okay [Music] what's up teachers good morning mayor good morning everyone it's uh miss prine yes sir good morning this is a meeting of the el paso city council for tuesday may 24th 2022 present in council chambers our mayor lisa mayor pro-tem schwartzwing representative panelo representative molinard representative salcido representative rivera representative lizarraga representative hernandez is joining virtually this morning and representative rodriguez will arrive a little later it is now 902 will everyone please silence their electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by police fire and ministry coordinator for the sheriff's chaplain san feroni chaplain you're on mute sir later now yes sir thank you good morning everyone and thank you for allowing me to do this this morning good morning it's always an honor and honor to be with you so if you care to join me as i pray i invite you about your heads feminine father we thank you for the gift of this day a day of life a day of opportunity and another day to seek you and honor you i want to thank you for my mayor his leadership and with his love for this city i ask you to give him strength and encouragement as he fulfills his duties and faces the challenges thereof may he have your peace and wisdom as he leads this meeting today i thank you and i pray for our representatives that they too will be blessed with wisdom and insight as the agenda is considered today may the decision makers of our city regarding the future of our city have a constant awareness of what is right and what is best and what honors you please watch over all of the men and women who protect our freedoms and who keep us safe god bless el paso and god bless america in the name of the lord i pray amen thank you and god bless you thank you sir may god bless you with that we'll have representative nello lead us in the pledge the united states please america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you thank you vanilla good morning everyone and we have a full house thank you for everyone being here i think today is a day that we can uh look back and be thankful for everything that um we have in life and everything that's been given to us and everything we've earned and everything we work for and be thankful for the future and for the men and women in the military that are out there that protect our borders and give us the opportunity to be here every day and um again i um i want to thank everyone from being here chaplain thank you for those nice words and with that i'd like to have a moment of silence to thank everyone who protects us and gives us the opportunity day in and day out thank you may god bless america and may god bless el paso thank you mayor that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first proclamation is kayla gomez's day is kayla in the house please come to the front to the podium good morning my name is joe molina i'm reading this on behalf of representative cassandra penandus proclamation city of el paso texas whereas today we recognize el paso when kayla gomez a decorated boxing member of the youth usa olympic team and number one in the nation in her junior division weight class and whereas kayla's the third generation of female boxers in her family she began vaccine at the age nine guiding guided by her boxing coaches mother crystal aceves and grandmother cindy aceves and whereas kayla has risen through the ranks she won the female flyweight gold medal at the junior pan american games in cali colombia in december of 2021 hold the 2021 wbc amateur title belt and was chosen as a 2021 usa boxing youth female boxer of the year and whereas kayla's currently the top-ranked flyweight boxer not only in the united states but in the world and whereas the city of el paso is behind kaler and her goal to compete in the 2024 olympics in paris and recognizes her for incredible hard work dedication and accomplishments inside the ring locally and nationally now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that may 24 2022 shall be known as kayla gomez day signed the honorable mayor oscar lisa caleb good morning and congratulations on y'all your great accomplishments and you know that this council in this city is very proud of you thank you so much for the recognition and for honoring me it means the most and i do everything for the 915 and thank you again guys thank you representative hernandez hi good morning kayla we want to just let you know that we're incredibly proud of you continue to do a great job to represent this community we we value you and we honor uh the fact that you're a young woman in our community we need to do more to recognize your accomplishments and we hope that this is a small gesture to to achieve that again um you're you're considered miss el paso and we we really are proud of all of your achievement achievements great job thank you mr prine yes sir the next proclamation is young women's leadership academy month yeah we will have to yeah i think thank you we'll take pictures after all the proclamations are read thank you yeah that should be better okay thank you mayor obviously today is young ladies uh day today i'm so proud to present this first of all i'm sorry i apologize could i have miss via loves and her staff member come up to the podium please [Applause] going from one extreme to the other i am i am proud to present this proclamation as you uh will all hear this involves the first academy correct for the ysd and it's uh entitled the young women's leadership academy so with that if you can just hold on a second let me read this to you a proclamation from the city of el paso texas whereas the young women's leadership academy opened in 2016 with the goal of preparing young el paso women from diverse backgrounds to attend and graduate from college to commit a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle to lead with courage and compassion and whereas the young women's leadership academy is a partner school where the young women's preparatory network a statewide network of 10 all-girls public schools with the mission of supporting single gender college preparatory public education in texas and beyond giving young women the academic and leadership skills to achieve success in college and in life and whereas the young women's leadership academy exemplifies the benefits of all girls schools according to national coalition for girls schools students at girls schools have higher aspirations and greater motivation than their female peers at co-educational schools ninety-nine percent of students at girls schools in the u.s expect to earn a four-year degree and more than two-thirds expect to earn a graduated professional degree and whereas the faculty staff and community partners of the young women's leadership academy and young women's preparatory network have exhibited outstanding dedication to pioneering all girls public education in el paso and supporting the young women leadership academy students and whereas these seniors i might add the first class these seniors have demonstrated outstanding commitment to core values of college readiness leadership wellness 100 percent of the senior class of 2022 will graduate with a hundred percent having been accepted to a four-year university the senior class has earned over 11.5 million in merit-based scholarships and we're asked all 42 students are graduating in the inaugural class of 2022 from the young women women's leadership academy gold transformers now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that this month of may shall be known as the young women's leadership academy month yes mr speaking points we are super proud and honored to be here today it has been a seven year journey in preparing our school from a planning year to getting our first girls to graduate from our campus and as the inaugural class leaving out into the world of the girls standing back here i can just brag a little bit here we have two gate scholars the only gate scholars in our district we have three quest bridge scholars we have a dream scholar we have a terry scholar 27 of our girls are first generation to go to college and so that is the real work the real work that we do at the young women's leadership academy and all i can say is el paso hold tight because in the next seven to ten years these are our future leaders right here they're shooting right now as young teens and young adults but in the next seven to ten years they will definitely hold leadership roles here in our city they will be transformational and we couldn't be more proud of them and we're proud of our faculty and staff for the work and the dedication that they have committed to these young ladies over the past six years to get prepared and ready thank you and with that i have an additional thing i t can you bring it up please while i read it while they're bringing it up i just want to congratulate you and all the girls and you're correct the the youth has always been the future of our city and our country and i couldn't be more proud to say that our future looks very bright and with great honor it gave me honor to sign that proclamation and recognition recognition not only of you all but the future of our community thank you all thank you and with that i also from the district office we tonight will be in uh the start of the mountain will be officially lit for the young women's leadership academy it's uh and i'm going to present present you with the documentation and it's in honor of the class of 2022. thank you so much thank you hi everyone i want to thank city council for this wonderful honor i'm a representative from the young women's preparatory network we are a statewide organization and we are so proud of the young women's leadership academy here in el paso for being pioneers and bringing this all girls public free education to our community these girls have been pioneers they started out with us in seventh grade and they've really stayed dedicated to the vision of really being focused on their academics a lot of these girls have taken ap courses and are already going to college with a significant number of college credits and we're excited that they are maintaining our national and statewide trends of 100 of our graduates across the network do graduate from high school and 100 of them do get accepted to four year university we are excited that they're going to be representing us in universities all across the country they've gotten into some really prestigious schools and i also want to thank melinda villalobos our principal for being a pioneer in starting the school believing in the vision and really ensuring that we are providing an excellent opportunity for all girls regardless of their background believing that our girls can really achieve all of their dreams so i want to thank her for her visionary leadership within our organization as well thank you thank you again congratulations mayor and let's leave out i'd like to also recognize and let's not leave out faculty and staff at the young women's leadership academy who are tasked with making sure that the kids achieve what they're out said to said to achieve so thank you all very much thank you thank you and thank you representative rivera thank you here with that um miss prine yes sir the next proclamation is colonel kerry western day mayor pro tem [Applause] so i i think out of all the uh out of all the proclamations i've had an opportunity to help craft and read this is probably this is pretty high up there and uh for those for for those that don't know in the public we have a lot of um veterans that are on that work on behalf of the city of el paso including our city manager and many other positions but i'll tell you out of the 6 000 employees that we have at the city of el paso will only have one colonel and that is you colonel kerry weston so [Applause] um proclamation on the city of el paso texas whereas we are here today to recognize and honor return colonel kerry weston for his distinguished eight years of service to the city of el paso as a senior deputy city manager and whereas colonel weston joined the city of el paso in january 2014 following three years with the borderplex alliance in the el paso regional economic development corporation as vice president of business development for the defense and clean technology sectors responsible for attracting new industry to the region and whereas colonel weston has been a dedicated senior deputy city manager and has become a valuable asset to the city of el paso with his experience and commitment to our community and whereas colonel weston served 25 years of active duty in the army in a variety of critical command and staff positions thank you for your service and whereas colonel weston's occupational specialty was air defense operations culminating in a four-year assignment as the director of the air defense artillery test directorate the ada td that's that's a hard one u.s army operational test command at fort bliss texas as director of 88 td wesson led a team of 200 military department of the army civilian and contract personnel in the design coordination execution of operational tests and field experiments to support weapon system acquisition for the army and joint forces and whereas colonel weston continually honors his midwestern roots and his home of el paso texas being one of the nicest most honorable men you will ever meet whether on land or on waterways now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that may 24 2022 shall forever be known as colonel kerry wesson day signed by our honourable mayor oscar leaser you know colonel um i've known you before you even came to uh come to the city and um i was very glad that you were able to see what good you could do but one of the things that amazes me is i'm looking at you right now first of all your love for your family you and i always had that discussion of how you love your wife and love your your grandkids and your daughters and that's always been a big priority of yours and will continue to be a priority of yours but uh one of the things that i want to do is uh thank you for always being very rational and very understanding and willing to be out there and work with us and and i think you know as i'm saying this uh mrs weston's saying yes because that's who you are so i want to thank you for you know when uh mayor pro tem said that you for thank you for serving your country one thing that i know today that you're still serving your country and you never will stop so thank you for that thank you thank you very much mary uh thank you to the city council for this recognition i i can't think of a time in 25 years of being a soldier in almost nine years now at being at the city where i feel such a sense of gratitude like i do right now not not a time my thanks to the entire city council you make the tough decisions each and every day and that's really transformed our city over several years and you should all be very proud of that i also want to thank our city manager for his leadership and then certainly all of my colleagues at the city who work very hard day in and day out to execute our strategic plan any success that may be attributed to me over the last eight years is really directly because of them so thank you very much again for the recognition i appreciate thank you you know one thing i've noticed too colonel when you came it's been really good for you to be with the city because when you came you had gray hair you leave without gray hair yeah that's great so that's really it's worked out well for you um one sec colonel weston um represent molinar would like to say something colonel from one veteran to another veteran thank you a job well done well deserved and i know you're leaving for the right reasons so thank you again on behalf of my family to yours thank you thank you sir very much appreciated and members if we could call a recess to allow for the photographs to be taken i will ask um if we could first take um the first proclamation photograph behind me and the second one would be colonel wesson's proclamation also behind me and then i'm going to ask the girls because you're such a huge group of girls i'm going to take you outside and i'm going to set you up outside while they take these photographs and then we'll take your photograph last outside thank you may we have a motion to recess second there's a motion and a second to recess all in favor anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 9 22 am thank you miss prine if we can uh continue may we have a motion to reconvene the meeting second there's a motion and a second to reconvene the council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 9 34 a.m we now go to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken if an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved council may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting thank you okay uh propose revisions for the may 24th meeting as of may 24th uh 2022 page three item four postponed for two weeks per representative lasarga page eight item 21 post two weeks postponed two weeks per representative rivera page 11 item 28 move to the forefront of the agenda for economic and international development page 12 item 31 moved to be taken at 10 30 a.m per economic and international development page 12 item 32 move item to be taken at 10 30 per economic and international development page 12 item 33 delete per represent lasaga page 14 item ex-6 delete per capital improvement department as well and also i would like to also uh postpone item 24 for two weeks as well to be briefed is there any other additions at this point council all right those are all of the proposed revisions mayor do we have a second there's a motion made by mayor potem schwartzman seconded by representative li zarga to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote representative thank you representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously mayor would you like to go to item 28 that was moved to the forefront yes ma'am thank you item 28. thank you is a presentation and discussion by project arriva on their combined mid-year and annual report on the status of activities during the fiscal year use of grant funds and progress in the performance measures required under the chapter 380 economic development program agreement good morning apparent council this is jessica cordova economic and international development at this time i would like to introduce mr roman ortiz he's a president and ceo for project ariba who will be sharing his screen and presenting the report thank you good morning mayor and city council it was a great pleasure to see all those nice proclamations and thank you jessica for the introduction hey roman it's great to see you not at a restaurant i know we we tend to go and eat some baja tacos there nice to see you sir you too sir i'm gonna try to share my screen i'm sorry t if you don't mind bringing up the presentation thank you very much okay very quickly we can go to the next screen please again we just want to thank uh the city council and the mayor for your continued uh and purposeful support of this organization project ariba and the city of el paso have been partners now for 22 years and we've done some really great things together so next slide this particular presentation is going to be it's going to impact two things one is we're gonna showcase how we ended our year three which ended in august of last year and then also how we're doing currently on our mid-year year four of our five-year project the city of el paso as you well know has invested 300 000 for year 3 and 300 000 for year four in which we leveraged other federal state and local dollars to promote much needed job training in this region we are on track with all contract performance measures and our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and the skills needed for today's el paso market next slide um in general just a quick kind of snapshot of where we're at with the the five-year contract we have served 537 el pasoins uh we've persisted 84 of the 537 continuing into college we have completed 287 of those individuals and of those that have completed their average wages are now 51 500 just to give you a quick snapshot of where they were before before training their average wages were about 7 500 so we truly believe that investing in human capital produces such a substantial return on investment next slide for year three uh we had a goal to access 465 participants by the end of august 2021 our actual activity is we surpassed that goal we uh we brought in 497 participants which is 106 of our goal completed and of the 497 participants 88 were at or below the poverty levels next slide again for the access under year three breakdown just a demographic there of the 497 people 83 percent of them are female 51 have dependent children their average age is 30 they're predominantly hispanic and 31 percent received food stamps next slide for current year right now we're in the sixth month of our current year our goal is to case manage 565 individuals by the end of august of 2022 as of april 30th we have case managed 537 participants so we're 95 of our goal completed and we do anticipate uh meeting or exceeding our goal by the end of august next slide we continue to work with our esl to living wage partnerships at community college this was a pilot program really started with the city of el paso and we've had some good success in being able to move people out of the esl programs and into living wage jobs next slide our persistence for year three our goal is to maintain 80 academic retention rate uh year to year our activity our actual activity is that we have maintained a 91 academic retention rate for year three and really the reason why we're able to keep people during pandemic uh times and during other major crisis and issues is because our participants have case managers that they have the ability to talk to them and be able to have someone at the ready to be able to help them with any anxiety as well as being able to help navigate them through the college curriculums next slide for year four our goal is to maintain 80 academic retention rate and currently right now where we're at whereas we're at a 90 academic retention rate next slide our goal for year three was to graduate at least 180 individuals by the close of august 31st our actual activity we graduated 236 participants in a high demand occupation at the community college university of texas at el paso and texas tech school of nursing this is 131 of our goal completed next slide of those people that completed of the 236 they're all essential workers you can see they're the breakdown by career field of the types of jobs that they're getting in our el paso community primarily in the registered nursing bsn program as well as an adm program next slide for year four our goal is to uh graduate 60 individuals by the close of august uh right now we're at 31 participants who have graduated uh this was the close of august we have a graduating class that has just finished in may and the next one that will finish in august and we feel that we will be able to meet the commun the goal of 60 graduates by august 31st of this year i do want to make uh to mention to the bayern city council that we are we are going to have our first in-person graduation and we're very excited we'll be having that on june the 9th and our very own city representative cassandra hernandez is going to be our keynote speaker for the evening and we look forward you're more than invited we will send you all an email on the invitation but we we look forward to seeing uh the city there as well next slide for year three or a job placement grow goal was to job place 150 individuals at 14 or more an hour our actual activity is that we job place 206 individuals with jobs of over 23 dollars an hour this is 137 percent of our goal completed next slide for year four our goal is to graduate 50 graduates right now we have 30 graduates that have been job placed at hourly wages of 26.70 and 70 cents and this is 60 of our goal completed next slide just a quick financial overview for 2020 and 2021 next slide for 2020 uh we had 1.7 million in revenues including a million in grant revenue 662 000 and unrestricted contributions and 1200 in other revenues we had 15 we had 1.5 million in expenses our program expenses and how they're broken down 85 cents of every dollar is used for program services followed by 12 percent for admin and three percent for fundraising uh we spent seven hundred and forty five thousand dollars directly on our participants and eight hundred nineteen thousand dollars in other indirect costs next slide of the three hundred thousand dollars uh in year three that was invested by the city of el paso we spent almost eighty thousand in tuition thirty three thousand books twenty thousand in school materials eleven thousand in child care and a hundred fifty six thousand in case management and client service costs related to serving these participants next slide please our financial overview for 2021 we raised 1.6 million in revenues including 898 000 in grant revenue and 680 000 unrestricted contributions 96 000 from the paycheck protection program loan forgiveness and 462 in other revenue we had 1.5 million in expenses uh in 2021 84 cents of every dollar went to program services followed by 13 admin and 3 fundraising we spent 694 000 and directly on participants and 821 000 in indirect costs next slide please for year four we have currently spent as of april close 249 thousand two hundred and six dollars of the three hundred thousand that has been allotted we have broken that down by seventy seven thousand in tuition twenty eight thousand books twenty six thousand in school materials uh almost 000 in child care and 105 000 in case management next slide please a criteria for our grant is that we would have matching funds that surpasses that meets or surpasses what the city of el paso invests for year three we had matching funds of 383 247 dollars in state and federal grants and 285 000 in new or increased private investments so for year three we matched 668 000 of the 300 000 that was required by the contract so we exceeded that goal next slide please you will see there that in year three of the federal and state funding 383 000 is made up of the texas adult career education grant program and as far as private funds was a investment from bank of america of 290 000 and 275 000 was included as match as well as the el paso electric next slide for year four uh we had matching funds of 464 000 in state and federal grants and 58 000 in new or increased private funding so we've already surpassed our goal for matching funds in year 4 of 523 000 next slide and you can see there the breakdown of the federal and state funds as well as the private funds in which we were able to match those dollars next slide so this brings me to the end of my presentation again thank you for all of your support throughout the years our great work is only possible through the generosity of our investors and partners like the city of el paso and so on behalf of the participants board of directors and staff of project ariva we thank you for your continued support thank you sir thank you we now go to page five to item number eleven and this is discussion in action on a resolution commanding the members of the el paso democratic party and city of el paso's destination el paso team for successfully securing that el paso hosts the 2024 texas democratic convention in the summer of 2024. this is placed by representative rivera before we get do you want to comment um representative hernandez um that's well she read the next item is that okay mrs brain go ahead please go ahead i just i just wanted to thank uh rahman i think um under his leadership i've seen significant growth in the um investments and private investments using the the city's leverage of dollars i recognize that that's a very difficult task and you have demonstrated tremendous support from the community with philanthropy and your leadership um your the results within project riva are undeniable we are helping um our most vulnerable members of our community find a talent and upskill their their employment and their wages are growing and that's really a model that we can all be proud of so so congratulations to the organization and to all of the graduates who are going through the program thank you thank you ma'am and before we do get started i do want to welcome mayor cook to the chambers i think mayor cook [Applause] mayor cook actually was the first mayor to have a meeting here was the first mayor to sit behind this chair so uh thank you for uh coming into uh the chambers and uh thank you for warming up the seat and i also want to welcome a former representative and city employee and now board member mr macosta welcome and with that ms prine yes sir we're on item 11 on a resolution commending the members of the el paso democratic party in the city of el paso's destination el paso team for successfully securing that el paso host the 2024 texas democratic convention in the summer of 2024. thank you mayor representative thank you before i start i'd also like to recognize mr jim cher who's in the crowd as well alderman for district one [Applause] really yeah he was an alderman for district one when my parents first moved in for sure i'm sorry alderman alderman alderman oh that's right alderman the youngest alderman ever in the history of the city of el paso when i was running for office he came and told me that he was the youngest ever in the history of el paso and he also did tell me he was the smartest to ever serve so [Laughter] he was a genius and you know that he was very young very successful and thank you again for your leadership thank you are there any other former elected officials currently in the audience if yeah i know we would be out of uh people out there yeah go ahead thank you thank you sir i placed sign on the agenda because on march 26 2022 destination el paso led by miss brook underwood an el paso dominic democratic party led by uh chairwoman dora oaxaca traveled to houston to compete against san antonio and helped demonstrate while a paso was the only choice to host the next statewide convention it won by a super majority of 61 votes this is the first time that in 20 years the el paso area will host this kind of convention and couldn't be more proud and excited to showcase our beautiful city in summer of 2024. miss prime could you could you read that resolution for for me please yes sir the resolution reads whereas it has been 20 years since the last texas democratic convention was held in el paso the el paso community has changed significantly since then and has received national attention the city of el paso is the first organization across all sectors to earn the texas award for performance excellence for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020 el paso has also won the all-america city award three times in 2018 2020 and 2021 and has been named an aac finalist for additional years in a row and whereas el paso has preserved and is still known to be one of the safest cities throughout the nation el paso has also undergone significant downtown revitalization efforts and our city is thriving we welcome the opportunity to showcase the growth of our region and all that el paso has to offer and whereas we have a new generation of voters who are eager for change el paso truly knows the importance of progress the importance of diversity and we believe our community can help to lead the way in healing the soul of our beloved country and whereas a process to secure the 2024 texas democratic party state convention began more than a year ago by a delegation made up of members of the el paso democratic party led by chairwoman dora oaxaca and the city of el paso's destination el paso team and whereas a sustainable environment can be achieved on the community level through education and outreach efforts to help our communities and democracy thrive by working together for the common good and whereas the el paso team which includes chair dora oaxaca emma acosta isella cassano williams michael apodaca and destiny destination el paso's brook underwood jose garcia and valerie garcia all traveled to houston to compete against san antonio and to help demonstrate why el paso was the only choice to host the next statewide convention and won by a super majority of 61 votes and whereas from the state democratic executive committee of 84 individuals el paso was awarded this prestigious convention on saturday march 26 2022 and whereas this convention will be one of the first of its kind on the u.s texas border in over 20 years in a presidential year congratulations to the el paso democratic party and destination el paso and other community leaders in el paso now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of el paso number one recognizes el paso to host the 2024 texas democratic convention in a presidential year the summer of 2024 and number two commence the members of the el paso democratic party and city of el paso's destination el paso team for securing a statewide convention and number three respectfully request that the city clerk will make an executed copy of this resolution available to el paso county democratic party chairwoman dora oaxaca and destination el paso executive director brooke underwood signed by the city of el paso mayor oscar lisa thank you miss prime thank you miss prime and with that uh i asked uh i make a motion to approve and would also like to ask miss underwood and mr oaxaca and their teams to come up and accept the recognition from council good morning miss underwood pleasure to see you again likewise i was going to say the same thing it's always good i'm glad you brought mr underwood this time justin how are you it's not every day you receive a prestigious award from the city council so i wanted to be sure that the husband was here to see that the many hours spent at the office or traveling or working with such great partners like chairwoman oaxaca was well worth it i i am speechless and that's that's quite rare for me but i i do want to again thank you all for your support i thank you for the trust that you put in the destination el paso team um and myself but also i want to thank um great leadership on the city side i have the pleasure of working very closely with our city deputy city manager tracy jerome and always have her back up and support in any endeavor so i really appreciate that and makes my job easier to do i also want to thank my family and for their support and then the dream team that we assembled with chairman oaxaca of course um emma acosta and then um isa la castanon williams so again uh i appreciate it so much i'm i'm without words and grateful thank you [Applause] good morning mayor council i am i want to congratulate you the council for making those bold fearless decisions to take forward this city we wouldn't be here if it wasn't because you have been the solid drivers of a transformation that is happening in our city and i want to thank the city the city leadership mr gonzalez his team definitely destination el paso miss underwood for having the same values of being courageous to believe and to be the ambassador on almost a daily basis to to bring these type of conventions i want to say that it was impossible if uh if we wouldn't have evolved so much since uh seven years ago when you all put together a very forward transformational strategic plan that gained us this type of victory and i'm telling you because 20 years ago when the convention was last here last year last um when when the convention was here 20 years ago a lot of folks left and they didn't realize how valuable and how much el paso had changed the hotel that they were staying the there was no hot water um you know the hvac broke down there was a lot of things that happened 20 years ago that that we needed to challenge when we went up there uh not only to convince everyone but to show and prove evidence of how far we've come along and how many amenities how how many uh how much growth how many hotels now we have the placita just amazing synergy amazing tangible projects that have that have come to fruition because of you and because of city leadership like mr gonzalez his team and i don't want to be redundant on this but i just want to thank you this award is proof of your work and i thank you and congratulate you [Applause] wait i'm not used to you on that side come over here your seats open your seats i have a very competent city representative thank you so much i just want to thank each and every one of you for the support that you provided to destination el paso brook underwood was really a trooper out there we have never worked so i have never worked so hard for something in my life if you had told me you're going to be working more i would not have believed you this was not an endeavor that happened overnight it was an endeavor that took us a year and once we got there we were competing against san antonio and lo and behold you know with everything that we have provided uh concerning our city and the leadership that it took to get us here i mean we convinced them that el paso was the destination and so everyone voted and it was unanimous and there was a super majority so i want to thank each and every one of you because each and every one of you was also responsible for this so thank you so much thank you mr costa [Applause] good morning and i too would like to thank each and every one of you for your leadership as we worked to put this pack together i became very obvious that so much work that you all have done has been very fruitful and it was much easier to put a packet together that was convincing to the state democratic party that would bring us this convention again i want to thank all of you for your leadership because some of the programs that you all have put into place for example the six hundred thousand dollars that you commit every year to providing support for special needs improvements in the community was a major factor in our showing the state that we are committed to inclusion and to providing for everyone that visits our city so thank you all again thank you thank you mr kosa and my regard to ismail i hope he's doing well yeah well give him my best please place and also i'm sorry go ahead man okay go ahead i just wanted to say um thank you so much for all your hard work um it is really great to see that the strong advocate not only was it a strong group but it's a strong women group that really pushed for a city and i i definitely appreciate all your hard work i know it wasn't easy um you're all competing against san antonio however el paso our beautiful city is is uh i'm being biased but it is a better city than in san antonio and i think that we just all the hard work that the city leadership has done and where we're at today what we could offer to show this beautiful city and and be able to let them see how much has it's grown and it will continue to grow so i want to just say thank you so much for your all's leadership here leadership of the city mr gonzalez everybody all just very grateful and just just to kind of just close this off you know how much of economic impact will this have for our city so just to remind everyone that this isn't a downtown convention only because of the size of this organization it will press into the far reaches of the city and bring about eight million dollars to our community over a three-day period which is remarkable absolutely and that that definitely takes with forward thinking leadership so i want to thank you all for uh representation to your point this convention is in a presidential year as well so uh we want to thank you again but we also want to make sure that we have enough hotel room because it may attract not only residents from texas but also from other states so we need to be fully prepared in two years thank you thank you do you have a date for it already i know it's a summer 20 no it's a summer it a date has not been selected but i'm sure as soon as we know we'll share it with you with the community with the business community with the hotel motel and i can tell you right now um you know they are excited because not only them but it's going to bring money across all over the county and i can tell you that there's going to be heads and beds from tornillo to canotillo so thank you representative schwartzwein proton thank you mayor um sorry these microphones are less sensitive can you all hear me okay thank you representative rivera thank you um so again i think this is an amazing opportunity i think it shouldn't be remiss that this is during a presidential year this is something that again is not is is something we've been talking about wanting to see these kind of major conventions the fact that we have this the fact that we have the aia texas with 3 000 people coming through just shows that the the vision of being more competitive with convention center hotel space um with making those strategic investments in the public sector with the streetcar uh with other improvements is really starting to to bear fruit which is beneficial to our community because now we have an opportunity to have from these conventions thousands of new newly formed ambassadors to el paso who are going to go back to their hometowns and talk about what an amazing trip they had in el paso how amazing the food is how amazing the people were um and how how vibrant and lovely our downtown is as well um just so i'm clear most of this most of the activities we based around the convention center is that correct because of the size of the convention and its impact we will have to use utilize all the meeting space including our theaters in downtown el paso so we will have to maximize the entire convention center the plaza theater the abraham travis theater all of the space at the possible north and surrounding hotels so the um yes and and also southwest university park uh is also on the list to be utilized for the the uh general sen session and we could see anywhere between 10 and 14 000 individuals come over the course of this three-day period well um i i mean i think obviously we're going to be having people as you said from canadia to tornillo they'll be there it's a wonderful wonderful rhyme scheme there chair oaxaca rivera with the tornillo to kennedy to so thank you for that as well i just would hope to make sure that we arrange i know that we've had some discussions with some metro already about that that convention center programming would fully utilize a an exam an extended streetcar schedule hopefully by the time that this will be going on the streetcar will be running regular hours as well in the morning as well but i think we just need to make sure that that there's running there's 10 hotels again that within a thousand a thousand feet of a streetcar stop when you talk about something that makes us attractive to bringing these large conventions having that kind of access to efficient quality public transportation is is part of that that puzzle as well we also truly believe that there's a number of different departments throughout the city in the county that will play a major role and i i mentioned during a presentation i made maybe a month ago about uh creating a task force that we've actually already identified and that involves individuals from cid and police department but also sun metro will play a critical role so that task force will be critical and begin uh meeting on a semi-regular basis leading up to the to the uh event in 2024. and i think it's great as well i mean you know i'd be remiss to say you know we're looking at 2024 for this convention there it's really a missed opportunity that we don't have more space available for downtown if we had a multi-purpose center that wasn't derailed by short-sighted vision for our community we would be right now at a position to be able to have a multi-purpose center with thousands of additional seats that would really create a larger convention center campus synergy between our convention center and and our multi-purpose center which voters approved for over 70 percent in 2012 so that's it's a real shame that that we're having to scramble with southwest industry park the abraham chavez plaza theater when again with with courageous leadership we would be looking at um having that possibly open right now um again um to to complement and augment what we already the space already have at the convention center representative schwarzenegger great point because this this was a challenge we did it we did it with all the investments right now but this is just scratching the surface of what can be done it took us a year but definitely uh a uh a convention center multi-purpose convention center definitely would help destination el paso and i'm speaking because you're you're not you're you're not always gonna have this this partnership between an organization and destination el paso this is like once in a lifetime usually the burden is all on destination el paso and and for them to go out and be able to bring those conventions so i urge you to make it easier and by doing that is by giving them all the tools to be able to elevate not only downtown but the city as a whole thank you great and uh thank you i also uh also want to say too that you know again um our convention center is what it is i mean we know that there's there but but this multi-purpose center is a way to create an enlarged convention center campus that really can bring in different facilities that can be programmed reorganized at different times as well i'm really part of a larger strategic vision for our community and we're seeing that investment you know come in through the private sector as well we have another uh convention center hotel space that we're going to be awarding if council approves it a 380 agreement for a hundred more beds at least for for downtown el paso i mean we're seeing the we're seeing that synergy between the public and private sector and we really owe it to our constituents our community to continue that i just really quick before you have a chance to say did want to acknowledge that we have a a former candidate for texas state senator uh maxi share they just entered the building as well so thank you maxie for being here too thank you and to that point uh we do need more hotel space i mean it's uh i urge council to ask the tough questions make those bold decisions and keep growing el paso the way you have been doing it thank you all thank you thank you and i know that miss underwood has said that uh last time she was here that we talked about uh expanding our convention center needs to be expanded as we need more work space more rooms more breakout areas and you know and i know that we're looking at that because the convention center was first built in 1970 mr sheriff 76 down 73. 78 so i know that we 68. wow so and that's uh it was built on uh that it was going to be stage one and stage two and we've never gotten the two so it's really important that we get there so i know miss underwear just talked about that and uh i know that uh i look forward to somewhere someday down the road uh being able to do that so uh mayor i think again i think miss underwood talks specifically about the need for for us going through with the multipurpose center which again acts as connections it's just a totally different project that's what i'm saying our convention center right now it's a different project that i'm talking about that that we want to look at uh so i do i know like miss underwood has brought that up and it's really important for us mr costa mayor um again thank you all for everything that you've done for el paso and for supporting our efforts um and i don't know what the protocol is anymore but wait can we take a picture with me yeah we're gonna do that right now as soon as we as soon as we get done talking i've taken pictures with you when i served with you but i've never taken a picture when i have something i mean yes sir sir thank you thank you thank you and and i know everything's been said about council if you sure please one more thing sir one more thing before we go uh peter we need to vote uh mayor potem sorry yeah but before we do i'd like to to say something real quick i know uh we've honored this team for many reasons but right now i'd like to recognize an individual who has shared his wife with el paso for so long and i want mr underwood to stand up so we can applaud him stand up thank you sir you've got a great uh partner there who's not afraid to to delve into the depths of challenges for el paso and of does take time away course our family and our kids but our kids love this place just as much as she does and she takes a lot of pride in representing uh not only the city but the diversity that we have here in this region and is very important to us to our family so i felt a little bit of it with sharing my wife there but i i know what you went through so congratulations there was pride we have a motion in a second yes sir there was a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative sancido to approve the resolution on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously [Applause] we can get you all too there right there oh right over here resolutions everybody smile everybody look over here three one two three look over here no that's fine this is all about them over here over here one two three i know i actually had to go to work this morning oh council if you can return to the deus we need to recess for mass transit and then we need to go to the items 31 and 32 in order to make the 10 30 press conference may we have a motion to recess for mass transit there's a motion and a second to recess from us to convene the mass transit department board meeting all in favor anyone opposed the regular city council meeting is in recess at 10 18 a.m good morning this is a meeting of the mass transit department board for tuesday may 24 2022 present in council chambers is board chair lisa board members short spine angelo molinar salcido rivera lizard board member hernandez is joining us virtually and board member rodriguez has requested to be excused that brings us to it is 10 19 a.m that brings us to call to the public this morning we have mr steven strummer that signed up to speak his topic is bus routes better service and route 65 good morning mr schremer you have three minutes sir good morning sir for bus schedules from ellen smythe uh we do not have them at the mass transit uh the transit uh centers throughout the city at present hasn't been for the last two months i am also asking to look at route 65 on paisano drive the bus has been diverted nearly every day we don't know we don't know what the route is it has an alternative route going up to north of um well it's not going on the regular route because of construction and i would like her to have a supervisor to see that or to tell the public what the route is here in the downtown if he could we really need bus schedules i'm also asking for help with a bus shelter number 33 on vi count it has a screen at the bottom that's been kicked it needs it's an older shelter it needs repainting and some rust-oleum and things like that it couldn't be that difficult to do it'll take some shop work but it is harder to use because of the tree plantings and the leaves the bus drivers can't see through the grating screen so i'm asking her to please please look at that shelter it's by the multi-purpose center across from the parking lot there if she could make some notes it would mean an awful lot too many there it's painted battleship gray it's a very older older round top model does not have lighting at night either and so without the lighting the driver can't see people inside the shelter it's um i guess ada compliant but it's got these two large i guess two and a half foot long high stones on either side and dead plants if she could please help me with that it means an awful lot that she came here yesterday and i could speak with laura and the city clerk's staff to encourage me to come back i am i am seriously asking for bus schedules i don't know how i can use the system without a schedule thank gosh i have one we haven't had them for two months thanks so much for hearing me miss i appreciate it thank you mr strummer that brings us to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by mass transit department board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by board members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken if an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved the mass transit department board may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting second there's a motion made by board member rivera seconded by board member molinar and if if i can ask that you revise item two to excuse board member claudia rodriguez from the meeting thank you on that motion and we will be using the electronic voting system for this vote call for the vote okay then i'll go ahead and take a verbal i'm ready it didn't pop up try it again the voting session is open okay okay i'll go ahead and take a verbal roll call after all board member schwartzman thank you the motion passes unanimously that brings us to item number five and this is discussion and action on the award of solicitation number 2022-0471r ticket vending machines valid validators and back office to park in inc dba flo bird for five years um this is a purchasing item good morning crystal pass with purchasing and strategic sourcing this item is linked to strategical number seven enhance and sustain impossible infrastructure network the linkage to the strategic plan is subsection 7.3 enhanced regional comprehensive transportation system this is a request for proposals rfp there were 33 views online five proposals were received none being local vendors no protests were received for this requirement we are recommending award as indicating it as indicated to pericon inc dba floberg the highest ranked offer based on evaluation factors established for this procurement move to approve second there's a motion made by board member molinar seconded by board member salcido to approve on that motion call for the vote i'll take verbal uh board member schwarzwayne yes anello aye hernandez yes molina aye salcido aye ribera yes ma'am and the motion passes unanimously that brings us to the end of the agenda may we have a motion to return second there's a motion and a second to adjourn the mass transit department board meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed and the mass transit department board meeting for tuesday may 24th 2022 is adjourned at 10 26 a.m there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed and the meeting is back in session at 10 27 a.m we now turn to page number 12. right page five and this is two four items 31 and 32 are related item 31 is discussion in action on a resolution that the city manager be authorized to sign a chapter 380 economic development program agreement between the city of el paso texas and one texas power llc and hotel dulcinea llc item 32 is discussion in action on a resolution that the city manager be authorized to sign a long-term lease between the city of el paso texas and one texas tower llc motion approved second good morning members of the city council elizabeth triggs with economic and international development and so items 31 and 32 are related they enable the redevelopment rehabilitation and renovation of a historic building in downtown el paso commonly known as one texas tower the building is located at 109 north oregon street really in the heart of our urban core and it's also the same building where cafe central is located if it can please bring up the presentation okay and so the project will result in the addition of a new hotel to our downtown the renovation involves the conversion of one texas tower to a three-star 120 room hampton inn and suites there will be retail and restaurant space on the ground ground floor cafe central does remain as part of this project in addition the project secures 1 200 rooms needed for convention attraction which i think we just heard quite a bit about in a previous item so very closely tied to the efforts that that we're making through destination el paso and other community leaders in addition this project is a smart financial investment for the city it leverages local incentive dollars with state dollars through the state's convention center hotel program a program intended to help communities across texas um build up their ability to attract larger conventions um and then finally it's a historic pro historic preservation project it will you see the rendering on the right here it does preserve the facade of the property that is listed on the national register of historic places this is a more than 110 year old building with very prominent location next to the historic plaza hotel near the historic paso del norte and directly across the street from the crest building which council recently approved a performance-based incentive for so again the location here is centrally located very near san jacinto plaza and very near other private public partnership investments as well as near new capital projects so again a good place in at this core of our downtown area um so downtown revitalization is is certainly key um to our overall economic development strategy for our community as well as to downtown revitalization in general this council has been incredibly supportive of projects that seek to restore historic buildings that are really what make our community unique of the 29 completed or active projects incentivized by council over the last 10 years there are five historic renovations that have been completed and one which was recently announced last month that's currently in development with the approval of this particular project this will make the seventh of major historic renovation projects that the city council has participated in in the form of performance-based incentives altogether those historic repre renovations represent a very large investment in our downtown with texas tower that investment comes up to 224 million dollars again that's just from seven historic projects so a huge investment on the part of the private sector and a huge investment on the part of city council in addition as i mentioned before texas tower will be converted into a hampton inn and suites this project along with the other historic hotel projects that we've undertaken including the plaza hotel paso del norte bassett tower and staten house represent more than 720 guest rooms added to our downtown area in a very short time period which is hugely important when we're trying to attract new conventions to our region we heard just now that there's a significant number of people that we anticipate coming to el paso and we hope that every single hotel room in downtown will be filled up and and understand that it'll spill over um to outside of downtown as well um so this is a these are a few images of the project in its current condition you can see that the ground floor is occupied by cafe central but the majority of the rest of the building is vacant so with city council's participation in the project and we'll be able to bring this building that is otherwise underutilized back online really contributing to the activity in the downtown area you can also see on the last picture in the right that the building is located adjacent to the new parking garage which was part of the the public-private partnership for the redevelopment of the plaza hotel so it's a really strategic location where there will be parking available to the visitors of that new hotel as well as to other surrounding hotels in terms of what the incentive looks like the city through property tax rebates hot tax rebates and a few others and will contribute up to 2.186 million again this is in the form of rebates they occur after the project is developed and after the developer has expended 18 million investment in in the building itself so again performance based the property tax revenues the hot tax revenues all the rebates you see out here are generated from the project itself so this is not currently tax revenue that we're receiving again this is this is representative of a very strong financial investment for the city we're seeking to leverage our local dollars with the state convention center hotel program which offers a 10-year rebate on the state's portion of hot and sales tax that's generated off of the project so again performance-based from the state you can see that the incentive is is larger than the city's incentive at about 3.2 million over a 10-year period and so when you look at those together the city's share of the incentive makes up about 40 percent while the state makes up 60. and so really for every dollar that the city puts in to this particular project the state will be putting in 150 a dollar fifty so again very very smart good opportunity this project does represent the fourth project downtown that takes advantage of this program um and so we've talked a little bit about the benefit of the project from the perspective of historic preservation and what that does to increase visitors to our region and then in addition the fact that it will become a hotel which helps us secure those conventions but also again a smart financial investment for the city over the 13-year agreement term the city will recover new tax revenue even with its contribution in the form of hot tax revenue and that tax revenue is then put back into the community and to support quality of life projects for for our residents but also to support other kinds of projects that bring in visitors from the outside so it is definitely circular in nature and really hope helps grow just grow the the quality of life for this region as well as attract new outside spending power to the region and then finally through the city's investment in the project significant dollars are generated for our other community taxing entities which again goes back into our community and so just a recap of the the benefits the community benefits from the project it increases guest rooms available in the downtown area again increasing our ability to compete for convention events which really represents outside spending dollars coming into our local economy it contributes to the preservation of downtown's historic character this is a very notable building downtown located right at the center of the urban core so it'll be good to see it come back online and restored third it results in net positive tax revenue for the city and other community taxing entities revenue that is then put back into our community it supports the use of surrounding downtown facilities we saw it was located right next to the new parking garage facility very close to san jose plaza as well as the convention center facilities in addition it brings online and otherwise underutilized building really activating the space around san jacinto plaza and throughout the oregon corridor and then finally diversifies the hotel market in downtown el paso by offering yet another hotel for visitors to choose from and so with that today we're asking council to authorize a city manager to sign the chapter 380 agreement and the related long-term lease as a reminder in order to participate in the state convention center hotel program the city does need to own the land on which the project sits and so as part of this project the property owner will be conveying the land to the city and we will be leasing it back to the property owner for a period of 50 years and that's what really makes it possible for for us to participate in the state convention center hotel program so again asking council to approve that chapter 380 agreement along with the long-term land lease and with that i'm happy to take any questions yes representative thank you mayor thank you elizabeth for being here and sharing this wonderful news with our community this morning it really is exciting to hear that the renaissance in downtown el paso continues so uh i did have a question about can you give me some kind of timeline about when this hotel will be sure finish and the applicant is here to speak more to it but per the 380 agreement it should be complete by the end of 2025. okay and then the county did not participate not at this time they have not participated at this time okay thank you and congratulations to you and your team for all your hard work thank you and that's it thank you mr prine there is another protem thank you miss triggs and i want to again thank the uh the applicant uh for again investing and believing in el paso um you know this is not the first project um both in terms of renovating existing structures as well as a new one and i think we're going to have other items coming up where we could talk about that but what i want to really stress here and i think it's it's an amazing thing is there is some folks that tend to want to communicate and doubt the city's commitment towards historic preservation and the city again has once again shown a commitment towards historic preservation working with the private sector to again rehabilitate existing structures you said it yourself this is a 110 year old building that again is being brought back to life that we're going to be fully activating as a hotel and when we just heard from our tourism bureau that we need more hotel space as well and this is again another step um our downtown revitalization is not going to it's not going there isn't going to be one project that all of a sudden you know the rainbow turns on and you know gold coins fall from the sky and our downtown is is perfect it's an evolution it's a process and it takes commitment from a wide variety of partners in working together and we've seen that right we've seen our partners at the at the county commissioners court worked to identify and create a new national register district in siegel and the wario the city council voted to send a letter in support i think i believe it was a unanimous letter of support in support of that project and we've seen also again the private sector invest in these historic preservation projects whether it is the aloft hotel the basset tower which is a trost designed building to the mills building to the plaza hotel conrad hilton's first skyscraper to the paso de norte hotel and now we have the texas tower to add to that list of key commitments contributions and dedication towards historic preservation and heritage tourism brought to life in our community and that again is not to say what we've already seen with the streetcar which again is a it's you know much of the to the chagrin of some that is a historic preservation project bringing back art deco design streetcars into the 21st century utilizing uh sustainable and renewable all-electric energy so again i i think it's important that the public understands that again this is not about talking about historic preservation this is about acting towards it and once again this this count this this body has shown that commitment time and time again as well and again our our strategic vision this is not this is not mayor pro tem schwartzmein's vision of downtown this is what is in our strategic vision and goal is to look at increasing hotel space is looking at historic and heritage historic preservation and heritage tourism strategies as part of it so what we're talking about here today is not any one of our visions this is the vision of this council and it's one that that is important to recognize that this again working with the private sector with um with some great partners have really established themselves with downtown and many ways have helped to kick off this this downtown renaissance we're seeing again those investments come through today and we're seeing once again a true commitment to historic preservation for our beautiful community thank you and elizabeth you and your team congratulations and the city manager's team but uh you know mr cher elma congratulations on the vision you know it takes a vision and it takes somebody to look at the future and how not what we're doing today but what's going to be for tomorrow for yourself and your family and our community and you know i know that i've had a few conversations with you and elma and and talked about the investment and how the investment will secure the future so i want to thank you both for being here but also for having the vision to make el paso a better place to be and a better place to live thank you and with that we have a motion and a snow representative um levetta yes sir thank you thank you man thank you sir mr great presentation and and uh i think uh mayor pro tem has said what everybody feels and how we support this downtown area mr share uh again thank you as well um and so this is our commitment to to improve this area and and make it a a stop a destination for others and and with that said um the your efforts are tremendous uh your staff uh uh mayors uh mayor and council and uh manager city tommy gonzalez and of course everyone involved in this your your accomplishments are just fantastic and i just wanted to thank you for that thank you sir thank you sir representative um thank you mayor thank you just want to say thank you for the presentation and also just think um for the public and private uh investment you all are doing together this is kind of shows how if we work together we can get a lot done um and i just more than anything thank you for the investment from the private sector to invest in our community and i thank you for that thank you thank you yes sir there was a motion made by representative salcido seconded by representative molinar rivera and schwarzwang to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously may we have a motion to recess for the press conference second there's a motion and a second to recess a regular city council meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed and the regular city council meeting is in recess at 10 44 a.m thank you council if you can join us upstairs in the main conference room oh is okay okay thank you how are you good morning thank you all for being here with us my name is elizabeth triggs and i'm the director of economic development for the city of el paso we're really excited today to announce another approval by city council to participate in a project that will result in the restoration of another historic building downtown and its conversion to a 120 room hampton inn and suites so another hotel to add to our downtown to help us attract future conventions and bring in visitors to our region as well as another strong commitment to historic preservation in our downtown area the the developer and property owner has committed to investing a minimum of 18 million dollars into the project and the city has committed to providing performance-based financial incentives in the form of rebates off of the revenue generated from the project in an amount not to exceed 2.186 million so again a really good example of a public-private partnership and commitment to the revitalization of our downtown and so with that i'd like to invite mayor oscar leaser to come up and say a few words thank you elizabeth thank you again to you and your team but uh you know it has to take a vision and that's what i was talking about uh elma and jim share have had a vision of the future of not only for their family but for our community so it's important that we sit here and as uh jim and i were just talking this is the second building since i've been in office the courtyard and now this one and it's a real honor to be able to be in support of something so dynamic so important to our community and they'll see these historic buildings all around the city become you know come back to life and uh you know the 18 million dollar investment that uh they're making is an investment like i said for their family it's an investment for our community it's an investment for the future of el paso so elma mr cher thank you again for believing in our community and thank you for making el paso a better place to live thank you thank you and now i'd like to ask mr cher and the property owner to please come up and say a few words about the building and the project i'm going to take a little more time i was actually asked to write it up but having been a former elected official it's hard to say on script first i want to say thank you to our mayor to you representative schwartzwein to you representative rivera to you representative south well to you representative and to you miss jerome and the good work that you did in this trance thank you very very much and to you mayor cook for being here with me today uh i i want this a little off the press conference but i want to tell you when we first did the very first project for this community and there were no weekend on like incentive programs at all mayor cook led a charge to have the doubletree come forward and the first vote was turned down there was no economic programs and and mayor cook brought it up and it got turned down and beto was on city council at the time he came down off the days in the old city county building went out on the escalator as i was walking down saying i'm selling it he said you're coming back we're going to work on this and it's going to happen and it came back up in a couple weeks and it passed and that project on the doubletree has been a fantastic project to keep that kickstarted what happened downtown because we had a decaying stagnant downtown i hired and we hired elm and i uh economic impact study just to see how what impact that hotel had for our community and the university of texas tyler report came in 100 and over 138 million dollars came was the economic impact from that one hotel as a former city councilman as a person who's born written my mom born our family born you're my mama's great friends with your mom and you know it's all us in our heart wanting to build our community courtyard has been a fabulous project for this community and the hampton is going to be that too so now i get to go to controlled notes so if you'll bear with me thank you sir thank you you know before you get started i do want to say that my mother and his mother were best friends to the last day they both were alive and i can tell you that both of them would be very proud of everything you've accomplished my mom who loved you dearly and i know your mom who loved you dearly so congratulations yes sir and my dad also but your mom and my mom were a pair they were there for sure roberto and my mom downtown el paso was our heart our zocalo our meeting place the city's unwavering commitment has changed the decaying stagnant downtown from the 1970s into an increasing vibrant welcoming symbol of el paso i have been devoted to making downtown great again putting my money where my mouth is with seven significant properties acquired over decades one by one each plays a part in transforming the future of our community from the doubletree which kickstarted downtown revitalization to the courtyard as the face of our skyline facing eastward eastbound visitors who come into downtown to now moving forward with the very first investment i ever made as a major project which was buying one texas tower i purchased one texas tower in 1989 empty apart from the first floor of cafe central how many of you have been there i'm sure virtually everybody because it's probably the best restaurant we've ever had in el paso the building we filled it up with el paso small businesses we were seriously impacted by the development by street closures during the san jacinto plaza development and other downtown projects and reduction in office space demand so my alma and i sought solutions to advance one texas tower into the 21st century with the growth of downtown hotel activity and the expectation of convention business we decided upon an urban mid-priced hotel project that would work elma and i visited the urban uptown hampton in portland oregon we decided that would work for el paso hilton agreed and gave us the franchise now as america's moving past covid and with lead time needed to develop design and construct the project alma development alma carretto's development of an urban hampton will sparkle the skyline of downtown el paso and preserve the best restaurant we have in cafe central once the hampton opens downtown will be an amazing spectacle it's going to be spectacular and elma deserves all the credit uh to say we are on the move elma opened up a brand new restaurant in downtown called casanova just last week on the first floor of the doubletree casanova's has fine superb italian restaurant with delicious food i think a few have noticed that the parpadelli balinese and the zucchini pasta with mussels was magnificent and we just had a new downtown night spot open up in the center court building called the garrison check it out but what we really have is a future for our community something that is going to be great for you your family your children your children's children and your children's children's children is our future and we're all glad to be a part of it thank you [Applause] thank you i'd like to invite senior deputy city manager tracy jerome to come say a few words about the project thanks elizabeth we would like to acknowledge how important the project is moving forward one texas tower is the next level of what's happening across the the entire downtown that truly is experiencing a renaissance this is such an important public-private partnership which we've shared with with jim share and with his fellow developer alma carretto this is just the next project and again the next chapter and what we are achieving in our downtown this is an incredible commitment on their part they've developed several other projects and really delivered for the community as jim said they've put their money where their mouth is and we do appreciate that greatly but this is going to be really again another step forward and it's another demonstration of our ongoing long-term commitment as a city and as our our city council to historic preservation in our downtown you know it's so important to celebrate the the built environment of our heart um our downtown is the heart of our community um and this is not only going to really bring another level of economic development but again it's a demonstration of how much we love and are passionate about the fabric of our downtown and they will realize a really special project for us so that we will have more visitors who will come to us not only are local visitors who are incredibly important we want people to come back into the downtown either rediscover it because they haven't spent time with us in the downtown in a long time or maybe it's their first time with their next generation and everything that's happening in the downtown is super important not only for our local our local visitors but also so that we can compete earlier today in council you saw on the celebration of us winning the convention for the democratic party during the next presidential election year incredibly important but this project is going to take us over that magic number of 1200 rooms in the downtown so that we'll be able to compete again at another level taking us to the next level and again not forgetting our history not forgetting how important historic preservation is to us but really using it for what it's supposed to be which is an incredibly powerful economic development driver for our community with this project completed this will take us again over over a developmental milestone right now just with historic preservation alone with the city has invested it's over 200 million dollars that's a lot of money but we're just getting started because again we have such jewels in our downtown and we are experiencing a renaissance and with these types of partnerships we will continue to move those projects forward so thank you alma cadetto thank you very much for your vision and we look forward to watching on the rebirth and the renaissance of one texas tower so thank you and mayor pro tem schwartzbein said some some really good comments during the council session just a moment ago so i'd like to invite him to to close off the press conference for us thanks again um miss triggs and thanks again uh jim and and alma and your whole team uh for making this happen um and again thanks thanks to the council and the mayor's leadership and our our really our strategic vision that helped uh make this happen you know we talk about these historic preservation projects i think we saw it last week or the week before with the with the crest building right people's memories come back up alive and i think about the texas tower not just about the signature of green chile soup that they have there at cafe central which is absolutely amazing if you have a chance to to get it or take a couple visitors in but when i came back to el paso after i've gone to school and living in new york in 2011 in october i was invited to be part of chalk the block as a recent graduate from the school of visual arts and um i needed to find a studio that i could work out of um to do this project which was covering about a 90 foot long piece of chain lick fence with a very very small budget and jim and elma you allowed me to get a space on the third floor there or maybe the second floor and i was able to work out of it for a couple months making a really nice piece and so even though that space is going away as as an artist studio um it's going to be reborn to something so much more important and valuable to our community as well as as really taking that texas tower and bringing it back to life and i think that's what it's really about with these projects that we have here when it comes towards historic preservation it's not about keeping el paso calcified looking like a museum piece it's about bringing life and activity to buildings right through new investment as well as strategic reinvestment in existing historic structures and this council has really led the way towards that we've seen a lot of partnerships both in the public and the private sector over the years right with the mills building with the plaza hotel which was conrad hilton's first skyscraper the paso norte hotel the aloft hotel even the hotel indigo which is really great example of mid-century modernism which is now being recognized and that's not to say what we've partnered with asap with the blue flame building which again is another beautiful example of mid-century modernism right so we have seen all these investments occur the city has also supported and collaborated with other other partners as well our our partners at the county commissioners court uh recently nominated sigma novario's national register district and this council voted unanimously to go and support with a letter that support for that nomination right we've seen a 97 million dollar historic renovation project with our historic streetcar art deco design streetcars brought back to life that goes through so many different neighborhoods including our newest registered our historic registered signal in the barrio district right so when we talk about historic preservation when we talk about heritage tourism this is not something that one group or one entity are able to claim this is something that all of us have worked very very hard on and it's it's part and parcel center and of our overall economic development strategy and our strategic plan as well that the city has endorsed heritage tourism historic preservation is something that we don't just talk about at the city of el paso but it's something that we that we walk it's something that we've represented it's something we've supported time and time again and it's really great and the the final step when we have these convention center spaces like the marriott courtyard like the paso dornorte hotel like the plaza hotel and now with this new texas tower project it's important that we uphold our commitment to this community and the vision of this community by again expanding our convention center campus and getting the multi-purpose center done which again was approved in 2012 by over 70 percent of the voters that's what make these investments work when you have public and private synergy when you have those investments on the ground with small businesses opening up around downtown thrift stores on el paso street others like continental that have existed for decades and decades anybody that goes through downtown on a friday or saturday in the evening can see how how alive we truly are right now and we need to continue this momentum and that's due to the leadership of this council this mayor the city manager and many many people throughout el paso as well so congratulations mazel tov jim again your commitment and vision and inspiration to el paso as well so thank you [Applause] and with that that concludes our press conference we're happy to stick around afterwards if you all have questions and do individual interviews so thank you all very much for coming so so can we convene the meeting yes mayor there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 11 14 a.m we're on page number five the next item is number 12. do we have a motion item number 12 is discussion and action to authorize district 1 city representative peter schwartzman to attend city council meetings by video conference more than one regular meeting week in a row on july 21st and 22nd and july 5th and 6th promotion motion approved june 21st and 22nd and july 5th and 6th second there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative sancillo to approve item number 12 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez you're on me yes thank you in the voting session representative lizarda we're on item number 12. thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 13 and this is an operational focus update from the department of aviation which will provide a management update regarding the el paso 5 megawatt solar farm project good morning shane brooke cip administrator right here on our solar farm project this project falls in strategic alignment with goals one eight and it's included in our 30 by 30 initiative to create and implement an urban utility plan we also pulled this slide from the recent react presentation to council on may 9th to show that it falls under pillar number two increased solar generation at city-owned facilities and you can see on the right they've included this project as well as the one megawatt behind the meter carport system that project was recently listed on congresswoman escobar's list of projects for appropriation so we're excited about that as well as the micro grid project that we're doing in partnership with the gm and the chamber since it's a partnership with el paso electric we included their strategic alignment goals which is goals one build a trusted partnership with their customers and community goal three leverage technology to drive efficiency and security and goal four lead in environmental sustainability quick project description it is a solar farm that sits on 40 acres located in the airfield it will consist of a ground mounted solar pv system with 5 megawatt capacity and a 2 megawatt battery option it will be the second largest solar installation in el paso once it's constructed the electricity generated will offset the airport's consumption as well as various other city facilities and it is a partnership between the city and el paso electric this is a map that shows a location of the site the area highlighted in green is the 40 acre solar farm site it sits in between our commercial runway 8 right and our ga runway 8 left and it's a really great use of the land there some of the benefits of this project are environmental so it's a reduction in greenhouse gases improved air quality and we will receive renewable energy credits there are economic benefits as well the virtual power purchase agreement removes the burden of the capital cost investment from the city because of the size of the project and the amount of energy generated el paso electric is going to have to do upgrades on their side of the system in order to accept that amount of energy and those are the capital costs we're referring to it is a ground-mounted single access tracking system which are 25 more effective than the non-tracking systems and then again a facility of this scale are significantly less expensive than rooftop solar installations and of course we will receive budgetary certainty in our utility bills the resilience component comes in the form of the battery a battery on the system will strengthen the system around the airport and provide good support in the event of a brown out or a blackout the airport has a total demand of three megawatts and so that's inclusive of the terminal our cargo centers the airfield lighting our rental car center and the air rescue and fire station so the remaining two megawatts generated by the facility will be applied to other city departments so some high-end users are city hall pd headquarters the fire departments and then parks libraries and museums the rate component el paso electric and the city will work together to determine a competitive rate that works for both parties and the rate will be a function of capital cost operating maintenance costs and then of course the virtual cost ep some city protections and oversight the issuance of this rfp does not obligate the city to move forward with the virtual power purchase agreement only a contract approved by city council will do so the rate will have to be approved by the public utility commission of texas and in the event that el paso electric defaults on its obligations under the contract they will pay rent for the land that the facility sits on i mentioned earlier this is a partnership between el paso electric and the city el paso electric will own and maintain the installation the airport in the city will both benefit from the renewable generation by signing into the vppa and the vppa allows for flexibility on the applicable city accounts because the facility is not attached to a particular building or facility so that means like if pd headquarters were to move locations their rate and energy credit would follow them and then the proposed term of this agreement is 30 years so look back at the process timeline started in august of 2021 when el paso electric presented their renewable generation study that identified airport property as a potential solar farm site so we began working together to look at sites for a large-scale solar installation as the airport we brought on a consultant to complete a feasibility study and look at it from an faa component and the site did pass the glare analysis so it presents no threat to pilots or air traffic control tower which brings us to today where we're working together to issue the rfp once out el paso electric complete plans to complete contract negotiations by spring of next year once we agree to a rate and a contract we will bring that back to city council for review and approval and to receive approval we're anticipating a construction start of early 2024 includes the presentation i'm happy to take any questions if you all have any now this uh item's not posted for action at this point that's correct sir it's an update okay thank you very pro thank you appreciate um appreciate this and this is a great uh opportunity for our community again um investing in in some of offsetting some of the issues there relating to energy consumption by the city of el paso you know the devil's in the details so i do have a couple questions about this virtual power purchase agreement what recourse does the city have if the because the rate at this point has not been set between el paso electric and the city of el paso for that power purchase agreement correct correct correct we need the they need to be able to see the bids that they receive through the proposal process in order to determine a rate how long how long is the proposed length for this power purchase agreement 30 years 30 years what recourse does the city have in accepting or not accepting um the the rate that is that is uh proposed after this rfp is done by el paso electric we have all of them if we can't come to an agreement then both parties walk away okay um i think that you know that is that is a really big part i think you know when the idea of doing this kind of solar there is be something that the city of el paso um would have control over that would connect directly to the to the airport that's not what we're doing here we're going to be building a solar farm quite frankly that el paso electric should have made the investment in in our community years ago but essentially they're going to be placing it on our port land it does not connect directly to this city facility or others um and it's something to again that we need to pay attention to um as well as as this rolls out um the the rate of this is is again something i think is really important to understand this this power purchase agreement um and how it affects our city um the other issue that i have relating to this is i don't know if you can go back to the map that's there so one of the things i think is really important with this project as well this is five megawatts what do we see the expandable capacity of our el paso airport land in relation to this so there is area around the proposed site to expand but we're also looking at other locations our 250 acre advanced manufacturing campus we'll have solar facilities we're looking at our short-term parking lot that i mentioned we'll have solar facilities and then we're also looking at our rental car center putting the third deck on top of that and having it be solar panels so how much more is expandable within this airport land here it would be it would be in this area we would have to look at the limits because i don't remember them off the top of my head but we could definitely go east with it following the same footprint and going east okay um again i think that's something that i'd also want to understand as well in these discussions with el paso electric and then finally whose decision was for the city of el paso not to to own the solar panels but rather for el paso electric to own this utility scale solar farm proposed it's really because of the size of the facility it's such a large facility that we couldn't we as the city couldn't do it on our own i mean there's there's third parties that help to maintain and operate local local solar companies in el paso texas that could you you know that could help manage um this kind of facilities so i'm trying to understand again we're doing something that is doesn't connect to the airport um that we don't necessarily have this control over either yeah go ahead fernando hi good morning city council this is fernando bergano sustainability coordinator representative there are statute limitations of what we can do in terms of solar so we can do facilities connected sorry installations connected to the tour facilities below two megabytes we cannot do by statute anything larger than that and we cannot pursue larger facilities that are not connected to the grid okay in in in addition to that i i'll just you know one of the things that we looked at um you know if you remember part of the franchise agreement was for the city and paso electric was to also work on a solar farm at the airport a solar project at the airport uh we looked at this what's not reflected on this map is the substation that directly feeds the airport is directly to the south of uh of this solar farm and that's a big savings from from an infrastructure standpoint because if we were to do this this solar farm directly owned by the airport and operated by the airport the infrastructure cost to bring that power back to our main uh our main um terminal area where our master meter is at is it will be very very not cost effective for us to do that so it really is from a from a capital investment standpoint it's a really good location for it and as shane stated we're looking at additional opportunities close to the terminal at short term at a rental car facility and again if the the rental if the rates don't uh don't pan out or are not favorable or not in agreement we can certainly walk away we also see this is a great opportunity for to incentivize potential developments at the airport and some of the aggressive things that we're working on such as the advanced manufacturing center and other development across global reach uh and potentially if if the city doesn't make use of this solar farm you know potentially making that available for for those potential tenants um as an additional incentive for them so they can capture energy credits and some of these companies are under that requirement to do so and again that i mean that's good the only the only concern i have again is that that solar farm wouldn't be owned by the city of el paso so in terms of any sort of negotiations or incentives about wanting to utilize that solar field that really isn't up to the control of the city the economic development department that's really up to control of el paso electric and how they deemed to use this five megawatt solar farm that they're that they're building owning on our land so again i think that's their again the the rfp is one that's being done through el paso electric correct correct but we had a we had a big part in the the development of that we reviewed and provided comments um to ensure to address our concerns um as part of that that process um so that you can get that finalized and ready to go so is part of that rfp uh negotiator anticipated rate of return for partners for partners no we just looked at the operational requirements um in looking at potentially how you know potentially how the structure the uh the rate structure will be developed as a result of the pricing that we received as a from the rfp process okay i know we have some members from el paso electric i'm wondering jim if you don't mind coming up and helping us understand a little bit more about what exactly is in this rfp good afternoon or morning good morning jim still still morning right good morning sir so so um i'm not familiar yet with with um with the details on the rfp but generally speaking they lay out the requirements they mentioned the single access tracking and the size of the facility and potentially battery storage um and then those are the the the bids are then received from from uh solar developers to say okay this is this is the cost um and and from our perspective then ownership of it then goes goes to our recovery through the rate from the from the from the city in this case okay so it's it hasn't been finalized at this point yeah okay not to my knowledge now all right well i i just hope that we i think there's there there has been a lot of work between the city and the on the company and and developing this um and a lot of different options for forum for doing it i do think that the the ability to have it um on airport land and positioned where it is um and to take that power virtually into the system and then give the credit excuse me the credit to the city accounts essentially for the power being delivered is a much lower cost option than if you're then as as the gentleman as the gentleman said to enter to try to interconnect that facility behind the meter is pretty significant costs yeah i understand that and again you know devil's in the details so the the kind of the the after the rfp the the proposed rate with your power purchase agreement is one that you know yeah and i'd be aware of and then you have a choice but then you know we all have a choice then between all of the the bids that are that are offered lowest cost facility and those type of things so that's the beauty of a competitive rfp and i think the battery storage is one not to discredit either as an opportunity for that i i do i do am excited with the fact that when people come in to el paso um you know when they're looking to land not only they're going to see our beautiful mountains at sunset or the star but they're also going to see a large array of solar panels letting them know that they're in an active progressive 21st century city as well so um i do think that this is a great partnership questions i bring up again are just to look at the sort of details more in there know that we have a partner in el paso electric um and look forward to to this as well so i think that it's good and again i know that the uh the react um has already had a briefing willing to this project i hope that we also keep them involved as their our eyes and ears um from each of our city council offices as well but again i think that this is a really great project i think again playing off of the industrial park that we have at the global reach corridor and other investments i think is really a great potential for further economic investment development for our community so thank you again and your team for being here today thank you sir may we have your name for the record please james shea still with el paso electric thank you thank you for coming up thank you for having the knowledge all upstairs um thank you mayor um so my questions are for city staff and follow-up to some of representative schwartzman's questions um the first thing there was mentioned that we are limited in the amount of i guess space or energy megawatts that we can generate yeah and you mentioned that there's a statute that limits that is that a statue by the faa or el paso electric um the puc the pct the commission in texas and what does that statute say exactly so any any installation that we want to do behind the meter connected to the facilities has to be below 2 megabytes in capacity so being this project above those two megabytes we need to partner up with the utility in order to to make this happen okay and so i guess that the key term there is behind the meter right and that's what they're regulating um thank you for that and so my next question um in regards representative schwartzman had talked about the rate um that i know that we haven't negotiated yet and so if and when we negotiate that rate um does is that rate within the 30 years does the el paso electric company have the ability um to renegotiate that rate with the city and at the puc or is it locked in for 30 years so to that question these types of contracts have many many options so there are contracts that have a fixed price for the whole term of the contract and there is other contracts and agreements that have an escalator usually once you reach to either of those options um a past election would not be able to to change the rates nor could the city okay and so the contract is for 30 years um and then what are we looking at in the future right after that 30 years do we think that that uh are we are we putting any language in the contract to look at an extension right will that equipment have been aged out in 15 years what happens then is it aged out in 30 years i just want to understand because you know this is the beginning of a great solar project but we know that this technology is not going away it's just going to enhance um and so making sure that we're kind of secured within the 30 years of that contract if this this equipment becomes obsolete you know what are our options and what kind of language are we putting in a contract to start that conversation so these these types of installations have a lifespan usually around 30 years as well in that agreement for that time there is going to be provisions on the contract and the rfp about the decommissioning of the panels so most likely there are going to be more efficient panels in the future but uh right now we're going to use what it's um available so after those 30 years and we may we may want to extend the life of of the installation if the generation is is good enough or then the the commissioning part will take place thank you and so for clarification i'm just going to kind of like fill that gap right my concern is that um over 30 years this uh the equipment that we install hopefully in the next couple years will be obsolete and probably cost more to run than what is available at that time and so i just want to make sure that if that's the case the city is locked into a rate um despite the fact that it may not be the most cost saving equipment available at the time and by the answers i'm getting from you is yes that is the case that that this contract will be locked in for 30 years with this equipment with this rate potentially with this rate most likely but uh like any other technology advances happen so right now um if we wait for a more efficient technology to be in the market so we would be having the same problem in in two five ten years so that happens with with hvac systems or any other type of energy consuming technology sure we would have the option to switch that out but we would also i guess i'm just concerned that we wouldn't have the option to kind of remain the status quo if that's what the city chose our purchase agreement leaves whatever if you were to have a power purchase agreement on your rooftop solar right somebody a third party would install the solar on your on your roof and you would agree to pay say 10 a month or whatever for those 30 years yeah no no i just don't want the electric company to turn around in 20 years and say it's costing us more to run this equipment because it's now obsolete so that's just that i want to make sure that like we are locking that in um when we have that conversation if and you know the city council in 20 years might say um the the equipment's obsolete we want to you know revamp the equipment and sign a longer contract i just want to make sure that we're going to have those options and be secure for whatever um the council and the city staff at the time decide um but don't want to create an agreement where you know we can essentially be priced out because the rate can change so thank you i appreciate your answers thank you representative you know question i have is this equipment that's going to be put out when el paso electric comes back and says that they need reimbursement for cost for operation for equipment will this be part of the ask for this equipment yes sir all those um costs are are going to be um are included on the rfp so the the respondents to the rfp have to consider that and then come up with a price and all those goals are included yes sir so they'll bring those back to through the ratepayer at the end for reimbursement of equipment no no i'm sorry matthew behrens has been doing council briefings with me for the past week but unfortunately he felt ill today um no they will not turn the cost back over to the right payer they're covering the capital class for this that's good news thank you for that representative rivera thank you sir i just have one question if this works out for um uh mayor pro tem and repanella pretty much covered the contract or you know the financial part of it if this works out for everybody so to speak uh are there plans for any future other uh future farms just like this throughout the city near city facilities we are we are actively working with fernando as part of the um the utility uh plan that we presented to city council uh looking at uh specifically a public safety bond uh and some of the projects that we got working underway there to be able to address and add renewable energy to those projects uh through solar or additional power purchase agreements at those locations uh specific to city facilities as shane mentioned we we're also looking aggressively here at the airport at um these the solar farm potentially doing the solar car canopy uh at short term from the terminal as well uh as the rental car facility has additional options for solar and then nevada continue to evaluate additional solar areas as part of our airfield where we would be able to lease out to el paso electric for additional solar capabilities for them to use as part of their grid system not associated with the airport as well um that's something that that we continue to have discussions and pursue in conjunctions with our sustainability coordinator thank you and and then with the uh recent uh tiers that we did there on a boeing will will those facilities be provided with this which which is the area is a boeing that we took a a boat on and we passed awhile back where the facilities on boeing would be we're going to be like in a tears area oh yes so um so that right now it would not be uh as it stands right now the this five megawatt capacity will be uh the initial approach would be for for the city facilities um if for whatever reason the city facilities don't don't uh if we can work at a rate that that's acceptable to the city we're starting to make that option available to potential tenants that we've potentially included development as just as you stated um that's something that we can do that we can that we would look at as an additional option for our tenants at the airport thank you thank you man thank you very much with that uh mr prime yes mary that brings us to item number 14 on the agenda and this is a presentation and discussion of the financial impacts of covet 19 on the public safety bond program good morning mayor and council this is jerry demiro with the capital improvement department hi t if you can bring up my presentation please thank you so the public safety program like like all of our capital programs has been impacted by significant supply chain disruptions and escalation and construction cost i'm here today to tell you what i can quantify at this moment where we have been impacted next slide please we'll first go over the the bond overview the projects that were approved in the bond the program status and then we'll review the quantifiable impacts next slide please so as you know november 2019 the voters approved issuance 413 million dollars of general obligation funds for new public facilities to put police and fire resources in growing areas to perform major maintenance and renovation of the facilities to improve working conditions for the city employees and to have a joint training academy to accommodate future classes and improve training efficiencies next slide please so the police department funding was for the east side regional command center which i'm happy to say is currently under construction and looking to be ready to occupy in 2024 the public safety training academy the training academy is being done through a design build approach and we are on our way to uh qualifying a short team a short list team for design builders to pursue the project police headquarters we are taking a design build approach there as well the central regional command we are still trying to identify a property where that is going to go and we will renovate four regional command centers next slide please this is the forecasted cash flow and the delivery schedule so east side regional command is 2024 central regional command fleet and the pebble hills regional command center would be all 2024 for example next slide please for the fire department there's new station 36 on the trans mountain campus of the providence hospital that is currently under construction station 38 is going to be located on the campus of the east side regional command center and that is currently in design special team station that is to be located at the location of the tillman building which is to be demolished and uh you know three stations will be consolidated fire station 1 9 and 11. station 40 is sometime in the future the location has not yet been determined the training facility i mentioned that for police it's the same for fire fire headquarters will be at the campus of the training facility and logistics center so that is also design build and station renovations are underway next slide please this is the forecasted cash flow for the fire capital program you can see we'll have some facilities brought online in 2024 and we'll be doing renovations through 2028 with fire station 40 being delivered at that time next slide please eastside regional command i mentioned it's under construction central regional command where property acquisition is ongoing and the architect contract has been awarded police headquarters that is to be located at the cohen site project will be completed via design build and the police academy property acquisition has been completed and we have defined the requirements necessary for the academy and are soliciting for a design build team next slide please many of the covet impacts you've seen this slide before are due to staffing turnover and training external staffing consultants timing and we've had some quality issues construction timing quality materials delay industry trends on materials and labor and the cost impact for labor and materials we try to do proper budgeting and completing projects has freed up some contingency and has allowed us to absorb some price increases but readjustments and recalibration will be required as we move forward next slide please so this is a graph illustrating the uh increase in construction prices between 2015 and 2021. you see a very stark sharp increase in 2021 you also see kind of a decrease around 2019 when we actually originally bid this or scoped the bond program next slide these are the increases in various construction materials steel has gone up 127 percent asphalt felts and coatings 12 diesel fuel a big driver 55 so you can see that the industry is reporting this nationwide next slide please so the increase to the police capital program our bond estimate was 28.9 million for the east side regional command center the engineer's estimate at bidding was 30.4 and the construction cost is 31.8 the pdhq the bond estimate was 67.7 we do not have an engineer's estimate as of yet but based on escalation of around 25 percent we believe the construction cost is going to be in the neighborhood of 84 85 million the central regional command the bond cost was 16.9 million we're estimating the construction cost to be 21.4 the academy was estimated at 19.9 the engineer's estimate is at 36.6 and the construction cost is believed to be 36.6 renovations the renovations for police facilities was 35.9 million it has not yet been completed so we're looking at an escalation in the 25 range of 44.9 million next slide so just some some impacts the engineer's estimate for the east side regional command center was approximately four hundred sixty four dollars a square foot the construction bid was six hundred and six dollars per square foot an increase of twenty three percent the way we are mitigating some of that is the fire station 38 shares the campus of the east side regional command center thereby funding associated with fire station 38 is is needed because the current contractor for the east side regional command center is putting in utility infrastructure she's putting in the parking that will be shared he's putting an emergency generator that will that'll service both facilities and he's putting in a fuelist fueling station with that contribution to cover some of those costs for the fire department we are able to have sufficient funding for construction of the command center pdhq the project is in pre-design phase we assume construction will be 25 over the bond our current hq is 100 000 square feet we anticipate that significant space efficiencies can be gained by reducing the building square footage and we're working with the police department to define the requirements and and uh ensure that that can be done the central regional command we're estimating construction will be 25 over the bond estimate next slide please for the academy the bond construction cost was 15.7 the current estimate to meet state training requirements with the exception of an emergency vehicle operations track is 26.6 an increase of 40 percent mitigation we are planning to reallocate 10 million in funding from hq to complete the project to meet state requirements and phase in requested amenities such as the auditorium the swimming pool the behavioral sciences the driving pads and the high speed track included in the plan is a one acre hogan's alley which is basically a mock city street and 400 parking spaces as opposed to the desired 1000 and they'll be shared gymnasium weight room large and medium classrooms and outdoor cover pavilion the project for renovations is in pre-design and we're unable to assess the project impacts at this time next slide please proposed police academy amenities there'll be two large 120 person classrooms that can be divided three medium 50 person classrooms offices and cubicles for 56 persons and support spaces there will be an indoor shooting range it'll be 25 lanes 50 at 50 yards apiece behavioral sciences and simulations will be incorporated into various structures within hogan's alley hogan's alley will be a bank an apartment a residence a gas station and a convenience store in office the gym weight room and lockers be shared with fire the mountain room the boxing ring the weight room and the cardiovascular training separate locker rooms for fire and police next slide please hogan's alley will be one acre separated by streetscape environment eight structures with behavioral science elements will be integrated parking will be shared 400 spaces for the facility you share the the driving pad it's a concrete pad designed to accommodate fire trucks its size is 500 by 275 to allow slow driving exercises but it will not allow for high speed pursuit training next slide there'll be a shared running track standard quarter mile third track with a turf enfield there'll be an obstacle course type one and type two incorporated in the inner inner turf area of the track there will be shared outdoor covered areas one simple canopy structure only two covered outdoor classrooms with the joining restrooms and av capability at the shooting range structure future elements include the emergency vehicle operations track for high-speed driving and pursuits the aquatic pool and the auditorium next slide please the quantifiable impacts that we've identified for the police department are approximately four are approximately 50 million this represents a 23 percent decrease in available funding for the police department capital program now shifting to fire next slide please progress that state on fire uh fire station 36 is under construction and to be completed in late 2023 38 design is underway expected to be completed in the fall of 22 construction will be 22 to 24. special team station design is underway construction will be winter 2023 to early 2025 and fire station 40 will be 2027-2029 next slide fire department headquarters the programming is underway we are soliciting for the design build teams the public safety training facility and logistics center co-located with fire at the same time as co-located with fire hq same time and pending activities next slide station renovations building assessments have been complete on all the stations we are planning five renovations per year design has been completed for fs 10 19 20 21 25 and 26. you have approved construction of fire station 10 and 19. fire station 20 began in december and construction on fire station 21 25 26 is to begin sometime this summer and design for the next five stations began in january of this year next slide next slide please i'm not seeing that there it is okay thank you so fire station 36 the engineer's estimate was 506 dollars a square foot the construction bid was 740 per square foot 32 percent increase fire station 38 the estimate for construction was 464 dollars per square foot the current estimate is 585 an increase of 21 percent the costs are likely to increase as the design advances the special unit station which consolidates fire station 1 9 and 11. this construction budget is 12.5 million meeting fire department requirements requires 17.5 million or 28 more funding next slide next slide please fire station 36 it was consensus of the fire department and the city engineer to transfer necessary funding 505 000 from fire station 40. the fire station 38 options transfer funds from renovations program or from fs40 dependent on final impact costs special unit station staff recommended room size reductions to remain within the budget and i'll show those on the next slide or alternately use available funding set aside for renovation of four fire station one as that building will be demolished following construction next slide these are some of the room size reductions some of these the fire department agreed to some of them they did not as they would they would limit the the ability to consolidate the stations next slide the training academy we reduced and the logistics center we reduced the number of maintenance and storage bays for vehicle maintenance from the 40 requests up to 20 the renovations the original estimates were based on building estimates and accommodated fire department requests to demolish and reconstruct fire station 17 19 and 22 leadership directed to only renovate the station at a much lower cost in addition fire stations 9 11 and 12 will not be renovated so funding is available from those sources to cover future shortfalls fire station 40 planned for construction in 2028 mitigation to be determined as the project advances through design next slide please so the quantifiable financial impacts for the fire department are 41.1 million it's a shortfall of 22 in available funding next slide please total public safety quantifiable impacts are 91 million dollars or a 24 decrease in available funding for public safety capital program next slide and that is my presentation i'm happy to take any questions you may have members of council 73 is um i wanted to say the manager asked us to put this presentation in front of you so that you could see the impacts you're starting to see you know those of you that are in the mpo continue to see escalation and pricing and cost and we're going to be making recommendations to council as as we need to recalibrate and readjust the budgets and some of these projects um as as part of the budget resolution the city manager is authorized to move up to one million dollars per project in or out but anything additional to that we'll be coming forward to council as we make recommendations for award of construction contracts for you all make those decisions but we wanted to get this in front of you so they understand where we're at in discussions with both pde chief as well as the fire department chief we we're making that because you know we're coordinating very closely with them city manager asked us to make sure that with you in the new facilities uh to make sure that we get those done right because this is our first and one opportunity to get make sure that we build the new ones correctly with the understanding that facility maintenance will continue to be an ongoing uh pressure point or if you will a demand for us to invest in those facilities as we push ahead um and really to understand from a program standpoint what are going to be our options to fund that shortfall in these in this public bond as well as to continue to find solutions for facility maintenance as we move forward um so again thank you for your time this morning and we'll be happy to answer any questions mayor pro tem thanks um one question i know fire station 36 on trans mountain wrestler is this being impacted at this point with these changes in the market it was impacted it came in about five hundred and five thousand over the engineers estimate so we are transferring 505 000 from fire station 40 which isn't going to be built for some time into that project to ensure it's completed the way it was designed how does this impact the proposed uh improvements to the different uh regional command centers excluding the new regional command center on the far east side as of now we're assuming it's going to be a 25 decrease in available funding for renovations okay will it impact the timeline schedule i know that that the westside regional command center i think is scheduled for 2026 um there's others as well it at this time it doesn't look like it'll impact the timeline but rather how far those dollars go correct and the west side regional is our newest newest command center and it it doesn't need as much renovation as some of the other stations do and by newest you mean 1996. yes sir got it um a lot of investment and public safety in our community in those decades after as we're all catching up to now um so the other question that i have relates towards the the joint uh training facility uh located off of uh martin luther king i know that um you were looking at what what might be included cost efficiencies do we have an idea about the overall footprint of that facility and its orientation to the neighborhood to the proposed 1200 acres of natural open space and trails as well as its proximity to mlk i don't know if you have a map or anything we're looking at is is basically fronting on mlk at the in the quadrant of the property where the roundhouse trailhead is okay so it'd be located there we've we've committed to allow public use of parking when the academy is not in session so in the evenings or or on the weekends probably more than anything active outdoor users cyclists hikers could park there and then go and utilize the the trails that is our intent yes sir okay and it's a great benefit i think the design that can do that i think is also adds more value to our community as well and and probably also will help to uh also further negate any impact it might have to any of the surrounding neighborhoods as we as we know it's across the street from 2300 acres of of land that is currently under development and will continue to to grow district 4 um into the next 10 to 15 years so there eventually will be houses all around it but what's able what's great about that is that you're going to have this state-of-the-art training facility for boys in blue and our firefighters as well as preserving the land in between the franklin mountain state park and that surrounding area and neighborhoods as well all the way up to mlk so it's a really great win-win thank you again for all your work i don't have any other questions at this time mayor thank you thank you and we have another question so i just want to thank you all and i think it's very evident that this council and power councils have made public safety a priority and and will continue to do that so thank you all and with that thomas prine yes mayor may we go to call to the public it's 1201 yes ma'am thank you the el paso city council is a local government body charged with serving the citizens of the city and these meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge the city council meetings are public meetings under the texas open meetings act public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of city council all persons in attendance are expected to display civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting profane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or integrity which are not pertinent to city business nor may any member of the public use this forum for political statements or campaigning please note that during the call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however council may propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda for the record representative rodriguez has arrived at the meeting at 11 34. council may we have a suspension of the rules to allow miss balishek to sign up after this the deadline yes go ahead there's a motion in a second to allow me to sign up after the deadline all in favor anyone opposed the motion passes we have 12 members of the public that signed up the first person is mark salazar mr salazar's topic is company e memorial he will be followed by alberto rivas norma de la rosa stacy schultz good morning mr salazar you'll have three minutes sir good morning sir thank you very much good morning good afternoon good afternoon sorry good afternoon mayor lee sir but city council members and city staff um i'm here as a family member of a company e veteran my father was gabriel salazar company e was a unique uh a unique company in that uh it was made composed of men young men from uh el paso uh who were it was almost 100 percent uh mexican americans at the at its initiation um they went to the national national guard and they ended up going into italy and going through several battles and finally came home they sought recognition had a lot of difficulty seeking recognition uh eventually you had the chapman high school was built and also this excellent book patriots from the barrio by dave gutierrez that contains a lot of uh first-hand accounts and my dad was one of those who contributed to the book and you had the memorial that was built over at delta park we're concerned because uh we just barely heard about the unveiling of this delta park haven't haven't seen any news articles or anything about it and uh we also were concerned because somebody was saying that some of the names might be left out so we're very concerned we're here to speak on behalf of our relatives and we want we want all of them to be recognized as a part of company e the memorial that delta says the um in honor to the mexican-american men of company e 141st infantry 36th division there's no um that monument was initially planned to be moved over here to uh downtown to a more prominent location and um it was too hard to do then they were talking about making a replica as part of to be included in the mac center and then it developed into a statue a beautiful statue that's going to be built we don't want any controversy we don't want anybody to be unhappy with that with this beautiful statue that's going to be built and we want it to be a beautiful tribute to all the men of company e thank you very much oh i'd like to thank uh representative vanello uh she has arranged she is working on a meeting with mr fife for our families to meet with him and learn more about the plans and the names that will be on the monument thank you very much thank you sir the next speaker is alberto rivas followed by norma de la rosa mr rivas topic is also company e memorial good afternoon sir you have three minutes uh good afternoon your honor mayor and council uh i'm i'm here to address the same issue and i just want to remind you that under your last administration mayor uh my father who was also a member of company e was given the key to the city which we still probably put on our den wall um but i'm addressing what our understanding of how of what's taking place with this monument and i wanted to address a point of why i think we think a mistake might be being made here um i've addressed this with um uh well by i put together a little thing uh the men of company e it seems still face discrimination and prejudice 80 years after the fact in the city of their birth and ironically possibly by the new monument the city will unveil to honor them the monument uh as we understand how it's taking place from what we've heard uh only recognizes those company e soldiers who were deployed overseas as the men of company e which is what i think they're identifying this this monument as omitting those who remained stateside for other duties now this was a problem that was also came up when they dedicated the memorial at chapin high school it's unfortunate given the intent the the intent to recognize this hispanic band of brothers who served and gave company its identity as company e member ankel ponce who was a childhood friend of my father once told me when i was wanted to ask him about someone who did such and such a thing during the war i was looking for war stories from him and he just bluntly replied to me that it's wrong for anyone to brag that they took some uh pillbox single-handedly or knocked out a machine gun single-handedly he used to hear that a lot i guess because everyone he said had their job to do and they did it all of them signed the blank check which all military signed when they enlist uh payable in the amount up to and including the cost of their life to the nation no soldiers alone when many back his effort training him preparing him supporting him like sergeant luna who was also not deployed who was the one who trained company no spearhead functions without its shaft and the mistaken prejudice to create a cast distinction among soldiers is simply wrong-headed and it's against uh their military esprit de corps i mean should we now only thank veterans for their service once we discriminate the value of their service the importance of what they did so just to sum up let's not let a history deficient monument which it will be if it goes through like we're thinking it might thank you mister represent el paso and the museum of art and the mac it's going to be in front of that thank you very much thank you sir the next speaker is norma de la rosa mr la rosa's topic is also company e memorial she will be followed by stacy schultz ron como efrain saucedo good afternoon miss de la rosa you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon mary lisa city council my name is norma luna de la rosa a retired teacher of 40 years and the very proud granddaughter of first sergeant lorenzo m luna an original member of company e this company of very brave men no boys all hispanic all poor and from the south side answered the call to duty to serve their country and they served it well no one here can even imagine what they went through living in a time of segregation when mexicans were not wanted they endured much and yet they proved their heroism with flying colors never hesitating to serve and protect their country i am deeply concerned that there are people within this community within city government and even the u.s army who really do not know the whole story of company e and the men that made up that company this new memorial that is being placed in cleveland square i will say is long overdue but no one absolutely no one who worked on this project contacted any of the descendants of these men consulted with them about what this memorial was going to be and as of now not one of us has received any information or invitation to attend the ceremony of which we aren't even sure what date that is i was contacted by a gentleman who gave me some insight as to what the memorial will hold i was told that there would be names but it would be the names of only those men who went to war overseas and fought in the rapido and that my grandfather's name would not be one of them if that were the case there would be a good number of the original members who did not go overseas to war for various reasons one did not question the army why or why not they just followed orders but just because they did not go fight overseas they still served their country and they served it well my grandfather would have been the first one to go if he could have but the army told him he couldn't go because he was too old and had five children at home but he did continue to serve as he was sent to new guinea for the duration of the war and if you could ask any of his men he trained them and he trained them hard and they will tell you because of him they were ready and prepared to do their job if the city of el paso is going to honor the legacy of company e which is long overdue and has been ignored for too long then this city needs to honor the courage and fortitude of the original 154 all hispanic all native el paso boys who served their country despite what they had to endure build this memorial to their legacy and don't diminish their honor by putting names of others who were not part of our community and this original company this is an all-hispanic company a brotherhood who were led by first lieutenant john l chapin and this memorial must reflect that don't ruin their memory by adding names of others who are not part of our culture those who join the company much much later experienced the horrors of war but they did not experience or have to endure what our fathers brothers grandfathers did from even people simply because they were mexican the next speaker is thank you very much stacy schultz i don't see her in the queue and i don't see her coming forward we'll go with ron como followed by efrain saucedo and georgia paul mr como's topic is need for a new animal shelter good afternoon mr coma you have three minutes sir today i'm going to continue our conversation about the lack of space at our shelter i brought this along so you all can see i'd like to start out with the fact that there is only two years or one year in four my first four months of the year that we achieved 90 live release rate or above and it was 2019. now that being said ending shelter counselor shelter reports 131 19 1054 131 222 2542 228 19 976 228 22 2542 331 19 13 11 33 31 22 is 2605 430 19 four 1899 twenty two twenty eight ninety four we are finally picking up strays that were left on the streets you cannot put 24 eggs in a 12 egg crate mr lisa you cannot put 1200 cars in a parking lot designed for 450. it's time we set up a new facility we've got all these schools that are shut down we need to use them we need to develop a new and improved shelter a clean shelter one with all the things that we need doctors cares storage quarantine areas we're running into an issue with parvo distemper we all know it everybody knows it we just sent 44 dogs to me we've already lost nine we need to change sorry i'm so tired of this i don't want to come here guys we need to fix the problem we created it we left unaltered dogs on the streets for two years the average female produces eight puppies we can all do the math we haven't even touched the amount of strays that are on our streets today and our shelter is extremely overcrowded and they're doing the best they can to house them let's give them the tools they need to be successful how hard is that we've got the money we've had the money let's fix this please i don't want to come here anymore i've got things to do with strays and rescues and transport and foster i don't need to be here it's time folks step up fix our shelter problem we need it yesterday not tomorrow thank you mr the next speaker is efrain saucedo followed by georgia paul stevens drummer jason jones mr saucedo's topic is concerns with el paso police department good afternoon sir you have three minutes ah good afternoon first of all uh i want answers for for you guys for the three minutes use your time not mine please and i told you one time that i was popular i'm very very popular in my community with the poor people okay now i want the answers and i've been trying for the last thursday to get one-on-one with a city manager they told me that we're gonna call me i wanna format with him and shame and all the ones who were to extend his contract they should resign simple as that so use your three minutes and give me the three more minutes because the secretary or whoever is in charge of the office or the city manager they never called me so i want my answers you got my reports from the police department and i'm getting tired and sick and you know nothing i want to put a lawsuit in my city because i love my city and i want to save as much money as i can to my city for my poor people because you know we are paying more taxes than anyone here in the state of texas simple as that i'm very popular and i can tell you three my accounts that i have done i run the world bank for 20 years 20 years and more than 7 000 people from 7 to ten thousand people and nobody suffered from hunger in 20 years i left it three months they were selling the cheese the bar jesus in juarez and they canceled the program in three months simple as that so use you three minutes and give me three more minutes i want the answers for the police that he has been more than a month [Music] probably two months and i want to one-on-one with a city manager city manager with a format we are format i i hope he knows what it is so i want the answers thank you mr saucedo no no mister your time is up sir you did have three minutes sir your time is up we must move on to the next speaker thank you okay i'll wait until you guys finish if i have to wait eight or ten hours i'll be waiting for you all right thank you very much thank you sir i'm a very popular popular guy here in el paso texas or my poor people they eat or they pay their taxes and what is their thank you thank you thank you getting all the people going to live across the border the next speaker is georgia i'll wait for you i will georgia paul i don't see miss paul in the queue or coming forward we'll move on to steven's drummer followed by jason jones michael castro called demoris wally scheck mr strummer's topic is my fervent belief in honoring bits on memorial day good afternoon mr strummer you'll have three minutes sir yes i did not know if we were having a veteran's day parade here to me where i went to school it was the pent ultimate day of the year no exceptions you went you were deadbeat i don't come from a family like that i don't come from a patriotic family i miss that i miss that learning patriotism i wrote our former president then president donald trump the only time about patriotism i believe quite seriously a whole generation does not know patriotism it is a major crisis in my books only this was a day of cheering of thanking god for those that serve and i love learning it you didn't come in blue jeans to memorial day you came in a worsted wool suit i'm not kidding this was where i went to college i had to learn and i'm hoping and hoping that our generation will learn to love those that served i mean seriously love them with every part of our being it wasn't a day for candy carts at the parade i know he was honoring wreaths cheering them no sport team could come close to those that serve and that's what i'm praying for to communicate to you i miss that i feel my well those that are younger you really don't understand that if you haven't been taught that for your family that it's missing and it's hurting our country and i really believe that too i i love it on the northeast you know we we we've been known to have a huge flag you know on dyer so okay but i'd like to see that downtown i want to see that i want to see that on the west side you all i think maybe finally see what i'm talking about it's important to learn patriotism but thanks for hearing me and um happy veterans day thank you mr stromer the next speaker is jason jones followed by michael castro called demoris wally scheck mr jones topic is gringo theory bar noise nuisance good afternoon sir you have three minutes yes we need i.t to turn on the elmo please okay good morning everybody um good morning jason i've been here a number of times talking about gringo theory bar the base issues um i've had to research so much on my own and um one of the things i've realized recently was um the difference between dba and dbc who here understands the difference between dba and dbc anybody understand the difference between dba and dbc right so dba is what the city currently uses we're told that dba well a captain at the uh at the pebble hills precinct told me dba is used because it's it tones out um road noise well i checked um i checked road noise is the frequency well dba and dbc intersect and that's what i'm trying to show you guys with this dba and dbc intersect they'll give you the exact same noise reading at on traffic noise but what dba does do it drowns out the female voice it it tones out female voice which is only at 255 hertz at the high end it tones out the male voice which goes all the way down as deep as 80 hertz and it tones out almost entirety of bass sub bass so when you have a when you have a bar and a police come and they do a noise meter reading is oh it's only 55 decibels but the base is really loud i had this first hand many times but when you when you take a decimal reader like this change it to c weight jumps up to 75 80 decibels and that's real life that's what we're dealing with the basis in our house that isn't being that isn't being um addressed by a weight if if the bars used a um c weight to do their noise meter measurements their sound checks in the evening we wouldn't have this problem if code enforcement went out with c weight and actually read the base read you know the real world applica real world what's going on we wouldn't have this problem the bars would have to change really quick they would they would turn down their base they would they would put in sound attenuation this problem would be resolved years ago if you just use sea weight because all these noise meter readings i've seen that the city's shown from pebble hills and cincinnati and all over 65 decibels 60 65 decibels and um reality that's like 85 80 to 85 decibels right i guarantee you i see it at my house i've i just turned into 25 um noise nuisances now for the uh for the um police would never cite this because they're using a weight but it's real it's base in my house six nights a week till two a.m please thank you mr jones the next speaker is michael castro mr castro star 6 to unmute your telephone mr castro's topic is cannabis decriminalization good afternoon sir you have three minutes hi good afternoon city council can you guys hear me okay yes awesome thank you um so again city council i was just curious to see if you guys paid attention to what i said at the last city council meeting as far as looking up the new ordinances um ordinance and austin texas which speaks criminalizing cannabis now it doesn't legalize cannabis but it does be criminalized with um a point where the police officers can no longer issue citations or make a rest or kind of this misdemeanor um obviously if the obviously if the offense is greater you know there's different things to go about that but i do urge you guys to look into it we do need to do something about what's happening right next door um if you guys want to make it more illegal to possess cannabis then you should um you know come after us but the thing is is to do that you're not going to stop the sale of cannabis right next door um it's going on it's for the past two months now lions have been out the door at every single dispensary right here in summon parking mexico and again i'm sitting right here in greenhouse with over 800 plants in front of me and we're about to be ready for sale coming this july and 100 this cannabis is going to be available for every single person in our capital every single person in texas every single person in any state that wants to come visit new mexico come and park in mexico to stop without new mexico new mexico our neighbors are driving in the cannabis industry right now and it's not okay if we are still putting people in jail if we're still issuing citations and even if we're not doing that even if the police think backing off a little bit you know maybe a good thing there still needs to be clear instructions on what to do as a city i think it's time to set the standard and we do something different um let's make the news for a good reason right let's start to let's start to be open about time right it's right in the store that education is here you guys it's not going anywhere anytime soon it's going to be in the hands of people for 21 years and over just like alcohol but the thing is it's not like alcohol right we have to understand that over here about professors and feminine they're not even regulating cannabis sales partially so yeah guys um just you guys know southern park new mexico if the dispensary wants to they can operate for 24 hours um same thing for ontario county so this thing essentially wants to they can operate for 24 hours so let's go to show you it cannabis is here it's not going anywhere anytime soon once again let's stop arresting people and stop ticketing people because this is what i do for a living i live in el paso texas and i grow cannabis in new mexico right and i'm not ashamed of that um it's actually very proud of that because i provide very clean medicine for the people who need it so yeah city council i just hope you guys hear me out i respect everything thank you mr castro yeah thank you guys thank you guys very much for always listening to listening to me thank you the next speaker is called demoris called demoris i don't see him in the queue or coming forward we'll move on to wally sheck ms scheck's topic is to right the wrong good afternoon miss sheik you'll have three minutes good afternoon meshech good afternoon god bless you and please help us save america i'm here today 70 years ago in el paso place in a little rock house by the motor pool i started to write my life history in 1987 i have to prove with the apostle time when i tried to give my books as a industry for a parcel non-polluting not using water or anything like this but i wanted to do it not only for el paso but for our nation and worldwide for america because america meant everything freedom and citizenship from my mother who was 80 years old and here i have proof of date letters from three presidents who was helping me and even for mr o'rourke when he was an honorable congressman i have not given up and i'm not going to give up because what i can do for a puzzle nobody as a world war second worldwide has accomplished we have the best of the mayor right now we have a pro mayor and for me this means everything and i say it publicly right now mr mayor i will donate my card that i bought from you in 203 when i didn't know you and you gave me 500 extra because this was in such a good shape the blue book did not trust us and i want you to have this for an advertisement because i'm 93 and this for me is checkout time am i doing it now but i'm still alive so mr rivera i will be waiting for you after this thing is over and that's okay that's all right thank you meshech yeah mayor that concludes call to the public thank you miss check you guys want to research to one anybody yes no motion there's a motion and a second to recess a regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in session until 105 pm let's go motion to reconvene there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed the meeting is not of the available gold team reporting series and budget update julianna baldwin we hosted the performance office and so excited to share with you a quick recap as we formally wrap up our gold team series and then i also have with me nicole cody that will be presenting a budget update with a timeline so very quickly to capture what we're going to cover over the next several slides is we're going to do a quick reporting cycle recap in terms of information that's been shared so far and then we're going to look at at a high level our leadership system and the key processes that support that so all that to say that what underpins what we bring forward is our strategic plan and the discipline in terms of how we bring that information forward being able to highlight to some results at a vision block and so you've received a lot of information over the last several meetings from our goal team leads and so i'm not going to reiterate that this is really about if we take a high level look at the things that have been accomplished across the vision blocks what are some key things and some key takeaways as we move into our goal team budget presentations and then from there i'll turn it over to nicole and she'll provide a budget update including a timeline some alignment pieces and outlook also touch on challenges as we get ready to gear up for the upcoming gold team budget presentations connections to response and recovery some fiscal management strategies and wrap that up with a summary in terms of what you can expect over the next several weeks um so with that let me start with the reporting cycle recap and so as i mentioned over the last five council meetings you've heard from all of our gold teams which are supported by all of our reporting operating departments rather and so they provided updates on key accomplishments but we did make some improvements along the way so is take a step back to look at different ways that we can improve the process and so comprehensive reports were provided but we also attached summary fact sheets because we understand it's a lot of information we have a lot of key strategic objectives and so we wanted to use this opportunity to also synthesize that information from our teams and then provide result presentations to zero in on key things that are occurring across our goals and so where we are today is we're providing a wrap of of all that information as we move forward into our prep for our budget presentations and so when we talk about our leadership system so great information shared throughout the day today on key initiatives that support for example a vibrant regional economy we heard earlier today that it starts with a vision and a vision is critical and for us we absolutely believe that everything that we bring forward is tied back to our vision blocks our four vision statements and we wanted to ensure that when we talk about our strategic planning process it's that ability to take all of this information and ensure that we're also allocating the resources that support the direction that council provides and so that's where our integrated budget process comes into line and why nicole cordy will also be providing that update as a second part of the presentation so when we talk about the integrated budget process just a quick snapshot of where we are today and we're still getting feedback through the chime and process and so that's going to close up early june and that'll give us another set of current feedback from our residents about key priorities as we plan for initiatives moving forward and conversations during the budget process and so i'm going to take us through at a very high level our vision blocks and just some key takeaways from our reporting series and so very much resoundingly no matter the vision block no matter the goal no matter the department we're still looking at response and recovery and really the goal here is that we're comprehensive in our response and that we continue to look at that longer term approach right and so that's something that we'll continue to look at when we talk about investing in infrastructure so in our mission council actually took action during one of our strategic planning sessions to add the word quality of place and so it's about quality of life but the place part is those physical improvements so that we're able to demonstrate that all that infrastructure you know all the capital projects the productivity and the investments it's impacting community-wide improvements but we're also looking at improvements within neighborhoods and so it's investing in us as one community and one organization and this just provides a visual snapshot so we still have coming up several um projects that are going to be completed 22 to be exact and then another 70 that are going to start construction within this year and so this is just a quick look ahead and understanding that all of those investments in quality of place are linked also to supporting jobs and that directly connects back to vibrant regional economies so again from a response and recovery perspective a new flights have been announced and this was shared with our our goal 1 and 3 team and we also have seen that our airport passenger traffic is near or above pre-pandemic levels great indicators and then also we we had detailed information in terms of el paso's hotel occupancy we're still leading um within the state so i think the conversation earlier today with additional um hotel renovation coming online continues to show that future hotel rooms being booked are also trending up and so as an example in fy 22 through quarter two we've outpaced actuals for fy20 and fy21 so all good indicators in terms of continued sustained recovery and improvements within vibrant regional economy and you also heard about targeted industries and creating transformative investments great updates provided by economic development and you'll continue to hear more of that as those initiatives continue to be implemented and then lastly we we also want to focus on increasing access to services and so you heard during several of the reports that there have been improvements made to ensure that we expand that access and so these are just a couple of spotlights that came from international bridges that are important so a 52. 52 percent increase in e-passed uh e-pass transactions as well as over a hundred thousand uh park 195 um transactions that have been processed and then it's important so this is something that i think is also critical to a lot of the conversations moving forward and so you have our current destinations that were shared by um el paso international airport but then also gold destinations and so this is very critical to the conversations about airport development moving forward and what that might look like with the feedback that we've gotten from our community partners our business community and direction from council to continue to focus on that and then as we move into exceptional recreational cultural and educational opportunities from a response and recovery perspective we've often heard during council meetings that this is about being able to open back safely and effectively and that we see that service levels are returning across the different program offerings that we have and so this is just a visual depiction but it's not just about the number of programs returning but that service excellence is sustained so on the next slide there's a visual recap of all the various awards and accolades and distinctions that our quality of life portfolio has received for service excellence across the board and then lastly from a broadly partnered perspective you heard that there were over 40 over 40 partnerships that were spotlighted during goal 4 and of those 40 14 renew funding um opportunities that have been um added um to the portfolio and helping to support these initiatives so those those were some of the key takeaways that we heard with respect to this vision block and here's the visual snapshot of the awards and recognitions across the board and then lastly from a high performing government perspective a critical focus has been to continue to implement leading edge practices and so you heard during goal 5 about our new user experience team so that's going to be a game changer and how we bring new initiatives forward through our iit department and i'll share a bit more in case you're wondering what what's a ux team and what is that comprised of on the next slide i'll get into that a bit more and then also from a learning and development perspective we just received the 2020 award from the association of talent development that we're very focused on creating opportunities and pipelines for our workforce and aligning that with best practices and so it was huge to get that recognition because that's on an international scale and so being able to learn from best practices across sectors is is very important to us and bringing that back here home to el paso into our workforce and then back to increasing access to services these are four key initiatives that have been very important in terms of feedback that we've received from our residents our business community and council leading the way starting with our customer relationship management tool so that'll be deployed and that'll be a significant improvement in how our residents report concerns or complaints that they encounter giving them more visibility in terms of being able to monitor the status so that you have that information when you speak to your constituents and so adding that visibility adding those processes are going to be significant and that's something that's going to be deployed on this year and then already deployed as our online bidding system so vendors being able to access that has been a huge improvement for our businesses you're going to hear later today about our small businesses and targeted efforts to support them and we feel that that's just another offering that's going to help support those efforts that are strategic objective in our plan they also launched the quarterly procurement forecast so this gives businesses an opportunity to have a look ahead for opportunities coming on board so they can plan accordingly and find those opportunities so all of that's been published and available and then lastly the deployed a popular annual financial report is a new way to report information that um the the office of the comptroller led to make that very user friendly and so all of these initiatives continue to support that increase to access it's been something that council has repeatedly requested in different services that we offer and then lastly i'll close with the financial management piece and so when we say financial management as a core competency it's being able to point to the improvements to our process and the guidance and direction that's been provided that ties back you know to services that we're offering and so an example um and i'll jump over to this one first is being able to point to our baseline year before these processes and systems were implemented and seeing the difference between our operating days in general fund reserves that are now available and so all of this has been a result of you know the discipline that's been put in place so that we can stretch those tax dollars and continue to offer those services to our residents and i'll bounce back to this just very quickly um because we we're spotlighting this as a leading edge practice so i wanted to give more context on user experience and what that team is going to continue to deliver so you'll be seeing more updates for them coming forward but there it's a team that really is focused on designing new tools new technology tools with our users in mind our residents and so there's data scientists there's developers researchers and interns you may recall during goal phi we talked about being able to participate in the civic innovation fellowship program and so we'll have students from harvard colombia and others joining here in the summer that chose to be in el paso to see what it is that we're doing and to be a part of that so exciting initiatives there and this just provides some additional information and background on the user experience team that is a very much a part of the improvements that we're moving forward so with that and of course to get more granular and any additional detail we have that on our strategic plan page but this was really just an opportunity to wrap up our goal team series as we gear up and and bring information forward for our budget process so with that i'm going to turn it over to nicole cody unless you all have any questions of me and she'll go over the budget update for today yes the schools that participated so harvard columbia and i know that they're also they already have utep interns on board as well but i can give you a more detailed breakdown in terms of the final fellows that will be joining us in the summer and they're going to bring back a report to council as well to spotlight that work as part of that effort thank you representatives yes uh-huh go ahead hi julie thanks um i want to get a little bit into uh slide 10 and kind of the budget impacts on that and i don't know if um i should wait for the rest of the presentation if you're prepared to answer some of that now um yes i'm sorry what was that so it's a question so just looking at um our in-pro or in-person programming restoration which is how you have it on the side um so we see that and we hear this a lot that our rec centers our swimming pools our libraries are not at full capacity um so i have a lot of follow-up questions for that um first is you know we've been told that that's a staffing issue not a budget issue is that correct so it's a combination of yes looking at conditions to return but then also looking at operationally what would be required to return and i know and i'll let you finish i know you had a follow-up statement because i know um for example with the library so if you look at the visual depiction here some of the libraries were undergoing renovations and improvements right and so that was a component of it but it was operationally can they return and then can we return that makes sense yeah not a budget not staff but something combination yes so i guess my question on the budget end is we have fully funded all of our recreation or i'll just say quality of life amenities to be fully operational that is not happening right now so there should in essence be a budget savings for you know libraries not being open on saturdays i can think of three or four rec centers and aquatics facilities that are not open in my district so do we have a number on what that budget savings is see that's right i was like i think that's really cool we could we can i mean it's definitely a starting point so i don't know if you have a job robert just popped up robert came came out from the ether so robert did you want a responder go ahead nicole okay so nicole cody director of management and budget and interim director intern managing director of purchasing so the at the last presentation that robert provided regarding the budget stabilization fund and the policy changes there was already a savings that was allocated or earmarked for the pension stabilization fund and a portion of it for the budget stabilization fund as well and so that contributed to the increase that you'll see on the the slide which is 124.9 million dollars or the increase in days okay so the 124.9 million dollars is the savings of fy22 for that's that's just i just i kind of want that number so we can understand okay just that point if you don't have it right now that's fine um i know we have plenty of budget uh updates and meetings coming up but i do think it's really uh going to be important for this council to understand how much exactly that was and where exactly all of that money is going right you mentioned two pots of money it could potentially have been going to um so just want to be able to see an overall picture or dissection of those dollars specifically absolutely and so we'll do that as part of the quarterly update that we present to you all and that will also be um timed along with the certified we can also do it as part of the budget or we actually are planning on presenting it when we present the introduction of the tax rate to you all so you have an overview of how 22 is is looking in addition to what the property tax rate i think maybe a little bit before that okay helpful thank you um and so then my next question is on on the same quality of life issues so for staffing what um what is the percentage of staff think that we are lacking to get these facilities up and running do we know that i would actually defer that to ben five so we can get you that information so ftes um ptes uh understanding that and i would like to know i am here representative uh i was just everybody jumping we did it we did update you uh the council on this when we presented for gold team four i remember and so we are still at for the entire quality of life portfolio we're at 64 percent uh staff staffed up right now um but we can get you the particulars about each department and what those activities mean yeah that would be great and i know we there's a lot of part-time employees too at these facilities so understanding that um and i don't expect y'all to have the answer for this um i know this is something that i've talked about a lot i don't think we pay our employees enough i think that's why we're seeing a real deficit in employees i know recently the council i was not here for this meeting but the council raised the minimum wage to i think 11 an hour sad i wasn't here i'm sure you all missed my comments that i would have made if i was here at that meeting uh but i would like to know if we've seen if we've act if we've seen an impact has that made an impact are we getting a response on that has that helped our staffing table at all because if it hasn't it's a conversation that we we need to start seeing so just i'm wanting to see the data that's leading up to that and and if it's making an impact i know for some of these uh especially you know with that minimum wage a lot of those in quality of life department are part-time summer jobs so i know that we won't have full data on kind of that impact but for some of the part-time positions at libraries and rec centers i would like to see that i would also like to understand what our plan is right what the timeline looks like uh if we by the grace of whoever uh got all of our our positions filled in september of 20 fy 2023 uh what is our plan for opening kind of where those resources go first because we're getting a lot of i mean especially you know i've now inherited the south side parts of the south side really excited about it but seeing a lot of facilities in that area still closed and that is very concerning considering the disparities in those communities and how much they depend on their rec centers and aquatic facilities especially i'm not sure if the vi count aquatic facility is still closed for renovation so you've got the vi counts closed uh if you live in the south side you don't have an aquatic center a memorial doesn't have a lot of the amenities for seniors or they don't feel like they're adequate um and so you're really cutting out a large the whole central area for for seniors um to be using facilities and so we really need to to start having that conversation and understand um what the plan is for reopening once we start bringing more people on board so i got really into slide 10 i'm sorry i appreciate everybody who jumped on the call last minute thank you so if i may representative i will just say we can certainly work with hr to get you the statistics on the individual departments and the portfolio as a whole i will say anecdotally that we are getting a lot of inquiries that are really generated i think by the news of the council raising the minimum wage and especially from that thousand dollar signing bonus it's made us a lot more competitive uh but it is still premature you know because we are going through the recruitment process i will also say if we were to uh you know from from your mouth to god's ears be fully staffed up september 1st i do not believe we would have an issue um having facilities open up very very soon after that once employees were trained onboarded and ready to go sure and i appreciate that i always like to think that my words go straight to god's ears but they just go to roberts but i guess if we felt half of the positions what would our plan for reopening be um yeah and then robert i know that we've talked about salaries and insurance or i have talked about it a lot i would like to see in an upcoming quarterly report or budget update uh you know what what we're looking at in regards to those those benefits thank you thank you so representative would you have your 101 briefing schedule for the first week of june so i mean you made some pretty good comments i mean one of the things i'll point out though is this council's been very aggressive about the investments in our workforce not only in this current fiscal year but over the last eight years and so in this current year alone not only did we did the one and a half percent we did the equity adjustments we did the 500 lump sum in november and then on top of that you all just increased the minimum wage so everybody got the 75 cent increase per hour so when you add that all of that up that's over a 10 increase for our lowest paid employees so not insignificant in what this council has done in this current year alone pretty significant increase as far as our wages obviously we know we still have much more to do as far as increasing our wages we have a a pretty well thought out a plan for what we like are looking at next year and so when we do your one-on-one briefings that first week of dreamweaver provide you all those details on what we're looking at doing not only looking at compensation different incentives but also on the benefit sides as well thank you robert and yeah i would just like to see if we we have i don't know i'm not an hr person so i don't even know that what i'm asking is possible but just kind of calculating the impacts of those decisions i think is important for making ones in the future so thank you for that and then back real quickly just back to your original comment about the savings from these departments and so um i did talk a little bit about that at the meeting that you missed but i'm sorry when we established the pinch stabilization fund once we closed our third quarter which ends at the end of may and we'll come back probably around some time beginning of july and provide you the update on where we stand one of the big things that we were waiting to see how it was going to play out was not only the impact from increasing the wages we had an estimate on that but it's really about the sign on incentive we were really curious to see how effective that was going to be and so we're continuing to evaluate and look at that to see if that's really having an impact on on the hiring and so that's something that we'll continue to look at do we need to expand that continue it do we need to make it more to become more competitive and so those are one of the things that we're evaluating now and as we begin to really put the final touches on the budget for next year thank you robert mayor proton thank you mayor uh appreciate it and appreciate some of the issues that my colleague has brought up um you know currently there are no senior centers in district one there's one rec center in district 1 currently that is the don haskins center and so i think it's just when we talk about accessibility and that sort of thing i think it's great to point that out and what we need i've had a conversation already with staff relating to that from what i've been told is that the rec center the don haskins rec center at 7 400 high ridge has been closed due to the fact that the office of emergency management was utilizing it for covet testing and vaccination they've since moved out three or four weeks ago and now from what i've been told it's a question of having enough staff to do that so i'm really curious since we said with because we're a very data driven organization what is the threshold about about the amount of employees that need to be hired in order to open up the next wave of rec centers in the city considering that there are no rec centers currently open in district one and as my colleague has said there's many other rec centers through other parts of the city that are closed as well so mayor pro tem again for the record ben fife managing director of cultural affairs and recreation i would need to get you that information i don't have it uh i don't have it parsed out by division off the top of my head at this moment so let's go ahead and get that information is it 20 more positions need to be hired or 35 or i i don't want to just pull the number out that that isn't correct for you sir so let me go ahead and work on that and we can get that to you right away okay because then you know again i recognize that there's other parts of the city and people pay a variety of different taxes and services but right now my district has has the only rec center it has available is closed and has been closed and there is a gentleman that likes to go on my facebook page pretty much every week hector martinez if you're listening good day sir who constantly asked me about the need to open up the don haskins rec center and so i recognize and understand that there's a lot of need throughout our community i wish there was more rec centers in district one i'm sure that the taxpayers of district one are probably not aware of of what exactly their taxes are paying for right now we all paid taxes together but it would really benefit me to be able to give information to my constituents to understand exactly what is the threshold that we're talking about how many additional employees need to be hired in order to open up additional rec centers from what i understand the strategy is to have a certain amount of of employees that are hired and then they would have an additional round of opening do you know again when that additional tranche of rec centers or community centers or senior centers would be open again sir i would need to gather some information to find out the exact rate to be able to open additional centers but what i will say is you know as we are recruiting employees we also are losing employees to attrition and i have shared this with the council before it's not unusual for us to for example hire five new positions and then we lose three of them and so it's just we're constantly working through recruitment to be able to get to that point but let me figure out my division uh what we are looking at staff wise as i did share during the gold team 4 presentation don haskins is among the centers that we are looking at thinking about parity and equity throughout the community uh for for reopening once we get to that point has there been any discussions about working with the borderplex workforce alliance or other third parties as hiring temp positions or something like that yes we have worked with them sir okay so that's something that we're actively looking is not necessarily trying to hire part-time city of el paso or full-time city of el paso employees but working with a third party for 10 positions as well uh we work with borderplex to actually actively promote the opportunities within the portfolio so we're not looking at like hiring temporary positions or a temp agency or something like that could fulfill some of these empty positions not at this time sir we have not discussed that i just again i just think it's something we should really be looking at i know that representative vanilla brings up the wage the wage issues as being a a obstacle i'm not here to understand that i'm just having constituents like hector martinez who are concerned about about these facilities being closed as long as they have um and they are trying to understand where their tax dollars are going to um which seems to be a big part of what our are there i got that kid oh somebody just got back in um other question that i had and this is an an item that representative lazarga has has brought up um is about like a sort of enhanced cr process that utilizes software from what i understand is that on slide 12 the customer relationship management tool yes yes that is a crm tool and so that was shared during the goal 5 team report and so that tool is essentially bringing so if you think about the cr process in terms of elevated anything that comes through 3-1-1 anything that someone calls in as a service request it's taking all of the voice of our customer data and putting it into one system so that you have visibility as those items are coming in on where it's at responses that are are more uniformed and so it's really taking that entire um different inputs and putting it into one simplified system and so yes that's the customer relationship management tool and when when will that be live so they are testing getting additional feedback and deploying um the final date was for summer is what they're planning and yes go ahead was that you carolyn okay i thought i heard someone that wanted to hi yes hi julie um good afternoon this is carolyn patrick with the et department um yes so the timeline is the last uh portion that remains for the crm project to go live is the cr process and that is the the portion that continues to be in testing we want to make sure that it's absolutely right before the we bring the district offices online we as mentioned in the past we already have several departments and our 311 call center live on the system and they have been so for several months so here in the next few weeks we are looking to onboard the district offices so okay so i'm curious so so when will this be going live this sometime this summer and when when will will i guess when you're on onboarding or training our staff that will be included in those meetings as well yes so yes sir so at that point when and when will those meetings start those meetings will be starting in the next few weeks and so we are projecting by end of june to have all the offices and the entire cr process fully online okay um okay um yeah i mean i i think that's that's a great thing to do um those are pretty much the concerns that i have at this point um the other question that i had i just remembered it um was what is the what is the sort of training for our 311 employees because one of the things that we hear about at least in my office or others is that people call three on one the information that is presented to them is either incomplete or it's outdated so the scripts that 311 is using how often are they refreshed how are they sort of trained in terms of that so i can start carolyn if you want to elaborate with this new process but that's absolutely a key component of launching this new crm tool is to making sure that that's part of the change management piece that they're getting training in terms of information that's coming in responses that are provided out and so they've been a part of that making sure that they're part of the entire full deployment i don't know if you want to elaborate on that carolyn um yes yes good question so as part of the process for the crm configuration um the the system actually allows for um scripts to be available online through the system and as that was being configured those scripts were um updated by the departments in conjunction with 3-1-1 and so that's uh needs to be a periodic process but that was done within the last year as we have identified changes that need to occur in the systems questions that arise as far as what what is the process uh there has been coordination between three one one and the departments as to what the process um what the process needs to be and what those scripts need to look like okay so how do we do it currently how often does it occur is that your question in terms of training yeah how do we do it currently i mean so i think with this new process before that they deploy there's going to be a series of trainings to ensure that when we launch everyone's familiar with the new process the system the scripts and then from a refresh cycle perspective i don't know that specific answer but i'll definitely verify because this system is going to make it more continuous there's going to be more visibility added to it so we'll get you a cycle just so that you you have that information as well in terms of the new system getting deployed in the summer okay yeah so we so is there a quantifiable date about how often we update the current scripts you mean current state yeah like what's what's our current system um i i can i can ask for you and verify that yes i'll follow up in terms of the current state process what do you mean current state process well you're saying right now currently right as opposed to the new system so i don't have that i didn't know the statement [Laughter] we've already talked about governor abbott yes um i'll get that information for you in terms of the cycle of refresh right on script yeah that's what i'm trying to understand is what's the before and now what is exactly the new process moving forward okay thank you understood thank you thank you okay so unless there's additional i'll turn it over to nicole to provide her oh i'm sorry yes representative thank you mayor thank you julie for being here um and thank you for the good news about the cr process that's really exciting to hear um and also the 311 and i know that my chief of staff was part of the input that you received along with some other staffers i believe from our offices um so that's exciting i do just have a short little on slide nine it's just a fyi puerta it should be puerto it's it ends in a oh not an a just if you want to correct that yes we shall okay thank you thank you representative yes [Laughter] now that's it okay so like that i'll turn it over to nicole cody for our budget update thank you thank you nicole cody for the record so today as um as juliana explained what we're going to be covering of course is the timeline and then our title our strategic plan and that alignment for the upcoming budget process along with what we've presented to you back in february regarding our five year outlook so here you can see the budget process timeline and so we are um looking at and as robert has already mentioned we've already scheduled those city council briefings with each of you and they will be in person and so we'll be able to meet with you and go over the initial preliminary budget so we are also going to be closing chime in on june 3rd is the last day for chime in and so we need your help for this final push for this next week and a half to get as many participants as we can so we can hear the voice of our community so please we can resend you those qr codes and the link to the city website so you can help us ensure that we're capturing the voice of our community and including it as part of our budget priorities then towards the end of june is when we're going to have our budget workshops this year and so this is an important note normally we have it after the 4th of july this year we're going to have it before the 4th of july so it will be the week of june 27th will be the week of our budget workshops then again at the end of july we receive on july 25th the certified valuations and so then the week after we will be able to present or introduce the property tax rate to you all have our public hearings on the budget and then you'll see the budget adoption is scheduled for august 16th and at the last slide of the presentation we go over the dates again just so you all have it so the strategic plan alignment is really about us focusing on our priorities and our needs for our organization and so on april 26 the city council brought an item and voted to approve for the city manager to be able to minimize the financial impact on residents by reducing the property tax rate and so that is first and foremost on our mind and as we develop the budget for fy 2023 along with our tax relief for seniors and disabled ensuring that we continue to have the operating costs necessary for our quality of life bond and public safety bond capital projects we continue to see our investment in public safety which includes the increasing staffing collective bargaining agreements and of course our ongoing capital replacement plans in addition to that we are looking at our infrastructure so that includes both street resurfacing our intersection safety and our continued investment in neighborhood traffic management plans and then lastly of course but definitely not least is our investment in our workforce because they make it all happen so we have of course our focus on compensation as robert mentioned that we'll be briefing you during the city council briefings in the upcoming weeks along with our proposal for health care what we're seeing as increases in health care costs and wellness and our continued investment in learning and education of our workforce so under economic uncertainty and while we focus on our budget challenges as you'll note under um the presentation that jerry de moral gave inflationary pressures are affecting the city it affects our potential revenue impacts it affects the cost that we're seeing as far as fuel supply chain disruption and continued increase in our contracts and so that is something we're addressing in fy 2023 but it may it remains an area of uncertainty along with that is of course the tight labor market so he mentioned that they're having and representative vanello you also mentioned it regarding recall quality of life departments is the the ability the turnover the level of turnover and the ability for the city to be a competitive workplace and so um what just went into effect robert mentioned was the 75 cent increase per hour for our employees which was effective this sunday on may 22nd and then the hiring incentive pilot that we currently started on april 10th and so while we're looking at ways to address it and to ensure that the city maintains its competitive edge and we're able to hire our top performers we're going to continue to provide recommendations as you mentioned and we'll be bringing those to you as part of the budget process in addition to the economic uncertainty i would be remiss in not mentioning the global geopolitical instability that we're seeing around the world so i remember a time where el paso was truly remote and we did not feel the impacts of the global economy we did not see the full impact of all the changes we were seeing or hearing about around the world well that's long gone we are part of a global economy and we are impacted by geopolitical instability the national inflationary pressures and the tight labor market that we're seeing in order to be competitive we also will continue to see challenges in our unfunded departmental needs and of course in some of the council budget requests that we would be able to identify as potential capital projects also we have of course are the impact on services for the existing staff and filling vacancies that we've seen as a result of the covet 19 pandemic so here you'll see that we presented in february of 2022 was the general fund five year outlook and so it's important that we highlight this as we're moving forward as part of the budget process where you'll see the increase that we're expecting in revenues is outpaced by the cost of services and the contractual increases that we're seeing across the board while we know that we're seeing these increases we're also looking at leveraging all federal and state grants as we've seen in both the response and recovery for the cares funding and how it assisted with the public health response and the investment we've seen in our community health along with what was what you recently approved as far as the america american rescue plan act which assists us along with the response but also the recovery and relief for our families and the investment that we have in a long-term growth of the city in addition to leveraging state and federal grants which you also see additionally here we continue to look at utilizing all resources in order to ensure that we're enhancing improving services that we deliver for this community so included in the in the budget as we'll be presenting and the next few weeks we do have a proposal for staffing for adequate fire and emergency response would assist us with providing the staffing for the fire station 36 we do have grants from the cdc that are helping address health disparities across our community and continue to make sure that we're resilient in future christ responses in addition to that was the grant that was approved by you all to submit a request for an investment in public safety for a tag grant for the entire region so as i mentioned here is the budget calendar in detail based on the dates that we have coming up and again i'm going to highlight the budget work sessions are going to start june 27th and we will be presenting the certified tax roll and ordinance introducing the tax rate on august 1st and that's all thank you mr prime yes mayor that brings us to item number 16 on the agenda and this is a management update on modifications and improvements to the city's response to illegal dumping good afternoon mayor city council alan smythe chief transit and field officer i have astrid benner on the line this afternoon to start with the presentation and there will be over for questions also we have representatives from the police department standing by to answer any questions that might really be related to them thank you thank you good afternoon mayor council astrid banner for esd i'm here to report back to you on the illegal dumping item all right can we go to the next slide um in the next slide please you asked us to report back to you and the illegal dumping issues and to bring forth a proactive approach to improve the illinois illegal dumping going on in the city and so we created a cross-functional team with esd pd code streets and maintenance and through our collaboration we did identify grab gaps in our process and in the way we're communicating with our partners and our customers next slide one of the gaps that we identified was that in our previous process we did not have any notification from the constables related to when homes were being evicted and items placed in in front of homes we now with our new process developed a notification alert with the area constables uh we've also implemented pd code we'll be monitoring the property for any items that are left unclaimed which then would become illegal dumping and at that point they would call esd for assistance in the cleanup so that's a a different approach and more innovative in our communications with with our partners in other departments uh next slide please we've also identified that a lot of our programs to clean up the city have been suspended or had been suspended due to covet and so it's our time to bring them back one of the key affiliates to bring back is the keep el paso beautiful and through this affiliate we would be able to bring back the gift to the river cleanup efforts and give to the mountain cleanup efforts and also the great american cleanup we have been working with neighborhood associations to bring them back for annual events in person and to bring free roll-off uh dumpsters to to their neighborhoods so that we could help them with any cleanup areas that they may need and esd outreach is working a contract with private companies to hold the weekend neighborhood cleanups as necessary throughout our community next slide uh one of our partnerships that we have coming up this summer is a public awareness campaign with el paso water utility and esd our summer campaign starts in in june and it's in partnership with el paso water utilities in the el paso county water improvement district and it's going to focus on illegal dumping as a crime to curb behavior it's also going to highlight the negative impacts of polluting vacant lots storm water drains channels and farmland next slide please other partners that we are working with with our new process is the el paso county the union pacific railroad el paso electric texas gas the neighborhood associations we had which i had mentioned and streets and maintenance one of our proposed actions to them is that we partner with the esd so that we can clean up the properties on which you may be getting calls on and get to them sooner and then prepare a memorandum of understanding with them so that we can bill them after the property is clean we're also working with a more interactive process for city owned and partner properties to be cleaned as soon as possible next slide our other approach is to close the loop with customer service response and so we identified a gap in our response to residents and so what our approach is is to be more have more transparent communication with our residents explain the process if it's a process that's not owned by the city of el paso or any of its departments recommend their their next steps if necessary provide status updates and department contact information and provide a call back number in case the customer has any additional questions next slide please so we were also asked to look at the resources required and the cost of them and so our estimated costs uh are to be funded by esd to bring back or keep el paso a beautiful affiliate we estimate that would cost us fifty thousand dollars our el paso water utility awareness campaign is at a cost of 35 000. our cleanup events are at a cost of 32 thousand dollars our partnerships have no cost and the new policy with the police department and existing personnel is just training and coordination and closing the loop with our customers through education and feedback has no cost as we would be utilizing our existing personnel and resources for coordination uh next slide so through this process um what we expect moving forward with our enhanced process is that we'll have a rapid sharing of information regarding any legal dumping cases and information between partners immediate cleanup response by esd to cases call back efforts to residents to alleviate any concerns and of course proactive cleanups throughout our community to keep a clean and beautiful el paso next slide and so here's some information from the esd outreach and partnership program and the number where they could call us at two one two six thousand or an email for a clean up to coordinated clean up event uh next slide and that is the end of the presentation if you have any questions representative um please followed by representative nello thank you mayor and thank you to i'm sorry i didn't get her name who was presented astrid astrid thank you astrid for your presentation um i think it this is long overdue you know it's it's kind of embarrassing to see the mess in our in our streets in our community um what's more embarrassing is you know the adults the responsible adults that are doing this um and that was sarcastic by the way so it it's this is i think this this is long overdue um my only question would be is would it be smart of us to kind of put this program under 311 where people can call 311 and also be able to report versus a separate number the two one two six thousand right so currently the 311 is the appropriate number to call to start a case and that's through the police department code enforcement division but what we've done with pd now is that as soon as they're aware of a case they're going to let us know as well so while they're investigating it from a court or you know law enforcement that's what really slows down the response time but we don't want to jeopardize any of their evidence and so while they're working on obtaining their photo evidence then as soon as those photos are taken we can make the piles disappear and so what was happening previously it would be a code case with pd and it would churn through the system and as it was going through the process the pile would just sit there right and so now we're going to have a dual track they're going to still be doing all of their required paperwork that's for court and for certified letters and notifying the property owners and then to the best of our ability unless it's required by law that we leave it there for whatever re you know there's always extenuating circumstances and you know you never know how it's going to turn out but for a good majority of the cases we'll be able just to go ahead and remove it right away and that's really the biggest difference i think that you're going to see in this new process that we've established okay so would this also include for example i have a resident on the east side um that they have a backdoor neighbor and this neighbor refuses to clean their pool refuses to clean after their animals has a bunch of old furniture dumped outside and it's creating a situation for the neighbors where they have mosquitoes they have cockroaches they have mice they have all sorts of things that we don't want in our homes would they be able to also engage or go to the homes of these people that you know even though it is their private property but essentially it's causing a lot of trouble for the surrounding homes yes yes absolutely any any resident that has a pool that's not attended is a health hazard and so we have the ability to go in you know with the proper notice and if and treat the pool you know because the environmental services also oversees vector control and we do not want an outbreak of mosquitoes because of the diseases that they carry especially just a few years ago the zika was a big threat to this community and it while it hasn't been in the news lately it is still out there and so absolutely if there's a swimming pool involved it rises to a really much higher level of response just because of the health um in terms of just debris outside and and then of course if there's animals involved then the animal control officers also get involved so what you're describing sounds to me like it's going to require multi agencies no we've been working on it for for a while now and and it's it it has not been resolved not because the city hasn't done everything in our power that we can do it's it's a legal situation at this point okay but well i'll get the address for me and i'll follow up perfect thank you that's it mary i don't have any other questions thank you very much [Music] these cases do you require that final personal touch which is kind of what astrid touched on on closing the loop and reaching out with the keeping the residents informed because while we are working diligently on 24 different departments the customer's sitting there in the dark they have no idea what we're working on or what progress we've made and so that's another big part of this presentation is the process to make sure that we're calling those especially the the cases that for some reason um are taking longer than they should those are the ones that we really are intend to call back and give them a status report so they can so we can tell them you know the pool's been addressed okay now animal service is working on it and so now the animals have been addressed and so now the code you know the court documents are being worked on and so just to keep them abreast a lot of times the complaints are exactly that they just didn't know we were even doing it like we totally forgot about them right no and and thank you for that ellen and i just do want to say one last thing um astrid was work i was talking about the campaign and it's not officially finished yet but as soon as that is finished please share that with us because i think this is a very important campaign that we have to share with people and also for us to have as information so yes we will as soon as you have that campaign finished please sure thank you okay thank you representative hi ellen hi hi astrid how you all doing good good good night uh i'm really happy to see this presentation um it's much better than the first one that i saw uh i don't know why everyone's laughing um i i also you know i want to thank you for taking responsibility um within your plan of action i think it's really important it's going to be a really important first step to getting us where we need to be and i think that a lot of these closing the loops is really important i think the customer communication is going to be very important um i lost my train of thought uh okay so really quickly i'm just gonna get right into my questions then so the partnerships on slides six and seven so you have your partners uh your proposed action is to prepare mousse that allow esd to clean partner properties you just want to be very clear that you were all going to take on the responsibility of cleaning el paso water property that's what we're working with them right now to see if they're agreeable to that it's not that they won't clean it it's just they're not as um we can do it a lot more expediently yeah no they'll get to it eventually so what we're trying to do is just speed up the clock yeah i mean we heard from el paso water utilities themselves that they have every one of their canals on a three-year rotation which is unacceptable i'm not going to tell you to not work out this mou and clean up their property i am very grateful for this slide and this program i'm sure when you're working on an mou there may be a financial portion of it i do think that should be a conversation because we really are taking on it's going to be that's a lot of work for your department i think about just the water utility properties in my district and that's that's going to be a big work load for you all and i'm not going to tell you not to do it i'm very happy that you're doing it i think this is me like thanking you profusely for considering that um but i i do recognize that there will be a financial impact of the city on that and i trust that you will work that out for the the best of the taxpayer right so i just i guess i just wanted to say that out loud i don't know if it was beneficial to this at all but um recognizing that i appreciate that um there was another thing uh oh okay yeah so um apartment complexes and something that you you're not talking about in this presentation our citizen collection sites which i was fully prepared for you to talk about because the first presentation i saw had a lot of that so that's what's throwing me off i mean a lot of feedback that i've heard from residents since you gave that presentation in our community meeting is that a lot of the issues that they have that we have in central is apartment complexes and you know the original response from esd was we have these citizen collection sites again not on this presentation y'all have taken a more proactive approach um but i don't think that i i should not bring this up to use the citizen collection site you need a water bill if you live in a housing authority property or an apartment you do not have a water bill so we're kind of essentially limiting people who can use that resource that could prevent additional um illegal dumping so i'm going to let y'all figure out what the best solution to that is but i do want to bring that out because i do think that that could cut down a lot on illegal dumping and i'll be honest it was not something that i ever even considered until a constituent brought that up after seeing your presentation so i wanted to share that with you and i think that's why it was like really throwing me off because i was really really waiting for that presentation so the last thing i'll say is i i do think this is a great first step i would love to see in you know a quarterly report or not every quarter but a report on the effectiveness on this i think something that representative rodriguez brought up is a really good example i know i have a property in my district that you are more than familiar with which is the family dollar on alabama where they are constantly dumping they don't want to build a fence they don't have to but what i would like to see after we kind of collect some data on how effective this is and we see the positive outcomes on this what our plan is to address continuous illegal illegal dumping sites right we cannot make family dollar bill defense would it even be effective we don't know but we do need to come up with a plan to assist the neighbors in that unless your plan is just to continue going out there every time they call sure great go for it but they're going to continue to call and and while i think that is a great and effective policy and that's what i want to see we also are going to start to see people are just frustrated with the fact that they have to continually call even if the the trash is being picked up immediately and that's not every case i'm sure everybody has at least one in their district i think they yeah so one or two and so it's not that you know this is not asking for that we're going to do this with every site we need a plan to address every site so nobody dumps there um but for those those cases that are persistent i think that that i would love to see a plan on how we we either assist um those businesses uh or you know i don't know if penalizes or i don't know i don't know what the solution is i'm gonna lean on you for it um but would like to see a way to address those kind of habitual offenders yeah we did talk about putting in the motion detective detection cameras that would you know start taking photographs as soon as anybody starts moving in that area and the the back side of the camera is the hard part like who's going to watch it so if what we what we want to do is approach the businesses and even if esd buys the equipment and just loans it to them for say 30 60 days to be able and then they can monitor it for us and when they see that it's been set off or they have any footage then we can come over because that that really is the limiting factor on any of this surveillance is who's watching the back side i'm sure the residents at this point would be happening especially if it's a hot case like that that it's you know when they reach at the point where they're willing to try anything then i think that that they would be a really good partner with us to do that um yeah you know i trust you to make the decision for what's the the best um option to address that and i look forward to kind of seeing the the results of this this first step so thank you very much and thank you very much astrid thank you um now she asked a very i thought very important question and it's people that don't have water bill or something and i mean i'm sure it's not a problem that just happened a minute ago yes it's been a problem for quite a long time what is that answer so um the the citizen drop-off sites are funded by the customers of the city of el paso on the uh trash and of course the water utility is bills does the billing force so that's why we ask you to bring your water bill to show that you paid trash and the options that are left for the commercial the apartment dwellers the housing authority are either to call the whoever the private hauler is typically sell pasta disposal or heist disposal to for an additional pickup at the apartment complex or what have you many of them don't do that they just stack it next to the dumpster but each one of those commercial haulers have signed a franchise agreement with environmental services that says that they will maintain their their property either by cleaning up the illegal dumping cleaning up the graffiti on offering additional services as needed so instead of twice a week pick up they'll come and empty it three times a week um and so and that's the for the privilege of doing their business here at the city of el paso is that they have to keep their site maintained which is one of the areas that we do fall back on the only other option that's available to them is to call environmental services for we offer a special pick up for 35 dollars and that's when we come with the claw and we'll pick up sofas or refrigerators because many times the illegal dumping is when they're moving out or when they've been evicted and so and then the third option is of course to take it to the landfill and we charge 16 for a pickup full whatever you can fit in the back of a pickup is 16 of course um there is the the commercial landfill on the west side what's the size of the pickup any size pickup whatever you have one ton you i know there's some little ones and some really big ones whatever you can fit in the pickup representation yeah and so i i understand that all of those things are options but i have you know talked to individuals who have said i went all the way to the collection station because that's what i hear to do and then i couldn't use it so i just dumped my stuff you know at that family dollar specifically that's right down the street and so i know that there are all these options people may not know about them so if they show up to the citizen collection station they can't use it so i don't know if there is a way to have like a few vouchers a month at the citizen collection station that says okay we can give six people a month a free pass on this um if they can show that they live in a housing authority or you know we can do a partnership with the housing authority uh you know apartments are a little different i don't know what the perfect solution here is i know that you have all like alternatives in 16 for a pickup is not bad um also going back to the the 35 if you leave something on the curb you have to have a water bill to be able to do that so it's not also not an option but i'm just saying that there are people that are showing up there and because they're then not able to utilize the facility they just kind of give up and and throw their stuff on the street and so if there's a way to just avoid one person from doing that um or a few people a month from doing that it's going to be a big savings and again i'm going to trust you to figure out what that actual process is i am not the expert here but i just do i wanted to recognize that it is it speak you know it's something that i'm hearing so actually didn't work out the system with el paso county where they um coined literally when pressed a coin that was good for one free dump and so then the county commissioners would hand them out to whoever they felt like really needed them and then when they bring that coin to the facility at the end of the month we collect them and turn them in and the county pays a set dollar amount for however many um like representatives said i think it's important that we make it easy and the easier we make it i think the more they'll be utilized and then less we'll have in other areas that uh need um and then we've got to go pick it up anyway that's exactly and then it's going to cost us a lot more money so if we want to be efficient i think we need to find a way to make it easier and whether we have x amount of days open where nothing's required to do it or whatever it may be i don't know but i think it becomes easier for us and less expensive by trying to figure out a way to make it available for people yeah we did look at offering an amnesty day like the libraries do for their uh exactly some of them have an amnesty day where just we won't be checking the water bills every day yeah right right okay thank you our representative molinard followed by representative rivera no i'm sorry representative saucido because i hit the button and then you're next thank you mayor i say thank you so much to astrid for this presentation i definitely could see that this process is going to make it uh more efficient to be able to do all this so it's i'm really glad to see this it is very important for us to all keep el paso looking beautiful so do want to thank esd i've had many cleanups from the beginning of the year and i continue you all have been great partners helping me out bring tools and and whatnot and help me do these cleanups in my district so i want to thank you all for that thank you thank you and how many black belts we have now i think we're up to 300 black belts now and we still are enrolling the participants if you're interested in joining the recycling challenge oh good 212 6 000. i'll sign you up representative molinar thank you very much mr mayor helen always pleasure to see you astrid thank you very much for that presentation so a couple of things while we're talking about the family dollar if i'm going to talk about district 4 10 300 block of dire this is not to disparage them we did receive a concern from a citizen out there and so she did send some video unfortunately we were not able to see it i did take two different trips out there in the field and it's just absolutely amazing you saw the pictures i sent them to you and you know how family dollar does not sell mattresses there's like four or five discarded mattresses out there there's bag trash from households that are there accumulation of trash all over the place and so that is the works and process to be cleaned up i know we need a rid of entry i get that i understand that but to me whoever's doing that type of thing is just i think number one they're trespassing number two they're also doing illegal dumping and so um talking about apartment complex i know this is in district 2 8601 roberts and so there is a small uh trash bin or re receptacle there for i don't know how many units in that complex but it seems like no one picks that trash up so when you mention right now that the apartment complex have a agreement or something like that with either one of those vendors it's just it's not happening there 8601 roberts i can tell you that much um talking about the citizen collection sites i would say i know we i brought this up last year is there any way that let's just say one or even two days out of the month that they could have extended hours and so that was brought to my attention over a year ago where uh people do work and yes they do have a saturday option i understand that but still by the time they're doing waking up having their coffee and doing other things running errands going to sam's club whatever they're going to do with their family that day they may not be able to do what they want to do as far as discarding trash so this gentleman he did propose make it let's just say one wednesday a month or every other wednesday of the month or something like that and extended hours and i really don't know what the hours would be and i know probably the personnel would not want to be there until like seven o'clock at night i get that i understand that but still what is what would be the impact the benefit for everybody i'd say would be a win-win situation uh be a win-win situation for the citizen that wants to comply wants to dispose of their trash in a proper manner and yet make sure that we're doing that the right way and i'm talking about citizen collection side i know you and i had a conversation about that but if you're a veteran you do can show your va card your dod card other form of identification marking you as a veteran and that does allow you to go into the citizen collection site without the water bills that correct right the water bill it's it really just shows that you're a customer versus um identification card okay and so um i was curious to know in nashville's presentations you're mentioning working with the constables i have in district four many apartment complexes and i know there's different properties not within a rental community but so i've never come across the issue where a tenant has just been evicted and they just left their trash out there oh yeah i don't know how many of that times that happens but thank god i haven't seen one in district four right it's more than you would think it's it's what happens if the if the items are left more than two three hours the people who are driving by it starts to become a free yard sale and they just go through and pluck out what and starts disappearing and sometimes the whole pile disappears but if it's things that are not desirable they just get strewn down the block okay well i haven't seen that but that i understand that as well and um well the evictions were put on hold for two years because of the covid you know and so now that that rule's been lifted there may be more of evictions happening you know to be aware of and if you see those if you see a pile in the front yard that's typically the sign of an eviction so if you can call me right away those are the ones that get out of control okay and the last thing i'd like to cover with you for example just this week we did have a concerned citizen at the 10 100 block at gateway north gateway north and trans mountain and um i believe my legislative aide has already uh cr for that but um it's just a huge huge accumulation of trash there's also overgrown weeds in that so and that that paradigm where there is not only an accumulation of debris trash garbage whatever but also weeds would there be a two-way mechanism to handle that at the same time yes you know now one of my new duties is to oversee the streets and maintenance department and so we're we're gonna be um figuring out ways that we can work more closely together because there's no sense in the street department going out with their medians and weeds and then right behind them comes esd for for the parkway so we're going to get together and make sure that we're doing it the best way okay and that part that one particular area i'm talking about so that would be the trans mountain gateway north gateway south so we did have a lot of significant issue where there was a call them homeless people living there underneath the bridge and they of course i once again on a field site visit i did go by and i mean it's just shopping carts sleeping beds they had pop-up tents out there that's i believe that's already been addressed but it seems to be there's still the accumulation of whatever the residuals were from those people there and it still needs to be cleaned up and probably i believe this is part at the 10 10-3 block of gateway north where the people just discarded whatever they had right outside of where they were living and just so you know we work really closely with the pd department when they clean up the the homeless camps so every so often they'll go in and you know just forcibly remove the the homeless and but they leave behind everything and so then we'll come in behind it and clean it clean it up and so if there's a residual from that we'll check it out okay and so the last thing i have is uh for example um you know driving by or what i'm doing on the weekends or some place but you know people see where i see personally discarded tvs you know those flat screens even those huge uh plasma tv that nobody wants furniture what do you call it refrigerators and things like that i'm really leery of those refrigerators especially with kids that may go in there and suffocate and we'll never even know about them two or three days later and so um what's the best way to handle that because no one's really going to pay for that if you mentioned it's going to be 16 bucks for a pickup with using the claw but if that person doesn't know about it or maybe they do but they don't have the sixteen dollars right so again it's either three one one or the two one two six thousand because really the first thing we have to ascertain is whose property is it that is the very that's the bottom line you know um and txdot wants to be notified the railroad department they're absolutely wants they want to be notified um the railroad department are they're very um safety conscious and they don't want us anywhere near their tracks so there's a lot of underlying factors which i didn't get into the whole history lesson of how it works right now but that's why those these mou's are so important to be able to come to an understanding with what level of assistance are they going to allow us to to do to to be more proactive and and you know as representative said good luck with some of them but um i think that we can persuade them to let us help them and be more responsive because while we're notifying them they they may very well respond but it may be two or three weeks later and that's really not what we're looking for we want them to respond tomorrow or at least the next 48 hours and so because it's within the city's purview environmental services and streets of maintenance to do that right away that's what we do that's what we're out there every day we're on the streets and in the in the vacant lots in the alleys and so we're really the ones who can make it happen a lot quicker so the the goal is to figure out a way that all of the partner agencies are comfortable with that okay and i'll close on a positive note once again to you ellen astrid and everyone else who was out there at 9550 gateway north at the old glory memorial back-to-back saturdays two saturdays in a row it was just phenomenal the work there was over a hundred volunteers out there cleaning and esd led the way so that was just fantastic we thank you very much man you're welcome thank you representative representative um schwartzwein our pro 10 um thank you um so obviously a lot to discuss something that we all see in different parts of our community um one thing that has really raised my eyes and i just want to understand is we're proposing to take over the maintenance and clean up of el paso water facilities well no not all the facilities just if there's a reported illegal dumping case so i don't want you to think that we're going to be responsible for the entire you know linear portion of every drainage canal because i you know we we don't really have the resources to do that and if we did they would have to pay us accordingly and we would you know so you know they say that no good d goes unpunished um i would be very very concerned about the ac the the details of an arrangement like that and the mou because we operate under the function and have been at least for the seven years i've been in council when there is um an arroyo uh a ditch something that is an el paso water retention pond that that is something where we go and communicate very clearly that that is not the responsibility and role of the city for maintenance right and so that is there's a hefty amount of conversations that we have relating to that you know whether it's in some of the newer parts of the city or some of the more established parts right when district 1 used to reach current place which it no longer does so that is something again that um i would just i again in theory i think it's a good idea because at the end of the day el paso water or the city or the county or whatever at the end of the day people pay taxes to these entities and they want to see services in an efficient way in their communities so i can understand that but i would hate for this thing all of a sudden to find out 5 10 15 years from now and you know the water utility is no longer maintaining any of their any of their facilities any of their retention ponds any of their storm water maintenance which was the original reason why it was spun off in 2005 and we're essentially down a path where we're taking over that again again already knowing that we're stretched then with our current budget no i was just talking about illegal dumping not the ongoing maintenance okay i just i just want to be very because i could see how this could snowball into something um where it's it's much more engaged um that was that was there and so again this is just for illegal dumping yes sir so again that was that'd be another concern i have i know that there was a facility for example it was right near district one and actually had some some people reach out to my office over by belvedere behind the west side library there's a large facility there and there was evidently a homeless encampment and the water utility it also had essentially acted as a nature preserve at that point having having been untouched as a as a water attention pond for close to 30 years and the response from the water utility was to basically go in there with bulldozers and rip out all the vegetation in addition to some of the homeless encampments that were there so i just think that moving forward if i decide to move forward with this mou that the rules of engagement the participation and the level of participation is very very very clearly defined um again because you know the already the the the lines between the el paso water utility the psb and the city of el paso are not black and white i know that it sort of there's the impression by by you know sometimes is impression that they're two separate clearly distinct entities but if that was the case we wouldn't be approving their land sales we wouldn't be approving their bond cover their bond issuance right so we wouldn't be having our marriage sitting on the board there right so um it's it's already gray and so um i just think that we need to be very very clear about about about what those words are because all of a sudden we could be in a position again five years from now uh or whatever you know our city attorney is there with their group of attorneys talking about what this one word means and how maintenance is actually the entire system and not just if there's a call or that sort of thing representative schwartzbind yeah i i hear what you're saying and i and i concur with you we will obviously be working with ellen smith to go through whatever this process is going to look like at the end of the day and then make sure that we cross all our t's and dot all our eyes in terms of your concerns yeah because i mean i guess you know again it's one thing if we're talking about taking over maintenance of the entire system or vice versa or whatever it is like you know again there isn't a black and white relationship already with el paso water in the city so i think it just should really be be cleared out and also thought about strategically what that what that means for the city and el paso water for the next 5 10 20 years i'm not sure i would even put maintenance in the that word at all because it's more like a response a response thanks thank you professionally better thank you very much few questions um did i hear you right to say that you you're uh you're also tackling uh residential areas with with uh that really before they are code enforcement officers for pre-warning these people before they uh they get a citation or complaint right the way the municipal code is written right now is if there's any type of violation whether it be storage of you know junk on the driveway or weeds or a junk car whatever the case may be the municipal code requires us to give them a notice a violation and a seven days to fix it on their own okay and so and then but on the books we also have what we call the repeat offender uh rule where if we've already notified you once in the last 365 days so it's a rolling calendar um that we don't have to notify you again then we can just go in and clean it with no notice so that's kind of what you would hear sometimes from your constituents that we didn't tell them and but the way that the code is written is that we're only required to notify you once in a 365 day period and then after that we've been notified and you need to be aware that you're keeping your property in in line okay and then there's an area that i'd like to bring up some kind of photos so i could show you to see if that owner is responsible for it it's a new rezoning with it we did off with sarah ghost of the 1300 block there's a gap between the physicians hospital and the new zoning that we did and i think our repeat offenders back i think they caught him on photo with a photo camera the last time that's how we were able to find out who it was inside him but i think he's back doing the same thing again okay i'll call you okay sounds good and and the other thing i want to thank you for the presentation you do because then to hear the main problems that uh oh representative knott has in the apartment complex i would suggest that you email miss miss smythe because she helped me with one that was really uh along alameda and had the same problem that you did and the trash can was overflowing and it was beyond right it was it was right some of the apartment complex managers they don't pay their bill and so the only way that the commercial hollers can get their attention is not to pick up the trash and then in this extreme example they not only didn't pick up the trash they took the entire dumpster away so then you just had a pile of trash in the parking lot with no dumpster so it just went from bad to worse so every time the wind blew it blew onto traffic east west traffic on alameda so but any any of those types of just call me directly or have your your staff call me and we'll we'll work it down i mean that's what we're here for the same conclusion that the the end result was that complex i think it's frequently painted spill now because it was able to submit the surface and get a brand new trash bin and on my complaint just real fast i just want to thank representative nella for putting this item on the agenda and i uh thank you allen and to your team for this presentation thank you rappanello thank you thank you and with that miss white thank you thank you that brings us to the first reading of ordinances these are items 17 to 20. you're not going to do call to the public not kidding i know we've been through that's the next item motion to approve second there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative salcido to approve the first reading of ordinances on items 19-20 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative rodriguez not present the next item is number 22 and this is discussion and action on the award of solicitation number 2022-0238 security guard services to knight ice protective services inc motion to approve a question go ahead hi i don't know who's here to answer the question in the virtual world you have a question so let's have a purchasing question but claudia let's see if we can get it done um is this a service that we've had previously for fire stations yes correct this is a replacement contract so we are replacing the current contract with the new one and are these these are for all our active fire stations no ma'am this is this is i go ahead jennifer yeah me sorry the backup just isn't opening for it so i i'm sure sorry about that um this is for the location on montana and then also the fire substations the ones the fire substations are going to be on an um on a need basis or an on-call basis okay so these are not facilities that are manned 24 hours a day okay okay thanks i just the backup didn't really explain that well it's just the bidding process um so i appreciate it thank you thank you is there a second yes ma'am another promotion representative lisa got made the second one okay thank you so we have a motion in a second yes sir there's a motion and a second to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative rodriguez not present the next item is number 23. this is discussion and action on the award of solicitation 2022-0401 south central streets phase 5 to jordan foster construction llc i have a question go ahead and questions do you want to go no i was just going to say for the record this is now in district 2. yeah and so i would love to be briefed on this um we can still approve it but i still would like to be briefed on it because i think that i had requested some of these uh for the upcoming bond unaware that they were coming up um and in fact maybe for for those who are on the line are there any significant projects coming up in areas that were redistricted it might be nice to just automatically go and brief us so we're aware of what's happening so thank you yeah so motion to approve there's a motion made by representative anelo seconded by representative lee zaraga to approve item number 23 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative rodriguez not present the next item is number 25 and this is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from rf ranch and farm and c4 commercial to c1 commercial and imposing conditions at 175 midway drive and move to approve motion a second there is a motion and a second to approve there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative aneello voting nay and representative rodriguez not present may or the next two items are related if i may read them both pardon me item 26 is a public hearing on an ordinance to amend title v city liquor license permit fee and liquor license permit term and item 27 is discussion in action on a resolution amending schedule c for the city of el paso fy 22 budget resolution to update the local fees local governments can charge for alcohol licenses presentation please can't you bring up the presentation next piece good afternoon this is brenda cantu with planning and inspections um item number 26 and 27 um like miss friend mentioned are related um 20 item 26 is the ordinance it's an ordinance amending title 5 that was required in order to comply with recent changes made by tabc in which they consolidated some of their license and permits as a result of those changes the el paso city code required some just to be aligned with the state and item number 27 is is a resolution amending schedule c in order to comply with those recent changes made by tbc um and some of the other changes that were made are some of the um beer nail changes that they made um they combined those into more beverages now and they reduce the number of licenses to 75 to 37 and rt can you proceed to the next slide piece and like i mentioned the local government changes um some of the changes were to reflect the different license structures that they they created and update the local fees that local municipalities can charge for these permits and licenses and just clean up some of the tabc references in in the in the city code does anyone have any questions any questions no so is there a motion some motion in a second there's a motion made by representative vanello seconded by representative molinar and this is to approve items 26 and 27. on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative salcido abstaining and representative rodriguez not present the next item is number 29. did you all get the presentation of this what's that 29 district 7. what did you ask item 29 is discussion in action on a resolution of the city council of el paso nominating el paso health care system limited as a state texas state enterprise zone project did you get a presentation do you have a presentation mistreats good afternoon members of council this is kelly college from economic development and i do have a presentation available for you okay thank you mitch for pulling that up so the item before you today item 29 is a texas enterprise zone nomination resolution for el paso healthcare system ltd next slide please for a brief background on the program the texas enterprise zone program is an economic development toolkit for local communities to partner with the state to encourage job creation retention and capital investment el paso was able to use this program and leverage state funds to support quality projects that will further our goals to attract and retain quality jobs and capital investment municipalities of our size are eligible for up to nine enterprise project designations during a state biennium and el paso so far designated only one project during the current tier u period projects may be physically located in or outside of an enterprise zone and designation enables businesses to receive state tax incentives in the form of state sales and use tax refunds the designation period is kept at five years during which companies must meet minimum capital investment and employment thresholds next slide please to be eligible for tez designation jobs must have an average weekly wage that needs or exceeds the county average weekly wage employment and capital investment must be met prior to the expiration of designated period and the company must first pay applicable sales and use tax to receive a refund if located inside of an enterprise zone such as this project is 25 of the company's new employees at the qualified business site must meet economically disadvantaged enterprise zone residency or veteran requirements only full-time jobs will qualify for ecp award consideration and jobs must be maintained through the end of the designation period or for at least three years after the date on which tax benefits are received whichever is later next slide please the resolution before you today is to nominate el paso healthcare system ltd also known as las palmas del sol healthcare the company is headquartered in el paso and operates 34 facilities across the region their del sol medical center located at 10301 gateway boulevard west provides multi-disciplinary treatment with a 350 bed facility with a level 2 trauma center and additional specialty services you can see there the tez nomination will support an 8.2 million dollar investment to update the primary surgery and catheterization laboratory at this location as well as the hiring of 10 new employees and the retention of 1 397 employees next slide please so here we have the location the project depict depicted this is located in district 7 along i-10 and gateway boulevard and sits within a texas state enterprise zone as depicted in the blue shading on these two maps next slide please el paso healthcare system ltd meets the criteria for designation as an enterprise owned project because they will invest 8.2 million create 10 jobs and retain 1 397 employees of which 546 of those meet the definition of a retained job in texas government code and 25 of the new employees hired will be residents of an enterprise zone economically disadvantaged or veterans staff recommends approval of this nomination the applicant's capital investments and employment commitments will further el paso's business retention and expansion initiative by retaining hundreds of jobs additionally there is no impact to city funds because this program involves only state sales and use tax refunds approval of this resolution will enable a passive health care system ltd's application for enterprise project designation to proceed for review and approval by the texas economic development and tourism office next slide please to conclude council action we are requesting today is to authorize the mayor to sign a resolution nominating el paso healthcare system ltd as a texas state enterprise zone project the next slide video concludes my presentation any of your questions council representative thank you mayor um i would strongly urge my colleagues to support this issue um as we know as as was presented to you it's very very very much needed in our area and it's uh i thought they had presented you with this but when they presented with me it's it's uh to me rather it's a it's a very much needed project here so i would ask for your support i make a motion to approve second there is a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative salcido to approve item number 29 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes mayor pro tem short spine and representative rodriguez not present the next item is number 30. and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city manager be authorized to sign a collaboration agreement between the city of el paso and lift fund together with anchor organizations and the aspen institute latinos in society motion approve motion on a second we do have public comment on this item okay we have alejandro manzanares that signed up to speak mr manzanares star six please to unmute your microphone hi everyone good afternoon hi everyone i'm muted thank you for being here well over the past um eight and a half months uh cross sector leaders in the city of el paso have joined um other cross-sector leaders across other latino majority cities such as san bernardino el paso san antonio phoenix and chicago on working on one particular intervention to support their latino small business economies the the work put forth uh in a document that we call the request for action document that looks to support and create a one-stop shop location is a leading national best practice on entrepreneurship-led economic development it will leapfrog el paso's entrepreneurial ecosystem development and support and strengthen the small business landscape we're very excited about about this intervention we see how cross-sector leaders have aligned around this intervention which is a pre is an important prerequisite success um and we want to thank the city manager as well for his support and this engagement we will be supporting the committee and local leaders on the ground to help them implement this effort and we would love to be able to uplift that as a national best practice on how a latino majority city was able to invest in a very culturally competent way in an innovative best practice around economic development thank you sir the next speaker is lupe mares lupe mares star six please do and meet your telephone lupe mares star sixth place if you're in the queue to unmute your telephone lupe mares not sure if you're in the queue i don't see her phone number in the queue and i don't see anyone unmuting their microphone at this point mayor thank you for that we have a motion in a second yes sir the motion was made by representative salcido seconded by representative lee zaraga to approve item number 30 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes mayor pro tim schwartzman and representative rodriguez not present thank you mr true item number 34 is discussion and action that the city council approves a change order in the the amount of 168 964.54 to lesnar construction inc there is a motion made by representative lisada seconded by representative salcido to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with seven affirmative votes representative rodriguez not present the final item is number 35. this is a presentation and an introduction to to the 48th year 2022-2023 annual action plan for the following federal department of housing and urban development entitlement grants the community development block grant cdbg home investment partnership home housing opportunities for person with aids hopwa and emergency solutions grant esg programs good afternoon miss farina good afternoon mayor and council and the california chief resilience officer if it can bring up the presentation please great thank you so much so um as mentioned in the item uh posting this is the action plan for the 48th year federal entitlement that is the entitlement dollars coming from the department of housing and urban development for the fiscal year 23 next slide please as a reminder when we work towards deploying the entitlement funds the department of community and human development is always working in three major areas to support the strategic plan for the city as well as improve resilience sustainability and equity across our entire community we do that work in three major areas enhancing civic empowerment which is about equity and access as well as sustainability climate action and volunteerism we work predominantly in two other areas with the entitlement human services which is the work that we do in the context of providing funding to service providers in the areas of homelessness health and well-being as well as recreation and lifestyle and finally neighborhood development which is where we push out our work in the context of housing housing affordability affordable housing community revitalization and quality of life next slide please so as a reminder the entitlement that comes from the department of housing and urban development is composed of four federal grants that are aimed at serving low to moderate income populations in the following areas primarily neighborhood development as i mentioned which is housing community revitalization and quality of life as well as human services which are the dollars that we push out to provide services through our non-profit partners in the areas of homelessness health and well-being and recreation and lifestyle in those two areas in this cycle we are projecting that there will be 8.34 million dollars available for neighborhood development those are the public facilities projects that you all are very accustomed to seeing bricks and mortar type investments as well as in the human services area which is traditionally referred to as our public services again money that is granted to non-profit sub-recipients to provide services to the community in the amount of 2.23 million dollars overall you are seeing 10.6 million dollars total projected as available for fiscal year 23 under these entitlements the four entitlement grants that i mentioned are the community development block grant with just over six million dollars the home investment partnership grant which is focused on affordable housing and housing development as well as single-family rehabilitation and first-time homebuyer programs at a little more than 2.5 million dollars the emergency solutions grant which is wholly focused on addressing homelessness in our community at just over one half million dollars and our housing opportunities for persons with aids program at just over seven hundred thousand dollars next slide please just as a reminder the planning process is well underway this process is a year long and it starts when the council adopts our policies and procedures every year for this cycle you all approved the policies and procedures last summer we then move through a very robust process that includes applications from nonprofits as well as receiving citizen request forms in terms of the needs of this community we move through that selection process and it culminates with your adoption of the final action plan today we are introducing the draft annual action plan we will then open the action plan for 30 days of public comment so to be clear we are not requesting any action today we are merely introducing this item and opening it up for that public comment we will bring it back after the 30-day public comment period closes and at that time we will be asking for adoption of the recommended the recommended annual action plan by the council and also as a reminder this funding becomes available on september 1st when the new fiscal year begins next slide a little more detail in the human services category the bulk of these dollars are being invested in addressing homelessness in our community this council has heard me speak many many times about the challenges that we are facing coming out of two years of a global pandemic and the amount of work and coalition building that we have done over the last two years leveraging predominantly recovery dollars this is a return to utilizing our regular entitlement dollars to continue that work we are recommending award to nine community partners uh a little over 1 000 individuals are projected to be served through 10 programs and seven program categories for a total of 1.56 million dollars next slide please these funds as they continue to address homelessness are continuing to address the areas that we've talked about many times homeless prevention in the form of rental assistance case management which we know is so desperately needed in our community to help hold the hands of these individuals as they build back and get on their feet street outreach so that we are accessing those individuals who are most vulnerable where they are and providing them access to services providing expanded shelter and other support services but ultimately culminating in what we hope will be permanent housing opportunities for those individuals that is ultimately the formula for addressing homelessness in our community all four of these areas are very critical in order to provide for the needs of the most vulnerable as we have learned very very well over the last two years next slide please there is also a need to invest in some specialized service programs here what you're seeing is an investment of just over i'm sorry just under three hundred thousand dollars in supporting women who are experiencing homelessness and folks who are um experiencing or survivors of domestic violence um through the center against sexual and family violence and the ywca we are also supporting through our innovative program in incubator this year at eighty thousand dollars a justice involved case management program with the opportunity center for the homeless we have observed over the last two years specifically that there is a large population of justice involved or criminal justice involved uh individuals who are also experiencing homelessness and so case management is extremely critical again in reducing recidivism back into the criminal justice system but also getting folks ultimately housed we are also supporting through our hopwa program housing opportunities for persons with aids once again uh just over 700 000 directly to the city of el paso department of public health who has administered that program for many years very successfully next slide also in the human services category we are supporting programs that are supportive of health and well-being as well as recreation and lifestyle programs throughout this community we've identified seven community partners across seven different programs and are projecting to serve just over two thousand el pasoans across four program categories this number is just over six hundred thousand dollars in investment next slide please you can see here that there's a variety of groups that we are supporting in this area programs for children and youth particularly focused on youth who are in are particularly vulnerable and are in a specific kind of need supporting programs that provide respite and urgent residential care as well as the casa program for which is court appointed special advocates we are also supporting programs that provide for persons with disabilities and our seniors again looking at supporting the money management program for project amistad as well as elderly case management in the area of homelessness with the opportunity center you can see here specifically that while we are supporting health and wellness as well as recreation and lifestyle programs we are still being informed by the vulnerability and the community needs assessments that have been already deployed over the last couple of years and really leaning in where we think we can have the most impact we are also uh supporting recreational uh set-asides for the ywca they're programs for seniors and disabled uh physical recreation we are supporting medical and mental health at just under three hundred thousand dollars again for the section center against sexual and family violence mental health services for survivors of domestic violence as well as integrated primary health care with project vita next slide please neighborhood development these are the bricks and mortar projects that we would have formally referred to as public facilities um we are recommending award to four different community partners with just over 11 000 el pasoans reached five different projects in four different project categories to the tune of just over four million dollars next slide please you can see here that the large-scale recommendation at just well i'll say 2.6 million dollars just over 2.6 million dollars is being recommended uh awarded to home which is our housing authority for the development of the alameda stream center which is in district 8. also on the small scale quality of life projects in districts 2 and 4 we are recommending a variety of projects in both park improvements as well as accessibility upgrades finally we are recommending support ongoing support of our volunteer housing rehabilitation program which is deployed through a non-profit known as rebuilding together they will be focusing on rehabilitating single-family homes through volunteer work in both districts two and four next slide please finally also under neighborhood development our housing programs we are hoping to be able to invest in 89 affordable housing units in three different programming three different program areas this year uh in the amount of 4.2 million dollars this is through the home investment partnership grant and again we have over the last five years and predominantly over the last three since we published our regional housing plan adjusted our program policies so that we can encourage private sector investment and leveraging of funds so that we can produce even more affordable housing units than ever before just as a reminder in previous years the home entitlement was deployed on its own multi-family developments were built entirely utilizing home funds in recent years we have changed that policy to encourage again that private sector investment and leveraging of home funds as a part of the capital stack to produce again more affordable housing units which we know is more important than ever given the state of the housing market today and the economic impact of covid19 next slide please so this is a projection and i i want specifically on this slide to emphasize that these are projections and with the home entitlement we will be watching carefully how effective these programs are and i want to note that ultimately we may come back to this council to shift some of the funding around depending on what we see happening again in the market and on the ground with private development we are at this time recommending 2.5 million dollars for affordable rental housing development which is rehabilitation and or new construction of affordable rental units by developers we are also recommending 1.1 million dollars for our occupied rehab program which is the rehabilitation of single-family homes that are owned and occupied by low to moderate income el pasoans there are some challenges with this program again giving given the current value of housing stock in our community as compared to what the federal regulatory structure will allow so we'll be watching this very closely there is a similar challenge on the first time home buyer assistance program we are currently projecting 600 thousand dollars in that program right now that program provides down payment assistance and closing cost assistance for first-time home buyers who qualify uh one of the challenges that we have is that in previous years the department of housing and urban development has capped the value of the home to be purchased at 165 000 we raised a lot of red flags about that cap earlier this year when we started to see uh the sale price of homes in our community and the availability of homes at 165 000 was extremely limited at best and so uh the department of housing and urban development has recognized the state of the market and has raised that cap but only raised it to 185 000 and so we still are um what i will say is skeptical about how effective this program can be under these market conditions but we will be watching it closely and doing our absolute best to work with el paso and who qualify for this program um as that develops we will be briefing the council uh on any changes that might occur next slide please that's the end of my presentation the only uh final note that i'd like to make um because we we like to brief the council on the overall state of the entitlement as it changes over the course of time and you all will recall that many times i have said that the entitlement has decreased significantly over the past 20 years we recently took a look at our projections for this year as compared to the last 10 years and just to give you an idea of what we are seeing uh cdbg alone has decreased by 40 in the last 10 years about 40 it's 39 and change but that is raw numbers a 40 percent decrease in raw dollars that does not account for any kind of inflation and as we all know particularly in the context of construction projects right now you are your dollars go significantly less far than they would have 10 years ago so a 40 decrease in cdbg represents really a significant obstacle in terms of being able to deliver um large and impactful projects with those dollars and that's just um something that we want to advise the council of and continue to keep you informed about the state of the entitlement and with that i'm happy to take any questions yes representative vanilla and thank you for the presentation yes sir hi nicole thank you i have a question about slide 11 um so i know that district 2 and district 4 are allocated how much money so it's typically a half a million dollars per district and you'll recall that this year this looks a little bit different and we have worked very closely with your office as well as with representative molinar's office based on the number of applications that came into our office that were both eligible and feasible and so these are the projects that fell into both of those categories and so we were able to push some additional dollars into district 2 proper with wainwright park improvements but you know this as well as i that wainwright park is very close to the boundary between district 2 and district 4 and so that's something that we were able to work with both of your offices on so that we could provide that amenity for the community yeah thank you i mean i just wanted to highlight that i think that you know with the cgb cdbg funding it's definitely there are some areas of town district 2 is not one of them where these dollars don't qualify so i'm really glad that we could find a park in the northeast that could benefit both districts so thank you nicole for for bringing that up absolutely representative and with that thank you very much miss ferrini thank you so much mr pride is there a motion to approve the introduction there's a motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative molina to approve the introduction on that motion call for the vote [Applause] it's listed for action okay it's an introduction 30 days for introduction be back in 30 days thank you representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative rodriguez not present that brings us to the end of the agenda is our motion to retire into executive session second there's a motion and a second 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 pursuant to section 3.58 of the el paso city charter in the texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter d to discuss any of the following executive session item one connie patterson jimenez versus city of el paso matter number five five 21-1039-1930 point zero seven one executive session item two texas gas service request to approve continued use of financial instruments for hedging gas costs for the 2022-2023 heating season pattern number 22-108-19 executive session item 3 application of el paso electric company to revise its energy efficiency cost recovery factor and establish revised cost caps public utility commission of texas docket number 53551 matter number 22-108-193-14551.071 executive session item 4 application of el paso electric company to change rates to open access transmission tariff federal energy regulatory commission docket number er 22-282-000 pattern number 21-1008-183 under 551.071 executive session item 5 application of el paso electric company to change rates public utility utility commission of texas talking number 52195 matter number 21-100-174 under 551.071 executive session item 7 purchase lease exchange of real property held by el paso water utilities psb matter number 22-109-1145-100-551.072 and executive session item 8 quarterly litigation report matter number 19-1021-1 these matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney and 551.072 deliberation regarding real property it is 3 15 pm [Music] oh [Music] having a party [Music] council may we have a motion to come out of executive session 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 507 pm mayor pro tem ex-1 that the city attorney be authorized to attend mediation negotiate a settlement agreement for the case entitled paterson jimenez connie versus the city of el paso cause number two zero two zero dcv three three eight nine in addition the city attorney's authorized to sign all necessary documents to effectuate any such settlement under matter number 21-1039-1930 adopt this 24th day of may 2022 let's go mr just go there's a motion made by mayor pro tem shortstein and read into the record and seconded by representative rivera to authorize settlement authority on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes and then i'm not in so i could representative salcido aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representatives angelo and rodriguez not present ex2 ex2 may 24th that the city of el paso the city council of the city of el paso approves the request of texas gas service company a vision of one gas inc for written approval for continued use of financial instruments for hedging gas costs for the 2022-2023 healing season approved this 24th day of may 2020 there's a motion made by mayor pro tem shortstein seconded by representative lee zaraga has read into the record to approve the request on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representatives anello rodriguez not present ex3 ex-3 motion made second and carry that the city attorneys authorized or attained norman gordon his outside counsel and any other necessary consultants in consultation with the city manager finance intervention in the application revised its energy efficiency cost recovery factor filed by el paso electric on may 2nd 2022 under public utility commission at texas docket number 53551 and soah docket number 473-22-2610 approved this 24th day of may two thousand and twenty two second there's a motion made by mayor pro tem schwartzman second by representative rivera has read into the record to file an intervention on that motion call for the vote representative fernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative zanelo rodriguez not present ex4 no action ex-5 ex-5 motion made second seconded and carried the city attorney and city manager authorized settlement authority to sign all settlement documents to resolve all issues in texas public utility commission docket number 52195 application el paso electric for rate change representative schwartz fine mayor pro temp if i if we may we have a short presentation for the council and the public to see the proposed settlement before you all vote on the item okay and then members of el paso electric obviously are here to answer your questions so so council also mr norman gordon is on teams available towns or questions if you have questions from him as well thank you mr neiman that's right and then also on the line is outside counsel for el paso electric mr brett's logo this is dawn davey with the city attorney's office to discuss the application of el paso electric to change its reach in the proposed settlement well you know it we need the presentation for ex5 please this open session item it's the one that's labeled it's labeled open session yes council it's in the on the flash drive it's titled open session for ex5 now uh once again this is uh donald dave from the city attorney's office to discuss the application of el paso electric to change its rates in the proposed settlements here's a history and timeline of el paso electric's rate case el paso electric filed their case back in june of 2021 in october uh 20th the 2021 city council denial passed last el paso electric's request for an increase november 3rd would be the effective date for the implementation of these rates a past electric in the city and the under interveners entered into mediation discussions on february 24th settlement discussions continued in march through may and we're here today to present settlement presentation to city council here's a general overview of the settlement terms of the rate case originally and under el paso electric's filed request they requested a 48 41 41. 41.8 million dollar increase so the overall impact to revenue there was ultimately a settlement of 13.5 million dollars which is a 68 reduction from el paso electric's original request or about a 28.3 million dollar differential under el paso electric's original request they requested a rate of return of 10.3 percent and that was ultimately settled or proposed settled of 9.35 percent other items regarding revenue increases are the depreciation expense and a coveted expense rider and deferred income tax as can be seen on the screen other settlement terms with regard to rate design have to do with the dg solar fee the monthly sgs charge and ultimate impact to residential base rate the dg solar fee was an increase of 25 cents there was a five percent reduction in the monthly sgs charge and about a 12 reduction uh under a proposed settlement for the impact of the base rates this graph shows the the total rate pair in the 13.5 rate ratepayer impact and how it's broken down in this graph which about 5.15 million is to the base rate increase about six million dollars to retiring plants about a million dollars in rate case expense at about 1.6 million dollars in covet expenses this number is fairly further reduced by excess community deferred income taxes about six million dollars for a total impact on rate payers of about 7.5 approximately 7.5 million dollars the overall impact to the average residential monthly bill as originally proposed and filed bypass electric would have increased the average residential monthly bill approximately ten dollars a month under the proposed settlement the increase would be approximately two dollars and twenty cents other factors and additional savings as part of this proposed settlement is a reduction in the purchase price of the isleta right away purchased by el paso electric to approximately eight million dollars as of 12 31 22 and this is uh applicable to the texas rate payers additionally there was a reduction of approximately 500 thousand dollars to a spare turbine purchase by el paso electric other settlement terms as discussed before in the first slide there's a relation back of the effective date of these implementation of these rates to november 3rd 2021 proposed approval of interim rates and conditional approval of the settlement would be conditional on final wording in the settlement documents i'm available to take any questions along with norman gordon who's online and el paso electric is also here with their representatives representative hernandez hi no thank you for um that presentation i do have a question for el paso electric representatives if they're available jim he's on his way up he just got here okay there's a delay on my hand um hi there uh so i understand that the settlement agreement says that this that um it will allocate newman's sixth cost as a system resource what does that mean and what is um epe's intent so the the um the settlement adopts a what's called a baseline for generation for use of the the generation cost recovery rider when newman 6 goes into goes into commercial operation so just as with the dcrf and the tcrf the the um the generation baseline is set based on on the outcome of this case in terms of how the dollars are allocated and and a system resource reference is basically saying that newman 6 when epe filed at ccn was identified as a resource for both jurisdictions so it was it was originally procured as part of our portfolio with solar resources and battery to serve texas and new mexico so what the gcrr baseline does in the settlement is it adopts the percentage um that's applicable to texas at least pursuant to the ccn which is about 80 percent of the total okay so if i'm understanding um you said that there was two jurisdictions so that's new mexico and texas correct so why would why would we have a baseline for new mexico if we're in texas no the baseline's for texas so the texas so what is the intent with that provision can you can you clarify because you as you're aware um this and i think you and i and others have had conversations before um we want to be clear to the public on what your intentions are with human six we need to have transparent conversations about that so can you clarify what el paso electric's intent is with that language so again specifically it is to identify the portion of of newman unit six that as a result of the ccn is has texas has cost responsibility for that portion so 80 percent our current allocation of most production resources between texas and new mexico is approximately 80 20 because texas is about 80 percent of our total sales new mexico is the other twenty percent so in in light of um the in light of what's happening in new mexico and that legislation um is there gonna be any different intent or is there going to be any different requests that the rate payers of el paso and texas can expect so what will be what we will be doing is evaluating whether or not additional amounts of newman 6 would be appropriate for texas but none of that if if we go that route that evaluation takes place outside of the rate case in other words the only thing the rate case is authorizing through the stipulation is really reflecting is what has already been authorized by the commission in texas when they approve the ccn so what it means for the the um for the commission the texas commission to approve newman 6 as a system resource is that the only allocation for texas is texas's usual proportional which is about 80 percent so with this language um allow for a system share across both jurisdictions um i believe there's actually language in the stipulation to the effect that the the 80 and the 80 percent is actually laid out in the stipulation itself for texas and there's language in the stipulation that says there's no authorization for anything beyond the 80 percent unless epe goes back to the commission and requests it and gets it and so the stipulation is very clear about texas's portion of newman unit six and that's the 80 right but is that the intent for it to be 80 percent i mean i mean can you just explain so that the average um typical ratepayer in el paso understands that your intent is for 80 is that the intentable pass electric today so that yes so the at least with respect to the settlement in the rate case the intent is 80 as as you know we're always looking as to whether or not texas needs additional resources and so when we're evaluating new resources for texas it'll be based on what is what is the most cost effective way to serve to serve texas if that means that our evaluation says that taking the rest of newman 6 and serving texas is cost effective for texas we have to consider that because that's certainly the way the commission looks at what should be authorized for for serving customers but that is for consideration later at least with respect to the stipulation here there's no i don't think there's any question i think mr gordon would agree and and in fact he had the the la you know the language that we have in there specifically to address this issue is that the only thing that the stipulation authorizes for newman 6 and texas purposes is the 80 okay so if i'm understanding correctly currently uh your your this this language would say that the 80 percent would be um for texas ratepayers but you're saying that down the road after consideration for the additional 20 which would make the hundred percent for el paso ratepayers it may they may be better off by having that entire system serve um this this jurisdiction however i i think that's what i understood and i don't i'm just trying to paraphrase so i can convey this to my constituents however that is starchily different from what um you all had told us in the beginning and so i take issue with that because when you all give us your word um i i go back to my constituents and i said this is what the pastor electric has said this is what i am supportive and this is why i want to collaborate and work with the utility so when so when that changes it puts us in a predicament of like there's no trust here it's lies um there's other intentions there's other motivations and so why i'm asking if the intent is to share that that resource at newman six for the entire jurisdiction in texas then you need to be clear and honest with that because that is not what el paso electric has said in the beginning and if you want to have continued conversations and trust and relationships with with this jurisdiction that has regulatory authority over this utility then you need to be honest about your intentions not an exploration tell us what that what what your end goal is well there is no there is no end goal the goal is to identify the the best resources the lowest cost resources and best resources to serve our customers so when the ccn was originally issued for for um newman 6 and up in texas it was specifically that it was a we proposed it as a system resource we proposed as as we did the the other 200 megawatts of solar the battery storage facility that was all proposed as system resources and it was proposed specifically because that selection that portfolio of resources was the low-cost answer portfolio to serve all of our customers when it was when when that was rejected in new mexico it didn't change the 80 percent um portion for texas as i think is clearly laid out um uh in the in the stipulation um and that's why the 80 is in there for the baseline um but that doesn't mean we don't in the future evaluate okay now we we need more resources for texas what's the least cost resources available to customers i don't think that the answer is to say well we'll we'll accept a higher cost resources to serve our customers because we don't want to use the remaining 20 of newman that's an analysis that needs to occur as we evaluate other resources costs of other resources that hasn't happened yet and so i can't tell you what the outcome of that will be i will tell you that we we look at the the lowest cost way to serve reliably serve our customers okay and then just for um uh for for purposes of the public i want to read the language where i'm taking issue with and i have concern about past elections intent um it says under the agreement a baseline is set for the future gcrr filings the agreed gcrr baseline includes a jurisdictional allocator consistent with the treatment of new men unit 6 as a system resource which will be used unless epe petitions outside a gcr are filing and the treatment as a statement resource is then otherwise modified in a subsequent commission order and so um it's it's unclear to me what the intent is i wanted to share that with the public so they're fully aware on what is being proposed by el paso electric for me that is saying that texans may be on the hook for for additional cost um a commitment that el paso electric that if you do change that um you are changing your word uh to this body and so i wanted to be clear that i have concerns with this and that when when there is a potential change or a modification then then be reminded that this is going to be a concern from this body thank you i'll just say i think that the that that condition in the stipulation is very clear and that is that nothing can happen with respect to newman 6 and texas ratepayer is beyond the 80 percent unless it's petitioned separately by the company and approved by the commission and and is is that electric's intention to separately modify and go back to the commission for modified uh stipulations so that texans would be on the hook for new mexicans portion well i would say texas would texan texas customers would would be receiving the lowest cost resources available but um that analysis hasn't been done yet so i it there is no intention other than to always evaluate all the resources available to our texas customers and our new mexico customers and provide them the lowest cost reliable resources is it the intention of el paso electric to conduct an analysis to make texans rate payers responsible for that 20 percent the analysis is to determine the best resources low-cost resources to reliably serve texas that's the analysis that will take place but what is the reasoning for the analysis to be determined at this time is it so that we can determine where those 20 percent will be recouped or is it to or is it to determine what is in the best interest of texans it is the second to determine what is in the best interest of our texas customers with respect to price and reliability thank you for your time thank you representatives mayor pro tem yeah um representative uh hernandez brought up a lot of my issues and concerns can you tell us here today that you're not going to petition the puc for for recovering the 20 for new mexico no as i said um you know that requires an analysis to determine what the the best the best portfolio of resources is needed to serve texas so so no i wouldn't make that commitment my our commitment is to is to find the the lowest cost reliable set of resources to serve our texas customers that's it even if we have to pay for new mexico's resources as well you're not paying for new mexico resources there's 20 that was going to go to new mexico if in the entire if the entire newman six hypothetically the power station was used to serve texas texas would only be paying for the power that they get they're not paying for power that someone else is getting they're just paying for a resource that's supplying them again the analysis is to turn that future analysis is to determine what's the best portfolio of resources i i think it would be irresponsible for us to determine that that the lowest cost set of reliable resources to serve texas includes all of newman six but we're not gonna do it we're gonna do something more expensive i just i just i don't think i i don't i don't think the way that you're framing it is is particularly honest about it the reality is that is that the new mexico puc made it made a statement to look out for their consumers we here in el paso have only one energy provider with result which is el paso electric and with your lack of commitment towards going to the puc you're going to saddle texans el pasoans with the costs of new mexico's p new mexico's part of newman six i'm just trying to understand as simple as possible why should our community pay for new mexico and pay for their energy here today they should not texas customers will not pay for new mexico energy but again that only happens if you don't if you commit towards not petitioning the puc of texas are you willing to do that here today no then then we will be paying for it we have the potential for texas customers will never pay for energy supply to new mexico again you're asking for the recovery you built newman sixth i'll pass electric belt newman six with the expectation that the system would pay the back that that capital expense both new mexicans and texans for it and clearly in this language it says that you can petition for the texas puc to recover all of the costs of the system resource and all of the and all of the power will be supplied to texas in that instance again it i again i think representative hernandez has said it as well you know this is asking this is a a lack of confidence building with this you're not willing to go and commit here today towards towards us not having to pay outside of our portion of us having to pay for this cost when it was communicated at the beginning with newman six which this council had issues with that we would not be paying for um overbuilding of this structure and we wouldn't be paying for new mexico and what we hear what we're hearing here today is that we that down the road at some point you might go to the puc of texas and saddle this community with another cost that we had no choice in in controlling again texas customers will not pay for power that they don't receive that is supplied to new mexico are you willing to commit to not going to the puc to pay for those portions no our commitment is to provide the lowest cost power and reliable resources to our texas customers and and i understand that and that's a great mission statement on behalf of el paso electric but it doesn't change the fact that our community is going to be saddled yet again with the potential cost from el paso electric that we didn't ask for and questionable if we need thank you mayor pro tem jim tonight so based on all the questions we've had right now when you go for reimbursement of newman six [Music] well we only have to pay 80 percent of it and if we have to pay at some point 100 of it you said only the el paso or texas um customers will have the ability to use newman six as they paid for is that correct i didn't catch the last part be able to so you're saying if we have if texas has to pay hundred percent of newman six only texas will have the the ability to use newman six for energy of course so new mexico if not pain port will have to have energy from other sources and those sources that would have been available to texas without newman six no we'll purchase we will procure resources specifically for new mexico and newman six when we talked about building newman six one of the reasons was it was going to be more efficient and provide power at a lesser cost to the citizens of el paso so we'll see some of those savings based on that yes it was as i as i stated earlier newman 6 was identified as a portion of the portfolio of resources to do just that to supply the lowest cost possible for reliable resources to serve texas load newman six as you said is more efficient it uses by our estimates about 600 million gallons less water per year than the other resources that at uh at the newman station that it's replacing but ultimately the the determination of that set of resources was based on price and reliability uh the ability to serve load at peak in the future that same analysis takes place the first question is do we need additional resources to serve texas load because of low growth in texas and retirement of other resources um and then an evaluation is done of okay what's the best set of resources to supply the that that load um if if and that and that is open to all resources it's open to solar resources and wind resources and natural gas resources and anything else that's available um and and based on cost that analysis is done to say okay what's the portfolio or what resources are best to serve this load at the lowest possible price it's the same analysis that we do every time we look at having to um to procure additional resources to serve load so based on on what you just told me new mexico ratepayers will pay more because they won't have the ability to utilize newman sixes they didn't pay any any anything for it well typically yes capacity resources i mean gas resources like newman six are probably the lowest cost capacity resource um and so you know new mexico is probably looking at additional storage resources battery energy storage additional um other resources like like solar which contribute less to peak but they can they can supply demand and energy so what we're looking at is is just that it's identifying the resources to serve texas and identifying the resources to serve new mexico but but i i don't want to i want to make sure we're clear about this newman 6 at least as it is today 80 of it is authorized to to serve texas and that's what the gcrr baseline and the and those percentages are identified in the stipulation for exactly that reason so that we can move forward with that same um 80 percent and say this is the amount that that goes to not only is this is the amount of the plant energy and capacity that'll be supplied to texas but it's the amount of the cost that would be recovered in order to justify a larger percentage of that for texas it would be we need additional resources to serve texas that's the first question and then the second would be okay what's the lowest cost way to supply those resources and in that in in a hypothetical where we do that analysis and we say those additional available newman resources are the best thing for texas then that's what we propose to do it it's a it's a very big hypothetical because you have to even identify all the resources how much texas needs but yes i mean that's the process but from the perspective of the stipulation there's no question that nothing has changed from the original ccn regarding the 80 percent for texas and i think this body wants to be assured that our ratepayers get the lowest rate possible and they don't pay for energy that someone's not willing to pitch in and pay for the technology that will provide that type of energy and if you know and i'd like to make sure that you know your commitment that says all of the production from newman six would go to the el paso or texas ratepayers as we're paying for that plan and will entitle us to a little classic right exactly because i think that's really important and uh and you know and there's their way to to look at that uh a chart that shows us the savings based on newman six and and non-savings to new mexico ratepayers because they're not utilizing that technology would that be a way for us to be able to check and balance well again if if the if the in the hypothetical the decision was ultimately made to go to the commission the texas commission and say here's a set of resources to serve additional texas load then that analysis would have to demonstrate of all the resources available to ep that this the ones that were selected are the lowest cost reliable resources to serve and then in that instance i would say yes that's exactly what we show we show the cost of all the competing portfolios and we should and we demonstrate that the one that we've selected is the lowest cost set of resources and it's i think representative hernandez very well said that we don't want but and you said we wouldn't but i think it's important would we repeat it that we don't want to pay for technology for another state that's not willing to you know to carry their weight when it comes to developing this type of technology and so it's very clear that we do not want to pay for it and and i and i i'm hearing you saying that we will not and we want your word that we won't have to pay for it and you said that we wouldn't i mean you've said it more than once so well whatever yes what i've said is what i've said is in the rape case what we're talking about here right um uh nothing has changed um and anything and and that language is in the stipulation specifically to make the point that nothing has changed and and that and that for anything to change in the future requires future proceedings future analysis and everything else and so we made an attempt in the stipulation to draw a line at least with respect to newman six and say that rate case does not affect anything that's that's happened so far with respect to what has already been approved for newman six and it's obvious that we would have the opportunity to intervene in in in that type of uh if that ever happened yes all right thank you sir no other question just thank you again for your time thank you mayor pro tem yeah i just also said i think one of the things that was shown on here is also that the distributed generation uh solar minimum has also been increased and i'm curious about what are the thoughts from el paso electric about that increase to our our residents you've been here all day once a couple more minutes i'll just stick around um so the the um you're referring to the 30 minimum bill yes the quarter increase in that so so again in the and you know in a settlement agreement all the parties lay out their their sides um and then all of the parties come to an agreement um that agreement is primarily between um or the issue i would say is primarily not between the the company and and um but but um the staff of the puc um and other parties to say we need to it's essentially a negotiated amount um and and i think one rationale would be that rates are going up for all residential customers and so the baseline would increase um slightly uh 25 cents over the 30 dollars but again i would i would characterize that as a settlement uh condition for settlement um to get an agreement with all parties do you think these increases on the solar minimum help to develop a solar solar economic development opportunities in our community well i'll tell you that i think that the the minimum bill is is primarily um a mechanism to reduce the amount of subsidy to dg customers paid by non-dg customers it it isn't intended to either encourage or discourage rooftop solar and in fact um to go back to the 2017 case where it was originally came out of another cell excuse me another settlement um solar installations in in texas exploded after the 30 minimum bill i don't necessarily attribute it to the minimum bill but it clearly didn't hold anything back with respect to to expanded rooftop solar production do you would you support a lowering of the solar of the solar minimum in future ray cases um i'll say that there's a provision in um that is being considered in the i'm being careful here just because you know the all the parties have not signed on to the stipulation but one um provision that's considered there is a commitment by the company to work with all the parties to look at specifically that the whether it's the minimum bill you'll recall we at one time had proposed a demand charge for dg customers so the commitment is to look at this going forward after the rate case to to look at the options for for um dg rate design okay thank you thank you remember proto ms neiman mayor if the council doesn't have any other questions you can move forward with considering the motion that's map we don't thank you thank you believe i read it into the record already do we have uh second by representative the motion was made by mayor pro tem schwarzwein seconded by representative rivera and this is to that the city attorney and city manager be authorized settlement authority to sign all settlement documents to resolve all issues in texas public utility commission docket number 52195 application of el paso electric for rate change on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with five affirmative votes mayor pro tim schwartzman voting nay representative zanelo rodriguez not present ex7 no action ex-8 no action is there a motion to turn so moved there's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed no and the regular city council meeting for tuesday may 24 2022 is adjourned at 5 48 pm good job everyone good night you