ethics violations are within purchasing and strategic plan or uh sourcing. Same same issues are inspections throughout the back of the house. I hope there is a practice that Yeah. And there is an issue with El Paso first because that just means the moras are local. That means the kickbacks come from local and it's easier to get get your kickback that way. Something needs to change because it hasn't with the last city council and you all seem to be fine with allowing the same practice and making it worse. >> Thank you. You've reached the three minutes will go public. >> Thank you. The next speaker is >> Miss P. I'm going to go to represent Mosto first. >> Yes, sir. Um I I just wanted to say that I'm supportive of this. This is great. I think it's been a long time coming. The the one thing that I am hoping that we can get is at least some facetime with the consultant for um individual meetings with council members cuz I think we all have different perspectives on this and we've said a lot during the public meetings and that's all really great that we're going to integrate that feedback that we did during those presentations. But I think once we have a one-on-one, I think we could really make this a lot better. >> I agree. >> Just wanted to add that. Thank you. >> I agree, Miss Ryan. >> Yes. The next speaker is Anhelica Rosales. She will be followed by Joe Rosales. >> Good morning. You have three minutes. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Good morning, Mayor and City Council. My name is Angelica Rosales. I'm the director of development for Texas for Sun Construction. In the seven years that I've been working with Sant, we've had the honor of building three projects for the city, the Beast, East Side Regional Police Command Center, and the Mexican-American Cultural Center. We also recently participated in the contractor's feedback forum, which was well attended, and we are grateful that we were able to provide our input um and feedback. We are also a tier 2 local contractor with over 50 employees uh from El Paso working for for Sun. We are here in support of the item. We believe that hiring a consultant would be the next logical step to the contractor's feedback forum and we believe that implementing best practices would do multiple things. It would ensure transparency and fairness in the evaluation and awarding of contracts. It would assist the city in being able to allocate the appropriate resources for the purchasing department for a city of this size and the amount of contracts and projects that are awarded annually. And it would ensure value to the taxpayers in being able to execute and award contracts in a timely manner. So, we're we're in support of this item. Uh we're grateful that city council and the mayor are being proactive in this. It's long overdue and thank you mayor and thank you city council for this time today. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> The next speaker is Joe Rosales. >> Good morning. You have three minutes. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Good morning Mr. Mayor, city council members. Um Joe Rosales. Presently I'm a consultant. I own Southwest Construction Consulting. Prior to that my dad started founded J Concrete in 1957. I then joined him and I became the owner. We probably did over 40 years of work for the city of El Paso, $550 million worth of work. So, I'm proud of El Paso. I'm proud of the work we performed. And I think it's a great great long overdue idea by you, Mr. Mayor. Um I can recall the specs the specifications back in the8s are basically the same as they are now. So things do need to change. I've worked with from Fine Dorado Alan Schubert uh to the present engineer personally in 2016 is whenever Mr. Gonzalez came in. Tommy Gonzalez came in. He came in with the idea, and I'm just strictly talking about road construction, not buildings road. That used to be low bid, low bid, most capable bidder wins. And I think what would really simplify the process for the city because I think it's a lot of undue pressure on the city to do this best value cuz contractors have doubt who's being graded. Are we being graded fairly? Are there personality conflicts? If you were to follow text, Tex pre-qualifies the contractors. They bond, they they they give them a bonding capacity. They make the contractors do 40% of the work with their own forces. They get paid by the 10th of the following month, no retainage, and you have a lot better uh contractors and a lot better work. So, I I mean, it's it's tough. I'd hate to be in the purchasing department because I, you know, I heard somebody earlier making some comments I don't think are right, but uh I'm here to help. Uh it was a very successful forum. I attended it and uh I I really am grateful for what you all are trying to do. Uh and higher I can assist, I'm here to help and I am 100% behind the recommendation. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. That concludes public comment on this item mayor. >> Okay, Miss Prime, would you please call for the vote on this item? >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by alternate mayor prompo, seconded by repres representative Nino to approve the item as revised. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. >> Excellent. Thank you. Um item number 12. Item 12 is discussion and action to direct the city manager to appoint a member to begin the process of mobilizing community partners and identifying funding sources to develop an advanced workforce training program for youth and adults through the establishment of a northeast advanced skills development center and identify potential funding sources to support this initiative. >> Representative Trejo trehol motion to approve. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Represent Tjo. Thank you, mayor. I uh I I brought this to to council because, you know, as we all know, we have the the medicine center that's coming up in Northeast. Uh and and they I I met with them and they mentioned there was a community grant opportunity. And so that was the reason for bringing this uh you know had some conversations with some community partners uh workforce solutions, western tech, uh a couple of nonprofits to see is there something that we can do here to support our residents with these uh data centers that are coming to to El Paso. So this initiative is about creating opportunities for the northeast and the community as a whole. Um I am asking for this to be in the northeast because of the you know the fact that these uh data the data center here with meta is going to be in the northeast and then we have the one that's coming up in Santa Teresa. But I also wanted to share some statistics uh regarding the northeast and what we're looking at uh you know and I'm specifically speaking about district district 4 but you know we can add u more into the into area but here when we look at u the zip codes of 24 and 34 we have about approximately 90,000 residents compared to for example the 7912 zip code there's about 79 80,000 residents In the east side of 36, we have 104,000 residents. And so I'm just, you know, getting a gauge of, you know, the the number of residents in each of the districts. When we look at higher education, only 14% of residents in the 24 zip code and 23% in the 34 zip code have a bachelor's degree, compared to 30% on the two on the one two zip code and 21% in the 36 zip code. When we look at income per capita, the Northeast in in zip code 24, we look at uh we're looking at about 25,000 per capita, I mean income. And then uh for the 34 zip code, we're looking at about 33,000 compared to 42,000 in the one two zip code and 29,000 in the 36 zip code. And so what I'm showing here is the gap. Uh, Northeast lacks high-skilled jobs and training centers. Uh, Nicole Rodriguez recently did a a presentation of the resources that are available in the different different districts. And, you know, and I took a look at what it looks like in the Northeast, especially in the area that's growing. we were lacking those major resources uh you know places of worship, retail, higher education and then even more importantly the the transportation and and uh metro and I know they're doing a study right now with that you know what does that look like in Northeast and so you know looking back at this a training center is needed period for you know our community but it you know having it in the in the northeast would help advance and support the community in these high growing areas. uh the growth is focused in Northeast right now and you know in speaking with the workforce solutions border place I I asked them for those statistics that I just shared and also what type of jobs are being uh are going to be needed for these data centers and that type of the type of employment is IT infrastructure and IT maintenance technicians and so looking at how we can provide hands-on technical training programs uh to our community bless you. And preparing our residents for these in demand, high-paying jobs. And so it's crucial that we prepare our workforce now because these these data centers are coming and other industry is coming with it. And so we I want to make sure that we're ensuring that our residents residents have access to these jobs that will also benefit the economic growth. And so a training center will really help attract and retain industries. It will require skilled workers. It's going to increase household incomes and it's going to expand our local tax base. So, uh an advanced uh skills development center ensures not only that the adults that are able and willing to work, but that we can also start preparing our young adults in high schools. So, you know, creating a program where our high school students can get some type of certification while they're in school for these opportunities. And so I ask my colleagues today for their support in this initiative to ident, you know, to uh to direct the city manager and have an appointee that we can start looking at those grant opportunities, private uh public partnerships uh at federal workforce programs that can help really um provide the resources that are needed for for our community. Thank you, >> Representative Canales. Thank you, mayor. Um, I I like the idea, but I don't have any issues with the program itself. I just have a couple questions. Um, the specific direction says to direct the city manager to appoint a member to begin the process. Is that a member of council or a member of city staff? >> City staff. City staff. Should have said city staff. >> Um, and then in amount and source of funding, it says $500 to go toward planning efforts to pilot the program. Um, what is the source of that $500? So, initially that was the meta the there we were looking at starting with 500,000 uh ask within the meta grant opportunity. Uh that's still there. You know, initially when I when I had the conversation with them, I it was my understanding that that uh grant opportunity was available this year, but it it's actually going to become available next year. >> Okay. uh in speaking to, you know, uh Dion and the city manager, she was saying, "Well, it's actually might be a good time to get this started so that when they are here, we're prepared." >> Okay. Yeah. Just to clarify again, it says $500 on the on the back of 500,000. >> 500,000. >> Okay, that makes more sense. I was I was going to say we can probably ask for more than $500. >> Um >> Okay. Yeah, it's good to hear that that community action grant is potentially on the table. Um and happy to support it. Thank you. Thank you, >> Representative Fier. >> Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Representative, for putting this on. It's um it's great to see that you're thinking forward and trying to make sure that we have a a trained workforce for when the data centers come into play. My questions is wouldn't this be a partnership that we already have with um workforce solution and I believe there may be a campus a workforce solution campus on dyer so there's already a northeast location and it just seems to me like partnering up with somebody who's already established and who's already um can hit the ground running instead of having Miss Mack um re reinvent the wheel would be a source of um saving resources and saving taxpayer dollars. >> So, you know, I did I did meet with the workforce solutions. I met with uh Western Tech and had these conversations. So, there isn't a program already like this. There are programs that the workforce offers, but they were really excited to actually look into seeing how we can support our workforce. I see Mia here. Did you have something to share? Atamayo, assistant director of economic development. I wanted to share that u during um the I'm sorry the CARES and the ARPA allocation we work with several partners um tech frontier being one of them and junior achievement and with tech frontier um they really focus on the new collar um industry and so we already have programs in place um addressing this. Now the funding of course runs out at the end of next year but uh it's been a very successful program. they have uh over a hundred uh students that have already received uh industry certification that are approved by the Department of Labor and so continuing the program would be a great idea, but we do have those partnerships established already. So, we'd love to elevate and uh let the community know that the programs are out there. There's about 18,000 uh students or opportunity youth, students that are between the ages of 16 and 24 that are not in the workplace. And that has been a focus for us as well to get um our youth upskilled so we can get them into those those high-tech uh work um jobs. I'm sorry uh media this this uh the training that you're speaking of. Where is it where is it located? Is it throughout the the El Paso? They go into the different school districts or >> so um Tech Frontier works directly with the school districts to provide um the students with the information. it is provided by TechFrontier >> and so I can send over the information so we can um let you all know where the uh trainings are happening and when they're happening >> but um absolutely there's there's just a great need for our youth to to have access to these resources. >> Okay. And so you're talking about youth what about adults is you know having the training as well for the adults. So the idea here is to have it within the communities because the the the transportation is not there. >> The the transportation is not there. the the community here in in Northeast, you have the the medicine center that's already, you know, uh starting development there and so everything is within that area to be able to support those resources. >> Okay. Um we can we can speak to the school districts or I can actually check back and let you know exactly uh because one of the focuses for Tech Frontier was the El Paso school um ISD and so they have been they work directly with the high schools and um identify the opportunity youth but it's not just the youth it's from ages of 16 to 24. >> Okay. And what happens after the age of 24? >> Are the are there training opportunities available? >> Choose this to support this item. We would take that as a nod to take a deep dive and really work with our community partners to bring this information back to you all. Um it is complex. This isn't our key focus area. So we want to ensure that key partners that are already been mentioned like workforce and others can really talk about what resources they're bringing forward and then we can talk about what you know those space qualifications and needs are. But I do think that needs to be data driven. We really need to understand where this fits within the ecosystem of the needs within the the community. Um as I spoke with the rep, we have the opportunity potentially to be able to apply for a grant um next November. So I think it gives us an opportunity to understand uh what uh we might be able to do, answer the questions that are being posed, ensure that we're doing the deep dive and really bring back something that gives you some opportunity to understand um what our impacts can be um and as well as the cost for it. >> Okay, represent fairly stand up. >> Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, I I you know, listening to what Miss Mack just said, um this is a great opportunity, great program. Um, I like the fact that we're talking about touching all the different districts, the city as a whole. Um, but I I know there's a a motion a second, but I'd like for us to consider um letting it go back to Miss Mack and then and we're talking about a really long win timeline to apply for a grant in in the meantime instead of focusing and putting city resources into it. Maybe we can just partner up with um some of the organizations like the young lady who just mentioned workforce solutions, El Paso Community College, um I think she mentioned techn I I I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to move forward without investing um a lot of money until this this grant potential grant comes into >> Are you making a motion or is this just >> I'd like to make a me motion to let Miss Mack um come back after after the grant is um finalized and placed and and really come up with a plan at that time. >> Okay. >> There's >> well that's could be a year could be a [clears throat] year and a half. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second also. >> Okay. >> More discussion. >> Any discussion on this particular motion of Dylan? Okay. Represent. >> The the idea was not for the city to do this. The idea was to have resources, right? So to work with, for example, with what media said, but working with other entities, organizations, workforce, what's out there to be able to support that? It wasn't a cityrun program. It was an initiative to work in collaboration with other organizations. >> Well, I I apologize. It says identified funding source. I thought that meant for the city. >> It would be grants. So grants, working with other entities, things like that. Uh not anything that the city would come up with the funding for. So look for those grant opportunities. >> Represent canal, you want to talk on this one? >> Okay, go ahead. >> Um I mean first I have just a procedure question. Is this a sec? We have a main motion. Is this an amendment? And if so, we need the language for the amendment like where that goes. Um and then also the way I read this, it already says to begin the process of mobilizing community partners and identifying funding sources. The backup describes the potential grant funding sources that that could be sought out for this. Um I see it as I see the second motion here as duplicating what's already in the original item. >> Okay, >> that's all. Mayor, thank you. >> Okay, represent FOR. >> You know, in that case, I withdraw my motion. >> Okay. >> All right. Representative Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor. And I wanted to speak on the original item, not >> so thank you for the the opportunity. Um, just generally speaking, um, if I could ask Miss Mack, >> the the center, I guess, would be open to anyone, right, that wanted to participate. Even though it says Northeast Development Center, it would be >> correct. Right. And so I think what will be helpful to us is sort of understand what you know the migration patterns sort of are with the workforce solution centers. Um I'm sure they have that data to understand where people are coming from per zip code and then I think that'll give us a better opportunity to understand where they may have gaps. Um and we would want to you know take a deep dive into that and then bring that back along with whether you know this site makes the most sense in terms of that investment as well. And I'm I'm just wondering, and I'm not trying to be super picky about your language, Representative Theo, but I'm just wondering if we could also like instead of being a center because that that makes it very um I guess just stagnant, you know, in terms of one place, you know, if it could be like a program where of course I understand Representative Thjo's, you know, uh viewpoint of, you know, uh advancing workforce training programs because of the data center that's coming from meta specifically in your area. And I agree with that, but I'm just wondering if if we could open it up to like a program um for our community in general to participate in. So it wouldn't be just bound to one center, but could maybe mobilize to different areas of our city. And um if >> is that >> if we would have to I don't know if we would have to make an amendment or not. Miss Mack, does this does this language uh direct you to something like a program or would it have to >> I don't think it's too limited. I think generally when we see a a physical center that is um established and they have outreach and they have all those opportunities to make sure they're connecting and they have program. >> I don't think we would limit any type of grant opportunity >> to um one specific area to a physical space. >> Okay. Thank you for that information. That's all. >> Okay. Represent. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Repo, for bringing this forward. I kind of had a similar question to what Mayor Proimp was mentioning. Would we would the city manager come forward? Miss Mack, would you come forward and provide other recommendations of expanding this program into other areas of El Paso, including any other public facility that potentially we could have such programming and development uh for other community members? Is that what we're looking at? >> Absolutely. We've already begun some of those dialogues and discussions with workforce. Um we have agreements there in the main library downtown and they're also in a couple of rec centers and so we're using some of those expansions. I think this gives us an opportunity to say how can we work better together. Um really how do we utilize the limited resources we have you know in both of these buckets to make sure this can be sustainable which is a concern. you know, when we talk about an additional physical space, um, and make sure that we're targeting the right population, uh, that may not be provide getting provided the services that we know that we have in that specific area or throughout the city as Maria talked about. >> Okay, great. No, this is great. Thank you for that. And I think that provides a lot of clarity just because I know that there's even future development of other municipal spaces that are going to be built around the community or around El Paso. So, thank you. Thank you for the questions. Okay. Any further discussion on this item? >> Okay, Miss Bryan, call for the vote. >> Mr. The motion was made by Representative Borjo, seconded by Representative Bedo to approve the direction listed on item 12. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes 7 to1. Representative Federal voting nay. The remainder of council voting I. >> Okay, let's take item number 13. >> Mayor, it is past 11:30. Would you like to recess for mass transit or continue? >> Yeah, let's do mass transit. >> Is there a motion to recess? So move >> second. >> There's a motion [clears throat] and a second to recess the regular city council meeting. All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? The meeting is in recess at 11:42 a.m. in order to conduct the Mass Transit Department board meeting. >> Good morning everyone. This is the Mass Transit Department board meeting. Today is November the 4th, 2025. It is 11:42 a.m. President Council Chambers is Sher Mr. Johnson, Miss Chavez, Mr. Asdo, Miss Roachcha, Miss Bard Greco, Mr. Nino, Mr. Fiero, Miss Lemon, and Mr. Canales. And we have on the consent agenda the approval of minutes for October 14, 2025. >> Move to approve the consent. Give me a second. Let me just read the uh notice to the public. All matters listed under the the consent agenda, including those on the addition to the agenda, will be considered by Mass Transit Department board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by board members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. The MESRA said department board may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. >> Okay. Is there a motion the consent agenda? Okay. There's a motion and a second. Please call for the vote. >> Mr. Canales made the motion. Who second that? >> Represent Lemon. >> Miss Lemon. Give me a second. Give me a second. Okay, go ahead. Okay, go ahead. Try again. I mean, I I see it. >> Okay, the motion passes with Mr. Fiero not present. >> Okay, let's take a regular agenda item number three. Um, item number three is on the regular agenda is discussion and action on the request that the director of purchasing and strategic sourcing, [clears throat] excuse me, be authorized to issue a purchase order for solicitation 2026-0092 for Cumins CNG engines and generator parts in service to Kumman sales and service DBA cumins to soul authorized distributor for a term of 3 years for less estimated amount of 4,485,000. Supplier will be required to provide an updated soul source letter and affidavit each year. This contract will provide Sun Metro with essential support to maintain both vehicle propulsion system and CNG power generation equipment, ensuring reliable fueling operations and continuous transit service. >> Chairman Jones. >> Yes, ma'am. I wish to make a mo >> I wish to make a motion on item number three. This is a sole authorized distributor. Make the motion to approve. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second. All right. Represent Canalis. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Just a quick question. Um I know we we've we use Cummins products uh for for the buses uh for the specifically for the CG engines. these uh this is a three-year term. The contract that it's replacing with Cummins, do you know what the term of that that agreement was? >> Three years. >> Was it three years as well? >> With the purchasing and strategic sourcing, it it it was three years as well. >> Okay. I asked because it's on a sole source. This stands out to me. It's a fairly significant increase like a 45% increase. I know we've seen cost escalation everywhere. Is this pretty standard in the industry for for engines and related parts? It might be for the department. >> Jared Demiro, deputy transit officer for Sun Metro. Yes, the previous contract was awarded in 2022. So during that period, 3 years, the escalation is 40% over time. The other thing to remember is this is not a guaranteed contract. This is an as needed contract. So the max we may not encounter the maximum amount of the contract over the life of the contract. It just allows us that flexibility should we need that capacity to be able to access it. >> But the the cost per part we've seen escalation around that 45% and that's why you've built in that extra 45% capacity. >> Yes, it's been anywhere between 10 and 20% per year since 2022. >> Okay, understood. Thank you, mayor. >> Okay, any further discussion on regular agenda item number three? Okay, Miss Prime, I mean, sorry. [laughter] >> Okay. And there was a motion by Miss Lemon, seconded by Miss. [clears throat] >> Motion by Representative Lemon, a second by represent Canales. >> Represent Tjo. Okay. Uh, yes. And it is open. Go ahead. >> And that passes unanimously without Mr. Art Pharaoh present. >> Okay. Is there a motion to convene the mass transit? >> Summer. >> No. To >> to adjourn. >> To adjourn. >> Sorry. So move >> and there is a motion to adjurnn. All in favor? >> I >> I. >> Any oppose? >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Prine. >> Is there a motion to reconvene the city council meeting? >> So move. >> Second. >> There's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting. All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? The meeting is back in session at 11:49 a.m. >> All right. Miss Bryant believes that takes us to regular agenda item number 13. >> Yes, sir. And item 13 is discussion and action to direct the city manager to begin a process to establish community partnerships aimed at developing a training and mentoring program for veteran entrepreneurs and to coordinate the provision of support services to ensure veterans have the tools and resources necessary to succeed and identify potential funding sources to support this initiative. This is Representative Orjo's item. >> Okay. Representative Tjo. >> Motion to approve. >> Okay. There's a motion, a second. Okay. represent trail. >> Thank you. >> So, this morning we had our proclamation. >> I don't have my microphone on. There we go. >> This morning we had a a proclamation. Thank you, mayor, for the the proclamation to our our for Veterans Business Week. You know, I've been working with uh several organizations uh over the past few months to be able to put together an event called Veterans Business Connect. And through these conversations with the multiple uh organizations, there's 10 organizations that are veteran service uh concentrated in in veteran in in veteran services. And what what came from those conversations is that we really need to look at how we can collaborate and build a partnership uh to support our veterans holistically. And so, you know, again, I'm going to share some statistics here for our veteran comm um military presence here in El Paso. So, El Paso is home to over 47,000 civilian veterans. And this is according to the 2024 US Census. Uh when including active duty personnel, retirees, and families affiliated with Fort Bliss, the broader military connected population in our region exceeds 100,000. And then according to our city website and the veterans military affairs, approximately 18 to 20% of the El Paso population are veterans, active milit active duty transitioning service members and their family. And so this makes El Paso one of the largest veteran and military connected communities in the nation. And despite that, our our large despite our large veteran population, there's approximately only 764 veteranowned businesses in El Paso. Again, this is a 2022 US census. And so what we're seeing is that the our veterans are are facing uh challenges. There's a lack of access to startup and growth capital, lack of civilian business networks. there's a lack of business specific training and certifications. They're out there. But what we're looking how can we provide these services to our veterans as a program. Uh the goal here is to help veterans transition from the military into entrepreneurship by transferring service and leadership experience into business experience. Business ownership offers opportunities to align their strengths and their interests. And when we help our veterans achieve financial independence, we also help support economic development. It help uh grow small business in El Paso. We help create jobs and we expand our city's tax base. There are programs in place for example in other cities where they offer for example in Fort in Fort Worth Boots to business reboot in in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, there's Boots to Business. I know there's a there's a program that's we have an individual that doesn't live in El Paso that offers these these programs. Uh, and then we have Texas Veterans Commission that offers a statewide entrepreneurship and business support program. And so if El Paso can adapt, if the city can work with and collaborate with other these organizations, there's there's several, but to work with these organizations to support our local veteran population, this would be uh something that would be a collaborative effort. um potential PL part partners could include we we probably already have partners with with these some of these entities, but do we have a program, one holistic program to be able to support them? And so again, here I ask for our our colleagues to support this initiative to continue to support our El Paso veterans, our community, and our neighborhoods. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second on item number 13. Any further discussion? >> Represent Canales. >> Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I again I know we have significant numbers of partnerships with organizations already. There's the veteran entrepreneur program, uh, Boots to Business from IVMF. I'm seeing others onward to opportunity also through IVMF. Um, VISE uh for veteran women. These are all part existing partnerships with our economic development department. Uh I don't know if it makes sense to potentially uh bring back an item for the agenda, Miss Mack, to share out the information about some of these partnerships and then look to go from there. Um I I don't know that again I I understand it will be helpful to coordinate those resources for folks. Um, I don't want to be overly duplicative in and creating something new when we might be better served helping to support the the uh partner organizations that we already have. And so, um, I I maybe that's a good place to start. I I think the item is sufficiently broad that it allows for that to begin a process to establish community partnerships. And so um I don't know if we need to put that on the agenda or Miss Mack, maybe you can bring that back just with some information from the department about the partnerships that already exist and how we can potentially engage them further. >> We we'll be prepared to execute counsel's actions whenever you all decide. [laughter] >> Okay. Any further discussion on on this particular item? All right, Miss Pry, I know we have public comment. >> Yes, sir. We have Miss Laura Butler. >> Good morning. You have three minutes. >> Good morning. >> Laura Butler. >> CEO and executive director of Pioneers 21 uh where our mission is to provide mentorship. Um so you're right with your uh information. Thank you for providing the data. So our uh Fort Bliss actually provides 27.9 billion of economic impact statewide and it's really unmatched pi an unmatched pipeline of skilled leaders in our 79906 and 79916 corridor who want uh or may want to build businesses here. Um, city data also point to the opportunity. In 2025, our boss survey showed small businesses need help first with marketing and sales 62% and financial management at 45%, strategic planning at 35% and they asked specifically for technology support businesses uh also business plan reviews, financial literacy and loan application help. National Veteran Business Research confirms it. Uh veteran veteranowned firms are concentrated in uh professional services construction business logistics, and they seek financing um support to cover operations and growth. And the good news is that um our local SBA, Boots to Business, does uh already provide taught on uh it provide the support and they teach it on post. A lot of us do partner with them uh SBA and the SBDC partners and they are in place just as uh the bosses with 30 plus uh firms including pioneers 21. So my ask is for city manager and council to review this data for further research of course in my area uh which I'm a constituent of the northeast 799243406 and 79916 uh colllocated with uh this B2B pipeline uh pair some counseling with boss organizations to find funding which pays for customized training projects to teach those exact skills that the boss survey has already provided for us. Um, it also says that they need digital marketing, bookkeeping, and digital skills such as AI and e-commerce, but make P21 and Boss partners a priority to deliver this startup and tech forward training. While Boss plus the 30 plus firms that are already part of BOSS could provide this veteran focused mentorship, business planning and capital access. um the SBDC, P21, the SBA, local boots to business programming and lift fund. Together we can create a full service ecosystem for founders. Measure measure us rigorously something like in the first nine months and roll 100 minutes. Thank you. >> Thank you represent Tjo. >> Thank you mayor Laura. Thank you for that. You hit it right in the bullseye. uh you know we do have like for you know for example she mentioned the SBDC we have the El Paso Chambers all offering different types of services the idea here is to have very similar to the boss program business one-stop shop it's a business one-stop shop of training mentoring and opportunities that are resources that are available to our veterans in partnership with these organizations that are offering these focused uh resources and solutions for our veterans don't thank you >> any further discussion on this particular item number 13. >> All right, Miss Bryan, please call for the vote. >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Borjo, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez to approve the direction on item 13. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Representative Canales not present. >> Okay, let's take a regular agenda item number 14. >> Yes, sir. Item 14 is discussion and action on a resolution to resend city council approval granted in the resolution of July 1st, 2024 to allocate funds from capital assets to fund the city of El Paso's local match obligation for the Shan Hagerty extension project in the amount of $6.8 million due to the availability of state [music] infrastructure bank loan funding for this purpose. Okay. >> Is there a motion to approve this? Motion to approve. [laughter] >> Okay, there's a motion second. Wa. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon, Mayor. Council Wim Rodriguez with capital improvements. There's no presentation on this item. Pretty straightforward. Um, council in the past had given us authority to use funding from capital asset sales to pay for our local match obligations for this project. Uh, this resolution rescends that authority. Um, on October 28th, you all approved us to move forward with executing the SIB loan for this project instead. So, we'll be using Sib loan funds instead of funding from capital asset sales. >> Okay. Uh, Representative Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Quain. I have a couple of questions for you. Um, how much money are is in our capital asset fund? >> I'll have to defer to Mr. Cortinez on that. >> Good afternoon. It's currently about 34 million. >> Oh, okay. >> And that's uh been accumulated over the last several years from the sale of several city properties. >> Okay. And I think there are some restrictions on the use of those funds. Is that correct? >> Be used for capital assets or to retire debt. >> Okay. So now this is going to free up a little bit of those assets because we're not going to be using it towards this any longer. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> So it just will remain there for whatever is needed in the future. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you for that. No further questions. >> Okay. Any further >> no further questions? >> No. Any questions? Represent. Okay. All right. Uh, Miss Prime, would you call for the vote on this item? >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Orjo, seconded by Representative Chavez, and this is to approve item 14. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Representative Malonado Rocha not present. >> Okay. Let's take item item number 15. >> Yes sir. Items 15, 16, and 17 are related. Would you like to consider those together? >> Sure. >> Thank you. Item 15 is discussion and action on resolution authorizing the city manager or designate to affectuate the purchase and closing of the property commonly known as 311 West Overland Avenue. Item 16 is also authorizing the city manager to effectuate the purchase and closing of the property commonly known as 315 West Overland Avenue. And item 17 is also to affectuate the purchase and closing of the property comprised of 21107 acres on West San Antonio Avenue and for all three and this is to authorize the city manager to execute a contract of sale with Lynx Industries Limited. >> Okay. Is there a motion to approve this? >> Move to approve. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. >> You want to show us a presentation? Is Sure. Let's do it. >> Mayor, I just want to add um for the record um that the funding source for this um is hotel occupancy tax and it's noted in the presentation. >> Okay. >> Good. Thank you. >> Mary Lou. >> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Mary Louis Vioa with the real estate division. For the record, these items as are for the purchase of property for the convention center expansion. Next slide, please. So, just a quick overview of the properties that we'll be discussing. It's for 311 West Overland, 315 West Overland, and San Antonio property identification number 93782. The purchase prices are listed for each of those properties totaling 3,173,791. The total square foot feet for those three properties is 19,283 square ft. Next slide, please. I'm going to hand this over to uh Ben five to discuss the programming of this particular section of property. >> Good afternoon, Ben. Good afternoon. for the record, Ben Fe, managing director. Um, so I'm here to just provide a little bit of context for the use of this space for these proposed acquisitions. Um, as a reminder, expansion of the convention center has been part of your strategic plan since 2019 and was a key conversation during the most recent strategic planning session in 2024. Um it is very timely as we are at a period where a lot of our competitor cities are investing in expansion or improvements to their convention centers and tourism infrastructure at a time when Texas uh right now one in 111 jobs is linked to tourism. Um, it also dovetales with 60 million in city incentives matched with 250 million in private investment in downtown hotel projects which have added 1170 hotel rooms downtown. Redeveloped historic buildings uh four of which are qualified hotel projects. Oops, sorry about that. So uh for the benefit of the public just so there is understanding our current convention center lacks space and infrastructure for us to be able to remain competitive with meeting convention organizers and really essentially meet the needs and expectations of 21st century convention planners and large event planners. Um we have here a list of seven uh entities which we traditionally would be able to bid on to bring to El Paso. um we are no longer eligible to even be considered because we don't have the right amount of spaces and the types of amenities that they are seeking and specifically I will say what we know we are definitely lacking right now in our current facility are flexible spaces that can be used for breakout rooms uh you know outside of major plenary plenary keynote addresses a ballroom uh and we also know that our kitchen is just not necessarily set up to be able to deal with more uh attendees at events. So in those seven that you see here, uh that TRN abbreviation you see there means total room nights and that is how we measure uh the potential impact of any convention, trade show, uh delegation that might be coming in. So for that first one, the Texas Municipal League would lead to 7,000 total room nights, likely hotel, but of course we have also been talking about uh short-term rental. But again, all of these have incredible economic impact into our local economy. They're feeding not only the hotel occupancy tax funds, uh, but they have ripple effects into almost every sector in El Paso, uh, especially things like restaurants, bars, retail, uh, and sales tax. Uh, and just continues to go on and on. Um, so it really does affect, uh, all El Pasoans and a lot of our local businesses. And so with that, uh, Marilu and myself are available for any questions or comments. >> Represent Fiero. >> Thank you, Mayor Ben. You're absolutely right that, um, well, let me start this way. Destination El Paso has done a yman's job. I mean, they're able to to get more, uh, out of that facility than anybody ever could. Some of the conferences that they've got commitments to already, it it's amazing. It's only because of the of Jose and his team. uh Brook Underwood, all all of them, they're you're able and well you a little bit too, Ben, but um that they're able to do of above and beyond and and make up for some shortfalls. So, this is great news because we're going to be able to be competitive with other um uh other uh facilities throughout the state. I I do have a question though for Miss Mack. Um, I received a couple of emails and and text messages that Ben's plan master plan is to tear down Abraham Chavez and build an arena there. Is there any truth to that? >> Oh, are you okay? We have a 2012 resolution that was passed by council um that reads that the El Paso City Council is committed to the preservation and restoration of the Abraham Shaveis Theater and is opposed to the demolition of the facility to make room for other purposes and that's still on the books from 2012. >> So Miss Mac that means no >> we have no plans to do anything but fix it. >> Thank you Miss Mac. I would also add to that, sir, that the conversations we have had uh time and time again with consultants uh with our hotel uh motel association, I'm sorry, our hotel lodging association, with our staff, is that the Chavis is really one of the most iconic architectural structures in downtown. Uh and it would be a real shame to lose that. It's part of the brand of the convention center. >> Ben, you you almost saw Miss Leo fall off her chair when I said that. So, thank you for saying that, Pam. [laughter] Representative Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor. And uh I I agree with uh what Representative Fier was saying. Thank you for the presentation, Ben. Um this is a much needed improvement to our convention center so that we can attract, you know, tourism and conventions and other events to our community and therefore produce more taxes for our community. Um and I apologize, Mary Lou, I didn't have a chance to meet with you last week, so I do have a few questions for you just for transparency purposes. um for our community. I I did do some research on the CAD website. So, this is public information um and because I just don't know, right? So, um I'm just going to use 315 West Overland as an example. According to CAD, the appraised value, okay? And I don't know what appraised value the city goes uh with or or if you go through the appraised value or the assessed value, whichever one you use, the appraised value is about $51,000. I know that the the offer was 1.9 uh more or less >> and I'm just wondering how you got from the appraised value to the actual offer value for this specific property. >> Okay, so the city acquires real estate property using fair market value, not the central appraisal district value. So the CAD valuation that you see it's to determine property taxes and it doesn't take into account market fluctuations, recent sales. Uh and so quite honestly sometimes the information is outdated. So we use an appraisal. >> And so you went through your own appraisal process? >> Yes, we hired a third party to appraise the property. >> Okay. And that's how you determined what amount to offer for this property? >> Yes. So, the appraised value for that was uh 1,800,000 and that was closer to the purchase price that we've gotten. >> Okay. So, and I'm assuming it was the same thing for the other two properties that we're voting on today. >> That's correct. >> Okay. So, you went through a third party person that did the appraisal and then that's how you determined what offer to make for these properties. >> Correct. >> Okay. And that I think it's for transparency purposes. It's clear that we we say that. Thank you so much, Mary Lou. and I apologize for not being able to be briefed on this item. >> That's fine. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Representative Nino. >> Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Ben and Mary Lou and Miss Mack also for the presentation. I know that I've asked a couple questions to Miss Mack in regards to the hot tax, and thank you for mentioning that since it wasn't part of the conversation. Miss Mack, can you kind of just briefly tell us what hot tax stands for, what it is, what's its intent, and the limitations that we have when any expenditure happens with with a hot tax. >> Sure. So the hot tax is hotel occupy tax. It's a tax that is paid when people come into our city and they're um utilizing hotels and that is generally utilized um at a local level for things that are related to hotel tourism um and also um entertainment. And so the code is very specific in terms of how those dollars can be utilized. Um we have a percentage that goes back to the state at a local level. We are also supporting uh uh destination El Paso uh MCAD. We have a percentage that is allocated 2.5% that is for capital or uh debt management only and that's how we're paying for this and then another 2.5% goes to the county >> and ballpark >> and ballpark 2% for ballpark as well. >> Perfect. I just thought that was important to really highlight that um we're using hot tax should this item move forward. Um and thank you for that M. No further questions. >> Okay. represent Canales. >> Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I was going to ask some similar clarifying questions about hotel occupancy tax for the public. I think it's important to note as well uh that 2 and a half% for capital and debt service. That's, you know, the the hotel occupancy tax capital fund that that we're talking about using today. Um I know the figure provided is that generates about $4 million annually. And so we're talking about an expenditure of not even $1 million of one year's worth of accumulated uh hotel occupancy tax capital fund um which we do have accumulated. And so it's it does us no good to keep that uh unproductive. It's uh this is an expenditure that falls right in line with the intended use of of the capital funds uh generated through hotel occupancy tax and again for this type of project I think importantly it also induces future hotel occupancy tax that goes to replenish the fund and so um you know this has been a priority of of the city council since before I was seated um going back several years uh a decade really I I should say Uh and there's been escalating conversation during that time about ways to accomplish uh expansion of of the convention center to make it as productive as possible because that also induces uh out outside spending, right? It's outside dollars that get spent in El Paso and then they stay and circulate in in our local economy. Um and this is a perfectly good solution for that. uh it's it's largely a landlocked campus and so there are very few directions that it could expand in very few ways that it uh could grow. And so these properties being available is a a big opportunity for the the city to take a a good look at the the expansion plan and what's possible. This doesn't come up every day and so um I'm I'm happy to support the expenditure today. I think um again it's not even one year's worth of that accumulated capital uh capital fund through hotel occupancy tax and I I think that's a very worthwhile investment for the years and years and years into the future that this will be generating hotel occupancy tax for us. Thanks, Mayor. >> Represent. >> I would just also say for transparency because I know a lot of your offices have probably had this question uh which you know if we have this fund why aren't we using it to pave streets to replenish parks or or you know other needs. The restrictions on the hot are actually set by Texas tax code. So they are restricted by the state. That is not a local decision. >> Good point. Uh represent. >> Thank you mayor Mary Lou. I I appreciate you explaining that you got an appraiser to appraise these properties. I guess can you give me a little bit more insight on how you negotiated the price? If if it came in at 1.8 something and we are paying 1.9 something, how did that happen? >> So negotiations, as with anything else, you do a little bit of back and forth, but in in general, the justification has to be there if you're going to go a little bit above market rate. And um you know this particular property, if I'm looking at this, let me get my readers on here, you're at about a 10% markup there on that one. And that 10% markup, if you look at what it would cost you to not spend that money and set up the convention center would way overwhelm the benefit of actually spending that extra 10% to get you the properties that you need to get the income coming back in and to qualify for the conventions that we currently don't qualify for. So, high reward with an ROI is basically what you're saying, correct? >> And and I guess I'm assuming that happened with some of the other properties as well, >> correct? >> The the other two properties. Okay. And then do we know how much commission they'll get on on this? >> I'm not following. >> Just their realtor. >> I don't believe they had a realtor working on behalf of the owners. Direct. >> Yes, >> it was direct. Okay, perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it. Of >> course, represent Leon. Thank you, mayor. Let me start. Thank you, Representative Fiero, for restating again that it's off limits to the Abraham Chavez Theater, uh, the best acoustics in the city of El Paso. Mary Lee, could you go to slide number two? So in looking at slide number two, there's three yellow properties A, B, and C. >> Correct? >> B and C are just about the same size. actually C is larger than B. >> Mhm. >> And we're going to pay 1.9 88991 for that property versus $320,000 for the other. to a very simple person in my mind it doesn't make sense and I do not understand how I would be in agreement to sp to spend such an incredibly large amount of money for that difference in the property. What is in lot C? What? What is there presently? >> Concrete. >> It's a parking lot. >> A parking lot. Fabulous. I like that. What is in a >> I believe that's part building, parting, part alleyway. >> Okay. All right. There's two blank spaces here. One to the side of C above B. What is that? Do you know >> that's uh 320 West San Antonio previously acquired. We brought that to council a few months ago. >> April. >> April. >> Okay. And what about the one below C by B? >> That one was also brought to council for the acquisition in April. >> Okay. So let's look at B. What is B? So B's got a building in it on it. So there's more improvements on it. Brings up the value of the property which brings up the appraised value. Hence the higher offer. I seem to remember that B was off limits or not in the market or not available because it was a recently few years renovated apartment complex. If I recall correctly, it has between 20 and 24 units that were fully occupied. Somebody mentioned April. So, back in April. So, between April and now, is that building occupied? >> It is not. >> Were the tenants evicted? >> They were not. >> They were not. They were just their leases all expired all at the same time. Not at the same time, but it's my understanding the last tenants lease expired in September. >> In September. April. September. How exactly are these five properties now going to be connected to the convention center? So right now that is a very uh we're having very preliminary conversations to think about what the possibilities would be. We would be back in front of the council probably this spring I think with some conceptual renderings, some understandings of what the possibilities would be and also really a sense of the phasing because we know that this is going to be expensive and we probably will not have the resources to do it all at once. One of the other things that we have heard loud and clear from the council during previous discussions is that we have to ensure that business as usual uh is maintained at the convention center as it is now. Uh which will be complicated. You know, Austin, Dallas are actually imploding parts of their convention centers as they are now. Austin is going off the books for 5 years to build a new one. Again, we know that that's not possible, especially with the investment that's happened by so many uh private sector individuals and as as well as the city in our hotel properties, particularly in the downtown. But we will be back in the spring ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. As I look at this and with with all the implications that we have here, I think that we are we are asking our taxpayers to pay an incredible amount for a piece of property. I think this is um similar to someone holding out to try to make a huge amount of money off of the back of taxpayers in this community. I am not against the expansion of the convention center. I believe yes, we're landlock, but why couldn't we have done a closure of the street, half the street, and leave the the transit station open. A possibility there. I think someone is going to be making a whole lot of money, a whole lot of money on the backs of people in this community who don't have the fortune of getting such a deal like this. I'm extremely disappointed. And while it would be great if we had been seriously thinking about the convention center expansion and a project that was brought forth in a way to upgrade the Abraham Chavez theater several years ago, we wouldn't be facing this right now. So for that, mayor, thank you for allowing me to speak my comments today. >> Okay. >> Thank you. represent Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Miss Mack, are taxpayers paying for this for these properties? >> No. No, ma'am. Again, this is coming through the hotel occupancy tax which is meant for this purpose. >> Okay. Um Mary Lou, who owns uh property B, 315 West Overland >> links. And do they own the other properties as well? >> They own all of the properties on this block that we are acquiring. And uh property B just happened to have some apartment buildings on it. Right. >> Correct. So, it's just a good opportunity for this seller to um happen to be the owner of this building and um just have this opportunity to sell to the city of El Paso um after all the renovations this property owner has already made on his building, his or her building, whoever links this. Right. As far as we uh knew with the discussions with the property owner, these properties have been available for sale. He never did mention to us that there was any complications on his side, >> but he did improvements to that space. So, he had a building, he had apartment buildings apartment >> he did prior to us entering into the appraisal value was based on the renovations and improvements that that particular owner did to this specific building. >> Correct. >> Right. Um, thank you. Uh, Miss Mack, I don't know if you recall, I wasn't here at that time a few years ago when the Abraham Chavez was proposed to be renovated. Do you remember the cost of that renovation? >> Ben can speak to it. I remember $40 million. >> It was really significant. We can get the council that number, but it was in the tens of millions of dollars. them. >> Yeah. And and I know that that's maybe something that we could discuss again in the future, but I know that today the discussion is improving our convention center, expanding it so that we can attract more tourism and um conventions and other types of events to our community. >> Correct. And as Ben said, we're working on looking at an improvement strategy that includes all of the usable space in those areas, ensuring that we can get the best use out of the properties that we have. We have to use all those to actually achieve the goals that we've been talking about. And so that's underway. >> Thank you. I would like to say >> first of all, I would like to please caution you not to um engage in side conversations while the meeting is in session. Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you, Miss PR. Um, I would just like to make a a statement here that says, um, this is really an investment in our community, an investment in our future, an investment in opportunities, um, for for everyone, not only for economic development, but um for for others to experience the beauty of our city. And the way to do that is by making this investment. and we are utilizing funds in this case the hot tax funds um to make this investment in our community. So the purpose of these funds is I think for this reason and I know it's been a long time coming and so I'm very happy to see that this opportunity um is is you know basically unfolding right before us. So I I appreciate the work behind all of all the city staff that they've done to to make this day possible. Thank you >> represent Limma. Thank you, mayor. So, let's get a breakdown of hotel occupancy tax. Who pays into that bucket when you Go ahead, Ben. >> Either one of you. >> Hotel occupancy tax is paid by visitors to hotel rooms. That might be locals, but for the most part, it is out of town people. In fact, in other communities, it's often called the visitors tax because it is people coming in who need hotel rooms. >> How else what how how else do we generate revenue for the hotel occupancy tax? >> That that is it ma'am to my knowledge. Robert, are there any other >> rental car? Isn't there a rental car? No, just hotel occupancy tax >> events like this Sunball would generate a significant amount. >> Those are all separate funds. So we do collect the motor vehicle rental tax which was approved by the voters which is dedicated to the Sun Bowl game. Completely separate fund, nothing to do with the hotel occupancy tax. >> So the hotel occupancy tax is just based on people um checking into a hotel and staying at the hotel. Is that correct? So to say that when we have family members that come into the city of El Paso that stay at a hotel, my family members, they're paying into the hotel occupancy tax. That does not mean that it's just visitors, but it's family that has moved away has come back to the city of El Paso. It does fall. If I am hosting a family and they come in and they stay in a hotel and I'm paying for that stay, then I certainly am paying for that. That would be correct, right? >> It's whoever's staying at a hotel. Ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I I think we need to uh to be clear on some of these things. A as I I just I'm looking at the slide on number two. show that to any constituent in my district and say, "This is what we voted on. This is what the city council voted on. This is what we're going to pay for a property that was a really good property in this area. An apartment complex that had been upgraded and put to good use with 24 204 full occupancy. um just a few months ago. But lo and behold, when we first talked about this, the other two properties, oh, we're not going to touch this one. We will not go into that direction. We are just not going to touch that one. And here we are today spending that kind of money for a property. I also have a very very deep sense of concern when I'm sitting here and I'm receiving information from our within the city emails that's already preparing a press release saying that we have already voted on this. I take it personally. I think that my vote is something that I give when it's called here. It is not an issue that should be taken as we as a council are going to agree. The vote may be 71, but I have the right to have my say. I have my right to say no. And I just take it as an offense that it wasn't taken into consideration. Thank you, Mayor. >> Ben, a couple questions. Uh, and maybe they were for Jose, but he took off already, I believe. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. So, and maybe you can answer, maybe you can't, but with this possibility of this expansion in the let's take the TML, the Texas Municipal League, would conferences like that be able to come once we do this expansion? >> Yes, sir. We would be competitive for conferences like that. >> Okay. And the conferences that Jose and his team were able to land for next year, the LUAC National Convention, and I believe the NAACP is coming as well. size-wise, how big are those? >> I would have to get you those numbers. I don't know off the top of my head. >> Okay. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out, you know, how many people are coming to to those events? So, uh I think this is, you know, again, this this falls in line with economic development. It, you know, it creates room nights uh for a lot of the hotels and and gets people to eat at our restaurants and and downtown. So, and across the the city as as a whole. So, I think this is something that, you know, the city deserves and we need, you know, we need more convention space and we have to be competitive with other markets in in the state of tech. We are competing. We're competing against San Antonio. We're competing against Austin, Dallas, and and so on. So, this is something that, you know, for our city, we are the sixth largest city in Texas. We're number 22 in the United States, and most other cities are having uh convention space and and and things like this. So, uh, this is a long time coming and I hope today that this this goes through. So, with that said, Miss Prime, I believe we're ready for the vote. >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Nino, seconded by Representative Asdo, and this is to approve the resolutions on items 15, 16, and 17 on that motion. Call >> I I think it was Representative Canales and Nino seconded. >> Okay, thank you. Let me All I Oh, I didn't second. I don't know who. >> So, the motion was made by Representative Panales, seconded by Representative Aso, and this is to approve the resolutions on items 15, 16, and 17. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes. The motion passes 621. Representative Lemon Bodin and Representative Rocha not present. The remainder of council voting I. >> Okay, let's take item number 18. Item number 18 is the final item and this is discussion and action on a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the Texas Health and Human Services Healthy Community Collaborative HCC grant program requesting grant funding in the amount of $15 million with a $500,000 cash match and $956,700 as inind match required from the city and 13,543,300 as match contributions from program partners for the El Paso helps project. >> May I make a motion to approve? >> Second. >> Uh Nicole, can we see your presentation? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Uh thank you everyone. Nico Rodriguez with Community Human Development. Uh really excited to bring this opportunity in front of you all today. This opportunity uh was brought to us um by John Martin. He's sitting back here. He's he's uh with the opportunity center. He brought this to us about two three weeks ago. We've been working steadily and fast because these opportunities don't come um and especially with uh how things are going at the federal government. We wanted to really uh jump on this opportunity because this opportunity would allow us to fund five years of the El Paso Helps project. And as as you've heard in my previous presentations, the funding sources utilized to fund our Al Paso Helps initiatives are one-time funding sources that are expected to end. So with that, I'll get started with the presentation. So, we're requesting authorization to submit an application to the healthy community collaborative grant which is administered by the state. Um, this grant it provides funding to establish or expand formal community collaboratives that serve individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness and who have unmet uh behavioral health needs. This grant offers 5 years of state funding to expand our local behavioral health and homelessness initiatives. It does require a 100% match um that can pro be provided through cash or local contributions. I will note that federal and state sources for match cannot be utilized which left uh the community human development department out because we're predominantly funded. But I will get into that a little further uh with how we plan to fund this initiative. And the maximum award amount for this opportunity is $15 million. And so why now? Um, this grant lines up perfectly with what we're already doing as a community through El Paso Helps. El Paso Helps built a coordinated system that connects people uh to crisis or in crisis to shelter, behavioral health care, long-term housing through one centralized network. Since our launch in 2023, we've seen how breaking down silos and improving coordination h helps people get the assistance they need more quickly and effectively. We also want to build on the momentum that we saw in the heart initiative which showed how the power of collaboration uh what can happen when partners come together. And so this this grant gives us the opportunity to really diversify our funding and allows us to break away from money from the federal entitlements and address needs here locally. So just a brief overview of El Paso helps. This is our current structure. It includes five core components that work together to support people experiencing crisis. We have our resilience navigators that provide case management, help with basic needs and housing support. We have our 247 street outreach. Uh these are teams that are available around the clock to respond quickly and connect people directly to services. We have the welcome center that serves as our central hub for triage offering shelter, meals, and showers while coordinating referrals to additional care. Just to talk a little bit more about the importance of the welcome center. Uh it's currently funded through onetime ARPA funds. The funds expire or it's set to be done in August of 2026. Should we be awarded this grant, this funding kicks in September of 2026, so it's very timely. Um it currently costs approximately 70,000 a month to operate the welcome center and since opening in 2022 more than 11,000 individuals have been served. Uh partners like United Way of El Paso and Amistad have provided the critical outreach and and um prevention support serving hundreds of individuals and helping many transition into stable housing. The welcome center also serves as a key coordination point for our heart initiative. Um, so you heard us uh earlier this year where pet uh the the uh westside regional command came and they talked about how uh we were taking a humanitarian approach to homelessness. And what that really means is we can we can free up the resources for PD because now PD knows exactly if they get a call someone experiencing homelessness, they know exactly where to take them and where they can be triaged as opposed to uh tying up those resources and and then holding that police officer there for a long time. They can call the street outreach team. They'll be there within 30 minutes of response, even faster at times. Uh but we've piloted that on the west side. it's been extremely successful and with through this grant opportunity we have the ability to continue this. Um and then I also want to talk a little bit about our mobile integrated health team MIH. Um what what they've been able to do is they'll assess people at the welcome center. And so this stops repeat uh 911 calls, uh ambulance transfers, and hospital stays because they can be at the welcome center and triage those individuals there. And then uh behavioral health remains a critical component of this system, but hasn't had a dedicated funding source. So this grant gives us an opportunity to change that by establishing funding for behavioral health. And I will also say that that's how the the federal uh guidelines are moving towards. So they they want us to address the social services around that. Um so just an overview of our grant proposal. Uh we have the city of El Paso. Um we'll be providing fiscal oversight and compliance. Um and taking lessons learned from our heart initiative. We're building on what works. So through fire's department for through fire's mobile and integrated health team they'll provide field-based medical support outreach and wellness checks for people in crisis allowing us to match that. Um another thing that I want to highlight about the heart initiative is what we did with the animal services team. Animal services uh provided support for pets for individuals experiencing homelessness and what they told us anecdotally is that people care for their pets more than they care about themselves. And so they want to ensure that if they're more apt to getting services if their pet gets services. And so the welcome center put in a an animal kennels allowing animals to stay at the welcome center being one of the only allowing that. And so that that's a huge barrier for people experiencing homelessness. And now we're we're breaking down that barrier and we can continue that partnership. The county is providing match support services through coordination. Um, and then our opportunity center, which operates the welcome center, will serve as the central hub for housing, shelter, and behavioral health. They also plan to partner with Texas Tech Health Sciences Center to provide psychiatric care and clinical training services and behavioral health services. The public health information exchange, also known as fix, will manage our data sharing and evaluation integration, helping us track outcomes. United Way will provide trauma informed navigation, case management, counseling and homelessness prevention services. And then our partners at Amastad will expand their street outreach, housing placement, transportation services that connect individuals directly to shelter and long-term housing. And then a new partner, Halivane, will focus on behavioral health and substance abuse treatment, providing recovery support for individuals. So this shows the funding sources how they all come together for the total project. The total project amount is 30 million. 50% of uh 50% of that pie is what we're asking from the grant from the state. 45% represents our partner match and then five uh% represents the city of El Paso match. With that, we're asking 500,000 from the general fund for five years, uh 100,000 per year and then the city in kind from animal services and our NIH team for 5 years representing the last 5%. So the application that we plan to submit is due November 10th. Uh we will nothing like going right. We're we're moving. Uh but the application deadline is due November 10th. With your authorization, we'll submit that application. Uh we should hear the notification of award in the spring. The anticipated start date, if awarded, when awarded, I'll put it out to the universe. Um is the end is September of 2026, and it's a 5-year grant uh ending in 2031. And this morning, I just want to recognize uh the strategic and legislative affairs department. they were able to get the full support from this our El Paso state delegation uh for this project. So if we submit the application, we'll submit that support letter. And so we're requesting authorization to uh submit this application to the state. And thank you to all our partners are here today. if you'd like to. >> But yeah, before we take council questions, maybe we can have John and and the team come up. >> As Mr. Martin comes up, I want to thank him for forwarding this on. I think we I got notification from a team that this was a possibility on like October 15th. >> And so they did all this work, pulled all of this together, you know, in that time frame. And just luckily council had an extra meeting that allowed us to bring this forward. So I really want to thank the partners for for finding ways for us to continue this good work. John, >> thank you very much. I had prepared notes, but Nicole mentioned most of it, so I will try not to duplicate what she has already said at this point, but I do want to call attention to the fact that the El Paso Helps Collaborative was launched in 2022. And it was in direct response to our community's response to the pandemic. It was during the pandemic that we saw very major gaps in how our homeless residents accessed emergency services. So the El Paso helps collaborative was funded as a direct result of that. It brought together key partners which Nicole has already mentioned ourselves being the opportunity center Ammyad and United Way of El Paso County. And with this particular application we hope to include Olivani. So we're expanding the partnership at this point. Texas Tech University Health Science Center of El Paso as well as the Paso Darthy Health Information Exchange. As Nicole indicated to you, since we opened in August of 2022, we have served just a little over 11,000 individuals. [snorts] But I think it's also important to note that in our current community, the opportunity center being a low barrier shelter since 2019, which is the last normal year that we've had, and forgive me for qualifying it as such. 2020 was the pandemic. 2022 is when the migrant influx set in. And so if you compare what we're seeing today, it's 153% more than what we were serving in 2019. And that's incredible as we work through it. But these numbers reflect something within the community, escalating housing instability, the need for a sustained coordinated system, a centralized intake model to share assessments, faster housing placements, and alignment with HUD COC priorities. And bear in mind, and Nicole alluded to this, the July 2025 executive order from President Trump's shifts federal homeless policy toward mandatory behavioral health engagement and institutional care. Moving away from what we refer to as housing first. And so for our community to remain competitive, we must align with these new priorities once released while still preserving dignity and equity across the board. And to illustrate somewhat a return on investment, in 2025, the Harvard Kennedy School report found that the coordinated intake system such as what's represented through El Paso helps can save cities 10 to 30% across emergency services, shelter, and healthcare. Locally, chronic homelessness affects our economic development, public safety, estimated to cost $14 million annually. Through the Healthy Communities Collaborative, we are asking for your approval to seek investment to expand the infrastructure to integrate behavioral health protocols, enhance public safety coordination, and to sustain the El Paso Helps Collaborative. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, John. Represent Canales. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah, very I've seen this come together over the last, >> like Max said, yeah, >> handful of weeks. >> Um, and it's been uh an immense undertaking from the whole team. So, thank you all and again to thank you to John and >> Andrea and all the partners as well. Um, >> and I want to thank Adella who's been leading the uh application submission and the uh the wisdom from the strategic and legislative affairs from Omar Martinez. >> Absolutely. Um, El Paso helps really I've seen it from the beginning. I was I was at the launch event a few years ago. I think it was before I was elected >> 2020 February 2020. >> No, maybe it was just after. Um, but it uh it's really been transformative. like there's a single line here that says it's had a transformative impact, but I think anybody who has seen the work on the ground has seen how much more of an infusion of help it's been. Um, both to the the people that it's helping and to the the partners providing the services. Uh, I it's honestly caused me a lot of uh constrnation thinking about the the potential end of the funding, >> correct, >> for El Paso Helps. And I know we've already had to switch funding sources. >> Yes. >> A few times to sustain the program. >> Um and we've done so because we've thought it very worthwhile and we've seen as Mr. Martin said the the strong return on that investment in the program. And so um I I hope that the council will consider today uh making this investment. I know it takes some general fund dollars and that's traditionally not an investment that we've made with our general fund dollars. Um, I think it's an absolutely worthwhile one. Uh, we during the state of the city address, I brought up the fact that the city invests none of our general fund dollars uh in in the issue of homelessness. And I think this is a great opportunity. It's a not not nothing, but it's a relatively small amount required to leverage this much larger amount that we can access through the grant. >> Um, and and I can't think of a better use of our general fund dollars within this space. And so again, I hope my colleagues on the council will see the value in continuing the program. Uh I think and I hope that we will be successful with the with the grant application uh because it's a very worthwhile submitt and we have a great proven track record of this program being successful over the last two years. >> So >> and I just want to touch on what you said about uh the proven track record and the transformative success. We can put this grant application in less than two and a half weeks because the partnerships already exist. These are these are existing programs, existing infrastructure that we're already doing. We're just finding ways to fund it beyond their funding the life of the funding source. >> Thank you, mayor. >> Yeah, represent Chavez. >> Thank you, Mayor and Nickel. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I was just thinking what you said that last point that you made. Um, I was a part of the launch for the heart initiative on the Westside Regional Command Center and it was it was just wonderful to see the the the staff there, the the police department and the volunteers that morning. Um, I did a ride along with two of the officers um at the Westside Regional Command Center and they drove me around uh the west side and basically showed me all the little the pocket areas where the unhoused uh live >> and I got to experience, you know, uh our our service providers picking someone up and transporting them um to the welcome center. I know that being pet friendly is a very important part of the whole process so that we can encourage people to get the help they need or whatever services that they need uh and we can provide those for them. Um, and I was just thinking that, you know, it really sometimes we're building on something and we don't really know uh the final outcome of it. But as I was reading here on slide three, you know, when you you said it builds momentum of the heart initiative and other things, right, that the city has already been doing in the past. And so, uh, I just think that it it really is important that we communicate this to all the stakeholders here listed in your presentation so that they feel proud that the work that they have done is contributing towards something bigger, right? And um, potentially something that's going to impact our community in a very very positive way. So, I'm I'm very supportive of this item. Thank you. Thank you so much, >> Representative Tjo. Thank you, mayor, and again, Nicole, thank you for the awesome work that you're doing to support our community and those in most of need. Uh, and John, thank you for bringing this forth to the city. Uh, you know, it's community partners like you that help us to continue to serve everyone in the community. So, thank you so much for for keeping an eye out for that. Um, Nicole, when you briefed me, you mentioned that homelessness is in the rise right here in El Paso. uh what what is causing that? Do do you know do you know do you have any idea what's causing the the ris incredible impacts that we're seeing at the federal level um you know that the and I don't have the the information in front of me and maybe John or Andrea can speak more to this but there are more people one paycheck away from being homeless than what we think and so that's who we're thinking of when we put these programs together. So, you know, our our job is is to really mitigate uh and do what we can for homelessness prevention, but we have this safety network so that if people do become homeless that they have resources uh to go and we're trying to fill those gaps every single day. >> Thank you. And yes, you know, you mentioned this is like perfect timing and you're having the the end of life of one source and and there's an opportunity for for other funding sources. uh and then adding and expanding the behavioral health aspect to it is so so crucial. Yes. >> So I just want to say thank you. I hope that this does pass and and uh we continue to serve our community in a more expanded way of resources. Appreciate >> so much represent Nino. >> Thank you mayor and thank you Nicole Mack and the entire team and also John for being here. One quick question. So, we're requesting a grant in the amount of $15 million with a cash match and an incind match. And then there's also going to be contributions from program partners. But if you add all that up, it's about $30 million alto together. Right. >> That's correct. >> I think that's important to highlight. You know, once I can't wait to celebrate with the city once we receive this grant because we're investing over $30 million as a community as a whole to really help our community. So, thank you for the work and and everyone who's taken part in this. >> Yes, the the partners came back with incredible match amounts and at first I will say that the the total award amount, this is how fluid things are. The total award amount started at 20 million and then a an addendum was issued that it was reduced to 15 million. Uh but we were very close to hitting that 20 million. So, uh to be able to match that 15 million, I couldn't ask for better partners. >> No, that's great. And again, it's over $30 million that will be an investment for our community as a whole. So, thank you for all the work that has taken into this. >> Yes. And light a candle that we can do. >> Representative U Lemon. >> Thank you, Mayor Nicole. Thank you, John. Thank you once again for always uh being out for these incredible uh issues and projects that are so so critically important for our community. couple of weeks ago, two, three weeks ago, there was an item on our agenda and we had a lot of discussion and we were wanting to go and fight with the federal government. And at the time, all that I could think of was how do you get a memorandum of understanding with someone who doesn't want to even talk to you? Yet today, you guys have come through with a project that really addresses so many of the issues that I was concerned about. Um our our um air traffic controllers are operating uh without pay. Um it's scary uh with uh transportation reservations already made for the upcoming holidays. What's going to happen with that? Airspace is going to be shut down in several areas according to the news. uh this morning the garrison command 40 to 60% of the staff is furoughed in this community and that al that responds to why um amigo air show was cancelled um we've seen all the people losing their SNAP benefits and ICE continues to target our people and does roundups in our own community to me those were the important things you've taken care of so many of those little issues the homelessness and all the other things. And I commend you because you did it in a very short period of time. And thank you, John, as always, working in the trenches out there in support of our people. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> What else can I add? They've added everything, you know, but just to say thank you and, you know, and looking at our most vulnerable, our houseless population, and what you guys are doing. And I do want to echo and say, you know, thank you to all of our partners. I mean, it it's incredible what you guys have done in a short period of time. Uh I don't know how you're going to do it in the next six days. I have no idea, but you've got a lot of work to do and you you're leaning forward to get this done. I agree with Representative Lemon. is a bright star, you know, in in getting some federal hopefully funding and some grant dollars that can can really address an issue that uh that we really need to to to look at and a lot of the partners have already been doing this, but to to to look at our houseless population is is a big deal. So, thank you guys for doing that and thank you to all of our partners for all the great work that you're doing. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Miss Bryant, I believe we have a motion and a second. >> Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Lemon, seconded by alternate mayor prompo to approve the resolution on item 18. On that motion, call for the vote. End the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Representative Aldonado not present. >> Yeah. Congratulations and council. Thank you for a great meeting. Is there a motion to >> motion? I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. Mayor second. >> There's a motion in a second to adjurnn the regular city council meeting. All in favor? >> Anyone opposed? And the regular city council meeting for Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 is adjourned at 12:58 p.m. Thank you, council.