foreign foreign got in trouble Miss Primus at nine o'clock how are you good morning good morning good morning uh Rivera was coming over here oh there's my phone well if it's nine o'clock we have a quorum good morning everyone it's 9 A.M and we do have a quorum morning here's Prime good morning good this is a special meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday July 11 2023 it is 902 a.m mayor Lisa is present and presiding along with mayor Pro temanello alternate mayor protemolinal representative Salcido representative Canales representative Kennedy is running a few minutes late and representative Fierro has requested to be excused today and also entering the room is representative Rivera mayor we have a corn thank you can we write for the pledge please sir my pledge allegiance of the United States thank you sir good morning everyone I um I want to thank everyone for I thought it was a very productive day yesterday we covered a lot of stuff and I know that uh a lot of the stuff we covered yesterday A lot of the stuff we covered today was covered on a one-on-one basis in uh so a lot of questions I know that could have been asked yesterday have been asked and answered and so I do think again the team for preparing us to be able to you know understand it get a little better and continue to work together to come up with a budget that again I'm looking forward to a no Revenue budget that's really important to our community and I know we have a lot of things that we want to do and you know it's very simple to have a huge wish wish list and then add it all to to the budget but it's also really important that we look at the future of our community in the in the future of how do we do it in a systematic way so we don't have to continue to have huge impacts we don't go out and buy 300 police cars and finance them over 25 years and then five years later we have put on a police cars that need to be replaced again and that's a problem so I want to make sure that we do have enough police cars fire trucks EMS units but that we have a system that is replaced on a yearly basis so at the end of five years we've continued to always have new new units and units that when someone calls 9-1-1 they you're going to get there you know and that's that's very important so um I'm looking for I know we've had this conversation about uh equipment and I know Mr Bristol um went over some of the equipment that's important also to the facilities that we need to continue to look at in a replacement method so again I want to thank the team Colonel Washington and your team for um working with us prior to so this becomes more impactful and meaningful as we all kind of understand the budget so thank you again for everyone being here I know that we got a lot of people that have a lot of things to do out there day in and day out but uh being here today means a lot to us so thank you Colonel Weston yeah thank you mayor before we get started today good first of all good morning everybody um just for the city council members we are tracking again all the the questions that you are asking that we uh oh you answers on and so what we're doing is the same shared folder that you have received all of your presentations that'll be the folder that you'll go to to get the answers to the budget questions as we as we put these together now some of these will be in the form of presentations that we actually show all the the council here within this forum uh but just to let you know where you can find those things and we'll make sure that all the questions do get get addressed because some of these do involve presentations one of the carryovers from yesterday before we actually get into moving forward with the the remainder of the safe and beautiful neighborhoods gold team presentation was just a little bit more on CIT and so what I'd like to do to start this off this morning is for us to finish the CIT ation uh based on the additional information that we need to present this morning so Steph go ahead thank you sir thank you chief and just an announcement before before we get started because there's a fan in the in the room there's a bit more background noise so we'll need everybody to please speak clearly into the microphone so we can all hear thank you yeah wherever Chief cheers goes there's a lot of fans so I get it so so did we have a do we have a presentation that we were going to be bringing up to finish that okay let's go ahead and do that yes sir IIT will you please bring up the crisis intervention team presentation thank you so um Ellen's my chief Champion Field operations officer I wanted to introduce Nicole farini she's the new gold team eight leader um so she's gotten her promotion here and she's going to be presenting for goal eight thank you but we're starting with our crisis intervention team presentation and then we'll be going to as as Mr Weston said we'll be going to the neighborhood traffic Management program and then we'll be going to go late thank you and for the record representative Hernandez is also present in the meeting good morning everybody Peter pacias interim chief police next slide please covered this yesterday so um I'm just going to go through these uh we started CIT in 2018 with a partnership with ehn next slide please currently this is our staffing a total of 25 Personnel sworn personnel next slide please these are the calls for service through the insta institution of CIT all the way through year to date of this year being June as far as it goes that's over 40 000 calls that we've already handled by CIT officers and their partner with ehn next slide please next slide please not in trouble I didn't so we covered this slide yesterday on a 24 hour 24 7 schedule and we were asked to look at it just for the graveyard shift so I'll pass this slide over next slide please so this is the slide uh looking at uh for the graveyard shift only what the the need is as far as that goes it would be a patrol officers uh two sergeants eight Mental Health Specialists from ehn and one of their supervisors the equipment that would be needed to staff this unit and the vehicle maintenance cost with a total cost of 2 million uh just a little over two million dollars and I'll be going into some other slides to explain where ideally we would prefer to put these officers if we were to move officers into additional officers into the CIT unit because we have a heavier time burden for Mental Health crisis and then the upcoming slides some of the equipment that would come over obviously wouldn't be all at one time we would have to either bringing Personnel over from our Patrol ranks or and the vehicles from our Patrol ranks also the various equipment next slide please we're also asked to break down the calls for service per shift so our CIT shifts work the day shift works from 8 A.M to 6 p.m and the evening shift works from 2 to 12. and we have an overlap of these two shifts between two and six because that's where our Peak calls for service come or people that are in emergency crisis and at year to date the end of June they've already handled over 595 calls of people in crisis that need immediate the mental health medical care the day shift handled 169 of these calls and the evening shift handled 193 calls and since we have an overlap from two to six that's where the heaviest uh burden is is on our staffing for CIT where they handle bull shifts handled 229 calls we do have a mechanism should graveyards need a CIT CIT officers and their counterparts from ehn can be called out at any time these are calls that typically are a little bit more than a patrol can handle but they don't rise to the level of our crisis management team and our SWOT response so our CIT officers get called out to handle those and year to date we've had four of those call outs so I'll go back once again so looking at these numbers on this slide right here and then the previous slide with our graveyard shift the ideal place to put these officers these additional officers would be what we refer to as a baker shift and what the baker shift does is it puts additional officers in the time frame and the places where the activity is happening so these additional eight officers we would have them working mainly the overlap hours of uh two to two to six so they'll start a few hours before two and they'll work past the uh the 6 p.m time frame so that way with that mechanism in place we would now be able to have CIT we estimate to handle 70 to 75 percent of these emergent mental health calls relieving Patrol of having to handle these calls because currently right now Patrol is handling over 50 percent of these emergent uh mental health calls and CIT handling the the remainder of those so ideally the best place to put these officers would be during the busiest hours in those evening time time frame which brings me to the last slide next slide please uh we were out no we we were also asked about response times so for the first uh for the quarter um as you can see for FY 23123 uh quarter our party one calls were about 26 minutes responding to our Priority One calls and we are up from the previous year now representative Canalis asked what we would uh what what we would need as far as it goes and we said personnel and equipment and Facilities if you look at the call cards when they come through from the time somebody calls for help to the time that that whole time frame is going once the officers are available and they get that call whether it's a priority one priority two priority three a priority four call we're getting to those calls within seven minutes the problem is is that the officers are busy out there and that's why we have the 20 26 minutes uh response time but once they get the call we're getting there within seven minutes on average on all four priority calls so it's a factor of personnel and Staffing which we're all working working towards with the academy classes the recruiting and all of those things and as a mayor said working into the into the problem with a plan uh as far as it goes so with the different mechanisms in place the new CBA uh the the heavy recruitment that we're doing the multiples Academy classes and our work to retain our personnel with uh the contract and different types of benefits through the pension system we're hoping that we can start getting ahead of this problem and with that uh I'll leave it open for any questions related to the material you asked for us yesterday any additional questions thank you Chief thank you colonel yes sir let's go ahead and uh and move to goal eight of safe and beautiful neighborhoods so is that what is that Mr Weston would you like to hear we have the additional detail for the neighborhood traffic Management program as well would you like to hear that now or after goal eight no I mean from from the conversation from yesterday okay do we have anything else besides that as a carryover no it includes street lights as well so yeah let's hear that first okay if it could please bring up the presentation 2D well it brings it up um Richard do you want to go ahead and start and kind of discuss Richard Bristol streets of maintenance what we're going to put up real quick are the number of applications and the present um build out status on on the ntmp here it is okay so on this first chart at the very top that is looking at installations over the last four years from fiscal 20 to 23. there's a corresponding number for each location we gave an average to show we've been on average putting 14 up a year with uh that would include 44 actual cushions um the next chart would probably be best if I went to the bottom one because that's by District so right now we have 146 applications on record 66 have been deemed eligible they've met the criteria there are 22 that are currently uh in evaluation and there's 44 that are still in the queue and have not been reviewed yet so these are the active applications for ntmp and a really quick reminder we had changed the criteria last year our traffic volume 500 a day 10 percent have to be going five percent or more over the speed limit to qualify that's another modification that we made to go to the 90th percentile last year and through that we were able to qualify some additional streets our build out plan for the present year are these 16 I apologize it's not fitting in there very well but I do have the backup for you we have numerous installations completed but we're still in progress on six of them that we will get done this summer I I want to add that depending on how bad the monsoon season goes this could affect our installations because the same Crews that do these installations are the same ones that are working on the patching teams because part of our process is to replace the asphalt mat so that our our cushions will will the spokes will go through and they'll lock and they'll be in tight so we're actually do a little bit of a modification to the asphalt when we do the installations as far as what's in queue and what's eligible those 44 here they are um and this is the order so this is obviously our work list starting for next fiscal year and we will get as far down this list as we can what we don't get done we'll have to carry over to the next fiscal year and in addition here are um the applications that I had mentioned I there's several of them that will be in the back up this goes up to the 146 of them so I don't want to take too much of the council's time but these will be in the backup as far as the individual applications for the streets and and the status on them in addition to that there's a question on street lights and the petition program um we had 72 requests in the petition program this previous year and these are the ones most of them have been done there are a couple that are still open and again these are for the residential street lights so that's the program that we have it's citizen initiated uh it'll be a hundred thousand dollars in this program in the present in the next year as there was in this present year and as you can see it is a popular program people do use it so that is for residential street lights only though um and of course that is what the backup as well thank you for the update on that representative Hernandez good morning mayor and Council and staff Administration Mr Bristol thank you for the presentation um I wanted to get an understanding the average is 14 was that based on the available funding or is it just the way it line due to time constraints and other things of that nature that's what we're able to accomplish ma'am with the resources that we have available we're able to get that much done and they require a lot of uh there's a lot of meetings there's a lot of interaction but since we've changed the process last year it's going a lot smoother and it's requiring less meetings that's why we anticipate getting more than that 14 done next year because our process has now changed do you do you have an understanding of the average costs per application and I know it varies because there's longer streets and there's more cushions or could you explain what the cost would be for just one speed cushion it could be anywhere from 7 500 to 8 000. because it's it's including more than just the uh the rubberized cushion like I mentioned it's including us replacing the asphalt mat that it's placed on and I've I've been to a lot of your meetings I've heard a lot of the complaints but sometimes the the cushions pop loose and and they do the lesson that we've learned is dig a deeper asphalt mat and it will adhere quicker so there's a little extra cost for us to install that mat but it's giving us a better product at the end of the day so that's why we're doing that okay so it includes the cut into the street includes the rubberized cushion and staff the removal of the excavation will deep dig at least two more inches and then we'll have a thicker mat and then the installation the installation would require signage it's going to include uh Lane lines in some cases there's Lane lines and markings involved in some cases there are speed feedback signs involved as well so it could include more than just actual speed cushions um so there's a gamut of tools that we can use in the program it just depends on each individual Street what the Traffic Engineers have deemed the safest possible alternative okay and um so I think last year we allocated 250 000 I may be I'm I may be wrong but I'm just I'm trying to get a sense of of that 44 if we can accomplish at least half of it yeah and I remember the prior year we had committed to doing 20. at least 20 and I mean it's the number one request we get in our office I'm trying to understand if there could be an easier or more affordable low-cost way that we can accomplish the goal of the program while simultaneously addressing the traffic issues and neighborhoods because I mean on a weekly basis we're getting a requests for applications we're getting concerns about Speedy drivers and if it's not us directing them to the par unit because we'll know at times that there's somebody in the neighborhood who's speeding then the immediate request would be a speed cushion and then what we know is that when you place a speed cushion in one street it redverts the traffic to another Street and so it's just this Perpetual state of request for Speed cushions and it is popular over over the years I mean before there were about five thousand now that it's gone up in price and I'm just trying to understand if there's more that we can do with the 350 000 and if we can at least tackle the entire list another thing we're going to try next year because changing the criteria helped us substantially because that eliminated the requirement to have additional meetings so that's getting him qualified quicker that's why we have a longer list right now than we did last year this time so what we're going to try next year we're going to utilize a third party to help us on some of the more tedious things that like for example we're placing an asphalt mat um if if we can have that done by a third party faster rather than having to wait for our our program to be able to get to it because our guys are still patching potholes during the course they're working this into the queue of their work we can have a third party do that with some additional funding that are in the budget this year we think we're going to be able to get it done a little bit quicker because we're not having to rely on ourselves to get that part done I mean I think we're at a point now Richard where I would encourage us to come back with some Innovative and eloquent solutions to some of these problems that we have year over year for example if we have a repaving contract and we know these crews are going to be in the street and we know that there's some down time because they're waiting for inspectors or utility companies can we look at a potential change order so that we can add funding to their contract so that they can go do it install it we want to do this on a separate contract away from the street researching and have a solely for ntmp so that we're not we're not mixing two programs together or or look at an on-call yes that's exactly I'll call contract that I see in other departments um I really think there might be a better way to get more at a lower rate a lower cost we want to try and see if we can knock out more than we've done these previous years next year with these rules changed and with a little more resources to try and get a little more help for us we think we're going to be a little bit further now and you know what we will come in front of you we're born happy to give a presentation at a work session and if we're not moving at the right speed we can address it right then and there we can we can figure ways to get around that but that's our plan right now okay we've expedited applications by the change in the process and we want to expedite installations by making another change in that process and not having to rely on our patching crew so much yeah and and I also think um the ntp application should reflect that Traffic Engineers will place those copy cushions wherever they feel it's space best for safety concerns yes yes ma'am that's in the ntp it's in the criteria we're we're still assuming we have a Spanish one language one we have an English language one so we have some work to do on our on our comprehensive document and part of that has been uh has been detailed in it okay so that we're putting it out front so they understand we're going to make a safety judgment based on the scientific data and not have a dialogue with the community about where these will go I'll give an example a constitution your mind applied back in 2017 or 2018 and got their speed cushion installed by 2022 the beginning 2022. so there is a I think this the change will expedite and we appreciate those those recommendations I'm just more concerned about how do we you know achieve economies of scale address you know the much needed request and then save save money in the process so I would welcome those discussions just a quick question on street light what was the total amount of street light applications we achieved last year for the uh 72 petition lights with 150 000 the hundred thousand years a hundred thousand okay thank you okay I think that the next presentation and let's add one thing real quick I think it's important with the dialogue you're having today that the rules have changed a little bit this year and I want to make sure and we'll do that in a work session on what the rules are and not just an application but what it takes and and that'll be something that we can do on a moving up in a work session so the community and us as a group are aware of what uh what the regulations and rules are thank you so go ahead Nicole you can bring up your presentation all right if it can bring up that presentation for me please the goal eight yep so good morning while it's bringing that presentation at uh Nicole farini climate and sustainability officer um this will be my first goal late presentation so Ellen thank you for that introduction earlier today I'm happy to get us refocused on safe and beautiful neighborhoods this morning um let me see if I can get us back where we were just as a quick reminder Eleanor already went through this uh goal eight lives within safe and beautiful neighborhoods along with Goal two and goal seven I'm warming up foreign is really about nurturing and promoting a healthy and sustainable community and you have four departments within goal eight you have community and human development Animal Services Public Health and environmental services in terms of our 2024 priorities what you're going to see across the board with all of the Departments is that we are looking at enhancing customer service and enhancing responsiveness with the resources that we have and so in Animal Services they are focused on expanding that service and to the community not just our human Community but our furry community providing better Services keeping them healthier as well looking into pet welfare but doing that really by leveraging Innovative technology and Partnerships and you'll see that later in terms of the planned accomplishments in community and human development coming out of the two and a half three years or so of covid-19 and really having leaned into some of the federal funding that supported our homelessness programs our mental health programs our street Outreach programs a lot of the different food security issues that we've been dealing with in our community what we're really looking to in fy24 is maintaining and our federally funded Community programs through the regular entitlement as we start to wean off of some of that other Federal funding that infused our department for the record of Representative Kennedy is also present in the meeting good morning in Environmental Services again that focus on enhancing the resident experience by upgrading citizen collection stations constructing six new landfill cells and really looking at new landfill scales Public Health being strategic about how we address the needs of our community the health needs of our community and primarily some of the most vulnerable in our community which also speaks to what community and human development is doing as well but being strategic about that and using the information that they have gathered over the course of the last several years and the lessons they've learned through covid-19 so planned accomplishments for Animal Services continuing the no kill effort leading to a 90 percent life-saving rate again leveraging Partnerships for enhanced veterinary services and really getting out there and being able to be responsive to the needs of the community decreasing the number of animals in the shelter daily increasing the number of adoptions and reducing the euthanasia and died in care instances again leveraging that technology and partnership in community and human development again just really leaning in on managing and maintaining the HUD entitlement programs that support our homeless Services primarily in our community you all have just adopted and passed an action plan a capital Improvement program for vulnerable populations that will last for the next three years and so we're very grateful that that was adopted because we can lean in now on delivering those projects we will be maintaining our arpa funded El Paso helps initiative again increasing access to services for the vulnerable population primarily addressing Street Outreach and homelessness that is an arpa funded program so we'll just be maintaining that we're going to begin development within community and human development of a standard climate action plan as indicated in Proposition C the community progress Bond last year Environmental Services as I mentioned constructing those new landfill cells scales and a Truck Wash constructing new citizen collection stations at Doniphan and Hondo Pass maintaining first-time trash recycling collection rate and really leaning into we're excited about that in climate as well in terms of really enhancing our community's ability to recycle and leaning on that black belt program that black belt Challenge and reaching a goal of 23 contamination rate it's currently at 24 percent for public health as I mentioned being strategic about how we address the needs of our community coming out of the three years that we've just spent leaning into Community Health I think our community is well aware of the challenges that it faces in terms of the vulnerable populations in terms of needing to bring together our partners and leverage those Partnerships to provide those Services strengthening public health programs retaining Workforce modernizing their existing technology and pursuing Public Health accreditation improving Clinical Services improving client processing leveraging technology across all of those clinical areas and quality assurance of services provided to the community really important leaning into the community health assessment that was conducted in simultaneous to our community needs assessment that was done in community and human development so really understanding what the community needs what it's looking for what our partners can provide and how the health department can be strategic about getting that message out and delivering those services to our community and with that I'm happy to take any questions I never see the mayor leave I have a few questions Nicole um can we go back to the Animal Services slide sure so really happy with all the goals that are on here love to see that would like to know how we're doing those things what the plan is how this budget is impacting those goals good morning Tori capsule animal services so obviously those are our goals how we're going to get there is as we mentioned our overall our overarching goal is to create those Community Partnerships the veterinary Partnerships getting uh everybody involved in those life-saving programs Veterinary Services is one of those big ones that we're really focused on we've been working with the local clinics but those are there's kind of slow so we're continuing that effort to get more veterinarians on board we do have other veterinarians that are working with us and expanding those Services the part-time vets working at the shelter working on the overall health and wellness of the pets in in our care as well through the behavioral assessments those type of things and working on those expending our Partnerships outside the city as well getting more of those transports this year we saw a decline those outside transports which is a prevalent throughout the nation as kovid hit a lot of people adopted pets across the nation and as they grew up they were no longer wanted so a lot of the Northern Partners are also full so as as things stabilize over the next year or so we're hoping that those Partnerships will open up again we still use them we still have flights going out at least monthly and as time goes by those should be opening up as well thanks Terry and are there any new programs that you all are looking at for to increase the number of adoptions the so we have the uh the van or the bus that we will be using to transport out of the city so it's getting those Partners again and utilizing more with the Personnel so we've been doing uh working heavy on on building up our staffing which is working right now we're about 20 vacancies five of those will start next week so getting those so that we can have those off-site adoptions having more of those types of events off site so we right now we do have the one van it is functioning it's it's working well getting more of those getting out into the community on those type of events is what we're looking at to help with those adoption events we did have we're having more of the large-scale adoption events at the shelter doing those advertisements one thing we did learn this year so we did have one during the Cinco de Mayo which was successful but not as successful as we wanted to so a few weeks ago we had another Mega adoption event which was much better aligned and we had it was it was for the 150th anniversary of the city to have the 150 adoptions so that happened during a time where we didn't have other events throughout the city so when we had the Cinco de Mayo one we know our experience was we were competing with other events throughout the city so just be more strategic on when we have those events as well okay extremely creative I think students which were so successful I know that they were covered was a different time right people were adopting animals differently we're seeing a lot of them come back but I wonder if even just trying that sometimes because people maybe don't want to go out to the shelter trying that again because they were really successful again they may not be because we're not in the pandemic but we saw just such a great success that we would love to maybe see if how that would look in the year 23. but then I also want to go to one of your supplemental requests for the behaviorist I know that and I'm really supportive of this I want to say that I know the increased number of animals in the shelter being the The increased chances of behavior issues with dogs you might have and so I kind of wanted to hear from you on if you're seeing that correlation and the increase in animals and the need for a behaviorist or why that's a request you all made so yes it would be shelter is is over capacity uh it's it brings a lot of stress to the pets in our care so when you're putting two three pets that are they don't know each other um that's difficult so having a behaviorist to be able to take the time to pair up animals uh makes it makes a huge difference and of course just coming into the shelter is stressful enough so being able to have those behaviors to help the animals in our care and also to help Fosters being able to expand upon that as well so we have Fosters that'll have more than one pet from us so being able to have the behaviors help with those and with people adopting as well so making sure that with the meet and greets they go that step above and make sure that we're looking at the behavior of their animals as well as ours to make sure it's a good match so that it's not returned back to the shelter yeah and those meet and greets are really invaluable and really do reduce the amount of animals you see come back so I want to get specific so you asked for 354 well 355 000 how many behaviorists was that for so that would be for one behaviorist and then also two training and enrichment personnel and then our Animal Care attendance five of those so it's a total of eight Personnel to expand that program the behaviorists who have of course would be the overarching and training the Personnel below them what was the cost for just the behaviorist have you all figured that out if I remember correct is around 60 000 a year okay if we don't have that position on the books right now so that would have to be something created reclassified sorry Mario Galaxy if I could um and there's as we talked yesterday there's creative ways of filling these positions and we know we've had veterinarians on the list for for years now we're actively recruiting but we could take one of those positions and go ahead and create that behavioralist so that's some of the options they're looking at also to help with adoptions the amount of numbers in our care the amount of intake we're we're working we're retooling the mous the moas with the county and all the smaller jurisdictions to make sure that it's fair to to the city and and to them as well but to make sure that the the animals coming in are brought in properly and that they're compensating for Those portions that it's costing the city yeah I I want to just add to that I mean we've had a lot of discussions about looking at the mous and and keeping everybody in the other municipalities a little bit of a little bit of skin in the game on this I mean one of the issues is according to our current mousse there's an intake fee that's provided that's given to us when an animal is brought in but then the problem is we have to continually you know pay absorb the costs as municipality for daily boarding all the care for these animals and we feel there's probably a better solution in terms of the partnership that we have with the other municipalities and working on this and so that's what we're looking at right now within the mou so that there's a there is not just a matter of it being brought to the city and dropped off and paid for and they're done but you know a continual partnership to try to get these animals taken care of adopted and those kinds of things the thing that we're looking at is that about 20 percent of all the animals brought into the animal shelter are from surrounding areas they're not from within the city limits and the way the mousse were written is that they have a one-time fee when they come in and then the rest goes on the back of the taxpayers within the city limits so we want to make sure that and I Know Chief D'Agostino has been working on it and we've been talking about it that uh right now if I'm not mistaken it's 114 dollars to come come in and bring the animal and then unfortunately that's the end of their responsibility we want them to continue to have the responsibility as long as that dog cat is in our recession and help us really with adoptions and make sure we lower the the animals within the shelter so we're looking at how do we become Partners how do we each pay our responsibility and it's going to be very important because like I said the end they pay 114 and then that's the end of the responsibility and the rest comes on to us I if I'm not mistaken between 20 and 25 a day would it cost to have a dog or a cat within the animal services and that is being put on the back of the of the taxpayer and not shared an equal value also we're looking at you know I think it was brought up yesterday a location on the west side and we're working on one of the schools hopefully that we'll be able to change into an animal service slash um shelter for um our Asylum Seekers and you know I talked to the Head doctor from DHS one day and one of the largest things they're working on as a country is mental health and what are they doing and how are they funding mental health so when they told me that that's one of the things I think is important that we've been working on and want to do is have a animal services animal shelter within that area and when they come in they get to play with the dogs interact with the dogs take the dog for a walk and I think that's huge for the kids even the adults when we're talking about mental health and mental services and he thought it was an incredible idea so we're looking with them to partner to be able to do that and and move that forward I know that Chief diagino has been working with them they have a lot of respect for the chief and a lot of things she's done so when I told him he goes hey have Mario call me which was a really nice thing that we have that type of relationship so we can become partners and help us with the funding to be able to do that so we're looking a lot of things and if you look at a budget of 10 to 12 million dollars and 20 percent of it is coming from the outside of it I think you'll see the relief that will help us so we can get adoptions up and be able to have the room for the animals that we need to care for I don't disagree mayor and I think that you know those mous were created at a time where there wasn't an mou at all and people were just leaving animals out in the county um I think it is a great time to revisit that I always want to take this opportunity to really commend Lorelei the county I think she does great work with a very limited budget to just her um and so I just I always want to take time because I know we're understaffed she's extremely understaffed she's one person but I do think it's a great time to re-look at those mous but just remembering that we don't want to walk away from them and then have a situation out in the county I think another shelter is is great but if we're just Sheltering animals without doing the behavioral health without doing the adoption connections we're just creating a shelter for storage and not actually a service and so I just I really want to emphasize that I think that these are are really important and if there's a creative way to to fill these positions great but I I do think they're they're a conversation that we should have as we get towards the end of this budget so thank you very much Terry my next and final I want to answer something you said right there no it's two seconds that all budgets are limited based on how much you allocate to it and that's why we want to make sure yeah that it's properly allocated so we can all share on the responsibility thank you um and then my last question is for Miss farini congratulations again on your position um we talked about you mentioned El Paso helps which is arpa funded yes um when is that funded chill 2025 the end of 2025 early 2026. and what is the annual budget for that I'll have to get back to you with that exact number it's funded to a handful of agencies including Street Outreach homeless shelter rapid rehousing um and that's it there is mental health associated with El Paso helps but we're not funding that sure yeah just I mean 2025 is one year away and I really want to have the conversation about how we're moving forward with that um before we get to the the deadline with no funding exactly and I think that you know we're also getting very creative about it we're leaning into how we're managing the federal entitlement but it all comes back to how much pressure we put on the federal entitlement how much that actually supports Staffing at the city and so the more Federal entitlement that we can put out into the hands of non-profits that we can put out into the community the more we can sustain programs like that but that's that's a conversation I think that we've been having for a long time and we'd like to continue to have you asked about the Arco funding she had mentioned the program Ohio so helps is funded until 2025 with arpa funds and so my question is funding is we have killed December 24th to allocate the funding to whatever departments and whatever where we're going to do it but yet we have two years to spend it wisely so we have to have a game plan by December 24th and then they'll give us up to two years to use the money and use it largely that's where I was going with that conversation thank you I appreciate it and representative that number is 5.5 million dollars yes well for the entirety of the program representative thank you mayor good morning mayor council and staff thank you so much for the presentation Nicole my questions in regards to the climate action plan um wanted to know where what our plans are we funded properly where are we at on that the climate division is currently underfunded we did receive an additional hundred thousand dollars in the 2024 budget but you'll see in our supplemental that we requested 1.5 million dollars and that was the number that I think we were asked to come up with very early on after prop C passed what does it take to stand up at climate Department that's what it takes to stand up a climate Department there are currently uh showing 13 and a half ftes but I want to be clear about what we've asked for there are only eight of those positions that are directly climate related the rest of those actually go back to something I was saying a moment ago which is pushing some general fund dollars into our administrative staff that do contract compliance grant writing inspections accounting Etc the things that keep us in good standing with the federal government and so I want to bring you back to climate action the way to pursue real climate action is to pursue federal and state funding and you need an administrative backbone to do that that is what is currently not funded so Federal is what is currently you're saying it's not funded federally are our administrative backbone that would handle federal grants is not funded right now what we have are two positions that have been added and a hundred thousand dollars but there's no operational budget at this time I definitely think this is a department we need to really look at to see that we properly do fund whatever the request is but I think moving on forward this is a department that's really going to make a difference in the future thank you thank you very much thank you ma'am representative Canales and then representative thank you mayor similar to yesterday I'd like to hear everybody walk through their supplemental requests um maybe Terry if we can start with with animal services I know we already talked about the behaviorist and the the build out of of Staff uh or the behaviorist 354 960 dollars can you go through the other uh the other requests that your department has made yes sir so the the second request there is for our dog parks the two dog parks we have up front they were originally built in around 2015 so it just needs uh updating so getting those Parks back up to par is what we're looking at on that it's approximately sixty thousand dollars and you're not talking Community dog parks these are ad Animal Services the kind of playpen style dog parks that people use for the meet and greets and other other uses out in front at Animal Services correct it's a two existing dog parks that are already there it should be just to get those get the uh artificial turf replaced uh get the little play areas get them all everything just cleaned up replaced as it's you know it's worn it's like it says 2015 I think it served its life absolutely what else do you have on there let's see uh there's an education coordinator so the next item was you know so that our education coordinators um we're looking at two of those so these would be Outreach Specialists one of the things that we were seeing a lot more requests are for our Personnel to actually go out to the public and provide more education to them so with these two Outreach Specialists what we're looking at is being able to grow the community go to Neighborhood associations things like that and and provide information on uh you know what to do if you find a lost pet one that's really hot topic is the community cats on how to take care of those and what that program's all about and educate out there in the field we do have information of course on our website but a lot of times it's just it's better to go out there and talk to the public about those things and also to do canvassing and different things you know walk the neighborhood with just generalized information about these having the Flyers checking microchips while they're out there providing microchips while they're out there or microchip updates the those types of things Mario Diego if I could focus on that public education piece there's another very important one which I actually get contacted a lot for and it's the one with the utilities so El Paso electrical gas company they're actually reaching out and we have our our people going in and assisting them showing them how what happens when that dog Corners you in your yard how to back out of an attack how to break up aggressive with dogs or if dogs attacking somebody how to do that what's the proper techniques to keep them back and so those are those are requested often okay and then the last one I see on there is adoption program Staffing three ftes is this are you fully staffed on your current uh adoption program and this is three additional positions so this would be three additional positions uh to enhance like mentioned earlier was to get the get out into the public more often so right now we have uh one person that goes in and staffs the uh mobile adoption van so if they're off it's difficult to get that filled up so it's making sure that we have more coverage for those type of events and just a different pop-up events and also at the shelter when we do have those Mega events and stuff so to cover the vacations and things make sure we're fully staffed because when we do get busy we do get some complaints from customers because there are waiting a while which is understandable so this would help take care of some of those issues as well and then I know we we've been discussing the the possibility of a an additional site possibly on the west side are we contemplating staffing yet at this point for for a new site or would that be some conversation we would need to have in the future so the typically so the the dogs that are here right now so some of that Staffing would go there so we would have Staffing already but it would also require some other type of Staffing just depending on what kind of services we're going to provide out there and the days of the week to it does take a it is difficult it's hard to it's not like just answering phones you have to have somebody physically there taking care of the animals so making sure depending on how many animals we do get there that's going to you know Drive how many people we do need there so depending on that on that traffic that we have there it's it's going to depend solely on that Mario do you know if I get out again on that one you know we do have Staffing here right behind us at the Times building we would not keep once we move into a new facility we would not keep the times operational and so you'll be able to move that staff plus the 20 big around 20 vacancies we have right now if we can get up to full Staffing we feel that we could substantially staff both facilities or all three facilities and then we'll look at it from that point on what our what our population is on what we need to expand going into the future it wouldn't be a total uh the plan would be to keep the medical where it's at instead of having to duplicate those types of services we would have some medical staff there to for the intakes if you know people bring in animals to be able to check them out quickly and then transfer them over to the shelter so those types of services we wouldn't want to duplicate completely so that would those wouldn't be part of those Services there's no use having two medical Suites if you got one Veterinary when we look at our mous with the surrounding areas that'll be part of Staffing that will like to be partners with as we go to adoption sites around the community around the country I mean the county so that'll help a lot and I know that we started Colonel Western started working to try to get some of the animal services that are within the city what are the the yeah you know the adoption areas around and the people that are helping us we're working with that with them so we're bringing that back on they kind of walked away a little bit so we're bringing them to come to work with us to help us be able to so um and then again I think part of the nou will be that as far as Staffing for adoptions within the area that'll be something that we'll want and will last for so we can all work together to make it a teamwork effort yeah I'm very interested in the restructuring of the mous that I'd love to have further conversation about candidate for Animal Services yeah that and really working the the uh some of the the Partnerships that have existed in the past and re-engaging with with some of these folks and we're working very closely to to do just that all right and then shifting gears uh can we go back to community and human development and if you can also share uh some of your supplemental well all of your supplemental requests what you're looking at I know we again spoke about some of them already absolutely sir um so I I want to start by just saying that um there's there's a few here um the ones that are directly related to community and human development um all came out of feedback that we received from the community in one way shape or form so I'm going to start a little bit backwards going up from the bottom to the top we've been if you look at the ESG Grant match and homelessness program that's a little over a million dollars that request is twofold what we learned over covid-19 is that there are a number of non-profits that do great work in our community they've got Innovative programs that do not fit into the regulatory structure of the federal entitlement and so there's been a strong need to look to other local sources to supplement the federal entitlement in terms of those programs and so we saw that be successful previously with a program for veteran homelessness it was very specific to that population and we've been approached by a number of non-profits again that just don't fit into the box of the entitlement and so five hundred thousand dollars of that request is for that purpose local funding towards these Social Services the rest of that request is based in a need to match the Federal Emergency Solutions Grant emergency Solutions Grant is one of our primary resources to support homelessness to representative anello's Point earlier when she was talking about you know what happens past arpa with programs like El Paso helps well when we start to locally match through the city our federal funding we amplify our ability to put those dollars out on the ground right and so currently non-profits come up with that one-to-one match we put that pressure on them and so what this request does is allows the city to take care of the match so that the non-profits do not does that make sense so that's that that particular one going towards the center sorry to cut you off before we move on from that one yeah uh who were the who are the non-profit Partners currently who we're we're kind of imposing that match on a hundred percent of our ESG recipients and so that would be the Opportunity Center for the homeless that would be El Paso Human Services that would be a Center for Children the Salvation Army and primarily well all homeless services and so again we know what happened during covid-19 and and the pressure that that sort of went on to those agencies and we don't want to come back and exert additional pressure so that's that request and so essentially the Sask is to help alleviate the pressure on the local nonprofits who are doing the work on the ground benefiting from the ESG exactly right sir okay go ahead no absolutely um so then the the next one was two ftes for the center for civic empowerment this came from feedback that we've gotten over the last year or so and the incredible increased usage of the center for civic empowerment we've seen just a really wild success in terms of folks that want to use it including neighborhoods and non-profit organizations I want to remind everyone that that facility is free for non-profits and so what we're asking is for two full-time staff to just man that facility currently community and human development staff assigned to other programs tag team that uh responsibility excellent yeah I feel like I'm there every week now there's something right there's yes uh organization meetings and neighborhood association meetings and and uh I think it's worthwhile to staff that more permanently and then uh next one this one actually I want to clarify a little bit how it's listed it says Civic empowerment Staffing that has nothing to do with the center it's a completely different uh request these three ftes are to supplement our ability to respond to the community of persons with disabilities we're asking for three staff members to supplement the current Ada coordinator so that we can better address the volume of concerns that are coming in and actually Implement a a policy and a process to receive and address those concerns for a very very long time a city our size has had one person dealing with this entire the concerns of this entire segment of our community and the volume is pretty overwhelming and so we're asking for these three positions so that we can create that policy that process and that stability and an increased responsiveness to to that Community we oversee the accessibility advisory committee and we also partner with Sun Metro in terms of looking at the lift program that request is 251 000 82 dollars is that just for the staffing it is not that actually does include some operational costs what I would clarify is just the Staffing is about a hundred and sixty thousand dollars for three for three ftes okay go ahead um and then the y'all didn't stop me I I missed the climate action one didn't I I skipped over the climate you did but yeah we did hear about it we did we did and I'll just just very quickly to to again um what the 1.5 million dollars does is deliver on um a world-class climate action plan that takes El Paso forward in issues like water Urban heat but it also let is leveraged against EPA money that it will be coming in it's about a million dollars of the climate pollution reduction Grant um and and the impact that this is going to have is we we will with the 1.5 million dollars and the Staffing we can pursue additional federal dollars we can really lean in in terms of Grassroots development and engagement um I think we all saw over the course of the last six or eight months that our community is very passionate about this issue on both sides and so the 1.5 allows us to really get in front of all of that what's currently in the budget allows us to produce a climate action plan it does not allow us to do the rest of what I've mentioned um sorry I had to get that in um and then the last one actually I'm going to ask uh Paul Albright if he would like to say a few things I also just want to as he's walking up to the podium when you look at community and human development uh numbers you are also looking at military Affairs they live with us from a budgetary standpoint but Paul is a stand-alone department so I wanted to give him the opportunity um to speak to his supplemental thanks Nicole uh Paul Albright Chief military officer uh so yeah my budget resides in Community Development and we work great across departmentally and it's really good our supplemental request is to uh to add an additional staffer to our uh to our division which is a research and management specialist and the reason for this is as you can imagine uh with the 165 000 veteran and Military population that we have in our community we get pulled in a lot of different directions as we attempt to uh um and I think we're pretty successful I'd inform you educating and connecting our veterans and Military to resources as well as identifying gaps and services and looking up and out and finding innovative ways to fill those gaps and services we get pretty busy so to have somebody that is dedicated to running you know the management of the department answering those phone calls I went down yesterday I had 15 missed calls on my phone all right but it's just a constant Evolution we need somebody to help manage that and then we also need that same person to be able to look up and out see what's working in other cities Across the Nation identify that bring that back to us allow us to research it bring something to the table and see will that work here in El Paso so that's what we're trying to do is find out one additional person to help us out to keep us to keep us helping the community the way we need to and the good news is this one's already funded correct this one was incorporated yes excellent great thank you very good thank you I think that's all mayor thank you again uh if I can just make one closing comment here um you know I'm asking this question of all the Departments um you'll hear me say this again and again but I think a lot of these requests are very uh important there are things that are currently being left out of the budget and so I I hope everybody's paying attention to what the Departments are telling us they need and we can have some careful consideration if we can find some additional capacity to include these for the in the budget next year maybe not all of them but the Departments have told us what their priorities are and we can look to fund these with whatever space we find condition that's what we've been talking about so I agree with you that we're going to have a game plan we can do some today some tomorrow and some the next day but to have a game plan so we never have this conversation again now we can continue to build on a systematic process and that's all we can ask for because I mean I understand the wish list but at the end of the day we need to make sure that we're efficient with it you know one thing I learned long time ago in the business world that we can throw people at any problem but at the end of the day now you got more people and you still have a problem so you got to make sure that you're prepared to what you do and how you do it to offset whatever you're trying to cover I got represent mullinar and then you ma'am go ahead I completely agree with what you just said we absolutely need to be being efficient but sometimes we need to add to our services to be efficient that's what we're talking about actually performing the service and we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing and I think that's why we're here right to figure out what that balance is and so I think you're both absolutely correct yeah and the way I like the way represent Canal has said it whether it's today or the next budget or whatever let's have a program in pledge to be able to continue to grow so I agree with you on that sir representative molinore thank you very much mayor good morning everyone um command sergeant major Paul Albright welcome to the club of missed call [Laughter] anyways thank you very much um I'd like to start with animal services please chief kepshaw so um currently we're city manager we do have a contract for best friends is that correct yes yes we do okay and when does that contract in or expire charity of the details on the the contract uh best friends but if I'm not mistaken not any contractor even that contract can be terminated with a 30-day notice that's correct sir but currently as it stands what what is the expiration date if you know sir it would be in January January of 2024. uh yes sir okay thank you and uh what is the value of that contract it was at sixty four thousand dollars okay thank you uh moving on how many canines do we have downstairs right now just over here at this facility we have approximately I think it was about 115. and are those animals being moved in other words uh they're besides being housed there and sheltered and fed and taken care of and things like that are they being adopted out are we seeing a steady growth on that or is it declined or is adoptions are fairly steady we do have adoptions that occur out of this facility um when we used to bring them in directly to here we had a lot more uh return to owners so this was the first place people would go and and retrieve their pet but now we're doing the uh drop offs again back there at our shelter because we have a better control for controlling illness so we do adoptions we do see a couple of the rtos too here but we do rotate animals to here and out of here as well for their well-being as well okay that's good I'm glad to hear that and so um you mentioned Community counts the program yes sir and so I can tell you I do have a specific house in the Northeast on the street called Bonaire and I know I've talked to other city manager City attorney about this as well but we have 45 cats in a house there's entrance in the back where the cats can come in and out I've sent pictures into their cr4 process the smell is just overwhelming received an email yesterday that people are moving out we received an email from other another Resident where the coyotes because they're close proximity to casner range that coyotes are coming in trying to eat those cats uh I was out there for approximately 30 minutes and my clothes were overwhelmed I went home took a shower washed my clothes separately the stench is just so bad it's overpowering and I know something has to be done but when you hear whether it's Sun City cats or Community cats that are feeding these animals I think they're exacerbating the problem versus trying to help the problem those cats are interbreeding those cats have multiplied numerous times and yes there's other issues that's going around with the family the homeowners are passed away so the adult children do not wish to are trying to get involved but they're not making progress and so the pro the home is still there and the smell or the stench is just unbelievable I would invite anybody to go there on Bonaire in Sun Valley and you'll roll down your windows and just keep rolling through so I don't know what exactly how we address Community cats or Sun City cats but they're creating more of a problem than they are by feeding these cats so with this the community cap program it reduces the problem we they go through the TNR process so the Trap neutered or spade and then returned so they're not going to interbreed at that point they're not going to continue to breed so that that's the point of that program and and the communicat program there so it is uh so there is a give and take as well so uh people that do feed they need to feed properly uh and that's part of that community outreach that we're doing more of that's why we're asking for some more Personnel to be able to go and educate the people that are caring for those pets to make sure they're not just leaving food and just and it's just sitting there attracting ants and other pests and other Wildlife as well so making sure that those types of things are done but once they are trapped they're not going to continue to breed and that population goes down if we within the community cap populations too if they you do just go in and remove all those cats other cats are just going to move right into that area too so there is an education that we want to make sure that the uh everybody has um and it does it is a it is a process to capture all the cats so when you first go there you might catch a the you know you're going to catch a lot more um that as then as time goes down because you're going to re-trap some of the cats that already have been spayed and neutered so it is a process but it is mint and it is a program that's you know shown successful Across the Nation okay thank you Chief and so mayor I know you mentioned that the county brings in people to the animal services but I continue Northeast it's all the city and so we do have people that are military that are being PCS changes station permanent changes station uh and then just the common everyday citizen that would like to go down there they call and they are not received well or they're saying where you can you know you have to handle it we're not taking you then we're not taking that animal and so it's like what do you tell these people because we get those calls we get those emails and it's just a constant problem and I just wish there could be a better solution to that one for sure you know based on what you're saying is we are looking at that and when we get to remember they come from here here and there or over here the more we can get people involved whether it's the counties and or surrounding areas the more capacity that we have and that leads to what you're talking about today because you know without expanding we could have more capacity because we'll have less animals inside the shelter so that's that'll make a big difference and also we we are looking into PetSmart Community Charities that do some of the things that best friends offer to us at no charge to us so I know the colonel and I had met with some people and they requested it that we look into it so we're going to look into hopefully looking at that PetSmart's Community Services to help us with that but to your point the more capacity the more people whether it's Northeast west side or wherever it may be have the ability to continue to use the services that needs to be provided to the community okay I'd like to thank you very much Gene appreciate that um I call it on stahola the citizen collection site I'm not sure who's gonna anyways I know in 2021 there was a ribbon cutting for this and we're here in 2023 two years later and we're still not anywhere near that so can you address what's happening or not happening there sir yes Nicholas ivarado with Environmental Services there was a when we originally did the ribbon cutting there were some zoning issues with the property and we were getting those taken care of but the time it took for us to get the zoning issues worked out the contractor asked for additional funding that um was in a wasn't agreed upon with CID so we had to rebu they went out again to um with the jock contract and they came back with the price of Sue high for our budget and now we're in the current process of rebidding the project so you're saying it was the contractor's bowl no the the zoning was it was our fault we we didn't have very uh everything completed with the zoning on the property we we as a city did not Zone correctly well we were under the assumption that since we were using the same property as uh for the current CCS that zoning did not need to be changed but um working with the planning inspections that needed to be changed and updated to the new uh Sony for the property so are we on track right now sir yes we're currently it's out to bid currently all right thank you thank you representatively better do you have something sir yeah it's so for Animal Services as well I think uh represent Monday night was our topic that we're all having problems with I have a situation also on the east side a couple of situations where uh people are just feeding these cats and they call Animal Services sometimes your personnel does make contact with those people but what are your what actions are you taking against these people that are doing this actions and taking people doing what feeding the cats and whether it's a whether it's a vacant house or we'll just throw it at a vacant lot and put the cat said to go eat what is what is animal services uh actions to that response so our actions right now are to educate the public not to uh because you are allowed to feed you can feed on your own property you can feed on property that you're given permission to do so but you're not allowed to trespass to do it so it's those types of things we don't have a we don't have the uh enforcement capabilities to uh to do anything as far as provide fines or anything so we will do education on it if the property owners do deem that they need to you know go after somebody for trespassing they can do that but our right now what we do is we educate the public on how to be a good caretaker for the for those cats okay so whether it's a vacant house or or a property not not belonging to them and they feed them you're going to allow it and create a bigger problem we don't allow it um but we don't have any enforcement capability on that that's a continuous problem because as was stated earlier they the other neighbors don't approve of it they're the ones getting all these cats that are are being fed by these individual peoples and they they actually know it is and they've actually reported to Animal Services but that person keeps doing that and you just get a bigger growing problem with the cats that are around there and people people's property are really getting affected by this unless the those Property Owners take action themselves they're being trespassed upon again there's nothing we can do as a animal services to do anything on that so we do go out there we do our best to educate the public that it's not allowed and what is allowed because we do we you know we want to make sure that they communicate cat program is successful so that's our you know just like uh most agencies in the you know in the city we don't want to go in Force and and penalize people we want to educate so it's done the right way and that's what we do and so after that though we don't have any powers to to find or cite on those infractions yeah there's got to be a plan for that because uh whether your education you're actually doing it but people are just not listening to you all not unless in animal services or whatever just keep doing and the problem just keeps getting bigger and bigger for the the neighbors around that one person that keeps feeding these cats and they're getting frustrated I don't know if Joe has the same problem or representative of the United has the same problem but people are getting frustrated with that and so uh there's got to be some kind of solution we got to come up with to to prevent this from spreading even worse yes sir yes sir I'm sorry so that's that's an issue around around the city you're absolutely correct and so what they have been doing lately and we're trying different approaches is with that education output that canvassing of the neighborhoods we also have codes you know it's more of a littering issue it's more it's outside of the Animal Service realm so we're partnering up with codes and we're trying to do some more enforcement in those areas so we can actually catch those infractions while they're happening other than that you you know how it is it's very difficult right to to go after somebody like that and animal services just doesn't have that that enforcement capability or backing to follow up on those specifically so they're doing it through the education piece and partnering with codes and PT okay thank you thank you sir um I'm at 10 45 we'll take a 15 minute break till 11 and then we'll break for lunch at 1. all right just everyone knows the schedule yes representative Hernandez that's it but I heard about the hot day no I mean I the only thing I wanted to meet just a second good morning Terry thank you for the presentation I wanted to just bring to your attention I made some budget requests and I've been meeting with um members of the animal services committee and and they had brought to my attention some of the needs and so I'm not sure if you you've seen these requests you may be aware because some of them serve on the committee so you've heard these concerns in the past um and and I know that that this is more of a nuanced conversation about needs and facilities and improvements that need to be made but just generally so that we can document what the needs are and then we can report back to the committee that those needs were requested and so for Animal Services I was I'm aware that there may be a need for an x-ray machine of course what we've heard in the past additional kennel spaces additional funds for spay and neuter events vaccinations microchipping events and of course part of your presentation you mentioned that you would look at expanding collaborations with other organizations to to um help with providing additional services and then reducing no kill um or in fact increasing the no kill percentage rate so I wanted to see if there's any feedback on your end if those needs have been achieved or if those are still needs for the Department so many of those items are needs when it comes to some of the things like x-ray machine we do have contracts in place so that we can get those types of things done at our current facility we really wouldn't have too much room for a x-ray area we're already you know people are sharing office for people in there so space is very tight so but we do provide have contracts again with various clinics throughout town so when we need those Advanced Services we do utilize those we'll take pets out there and utilize their equipment on those Advanced things we do stabilize you know at the shelter using our veterinarian he can you know determine uh a lot of things without that equipment but when we want to get the extra stuff we do have those in place other equipment and those collaborations and everything that's always stuff that we can expand upon and that we need make sure that all the pets are taken care of here in the in the kennel space and those types of things as well uh I think um one of the the and I appreciate that response thank you and I think we should utilize contracts and then you would be able to determine whether it be more helpful or cost saving to the taxpayer to bring that in-house or to contract that out um and I think one of the concerns were is that they don't want to see um any youth in euthanasias as a result of not having that service and if you can reassure that or maybe you have to the committee so that you know it wasn't a result of not having that equipment or Services then you know I think it's it's fair so thank you for the response we talked a little bit about expansion I'm not really hearing what the true cost and what the need is to allow for additional candle space I know there was plans through the certificate of obligation to do expansions um you've come to my community meeting to talk about those expansions has anything changed from the last conversation we had and is there any budgetary needs for potential expansions so the biggest change was to utilize a facility that mayor mentioned earlier for the west side so that was the the largest change since that meeting at your community meeting there so that's the the largest one I'm sorry I didn't I didn't understand I'm not familiar with what changes happen so if you can provide any additional information so at the beginning we were looking at uh expanding at the shelter itself okay so now with the adjustments is now we're looking at utilizing a different facility on the west side instead of expanding the kennels at the shelter itself it'd be more uh you know more state-of-the-art type uh housing when we were going to do with the ones at the shelter itself it was just going to be more uh more of the outdoor style kennels so these would be much better state of the art um will it will it also be outdoors or will there be indoors I'm just I was just concerned about you know extreme weather events and Outdoors and right the way the kennel should be built should we have an indoor outdoor area so that the dogs go from the inside protect it from the weather but also they can go outside so it's a it's a in with the little Guillotine door there so that the cleaning can be performed better but the the animals can also go outside and then they'll tend to use the restroom and stuff on the outside too so the inside stays a little bit cleaner and again they're protected from the weather events such as the extreme heat we're having now or during you know the really cold Seasons as well yeah and I and I think that's great I just I guess my only heartburn is that when we tell the public one thing and we host public meetings um you know I think there's got to be some follow-up and so I appreciate that update now I just I wasn't aware to communicate to my constituents I do want to I I don't have any other questions for you and I appreciate all the work that you're doing um and I saw that there was I don't know I think it was like a 29 increase from the calculations I did yesterday or maybe I'm off um two-year overall budget and Staffing so I see that you have more Staffing you have more budget I think that's really reflective of what the constituents want so thank you for listening I know there's more work to do but I think this would be the first step so thanks Terry thank you um we touched a little bit about public health is that part of this goal here because it's we didn't really do much of that conversation so but it's go away correct and it was already that one slide okay um I just had some questions on Schedule C uh I saw that there was a deletion and and I'll reference the page numbers it's c45 and then the other page number is uh c41 and what I was looking at was specifically the support for STD Family Planning I saw a lot of deletions and additions is there is there an explanation as to are we still providing Family Family Planning services or is it just geared towards a Medicare because it said Medicare funds or medic excuse me let me go back to the slides I don't miss a week did you want to talk to you so we do have Dr karanza on the line Dr okaransa will you please explain the changes it's a great question and we are deleting some of the codes for Family Planning because we're not providing Family Planning anymore title 10 which is a grant that we receive uh is already ended so that program is going to be provided by somebody else in the community and we have already uh referred those patients that we're receiving Family Planning services to the other providers that are going to be continuing with that service that we were providing we are focusing also on the STDs the sexually transmitted diseases and we will continue to be providing that service to the members of community we are part of the safety net which provides dental services to the most in need is this was a competitive grant that is going to another provider that's still going to be providing the same services in the communities that what I'm understanding well yes and that Grant is a Federal grant that has been administered by some other uh providers in the state but are the way that we receive that Grant we were the only ones in the city that had that Grant but other members in our community are receiving our sub recipients who are subcontractors of somebody else Grant and that's why they're providing those Family Planning services Mario diagas you know the grant did go away as we knew it before so they're not they're not they're not funding it as they did before so it's it's not a that we was competitive and we didn't win it they just stopped that program okay I'm trying to understand if there's um if there's going to be folks who would have the funding to provide the services and if there's going to be a significant Gap then looking at potentially utilizing general fund dollars to supplement those gaps but I just don't understand well enough what the needs are in the community and so miss Dr okaranza you have worked with Community stakeholders and you have conducted those needs assessments um and and I believe the top three from memory was Mental Health Access to Services obesity diabetes um did was there any indication that there's a need for family planning or STD response support not at this moment and you are correct the three main areas that we identified as a community health is where the chronic conditions which include the high blood pressure obesity diabetes access to care and also mental health which includes substance use so there was no indication about the Family Planning at this moment and as I mentioned previously there are some other providers that are filling the need of the family planning in our community that's what we have been referring those patients to them so we're not leaving those patients without the care that they need and they have received appropriate treatment okay thank you and then just a couple more questions for you Dr credenzo because we haven't seen you in some time um now going back to the needs assessment I know it was in a draft mode has that been completed number one number two how does your budget reflect the needs of that assessment and are we going to be prioritizing services for those High needs in the community yes and that Community Health assignment has been finalized we are in the process of conducting the Strategic plan which is going to be our guiding document for the years to come that's why we you haven't seen me quite often but you will be seeing me uh a lot more often now that we're going to be finishing the Strategic plan which involves internal stakeholders external stakeholders and our budget we're trying to be very strategic in how our budget is for 2025 that's what we're gonna be having some more uh requests most probably based on a strategic planning and based on the community health assessment for now that's why you don't see much in the schedule C or or supplemental uh funding that we're requesting because we want to continue being flat on that budget we want to continue focusing in what the community needs and for 2025 definitely there's going to be more to come and are we currently providing screenings for diabetes we are providing risk assessments and we're Gathering the Personnel that we need we're Gathering all the uh plans that we need to have to to be able to do the screening for diabetes because it's not just to tell somebody that they have high blood pressure it has to be linked to care it has to be telling them the risk that they have our community has a very very high risk of diabetes so we see it and we saw it with covert we saw the vulnerabilities that we have and and it is not just to check the sugar eating well some more comprehensive planning of action year involves a lot more that we need to provide to the community and that's what we continue educating which is our main part that we have it's better to tell the community how their risk is going to be be affected or how their health is going to be affected in the next five ten years and how we need to continue taking care of those that live with us that have diabetes in a way that they're going to be avoiding those complications so that education component is extremely important it is not just a very small part which it might involved just checking the blood pressure but we are having some some of that plan in the way that we're going to be bringing those services to the areas of the city and our community that are mostly needed as we saw in the community health assessment thing wow it's got so much louder when that fan turned off we have fans in here Dr Carranza I'm not laughing at you but we couldn't hear anything because the fans were too loud um oh um so the final question I have is related to our covid response clinics um is that under your department is that under non-general fund um Services can you explain uh what what will we be providing the upcoming fiscal year in in those departments in those clinics definitely and we're very excited and telling the community how we continue to utilize those clinics because those clinics were bought with initially curse funding now we're going to be utilizing those clinics to provide immunizations to the community making them more accessible one of the points about the community health assessment is access to care how are we going to be able to provide access to care that is mainly how we're able to provide that access to care to the community offering age-appropriate vaccines to the people and specifically to the people in need we're going to be coming very soon to the beginning of the school year A lot of people are going to need those vaccines for their children or there's adults that might need some vaccines we are part of this adult safety net Network that are going to be able to provide some of those vaccines so are those clinics are going to be not just providing covet vaccine but are going to be providing my age-appropriate vaccinations we're in the proper in the process of absorbing all those clinics changing the name from Joe's Kobe Clinic to the El Paso Community Care Clinic where we're going to be able to provide those vaccines and as you know our Department of Public Health are going to be moving buildings very soon and some of the services are going to be established at some of the some of those clinics which again are going to be providing that access to care that we need to be given to the community I think all of that sounds wonderful and as I'm I'm looking at the performance office over here um I'm I think there's a lot of opportunity not only for Animal Services microchipping looking at El Paso helps any any additional services that we have in other departments as the pandemic is coming to an end utilizing those facilities to the best the needs for the public thank you Dr Credence it was nice to see your face and thank you for chiming in thanks very much thank you for the questions uh just uh and and I don't want to continue the conversation with Community Development I just wanted to lend my support and to also let you know Mrs Fiorini one of my requests was to ensure that some of the funding for um the the climate of sustainability Office Division Department I don't know you all are calling it um I've heard a couple of the division this week okay um and uh I've I've asked if based on your request um it's part of my budget request is if we can fund at least a third of that um and and here's why you know I think this is probably one of the most contentious and one of the most engaged uh Community responses related to climate there is a clear demand from the public to improve on our response to climate and sustainability you know if it's not if it's you know funding it mid-year to Kickstart if it's funding it you know just at a portion of it I think I think we have a duty to respond to the the request from the public on this controversial issue this past year and it's not even controversial it's just a matter of governments need to respond and we need to take it seriously we need to create these services and we're filling the heat now at I think we're at 25 consecutive days of extreme heat weather events over 100 degrees and I take that seriously and you know I hope that this Administration and this body also takes that seriously I know that there could be an impact on the tax rate but we do have a mandate from the public through the community progress Bond Proposition C we have a clear mandate with that that sustainability and climate impact study I think we need to find a better name a shorter way to say that and so you know I'm going to just make the motion now I think that we should fund it and we should at least give her the the bare bones of the department because the last thing I want is an unfunded mandate from the public and then not give the resources to achieve the desired gold from from the public so um I don't know what that is Quantified by so what I would ask is if we can um the budget Department if you can work with Mrs firini and this will be my motion is to direct the city manager and the office of climate sustainability to propose day reduced budget budgetary request that's reasonable that would meet the the goals of Proposition C and and so I don't want to give a fixed amount because I wanted I want you all to to Hash that out and if you can come back during budget sessions for consideration for this Council to to consider and so I moved to approve of that motion Senate I'm not sure you need emotions because I think that's something that we're talking about here to bring back I'd like a motion because I think well I know you want emotion and I know you made one but I'm saying I'm not sure we need one because all these items are going to be brought back as one so we can look at the budget as a whole and not as silos so I mean I think your recommendation is well taken and I and I'm sure but it's not a recommendation mayor it is a motion and so my motion I understand what it is but I'm just telling you that we're going to bring them all hopefully back together so we understand the impact of every line item to the budget because we do have to if we start taking silos and at the end of the day you're going to have an issue with your uh effective tax rate no I mean I've been part of this is my seventh budget session mayor I have been I've participated personally as a member of council for seven budget sessions and then as a member of staff for three sessions and clearly there has been a trend in the precedent that's been set and while I appreciate your your comments mayor my motion stance because I take this very seriously I think the public is ready for a division of department and we have to do more we absolutely have to do more and I think it'll give you the flexibility to determine what would be the impact to the tax rate because ultimately that is a request here it's not included into the budget it's an unfunded man it's an unfunded budget right now request and so you all need to be able to look at that and then incorporate that into the overall tax rate impact I know this is all preliminary but if you all can can come back and give us additional polymerary and before the 25th and then after the 25th thank you for that representative thanks mayor I know we only have a minute I had one question but I do want to allow individuals for public health to explain title 10 and because they don't want the public to think that we just stop perform providing family services and so I don't know if somebody wants to just give a very quick um understanding of why we stopped providing those for the Public's edification because again I don't want people to think we just stopped providing these Services voluntarily are you still online yes sir the the way that the funding was this tributed to us it changed in the way that we were going to be receiving those funds and we didn't have the capability to provide those services to the community so if we were not going to be able to provide quality services to the members of our community we decided to transfer those services to a different provider that will be able to provide quality Reproductive Services to those members that needed those services and thank you I wanted to have more of a conversation about kind of how the state stopped allowing that funding and it's kind of caught up in court right now so that's just kind of what I wanted to talk about more is that there was kind of a state mandate on how we were able unable to provide those services but I appreciate your answer but I I want to move really quickly because I know the mayor wants to take a break so thank you Dr Carranza um Terry I have one last question for you and I'm just going to hand you my microphone so you don't have to get up can you talk to me a little bit about what kind of testing we're doing I know that we've heard from the Services committee and the public about adding more testing I remember one of those being for feline AIDS I don't remember what they all were I don't know if you could remind me of what we do and don't do and then before the end of the budget come up with kind of what that would look like to add some of that testing could be a lot of money I'm not entirely sure but would just like to see that all my questions okay Terry capsule animal service director again um so this is you're talking about disease testing obviously so we do test um right now very minimal so we do some uh distemper we we have to contract that out because we don't have the capacity right now but we are working with purchasing on a brand new contract with that but we do have the testing available that we can do that in-house we do the feline leukemia for the cats we do the parvo testing in-house we can test for some parasites and stuff like that but we are currently working on that contract so that we can send things out to a lab because we don't the the equipment we just that be cost prohibitive to do those types of testing in-house so it is possible to add things like again feline age is the only one that's coming to mind I don't know if I'm missing any of those but it is possible in this new purchasing contract to look at a company that would do both the leukemia and AIDS so we that's what we're doing so it'd be a comprehensive contract with a list of diseases that we can do so some of those snap tests we can do in-house so it's at the FIP FLV testing for the king for the cat so it's a uh like a parvo as well for the cats as well that we check okay great um excuse me excited to see that contract when it comes forward thank you for nothing thank you ma'am do we have a motion to resets for 15 minutes there's a motion in a second to recess a special city council meeting for 15 minutes all in favor anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 10 48 A.M all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1108 A.M Colonel Weston thank you mayor so we'll shift now to Gold Team 4 quality of life with Miss Mack good morning oh there you are oops good morning Miss Mack thank you so much we're delighted to be here to present goal for today go for includes libraries Parks and Recreation museums and cultural Affairs we also have the capital Bond project within goal four the zoo and Parkland management well in a Botanical Gardens yeah as I said go for includes these three goals I will go quickly through these slides as Miss Cody has covered many of them we are 78 million dollars of the budget about 16 of the uh general fund budget these are the sources of funding you've seen this slide before quickly this includes the capital piece is for the Children's Museum the parks and uh Recreation uh that a million dollars is for our um Parkland management maintenance the dollars that we have available in mcad is what you see for hot and you remember that the zoo is funded uh both through general fund and then gate and membership revenues the major variances for us as it was always already discussed has been the compensation as well as the capital projects that are coming online we've been very fortunate to have many of our capital projects included and soon to be completed for the 2012 Capital project Bond these are expenses by department for the general fund Ms Cody has spoken about many of these increases again focusing on our compensation we're continuing to look at Staffing across departments as you I'm sure are well aware this portfolio was severely hit with layoffs and furloughs following covid and we're continuing to rebuild that Staffing we're going to be presented with to you last year a Parks and Recreation for example was zoning at about 70 uh with their vacancy rate was about 76 percent we still are about 55 and we'll talk to you a bit about some of those facilities moving forward we are really excited about the projects and the things that we will be working on and it's great to see the commitment to not only continue to fund on capital projects but to really ensure that we have the Staffing and the resources that are required to make sure that we're able to execute that and that's what you're seeing in some of the adjustments here for parks and recreation in terms of Land Management the zoo and museums and cultural affairs this is expenses by category Miss Cody have gone has gone over many of these expenses this is by non-general fund for us Again by category this is our all fun Staffing you can see some adjustments in our staffing that are primarily related to programs and services we're delighted to be able to add a fourth location for passport programs that has been tremendously successful for us and had that service provided within our communities and so our mijo will be the additional staff here is for our mijo for museums and cultural Affairs we're well underway with hiring for the Mexican-American Cultural Center there's about 16.5 FTE that are related to that and we're interviewing for the director on Friday wish us luck uh we also um have investments in Parks and Recreation we will be converting our Grandview Senior Center to Grandview Recreation Center so we're actually adding another Recreation Center that was going to open on September 1st so additional staff are allocated for that and we also have additional staff that are going to be supporting our newly expanded Joey Barraza and Vino Park as well as our East Side sports complex and those projects coming online you may recall last year when I presented for those of you who are here last year and and for those of you who are not we made major adjustments to our salaries in Aquatics to try to get those facilities open and back online we had a very successful summer we still do have locations that are closed for renovations and we are I'm hoping to have those be bought back online with Staffing as we move forward the zoo here deleted just one position just want to note here when you look at the 955 people for our portfolio we have over 78 percent of the people in this portfolio who have a worked with the city for less than three years so we talk about the amount of hiring that has happened the amount of work that has gone into ensuring that people see this as a good place to work finding opportunities for training to make sure that staff understands the culture of the organization while working with minimum Staffing and a lot of a lot of our location it really has been a heavy lift but our staff in this portfolio is very proud to continue to serve our community and continue to find ways to be Innovative and creative in the resources that are made available to us so I want to go over our plan priorities as we've talked about earlier we're really excited about bringing on our signature projects as you know the mac and the main library are co-located in the same location I think we said in our opening that we expect to have that open in about January or February or so our wonderful Capital Improvements team hope to have that building turned back over to us around the holiday it's a hundred thousand square foot facility so the net gives us the amount of time to be able to restock and really be able to be ready for a fantastic opening of that location for our libraries we still have the Doris vandoren as well as the main library that needs to be open for our recreation centers we have Pat O'Rourke um we have clothes we have veterans that just closed Pat O'Rourke I mentioned Grandview the multi-purpose Center and Nolan Richardson will open on the 19th of this month for our Aquatics facilities we have the training and instructional pool Pat O'Rourke which is also being renovated the Leo cancellieri that's attached to the West Side Natatorium is currently under renovation and we have a repair that's going on for the Delta Pool that will hopefully allow us to bring that facility back online we know that there's still work to do in terms of getting all of our facilities not only open but up to the level of service that we previously had the council gave action last at the end of the last budget cycle to do a comprehensive budget and now a comprehensive salary analysis of both the animal services team as well as quality of life utilizing that data I've made adjustments to the remaining half of parks and recreation parks and recreation excluding our Land Management team is 435 positions that's 735 bodies that need to be hired to have that locate have that department fully be staffed one of the things that we've struggled with is the salaries and you also passed a resolution to look at bringing the organization up to 15 our teams both in HR and budget have worked diligently with our teams to allow us to use the resources that are available within our budget to really align our salaries to a level that are allowing us to hire so we've just made adjustments on the 2nd of July to 177 positions bringing them from 12 and 11 cents or fourteen dollars and six cents to fourteen dollars and six cents for that base level or sixteen dollars for the upper level those positions are 50 have been 50 vacant we have tried for more than in a year with very creative ways to have hiring fairs to bring people on board and we realized doing that study that it really was the salaries that we needed to be able to focus on Parks and Recreation is unique versus a lot of other departments in that they are driven by a lot of less than full-time positions so when you look at their sapping table you'll see Point tens 0.35s a lot of those positions are vacant so when you take into consideration you're hiring somebody for less than full time and then we require travel and you think about the cost of gas we've heard over and over again from people who are interviewing that they live on the east side and that they don't have either Transportation because parents are driving a lot of folks to be able to to fill in for positions on the west side and we know that some of those things have been challenges for us and so we're listening to the community and thinking about how do we structure these positions in ways that help us to be able to attract and to be able to hire people in these positions the way that I was able to do that just to give an example is we talked a little bit about attrition was that I took a look at the Staffing table and a look at the vacancies and I deleted senior level positions that gave me 578 thousand dollars to be able to increase salaries for 80 people that were existing as well as 109 bodies on the um that are vacant positions and so to be able to do two dollars and 33 cents and for our entry level position that's going to go up by 2.95 once we do our next increase and we will be very very close to Market and that was very successful last year when we did that around the same time with Aquatics and our team allowed us to make that happen and and we really saw the difference in those numbers right now I have about 43 vacancies for Aquatics but I also have five locations that are closed for Aquatics so we're about matching where we need to be and those numbers really did turn around in terms of those senior level positions we may come to a place where we need to go back and fill those positions but if I'm not open to the public what purpose is it for me to have these coordinated positions and others if I'm not doing the basic mission of the organization so that's been our strategy and it's posted and I went online I'm kind of looking at what the county is doing we're pretty close and hopefully it'll pick us and not a clapping the county position is posted okay so for um our barn projects we've talked a lot about the bond projects and the things that are underway but I do want to mention that we still have a lot of Parks and Recreation and Trail projects that are are still moving forward and we have 16 that will continue to move forward and begin Construction in fy24 we're still working with representative anello and the community to finalize to Parks master plan and Memorial Park master plan so when that's ready and we have consensus from the community about how we move that forward we will be bringing that forward to council for the libraries we have had this wonderful opportunity to work with UTEP and other Community Partners and taking a deeper dive into opportunity youth the mayor bought an opportunity to us he was I think it was a urban uh who wrote him National League of cities uh wrote to the and asked us to be a part of looking at how we would be able to have an impact on 16 to 24 year olds who are not at work who are not in school who are not in any type of job work program and we have more than 17 000 of those within our community and so we have a collaborative effort with many partners and we're going to be working on a pilot location that's going to bring these Services together we will be coming around to Council next month to tell you a little bit more about what we'll be doing in that area but the library has stepped up because it really complements a lot of the work that they've already been doing in Workforce Development to have that located at our main library when the main library reopens and so I think that will be a good complement to the services that we have there and it's also a way for us to be able to provide and extend services with funding that we already have in place we're not looking for additional funding we're really utilizing the staff that we have we're utilizing the space that is actually perfectly suited for it we're already Partners would work for solutions they were already co-located at the main library and so it really comes together I think for us to have a tremendous impact in this area and as we continue to talk about you know our youth being a huge part of our community and talking about how we want to bring businesses to our community and that an educated Workforce is important we want to ensure that we don't have anyone falling through the cracks and cannot find the type of resources that they need to move forward and we have great Partners working on that with us I already mentioned that the main library in Doris vandoren will complete the quality of life cycle for the libraries with the main library coming back online that was the only location where we had Sunday service and so we will reinstate Sunday service when we reopen that location for museums and cultural Affairs they are continuing to push out wonderful events one of the things that we're going to continue to do for them is to look for ways to improve or actually restore our cultural funding that goes out to The Community back to level it is really linked to hot so it's about half of what where it should be but the teams are doing an incredible job of pushing Out programs with the funding that we do have in place and we look forward to having talk to block and other events really uh be focused on our birthday theme this year for Parks and Recreation I've talked a bit about you know the service level just to add here that although we were getting buildings reopened our goal was to have the minimal amount of staff that was necessary to be able to open the doors and so we were not at a staffing level to restore to full programming and so we're looking to make sure that every location is back to a full offering of programs we were able to bring back Club wreck this years we had 220 kids participate as you know it had been sunseted for quite some time because of Staffing and so we want to continue to make sure that we're bringing back those programs that are obviously well needed and received by our community we have lots of projects that are continuing to move forward as I've already mentioned that we're Staffing and prepared to staff and bring forward one of the big of course signature projects that are worked on by multiple departments is Winterfest and the discussion and conversation has been about when we have the Cleveland Square Park location available to us again that we expand the footprint to that location that's also included the zoo is continuing to move forward with lots of great projects when I go out there I'm amazed that construction can happen and we can still pack that many people in having a really great time out there you know we have pin wins coming on board but we have several other projects that we do have moving forward and one of the things that we're continuing to work on as I think you've heard over and over again in the presentations is that deferred maintenance and funding forward is such an important area for us you know we do not want to have these wonderful beautiful exhibits that are next to exhibits that are obviously in Decline when there are things that we can do from just a maintenance and Aesthetics perspective that can really enhance the experience there and so you can see some of the things that the team is working on that are listed here that are really focused in that area with that that concludes our gold team report we are mayor Pro Tim okay yes it's just it's just the trend today um Dion I want to thank you for your intro presentation I feel I'm a little speechless I'm really proud of the work that you're doing um great to hear so many of these things your salary goals I think are really incredible in understanding the vacancies in your department so I really want to congratulate you um and happy that you are back over these departments I know that they're near and dear to your heart and that's uh very apparent from the presentation that you were given so I really want to thank you for that presentation I do have some questions um so one of my questions was some concerns I've heard from the community about senior disability and youth disability programs I'm really happy to see that that has been approved in the supplement to bring back the senior disability program so thank you all for recognizing that that was a vacancy and congratulations on getting that funding it's really important but do you want to talk a little bit about that youth disability program is that something that we're still doing I do also want to say I know that that was happening at the Viscount location the multi-purpose Center which is still closed and so not sure if that had been diverted to another Center if that happens at multiple centers my understanding of it was just at that one Center so hoping that you can kind of clarify some of that for me good morning I'm mayor city council and staff Pablo Caballero Parks and Recreation assistant director yeah the youth program disability program is still working it's still at bayevajo and we're planning as soon as we get the multi-purpose Center to bring it back because of the pool and because of all the exercises that might be necessary for them over there happy to hear that um glad to know that it's still happening and I just I wasn't aware of that I also want to talk a little bit about uh I mean you all know what my big issue is deferred maintenance some of the facilities that we have closed I know that I think Miss Prime that we have some public comment statements I don't know if you've all seen them I don't know if this is a good time mayor to to read those into the record but I know that staff is very familiar with my concern so we can can read those and then I'll let you all address that for the public you know they um we all had them yesterday but they can be read into the record Mission yes sir the first one was submitted by Cena maresca and it reads good morning my name is Ms Mariska my family and I have owned homes within blocks of Grandview Park Pool for nearly 40 years myself and my neighbors have raised children here as well as the grandchildren the Poland splash pad that is next door to the Senior Citizen Center have been closed for two years now there is nowhere where residents can go to swim cool off or do swim therapy we would appreciate the approval of funds to make necessary repairs and upgrades to the pool and surrounding areas these are the hottest months and we could use some relief most families cannot afford to go to Camp Cohen and it is seven miles away please and thank you for your consideration the next statement was submitted by Yolanda Shaw my name is Yolanda Shaw and I have resided on Jefferson Avenue for over 45 years I'm requesting that my statement be read during the goal 4 meeting as I am unable to attend these past two years I have noticed our Grandview pool has not been open to the public I call the city to inquire about it and I was originally told that there were no lifeguards available this year called our district Representatives Office and staff informed me that it was closed because the pool needed repairs and upgrades why hasn't this matter been addressed these past two years children and adolescents adolescents have no other recreational areas to go to there was a small Splash Pad but I have only seen a handful of toddlers there there's a skate park a skate park nearby vandalized with graffiti there was reported by a local TV station I feel as this area is an older section of town that no that no real effort is made to improve the Park and Pool adolescents have nowhere to go and as a result get into trouble I have in the past called the fire department as brush fires have been set behind our house due to the teenagers hanging out back there I feel the city should invest in this area and children here this pool was a great way for the children to enjoy themselves during the hot summer months that have been out of school Yolanda Shaw the next statement was submitted by Nicole Arellano it reads good morning my name is Nicole Arellano and I am a 25 year old recent graduate of UTEP I'm a member of the casner Heights neighborhood and I would like my statement to be read during Gulf War since I'm unable to make it to the meeting being a resident of castner heights it is upsetting to me that nation's Tobin pool and Grandview pool have been closed for about three years now my family and I frequented these polls when they are available and we are sad to see that they have been out of commission for so long the city of El Paso has opened its water parks these past years but unfortunately the price of admission is too high for the residents that live in the district the Northeast area has been neglected by the city for many many years the department store Target will not even build a store here because the demographic does not fit its criteria in other words the citizens of the Northeast are too poor to afford items from Target if this is true why are the neighborhood polls closed down when the admission for the city water parks are 15 per person the admission price for nation Tobin in Grandview was about three dollars per adults if the residents of northeast El Paso are so poor how does the city expect us to pay to enter the water park in addition Camp Cohen closes at 6 PM what about the residents who get out of work later than that do they deserve do they not deserve to have a cooling evening with their family nation tobins and Grandview often had night swim sessions where they would be open at 6 PM after the sun went down and remain open until about 9 pm these poles were a great asset to this community and they helped the hard-working individuals of this District I'm asking the city of El Paso to fund the repair and upgrade of these two polls in District 2. these polls are important to a poor community and we need them to help us cool down from the hot summer heat wave we've been going through I can assure you that attendance will be high for these pools and they would not they would get lots of use out of them although I understand they will not be fixed until next year I do believe this is very important for this community thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you soon sincerely Nicole Arellano the next statement is from Irene Torres my husband and I grew up a few blocks from Grandview Park Pool during 1960 through 1980. we were very fortunate to have access to Grandview pool we moved back to the neighborhood in 2009. we were very sad and disappointed that our neighborhood children do not have access to the swimming pool we ask that you consider reopening the swimming pool and also fund any necessary repairs needed there also has to be a solution to the shortage of lifeguards and the shortage of chlorine if water parks are run by the city then we don't understand why Grandview pool cannot be opened some of our neighborhood children do not have transportation to go to other swimming pools Grandview pool is walking distance please read this email at the next meeting thank you the next statement was submitted by Eva Ruby and it says hello I am contacting you in regards to Granville pool this pool has been closed for several years there isn't a place for neighborhood children to go swimming or for that matter learn how to swim the city has spent millions of dollars building the Westside Natatorium and the East Side Beast these poles are in areas where their houses themselves have pools while splash pads are nice for the little ones they do not serve the majority of children I hope you're able to add Grandview in your budget thank you the final statement was submitted by Monica Tucker and it reads good morning my name is Monica Tucker I am the founder of Juneteenth El Paso I would like the following comment to be read regarding goal four I am the founder of Juneteenth El Paso an initiative created to provide a more inclusive celebration of Freedom recently our committee along with the assistance and support of El Paso Parks and Recreation representative Alexandra anello and Community sponsors such as El Paso Electric z-tec Corporation Allstate Insurance h r a m organization and others successfully celebrated the inclusive Citywide 2023 Juneteenth Community celebration we hosted a free event to commemorate the day when enslaved people in Texas became emancipated while Juneteenth has been celebrated in Texas for many years it has only recently become a nationally recognized holiday was started by black El Paso voice they campaigned to encourage City officials to consider hosting the annual juneteen celebration and observance is a collective effort of citizens from all demographics who desire to be more educated about the holiday than in many ways in El Paso is still met with disdain while some believe it is not unnecessary to celebrate this Freedom there is rarely pushback for other celebrations on behalf of el pasoans who believe the celebration should continue in our great City this opportunity for the city of El Paso should be a positive undertaking Juneteenth is an integral part of Texas history which makes it a vital part of El Paso's history Juneteenth is a celebration of Freedom that is relevant to all El pestilence no matter our race or ethnicity we can all appreciate the importance of freedom and the sacrifices made to achieve it here are some reasons why the city of El Paso should host the annual juneteen celebration promoting our diverse existence by hosting the juneteen celebration of the city El Paso can show its commitment to investing the various Democrat demographics that make us unique the celebration can unite people from different backgrounds and cultures to celebrate freedom and unity boosting tourism the juneteen celebration can attract visitors from other cities and states boosting the local economy visitors can spend money on local businesses hotels and restaurants generating revenue for the city educating the community the juneteen celebration can be an opportunity to educate and inform the community about the history and significance of Juneteenth the city can organize workshops seminars and other educational activities to raise awareness about the importance of the observance strengthening Community bonds the juneteen celebration can bring together people from different neighborhoods and communities strengthening Community bonds the celebration allows people to meet new friends share their stories and build relationships honoring the past the juneteen celebration can be a way to honor the past and acknowledge the wrongdoings to the affected demographic by hosting the subway the city of El Paso can show its and every three minutes but I did share it with all the council and that is the final comment thank you Mr Prime so yeah I wanted to talk a little bit about deferred maintenance right we talked about the new Grandview Rec Center that we're building but now there's an empty pool and I actually want to really acknowledge Park staff because we knew that the Grandview pool was in terrible condition for years so we have put this on the budget for years and they did everything they could to keep it open while they could but it goes back to council not having a plan to deal with deferred maintenance of our buildings our rec centers or a few rec centers that are closed as well that I know that weren't mentioned and it's you know it is something we really do need to start addressing because we're really seeing the inner core of our city which are the low income areas not have the resources that we need and when we as a council talk about who needs the resources from the city are we investing best in our communities and so I just I wanted to to share those statements I know that that we'll be talking about Council budget requests I know that they are outside of the amount of money that we could afford in this budget but I do really think that we need to be having an actual conversation about our deferred maintenance across the city in all of our city facilities and if we don't start that now I don't know when we're going to do it um did you want to say something here you don't have to okay um I have one more question and that is for Pablo as well so um I see that you all made a supplemental request that is still pending for a park amenity replacement and I wanted to oh I'm sorry sorry how are you sir um I want to talk about that because I know right in my district you all have had to replace three or four playgrounds in the last year that comes in I can't be the only representative who's had vandalism and so I know that throughout the year we'll get calls from people requesting those Replacements and I just want to understand how this budget request correlates with that because I don't want to be ignoring it if that means by not funding this we are not able to do those Replacements over the year so yes ma'am Joel McKnight streets and maintenance department uh bat there are two separate items one where we've had where we've had vandalism in existing parks and we're waiting on components it's because of the supply chain with the manufacturers what used to take six to ten weeks is taking 12 to 18 weeks on a minimum to get on major components in the uh the amenity request that you were referring to we're going to have a presentation on shortly so that'll help explain what the targets are there mayor Pro temo we'll make one comment based on what you you said I think it's very clear to everybody in this room and to the public that the money that's being put into the budget year over year is not adequate for facilities um you know we we've been looking at that and we have to find additional Revenue sources and how we can increase that and have a year-over-year sustainable plan because it's not sustainable right now so um you know we're going to look at that we're going to look at developing strategies we talked about some of the things that we may be able to do one of one of those is to stabilize our operating reserves and not and continue to to uh you know to continue to put money in operating reserves while we have so much need within the community and certainly looking at other things that we can bring back to the council and making recommendations for how we might be able to increase that year over year but you know infusing the budget one year on either the facility side or the other area where we have problems is fleet is like putting a Band-Aid over a sunken chest wound it's uh it might feel it might feel good for a few minutes but it's not going to really help in the long run so we have to have a much better strategy than than that and one of the things we talked about when we were doing the budget and I talked to Mr cortinas and yourself and Miss Cody about the turfs are we over funding the turfs and I know we are you know we talked about two and nine that there's a lot of money there that could be brought into the budget and then the other ones we're going to need to look at so when you look at talking about different sources of revenue that's a perfect one right there as we were talking about millions and millions of dollars have been over put into these turfs that have not been able to take advantage of put into our budget so that's something I'd like to see when we come back uh hopefully August 1st on some of those recommendations of how we'll be able to fund them based on the overfunding of the tersh I just want to provide some costing that we did for the facilities that are being mentioned representative vanilla asked the team to take a look so we at least with understand the scope of what was required for those facilities both Grandview and Nations Tobin's pools are two of our three outdoor pool locations they're both around 70 years old they both require full rehab so it's not a repair there are about 10.4 million dollars each not including inflation the other location that is closed is that Leona Ford Washington Recreation Center it was closed right around covet we had some water issues it's right next to a retention Pond it requires about a million dollars to bring it back online and we're working on the final costing for the ffne for that piece but those are the costs that we have related to the facilities Parks and Recreation facilities that are closed due to deferred maintenance for the Juneteenth event I have already had a conversation with Miss Tucker we've already added that to our plan we will be coming around to council with a calendar of programs that will be working on throughout the year I think oftentimes we duplicate effort if you're going to do something for the holidays we'll have it all laid out and so we'll know how we can assist you or we're not duplicating effort with events that way we know we'll have sufficient funding to be able to do that event next summer as well thank you thank you just to clarify so you are saying that you have the Juneteenth event in your yes we do okay we do and I'm actually going out to an event that she asked me to come to on Saturday yeah but yeah if we could get that just a copy of what that looks like or whatever you have I'd love to be able to share it okay thank you and also some of the things we talked about that I'd like to see bringing forward is we were talking about the funding of the water parks and where we have an agreement with destination El Paso and the ones they take the profit for are some of the ones operating and then the ones that are in the black and I mean in the red and are costly are coming back against general fund and I think we got to really balance that out and so I'm saying you get the good we get the bad because I don't think that's a fair agreement for us as taxpayers so I'd like to look at how we can balance that and take the good the bad with the ugly instead of just the good um so and also when we're talking about Grandview park or the pool there I would think that we'd be able to use some of that arpa funding because that was closed down due to maintenance but really it was closed down to during covet so would that be something that we could maybe entertain we're going to look at the possible reallocation of the upper funding however with that in particular it's got to meet the certain criteria related to the airport funding there is the revenue loss category that's a very broad category however there's a limitation on how much fits into that category and so we need to look and see based on the estimates that we were provided for that particular project if we'd have enough capacity to make that recommendation man I appreciate that that's why I put a question mark at the end of my question because I appreciate you all bringing it back and I know you've looked at a lot of that stuff so I thank you for it thank you Colonel yes I'm sorry man Dion thank you for the presentation um wanted to ask a couple questions uh just as it relates to the master plan uh the parks master plan I remember this was a city-wide master plan not just for one park in fact I think there was even a park in the Northeast Mary something so yeah so there were two individual masses Mary Francis kingsling was adopted so that Master Plan was adopted Memorial Park was the second one that we were doing in terms of individual Master plans we also had a discussion about doing a city-wide master plan um the cost of that was about 800 000 it really is about you know understanding what our direction is going to be in terms of looking at our facilities whether it's going to be about looking at some of the newer things or whether we spent our effort right now about the Deferred maintenance and conversations that we've had we have the facilities Master uh study that's underway right now I think it will benefit the council to see what those numbers and the scope of that is you've heard today about some of the Deferred maintenance that's happening we have a lot of other things that are just duct tapes holding them together so I think we need to bring that forward and then have the conversation more broadly about you know whether we sort of launch uh the development full development of the parks master plan as you will see the plan that we have I did a review there's lots of things in the master plan that we did 10 years ago we just haven't gotten I just recall it there already being a direction in funding allocated for it so so what additional direction are you looking for so there wasn't funding allocated for it so I thought we funded it through the certificate of obligation SEO Hernandez with CID so when we brought for 2020 that was the code read write five points dire Corridor and there's one other that I'm missing I can give you the slide and send that to you for all the listings of but the parks master plan was not included in that request okay I I just read so yes please if you can so I can reconcile that um thank you I wanted to talk about uh the action that Council took earlier this year as it relates to Silver Sneakers adopting um a uniform rate for senior citizens okay yeah as soon as you made your your request Parks reach out to the silver sneakers program and we got approved we just waiting for the agreement and we should be starting with the program for all the senior centers at 10 of our rec centers starting next fiscal year it's really wonderful to hear I'm excited about that opportunity what about the ability to accept other insurances is that something that we could still explore and I think like depending on your insurance private insurance outside of Medicare if if silver sneakers isn't accepted with the parks department accept it a future discussion just just wanted to plant that seed um I did uh make a request for funding at one of the adult facilities excuse me adult program and we talked about it last last fiscal year I lost my I know it's here there it is um I've been participating some of the events and stopping by at biovajo and the the adult disability program is really wonderful I'm just trying to understand what your budget would look like to support their services historically had been funded through Community Development block grants for whatever reason it was not competitive or the parks department didn't apply so I'm just trying to understand what will be the direction and just to be clear there's a lot of requests for summer activities field trips Transportation uniforms um we we even do a food you know just so they can barbecue so that they can have events there at the site and that most of that is being paid through our office discretionary funds and so trying to understand what the city is doing for the program that was a supplemental that was already approved ma'am so we had two for Parks so it would allow us to take care of the uniforms we've already worked on ensuring that you know the cost for the program participation is covered we're also looking at um Staffing that's going to be continued to be dedicated to that so that was one of our two the other supplemental for us was the meals that you and I we talked about last year were the gaps in the senior service meals over the holidays yeah and and one of my request is we have a senior senior meal programs through the counties program and and that might just be a follow-up but I don't know if it's possible for the senior adult program so we we did follow up and we wrote to the county um regarding possibly adding that to their program the response we got was that they had several reductions in their funding and they were not able to take on additional I asked for what the cost for that would be if the city was willing to take on on those additional costs that cost was not provided after a couple of asks so I think we have to elevate you know that discussion to senior leadership at their next meetings we kind of understand what we might be able to do to work through it I there seemed to be a little um concern that I guess they had applied for some Community block grant and it was unsuccessful in that and so I don't think they were very forthcoming in in helping us to work through this process even if we were willing to pay for it so we will continue to follow it right and the only thing I would elaborate on that request is that they're all senior citizens we refer to them as kiddos they all they all have disabilities and they are there for the majority of the day and so very much it is even though there's activities in sports um you know it is it very much mirrors a senior center or facility so but thank you for for that effort um and then going to museums we covered museums right yes um I don't think you've ever I don't see any discussion any um fee schedule and schedule C anything related to the Mac or La nube so I'm trying I think now is the time that we need to have a conversation about entry fees what the cost would be to rent the facilities things of that nature so for the Mac we need to bring the director on board we can bring a fee schedule that can be adopted in one meeting by resolution really the program and development what we have put in place and we've had the funded which is funded this year's is the education coordinator education something coordinator as well as a director to allow us to have the direction in-house to be able to think about the programs or talk about executing the program schedule that we're thinking about what do those exhibits look like and letting them influence how we do some of those other pieces so we definitely would need to come back my hope is that we would have that done before the holiday so it is very clear you know as people are thinking about renting all of our advertisement and all of our documents that go out to talk about come enjoy this place in 60 60 to 90 days would have all that included so we really do need to I'm hoping yeah somebody on Friday you're going to open it and I and I did have questions related to schedule C about Parks and Rec um Pablo I just wanted to mention to you there was I always get the calls from the sports um tournament in the leagues when the scheduled fees go up so I'm appreciative that you didn't increase the sports fee for for participants that helps the families uh tournament cleaning fees went from 600 per tournament to 600 per day tournaments are three three like weekend long tournaments especially you know and representative district at the Beast there are significant tournaments that could be costly um is that the true cost of a tournament cleaning day to 600 it went from 600 per tournament and I'll and I'll reference the schedule C it's on page c28 line item 1584 it went from 600 per tournament to 600 per day and um so I just want to make sure that those are true costs and if it seems a little elevated and you know turn leagues they're they're dependent on parents contribution for their Sports fees and so it does it does make it more expensive for families to to enjoy these uh centers so if if I can hear popular for whoever it's actually the cost the cost that the provider sets us for us yeah it's a third party so that is that is a true cost if there's a consideration to reduce that um per day um I would I would ask for that reconsideration only because the the leagues are going to are they're going to have a hard time paying paying that for their tournaments of course um but you know just depends on which League we're talking about the other question I have now I'm going to shift gears to the zoo I was happy to see that um the viewing room uh for the sea lions I know that that's been a big complaint from the public it says to like it doesn't really give a timeline on the presentation can you give us a better understanding if this budget includes the cost for that filtration system that you you all mentioned you needed and when those improvements will be made yeah excuse me Joe Montesano director of the zoo the penguins are slated to be completed um well we're saying this year to the public but probably September they're on track four right about now and so the whole thing will be completed in September the whole exhibit by the living room everything the whole thing okay it may take us in our 30 days to get actual animals in there once the plumbing is all done and things but still by the end of the year okay well my hope is that we can try to expedite that only because yeah so the one thing I wanted to talk about the overall theme with um with the schedule C it's kind of like they're like hidden fees I was concerned to see this Carousel increasing from two dollars to three dollars and I wanted to I wanted to ask because I saw that there was a voucher for twenty dollars to do eight whether it's the draft feeding um the train rides or the carousels um you know we have multi-generational family households with numerous children and homes I'm no different and no not unique but I have five children if I wanted to take my kids on the carousel it would cost me 15 a ride and so I just was trying to understand is it because there's a need is it the maintenance cost High because three dollars a ride I just feel it's really excessive especially because our departments are subsidized so when when folks on this body say that oh there's a deficit and a public facility you know I take issue with that because these are not deficits all quality of life departments are subsidized by the city's general fund the water parks are no different the zoo is no different the carousel is no different so I'm just I'm having a little bit of a heartache with the three dollars a ride is there a reason why well the thought there is the maintenance costs are going up but that wasn't the primary driver of it it really was to bring it in line with the other with the draft feeding and the other amenities so we could do a discount on all of them that's that 20 discount you're talking about there and so in order to discount it we did it's also for members it is a dollar cheaper so our dollar and a half cheaper I believe if you're a member of the zoo so there is already another discount built into there so if we we're just bringing it up into line really with the giraffe feeding and everything else I think I think we should reconsider that but I'll let Council decide on whether or not they want to they're okay with three dollars a ride um and then uh again about the overall theme about quality of life I really do believe we've already given direction to this Administration to come back and look at a quality of life for a bond election for 2024. um why we haven't had those discussions um I don't understand why but we really need to get to work we need to uh hopefully with with our new city manager Mr Weston really need to do a new strategic planning session look at the quality of life election it takes a year to create these requests it takes time to determine the cost for not only the election but for the cost for improvements your master plan with the parks the facility maintenance I think all of this is really the prime opportunity to get this package together put staff to work hire those Consultants that you need bring forth in a new year a plan but I'm getting concerned that we're running out of time we need to have the vision to look at the development for the next 20 years and these 2012 quality life programs have already come to an end so when there are requests for public facilities even to deferred maintenance and improvements to pools and roofs and leaky roofs and and HVAC all of that historically has been funded through debt not through general fund and so if this Council does not want to consider a CO or a capital plan then we need to consider asking the voters to to do the work that we have failed to do on Council I have a question about the current funding allocation for the 150th Year celebration we allocated five hundred thousand dollars at this past fiscal year are we going to exhaust that and then our because I saw that there's a new replenish of of request for the new fiscal year so that was that actually took that line out so the the dollars that are are available will be utilized this year so thank you so much for attending so far the the music in the park so you Theory so we're we've allocated funds to the quality of life departments and so you'll see activities that are going to be happening Central activities in addition to the eight programs that we have you'll see programs run through the fall we're utilizing programs that we had like octane Tober for the library the Winterfest will also have a theme that's associated with it we also are going to have chalk to block have a theme so our celebration will end with Winterfest so there isn't a reallocation okay so it's the you're just carrying it over the it's because we allocated five hundred thousand dollars so I'm trying to understand where are we at with those funds so that that amount was deleted and reappropriated within parks for their needs should add in 20 well in 2024 is what you're referring to right this is 500 000. oh this fiscal year is it's going to what Miss Mack just outlined it's currently in the Parks budget right are we going to exhaust all of it by the end of the fiscal year no that we will have to roll over okay to be able to cover and so we've already had that discussion you know obviously we were planning to start this uh our celebration a little bit earlier because of you know the migrant crisis and things that happened in the um downtown area we were not able to have a very large event as we had initially planned the staff did a wonderful job of thinking about how we can bring individual programs to every district and so we made the ship to really bring bring our programs to where people are within the districts and so you'll see in addition to the programs that we have listed for music we know that it's very warm out and so we wanted to really take advantage of all the fall activities that we have and utilize those resources to run our 150th uh through um I think our programming goes through beginning of November okay so you don't need another allocation it's just going to roll over into the next fiscal year understood um that's that's all I have for right now if I have additional questions I um one thing that I noticed and I don't know if it's due to budget items or what's going on but the park shouldn't be very dry and the grass used to be there but it's not any longer and you know I was at the High Ridge Park on this weekend for the 150th anniversary and I had quite a few constituents walk up Mr last year they had it closed they so they could redo it there was beautiful and when I looked down there there was whatever was beautiful I didn't see it because it's all gone and I think that needs to be addressed as part of our budget items to make sure that if we're going to spend money to make them beautiful we need to make sure we maintain them and it was I mean I had numerous constituents come up to me and were very saddened to see what they had last year compared to what they have today yes sir Joel McKnight streets and maintenance yes on our irrigation systems this year one of the one of the obstacles that we've been able that we've been having to confront is the fact that because we are in a record-setting year of having 24 plus consecutive 100 degree days our irrigation systems no matter where you are in the country they're made to complement the natural rainfall and this year we're already an inch and a half behind plus the 100 degree days and we got into those days earlier than in the past and so we're we're playing catch up with trying to get water out into many of those areas to where whether it I wouldn't say it's inadequate but it's at the extreme of an irrigation heads throw and so we're working on getting those supplements done at this time because of that and you'll see later also that at that park that is one of that Park in particular is one that is being targeted for um the iq4 computerized controls so that we have better we have better control by using uh atmospheric data with evapotranspiration as well as notifications when we have a valve that has a problem or a break and so we're addressing situations like that as we as we go through each year but that's that's uh that we can't deny that we're not as green as we were in the past and it's mostly because of the heat we're going through it's not because it's not because we're trying to save water we're yeah because it um I mean like I said I didn't see it when they were talking about how beautiful it was last year but um I did see it how I was this year last year on that on that one part of the year it was uh closed because of the Lighty project and so it didn't have the activity as well right well thank you for that update remember Pro Temp thank you for bringing up that conversation Mr McKnight I see the audition for Parkland management that you all added doesn't actually say um what well a conversation I did not have with you I had with Miss Cody and so I wanted to ask you directly if we could get a list of the parks that have already had the automated system and then the parks that are in queue for the automated system I realized I didn't ask you that directly that's why I saw on the presentation and representative I think it might be perfect timing to bring up the presentation then we can address the the request so if it will please bring up the Parkland it's the next presentation three B Joel McKnight streets and maintenance department and then while it is bringing it up one thing I'll tell you is that the lists that you're going to see on this presentation show what was accomplished last year and what is planned for this next year thank you it doesn't it does not have the it doesn't list by sight what was done previous to last year and we can provide that information as an addendum for you okay of course our strategic goals both to enhance the quality of life as well as to sustain our infrastructure Network one thing I want to do is because there's there are there are people in the room today that haven't seen these presentations before is go over what the the benefits of computerized irrigation control and the one that the system that we use is called iq4 through Rain Bird number one since it's a cloud-based system it can be accessed remotely and so whether we get a an alarm that says that there's an issue or whether it just is rescheduling something because of climatic or seasonal changes we were able to do that remotely since it's cloud-based in the past we would have to go visit every single Park and so that's the the benefit when a park gets this system on it number two it can sense excess flows or even low flows and so if we have a pipe break and we've got that excess flow going out it'll sense it and then it'll go through a system of checks and then it will shut that valve off and go across and move to the next so we've have seen water savings from that benefit already in the existing sites as I stated earlier it automatically adjusts the water schedules based on climatic data there is historic databases that tell that that we use where it we tell it what the crop is our crop is Bermuda grass and it'll it'll work through the climatic conditions and it knows what the requirements are for the turf and it makes adjustments whether it's because we had a rainfall or whether it's because our temperatures are exceeding the norm and then lastly like I just said one of the big things is that we can adjust anything and make changes from a cloud-based central location versus having to go from site to site to site at each field controller so the Investments that we've made past and current year from 20 to 21 through a Bureau of Reclamation Grant which was called smart water grant we were able to do a pilot with this and add 12 Park sites the park sites we chose then were 12 of our larger sites that didn't have complicated issues whether it meant that there were multiple meters and other items on that we we completed that in 2022 then Council awarded money for FY 22 at 480 thousand since we really didn't know and CID assisted us on some things we really didn't know how many parks we could get with one because we weren't sure how much retrofitting and other things we would have to do we targeted we targeted a small amount we were able to get 43 Parks done last year with the same money because of the experience that our staff gained we were able to do 63 Parks So currently we have a hundred and fifteen hundred and eighteen uh Parks out of 257 that are irrigated under this system here's it's just a quick list and you'll get to see it on everything that's there but that's that's what was done last year it's like I said it doesn't include the other 12 that from previous years in the pilots then there's just showing what the results have been you can see the trend line showed that we were projected by 2021 to actually get up to about close to 1.4 but we've actually been able to drop with cert with this system on the number of gallons used and still get it out to the parks to where we have Green Turf now we each year we're asking for more money for water because the rates increase each year it's not because of gallon usage our for this next year we're requesting 280 000 so that we our Target is 20 sites we're saying that conservatively but we feel like if we don't run into unforeseen issues where underground in some of our older Parks it requires more retrofitting then we may be able to get 30 out of it we don't know but we're conservatively estimating 20 sites and these are the sites that we're targeting for this next year yes ma'am I'm sorry so those slides aren't on our presentation can you go back to this one and then um the one that sure uh And to clarify a comment that was uh that was made yesterday the 2018 Amendment to the water conservation ordinance didn't allow us to water more on volume it allowed us to have more days to do it in the old ordinance we were required to water on Monday Wednesday Friday which meant that no matter where no matter where you were at a neighborhood or not we could water from 6p to 10A and be water Hogs and not be good neighbors when people were trying to do wash or take showers so we should get more strict on that older ordinance I hear you and so now it's based on volume and and then there's there's the completed sites so representative as far as the information that's provided to Council in the in the budget documents folder I apologize it's under Council information request and it's number four that's where you'll find this presentation oh okay because there was one that was just at the bottom yes ma'am that was from yesterday I apologize I need to delete it because this is the current one can I ask how you're determining which Parks because I'm only seeing one District Two Park in this list from last year and none from the years coming up and so yes originally our criteria were we were trying to we were trying to Target one if it was a large Turf area number two if it was a system that would allow us to do it without having to do a an enormous amount of retrofit because during our first couple of years we wanted to learn the best process to make this work so that we gained efficiencies and then we've gone on and and gotten better at it that's the reason that we're starting to cover more and more throughout the city and we're targeting more in our older sections because we've learned tricks on how we can meet some of the requirements to make the flow sensor work right in confined spaces just like to see this like more Equitable throughout the districts yes ma'am and we and we did complete with the completion of the Bor Bureau of Reclamation grant our plans are in this next year to try to get work with our comptroller and whether it be for fy24 or for fy25 get alternative funding to help us add more parks that away as well currently at the 118 that I told you about we're at about 40 percent coverage 46 coverage on uh having these controls that have made a difference now with the next year going up to 138 it'll be about 56 percent so we've got a ways to go and it's not all 300 Parks because not all 300 parks are irrigated on this place bye Mr McKnight thank you for that I wanted to ask about um Sports fields or are you is the program including Sports Fields yeah yes ma'am okay um could you tell me huh well um we've targeted our designated game fields first because those are the ones that people to expecting to see in a higher level so West Side sports Eastside Sports and so Joey Barraza and so on and then we're going through as we said we're trying to Target the larger Turf areas which would meet certain which would meet the requirement of what you're thinking of is whether it be even though it's not a designated game field it's having to be used because of our inventory and that we've targeted Parks like uh let's see Lionel Forte Cielo Vista and on so on okay um I I parks that I didn't see that that frequently have games and practices and I'm going to mention Ralph Cloud only because that's where I walk with my children and frequently the irrigation is on the trail and which part again I didn't hear Ralph Cloud formerly known as Yucca park and that's in District Seven across the street Ponder album Pico Norte lucky Chester I didn't see them on the list those are all high use Ponder is going to be one that we're trying to Target through the Grant application because it's going to take some excess work on certain things album is another one that's going to be more complicated because of the age and the meters just like we're waiting on the master plan at Memorial because we need to have an irrigation system renovation before we can do it there because 40 of our valves at Memorial are battery operated and not on a central type system and and is it's similar to album yeah yes ma'am um did is Blackie Chester on your plan Blacky cheshers also wanted what it's one of them that would have were that originally we didn't know how we were going to address it because it has multiple meters and we learned from a few other sites that we can we can do it that way by uh segmenting instead of trying to think of it as a whole okay also not my district sorry um and then uh yep and Pico Norte uh it was in the original 12 on the pilot oh great okay this list you're seeing today don't include the original 12 and that's the reason I'll have to get you that information um we I'm just going to ask real quick for Parks because as we're thinking about Turf I'm thinking about um the funding allocations Parkland dedication funds uh I think they're called Parkland dedication funds can we have a list of what your plans are for the next fiscal year which improvements will be made you may if you don't have that today in the future we definitely will send you that yeah and we used to get like a like hey these are the these are the these are the park improvements we're gonna do I haven't seen none of that by the way um by park by district and so this is the first time that I've seen what kind of improvements we're gonna be doing in the next fiscal year I think that's that's really helpful as to determining the needs um and additional budgetary requests but that is a budget that's um funds are contributed to that through developers correct is that what kind of fees is it is like a park Parkland fee I'm not calling it correctly I'm just trying to figure out the name do you all know what the name is yeah oh okay all right good good um thank you thank you okay sorry I didn't want to jump but I know that you have the amenities as well to talk about absolutely oh I'm sorry representative remember were you going to say something well thank you mayor thank you appreciate that um when there was that fire was that ever determined to be arson or accidental or uh perhaps we've been brief on this before but I can recall right now it was determined accidental accidentals and do you know what the means were is that uh uh some type of electrical outlet going out or I believe they were doing and I'll I'll get back to it I'll send it back out to you but I believe they were doing some Roofing work and it was with heat okay welding torches and how much uh substantial damage did it cause from what I understood it was the contents that got damaged it wasn't it wasn't really to the structure but we're safe now everything as far as as far as I know sir yes okay and this is for the zoo how's our baby giraffe doing okay all right thank you oh Miss Martinez for the library on a fiscal year how many books are purchased as far as a dollar amount to replace you know new books that are always published uh information that comes out good afternoon Nora Martinez director of libraries I don't have that number in the top of my head but we do have a budget for Publications and subscriptions that I can get to you so I can give you the cards 1.5 million that's 1.5 million and what do we do with old books that aren't circulated anymore for whatever reason all books are given to the Friends of the libraries that turn around and sell books um for the for us and they provide us with monies for programming or anything else that the libraries might need thank you very much you're welcome thank you Ms Cody next item yes Sarah so they've already brought it up so I'll turn it over to Mr McKnight thank you Joel McKnight again all right here is a little bit of an overview on on the amenities projects that that we're having for this coming year of course the goal for what we're what we're asking for is 1.3 million for playground replacement of playgrounds that are at a very low C or even a d and these are playgrounds that are old enough to where we have difficulty in even locating components for replacement because of their age the manufacturer just doesn't make one that fits it anymore the others the other section is playground fall surface Replacements number one if we've got several that need special attention and then benches and tables on the playground replacement we're targeting Mountain View Nation Tobin and Washington Park on on theirs because those are of the age that we just cannot find replacement components anymore playground fall surface replacement Buena Vista Cielo Vista cork done Liz marama Gonzalez Marty Robbins Newman Normandy Pico Norte Ranchos Del Sol Reese McCord Sunrise Walter Clark West Green West Side Community these are all at a stage to where some of them are still sand which is not a safe fall surface and it and it doesn't really provide anything more than barely more than bare ground let's just say it that way and then lastly on our bench and table replacement we're targeting a minimum of 100 units combined talking about benches and tables and the reason I don't have a list for you today is because on this on this last year we had a million dollars to where we targeted 55 parks where where we were replacing benches and tables that had either failed and had come out or we had to take them out and we'll get that list to you there as well as as well as we had what we called a paint and shine project this last year to where we we actually made a difference in 44 parks to where we took out minor components and replaced painted refreshed everything from benches tables trash receptacles and even parts of the playgrounds and we were able to do out of that you say take a look at what we did this last year with staff on those two and that was one third of our parks that we were able to touch throughout the city can I just add on that one I think we talked about a little bit the conversation regarding what we do with salary savings and what happens throughout the year I miss representative canals I think you asked about what do we do with one-time cost and expense it really has been the opportunity to use these type of dollars for those projects and so we use the salary savings within Park Land Management to be able to fund that type of project on overtime and it made such a tremendous difference you know within the community and the team just they identified the locations and it just looks like a brand new location when you're able to to keep it up and have it be well painted and shown attention throughout the city so thank you so much for that but that is one of the ways that we're able to address some of these issues throughout the year that may not be in the budget as we're adopting we shouldn't be better Michelle I just got one question for you are you even considering Capistrano Park it's one of the older Parks down in my area down there uh considering it For What on the amenities in fact in fact it's one that we've had to we've had to remove some because of vandalism and so we're with this with this 100 we would Target some of those that have to be replaced just because of loss and the other thing is at Capistrano it would probably go under a paint and shine project this next year as well okay are you looking at putting any canopies on on older Parts like that that would have to actually be coming from a capital point of view because it's because the canopies are not just a uh a small maintenance cost okay thank you thank you that's a conversation that can be had a teacher approach him I feel like you can't even make this stuff up all these Replacements are in District Two because the older area has been um just neglected a little bit and so with Mountain View I know that there was an issue with the slide um and so are you saying that's not getting replaced because you can't find that replacement because the replacement has taken so long we've taken a look at other issues and said okay we've got other components that look like if we have a situation we're gonna we're gonna be in the same boat and that's why it's being targeted okay so that that park right now is not funny to have a playground unless this is approved correct okay well I mean I think we would still keep we would still keep the other portions of that Playground open but that slide will be blocked off as and that's why it's blocked off now that's why whenever we have vandalism occur whether it's a slide or whether it's one of the activity boards especially if it's on an elevated decking we have to put a blockage there so that for the safety features yeah we were all wondering why there's like a welded thing but that makes sense yeah um can you get us the cost of just these three playground Replacements and oh I should have started with this I know that there had been a conversation with moms on board and I don't know if the president Canales has spoken to them a little bit more about the kind of playgrounds we're having all kind of same uniform not really creative or Ada accessible when you looked at replacing these was this just the basic are you kind of looking at newer better models well we're looking at newer better models because they offer so much more now than they used to to it was almost cookie cutter designs the the limitation we run into when it's an existing playground is if the size footprint allows to add The Wider walkways like we did at ponsford uh Ponder pardon me for the first all abilities playground that footprint was large enough we were able to put a new one that had the wider walkways to it's so everything is going to be replaced when it gets replaced it'll be replaced and will be Ada accessible it just isn't always that's the difference because all of our playgrounds where you have the transfer points have the uh Horton play rubberized coating so that it is automatically the highlight of being Ada compatible and accessible the other reason that we convert from Sand to Wood fiber is wood fiber is is an acceptable through ipima International playground equipment manufacturing association as well as ASTM as a an ADA accessible it provides Ada accessible even the problem with that is was when when we have when we have people that will go in and scattered around and loosen it but that's the reason we have a playground crew now that's dedicated and we make regular rotation yeah and they've been great whenever we've had an issue I know we just replaced some of the padding around um in a park in the district they were really great about it but I mean I do think that these are really important to look at especially now that the Mountain View Park is not usable and has like a weird welded piece of metal over the slide and that we don't have funding for that um it is somewhat even different than just replacing an old playground because it's not functional so if you could kind of show us what the replacement playgrounds would look like and how much each of them would cost before the end of tomorrow that would be great tonight I don't know I don't know before the end of the week we've gotten Concepts yet we just have generalized budgetary funding that the manufacturers told us they thought it was going that's fair yeah whatever you have and we'll just keep these budget meetings going to get us that information I'm just kidding I was just going to ask is this a supplemental request or this is built in yeah thank you for that question so this funding that we're referencing this current year was the first year that this has been added into the budget so we did the we started with the million dollars so it's up to 1.3 now and so prior to this current year they had essentially no money that they were able to go out and actually be proactive in doing these temp replacements and so now they do have dedicated funding to be able to plan ahead and addressing some of these key issues yeah that's really good to hear all right thank you thank you she's referring to the 1.9 million that he had in the plan oh so that's different yes okay then I don't need that information if these are funded great happy about it sorry about that thank you Mr Cody yeah we should clarify because I thought we were discussing the 1.9 supplemental so what is the 1.9 supplemental yeah so so thank you representative anello so so Mr McKnight she's asking you had as part of your supplemental request 1.9 million dollars listed is that in addition to this 1.3 that you already have or is that partially included already to be honest I'm gonna have to ask Renee because I thought this was I thought we had I thought this was the only portion this is included so really in reality you're asking for an additional 600 000 to meet the the full supplemental amount so they would need an additional 600 000 to meet the full supplement well congratulations [Laughter] sorry sorry so that actually completes our goal um our gold team and vision block for exceptional recreational and educational opportunities so mayor I and Mr Weston I deferred to you if you we can uh we can take lunch break now if you guys want and then would that be a good time to break yes sir then we can come back for a vibrant Regional economy goals one and three great so do we have a motion to break for one hour there's a motion in a second to recess a special city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 12 30 PM for one hour all in favor either when a post the meeting is back in session at 1 36 pm it's Cody thank you mayor um we were going to pass it to Ms Jerome who will be doing the vision block on vibrant Regional economy goals one and three thank you good afternoon good afternoon Marion Council for the record Tracy Durham senior Deputy city manager I'm I will be presenting the introduction this afternoon for goals one and three and then I'll be passing it on to staff we have a number of Staff members here today as part of the gold team who will continue with the presentation and they will be available for any questions that you all may have so this is a quick table of contents of the items that we'll be covering will be consistent with the other presentations that have been given thus far the Strategic alignment for our vision block which is vibrant Regional economies cover strategic goals one which is a strong sustainable Economic Development and then goal three which is to promote the visual image of El Paso the Departments that are included in our in our vision block include Aviation destination El Paso Economic Development International Bridges and planning and inspections this is a breakdown of each goal and the various aspects of the goal that are covered within our gold team this is an overview of the all funds budget and you can see that according to the oil funds budget fiber Regional economies this gold team it's about 12 percent of the overall budget with only eight percent of that coming from the general fund this is a breakdown of the sources of funding again we have a number of special revenues cases here and we also have a couple of Enterprise funds that cover including Aviation International Bridges or in the Enterprise funds and then we've got the special revenues and special funding there which includes hot tax the environmental fees and franchise fees major variances that you will see in the fiscal year 2024 budget include those that you've seen across some of the other gold teams that have already or all the other gold teams that have presented thus far in aviation for example compensation and filling vacant positions and destination El Paso against Staffing increases and then also the capital program which includes the enhancements and the improvements that you have been watching happen at the convention center in Economic Development the increases include the increases necessary for a compensation reorganization within the New York within that that department as well as increases in payments that have been required for a 380 agreements and international Bridges again also compensation reorganization needs for Staffing to ensure that we can remain staffed and provide that great customer service at the bridges and finally in goal three under planning inspections again our required compensations and getting our vacant positions filled so we can ensure that we're providing great customer service to our community these are general fund expenses and where you'll see again the variance highlights include compensation composition and compensation increases across a variety of departments general fund expenses some of your highlights you'll see compensation increases we've had some contractual service some changes in some of our contractual service requirements and then we've also seen and planning inspections in your non-operating expenditures you'll see an increase there they've aligned their Bank banking service charges and fees that have been required to continue to move forward as a department for service additional variances here under Aviation again compensation there's been there's an increase in the airline Management Services and some of our their outside contracts and utility costs destination El Paso you're also seeing an increase in capital expenditures with the upgrades that are happening there at that site Economic Development there was an increase in the El Paso Electric auxiliary franchise fee and the international Bridges again there's been an increase in compensation additional Staffing and and then there have been additional costs in their security and janitorial contracts and then also planning inspections you'll see an increase in compensation for inspectors continuing on again um there's this is a further breakout of those expenses at those expenses from the general fund and then finally for Staffing you can see again there was a transfer of four positions from the real estate division out of Economic Development over to streets and maintenance um and then for the international Bridges we've increased our toll collectors and increased compensation there because those are those are challenging roles to get to to sort of recruit and to maintain and we want to make sure that we continue to be able to provide those services at the bridge to increase our Improvement of bridge crossing times and with that I'm going to pass it now over to Elizabeth Triggs and to Karina brasgala who will continue the presentation thank you good afternoon Elizabeth Triggs with economic and International Development so the following slides really focus in on what each of the five departments are focused on in terms of priorities for fy24 and then some of the key accomplishments that that we intend to accomplish in line with those priorities this slide here we start so there's two goals in vibrant Regional economy uh goal one which has to do with building a strong and sustainable economy and goal three promoting the visual image of El Paso the first goal contains four of the five departments in this particular Vision block and then planning and inspections you'll see on subsequent slides under goal three um so just a couple of highlights the priorities play a really strong role you'll see here on this slide as well as in planning an inspection slide in expanding and diversifying the tax base and undertaking activities and making sure that that's a priority we really accomplish that priority by focusing on increasing visitor spending which is you know new revenue from outside of our community facilitating business growth and through expansion and attraction which also creates more jobs with an emphasis on quality jobs that pay family sustaining wages and then finally providing the infrastructure and services necessary to achieve those results so using our economic drivers like the international Bridges as well as the airport as not only infrastructure but also Economic Development drivers so on the subsequent slides you'll see um just a little bit more detail about what the each of the Departments plan to do to achieve or further these priorities one thing I'll highlight with the airport is of course Air Service is always critical and important important and growing that is important especially when you're trying to attract companies the airport just announced this morning a new non-stop flight to Long Beach so you can see there's already momentum and progress there in addition to air service and Air Cargo development which are what we typically think of with the airport there's also the opportunity to develop about 3 000 acres of land for non-aeronautical development which means new a new Revenue source as well as opportunities for new businesses to grow and expand in our community so you'll see a heavy emphasis on that building on the momentum there's been a couple agreements recently signed with industrial industrial developers to develop out that land as well is obviously building on the buildback better grant that we won last fiscal year and then finally the airport serves as a really good opportunity to really test different sustainability initiatives especially as we're talking about climate in line with what we heard from Nicole earlier today as well as you know Innovation opportunities and one thing I'll highlight on sustainability is that the airport is focusing very heavily still on solar panel installation so last fiscal year they did win 1.75 million from the federal government through the help of congresswoman's office to install solar panels that'll be something that they're looking to to actually do this coming fiscal year and then earlier today it was just announced that El Paso International Airport was also awarded 3 million for additional solar panel installation so I think you'll see that carrying forward that theme carrying forward over fy24 um there we go this slide talks a little bit about a destination El Paso and Key activities and planned accomplishments for the coming fiscal year we know that even after covid we bounced back in terms of our hotel occupancy rate very well very favorable compared to Texas and other major cities in Texas so continuing to focus on that and and keep those occupancy rates at 68 or greater is um is a huge goal looking at our own Regional assets and how we could use those to attract more visitors to our region so really building on ecotourism in our cultural heritage which is incredibly unique destination El Paso applied for and won an award related to the Mission Trail most recently and that you know has already brought a lot of activity and celebrations surrounding that so looking at how we can increase visitors to our region through those Regional assets um and then of course Very importantly Convention Center looking at how that infrastructure is built out improved we've already seen many Renovations like the new signage at the convention center and we've also seen great results in the last fiscal year including securing the 2024 Texas presidential convention for Texas so um I think that covers that yeah and then finally this last slide before I turn it over to Karina is related to Economic Development and our priorities um really of course we saw the other day that the downtown Uptown plan was approved what I think I want to step back and just kind of explain um Tracy mentioned earlier that there's been a reorganization over time with Staffing and what we've really done is taken the opportunity to focus our department specifically on three priorities which are small business which we saw is a huge need coming out of covid Redevelopment and then finally traditional economic development in terms of Industry development so on here you'll see those priorities specifically relate to those three things with respect to Redevelopment downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods including Uptown continue to be an area of focus we now have a plan and now is our opportunity to implement that with a heavy heavy emphasis on building up density in that area um some other things that I'll highlight I won't read through them all but when we talk about industry development it's really important that we're very visible and that we have a digital platform that's easy to access and so already have begun talking with araceli's team as well as Laura's team about how we look at our website and rethink what that website looks like over the coming fiscal year we've additionally I think we're and also not I mean obviously it's really critically important that when we talk about industry development that we heavily heavily focus on Advanced manufacturing and specifically Aerospace and defense and other emerging Industries like energy where we can contribute because we have a strong local manufacturing base we have a very very large Workforce here we have great schools that produce great Engineers so looking at how we can attract those companies to the area which is also why it's very important that the the airport infrastructure be in place to support those attraction activities and expansion activities and then finally with respect to small business the bottom three accomplishments there relate specifically to that the continued rollout of arpa funding is is critically important and then talking a little bit more about how we can give our small businesses more opportunities in coordination with Nicole's group on a public procurement as well as focusing in on cdfi capacity Karina Brad for the record and then closing out goal one so International Bridges so key priorities here continue to be the writer 44 package finalizing any remaining agreements with TxDOT and related agencies and then the rollout for the first two the its projects at Isleta and Bridge of the Americas and then looking at Isleta pedestrian improvements the design that was part of the raised Grant which was awarded last year so getting that Grant administered and those improvements designed and then ready for construction and then the two big committees that Bridges deals with so the parking steering committee and the bridges steering committee looking at continuous upgrades to the parking meter Technologies and systems as part of user feedback and the ongoing efforts with the steering committee to continue to make parking more convenient and accessible for our residents and users Bridges also continues they're going to be looking at their Capital Improvement program as they always do but continued adjustments to planned projects and phasing still some of the impact from revenue and activity due to covid so adjusting based on that as it happens and then goal three so planning and inspections our lonely Department in goal three but they do a lot so looking at Key projects delivering those to the city helping with the land entitlements rezoning and other development processes so that includes things like on the economic development side but then also a rollout of our Capital Improvement projects those Bond projects that we see that are highly visible and then updates to title 20.20 which is the historic preservation Provisions those have been a long time coming looking at bringing those forward very soon and then implementation of the new building code that was it's on target for adoption later this year and then we would move on to implementation of the building codes across the city and then these are the planned accomplishments so really a lot of the same things you know those new code amendments uh adoption but then a big focus on customer service uh planning inspections is one of our most you know public-facing departments and so making sure that there's education there's Outreach especially with those construction and development community so there's been a lot of improvements within the department over the past few years a lot of success with the pre-development and pre-application meeting program but then especially as the new those new building codes get implemented making sure that we're in close communication with the development Community to make sure that that's all runs smoothly and then online services is part of that there is an upgrade to acella which was rolled out earlier this year but then looking at ways to make sure that we continue to bring greater functionality and ease for our users both the public and then those uh you know frequent users the development and Building Services and then tied to that is also the creation of the quality assurance and training specialist based out of the One-Stop shop but really working with all staff on customer service enhancements having a dedicated place where that lives is really important to making sure the department stays on track and then a little bit of Workforce it's been talked a lot about you know compensation that sort of thing but also a really key part for planning is succession planning growing from within and developing that Pipeline with cross training so that the department can be flexible responsive as changes happens in development needs over time I think that concludes the presentation good afternoon ma'am hi all good afternoon um thank you for the presentation uh I'll start with economic development since y'all led the presentation so I learned this week that your legislative person is now in where Capital Improvements department but I also see that you're asking for a legislative liaison could you discuss that a little bit [Music] Elizabeth Triggs Economic Development um so sort of what Yvette said the other day is that it's really important that we work together on all of these things and that we have support for that legislative team so that they can work across the whole city so it's a good support to have especially when we are moving into sessions so that we can begin developing the agendas ahead of time so this would be a support person for the legislative team I give you my opinion um is this a staffing cost comparable to the other two positions apologies you're asking for 73 000 is that comparable to the other two uh it's lower but yes um I mean I I this is I guess that's a comment for you all and more for the city manager um this is my concern with putting that legislative person in uh to CID because then they are working in that department and not across the city as and you're asking for someone to work with them in your department and if they were in your department I just I I still I understand that you're asking for another person but we have two other people that we also we have a focus advocacy we have a legislative person in Austin we have someone here and now we would be asking for a fourth person um yeah so let me help clarify a little bit um the purpose is not that it the purpose is that we have a team a legislative team to help us get through the legislative sessions I think you saw with both Omar and Lindsay here during this last legislative session a lot more um both Grant activity a lot more submissions but then we also secured a lot of our legislative priorities so having that second person and we've done a lot of benchmarking with other communities is really helpful but I want to be clear it's a legislative team it they would work closely together no I understand that but then I would question what we're paying the other person in Austin for and I guess that's a longer conversation um but it is a concern that I've had and so I I still will say that I'm concerned with those positions being in CID but I will move on now to visit El Paso Mr Garcia since I'm in a big sync about questioning you publicly I want to go ahead and do it um I want to congratulate you on a lot of the improvements of the convention center I think um really shows the difference like a can of paint makes you the place looks amazing um you've been there two years now three yes ma'am almost yeah and I think you've done a fantastic job with the building I wanted to ask you about future plans of expansion um or renovation that you have outside of what has already been done okay uh Jose Garcia president CEO for Destination Paso good afternoon mayor council we have several projects uh planned for the next fiscal year and I'm just going to kind of run through the list they're not in any sort of priority uh just a list of what we have for the convention center so what we started was a Convent Hall a uh Improvement the convention center does not have a ballroom so we started a conversion of Hall a to uh to a ballroom it can be used in conjunction with the other two halls but when we get conventions that are looking for a ballroom we can then close the air wall and provide a ballroom but we can also use the ballroom for different type of events like weddings Quinceaneras things of that sort to help bolster some of the activity that we don't have in the summertime and so that will be the finishing the product will be the the sealing treatments for that um and then the big one for us will be the upgrade for the information technology uh for the convention center right now it's uh it's it's a struggle for us because um even though we have the bandwidth stubbed out to the convention center the internal infrastructure really kind of bottlenecks the pipeline the bandwidth if you will so we're gonna Soup To Nuts the cabling the the the hardware everything to upgrade that the ice rink we're going to get an ice we're going to purchase an ice rink in the past we've been renting an ice rink and uh it's just it's just Cost prohibitive to continue to rent ice rinks it's it'll be cheap it'll pay for itself in three seasons um and so we're going to purchase an ice rink and of course that's for um Winterfest uh we're going to upgrade the fire life safety and that's everything from our fire panel through the fire suppression etc etc yeah we're going to upgrade our building management system our building management system is uh is outdated it's going to create Efficiencies For Us response times and put in perspective uh be able to keep the the building comfortable and be able to address changes to the building management system quicker um let's see here we're gonna buy new ballrooms or we're going to add to our inventory of Ballroom chairs uh this is primarily for the convention we have coming up um the Texas Democrat State Convention um we're expecting six to eight thousand folks and they're going to be using the exhibit hall as their General Session area and so we want to make sure that we have all the same style a chair we'll also be able to use it for other events you may have heard in the news a couple weeks ago the Christian congregation Jehovah Witnesses held their first convention back after the pandemic and they require six to seven thousand chairs as well and that has you know that that that alone has an incredible uh impact on on downtown but also creates compression for the outlying hotels as well so we want to make sure that those that all our Ballroom chairs are are up to par we're going to buy a passenger fan um the passenger van is because we we're finding we're doing some shuttling or more and more shuttling from around the different hotels as we start to increase convention activity could you could you could imagine being at a Hotel Indigo on a day like today and having to to go back to the convention center so a passenger van to help with the with the shuttling of our delegates and then we're going to do AV system upgrades our one of the things I identified early on is that our our AV Equipment is outdated and in this day and age it would be difficult for us to have a meeting like this one in the convention center just because our av technology isn't up to Snuff so improving our av technology that's amazing it's a lot of projects you're undertaking and again I think you've made a real significant change in that building since you've been there so happy to hear about all these things coming up I did want to talk about the pools that you are overseeing the four centers the water parks why can't we get that right today Jose pools aquatic centers water parks we had a conversation here earlier I don't know if you were listening about how we have not done a great job at our facilities when it comes to pools and in fact I think at this point we have one outdoor pool functioning is that what we decided or zero maybe um and I think that we're also heard from the community that the aquatic centers themselves the water parks themselves are a little bit out of the financial capabilities for some families to attend and so I was wondering if you all have looked into it all giving discount for families with SNAP benefits I know that a lot of like the Houston Zoo does it because if you are a family of five or six uh 15 a person can be a lot for you and I would also I mean I don't know if we have this data if we could collect this data I am based on what I've heard from the community making the assumption that individuals who receive things like SNAP benefits are not utilizing these water parks because they can't afford them and so we would not be bringing in all of that revenue from them going to the water park we would be bringing in some that were not currently tapping into is a really inappropriate way to express that but it's what I'm going to use for a lack of a better term and so I just want to know if that's something that you all could look into or interested in looking to have looked into um absolutely the short answer is yes um we were always looking at continuous Improvement right and getting feedback from from the community one of the things we did is this past season is we expanded our season pass offerings last last season we only had one season pass and so we've expanded it so that there's one season passes you know you can you can get everything you can you can attend every event at any water park anytime during the season or if you live and I'm going to use Lost Kingdom as an example if you live across the street from Lost Kingdom that's your home park and if you just want a season pass for that we've added that so this is definitely something that we can look into and incorporate if necessary or as it as as it is approved by by the city so anything we can do to increase our attendance make it more accessible you know listening to the earlier conversations and everything at a water park or a swimming pool is made to break you know it's like it's everything's corrosive and you know and whatnot so I completely understand like the the challenges that that happen with with water parks and Aquatic Center and swimming pools et cetera et cetera but yes in in the effort for continuous Improvement making things making making the water parks more accessible definitely something we can look into yes ma'am let me ask you a question uh so the water parks what was the net gain or loss on the water parks combined for the year of last year operating year the net loss if I right off the top of my head mayor was 1.8 I want to say 1.8 million and that was all on the back of the taxpayers that wasn't part of bureaus we took that in as part of our budget offset by Revenue as well offset the operations are obviously you didn't offset my Revenue because then you'd be a plus so the negative was upset by the general fund correct yes the deficit was okay by the general fund and then I do want to agree with uh mayor Pro tem on an additional legislative person for economic development we do have Miss Cuellar who is she part-time or so of course she gone full time yet she's she's a full-time employee but this will be her last year with the city so we'll have to replace her as well but not an additional person and then we have Snapper and Brandon and then we have Lindsey Adams and then we have Omar you know we have a lot of people working and it's enough session this coming budget also so we do got to look at that that this coming budget it's in they're not in session so why would we want to add somebody to an expense and next question is how many people do we have actually reporting and working under the pay of Economic Development so there are 25.5 ftes in 20 25 yes sir there's 25.5 um there's much 30. go ahead I'm sorry 25 oh okay so there's a lot and I remember back in um 1617 we had about five so we've grown a little bit and but I would actually like to see someone take a look at that because that's a lot of people in an apartment and maybe we Consolidated some departments I don't know I don't have the that knowledge but uh from 5 to 25 is a lot and the one another one really makes me a little uh uneasy to be honest with you on and off season also so if I if I can go through if I can walk you through that a little bit I think it'll help as I mentioned before we were doing a reorg because we needed to focus on specific priorities especially coming out of covid so that reorg really started in FY 22 so that's our that's our Baseline and that was 17 ftes in Economic Development if you look at that between FY 22 and fy24 we're up eight and a half ftes and one thing I will say is that Omar Martinez still sits in our staffing table as do a few others that split their duties between departments so I think that's that's important to note I think it's you know in total it's an 8.5 increase through through the results of this two-year reorganization and it's allowed us really to come in line with other Economic Development um I guess organizations across across the the U.S it puts us at about 3.3 people um per 100 000 uh in in like in our city um and if you look at others in Texas as well as outside of Texas such as Phoenix and those kinds of things most of them are sitting right at three so we were we were much lower this allows us to do much much more and in addition the last thing I'll say is that we are focusing on a very wide range of activities it's not just traditional Economic Development which focuses on industry development but also we're focusing on the place making Redevelopment you know with having a team under Karina that focuses on Redevelopment we were able to get incentives done for two new hotels downtown I think you see there's a heavy heavy emphasis from Council through the passage of the Uptown and surrounding neighborhoods plan to continue to do that and so we really need that expertise and that that staff dedicated to those things yeah and I'm not trying to micromanage your department but I do share a huge increase and I'd like for us to look at it like I said from 5 to 25 is a huge increase and I know that they did a really good job back in uh from when I was in office 13 to 17 that grade recruiting and really good job so it's not for me to micromanage but I would like to have someone look at it Mary I will make one comment because one of the things that no I've I've heard and seen on some of our positions where there's a shared use and a shared need is that responsibility is mine to really make sure that we're utilizing these folks effectively to be able to cover some of these other areas within the city and so you know it's not lost on me that that I've got to do that whether it's uh the legislative position and and how that's being managed to include some of the other resources we had to help us with that as you had mentioned with the folks that we have in Austin and Snapper and those folks so I'll take a look at that and take a look at some of the others that that you and I have discussed in the past as well that has more coverage than just one Department thank you like I said I'm not I'm not here to micromanage you guys this is your job this is why we you know put you in the position so I just like for you I'll just look at it if you don't mind and I appreciate that next and I would like also I'm um I'm going back to the water park solution about two million dollars just a little concerning and I'd like to see us come back with some kind of game plan that offset that because it uh you know I know when when you first start any business and this was a new Avenue for us you know it has to grow but uh I know that we've been at uh capacity quite often in those parts so I just want to make sure what we're doing is is correct because when we brought the water parks online it was not supposed to be a money loser it was supposed to be you know something for the community the break-even type situation so if we can look at that and bring it back to us I think would be really important to us yes yes sir if if I may um I've already had a discussion um with Mr Garcia and his team um when the water parks first came online a few years ago and this predates Mr Garcia's arrival there was a proposal to to bring ticket prices in at market rate and there was Council guidance at that time Council Direction at that time not to do that so we are we are subsidizing the water parks we are looking at though and I understand this is this is not sustainable so Mr Garcia and his team now are looking at a variety of options of how we we can we can bridge that Delta making sure that we're still giving great service to the community making sure that we're still providing Equity of service but that we can we can bridge that that issue so we hear you and and we are we are addressing we will be addressing that issue sir thank you and as long as someone thinks important we don't compromise safety safety is number one in all aspects of our community and that's our number one responsibility is Public Safety so when we look at it make sure that is not compromised in any manner you took some of the words right out of my mouth it was it was a policy decision made by this body as you just said to to subsidize essentially the the admission fee for the the water parks and so I mean I think staff has carried out exactly what uh you know the the previous sitting of the council uh directed them to do um you know I do think it's a little bit unfair to ask about the operating losses of one particular type of recreation facility but we heard earlier from the museums we heard from libraries we heard from Parks and Recreation and no one's talking about their operating costs as as losses though I don't think they're operating under lawsuit so that's a big difference but anyway go ahead I'm sorry yeah and so again I think um we just I it's important to to consider that you know we we as a body have decided to provide the water parks as a service yes I think there's opportunity to um supplement them with additional Revenue uh that they generate themselves moving forward and and um you know it was an unfortunate timing too I think that the water parks open on the on the back of a pandemic um and and that suppresses attendance but as we see those numbers come up I think that we will start getting closer to break even on those and and it'll enable us to make a decision to to maybe reverse the policy decision that we've made I didn't make any recommendations so I asked them to look at it and bring it back if um otherwise I would have made recommendations on what to change and that's not again we're not here to micromanage we're here to empower the people that we did put in place to come up with suggestions for us yeah again I and I I promise I wasn't being critical of anything you said mayor I I just want the public to understand like this this isn't uh you know we wanted these to be affordable for people to attend um we still want that and we just have to make sure that we have the attendance numbers supporting in order to to make sure we break even on those into the future and for now you know it will have to continue to to supplement so that people in the community can enjoy them and many many thousands of people are enjoying them every year and right now absolutely look at operating hours looking at amenities there's so many different things we can look at to see how we can come closer to that break-even point so again I appreciate y'all willing to look at it and bring it back where it makes more sense representative mayor Pro Temp followed by representative Adonis yeah thanks I mean I just wanted to agree with representative Canales I think we also built these as a city and then brought in visit El Paso to run them and and it would be on us if they were a loss or not I do agree that there's some adjustments I want to ask and I do remember that Council wanted to make these affordable but I do feel like we've kind of hit a weird middle point where it's still unaffordable to some people and then really affordable to others um and so what is did you know what the market rate for admission would be it's I know what the other water parks in the city charge for admission um so uh wet and wild just a different type of water park obviously uh they're close to forty dollars per person if you're 48 inches or taller so that's almost well that is more than triple that we charge the new Elmont water park that's off of montecil their uh 25 for non for a non-resident ticket uh so being at fifteen dollars per person uh per day is uh were much significantly lower than they are um and then of course we have you know different different pricing for uh for uh veterans military Etc yeah I mean I I also remember part of the conversation where family packs family day passes I know we've done the season pass but it's still one person for fifty dollars which again if you're a Locum low low income family of five that's still three hundred dollars and you may only be able to use it once or twice because you work on the weekends or whatever and so I mean I would be willing based on you know what the mayor saying let's re-look at some of this stuff bringing that that general admission up but then looking again at how we can provide lower costs for individuals who may receive SNAP benefits right there's communities that again can't afford that 15 an hour so even though it's discounted we're still leaving out an entire community that can't afford this so can we bring that ticket price up and and give other opportunities for lower income people is maybe an option to that again I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job or just thinking about it no no absolutely and you know there's a plethora of of Solutions on the table to get us to as close as we can and it's not to say that we haven't we haven't uh looked at those it's just we've been going off with the marching orders that we've been given in terms of our price point uh and trying to be creative with season passes uh things of that sort we do we have offered um four pack discounts uh for on different promotional days but those those weren't for family uh family four packs um they were they were just promotions to sell season passes and a 20 discount so absolutely all the options are on the table we can take a look at we can take a look at the the pricing the economies of scale uh all those sort of things that's going to come into play when we when we start looking at uh getting closer to a break even thank you now the revenue for concessions and other amenities that are rented out where does that go that all goes into operating so it's that all into one pocket yeah so all sponsorships all food and beverage uh and then there's another opportunity right there exactly like you said sponsorships so we may be able to have more sponsorships and naming rights or whatever maybe you know for certain things so there's a lot of things we can look at to try to minimize no no I'm talking about inside oh okay got you no no I get that yeah I don't want to get Mr Kemp Cohen upset yes ma'am uh on the um uh on the same topic since I have multiple questions about start with the um just to be clear the mayor mentioned earlier the prophets um you all keep in my understanding differently based on your comment the the revenue and the profits from there are no profits from the water park so the revenues go into operating the operating budget for water parks for water parks correct and then any additional revenues goes to the general fund if there's any in the future there are no additional revenues that general fund is actually subsidizing the cost of the operation for the water parks got it yeah the the words deficit the words loss those are those are not applicable in a government and I just want to be clear again thank you representative Canales for bringing that up um our quality of life portfolio if you look at the introduction um preliminary budget that you presented yesterday Mr cortinez highlights the overall budget and our quality of life operating subsidized operating budget for quality of life is 70 million dollars 1.8 million it represents 2.5 percent of the overall subsidy that we provide for quality of life it is not an operational loss it is not a deficit it is a subsidy to the public so that they can enjoy their Parks so the the loss represents 2.5 percent of the overall um quote-unquote loss which I I'm not agreeing that was what are we saying 2.5 and it's what it is representative of the overall budget that we subsidize for the public and so I just want to reiterate that again that there is no deficit there is no loss these are subsidies for the public um now the the water park um there was a conversation about sales potential alcohol sales you know if there is a strong desire from from Council to increase revenues I would ask for you to reconsider that and bring that forward uh yes and that's something that we'll be looking for to add to next season and that will be an additional Revenue stream that we feel will help with the subsidy but as well bolster attendance as well now I wanted to ask about the I don't know if how the budget sits the 2024 Democratic Convention do you have plans uh budgetary requests for the convention but because it'll like start next summer so I just don't know if there's activities that are happening before September of 2024. uh the the convention itself takes place the last week in June um so it'll be uh it'll be in fiscal year 24. um and is that does that answer your question we'll have a we'll have a couple of uh familiarization trips uh from their organization organizing committee and their Meeting Planners um but beyond that uh no nothing formal so so fam tours um do what is the expected uh number of of visitors anticipating six to eight thousand uh attendance that is just you know really significant and I think that um there has to be a consideration this budget year for Planned events next year um it's June it's gonna be hot if you need to reserve water parks um you know whatever we can to to make the experience enjoyable we're gonna have Texans across the state leaders public leaders I think now is best to put our best foot forward and and have some more events um when we had the this predates your time was it the 2015 Mrs Jerome you'll have to help me the 2015 Bowl women's Bowling Association it was yep it was 14 it was 14 into 15 and it was it was the world bowling Congress that came into town right take over the entire yeah and and then at the time Council made budgetary requests that we would sponsor I think it was like 15 events for 2015. um and so just that's where I kind of like the conversation to go if there is a request if there's an opportunity to work with the the local parties um to see what what kind of events we can think of and if they need to be either sponsored via hot tax or general fund this is going to be a game changer for for economic development and and occupancy stays not only in downtown but Citywide so so if we can have a conversation about with with those potential costs would look like absolutely and uh just so Council knows that we have set aside as part of our our bid package when we went to uh Houston to to bid against San Antonio that was part of our our bid package and we've set aside 75 000 um for for those types of activity season whatever we can do to assist the the Democratic party making sure that they have a successful convention here okay I'm excited about it um thank you for the responses I heard about I've seen the improvements at the convention center I hear about your plans they're very exciting I've been very pleased with with the services the destination El Paso has provided over the tenure of the work that you've done with the city so thank you um Economic Development uh the our strategy is working I have seen clear Revenue increases to our sales taxes um I was disappointed not to see more staff because there's such a demand for development Citywide and with that comes with a lot of questions about our budgets related to deal closing funds and whatnot I would I was wondering if you were prepared to talk today or at a future meeting about what the available funding is in our impact fund the Ted fund and the what are the planned encumbrances that you have if any um yes I'm I'm happy to share out that information um with with you all right afterwards um I guess we'll send it out right Tracy just want to make sure yeah I was just saying I'm sorry I was just saying to Elizabeth work session because we would love to come back and do a full presentation but I think that that would be a really good coverage of something like that talking about the various funds to be able to do it in a work session environment where we we have plenty of time to interface give you all the information and really have that time to work together with Council on questions and and strategies moving moving towards the future so I'm sorry well I just wanted to say work session yep reading lips no I think that's a it's a good idea it would be helpful to show you what each of the funds is specifically for and what the restrictions are the fund balance and the existing obligations that we have um and yeah happy to share that information too so you all can review in your packets the other thing I wanted to say about Staffing though is just I used FY 22 as a baseline um I mean because that we've been going through a reorganization and that Baseline was 17 ftes but in FY 16 we were actually at 24 ftes all of which were dedicated to Economic Development so we've really only grown by 1.5 FTS over the last 20 years right and and meanwhile you know the the economy is growing sales tax revenues are growing hotel hotel occupancy taxes are growing so the work that you're doing is is clearly represented in in the growth of our of our funds we need to we need to keep on track with that representative Hernandez make just one real quick comment since you were asking a question about impact funds whether it's the impact fun or the Ted fund I'm going to keep this comment a little vague intentionally right now but I want to let the council know that I am going to be sitting down with staff and really looking at the restrictions on the use of those funds I mean I think the Market's evolving and we have to be a little bit proactive in terms of the ability to be able to utilize those funds that are available whether it's from Ted and that's going to require some discussions uh you know some of our partners but I don't think that as they're written right now is there necessarily as conducive to being able to utilize those funds as they could be and so I think it would be appropriate for us to to bring that back and have those discussions at a later time sure that's fine because we have an eye on it airport Mr Paul are you speaking for airport excuse me not airport Bridges I'm sorry Bridges Sam Rodriguez is on the line before I go to the airport I want to talk about it Bridges okay absolutely maybe I I think I wrote something down is there a proposal to decrease bridge tolls Paul stresso International Bridges um in the schedule C there's there's some changes we did to make across the board because there's confusion with commercial vehicles and non-commercial like bigger trucks that cross through so we made some adjustments there there was minor adjustments within the bandwidth that we have to make adjustments in there so there were some adjustments of like 50 cents some in some cases lowering in some cases raising but no major changes on our fees okay so just the the toes going across the bridge tolls none for pedestrians no pedestrian's still 50 cents okay and the wages for I know that there was some trouble with maintaining and recruiting those total Booth employees right are they are they on the same track with other city employees so we uh recently made a proposal to increase their salaries so in next year's budget we'll be increasing them to get them up to a to a higher salary we struggled throughout 2020 and 21 through the pandemic and of course when the city of Las Cruces the county Starbucks Target and some of these places raise their minimum wages we we saw big Exodus of our our tow collector employees mainly the part-timers and we rely on part-timers to fill in those gaps but we also saw a lot of attrition from retirement from long-time employees we had that during the pandemic you know they had exposure to the public so a lot of them decided to retire during that time frame so we've worked with HR and we're in a continuous recruitment so there's always an active list for us to recruit and interview toll collector positions but we did ask in this budget to increase their salaries so we could get them on a a little bit higher and you mean this upcoming September okay it's wonderful um and uh the P3 program any significant changes do you have plans to change the budget based on the demand of overtime CBP officers no so we're still capped at 1.6 million per year with CBP and we had we manage that very carefully with them there's sometimes there's requests to increase it but then we let them know if they increase it at this time period they might have less at another time in the year so we we keep it at that cap we do have the raise grant that we were awarded and we're going to need 3 million so there will be 3 million that we'll take from the P3 Reserve funds to use to pay that match you you all like bifurcated the budget right you put a portion to Capital One and a portion to salaries correct okay and so you're going to take from the capital side of the house correct okay all right not the it won't impact no it won't impact salaries or operations thank you um and uh you all had a five-year Capital plan and so that three million dollars is going to go to raise is there anything else that you're working on we're working also on the its right now which was the Ryder 44 grant that we got the 32 million from the state so we're in active planning with our consultant and with TxDOT and uh that'll be dynamic messaging signs on 375 and the arterials that lead into uh and the collectors that lead into the ports of entry for Saragosa and Boda even though Boda is not our bridge but it's part of that that Grant and then also we're looking at some upgrades to our toll system our total systems over 10 years old it's time to upgrade it okay updates Mr tiwi I don't really have anything for planning other than to say congratulations on the 10 years anything you'd like to highlight since you waited patiently all day to be here well it's a good good afternoon mayor council Philippi two-way planning inspections good thing that you don't have questions for us because you know the stuff we do is real time uh permitting and real customer service so we want to say thank you to mayor council and Leadership and especially our staff you know for doing an awesome job so I also uh also want to say thank you for allowing us to celebrate our 10-year anniversary that's a milestone for us um staff had a wonderful time celebrating that Milestone so thank you very much awesome and I know that you all are soon to be you're all fully staffed I think because but this facility I feel like is too small and I recognize that so um I noticed that staff were kind of you know bundling up so if there's ever a need let us know in terms of space correct absolutely actually that's one of the needs that we we have right now and also one of the goals is to have a satellite office on the east side because that's where we're experiencing all the growth in the city we just haven't had the opportunity you know to locate to find a good place for for that facility to take place yeah I think I think there might be a wonderful opportunity for a satellite or even something temporary and where the growth areas are at in El Paso thank you um and I did have a question for airport um is Mr Rodriguez in the line yes good afternoon Hi Sam um really excited to hear uh on the presentation these efforts for international flights I know other Representatives who are not here um we're really excited about this opportunity can you elaborate what what the plans are the same ingredients director of the airport we continue to meet with Airlines part of our current capital plan includes the remodeling of the federal inspection station that allows the airport to receive and process International Travelers so that's currently under design and we'll be submitting to the FAA for additional grant money for that our discussions with the airlines continuing it seems like we get closer every time we meet with them to an international flight but that's part of our efforts in terms of our budget and our allocation for resources to continue to Market to them to continue to provide the data that supports the international routes there's been a huge growth in the ciudad Juarez as far as Travelers we've shared with them that on a daily basis based on our last leakage study over 500 passengers across the border every day to use the airport in Cedar Waters so we know there's definitely a demand to some of the big markets Mexico City or on a house the three top destinations internationally that citizens from El Paso use the aquatis airport so certainly the business case is there for us to present to the U.S based carriers and they see the numbers for us it's just a matter of time we're not sending Pat as I stated we are moving forward with the design of the federal inspection station it's it hasn't been remodeled since the 80s and so we want to be ready for for that international flight because we do a fit events coming do you have any indication that it is that after these improvements that we will be likely to secure or will be is there like a certification we have to apply for first to do international flights and then or do we just need the commitment from International Airlines we just need the commitment from the airline facility is already staffed by uscpp we receive international flights on the general aviation side with private planes as well as International cargo our facility is currently uh again because we don't have a commercial scheduled flight it's certainly been sitting there we do receive every once in a while with the versions International diversions for various reasons and they get processed through that space right now but we are currently again as I stated working very closely with the airlines our budget includes a meeting and they're working with Consultants to help us continue to stay in front of the Airlines and make our case for that international flight I I think that if there are you know some kind of incentive policy that we can work out with economic development I think that's definitely is going to be critical in securing some of these Airlines again other airports are doing the same thing if we want to be competitive globally we need to be marketable and competitive as well so really exciting to hear that and Sam my final question is related to the advanced manufacturing district and the tours there I see that there's expansion is there any Airport Enterprise funds that you're using are you just are you issuing out debt can you just give me a better concept of the budget request for the campus yes the advanced manufacturing district is is being funded through 25 million dollars of Federal grant money with six million dollars of match dollars that we identified as terrorist funds moving forward but obviously the Airport Enterprise funds would also be part of that that funding um cocktail if you will to make the development happen so it's it's all in including our Capital plan that was approved by city council back in May this year last year I'm sorry and so we're we're executing that that uh that project along with others as part of our Capital fund yeah mostly leveraging our local federal dollars our local dollars to bring in federal funds you heard from Elizabeth today that we were just awarded another grant for three million dollars for solar so we're very actively working on on those grants and bringing that Federal funding to the airport very exciting to hear about all of the influx of non-property tax generated dollars and kudos to I know Omar has worked really hard on a lot of these applications in all this energy and cross collaboration between departments for the first time in my tenure I have seen multi-million dollars in the hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenues to the city of El Paso something to be very proud of and so congratulations to the airport and to all staff good job thank you very much and I'm going to um say one last comment I know we're talking about the water park so I'm going to go back to it because um it uh if I'm not mistaken and correct me please if I am that under your contract on the operating contract that's the only one that whether you make it or break it that's the only one that the city will take the liability on not liability but the loss for the profit there are other parts of it you guys should have bid and have it and whether you make a loose money that's up that's in murals deal correct fall on 10 purposes yes yeah that's what I'm saying that's why that's the reason why I picked that one out of all of them because if I lose one penny I made a commitment to the taxpayers at one pennies too much if I can avoid losing it you know 1.8 million may not be a lot percentage-wise but one penny is too much if we can avoid it and that's why I wanted to talk about it because that's the only one that you all have that you have that type of contract so if we can work together to try to minimize it or even and not give up safety or amenities and affordability for our citizens and that's important to us and again because that is the only one that you all are under that type of contract so we want to be good partners with you all and we just want to make sure we can look at it and again if I can save one penny I'm your guy I'm in definitely and as as a good partner you you always have our our commitment to to improve and and find solutions for these type of challenges thank you and I know you are and I appreciate that thank you um Nicole yes sir thank you very much mayor uh this is for Elizabeth Driggs so earlier today in the presentation you mentioned uh 25 plus five and the mayor said 30 um it's 30. no no sir um it's 25.5 oh Point time okay so you have 25 employees right now yes sir okay out of those 25 employees today today how many employees are actually at work at their cubicles harder workstations right now on Oregon so we rotate out of the office we have 100 of the time so from eight to five Monday through Friday an administrative assistant who sits at the desk and opens the office every day and then we rotate by teams those three groups that you heard about small business followed by Redevelopment and then industry development and then the fourth one that I failed to mention is our compliance Group which has become really critical to make sure that we're we're staying in compliance with all of our incentive agreements so we rotate part of the reason why we do that though sir is um we're we don't have enough space in our office to to have everybody there at once so it's part of a necessity that we rotate so if I understand this correctly you're rotating because you do not have enough space there we don't know no we'll sir we don't have a gather at one time we rotate based on teams so that we ensure the teams are able to get together in person and so how many spaces do you have we have 17 workspaces okay and how long has this been going on now um I know I know covet was here and so yes kovid was here FY 22 we had 17 ft's so presumably they could have all fit into the office you know the chat the challenges and so I you know I've been looking at that as well I mean that's not as that's not a sustainable solution we need to find the the office space frankly I'd like to be able to to figure out a solution where again we don't have to be leasing out you know a building as well but there's a lot of space challenges right now and that's just another another piece that that we have to figure out okay appreciate that sir um for Mr Garcia so you mentioned that you had some other possible solutions for attendance Improvement in park attendance for the water parks are you able to share with any of those today with us well uh just sorry uh rep um just some of the things that we've already mentioned in terms of uh adding uh alcohol sales to to the parks uh some of the feedback feedback that we did receive from from last season the water parks don't have liquor licenses um and so it's not really an easy fast fast process to get liquor licenses also a couple of the water parks may be problematic and we may have to come back to council for a waiver um and then you know look you know definitely looking at different pricing structures uh package structures things of that sort we can um you know during the off season where we get creative on what we're doing we look at what thing what what uh what other markets are doing with their water parks to see if we can copycat some of those see if they work so you know we'll no no Rock will be unturned when we when we take a look at that so we'll do some brainstorming sessions and see what we can come up with so have you already started the process to obtain a liquid licenses we we have started the process yes yes and you heard earlier from the people that commented or sent letters for to be read that the park since they close at 6 PM that some people get off work five five thirty and by the time they get home and change or whatever they might have to do with their families or kids to extend operating hours until later on is that a do you think that's doable the reason and we close at six is it's kind of an industry standard the uh if we open an extra hour we could see an additional cost so um you know the the unique thing about the water parks is they take an incredible amount of overhead for each hour that they they operate and Safety and Security is Paramount for that but in general uh 6 PM is a industry standard for closing the water park again it's up for the conversation if we want to be extended uh last season uh you know there was a crunch on Staffing and so closing that I mean the schedule's been six the whole time but um extending it beyond that last season would have been a challenge this year we've had some really robust recruiting efforts and we'll be we're fully staffed so we could extend it um I I'm not so sure that the the attend students would outpace the operational cost for the additional hour if we went to seven I'm confident that it would not okay let's talk about Camp Cohen um any given hour during the operation or when it is operational how many lifeguards do you have Camp Cohen uh at any one time requires 16 lifeguards any one second could we not have that discussion and open in regards to the number of lifeguards there's a pending lawsuit that were involved in and I prefer not to have that discussion in Open Session please okay um operating hours for concessions 11 to 6 p.m what are your operating hours for concessions uh 11 A.M to 6 p.m and how are we doing on that uh well we're good great I mean we offer a wide variety of menu items uh we have a robust offering for a water park yes sir hot dogs hot dogs nachos candy bars things of that sort yes ice cream all right thank you very much Mr Garcia appreciate it thank you thank you sir Nicole Miss Cody yes sir thank you mayor so we're ready for the next presentation this is high performing government goals five and six okay um y'all um are we ready one two three four five we are ready and I know we um we messed up I apologize forever miss Turner is she did have public comment on the last goals we discussed and we kind of broke up before we were able to allow and to comment on that so I'm gonna apologize for that go ahead uh yeah but you want to talk to them she wanted to talk to them and ask them questions so I think that's what she's doing out there go ahead even if I go with you you're okay good afternoon mayor city council Robert Cortez for the record so we'll be presenting on goals five and six which fall under the high performing government Vision block joined by the department heads associated with the Departments that fall within this Vision block do we have Julie Baldwin artist who's going to be co-presenting with me as well as Margarita Marine Ray Michelle who was recently promoted to fill the HR director position which had been vacant for three years so we're very excited to have that position filled and then Maria pacias our fantastic Tech Tax Assessor Collector who does a fantastic job for the city so the Temple of contents will follow the same format of what's been presented with the other Vision blocks I'm going to be covering the first half of the presentation then I'll turn over over to aracelia Margarita to finish off the priorities and the Planned accomplishments for these departments as you can see on the bottom here the department stuff fall within this Vision block there are 10 of them these are all the support service departments that provide the services for all of our operating departments so everything from the city attorney city clerk city manager hrit comptroller purchasing tax office and mayor council Fullerton's vision black as well here are the strategies that fall Within These various departments you can see the six strategies undergo five and then the 13 strategies in the goal six and some of those integral six that you're going to hear again really focused on the workforce looking at operational and organizational risks Financial stability processes legal representation and some compliance here's the overall breakdown of the high performing government Vision block again makes up about 23 percent of the overall offline City budget just over 302 million dollars you can see in the orange pie chart there out to the right hand side of that total amount 75 of that is non-general fund and so we'll get into discussions about what makes up that 75 percent or 227 million in the remaining 25 is the general fund again for those 10 departments that I mentioned here's the breakdown by source of funds and so I'll go through these obviously we are all aware of what the general fund is we have a small portion from the HUD cdb cdbg that's funding a portion of one of the city attorneys we have our debt service which also includes not only the property tax supported debt but also the Plaza theater Debt Service payment that we make utilizing parking meter Revenue on the capital projects funding this is our internal capital projects not Bond funded projects this is the revenue that's generated from the city auctions that we conduct we also have our special Revenue funds which is primarily the tax Finance Zone Revenue through the trz's destination El Paso which is the hotel occupancy tax we collect as well as the motor vehicle rental tax and the peg which is the Public Public educational government to fund Revenue that we receive as well the Enterprise fund the tax office does operate as an Enterprise fund and so all of the revenue that they generate including the person they collect from the city fully funds their operation and then finally the internal service fund is their self-insurance fund which covers workers comp health insurance and unemployment so again a lot of the same of what you heard so far yesterday and today as far as the variances that we're going to be discussing on the information technology side again increase due to compensation they do have an increase in the city-wide I.T contracts and some of those being driven by our Public Safety radio system extending the maintenance on those and then also the radio replacement and software Replacements that's required for those particular radios looking at goal six we've discussed a lot of this already again due to compensation increases additional positions with density attorney's office the city clerk side again the non-election year so some cost savings there for that department the tax office has an increase in compensation and direct costs and on their lease agreement which is recently renewed on HR we've talked about again the increase in the tuition assistance program so we've increased that budget from 500 000 up to one million dollars for the budget for next year again based on the usage that we've seen so far this fiscal year and internal audit side there was a supplemental and as a result of the peer review that Mr Calderon conducted this past year and so we did add an additional hundred thousand dollars the request was for 250 000 to conduct some cyber security audits we'll continue to work with internal audition to ensure that he has the funds necessary to accomplish those artists that he's looking to achieve We Believe between that additional hundred thousand and what it is already doing as far as some of their already existing contracts we'll be able to meet the requested amount the non-departmental side we did have an increase in our general liability insurance obviously as we're funding aging infrastructure which we've talked a lot about today and over the last couple of days the cost of the insurance has gone up just based on the age of some of those facilities we also have the interlocal agreements which we've talked a little bit about the tax decrements Finance zones for particularly trz2 which is transportation reinvestment zone two and three additional Revenue that's being collected Within These two zones in particular just based on the growth and the values and then finally we've talked about the appraisal services When Miss Cody did the presentation a few weeks ago at Council following up on this Kilgore about 600 000 increase on the appraisal services that the city is paying and then finally we've referenced the increase for Animal Services which is a transfer from non-departmental into animal services so it's coming from the general fund to the Animal Services Department increase of about 1.9 million dollars for next year so here are the breakdown for these departments and providing you a comparison of the prior year the current year 2023 and the preliminary 2024 budget you can see here overall 6.3 million dollars then you can see it getting the footnotes there at the bottom of the items that I just discussed primarily been driven by the compensation increases the increases that I mentioned for the city-wide I.T contracts Appraisal Services and against some of the other items I just referenced on the previous slide here the same information but broken down by category again personal services here making up a large majority of the increase 3.2 out of the total 6.3 million dollar increase coming in the personal services again and that's our wages benefits and taxes for our city employees Within These 10 departments um the other item there the other uses again that's the increase in the transfer for Animal Services as I mentioned the 1.9 million as well as about a six hundred thousand dollar increase for our economic incentive agreements which is again a transfer coming off of those projects into the economic development department here's the non-general fund for these departments and again you can see here the large one human resources I'll point out in the preliminary 2024 budget 75.3 million an increase of 2.1 million this is a result of an increase primarily in the prescription benefits since we are self-insured and we need to adequately fund those costs that we're seeing on the healthcare side and unfortunate prescription benefits just continue to increase each year over year and again these are costs that the city has continuing now for the fifth year to take on and not pass these costs on these cost increases on to our city employees our non-uniform city employees and so just based on the way that we've developed budget the last five years again trying to not only increase the wages for our employees but also not pass on any increased costs related to health care so that's built into the budget for next year on the non-departmental side we do have a decrease in debt service which is good about 1.8 million dollars and then the increase actually non-departmental is being offset by again the additional Revenue being generated in again trz two and three as I just referenced just a minute ago the non-general fund Side by category again same information here we've talked about this it's the same variance explanation this is just broken down by category you can see overall though the non-general fund portion of this Vision block increasing by 4.6 million or just under or just two percent the Staffing for these departments and you can see overall increasing by a total of 14 between the 10 departments on the information technology side increasing by four again and this is related to the implementation of the body worm camera program which we talked a little about yesterday with the police department if we need to ensure that we have the adequate stat that are helping to Monitor and provide the technical support related to that particular program we've referenced the increase with the city attorney's office to provide the assistance and the resources that she needs in order to perform her her duties that are being assigned on the HR side we have expanded our risk management so we now have a risk and safety officer who's really leading that team it used to be a team of two and now we're up to six and so we're currently in the process of hiring additional individuals to assure we're again not only being very thoughtful and very strategic about minimizing the risk of the organization but also protecting our employees by providing a very very thorough training program again for all of our city departments and so with that I will now turn it over to Araceli who will continue the presentation good afternoon mayor and Council Araceli Guerra with information technology services and I'll I'll be going over the FY 24 priorities and planned accomplishments for gold team five which includes Information Technology services there we go so our upcoming FY 2024 priorities include our cyber security as you've heard and you continue to hear our risk assessments the continued training that we've had for the entire organization making sure that we continue to upgrade our infrastructure so that it meets the needs of the upcoming cyber security prevention that we have this includes RIT equipment upgrades making sure that we upgrade our infrastructure so that we're able to provide these services to the community and to our internal organization and also leveraging Cloud platforms making sure that we're leveraging off-cloud Solutions where we are able to so that we can also have a cost savings but also upgrade and keep up with our Enterprise systems where needed for the upcoming year the accomplishments that we're looking at is one of our major projects is our Enterprise application systems upgrade ensuring that this goes well this is to improve our availability accessibility and security with our software making sure that we again are looking at where these Cloud migrations make sense and this is one of the projects that we're working on additionally continued work on our ep311 and our communication system to our public making sure that our customer service needs are being met for the community and that they are able to keep track of those ticket requests or their requests across the community when needed and then again the cyber security making sure that we continue to expand our offerings on cyber security making sure that we're continuing on our training and continuing on upgrading the infrastructure that is necessary throughout the community and I'll go ahead and hand it over to miss Margarita she'll be covering goal Team Six thank you good afternoon good afternoon Margarita Marine controller thank you okay so here you see a list of the priorities and plan accomplishments that we're going to be discussing in the next slides so I'm going to go ahead and start with the first one for the city attorney's office mainly the three priorities that we have here for this department is to roll out the Ada legislative session and successive special sessions they also want to create a specialized team of attorneys to with enough knowledge on Advanced manufacturing development to support the airports initiatives and lastly they want to um develop their Workforce by creating an onboarding process for their attorneys attracting and retaining attorneys and that are knowledgeable on Municipal matters and also having more presence presence in state and National associations for the city clerks there will be completing the phase one of the leasing Sigma project related to the boards and commission's agenda posting process um currently this is an integration with our current agenda management software they will also include the standardization of the minutes which will cut down processing time for the board members for the board Liaisons and then the phase two of this program is to actually deploy training for the board liaison so they can concentrate more on the administrative portion of managing the board also setting on-demand training that they can access at any time for the Enterprise risk and safety office this office is going to be at accessing all current insurance policies and broker services to ensure that we have sufficient coverage and also assessing Insurance programs and updates through the insurance Market one of the of the accomplishments that they want to achieve during the next year it's also to work along with the city attorney's office to modernize the insurance language in all of our contracts and deployed a review of the workers compensation claims so every quarter they're going to be meeting with a third party contractor to review these claims to get updates on the injured employees as far as their medical status so they can provide those updates back to the department and so with the Departments can plan accordingly for operations the internal audit in Conformity with the recent changes that we saw in our city Charter the internal audit department is planning to develop policies and procedures to align their operations with the new reporting structure also they will continue to engage in hotel occupancy tax Audits and franchise audits Office of the Comptroller we will we will work with our transformation office to develop on-demand trainings for all our financial policies um some of these policies will require annual mandatory training so we can improve internal controls in regards to accesses and usage of the city's assets also we will finalize the accounts receivable collection process and deploy the initiative Citywide so even if this process is not centralized at least we're going to standardize the process to allow departments to to be able to collect on those outstanding balances and we will complete the fy23 audit with no Financial finance and submit the annual comprehensive financial report popular annual financial report to the government finance officer associations for award purchase and strategic sourcing department will conduct a disparent study and the purpose of this study is to focus on inclusive procurement so there's going to be analysis of inequalities that are present among minority businesses so we can come up with solutions to remain an equitable government Human Resources a couple of things for these departments they will update the service reconnection program at this point in time they are listening to the employees trying to understand what is important to them as far as recognition and then after that they're going to restructure the program and to properly reward the employees for their service commitment another area that they're going to be working on is expanding the volunteer and internship program right now there is a volunteer coordinator in the HR area so there's oversight of this program and they're going to centralize the onboarding process for all the volunteers and interns that are planning to come into the city lastly our transformation office in regards to our community this office will work on delivering Innovation projects co-created with the youth they are going to provide new customer experience training such as the Disney Institute Training and make ep Learners available Citywide for to the general public and in regards to the our Workforce this office is going to concentrate in Innovation training expand AP learner features and provide leadership developing programs the goal is to develop our leaders by providing proper information and materials so they can do their job accordingly and this this training is going to be provided by Stanford with facilitation through our cities Innovation team and now I'll pass it back to other selling thank you so we'll go ahead and pause there if you have any questions we'll go ahead and take the questions and and see if you have anything else go ahead next so that concludes the presentations so if there are no other questions nope [Laughter] um I know that you all didn't cover these slides right now um but it is on the presentation uh slide 29 um so I do want to have that conversation that we all had in the budget briefing um I do disagree uh that well I don't disagree it's not what it says I want to be clear that this is the office of equity we had talked about the equity officer that has already been budgeted and so this is just the office the equity officer has already been budgeted okay I just want to clarify that yes ma'am that's correct and I they still stand what I just told you all I think that that person should be in that position to help create that office um that's just me talking because the mayor gave me the microphone um I do have one more question can we get a staffing table of the city manager's office and the Pio Pio office is that possible is it in here yes ma'am it's included as part of your budget book but with each position it does give each of the positions that are included the full Staffing detail but I can give you what pages they are yeah I'm trying to pull them up on the computer but I'm going to take forever foreign I wanted to ask about 3-1-1 or whoever can speak to to 3-1-1 um I I was a little concerned that I couldn't get through on the 4th of July and I just wanted to see if there were um an opportunity to increase Staffing on major holidays so that we can answer the call the call like I personally called could not get through so what I ended up doing knowing government I called the non-emergency number due to an animal's an animal animal crisis so I'm just trying to understand if there's a budgetary request a task change or change order in order to increase Staffing levels for holidays so we've we've felt that increase across the entire Center so it's not just 311 911 was inundated as well there was well over 7 000 emergency calls for services or for 3-1-1 and another three thousand calls for emergency services so so that's a lot of calls going through I believe it was seven thousand yes yes so it's not about Staffing for that you staff for the for the for the average you you can never staff to that many calls we've seen it uh increase over the years especially on on holiday seasons people are calling 3-1-1 or they're calling 9-1-1 and they're reporting the same incidents and with the preference of cell phones nowadays everyone's calling at the same time so it really throws those numbers up so there isn't a specific request in here there was an increase to the 311 contract I believe but that's just a normal cost as it's going up as everything else has yeah no I'm I'm almost wondering if whether or not we utilize technology on these um these uh I guess the variances and these um events that take place um and or to have uh some form of emerge like an emergency call for Animal Welfare um and and so I just don't I don't know if that's possible but it it the calls that we received the very next day after the Fourth of July complaining about our services was clear that the public wants more whether that be Pio education related to um you know for the the Fourth of July the fireworks ordinance things of that nature but there the residents are really upset and and so I don't know what the solution is other than seeing if we can partner with two and one it was a holiday I don't know if they were open or utilizing technology yes ma'am okay thank you um Mrs uh Neiman I wanted to ask you I saw that in your budget there's a 23 increase but three additional full-time employees um based on conversations that we've had in the past is that sufficient Staffing levels to meet the demands of of our legal needs so in working with OMB and proposing this year's budget we've done benchmarking across the region of the region we are the third smallest city attorney's office in comparison to 11 other cities we come like Laredo and McAllen are a little smaller than us so no we in order to have uh our office would need to have be probably closer to 40 lawyers clearly we can't ask for that in one fail swoop so our proposal is to start up with three for the next coming fiscal year and then work our way up their step increases already for tenure so the proposed variance is a request for a five percent increase for staff and then an additional three lawyer positions and then we do have additional staff people that are not lawyers we have paralegals we have open record needles and then we have several other analysts positions that assist us with administrative duties so um we get creative in terms of how we convert some positions either to support staff or to lawyer positions but that's that's an ongoing conversation then we'll that we'll be having with the council and for the three FTS what type of positions are those are the three lawyer positions just lawyers um okay so that would take us to 28 lawyers if we were full okay so how do you what are your vacancies right now I think we just filled them I think we have down to two two lawyer vacancies okay and then if this is a proof September one you'll have five we'll have we'll have right yeah assuming that we haven't filled any others okay understood well I mean I'm happy that we're giving you the support I just want you to be able to communicate the needs because the legal department can be a costly one it isn't especially if there's not support yeah thank you thank you um I had a question for for you Nicole related to the mayor and Council budget um yes every September we get new salaries which members of council would you like to know what your salary would be do you have you have an estimate yet yes so we're going from yes ma'am I know so we're going from the 51 600 in 2023 we'll be going up in 2024 to 59 500 and for the mayor it will be going from 77 400 to 89 to 50. okay and so these These are based on the um housing excuse me the HUD the HUD wages correct yeah I mean I the the voters approved the voters approved this formula that when the economy and the household income of families of four increase then that would be City council's motivation to to help push forward the economy wish I would have pointed at the economic development team for their their hard work and increasing wages um on the same conversation about mayor and Council and this might be a question for the HR department um wanted to congratulate you Mrs Wiggins on your new appointment um really well deserved and been very pleased with all the work and the growth that you've had with the city um internship wages is there an opportunity to streamline internship wages with City councils or excuse me cities minimum wages again Mary Wiggins Chief Human Resources officer um today we have not looked at that we've had those it's just positions that are kind of coming in we have some paid internships and we have some unpaid internships absolutely we can look at that as something as part of the budget if we want to look and see at bringing those up and and the way like we have these agreements with some of the universities and it's a cap rate like at 12 an hour or something if there could be some form proposal or I don't think it's even come to council if it's administratively um that it will just be automatically set to the city's minimum wage that I think that would be very helpful for communication with all departments I think we have a we have an undergraduate wage and then we have a graduate wage I believe they're like two dollars a part so I'm remembering correctly I believe the undergraduate is 10 and I think the graduate is 12. so the graduates a little closer to the to the minimum wage but not there and then and they did increase recently so I'm pleased with that I'm just I just want to level it up to all to all wages are you familiar with the current insurance contracts that we have with the city of Paso and when their expiration dates are for benefits for insurance for health insurance health insurance for non-uniform employees yes um so those will be expiring at the end of we're in 23 at the end of 24. so we will be we're already planning on preparing those rfps probably in the next couple of months we want to get them out well in advance you know to be able to to get enough bids so we will be going out to bid within the next six months yeah so I know this will jump into the next fiscal year um but what what I would like to understand is um there there's been some costly contracts that the city has approved for you know Wellness care doing blood work doing Biometrics things of that nature outside of of the insurance program that we have I don't know if that can be grouped into one if that makes any Financial sense but there might be an opportunity there for for Savings of course want to look at um the the competitiveness of insurance benefits I know that depending on which plan that you're on it could it could be close to a thousand dollars for a family that's about how much I'm paying for my family and the Really significant costs for for employee spouse and children dependents and so I just I'm concerned um you know our wages are higher than some general service employees and and again these are like the lowest level plans that you have they are still very costly for families so I really want to have more dialogue about what we can do to save the families in the city in the city's Staffing because for individuals not too bad but once you start adding family members it just becomes incredibly expensive and I know that the city has subsidized and all of the increases in the past um I'm even curious if it's the company itself so maybe you know doing a broader search on that do you have what you need in order to initiate the RFP we do and and so you know what makes it really difficult you know especially on all of our cost of the health insurance is that we're self-insured that makes it more difficult because of course the more claims that we have um than that all of those have to be spread you know amongst the the people that are covering so that that's kind of where most of our costs come from is because we're self-insured but when we do go out for an RFP what we plan on doing is um we want to make sure that we're we're looking at whatever is um being you know used in different organizations we want to even we're going to ask for some more strategic options there are you know some different types of plans that are out there now you can have some alliances with different hospital groups and so forth that helps to save some costs so we're going to be looking and asking so we're going to ask for quotes for different types of things and that way we can utilize um whatever the resources that are out there and make sure that we're making the best decision for the employees as far as like the wellness program that you mentioned also um and this is also with our current contract one of the things that we have is we have what's a wellness budget and so we are given a certain amount of money annually and that's what help pays for you know some of our shape it up program it helps pay for like the blood work where we help incentivize the employees you know our main goal there is you know we want the employees to get their blood work it may not um we don't know what the blood work says or anything but the key is making sure that they find out what it is so in case they're catching some kind of an issue they may have early on so that they can start you know addressing that so that that can help reduce some of our claims so that's kind of our whole point in having like the blood work up front and helping our employees with those costs but we'll be looking at lots of different options we want to um we we do have now our new benefits group and they're very Dynamic they're going to help us with our rfps and help prepare them they help lots of other organizations prepared theirs so they're going to be able to give us insights as to what the going amenities and types of plans are out there so that we're asking you know for all types and then we'll make a decision and bring that back to you and if there's any conventions I would encourage your team to to attend to because you that's where you learn about any Innovation um so thank you for that can you give us a snapshot of what the benefits for employees will be for next year like you know are we going to see an increase in healthcare costs HSA those programs do they stay maintained consistent yeah everything's staying the same for the non-uniform employees for the uniform employees police and fire those are dictated by their collective bargaining agreements so um for for HSA it's a family is a thousand right and then individuals 500. correct that's maintained okay thank you um my next question I just just real quick on the city clerks there was a reduction that's the election reduction for 480. okay all right because I saw a different number before I just want to make sure on that um I think that's it nothing else thank you thank you um I also I would love to be a part of the conversations while we're going through that RFP for healthcare I've had extensive conversations about this over the years I do think we need to bring back that three plan option I'm not worried about saving money on the city side I think that our health care it's you know how I feel about it I bring it up every year I'd also say you know I find that sometimes the blood work programs that we have actually can impact people negatively because they're not a full panel and if your doctor calls for a full panel after you then have to pay out of pocket for that because our insurance doesn't cover um the panels that are missing from the blood work events we have here so again I know that these are savings but they also create more costs for our employees sometimes and really want to work on a plan that's not doing that I think sometimes they they lock us into these ideas of like great quick fixes that in the long term are negatively impactful to our staff and we also am I wrong that when you put together pricing and create kind of a panel of employees here that puts together those pricing or is it come from the insurance company I'm not sure I understand the question I understand the question either but I'll get back to you on what I'm trying to say my brain is a little much when we did the budget for the healthcare costs sure so that's what we look at working with the HR department in the budget office they're looking at the trends and what we're seeing as far as increasing and we've actually seen our claim sort of level off it's really in the prescription benefits side where we've seen the large increases I mean that's just right now unfortunately the healthcare industry that we're dealing with right now so the Consultants that we do have are been so far really really helpful in trying to provide some Alternatives so we developed that scope that we're going to put out really developing a couple of different options and different plans that employees can participate in really not limited to only two right now that we currently have yeah I'm gonna get on the prescriptions we want to have that conversation right now Robert um I want to go back to the city manager non-departmental position summary I don't know what slide it is for some reason um but it well I'm going to just bring this up again so I see that at one point the legislative liaison was in the city manager's office it hasn't been since 2022 I know we've had a lot of conversations about it being funded by multiple departments overseeing I mean it just to me this makes a lot of sense being in the city manager's office I'm not you know in a quote the mayor I'm not trying to micromanage it just no I understand I mean as I said earlier there's several positions that I need to look at from an alignment standpoint and so you know I'm taking note of all these since I've been in this seat going to have a discussion with our senior leadership team and then I'll make some decisions perfect thank you very much um I see I'm going to work my way up so the last line here is a Storyteller I see that there are four of them that were created in 2023 um I'm not sure what those individuals do what Their Staffing looks like I don't know if there's someone who can talk about this uh representative vanilla I'll address that since uh strategic Communications is in my portfolio again for the record Tracy Jerome senior Deputy city manager so following the previous city managers evaluation in 2023 some of the direct feedback that was he was he received from all of council was that there was a need for ever increasing levels of communication with the community internally with the community about everything that we were doing within the organization Laura Cruz Acosta is our director for strategic Communications and she's a great team of folks who are more than gainfully employed and so we built out we added four roles we actually don't have four individuals in that those roles we only have three at this time but three individuals who were committed to special projects and making sure that they were really picking up and doing areas of communication that the the team that was in place at that time didn't always weren't always able to get to so some of the things some of the the direct products that you've seen that have come from the storytellers would be all the focused communication during the the migrant crisis which we received a lot of really positive feedback from the community of understanding really what we were doing and how that was how that was moving forward um the the annual report quarterly newsletters and a variety of other support projects and and products that are happening for across the organization not just the city manager's office but across all the Departments to really enhance and increase the level of communication both internally as well as externally across the across the the community much into what that evaluation looked like but this was not what was asked right and so now we have three employees here that are doing something that was not asked of the city manufactured the city manager was asked individually to speak to the public and to be more out facing and the response was to hire three people to do that for them and so that's a little bit of where my concern lies is is these positions were created to do something that was never asked and the thing that was asked was not well I'm not going to get into that um I also I don't really want to yeah it is not absolutely not um but I would like to see um what the salaries for those are and coming in and so I'm seeing uh social media Specialists started in fy23 I assume they have been moved up to senior social media Specialists and social media coordinator I'm going to ask um Miss Cruz Acosta to respond to that I'm making an assumption so I'm just asking to clarify that so it's just one position ma'am it's a senior position that um we're looking to fill this month so those social media Specialists that were here last year were not moved into those positions no ma'am we've never heard those positions okay um because yeah so I'm assuming you reclassified those and and they're going to come with a higher salary and so I'm looking at like our media specialist um who I don't think have been reclassified and and that has happened so kind of wondering uh what the difference between the media specialist and the scene in the social media Specialist or so the media specialist is primarily focused on actually the multimedia specialist they're functioning in a number of different Realms as it relates to graphic artwork video photography and well as writing document collateral pieces and the social media specialist is focusing on specifically social media and there is a tremendous growth in the social media component related to a number of different um agencies that exist recently this week we got a new one threads so it's Facebook Twitter and YouTube and Linkedin now threads and so we have a large number of accounts across the board from the various departments all 30 plus departments and so we want to be able to capture those I think that's great I just want to make sure that the people who have been doing the media the media specialist job for a number of years are not you know that they are helping each other out and you're not having a senior social media person over them that's just coming in so I think it would be helpful to be able to see kind of the salaries that are associated or not the specific salaries obviously the the ranges for these positions to understand okay it'd be helpful thank you so much um related to the purchasing department has a director been named and where we're at with the process unfortunately not so we did do a national recruitment we had identified an individual Unfortunately they declined after two rounds of interviews and then we reached out to the second individual who we found highly qualified and unfortunately they ended up rejecting the offer as well been talking to Nicole about that she's been the trooper had been handling the duties of both the budget director and the purchasing director we do know that in speaking with Colonel Weston since he's come on board that we do need to do another recruitment so we're actually in the process right now working with HR to do another National recruitment the time we feel is critical because we want to get a head jump before we get into the holiday season because recruiting during holiday season is nearly impossible so yes we are in the process of yeah I hope we can expedite that I mean Mrs Cody you have your your work load has has been pretty extensive and I recognize that we got to do some burnout control uh for for our best and brightest um and and I was going back and looking at emails it's been since December of 2021 I absolutely believe that we need to prioritize that and get that done we agree which is one of the reasons why we ended up promoting Mary to fill that HR director position which had also been vacant for almost three years so I absolutely we agree with you okay all right that was my last question thank you thank you who is the public affairs specialist and the mayor and City Council Office there's one in the budget I'm wondering who that is so no sir it's vacant and it's not funded um you were using that salary to help with the other positions that you have so we don't know if this is Mayor and City Council budget yes but the position so what we do is we we standardize all of the the positions for each of Mayor and Council and it's just part of that standardization sir so it's not filled and it's it is vacant and not funded so it's not filled with use in the income so we probably ought to clean that up will do sir we'll get with us today thank you yes sir yes sir I think I only get to do this one more time no no I think I only get to do this one more time can I have uh each of you walk me through your uh your supplemental requests they they they got their yeah they got theirs in they knew it was coming uh I mean mine's the largest one it was 1.3 million dollars for unfunded it request and its infrastructure upgrades for end of life equipment that's coming up and in relation to cyber security as we do risk assessments we find a lot of gaps that we need to fill and equipment that needs to be replaced I go through each of them but they're very technical and they all relate to cyber security and network so it's a 1.3 billion dollar request and it includes two positions one for a network administrator and one for a system administrator three that would be able to also monitor that equipment that would be installed okay in this Hardware yes hardware and software hardware and software yes sir okay any who let me see I can go through I think comptroller had one first yeah for a senior accountant position just push the microphone back to her no you're not to see if you see senior accountant position yes this is a senior account position for the accounts payable accounts receivable P card travel area of the Comptroller's office so we currently need this position because in order to enforce the policies and do a better job of training the city employees on these policies we really need to free up the accounting manager a little bit more she's currently spending her time approving vouchers I mean doing like being in the wits so I need to free up her time to be able to to improve the work that we do in the area in the account receivable is a result of one of the artists that Mundo did recently that he identified that we had some extensions in how departments were applying and they have their individual accounts receivable policies however Margarita is working to really make that consistent throughout the organization so this was a request just to kind of standardize and have a dedicated position to help address the issue that everyone identified so the one of the plan achievements that I mentioned was exactly that to deploy the accounts receivable collection process city-wide and that's why we need this position to be able to deploy that process yeah I actually see this one as maybe an important investment in Risk Management yes for us as a city you know it's a relatively small supplemental request not funded correct yes pending and so um I think that's an important one to consider given its relatively small size and I think relatively High importance in terms of mitigating any risk of the organization yes thank you for human resources we have a hundred and sixteen thousand dollars and that is for background checks that's to use a centralized um a centralized system to be able to do them right now we run them through the police department and they're very taxed you know on their Staffing as well and so this is to be able to go through a system to be able to expediate you know or expedite I should say our turnaround on filling positions so that we're not waiting for background checks is that some is that a bottleneck that we find often now or yes and we've done a lean six in my project and trying to of course everybody said yes I mostly knew the answer to that one but I want people to hear like Anna bobble head and so yes yeah and then in the in the tax office there was nothing right okay thank you oh an internal audit has yes Mr Calderon good afternoon sir good afternoon everybody on Chief internal auditor for the city uh representative Canales the big question is what keeps me up at night what keeps me up at night is cyber security absolutely my biggest fear my biggest risk is cyber security that's the reason I put in for the request for some cyber security money because cities like ours we are under constant attack constant attack and and I'm talking not just bad hackers we're talking foreign governments and I talked to Ernie so often and we're constantly beating off those attacks by Russians Koreans are constantly looking to hack into our system so that that's my biggest uh uh risk the other one is my Staffing um you know we're in constantly attacked by by cyber security but on the other end I'm on constant attacked by other audit shops within this region that when they look for staff they come to my office because we have one of the best training programs in in the region and they know if they they able to lure one of mine away they end up with a highly trained auditor and that's my two biggies so I can see your uh cyber security audit funding it's part it's partially funded right it's funded at a hundred thousand out of the 250 000 requests can you break down like what the hundred thousand that's funded is and then what the what I plan to do what I plan to do with the funding that's given that's what I get I'll I'll use that if I can more I'll use that too um I'm gonna start doing work to augment what Ernie Ariola is doing over in the I.T Department Ernie Ernie really hits the main big systems the big areas I want to hit the smaller areas that we have within the city like our traffic control system we have a network out there that a lot of people don't know we have and that is subject to to attack so can you imagine the bad people taking over our traffic signals that could be a lot of fun one day right yeah um and then we have a lot of smaller systems within the Departments like our parks department the reservation system the registration system there's a lot of Primo information in there from our taxpayers account numbers I identifiers and that's the information bad people are looking for so I want to look at those smaller systems within the Departments and and help earning as much as I can by uh hitting those those little areas that I know he he's his arm his arms are full you know so I'm going to see if I can help them a little bit on that and essentially mean to find vulnerabilities that that yes yeah Department yes because you never know you can have a small little system um let's say libraries they have the the book find system a horizon and you never know how it interfaces with our main system and that could be the back door into the system so you know do we need to take a look at that yeah we do all right um and so we did if you look at the supplementers they're one of the ones that it asks for as well was for more training for the I.T cyber security team and so we did approve that twenty thousand dollars just for our existing team to be able to attend trainings we've got some relatively new staff members that have been promoted to fill some of those roles and so we did that to the budget to ensure that we continue to train them with staying up to date on that area um and then I had one more it's a different different topic but 311 had come up earlier and the difficulty in managing some some high capacity times were three in one um and to be honest like I'm a very uh prolific user of three on one I report things all the time I try and mix it up so I report by calling I report online I report with the app uh to test it in each in each way that we're offering it to the public um and I think I have a mixed mixed uh level of service from from three on one um you know I think from a functionality standpoint the the app and the online reporting system work really well it's sometimes the level of service after that in terms of the response that I'm getting back I know we've worked on on improving that pretty continuously over the years um but I don't know that the level of service the quality of the the the service that we're getting out of it is necessarily matching the amount of effort we're putting into the Improvement and so I was just showing Robert here on my phone um I pulled up chat GPT and I typed in something that I might send to 311. I said I'm in El Paso Texas I need to report graffiti to be removed where should I report it and in less than two seconds I got to report graffiti for removal in El Paso Texas you can contact the city of El Paso's graffiti abatement program they have a dedicated hotline and online reporting system you can call the graffiti hotline at 915-212-6000 or visit their website with a provides a link um to file a report online remember to provide accurate details about the location and a description of the graffiti to assist them in addressing the issue promptly this was a response in less than two seconds I think it's really high quality I think we have uh I just showed Robert too you know New Orleans just launched a an AI powered you know GPT driven textable 3-1-1 system that uh you know I'm eager to go to New Orleans and test it out but we value our human employees so we do value our human employees um but I I think uh as a supplement to human employees something like this can be useful in getting the information to people's fingertips quickly you can turn around calls faster uh again often you call through in one there's sometimes a delay in getting the answer that you need it's not necessarily A fault of training or anything like that it just takes people time to find information and this is a tool to get people information really quickly so I think it's worth looking into um you know I think we have to be adaptable and use the tools that we can to make sure we provide the highest level of service so hopefully we can sit down soon and talk about that I know it's not necessarily something for uh this this budget and we we do have an ongoing contract with a with a third party provider for three-on-one but maybe something to look into for the future thanks mayor thank you and with that and most things I did want to come in on real quick Mr Calderon the things you were talking about that you know you most need is you did appear on peer for peer-to-peer review and your department came out really really well except in that area because when the area said they thought we still needed a lot of helping and they're concerned through it and I think it was brought up prior to even this uh review that they'd done yes sir that that's become a point of emphasis with cities across the country that uh more cyber work needs to be done because the federal government has hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in their cyber the military is just they're famous for their cyber security but it's small cities that that are the most vulnerable and the week doesn't go by that you hear about a city being attacked and their system taken over and being held for ransomware so don't give them too much info yeah you just gotta you just have to be very careful but it's amazing the more info you give out the more they stay away right that kind of it's kind of reverse logic but yes sir thank you anyway thank you and with that uh Miss Cody or Mr cortinas so that completes all of the presentations we have just a reminder on the budget calendar with the upcoming dates so two weeks from today we will receive the certified values from the appraisal district April 1st July 25th no no but we're in our next meeting is April first so July 25th we'll get the certified values mrsias will help the budget office start doing the calculations through the truth and Taxation software on the no new Revenue for approval rates we'll get that certified and then we'll come back on August 1st during that city council meeting we'll present you the appraisal rolls we'll provide you the no new Revenue rate the voter approval rate is required by state law and the current rate and then we'll provide obviously because the rate we're recommending is an estimate at this point time so more than likely that's going to change I want to show you any adjustments either positive or negative that we need to make in order to stay at that no new Revenue rate so that'll be on August 1st depending upon if we do the no new Revenue rate there's not a public hearing that will be required however we think of stuff probably be worth doing a public hearing anyway and then the budget adoption right now is scheduled for August the 15th I think I know you gave us the timeline earlier in the presentation but if you don't mind sending it out to everyone uh absolutely I think it'd be important we can do that thank you and I do want to thank everyone all the department heads who are here prepared but your team Mr cortinas Miss Cody and the city manager and your team for literally um being here and getting us prepared it was a four-day I mean mine was four days plus the last two days so we really had a lot of information and we were prepared we didn't have a lot of questions because we were prepared we were we we had the ability to ask those questions and get the answers back so thank you for for doing this it was a very transparent process and a good process and I want to thank y'all for for doing that I know it took a lot of time you know not only preparing it but meeting with every one of us individually so again thank you all for for your time and and for a very efficient process that I think went very well thank you sir yes sir and if I can just add I want to thank uh you mayor and the city council for your leadership I mean certainly for a very clear direction that uh that led us to this recommendation and I'll second that as well I mean I think that the investment of each of your time individually that you all personally put into the budget process as well as just the the amount of depth and and detail he went into over the last couple of days I think really is going to be beneficial to us as a community and as Robert said with the calendar we'll come back and I think that's the time August 1st when we really know what we're dealing with with the budget in terms of bringing back the feedback we've received from you in terms of the requests and what that means in terms of the impact of the budget and I think it'll be a little bit easier then to to make the assessment of of any um anything you want to do that might tailor the approach to the budget with those particular items thank you and I think we found a lot of avenues for Revenue that will help you be able to do that and bring back a lot of the wants so thank you for that and with that do we have a motion to adjourn there's a motion in a second to adjourn the special city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the special city council meeting for Tuesday July 11 2023 is adjourned at 3 46 pm thank you