e e e e e e e e e e for what yes oops it's 9:00 a.m. uh unfortunately all the items that are on uh the agenda will require a quorum but we can start with the pledge so let's start with the pledge and I will lead you I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America the for stand one nation under God indiv with liberty and justice for all thank you and uh like I said we don't currently have a quorum so we can't start the agenda but um I do want to I know that Colonel Weston's on teams she's been a little bit under the weather but there's representative oo so we can't we do have a quum now miss P good morning this is special meeting of the AL Paso city council for Thursday August 1st 2024 it is 9:01 a.m. mayor Lisa is present and presiding along with mayor protim Kennedy representative aavo alternate mayor Pro molinard and representative salido representative Canales is joining virtual this morning good morning sir good morning M BR mayor would you like to start with item one yes please please uh can we do item one please ma'am yes sir item one is presentation and submission of the appraisal B certified anticipated collection rate for the current year the no new Revenue tax rate and voter approval tax rate for the FY 2024 2025 taxes uh Mr cortinez or Mr D Cody please and before you guys get started uh I do want to thank you I know that uh this has been a lot of hard work and and a lot of briefing and um you guys uh you know as we'll see in the presentation you've done an incredible job so thank you thank you mayor um Nicole Cody managing director I'm gonna Carrie if you'd like to go ahead and start and then yeah thanks thank you uh mayor good morning mayor and councel just wanted to make a few comments before we get started um we do have a number of items to discuss this morning and and as you'll see we've refined and revised our budget recommendations since receiving the certified values uh in Late July and certainly by receiving the certified values that it gives us a lot more clarity as a staff in terms of some of the adjustments and things we can do with the budget really want to start this this morning by thanking this entire city council for your leadership and Direction but just also the significant amount of time that you've invested in leading the budget process to get us where we are today I don't think that the public really sees what happens behind the scenes but I will tell everybody that's watching that there have been hours and hours spent with the mayor with the city council and working through all the priorities for the budget which is very complex for a for a city of our size so I really want to thank you for that I also want to mention that the the overall priorities of this Council have remained very clear not only to me but to our entire staff and that is to mitigate the impact and effects on El Paso taxpayers without compromising our ability to be able to provide and deliver exceptional services to our community and I think what you'll see with this budget is that the the recommendations that we're we're making today accomplishes that um as you know our preliminary recommendation just a few short months back came in at about a penny below the voter approval rate and about a penny above the the estimated no new Revenue rate and what you'll see in the presentation this morning is a revision to our recommendation for your consideration that in fact achieves a no new Revenue rate budget for the second consecutive year and I think what's important to mention is that it allows us to get there without compromising Service delivery we wouldn't make the recommendation if we felt it would do that but we've uh we found a path to get there without affecting our ability to be able to to deliver the services as we briefed you uh previously during this process also as we get uh into the discussions this morning I've asked all of our department heads to be present I mean certainly there'll be a more in-depth discussion so that they're here to address any of your specific questions and with that I'll go ahead and turn it over to Nicole Cody to begin the first presentation thank you colel and I do um hope you're feeling better I know you're a little bit under the weather and and I hope that uh quick recovery and also thank you again for all your leadership in this process thank you sir thank you thank you sir so if it can please bring up the presentation for agenda item one so good morning we're going to be covering of course a certified appraisal role um myself and Miss Maria pasas so here with the property tax valuations when we received uh the certified values on July 24th they came in at 11.3% which was higher than we initially projected we had projected at 10% and um so it was 1.3% higher than our projection here you can see the total taxable values and so with this of course we have the overall apprais value the impact of the homestead cap the impact of the 23231 cap which is the cap for commercial valuation along with assessed property are exemptions and the total taxable property so we'll see an increase of $5.3 billion or an increase from 47.5 to 52.9 so since FY 2023 we've seen a a dramatic increase from $ 31.1 billion to5 52.9 billion in 2025 over the next few slides we'll cover each of the valuations based on category so first we'll start with residential single family for residential single family you'll see that it's a 10.7% increase or 32.2 billion for residential multif family is the most significant increase of any of the categories at 32.4% increase or 3.6 billion for commercial property we're including both real and personal property of an increase of 99.4% or a total of$ 13.2 billion in value so the average taxable value for a single family home after exemptions increases from $185,000 to $190,000 for 2025 overall our city property tax relief has increased from 37.7 million to 40.1 million there's two areas that I'd like to highlight here are the increases that we've seen in exemptions for our disabled veterans and um a slight reduction though in our exemptions for over 65 so when we first had our preliminary budget meetings the week of July 8th the property tax rate that we had proposed was part of um our estimates for valuations at 10% and so that rate based on those valuations we estimated it to be at 778 uh with the adjustment in valuations are the proposed tax rate does reduce to 771 our net taxable values again as I mentioned uh from certified theb projection and then the certified values of the 52.9 billion at 11.3% increase and next I'll turn it over to miss Maria pasas good morning mayor and Council So based on the certified values that we received from the appraisal district on July 24th we calculated the noal revenue rate which is 76145 the voter approval rate is 7741 94 the voter approval rate with unused increment rate which is any uh all the savings that we have by not going up to the voter approval rate in previous years uh is 79277 we are also certifying an anticipated collection rate of 98.64% [Music] vand is joined at 905 and representative F joined at 908 and representative Canalis is on teams yes sir thank you thank you good morning Mary Council Miss P do you need to read item number two yes sir item two is presentation discussion and action on the following budget items a FY 2023 2024 third quarter financial report B FY 2024 2025 proposed budget I'm sorry before we move on representative ad nandes does have a a question on item one um on the taxable values for multi- family and the other um non-residential with the new state law the 20% could you explain if you factored that in into our overall tax rate or is it going into effect at another time it is factored in the commercial properties yes impact on the 20% yes ma'am and that was on the slide number four so that's the 23.2 31 cap that's on the commercial property values with that 20% may I see that slide please yes ma'am four um and you said it's a 23 that's the the code section that it's referring to oh okay but what so can we understand what that limits from year over year so this is the first year so this budget that we're working on for fi 2025 is the first year of the program and so the state is rolling that out um it's a pilot um program and so it's anticipated to be a three-year program however it could be extended at State desires to do so so even though the taxo values from 20 go back one more slide sorry in this case 47 um this is billions right yeah billions to 52 billion correct you're only taking 20% of that increment so this here this SL here breaks it down so it starts with the appraised property value so that's the total property value that's been appraised by the appraisal district oh okay and then it reduces all of the impact from the homestead cap which is 10% of residential it reduces the commercial which is that 23.2 31 which is the commercial property cap of 20% got it it gets to the assessed and then it also backs out the additional exemptions amount gets to the total taxable property there the second row from the bottom so this new state law that went into effect for commercial properties has an equivalent of savings to the commercial or non-residential $842 million in property value correct in value correct what is that in the city's portion if you don't have that you can get that later but yes I finally got you I always wait for um these answers but okay I'm trying to understand what that monetary value for the city's portion of the tax rate so that we can have an understanding of what that forecast would be over the next five years 6.4 million 6.4 million is what we could have received in the city's portion but for this commercial cap um that is going to be savings to to others but then the preceding year it's another 20% assuming that the values don't go down or they they go up we should see about another six million or does that change it all depends on the values and so this is again plac in the cap that their property values cannot increase by more than 20% in any given year so again it all depends on whatever their properties are going to praise for in the following year that being said for example if a commercial property no different than a homestead that the property let's say increase by 30% they'll see the increase of up to the 20% that remaining 10% remains in that assessed value right on the tax bill and so they'll see that 10% in the next tax bill the next tax bill and they'll also factor and obviously any change in that following year as well it could go up or down potentially it's to roll over into the following year now can the same question but for the residential the homestead cap that's $238 million what is the city's portion the monetary value of the city's portion for the tax rate it's 5 million so the blue portion of These Bars is the Homestead cap on residents so it's approximately $5 million okay but that's the homest exemption but what about the 10% cap I'm not the the home the I'm sorry I said homestad I know um the 10% year-over-year um that on the I guess the appraised property that's non commercial or did you group it all in into that 23 so this will be only Residential Properties and with um the new state law that says your taxable values can only increase year-over-year by 10% the portion for the city's taxes what is that monetary value give us just a second well it's 34 million for the homestead cap so that 8 4.4 billion second row from the top on the homestead cap that 4.4 billion of property value that's not being taxed right now because it exceeds the 10% okay so it's equivalent to 4 million for residential 34 million 34 million 34 million is in that 4.4 billion dollar of property value okay thank you you're welcome thank you ma'am go represent thank you mayor I was looking at slide number 10 and I just kind of wanted to have an understanding that maybe you have on why there was decrease across the board except for I know we had talked about disabled veteran going up in the last Workshop but then I'm also noticing that Homestead disabled over 65 slightly decreased to do we have an idea why that happened it's based on the tax rate as well and so as your tax rate is going down the dollar value would come down as well okay so that that kind of affected it and then the veteran they open that up more right correct so we exactly so we saw a pretty substantial increase in the military disabled veterans and so you've seen the last few years a pretty substantial increase this year equas to an additional $3 million of property tax revenue okay and then on the next slide slide 11 has the no new Revenue rate and the proposed is 771 right and then on slide 13 the no new Revenue rate is 761 so the proposed rate that we're discussing or that's being presented today is essentially the rate that we need to generate the same amount of Revenue that we discussed on July the 8th and so it's slightly lower than what we had originally presented but essentially it would be the amount needed to fund essentially what we had talked about on July the 8 so 77 cents is right now the tax rate on the table however with the no new Revenue rate being 76.1 as we're about to get into we have some recommendations that can get us to the new Revenue rate without impacting services or what we have planned for the workforce in the budget for next year okay that makes sense because I I was just thrown off by the no new Revenue rate right under the the title of the chart so I was like which one is it so that makes sense thank you thank you sir Mr cortinez go ahead turn on item two if by bring up presentation number two please good morning again so we have a couple of items that will be covered in this presentation so one's going to be we'll get into the third quarter for the current fiscal year update show you the actual revenue and expenditures through May and we'll also show you the projections for the revenue and expenses um and is additionally as part of that the Surplus that's projected for the current year and then we'll get into some discussion regarding the FY 2025 budget and so I'm going to kick it off just to get into the sort of upfront of what we're recommending so as colon Weston mentioned the goal has been all along to do everything that we can identifying adjustments to get to the no new Revenue rate but again not impact what's already been built into the budget with the investments in all of the critical areas Public Safety streets our Workforce our qual of Life projects that are coming online and some of the other initiatives that we discussed back on July the 8th and 9th we've identified really two recommendations and so one of them is going to be increased in our investment interest revenue for next year currently we have 500,000 built into the budget and so we're going to recommend to increase that by an additional 2 million very comfortable with that um increase and the current year loone we're projected to bring in over 6 million and so we know there will be some fluctuation with interest rates but it's some discussions we've had with our Treasury Department very comfortable with that adjustment for next year additionally in the budget for next year we discussed this and we did the stream the briefings and we talked about this on July the 8th as well the city did apply for Miss Cody submitted the application to the state to recover some funds that we U missed out on due to the exemption for the 100% military disabled veterans and so we were able to get reimbursed approximately 1.9 million this past year in the budget for next year we wanted to be conservative we had only budgeted 1 million however we're very comfortable particularly with the help of I and really going to push the legislative session coming up to increase that allocation at the state level and so we're going to recommend increase that to 1.6 million still not at the level that we recovered this past year so again very comfortable with that estimate as well additionally the final item as part of the recommendation to get to the no new Revenue rate is something that we've discussed over the last few years as we've generated Surplus in the last couple of years the council has asked for us to make sure we're doing everything we can to reinvest that savings back into property taxes and doing everything we can to minimize the impact on the resident commercial businesses so the recommendation is going to be to take a portion of our Surplus for the current fiscal year and utilize that to the tune of 2.2 million and essentially what we will do is we'll utilize that Surplus to pay for the election in November and so we're going to set that money aside and that will be used to fund the election in November therefore we won't have to utilize the property tax dollars in the FY 2025 budget to do that and so these total changes be equate to about 4.8 million which would get us to the no new Revenue rate which result in a 5.7 Cent decrease again 5.7 Cent decrease in the overall property tax rate for FY 25 compared to FY 2024 to put that into perspective the tax rate you all adopted last year was a reduction of 4.3 cents so this is an even further reduction again of 5.7 cents to get to the no new Revenue rate and so again these would be the adjustments we would make to the general f budget based on these recommendations again adjusting the investment interest the reimbursement from the state for the disabled veteran exemption relief program and the use of the current year Surplus to go towards the election cost for next year and so with that as I mentioned it would get us down to the no Revenue rate that far right hand column 76.1 cents again equ equates to 5.7 cents compared to the current year and with that I'm going to cover the next few slides get into providing an update on the current fiscal year because this is what we utilize and really the timing of it aligns really nicely to ensure that we're far enough along in the current fiscal year that we're very comfortable with the current projections of the revenues and expenses to be able to make the recommendation to allocate that 2.2 million towards the election cost next year so again just to recap what been a whole lot of time here you all know what the big drivers are in the budget every year focus on Public Safety facilities vehicles in the current year also the Investments we make in our Workforce through not only the increase in the wages but also on the benefit side as well as we look to the current year again our Revenue overall is up 20.5 million or 4.4% really overall revenues almost spot on when you look at the actuals and the projections compared to the overall budget really driven Again by the property tax collections as a result of property valuation increases combined with the elimination of trz2 which brings more general fund Revenue to the tune of almost 8 million sales tax we talked about we have a few slides and we'll show you some information on sales tax where we're at with current collections franchise fees we've talked about with that um as part of the ongoing budget discussions for next year and then a couple of other sources of revenue ambulance Revenue has been up and license and permit revenue is down a little bit on the expenditure side and we've got more slides to get into a little bit more detail but overall expenditures are up 13 million compared to the same time last year again the Big Driver of that's going to be in our personal services which is the salaries benefits and taxes for our employees as we look to overall projections for revenue and expenses you can see far right hand colum thereo projected Revenue to be at 572.247202 [Music] [Music] million surplus does not account for what the council had adopted as part of the budget of utilizing $5 million from the payer Futures to essentially help augment the budget for the current year we do not have any of that factored in so essentially what that means is that the 15 million in that P for futures fund will remain whole going into FY 2025 so again that's very encouraging as well that we're able to maintain that pay for futures fund as we move into the next few fiscal years without having to utilize that in the current year this slide shows a breakdown of the revenue by categories and shows you a comparison of the current year in those first three columns with the numbers compared to the prior year same time covering September through May you'll see at the bottom line there overall Revenue collection at 85% of the budget compared to the same time last year just under 84% as we look to the projections Again by category here again as we mentioned overall the bottom line projected at 572.247202 [Music] 24 no different and currently at about 98.2% our sales tax collections we had a lot of discussion about this over the last really the last 12 to 18 months again the budget office did a really good job of anticipating the slow down in sales tax you can see here on this Slide the most recent sales tax allocation that we received is for the month of May uh you see that sales tax amount came in just under 1% below May of 2023 so overall for the first nine months of this fiscal year right now we're looking at just under 1% overall increase again but this is really in line with what we had estimated going into the budget last year and again this was factored into the development for the 2025 budget as well as you have seen the slide before again really just highlighting what we had seen in FY 2023 we started to see the slow down you'll see the FY 2022 in 2021 where we saw unprecedented growth in sales tax due to a lot of the stimulus money pumped into the economy again but we had anticipated and again no different than discussions we've had related to the property values as well we know that the double- digit growth and property values will not continue for an extended period of time and so it's again it's important that we can maintain that multi-year outl and it's something that the budget office has done a really really good job in ensuring that we have all the information where we're making decisions related to the budget again we've talked about the franchise fees and so these have been facted into the development of the recommend recommendations for fi 2025 again incorporating what we've seen on the franchise fees op Paso Electric is down compared to the same time last year however we have seen an increase in op Paso water so as rates change we do see an increase in this Revenue Source licenses permits as I mentioned a few minutes goes down slightly again not a huge source of Revenue but it does generate approximately 11 to12 million year and so again something that we Contin to monitor really closely as we're looking at really the residential commercial and all the different permits that the planning Inspection Department collects our transfer from the bridges pretty much in line with where we've been historically over the last couple of years little bit of a decrease but nothing too concerning pretty much in line with again the last couple of years as we look to the expenses uh year-to dat comparison again same format as the Revenue you'll see the first three columns there the numbers are the current year and then the right hand side those two columns are comparison to the prior year same typ period you'll see overall expenses through May at 65% compared to the same time last year just under 64% on the projection side as I've already mentioned overall the bottom line overall expenses projected to be under budget by 4 and a half million a big portion of that just under 4 million is coming from again Savings in the personal services that's position savings but again overall $4 half billion doll under budget on the expense side which generates that total projected $4 million surplus for next or for this current year um again we've talked about personal services and we just put this on here really to highlight the main driver as we talked about 71% of the overall budget goes towards our salaries benefits and taxes for our city employees and so you'll see here almost a $25 million increase for the current year compared to the prior year electricity is down and so that's encouraging that we're maintaining electricity cost however our water costs have increased by about a million and a half for the first n months compared to the same time last year again as we've seen drer conditions fortunately we have seen some rain recently but we have seen a pretty dry summer so far this year Fuel and vehicle maintenance again something that we monitor we've had again a lot of discussion about this and something that was addressed in the current budget of providing funding for vehicle replacement which is critical when it comes to the maintenance cost we've seen about an $800,000 decrease again $800,000 decrease in these costs for the first nine months compared to the same time last year our it contracts again a big expense that we've seen over the last couple of years pretty dramatic increase as uh the cost to have these contracts on an ongoing basis primarily related to Public Safety but um Citywide it cont contracts have increased in the last couple of years but pretty much in line this year with where it was last year the appraisal district uh we included this because this is one of our fixed costs that we have seen an increase in not only in this current year but also in the budget for next year about a million dollar increase next year as well our tuition assistance program something we've talked about um again a benefit that we provide for our city employees to take advantage of getting certifications and their degrees providing them opportunity to be able to promote and Advance throughout the organization you'll see this year we're at 1.1 million through May compared to uh right around 1 million at the same time last year so pretty much right in line with the prior year so again just to recap overall revenues and expenses the projections on that far right hand column there overall projected Surplus conservatively of 4 million which again does not include any use of the paper Futures in the current year so we'll be able to maintain that keep that whole as we move forward and so on this item on the agenda we have two actions the first action will be to utilize current year Surplus to pay for the Citywide election estimated at 2.2 million and again this is going to be a part of the overall recommendation which will allow us to reach the no new Revenue rate for FY 2025 and then the second action will be to reduce property tax revenue and increase investment interest Revenue as well as increasing the revenue from the state disabl veteran exemption program from 1 million to 1.6 million both sing you could take they're posted on the same item you can take them as one since they are related and they will achieve the again the goal of getting to the no new Revenue rate for FY 25 second thank you uh before we we go and I know you have questions sir can you bring slide eight up again sir and we do have before we address that question we do have the Council budget request including the presentation as well so mayor I don't know if you want to go through those first before we take action on that motion I think this is an important slide that um you know for the city te team members uh no increase in um employee health care at all that uh even though we all know that healthc care has gone up quite a bit and it continues to go up the city's continuing to absorb the additional cost and making sure that the city uh team members are not uh not impacted and burden with that and I think it was important as uh representative Canales had made a motion last year to make sure that we get our city team members up to $15 an hour minimum wage and if you do additional expenses then you take that away from them so this was really important so I think this is a really important slide and then uh pay as you go is really important also as we know that uh we do need to continue to freshen up our Fleet and equipment and everything else and yet still doing all this we were able to do you were able to propose and no new Revenue rate so that's really important and I think you know we always talk about balance of budgets we can never go into a we could never approve a budget if your expenses are greater than your income they either raise the taxes to meet or you find cuts and expenses to be able to meet the revenue so that you always have to have a balanced budget there's no such thing as going in at the end of the year and say okay we've taken action and we have no balanced budget and we're moving forward there's no such thing you have to have a balanced budget to move forward you could move forward so there's two ways of doing it find cuts and savings to expenses to meet the revenue or raise taxes to meet the expenses there's no other way so with that um I I do want to I mean there's a lot of numbers there a lot of work and you know when you look at it you go well that that's a lot of stuff and didn't take long I know it took you guys a long time to get there and I really do appreciate the hard work representative thank you mayor um can you tell me how many days we have in fund balance as of the beginning of this current fiscal year on September one we were at 81 days and then the good standards 90 like the the best of the best the GF the gfoa best practice is 60 days okay and so that's counting our committed and are unassigned so our committed is our stabilization plans which are actions taken by Council they can be undone if the council do sign and so that's included in the calculation but right now we're at 81 days and what does one day equal I don't have it right in front of me it's going to be probably about 1.6 million roughly 1.7 million roughly and then for the election the the 2.2 million are you going to also include the the potential ballot measure on the MPC in that figure or is that going to come from another source it'll come from another source and so Mr Cruz Costa will'll have an item on the agenda on the 13th okay um I don't know if we want to get into that discussion now the amount that she's come up with we think we can absorb it into our contingency fund so we don't need to allocate any additional funds in the current budget for up by 25 okay because I I know you had set up around 300,000 but that was just kind of that was a that was an estimate sir yes so um I have can you introduce yourself ma'am sorry Laura CR CA communications director for the city I do have um I have been able to lower that cost and so I will provide a recommendation come the 13th with an outline in terms of what the plan would be and the costs associated with that okay thank you thank you ma'am um okay that's that's what I had for for now thank you thank you m Prime we do have a motion on the table pardon me go ahead I'm sorry ma'am nandes thank you um so let's talk about the investment earnings I was I was going through the policy right now I can't find where it stipulates the 500,000 which policy are you leaning on um and because I've always understood you know capital investment earnings stick with capital so this is from which fund no so this is investment interest earned in the general fund so the cash we have on hand in the general fund this is the interest that's being earned by the Investments on that fund okay so each fund that that has a cash balance that's in the policy generates investment interest it's allocated to that specific fund this is the general fund portion only and so how do you go from 500 to 2.5 it says you have to maintain no less than 5% that's the cash reserves that's not the investment interest that's the cash Reserve policy that's our restricted fund I'm looking under the investment policy that was stoped in 2023 and it breaks it down by fund general fund special Revenue fund and I'm trying to understand where in our policy does it say that you can transfer those interest earnings and what the limits are we're not transferring investment interest this is staying in the general fund this is investment interest that's being earned on money that's within the general fund okay we're not transferring that that funding so it's already there but then what's the balance of that what's the what's the balance of the interest earning and then after you transfer 2.5 cuz I'm trying to understand we transfer it's money that's earned every year so Revenue Source just like any other Revenue Source it's earned throughout the year as we're doing different Investments throughout the year at the end of the year falls into the bottom line in the general fund so meaning that in Prior years you we never I've never seen investment earnings um we have every year it already just there is it just there it's a revenue Source budget every year okay so there it so is are you saying that from 500 to 2.5 there's been a growth um this fiscal year yes there has been and so as I mentioned in the current fiscal year we're projected to bring in over $6 million of investment interest okay and the general fund alone so not talking about any restricted funds or any of the funds that generate investment interest only talking about general fund portion okay so you're this year we earned 6 million um when you it confused me when you said we're going from 500 you're asking city council for Action from 500 to 2.5 so we're essentially what we're doing is adjusting the estimate based on the current year we're adjusting the estimate that's okay that's that uh helps me clarify that a little bit better and the remaining uh balance is coming from where I'm sorry from the four and a half so you're going to take this current fiscal year not the next year you're taking this current year savings essentially all coming from vacancies and different and then you're going to put you're going to pay off this upcoming election two million of that of the four million that we have as a surplus so essentially what's going to happen is that at the end of the year if the projections plan out the way we have it here that 4 million it'll all go into fund balance and so what we'll recommend you to do is to take 2.2 of that and we will budget that 2.2 million in the fi25 budget essentially as a use of fund balance but it's using the current year savings that will be generated you're going to use this your savings to pay for the election where where's the balance going to the to the next fiscal year you're you're going to ask to not reserve it or are you asking to put it back into the for 2.2 of the total we going to uh pay for the election pay for the election okay and then there's 4.5 so anything additional would go to the to the bottom line it will come back just like we do every year in December when we do the fourth quarter presentation and provide you all an update on if we have a recommendation on what we do with any of that Surplus if we have allocated to a project a program a stabilization fund or if it all just goes to the unassigned fund balance okay so we can't we can't project to spend that money now I would prefer to wait until we close out the fiscal year and we have a better idea where exactly the general fund is going to end as I mentioned right now that 4 million is conservative it may be a little bit higher but as of right now this is the conservative estimate that I'd recommend sticking with I wouldn't recommend going any higher than well it's because my frustration is that you present a budget without considering Council items and you've just given me a no new Revenue rate without considering Council items and so I take exception that we can't fully discuss all the budgetary requests because you've already given your approval so then let's talk about the end year savings as we go into the council budgetary items which is why I didn't want to take a vote because there's a lot of needs in every district and I know that likely there's constituents that want to talk about it as well um and so I respectfully asked that we hear the full picture of the budget before we make any decisions um and then I also want to understand some of our our debt we've already paid off um have we paid off the debt in downtown for some of for the for the um meter parking revenues let me take your first comment sure so that's why I just brought the comment to the mayor about the Council budget requests are included in the presentation and so that's why I asked do we want to go through those first part to take an action on the yes thank you I yeah and so the council requests are there we as we mentioned everybody that we have them in the presentation to go through those okay the second question yes on is regards to the Plaza theater debt payment as I mentioned during all the briefings with you all that debt was paid off on July the 2nd okay so what they did was we paid it off in advance we didn't have to make the payment in this current year we also don't have to make the payment in the next two fiscal years so that Revenue now is coming to the general fund it's approximately 800,000 in parking meter Revenue do we have a proposal of how we can redirect that to other expenses like the ballpark as of right now it's coming to the jural fund but as we is that included into your budget You're Expecting 800,000 into this fiscal year budget and it's coming to the general fund as of right now but that is something that we have talked about and so when we do the 5year CIP for the ballpark we have talked about right now the uh 2% hot that is dedicated for the ballpark as is not fully funding the 5year CIP for the ballpark so we have talked about in the past that we will need to begin to address and identify some additional funding to go towards those projects so your upcoming budget includes 800,000 expected revenues from the parking meters that were dedicated to the plaza um theater it's paid off there's a potential $800,000 that's on the table for parking revenues and now there is a need um so that we can maintain our assets which is the ballpark it's a city asset we don't want a Coen Stadium 2.0 where we didn't invest and improve it it deteriorated through neglect and so we've had conversations in the past about how are we going to pay for the contractual requirements for Capital Investments and maintenance of the ballpark and there was concern including myself about utilizing the general fund to pay for those expenses and I want to ask Council to consider not using those parking revenues setting that aside for our mandatory contractual requirements so that we can be prepared to meet those contractual demands and to make sure that our asset is not um deteriorating because it is a major economic um uh investment for downtown and so the reason why I would prefer we do that now because then there's going to be a conversation about well we don't want to take money from from the general fund and and so don't put it in the general fund then restrict it set it aside so that we can pay for that and $800,000 isn't sufficient I mean there's like what $3 million3 to $6 million of of request um and we've only met half of those request um so what direction or what guidance do you need in order that we can protect that asset so right now to be clear that 800,000 is factored into the overall general fund budget right now correct which obviously does or would impact if any changes are made to the proposed tax rate yes which is why I'm asking about our year-end savings because those additional estimated $2 million um after paying for the election in November we can have a conversation about let's put those savings back to the pay for future fund and then take future pay for futur funds for the next fiscal year whatever kind of formula you have to do um but it is it is in my opinion that we're not prepared to pay for that ballark and we've had we pushed it down the line and we have contractual measures that we have to adhere to so we just to be clear for the public that may be listening we have been investing about a million doll a year in capital projects at the Ballpark so we have been doing quite a bit as far as upgrades I mean we've done the scoreboard we've done some things that you don't see kind of behind the scenes mechanical upgrades as well so we are doing projects at the Ballpark but yes we do know that is it's aging quickly we're already on year 11 and so we do know that it's going to need additional investment no different that we do every year when we come back at the end of the calendar year in December we present the fourth quarter update and show you all where we actually finish the fiscal year obviously we'll sit down with the city manager we'll sit down with com controller CFO myself budget director and go through what the best recommendation is to utilize that Surplus whether it's ballpark whether it's Grant Maps whether it's unfunded pension liability there's a lot of different areas that we can make recommendations on but as of right now I'll let colel Weston Chim man this is the city manager's budget I'll let him try man if he wants to add anything but ultimately this is the recommendation without impacting city services or the Investments that we've made in our Workforce I just don't want us to think that we have almost a million dollars of additional revenues if we have needs in downtown um we have uh lines of debt that we have to pay um including our contractual obligations but I'd love to hear from you city manager Weston about our upcoming plans to pay those obligations we go ahead yeah we understand there's a lot of a lot of needs um I think Robert enumerated a number of these and we and we continue to Define path and the best courses of action to address these we talked about several other areas where there's needs there's needs on how we uh take care of uh important no Grant matches going forward so I think that um you know we're not neglecting these needs we're certainly developing the best courses of action that we can but my recommendation would be to hold to this to this budget recommendation and allow us the opportunity to address all these additional needs and and develop courses of action to apply to those and and I respect that Mr West do you are we prepared to fulfill those contractual obligations are are we heading in the correct direction I think we are I mean we we certainly know it's a city asset um and we and I and I certainly concur that we don't uh want a city asset that's important for us to to fall into disrepair we've been out we've toured that uh site we've looked at a number of the needs that they have and and so we're addressing different plans within the CIP to make sure that that we keep that facility in uh in top condition I also want to be clear to the public even though we're putting like a million dollars there is an actual A Five-Year Plan I believe fiveyear Capital plan it shows multi-million dollars of improvements some that are necessary some that are for improvement purposes to enhance the experience and so the necessary security measure type of Investments should be prioritized um but we hear we hear from from the private sector we hear from downtown folks about these type of Investments so I I don't want to lose sight of that especially because we've never had this parking revenues that were originally dedicated to the Plaza theater once we set it aside it's going to be very difficult to reallocate that and to dedicate that to other Revenue sources because then it's going to be a conversation about well we can't meet a no new Revenue rate if we don't have those funds and so I'm putting everyone on notice that we've had this conversation um and would like to eventually have a discussion about redirecting that and if that's your recommendation fine but then when we are in the bind and we are not meeting those contractual obligations let's reference your plan on how we're going to pay for that okay so then that's um the parking revenues I had a I had a question about the Investments earnings and then finally would love to hear um about the uh city council request if we can go through those please thank you thank you and I I think that uh we need to go back maybe 6 seven eight months and Mr cortinez maybe you can help me here I know that I had the opportunity to tour the Chihuahua stadium with the Chihuahua management uh I made a request because they had a lot of wants and I wanted to make sure some were because of Major League Baseball some were just upgrades and Council voted on 5.2 million 5 something million to make sure that we did they they wanted about 8 million but as we walked the the stadium with him we were able to kind of look at the needs and the wants and and they were very satisfied with it and uh you know we we went from the hot water heaters to the air conditioners to the size of the locker rooms to the padding as Major League Baseball had asked that the paddings go all the way up on the poles for safety extend the net all the way to the end for safety to people at the stadium so we did that I think it was 5.2 million so we we we did it we just did it six seven eight months ago and um we'll continue to do that I know that um that the stadium you know we had said and I thought it was like a around year eight and we're going on year 11 that it was going to be self- sustaining and be able to you know make its own payments and be able to sustain itself yet we went ahead because of the 5e commitment and the commitment upgrade we went ahead and still uh taxed or added to the taxpayers burden another $5.2 million and uh you know at some point when we sold the idea at the stadium that it was going to be able to pay for itself continue to manage itself and I'm hoping that we're at that point because I thought it was around year 8 so um I hope that we're there around year 11 and the taxpayers have paid a lot of money and it's and uh chihuaha was uh are get thing to the city but at some point it needs to stop being a burden and and I know that uh based on what you all had said when you did the presentation it should be taken care of itself that's correct mayor and it is so this will be the third year that we'll generate a surplus and I'm referring to the 2% hotel accupen tax that's dedicated for the ballpark so it is self- sustaining is generating an additional Surplus to be able to be reinvested into the ballpark repres there's one point that I want to make sure that it's it's clear because it is a challenge and we've talked about this for the whole Council by bring that presentation back up I'm going to skip to the end real quickly so one of the challenges that we have When developing the budget and the state has really put a lot of pressure with a lot of different items that have been passed over the last several years but really the C Bill 2 the property tax cap has placed an additional sort of Challenge on us when we're developing the budget bringing forth recommendations because you see the no new Revenue rate and the voter approval rate so we're limited without going to the voter Zone how high we can go on that rate and so that rate or the not revenue or the excuse me the 3 and a half% cap is applied to the maintenance and operations rate so what's essentially ended up happening is it's going to put future pressure on the operating portion of the budget and force us to either identify new Revenue sources that we currently are either restricted or don't have or the other thing that just putting on the table is financing because it the cap does not apply to debt and so that's something that we do have to take into consideration because we are limited we are limited by the state on how high we can go on that tax rate and so while yes we know we have a long list of Council budget requests to go through this is one of the challenges that we have to take into account when we bring forth that recommendation obviously no different than what we talked about you know the last 3 four years really focusing the last year and a half is looking at again that multi-year Outlook and so Colonel Weston's been very clear we've been very clear about looking at the recommendations we're bringing forward that we don't have substantial impact on future years but that too we are really focusing on the taxpayers I think the slide that Miss Cody covered on the multif family property valuation increases 33% increase in those values on the multif family so those are duplexes and triplexes individuals Le living in those type of housing options 33% increase in those values and so we all know most of those people most likely are renting those properties and so what end up happening is that rent gets increased because the owner has to cover their property tax bill and so that's why as we're going through the sort of fluctuation with what we've seen in the property valuation increases that it's important that we really do put the emphasis on our taxpayers on the residents and the commercial and this budget does that it focuses again on the tax at the same time significant investment in public safety chap B was joking with me early asking for another 10 million but it focuses on again on Public Safety it continues investments in our streets continues the investment in our qual of life and most importantly it Focus as the mayor mentioned in our Workforce so providing again pay raises not increasing Health Care continue to provide incentives um across the board in different areas and so this budget accomplishes that it doesn't address everything now we've been up front and we've showing you all that we did several presentations leading up to the strategic planning session the city does have future challenges it's it's not all all Rosy we know we're going to have to come up with some pretty Creative Solutions going forward to address the ballpark our streets continue investment in our facilities we know we have significant investment that's going to be required but it can all be done in one year yeah let me let me just make another another point to that Robert um I think that one of the biggest decisions that you all made last year that really has given us a lot more operational flexibility and being able to handle some of these challenges is the pay down of Transportation reinvestment Zone number two which allowed us to put a significant more amount of money year-over-year into the general fund that you prioritize for needs in this community that allowed us to really accelerate and uh the money that we could put into pgo funding um without that decision last year we would not be able to do what we're able to do this year and now that will reap us benefits in future years as we've talked about looking at Future year budgets so I I agree I know there's challenges but there's also solutions to a lot of these challenges that will mitigate those impacts we're working right now and we'll be bringing forward uh in the coming months I think would be a really good plan for how we address looking at uh in the future as we talked about how we Fund in a sustainable way our m match requirements as an example and by doing that will give us additional flexibility to look at other needs in the community as well so totally understand um you know there's always going to be more needs than there is uh Revenue available it's our job to be able to find the best path and to mitigate those effects and and so I think that some of the decisions that you've made going into just this past budget year have given us a lot more Runway to be able to do some of those things thank you sir [Music] representa I just had one question if I miss could you could you put the public perspective give a ballpark or figure or if you have the balance on that stadium that we we are currently at the the baseball te that we currently have what's the balance on it for the payoff I can get it for you but the city will be paying the debt on the ballpark until the year 2043 thank you mayor that's it and the other one is um well I'm going to be 85 that was a scary thought when you said that that's right thank you sir we be I know I know that's right it's too scary but in any case uh that 5 million that you were saying that we have to set aside that's the contract with the be right that in in order to keep that team here in op Paso that's got to be met so the 5 million that the mayor was referencing that we're allocating it's about a million dollar a year roughly 1.1 and so that's the additional Surplus being generated from the hotel iupy tax that's dedicated to the ballpark and so reinvesting that and the capital projects that the team identifies our city engineer will meet with them as the mayor mentioned he took a tour I took a tour actually just recently asked me to go back out again so it's projects that are identified either by the team or improvements that or requirements do the minor or major league baseball as well okay thank you I just wanted the public thank you thank you sir and I do want to thank again y all for it was a very solid recommendation a great budget and you know the the thing that we've committed to the taxpayers when we all run for offers well we say we're not going to raise your taxes we're not going to do this we're not going to do that that's what we're doing and and that we're going to make sure you have a quality of life that's what we're doing that we'll make sure that our number one priority is Public Safety that's what we're doing so this is a really solid solid budget that really comes together as you know we we took office and said that uh we would always make sure that you know we're going to watch the every penny we're going to watch the budget and we're going to reduce taxes so I think this is a great recommendation a solid recommendation again and uh I do want to thank thank you all for the incredibly hard work it uh it shows what you all have been doing and what you have done thank you that Miss PR yes mayor did you want to go to public comment yeah we do I'm sorry I apologize we do have public comment we do have six members of the public that would like to speak so miss PR yes sir we'll begin with Carlos Aguilar Carlos howad go up to the good morning sir how are you we'll have three minutes there will be a timer on the monitor of 3 minutes up here sir you can see how much time you have yes thank you yes sir good morning sir good morning everybody I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you um I really woke up when I heard you all talking about the baseball park I said oh God that's wonderful but then I found out you're talking about the baseball park downtown not the baseball park that I'm here to talk about and the park that we represent um it's Mesto Gomez Park I would hope you would pay and get as interested in it as what I saw you guys talking about the baseball park downtown so I have a prepared statement regarding mesta buas Park I believe all City Council Members got this uh prepared statement through the email today if you were lucky enough to check your email before you came to work um dear mayor liser and city council members and budget um department heads that are here thank you for the time to present this letter and ensuing comments our neighborhood Mesto Gomez has been without a park for 5 years furthermore we were approved multiple times for renovations several years ago some going back back as far as 1987 mesta Gomez Park is the most ignored worst maintained Park in the city if you don't believe me please go out there and you will see it it has been that way since 1975 Modesto park has a least number of trees canopies new modern benches grassy areas it is poorly loot lit it has poor parking areas limited bathroom space and no new amenities like a well-lit walking trail skateboard Splash area Etc the area adjacent to modestal park is even worse please go out there at every corner of the process the city has delayed the funding and the completion of work due to various unproven reasons more recently Martinez Brothers discontinued the work and we still not get can cannot get clarification on what the contractor did for this money what he was paid for nor the status of the suit that was made by Mr Martinez and then I believe a counter suit by the city These funds are in hyperspace while our citizens have no Park use when Mr Tommy Gonzalez you all remember him was elected to Al Paso city manager his first official visit was to come to Mesto Gomez Park he told us I am empathetic to your cost I have never seen such a Works Park in my lifetime this will be my number one priority and then he further said when I am done with the park and and Renovations none of you will recognize it thank you sir it's still the same thank you sir the next speaker is Dr Miguel hes Mr wattis if you're in the qar 6 please to unmute your telephone Mel harez we'll move on to Veronica Carvajal Veronica Carvajal Anna Dominguez she's here good morning Mr mingz you have three minutes good morning good morning good morning um I'm here to I'm here in support of the efforts of our city representative that we have right now which is Josh oo who has gone ahead and sought I believe uh if I'm correct $600,000 for Modesto Park and in the discussion or presentation that was made by the city uh alarm meeting community meeting on Monday I believe that it was included Modesto Park is the result of the improvements are the result of a of a 2012 quality of life bond issue that's how long we've been waiting from 2012 the city did not the first correspondence to the community was in 2019 and I have letters uh that I have kept because I live in in the area we went from a budget of two of 2 uh uh 2,400,000 to presently uh a a budget of 1,6 82,000 and I have uh some information that I made copies of presentations where all along we were promised uh amenities that have that have been blown With the Wind to tell you the truth the our Park was better before the the start of so-called improvements they they did go ahead we there's documentation and I'm willing to share it with you where uh we were on the same page and so forth but all of a sudden when Mar Brothers bid and were awarded the thing it appears that due to inflation they couldn't do it for the price that that and so the lawsuit came nobody told us we were in the dark they kept us in the dark we've been in the dark and finally found out there was a lawsuit and and when we question if the city was successful in the lawsuit would we get our money back the 800,000 that was never answered even at the meeting on Monday no one could tell us whether that lawsuit has been said settled and whether any mes are going to come so uh I have presentations from the city and I've given those packets to to uh Josh for city council to review and what we're asking is please we've been at this since 2019 it is now 2024 we've been without a park our seniors are suffering our kids are playing on the uh uh we're talking about safety the important they're playing on the uh on the streets so please listening please uh please help us thank you Ming we'll move on to doraa followed byal is right here man good morning Miss carbajal okay we'll move on to D Anda Rick boner Miguel huarez and Veronica Carval good morning ma'am you have three uh good morning mayor good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is Dora Vian and I'm here to support Joshua he's our district two representative which has been helping us a lot more lately and I want to enforce what Carlos and Anna have said because we have meetings and the people out there there's some of them that are elderly people who have been there for 80 years 75 years we were born and we were raised there in the Valverde Edition which we call the valde neighborhood association I'm the president for them and I'm here to talk for them all I want to ask the city we have heard that we're going to be getting handy down things for the park instead of getting new swings new tables we've asked for a canopy for the shares for when the people come to play We have had people asking us about if why can't we go into the park and just walk the park is completely closed we need the children to go in there walk around with their parents cuz some of the parents are going through health problems diabetes high blood pressure cancer they just want to walk they're having to walk around the neighborhood where the dogs are running around we need to have that Park open and I'm here to ask you all to please help Joshua he's trying very hard for us and we want him to be able to live when he goes out of his position we have had two other Representatives have that have gone and we still have the same problem we want Joshua to be able to help us finish the problem before he leaves mayor if you can do the same for us please don't leave leave with the and leave us with the same problem we've been here for years I've been coming every year to ask for the same help we pay taxes I was hearing uh the gentleman with the taxes we pay taxes our houses we own our houses because we've been there for years we buy cars we have stores we have been losing the Modesto Park I asked for a sign to be set up in front of the park like The Monuments that the other Parks have we haven't got one yet why we're being choed away that's the way I see it every time we ask for something we I fill out paperwork I do everything we're still waiting why do we have to wait so much when I see other parks on Shela they started working on one not even a year with four 14 employees in our Park two employees a big Park and I see the difference they're moving real fast over here on shelsa and we're still over there fighting for Joshua can you help can you get money thank you m okay well thank you very much and I hope you take us into consideration thank you thank you ma'am next in the queue we have Dr Rick bonard good morning sir star six to unmute your microphone good morning you have three minutes good morning mayor and Council can you hear me yes sir okay um so I'm just here to talk about open space a little bit um as you can recall in 2009 we created the open space Advisory Board and whereas we do share some revenue for open space with the public service board as long as those projects include storm water um I think after 15 years and what you've seen occur when we do set aide open space it's one of the best values that there is in the city low cost of Maintenance and high use amongst the public but it's time to think about adding a line item in your budget for open space even if it's a small amount to start with it would be a good idea to do that um I think that you would be rewarded and the general public would be rewarded I think a common theme that you're seeing amongst the speakers is that they're asking begging for amenities that they can use and um there's as I stated no better value than open space so it would be nice Parks has a very very large budget but none of that is reserved particularly and specifically for open space so that's what I would like to see happen is some sort of uh placeholder in the budget for that item thank you very much thank you next is Miss Val K good morning morning M you have three minutes good morning mayor council um veronal I am a climate Justice and civil rights organizer with Houston in action in El Paso now you all know me as a legal attorney I'm I'm working Pro boner for them now but um I've been working with the communities of South El P Paso for more than 20 years and the question that comes up every single time we advocate for an issue is when is it our turn our turn when is it our turn to be invested in when is it our turn to undo the environment Al Justice and environmental racism that plagued our community starting with the founding of the city right the reason that we have mixed zoning the reason that we have a sewage treatment plant the reason that we have a Refinery the reason that we have a park built on top of a landfill is because of the racism that that was part of this community's it is part of this community's history they've been asking and asking and they've been getting broken promises so in 2012 um as was mentioned before the bond not only named Parks it specifically named Modesto park it was part of a $245 million that citizens throughout the city approved knowing that the money was supposed to go to spaces like Modesto park it is 2024 what they have received our broken promises from both the city and the contractors now um it is always to me impressive when people from the community who have a million things to work on decide to take their extra time to come before you and advocate for others and instead of honoring their time what they are getting is you have to wait you have to wait as you've been waiting for hundreds of years as your community has been waiting for hundreds of years what we have um heard earlier today was that you have a contractual obligation when it comes to the baseball park as a reminder the bond elections form a contract between you and the voters so you have broken that contract and we litigated this with Durango I was part of the litigation team you are once again breaking the 2012 bond by not delivering on Modesto park it is no longer a question really of money it's a question of time we have received very graciously a letter that was forwarded to you this morning from episio episio is homegrown they don't do business with the city um but they have offered their expertise and how this park could be improved and they're saying $5 million would bring this park up to Cod and it would make it usable it is immoral that the residents of a community that are they wer even asking you to clean up the landfill they're asking you to use this as a park we know with climate change that we need more green spaces we know that it is important for us especially this community that's so close to the bridge so close to the sewage treatment plant so close to the Border Highway to have some green spaces this is not an impossible ask if you are willing to subsidize the baseball park that you promised us would be paid by the hotel occupancy tax then please explain to us why you're not willing to provide a free public space to this community thank you and the final speaker is Dr Miguel hes sir if you're in the star six please to unmute your microphone good morning you have three minutes hi my name is Dr migueles uh I uh uh support the completion ofo Park um I've done studies regarding uh emissions and the building of uh a freeways displacement of people and so forth here's a community that really deserves their park will open so they can get uh back to doing what they did before when the park was open uh playing baseball as well as uh going for a walk uh walking the dogs a lot of things that other neighborhoods are currently have but uh somehow the community south of uh their fre weight have to wait I think it's imperative that they be supported uh a lot of people have an interest in the park reopening uh new the GI Forum uh because we've seen constantly over and over uh issues of EnV environmental Injustice uh that have been perpetuated for a number of years of course we can go back and change history but we can make a new history by giving people what they're asking for and they're just asking for the reopening of the park uh which is really important uh for People's Health for young people and you know you need to find it uh within yourself to do this I know you have priorities uh you have Contin that are asking maybe similar things but this community has been seriously overlooked and it is one of the uh important communi communities and neighborhoods in El Paso this is a 19th century community that uh uh to this day has not been uh met with and um you know this is the original architecture and the park and so forth so I do hope that you find it within yourself to really do right by this committee uh by the meso Gomez uh Park committee and also the community and a lot of people are very supportive of this uh please try to find a way to make it right thank you thank you mayor that concludes public comment on this item and I think the when we talk about the contracts 2012 that was part of the um the item uh proposition number one that um the city has been working on and proposition two was uh totally a different item on it and I know that propers and two everything but the MPC was slated to be 48 million so you you said we're not doing anything I know that we have spent over $100 million on something that we told the voters it was going to cost 48 million and and um so I've been doing research on it and I I looked at it and it was very shocking that it's over $100 million that's uh when we told them it only cost it 48 million bucks so but uh the one you all are talking about for the parks and redoing the parks I know and uh I maybe um we need to continue to address that as the proposition one you know gets closed out and and things get finished with that because uh we we do um we did vote on it and we did say that that's where it would come in on not not on a budget item and not on a budget but also part of prop one representative Mard thank you very much mayor um I believe uh police chief Bas and fire chief killings if they're available they can come into the room while they being notified I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the team from the city here Mr Robert ctin for your leadership your financial acument Mr Nicole Cody the same thing um how you crunch these numbers and come out with these values is just something to behold Miss pasas Miss Mar thank you very much as well I know it's not just one individual person it's your team effort all your Collective departments coming together to make this happen is a reality remember we are public servants all of us regardless of who you are working for the city you are a P public servant and we're all dedicated public servants so I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you and to all of your departments on that but I don't know if we can get the fire chief I guess gent if you could have a seat there or possible I want you to stand I'm that's not going to be long don't worry um I'll start with Chiefs um of course I'm sure you've very confident you and your staff created this budget for the citizens of op Paso the op Paso Police Department is there anything that's missing that we may need to be Cog sent whether body War cameras other technology other resources I know Recruitment and Retention of personel is always an issue but is there anything off the top of your head uh that you can expand on if that we could need to include in this budget so I mean uh as uh Public Safety we always have a big ask um and we always have a need to uh uh ensure the safety of the citizens of Al Paso and ensure their quality of life where we uh uh can't uh fund it through the budget we are always looking for Grants so we're going to be doing the same thing for body warn cameras and the other technologies that we need so if you're asking on this uh we're good with this the staff worked hard on this working with the deputy city managers and with the CM on this one so we're good and we're whatever we don't we're going to work on grass okay great and chief kingon the same thing I won't be able to expand too many questions on that because I never was on the fire department but I mean technology is always a game changer uh we look to the Future for different things but also Recruitment and Retention I know I've been to those graduations and it seemed like a lot of enthusiasm there's a lot of strength and numbers there and you're doing a good job and all your staff the academy uh just wonderful it's it's great to see those uh young men and women coming forth and willing to serve their city do you feel that that we are lacking anything in this budget that we may not have accounted so far you know the same as with Chief pasas we we've worked really hard on Recruitment and Retention within the El pasal fire department not only for our firefighters but also for our telecommunicators um we there's been a commitment to the uh constant hiring and recruitment of our telecommunicators to get those numbers up uh trying to recover from the the things that that we saw during the pandemic and and the struggles that we saw over the pandemic and we're getting there and we're moving forward with the support of of of of our finance and and and the support of you all in our city leadership um you know it's always a concern the big price tags for our organization are going to be those apparatus that you see out there running the streets um and with the long delays on on production for those apparatus it's it's essential for us not to fall behind and there's been a commitment made to our Capital improve to our capital budget to make sure that we don't fall behind with those apparatus and that we're able to keep uh those those rigs on the on the streets um and and then also not mentioned during the budget was a the the commitment from from made with the the help of finance and budgeting um to be able to find find funding for our scbas that was uh used to to was moved to an alternative funding source and be able to get those within this year's budget and and that was a huge uh step forward to be able to address the safety of our firefighter out there in the field and make sure that we can maintain accountability of those firefighters and making sure that our equipment is state-of-the-art um up to date and and ready to uh respond for the the citizens of El Paso so we're in a we're in a pretty good sit situation right now okay I appreciate your cander appreciate your information appreciate you sharing uh tidbits of information to the public you know well pass always been designated a safe Community one of the safest cities in the country and my hands to both of you gentlemen to all your staff all your personnel thank you thank you and and you know I think both Chiefs got a really good point and I do want to thank um Ian and Omar for I could never have imagined that so far here today we've got an $87 Million worth of grants for the city and that's incredible and if we hadn't gotten that type of commitment and be able to get a lot of these grants it really would have uh raised our budget and it would have to come because the only way they give you a grant is based on needs so obviously we had the needs they did a great job and it's actually cost saved us a lot of money so thank you for bringing that up because I think the grants and we have that seems like almost every council meeting you know we have a grant that we're trying to bring forward a lot of it to the police and fire so thank you for that and chief killings uh thank you for supporting that new uniform by the way looks nice you yes sir are are we going to get two Council requests we have them in the presentation if you all like to go through them go I don't know if you were going to lead kind of through that presentation and then we could ask questions what are you asking for sir the council requests all right just come this way I'll go that way okay you um I know that uh you had um asked to go through that presentation I know we have motion a second I'll hold that till you're done okay if it could please bring the presentation back up here we go and so actually representative we want to make sure that each of the representatives have an opportunity to talk about their Council budget requests um so we'll go to the slide and I actually will if if you all would like to cover it please please do so on this first slide is District Two um if you'd like to cover them you don't do you want us to get you one real quick yeah no no yeah no problem sorry we'll get you in right now representative we'll actually get her one copies for everybody I I think the yeah I I have it printed and I pass it on um so I I just wanted to put a little bit more context because I know that this is a a table and estimated costs we we were able to submit these budget requests I think there was at least 15 that I submitted and it was just really difficult to narrow down where we got um where we got to here CU I I realized that some of these were going to be really really expensive and I think that what I was realizing is that the prior Administration has done a lot to District 2 that our residents have not really been in favor of right um and and as you can see some of the big capital projects here are the T pools Nation still been Grand VI pool that were closed and we continue to hear a lot of our residents upset that these pools were closed right and I think if you look at the first four requests those streets again going back about a decade these neighbors it's a neighborhood association that they were promised to ion dollar to fix their streets and the money never came they were told it was going to happen and now their streets are in really really darate 10 years later and so that's the thought behind the first four items I appreciate you splitting them up into the different costs because at the very least we're going to understand how much it's going to cost for each of these streets to be repaired right and I understand that we have over half of our streets at really poor quality right and and streets is the one that we have um talked about a lot $42 million need $7 million a year and I understand that but I think that when we have money promised to people and then things don't happen I think we really need to highlight that a little bit more and I understand that some of us may have not been in the room 10 years ago right but these are the things that we inherit and I think it's abs absolutely important that if the city commits to doing something we need to follow through on it so that's the the thought behind the first four items and then as you heard some of my constituents earlier on Modesto Gomez park I think that it has been one of the biggest frustrations that they have had for many many years and um we just had a community meeting we had 40 people um there um I I host at least three Community meetings every month right and and the big thing that always comes up when we're in South Central is molesto Gomez and for a good reason and I think that when we're looking at that park it has just been sitting there for 5 years they haven't been able to use the park and um I wanted to give a brief history of what's happened just since I've been in office in the last few months where we went out there and had a a field trip community meeting back in May and at that point we met with the contractors and it was truly not a great meeting the the contractors left us with more questions and answers they they weren't really answering any questions and I think the the biggest thing right now and i' I've talked to inim city manager um Carri Weston about this and he's well aware we were just talking about this yesterday we we we talk about this park a lot and and what happened at that meeting is um people just really want to be able to use the park most of the park is already ready to use and we were asking the contractor if they could just fence off the area that is not going to be used for phe 2 and we're approaching we're like in the middle of the summer and they still can't use a park other things that came up um while we were there was that there was just a mount of dirt that was just sitting there the entire time and then the homes that live that are right by the park were getting all of the the dirt blown into their yards and allergies were really bad you know and people stopped using their yards cuz the dirt was so so bad and then you know my constituents have told me all the time they they pass by the park probably on a daily basis some more than a few times a day right and they don't see anybody working they see one or two construction workers doing something so it's like okay so what are we waiting for what what else are we doing right and so we we were able to secure the $600,000 earlier this year um to get through this first phase but then one of the other things that was was brought up at one of the meetings that we had was that there was some storage where we could have some used uh park benches and some used um tables that maybe we could put at Mesto Gomez Park and I thought that was really insulting to our constituents because I think that we deserve to have really great amenities and you know this is another topic that I've kind of discussed where we have the nip program the nip program has been great but a lot of our neighborhood associations are submitting requests for benches at their parks and those are basic necessities those are things that we shouldn't have neighborhood associations asking for a few thousand to put a bench in their park like we need to have complete parks and that's and that's where they're coming from and at the same time when we had um that meeting a lot of the trees were dead at meso it was promised that those trees would be completed um completely taken out new trees would come in but then another problem arises right because we have a walking path that is nearly complete in that walking path there's going to be no lighting and a lot of our elderly constituents are out there walking they would like to have at least the bench every quarter mile to sit down cuz you know they're walking around at least some lights we have new solar lights that are inexpensive really and and at some point last year those lights were promised to go to Mesto Gomez Park as a pilot program for the new solar lights and I assume the project has been delayed a few times right um because of funding and lawsuits and stuff like that but at the same time I I think that we have seen the solar lights that they went to Marina Rios they went to another Park and those solar lights need to be at molesto Gomez they need to have the lighting the the lighting from the baseball fields is not going to be sufficient um I also think that we need to really work on the flat Fields as well and that was part of the preliminary budget and I know we're going to talk about that and um I'm having a a meeting with the city manager in a few days to to fully discuss that right but at the same time I I feel that we I I it's really disheartening it's really embarrassing to me to say Can can we get some picnic tables can we get some benches because all our other Parks have that right and if they're in such disrepair we could fix them or do whatever it is but I think we really need to make the project whole and I know that the estimate here that was brought to um this this budget request which was my six one is 8.9 million and I'm I'm wondering how that kind of broke down so that's one question and then I also kind of want to understand where we are um I know a lot of the the people that signed up for public comment were asking about um 2012 bond funds and making sure that we were using that so kind of a two for one question and see where we land there yes sir so we've got Evette hernandz will come to be able to answer those two questions good morning mayor and Council EV mandz a city engineer um so the first question of the 88.9 million that's looking at what would be considered phase two so that's looking at a brand new uh restrooms parking lot um also installing two championship size artificial turf um fields that would be located just south of the uh newly constructed uh baseball um sorry the baseball um and then also to include the solar lighting and amenities that you made mention of benches trash recepticles to cover the entire Gambit okay and with regard sorry that your second question so 2.4 million was allocated in the 2012 and then um the introduction for the immediate introduction for lighting needed at the baseball um also brought another 600 ,000 so the current budget that has been allocated is the 3 million but please note that 3 million does include soft cost so that includes the design that includes the testing that also includes some of the other testing that we did um when the request was to determine if there could be any remediation efforts for the landfill so it covers that entire cost and so the 3 million would it be separate from the 8.9 9 million or are you including the 3 million and 8.9 million so the 8.9 would be the the phase two and we've also looked at that because I know that's sticker shock um so we did work with different vendors to get uh the prices we were looking originally at 2 million for artificial turf so we've done additional calls what can we do we've been able to bring that down to 1.5 so really we're looking at the value engineering that making sure that we SI the restroom appropriately making sure that we provide the substantial parking and we could look at about 6 million to get the phas two done and do we have money left over in the quality of life bonds yes we do that's one of the topics that the city manager will be talking to you yes sir okay and then um and and I think the other thing also is that you're you have the walking path that's going to be there but then the space between the The Walking path in the middle is just going to be there and there's no trees that are planned for that area on top of that would be pH two right and so um I I think that's where where people were saying like the walking path is great but if we don't have amenities with The Walking path basic ameni is like just a bench so we could sit after walking for a few minutes because we got tired or we just want to sit and gossip for a little bit with our friends or whatever right I think that I think they want to have that ability to to to do that and so that would be included as part of that to put the trees and we have Sitting areas in the middle of the path sitting areas in the middle no along the trail just along okay MH and that could always be once the funding has been identified um that can be identified during the design process because phase two would have to be designed it wouldn't be an immediate lead into construction okay yes sir um okay so I'll I'll have that meeting um and to my constituents I'll keep you updated as we learn more about this like I always do I don't can oh we'll talk we'll talk after the the meeting um the other thing that was just really important to highlight out of the budget requests that that I had was you know we we have um $500,000 in our Ada fund every year or we we incre it to 750 yes sir um I think something really important to really understand is sometimes understanding the stories of constituents and the the struggles that they're having um makes requests for um Ada come to life and make it more real right and so I have a I have a constituent that lives on Richmond and every morning he walks down to Memorial Park and it's really difficult for him to kind of cross the street because he's blind and there are no ways to kind of make it down to Memorial Park the the few blocks down to make sure that it's going to be safe um I know we have had the the traffic study that was done there um and there was something that he had suggested about speed humps to to make it easier cuz on top of everything people are just really speeding through his street and then as he's going down there's no real um crosswalk or something that's going to make it easier for him to cross the three blocks to get down to Memorial Park every single day that he is walking his dog and so I think that that's the the importance of how we do this right and I think that when when we're thinking about I I I know that speed humps have a whole process the process is it it works and I know we just had a presentation a few weeks ago but it does take longer right and I think that we as a city need to start considering how we intersect that with Ada right because his concerns are there are no ways that are safe to get down to Memorial Park as I walk my dog and traffic is also one of those things that makes it a big factor that scares them every single morning that he's walking down there and so I I was pleasantly surprised at how much this cost cuz I thought it would be a lot more to to mitigate this um but I just wanted to bring that to life so my colleagues could understand what's happening here absolutely and we've got Mr Bristol that can speak also to the resurfacing that you have listed he had a a a comment regarding that and I would also like to address your question on the amenities so real quick on on the um do me a favor please introduce yourself yes Sir Richard Bristol streets of maintenance on the issue of at Richmond Street that will be addressed here we might be able to have an opportunity for that with our vision zero program as well as in our ada8 program and if you allow us we'd be happy to meet with you and go over that with you a second thing I want to bring up a lot of the items that are on the sheet are surfacing and the only thing I wanted to to remind you all was that we we are currently working off of the surfacing plan that we approved on January 30th 2023 and we do two-year increments and one of the reason we do twoyear increments is because we need to share this information with our Utility Partners so that they can plan and prepare for this work as well so a lot during this next year we will be bringing forward the plan for fiscal years 26 and 27 um so that will address some of these streets that are identified and requested here but I need to reiterate that we'll be going through the entire city and most of our payment condition index ranges that we're expecting to see in the next plan are probably going to be in the 30s to the 40s so we're still on the lower end of this um um we still have about another 150 streets to complete off the current plan we have two active projects right now we're getting ready to bid a third one but I want to reiterate this so that you all can understand that this will come out of the the pgo or the bonds in future years but we will be back this year to propose the next series of projects the other point I wanted to make was on the amenities even though um through the capital project at Modesto Gomez they could address these amenities this is why we're doing a long-term plan for amenities at parks uh we didn't have this money in our budget every year up until very recently now we're in ability to pl we have the ability to plan these things in the last two years we've spent $2 million on these types of imunity amenities we're going to continue to do so and having the money there of year has given us an opportunity to have a long-term plan and plan it out better so my my point to on that is I continue to see progress on that and I'm very decided about where we're going to be next year so that continues to go forward and when we do have our amenities long-term plan we're very happy to share it no and I always appreciate your your feedback and I thank you for giving me the the streets that are next and have that plan in place and and I think that I I completely understand where you're coming from I just really wanted to put a story to these first four requests because they were promised something 10 years ago it didn't happen and I know that we just put this plan in place and it's more of a recent thing that this is happening but it's still something that their the question is lingering above their heads where did the $2 million for my um streets go to right and and I don't think it was necessarily anything that you did um but maybe something that kind of got Lost in Translation with Administration or something like that but I think the biggest thing here is that this is about a million dollars and they've been under the impression that the $2 million is what was taken away from from them so at the very least I'll give them an update on that but I think that they're they're still going to be um really adamant about these specific streets they were not able to make it to public comment today but I'll I'll keep them updated and thank you for and I will offer you though I may not have the information on the clarity on on on that issue I'm more than happy to meet with you and go through everything that's been approved at least for the last decade okay thank you thank you sir uh next will be District three yes sir District three I'm going let you take over that M and you can Conor yes sir I will thank you it can please bring up so we have District three the top of slide 40 representative ready thank you um members of council I've I've made um a handful of budgetary requests based Bas on the request from the public um and so I'd like to hear from each respective department on how you came to that cost analysis and if there are plans to fund or if it's already incorporated into the budget um the first one was to fund an equity officer and so we heard that that's been addressed we're prepared for that yes yes we are okay um and uh District three um fund all elig ible approved neighborhood traffic Management program applications that are pending it does not show an amount um but it does state that um the projects are not funded per individual projects um is can you explain uh because I understood that we were going to be able to address all those that were on the pending list right and so I believe at the budget meeting Mr Bristol had indicated that the funding goes to be able to purchase the supplies and then as the project s are completed but sir if You' like to right um in the present year we're going to have 31 projects completed this will be a record year um 24 have been completed seven are in progress right now after they go through the vetting process that's when they're in another track for installation and that's what the funding and the budget pays for it takes a little bit of time um it used to take more than a year uh now we've got it down to a matter of months for the vetting process to go through the uh to work with the uh the applicants in the neighborhood uh associated with this to to try and get this thing approved and get all the uh verify all the signatures make sure it meets all the criteria we've cut that time drastically by removing the element of allowing the public to have a say on where the actual cushions would go now the Traffic Engineers are making that decision that streamlined our process and we're moving faster now our cost here is strictly associated with the signage and speed cushions that are installed and of course the labor and any materials that support it there's sufficient funding in our budget to to do the applications that we believe we need to hit next year which is going to be around 30 again um I don't want to be irresponsibly uh and say come up here and say I need more money for this when I'm not certain we're going to be able to do more than 30 next year I believe that we're funded for what we can actually hand as far as what our bandwidth will allow so we have 45 applications that are approved in pending so you're saying that we're not going to complete the 45 that you only have the capacity to do 30 I'm telling you that we will have 31 installs this year that is our bus year to date with the available staff that has taxed them to get to this point the funding has been adequate and I do believe that next year is going to be pretty much a parallel year for the present year and for that reason I was not requesting additional funding for the program correctly we're still not completing all those in impending less so I just want to make that clear um I understand that you're doing the best that you can internally um and which is why we have had several conversations about hiring um and Contracting this out because it is a number one request that every office gets for these traffic calming measures um and so we have on call contractors I I do believe we have the capacity to do change request and so we can utilize them the on call contractors do all of our counts we realized last year that we didn't have the internal capacities to do our internal accounts we started utilizing our on call Traffic engineering firms to do that it's been very helpful um they're doing all of our counts for us what is that what does that mean accounts for you the accounts with the the traffic study where the counts excuse me I heard something different so we are Contracting out a lot of this work but we are still doing the installations ourselves right um they're doing the counts but they're not doing the installations and uh I just want to be fair to and representative f is not here but the him and I have been meeting with um a group of of residents um who have been asking and who have been approved or at the end of this list um and this is for uh the St Thomas Church um they're literally was several accidents right into the church and the only thing that saved the church were ballards that the church had installed we've seen videos very concerning there there is a strong desire from residents to get all of these um applications approved and paid for I'm asking the department and I'm challenging you to get them all done because this we like some of them they've taken like four or five years and and like at this point these simple speed cushion installations and it it just boggles my mind that we're not able to get these done faster we can repave streets we can build uh these beautiful buildings but we can't install speed cushions and that's my frustration that I've been having this is my eighth budget year as a council member and I've been asking year over year over year please fund these get them done because this is the number one request we're hearing from residents um and so thank you for your response it's not the response I'm looking for the response I'm looking for is fund the 45 approved um and if we can get that done by way of our contractors not just doing the counts to qualify them for the traffic study and the program but to actually do the installation we can look into that ma'am it's going to be resources the reason we do it in house is because it's less expensive we have a pothole Pion Cruise handle it on overtime um but that's something we can look into of course and again we remain aggressive this will be our most aggressive year and the presid year can we have contractors do that so you don't have to lean on overtime we can but it will be more expensive I need to re do the contractors absolutely okay so OT is your most affordable Avenue yes when we also have better contracts on materials and then we also have our own internal traffic control mechanisms as opposed to a contractor having to use a third party or use their own traffic control setups so we have elements in place that make it more efficient for ourselves and some of these projects are more complicated than they may appear as well I mean sometimes there's a street where there's we we can't get to an agreement on we we have too many complications that we we have a hard time working on looks ridiculous on the outside but we're talking about residents and people's neighborhoods and they're very sensitive about it and we're not going to impose anything that they don't want so we're also trying to be very careful in that regards we're more thany to into this op I do recognize that you have made the process more efficient and I appreciate that um so but now as a consequence of that efficiency you're seeing more on your list and they're going to continue to pile up year over year thank you thank you Mr brist for what you're doing I appreciate it um I have you have my support 100% to get the resources you need Staffing the contractors so we can get that done thank you um and then there is a the Hidden Valley part it's called Cowboy Park uh it used to be called Cowboy Park excuse me there's a splash park there um it the park um the street Fon runs parallel to the the uh Bas nor trail system which is the bla drain Trail there is a street that runs parallel to that trail and the street hasn't been designated as a street okay even though it's a street and it hasn't been paved and it's a dirt road um and so the the community for decades have been asking for the street to be a street and for the street to be considered residential um and so I just want to confirm uh Mr Bristol oh there you are is that now what steps do we need to take to get that um like to to consider it a street because it's like considered an easement at this point there's a couple of them out there um it has to be first off it's not constructed to our standards so it would have to be accepted into our inventory but for us to accept it into our inventory we're either going to have to build it to our standard or accept it to our standard I do not expect present owners to build them to our standards so this is an issue so it remains outside of the inventory even though people are using it um even though there are houses on some of these it has to be formally brought into our inventory and we need to do that by formally recognizing it and it's going to have to go through a process that will involve other departments such as planning and it could include Capital Improvement Department should we need to bring it up to Modern standards ourselves this um area has seen I'm going to say over $5 million of improvement from the city of El Paso except the street isn't paved um the when you have streets and and Alleyways that are not paved it is directly attributing to our emissions and our non-compliance of pm10 PM um unpaved roadways is the major contributor to pm10 pollution levels which has made our city and our community non-attainment for Alleyways I'm not sure we have an inventory for the streets that are considered easements when there are houses right in front of those unpaved roadways like bonsa Drive we're in the middle of a community where we've seen an injection of multi-million dollars it doesn't make a lot of sense um so I will ask the department to assist me to C put that easan into the into the list but to the extent that we can we need to get that resurfaced as part of the ongoing resurfacing uh requests and to clarify m'am this would require construction because we wouldn't be able to put a payment layer on it it's going to have to be built properly to design standards in I want to reiterate There are 16 streets in the city that remain unpaved like they're just dirt roads they're we we grade them but they're compacted and they have some have Billings but we grade them and we perform the maintenance on them okay thank you um we I had made a request thank you Mr I had made a request for the office of climate sustainability um I was uh I made this request last year as well I'm making it again the this year and there was a I believe from what I heard from our last budget hearings that these requests may have been fulfilled but I'm showing a $313,000 budget um Miss finini I'm sorry I just saw that you walked in uh do how did you all come up with this assessment and is there still a need for funding for that department good good morning Nicole farini uh climate and sustainability officer so the 31300 uh request is for uh to bolster our funding our general funding for our administrative services within community and human development so that it may support the intensity of the grant requests and the grant Administration and the grant compliance that we foresee coming down the pike with climate action and so it was a strategy to reduce the amount of the request so that we could ultimately uh deliver on our promises uh more effectively and efficiently how many staff members do you have in this division in climate and sustainability uh we have five including myself okay this funding is not for those five people this funding is for accountants compliance officers contract officers that already exist those positions exist within Community Development they support our cdbg programs and so this money allows those individuals to work on grants that are not HUD related so that we remain in compliance with the federal regs has this been funded is it part of our funding of our overall budget I'm not sure to my knowledge it is not not this portion but the city council has funded the climate office we're going to get that amount I believe it's about a million dollars in the last couple of years um collectively or annually as of right now the total total okay and we'll get the amount for you right now okay so um to thank you Miss f i what I'm we have that $5 million of bond approved money um we have the Departments there's a miror of several dozen uh climate infrastructure dollars out there and so I want to make sure that we are not um missing those opportunities I have a lot of confidence in the in the grants team um but what I'm noticing here is that there's silos and departments um espe especially when it comes to Ian's team in the Grants Department and climate when I asked the question at the last meeting where are we with the EV EV grants like Nicole didn't have anything to do with it but it was sitting in in the Grants Department really want to see Synergy I wanted to make sure that everybody is working in unity the department that we had envisioned uh I believe is uh former representative Schwarz Vine um and in that Administration representative Nell we wanted to make sure that we had a robust team who was prepared to get the dollars that are on the table so that we don't miss any opportunities but with those dollars come a lot of responsibility those dollars require compliance and that is the easiest way to impact the city's ability to retain those $87 million that we we just um the mayor talked about earlier compliance is a critical component of Grants and and so I don't want to underestimate not only applying for the grants but making sure that every Department understands the compliance component and getting the support that they need to be compliant um thank you for sharing that Miss f um considering all of the resources uh and the lack of resources that there there are available would like to see either looking at year on savings um looking for additional resources within departments vacancy savings to redirect that to to the department so if I can and I'll let Miss F expand on this but it's a part of the discussion that we had when she did her budget briefing with the inter city manager Colonel Weston is that her department is primarily Fally funded through grants and so part of the struggle and the challenge with her department is is that she has staff that needs to be working on those grants and so one of the things that we've been talking about not only for the climate but just a lot of the other programs that she has is how do we increase the general fund allocation for this department so they can work on things outside of that particular Grant cdbg or some of the other grants that they have so we've talked about that I believe she's got a plan in place of you know how we can Implement that obviously it just comes down to what the budget can sustain but that is a challenge going forward not just for the climate but just in general for the Community Development Department because it is primarily federally funded correct and we do have a lot of uh vacancy dollars so if there's a a Avenue that we can dedicate more Staffing or shared Staffing that would that would be desirable thank you um and then I had asked for Grant matching dollars and I know that there has been a plan put forward can you just explain a little bit about making sure that we have those Grant mat dollars as relates to no dollars Transportation dollars um any anytime we apply for a grant I'm only hearing from from Mr Martinez that we are applying for grants that do not require a match which is great that's low hanging fruit but then there are some really significant grants out there that would require 20% match from the city and we're not going after those I'm not seeing those in the inventory and if we are it's not being communicated so that is why I'm asking to make sure that we have a robust Grant matching um fund so that we can draw down down from it could be part of your reserves and we only pull that down if there's an award um but other than I believe you were using capital investment savings uh to get this tranch done of no match dollars correct so we used the or Council approved the use of the proceeds from the sale of City properties over the last couple of years to fund the required INF fuel match for this year and for next year been working with W we're working on a another potential alternative and so we'll be coming forward in the next couple of months to present another option for a more long-term sustainable funding plan for the n match uh when it comes to the discretionary grant program we have applied for grants that do have a match and so we're utilizing whether it's our national Bridges Department the airports the Metro the Enterprise funds or either even other entities we've utilized some of them to provide up whether it's a pass electric or some others so we are applying for grants that don't require City match but absolutely we agree with you that we do need to have a pot of money set aside so that we can be more aggressive and going after to these grants to leverage particularly when it comes to some of the larger initiatives that we have as an organization but I don't believe that were aggressively hitting those uh required match ones um and I pay attention to these things very closely and and if you could demonstrate all of the potential Grant applications that require a match and what our likelihood is to actually achieve those grants so long as we can get city council to approve the Grant application with that match um initially I do believe we're leaving a lot of money on the table because we're not aggressively targeting those Mr Wesson I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt no no I my apology yeah I I agree that we have to get out of one-time money uh sources to take care of match issues this is the same thing I brought up during our strategic planning session we need a longer term plan we're working on that now and I think that what we bring to the C so I'm I'm thinking we'll be able to get that done and brought back to within the next month or so would be a a plan to be able to handle the no matches which then I think helps open this up operationally with addressing the others as well but what that plan will entail will be um a plan that doesn't rely on one-time funding I mean I think that using proceeds from things like real estate sales is not a good way to you know we've been doing it but it's not a good way to be able to to handle these things and it goes back to a little bit more predictability similar to what we've said when we're dealing with departments and having some predictability and planning to be able to to address those different types of matches that are out there so you should be seeing something that come coming back to you within the next month or so great that's I'm really really happy to hear that and I know that for the time being we're using those sales proceeds um which I would agree it's the best course of action given the amount of investment we're seeing from Grants and uh no matches so not sustainable yeah it's it's not it's not to be clear no that's not and and to be clear we're we are we we are covered through this next budget year by doing the onetime uh money to be able to to handle those matches but certainly and that'll go into this next year but this plan will will carry us forward into the future without having to rely on that so great than with the progress so far I don't have any other questions about the the the grant um want to highlight on the schedule C seniors are really excited about the gold and silver memberships um I'm just I just had a quick question about that are they receiving some form of card or like a membership card or is this just um you just you just uh if you're a gold member you pay $35 a month and you get to use the weight room recreational swimming live active and if you're silver member $31 a month you can use a weight room recreational swimming live active and two Leisure classes how are you going to communicate that to the to seniors and what's the the public information process to get that word out uh good afternoon P Parks and Recreation yes we're going to be giving out uh cards ID cards just like we issue the membership card for the we room and as soon as we get the green light we're going to have to start start of advertising uh movement to notify everybody that they can go and and get those memberships at their exitus awesome um so like flyers at the centers is could um for for your team if they can give us any graphics that we can share um and newsletters and whatnot I'm really excited about this um budget request that will allow for seniors to not have to pay for every service they use and now can package through one membership in they can package everything and so I I think this is a a really great way to um that we're listening to the seniors this is what they asked for I don't know if you remember that conversation Miss Mac um where we met with all the seniors at the car the palasio center and they say we just want one fee per one month and so we're really glad um that you all put that into action thank you for listening um and I just want to bring to your attention Pablo that the Styles Park um which is one of the only parks in the Styles and Rosedale neighborhood um the hul association they would they would like to see solar lighting we're going to link them up with the neighborhood association to see if they can do a tandem nip application a neighborhood Improvement application and then that Park does not have any accessible sidewalks to get to the park so now what you see is a street a a curb and then a ditch and so what do you think kids are doing they're jumping into the the ditch they're playing my kids may or may not have done the same thing and then they if you're in a wheelchair we had we had a a a disability Easter event there and immediately I just panicked I we had to stop all the traffic in the street because as they were getting out of their vehicles all the kids in wheelchairs were on the street to get to the park and so this has been a request that the neighborhood association has made uh several times that ditches uh El Pasa water I believe or yeah that portion is a pass of water but when we're building Parks let's not build Parks without accessible Pathways that this is this is such a big danger and and I wanted to bring that to the Forefront again so that the future leadership can can tackle that through a future cdbg application or something in that nature um so so you're aware and then the syllis and neighborhood association has asked for um uh dog park and the Eastwood area has asked for which album Park Park Eastwood Park is one of the biggest parks in the city heavily utilized uh has not had any improvements because there's no neighborhood association in the area and there has been several failed attempts to create that but year every year they ask for a splash park a dog park there is a little dog park there it's not really um it's not a nice one but they are looking for more amenities as well um a lot of the trail system the pavement is cracking there's a lot of risk there and so as you're hearing from members of council about all of these needs for Parks I think there's got to be a conversation about let's relook at the parks master plan let's put together a thoughtful strategy so that we can start to phase out what the highest priorities are and then down to um what are just additional amenities that the community is asking for thank you Pablo well thank you I just wanted to bring that to your attention and I do um Terry I did make a request Mr Kell for 75 additional dog kennels and I know that when you're at overc capacity the concern with the with the animals is that they're putting too many in one kennel they're there for long periods of time they be they start to have behavioral issues and when they start to have behavioral issues that could mean they qualify for the unfortunate sadness of euthanasia and so having additional kennel spaces will help improve our no kill rate and um making sure that they're comfortable what plans do you have um for kennels at at both of your facilities and what is the need ter Capal Animal Services director um so right now as you know we're building out the Westside um Center there so that's going to give us additional candels out there um I can foresee uh right now where we're at that temporary facility uh that will continue to be uh temporary facility for quite some time time um once the upper portion is completed that's going to give us uh a lot of additional space there um for that adoption center there it's going to be over 100 candel for the dogs plus uh we're going to have additional cat candel there as well um that's something that we haven't had on our uh offsite uh places as for those cats um so right now that's being completed that's going to give us additional kennel space um we're always looking for more canel space as we bring in more animals uh into the shelter um and but our biggest priority knowing that is is getting those pets out and these extra locations will help us uh give more avenues for the public to uh see these animals and adopt or Foster them out so that it keeps those populations down as as quickly as possible so they're going to be 100 on the west side so right now we have right at 100 over there but then the new section that's being built out um those upper portions it's those buildings are being completely gutted so it's going to be a lot more efficient there's going to be those built-in kennels um and that's going to be over 100 kennels there um so until there's some uh in sometime in the future to identify funding to completely revamp the area that we're in now uh we'll I'm sure we're going to continue to use that facility as well so it's going to basically double our uh capacity during that time and it won't be ready until the end of the year is that the current construction right now the last I've seen is sometime in where the goal is in March I believe of next year yes okay and then the current facility on Fred Wilson um is there a need for additional kennels there's no uh at this time there's nothing to build out right now at that facility um right now we're just finishing up the HVAC uh reconstruction over there that uh we just um yesterday we just went into the last phase of that installation but no no new kennels there you don't do you have space for them we would have space uh when the new con the HVAC construction is done uh on the back side of the facilities where the uh HVAC is uh there's the coolers and chillers and things are on the ground there the new HVAC systems all on the roof so that's going to clear out some space in oh okay I see um if there is a mandate from the city manager as he's mentioned many times to pick up every single animal then we have a duty to give the space for those animals and so you're picking up so many animals you're storing them there's a a lot of anytime you have a distemper outbreak or some kind of outbreak it's because there's too many pets in a very confined dense area and it just exacerbates the issue and then it leads to additional deaths and so um when we do those policy directives or in this case a management directive then you have to provide the resources as well um so which is why I've made that request and I think that this is something that city council should continue to ask for annually additional kennels um because of this new mandate to pick every animal up thank you Terry you're doing a great job with the resources you have I appreciate your time well I would like to make a comment on that I mean it's it's it's even not even a matter of a mandate it's a it's a responsibility that we have as a city if we're being called and you know we try to do things to if see if someone could take on the animals for a period of time I mean I know that that animal services does a lot of that there's a lot of criticism that gets pointed to the department but it when when all else fails and we're notified about a stray and someone can't take them we have an obligation as a city to be able to handle that problem so um maybe called a mandate I I call it a uh responsibility of the city yeah sure I agree with you it's a responsibility but I understand the resource I mean I understand your your uh and I don't disagree with your comment it's a it's a delicate balance because you do have to have the resources to be able to handle the influx for sure I think that's our responsibility too thank you Carrie Mr Weston um we city council earlier um in the fiscal year November of 2023 we approved um 88 parking spaces at senior centers to increase those and the The Hope was to get that to 30% the signage they can do that's what I'm hearing Mr Bristol signage uh you can do in all the parking lots at the senior centers but you you're going to need support and funding to do the markings to add spaces and so the cost here is $10,000 so is that the total cost to do uh to increase the handicap spaces at all the senior centers it is yes it is I think that's really reasonable members of council um one of the things that you hear I have two senior centers in my district um and I used to have three um that's the number one thing you hear I need more handicapp parking spaces I need more space to to open every other community in Texas and I've done research on this they have no less than 30% handicapped parking spaces in other senior centers we have this formula that for the number of handicap spaces you need to have so many number of of uh regular parking spaces but senior centers are exclusively seniors and so I I think this is a really reasonable request that would make an immediate impact to the health and safety of of our senior users and so um I would make a motion to um accept the uh City Management's uh estimated cost of $10,000 and to fund all Senior Center um parking spaces uh to increase accessibility that's my motion second so representative uh before we make a motion to amend the 2025 budget I believe we can find a way to do it out of 2024's oh for for next fisc yeah we'll look for an opportunity to do it in the present year before we finish this fiscal year and we'll also can try to find a way to work into the budget next year because these are really maintenance dollars so I think we might be able to get this done without having to add $10,000 to the budget okay we do okay so then when can I get a definitive answer I think that was I think that okay all right I'm going to go back and talk to the traffic engineering team and I'll provide you an answer as soon as I happens okay so thank you Council for approving proving that um these are like the simple low hanging fruit that I talk about that we can achieve my final question is the schedule C um there was a lot of errors and I still have the you remember there was a misprint of reeling yes ma'am it was real line and it had been updated as part of the email that went out to council last Thursday um has there been any changes to the schedule SE based on members of council's concerns no ma'am the the revisions are as they were submitted by the Departments and I do have a a meeting pending with planning regarding their um schedule see I've heard already from Mr tu's as as to why I really want Council to reconsider the flood determination letter cost they're going from $25 to 100 and here's why FEMA just certified all of their femo maps and um there are some neighborhoods that are going to get out there's some that are going to get in and so in order to save your you flood insurance you have to get a flood determination letter to prove that you're out of the flood maps and so that's that fee so Insurance a flood insurance is like $6 to $800 depending on what severity but we're going to charge them $100 just to get that determination letter so their savings would be like not there and so I I really want um staff to reconsider that fee if you're set on that then I would make a motion to cut that in half um and then the other one I had mentioned is the um development increases uh for rezoning for um anytime that they're going to build something they have to go through these these crazy processes in the planning department and so they want to increase that I think I believe it was to $2400 and and as I mentioned before when you have high values and properties the re the way that's going into high values and properties because there's a there's a shortage of homes in the city there's a there's Market uh issues and it's why it's creating um a demand for more homes and that is increasing the values of your properties and that's what we heard from Dina Kilgore from are uh the executive director of the Central Appraisal District the city of op Pasa should be making development easier and not charging more at this time because of the volatility of interest rates and so uh although I have that meeting pending I still believe that the fees are too high we need to keep the same fees um and and reconsider that growth at the at the next fiscal year when um values aren't so high and and there's not such a shortage of of homes on the market um so again if you if you all are set on that then at a future time I'd make a motion to roll that back to the original rate R you all are taking action will will not take action on that today you'll take action on the budget resolution as you're aware on August 20th as part of the actual budget adoption so sure no thank you um I don't have any other questions related to my budget request um but thank you all for uh responding to all my concerns and a lot of these we can I can use this data to give to Neighborhood associations and they can apply for this F thank you thank you Representatives so next we have District 4 before we go District 4 we're going to break for lunch after District 4 okay just so everybody's aw soon as District 4 if you take three hours that's when we'll break for lunch so thank you excuse me okay good morning um I'm going to read this an order that I have them here uh I'm going to talk about North G's Park uh playground equipment and a walking trail so uh the playground equipment has been installed I've been out there to see that I know the neighborhood association that's there would like to see the walking trail and that's part of their nip for this year as well Stan Roberts senior Avenue um if you ever been out there to the Northeast uh from the us54 all the way to Martin Luther King that road is really bad I mean really bad and it's not even need to be resurfaced it needs to be reconstructed the 6,000 block of Sinclair also was very very bad there it's a very short street but I can tell you when you go there to drive it's very bad also the 10100 block to the 10 300 block of feasant Road um I know the PCI here says 37.8 and 66. 7 but in reality it's a lot worse than that and so for example when it rains it floods and so that area there where people are driving they cannot see the pot well it's really not a pothole it's just the surface is uneven so when someone's driving their uh use caution because it's just not it's not level and not not level at all so I don't know if Mr Bristol you want to address one of these or you want to me just to continue sir if you want to just run run through them I can I can address them at the end too okay that's cool all right the 10 uh on Bon Air from the 10,000 to 10300 block of Bon Air um I can tell you the citizens there the residents said the road has never been resurfaced um very interesting now moving on to the 56 5700 block of Calgary resident there gentlemen by the name of Angel christani he's a 93y old veteran and he has uh talks a lot calls her office a lot but uh he did make it clear that he will no longer pay his property taxes until his street is resurfaced he wants to have his surf his street resurfaced before he passes away he's a veteran like I said 93 years old but uh he when he dos and you listen to the gentleman he talks with a lot of passion and what's what he doesn't understand really is that uh and I don't understand it either is that all the streets around that area there have been resurfaced and they were resurfaced and his street was never resurfaced so he feels really left out and I had to have empathy for the gentleman and his family but uh like I said he he said he was going to refuse paying his property taxes and I advise him not to do that I'm sure he will pay his taxes as a good outstanding veteran but still he just needs to make a point um 52 to 5400 blocks of Roger Maris that I I go out but anyways that's that's critical there and also the 5100 block of Roger Maris so there's four different streets Aries Capricorn helis and Ria and they're all there at the near the Gateway North that and what happens there is there is a sidewalk but the sidewalk is not completed so you have a daycare center that's near there on Sun Valley and so when people are taking walking and they're going to the daycare or they're even going to the 7el store that's near located there um they have to either walk inside the street which Cates a traffic safety issue or they just walk in the desert and they don't like walking in the desert and I I have to agree with them I've been out there several times also um the Deon Avenue 51 to 5700 blocks of Fairbanks and so um does say here at PCI 43.5 but in reality I think that's got to be way higher um especially certain parts of Fairbanks it's just really bad you know your your car is going to suffer a lot plus your teeth the 10,4 in BL a railroad now I've been battling this several times since I've been in office now and so I know there's Federal funding for that but we really need to work on that as well great news the 9100 to the 9400 BL of stahala thank you it's currently being resurfaced it's almost completed so thank you very much I can tell you the citizens out there or gner Heights have really appreciate that very much um we have requested for a Senior Citizen Center at District 4 and I understand there's no land acquisition but still so I know uh well he's not here representative um we do do different things for Nolan Richardson and I know a lot of people from District 4 go to District 2 for different services that they provide for example next week we'll be having an an event for U the military or the Purple Heart in August so that's a good thing that we can work together and this isn't anything new' been working with former representative Velo as well on that a 10 200 block of ma there by Andrew High School I believe you remember those days Mr cines but anyways that needs to be resurfaced as well um along that the 51 to 5300 blocks of troppy can and the 10 500 block of Appaloosa so in episd they combine different schools I'm going to be talking about Coach Archie Duran school located at 5249 Basel so um the school has been neglected for quite some time but they really do need re not necessarily resurfacing but they do need uh curb Cuts in that area there so their school population has increased um the parking has increased and so what has happened and you you used to be D Elementary School where they tore that down now that's a parking lot so the beginning and ending of the um school zones haven't changed so you have a school zone for the parking lot but you don't have a school zone for the campus itself so we need to change I don't think that's going to cost too much changing the signage there but we need to work on that uh everyone hungry still I'll I'll go slower then the uh 10,000 block of oton and 10,000 100 block of Matador and this is all in the Parkland High School area they do really need some help as well and the last uh almost last one is on edenburg that's near also Andrew's high school and uh even though it's not a Council budget request I know we did put an item on there and with the help of uh representative Canales we did hopefully the future pickle ball the study will reveal that there is a need and that it is an economic driver for the city of op Paso so I'll leave that's it that I have so how long so I think before we break Richard did you want to address any of those items for District 4 Richard you you want to tell him to hold his lunch is that what that was something like that oh no sorry go ahead Mr Bristol Mr M what we're going to do when we assemble the list with the engineers when we're putting our list together I will have this with me and we will go back and forth there's some on here that are meeting their criteria okay so this will be considered as we're going through that process another thing I want to point out is on Stan Roberts I'm aware of the issue on Stan Roberts I'm going to have vet help me answer this one so given the new development that is occurring along Stan Roberts we do have um within our agreement that they are to in and improve um I 7,500 linear feet starting from us54 uh moving out so that will be improved yes and I did submit this Council budget before the uh issuance of all everything that was going to happen with met Uso also on Stan Roberts that's part of it it's a collector we're going to try and find an opportunity for that in the collector program in future years as well more than likely we're going to have to spread it out over two years and then the other issue on the school zone we will address that and we'll bring that to the our traffic engineering team we can address that with the school district yeah and that's needed on both uh the North and uh South sides on bastile and also on Orleans like I said the school zone right now helps a a parking lot where before the school used to exist there but they've torn down the school so those that school zone needs to move west and I will Circle back with you on this side thank you I I think I saw I think I saw rep Canales with his hands up oh yeah thanks sir mayor was the intention to break for lunch here we're going to break uh this was rather quickly so we're going to go to District 5 real quick you want to go to lunch your's a long one okay we're going to break for lunch now we'll be back in 1 hour 1 hour and 4 minutes I'm good either way council is there a motion to recess there's a motion in a second to recess the special city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 11:32 for 1 hour thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e they for e e can I let know we um yes we're going on I'll I'll call him in please M Prime we do have a quum can we begin please is there a motion to reconvene the special meeting there's a motion and a second to reconvene the special city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed can we shut the door pleas and the meeting is back in session at 12:39 p.m. or on item number two the presentation discussion and action on the 2023 2024 third quarter financial report in the 2024 2025 proposed budget representative Salo good afternoon good afternoon mayor thank you so much hope everybody had a great lunch just want to say thank you to everybody in their hard work city council staff that's been a great journey um we'll start off with the request I have okay as we can see here of course there's so much need right we have everywhere in El Paso but more importantly there's been so many parks that were built in my district District that weren't fully I guess equipped but I know it has a lot to do with I think the delivery of uh developers and I kind of just wanted to kind of just be able to clear it and for the benefit of the public kind of go over like what the what the the developers are are tasked to do what's the bare minimum and kind of like at times where do they pay fees to not be able to deliver like gu the the perfect Park again paration okay the the total process I I don't have the complete process that developers do after they turn in the park I know the fees are for maintenance and then we can use those fees to uh develop or better some spaces around the areas oh I see and then once well so basically the developer has to do the park and then they turn it to the city correct correct and So based on that that's where the requirements are set by by the policy or or yes they're POS by the policy it's also in Richard Bristol streets maintenance it's also in the development code unfortunately planning is not here and I would I would love to have them help me with this one so I don't butcher the answer because I'm on the maintenance side um but there are requirements in the code of how much of the space is going to be allocated for parking how much is going to be allocated for various amenities I'm sorry I can't answer that question right now no thank you well I mean for the amounts but what that is a question for uh planning and inspection to kind of let me know what that looks like and for the public benefit to know the process so that they understand and I think look at opportunities that we can possibly either alter change so that some of these parks are coming out more more finished and this is also part of the reason why we're going to do a long-term plan for amenities so we can address issues like this specifically where it's not there in the first place or areas where it hasn't been replaced in years so those are the two reasons we're we're doing our long-term amenities plan that is a great to hear it's I'm looking forward to to working on that long-term plan and I think here just so you can go kind of go over the the park that will be um getting some funding I believe it's Carlos bomack you kind of want to talk about uh some of those details do we have even some information on Carlos Bach that you know I believe the note that's listed here is the canopy funding for the progress Bond and so what we had presented was we would do the first round and if we had sufficient funds um when that was complete then we would do a second round and that's what the they're referring here to to in the notes here so the first tier and I think it this here second tier yes ma'am okay and so the 2.9 Million is to cover what what items you mentioned canopy that would be the cost for all of them oh the cost for everything within that Park yes ma'am okay yes and we did Cover veterans Capistrano and for more other Parks well thank you so much PA I'm definitely looking forward to that that we give more information to you manam and we will Factor these into our long-term plan sounds perfect thank you so much um moving forward um this is in regards to the Beast phase two two and the request was for the eight pickle balls and the four hand ball courts and I know I and I had great conversation about this if you could just kind of talk a little bit about you know everything that you mentioned about Baseline and and anything additional and kind of how everything just um expedites itself yes ma'am so we're currently working on the design uh for that second phase and the base bid will include um the pickle ball courts there will be eight we're currently working on the cost estimate to include the hand ball and additionally what we've heard from the feedback from the community and the associations is they want the concrete walls around the hball courts so we're currently working on that cost estimate those amenities will be alternative so should we have or options should we have a good bid come in we can add those um to the project for construction but the eight h courts will be included within the base bid the the uh sorry pickle I apologize yes the uh the forign H the the handen ball courts those um we're looking at Price pricing them out correct because it changed from the original design so we're adding the concrete walls as requested and so once we get that designed and also the cost estimate we'll work that in to be an uh option within the construction bids no yes ma'am thank you so much for the proactiveness and I think this is more of a like a finance question or or kind of how how do we arrive to really fulfill um the needs of this park and the the funding for it um I do know that the eight pickle ball and the Ford hand ball courts if done can create some tax revenues they they they're planning to have um tournaments and that can create some some money for us on the fees um also I believe there's going to be foot trucks so there's just kind of I see it as an economic development kind of uh approach not sure we can look at if there is any amount that is not fulfilled the Tet fund to fund it if it is going to bring Revenue back to the city just wanted to throw some options of of ways that we could really fund a project like that this that can really bring some econom economic stimulus to the to the district and I'm not sure that question would be too rubbert or we can look at that reference St but I don't believe that the restricted Economic Development funds would be suitable for this type of project so we would need to identify another funding source for this type of project sounds great well looking just different opportunities just along with this that can really help tourism um it can they can host Regional State national tournaments I think just that alone can bring some tax revenues to the district so just looking at different voice that we could definitely funded but thank you representative um one of the requests we had um from representative canals supposed to bring back um an analysis of all the pigle ball needs um throughout the city we would be looking at more broadly um tourism and other opportunities that we might find in terms of partnership as a part of that presentation in the future perfect thank you so much Dion um I think last was uh of of course we do have a a dock Park um I think This lends itself more for the guess the third face of uh the Beast they look mean just want me to let them know that they want another dog park closer so I just wanted to showare their their needs and their their suggestions and that would be more two parks for them on on the third phas for us to kind of keep that in mind as we are moving forward one thing that we would have to work um with Parks I believe it's the park standard um that dog parks are 3 acres um and in the notes it was requested um to look similar to other Parks um I think the mention was Tia Buena and so that is smaller than Park standard so that's one thing that we would have to work with Parks perfect thank you and then I had some questions in regards to the presentation um not too sure on on the page but I do we we do have um economic no not we do have planning and inspection here and um I know that the um the fees hat decreased just wanted to get a better idea of what way you all think the the fees decrease in in regards to permit permits good afternoon mayor council Philip uh planning inspections decrease yeah I think on I don't know what page that was but it the fees to your year-to date Revenue compared to the same time period last year so um one of the reasons for our Revenue uh decrease in revenue is we still have the issue of supply chain U and also um we met I think I think yesterday with um apaso electric and complain that uh the Transformers have not been able to be delivered for at least a year so that's one we also have you know the interest rate issue and we also have homes uh uh over abundance of homes because of the interest rate so the um one of the things we haven't seen uh since covid was residential development so we haven't seen an increase in residential development and you may compare our Revenue in the past where we have um commercial Spike that was because schools were doing a lot of rennovations and some other big projects that we have around around the city so we've seen a decrease in that uh for the last two years and that's the reason our projection is a little B low uh so that we can at least um you know capture some of the revenue um and the other thing is uh we have a lot of uh small projects that we are tracking but those are not as big project projects uh that will bring in the revenue that we we're looking at yeah that's definitely some challenges we've had and I think we're we're looking at hopefully the interest rates get better and then we can get more more development correct yeah and and again another thing is that we have a lot of development outside the city uh in the county so does we may um one of the things we do we get the um the revenue from plat but not the revenue from uh from the building perfect thank you so much thank you Mr way I had another question in regards to I guess kind of just foreseeing that do we know how many do actually protest in the October protest for the Texas La last year the percentage that actually goes out in protest no but we can get that information from the appraisal district to send that to you all on the number of protest thank you Robert um and last uh one of the conversations that I had with uh Mr Colonel Weston and and and and Robert was in regards to really figuring out ways that we do maintenance our asset the ballpark um you mentioned that there was a plan that we still have and IT addresses the further needs I know we are only approved a certain amount I definitely want to make sure that we are making sure we do fulfill that whole need um mayor liser did mention that he walked also the property we do want to make sure that we do are keeping up with with a very very important asset that we have and make sure it doesn't drop yeah absolutely and so one of the things that we also asked AllStar Sports Group to do was to not only reach out to the mayor but to each of the council members provide you an opportunity to go out and visit I think it' be good when you can see it firsthand some of the things that they're looking at but a lot of the projects are things that you don't see unless you really pay attention or they're actually pointing them out to you I know the elevators one that they talked about recently that's going to need some um eventual investment and soem I'll reach out to them again make sure that they're reaching out to your offices to make sure they're stting up those meetings getting you out there so you can go take a look firsthand but we do have funding again I think it's important to reiterate that we do have about a million dollars a year going into that project but we know longterm again no different than a lot of the challenges we do need to develop a long-term strategy to ensure that we're keeping up with the maintenance required for that facility perfect Robert and I know that just for the public benefit that you mentioned the uh ballark is sell sustainable and then you mentioned uh you had another statement after that but just wanted to make sure that we were're clear yes it is so all of the revenues we received from the not only the team for the various things such as the ticket Revenue the sales tax the lease Revenue also the 2% that the voters approved that is dedicated for the ballpark all of that Revenue that's restricted to the ballpark is more than enough to generate or more than enough to cover the debt payment and it generates about 1.1 million a year annually that we put into to the capital projects at the Ballpark so it is self-sustainable fully funding the debt and funding some of those capital projects on that list perfect thank you just wanted to be very clear for the public and I think last there was a conversation we had and I know that they had um we talked about the policy in regards to the um car allowance for for the city council I know we have District you know five six and seven um we drive around 40 miles a day back and forth and you know that really takes a toll on our cars and so we want to really make sure that you know it's a cost of doing business and a cost of you know traveling and and that it's Equitable um and I know you all created a policy and I just wanted to know where we were at with that well I can address that um what we did based on the audit when I first got into this position probably almost a year and a half ago was to make a recommendation to uh that if the council wanted to adopt that that they would do something similar to what we we've done with executive staff that would be an allowance that would handle full maintenance wear and tear on on a person's vehicle Etc um and and so we um have that built uh we did that when we completed the audit and made the management recommendation it would just be up to the city council the city council wanted to move forward and proceed with something like that thank you colonel won is that something we could um talk about in the next one or I mean this is something I I would love um like to be a part of the uh budget for this coming year it's a council's prerogative if the council chooses to to address that you certainly you certainly uh can do that thank you and that's all I have and and thank you all for your hard work represento I believe Kevin Smith wanted to speak to the Parkland dedication Fe question yeah good afternoon mayor and Council Kevin Smith planning inspection so regarding the Parkland dedication and um it's often seen especially in the newer parts of the city is there W weren't much requirements many years ago uh basically uh Turf um and maybe a bench uh we modernized those those standards so for every 100 units of uh development that occur every 100 residential units there uh the developers require one acre of Park Parkland um that also includes amenities and they work closely with the uh the parks department on the design of that to best suit the needs of the area or to see what's lacking in a given part of town but you see you still see areas of town um with a lack of Park amenities and that just because when that development came in there were no requirements for uh such amenities so we're having to go back and uh retrofit some of these parks that makes all the sense right just working reactively but we are we're getting that right so we'll just work at how do we we tackle it but moving on forward it's been addressed in regards to the equity of a park right correct correct ma'am perfect thank you so much for answering the question thank you thank you we go to next to representative Fiero yes representative Fiero district 6 has three Council budget requests she then you turned me off thank you first and foremost I want to thank you both so much for all the work you've done on this on this budget and the numerous times that you've brought it back to each and every one of us and we've had the opportunity to give our input U we have our own goals as Representatives on what the outcome is and and so thank you very much for that you know I I understand like everyone up here that this is really a balancing act and it's it's we need to make sure that we are able to address the constituents needs and wants but at the same time make sure that we our goal is to have a no new Revenue tax rate and and that we get as close to that as possible but thank you again um quickly I only have three items that that um come to our District's attention um first and foremost we have um Paving and and somebody mentioned 16 streets uh isn't it 30 plus streets 33 streets throughout the city there's two subdivisions and it's that list that I provided to your office this week well I didn't want to throw you in the bus that is my mistake cuz there's 16 in each one oh okay good well and and it's a lot and it's it's uncalled for I know that it's no one's fault in this room uh for example I have one on P Diamond Head and Kona Loop and the poor residents on Francis scobby behind they are having to deal with the the the trucks who going out of the businesses on on the the unpaved roads and and I know I know you do everything you can but it's um it's something we need to address and and as if that's not bad enough that we have residential streets that are unpaved and and so it's it's a battle that we're going to have to really address at some point and and I just want to thank you for all the help you're you're giving us in our area but it's I hope we consider we can consider looking at that um in this budget median Landscaping we put on there but I did notice that there are part of the um the upgrade coming up most of it most of it's up um in the upgrade coming up [Music] for uh the 2 the 3.58 miles um that we that we're redoing between um sou kleinfield to Saragosa and then the the last one I had is we need to really address and keep the restrooms open at Marty Robbins and I know it's an ongoing issue and U um the the people who utilize that Park it's one of the busiest Parks uh as far as people utilizing it we really need to address their needs and we have one more uh a baseball park uh Chester Jordan Park and it's um and I know that you're you're already helping address or look at that but it's it's a park where we have over 100 uh young people playing baseball and softball in in the fields that we share with uh sakuro Independent School District and they don't have access to restrooms and and and I know they we're looking at it in different ways and and I hope we can do something to address that and meet the needs of those those constituents so I think we can address the restroom issue and the portter party issue in the operating budget and I'll be more than happy to Circle back with you on this topic great thank you sir mayor that's all I have thank you you didn't give you enough time M Cody yes sir so the next uh District of course is District s uh representative Etta would you like to go through them or yes ma'am I'll go ahead and uh just say before I say uh I have to Echo what the representative F said Thank You staff thank you for doing the hard work that you need to do and coming forward and also departments that I have worked with in the past streets maintenance Parks uh the planning planning over don't look at me bad Mr edway I didn't forget you so anyways thank you all for that but my requests are simple and straightforward um I'm makeing exactly what the my constituents and other people that I've I've SP spoken to from other districts uh and what they want and what they need uh what they would rather have and see and that's uh of course that's to have uh the streets and maintenance uh completed as best as we could with what we have uh secondly is that they would have like to have their their Public Safety police and fire remain strong and be well equipped as as for their equipment and and so they can carry their jobs out efficiently and and and effectively and finally the the latest thing that I've had is canopies over playgrounds which POS a danger to children during the summer months especially uh we've had an incident where where just so happened to be in my district where little girl got on the playground and she she was burnt Lu at her parent pulled her off right away and one of the what I call field trips and and that's why I thank Mr edway and Mr Bristol because they've gone with me out to see exactly what I'm talking about it just so happened that the mother walked up with her child and the child burned himself we were watching and the child burned himself and he quickly backed off so the these are I think these are essential we want these playgrounds to be made available to the children while having the parents also use the park to stay healthy and you know walk around with them as well so I will start off with that and of course I always talked about sweet sweets and maintenance and Mr Bristol I know you have the list of streets that that uh that come through through CIP I think that needs a little tweaking though because as you and I know and seen uh that that program kind of leaves some streets out that really need to be taken care of we're going to be back in front of the council with the plan proposal for the next two fiscal years we're working off what was adopted in 23 um so this is a conversation that we're we're going to have again um and we'll be back with our plan we might try some some different ideas next year as well um I can assure you there's probably a billion dollars of need out there m and this year we're attacking it with 23 million and that's the most that we've had since I've worked here um we're used to getting around 10 million on a good year we're double that because of the bond prior to having the payo right we would start the year sometimes with nothing so we're playing catch up from the 80s and 90s and the 2000s still now'll go on until we can get to a better place but having these tools in place is making all the difference in the world so we're in a place that we're going to be able to get in front of you with our next plan for the next two years in this present year and show you the progress on the current one so we' we've gotten a lot of work done it's changed a little bit but I can tell you the Market's changed too it's more expensive to get this worked on um we're not seeing a long list of biders like we had in the past right um and those that we do we're training we've got some new contractors that we're training right now so that does affect the pace of the work definitely and I understand and I'm glad that when we spoke you let you let me know about that because I know there's one particular street I'm talking about is Franklin Street in the Valley area where they they were told they were going to get their street paved and you explained it just what you just said you're you're you're you're you don't have the the uh crew to to do the streets as many streets as you'd like to and can do so uh I think that I explain I'll explain it to the I'm hoping those that are listening will hear but eventually I will also inform those constituents of mind that this is the reason why but it's not off the table and and so we we need to be more cognizant about that and allow them to you know know that because if they don't see it right away you know that they'll they'll start saying that you we we're not doing anything thing even though we are but thank you for the explanation that and again thank you for going out there with me now if I could just have police uh Chief and chief kill come up here for fire department oh I'm sorry can you can you wait wait uh M farini this one's for you and I placed this on the uh I'm sorry m farini hello this one for you um I put a program on like I said uh to have I'm more or less being futuristic about this and maybe you can educate us a little bit on this but I've read on this I don't know how many of you are aware of this on the uh what's called the U the cool cool pavement technology it's a it's a real neat uh item that could be addressed to the city of El Paso uh and it's could be benefit El Paso and I know I know it it's a wish for the city to have something like this but for those of you who don't know this cool pavement actually reflects the heat off of the black asphalt and sense it right back Mr F you want to explain a please no um you're doing a great job sir um what I will tell you is this I mean uh what the representative is referring to is um really what has what creates the urban heat island effect and it's the way that the sun uh really gets absorbed by all of the concrete and asphalt that we have across the community um a couple of the ways that we try to address that is we try to increase the amount of uh Shades uh canopy that the entire city has um that's something that we're working on incrementally in terms of cool pavement absolutely there are products out there that you can coat the pavement with there's different ways um different technologies that you can utilize um what I will tell you right now is that these are all the conversations we're having as part of our CL action planning work uh we're hoping that with some of the dollars that we have from the community progress Bond we'll be able to demonstrate some of this really test it at a smaller scale make sure that it has the impact that we're looking for make sure that we're working closely um with Mr Bristol and his team and making sure that it makes sense in the long run right um and that we're able to maintain that um so I would look for us in the next year to really have some more data around that and I would expect that we could really lean in on that in in future budget Cycles thank you ma'am um and that's that's really one of another piece of equipment that the city could use correctly to to Really lower this uh help our help our climate control correct and I think that the the the takeaway here is that there's a lot of things that we can invest in as we're doing our regular maintenance whether it's on you know streets and medians or it's on buildings themselves if we make those Investments on the front end the return on investment will will happen but it's it's a smart strategy to do it incrementally as we are approaching it now and saying okay let's just be consistent let's be more efficient and let's start to really move towards those Technologies of the future but again making sure that you know the climate team is not making that decision right in as Silo we're working with our partners and we're making sure that the city can actually sustain that but the idea s would be that in the long run our maintenance costs get way less and that's actually one of the results we'd want to see so not just a redu in heat but a reduction in those mainten maintenance costs over time and that's where I need the expertise of of these guys to work with us but you're absolutely on point that that is that is in the future and I would expect to see that in uh when we publish the climate action plan thank you man' appreciate you yes sir now Chief sorry and and then finally uh the I'm I'm sorry my second issue would be Public Safety as far as as equipping them with the technology and and this in all due respect is also includes artificial intelligence for the department and the use of it as far as learning things on the uh internet you know Real Time Communication Technologies and of course be essential for to coordinating emergency responses across various agencies um and here's here's another item that we should consider uh seriously uh I know people doubted me on the body cameras but they're they're essential now the the department is is really uh not shining itself with the body cameras and I understand uh Chief killings had some wish to have those cameras as well too so I think uh that and other equipment is essential for you um do you want to say anything on that one I just wanted to highlight uh again because of the ability of our organization to take take it fully take taking full advantage of the grant funding we were able to equip our Fire Marshal's office with body cams as well the exact same ones that uh py was able to equip their officers with and on top of that you you still use your drones very effectively from what uh You' told told me and so this program that I'm going to announce today and have the chief explain to you all um came across it other communities are using it and El Paso uh is really in need of it it's great recruiting tool and hopefully you know cuz when officer retires resigns that's one of this offer patroller streets so this one program that that I'm I'm looking at and I list is my request budg request it it's called Uh BOS for short and it's called Beyond visual line beyond the visual line of site and with that I I will it's an update program can you let us can you update us on this sir so that's part of the uh uh City Watch program the that we've attained funding through uh arpa and uh 44 sites that are going to go on there along with uh putting out about 350 cameras off the top of my head and it's also part of the Drone program that we've collaborated with the fire department it and uh and the airport uh on that drone program can you briefly describe what what that is for the public listening in who doesn't know what we're talking about so basically the the Drone program just gives us Optics uh from from the air so we have officers on the street and we have uh air assets that we work with either the federal government or the state helicopters things of that nature so the Drone program helps us assess scenes so like uh STI call outs when there's fatalities which would take uh several hours to clear the scene um we have uh several of our STI officers who are trained in uh uh um flying the drones and they're able to plot uh so they can diagram that that scene with within about half the time and get the the streets opened up again and and much less time so the the officers can respond to other calls that are pending and so well that that what that does is it frees up our uh our Patrol officers that are holding the SC in the perimeter traffic control they can go back into Service uh a lot quicker and our STI officers are off the off the streets quickly okay um anything else you might want to add on that uh on that one program here it's it's Citywide correct it's Citywide so the the OPA funding was spread out uh several 44 sides across the city so recreation centers uh senior centers uh Parks things of that nature we're going to be installing cameras that can be uh used for uh um monitoring those different areas uh on that on you know for crimes Andor follow-up investigations okay and and this will be also uh connected with the 911 Center as well as the regional commands well what it does is it it'll feed into our watch Center which is housed in the 911 Center uh right next to dispatch um the watch that has been there for several years uh and there's that we have a camera or uh screens up there that they can pull different cameras from around the city okay so they'll get their yes sir so Tony NADA is over the airport can probably expand a little bit more as well so they recently did a presentation for us and so it obviously requires some FAA right approv as well so Tony if you want to expand on beyond the visuals line site yes sir uh Tony noad is with the Department of Aviation um so we've received our first waiver to operate beyond the visual on his site uh on Friday so we'll be able to launch drones without having to be there that's the big challenge for city um aside from helping them thank you we'll be able to uh you know uh assess the needs before we send officers or or um fire department out there okay is Omar in the room I didn't see him oh there is okay yes and of course along with all this ladies and gentlemen uh it comes with with Omar's expertise of getting grants he's been known as a grand Zar and so uh you see funding potential funding it through grants funding this program sir sorry assist director legislative affairs yes sir we've identified four different funding opportunities nontraditional funding programs that that we've T we have not tapped into before and so we are ready to work with the airport with PD and fire to make sure we access that fund so it won't be a tax burden for the citizens of this community sir that's difficult for me to say it depends on the scope of work okay but you can get the grant fun you like you have this far for every any other project that comes into place also with police and fire so you have my word and that will we'll work on it and we'll try our best to bring as many dollars as we can for for that program well thank you anybody else have any just um to expand on your original concept um right now the beyond the visual on site is for First Responders but working with the FAA we can eventually um take this to streets of Maintenance uh Building Inspections planning like uh you who had thought about to go inspect Bridges and then eventually we'll open up that beyond the visual line uh site uh challenge that we've all been kind of trying to break um so we have the first steps U probably the largest uh City right now to have this and uh that will allow for drone deliveries and advanced a mobility in the city does the training come with that or do you have officers already in place sir we already have uh Pilots already trained uh in the Drone program I believe fire does too um so we have Pilots throughout the city thank you all very much for your participation in this not is one of the programs that I see that's very essential to the city Ro Paso to our Public Safety to our community and whole as a whole uh just like the body cameras were the drones for the fire department U I'd really like for this to be considered if not by before I leave and then just carry on into the future and so I really thank yall for that thank you thank you J for that and then finally like I said earlier uh canopies over parks that really don't have a canopy right not but they do have a playground I know the rule was if it didn't then you'd have an automatic uh canopy put on it but the fact is that um we need to be aware of what's out there and children get up there without thinking twice and they get burned so I really don't want the city to to incur any kind kind of you know litigation on that because we were we were we we couldn't do that um right now of course the the main concs that I have is is at ree mcord park off of treywood and copy strle in the Valley area down there uh I believe they were tier their listed is tier two and they're not getting a a canopy or are they so sir on the C Tonto Park um we had done that site visit and we got a preliminary quote on that one it was a little that course not any good anymore but what we're going to do is factor that into our amenities plan for the long term we're going to have the allocation of money and this way when we get in front of you in budget when we're telling you what we're going to do with our money part of that will be what amenities we're going to be putting into wood Parks so if you allow us to work that into the amenities plan that would help okay of course you're the exerts on that but also want I have you up there it's not only for them as well not not only for the kids KN like I like I said that's why best of my discretionary friends at uh at Thomas maner Park it's also for our seniors who use these walk walking trails to exercise and keep themselves in good health and that's the reason for them as well cuz we're putting not benches that are made out of metal which is last longer and everything else I I agree I totally agree on that but they also weren't able to sit there during the from 10:00 a.m. to what would be about 3: 3 in the afternoon of the day right right we very much appreciate you offering your discretionary funds for us to build those canopies too right and I would suggest that was no problem long as like I said when I did it it's if it's to improve my district with and helping the departments in doing so why not and I would suggest that maybe my colleagues do the same in their districts as well mayor thank you very much that's it thank you sir final District district 8 Mr Canales good afternoon sir good afternoon mayor thank you can you all hear me okay yes sir all right I think there are four listed but one is a duplicate I only submitted three uh three items if you can go to slide 48 so we can see at the top there uh the the first item that I submitted the first uh budget request was funding for a neighborhood and small area plans program uh to develop small area plans to assist neighborhoods that are undergoing change uh or development pressures um there are sever you know many of them all over the city but I I listed for example the chamian neighborhood in my district but also the Mission Valley area uh where we've seen you know uh a good amount of resoning cases for example and kind of a change in land use um staff priced this item at $700,000 but that uh is based on the the cost of two plans so uh I know staff indicated there approximately two area plans passed per fiscal year at a cost of $350,000 per plan um and I know we haven't totally had the opportunity to discuss this item in particular yet but I was envisioning something so I'll ask a question for when you when when uh staff is saying there are two area plans completed typically per fiscal year like what what for example are the recent plans that have passed that uh are are being counted here come in right up Sir eved on this city engineer uh representative Galis what we're referring to is the small area plans that have been done not necessarily just limited to um a residential area such as you're requesting chamisal but what we've done um like Mary Francis um keing Park how we were able to um provide that Mark that Parks master plan for that area so I believe um we hadn't recent we hadn't seen an uptick in a bunch of um Master planning throughout the city city um it was limited to plan El Paso and I believe within recent years we had about seven active plans okay yeah I mean for example recently the council adopted the downtown Uptown and surrounding neighborhoods plan as well but I wouldn't consider that like a small area or neighborhood scale plan that's you know covering a much larger geographic area in this request I wanted specifically for uh neighborhoods neighborhood associations potentially to be able to request much more uh focused planning within their much smaller geographic area so I don't Envision that those would cost $350,000 a plan um this isn't necessarily something that we would have to engage an outside consultant on like we do for several of our other plans um and again I know that this isn't necessarily something that uh will be funded through this budget right now but I would like to have the capacity inh house to do much more targeted smaller neighborhood scale plans um and I think there's a lot of demand from neighborhoods for that for uh for this kind of planning I know I've received it from my uh many of my neighborhood associations and I know uh that there are others who are feeling change in their neighborhoods and development pressures who would want to be able to plan into the future so um it's just again I submitted this knowing it probably won't get funded this year but something that I want to put on everybody's radar um I'd love to be able to build the capacity to do this internally sorry I know I didn't really ask a question there I don't know if staff has a response or if I can if I should move to the next one uh no respons sir but in the interim we are excited that we are doing the update of the comprehensive plan um I know that's not specific to your exact request um but we are excited to hear the feedback from Council and upper management to really uh formulate uh this comprehensive Plan update yeah I'm very excited for it too um yeah Canal I mean we're uh we're happy to sit down and and have those discussions and and get into more of the details of what you're envisioning sounds good thank you uh the next one I submitted uh involved uh seed funding for a local Housing Trust Fund uh to support the development of uh more affordable housing in El Paso um again staff priced this one at $2 million and I can understand like it can feel like a shot in the dark right this is something that um different communities you know different municipalities across the country are funding in different ways uh there are places that are uh seating uh their their housing trust funds with bond funds uh there are some who have been focused on housing for a long time and and have uh you know line items built into their budget to uh support this type of Housing Development um I do really appreciate the thought that staff put into this talking about UHA lishing uh this kind of Housing Trust Fund concurrently with with land banking opportunity identification um I think that's very important um and again I understand uh you know this is a relatively large uh price tag item that it's not necessarily something that will be funded in the budget but it is something that I want to consider as we move forward um we've we've spoken for years as uh it it's kind of happened as the council discusses the the 9% low-income housing tax credits every year it feels like for several years now the same conversation has come up that we have to do something different we have to encourage uh new uh opportunities for for affordable housing development uh both public sector and private sector development uh and so I think this is one strategy to do that of course you have to seed it with funding and then it can be largely self- sustaining uh after that but it is a large onetime cost and so um you know I would I would ask that we look in over the the course of maybe fiscal year 25 uh with a view to 26 and what we can do to uh to seed something like this so that it can it can grow into the future I think that I'd like to comment on that as well I think that affordable housing is really a multifaceted effort and so while I don't disagree that this is this could be a component of that I think there's other things that we could look at across the city and maybe look at more holistic strategy I mean I've seen other communities that have have also done some economic development efforts they even reshaped uh Economic Development incentive policies I think I may have mentioned this before maybe maybe in one of our planning sessions or our strategic planning session where communities have even looked at different ways of incentivizing the development of even multifamily housing and have been able to incorporate a good mix of market and affordable housing within some of the bigger developments and so there's probably a lot of different things that we could do to tackle this and I would I would suggest that maybe we look at a a broader strategy okay yes thank thank you um again this is this is not at all a suggestion for us but I I want to point out like other cities are making these kinds of Investments Chicago voters just approved a$ 1.25 billion bond to support their affordable housing efforts I don't think we're going to be bonding $ 1.25 billion in El Paso uh but uh again this is invest these are investments that other cities are making and I think uh it's it's high time that we start looking at this into the future and like you said colon Weston looking at kind of the holistic picture of of uh what actions we can take representative Canalis uh Nico farini um managing director community and human development I just wanted to chime in very quickly um and and say how much uh staff appreciates um the uh thought behind the request and we also appreciate you recognizing the thought we put into the response what I wanted to comment on though is uh in in sort of concert with what Colonel Weston is saying you know another request was to develop a truly Regional Housing plan that is reflective of the post mark uh postco 19 market conditions uh particularly surrounding housing not just in the city of El Paso but really across the region and so I think that um I I just wanted to put out there a reminder that it could be a smart move for us to invest in a truly Regional Housing plan bring all our regional Community Partners together look at all of those different tools that colon Weston is referencing look at a Housing Trust Fund I have not seen a city in this nation be successful at addressing the affordable housing crisis without one um but I do think that it's important that we lean in and really explore all of the uh opportunities to not only fund it one time but fund it in in a self-sustaining way um that can truly uh meet the needs of our community not just from 25 to 2030 for example but well through 2050 and so uh again very excited uh about the request uh very excited to talk more about Housing Trust Fund but also just want to put out the reminder that you know a regional housing plan with all of the data with all of our regional Partners at the table is really how we make something like that successful and make sure those Investments are impactful thank you no thank you uh and then the last one I submitted I I think I hardly to present it all because it's been discussed a few times today um but I hope uh staff is hearing that this is a priority for for a lot of the representatives across the city uh and that's funding a Paving program for for unpaved streets in the city inventory um and I know we the the conversation kind of shifted into um you know private drives or you know uh unpaved areas that people are using as streets but are not in the inventory but we do have significant number of unpaved dedicated right of way in the city inventory um as well and um you know I know that that we have Bond funding and we have pigo funds um but as staff looks to develop that list for the next uh few fiscal years of of uh Paving work uh I I think we've heard from again from multiple people that this is a priority moving forward um you know I think in 2024 we we shouldn't have unpaved streets in our inventory um Richard Bristol streets maintenance if I could make one comment associated with this it's we've heard this topic come up a lot today but it's very important to note that the Reconstruction of the streets in this case would be the construction of the streets because it's these are dirt roads right now these um would be a capitalized program this would be something would require managed design and managed construction because there's a lot of tie-ins with the elevations with the utilities um with the cross streets and with the with the grades so the costs that we're looking at on our order of magnitude are in the hundreds of millions range so this would likely be something that would require a debt instrument and we are more than happy to put together a more comprehensive plan for all these items but I just wanted to reiterate that it would not likely be a operating budget item it would likely be a capital Improvement budget item yeah let me let me I was going to wait till we got towards the end of this but this this is obviously um coming up in every Council budget request and rightfully so um this has been a big topic when we had the strategic planning session I think that when we look at our streets even though we've increased payo funding there's not there's not any amount of payo funding when all you look at what the needs are based on the payment condition index and just what we're asking streets and maintenance to prioritize and do it whether it's a resurfacing project reconstruction the money is we're putting it at best 20% just into resurfacing I think it might even be less than that and so I think one of the things that we're going to have to develop coming up is a is a different plan and a different strategy for the long term and how we address streets because it's not going to get any better it's going to continue to that Gap will continue to exacer it's not a linear expense either just because we've had all the discussions about what happens to a street when it reaches a certain threshold of of where and it becomes a reconstruction candidate so very clearly we understand that we've got to develop a strategy and some courses of action that we can bring forward to the city council and have some good discussions about how we can do this going into the future that'll have the the the least impact on taxpayers but it's certainly something that has to be done absolutely and uh you didn't say the the three words that uh you may be wanted to say I'm happy to say them I I think we need to consider a streets maintenance fee uh into the future again not necessarily something that we roll into the budget this year but I think we need to spend some time thinking about a dedicated Revenue source for streets and I don't know what form that takes when when we make a final decision but um again I think think it's the item that we get the biggest demand from the public about and so um we we should take the steps we need to to address it thank you and thank you uh all the city council members for putting in your request I think that uh as um we go into the budget um this is again I think it's a very good budget and a budget that will continue to help us with Public Safety and lot of the amenities to continue quality of life I do um I think representative Canales and um Colonel Weston kind of spoke of you know looking forward to things we need to do we're on the second year of the street resurfacing program that was approved by this Council and as you see the new Council come on board next year I think it's going to be very important in the strategic planning to be able to plan and have this moving forward to to be able to do something like this so and um put in the budget today everything that came in here first of all it'd be an impossibility of life just due to the restrictions of when you can and cannot do uh the uh the rate that we have here is is um the lowest rate that um we could go and if we added much more to it we'd have to call for an election so it's um I think that uh as the new Council the new mayor comes on board I think the sooner that uh that group uh Rec convenes and puts a priority on on their items and obviously I'm not telling anyone what to do this is just my opinion because once someone else takes the seat and uh they're welcome to do what they need to do but my opinion is that the sooner they can have a strategic planning and and have a game plan in order moving forward will will really help a lot of the items that are on here today thank you and with that Miss PR I know we have a motion in a second yes mayor the motion was made by mayor protin Kennedy seconded by representative Federal this is on item two and this is to accept staff's recommended action of 2A to utilize current year Surplus to pay for the Citywide election estimated at 2.2 million and to also accept the recommended action on 2B to increase investment interest from 500,000 to 2.5 million and increase State disabled veteran exemption relief from 1 million to 1 .6 million on that motion mayor pronam Kennedy I representative oo hi Hernandez yes mol hi Salo I Fiero I rera I Gales I and that motion passes unanimously now we have first readings that brings us to item number three and this is the introduction of an ordinance living fy2 24 2025 taxes yes so uh Nicole Cody so we have the introduction the rate that is posted for the current introduction is based on the budget before you made these motions and so uh Laura will go ahead and read that into the record and then our mayor proem will make the Amendments correct so this is an ordinance living FY 2025 taxes be it ordained by the city council of the city of Al Paso section one that ad valorum taxes for the tax year ending December 31st 2024 to fund the city's budgetary requirements for the fiscal year ending August 31st 2025 B and are hereby levied on all property real and personal subject to taxation by the city at the rate of 77069 3 per $100 of taxable value of said property the tax rate consists of two components each which are separately approved by Council a for general purposes . 54138 per $100 of taxable value the rate that if appli to the total taxable value will impose the amount of taxes needed to fund maintenance and operation expenditures of the city for the coming year B for special purposes 2 23555 per $100 of taxable value the rate that if applied to the total taxable value will impose a total amount published under section 26.4 e3c of the TX property tax code city of Al Paso adopted a tax rate that will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate this tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate the tax rate will effectively be raised by 2.83% and will raise taxes for maintenance and operations on a $100,000 home by approximately 2227 section two occupational tax there is hereby levied on every person firm Association or Corporation pursuing within the limits of the city of Al Paso any occupation taxes by the state of Texas as authorized by city council an annual tax equal to 1 half of the occupation tax levied by the state of Texas appr uh the motion is to make the following amendments to that fiscal year 2025 tax levying ordinance re section one revise the rate from from 0.77 0693 to 0.761 1405 Section 1 [Music] a 0.761 145 Section 1 a Revis the rate from 0.541 38 to 0.53 850 revise the rate in the last paragraph of Section 1 from 2.83% to 1.07% and finally revise the amount in the last paragraph of Section 1 from minus 22.2 7 to minus 31.5 6 second prime have a motion a second there is a motion made by mayor protim Kennedy seconded by alternate mayor Pro mulard to introduce an ordinance leing FY 2024 2025 taxes to include the floor amendments read into the record by mayor protim Kennedy on that motion mayor protim Kennedy I representative aavo I Hernandez yes mol hi Salo IO hi rera hi Gales hi thank you and that motion passes unanimously item number four is the introduction of an ordinance amending title 12 vehicles and traffic chapter 12.56 parking meters section 12.56 point7 applicability of proceeds to remove the applicability of proceeds from 2025 until 2042 for the Central Traffic district and the South El Paso District I move to approve and Council just for the public this is to remove the poset theater since we paid off that debt this is to remove that parking meter Revenue being restricted to that plit theater that Revenue now comes to General and as we discussed earlier thank you that's a great job on finding that and being able to do that prod a lot of capital moving forward on that motion mayor protim Kennedy I representative aavo I ernandez yes mol hi Salo IO I rera hi Canales I and that motion passes unanimously I just B to tell represent canel I know you second that last item but it's a little bit time delayed so it came in right afterwards so but uh thank you no problem council is there 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 Thursday August 1st 2024 is adjourned at 1:42 p.m. thank you Council for