good morning mayor yes sir we do have a quorum so we can get started if everyone in the audience will please take their seats we're going to get started with a meeting good morning everyone miss prine good morning this is a meeting of the el paso city council for wednesday june 22nd 2022 present in council chambers our mayor lisa representative representative molinar representative salcido representative lisada representative hernandez has requested to be excused mayor pro tem schwarzwein is joining us virtually and representatives rodriguez and rivera are running a few minutes late this morning due to the accident on i-10 it is nine o'clock am now will everyone please silence their electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by police chaplain robert hemphill jr good morning sir good morning mr mayor now you know it's appropriate we have you here today you know we're going to be celebrating the the hall of fame uh inductees and i know that you and i had a great honor of being inducted together so um yes sir so it's great great for you to be here thank you sir congratulations to all of the inductees for our hall of fame i'd like to say good morning to mr mayor council members department leaders community leaders and friends please bow your heads at this time behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity this is the goal when we meet to take care of the business of the city of el paso father i come to you this morning asking your blessings wisdom and spiritual guidance to help the mayor and council members address their agenda items and make the tough decisions with favorable results and outcomes let your presence be known as you lead our mayor and city representatives in this meeting today this we ask in your holy and precious name amen amen command sergeant major will lead us in the pledge of allegiance sir to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all good morning everyone again and um thank you everybody for for being here i know that uh it's an important day for everybody but it's also an important day to remember all the lives that uh have we've lost in the in the in the year whether it's from covet whether it's from senseless tragedies or just people that we love that have uh you know lost their life i think it's um remember them all it's really important on a day like today and um you know as we sit here and rejoice the inductees of the hall of fame but also we want to remember them and we and we wanted to be a special day for them but one of the things that's really important and you know as we talked about cobit and we talk about people that have lost their lives and senseless acts of violence that we never forget and we continue to put them and their families always in our prayers and in our thoughts so today let's remember the people today and the people that are no longer with us today and if we can just have a moment of silence please thank you everyone may god bless america and may god bless every one of you mr pine thank you mayor i want to note for the record that representative rivera is also present in council chambers that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first proclamation is el paso athletic hall of fame and el paso sports commission week representative thank you whereas the el paso athletic hall of fame was founded in 1955 to honor those athletes who have in their athletic fields of endeavor brought great credit upon themselves in the el paso county and whereas the el paso athletic hall of fame honors each year the ray sanchez high school student athletes of the year in the 2022 hall of fame class under president dr scott stein this year in inductees are dr jim bowden kenny lucetto and stephen lee in the living athletic athlete category the coach administrators to be honored are wright stanton iii and david moore followed by chris need in the official category followed by brian kennedy and the supporter of athletics category and bruce l gordon in the in sorry and whereas 50 years ago on june 23 1972 title five was passed to allow an equal playing field in life and in sports for girls and women the el paso athletic hall of fame at this year's banquet will honor the first women's basketball team at the university of texas at el paso by honoring the 1974-1975 utep women's basketball team and whereas the el paso athletic hall of fame has inducted almost 393 athletes into its prestigious organization and whose individual plaques are proudly displayed in the concourse of the don haskins center on the campus of the university of texas at el paso and whereas the sponsorship of the el paso sports commission and their president omar and staff combined with the el paso athletic hall of fame's yearly effort continues to provide fond memories for decades to come for el paso texas the region and the nation now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that the week of june 20th 2022 shall be known as el paso athletic hall of fame in el paso sports commission week assigned by the honorable mayor oscar leaser congratulations you know i want to congratulate everyone but i can tell you as i see wayne walking around with that phone that's not the same camera i remember many years ago but i do feel a little mellows jello right now but mr stein dr stein sorry sir i've known scott stein since we were what about 10 years old exactly yeah if you guys want to hear stories about oscar i'll be happy to well good morning i'm scott stein the current el paso athletic hall of fame president and special thanks to our hall of fame committee members who have worked so hard on this year's banquet ceremony thank you mayor oscar leaser and the city council for the great honor this morning in recognizing the el paso athletic hall of fame class of 2022 a special thanks as well to our title sponsor the el paso sports commission as we induct our eight new members to the hall tonight at 6 p.m at the radisson hotel for this sold out event our 22 and 2022 hall class in the living category living athlete category is dr jim bowden who is an outstanding contributor for many civic projects in the community for the less fortunate he was a star member of the 1976 texas state championship eastwood boys basketball team and a utep basketball player for coach haskins he's also a previous recipient with his family of the star on the mountain award next we have stephen lee is steve here steven isn't here right now but in 1985 at austin high school led the state in rushing with 2625 yards including rushing for 419 yards in one game he also had a great career at san angelo state where he's in the school's hall of honor next we have kenny lucero kenny was an outstanding cross-country and track athlete at coronado high school was first team all-state in 1986. at utep kenny was a three-time conference 5000 meter champion and he's an ncaa all-american in the coach administrator category first we have david moore coach moore coached clint high school boys basketball team to the texas 3a state final four in 1992 and won 11 district titles as boys and girls golf coach at clint his teams were in regionals 29 times next we have wright staton iii coach statton was a highly successful club swim coach with swat and barracudas for 22 years while he coached numerous athletes into the collegiate level he himself has also won dozens of medals on the senior swim circuit across the nation as an amazing athlete in the supporter of athletics category we have brian kennedy i think everybody knows brian he's founded the el paso sports commission in 2003 and he's a ceo he elevated the world of sports in the sun city from hosting conference usa basketball championships to golden gloves to a national bowling tournament which i learned last night is is one of is the third strongest or most profitable uh sporting event next to the super bowl and a multitude of other sports he's brought to el paso on the national and international sports stage in the officials category we have chris snee chris is a hanks high school and texas tech graduate he's been a highly regarded collegiate football official in what we hate to say is the sec for many years and mr snead is the son of legendary artist and buffalo soldier one act play thespian bob snead although he lives in lubbock he drove in this week to take care to take part in all of our activities and to be part of tonight's activity all the best mr snead in the posthumous category we have bruce gordon he coached at several years for the el paso school district was a 17-year track and field coach at coronado high school he won numerous district championships and was loved by all that knew him was a coach a teacher and a mentor in his 31 year career he is represented by his wife arlene gordon and thank you mrs gordon for everything yesterday we were honored to the honor the newly named ray sanchez high school student athletes of the year and teams of the year and tonight in celebration of title ix we're going to honor the very first utep women's basketball team from 74 and 75 that also that team along with the volleyball team will be inducted into the utep hall of fame in september and for those that don't know wayne was also the first coach of that utep basketball team again on behalf of the el paso sports commission in the el paso athletic hall of fame thank you all very much for having us here today and for more information on the hall go to el paso athletic hall of fame dot com and find oscar's picture in there thank you thank you all and congratulations to every one of you all it's always a great honor and it's something that you'll be able to carry with you for the rest of your life and your family and you know it's an incredible honor and i know that you all are very deserving of um every one of y'all that's inducted uh into this hall of fame um dr bowden i you know you look like you can still play scott and i i don't think we can play anymore but you look like are you still playing some well congratulations to everyone thank you thank you [Applause] the next proclamation is national cancer survivor month representative thank you mayor thank you proclamation city of el paso texas whereas a cancer survivor is an individual living with a history of cancer from the moment of a diagnosis through the remainder of his life and whereas there are more than 886 thousand seven hundred and twelve texans who are cancer survivors and nearly 16.9 million cancer survivors in the united states and whereas more than 127 131 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in texas and whereas helping those with cancer innate is a top priority to increasing access to quality cancer screening and care providing effective prevention strategies and providing services to individuals living with the beyond cancer and whereas the first sunday in june is recognized as national cancer survivor day and during the month of june we celebrate those individuals who have bravely successfully battled cancer to earn the diagnosis of survivor and whereas in el paso texas we celebrate our cancer survivors who have reached their milestone and recognize those who have supported them along the way now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and the council of the city of el paso the month of june shall be known as national cancer survivor month signed by honorable mayor oscar lisa thank you and uh you know it's uh you know i like having a lot in common with these proclamations but being a cancer survivor is one of the things that i do have in common and it's uh you know i'll never forget the first time and you know that it's a support that makes a big difference first time i heard i had cancer i went outside the building i sat down and all i wanted to do was cry so i did and then you realized the technology and everything that's out there today is so different and so you know being a cancer survivor is a good thing and being able to support other people and let them know you know because i'll tell you one thing when i first got told i had cancer i'd walk up to somebody and they'd go oh by the way i met somebody that had the same type of cancer you did and well you know they died and you're like well that's not what you want to hear and you kept hearing that and then i got interviewed by a media source and i told them that story and then they told oh my mom died of that so that's not a cancer survivor they want to know that there's some you know the cure rate is so incredible and that we all can beat it with the proper mental attitude and the proper support by everyone around us i i actually uh had cancer surgery about nine weeks ago so thank you all for what you do because you know knowing that there's people out there that can help you and knowing that the technology has changed to the point where you don't worry about it i mean this last time they told me what i had i went oh that's an issue one to beat you know but before all i wanted to do was cry and you know knew i was gonna die i mean that that's the first thing you think about but you don't the survival rate is incredible and the support that you all give and there's so much support out there that we all can beat it there's no doubt thank you thank you mayor lisa thank you council and and city manager i saw him here earlier thank you so much for your words and we may sign you up to uh to do a testimonial for our celebration event so my name is carol bowley i am the executive director of the rio grande cancer foundation and the foundation is hosting a celebration event for those in our community who have lived with through and beyond cancer the rio grande cancer foundation is a support system for those going through their cancer journey i'd like to introduce cindy martinez she's going to tell you a little bit about our event good morning good morning our event is going to be held on saturday june 25th from 12 to 2 at sie la vista mall we've gathered uh quite a bit of survivors from our patrons and from other patient organizations the cancer and chronic disease consortium they're going to be at silovista mall and they're going to do a line dance which they've been given instructions and they're going to have a little party to celebrate their survival shift they're thriving they're happy they're coming to our offices for other services and now we get to celebrate them on saturday thank you thank you and as i've known scott stein and dr stein since we were 10 i've known carol's uh brother and sister since i was nine so a lot in common here thank you my name is diane medina i'm just briefly if anyone is in need of any type of services that we do have we have financial services um even our four seasons program where we do have our mastectomy garments and wigs that we supply for or we have for our cancer patients in our community at no cost to them you can go ahead and give us a call at rio grande cancer foundation thank you well thank you and the final proclamation this morning is carla iber sierra day [Applause] good morning everybody whereas on march 1st 1961 president john f kennedy created the peace corps by executive order an agency that promotes world peace and friendships through the dedication of american citizen volunteers serving abroad with local community members on locally prioritized projects in the areas of education health environment agriculture community economic development and youth development and whereas the john f kennedy service award was established in 2006 to honor the hard work and sacrifice of five individuals who made outstanding contributions to the peace corps mission and three goals both at home and abroad presented only once every five years to two current or former peace corps volunteers to return peace corps response volunteers and one returned peace corps volunteer and whereas on may 19 2022 el paso's very own carla yvette sierra a former peace corps volunteer was awarded the john f kennedy jfk service award in a special ceremony at the united states institute of peace in washington d.c and whereas ms sierra previously served the peace corps in panama as a community economic development and volunteer and extended her service through peace corps response spending an additional year as a consultant and whereas carla yvette sierra with a master's in business administration and mba is a director at the libre initiative a hispanic advocacy organization in el paso texas masiera is involved in a variety of community initiatives leads a team of staff and volunteers educates and empowers hispanic community members voices in the political process and through financial literacy training issue advocacy and community service opportunities and whereas because el paso is the largest border city in the united states with the steady influx of immigration from mexico central america and south america messier's work has ripples which which reach well beyond the border impacting families and lives in several countries and promoting the goals of the peace corps now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that june 22nd 2022 shall be known as carla yvette sierra day congratulations toyla good morning carla good morning good morning how are you i'm good how are you congratulations thank you great honor thank you um to the honorable mayor and the esteemed city council of el paso i'm truly blessed and grateful that you have taken the time to honor my work in the peace corps in panama for three years it certainly is not an easy task leaving your family and friends and all of the comforts of living in the us is certainly difficult but certainly rewarding um i'll say i said it in dc and i'll say it again my grandparents are a huge inspiration for me they journeyed to the us from este juan in san pedro mexico in search of the american dream and if it wasn't for their courage and their tenacity i would not be here today and i would not be able to serve in the peace corps like i did i'm blessed with our parents they have all sacrificed showed me love and i would not be the person that i am today without their support and guidance my seven siblings carlos jonathan amanda vanessa james alexis and john have also inspired me to be the older best sister that i could be i'd also like to thank my best friends of 20 years we graduated montwood high school here in el paso and we continue to hold a very strong bond with one another and i love each of them very very much being a peace corps volunteer is certainly challenging it's humbling fulfilling and of course lonely all at once bathing outside a makeshift shower with chickens running around my feet catching amoebas finding iguanas in my closet and eating spaghetti with hot dog four times a week is certainly not something that i thought i signed up for but i'll never forget one of my aunts shared a really important scripture with me and that was galatians 6 9 and it said let us not become weary and doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up and i certainly hold that very dear in my heart because that certainly helped me get through those three years that i was in panama i'd also like to thank my libra initiative and liba institute community i have many partners here in this room and i thank each of you for being here uh you have certainly helped us catapult liba initiative and the libid institute and the great work that we're doing here in the community and i just thank each of you that are here and support for me and some of the work that we're doing here and of course i'd be remiss if i did not thank the president late great president kennedy established an agency that helped us go to other countries and really share how great it is to be a part of this of this country um and again i want to thank each of you at city council and of course the honorable mayor for allowing me to i mean this is this is this is amazing i don't even know how to explain it but thank you so much for for celebrating that in my efforts and then finally to my beautiful wife michelle she has certainly been a rock for me through this and through this entire time and i i'm glad that after i completed my peace corps service i came back to el paso and she was here and we kind of found each other again so now we have two beautiful children uh chloe and kennedy um and we actually named our son before i knew that i was getting the award so it was kind of ironic but uh so blessed to have them and again thank you so much for this honor and thank you to my my family and friends and all of our partners that are here in the audience congratulations carla and thank you so much for allowing us to share your story your journey has been an amazing one and we are very proud of you i'm very proud of you as a mottwood alumni myself we are making that school very proud so thank you so much for for being here and all the guests that came to support you welcome and good luck for the future thank you thank you and we're also very glad you came back to el paso thank you congratulations thank you sir and this morning the mayor is recognizing the sergeant major academy's 50th anniversary with a star on the mountain award thank you and um i know we have command sergeant major todd shirley here with us which lettuce thank you on the pledge of allegiance is the deputy command of the nco leadership center of excellence sergeant majors academy and before i read this i i've been in business and private sector for going on 22 years and my first customer that i ever had the opportunity to earn their business was command sergeant major blankenship and he's dear to my heart they've named a classroom after him and but he was my first customer didn't have lights didn't have air conditioning and we sat outside the building and did everything and wrote a contract and everything by hand and he became a loyal friend and i missed command sergeant major um lincolnship and it was an honor when they dedicated that classroom to him that's uh there today so uh it's uh really an honor and a pleasure for me to be able to do this on your 50th anniversary of the command sergeant majors academy here in el paso so i'd like to award the star on the mountain on behalf of the city of el paso texas congratulations to the nco leadership center of excellence and the sergeant majors academy on the 50th anniversary of sergeant majors academy june 12th 1972 to june 12 2022. thank you for your service and all you do for the city of el paso thank you and may god bless you sir please sir just by the way it was signed by me so thank you sir honorable mayor lester lisa and city council members thank you for taking time out to recognize our 50th anniversary it's also a celebration of 50 years that we've had a partnership with the wonderful city of el paso over the time that it has the evolution has the nco leadership center of excellence reaches out to 400 000 students a year when you think about the entire nco leadership a professional military education system and also today our sergeant major graduates will leave with a bachelor's degree so 50 years ago we started out and we have evolved into a very great institution producing a very very talented sermon major so but again thank you mayor for taking time to recognize us and thank you for your support and the partnership that we've had with el paso it's very very much appreciated thank you thank you sir and i know that the cam command sergeant majors academy has been such an instrumental and big part of the growth of our community and we look forward to not another 50 years but hopefully another 100 years thank you [Applause] so i'm going to give the mayor a coin that is and then this is a book that is published by the leadership center of excellence it's the the story the non-commissioned officer corps so it takes you from the beginning all the way to present day council at this time would you like to recess to take some photos with this morning's honorees there's a motion and a second to recess all in favor wait sorry should we do the resolutions first and then do them all together all the photos so miss prime which item uh so it was item i think 14 and 15. go ahead just take it it was fourteen and fifty okay is there a motion to take items fourteen and two moved there's a motion in a second to move items fourteen and fifteen to the forefront all in favor anyone opposed the motion passes item number 14 is discussion in action on a resolution recognizing the month of june 2022 as pride month and accepting a donation of a progress pride flag from ep sun city pride and to have city hall fly the progress pride flag every year in june in solidarity with the lgbtqia plus community thank you thank you sir and this item was submitted by representatives thank you the resolution reads as follows whereas el paso is home to thousands of lgbtqia plus people and whereas on june 9 2020 the city council of the city of el paso accepted the donation of a pride flag from the ep sun city pride and has since then displayed that pride flag at the city hall in support of el paso's lgbtqia plus community and whereas the rainbow flag is widely recognized as a symbol of pride inclusion and support for social media for social uh i'm sorry for social movements that advocate for the lgbtqa ia plus people in the society and whereas all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights lgbtqia plus individuals have had immeasurable impact to the cultural civic and economic successes of our country and whereas the city of el paso is committed to supporting visibility dignity and equality for the lgbtqia plus people in our diverse community and whereas while society at large increasingly supports lgbtqia plus equality is essential to acknowledge that the need for education and awareness remains vital to end discrimination and prejudice thank you and whereas this nation was founded on the principle that every individual has infinite dignity and worth and the city of el paso calls upon the people of this municipality to embrace this principle and work to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists and whereas celebrating pride month influence influences awareness and provides support and advocacy for el paso's lgbtqia plus community and is an opportunity to act and engage in dialogue to strengthen alliances build acceptance and advance equal rights now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of el paso that the month of june 2022 shall be recognized as pride month in support of the lgbtqia plus community and that the city of el paso recognizes all lgbtqia plus residents who influence and lasting contributions to our neighborhoods make the city of el paso a vibrant community in which to live work and visit that the city of city council accepts the donation of a progress pride flag from ep sun city pride and that on june 22 2022 the city of el paso will fly the progress pride flag at city hall in recognition of ep sun city pride and that every year for the month of june the city will fly the progress pride flag at city hall in support of el paso's lgbtqia plus community approved this 22nd day of june 2022. make the motion please a second a motion in a second want to be clear yeah with you please awesome good morning good morning how are you good morning i'm wonderful how are you fine thank you so good morning to our mayor thank you all of our city representatives for being here today um first off happy pride my name is regina mendoza i am the community outreach co-director for el paso sun city pride this nonprofit organization focuses on creating educational opportunities for the lgbtqia plus community while providing safe spaces for all community members we would like to thank you for the opportunity to present the gift of the lgbtqia plus inclusive flag this not only brings inclusivity to our community but it allows the lgbtqia plus youth of el paso to feel visible and properly represented we are humbled to have the ongoing support of el paso and are pleased to present the significance of the inclusive lgbtqia plus flag it is my pleasure to present leroy edgar herrera with that information thank you thank you good morning good morning so the pride the progress pride flag celebrates diversity and calls for a more inclusive society added where transsexual stripes which represent boys girls and people who are transitioning or identif identify as non-binary the black and brown stripes represent black and and indigenous people of color within the community who have often been left out but who have been a driving force behind this movement the shape of this flag conveys the importance that although progress has been made there is still a future to protect protect thank you thank you and first i want to say congratulations to you all on your very successful event last weekend um i know it is not easy to throw a festival you all did a great job i want to remind council and the public that this resolution does not approve the hanging of this flag that was already approved by council during covet in solidarity with with pride who could not have a festival in 2020 this is just that resolution had specific language that the flag needed to be donated by ep sun city pride and so we wanted to transition to the more inclusive flag we needed to do so in writing and then i want to you know i just want to talk a little bit about what this means right you all discussed what it meant to the community but i think as an elected official it's important as well last week we unveiled the the pride crosswalks which were so important um but it really reminded me of why why we do things like this right you know you look at pride square there are many uh what people call gay bars there right and those didn't come up naturally those those aren't they weren't unfortunately areas like that across this country and world um did not occur out of pride they were a place for safety um you know previous to stonewall it was illegal for individuals um that were of the lgbtqia plus community to ser to have alcohol and what were considered straight bars right and they had people had to fight for that right that was not a normal thing 30 years ago and so when we we hang the flag here we support sun city pride and putting in the crosswalks it's not just about standing and pride it's also saying we recognize that we have more to do we recognize that there is policy behind these acts that need to be enacted there is education that needs to be done from us and this city you know all of that is behind these symbols we don't want to just stop with the symbols the symbols are great and they are important on so many levels but there's a lot more for us to do and so i thank you all for supporting us and that and helping us um educate ourselves and and learn and pass those policies and work with you to do so and understand so thank you very much and congratulations again [Applause] we have a motion in a second yes mary the motion was made by representative rivera seconded by representative anello to approve the resolution on item 14 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwarzwang bye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 15 and this is discussion in action to approve a resolution recognizing june 19th 2022 as juneteenth independence day and recognizing organizations and citizens of el paso who celebrate this important day to our nation this item was submitted by representative vanello thank you and i just want to remind ep sun city pride that we will hang the flag and go out and take some photos um sorry thank you miss prine so whereas in 1863 president abraham lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation declaring all slaves free however this freedom was not made known to many enslaved black americans until two years after its passage and whereas juneteenth recognizes that on june 19th 1865 the last enslaved people in galveston texas were informed that slavery had been abolished and that black americans who had been slaves in the southwest celebrated june 19th commonly known as juneteenth independence day as inspiration encouragement for future generations and whereas juneteenth provides an opportunity for the city to celebrate black american heritage and honor the lives sacrifices and contributions that are woven into the american fabric and whereas juneteenth also acknowledges america's commitment to liberty and equality in accordance with the constitution of the united states along with the emancipation proclamation and the 13th amendment to the constitution which abolished slavery ratified by congress on december 6 1865 and whereas the candid acknowledgement of this history is necessary if we as a nation state or city are successful in our effort to build a truly equitable community that exemplifies and promotes the fundamental american values of freedom diversity equality liberty and justice and whereas there are many organizations and individuals around the city of el paso such as black el paso voice in the inner count the inner club council of el paso who focused their efforts to promote black american voices and culture as well as to preserve black american history and its struggles now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of el paso recognizes june 19 2022 as juneteenth independence day in celebration of the culturally important role of emancipation in the work toward the liberation of our past present and future and recognizes and commends the efforts of organizations like black el paso voice and the inner club council of el paso for promoting and preserving black american culture in the city of el paso approved this 22nd day of june 2022. congratulations i want to say to you also congratulations to you all as well on a very busy and successful weekend and i say the same thing that i said to the pride community these symbols are so important but there are policy and there is work that needs to be done behind them so i thank you again for all the work that you do and allowing us to work with you and learn from you thank you thank you congratulations and thank you for being here thank you my name is monica um tucker meriwether i am the founder of black el paso voice and the black round table and it's important for us to continue to share about our history because there is a disconnect and a misunderstanding when it comes to celebrating black history and um juneteenth and what it is so we're committed for the next year each week to provide information for the community and the public to understand exactly what juneteenth is just this weekend we did celebrate with several organizations and from the comments alone online that there is education that is needed and it's not that black people are trying to one-up the system um just to get recognition there really does need to be education and understanding about our history and our culture and we hope that the city of el paso and others in the community will join us in celebrating and educating the community we have a lot of work to do internally within ourselves which is why we started the black round table to discuss our own issues too i'm also the founder of first fridays with the fbi and that's our initiative to help educate not only the black community but others on how we desire to come together to talk about the past and how we can build better for the future i was able to sit and speak with chief allen at one time and he understood my purpose and i respect him my sister is a police officer um so it it saddens me sometimes when people just don't understand law enforcement and that's one of our initiatives as well and i'm also the a proud military spouse of a now retired service member who's here with me and it includes the military community so um again we hope that you join us in educating the community and the public about our history and how we just want to come together so i appreciate you for letting us um be here to speak today thank you and thank you for being here and you couldn't be more correct that education and knowledge is so important for us so uh thank you and thank you for your service and your husband's service thank you and may god bless you thank you thank you and i think there's someone out there thank you one of you what was that i'm sorry oh thank you second i don't know is there a motion to approve item 15. there's a motion made by representative vanello seconded by representative molinar to approve item number 15. on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwartzman aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously is there a motion to recess counsel if i can here's a motion and a second to recess the council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 9 45 a.m in order to allow council to take some photos with this morning's honorees it is 9 45. council if i can ask y'all um we're going to go ahead and start with the athletic hall of fame folks we've lost quite a few folks and then we'll go on to the cancer survivors month proclamation followed by the carla yvette and then we're gonna we've lost the star in the mountain folks and so then we'll move on to the lgbtq recognition and then the juneteenth recognition we're going to do most of them here in the back of this room with the exception of the athletic hall of fame we're going to go and do that outside thank you yeah the sergeant majors academy has come back um we're going to do a group photo council if you'll return to the deus we can resume the meeting please council members if you'll please return to the deus we can resume the city council meeting yes miss prine do we have a motion to reconvene there's a motion and a second to reconvene the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 10 06 a.m that brings us to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken if an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved council may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting mayor pro tem lizarda good morning ms prime thank you i moved to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions page three item two excuse representative hernandez page three item five move to the regular agenda per representative molinar page seven item 17 move to the forefront of the agenda per representative rivera page 15 item 37 revised per capital improvement department and that revision is to note the districts affected are 2 3 6 7 and 8. thank you page 15 item 38 move to the forefront of the agenda per representative rivera and representative i would like to go to 38 before item 17. page 16 item 40 delete per office of strategic communications and that item will be brought forth either on july 5th or 6th thank you page 16 item 43 take together with item 16 per community and human development are there any other revisions council wait a second their second second thank you there's emotion there's a motion made by mayor pro tem lizard seconded by representative rivera to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously if we can turn to page number 15 to item number 38 that was moved to the forefront and ms prine if i may for the record senior deputy city manager tracy jerome um we are returning this item um this is in response to council action regarding the establishment of the women's commission this commission will be made up of appointees by members of all members of council to address a variety of issues regarding the rights and the protections of those rights for the women of our community including pay uh the disparity in pay education personal security and safety child care and a variety of other issues that we'll be coming back and and discussing with council over over time with that in mind i would like to make a recommendation because we have already received some feedback from the council that we'd like to add the word rights so uh changing the name to from the women's commission as a recommendation to council to consider to the women's rights commission thank you item 38 is discussion and action on a resolution to establish city of el paso's women's commission comprised of members from across the community inclusive of all not a select or limited group focus on women's equality and protecting their rights representation no okay obviously i had mayor's one go ahead sir yeah okay uh you know i brought this before and we passed it so i believe we have some speakers right can we have those speakers first yes sir we do have on item 38 we have messelbe acosta that's signed up to speak followed by isella castanon williams and dora oaxaca how many speakers do we have three sir three thank you very much yes sir good morning ma'am you have three minutes thank you hello mayor and council thank you for allowing me to speak today ywca's mission is to eliminate racism empower women and promote peace justice freedom and dignity for all and we support the women's commission and the women's rights commission at the city of el paso conversations about this commission started more than three years ago ywca had conducted a study on the economic status of women in el paso and we presented our findings to the community in march of 2019. women in our community identified housing health care food insecurity sexual assault and child care as either their top needs or top barriers to their success sixty percent of women who make less than twenty four thousand dollars a year reported running out of money between paychecks eleven percent of women said they can't afford child care including those that have household incomes of over fifty thousand dollars a year our store a study found that only thirty eight percent of el pasoans have insurance through their employers compared to 53 percent of texans and 56 percent of americans only 15 percent of women who participated in our study believe that education beyond high school is attainable and 62 percent believe that they will need to leave el paso to advance their careers the wage disparity between men and women in our community is about 9 600 that is more than a year of tuition at utep three years at epcc and it is 10 months of rent in el paso and more than a year's worth of child care costs addressing this gap in our community may help women attain higher education find higher paying jobs and employment and support their families in our focus groups women discussed being raped or sexually harassed and assaulted they brought these issues up unprompted as reasons why they quit their job or stop going to school things that economically hindered them and their families at the end of our presentation in 2019 we introduced the ideas of a women's commission to go deeper into this work and to develop solutions this commission will go beyond just one issue it will carefully investigate and identify the key things that women in edbussel need to help them succeed and it will go further to create and to create and implement solutions because we live in a world where we have not achieved gender parity this women's commission is imperative in the el paso community and i strongly urge the council to once again vote for its creation and have full support from all council thank you so much thank you the next speaker is isela castanon williams followed by dora oaxaca good morning miss williams you have three minutes ma'am yes good morning good morning city council members and mayor i would like to speak in favor of this resolution as i did before when i came the last time i spoke to you about one of the issues that needed to be addressed and as miss sylvia dr sylvia acosta mentioned previously there are many issues that need to be addressed by this commission but today i bring another issue to you and that is the fact that we have problems and with serving women who have experienced spousal abuse in terms of getting services from in our city attorney district attorney's office and this in my opinion is another issue that this commission can look into as has been said previously there are many many issues surrounding women that need to be taken care of and so i greatly urge you to establish this commission and as you establish this commission i also want to encourage you to look at your own house and to look at your own women employees particularly your attorney because when i reviewed some of your previous agendas i saw that on may 23rd you had an item on your agenda regarding miss carla nieman's contract extension and it's been a month and i haven't seen anything done about that contract extension and this has to do with women's rights and with equality and so i want to compare that to the way that you all acted with mr tommy gonzalez where you acted expediently and you quickly took care of his issue and granted him a contract extension and i know that because i spoke here on that day so i want to encourage you all to take up miss carla nieman's contract extension as well as part of looking at your establishing this women's rights commission and to show this community that this city council treats its men and its women employees equally thank you so much the next speaker is dora oaxaca good morning miss wahaka you have three minutes ma'am good morning mayor and council thank you for allowing us to speak uh i think dr acosta said it best she is definitely well-versed and specializes in inclusivity and women's rights and i think that this commission is not only needed but it's also research-based it's not something that we are pushing for because we want or where we're being reactive it's because there's data that proves that it that in el paso the establishments of this commission will will definitely change lives and i did prepare a simple straightforward statement that reads a commit this commission has the potential to serve as a forum for political advocacy to provide the opportunity to liaise with other women's organizations to empower women who do not have the agency to advocate for themselves and to recognize and promote the accomplishments of strong women in the community and i think that with your vote with your support this is not a one issue commission this is all issues that impact the majority of the population in this community and that is women thank you so much and i beg you to move to approve thank you thank you mayor that concludes public comment on this item do you have a motion uh yes sir but before i make the motion i would like to also add the amendment that uh ms jerome has suggested to change the name from the city of el paso women's commission to the women's rights commission i make that motion to amend the title thank you representative um molinard thank you mayor um just have a small concern regarding the membership qualifications to me some of you the membership criteria that's written here you've already discounted someone that's 18 years old they probably do not have that in-depth knowledge about all this other parts of it and so to me it's like we're starting trying to do well trying to do right and i do support this but you know if i have a constituent that's 19 years old 23 years old and she has not yet been or even he has not been in any of these type of specifications or history or experience they're probably going to be excluded and so that to me does not include or have anything about inclusivity it just doesn't sit well with me and so um the the word in-depth knowledge to me is just not right in that membership criteria thank you thank you for that we have a motion in a second rep shenanello um so i don't i'm feeling a little uh iffy about the women's rights commission um you know i know dr acosta just got up here and talked about sexual abuse right those are are not women's rights but those are issues that women women deal with and so i want to make sure that by adding like the women's rights commission the commission is not going to be told that they can't be discussing certain issues that don't deal with equity right things like that i mean otherwise i'm fine with it but i just want that commitment that whatever a committee member wants to bring up in regards to either the hardships or the accomplished accomplishments of women they will not be discouraged to do so based on that wording if i may um representative uh i would i would counter what you've just stated is women have a right to a safe um a safe existence in the community and so absolutely their physical safety and the guarantee of that is something that we will definitely want to look at and see how we can enhance that and i believe that that should be a right that they should be protected and and and have the safety in their existence in the workplace in their homes um and in all parts of our community so i i don't see that being um exclusionary i think because these issues are incredibly important so i agree with you but i don't think that including that word necessarily would be um would would preclude those discussions okay i just needed that commitment and so i know some boards and commissions are different based on the term right the years that you can serve um and so i just wanted to understand why this was a two-year two two-year terms versus two four-year terms if there's i don't there's just something i don't know as a council member if there's like a standard for commissions on determining how the length of um the terms i see miss anyone nodding her head so i think there probably is a standard i'm just unaware of it um representative vanilla if you give me a minute i think part of the provisions and the general provisions of our code always set the the timeline for boards and commissions for two years unless the council passes a different resolution or an ordinance creating a board with longer terms so it always it always defaults to the language that's in our code that the two-year provision okay and so then like something like the cpc is four years right because that state that's a state mandated board or something the cpc has a separate ordinance that was created that way so it's it's done by council but the default by our code is always too easy that answers that question um a question that i actually want to post to council which is not something that we discussed um and this is you know i we've been talking about this commission now for about a month and a half i've had a lot of people approach me um i think there are a lot of over qualified like people who would be so qualified for this position um and right now we're limiting that to eight i don't know if we wanted to discuss there being other members right do we want to have a representative from city employees right because if we're going to be discussing city employee issues and i don't think that right now is the time to take this up because this resolution has already been written and i think we should approve it um but i would like for maybe the commission to have that conversation are there other represent representatives that they would like to have a seat at that table um and so that could just be one of the first conversations that has had with that commission so i just wanted to share that i mean i think you know we're going to be talking about a lot of things we've heard the ywca who has a commission a social justice commission you know all of those members would be great on our board but we're limited to eight seats right so do we want to have someone from that commission represented but again i think um that should come from the commission i think that'll be a great conversation for them to have other other seats that they would like to have there yeah and if that's possible that would need to be a legal question too you want to light up here no i agree i agree okay thank you uh mayor potem followed by representative lenard thank you um so again i think this is a much needed long overdue um commission and committee and so again i want to thank all those involved and all those who came to speak today um i just had one question so the folks are eligible is open towards any gender that that could be that could be placed by a council member yes yes representative it would not be um legal for us to to deny uh on the basis of gender i just wanted to be clear to the public because i think you know again that maybe some people think that this is somehow exclusively open only to women uh who can serve on this commission but it's open towards anybody and women otherwise you know i just wanted to make sure that that was that clearly stated in public for the record so uh again i think this is a great and important step forward long overdue we know that we have issues of equity quality wage gaps and other other challenges and opportunities for women in our community and so i think that this commission can really help to guide um this council in steps that we need to take to protect and celebrate the women in our community thank you mayor proctor hold on um thank you represent molinar thank you very much mayor so um i'd like to entertain a motion to amend to by restriking the in-depth knowledge part of the membership criteria second dude would you like to speak first representative yeah um there was one more thing that i i wanted to say um tracy i'm acting like you're in charge of this commission so i'm just going to speak to you um i you know i was excited i am the staff liaison and it will fall um under my purview because the city manager is that highly committed that he has appointed me as the senior deputy city manager as a staff liaison i think we'll be building staff that will be supportive of the committee good that's awesome but um so i was excited to hear after we passed this item about a month and a half ago a month ago um that the county also created a women's commission um and so i've had a few people call and say well how are they going to work together and this is kind of a systematic issue that both the county and the city of el paso have we're doing a lot of the same work we're not working together i think this is a great time to bridge that gap and as much kind of partnership and i think no one has reached out to me from the county in regards to this i imagine no one's reached out to you all i and and again yes ma'am we have been in contact and we will continue those conversations because we're we're exploring actually ways in which not only can we collaborate but we may be able to come together in a more formal fashion but that's something that we're still meeting it takes time to get meetings organized and to understand fully what that looks like and and so they are in discussions they haven't established exactly what they're going to be doing um we are going to be making this official at the city level today but that we're only in the beginning of our conversations with about collaboration with the county um this will be another example actually of how we can collaborate how we can work together and i look forward to coming back and bringing more of that information to you it's just early days to make sure that we're following um the proper processes and procedures to make sure that we can collaborate to really amplify what we want to be doing not only for people within the city not only with people within you know across the county but together because i do believe that coming together and collaborating we can do so much more yeah no i agree um and i'm glad to hear that y'all have had those conversations but i think that's we definitely need to be working in partnership with them um you know the the data that we get out of this is going to be really important and we need to make sure that that's that's the same across the board thank you and the council just to the comment about us working with the county we actually have partnerships with them with animal shelter services department i also have had partnerships with the obviously office of emergency management and and so we've also worked with them with the vac with veterans advisory committee and we were in training together ever ever since the 2018 that we started the communities of excellence model we've done lean six sigma training together we've done baldr's training together we've worked on the immigration crisis together when that happened back in 1819 and then the the august third event the the hate crime we were in connection with them there as well as the pandemic that you know that we've talked about the numbers and what the council's been committed to and we've been working in close connection with them not only with the umc uh hospital but also with the county in general now it's true not every time does it it makes sense for us to do things because they do things more in the county outside city limits as opposed to inside the city but the city is also part of the county you know and they they get taxes from the city as well so uh there are times where it makes sense whereas for us to work together in concert with with those examples that i shared thank you and i think that uh you know you could probably talk for the next 20 minutes and talk about things we're working together which is the internet you know connectivity around the city yeah i think you have monthly meetings with them yeah and then we have a monthly meeting with the county judge and betsy keller you and i so there's so many things we do together and we'll continue together because one of the things that i know you've mentioned and and the county's mentioned that you know we can put our money together and do a lot less do a lot more for less money because we're we're uniting our funds so that's one of the things that we'll continue to work together um i i do want to thank um everyone who's brought this forward uh to mr rome i know you worked on it very hard representative and all the you know all the um the council members that i know had signed on originally um it's really important that we continue to treat everybody and treat everybody equal i was my favorite chain in the world is treat people the way you want to be treated you'll never be disappointed so with that representative um salcido thank you mayor and i just want to thank everybody for their hard work on on this item um but i had a question so the commission is it the full name commission on women's issues and rights i i if i if i can make so originally so according to the language um from the initial direction that was given by council it was to create a women's commission so what we had proposed was women's commission and then we've added because we again we've received a lot of feedback already that and then and what the what's on uh what's been proposed by representative rivera is to change that to women's rights commission but if you want to make another if you would like to make another suggestion that would be that that that's obviously up to you ma'am i might well i think that just adding issues and rights would be because you would never know what other issues might might arise so so i think at this point it's just it's it's the name of a commission right i think like you just keep adding in everything it becomes like a little convoluted i mean for me women's commission is is good if we're going to add rights okay but i mean difference for rights was distinguished from a different organization that's out there correct mr i'm sorry sir could you repeat your question the addition of the word rights was uh to distinguish this particular commission from a commission that already exists i i think that the the what's been expressed to me and again the public feedback that we've received thus far is making sure that we're really capturing what we're looking at they feel that the word rights is a very you know it's it's it puts a fine enough point on it and should be inclusive and enough to make sure we're covering that because the the supporting language is to protect the rights of the of women in our community and so they felt that bringing the rights back into the title was was where it belonged um but again um this is this is at council's discretion okay thank you thank you and with that um we do have a a motion a second but first we do have an amendment there's actually two amendments on the floor so the first amendment was made by representative rivera seconded by representative salcido and this is to add rights to the name of the commission to read city of el paso women's rights commission on that amendment i'm sorry council just bear with me i'm having a little bit of an issue with the software okay on that amendment call for the vote mayor pro tem schwartzman aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative molinar voting the motion does pass mayor now now that y'all voted for it i'd like i'd like you what's that we haven't voted that was just the amendment sorry yeah that's an amendment now we have a next amendment okay which is made by representative thank you second by representative anello and this is to strike out the words in death knowledge under number one of the membership criteria on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwartzman all right it's still open the voting session's still open can you change is it yours should be i okay in the voting session the motion passes unanimously no we have a motion does this cover we have to uh approve it again right with the difference this is what this is yes sir so this will actually be to approve the item okay so i make a motion to already do not for the already i'm sorry second by representing but the whole issue that takes service okay thank you just want to be sure there is there a motion to approve as amended oh it's amended that's right that's right go ahead represent river azimut all right that's right so there is a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative angelo to approve as amended on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you mayor now that the items passed i just wanted to underscore the fact that when miss jerome will be working with this committee that they'll be working on a lot of things that underscore a lot of the work that the council's been doing a lot of the work that we've been doing as an organization to support women and young ladies and we have another program where we have kids young students um shadow me or others and or do internships we have two young ladies today that i'd like to introduce that are shadowing me that are from here in el paso and one of them's going to uc berkeley the other one's going to utep they have a bright future ahead of them i'd like to ask them to stand up they're to my left behind me carissa almanzan and gianna newberry so i met karissa at a city event on a sunday at the scenic um drive and she's actually um she was one of the mariachis there and she's got a really good voice and and i told our staff we need to hire that group that that high school group to go out and do other events so hopefully we can get them before they go to college and get them to some more city events but yes i wanted to introduce them and thank you all for taking time to meet them mayor we still need to introduce you to them as well thank you yes sir mr prine yes sir that brings us to page number seven this is item number 17 that was also moved to the forefront and this is discussion and action to direct the city manager to designate march 31st of each year as an official city of el paso holiday as part of continued efforts to address systemic barriers to racism and better include celebrate and uplift communities of color in honor of cesar chavez d this was placed by representative rivera representative thank you mayor uh before i say anything do we have any speakers or callers yes sir we have three six people that signed up to speak on this item can we hear that can we hear can we bring him up now please yes sir thank you the first speaker is isella castanon williams followed by dora oaxaca jaime abetyah and sylvia costa good morning miss gastonia williams you have three minutes ma'am thank you city council and mayor i urge you to pass this resolution some other entities in el paso have already passed similar resolutions and are celebrating cesar chavez day one of them being el paso community college i believe that this resolution being passed by the city council is long overdue um this is a hispanic who has accomplished much you know towards making life better for all of us and i think that we need to as a hispanic majority community celebrate those that have gone before us that have opened doors for us and worked so hard to make life better for all of us thank you thank you the next speaker is dora oaxaca good morning ma'am you have three minutes good morning good morning again if you know the name martin luther king jr you should also know the name cesar chavez however many people don't while he wasn't known for being the great speaker that dr king was known for he was a soft spoken and peaceful approach had a peaceful approach to civil rights in another area that led to important changes born into a mexican-american family cesar chavez spent the early part of his working career as a manual laborer this led to him this led him to see the injustice that was taking place with most farm workers many of who were mexican-american descent i go by a quote this is very personal to me and i think to so many others it's not often that i choke up but um cesar chavez was an inspiration to me and i think to so many other el pasoans and and i'm so proud that you all are taking up this this item because as mexican americans in this community it's about time that we rise up and we seek our worth and i said it before for many years for decades we were the cheap labor of this community but we're the wealth that makes us rich i um i started the movimiento la causa puede as a mecha member i then became the vice president of mecha at utep and my first and and when i say that that's a chavez had an impact in my life is that he gave me a voice and without knowing we become the leaders that we are thank you to cesar chavez thank you thank you the next speaker is jaime avita mr abetia is joining us virtually sir you have three minutes good morning you're still on me sir no you're new now you're still on mute you're off me but we can't hear him can't hear you sir hold on one second please laura you might ask we can't hear you mr abega you may want to call in instead to the tele conference phone number so we can hear you better i will give them an opportunity to dial in in the meantime i'll read a letter from congresswoman veronica escobar and it reads to the honorable mayor oscar lisa and city council members i am writing to express my support for designating march 31st of each year as an official city of el paso holiday honoring cesar chavez designating march 31st as cesar chavez state continues to move forward efforts to address systemic barriers to racism and better include celebrate and uplift communities of color cesar chavez state currently is a u.s federal commemorative holiday proclaimed by president barack obama in 2014 the holiday celebrates the birth and legacy of the civil rights and labor movement activist cesar chavez on march 31st every year cesar chavez day is commemorated to promote service to the community in honor of cesar chavez's life and work some state county and government offices community colleges libraries and public schools are closed designating march 31st of each year assess our chavez state in the city of el paso has my highest recommendation and support sincerely veronica escobar member of congress mr abedia thank you is on the line now we'll move towards mr abigail can you hear me now yes sir good morning all right two years into the pandemic we got to get this technology fixed guys i have the new button off anywho uh i wanted to give compliments to representative rivera for putting this item on the agenda it is long overdue i think in a time where we have uh our community is dealing with violence across the country it's important for us to remember someone who preached non-violence um you know there's so much talk about guns but the people that have made the most meaningful change in this country socially have done so without picking up a rifle and so i think that's important that we recognize people like that um you know coming from i'm like i'm a union organizer my father was a union organizer and my mother was a farmworker my father worked for stefan chavez and the united farm workers union for many years and i'm glad to see this very long overdue item up before council today i urge you all to pass this particularly if you are serving as an elected official and you have a hispanic surname people like to have it pave the way for you and i hope that we all remember that today thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is sylvia costa good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning council and mayor um i just want to say this is extremely personal to me i am the daughter of a migrant worker i am the daughter of a placero i am the daughter of a family that was able to accomplish the american dream i was able to achieve a phd in this nation because of the work that was done by this civil rights leader our civil rights leader cesar chavez it is for me it's a tribute not only to my father but to my mother it's a tribute to the work that many of us know about many my my dad was a migrant worker i know many of you here and others that are in our community had parents that also were migrant workers and to be able to honor a person that represents who we are as a people is incredibly important cesar chavez said that the fight is never about lettuce or grapes it's always about people remember that when you're in your work and the work that you do every day it's not about the lettuce and the grapes it's about the people so when you stand for this and when you put this into play it is a moment to honor our heritage our community our demographic and our people this is long long overdue and i am proud proud to stand before you and support this and i am proud of representative rivera for bringing this to the forefront and i am proud of each of you for taking this up and making march 31st cesar chavez day in our community it is long overdue and it is a point of pride for me and for my family so thank you so very much thank you [Applause] finally we have a letter from senator cesar blanco that reads dear mayor lisa and council members i'm writing to express my support of the city of el paso's proposition to designate march 31st of each year as an official city of el paso holiday cesar chavez day is already a u.s federally commemorative holiday and an optional texas state public holiday celebrating his birthday while serving as a tribute to his commitment to social justice and respect for human dignity cesar chavez's efforts represent more than attempts to unionize farm workers his leadership sought to support the nation's poorest and most powerless workers who struggled to feed their families while often going hungry furthermore these highly underrepresented underrepresented laborers were subject to wretched working conditions systemic racism and extensive exploitation the grape strike and boycott bolstered the most significant chicano movement seeking to expand civil rights and empower mexican descendant people in the united states it is fitting that cesar chavez day is designated as an official city of el paso holiday which will allow for the commemoration and celebration of his lifelong struggle for justice i applaud the efforts of the city of el paso's administrators and their dedication to honoring civil rights activists who sought progress and prosperity for our communities if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch with me sincerely cesar j blanco texas state senator district 29. thank you that concludes public comment on this item sir thank you representative rivera thank you mayor thank you sir and thank you to all those who spoke and uh i want to thank congressman congress i'm sorry congresswoman escobar i apologize and senator blanco for their letters of support this item was placed and as most of you have heard it's it's long overdue it's a it's about mr cesar chavez who led the efforts to improve conditions for california's migrant farm workers and formed the united work farm workers union chavez was committed to non-violent protests as was said and again to repeat president obama proclaimed cesar chavez day on march 31st 2014. when uh cesar chavez founded the united farm workers of america alongside dolores huerta he drew national attention to the many agricultural workers who experienced inhumane working conditions and unlivable wages through strikes marches boycotts he inspired millions of people across the country to fight for safe and healthy workplaces better wages improved workplace protections from sickness and disability and other core rights and protections in the process chav has inspired generations of people across all backgrounds ages industries to organize bargain and expand opportunity for workers and their families his devotion to la gauza brought hope to workers and latinos across the nation and his fight for justice equality and dignity gave workers and latinos everywhere a voice today we must summon the same courage and moral clarity to carry this legacy forward so that everyone has a fair shot at the american dream like the majority of us in el paso chavez was a mexican-american his legacy empowers all davids who tackle goliath with the saint si sepuede what is most important is that remembering and honoring cesar charles inspires more people to become involved in the causes that continue cesar chavez's extraordinary legacy uh today to designate march 31st of each year as a an official city el paso city of el paso holiday as part of the continued efforts to address the systemic barriers to racism and better include celebrate and uplift communities of color in honor of cesar chavez i make the motion to approve with the final saying of cesar puede since other other communities as was mentioned the county of el paso the el paso community college utep even the city of san antonio who recently made uh cesar chavez a holiday for their community in a huge and through a huge celebration in in that honor and tarrant county so i asked if my colleagues could support me on this okay thank you support me on this issue thank you miss representative i make the motion miss prine yes mayor there was a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative salcido representative anello how about how about two seconds two seconds representative vanello and sansito counsel if i can ask you when you do make motions to please speak into the mic so i can hear you on that motion hope for the vote mayor pro tem short swing aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously [Applause] thank you council and um thank you for all the speakers and city management and uh your staff for working with representative riveta to make sure that this was a reality so thank you all and again thank you for all the speakers mrs brian yes sir if we can move to item five item five was moved to the regular agenda and this is a resolution that the city council approves a recommendation of the board of directors of the city of el paso municipal management district number one that the following persons be named directors of the district for four-year terms expiring in june 2026 this is james feegan brent d harris and scott weaver representative molinar you moved the item forward thank you very much mayor yes i thank you for respectfully moving this to the forefront taking that screaming and taking it out of the consent agenda moving it to the regular agenda and so what had happened is that uh this impacts the city of el paso but primarily also district four and so uh did receive two calls and they were trying to for the constituents trying to figure out what it is what exactly is happening what's not happening and things like that and truthfully i could answer their questions i did not know and even though this municipal management district was formalized in 2020 i kind of remembered but i don't really remember everything on that part so i did have a lot of questions and i did reached out and so i did speak with our city attorney and elizabeth triggs from economic development so thank you very much we'll gladly listen yes sir elizabeth triggs with economic and international development i'll just go through a very very short powerpoint to provide some context for the item so again this is a resolution asking city council to approve the reappointment of three members to the municipal management district number one those members names are listed on this slide and include james fagan brent harris and scott weaver they are existing board members and so this is a reappointment for a little bit of context on march 17 2020 city council did consent to the creation of this municipal management district which covers about 2 300 acres of land in northeast el paso this that consent was provided after the texas legislature actually approved the legislation to create the district part of the state law is that the city council or governing body does consent to the creation and so the city council did do that at that time they also appointed the existing five members which are the three include the three that you're considering for reappointment today and part of the reason why city council made that decision to consent and to appoint those five members was because at the same time a development agreement was approved by council that is the underlying document that controls development in this area that development agreement puts restrictions on how the property can be developed and includes things like ensuring there are at least 9 500 residential units that are developed over the course of several decades in addition 300 acres of commercial again an important component to northeast development ensuring we have that that commercial mix with the rooftops also ensures that there's several amenities that that we don't see in other neighborhoods across the city and includes at least 135 acres of of park land and trails that connect to the existing trail system across martin luther king to the west so really it's that development agreement that controls how this is done this is simply an action to reappoint the members state law does set chapter 375 of the texas local government code does set the process of appointment as well as the qualifications that's not something that the city of el paso sets um this is the same process that every other municipal management district must follow so for example the downtown management district follows the same process for appointment um and requires that each of its members have the same qualifications and so on this slide you can see it it's a very simple process the board meets to recommend who they wish to appoint to the board they provide that recommendation to city council and then city council may choose to approve those recommendations um the qualifications are also listed on on this slide there there are five qualifications uh the first is very broad um and then two through five are more specific to talking about appointments that have some sort of interest in the property in the project in this case the the three gentlemen being recommended for reappointment meet number five on this list a few of them meet number one also number three but but all three meet number five so they they are qualified by state law to participate and so again um the the council requested action is that city council approved the recommendation of the board to reappoint these three members for a four-year term to end in 2026. thank you very much mr trigg i appreciate your help on this and miss neiman thank you very much as well so move to approve go ahead so elizabeth you answered my question but it's not on the presentation and so the dmd gets this from me a lot so i'm going to say the same same thing to you so understanding the qualifications is going to be important for us right i know there's applications that wasn't on the back up um it's interesting because you say that some of them meet number five but right so like nobody owns property in the district right now because it's not developed is that correct no so there's there's one property owner yeah right now right so they're clearly on the part and homeowners yet yeah so just you know just understanding right i mean are are somebody who meets requirement number one are they an open space advocate do they own property close to the area and be impacted by the traffic right understanding what those qualifications are a little bit better for me is important with all of these again um you hear it from me a lot with the dmd and so i'm gonna be fair and give you the same uh amount of pressure on there i just it should be in the backup application should be in the backup there should be an understanding again you answered it verbally but it would just be nice to be able to look at that absolutely so thank you thank you representative molinar for pulling the item i appreciate it i will make a second we got motion in a second there yes mayor the motion was made by representative molinar seconded by representative anela to approve item number five on that motion call for the boat air pro tem short swing thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously we now turn to page number 16 to item 43 and item 16 that will be taken together item 43 is yes this is discussion in action on a resolution approving recommendations as set forth in exhibit a and exhibit b for the neighborhood improvement program round five projects good morning members of council nicole rodriguez with community human development so today i'm happy to be um to be here today to talk to you about nip this has been a long process throughout the year we have been working very closely with streets and maintenance with the capital improvement department and with all the representatives office to be able to bring these recommendations to you today next slide so just as a reminder the neighborhood improvement program is a is an opportunity for our neighborhood associations to request small-scale permanent physical improvement projects currently nip is funded at 10 million and it was part of the two 2012 quality of life bond uh projects so um funding is usually our funding is allocated equally per district and has been competitive amongst our registered neighborhood associations within the same district currently this year when we introduced nip we had 375 000 for each of the neighborhoods and so we did we were able to include remaining funds from our previous rounds and so um this was really important to us because we had some rollover funds from round four that we were able to include so that we can um eventually add more projects to this slate of projects that we're recommending today next slide so the nip process started with a pre-application review our neighborhood association's uh submitted pre-applications we then worked with them on a design lab and then we finally assisted them with their final applications just recently we were able to score all of the projects and so uh with that we worked with everyone to review the feasibility the constructability and their scopes each of them were given some preliminary cost estimates that we assigned and uh eventually we came up with a final scope of work and some cost estimates and that's why we're here with you today because we're able to uh you know to provide the final slate of projects for uh review and approval and so this round was funded at 4 million we received a total of 47 applications 29 of those applications were scored um they were feasible and moved on to the next round and so we had project requests that was total over 4.6 uh that actually should say million sorry for the clerical error there but our project requests uh were totaling over 4.6 million and ultimately uh we came down to 19 projects that we're recommending today that total about 2 million uh 2.8 million dollars and so what i want to note here is that those projects that we were listing today there are some remaining funds those remaining balances will be used within those districts so that we can uh add for contingency or we can use those remaining dollars for uh so that we can um enhance some of those projects depending on what what that rollover looks like um next slide please and so as indicated we have uh 375 000 for each district and so the round four rollover included um about 400 000 that we were able to add to our round five allocation and this was really important to us because ultimately this is this round round five exhausts the 2012 quality of life uh bond funding and so because it there there won't be i think your connection is spotty we can't hear you ms rodriguez yeah her screen is frozen mr rodriguez we still can't hear you perhaps can i just move to a privilege log out can you hear me yes now we can can you okay all right um hopefully you guys that that works um so i don't know where i last left off but um we had a round four rollover of approximately four hundred thousand um that four hundred thousand uh was important for us to get because ultimately it allowed us to approve as many projects as possible um ultimately it uh it allowed us to approve as many projects as possible and so each district uh had a larger budget than the 375 000 once we took into account um their the round four rollover these totals do not include what a 1 million set aside that we use for engineering costs and so ultimately we have 3.4 million dollars for projects within each of the districts next slide please um one of the things that i wanted to talk to everyone about today is is a project in round four um that we could not um that we could not proceed with and this was in district one was the upper mesa hills neighborhood association for the north stand pedestrian pathway um it had a total uh approved price or a total approved budget that was sixty seven thousand six hundred seventy one and this was for delineators for a walking path and ultimately the neighborhood association declined the delineators and what they really wanted was something uh that that was uh that was outside of the scope that was approved by this council in 2019 and so um we're asking that we um as part of the recommendations today is to delete this project from round four and reallocate these funds to round five next slide please and so here we have the list of projects and visiting council's backup as well um it's a total of 19 projects um you'll important to note here that we're using the council boundaries that that existed prior to redistricting as part of the approval of these projects um you know that we worked with this project started long before the redistricting process happened and so we wanted to ensure that we made a mention of that um also important to note that some of these projects have uh in parentheses some what we were calling partial funds and what partial funds means is that we think that we can still adjust their scope um so we can be able to approve these projects um and at a lower scope than what they originally intended and that was so that we can fund within the remaining projects next slide please and so this is uh these are the the remaining projects for each of the districts sorry about the technical issues i don't know what happened i wasn't expecting that to happen but uh but i hope you all heard me and if there's any questions please uh i'm open to them thank you representative good morning good morning thank you nicole for your presentation it's great to see these projects moving forward so you did answer my question uh about the rollover costs they stay with the respective districts right so these that's cool okay so because now the rim area upper tom lee park is part of my district and i believe uh washington delta is now district 2 and zach white is now district 1. but i'm so happy to see that these projects will be moving forward and i just want to thank you for all your hard work you and your staff and these are exciting to see i know our neighborhoods are going to be very thrilled to see these projects thank you nicole thank you thank you the representative molinard do we have a motion also did you do we second it second thank you i spoke into the mic good morning nicole thank you very much for your presentation great job to you and everyone else on this item thank you i cannot be more proud of the nor excuse me of the northeast for sure but the neighborhood improvement program been very active with that for many years it's a great program like to see it continue if possible but we thank you very much on behalf of everyone in district 4. thank you thank you mayor pro tem yes thanks mayor um again i just want to thank city staff this program is one that's so very important and the community really responds well to it and it really gives an opportunity for us to hear directly from the community and to be involved with projects that they would like to see there and even though the um the uh the lines have shifted there it's really great to see the projects that were selected um with the old lines um again i think these are all really great projects and i'm also happy to be able to support one of my favorite neighborhood associations the borderland neighborhood association which has a their longtime president lucinda cuellar who is a guardian angel for their community and being able to help them and be able to uplift various different immigrant associations because the reality is that we all have our own lucinda cuellar in our districts right we all have uh these mama and papa bears that go and do everything that they can for their neighborhoods for their parks for their streets for their neighbors and we see that i think really expressed very vibrantly and clearly with the nip program and so it's such an important program um such a success again originally being approved with the 2012 quality of life bonds is that correct yes yes so um great use of of tax barrier funds great use of voter approved initiative that communities and residents are able to see the impact in their community in a very real way and so very happy to support this and want to thank all the staff who has taken a lot a lot of time uh to come up with please did work with the communities work with neighborhood associations for these projects and to refine them and to bring them up to this council today and so very happy to approve this and thank you again thank you sir we have uh representative and then we have two people uh from the public police thank you that's what i was going to ask mayor i know one of my constituents was going to speak yeah i see her here so i'll just defer to her thank you thank you mr prime yes sir we have uh sylvia carrion followed by abraham monteros good morning miss carrion you have three minutes please i can't i can't pass those out you hand them to me i'll pass them out ms carion if you want to go ahead and begin yours go ahead um we can go to abraham ontario's while i distribute these items for miscarriage mr monteros star six please to i need your telephone you'll have three minutes abraham monteros star six please to unmute your telephone abraham monteros i see you in the queue if you press star six you can unmute your telephone good morning sir you have three minutes hello all my name is abraham monteros i'm president of chivastown neighborhood association and i'm also the central south side representative of the el paso neighborhood coalition i'm calling today to say i'm completely in favor of this item the 19 projects proposed promote the city's strategic goals and personally i visit a lot of these parts they promote an active lifestyle so i'm very happy to hear that a lot of council members right now are in favor of this i know a lot of people in the coalition are so happy for this i just want to say everyone is really behind these projects i want to thank the city for working very very hard to to get us to turn in everything on time and i speak in favor of this this is a great program and i just want to thank everyone that is working in the city that promoted this program so just thank you and we're in favor of this item thank you have a good day thank you well now go to miss cardio good morning again ms caron you have three minutes thank you i'll read fast good morning good morning sir good morning council sylvia carrion the president president of the mission valley civic association and i come to present my problem to you all and ask for some type of decision to be made as to which district would be the authority over our request for the nip in 2021 i am submitting documents which show that neighborhood services acknowledge my nip at capistrano park back in september of 2021 at which time this park was under the venue of district six i was informed by neighborhood services that all projects presented to them in the year 2021 would be going before pres representatives that were holding that council seat for the year regardless of the redistricting made in 2022 i'm also submitting email information that i reached out to district rep rodriguez who was the representative for this project in 2021 the email response from her chief of staff clearly states that they would not be participating in this process since they no longer are in charge of projects at capistrano park mr rivera who is now the representative for this park cannot make this decision see he was only permit presented for projects for district 7 in 2021 the mission valley civic association has its back to the wall and if someone in authority has does not step up and help us with our project at kappa transport which is requesting six canopy shades for the baseball bleachers two years ago we requested the same shades for the bleachers along with a canopy for the playground and new bathrooms we were denied because it was not our turn for cdbg projects however in submitting pictures of all the needs someone saw the pictures that of how bad the bathrooms were and the city locked up the bathrooms and provided porta-potties rancho del sol neighborhood association is being awarded a walking path one bench three trees and some playground equipment i do not negate the need of any neighborhood association but i feel that the canopy shades for the baseball bleachers would service more human beings that actually attend the games and practices for baseball fields please allow me to beg for assistance in the matter of this matter in the round for nips the quality of life attached our pictures to the baseball bleachers at capistrano and was submitted two years ago also pictures of rancho del norte del sol with the surrounding housing this project was brought to me by paula powell about 10 years ago she says the people that capitalize need your help but i was working on pueblo viajo at the time and i couldn't do it until this year then my cdbg got turned down there is money available in district six and seven together coordinating together those funds i can get at least a few of those canopies on there i thank you very much and god bless you thank you representative thank you mayor thank you um miss rodriguez right yes sir yes uh when when we were briefed this wasn't brought up and and i did ask what other projects were were uh pending in district six that i inherited as a redistricting uh is there any way you can brief me on this or is there any what what do you have how can we fix this sure thing uh representative i i can reach out to your office um the the capistrano park ultimately as part of the process uh was as uh listed under um representative rodriguez's district and so um it it ultimately uh was not um listed on the recommended projects so we can go ahead and and schedule some time with your audiences were their friends were their friends uh uh appointed to it or you know funded for at that time that they were still under six when it was still under six uh the um so what happened in district 6 is that we have a the project that's being recommended has the majority of the funds and there won't be enough funds remaining to fund capistrano that was the the top-ranked project which is rancho's episode okay i still like that briefing when we get a chance the sooner the better and and i'll i'll get back to you mr thank you thank you mr thank you sir thank you mayor representative um manila thank you and nicole i don't think that you can answer this question um but miss carion brought up something that's a little alarming to me that there are restrooms in that area that are so bad that instead of being repaired they were closed can anyone speak to that if there's someone from parks i think that this is i mean that's really alarming to me like we have facilities that are not and this is a bigger question a conversation that i think we're going to have a little bit later today right but we're really relying on these funds to fix facilities because we're not doing that and that i think that's an underlying problem just with funding and how we treat facilities and parks in general and again we're going to have that conversation a little bit a little bit later i very coincidentally just sent mr gonzalez an email around that before i even heard about this because it's not in my district um and we as a council really need to start addressing these facilities we really really do because it's it's unacceptable to say we're not and i don't know what's wrong with these restrooms it could be something really large i have no knowledge of this um but to just close like an existing building that we have an ada restroom and put up porta potties i mean at some point is unacceptable um i real again this is not my district i i would be willing to postpone if you want to mr rivera miss rodriguez nicole rodriguez um i don't know if that if you were all on like a very tight timeline um if that would set you back if we can put uh yeah i don't know what what i'm trying to say um there the timeline is dependent i mean once once the approval happens um is when we start working to you know work with cid to to achieve you know the projects listed uh but there no man there is no timeline associated or it won't affect anything um obviously the the neighborhood associations are uh anxiously awake yeah absolutely yeah and i will say really quick um sorry mr gonzalez uh you know representative riveta willing to pull my motion and postpone this but understanding that some like money is going to have to be moved around if this is our solution right if we're going to completely keep depending on these dollars to fix that facility you know someone's going to have to give up a project and that's a decision you have to make but i'm willing to support you if you want to do that sorry mr gonzalez that's okay i if i may i just wanted to uh just speak to the the comments with regard to the canopies if you remember at a previous council meeting representative lazadaga asked me to come back with a plan to work with the moms on board and one of the listed items was canopies so that same night i worked with staff on a game plan to make that happen that was bond related but also worked with staff to see how we can work that into this next year's budget and make it a a three to five year program so that we could focus on canopies you may not remember this some of you weren't on the council at the time but i know that we replaced several playgrounds there were 20 i believe they were rated d which means really poor conditions we replaced 20 at one time it's no different than replacing 300 police cars at one time it speaks to what i've told y'all several times and that y'all are very familiar with a lot of the neglect in a lot of different areas and this is just another one of them and so what miss carillon says is is spot on but we are going to come back with a game plan for the canopies with respect to the restrooms we'll have to look at those across the board for all the parks and see what the conditions that they're in and i'm going to really send a message uh to myself to visit with ellen to talk about that she's she's over that now ellen smythe and so i'll visit with her and and come back in short order and tell the council kind of what the game plan is for that so rapping will be willing to postpone it for two weeks i i'd appreciate it so i can get briefed and yeah i'll i'll pull my motion if you want to make that mission should it possibly should you postpone for two weeks for the next council meeting not uh the special one the two weeks will be yes sir july 6th yes ma'am thank you is that enough time ms rodriguez is that okay yes sir we'll be in touch with your office um i will reach out to your office immediately so that we can get that scheduled but absolutely thank you um and then i i would just say that um in addition to um you know the the our neighborhood association is anxiously awaiting um you know we are fighting up against um cost escalations and and things of that nature so we want to make sure that we honor those quotes that were given to us sure just something to keep in mind and that's why i'm asking because i i really like the the fact that you know the presentation you did for me but i this came up okay and so i really need to be briefed on this if i may yes sir uh mrs rodriguez are the contractors going to keep the quotes are they going to keep those intact i need to defer to um cid but but i will um i will speak with them and then ensure that well before they postpone would you or would you check on that before they actually postpone i know council doesn't want to have any cost overruns exactly worse and we can always work on a different plan to fund the item that's in question right now mr gonzalez yes jerry de mero with capital improvement currently we do not have official quotes for the projects we have estimates because estimates were developed i would say nicole six months ago probably so i would assume the cost would be much higher today given what we're seeing with construction material particularly um we're having some suppliers that will not even honor they will not okay i think what he's saying the two weeks aren't gonna make a difference so i'm good with that just okay then i i i go ahead and with my motion there mayor uh to postpone for two weeks uh mayor proctor thank you um another representative vanello had mentioned you know her concern about this bathroom not being open uh the don haskins community center and west side park at 7 400 high ridge the bathroom has been has been closed there for for vandalism and maintenance issues for the better part of three years just to represent anello is aware of that occurring on the west side as well yeah i mean that's that's yeah we need to address this i guess um maybe we can move forward with the uh agenda item in the future representative schwartzman thank you for letting me know you're very welcome representative thank you um and i i just want to say that i know that there's this concern i know a lot of neighborhoods my neighborhood association is very excited to see this this uh nip uh package passed today so i really would like to see that being passed thank you thank you mr prine yes sir there is a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative anello to postpone item 43 for two weeks mayor can i just uh ask mr rodriguez one more thing pardon me can i answer the survey gets one more thing before we vote uh ms rodriguez can you also bring back any other projects that uh that you might be aware of in district 6 that haven't been uh brought before me please when you come when we have that briefing absolutely thank you man i appreciate you thank you so on the postponement for two weeks call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly hi in the voting session that was an eye right mayor pro tem schwartzman yes thank you the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative lisa voting the motion does pass that brings us to item 16. i believe item 16 was contingent on item 40. can we take our break mayor our 11 30 break or do you want to take this item first pardon me we have our break at 11 30. um yeah let's take item 16 because i think it's it was pending item 43 yes sir item 16 is discussion in action approving a resolution authorizing the use of district 1 discretionary funds to supplement funding for the borderland neighborhood association's project of purchasing and installing a security camera system for borderline parking there's a motion made by mayor pro tim schwartzman seconded by representative molinar to approve on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwarzwang all right thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously there's a motion and a second to recess a regular city council meeting for 30 minutes all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 11 30 and will convene it known for call to the public and if we could please all make sure we're back at noon as we have called to the public at noon i would appreciate it thank you and we're actually on we're actually on on time that we're one item off which is not bad council if you return to the dais we can reconvene the meeting for a call to the public we need counsel to return to the dais please is there a motion to reconvene that there is a motion and a second to reconvene the city council meeting all in favor anyone anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1201 1201 pm we'll now go to call to the public the el paso city council is a local government body charged with serving all of the citizens of this city and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge the city council meetings are public meetings under the texas open meetings act public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of city council all persons and attendants are expected to just displace ability and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting profane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or integrity which are not pertinent to city business nor may any member of the public use this forum for political statements or campaigning please note that during call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however council may propose that a topic brought forward be posted on a future agenda this afternoon we have nine members of the public that signed up to speak the first person is miss check however i don't see her so we'll move to judy ackerman loretta hyde good afternoon ms ackerman you have three minutes thank you so much for this good afternoon good afternoon mayor council thank you for this opportunity to share some information and put out a request to you this has to do with what is covered in executive session what is has to be secret quiet behind closed doors and not not transparent and for instance obviously if it's a personnel issue totally understand you should be behind closed doors not a problem i i understand the reason that if it's a land issue where the city decided they want to purchase a piece of land that's privately owned and that land maybe the if you let it that news out then the landowner might up the price but if the city is talking about land that the city owns whether it's managed by the city or el paso water then that's public land that's my land that's your land and i cannot understand why my land needs to be discussed behind closed doors in secret in fact you might sympathize with me perhaps that i feel a little put out you know i i feel that i've been ignored and certainly left out of the discussion disrespected when you're talking about my land your land i believe that should be in the public i should at least know that that topic is on the agenda so that's basically what i'm asking is that if you're going to talk about public land land that you own that i own my land it should be done in public with transparency not in secret behind closed doors so please make that happen thanks very much have a good day thank you the next speaker is efrain saucedo efrain saucedo's topic is pay protection program good afternoon sir you have three minutes okay uh i would like to know how many millions or trillions city guy and how they were spent i would like to uh the city manager to give me everything in detail since he doesn't have a one-on-one with me at least i won that now i went to mall are they watching you see that excuse me ever someone we have a hot mic go ahead mr saucedo thank you now i went to more than 50 big businesses and they they did not apply for the money on the 35 or 8 forms they let you qualify for at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a million dollars and the pp protection plan program pay protection program the money the federal government gave the businesses it was free money free money to pay the bills pay the employees etc now most of them they are blaming on the politicians you guys because you never open an office to tell the people you know big business now i've been involved with more than 150 small businesses they also excuse my language they are so ignorant they are afraid they are afraid why because all the big politicians they play the big politicians we're going to put trump in jail now we're going to put the democrats pelosi in jail that's the only thing they do they don't help our people or poor people and we're gonna change it i'm gonna change it and i'm gonna start calling you all the politicians that i can back el paso now watch this program not just here in dallas houston and then across the country because i have a lot of friends over in germany italy and spain so i thank you very much have a wonderful day god bless you and god bless your family and then you give me the green light i can thank you sir i cannot thank you okay thank you a wonderful day the next speaker is ron cuomo followed by loretta hyde miami bella sharon miles bonart mr como's topic is concerns about animal services good afternoon sir you have three minutes okay ladies and gentlemen i'd like to start out by saying that last week i was invited to go speak in austin at their city council meeting we had a very good conversation which i was kind of amazed at how the city council runs theirs they actually talk to the people in call to the public they actually ask for information they actually tell people to come to the offices of the representatives to discuss their issues i want you i i hope you all can see this and just so we know on the way out of the austin city council meeting i was approached by two journalists and members of the community they were in complete disgust at what was happening here in el paso the journalists have actually got on my facebook page so i can watch what's happening here austin was smart enough to kick costs out before they actually created the issues i created here um i'm i'm i i kept coming to you guys and saying that terry was doing a good job managing he'd fix the the problem with the people he thinks he was doing the trying to hire however we've run into an issue because he's not qualified to be a director he has no experience running a shelter and it's starting to show we have 3387 strays on on the last day of the month in may and a shelter designed for 350 to 450. okay you guys you screwed up we need to get this fixed i you allowed all this to happen and now here we are again in 2022 our shelter is no longer picking up strays again we're coming into a two-week period fourth of july which is going to be the worst amount of strays hitting the streets of el paso and you are not ready for it you're not ready for it because you didn't listen to the community members that gave you options to fix the issues right now we are producing more strays than ever before in our city because we are allowing unaltered unvaccinated strays in the streets what do they do they produce more strays and more disease we've had this conversation for two years for two years you guys have ignored this problem and now look where we are 3387 and we didn't put a dent in the amount of strays in el paso and when i talked to terry he gave me the deer in the headlights look because he had no idea how to fix this his conversation was well the city's giving us 50 to 100 more kennels that's great look at the numbers that's not going to help our shelter is disgusting it's a disaster it's time we do something it's time you do something you all allowed this to happen for two years for two years take responsibility and fix the issue get us a new shelter get us a qualified director thank you mr cuomo the next speaker is loretta hyde followed by miami bella cheryl miles bonart charlie sanders and sabrina soto this heights topic is also concerns about animal services good afternoon you have three minutes man thank you good afternoon hi everybody um i'm just a follow up with what ron is saying as a shelter i'm experiencing the same thing we are overwhelmed with how many animals that we're housing as well as how many animals we're having to turn away that is not being picked up which does allow more strays on the roads and streets that get hit by cars or die of disease but ultimately make more babies out there that there's no place for them to go i also sit on the city county ice act which is for animal shelters here in el paso and every month we get the printout of how many dogs were taken in how many dogs are being held how many dogs are in foster over a thousand something in the shelter itself that's how that should house 350 to 400 200 20 100 in foster homes but when you ask where they they go as far as the fosters they have no clue they can't even tell you the last time that those dogs or cats were seen or vaccinated or if any of them have had puppies or were the homes that they went to where their animals spayed or neutered so this is just an ongoing problem when i started doing rescue in 1995 i went to animal services and they were euthanizing anywhere from 18 000 to 24 000 every year that we're still taking in the same amount of animals if not more but where are they putting them you cannot have a no kill shelter when you have that many strays and puppies and kittens being born with no place to go you can't make the rescues pick up the slack we just don't have the funds if you do want us to do the special needs cases and things like that that animal services can't then why don't you allow us to have some kind of budget as well that the city would help offset for the medical bills that we encounter so it's you know all these animals are out there there's no place for them to go we're telling them no they're being told turn them loose or don't pick them up that's not the answer that we we can't continue to do this as a city and show that we care about the animals that we're in charge of i'm just hoping that you know we can get together put something down we have some ideas but again terry he um he's on a mission you know to do the best he can well his best right now is not good enough it's not it's not allowing to have a place or some answers or what what's going to happen in the future with the 4th of july get ready you're looking at four or five hundred dogs coming in just for the next few days gotta do something now it's gotta happen please thanks the next speaker is miami bella followed by sharon miles boner charlie sanders and sabrina soto miami bella star six please if you're in the queue to unmute your telephone miami bella i don't see her phone number in the queue we'll move forward with uh sharon miles bonart followed by charlie sanders sabrina soto this bonus mrs barnard's topic is storm water rate right uh is the mo on the elmo i.t we need the elmo okay please is it supposed to go that way [Music] hello um mayor and council my name is sharon miles bonard my concern excuse me sir good afternoon dr bernard i'm sorry i said good afternoon dr monarch oh yeah my hearing is not that good today i guess okay um before you you see um a powerpoint that is being used on the elmo uh and it says city charter city council and in-house psb memo unfortunately what i'm going to have to do is pick this up and read it because i'm just not fafsa with the elmo okay all right this is a timeline for the mlk property it goes from july 7 2021 through july uh january 25th 2022. i believe you all have a copy of this before you it was i was told to me by yes by the clerk's office that you have it according to the city charter the right of ownership and use of city land is inalienable and city council has ultimate approval on conveyance of land city council action july 7 2021 council moves to place a conservation easement on that land december 21st declaration of restrictive covenants was placed by ml uh by the psb on the mlk land uh this is a conservation easement it is it is excuse me a conservation covenant it is not a conservation easement it is not what was passed at the city council in july in january fourth of this year the gail reed assessment services did an appraisal of that land you can see before you that it was 14 million 760 000 was the price for the land if it were unrestricted now this land has already been restricted in december 21st so the price at that point is 420 420 000 for the entire parcel on january 25th there's an in-house memo signed by mr baloo saying that because there's a third party involved and this was already discussed in council there is no third party that the money to be paid for that land would be full market price well according to the uh appraisal that full market price should be 200 and excuse me four hundred and twenty thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars but their repayment schedule is considerably higher bottom line this process was not used when the police and fire departments academies was discussed you can see that there's a disc a disconnect in what the psb did with what the city charter says what city council has said and also what the appraisals have said thank you miss boner you've reached the three minutes man thank you the next speaker is charlie sanders followed by sabrina sotos charlie sanders topic is water utilities if you're in the queue please press star six to unmute your telephone and you'll have three minutes charlie sanders good afternoon you have three minutes i was looking through the water utility website to see if i could contact the public service board members to discuss the hike and the water bills and since the public service board members are not listed on the website i started looking at the agendas and minutes of their meetings i never found any of the contact information for the board but i did find some other information on the water utility website that caught my attention i thought it was important to share what i found because it didn't seem like anyone was paying attention so first on february 13 2019 the water utilities president received an eight percent increase with a one-year extension then on march 11 2020 he received a nine and a half percent increase with a five-year extension to 2025. now this is where it gets interesting mayor oscar leaser was on the board beginning january 2021 and on january 13 2021 the ep water president received a percent increase and mayor oscar leader abstained but on november 10th again in 2021 ep water president received another increase this time it was a seven and a half percent longevity increase with an additional one-year extension to the 2026 that's four years left on this contract and mayor oscar literally voted for that extension again with four years left on his contract mayor australia voted for ep water president's contract extension and an article about the mayor's veto in the el paso times on may 18 2022 it states and i quote visa said gonzalez's contract was renewed in 2019 and won't expire until 2024. it is 2022 and therefore premature to amend or renew his contract at this time the mayor also said extending and enhancing any current contract with no passenger facing increased living costs property valuations is neither prudent nor warranted he called on the city to tighten spending adding that the appropriate time to renegotiate an amendment contract will come but that time is not now end quote so what's going on you know the mayor vetoed the city manager's extension because it had two years left yet he approved an extension of ep water president's contract with four years later what happened to extending and enhancing any contract when el pason's are facing increased living costs and property valuation is neither providing no warranty in 2021 el paso were still being recovered water pipes were bursting sending sewage into people's homes and water rates continue to increase you know this is this is simply hypocrisy you know and then to top it off two salary increases in 2021 why i mean how is that justified that's a 17 increase you know this is ridiculous i mean come on isn't anyone paying attention thank you for your time thank you sir the next speaker is sabrina soto sabrina soto's topic is denying el paso police department's current funding request for cannabis prosecution good afternoon have three minutes good afternoon city council too long ago thank you not too long ago texas state capital decriminalized cannabis el paso should be moving towards decriminalizing cannabis not continuing to arrest prosecute and give us the criminal records the war on cannabis started here in 1915 and this should end here it has now been 107 years since el paso outlaw cannabis we're long overdue for change the cannabis community has been saying the spending should not be approved you are only trying to stop the inevitable from happening cannabis is already here in the city and it isn't going anywhere there are other priorities the city should be focusing on it and not on a plant that helps people from benefits to jobs to so much more i strongly suggest you deny this increased funding request thank you city council have a good day thank you mayor that concludes call to the public thank you very much thank you everyone that called in and that mr president we now return to the regular agenda to item number 18. and this is a texas department of transportation operational update on projects currently in design and estimated completed dates for construction projects hi good afternoon everyone oh i'll share i'll share the powerpoint if you don't mind i have um that way i can use my cursor good afternoon mayor council staff everyone in the audience um thank you for having us we really appreciate the opportunity to update the city on on the things the agency is doing to uh fulfill our mandate of connecting you to texas and enhancing mobility throughout the region i have in the room with me our district engineer thomas travignon our deputy district engineer uh eddie valtiere i have uh our transportation no is that what it what the director of transportation operations eduardo perales and joining us shortly will be our transportation planning and uh development raul ortega will be along soon so we have a all hands on deck here and i will show you a very brief powerpoint to uh bring you up to speed on what's going on uh here and let me get it to the power is that visible to everyone yes can anyone here okay great thank you yes so i just want to briefly show our leading volumes from from 2016 to 2023 um even though these numbers looked low in 2016 during that time there was uh over a billion dollars in projects at play and and being built at that time so even though these volumes look low we had had some uh giant years in advance of that i then our numbers went up again in 2019 for current lettings this year is this number here with uh 380 million dollars letting this fiscal year and i will tell you a little bit about some of the most recent lettings and what's coming up and then next year we're projected to have another 297 million dollars for the projects letting here in our district i am including this and the streak slide because this is also something that we're very concerned with the last deathless day on texas highways was november 7th of the year 2000 and since that day we've had approximately 10 deaths daily on average on our texas highways which even spiked to almost 13 a day last year so this is the reason that we are we've gotten safety money directed toward projects that will improve safety and some of those you're familiar with have been our race medium projects so these raised median char projects come with lighting and pedestrian safety and there's about a dozen of them underway many of them are very near completion the roadway portion has been completed but we're still awaiting uh some electrification to some lighting and some other uh kind of technology aspects to them too before we can call them complete i just wanted to show you this slide again i think i showed it last time uh the number of conflict points when you have a bi-directional center turn lane and that's why there are so many crashes in the areas that don't have these raised medians and why we've chosen to add them because it greatly reduces the conflict points and thereby reduces crashes and deaths on our roadways this illustrates these next two slides illustrate the addition of safety lighting and the difference it can make this is a section of martin luther king and you can see here the light you see is the headlights of the truck and then there's like somebody's porch light we have the lighting poles in place this is the exact same location or approximately and so you can see the poles are there they're still lacking electrification but the difference between what it will look like when the lights are on and what it looks like currently at night you can see it's going to make a big difference other aspects include the safety railing this is paisano which that medium project received this pedestrian safety railing which channelizes pedestrians to cross at safe locations where there have intersections it reduces mid block crossings so here they can push the light and cross with the arrow this is mason street which is uh right by the cincinnati area that also received this treatment and you can see again once again how that will channelize pedestrians and stop uh mid-block crossings there in some cases we're improving the pavement uh this is uh saragosa street and you can see from the photo on the right there is improved pavement in that area and then on the upper left you can see that there's some cracking in the pavement and that will be uh mailed out and uh filled in there this just shows you the limits of the project which goes about from north loop up to where we've got that newer pavement already in place and then crosses over 75 and goes all the way up to montana so that is a very uh extensive project that's undergoing lane closures daily right now um some of these projects are eligible for the uh green ribbon funding that we have uh this 875 thousand dollar green ribbon project will let next week the three areas that are slated for landscaping include montana donovan and alameda this is the limits of the montana race medium project and you can see on the right side where they're adding sidewalks in that area that is east of hawkins and then you can see the area uh the other photograph there kind of in the center is a a portion that just has gravel rocket brought landscaping at this point uh that is on the uh west side of hawkins that will be receiving some of this uh landscaping coming up the doniphan project i don't have much to show you on progress because they're still uh potholing to to determine soil conditions underneath the street and yet look locating utilities along the side of the roadway there but that project is underway and basically what you'll see in that project is everywhere there are double lines double yellow lines you will see medians go in in those locations the alameda project you can see has progressed quite a lot it also received new payment as you can see from that photo in the lower left and so that one is another location that will um receive landscaping it is east of loop 375 near ivy drive going out to horizon boulevard a couple projects that are letting later this summer are in the northeast we have an r cut project that is going in at the state line uh and yeah us-54 um this is going to be a change that is going to take some getting used to we're working on outreach efforts uh in the community now but um this is a place where there's where when there is a crash it's quite often fatal because you'll have people crossing over coming out of a drop you know this uh street here state line trying to cross in front of very high speed traffic say to make a left turn or go straight and in in the configuration the way it is now it's very easy for them to misjudge that speed and distance of the oncoming traffic and there a broadside crash is quite often fatal so what this does is channelizes the traffic uh to make you you will if you want to go either left or across the road you will have to go right first and there's a additional pavement here toward the center there's a turn bay here so that you can get up to speed you have the chance to get up to speed plenty of room to cross over make a u-turn and come back the other direction we know how people feel about change and yet this will be to the benefit because it will be so much safer uh to to for people to be making these movements here i have uh after this slide i will show you some uh of the configurations of the what the movements are going to be the other the second project in the area is this j-turn at us-54 and stan roberts where it's basically the a little bit less complicated but it is just making you uh turn right and then make a u-turn and come back you can either go straight or on your way south the other direction here are some basically what what it looks like in a in a more simplified version of the r cut for example somebody wanting to come off of the side street there and head north will first have to go south make the u-turn somebody will coming off the other direction wanting to go north very simply makes that right turn the functionality coming northbound you have you do have the ability to make a left turn northbound but of course you're already up to speed you have greater visibility uh here you can see oncoming traffic for a little bit greater different distance and then finally the functionality uh when you're just trying to basically cross over to go the other way make a left turn or just cross straight over that's what your movement would look like so this slide illustrates the conflict points again and you can see how many conflict points there are with the older configuration uh many severe ones some lesser ones and how those are minimized with these elongated movements that will reduce those conflict points and save lives so getting on to uh recent lettings this is a very exciting project the purple heart widening in front of drug project from spur 601 to montana is adding a lane in each direction and also adding frontage roads to luke 375 in that segment we expect that this area in here is going to uh be developed shortly and uh here the city has plans for the approximate location of extending george deter and so with the hospital out there this uh has experienced increased traffic and this will greatly uh enhance mobility it's 137.9 million dollar project uh where we are expanding that highway winding and improving and adding those friendly drugs the i-10 widening west is another one that people have been waiting for for a long time adding that center adding a third lane in each direction from mesa street northward the entire limits of the project go from mesa street to the state line however the widening stops just south of benton um at this point we do have another project ready to let that will take it the rest of the way but the other features on this project continue all the way to the state line including the ramp reversals and other operational improvements wrong-way driver detection systems that are going on uh going in there those will all go all the way safety lighting will go all the way to the state line and we are adding high mass lighting along the widened portion so that's underway and there's um a video on twitter if you follow us on twitter there's a video that shows the pavement what they're doing now on this project er where you're experiencing lane closures while they improve the shoulders to accept freeway levels of traffic so that they can place barrier do the work on the center uh lanes behind barrier and keep two lanes of traffic flowing uh throughout the duration of this project which could be as much as three and a half years so that is underway now here's a few of the features of this that uh are improved the operation of the highway is this uh interchange atlas mochis we're doing an i-10 overpass and now this area in northwest el paso has become quite urbanized and this it's definitely time for a place between trans mountain and benton for traffic to be able to uh turn around there so this is about a just 1.2 miles north of trans mountain we have the los mochis overpass going in with this project we also have the ramp reversals this illustrates the ramp reversals uh you can see where my cursor is this is the current exit ramp at trans mountain and this is the current on-ramp 2i10 west from trans mountain we're reversing these ramps thereby placing the merge action onto the frontage road where traffic is lower speed also by pushing the exit way back there's additional storage and room for people to get over before they have to make a turn into the mall area and it also uh improves access to some of these others if should they apply for driveway access here they'd be able to have it and then this is this is what it looks like on the other side where the exit is now where the on-ramp used to be so that it will enhance mobility on this side on the westbound lanes as well and that those uh i think i showed you in that other this is what they look like along the route another feature would be the thorn bypass lanes which is uh you will no longer have to travel along the frontage road and stop at the thorn intersection there with the light you'll be able to bypass that traffic and just go on your way underneath here and we are rebuilding this bridge as well this is just shows you what we're doing on the shoulders of that uh i-10 west widening project where they're milling and uh paving the shoulders there this is the twin project to the itin widening east project which has already been going on for some time we're doing the same thing out here from east lake to horizon where we're adding a lane to the inside it was a much shorter project so it was 18 million dollar project and i have some progress photos on that one you can see these are the new center lanes these are the barriers they place so that traffic would not that workers could work safely behind barrier and here they are here's the rebar here they are placing the concrete and then this is what the finished product looks like out there so they're making good progress on that project on the east side luke 375 main lane widening i tend to sadagosa is is uh getting there it is uh we're looking to open the third lane on this portion probably toward the end of summer and then here's what's happening with the bridge bridge widening uh i think every remember the last time i spoke i don't really expect that you remember but uh they're building the lanes heading southward and then they're widening the bridges as they progress northward and this is uh what that looks like where they've had to basically knock some stuff down so that and put the supports in so that they can have the widened bridges and then this shows some of the progress these are new structures here i mentioned the borderland expressway because we just held the public hearing on that and some of you are in in attendance and or sent representatives we appreciate that um we are expecting to let phase one on this after many years of development uh in april of next year and phase one is basically adding the frontage roads right here between uh railroad and uhn and business 54 so that's that's what phase one will consist of that's the portion that we're going to do first it's about 20 million on that oh and by the way it's still online if you'd like to uh weigh in on that you can go online to texas.gov the hearing will be live through friday at 11 59 pm uh you can go search borderland expressway as the keyword and you can see all the materials that we had at the public hearing there and then the art craft interchange is another upcoming project that we have uh and just a status update on this we expect the environmental and uh schematic design to edge towards 60 in july and um it it's looking at right now at a 2023 let date although that date could possibly move so i would just offer to you these ways to stay informed some of you may already follow us on twitter and uh you can also like us on facebook the i10 widening west also has its own facebook page visit us online at techslot.gov but that first one would have helped out everyone this morning because the if you go to drivetexas.org and you sign up for get traffic alerts you look for the little uh traffic signal there el paso is the only district that has these you can choose your roadways and you can receive alerts on your phone that will tell you what's happening in traffic right now our twitter is great for planned closures but when there is a crash that was not predicted this is going to give you an alert that you can check before you getting your car to drive you can look and you can see what's happening on the roadways and choose an alternate route if appropriate so i highly recommend you sign up you will get a lot of emails depending on how many roads you sign up for how many do you normally drive but that's what your delete button is for you you will it will save you time and all you have to do if you're if you're not driving and those alerts have already expired you just delete them but it's totally worth getting on that are there any questions yes we have mayor potem thank you again ms brighton thank you again for this um presentation as well and updates lots of great projects that txdot and our friends in austin are doing in el paso so thanks again for for you for mr trevino and the whole team over there in uh far east el paso i don't know if that's upper east el paso or mid-far east el paso but pastor of battle so um thank you again for for this i just had a couple of questions as well um a lot of different projects are going on i'm very excited to see the the i-10 west widening project i think that's something that we have seen continuously um amp up in terms of the amount of of traffic that we see once you kind of hit the mesa street exit over there on i-10 west and it pretty much continues all the way through our craft and sometimes even trans mountains so this is a project that i talking to constituents and residents they're they're not looking forward to the evening closures and the frontage road bypasses but they also understand too that it's necessary and people already stuck in traffic so really excited about that um you showed a slide relating to the los mochi's overpass so there was a building that was that was shown alongside it uh is that the the davita dialysis clinic that's over there i don't know if you go that one yeah yeah it could i think that that that might be what's at low smoke juice i'm not i've been more familiar with the area only since i've been uh attending construction meetings on on low smokies but i that does ring a bell could be that okay okay so that's that's great because we we do hear about the amount of traffic that's already in that area and even to do that that overpass probably won't be done for another two years or so right you know we're the the contractor is working diligently to get this project completed as quickly as possible and they are uh thinking of new ways to advance it all the time so we'll we'll just see how long it takes to get that done okay well looking forward to it and it's again i think as you said it's about a three and a half three and a half year project estimated give or take a few months so um hopefully few months not not more months but i think again this is something that the community has seen as a necessary project and has also seen how much more traffic has improved with the go 10 project as well as the border border west expressway expansion that was completed from i think by 2018 so um really excited to see those projects um the one question that i had relating to the the median along the mesa and cincinnati corridor first of all i i want to thank your your team and thank mr trevino for his leadership um for looking at installing those pedestrian improvements uh this was something for for those who know one of the first meetings i had with our new district engineer was was an on-site location visit at that corridor at that intersection in cincinnati and mesa where we've seen we've seen unfortunate incidences occur we've seen near misses um it's just a very dynamic part of our of our of our mesa state highway and those pedestrian improvements i think are really going to have a concrete path in traffic management and traffic calming and so really excited and again want to want to thank again personally everybody that had a had involvement from procuring the funds to the installation of this um you know again this is a highly trafficked area between a couple residential neighborhoods like kern place rim road and mission hills again this is right where the don haskins center is where utep's campus is and also where we have um you know the restaurant uh district with cincinnati and other places so this is an area that has a lot of different population and there's a lot of different people coming through with it and so these kind of urban style pedestrian enhancements and improvements i think are really going to have a concrete impact on keeping this area more safe in addition to the the lighting that the city has done the sidewalk improvements the city has done and again some of the additional lighting that you all have added into this area as well so again i want to personally thank you and everybody at the team for doing that um there's were some very difficult meetings and conversations uh with this project and what the what txdot in the city could do and so it's really happy to see this this being done um just one again put it out there i know that you had talked a little bit about the green um ribbon program i don't know when that might happen but this would seem to be a prime candidate for further investments on the median in in terms of again just a very visible area for folks that are in el paso that are visiting our tier one university of utep um seems it would make a lot of sense to to look at at investing in that area for additional aesthetic improvements i don't know if you have a timeline or when that might be i know that we already have some dedicated programs already for the funds for this upcoming year but anything you can do to help enlighten us would be great well thank you yes um actually that would that would happen in the following summer because we do get limited green ribbon funds and this year it's 875 i expect next year at 775 but we are looking at this location for next year's expenditure but i also thank you for bringing up the i-10 widening west again because one thing i forgot to mention was that we have expanded our hero services to go through that um corridor as well currently the enclosures that we're experiencing are only about a thousand feet at a time so it's much like uh we are closing lanes while we do that improvement of the shoulders but it's just like when we do a guard rail repair it's about a thousand feet closure and then um it widens back up again but we because of the construction in the area and we are expanding our hero program to control that area as well or be dispatched to that area so again if you if you find yourself on a state highway one of the major uh controlled access highways in town and you find yourself stalled out or in distress as a motorist you can call 915-790 hero and ask for help so thank you for letting me get that plug in there as well so do we have an idea with when we might see some of those improvements um in terms of aesthetics for that area for mesa next summer would be when they've letting we're letting this first uh 875 thousand dollars will let next week and that will be targeted for the streets i mentioned montana atlanta and donovan and then yeah and and i think you know i think whenever whenever possible i mean i always think that you know stamp concrete and other aesthetic improvements for concrete is always something that is well you know well well received by our community and and something we deserve too so i always think anytime we can be cost effective but creative with what we're presenting to this community in terms of transportation solutions i always think is a a positive one i just wanted to also bring up too with the remaining time that i have the timeline for our craft that's a project that we've seen again lots of traffic is coming through the san antonio support of entry um you know it just shows the sort of the success of our global of our global reach here um in the borderplex region that we're having these that we're having these challenges with um not just with with um residential growth but also with this commercial and freight growth coming to the international port of entry so i'm curious i know you mentioned about 60 so when might we see some community meetings for district 1 for some of the residents out there in the upper valley well as it goes forward with the nepa process what we'll be doing on that project will be meeting with affected property owners um the neighbor progress the neighborhood process in this doesn't require the same uh series of public meetings that we would typically have on a project like that but we will be meeting with effective property owners and in fact um the let date for that is probably looking more like uh may of 2024 is what i understand so we have we have time okay okay great well anything you can that we can do to help get the word out always supportive of well we're we're not really ready to show because we're we're we're not far enough along on the schematic design to really show people an accurate depiction of what might happen we're not there yet but we appreciate the offer and uh we'll reach out if there's when it's appropriate okay well thank you again and thank you again for all the great work that you all are doing for our community thank you mayor pro tem uh representative molinard thank you very much mayor jennifer thank you very much for your presentation always great to see you and so i'd like to start off you don't have to go to the slide but um the slide that you had for martin luther king that depicted at night time it is black and so yes we have received my office received numerous calls on that uh emails and they're really um would like to have something done on that and i understand you and i have already had that discussion but i'm glad you put that in there the other thing too for district 4 is the borderland expressway i've been on this project many years way before i was a city representative i think you know that very well i look forward to next year when it finally does start phase one so that's great to know and great to see that happening but once again i'd just like to remind you any type of aesthetics regarding the mexican golden poppy out there in district 4 would be a plus thank you ma'am i hear you sir thank you thank you and ms wright thank you for the presentation i know that there's so many programs going on and a lot of the things go through the mpo that that uh continue to reinvest in our community and you know txdot's been a good partner through the mpo through the state and you know i think that taxpayers see a lot of their taxes and investments and road tax and all being invested in our community and you know i think one of the the things that there's unsaid but i think it's a really big program you all have out there is the hero program and that's that's really a great program to help our community as they get stranded on on the highways and and to make sure that they're safe and they can get assistance so that's a huge program going on right now that was started originally through mpo and txdot so it's uh again we want to thank you all and i think a lot of the things that our community and a lot of people don't realize that you know a lot of the streets like mesa is a state highway montana is a state highway and we thank you for investing and continue to make sure those roads continue to be safe and you know and let's continue to be proactive so thank you for your presentation and with that i have representative sal sido thank you mayor and uh thank you jennifer for the presentation um it's good to see 601 expansion it's great it's going to help traffic in district five so i thank you for that just wanted to know more about um the budget that you have in regards to aesthetics concrete treatments and landscaping do all these projects have a certain amount allocated for them so when possible we are able to include that in in every case we will choose roadway safety and improvements over aesthetics but in many cases we do have some amount of funding that can go to that our our green ribbon project funding is very limited and so uh 875 000 doesn't go very far as far as covering the projects but oftentimes when we're unable to accomplish it with one project we are unable to include that in the budget for a project we will plan to make a plan to come back with funding after the fact and and add it later it's important to us too but again safety is our number one priority and uh you know mobility is very important but we certainly hear you with uh your comments on aesthetics they're important to us as well we live here too and and we we want to have things that look nice no absolutely and i think there's just so many it's limited dollars right so i think probably planning ahead working with cid and seeing how we all can work together and and i know bigger cities do have you know they get an allocated amount and you can definitely see the difference so really this is my beautiful city would love to see it have a little bit more aesthetics and for it to the right funding to come our our way so thank you very much thank you thank you you can always paint things in an attractive manner you know if we're not doing plantings we're definitely using the materials uh and native colors that will enhance a roadway design you know one of the things and and this will be the last comment that uh we see a lot of cones and they become very a huge inconvenience to our community but i think we got to look at that we're looking for the growth and the future and the safety just like you said so as we continue to expand the streets and look at safer ways we do understand the huge inconvenience but i know that we talk about this getting in and getting out as soon as possible but also for the growth and safety of our community so i thank you for that and with that thank you uh no other comments thank you yeah i'll have a great day thank you thank you for having us appreciate the opportunity bye-bye uh mayor if i may before they get off um we will follow up on the comments council made with respect to landscaping and aesthetics um are you still on jennifer i am yeah we will follow up with them to see if those can be planned in advance because sometimes that is able to save txdot money and we we maintain them anyway because of the agreement we this year alone in the next budget year we're going to pay 3.2 million dollars in landscaping uh maintenance that used to be the state's responsibility it's on their road and it's nothing to do with our local here our local district i'm just referring to austin and how that is passed on to to the resident and and that's something that austin should be paying for not not the resident here and so whenever possible we will reach out again and and and work with jennifer and the team there with uh yvette and on this to make sure that landscaping aesthetic improvements on concrete the concrete treatment that that's worked in as much as possible it might mean we have to pay more on our end uh but i think it's it's worth it and to get it on the front end i think they would agree it's cheaper to do that than to go back in retrofit thank you mr gonzalez we do coordinate with your staff and we are always open to that thank you thank you and with that mr prine yes mayor that brings us to the first reading of ordinances these are items 19 to 22. there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative anello to approve the first reading of ordinances on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwarzwang aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative rodriguez not present that brings us to item number 23. this is discussion and action on the request that the director of purchasing and strategic sourcing be authorized to issue a purchase order to crc corporation dba crc dynex we are fencing contract 2019-814 integrated library services system software we have a motion in a second there is a motion made by mayor pro tem lizard seconded by representative rivera to approve item 23 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwartzman aye thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 24 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation number 2022-0194r benefit consulting services to gallagher benefits services inc there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative lee zaraga to approve on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tim schwartzman aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 25 and this is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2022-0508 pebble hills boulevard airport road vista del sol drive arterial lighting and landscape improvements to martinez brothers contractors llc move to a proof there's a motion made by representative angelo seconded by representative molina to approve item 25 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly hi thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item mayor the next two items are related would you like to take them separately or together i think that would go together thank you item number 26 is a public hearing on an ordinance amending title 9 health and safety to clarify the maximum sound level that sound levels apply to properties producing the noise and location of sound readings item 27 is an ordinance amending title v the amplified amplified sound permit process several of us will be presenting today on item 26 and 27 this is for amendments to our noise ordinance is also our sound amplification permit thank you i.t next slide please we have several team members who will be joining in the presentation i mean as you may recall we have been working on revisions to our noise ordinance for a few years now and so we're bringing back what we feel is an approach that's going to allow a balance in the between businesses and the community as well as an ordinance that is reflective of something that's easy to understand and also to enforce we are going to be focusing primarily here on 2.8 implement effective code enforcement strategies to reduce nuisances and i want to take an opportunity to introduce our new code enforcement director steve giveaway he'll be presenting a little bit later next slide please as you may recall we presented to you we had the public hearing on the agenda on 3-1 council asked us to go back out and have meetings with the community this was the initial schedule we had over 22 meetings you will find in the backup for the presentation on slide 33-37 all the comments that we gathered we also are working on a rfp that's going to allow us to address several of those items by bringing on a third party consultant that will be talking more broadly about entertainment districts across the city and you'll see just the scope of that work on slide 38 next slide please as i mentioned you some of you may recall we have been working on this ordinance for quite some time and this is just a history of what um we have been working on since 2019 and as you can see here we always plan to come back and revisit as you know we uh ran into covet and we didn't have an opportunity to really fully evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the ordinances and things that were put in place in 2019. so once the city reopened we worked with our code enforcement team as well as the police department to launch a team that worked as in our entertainment districts as we call them throughout the city to ensure that we had one a way to support businesses as they were reopening and also to be able to address the concerns that were beginning to emerge through your various offices in terms of the effectiveness of the organs as we had it in place we use that opportunity to gather quite a bit of data that we'll be sharing with you and that drove our recommendations from a data perspective in terms of what's effective and efficient what also happened with many of the floor amendments that were brought forward it in writing it was a good opportunity for us to of course have a way to be able to appease both parties who are involved in this process but in practice it was not something that could be enforced in a way that was efficient and effective throughout the city so with that in mind we're bringing forth some recommendations for changes to what was adopted in 2019 next slide please what we'll be covering is current laws the benchmarking that we did in other cities a sampling of the existing data native gathering that i mentioned and also our staff proposed amendments and we'll also of course have a section for q a next slide please this is just a reminder of what we had what's currently in our code i'm just a reminder here that the reasonable sensibility standard was added in 2019 that was not something that was a part of our code and that really was to address some of the ongoing issues that we had that was not necessarily connected to the decibel reading level next slide please the amplified sound permit was brand new in 2019 and so that was really an opportunity over the last year or so to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of that in terms of helping to address some of the concerns of the businesses that were primarily really close to residential areas and so we'll be requesting some modifications to that as well and with that i'm going to hand it over to russell able to go over our comparative data good morning good afternoon russell abel assistant city attorney next slide please so as part of this process with the data gather gathering as we looked at this issue one of the things we did is at the city attorney's office is we met with a group of city attorneys assistant city attorneys from across the state from cities like dallas dallas metroplex cities houston san antonio and austin and we we gathered what they had in their codes for your reference here and in our discussions with them i think we had about four meetings with them and we're planning on having a meeting them after this they're they're very interested to see what city of el paso does on this issue they're all having the same issues that that we are running into so as you can see here with our noise ordinance right now we are at 70 decibels you'll see at austin they have 85 decibels 70 decibels there's kind of a range between some cities we do property receiving the noise some cities do property producing the noise so there's kind of a variation across between what the different cities are doing next slide please so with the uh the permits for sound amplification at the city of el paso currently we have 70 decibels and that's at the the property producing the noise where you see it austin their max decibel level is 85 decibels and they measure it at the commercial property line dallas does not have one houston is at 75 decibels and they measure from the nearest receiving property line and there's also a range for the time restrictions city of el paso as you can see the permit is required from 10 pm to midnight and no sound amplification is allowed after midnight and houston they have a range austin they also have a range you can see distances too so with the sound amplification permits one of the things we consider currently in el paso is the distance from residential areas we're at 350 feet in el paso austin is at uh 600 feet and in houston they require a permit for any business that has amplified sound and so this is what the the data we've gathered from across the state and really the feedback we saw was you know this is not just an el paso issue but this is a statewide issue next slide please good afternoon mayor members of the council steve alvarado co-enforcement director for the city i'd like to start off by saying i'm honored to be here to serve the fine residents of el paso this slide represents the numbers that code and pd did for inspections violation numbers were considerably low due to both pd and code going out there and doing a collaboration with the community and the entertainment districts with that collaboration we did educational outreach and weekly inspections during that time frame with our main goal of obtaining voluntary compliance with the sound reading ordinances although education has helped tremendously as indicated by the low numbers of violations both pde and code are not able to be there at all times thus numbers phone calls and reports of violations and loud music have gone up when we're not present citizens do have the option of filing a noise complaint packet with the city attorney office using reasonable sensibilities under section zero four 9.4040 of the noise ordinance and with the evidence of the violation thank you next slide please good afternoon sir merit council good afternoon steve lopez with the el paso police department uh commander at the west side regional command center this slide represents the number of readings taken in 2021 by our code enforcement folks and our police officers the number of venues where the readings were taken and the average decibel level of all readings it also shows the actual number of violations minus the reasonable sensibility and vibration complaints filed with the city prosecutor's office what this slide does not represent is the amount of work and effort needed required to obtain this data this slide does not show the months of dedicated efforts to include community and business meetings educational forums town hall meetings presentations at all levels for all groups and our continued community uh policing efforts our mission with this ordinance is to streamline the process and make it fair for all sites we were not tasked with targeting any one specific group business organization association or neighborhood our mission is to bridge that gap between the opposing sides and the different views when it comes to the noise ordinance we understood from the beginning that we would never appease all of the people all of the time however our goal remains we will continue to work on bridging that gap work on creating an all-inclusive team stakeholders work on solutions and work on providing everyone with a voice we do understand the importance of the entertainment sector here in el paso economically but most importantly the outlet for our residents who are once again looking to step out and enjoy el paso our nightlife post-pandemic we will continue and our mission remains to work for an el paso strong thank you thank you good afternoon mayor council peter pacias for the record next slide please next slide please so these are the proposed changes to chapter 9 of the municipal code and as mentioned before we're talking about the reasonable sensibility standard that can occur any time of the day not just in those those earlier comments uh during certain times 10 to 12 things of that nature and the reasonable sense of stability standard what we're looking at is it's disturbing somebody's ability to sleep have peace and comfort in their own home and be able to relax things of that nature that would be a reasonable person standard and then lowering the decibel from 65 to 70 as commander lopez and mr alvarado talked about about all the readings that we we went through and then revising the vibration standards joining what basically what's happening with all this uh the sound that's coming out is it's causing the vibration affecting residents and other businesses in in the area and then the location of the reading from the property line to the property of the person or individuals receiving that that noise or vibration and what it's going to do is going to help us align it into both ordinances that are going to be talked about later in chapter 5 as far as i go so it helps with the enforcement side but also on the education side because it's confusing for the officers whether code officers police officers and even the businesses and the residents as it stands right now it's very confusing and as discussed earlier if you saw the readings in there most of the business out there majority of the businesses are in compliance with this it's those those those that are operating on the fringes that are causing the problem just like everything else it's usually a smaller percentage of people that are doing that next slide please the penalties for this would be a maximum of 500 a day and the the city through the texas local government code um would be able to provide or have action through a civil penalty of up to one thousand dollars a day so it significantly increases the the cost for the uh the person or the the businesses doing uh violating this next slide please and this is what we're asking for as a a floor amendment from from council on here and we're asking that is is looking at the vibration because all the meetings that miss mack was talking about um we kept on hearing from the residents it's the vibration of the base that's going through um the uh their structures that is really uh disturbing their piece and and ability to enjoy their their home life and the decibel reading should not be required so it's going back to that reasonable sensibility standard uh as far as that goes so we're asking for this floor amendment from council next slide please and with that i'll turn it over to tony good afternoon mayor and council tonight planning inspections i'll be covering the proposed amendments to title 5 chapter 5.03 the sound amplification permit as has been mentioned before the sound amplification permit was approved by city council back in 2019 the intent of the permit was never to silence all sound being emitted from an establishment but rather it was really to focus on the outdoor standard sound amplification that's a common complaint by about in neighborhoods while neighbor while establishments that have this permit how could we please go to the next slide while establishments that have this permit can play uh outer amplified music between the hours of 10 and 12 a.m they are still limiting to cutting off all music at 12 p.m and between those hours not exceeding the current 70 decibel limit of course an establishment has to have an outdoor area for this to be currently applicable the second portion really was designed to alleviate the complaints from the neighborhoods and provide them peace peaceful sleep during the late evening hours additionally in a establishment that applies for this permit does have to comply with the application requirements which include providing a sound impact plan identifying any proposed sound mitigation techniques and also go through a public notice that department sends out to a budding property owners within 150 feet and 350 feet of the proposed establishment next slide please the following slide shows you the number of permits that have been active since january 20th 2022. currently the department has two active permits uh we have one pending application that has been put out for corrections so this uh slide isn't fully up to date on there we don't have any businesses that have been denied the application additionally since 2019 we had 12 locations that began the application process for expired or and or were not renewed two applications uh there was no follow-up so therefore a permit was never issued two were cancelled by the customer because they exceeded the maximum distance requirements uh and as previously said two are currently active next slide please so the purpose of the proposed revisions is because we want these establishments to comply with permitting requirements by doing so it really is the first step to finding some peace and and cooperation with the within the existing neighborhoods so with that being said the proposed revisions uh will clarify the definition of an outdoor area to include roll-up style doors doors and windows that are left in the open position lowering the decibel limit from 70 to 65 decibels and keeping with title ix expanding the location requirements from 350 feet to 500 feet expanding the notification requirements for affected property owners from 150 feet to 300 feet and lowering the revocation threshold of the permit from ten citations to two citations against this is in keeping with title ix it also clarifies that the city may see conjunctive relief for violations under texas local government code and again with these revisions an establishment can play music up to midnight so long as they comply with the proposed revisions if those are adopted next slide please the next slide provides you an example of the typical timeline to review a sound amplification print so typical timeline we are looking at 40 to 45 days uh with a large percentage of that being 30 days being allowed for neighborhood response okay so that pretty much makes up 66 percent of the review timeline the permit application is 367 dollars and re does require a yearly renewal of 125 with a 125 dollar fee the benefit is if the establishment is renewing appropriately once the renewal process kicks in they do not have to we do not have to send out notification again to the abutting property owners that would only happen if they let it lapse and we have to treat it like a completely new application next slide please the following survey that you're seeing is a survey that was conducted by el paso police department and pd code enforcement what it identified or what it shows is that 638 establishments were inspected by the entities out of those establishments approximately 222 were deemed to have the capacity of having outdoor sound amplification that doesn't necessarily mean that all 222 would be required a permit because if the proposed amendments were approved even one of these establishments if they were further out than the 500 feet the outdoor sand amplification permit would still not be applicable next slide please the following slides will show you just comparisons of different establishments throughout the different uh regional commands that identify how many parcels would be would be notified under the current code provisions of 350 feet versus 500 feet so currently on the westside regional command at 350 feet we would notify 27 parcels at 500 feet that would be increased to up 40 parcels going over to the east side pebble hills regional command at 350 feet we would be identifying two parcels versus the 350 feet five parcels versus 15 at 500 feet next slide please going back over to the west side around the cincinnati area at 350 feet notification would be sent out to 38 parcels 500 feet we would be seeing 63 parcels next light please back over to uh the zaragoza area at 350 feet we'd notify 21 parcels under court ordinance with the proposed revisions we would be notifying 42 parcels next slide please and similar shopping center just an opposite end as you are aware in some areas the shopping centers are becoming uh what is now the entertainment district so some similar uh parcel at 350 feet we'd notify 36 parcels and at 500 feet 72 parcels next slide please and finally in the pershing area at 350 feet we currently notify 49 parcels and at 500 feet 81 parcels next slide with that being said i'll turn it over to the city attorney's office thank you good afternoon mayor and council eric gutierrez with the city attorney's office next slide please i'm going to be going over the citizen complaint packets that are filed with the city attorney's office these cases are essentially the reasonable sensibilities cases that we ask our citizens to file with our office we ask them to file those cases with videos and essentially our prosecutors review these to see if we could prove these up in court or not we accept cases that we believe we can prove and we reject the ones that we cannot prove and further have conversations with those complaining witnesses the the issues we have with these cases is we really do rely on the citizens to identify uh the uh the offender for these violations and also they have to uh testify to every element of these offenses um so the burden really is on them to come in and testify to a municipal court judge to prove these cases up next slide please uh the municipal court cases we have a lot of them are pending a actual trial setting and so what ends up happening is uh defendants file notices for discovery they file for uh jury trials they file motions for continuance when they can and this results in these cases getting stuck in a backlog essentially of the cases we have pending approximately one-third of them are awaiting i'm sorry one third of them are warrants so a warrant is out for those offenders arrest and about two thirds of them have been reset and so we're still waiting for a resolution on those pending cases uh next slide please and that is the end we will open it up to questions may or council represent followed by mayor potem thank you then after that we're going to take public comment yes thank you thank you dion thanks thank you to your team for the many years of hard work on this noise ordinance um i just want to commend you and all the everybody that was involved in this process i know it's been a grueling process at times i just have a couple of quick questions and then as the mayor said we'll take public well then i know we're going to take public comment mayor potem would like to speak after public health yes and then i'd like the floor back after public comment if possible okay thank you mayor um you talked about a third party consultant dionne could you give us some more information about that so what some of the feedback we received during our meetings was that we really need to look at as a city what entertainment districts should be and what what criteria should be included in those so we know that that was something that we had committed to looking at when we created our entertainment district cft that includes several members of council so what we've included as a part of that rfp is the feedback that we received from the community in terms of items that were that fell outside of the noise coordinates you know what what hours should we be operating it really would also give us an opportunity to look at building code which really wasn't a part of the noise ordinance which became a continued concern it was also a concern expressed that we wanted to ensure that all stakeholders came to the table and that we had a process to allow them to have their voices and so this consultant would be facilitating that process for us and then making recommendations that would come back to council that's probably going to be at least an eight-month process after the award of the contract but we knew that was something that was on our radar to complete and we just expanded the scope of that work to include some of the questions that you see on slide 37 in the back up that were not completely related to this ordinance but general questions that the city had committed to sort of looking at long term and that council had raised as being really important for us in terms of planning for the future i think that's a wonderful uh idea and i look forward to that also you mentioned about modifications as well were you talking about the new floor amendment or were you talking about something else when you mention modifications so most of the most of what we're bringing forward is just modifications to existing language and not new language to the ordinance and that was that was a reference ma'am okay thank you dion thank you very much thank you miss park can we take public comment please yes mayor the first person is leliana rodriguez followed by keith pannell ernesto garcia joe goodin deliana rodriguez i don't see her coming forward keith pannell followed by ernesto garcia joe goodin wrath i don't see mr pannell coming forward okay after mr pannell will be ernesto garcia joe gooden wrath joe garyvay don and larios vanessa duran anthony duran anthony duncan madison poe mr pannell good afternoon sir you have three minutes first of all i'd like to say hello to the council and to the mayor um i've been here several times in the past so you know what i'm going to say so i'm going to try and put it down into one pithy little sentence that if a bar and a bar restaurant wants to operate in an adjacent two where people live a residential area as opposed to somewhere downtown out in the desert or wherever other places are they should be held to different standards than people who are not operating within the residential area that's my key point to anyone who wants to listen that there's a special responsibility that a bar owner has i've lived on cincinnati avenue for 48 50 years something like that with a family all my kids went to local schools local universities and it was a perfect place to bring up a family until earlier in this century when a city council like yourselves decided that there should be no restriction on the number of parking spots required based upon the number of clients in the height of businesses that had a deleterious effect immediately bars spawned up everywhere they didn't need parking you can have a hundred people in the bar and only two parking spots that's the way it worked and so there's been this plethora of bars and kept with the bars if you all know this better than i probably and the police certainly do the crime which is including murders including coming into my own private property it's just gone up and up and up and partially the sound i think amplifies this because you can't i was even asked by by one of the owners of property keith can you find someone to rent out space for me why on earth did they do that because the only people that wanted to rent a vacant space on cincinnati was another bar and they didn't want to do that so the point is that the whole environment there has sort of really impacted negatively the quality of life for all the people that live there and there are people that live closer than i but the bottom line is you have the responsibility for being able to say look common sense says if you're going to have a bar downtown certain sets of regulations if you're going to have a bar that's right next to current place 50 feet across the side of the road i live about a hundred and 130 feet from the nearest bar that's my statement special places need special rules and they should be enforced and that's the tough part but i don't have time to go into that thanks very much i appreciate your time thank you the next speaker is ernesto garcia followed by joe gudenrath joe garibai don ann larios vanessa duran anthony duncan ernesto garcia good afternoon you have three minutes yes i'll have michael bray speak for us because it's with uh get bar so that's who to speak it was just my name on the thing there so now we can't we you have to sign up to speak we can't he's signed up already so pardon me he's already signed up i know that's what i'm saying so we'll take him as he comes thank you the next speaker is joe goodin wrath he will be followed by joel garibai good afternoon mr gutenraff you have three minutes sir good afternoon mayor council city staff uh thank you for having us here today that was great news by ms mack about the hiring of the consultant to look for the balanced constructive approach i think that is step one in this effort versus what we're considering here today these amendments that are being proposed are you know further broad-based one-size-fits-all does not apply to various districts or does not take into consideration various districts types of business etc i believe they go too far um you know based on the information we received from pd those statistics the the amount of compliance is great the number of citations while they do exist again with probably any law they are at a low point these amendments do force operational changes on almost all business many again whom are complying and are operating without issue these changes put businesses in position to be in violation dropping that to 65 puts a lot more people susceptible to to violation which is very problematic that is very unfair to good hard working business people i definitely understand there are still issues with some businesses and noise complaints i am happy to work with them to encourage them to be good neighbors but i am not here to defend them even with these amendments you will still have issues and only create more citations and more problems approaching this issue through enforcement alone is poor strategy will not work we need that comprehensive approach that hopefully we're on that path towards to date the interests and suggestions of the business community have largely been ignored until we learned that today our food beverage hospitality nightlife economy is a significant part of our economy and changes that impacted should be done delicately and intentionally on behalf of the downtown management district i'm asking you to dismiss these amendments for the time being until we can uh until we can have a complete examination opportunity to look at the entertainment districts have this consultant here to have applicable amendments to applicable areas and to include businesses the neighborhoods the city economic development destination el paso and other organizations like the downtown management district currently we have an ordinance in place that is having an impact and i think some of the police department slides have indicated that voting these amendments down at this time does not create problems that don't already exist working together we can develop better policies supportive of various interests and again bring this community together to find constructive solutions we ask that you take that approach forward i look forward to working with a consultant to be an advocate for when that uh when that issue comes before the council but in the time being let's vote these down today pursue that as step one and then come back with a comprehensive set of amendments that have a lot more support than opposition thank you thank you the next speaker is joe garibai joe garibai i don't see mr vine coming forward we'll move on to don and larios ms laudio star 6 please to a mutual telephone good afternoon you'll have three minutes good afternoon mayor city representative thank you for your willing listen to the concerns of restaurants bars and the communities we serve who will all be impacted by the proposed changes to the city's noise and amplified sound ordinances i'd also like to thank miss dion mack the el paso police department and the el paso code enforcement for all of your hard work the el paso chapter of the texas restaurant association our friends from the downtown management district participated in this year's five community regarding the proposed amendments each of these discussions and the underlying data have confirmed our concerned that the current proposals while well-intentioned do not address the very specific problems that a small number of residents have raised with the city and city staff have confirmed that 95 of the enforcement act is taking place in one region this study district and even within that region the vast majority of inspections result in no violation this underscores the city's findings that across el paso 6 641 readings in 2021 results only 72 violations for a violation rate of 1.12 again 1.12 the data does not support these drastic policy changes we remain committed to working with city staff neighbors the mayor and city council to address the concerns that led to the proposed changes the public hearings were very helpful in terms of identifying and helping all to understand the concerns unfortunately the changes that have been proposed to date change the rules for every business rather than finding solutions first number of businesses these proposed amendments will affect the entire city of el paso let's help our business community as well as our residents consider hiring a professional sound engineer like other large cities throughout texas have done and perhaps that's what your consultant will also be doing please follow through with a more comprehensive examination of entertainment districts this was a promise made in 2019 and initiated in 2021 with the creation of a cross-functional team we also ask and highly encourage the inclusion of local businesses we understand the importance of work our neighbors and the community to address residents concerns and remain confident that thank you without thank you thank you ms larios you've reached the time limit the next speaker is vanessa duran followed by anthony duncan madison poe stephanie nevin good afternoon miss duran you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon um good afternoon mayor and city representatives my name is vanessa duran and i'm co-owner of alan jay cafe and president of the texas restaurant association el paso chapter on behalf of the el paso chapter of the texas restaurant association and our members i am here to share our concerns about item 26 and 27 on today's agenda many restaurants and bars rely on amplified sound to provide an enjoyable experience to their guests the data is clear that the vast majority of these restaurants and bars are compliant with the current rules unfortunately many of the proposed changes adversely impact restaurants and bars that are following the current rules for example the maximum sound volume would decrease for all businesses in two ways the permissible decimal level would decrease from 70 to 65 and it would be measured from the business rather than the neighboring property for context normal conversation laughter a vacuum cleaner and cars traveling at normal speeds all routinely register around 65 decibels or more even if a business keeps their amplified sound under the decibel limits they could still be cited under the proposed change that expands the offense for reasonable sensibilities because this standard lacks specificity we're very concerned about how it will be applied the thousands of complaints that are currently filed and result in a low decibel reading illustrates that people often disagree about the level of sound that is reasonable we are also concerned that with the proposed changes restaurants and bars that have music outside or even those that only have indoor music but open their doors or windows would have to get a sound amplification permit to have any amplified music after 10 pm most concerning these permits would be automatically denied if 25 of neighboring residents oppose the permit even if the business plans to never have sound that approaches a 65 or 70 decibel limit acquiring an amplified sound permit is cumbersome and expensive and so businesses are unlikely to apply if a small minority of neighbors can veto the permit before businesses even have a chance to comply with the law these proposals also come at a particularly difficult time as many restaurants and bars are still fighting to recover from the economic devastation that was created by the covet pandemic we agree that the goal of we agree with the goal of stopping bad actors and are ready to help however we must oppose agenda items 26 and 27 in their current form because of the impact that they will have on restaurants and bars that are following the rules and strive to be good neighbors we respectfully ask that you vote against these items to ensure hard-working local businesses that follow the law and contribute to our community are not adversely impacted thank you for your consideration and for your service to our city thank you the next speaker is anthony duncan anthony duncan will be followed by madison poe and stephanie nebham good afternoon sir you have three minutes thank you good afternoon i'm anthony duncan i own three restaurants here in el paso and i'm a board member of the el paso restaurant association the current ordinance we have now was passed in 2019 and at that time council was directed by the city uh but well the city directed to form cross-functional teams explore entertainment districts and make recommendations before any more changes were made this hasn't been done although i'm excited to hear from ms mack that you all are talking about moving in that direction and even if it takes eight months i think that's a proper step to go before any changes would be made honestly three years isn't enough time to assess that the current ordinance isn't working and statistics statistics from the city say it is after covert restrictions were lifted the city took it upon themselves to check businesses compliance to be at 70 decibel levels or lower out of 6 000 plus readings taken only 72 violations were recorded that's less than 1.12 as was stated earlier so as we from the restaurant association made it known that we were concerned with the proposed changes the item was tabled and four more community meetings were scheduled during the meetings it became clear that a few residents have a problem with a couple bars something that should be able to be worked out with reasonable residents and business owners and with the help of the city yet you're considering an ordinance today that would affect every restaurant in town that has an outdoor patio that plays recorded music after 10 o'clock at night and most of you that met with us and thank you all for meeting with us told us you're not having any problems with your constituents in your districts regarding complaints about outdoor music on business patios i asked you and more than three thousand people that signed our petition ask you don't pass the proposed changes today they don't work and will create a problem where there isn't one now if you feel you need to do something wait for the cross-functional team or teams reports then please get representation from the businesses that may be affected then we may be able to come to you in the future with something that works for restaurants as well as the residents that may live nearby i want to thank you for your consideration i want to thank you for your time thank you alex speaker is madison po followed by stephanie neban joe nepen michael bray even trampler madison paul good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon i'm here in opposition to proposed changes to title nine and title five i've worked for 14 years at acetuna's beer garden a west side bar with a large outdoor patio that my dad opened in 1985 a bar who was played by the rules for 37 years when the current noise ordinances were established a few years ago we complied however amplified sound is vital to our success as a business our benefits and fundraisers revolve around live music as well the proposed changes will negatively impact many businesses in the community some who are still just getting back on their feet after 2020. live music aside average background noise measures 60 decibels we are mainly an outdoor patio our indoor space is very limited and has a garage door so with the proposed changes even our indoor space is considered outdoor and people just talking on the patio will be too loud restaurants bars and entertainment are vital to the community these changes will make it difficult for businesses to comply with the rules and be successful i feel like these sound ordinance sound ordinances sorry create hostility between businesses and neighbors when there should be ways to come together and find solutions that work for everybody i understand that there are businesses that don't follow the rules but i don't think all businesses should get punished to prove a point to the select few all of that being said i would like to thank the police officers for their tireless work thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is stephanie nepen followed by joe nebhan michael bray evan tremper good afternoon ma'am you have three minutes good afternoon hello my name is stephanie nevan i run the gardner hotel here in downtown el paso as a hotel we are in the business of sleep and right now uh with the outdoor bars as our neighbors they are negatively impacting our business i have a sheet of negative reviews because our guests cannot sleep at the hotel with not only the loud noise till two in the morning but the vibration literally shakes the beds in their rooms so we have been working tirelessly with uh the police department which i'd like to thank them for their help but um commander al pena excuse me uh informed me that as i've been taking the bars nightly they do not care to lower their music so the ticketing isn't even helping and they're they are nowhere even near the 70 decibels so i know as a small business owner or we want everybody to have their businesses and to succeed and i would like maybe for us to find a way to um work together i want i want their business to succeed but i don't think it is fair for it to impede an art business so if there is a way through this that we can work a situation out so everybody's in conceit and not everybody here is affected by what we decide uh today or in the future i think that would be the best way to move forward thank you thank you the next speaker is joe nepen followed by michael bray good afternoon mr nephean you have three minutes sir thank you very much mr mayor members of city council special thanks to all the city representatives that responded to my outreach i do appreciate it how did heck did we get here we've had laws on the books for ages that could have been that could be applied to this and they weren't there was no enforcement when i ran the hotel that my daughter who just spoke read we had the same problem there was no respect from the other businesses whatever they want we have no problem with any of the any other facilities having outdoor music as long as they go and they respect this is our right to do business we have just as much right to run our business as they do the law that we have currently is enough if it is enforced without the enforcement it's just ink on paper and we need to go and you know fix it enforce it but this whole process seems so convoluted i mean this has been going on for such a long time and there's so much wrong information and so much emotion in it that people can't make the right decisions what i'm asking for right now is that we continue to look for a solution that will fit most everybody i'm sure we can it has to come on an individual basis we're downtown we have the oldest hotel in the city 100 years old which is celebrated last month and we have a right to stay in business damn it we really do and so do the so do our neighbors but just respect us that's what we need i don't think we can enforce a law that says respect thank you very much thank you the next speaker is michael bray he will be followed by evan tremper ian bogleweed good afternoon mr bray you have three minutes uh thank you very much mayor council and staff oh i'm sorry i have to tone it down i'm exceeding the decibel levels as we speak right now okay i represent the greater el paso association of realtors here in el paso we have membership a little over 29 hundred members we're here to speak for the issue however we are against the ordinance as being presented to you today we do appreciate the work that the staff has done over the relatively short period of time but the thing that i just kind of noticed is all of the the presentation was from the enforcement side we have pd lined up in the back we've got the attorney's office we have all of that and yet the ones speaking out against it are the stakeholders we have residents speaking out against it we have the business community speaking out against it and so as the association of realtors we're speaking out against this we work with this situation every single day of our lives we represent the commercial interests that are trying to bring quality of life businesses to our neighborhoods we also represent the residential side where we've got people wanting to live in neighborhoods that present the quality of life products that we have here we not only do this here in el paso we do this in every single city that was mentioned not only that we do this in every single city across the country one of the things we found is we need to find we need to bring more people to the front to to talk about these issues so that we can get a good balance so we can coexist in our neighborhoods here um the item that you have a gun uh in front of you according to our experts we'll have some of the toughest uh statues or toughest uh criteria in the entire nation and in my mind all that's going to do is going to make something that's so one-sided that we're going to be spending countless amount of time and energy on behalf of the city and beyond on behalf of the stakeholders out there to try to tweak this austin was brought up we were very instrumental in the in the situation going down there in austin and helping them develop it we had to tweak the uh the the original ordinances and now three years later they have reduced the number of complaints by 73 percent but that's only because we brought all the stakeholders together so we're here today to respectfully ask you to to uh vote against the the two amendments that are before you but to move to establish a task force which we would be more than happy to help facilitate as as representing all sides in the party but to come back and bring you an ordinance that's based more on solid scientific facts and less on emotional response to this thank you so we asked for your vote against this item thank you the next speaker is evan tremper followed by ian vogelweed frank castro brandon shannon christo garcia evan tremper good afternoon you have three minutes thank you guys so much well yeah um i've had the blessing of playing music in el paso for the past 20 years and bartending for the past 10. and i just feel like these changes will affect um thousands of people family members uh family all the family members of of whoever is working at these establishments and um another thing that i feel like is very important and i feel like you mr mayor uh this will resonate with you is that how it brings community together the musician and uh and uh sorry uh like the camaraderie that comes with that and with the the the nightlife and and all that stuff and i just um feel like the livelihoods of all families will be deeply affected and also we have amazing uh school music programs public school programs but there's nothing about like the power of self-expression and i feel like that's very important and if we don't have an outlet for live music that will be lost and i feel like that's very important for our city and in general and yeah thank you guys appreciate it thank you the next speaker is ian bogleweed followed by frank castro brandon shannon christo garcia marceli delbaye good afternoon mister with bogo you have three minutes all right uh thank you mayor city council uh city manager and staff for the opportunity to address you today uh my name is uh ian volgowed i'm with the el paso chamber and the chamber has worked very closely with the city of el paso and a number of economic development initiatives through the years all with the goal of trying to create more jobs higher wages for the community and as part of that we really try to find ways to both keep the young professionals we have in the city and recruit young professionals to the city as well and one of the things that we've seen over the years is that a lot of these young professionals want to live close to and work in neighborhoods that have a vibrant nightlife we know this is a really tough issue so we're not here to tell you what you're doing is wrong i think there's been a lot of effort over the past three years to try to find a solution that works and i think what you're hearing from a lot of the business owners the residential homeowners is that this solution it's just not clear how it solves the problem and so there's a lot of alarm within the chamber within a lot of our businesses that we haven't found a comprehensive solution yet we strongly agree with the cross-functional team approach to looking at these entertainment districts we strongly encourage that we strongly encourage the the analysis that's being done and we would love to hear what the results of that are we would like to ask for the city council to vote against these uh changes to the ordinances and we appreciate that you've made a lot of your time available that the staff has made a lot of time for the chamber to be able to talk through this issue and see how we can try to make it work a little bit better so really appreciate your time and thank you thank you the next speaker is frank castro he will be followed by brandon shannon good afternoon sir you have three minutes good afternoon council mayor thank you so much for your time a lot of stuff that i wanted to say has already been said including every single one of us that has spoken today being in violation of the decibel change that is is being uh submitted through this amendment but i really changed my mind as i was coming up here because it was said that we're not trying to silence anybody but that's what it seems like i've been a resident of el paso since i was born i've been born and raised here and i've lived in juarez and i've lived in el paso and i've been coming back and forth traveling through and seeing the changes that downtown el paso has made itself but the whole city as it keeps expanding east keeps expanding west keeps expanding north and that's what this is really about is change we really have to consider the change that has been going on in the last 20 years and also take into consideration the mark that el paso has been seen as a dangerous city because of the effects of juarez what has been said nationally and by the incident that happened at walmart so we've been having a trouble to bring tourism and outside people back into el paso i worked in hospitality for five years and i cannot tell you the countless times that i had to defend my city telling that it's not a dangerous place so not only now we have to silence everything and become more of a quiet town i myself was already sighted once for having my music too loud in the establishment that i work at the week after we turned off our music completely and we still got cited so compliance is not being accurate and that's one of the bigger problems too if it's going to be compliance in a blanket statement it's not the way that it's being done i really hope that you oppose this amendment as to not strike down our businesses to continue growing and to keep el paso growing thank you very much thank you the next speaker is brandon shannon brandon shannon will be followed by christo garcia good afternoon mr shannon you have three minutes good afternoon city council mayor i'm speaking on behalf of beaver dam and other business that this amendment will directly affect businesses like gringo theory also tunis basically any business with an open door window i wanted to start off by painting a scenario of what this amendment will mean to me and my business and i'll go down the list a little bit the first one on the reasonable sensibility standard clarifying violations can occur at any time of the day so let's just imagine 5 pm on a tuesday you're having tacos and a cocktail and the mariachi bands playing in the patio the next one property receiving noise to any property line not the property line of the residential so imagine this this restaurant or this building is 450 feet away from residential the sound ordnance task force will be able to set up their decibel reader on the highway side which is about 30 feet from the establishment they'll read 30 67 decibels and next step would be they would come in and issue a citation of a thousand dollars hopefully it'll just be the first one because after the second one you'll be revoked you'll lose it and then you'll have to be thrown into a pool of of the residentials voting for you to resubmit or re re-get your uh permit so um just imagine that owner receiving that thousand dollar violation or that citation um all because we're having a happy hour with mariachis and the patio it's not very reasonable um i have a obviously have a bias because i'm part of three different businesses in in el paso but it doesn't seem like it's a very good compromise nor a good solution to the issue irregardless of how that sounds that's um not very fair but i do believe that it not only affects the business owner but it will affect the bands the food truck their employees their families their lives all the employees involved no matter what what it being but i know if this ordinance is passed it will directly affect my livelihood as much as the food trucks livelihood the fans livelihood the employees livelihood it may not be the city's goal or anyone's goal to shut down or eliminate businesses operating in this town but that's exactly what it'll be able to do it'll dictate who can stay open and who can close in this city at will at any point of the property line so that's all i have to say thank you so much thank you the next speaker is cristo garcia cristo garcia will be followed by marceli del valle and edith raffle good afternoon sir you have three minutes good afternoon my name is good afternoon garcia i am the owner slash operator of uh all three of the food trucks and his patio bars so with that said i mean he's talking about the effectiveness it'll have on my staff i have a total of nine employees and our peak hours are from 11 pm to 2 a.m because that's when everybody wants the mariachis and the tacos and the live music and i think we need to work with the well the neighboring residents need to understand that this is what we do for a living this is how we make our money this is how we pay our bills and we comply with all the agencies fire department any law enforcement health department i mean we just we're trying to get back on our feet from colvin and now this is coming up and it's stressful for us the business owners we're trying to comply with everything that's coming up like we did through covet and it changed every week and we had to make a lot of changes and we'll continue to do so i mean it's just i just hope you guys take into consideration where we stand where we stand as business owners and i'm concerned for my employees my staff as well as all the other businesses in el paso thank you guys thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is marceli del valle marcelo del valle star six please to unmute your telephone good afternoon you have three minutes hi guys um i began working at gringo theory in 2019 at this time i was living in an overpriced one bedroom apartment with my dog i was going to school full-time i would make rent by working part-time with my parents and also splitting the rent with them which led to a lot of guilt i was living away from home because i valued my independence yet i couldn't live independently without their help bingo theory provided me a place of work nearby and my boss colby has always been willing to work with my school schedule that i can put my education first since being employed i have been able to buy my own house and support the entirety of my mortgage and build furthermore i'm able to stay focused on what is now my master's program because of the flexible schedule moreover gringo theory gives me the opportunity to do more than the bare minimum financially i'm able to afford the things i want as well to see as well as the things i need for example because of my job i've been able to afford things like vacations which deeply helps me put myself as a priority and therefore aids my mental health the environment that we provide at gringo theory makes people feel like family not like customers which brings me to my next topic of what gringo theory provides for others for many of our clientele gringo theory is a place to disconnect from their family stressors and find a safe space in the company of people that elevate their energy we are not just bartenders here we listen to our customers problems and many times even try to help them solve them strangers will come to me and tell me about their lives and i'm able to be someone that empath empathically listens to them many of these people do not have other that they can talk to about such issues at night gringo theory and other bars is a place where people can connect to others they can meet new people express themselves by dancing and distress by not having to think about anything other than the music the stigma on mental health is still something that continues to be severe therefore many people don't have any other outlets and going to wrinkle theory or other bars provides them this temporary break from all of their problems at gringo theory you're welcomed and you're not judged you're treated as a part of the party which elevates self-esteem we are also located very close to fort bliss which means that a lot of our clientele is military this particular population is at higher risk for many mental health issues including suicidal ideation they live in the majority of their lives under extreme structure that can be immensely suffocating bring with you in other bars is a place where they can let go and enjoy a carefree environment that celebrates individuality for many people the hours in which we operate means that people can get off of a long day at work and still spend quality time with their friends in a social setting the bars provide a place in which you can go alone and still feel socially supported by your bartender by the other patrons that are there for the same purpose to enjoy with the continuing topic of mental health the bar is an alternative for being alone at home even if they have a home or an alternative from being along with their own thoughts which is debilitating for money by passing this legislation we rob people of these opportunities the opportunity for employees to be financially independent and thriving thank you thank you you've reached the three-minute limit and the final speaker is edith brothel good afternoon you'll have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon my name is edie prado i'm a director with the lawn paws animal rescue thank you mayor and council for allowing me to speak we're a non-profit animal rescue group focusing on rehabilitating animals stemming from cruelty and abuse cases we were founded by an el paso police detective with the animal cruelty unit and we rescue the animal victims from current cases that are under investigation being a non-profit much of our funding comes from community supporter donations both individuals and businesses alike we would not succeed without these partnerships one of our biggest and consistent business partners are the shannon's colby and brandon shannon owners of grangotherium patio bar and beaver dam there are animal rights proponents and loyal advocates of lawn paws i welcome you to visit the family friendly patio at gringo theory which is comfortable and welcoming to families and animals alike offering areas for animals to safely relax and play this patio environment has proven to be crucial to our efforts not to mention as a safe open place to interact for those with health and covert concerns gringo theory beaver dam and the shannon's have collectively raised and donated over twenty thousand dollars to lawn paws since 2018 partnerships such as these are crucial to the community and we support and defend the community involvement that the shannon's and the patio environment provides to lawn paws and our fundraising events and to the city of el paso we ask you to please consider also consider these factors moving forward thank you for your time thank you [Applause] mayor that concludes public comment on 26 and 27. thank you very much mayor potem thank you mayor um i want to thank again everybody who has had a chance to come and speak today um you know a wide variety of perspectives but i think one that we heard is the need to continue this dialogue and the need for respect it's a very big challenge when we have really a couple isolated areas where we see continued concerns and when we have an issue where we have a hotel property owners complaining about businesses that are also he's also the landlord of um we're in a very confused situation um when it comes towards policy and when it comes towards how to legislate respect we've also seen there's there's again a number of issues relating towards the current um noise ordinance and how to enforce it as well and there was a good point that again we haven't even had three years two of which have really been in the middle of a pandemic to to fully understand the noise awareness that we have um and i ultimately think that where we're at today is that we really need to be looking at further collaborative solutions that can address some of the narrow complaints and also a path forward for a part of our our economy our industry and also being sent sensitive again to neighbors and residents as well that we represent and so what i what i feel is is we know that there is a consultant that we are coming on we know that we've been having these um cfts these cross-functional team meetings and um i don't think we're at a point right now where what we would be doing passing today would be very helpful to residents to the community to restaurants and bars and really small business owners that comprise a real and significant part of our economy and our quality of life here so i really believe that we need a more constructive approach that generally incorporates multiple voices and perspectives again we are currently looking at additional resources as well as a consultant and i believe we need a further genuine process that can create further and better dialogue between the community the restaurant association other groups and businesses as well therefore i would like to make a motion today to direct staff to continue to conduct outreach with the community businesses and the wrestling association and others to create a better better balanced noise ordinance as well as a path pathway forward for creating entertainment districts um which again was agreed by 2019 and to return to council no earlier than 2023. thank you mayor pro tem you know and um i do want to thank code enforcement and police department i am i asked to go out there and i asked to so i could go and see it myself firsthand and i walked a couple of the entertainment areas and the nightclub areas and uh pleased to tell you guys no one recognized me at midnight walking in your places so but uh no it um i can tell you that uh the noise outside was you could hear it but we were never in any violations the code enforcements were really good about it and they kind of showed me and then we walked into the neighborhoods and we had a really hard time being able to get the decibels sometimes it wouldn't even move up unless we spoke so i think that it was very enlightening for me to and very educational to be out there for a couple hours that night and kind of see firsthand what everyone was talking about and then i did speak to some of the residents and you know the biggest concern i think it's uh which the big and i think somebody talked about was the parking and the littering on the yards and and other things but it wouldn't really they were complaining a lot about the noise it was parking within the areas but and also one of the biggest complaints was the base and that you can't hear outside but you can hear inside which i never witnessed that i did notice that if you're in an alley and the noise is really loud in the alley you walk about 50 60 yards away you really don't hear it it ended up being i think one time we were in an alley and it was in the 80s we walked away and went around the corner and ended up being in the 50s and we were still within the area so i think we still have a lot of work to do and i think ms smack i think you kind of talked about some uh amendments and some of the things we got to look at now we have a consultant on board but it's really important that we continue to support our business community but also i think mayor pro tem kind of talked about it you know talk about our um our residents and so i believe that today we we've done a lot of work law enforcement's done a lot of work but i still believe that we need to kind of look at it a little further and i think the gentleman i think uh wrote down your name here i'm sorry from uh the real estate association that we can um yeah let's pray that uh i know and i know you and i apologize because i i spoke in front of you just the other day and um so i um i think that we we can get a some kind of great understanding because it does affect also the residential this is not just about the nightclubs and the nightlife it also rep you know this noise ordinance is includes all residential all private homeowners and all that and i think so it's very important that we get it right and we continue to look at ways and ms mack i thank you for looking at different amendments i know that i've talked to chief pasillas and and i know you talked about that we need to look at some things so i i think that today we we really need to look at continuing to do what's best for the community and move forward on looking on how we can make this a better situation for everyone and i don't think we're ready today to say yay or nay in any circumstance that would affect either the business or it would affect the residents uh i i think that uh we can come to a mutual agreement at some point but uh i don't see that we're there today so because i did go out there and i did stand out there and i did walk it for for a couple hours and a couple of you guys had offered me a drink and i didn't take it i want to thank you for that anyway um representative um we'll go to the rodriguez and we'll go to representative lesotho thank you thank you mayor and thank you to everybody that's here you know as a small business owner myself i understand the hardships of having to go through many regulations to get your business to succeed i also understand the responsibility to have so many families dependent of your business for of your business success for them to be successful as well i'm always going to be siding with the small business community i think that we are a vital part of our local economy here i don't think that putting more slapping more red tape on them is going to help the situation i think that what could potentially help is actually going with whatever whatever we do have in the books already and further enforcing it and really taking a deep dive and looking into those bad actors you know the mr nepan and his daughter were here and they're saying how hey our business is important too and i agree completely their business is important also so we maybe need to ms mack look at what's happening there in that situation with the local businesses that are having the disturbances there and and i've been there and yes they are so um there's just certain locations that probably need a little bit more help than others i'm happy to hear that we're going to have a third party consultant coming in i'm sure that with this third-party consultant they will be bringing in sound engineers is that correct miss mac yes the scope of the work does not define exactly how they come to the result but we're asking them to look at sound buildings permitting processes built and so we're really allowing the consultant to tell us what the tools need to be and then also helping helping us to define who needs to be on these cross-functional teams to ensure that we're not leaving out any um industry and so we really want to allow that voice to come to the table to help to guide us through this very important next step yeah because i mean just just the the modifications that you are all recommending for the the ordinance i mean sunday we're we're hispanic community here we're big on family cookouts we're big on family gatherings what does that mean does that mean that now if i want to have a sunday cookout with my children and have the pool and have noise like we now need to get a permit and let you all know no ma'am so the current noise ordinance that applies to everyone throughout the city is from 10 p.m and what the pd was able to share with many people is it it generally isn't the calls from these one-time events that happen in neighborhoods people are really accommodating to their neighbors for these one-time events and when they are called out they usually provide a warning and they're not you know it's not necessary for them to come back to provide any additional action in many of those cases and neighborhoods and what about band practices and football games we on the campus yeah would there be any issues with them we haven't had any issues and i have many of the commanders here but are they susceptible to being complained upon what's your question um so to answer your question no ma'am we haven't had any complaints from schools band practices things of that nature football games things of that so yeah i'll use eastwood high school as example it's right there next to a residence we don't get complaints during their sporting seasons but but if this new ordinance would pass then would they have to get a noise would they have to get the permit no man no even though they'd be having loud music after 10 p.m and no ma'am no and i just want i'm just i'm not trying i'm really trying to understand the difference we want to just make sure we're clarifying between the sound amplification permit although we're not taking action on that because it it is in place um and just want to make sure on the record that that's clear okay eric uh yeah representative eric with yetis for the record um it wouldn't be applicable so the sound amplification permanent chapter five that's specifically for outdoor establishments that are playing music between the hours of 10 p.m and midnight and so the the examples you're coming up with are not um part of that permitting scheme and they wouldn't be a part of that permitting scene well i mean but to be fair that seems kind of unfair right because they're still providing entertainment they're still providing music after 10 p.m it's still a lot of noise it's still within the distance of homes so why wouldn't they sure i understand what you're saying representative it's something that we'll look at and again i'm not trying i don't want them to go i don't want the supposed to be applying for for permits or football games or brand practices but i'm just trying to say that you know entertainment music is something that's part of our culture it's part of our of whom who we are um you know like i said we could have a cookout or wash it in our cars and we turn on the music that's just we that's how we enjoy our lives you know and so again for for those reasons you know i wouldn't be supporting these um recommendations i do however believe that we should move forward with the third party consultant and also hiring um sound engineers experts basically to tell us if we're doing it right or not and also further um enforcing the code that we already do have to help the establishment or the homes i'm sorry and businesses that are being affected by this so thank you thank you thank you and um with that i just managed to addre we do have some faqs that we have provided if that's useful to to be able to distribute to people just to help them understand what's actually on the books okay and what those requirements are we would greatly appreciate your help getting that out we basically utilize our pd and other connections to make sure we have that available and it's also on our website because we know that you know codes can be somewhat challenging for people to understand thank you thank you thank you for that and um i do want to say and i didn't when i was talking about we did probably 10 readings while we were out in from midnight till about 1 30 in the morning and there was zero violations on all the readings we did through and we were in separate areas around town so and with that and i apologize for representative lausa i should have gone to you next and i didn't so please have the floor thank you mayor i i too also want to thank all the residents that came out today i know many of you have been here all day waiting patiently for your comments to us as a council this is clearly a complex issue that lots of people have an interest in and it's an issue that different constituents of mine approach with very opposite perspectives we have postponed these proposed amendments several times for various reasons and that has given me the time needed to engage with these different perspectives very thoroughly i met with local restaurant owners bar owners i met more than once with the texas restaurant association and many of their members i've been to the homes of constituents who are impacted by noise i did a ride along in the cincinnati area with the police department from 10 p.m to 1 a.m on a saturday night and went into every single establishment to see what the situation was like we witnessed three large brawls one of them up in the area of the neighborhood though that's a separate issue i observed for myself that some businesses did a good job of adhering to the current noise ordnance provisions and others seem to make very little effort to do so i will say that more than once i got a hearing protection warning from my smart watch and saw noise levels far exceeding 70 decibels at the sidewalk i say all of this because i don't want anyone to think that i am making any decision lightly or without very thorough consideration of all the perspectives what i can see very clearly is that there is a problem there are dissatisfied residents and homeowners and neighborhoods and they are not able to have full enjoyment of their own homes and sometimes not able to sleep because of the impact of noise from nearby commercial properties there has been lots of debate as to the scale of that problem but it is a problem nonetheless and it has been my policy since i took office that in addressing these sorts of problems i try my best to err on the side of the neighborhood of the impacted resident i can't guarantee that these proposed amendments are the best or most perfect solution to this problem that can only be answered by their effectiveness after roll out if they are passed today that said we have a very professional staff across multiple departments who have worked on these proposed amendments and arrived at what i think is a very reasonable proposal i think they offer a good set of steps to take toward addressing the problem that we have i know many businesses would disagree but i don't find these amendments overly strict or unreasonable to those who already take the steps necessary to stay in compliance it is for these reasons that i planned to support these items today i would prefer prefer to vote on these items today they have been postponed for several months now and in the meanwhile residents living near problem locations have continued to deal with the resulting issues unfortunately it doesn't look like there is a majority of support to put this to a vote today businesses if this were to pass today we want to continue to work with you to help you to be in compliance in a way that doesn't impact your bottom line our city staff has assured me of that i think that we can find a balance here neighbors if this these amendments do not pass today we will continue to work with you to find a solution to the problem you are facing with that said i move to approve items 26 and 27 along with the floor amendment thank you mayor mayor um thank you ladies and gentlemen it's uh initially in 2019 i was the one that had started this because i had a very troubled just neighbor neighborhood and business commercial property at 1400 seragosa i went ahead and did what i had to do met with the owners met with the homeowners met brought them both together uh and that that ordinance was allowed to pass and that's the ordinance that we're working off of i agree with mayor pro tem uh short spine and the fact that at that time i didn't have a consultant they didn't have a consultant ready uh and i and and it was all police department who did most of the research all of the research as a matter of fact neon and mac and i attended several of those meetings and what i would like to say is that if the stakeholders are there they need to come up with solutions some did there was initial residents who just didn't want a bar there they just didn't want it and and it's understandable but in this time and age when we're trying to make our city uh progress forward i uh i continue to agree we have to move forward and bring those kind of venues so that we can attract our youth and keep them here in el paso especially to make this community a little bit better and so i hate to burden the the police department with further work but since you have are acquiring a consultant i would like to give it a chance before we even vote on this to whether to pass it or not therefore i am supporting a mayor pro tem and postponing this issue and pardon me mayor potem can you repeat your motion please yes he did yes he did he did again my motion again was to direct staff to continue to conduct outreach with the community businesses and the restaurant association others to create a better balanced noise ordinance as well as a pathway for creating city-approved entertainment districts and to return to council now earlier than 2023. that was an emotional this language could also include the hiring of the consultants which is already going through that process as well as the cft process as well thank you for that so that i wanted to second his motion on that because like i said if we're gonna go we're gonna continue to work together on this the police department is trying to come up with every possible solution that they can i ask the stakeholders to come up with solutions and not just counter a complaint with the officers uh when the officers present something it's got to be done this community has to move forward from here this several years the miss mac and the cross-functional team have spent a lot of time a lot of hours doing this and it seems like every every meeting that was held it was always i know it's my i i mean it was hell it was always waiting to see what the police department said therefore i want to give it an opportunity and and i hope uh you know it it turns out with a great solution for everybody involved because uh small small businesses here in el paso do need to exist although residents also need to live in peace and not have to listen to somebody else's music when they're not wanted so hopefully we can arrive at and determine a position that the city will take and that the department can act on as well and that the the residential owner is satisfied with thank you mayor thank you and i agree with you and mayor pro tem with that now did we get a second on the original motion yes uh the the motion to adopt as amended was made by mayor pro tem lizard seconded by representative yeah that's not the main motion but i i would still like to speak as representative rivera was just allowed to speak after a motion in a second right that's correct we can do that and the only thing we're not allowed to it's when there's a postponement in a second so it was not a postponement at this point yes ma'am so with that now we have representative salcido and she's she moved herself well you keep moving yourself okay go ahead here you're after yeah mayor thank you so a couple things i was i've worked in the service industry previous to having this job it was my main occupation for 17 years in washington dc in new york in boston in austin and in el paso and it was never to living in this city that i had had an issue with noise and that's being a a server and a bartender in the city and going home and still having to deal with it um right because there was no noise ordinance here there was no way to deal with it so i don't there's this conversation about small business and not allowing that to happen and like shutting down bars and i can tell you every other major city in this country deals with it in a way that those two things are allowed to exist um when i came into office in 2017 there was a really bad actor in my community and like representative of the sodega i did drive alongs i went to that person's house i went to that bar a mayor i don't know where he went but i remember it being really really bad and the reason it's not bad anymore is because a new owner took over that bar and said this is awful why would i do this to the people in this neighborhood right there was someone who made a choice the people here up here opposing this are making a choice to not be good actors and and mr rivera no offense to you but the reason that what we worked on in 2017 didn't work is because this council got up and changed what staff had worked on for two years and the ordinance we have now is half an ordinance that nobody even bothered none of the people here bothered to get a permit for and like i said to every one of them if we were the tabc and asked them to get a permit they would have done that but they chose to disrespect this council and disrespect the staff the law enforcement and the ordinances we have in place um so i i i agree with miss representative this really should pass today out of respect for the voters of this community this should pass um i do have some questions for you uh miss mack if you're available when you said you have an rfp or queue that's out it's gonna be rfp rp and when does that do we will be posting it next week and so we're looking at around an 80 day time frame around that but of course that would um it really depends on the number of applicants we get it is a specialized area that we're asking for and so our hope is that we we have something in place within our normal time frame but i'm not sure with everything we've seen in terms of procurement so 80 days just for approval correct okay and then what is the process with that i mean after the 80 days it comes to council um do we have a time limit for whoever is awarded that contract or will we go with their recommendation we put six months in the recommendation but typically when we do this particularly if it's an area of work that we don't do historically we have an opportunity through interviews to really understand what the best practice might be although we're talking about six months we are a large city and we have expanded beyond the scope of what we have seen in some of these traditional rfps or work to include some of our building code and sound ordnance and others so once we have them on board i think it will be similar to some of the other studies we have in place we'll have them develop a timeline for us help us to understand the first steps and then of course we'll be sharing that information with the entertainment district cft and then from there we will begin the process of engaging the community okay so you put this up next week you've got an 80-day time frame then you've got to get it on council so you're looking at essentially 90 days and then six months so you're looking at basically nine months until and then it has to come to council as an ordinance change so that's two meetings and you have to do public meetings so you're looking about a year and a half and then you forgot the outreach piece yeah exactly you're right i didn't even and then i also didn't include who the stakeholders are going to be scheduling them right then doing the outreach really this is a two-year process two-year process you've been doing five years of work on this and we're asking you to make residents wait again to wait another two years i don't disagree that this is a good idea and i thank you for coming up with it and then i've been very thankful to you and everyone on the uh the cft for this and you've done a lot of work but i i think it's irresponsible of this council to make residents wait for another two years to see any action so i appreciate all the work that you've done thank you again um thank you for you know volunteering to do more work on this but i will be supporting your item today thank you ma'am thank you representative representative salcido followed by mayor potem followed by representative rodriguez thank you mayor even though this is a city-wide ordinance i still want to disclose for transparency that i owned and operated a sports grower before the pandemic since the pandemic the business has been closed and the tabc license has expired so i just want to be very full transparent with you all i do want to thank also the city staff for all their hard work and the cft group and also the police department that really spent countless hours in vetting everything that we were talking about i know that the first time it rolled out for in 2019 um i did feel like it was rushed to fail but like representative rivera mentioned you know he was trying to find a solution for his for his area and so you know that was the best that could be done at that point in time but i think this com community does deserve for it to be handled by a third party you know with experts you know sound engineers to really take a look at at this whole picture i know the time frame is going to be i think around one year and a half but i think that this community deserves to get a you know a proposal a third party to come out with you know reasonable coexisting ordinances that can help both neighborhoods and businesses coexist and and provide both the quality of life that you know some people want and also the peace of mind that other people want so i i don't think it's a bad idea to to really go ahead and wait for this third party consultant to come out with suggestions i think that it'd be best for us to be able to co-exist and not not be enemies of each other i think that there's ways that we can come up with solutions so i i do support uh waiting for the third party to come about and then propose more uh balanced solutions for this community thank you thank you representative salsido uh mayor potem yeah thanks again mary and i just want to be clear that i do appreciate all the support and time that staff has had um with this area and again with some of these these specific areas and issues you know i've spent much time on drive alongs with um with our police department driving in around the areas as well as visiting residents for years i've taken many friday and saturday nights driving in this area looking at at the concerns looking at the parking in the area my office also has worked with city staff to have numerous community meetings in the kern place area with residents to deal with some of these ongoing issues of nuisance and parking and issues of parking in residential areas we've been able to have some success uh in terms of looking at some of the tow away zones and others and my concern is that the issues in the that area were there before i was ever in office and now is were there before representative lazargo represents that part of the city as the district 8 rep and i'm not sure that any of those issues of nuisance are going to go away with the passing of this noise ordinance because those issues were there before i was ever sworn in in july of 2015. that doesn't mean that we can't work on them that doesn't mean that we shouldn't work on those issues but we need to separate what is what this noise ordinance will do for our entire city and our community and small business owners and what we can do to deal with ongoing issues of nuisance and and other issues of parking in specific parts of our city so again i think the most prudent and responsible thing to do right is to go and um not past this noise ordinance as well as how however much time staff has worked on which we're all very appreciative but again to work with the community for continued outreach to work with the business community the restaurant association and others again to create a better balance noise ordinance as well as a pathway for creating these city-approved entertainment districts because we talk about entertainment districts but there is no definition in our in our city there is no definition by ordinance there is no definition of what exactly an entertainment district is and again giving staff time to bring on these consultants to do this the right way and to bring it back in 2023 and i think that that is something again that brings the proper amount of respect to the business community to the residents as well we know that the issue that we have is one of respect and working well and we all need to be good neighbors here um that is that is not something that can just be legislated out the blue it's something that needs to just start from the ground up and i think we have a great way not just to talk about it but to show it through this process moving forward about building a better noise ordinance and the creation of these entertainment districts and again i would i would hope to have my colleagues support again by doing the right thing by being responsible and measured um with coming up with something better than what we currently have here today and so i i hope i can now have the support of council um moving forward with that thank you mayor pro tem and i will have representative um rodriguez and then we'll call the question ms prine thank you thank you so i just you know i also want to reiterate i want to do i want to thank the police department and ms mack for all your hard work i know that this has been a very challenging situation um but i guess i want to kind of take a deep dive in looking into the penalties miss neyman is there a reason why you know we can't keep increasing the penalties for the bad actors right because i just don't think it's fair again that we're gonna impose or wanting to impose this this ordinance across the city when we have identified a few bad actors so the 500 a day penalty why can it keep increasing if they keep having um the same issue that that is that establishment that has been um seen as a bad actor to clarify your question you mean why can't i go above 500 yes so like i they the police department shows up once it's 500 they show up again the next day it increases 600 it keeps increasing and because the violation is per day so as opposed to it going up in value it's per day so it's day one would be 500 day 2 could be another 500 day three could be another 500 so that's how it increases it's based on the per day violation okay and is there anything that we can do to look at that to say okay you know what it was 500 but if i come back tomorrow it'll be a thousand so we wouldn't so the manner in which we draft these ordinances is to allow for the court to make a decision as to whether or not additional days would be found eric do you want to address the way that those fines are issued by the course right and so rep rep salcido um these are classy citations and so there's a max of 500 per offense and so the way we have it right now is you know you get a citation on day one and you have a max of five hundred dollars day two if you're still violating you have another citation max of five hundred dollars there's no way to kind of preemptively make that higher because it has to go to court still right so it still has to go to court there's still to be a trial there's just to be a a guilty verdict essentially okay i was asking oh i'm sorry i'm sorry it's been a long day i'm sorry no it's okay um so i guess i guess my whole thing here is i think that again instead of just kind of looking at the entire city and punishing everybody i feel you know even like like i said you know we have cookouts we have swimming pool we have kids um football games could become a target i don't know band practices you know i have people that complain about being living close to school i don't know this could potentially be motive for them to start complaining against the schools and their and their activities right um i think that we should be looking at the individuals committing these repetitive um or having repetitive complaints and seeing what we can do about maximizing those citations um rep rodriguez um with respect to maximizing them you know there's other things that we're looking at there's the texas local government code so the city attorney's office we're going to be filing civil cases and that's a max fine of a thousand dollars that's a civil fine it's not a criminal one and so there are other avenues that we're looking at addressing this um on these more egregious offenders so increasing the fines is essentially a texas issue is what you're saying yeah so it'll be it'll be capped at 500 because it is a classy citation and is there a cap on the amount of um citations they can receive no ma'am we right now it's per day um and that's kind of how we organize it just because it's easier for the court to understand it if we separate by days and we're able to explain what that offense was on day one and day two and so on and so forth okay so would you be able to go into an establishment at like 11 59 and issue a citation and they don't and then come back at 102 a.m and issue another one theoretically yes yes okay so you could you can return to the same establishment more than one time correct yeah so when we're talking about that time frame um it's another day so they could issue another citation okay the noise ordinance is between midnight it's after midnight correct so you couldn't do that well so so it would be from 10 to midnight the permitting schemes from 10 to midnight so a citation could be issued during that time frame and then there's no noise past midnight so that could be a second citation or another day but that's already right it's after midnight it's 1201 so that's another day so that's two different ones okay so i mean all i really ask is that you all really take into consideration and i know you all already doing this um the bad actors but really looking at also you know the the people that are complaining i don't know if they could be considered bad actors as well um where they just don't want the business to be there right and so and i know it's a very very challenging thing so i really hope that this third party consultant can address those issues but and i'm right now i just really want to hone in on on you know the gardner hotel because they're they're not getting any help so if you could really um look at them and address their concerns and visit them once in a while or visit them multiple times because it's true their business deserves to flourish as well yes sir that's it thank you thank you thank you um we're miss prine hold on one second please if you don't mind one second we have uh somebody that was ready to speak on call to the public okay thank you i'm sorry go ahead thanks eric for clarification can you talk about um what was done previously in exempting downtown yes rep anello um chapter five the permitting scheme is exempt the downtown management district the original map as it existed when it was created that is exempt from chapter five it is not exempt from chapter nine which is the general noise nuisance okay and so what does that mean for the gardner hotel um so so if if you're exempt from the chapter five requirements you still have to comply with general decibel level uh max level that we have which is 70 right now um you still have to comply with the reasonable sensibility standard which means that you can't have anything that a citizen can call in on and it necessarily it's not necessarily 70 decibels but it's still disturbing their peace comfort and repose i mean there's also the vibrations clause that they you know that's still applicable for the dmd okay and um yeah so i mean i would agree with representative rodriguez they've come here this is you know probably the fourth time that they've been here waiting for this item to be heard um i understand they've sent several emails um since we started talking about this i know i forward them over to the team if we could get them some assistance that would be really appreciated yes ma'am thank you thank you and with that miss uh oh okay no go ahead go ahead ma'am thank you mayor um actually i have a question in regards did you mention there was a floor amendment i i just wanted to get a little bit clarification on that floor amendment that's that's correct representative salcido um the floor amendment's for the vibrations clause and essentially the floor amendment is um clarifying that we're talking about the base for um that that we're hearing the loud bass music and we're also clarifying that we don't need any uh sound meter level reading to go forward on that type of a vibration clause and so essentially it's opening it up to any affected property so if your property is affected by vibrations and you could feel those vibrations in your residence you would be allowed to go forward on those types of cases and this is not something that would be filed with the city attorney's office it would be a citation issued by either pd or code naidof okay okay thank you thank you and i do want to thank just pd code enforcement ms mack and your team and everything you've done none of it will go to waste as you hire a consultant that will have a great ground floor to begin and move forward so i thank you all for that with that ms prine yes mayor so the motion by mayor pro tem schwarzwein takes precedence in this case and his motion seconded by representative rivera was to direct staff to continue to conduct outreach with the community businesses and the restaurant association and others to create a better balanced noise ordinance as well as a pathway for creating city approved entertainment districts and to return to council no earlier than 2023 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes with four affirmative votes representative schwartz finds salcido rodriguez ribera mourinho representative zanelo molinar and lizarraga voting the motion does carry and just to be clear the consultant's not on board yet they do have an rfp i just wanted to be clear about that i know that dion just told me she made that clear but i just wanted to reinforce that sir one thing she said it was going out thursday right so thank you thank you for that that's going to get there yes okay thank you and without mr prine yes sir the next two items are related item 28 is a public hearing on a norn ordinance amending the future land use map contained in plan el paso to from o3 our agriculture to g7 industrial and or rail yards at 9879 north loop drive and item 29 is an ordinance changing the zoning from rf wrench and farm to c4c commercial condition and imposing conditions also at 9879 north loop drive pardon me we that was miss pine item 26 and 27 has already been voted on and it was to refer it to staff here yeah who is representative hold on hold on hold on allow mr pine to speak mayor pro tim schwarzwein's motion was seconded by representative rivera and so that was to refer the item but that was after second in her but in the order of motions it comes first so it was approved so that means the representative lisa argos motion is null question but his motion wasn't to postpone this item it was to continue working with staff and stakeholders it technically was not to not vote on this item because they would still work with stakeholders with this rfp whether this was approved or not so he would have to go back and reword that motion because it didn't actually nothing that he said was about those two items miss newman miss newman so the the proposal that was voted on was to postpone the the passing of this item as worded is that what the motion was laura no he didn't say postponed that's what we're saying his his motion was to direct it to staff and this was to refer to staff which in the the order of motions it takes precedence over the main motion could you re-read it laura do you mind yes sir the motion that was passed was to direct staff to continue to conduct outreach with the community businesses and the restaurant association and others to create a better balanced noise ordinance as well as a pathway for creating city approved entertainment districts and to return to council no earlier than 2023 so the process that that's going to entail council will entail the hiring of that consultant that's not even on board yet so that'll be several months before we get them on board and then the outreach that will take place and all the discussion that you had and all the input that's going to be received but that's going to take quite a bit of time and so we would bring it back in 2023 according to what she just read yes sir yes sir that's my interpretation so i hope that clears it up mayor i think you're right sir that was my interpretation also that they're going to return with it with another ordinance right that's correct can you give us a ruling please i still say that peter's item didn't say postpone so he did not say postpone the item so i think my my uh agenda my item is still on the floor miss neiman mayor per the rules you decide based on what the parliamentarian is advising so which uh so the parliamentarian is advising that the item as worded was to continue to work with this so do we need to take the representative lasagna's motion or no because they're going to return with another ordinance that's that's your decision to make mayor as to whether or not you take the next item well which one should i want to make sure we follow the rules that's why i would refer to miss pryner i'm referring to you right so mr prime is explaining that there was no motion to postpone the item she's explaining that the council agreed to allow the consultant to continue to work with the stakeholders so the decision you have to make is whether the item that representative lizard is still on the floor so we need to take a vote on her item that's what you're saying that's basi that's that's your decision to make me okay so we'll do that then but can we hold on hold on please please hold on real quick is that what you're saying miss uh neiman yes sir okay i'm going to take the advice from our city attorney and take that let's take that item please let's take the vote on that item and then we can vote on the next item if it passes or fails depending on that so you want you want me yeah but it was the second you didn't she was clear hold on um what miss neiman is saying is that we didn't put the item for postponement or so what she's saying is that we need to take the first item the first motion that was second by representative nello first and if that motion does not pass then we should take the second item correct ms neiman i i think what i think what was said mayor is that miss representative is right that the word postponement was not right however the way it was worded and i shared with you my interpretation of it laura prine which is a parliamentarian uh affirms that she concurs that's her interpretation of it but we are not disputing the fact that the word postponement was not used so representative zadaga is correct that that word was not used but the way i understood what y'all passed is we're going to go back and work with the stakeholders and come back with any revisions to the existing ordinance or a new ordinance okay so mr pathway i'm going to take your ruling you're the parliamentarian here mayor it was my interpretation that this item will return before 2023. based on the motion from mayor pro tem schwarzwein that it was to direct staff to go back and work with the community and then return with a better balanced noise ordinance before or no earlier than 2023 so it was my interpretation that it was directing staff that it was referring the item to staff to continue working and then to come back with another ordinance in 2023 laura it says no earlier than 2023 correct sir so it's in 2023 so just so it's clear i want council thinking we're going to come back in december because we're not it's probably going to be sometime in 2023 yes sir so miss pride it's your ruling you're the parliamentarian mayor like i said it was my interpretation that this item was being referred to steph and i'm not sure miss hamilton is available because i also conferred with her for a minute okay i don't and that's what it is yes ma'am i'm here um and just to make sure that we're clear ms prime is the parliamentarian to advise the mayor on the the decisions of order um and so mayor if that's you know what your comfort is on this item um you know that's well you know what so the clarifying make sure everything's clear we'll go ahead and take vote on representative lasagna's motion yes mayor yes ma'am thank you so with that we have a motion in a second to pass it as and then if not we'll take the second row we vote on the second item i'm going to remove my second and i would like to ask miss mack what her opinion on this is because if it doesn't pass how does that impact the work that they're going to do in the future based on the first motion so at the moment i'm removing myself wait time out if you remove your second then you're then yeah already you'll have a motion in a second in front of it now no we already voted on representative schwartzman's motion in second i just want to make sure that's what rep what carl and eamonn and mr gonzalez have told us we've already voted on that yeah but they're talking about voting on your item first now if the council wants to re do the vote then they will need a motion to reconsider okay let's hold on i'm going to um has been taken would you like to reconsider 2016. hold on let's time out ms neiman i'm asking your legal opinion are we legal on the motion that we passed the the motion that was voted earlier that's that's voted on and approved mayor so the question is what do you do with the second motion guess what your question is are we supposed to hear the other motion or not based on legality so based on the interpretation of the parliamentarian her interpretation was that the count that this item would return at some point in 2023 after the work of the of the consultant was used okay so you that is a legal motion and we don't need to hear the other motion so the question that is before the council on you mayor is as to whether or not you can still vote on the item to pass the proposal as as as posted on today's agenda so it's going to be determined by me yes sir based on i think we just need to move forward and call it and i'm going to take ms prince decision so we're done so we're done you're the planetarian and i'm done with it thank you mr president and i asked for legal and that's to what i got so i'm taking it so we're done let's move next item okay the next two items are related they're items 28 and 29 item 28 is a public hearing on an ordinance amending the future land use map contained in plan el paso at 9879 north loop drive from 03 our agriculture to g7 industrial and or rail yards and item 29 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning at 98.79 north loop drive from our branch and farm to c4c commercial condition and imposing conditions move to a proof oh do you have a what sir yeah i'd budge you to speak said okay thank you uh oh this with this future land use uh anybody who can either mr edway or or or city manager if you can let me know uh is there already a plan in place for the the the valley area the mission valley area i'm sorry i'm sorry representative i didn't hear the first part of that i'm sorry with the item 28 and 29 uh with this with this approval here if it goes through is there a set of valley master plan like say the east side master plan that with this were these with this uh apparently with all these uh industrial parks opening up no sir there is not a master plan for the valley before the valley no sir there that we're doing um work around it i know that the the alameda corridor which i know it's not necessarily right in that area but we're doing it around it right and then the east side master plan that you mentioned but no i'm not no we're not doing um a master plan in the valley at this time would it hinder anything we approve it today and then come back with a request for that let me let me read that real quick give me one second no no if you approve those nothing precludes us from if we did a master plan for the valley uh that that what actions you took would preclude us from doing a valley uh valley uh master plan okay thank you thank you sir okay thank you do we have a motion in a second do we have a second we have a motion in a second now there was a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative rivera to approve items 28 and 29 there's no public comment on this item on the motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes with five affirmative votes representative vanello voting nay and representative lizard not present the next two items are also related item number 30 is a public hearing on a norn and cementing the future land use map contained in plan el paso from 03 agriculture to g4 suburban this is north of inglewood drive and west of north luke drive item 31 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from rf wrench and farm to aoc apartment office condition and imposing conditions also north of inglewood drive and west of north loop drive motion to approve there is a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative rodriguez to approve items 30 and 31 there's no public comment on these items on that motion call for the vote representative lisa will you be voting thank you mayor pro time short swine aye thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 32 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning at 97.51 pan american drive from rf branch and farm to m1 light manufacturing motion to approve it second there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative molinar to approve item number 32 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly hi thank you and the voting session the motion passes with five affirmative votes representative rodriguez voting nay and representative angelo not present the next item is number 33 and this is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from a to apartment to c1 commercial and imposing conditions at 7249 dale road the mayor staff has comment on this item thank you miss brian robert garcia funny inspections good afternoon mayor council this item has been requested to be postponed for two weeks the request this is at the request of district three city representatives office motion reports funding we do have public comment go ahead a second well before we if we can't take other comments if we do second it so you want to wait a minute do we have public comment yes mayor we do okay go ahead okay we have rodolfo rodriguez let's sign up to speak elva viagran and scott winton i don't see rodolfo rodriguez in the queue is elba viagran in chambers i don't think anyone's coming up scott winton no one's coming up okay that concludes second all right we have a motion and a second to delete for i mean to postpone for two weeks two weeks correct yes yes there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative salcido to postpone item 33 for two weeks on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortswing hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative anaelon not present next item is number 34 and this is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from r3 residential to a4 apartment and imposing a condition and this is at state highways first 16 and to is second there's a motion made by mayor potem shortstein seconded by representative rivera to approve item number 34. there's no public comment on this item on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortstop yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative anelo not present the next item is number 35 and this is a public hearing on an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute a quit claim tax resale deed conveying all right title interest and property described as logs 29 30 in block 2 or orchard park addition to the city of el paso and to figueroa holdings there's a motion made by representative molinar seconded by representative lizarra to approve item number 35. there's no public comment on this item on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly all right thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 36. and this is discussion in action on the proposed programs and projects for inclusion as part of the community progress bond good afternoon members of council sam rodriguez chief operations officer the presentation today will focus on continuing the discussion for the progress community bond program that that's proposed for november of this year presentation today will focus on the initial project list that's based on the feedback received from the public engagement process as well as the strategic planning sessions that the city council had late last year as you'll see the big focus on this program or the initial program is based on streets concurrently with this process we've been as you have heard before we've been working on the payment condition index that project is scheduled to be wrapped up at the end of this this month so we're scheduled to come back in august to further provide information about the payment condition index and how we would further make recommendations related to how we would spend the funds allocated within the initial program that's presented to you today so with this i'm going to turn the presentation over to alex hoffman to to present alex thank you sam and good afternoon uh mayor and council alex hoffman with the capital improvement department for the record uh next slide please so just as a reminder to city council uh so we started uh back in january this process uh came about as a result of our strategic planning process and in january we presented a schedule of what we're going to follow to help develop and and and include potential projects and programs as part of a potential bond and so what we did after that was that we uh conducted a round of public engagement where we asked the public a series of questions related to these uh four project areas that the results and the findings of those uh engagement efforts were presented to all of council and we provided that feedback back to each of you if you know the next slide please and so as a result of that public engagement the big thing that we took away from that process was that the public in general was supporting two key project areas so one was really looking and concentrating on streets which 56 of our responses which were you know around 2500 responses really prioritized streets with another 21 looking at parks and recreation and so because of that next slide please we uh we took the results and findings uh specifically related to the economic development questions that we asked and use that information to help us inform potential programs and projects as well as project locations really focusing on the three areas that were focused uh that are highlighted here looking at streets parks and open space and then climate change next slide please and so as a result of that process we have put together and we'll go through in those quick slides a potential bond program that's 399 million dollars next slide please and so the project cost by program area uh 70 of that money would be towards streets again really looking back and reflecting on what we heard during the public engagement phase of this process hearing that loud and clear that streets were the priority and so as a result we've put the majority of the funding is proposed as part of this program towards streets and then 29 going towards parks and recreation and then finally one percent going towards climate change next slide please so with that i'm going to hand it over to robert cortinas who's going to be going over the financial aspect of this program good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon so i have a few slides some of these you've already seen what i'm going to present to you is the existing debt that's already been approved or authorized either by the voters through the court of life for the public safety bond or through the city council on prior action so this slide shows you the current cip 1.4 billion dollars which sam has presented on multiple times it shows you the breakdown of the budgeted amount pay attention on the far right hand column this amount shows you the remaining amount of debt still yet to be issued over the next several years so for example in the 2012 quarter of life we still have just over 128 million remaining to be issued for the mpc project and the 2018 and 2019 we have a small amount of ceos to be issued in the future specifically for the tommy slope repair project which is approved in the 2018 capital plan and then the remaining top 25 arterial projects in the 2019 capital plan about 26 million and then the largest piece is still yet the 246 million roughly in public safety bond projects which was approved by the voters in november of 2019. so all together we still have approximately 400 and 7.1 million dollars of debt to be issued over the next six to seven years so i'm going to show you here in the next couple of slides what the debt model looks like on that existing debt that 407 million and then also incorporates the 399 million dollars of a potential november bond election or what that impact would have on the city's debt rate um but i first want to start with talking about some of the assumptions that are built into the debt model we talk a lot about this also when we do our five-year forecast obviously well we put a lot of time and effort into making the correct assumptions however obviously nobody's 100 perfect as to what's going to happen in the future especially with nowadays with the environment changes rapidly as it does but included obviously we look at the cash flow needs so we work very closely with kelp improvement department on the timing of these projects not only the ones that have been approved but the ones that are in the november 2022 bond at the timing so looking at the amount looking at interest rates obviously we've seen a rise in interest rates over the last several months factoring in that into the model future property value increases which is a key component of the amount of property tax revenue we'll have available in the future and then utilizing any potential debt service savings that last bullet point there are refinancings we do not incorporate any refinancy savings into the model and we do that because nobody can foresee what interest rates will be down the road and so we don't want to to put in an estimate as to what we think future refinancing savings would be just because it's sort of an unknown at this point in time so looking at the at the debt model here two components in this so the blue portion of the bars there incorporates all of our existing debt that has either been authorized and issued or has not been issued so this factors in the remaining 407 million dollars so currently our debt rate is just over 29 cents with our currently approved debt it would push us over the next several years to about 33 cents so looking at about a four cent increase over the next several years the orange portion of those bars there at the top you'll see that incorporates the 399 million dollars of a november 2022 bond election and so you can see that it pushes the city's debt rate from 29 cents up to around 38 cents and again this is over a seven to eight year time period that you see that increase and then you'll see beginning in 2033 and 2034 you'll begin to see the debt rate actually begin to come down as we begin to retire old debt particularly the some of the old pension bonds which is really really good to see that 10 years from now come off the books so my final slide this shows you the year by year change in the city's debt service rate incorporated again the blue bars there are the currently approved debt and also incorporates that 470 million dollars of debt to be issued and then it is a comparison the orange bars there are the currently approved plus the impact from a november 2022 bond election of 399 million you'll see in fiscal year 2023 again we've talked about this not only yesterday but during your briefings we have a very minor increase in the overall debt service rate in 2024 again a minor increase in the debt service rate actually a decrease right now without a november election and again that's incorporated in 2024 um again a little bit larger of an increase in property values obviously we've seen a large increase this year we expect to see another sizable increase in property values next year and then in 2025 you'll see on the debt service rate between a two to three cent increase in each of those fiscal years and then it begins to taper off after that and then you'll see it starts to flatten out and then actually becomes to begin to decrease in 2033 and so with that i'll now turn it back over to alex who will pick up the presentation thank you robert uh so again uh we focus our presentation now on the key strategic project areas again focusing on the three components as a result of public engagement and the strategic planning process next slide please and so just to remind council that during the strategic planning process in december of 2021 we presented our project selection criteria which we're focusing on these three things equity access and being strategic so alignment with the strategic plan if you can go to the next side please and so then as a result of our public engagement that we conducted we added fourth criteria which was really focusing on what we heard from the public during our process and so we use these four criteria to then develop the programs and projects that are identified in each of the program areas and so you'll see how those come into play as i go over the specific projects and programs in each of the project categories next slide please so for the streets component of the proposed bond we're looking at using two criteria because streets are a little bit different than facilities so looking at the top 50 arterials again looking to close those out and to really make the priority uh the most traveled streets which we heard as a result of our public engagement process which is the second bullet point here that those are the the streets that the public wanted us to prioritize next slide please and so in terms of the overall program uh it's listed out here and i'll go into detail in terms of what's included in in subsequent slides but just to give a high level overview 170 million dollars of the 263 total that are programmed for this program area will be going towards reconstruction resurfacing and lighting as part of the top 50 arterials again this will be looking to close out primarily the streets 26 through 50 on that project list another 52 million would be going towards connectivity so those are street extensions again because we heard during the public engagement process that addressing traffic congestion was really important especially to residents on both the east side and the west side and so really looking to be responsive to that component as well next looking at 15 million dollars for intersection safety and then eight million dollars for both the union depot renovate alex we can't hear you yeah i think alex is frozen sam can't hear alex yeah i'll take over sir um san bernardino's chief operations officer so again um where you left off we're looking at the intersection safety improvement that would address the continue the ongoing funding over the next 10 years to continue intersection safety and permit programs but also looking at the traffic signalized intersections as we continue to see an average of two to five intersections being warranted per year so this will provide the sustained funding source for that and then also two facilities that we'll be looking at providing investment in the renovation and upgrades two would be the union depot as well as the convention center and then the nip program i'm sorry the sigon de barrio three improvements uh 10 million dollars for that was also allocated to continue the improvements within this area that would address traffic lighting pedestrian lighting and improvements through here next slide this is a map of the top 50 arterials so we've been looking to address the pavement condition throughout this throughout these corridors this is a map of showing the green the red and yellow this is from the 2018 data as i mentioned at the onset of the presentation we're working on updating the pavement condition index so we would look to address the pavement from 1 through 50 while we do the pavement we'll also be looking at lighting improvements in some of the quarters 26 and 50 uh to ensure that we're addressing these streets in a complete manner next slide alex are you back yes sam i'm here i'm gonna try to turn it off my camera and see if that helps yeah you're okay okay sorry about that uh team's froze want me there uh so again we'll be looking at the top 50 arterials like sam have mentioned here and really looking to incorporate the the new pci data and so again these are listed out based on the 2018 data but we'll be looking at both resurfacing and reconstruction as part of the top 50 arterials program next slide please and so um when we think about how we're going to be using the top 50 arterials and the 20 or the new pci data we'll be looking at uh both reconstruction and resurfacing with reconstruction for uh streets that score below a 30 on the pci and that for streets that are between 30 and 70 we'll be looking at resurfacing as part of that and so again we're going to use that new information and new data to help us determine and prioritize accordingly using the newest information available to us next slide please as well as looking at the top 50 arterials for safety lighting and landscaping and so as part of our top 50 arterial analysis we looked at where there are gaps in in both lighting for pedestrian and vehicular safety as well as necessary uh landscaping and really what the idea here was is that combining these two elements can really help us to address con concerns that we heard from constituents in terms of uh safety along these corridors because we know that these two elements combined can help slow down traffic and then also beautify these corridors and increase the economic competitiveness specifically along high priority corridors next slide please and then as i mentioned or hopefully that you heard a big component of this is is also looking at connectivity and so when we did our community engagement one of the things that we heard specifically from residents in districts five and one was uh really wanting us to do something about the traffic congestion that exists specifically in these areas of the city and so to respond to this we're proposing three street extensions that will really help alleviate a lot of the traffic congestion and things that we've heard from from residents loud and clear which is looking to do a north wrestler extension uh north of 375 to connect it to the remaining portion of north rustler to do the mont wood extension which we know is very important to eastside residents and then looking at extending uh airway boulevard south of interstate 10 and connecting it to industrial as a as another key connection in central el paso next slide please and then we're also looking at traffic safety initiatives so there was a presentation that was made by uh streets and maintenance in conjunction with uh utep uh and they identified high injury networks and so what they're proposing is that we really prioritize particular intersections in the city and so the money will be going towards looking to address some of the safety concerns that we found in the analysis of those intersections next slide please and then also looking at then warranted intersections and so as part of the funds that are being made available through the streets program we'd be looking to do uh two to three new signalized intersections per year during the left of the bond and really prioritizing these first five intersections again these are where we've identified that signalization is necessary but we do not necessarily have the money available to install those and so we'd be looking to use funds immediately to address these intersections next slide please and then getting uh to the last few items here looking at the union depot and you know we heard when we met with each of the council representatives from a number of you that uh union depot renovation was something that uh was a priority and so we want to be responsive to that and so we're proposing uh programming million dollars towards that and can go to the next slide please we're also looking at renovations to the convention center another 8 million for those which will go towards improvements such as exterior paint network upgrades ballroom improvements kitchen improvements fire suppression systems and updating the nx restaurant again really looking to maintain and enhance this great asset that we have in downtown next slide please and then finally looking at street improvements specifically in south el paso recognizing that uh you know a lot of the top 50 arterials aren't necessarily in this particular area of the city and so wanting to make sure that we program funds to beautify and enhance the existing public infrastructure that we have and so some of the funds could go towards things like uh street trees doing uh sidewalk uh improvements um looking at uh doing alley activation and some of the other projects and and uh some of the great amenities that we have in in this area of our city next slide please moving next to parks and open space uh so the program here is 116 million dollars in total it's broken into two components one of which is for park upgrades and the second part is for new parks facilities next slide please and so the criteria that were used to develop the project list and the programs for this we're looking at things like equity priority areas again uh highlighting the importance of the strategic plan looking at service gaps again you know where there are deficient facilities or facilities and needs of upgrade and then finally looking at public input next slide please and so the program uh that we put together in response to this was that we would be programming 19 million dollars for uh pavo real for phase one mary frances kiesling phase one and memorial park phase one uh for both uh mary frances kiesling and memorial park it links really well to the studies that we're currently conducting in concert with the public and with each of the representatives uh wanting to make sure that we're not just doing plans for the sake of doing plans but looking at these plans as an opportunity to prioritize the feedback that we receive from the public during these processes we'd also be programming uh six million dollars for uh scenic drive the merchant overlook which i'll have a slide image of in upcoming slides as well as eight million dollars for a camper on site uh really looking to uh prioritize amenities for ecotourism and this one would be in the northeast and then doing five million dollars for stage structures 16 million dollars for all abilities playgrounds and then four million dollars for open space acquisition and then as we heard earlier today um a lot of the public in general as well as each of the representatives are really excited about the neighbor improvement program and so allocating 20 million dollars for that program next slide please and so for merchants and overlook what we would be looking to do is to match this with funds uh knowing that this is a project that's being led by the community foundation um but it would really help to uh improve this great asset and and partner with another agency um in in our city next slide please and then in terms of that tourism site in the northeast we'd be looking at providing amenities uh to promote outdoor uh campgrounds and and looking at um really looking to capitalize on some of the open space acquisition that the city's already made and connecting residents and visitors uh to our our great natural assets that we have in our city next slide please and then finally getting to the last part of the program which would be climate change and so uh as part of climate change even though it's only one percent we would be allocating five million dollars for both the climate action and urban energy plan as well as implementation and so we'd be using those funds to develop and implement the climate action plan and then enhance and improve energy management and efficiency for municipal operations and the community next slide please and so uh the program as proposed right now would be a 10-year rollout we'd be looking at starting this program in 2023 and having it run through 2029 um and looking at uh allocating at least 26 million dollars annually and averaging somewhere between you know 30 and 50 million dollars annually to help fund some of the different programs that were identified in each of the project areas and so with that that concludes my presentation and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have we will start with uh mayor protem followed by representatives rodriguez followed by representative arnello thanks again alex um you know the work that that you and sam and daniella and everybody with staff that have had and really uh taking a hard look at this of looking at something that could listen to the the needs and concerns of our community in a productive way has really been outstanding and i want to thank you um for all the hard work that that staff has been doing as well as city management for for this work because this is something that again i think is really important to to bring up right because we hear about concerns from from the community we hear the concern about residents about how we're going to fix our streets what can we do to invest in our community and this community progress bond i believe provides a sensible way forward for doing that but i think that where we are right now is we really need to i think be measured and considered um with what we bring to the voters right now focusing on those core needs of our community moving forward for a november voter approved bond election and so i think looking at at the overall group of projects there's some things here that i think might make more sense look at down the road but i do think that there are important projects to bring today specifically i think a lot about the streets section as well mottwood extension wrestler extension airway extension i can tell you that i hear monthly about the concern for residents that live north of trans mountain road loop 375 about the need for extending northwestern or wrestling that essentially they need to drive out to vinton to be able to you turn around and that there's a tremendous amount of traffic concerns in that area and we know that that textile is looking at improvements but those are are very long well with so this wrestler extension is something that is directly something we've heard from the community and it provides a path forward i think we need to think long and hard about which projects make sense to do it and if we can look at other sources of funding i know the union depot has had years of deferred maintenance it's a building on the national register district the daniel burnham design train station that fully functions as a train station and also as a college of architecture so i think that that's something too that we need to look at i don't know if it makes sense to have that right now in addition to that there are improvements being scheduled through cdb4 with segundo barrio and we know that that is a new national register district and i think that we need to look hard about how we can look at augmenting what's being done with city before um and being censored that um from the the the parks and open space category um some of these projects i think are really great and i think we need to further refine um where we're talking about what we can present to the voters maybe not in 2022 but down the line as well um in a future year you know for for me mary frances keyson park is a really great project that we're currently going through master planning for for that part of town which is basically west of donovan uh bordered east of donathan all the way to west side drive north to borderland and south to country club there are no true public facilities in that area and that kind of investment is much needed in that area and the roundhouse campground is one two that came from an osap plan a recommendation for an urban campground experience from 2009 but again i think that that's something that you know we need to look at and really refine one thing that i feel strongly however is while it's the smallest part of this um about this overall bond package the issue of combating global climate change is one that is very much a need and not a one for our community and while it's the smallest part of this package i do feel strongly that it should be included and should be brought to the voters about looking at ways that we can support sustainability and resiliency efforts in our community as well as provide a clear path forward for funding a climate action plan for our community we need to build off the success of our rockefeller 100 foundation opportunities was resiliency and sustainability as well as the strategic plan that the renewable energy advisory committee our react committee had approved as well and a big part of that i think is really going and moving forward with a climate action plan as well as other opportunities and so i would like um to see if we can come back in a future council meeting maybe our next council meeting to see what that package could look like further refined uh for the climate action plan for the climate change part of this but i do feel streets is really important to bring to bring back i do think it's important to look at being frugal to being responsive to the condition that a lot of our families are going through right now we all know that things are not very easy right now we know that inflation and the price of gas is affecting folks and we need to be very sensitive to that with uh focusing on a voter approved bond initiative that can really focus on streets infrastructure and the needs of our community thank you mayor pro tem representative rodriguez followed by representative followed by representative sal sido thank you so you know i also want to thank all staff i know this was um something that you all worked really hard on engaging the community and and seeing what was important for people to their vision for the community in the future right and where they wanted to invest their money um i just have a couple of questions what's the action on this today represent if i can answer that question this is alex again sorry for not being able to turn on my camera um so what we're uh asking for is just to begin to uh have the discussions about the programs and projects so we listed it for discussion in action um just to allow for there to be action if council decides to take it uh really the timeline that we're trying to keep in mind is that we need to if we're going to be moving forward with a bond program introduced a bond ordinance on or before august 2nd and so this is just to allow there to be action if there needs to be action and also to allow for discussion okay so basically we're just kind of um dissecting it and looking at it a little bit further and seeing what it is that we would want to present on the bond correct yes ma'am okay so much like um mayor pro temp i'm going to go through them through the three different ones they would be if presented they would be presented as three different um proponents right through different propositions that's what our thinking is right now we haven't uh finalized the actual proposition language until we get the feedback from council but we were tentatively planning looking at three different propositions okay well with that said i think it's really important that you know an initiative that's 399 almost 400 million dollars that we are bringing it forth to the community and giving them the option to vote on it looking at it carefully looking at streets and infrastructure i think that you know every single item that that is on there is is legib it there's reason for it for example the convention center you know if we improve that that'll bring revenue to our city so i think that's that's really important um union depot also would bring revenue to the city traffic lights of course are important connectivity we talked about mottwood extension that that extension is very important in district 5 and district 6 as well because you know i live in district 6 but i use that i would use that probably on a daily basis as well looking at parks and open spaces you know all of these projects i think that we can probably in the future present them again as a bigger initiative i know pablo real is one that i've been pushing for because it hasn't seen any recent renovations i know it's getting the the mural done but it's very minimal and i know that the community in that area would definitely want to see something newer since the and it is really highly used but as far as parks and open space i think the only one that we should probably keep is the nip project and for and the reason for that is because you know if we were to present this in the future um we would be able to just kind of use that money to just kind of get us to the next step where we can improve on the different parks uh the the parks and pathways and all of that as far as the climate change initiative i don't see how exactly this would benefit the community i don't know if they'd be you know happy with saying five million dollars for just a study and plans and i'm not saying we shouldn't be doing that but again given the the nature that we are in right now with inflation high gas prices no baby formula you know it's hard and prices on taxes going up um the values of homes going up and i mean that almost seems unnecessary but that is just my opinion so that is it those would be my recommendations to this council thank you thank you representative anillo thank you mayor um thanks alex uh i guess you know i know i gave y'all a scare the other day but i guess it seems like council has very similar opinions about this bond um i'm gonna agree with my colleagues a little bit uh there are some things i would have i don't agree with what representative rodriguez said like i think that we should keep the nip but i think we also just had a conversation about how we've been utilizing things like nip and cdbg to deal with our like failing infrastructure um and i think if we're going to look at parks projects in a bond we need to look at failing infrastructure bathrooms that have been closed for months rec centers that are sinking to the ground i just my biggest problem with what is being proposed especially on slide 23 is there's no equity whatsoever only one of these projects falls into a like what hud would describe as like a low income zone the rest of them are all in high you know uh high socioeconomic areas a memorial park kind of teeters there but i think that's a real problem when we look at a bond especially when you need the voters to approve it but i do have some questions about streets a little bit alex so i'm gonna let me get up there okay so um you know i think that this bond should see have a lot more street improvement than it does i know you and i had a conversation when you presented the the results of the study um right it was like i can't remember exactly what it was maybe you remember alex you were saying that like people wanted reconstructing streets or they said they were something was equally as important do you remember what i'm talking about yes ma'am i do what was that it was asking whether or not uh streets that are like residential streets are less important equally important or more important and then also looking at high traffic streets connecting streets um that are streets that connect destinations to one another those types of things that's absolutely what it was right yeah so we had that conversation about how residential streets weren't as important and i said no people absolutely said they were equally as important and so i think you know a lot of my constituents have been under the understanding that this bond would be looking at residential streets and there's nothing on there we've also you know you and i and sam have had lots of conversations about how street renovation street repairs can also be looked at as a way to deal with runoff and water issues we're not discussing that all in this bond you know i'm not going to complain about the the 26 through 50 arterials i've been asking for that for a long time but i do have a little bit of of concern about it it's not a question it's more of a concern right trowbridge has been a really a big concern of mine and not necessarily because the pavement is that terrible you can see on your 2018 pci data that it puts trowbridge at 37 right which is or the average is 65 not bad the issue with trailbridge however is that it's been repaved so many times that there's no longer a curb and any time it rains the water goes onto the street into people's homes right so it's like we're looking at reconstruction based on a number that doesn't really solve the problem and at least in my district i can't speak for every one of these i'm also going to talk about equity again there are two streets on this list on this entire list that are salt of i-10 that's you know again i know we're only doing 26 to 50 but that's that's that's not acceptable um we really need to be making sure that that when we are asking the voters for money we're being equitable about this i do have a question finally on slide 19 um you see that you want to do two to three intersections a year but there are only five intersections listed how many years are we looking at this bond for representative gonna answer that sorry sam if i can go back to the issue with the pavement so when we're looking at top 50 article program and alex mentioned that we would do reconstruction from zero to 30 or resurfacing you know it's it's um it's something that we would look at very closely about the conditions that we have on troll bridge because that's not the only street that has the similar conditions where it's just been overlaid on top of or related to where you don't have a curb anymore in certain cases so we will look at that individually and as i mentioned pci program or study will be completed and scheduled to be presented in july so we'll have that information with recommendations on what we would do in some of these top 50 corridors um also understanding that we have the 7 million residential program that's looking to address and obviously it's not enough that we can hear that we heard that from the public and we hear from you so that's really good feedback because i think part of what we're trying to accomplish with this bond is to supplement what we have going on with the residential program and the collector program to ensure that where the bulk of the travel traffic or the bulk of the residents travel on are good streets because we do hear streets like south kleinfield there's multiple streets around the the community that are that are very highly traveled that have just horrible conditions right now that we need to address and so that's that's the intent but we will come back for the pci study um results and recommendations on how we would spend this 170 million dollars that alex mentioned and then on the intersection um traffic signalized intersections right now we have five that are warranted that are not funded if you remember the 2020 capital plan funded i believe was 19 intersections that was a backlog that we had so those are all funded actually out to bid right now um and so right now we have five that are not funded and on average we get an additional three two to three per year that go on that backlog list with no funding so that's what the slide says is with this 15 million we would address the five that are already warranted plus the additional two to three that we expect to get per year over the next 10 years okay thank you um i appreciate that clarification that makes a lot of sense so i'm just gonna say two a couple more things um in regards to the campground sites i think that's a great idea i don't think that this this is my opinion um that this is the best way for us to do this i don't think the city should be in the business of running campsites right you've seen um in state parks across the country right you have fancy camps which is in florida state parks um you have getaway cabins which are kind of throughout the east coast and those are primarily in or i mean some of them are actually just privately privately or state-owned land where they kind of contract this out right somebody builds these they maintain them they rent them out they book them um it seems like you know obviously we would need to go in and put infrastructure for these things to exist but i don't know that we should necessarily be in the business of running campsites we've got a lot of overhead as we've talked about i don't think that that's really something we should be taking on right now do i think we should research you know contracting that out and putting campsites there absolutely i think that's a great um tourism idea i just i don't agree with this this expenditure again i know we would have to put in some kind of infrastructure there will be dollars that need to be expended fully support that but this is not correct well well if i can just take one quick comment on that in that we there's good feedback and we don't disagree with that feedback the model would be that we would outsource it it would just this would get the the program going but yes that is what we're looking at so it's very good feedback thank you and so the last thing i'm going to say is um the urban energy plan uh so what does that look like right now does anyone know does anyone know what what the climate action plan is that would be that would be sam rodriguez and he's in connection with nicole ferrini and and tracy jerome on that subject but yes he does have a game plan you do know about the micro grid at the airport you knew about the ev hookups that we've been uh working on with gm and sam can talk to you about the buildings that we are focusing on in terms of making them more energy efficient uh so yeah we do have a plan i think that the the climate action plan that's been talked about in the in the past would set you up for potential more funding at the federal level my only concern that i shared with staff and with council members who have asked me about it is just that i don't i haven't seen something definitive from the federal government yet that would be my only concern in terms of you know expending dollars and something that may not have the return in the in the long run but um again i've shared that with staff in terms of how they look at it sam do you want to make any comments it's okay i just i kind of want to clarify you you kind of answered unless sam really wants to make comments about it um i don't want to stop him from doing so but i kind of wanted to write you kind of clarified we're going to be looking at buildings things like that and i i want to have a conversation that i don't think this the city has had since i've been here i recently actually had it with my appointee from the youth advisory committee um and miss cody and then i saw this presentation and it's you know there are a lot of climate issues that we can deal with and i think that that with not necessarily solar panels or energizing right and i think that the sugar no barrio project here um is a great example of that and i think we should be considering it citywide right we know i mean we work in municipalities we absolutely know it is a known fact that communities that were redlined in the 50s and 60s are 10 to 20 degrees warmer than those of high socioeconomic levels we know that that's a fact at this point because it's there are no trees right for shade so then their electric bills are higher you have low income communities paying more for energy than higher socioeconomic areas right so when we're talking about climate action we should also be talking about investment in things like planting trees right what are long-term things we can do at low cost to help these communities and that's why i think the segundo project tsungunbario project is great but i think we should be looking at again our hud low-income neighborhoods and how we can be implementing programs like that um because that's that just in and of itself planting 20 trees in a neighborhood is going to reduce energy significantly i mean we've never had that conversation a community i understand we're a desert but you know you've driven around the city you know that there's a huge equitable difference in communities like that so i guess um those are the things that i would like to see right i would say justine sorry are you suggesting like planting five million dollars worth of trees versus investing i'm sorry so i wanted to ask her because i think this is hold on i mean i i'm not putting a number on it i think it can be a long-term plan but i do think you know we're talking about climate change we know that just there are neighborhoods south of i-10 that have absolutely no trees and i just think the reason why i find that very interesting is because i think that people the voters would probably be more attracted to an idea like that than saying we're going to spend five million dollars on a study and not necessarily knowing what the return of it would be yes ma'am i don't disagree we had that conversation as a staff and also with individual council members that have asked me about about the climate action plan and i told them i'd rather have the money go towards projects i think that most count most of the council agrees and says yeah i'd rather go to some projects but if the plan is important to get additional funding then i wouldn't be against it in terms of from an operations standpoint if council wants to do it um based on uh on what we put in front of you and what you all vote on we'll we'll execute it but with regard to like trees we do have a plan for downtown we've been we've been working that plan i signed it to sam and it's about two years ago that i asked him to work on it and so the the plan would include things like what representative manila talked about and i think the reason why we looked at segundo vario is we wanted to include all of downtown in this case what we would call lower downtown midtown uptown and include all of it as as one big development because she's right on her points we i don't disagree uh with those comments that's the reason things like the deck park uh the san jacinto park when you have things those kinds of projects in your downtowns or your central part of your city those are those are big deals in terms of cooling having a cooling effect of some kind because she was right on her points but i guess i'm glad this conversation happened because i'm not just talking about downtown i mean look at the nip projects i literally had a community just ask for 75 000 to put trees in a park because there aren't any right it's not just downtown it's entirely city-wide um i'm not saying i'm also not saying that i don't support this study right i do agree with representative rodriguez i think people would probably you know have immediate action versus a study but i just my point was that there are other energy efficiencies that can be done and should be done um in addition to solarizing and electrifying and i'm glad you said all of all of the city because we have as you know focused on all parts of the city i mean the east side is probably the best example that it was ignored for decades and now we've got the the big multi-generational recreational park that's got a 50 meter pool and a diving well that the council voted on and where we executed in terms of getting that done the people voted on it the fact that you have an east side regional command center a police center a fire a fire station you have a huge park now you have a multi-plex soccer field complex on the east side we're not ignoring it so the the tree program to your point uh missinello um does represent the work that the council really supports like the 50 most travel corridors to have good landscaping throughout the city not just in one part of the city so you all have been very vigilant when it comes to those kinds of initiatives yeah and uh senator daniella i want to thank you for i want to go back to i want to go to representative if you can wrap it up i'm just going to wrap it up all i'm going to say is i think every project on here is great i just i agree with what representative schwartzbein said i don't know that the time is now for all of them and i would just ask that again we talked about this earlier i have a rec center that can't be used because it's sinking into the ground i have pools that are shut down because the infrastructure is falling apart we heard about it from other communities i really think that we should be focusing on um really like fixing our facilities that are quite frankly broken before we build new ones sorry thank you no that's fine no thank you for wrapping it up representative um so see though followed by representative rivera thank you mayor and i thank you for the presentation um i will definitely agree with representative vanello and representative rodriguez when they spoke about streets i think that these are really great projects that are on this bond but i think that we need to kind of go more micro honest and really look at what what we really need to address whereas trying to address everything of course given the time and the the climate that we are in right now with with inflation and everything i think we need to be um a little bit more focused on what what you know what we're hearing out there i know that um as i've blocked walked and talked to a lot of my constituents in the community and even when i first came into office streets has been at the top of the list and specifically in district five it's been about traffic mitigation and also expansion of monwood and but but if i look at this list i think i don't know if it's a good idea to kind of um be more more focused on on it and i don't know if streets would be it i mean we're saying it here's the voice of the customer saying 70 streets and i keep hearing that i don't know if you all are hearing this as well and uh one of the things that i'm hearing as well in my district is also maintenance streets and maintenance and and so i know that my streets are not yet as bad as the pecis as other streets but if we don't maintain them and get the problem you know have an action plan on it now then then district five will be there in in the future and so my goal is to always look uh proactively at things and so i'm looking proactively of you know where the the fastest growing area and um but as a whole actually look i didn't notice here we didn't have uh we're not addressing any of the streets in the in the neighborhoods the yeah we don't have like the most travel streets in the neighborhoods on this list we don't have that on that okay so um if i could think of a a way i would like to look at this as a focus it would be streets i would say the top 50 travel streets um more of the residential i don't know what number that would be for residential i know that i hear a lot of uh concerns not necessarily completely in district five but i mean when i drive to northeast or i do hear you know and i drive through these streets so i think that they need immediate um assistance but the the road extension and the intersection and safety part i think would would be a good way to focus um be more laser-focused and be able to to to really address uh one of the biggest concerns our community has so this is kind of one thing that i think um are very important and so i know that right now we're just having conversations but like if this is my important like things to i let you all know now or do we need another time or no you can let us know now i mean like we said earlier the way this has been set up it's uh it's it's free all to take action discussion and action so if you have specific direction you can you can make a motion if if y'all want to take action it's set up that way and we'll take that direction and and and work on it on just my point i just will add i would like to make a motion just on streets i mean i think streets are so important and i i kind of went over what i think the community would would definitely appreciate and and wants and us for us to be able to be proactive so what i heard you say is that to focus just on streets reduce this package down to just streets and have it include the top 50 most travel streets money for residential money for road extensions and money for intersection safety that's what i heard i didn't miss anything else i mean i'm going to let my colleagues also chime in but i mean those are what i think is what i would want to see part of the motion uh representatives i'll second that if if i could make a friendly amendment to it okay go ahead go ahead representative all right we have representative rivera i'll you too uh hold on but then we have representative vanello next so oh okay let's not jump in front so we have representative rivera and hello and rodriguez followed if you want to go after that representative yes mayor pro tem we'd be loved to have you representative okay um on on your on your motion there representative you're including the collector are these collected uh also in clean collector street sir like uh if i can trade wood and malware yeah and so i think what i what i heard from representative saucillo and gregory from representatives so based on the pci study uh we come back with a recommendation on how to break out 170 million dollars so that a portion of that goes to top 50 and then we allocate a portion of that that would also go to residential and any any road basically below the top 50 that we could that that we would use that um as the guidance to come back with a recommendation with the results of the pci study yeah in conjunction with the residential uh pagle money the 10 million dollars that we already have in place that would that would be great but uh you know what i'm saying this because uh some of these collector streets are battlegrounds when you when you drive down there and i'm not the only one who has its every the district has theirs but i also heard nip being mentioned and so with the streets being in there uh does this also include the ntmp or street humps or no it does not include the ntmp on the intersection safety improvement it really tackles the accidents and the intersections that need upgrades as a result of the accident data that was presented to city council as you know we have the mtnp program already underway and that's an annual funded program that the city council approves with budget um on an annual basis so our proposal will be to continue that uh payable money uh that will come from the operations side for the ntnp okay well if you can assure us that you know how that's a popular thing with the neighborhood associate neighborhoods or neighborhood associations that want it but but if uh if your street your motion was to concentrate on streets there is that what it was yeah i was just kind of yeah mostly streets is really where where i'm trying to focus yeah just to move forward move forward with that i would second that i would second that and uh hopefully we can somehow also increase the ntmp somehow because uh that's a continuous program that that i get called on so and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one yeah it's a very popular program and you all have as a council repeatedly talked about how you all want that in the budget and this is the last year of it okay thank you thank you mayor thank you sir representative i'm back um yeah i agree representative saucedo could you also add funding for complete streets that's something that we said we were going to be looking at did you mention that already i think the intersection safety covers that okay i don't think it covers it to the extent that you're referring to but i mean yes i'll ask sam to look at that thanks um and then i would also like to um i guess make a motion i agree with rep celsius completely i absolutely think this should be really heavy on the streets i do think so however there should be dollars towards park improvements i don't necessarily agree with all of the projects here i said that but i think like nip is huge again i'm gonna say it again we literally saw uh projects used these nip dollars used to fix facilities that are falling apart um what i would like though so i wanna see my my motion is to come back with a revised plan for parks dollars and what i would love to see alex if possible what the asks of the community were when you did that outreach that's something that we've never seen we've never seen what did people submit what did council members submit what were people looking for and so i'd like to see that from you i don't know if that's in a subsequent presentation or if you have a list that you send to us but but i i do think that we should take a look at some kind of dollars for uh might like i think we said um the all abilities playgrounds we are good the neighborhood improvement program are good those are good programs um so i was just like i'm going to make a motion to have a revised parks and open space funding along with the information from the community survey i don't know if i can get a second thank you i would tell you that just a quick answer would be that what was said earlier 70 of the response was for streets so i do believe that the motion y'all made and seconded is is one that corresponds with what the community has asked for in the work that we've received and then y'all have apparently heard some similar feedback anecdotally through your districts so that supports the feedback we've received we we have additional information on the other things that made the list and i'm sure sam and alex could share that with the entire council if i can also add um representatives just to go back to your motion um part of the street package included the extensions uh i didn't hear you make the motion for the extensions of mount wooden wrestler she did say that sam sam she did say that and and i was when i was reading back what i wrote down i read that back i don't know if you caught that or not okay i'm good sir thank you thank you and now with that we have representative nisarga followed by representative molinar followed by representative rodriguez thank you mayor um so representatives i'll see though i i do agree that we should be focusing on streets my question uh and i did second rep anello's motion so i just have a quick on the parks because i think that's really important as well i do have a question though so on page slide 15 is that still going to be included well this is the staff no no no i'm talking about i'm just wondering about the streets slide 15. well the safe high quality streets and infrastructure would that be still included okay um the um i think alex can you bring it up please yeah i think i'm looking at the screen now the the motion was for the top 50. it was for the streets the new the the build-outs it was for intersection safety and residential streets and road extensions uh connectivity ma'am and connectivity connectivity is building out the streets differently but yes it's connectivity and i think nip i don't know if somebody else the nip is what the two amendments that i've heard so far and then i think there's a third but the two was the mayor pro tem and representative rivera now was for sustainability and for nip and i think i didn't quite make out miss nello what yours was i think you had to do with parks but yeah mine was to come back with a new list for open space and parks and to share with um feedback from the community and the council on what those requests look like now i i would remind the council that the what you directed us to do mr zarga and that the council approved was to put a plan together which we did which is on this plan that this this bond program relative to the all abilities playgrounds and the strategies structures yes so i definitely would like to include well the the all abilities playground is on this list and then that was in my motion if that got removed right so that would have been removed today by the y'all's guidance what we would have done because we already we're working on a contingency is work on a budget plan to do it over a five-year period to work on shade canopies and things of that nature but if you all include that i mean i did when i first made the most yes ma'am so if you include that i got a second she seconded it so if you include that then you're still trimming down this bond package and in your your prioritizing and and it would be those two first two things and then the third thing would be the canopies and the all-abilities playground okay i want to be really clear so i did say all abilities playground and i did set nip and shade structures i don't necessarily think we should trim this down i just don't think these projects are appropriate what i did say is i do think we should be looking at literal infrastructure in our parks and rec centers that are falling apart right if we have facilities that can't open because the roof is caving in which i don't know if that's a thing i'm just using an example i know we dealt with roofs recently so maybe it's a bad example but like if we have a roof that's caving in on a rec center and it can't open i think that's what we should be using the dollars for yes ma'am and i think that um i have no no disagreement um from us on like facilities like rec centers but i think that i sent you an email earlier that that ellen uh enlightened me on relative to the maintenance and the issues there with the different parks i have a lot of vandalisms going that's going on uh to a lot of these uh restrooms that y'all made mention of but with regard to rec centers and things of that nature that's a separate subject and i think it's a very very good point in terms of the motion missinella we are representing so i'm still i still have a question then you still have the floor though thank you mayor thank you all uh thanks for that clarification rappanello uh going back to slide 15. yes ma'am so if you could just tell me what would be included in this amendment okay and sam you jump in sam if um if i um if i missed something but let me let me give me one second miss zarga so it would be the top 50 most traveled streets money for residential streets money for road extensions which is your connectivity and money for intersection intersection safety okay so the union depot would no longer be on the list and the convention center improvements would not and i no it would not so i think i think what i heard some of y'all say when you were having a conversation was that you know these things don't need to go away maybe we go and that's separate from what repinello and you second did okay but that some of the other things that are on this list maybe go back and and and do a deeper dive and maybe we can work more with the community with just bigger more um engaging kind of projects over a longer period of time and it can be a that could be a separate proposal but like today the the most pressing issue that's been the most pressing issue for a while has been streets the streets and then the things that you are pointing out because you know they're important to your neighborhood associations right so also the segundo barrio would be would not be included but there's some work there that we can do that i believe that with what representative with what mayor pro tem said with what representative vanello and representative rodriguez talked about with regard to trees uh because the 5 million is not for a plan i think the plan cost is around one million dollars give or take and depending on just the cost given today's climate but it's it's about a one one million 1.2 million the rest of that money would have been used for a or two demonstration projects and when i say demonstration projects i'm talking about things like a building being more sustainable uh in this case with the question that there was there was raised which i think is a good very good point and complement what we're already doing and adds value lots of value to it and that's more trees in different parts of the city that could be part of it and that could be construed and you can insinuate the idea of climate uh protection by putting more more trees i don't think that's a stretch by by any uh imagination okay thank you for the clarification representatives yes representative there's our guide also as a reminder we do have a current contract in sacramento barrio that's investing 12 million with federal dollars that are being matched by local city dollars as well that contract is already underway and it's under construction and it's addressing um i believe six or seven corridors within the window bond area already and that will happen over the next two years and one thing else not one thing is one other thing we approached kelly tomlin over at the electric utility and we talked to council about this to put a rider on the utility bill in order to bury overhead lines and underground them and we wanted to start in segundo vario and then i think if we did that and complemented that with some sidewalk improvements and tree installations i i think that would be a big deal i think that would be a huge improvement to our down lower downtown that connects to mexico so i think that would be a vast improvement i agree i agree completely thank you thank you represent milan thank you very much mayor um looking at slide 1 515 so are we saying the top 50 arterial is going to be resurface reconditioned we're in a process go ahead sam were you going to say something yes sir yes um what what we're saying is that the top 50 arterial which if the motion passes would be broken out by would also include other roads like residential or roads below the 50 would would be based on the recommendations that we come back with as a result of the payment condition index that's scheduled to be completed this week or by the end of june so we'll have that recommendation and presentation for council in july to share with you how we would break up that 170 but that's that's how i understand the motion is that that 170 would be broken up but within uh one within the top 50 plus residential roads so so a portion of that money will go towards the residential as well if the motion passes okay but um you're saying the pci would be ready in the month of july yes yeah there we already got the draft data uh we just need to forget the final report and we'll be putting that in the presentation format to take back to council with recommendations on how we would invest and break up the 170 million dollars specifically to the corridors based on that data so that's going to give us limited time to act as far as getting ready for the bond that we need to have ready for august well i think what you would do sir is the direction we get today gives us the information we need in terms of guidance in terms of the pci data it is it is what it is as you know i mean the numbers are what they are and so the numbers would be where they are and if he allocated let's say 90 million dollars 100 million dollars for the corridors the top 50 it would go to however many it hits and then you put the other you know put another 50 million or 70 million for residential it would do however many streets that would do but that i'm just breaking it out just thinking out loud so that would be a huge push it would add more money for residential right now as y'all know we have 10 million that goes to residential because of the fee that we have in place on the water bill so people ask what's that's for what that is for that is for the residential streets that go in people's neighborhoods that people have really been very pleased with the work that that happens there so it would it would augment the 10 million we have on an annual basis for for residential streets i support this sir but i still really need to see a more concrete uh map or pci pathway or whatever words we want to use because i you know since i've been in office 17 months not one street in district 4 has been reservers reconditioned repaved whatever word we want to use and people are still crying and screaming about that and so i need to fight for district four yes and yes hondo passes on this and that separates district two in district four but it does there's various uh streets on the residential side but uh that could be i mean off the top of my head probably you know 20 25 different streets so i mean and just so that it's clear um for your district so that they hear this we've done a lot of streets in district four but i think that just in the rotation and the way it happens you you may be right in terms of what hazard hasn't been done there but we we've hit every district um and and there's more to do and and this would give us more to do and it would include obviously your district as well if this passes and you heard me earlier today um when the nicole rodriguez brought up about the nip the neighborhood improvement program i support that yes sir but you know that's from 2012. we're 10 years into that and so we still haven't finished that money and so i'm not really sure if putting another nip project would be your rollout part would be right now advantageous um sam i think this is our last year is it not yeah this is the last round of funding that was approved so we don't have any more funding after this next year so doing this was correct so doing this would set the council up set the neighborhoods up to continue that funding stream okay all right thank you yes sir thank you we have representative rodriguez followed by mayor pro tem followed by representative rivera okay so i know there's two motions on the floor um just to i would just want my colleagues to consider kind of cleaning this process up a little bit um and i don't know if you all would be okay with kind of going like category by category so right now we're looking at streets and making voting on streets and saying you know what yes we we we want to be heavy on streets and and um you know take that union depot convention center or whatever and just kind of vote on that first and then looking at um the next one which is parks and then saying okay well from here we like the nip we don't whatever it is and i mean that's just because i think this has gotten a little bit like oh do we add this to this and it's just really making the thing really confusing but that's just my suggestion i don't know if you all would um just entertain just going item by item starting with the first motion that representative celsius made i think right now with the just if this helps and then i'll leave it to council for you to continue that what you just shared with them you're at 237 with just the streets and then if you add the the solar let's say you had five to ten million dollars and and let's say it's 10 just for the sake of argument you're 247 and if you add the nip and let's say that's 15 million you're at 262. and then if you add the um the all all abilities playground that gets you to 278 and yet canopies you're getting the 280s so right now you're in the 280s you've trimmed off over 100 million dollars on this bond package i know that you all shared concerns about y'all's comments about where we are today as a community um i know the council's done a lot of work with uh reducing the cost of to the ratepayers to the taxpayers for utilities carla and her team have done a tremendous job with like texas gas service over 100 million dollar decrease 40 million in electric so y'all haven't just been focused on property tax you focus on these other areas and then plus you have a budget that's reducing the tax rate by by uh almost a penny so and then on the operations a penny in half so you have done a lot of things already but that that gets you roughly to about 280 right now to in the 280s because i think the odds concern is how much you put there in front of the public so i'll leave it at that just so you have that mrs rodriguez and then you can go from there okay and that helps but i still think that you know for me i think that maybe in the future looking at a really strong package that concentrates on just sparks parks and open space would probably be a better idea than trying to just say oh but i really do like this piece and i really do like that piece and the only reason why i suggested keeping the nip is because it kind of like keeps the housekeeping done on projects that are falling apart right where you know something is will it'll eventually take us to that next level where hopefully eventually people will vote on a on a bigger package for parks and open spaces where maybe at that point we could include um the convention center and we could include um the union depot and maybe include a little bit more money if you went that route you're in the 260s uh and we would then probably work on a that five-year plan for the canopies uh in the budget and try to work in an all-abilities playground in that five-year period and we could then go back and do what you're suggesting go back and look at a stronger package for all these other things that y'all talked about and what um has been raised with regard to some of the maintenance on the park system as well so then are you suggesting that we vote kind of on based off of estimates like base like kind of a 263 million no ma'am no ma'am i'm not suggesting anything this is the council's decision i simply was attempting to answer questions related to the dollars and what the motion was and what the what the second to that first motion was and what the second and third and four excuse me with the first motion and then there was three amendments so i was trying to just re you know re clear or list those and clarify those okay okay i want to hear the motions again do you want to hear the motions again yes miss pine do we have the motions i have a motion made by representative salcido seconded by mayor pro-tem schwarzwein and this is to focus on the reconstruction resurfacing and lighting of the top 50 and residential streets based on the pci study to include connectivity and intersection safety signals and traffic salcido that's what i have is that correct representative salcido i'm sorry okay so i have to your motion was to approve the projects for reconstruction resurfacing and lighting for the top 50 and residential streets based on pci and connectivity and intersection safety traffic signals well i mentioned he also said residential i said residential streets based on okay okay my bad i'm sorry what would be the estimate on just that to doing just that is 237 is that right sam that's correct sir 237 million but there's no residential streets in them no right no ma'am but the motion is to include residential streets and then i gave the example what the breakout might be okay i missed that i'm sorry no that's okay sorry i mean i made a point about the fee or if you're recalling this nip well so that's in my that's in my motion we're not there yet that's a separate motion so so this first one to just just restate 237 million and it is to include residential missile okay how many do we know um mr gonzalez it's i know it's a 10-year bond roll out yes sir when would the debt be issued i know that rates are now or higher than there were obviously six months ago have we determined when the debt would be established here comes because i know that it is on the left yeah go ahead rob robert i'll let you i'm looking at the last slide that's what go ahead sir sorry there you go being 2023 yeah it's the last slide there so it's incorporating yeah based on sam's estimates again that was one of the assumptions of looking at the cash flow and the timing um i don't know if i t could bring that slide up i'm looking at it right now but i'm having a hard time i see all the way to 23 or 29. it's a 10-year program 10 years a 10-year rollout no no it's a new program i mean i think that you're referring to maybe the existing ones that we did before the 17 and 18. so you would issue that based on need unless otherwise favorable rates i mean we would still have that option exactly so this is the plan i mean the public safety bond package i think is a perfect example as well and so looking at that i've been meeting with sam quite a bit because right now we do have pretty much a large cash on hand with those projects because of all the delays we're facing uh we were planning to do an 80 million dollar issuance for our public safety projects next year uh we may or may not go forward with that debt issuance just based on on the need for cash and also as you mentioned the rising interest rates we don't have money and we won't issue the debt and robert if i may add one of the comment for council's consideration is that we're also looking at the commodities cost steel and wood are very very expensive so we're working on the designs and plans for some of these facilities but if the steel and wood doesn't come down we'll wait we'll wait that out as well and a large benefit to this program as well that you all have been discussing streets is obviously a top priority but looking at about the operating costs most of these projects don't contain any operating costs which is cos and geos of same rate it fluctuates it's not is it it fluctuates just depending upon i mean it's all timing i mean we did the congo wish once last year and they were pretty close i mean i think they're off by maybe 10 base i mean so geo would be less actually the ceo two years ago was less than the geo is it okay that's right buy you said just it was very close i mean they were both it used to be a larger separation mayor what you're remembering cos are cheaper but now they're the gaps closed okay and i think it's important that we look at based on what's going on with the you know with interest rates and we're still expecting another two to three rate hikes between the end of the year and you know may or may not happen but you know based on expectations that's what they said they would do so that's the other reason why we made it a 10-year program in order to give us ourselves that flexibility and not over promise and then sam can you speak to the point about uh you're making a good point mayor but the other point that we'd like to make too is the street resurfacing it's more of a static cost we haven't seen the inflation kick in and hit that like it has the the vertical construction sam you want to speak to that certainly um so the the horizontal what we call horizontal construction costs are mostly locally sourced so we're talking about aggregate the asphalt the oils you know with the refinery here it's all very local with the exception of cement we've seen an increase in cement but not too much of the percentages that we've seen steel and wood basically anything that comes from out of town that we've seen a much bigger increase um uh to date on some of the events that we received so um it just opened bids on a big uh resurfacing of the runway at the airport i think last week and we we saw basically came in below the engineer's estimate based on what was being out there so uh it's it's pretty consistent as far as the cost being being uh not increasing as much as as some of the other commodities uh what's driving up the the cost too is the labor as well so uh we do see increase it's not flat but it's not to the extent that you see on the vertical construction so i think we see some of the stuff that we're looking at uh depends also what and i think mr gonzalez just said that based on you know the interest rates that are happening today and based on your payback estimation for the 10-year rollout have you calculated based on what rate so let me go back to the assumptions because that's a good question mayor and so when we did all the briefings there were several representatives that asked about that and some other questions as well because they show this and it shows the increase in the debt rate over the next 20 years out right and so in the debt model i talked about all these different assumptions right so we just talked about cash flow we're only going to shoot the debt as we need it obviously if projects get slowed down or sped up we'll adjust accordingly interest rates so the interest rate's an hour a year so in 2023 and 2024 we're looking at six percent is what we have built into the model and then we actually go to seven percent beginning in 2025 just to be conservative because obviously i'm good at forecasting but i don't have a crystal ball i don't know what's going to happen next year i got one from representatives i'll see the one so i still have it so we're very very conservative in the debt model because we don't want to give unrealistic information to the council as we're presenting this information so not only on interest rates property values as well and so when i show the impact in 2023 and 2024 we know what we're seeing right now large increases in property values we're not going to continue to see double-digit properties that's going to be my next question every year for the next 20 years that's unrealistic so actually beginning in 2025 on future property values we're only looking at two percent is what's built into the model again so you're looking at every two percent property value growth year over year yes sir okay so you're looking at two percent increase year over year and rate up to 2025 at seven percent beginning 2025 at seven percent on the interest rate okay so that's okay it's a very conservative model it's not doom and gloom it's not worth case it's a very conservative model because again i don't want to give it could it could it could do better is what he's saying no no and i and i and i agree with him i agree what he's doing on this and just like what we've done with and i'm gonna go spend a second here on this slide because we talked about a little bit about this yesterday so the blue portion there was the all of our existing debt plus the amount that we used to have the issue primarily for public safety and so originally when the council proved that we approved a change to the debt management policy we originally thought we were going to get close to 40 cents by the time we issued all the debt related to public safety and the quarter of life you'll see in the blue portion there now that we're only projected to hit 33 cents so that's the result again of property values being higher interest rates being lower the refinancing savings has brought down that impact so more than likely that 38 cents that we're projecting here would come down yeah it'd be much lower because of what we were able to do in the 21 20 21 20 okay now i got what you're saying so the only other thing i would add to this discussion would be that that's the reason why it's it's uber important that we get a better interest rate uh rating and that's the reason why the thing with the pension fund we talked to tyler grossman we got that worked out the language with respect to taking the cap off and and doing 18 not no less than 18 percent that's going to help and then hopefully get into 90 days that'll put us over the top we're at 75 today and that what happens to your model here and i know it's that you don't have a crystal ball and i understand that but you're basing it on seven percent uh i know that um whatever rates today about five they're increasing every day so i talked to a financial advisor two weeks ago and she said that she was pricing deals already in the mid fives yeah so we're probably closing getting close to six maybe so that's what makes you a little worried then you know what what does that this do to your model if we go to seven eight i mean what seven you got it uh eight nine ten percent uh it would have a little bit of an impact not much but i would tell you that on the property value growth it was more than offset because we're going to see more than two percent increase in our property values and we use historical information we hit us and i i mean we've talked a lot about this particularly when we did the briefing we saw about a seven or eight time year period where we were hitting about one and a half percent property value growth but prior to cobit we were heading over four percent so the two percent we're using is pretty conservative so while we may see higher interest rates my projection is we're going to see higher property value growth which more than offset that so the bond payback over 10 years has amortized over 10 years at what rate basis 25 years it's 25 years 25 years at what rate what interest rate well i i mentioned 2023 and 24 would be at five or six percent beginning 2025 would be at seven percent and that's issuing and maybe i'm i'm not we're not on the same page here for a minute so we're going to issue the let's say you're showing all the debt in 10 years exactly so we'll issue all the 400 million at one time no no no no that's a trend saying no so you're going to issue how much the first year second year third year well that number is now coming down so what we have built into this model is the 319 right a million obviously we're having discussions about lowering that so in the first year of 2023 we're looking at about 28 million dollars of that total in 2024 it goes up to about 54 million and 2025 it goes up to about 55 million robert if i can stop you but that's based on the 399. correct so if it's lowered and we're talking about lowering like 250 or 260 then those numbers would drop down considerably and the reason why it goes up in that second year and third year it's based on the project mayor which projects that they're going to be doing but if on a static which is not going to be static but if it was 250 it'd be 25 million over over a 10-year period every single year the reason why it's not static and it goes up and down it depends on the projects are going to be executed in those years so okay no and i know i agree with that and i know that it's going down in the amount but so we're calculating in 20 29 39 i can't i can't see that far i'm sorry at the end uh what rate are we calculating that out of the issuance at the end i can't 2029 it's the last on your bond roll out what what percentage what interest rate uh-huh seven percent seven percent and we're right now we're getting close to six today correct so we're also in unprecedented times and we don't expect to see six percent forever and hopefully they do with the reaction to fed stake and we do see a decrease in those interest rates no and and i don't wanna i remember 1980 also so i know you don't but i do i do i was three years old yeah i'm saying we remember different things about 1980. you're right [Laughter] yeah and i remember 1980 and you know it was capped at 18 and every loan we got and everything we did was at 18 so that's that's what i just yeah and also like i mentioned in the model as well and i mentioned it and i'll repeat it again the one thing that's not included as well as refinancing opportunities so i mean if we did see yeah sure that there is opportunities to do some some different things to be i appreciate that so we're based on seven percent all the way through correct at the end and only two percent increase in property values which is very very conservative very conservative okay thank you for the information uh and i apologize uh mayor potem i got long-winded on that one no it's okay i mean you bring up some really good questions and i think that i mean i think the council in the whole um i mean i think is thinking about again um how we can focus on those needs of the community and um be sensitive to it towards what we're seeing you know again in in the world so um i think those questions you know thank you for for addressing them um i'm curious so when would we see the resurfacing and reconstruction start with the streets assuming we focus on streets um and perhaps coming back with the sustainability or resiliency of climate sam would you address that purpose and reconstruction when could when could citizens start seeing these streets being worked on so um passes in november yeah we're in the process of of uh we just had a discussion today uh street to maintenance about getting more contracts out to bid because we do have we still have the set you know the 10 million ongoing plus adding the additional capacity and giving us more flexibility over a two-year contract period so we would be able to have this if if we get these bids out here this summer and get him executed right before the end of the year we'll be able to start bathing on the resurfacing side pretty much the beginning of 2023 as soon as robert gets us some money we'll be able to do that the reconstruction as as you all know we go through a design process with utilities and um and it's just a design process because we typically address drainage uh utility work um landscaping if there's there's if it's a major corridor so that's that's the piece that um that would take a little bit longer because we would typically take a year to design those and and then start construction in the following year um again assuming that we progress this in a logical manner that meets the cash flow that that that robber has in this model as well but the resurfacing will be able to start at the beginning of 23. okay and and when when do we see like the resurfacing and reconstruction kind of wrapping up because i know that it was it was said that this is going to be a 10-year rollout do we anticipate that if we take away the parks i mean take away the parks leave it at nip nip is a 10-year rollout because we're we're putting those funds out through 10 years but outside of an nip or the streets see just focusing on the re the resurfacing and reconstruction that represents salcido way what what kind of time frame are we looking at uh for to be done with this in terms of a rollout it's like a one to five year kind of thing you know if you look at the rollout you know part of it would be the model in our capacity we wouldn't recommend doing all all of that money in the first five years because the the reality is that you still have 10 million so we're looking at it from a capacity in our local contractors being able to execute this work too um but we're right now with if if we stick to 170 and let's say all of it went to resurfacing we have 27 million dollars with a contract every year out there if we just did it on a year by year basis that significant amount of work for our local community that i think they would adjust um they would adjust and meet our demand because the sustained work will be there but it would be really hard for us to recommend you know a whole lot more at the first years if we pick up pick up more capacity to do more work from a local contracting community then we can make recommendations to accelerate that but our our initial recommendation will be to space that resurfacing over the next 10 years because the the demand will continue to be there for them okay um and then i know the resurfacing of residential streets is one that that represent molinar and others have brought up um you know i mean all of us could probably list different streets in our districts that need to be looked at resurfaced or worked on you know love love road thunderbird i'm sure everybody has their streets i think represent millionaire mentioned hondo pass i think it's really important that with the upcoming pci study which is being completed that the data really guide those residential resurfacing projects and i think the balance is is you know i think for the public to know more of what streets would be resurfaced or reconstructed i mean that's why the top 50 i think is very effective but i think the more information the public has about what streets would be selected i think um the the better people will understand whether their money is going for with that being said i also understand that we need to make sure this is a data-driven thing so just you know that's something we need to be thinking about over the months ahead if we move forward with with this as well i also agree with others that i think the nip program is one that helps communities focusing on those needs that they see in their community on a very granular level so i would like to make um to to represent saucido she'd like to make a friendly amendment for two items uh one friendly amendment would be to include the nip as part of the streets package no no if you're agreeable to that that's on a separate motion mayor pro tem amendment that's a separate motion currently on the floor okay um and then the the other is um i i do feel that again the the climate the climate action plan that's being proposed again we've seen many many other cities across the united states have a climate action plan a lot of that also helps to guide cities in terms of how to be more sustainable and resilient which saves tax dollars over the long run while also helping to address global climate change in addition to that having that also enables opportunities for further federal funding and other grants as well so i i would like to see us look at refining the climate change the climate change section focusing on our sustainability plan and resiliency to also include looking at you know funding for additional street trees and others that representative uh rodriguez and representative anela brought up so i would like to make a motion i don't know if this can be amended to it but to to have um staff come back for the next council meeting with a refined uh climate change uh priority list to include the climate action plan and other sustainability uh initiatives i'll check at that i i don't know i mean i think that gives it actually i think we're at 5 million right now but i think that the goal is to look at the climate action plan understand that that combat and global climate change is not a want but a need for our community we've seen the impact we're living through it right now and it's not just about a plan but also actions uh such as our sustainability plan which calls for enhanced street trees and others that i think we can we can take a step forward with as part of this this bond package again while being very fiscal but being very frugal um with looking at the overall package yeah we'll uh we'll come back uh based on that motion more approach we'll come back and refine the definition of what with the money and then increase it as we need it because i think part of what i'm hearing also is to look at opportunities to do things like street trees or other things that that could help not just prepare a plan but also start the implementation of it in a much more meaningful way absolutely and we've done and we you know and and to again to the credit of yourself city management um or you know chief resiliency officer our community development um department we've we we have done a lot in terms of resiliency right we have been one of the rockefeller 100 foundation cities we have a strategic plan by react so we have been doing much but i think this is really taking it up a level and and leaning into the to the challenges that we have as a community and the opportunities we have as a community in combating global climate change and making a more sustainable city thank you mayor thank you sir remember nello followed by representative sal sido okay um sam representative schwartzbein was discussing on how we should have kind of the list of streets residential streets resurfacing on the bond right i don't disagree with that but i have a question about how that would work based on the pci because we would still have the seven million dollars a year from the um the other fund correct that's correct uh representative so what um what we're going to be doing is is i think the top 50 corridors are are very easy to develop a list or strategy if you will to be able to show the community what quarters are going to be addressed with the pot of money to include corridors like south kleinfield which is one that we hear about all the time among others and you saw the list on the alex's presentation there's a lot of corridors or segments of corridors that have pci's in the 17s 40s that are in need of resurfacing and so we can develop the top 50 very very easily make that recommendation part of the bond the challenge is with the residential i think when you look at streets in our network there's over 2 700 streets that have pci levels from zero to yeah 70. and this is based on 2018 data obviously so our approach with that will continue to be in what we've been presenting to city council with the 10 million dollar is to continue to address these as we clear utilities as we complete neighborhoods but also give the community an idea how we're going to spend the money because i think that's going to be very important so that they know what kind of criteria we're going to be used to implement and address the residential roads with this bond program in in collaboration or in conjunction with the 10 million that we have on a pago basis okay yeah i mean because i get i hear what representative sportsman saying i think people will be more supportive if they see what the streets are but i don't want us to say okay this much money is being put aside for these residential streets on the pci over 10 years but then every year we're going to be doing streets so actually the ones you put on the bond get pushed back if that makes sense but that's just what i wanted to avoid and the questions that came up when he was asking his his questions um so uh for representative salcido's motion can we make an amendment to add the complete streets to the reconstruction streets um to make sure that we're following that i don't know if i have a second on that complete streets is the go ahead sam yeah just here so that we're clear on the complete streets if we're doing reconstruction on those roads we're designing them to the complete streets and the new design manual that was approved by city council so that'll be if we're reconstructing it'll be done to the full standard if we're resurfacing you know our approach is to ensure that we're doing ada and then we're addressing ada as we go through on some of these major corridors the ramps on sidewalk connectivity so that'll be addressed um as the resurfacing um going much more beyond that i think limits our ability to really extend our dollars to address the pavement which is i think the big concern from the community but complete streets wasn't just about ada accessibility agreed representative um it's it's about ensuring that we have multimodal access for um bicycles and the implementation of the bike plan and whatnot that's what i'm telling you is that you know when we when we reconstruct the road we have more capabilities to design it in a way that meets all the current codes all the way through with the resurfacing it's much more challenging but on the resurfacing um we we want to be strategic on how we spend the funds well that's why i said on the i said specifically on the reconstruction roads yes yeah yeah the reconstruction you don't need a separate motion for that representative we're going to construct to the current standards and what has been adopted by city council okay um and then i want to address representative rodriguez i don't want i want to say two things about it i don't want to go through this list and say like this is good this is bad for like several reasons um especially one is that one of those is in representative hernandez's district and she's not here and i think it would be like kind of awful and that's the only one that's in like a low income area so i don't want to just start picking through those and i do want to base sort of two things to say i do think that the bond should go down i think that number should go down but i don't want to parks like i want to see what people wanted in parks i want to see what our facility need is right now right like i want to see these things before we make a decision so i don't want staff to come back and say okay and i'm just using this as con conversation like you said reduce the park section by 50 million so this is what we're presenting to you no like i want to see the full picture i want to understand what the need is and then build based on that um but so that's just to answer your question representative rodriguez i don't feel comfortable just pulling stuff out right now i just think that um staff should come back let us know what the requests of the community were let us know what facilities are in serious disrepair and then we can kind of put that together and make the decision and that's all i had thank you representative representative chelsea thank you mayor thank you to my colleagues for all the great comments and also the suggestions and amendments um i think i just wanted to ask if and i know to representative rodriguez when she mentioned i don't know if you if i could ask you so you you meant like for separate bonds to be addressing like parts or you want to pick or choose no so we're looking at like if you scroll down to the very last um slide the very last slide and you see that it's broken down into three different um i guess it would be three different propositions one would be streets and infrastructure another one would be parks and open space and another one was climate change so i was just suggesting looking at each one of those would be propositions and analyzing it and saying okay this is what we like from here this is what we don't that's it okay and representative vanello when you mentioned that you would if you wanted like parks did you want to put them all in their separate initiative well they are in their separate initiatives so what representative rodriguez is talking about is there are three ballot initiatives proposed one is streets one is parks one screen infrastructure um and so i think that based on the we have three different motions right one of yours is for streets mine is for parks and representative schwartzbind is for um the climate and so i think kind of what i was just saying is instead of like sitting here and picking apart and choosing specific things with the exception of maybe streets i think sam i don't want to speak for you but i feel like we've had a lot of conversation and we've given a lot of guidance on what a different package could look like or do you need anything specific more specific from us at this moment i think i i think it's pretty clear the initial motion by representative salcido to include those those three initiatives um obviously uh lauren if you can help me out here the the motion on the sustainability from mayor pro tem um i think that's pretty clear i think the motion that you made representative vanello related to the parks um and i think if from what i understand and let me rephrase anything correct me but the motion would be for us to come back to city council at the next council meeting to share with you what are what the status of our all the existing park and rec facilities are like a much bigger picture related to that as as well as providing you the feedback that we receive through the public engagement process related to parks and what kind of feedback we receive from the community in a much more granular manner and then also i think there's a motion out there for nip as well laura this is what i have in my notes yeah to streets um i yeah and so what i was just saying to answer your question reps i'll see this i think like we as a body should not be thinking about the number right now right we have our parameters they know that we want to see a reduction but let's just look at what the need is and decide from there okay great i just wanted to make sure i'm listening to everybody thank you thank you representa yeah i was just going to make a suggestion that we have a a work session and work only on the bond i don't know if you know that's something that it's the deadline again it's august yes our intent representative sargeras to come back at the next council meeting and then we have one more opportunity at the next at the second council meeting in july to continue the discussion and and give us an opportunity to again like today we receive direction we're going to come back and hopefully provide a much refined uh program for council and if there's more edits we can have one more opportunity in the second meeting of july and then we still have the introduction on august 2nd that alex mentioned so that would be the introduction and i do believe alex correct me if i'm wrong um the two weeks after that is one has to be finalized with what what the actual ordinance and the ballot language is going to be hey um sam some council we would need very clear direction from you at the next council meeting in regards to the final package because it still needs to go to bond council to assist us to draft the final ordinance so i would urge you to not push it past the next council meeting in terms of what council needs to decide the final adoption would need to happen in august excuse me should we be able to do it for the next work session like representative zaraga and if need be also do it at the next council meeting the work session for next week you mean not for next week whenever the next work session is in two weeks right yes so you have the june 5th and sixth meeting is the next july fifth and sixth meeting yeah so would it be possible just put it um for a work session and then also have it just in case for the the council meeting you could put it back to back on june 5th and 6th okay can we actually excuse me can we actually just really push for it in the the first meeting um just do the work session do the coveted updates in just that and spend a long time looking at it what date would that be that's what you're recommending but not the sixth that's fine with me yeah just the fifth thank you thank you mayor pro tem no that now my question was just about the uh the absolute last deadline for for when we we would need to finalize this um and i agree i think i think having it as a work session on the fifth makes a lot of sense and then just right you know we just don't have to recess the meeting if we need to continue the conversation onto the six so yeah thank you that was my question thank you thank you and miss prine believe it or not we have no other speakers except i think we have some public comments yes mayor we have uh mr rick bonart that signed up to speak on this item good afternoon sir you have three minutes thank you mayor council thank you sir speak on this item um i have something i'm going to place on the elmo i i guess what's most interesting to me is uh you know the the bad timing of this what what how sad it is that you know and it's not your fault it's just the economics of the situation and i would agree with you to a certain degree it looks like 1980 but to me it actually feels a lot more like 2007 right before the bubble bursts and it's not that the interest rates might accelerate up to 18 but the evaluations of the properties might drop and uh i think that's something to look at especially when you really are starting to slice and dice this and go way down on your projects and it's kind of working out to the neighborhood of 25 million dollars a year of cip so do you really want to borrow money for that size of project because maybe it should be just monthly paid for out of your budget and your revenues rather than extending yourself more credit and getting more into debt um that being said that was just a side note so really why i was here and one of the things that representative nello brought up was complete streets and i think what you were trying to mention was street trees and when you look at that maybe what you want to think about too if you want trees is actually reminding city council and staff that you know there were supposed to be an additional 400 trees along trans mountain road that txdot owes you and still owes you ted marcus sent them a letter but you guys never followed up on it and that would be nice to get those trees it's kind of sad to see the trees at the lower portion of trans mountain doing so well and at the upper portion of transmouthing doing not well because they ran into a problem oh my god there's a thousand feet of elevation and we didn't plan for the pump stations that's not your fault that's their fault they need to put in those trees but the real issue today what i wanted to speak to you was the feeling that i have in being on boac and having experienced this is like deja vu and what happened to me is that you know the things that i saw and that you were promoting today and were trying to sell to the public and what it felt like was oh yeah we're going to get these wonderful things and all this stuff here i am 10 years down the road the trails that were promised are not being delivered the open space it was supposed to be acquired is not being done those are the issues that speak to me and why i'm going why would i vote for something like this again i'll just find myself in the pro and the money that i wanted to be used will be reprogrammed so if you look on this elmo that's from 2012 it says trails and trailhead improvements trailhead parking areas open space land acquisition notice it doesn't say paved trails and to people like me those were supposed to be natural trails and that's why people like me don't feel confident in voting for something like this ever again thank you thank you sir this is fine i think we have a motion yes sir there's several motions on the floor the first motion is from representative salcido seconded by mayor pro tim schwarzwein and this is to focus on the streets and infrastructure projects on the reconstruction resurfacing and lighting of the top 50 and residential streets based on the pci study and connectivity and intersection safety and traffic signals is that correct on that motion call for the vote how many motions do we have three [Laughter] okay sorry um sam and the only reason i'm asking this is because i know saul klein field is is a big one um that one is on the 50th streets right i don't want to say vote or something and then it won't be on there it is on there representative okay thank you mayor pro tim schwartzman thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative molinar voting the motion carries the next motion i have is from representative anello seconded by mayor pro tem lee zaraga and this is to direct staff to return in two weeks with a revised plan for parks and open space to include all abilities playgrounds nip and shade structures is that correct okay on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly all right thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative rodriguez voting the motion carries and the last motion i have is from mayor pro tem short spine seconded by representative anello and this is to direct staff to return in two weeks with a refined climate action plan is that correct mayor potem it's not a it's not a climate it's under a fine climate action plan it's it's refined climate change um project lists i don't know sam or tommy how you want to refer to it as but this this climate change section yeah i think if if we just keep it as simple as come back with a refined uh proposition for that addresses climate action planning implementation and urban energy planning and implementation uh we'll come back with those those those revisions again this isn't approving at this point this is just directing you all to come back to get a better sense of of what can be included including trees as well as costs yes sir thank you and also just throwing it out there can you also look at the implementation of green walls green walls we'll set up a meeting representative rodriguez with you so that we can understand um a little bit more what what that means i know what a green wall is but i just want to make sure we're looking at the same vision that you're thinking thank you absolutely so last thing that i will say before we vote because i know we can't discuss once our last motion is voted um so we've decided that we're going to try to hammer this out and finish it on the fifth um so i would just ask uh sam and alex if you know we have uh budget briefings next week but i think we really need to be briefed in between um with what y'all come up with i know it is a very short timeline um i wish this had been brought to us prior to today but um i i guess i'm just asking for a briefing before the fifth thank you thank you we'll do representative okay so the motion was made by mayor pro tim schwartzman seconded by representative manilow to direct staff to return in two weeks with a refined proposition that addresses climate action and urban energy plan and implementation on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem shortly all right thank you and the voting session and the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative molinar voting me the motion carries here may we move on to item 20 37 do you really want to just move to approve item 37 is discussion in action on the final draft of onward alameda corridor plan for alameda avenue from downtown to the east side city limit there motion move to approve there's a motion made by representative vanello and i heard representative lisa ii item 37 on that motion call for the vote the voting session is open mayor pro tem short swing just wanted to say a great job to welcome rodriguez for all his hard work thank you bucking i'm voting yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 39 and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city reviews and approves the issuance of the unlimited tax bond series 2022 by paseo del este municipal utility district number six what's that representative rodriguez council if i can ask you please use the microphone when uh motion motioning or seconding that way i can make sure i i capture that there is a motion made by mayor pro tem lizard seconded by representative rodriguez to approve item 39 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwartzman all right thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 41 and this is discussion in action on sun glow and lockheed media improvement solicitation 2021-1339 landscape maintenance agreement between the city and the texas department of transportation motion to proof second there is a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative rodriguez to approve on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tim schwartzman aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 42 this is discussion in action that the city council approves a deductive change order to georgian foster construction llc for the 2018-1613 r hopkins boulevard reconstruction contract motion to approve second there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative molinar to approve item 42 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tem schwarzwang hi thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously i believe we've gone through all the items on the consent and regular agenda we know that brings us to exactly second session i think i heard representative riveto make the second it was motion made by representative manelo seconded by representative rivera to retiring to executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council of the city of el paso may retire into executive session pursuing to section 3.58 of the el paso city charter and the texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter d to discuss any of the following executive session item one purchase sale exchange or value of real property located in northeast el paso texas matter number 21-104-1393 under 551.072 executive session item 2 max grossman lawsuit vs city of el paso texas supreme court case number 21-1105 matter number 17-1001-171.001 under 551.071 executive session item three daniel tavad versus city of el paso calls number 2019 dcv1249 matter number 19-1005-1751 under 551.07 executive session item 4 tgs annual gas reliability infrastructure program grip application for annual interim rate adjustment rrc number seven two 0008972 number 22-1008-189 under 551.071 executive session item five discussion regarding the value and purchase sale of real property managed by the el paso water utilities located in central el paso el paso texas pattern number 21-1009-1122 under 551.072 executive session item 6 purchase sale or value of real property located in west el paso matter number 20-1004-1 executive session item 7 purchase lease exchange of real property located near el paso east el paso texas matter number 22-10 executive session item eight purchase lease exchange of real property located in east el paso texas matter number 22-1004-1370 under 551.072 and executive session item 9 economic incentives for a technology firm to be located in the city of el paso matter number 22-1007-2887 under 551.087 matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney 551.072 deliberation regarding real property and 551.087 deliberation regarding economic development negotiations it is 5 14 pm you have a motion to come out of executive session do we have a second mrs prine there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 6 30 pm we're on ex1 and we do have public comment on ex1 we'll take that first thank you mayor we have mr rick von art followed by sharon miles bonart followed by joe garibai good evening good evening we haven't said we said morning afternoon not evening and the microphone is on the microphone is on we just need the elmo [Music] there it is it looks like it's coming out i wonder how they came up with that name because i did very good thank you so um i want to make sure that you understand that i am on subject because i think that probably having discussed this in closed session that you understand that at the foundation of this are dollars and dollars are coming from somewhere and at this point in time the dollars come as an exchange between the storm water utility and the water utility um so today's weather of course reminds us that the monsoon season is here i don't know about you but last night we had an inch of rain you know you and i started getting flashbacks having served on the public service board and who can forget the floods that happened in 2006. we had like 400 million dollars in damages i bet you some of you experienced that and the magnitude of those damages were so great that in order to uh pay for it we had to come up with a new taxing entity which was a storm water utility but even after 14 years of operation it's not slamming the storm water utility because of the magnitude as i mentioned and several rate increases there's still plenty of infrastructure that needs to be built and even last year during the monsoon season there was some flooding that may have affected your constituents and as you know floods affect everyone they're inclusive they affect every district and all of your constituents and we simply put we can't afford to waste any of the stormwater funds on land transfers those monies need to be used for what it was proposed that they were used for which is stormwater infrastructure if we had everything all caught up then sure you can you can be a little bit frivolous with the money but really not now and you know when there's a flood your constituents are going to come to you and say i thought we were paying for that so simply put there's no logical reason for the water utility to build a storm water utility for property and wasting storm water dollars is a public health issue and what i'd like to talk about now is the foundation for doing that as you know city-owned property can only be conveyed by you by ordinance if you want to rent it if you want to lease it if you want to sell it you have to pass an ordinance well when the psb sold property to the stormwater utility you didn't approve that you didn't pass an ordinance to do that they shouldn't have done that and we're talking about a lot of money here between these two properties you're talking about 25 million dollars so it was inappropriate for them to do it equally troubling was the use of the storm water money 10 percent those monies can only be used under a very narrow set of circumstances for storm water and open space i'm telling you there is no storm stormwater purpose for open space which is natural and upstream and i think my time has run out and somebody else is going to take over thank you mrs bonart okay um the reason we're here today is to ask you city council to protect us your constituents and do what's in the best interest for the public clearly these land transfers have no public benefit they violate city charter they're improper as there is no dual purpose there is no precedent for land transfers of this type prior to 2019 the el paso water utility never build the storm water utility for land that's why we're here today please manage the managers and refund the 25 million dollars so it can be used for the proper purpose for plug flood prevention thank you the next speaker is joe garibai good afternoon sir good evening sir you have three minutes all right good evening to everybody uh i am jokarivai i am the chair of the open space advisory board the open space advisory board has asked me to bring this issue to you all the board is actually quite concerned with the unilateral decision by psb to transfer funds from the 10 storm water fee to the el paso water utility the water utility compensation for this was done because they did a land transfer from the water utility to the storm water but they did this without asking you all they just did it and took the money from the open or from the storm water drainage fee osap believes this was an improper transaction the land transfer like this needs to be approved by council it should be approved by council el paso waters action is very beneficial to psb but not necessarily to the citizens of el paso psb is a public entity and needs to be responsive to the public city council represents the public and therefore osap presented a proposal to city council that proposal was to direct the city council to direct the psb to refund the 10 storm water dual purpose monies used to unnecessarily transfer lands from the water utility inventory to the stormwater inventory the open space advisory board has a number of concerns with this transfer initiated by the psb the main concern is the price that was initiated by the psb the price was 14 million at the price the stormwater fund was at this price the stormwater fund will be depleted for the next seven to ten years this means there won't be any storm or any open space acquisitions for the next seven to ten years there won't be any money to get any open space it'll all be gone along with the price concern is the means by which this transaction was conducted last year the psb initiated this transaction they came to us and said have we got a deal for you you're going to get this northeast land for six million for six million dollars the whole transaction they said that was the total price and they said but only 1.7 million will come out of the stormwater fee in december they re-evaluated the land and said by the way it's not 1.7 anymore we just took 14 million up from your account i can tell you the board the osap board is angry they do not like how this transaction has gone down it feels very much to us like it was a bait and switch type thing i don't know that that's what really happened but when you come in and say hey deal for you at 14 i mean at 1.7 and now it's 14 it doesn't go over well the psb recently reappraised this land they put a covenant on it they now say that land is worth a half million no that's the price we want to pay and we're asking you to see if you can address that for us thank you sir mr pro tem you're on mutual the water psp that is in the chamber at this point they can discuss some of those things that were brought up by the public they're not in here sure okay i'm i'm wondering if there's a ability that and i don't know if the psp or the el paso water utility have come and spoken to osap about this but i do think that that would be beneficial because i think that um members of osap to the public as well as members of this council quite frankly still have a lot of unresolved questions uh relating to the to this to this use of funds for this this open space land i think that would be beneficial you have a question for something hold on we'll check mr schwartzbind asked if the psp had come before osap and oh yes sir please please yes uh osab has asked psb to come and talk to them about this situation i would say at least the last four or five months and every time they said we're not ready yet we can't talk about it yet so that's where we're at that's why we're here thank you sir is there is there a way that city staff can communicate to the public services forward on pass the water about about attending the next assad meeting to discuss this this item and others we can make a request yes we will communicate that to the psb thank you thank you no other questions mayor pro tem lisa do you have a motion for ex1 no action thank you ex2 no action thank you ex3 motion june 22 2022 motion made and carried that the city attorney be authorized to attend mediation and negotiate a settlement agreement for the case entitled tovar daniel versus the city of el paso cause number 2019 dcv1249 in addition the city attorney is authorized to sign all necessary documents to effectuate any such settlement under matter number 19-1005-1751 adopted this 22nd day of june 2022 second there's a motion read into the record by mayor pro tem lisa seconded by representative rivera to authorize mediation and settlement authority in the case on that motion call for the vote mayor potem aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative anelo not present ex4 thank you sorry thank you uh motion june 22 of the year 2022 that the city of el paso after review of the interim rate adjustment filed by texas gas service company a division of one gas incorporated on march 10 2022 fines number one that the interim rate adjustment request filed by texas gas service company a division of one gas in one gas incorporated for the incorporated areas of the west texas service area including the city of el paso on march 10 2022 is hereby denied number two that the texas gas service company a division of one gas incorporated is ordered to reimburse the city's expenses in reviewing this request within 30 days after it is invoiced number three that the city attorney's office in culture in col consultation with the city manager is authorized to file an intervention in any appeal filed by texas gas service company from the action of the city council of the city of el paso this motion is intended to grant broad authority to the city attorney's office to take all action necessary to address these matters including but not limited to the initiation and response to any litigation complaints appeals administrative or judicial proceedings or process regarding this matter approved on june twenty second twenty twenty two second there's a motion made by mayor pro tem lisa seconded by representative rivera has read into the record by representative lizarra to deny the request on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tim shortly um i just have one question miss prime i know that we have microsoft teams is there the ability to to bring in um john blue or others home pass a waterford gen item number one through teams or is it too late at this point i don't have a way of contacting mr baloo okay um although yes on this item we can we can if if we send him the link i can send mr baloo the link i mean i just i think that there was questions directly involved it'd be beneficial to be addressed but on where the rest of the council was can we can we complete the voting on ex4 please voted yes ma'am thank you sir and the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative anelo not present next item ex-5 action thank you ex6 no action thank you ex7 no action thank you ex8 no action thank you ex9 motion june 22 2022 motion made and carried that the city manager is authorized to negotiate and execute on behalf of the city of el paso economic incentive incentives to finn habits incorporate incorporated a new york corporation associated with the expansion of their operations into el paso texas in accordance with the term sheets term sheet for fin habit skills training grant attached to this motion as exhibit a and in a form and substance approved by the city attorney to accomplish the intent of this motion approved this 22nd day of 2022. and i believe ms triggs has a comment thank you ma'am elizabeth triggs with economic and international development just a little bit more about this particular term sheet that council is considering um this is a term sheet that that would set up the negotiation terms that we would later bring forward in a chapter 380 agreement to counsel for a financial investment technology firm known as fin habits it's an app-based company that was founded in new york in 2015 and i think what's really unique here is that it was founded by an el paso native who's now looking to expand his company's operations in el paso according to the terms of the sheet that council is considering he will be creating 60 ftes over the next four years and all of those ftes will meet or exceed the minimum area wage in each of the job occupations so a really good opportunity to add jobs to our community in the financial technology investment sector there's a motion made by mayor pro tem lizard seconded by representative rivera to approve the action right into the record by mayor pro tem lizard to authorize a term sheet for ex9 on that motion call for the vote mayor pro tim schwarzwang hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative aneello not present before we journey mayor were we going to call john blue for they're trying to get the link to them but i don't know if they're successful thank you motion to journey is there a motion to adjourn or you want to wait and see oh you have a question go ahead um there was no action correct on item number one correct will we be seeing this again we could the item would come forward if council if if there is a proposal to sell the property it would come forward in an open session right we would we could if right correct okay motion to adjourn there is a motion and a second to adjourn the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the city council meeting for wednesday june 22 2022 is adjourned at 6 49 pm thank you