foreign thank you foreign okay you know um thank you very much period thank you oh yeah questions oh God it's praying I'm here I made it oh miss good please do it good morning sir good morning good morning your revision outstanding thank you people know you want to hear it yes outstanding best place to be oh good morning how are you right now right now can you come back I'm gonna give you some stuff okay do we want to pull it from here okay what is my password no I'm in already I got it nope that's not it wait I mean Matthew I need my password why did I not take a picture I'm like ready for today to be over already what item number is it yeah good morning good morning thank you microphones foreign this video [Music] thank you safety base good morning thank you good morning is your name hi good morning thank you it's still good thank you sir thank you exactly yes yourself again before hey how you doing sir you're welcome that is I don't know who I don't think all right cool do you love it I'm not leaving it here oh you know what you get you get free coffee at Starbucks it is the best good morning Miss Prine good morning mayor good morning this is a meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday May 9 2023 president presiding and council chambers as mayor Lisa along with representative Kennedy mayor Pro temanello representative Hernandez alternate mayor Pro temolinar representative Salcido representative Pierro representative Rivera and representative Canales it is 903 am well everyone please silence your electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by El Paso Police chaplain David Mayfield morning again sir mayor laser members of the council good morning thank you for having me I invite all those who would should join me in prayer Creator God We Gather here today to make decisions for the betterment of our city and its inhabitants we ask for your guidance and wisdom to help us make fair and just choices that will benefit all members of our community we pray for the health and safety of our citizens and for the success of our local businesses and organizations May our city continue to grow and thrive in positive and inclusive manner we ask for your blessings upon our city council members and their families as they work tirelessly to serve our community may they be filled with compassion wisdom and integrity as they make important decisions on our behalf EOC after gas Transit in this time of unrest and confusion we pray that we might respond with compassion and Humanity to the needs of all in our city regardless of their origins or circumstances we thank you for your constant presence and guidance and we pray that you continue to bless our city with your love and protection amen amen thank you sir thank you and to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this morning we have miss Patricia Garcia's class from Sunrise Mountain Elementary School we have Lucilla and guiano Matthew Avila Emily Bunch Jayla Castillo Abigail De La Cruz Theodore Inc Jaylene Garcia Alana Garcia Barnett August Huffman Isaac Jeffries Avery Leyva Juvia Lujan Damien Mendoza Eric Metz Oliveri Madison puga JC Rollins and Isaiah Walters okay ready [Applause] [Music] one nation under God an indivisible tomorrow thank you very much Emily bunch thank you thank you foreign thank you very much Avery yeah Damien Eric thank you very much Isaiah Madison Casey Brian um Isaiah you want to come up a little bit and so we can get a little bit closer and trust me in my pictures right here for me I'm like I would just do it just look straight that's good yeah you're you're bright yo my name is you have my certificate thank you I'll Stand in the back nobody will know it's me thank you all thank you I recognize that 20 seconds it's like this all right [Laughter] that brings us to the mayor's proclamations before we get started Miss Pine I do a welcome everybody to um City Hall and I do want to have a moment of silence and kind of a so you know people think about come at midnight May 11th uh Proposition 42 will be lifted and they'll be and there's already and we'll be a lot of people in our community and I think it's important that we have we pray for safety and not only for the Asylum Seekers but also the community of El Paso Texas and that everybody continues to open up their hearts and continue to make sure that um again that everyone is Con safe and that we will do this in a very humane process and make sure like I said that not only are synonym Seekers but also the citizens of El Paso continue to be safe and will continue to to pray for everyone's safety and continue to make sure that we will work hard and continue to represent everyone thank you thank you mayor the first Proclamation is National Police Week El Paso Police Officers Memorial Day thank you Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas since the first recorded death in 1786 more than 23 000 law enforcement officers in the United States have made the ultimate sacrifice and been killed in the line of duty including 2106 from the state of Texas and whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial for officers killed in previous years engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C and whereas by joint resolution approved October 1st 1962 authorized and President John F Kennedy proclaimed May 15th of each year put Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of those who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty that further designating the calendar week in which May 15th Falls Police Week and whereas in the city of El Paso state of Texas and every American Community Law Enforcement Officers with the El Paso Police Department are committed to the preservation of life and property risking their lives to protect us from those who would defy the law providing Law and Order and service the cause of Justice whereas the city of El Paso and the state of Texas honor the heroism of all law enforcement officers especially those who have given their lives so that others might live asking God's blessings for the families and friends they left behind and whereas the 138 history year history of the El Paso Police Department 35 officers have lost their lives in the line of duty paying the ultimate sacrifice while serving and protecting the El Paso Community and whereas in the city of El Paso state of Texas during Police Week the nation's Flags will be flown at half staff on Peace Officers Memorial Day under Public Law 103-322 as amended and whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will be honored during the El Paso Police Department's Candlelight vigil on the evening of May 10 2023 now therefore be a proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso and that the week of May 7th through May 15 2023 shall be known as National Police Week and that may 15 2023 shall be known as El Paso Police Officers Memorial Day so I and The Honorable Oscar leaser mayor city of El Paso [Applause] thank you very much I've said mullinar someone from the police department and you know I want to thank every police officer that um serves our country and also serves a city of El Paso here I'll leave your home not knowing what you will encounter and what will happen but you do that day in and day out and I thank you for your bravery but also thank you for your commitment and your dedication to our community to make sure we continue to be safe thank you it certainly is an honor to uh have this and thank you to our president Kennedy for recognizing and now because of that also we're able to carry on this Memorial to validate and let the officers families friends co-workers and the community know that it wasn't in vain and for that reason it's very important and always an honor that we can have this every year just so that we can pray for them as well and make sure that like I said that they don't get forgotten and that we recognize that they did not die in vain they did what they loved doing and ultimately paid their their lives with it so thank you so much for the proclamation sir thank you and we'll never forget thank you thank you the next Proclamation is mental health awareness month whereas the city of El Paso recognizes the national mental health Act passed on July 3rd of 1946 to improve and Foster mental health among the populace and become a federal priority and whereas mental health encompasses emotional psychological and social well-being mental health conditions involve significant changes in thinking emotional regulation and behavior and whereas depression is the most common mental health condition in Texas and 50 percent of mental health issues Begin by the age of 14 and 35 percent of adults with major depression receive no treatment and as of 2022 El Paso had a higher rate of depression compared to Texas making the need for Community collaboration vital for mental health Improvement and whereas marginalized communities consistently experience worse mental health than other communities and failure to prioritize and address the mental health needs of marginalized Community perpetuate system systematic disparities and where we need to increase mental health awareness and screenings in community is crucial the city of El Paso Department of Public Health will focus on raising awareness of the causes risk factors and prevention strategies of mental health and whereas the city of El Paso Department of Public Health is committed and dedicated to providing referrals to mental health organizations for individuals of all ages through collaborative efforts with mental health agencies and Community Partners by providing resources to increase timely Behavioral Health screenings diagnosis and treatment now therefore be a proclaimed by the mayor and the Council of the city of El Paso that the month of May shall be known as mental health awareness month signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser foreign thank you good morning everyone good morning my name is Yvonne Marquez I am the program manager for the Medicaid waiver program with the Department of Public Health I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you about a topic that is important in our community mental health as you know mental health is an issue that affects all of us regardless of our background age socioeconomic status it is an issue that requires everyone's attention and commitment according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention more than 50 percent of people will experience a mental health illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime and one in 25 Americans lives with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia bipolar disorder or major depression it is essential to seek professional help when one's poor mental health interferes with daily activities that is why we are honored for the acceptance of this proclamation in support of mental health this Proclamation is not just a piece of paper it's a symbol of our Collective commitment to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and support to those who are struggling with mental health challenges in our community on behalf of everyone who has been touched by mental health challenges and work towards a solution I want to say thank you thanks to the amazing work dedication compassion and commitment of the mental health organizations in our community which are also present here with us today thank you city council for standing along with us I know that we can make a difference to create a bigger future a brighter future for all those who struggle with mental health challenges thank you again for this Proclamation and for your ongoing commitment to Mental Health thank you thank you very much for being here and you know awareness is so important but also having the ability to work together and recognize people that need help in making sure that they understand it's okay to get help and I think that's one of the most important things that people sometimes don't think that it's okay that it's embarrassing and it's not so the recognize and be out there and work together and reach out to people is so important so I thank you for this and good morning my name is Kathy Gaitan I'm the CEO of the El Paso Child Guidance Center and also the vice chair of the family Leadership Council we understand improving mental health as a federal priority but we also understand it's a local priority as evidenced by this impressive and very important Proclamation the family Leadership Council that stands behind me is a collaborative of Behavioral Health Providers in our community our goal is to fill the gaps of Behavioral Health needs we are on our on our group we have both providers and a family advisory Council we work together to build a stronger Behavioral Health System we are all dramatically in support of the mental health awareness month it's a critical time to acknowledge a topic that as you said mayor has historically been shrouded in stigma today a light shines on the emotional wellness and resiliency due to this Proclamation and all our efforts and the sea of green ribbons that you see before you so thank you so much thank you thank you [Applause] this morning's honorees will please remain in Chambers Council will have an opportunity to take photos with you once all the ceremonial items have been completed the next Proclamation is Stamp Out Hunger day yes sir representative thank you mayor approximation for the city of El Paso Texas whereas for 28 years the National Association of letter carriers combined with the United States Postal Service have used the Saturday before Mother's Day for the largest one-day food drive to eliminate Hungary in our community and whereas the generosity of the community made it possible for letter carriers to collect over one hundred thousand pounds of non-perishable food per year while delivering mail which supplements food to thousands of families in need and whereas 162 162 636 pounds of food were donated and collected last year making 2022 a record year for the Stamp Out Hunger initiative in the El Paso Community and whereas El pasoans fighting hunger the AFL-CIO and Teamsters have joined the National Association of letter carriers in this great effort and whereas we challenge the community to beat the record and make this food drive the best and largest single day food drive in the history of the city of El Paso now therefore to be proclaimed by the mayor and City Council of the city of El Paso that Saturday May 13 2023 shall be known as Stamp Out Hunger day signed by The Honorable Oscar Lisa and and so we uh at this time we have Mr Richard dayu Sal Rodriguez Albert ansando and um thank you and good morning folks good morning mayor good morning sir good morning council members we know it's a challenging time in El Paso and so we bring good news and the letter carriers are ready for our annual food drive last year we collected from El pasoans about 202 000 pounds of food and money and that actually broke our record for the biggest collection that we did with the El pasoans fighting hunger food bank so I want to make sure that we do thank the food bank because they're very helpful in supporting the letter carriers to do this really big food drive we want to thank the postal service because they let us use our docs and all their equipment to get all this all the food to the food bank we actually do this project on the clock the letter carriers are out there delivering mail on May 13th so then they pull a double duty and they pretty much do it in the same amount of time maybe a little bit longer and I know the supervisors don't want to hear that but that's the way it takes What It Takes we always tell them but they come back with trucks loaded with food and this is just such a special honor and opportunity to be out here and to be with the letter carriers we got bags that we're delivering to all our customers well not all of them but as many as we can and we would like for everybody to fill their bag with food non-perishable food protein foods are always welcome and leave it out there at your mailbox then on Saturday the letter carrier will take the rest we'll take care of the rest of everything that has to be done for you we have volunteers all over the city we want to thank city council and the mayor one more time and we do have a little gift for each of you and that's to give you a food bag that hopefully that you will use as well and if anybody we don't want to interrupt the meeting but if anybody wants the Food Bag let us know so thank you again thank you [Applause] my name is Sal Rodriguez I am the President of the National Association of letter carriers and I want to thank everybody for helping us you guys don't know how grateful we are and blessed to have a job and believe it or not we have letter carriers yes a lot of people says you have a job but we have a lot of carriers who gone who leave paycheck to paycheck and we have sent in to El Paso fighting hunger and believe it or not when they get this bag of food when they provide it it pays a bill for them so everybody might be on need we don't know when we're going to need them so I want to thank everybody please touch your hearts and we also going to be taking donations you can take into El Paso fighting hunger the letter carriers actually donated last year five thousand dollars on top of that so thank you again for giving us this opportunity God bless you all thank you I just want to recognize you know passing the fighting hunger food bank we really appreciate everything that you've done for us and as you know the need in the community is huge and the hearts of everybody in this room needs to be large so we take care of everything Susan CEO could not be here Susan Goodell but Richard and I are here and we once again really appreciate the support of everybody in this room El Paso in this fighting hunger food bank does make a difference in this community thank you thank you Marion Council uh that's Brad Dubois he is the chairman of our board he forgot to announce who he is I served with him on the boards my honor to be a part of the food bank leadership and I just want to say thank you to all of you for all that you do to support the food bank recognizing how critical the need is in our community not just today not just this coming Saturday but throughout the year and also to thank the postal workers of America who give so much to this effort thank you for your time thank you and I do want to thank you all for for being here and postal workers but also El Paso is a very generous community and we've seen it in many many times and we continue to see it even in the crashes that were being affected in our community today and it's a generous community and when you talk about the 202 thousand pounds which was the record last year it's no surprise because we have a wonderful American community and thank you all for giving your time and continue to make El Paso a better place Brad Richard thank you if you don't mind Albert's going to approach you to give you guys a little gift thank you foreign [Music] thank you Albert and the final Proclamation is National travel tourism week thank you mayor thank you Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas destination El Paso celebrates National travel and tourism week with the local awareness activities honoring the travel and tourism industry and whereas in 2022 the city of El Paso hosted 3.8 million visitors and whereas Travelers contributed 2.14 billion to the economy in our city and whereas El Paso Hotel occupancy was 71.76 percent and whereas the hospitality industry employs 13910 Opus winds and whereas given the political contribution to the economic social and cultural well-being of the citizens of El Paso it is fitting that we recognize the importance of travel and tourism and encourage the citizens of El Paso to observe this week by participating with appropriate ceremonies and activities now therefore be probe came by the mayor and City Council of El Paso that the week May 7th throughout May 13 shall be known as National travel and tourism week signed by The Honorable Oscar mayor Lisa [Applause] good morning sir good morning members of council Jose Garcia president and CEO for Destination El Paso it is National travel and tourism week we appreciate you all taking the time to recognize this week for the travel and tourism industry uh it's an incredible industry here in El Paso uh Brooke will go over the tens of thousands of people that are employed in our industry 2023 is our Ruby anniversary it's the 40th year that we recognize travel and tourism week and so we just want to again appreciate you all uh allowing us this opportunity to to talk about travel and tourism and its importance not only to the local economy but to the community as a whole and so I would like this opportunity everybody knows the infamous Brooke Underwood executive director for visit El Paso thank you your name again ma'am apparently it's Infamous oh there you go thank you good morning Mayors members of council oh oh thank you if you bring up that PowerPoint presentation we have a brief presentation I will do my best to enunciate very clearly but be respectful of your time um again my name is Brooke Underwood I'm the executive director of visit El Paso and it's been my pleasure to approach you for the last 15 years with my tenure at dep but also introduce my colleague Veronica Castro director of Tourism uh and strategic alliances many of whom you already know um El Paso received more than 3.8 million visitors resulting in a travel expenditure over over 2 billion the impact of this tourism is significant as it is sustained over 13 000 jobs and many cultural exchange experiences that translates to a healthy Hotel occupancy in calendar year 2022 El Paso LED State national averages but is also consistently LED major Texas metros in occupancy what's also important to note is that local hotels have also experienced a nine percent increase year over year in the average daily rate they're able to collect on those hotel rooms in 2022 visit El Paso's tourism Department placed an emphasis on building El Paso's publicity on a local National and international level travel writers from across the U.S and international borders were welcome to visit El Paso and document their experience and the city's attractions and to share with their audiences around the world similarly the team worked to introduce More tour operators to El Paso and promote the city as a prime destination for traveler and travel and Leisure the Echo and Heritage cultural heritage division focused on developing and promoting El Paso's unique identity monthly tours were held to engage Community to learn more about El Paso's diversity and culture Mission Trail tours streetcar tours and mural tours were among were held year-long to encourage the public to learn more about El Paso's Rich history and educational experiences the tourism Department also attended dozens of community Gatherings at local organizations sporting events and schools you recall that destination El Paso has a dedicated team member Nora Ochoa who is strictly focused on this segment as it is both a priority of the council and our organization the convention development team also maintained a consistent presence on a state Regional and National level to secure convention and meeting activity the team doubled down on building and maintaining those key relationships that that resulted in secured securing notable State and National activity neighborhoods USA which will take place later this month with an attendance of Over 800. Texas State Teachers Association took place last month with attendance of about 600 Texas State fires a firefighters Association will take place in June and have over 300 attendees and then of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Texas democratic party on at one of my honors to to work with you all on on helping secure which is now estimated to bring over 8 000 individuals to our community and then conveniently we just saw AC from emergence Health Network and our team worked very closely with him to bring Nami Texas which will take place in November of 2024 and that could draw over 3 300 attendees the sports and tourism Development Department is equally as important and contributes to hotel room nights and economic impact when convention activity is relatively soft over those weekends in fact rasmota our sales Sports sales manager is actually in Kansas City attending Sports ETA formerly known as the National Association of sports commissions it's their annual Symposium where he'll have over 20 one-on-one meetings with events rights holders and different executive directors in in effort to secure more sporting activity for our community the film and creative industry is another division of visit El Paso saw an uptick in production driven by the for by the film and production industry returning returning to location shoots and coming out of the pandemic the film and creative Industries commission reported for room nights and shoot days that exceeded their annual goals primarily due to a television reality show called Tex-Mex muscle additionally commercial production in El Paso has remained consistent throughout the year as did documentary production with several new york-based docu-series shooting throughout the spring and summer green ghost had a feature film Tex-Mex muscle of course marzavolta had a music video Between Borders is a television series that shot here and then of course Khalid shot two different videos and at this time I'd like to bring back Jose Garcia thank you ma'am thank you Brooke I have to push the button okay well we'd be remiss if we didn't uh share the contributions to travel and tourism from our El Paso live Division I like to call the El Paso live division our facilities and events as you know the convention center the Plaza theater the Abraham Chavez theater mckelligan Canyon Amphitheater and uh and Arts Festival Plaza um the Plaza Theater is ranked 69th in the world in pole star and I and I say that because you take every theater in the world and there's such amazing content going into the Plaza theater it's ranked 69th but Abraham Chavez is ranked 101. in the world but if you put those two together uh they're ranked um in the top 50 and so really proud of that these these theaters are bringing in uh guests from the region they're staying in hotels they're eating at restaurants they're shopping etc etc uh Broadway and El Paso uh in its 19th season uh this year we have over 2 700 subscribers that is a record uh we have Hamilton we just finished cats and dear Evan Hansen uh Hamilton we're looking forward to we're very excited about a 16-night run uh and that'll be in July so we encourage uh folks to uh to to get their tickets because they will go fast um and then of course the El Paso water parks uh last year finished up our second season um we're starting our third season um actually this past weekend we just saw soft opening at the chapatello water park uh and so we almost had 102 000 Park visitors um season passes sold six thousand uh and then a lot of following on social media so oops did I go too far no uh as we close I'd like to draw your attention to two pieces that we have provided you in addition to the token of our appreciation for your support uh V and Brooke are handing out some gifts uh inside there's there's a facts and stat sheet outlining uh much of the data that you all received today uh we're really excited about this next part we also brought you a copy of our newest project the downtown mural guide uh we're especially excited about this piece but also want to encourage individuals to check out a city-wide guide available on our app and you can get that app on the Apple Store and the Android store and finally we would like to share the 2022 destination El Paso created a scholarship for area students interested in pursuing a career in travel and tourism and many of you know it's named after Brian Crowe who had done so much for our community and has moved on to Tulsa so again members of council we all know that time is our most precious commodity and we appreciate you giving us this time so that we could travel uh all the fun stuff that's happening in travel and tourism thank you so much and have a great morning thank you and um Miss Underwood Miss Castro thank you and you guys always have a smile on your face and it goes a long way so thank you for creating a lot of ambassadors to our community you know we talk about we can spend millions and millions of dollars in advertising or we can have people come to our community and after they leave they love the people they love the things to do and they love being here and when they leave they become ambassadors and you all have created thousands and hundreds of thousands of ambassadors to our community so we thank you for that [Applause] mayor would you like to reach us now or continue with a consent agenda uh let's do the consent agenda we have any proclamations any resolutions I'm sorry no so we'll go ahead and research now Mr fine thank you may we have a motion to recess there's a motion and a second to recess the council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the city council meeting is in recess at 9 42 A.M council members if I can get you all um we're going to go ahead and take photographs in the lobby and if I'm going to start with first of all the National Police Week followed by mental health awareness month then we're going to do Stamp Out Hunger day and lastly the national travel tourism and the infamous Brook foreign thank you all right foreign the maintenance guy yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly yeah it makes you mean okay okay pretty much services I'm updating it now because I think Mary is updating performance and it's not connecting I don't know yes yeah whatever thank you sure she's updating it when she's offline so it's not promoting her house and then so um excuse me do you need me to send it to you know yeah you Filipino exactly exactly exactly yourself foreign exactly she said exactly it's like prescriptions okay what about America foreign my heart this is just foreign thank you oh somebody's a wipe out there yeah well right here there's like a lip right there Giovanni's here but you know Mary's working remotely exactly Israel I'm sorry man my spot was in Mexico the blessing and the curse of happiness thank you yes my mother-in-law last week how many times it would actually be more effective ly yeah it is what it is um okay so I see that we got Barbara on there but we didn't get Sandy on there DeFrancisco but please don't print out another one yeah just you don't have to fill in another one I'm just kidding no I'm joking they can't expect you to do it right now okay thank you I don't I know that's where the line is I'm gonna put a piece of tape yeah I'm gonna put a piece of tape right there yeah it was pretty funny actually I wonder if I have a screwdriver upstairs there's two screws which was two screws that's it well yeah I should ask I should ask okay I can sit here while no one's looking and then all of a sudden they had a break soon okay see anything oh yeah it's 10 P.M almost yes ma'am oh my truck fix up mine Miss Prine yes mayor if we may come Mass transferred please yes thank you good morning there's a meeting the mass transit Department board for Tuesday May 9th 2023 president presiding his board chair Oscar liser along with board members Brian Kennedy Alessandra nello Cassandra Hernandez Joe molinar Isabel Salcido artfierro Henry Rivera and Chris Canales it is 1002 a.m We have one citizen signed up for call to the public this morning and that is Mr Steven Strummer uh I don't see Mr Sherman Orchard Lisa would you like to move to the consent agenda absolutely thank you all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by mass transit Department board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussions requested by board members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken If an item has been caught has not been called out for a separate discussion the item has been approved the mass transit Department board May however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting we do have one revision to delete item two which is to request a request excuse board member Joe molinar um who was the motion I have a motion by board member Joe molinar seconded by a board member art Fierro to approve the consent agenda as revised and on that motion call for the vote one second there it goes there it is Mr Fierro you vote I and the voting session the motion passes nine to zero that brings us to the regular agenda item seven discussion and action to authorize the city manager or his or her designee to amend fiscal year 2023 mass transit budget to allow the transfer 2.5 million from the Sun Metro operating fund to assign Metro Capital fund to complete the purchase of buses and Equipment as approved by City Council on schedule a office FY 2023 mass transit board budget resolution is there a motion representative thank you mayor I just wanted to check if the uh the list of projects in the capital fund has changed at all the way I'm sorry the capital fund the list of projects the list of purchases I apologize no yes this is the same list of purchases that were approved in the fall with our bedroom I just wanted to ask thank you very much do we have a motion move to approve second I have a motion by board member Chris Canales seconded by board member Joe molinar to approve item number seven on that motion call for the vote Mr Fierro and the voting one second it didn't capture Mr Fierro let me go and do that again voting session is open again and item seven passes unanimously nine to zero that brings us to the conclusion of the agenda to have a motion to adjourn a motion in a second to adjourn the mass transit Department board meeting all in favor and the mass the depart the meeting for the mass transit Department board has adjourned at 1005 am thank you cheers mayor did you want to recollect the regular agenda mayor we have the turs 10 board meeting as well yeah we'll do them the tax increment that should be we'll do that when it's set for attention we'll go ahead and do that now thank you meeting of the tax Implement reinvestment Zone 10. for Tuesday May 9 2023 present our board directors chair Lisa and board directors Kennedy anello Hernandez molinar Salcido Piero Rivera in Canales we do have a quorum the first item on the agenda is discussion in action on the election of a vice chair good morning Karina brescala economic and International Development under section 4 of the tours creation ordinance the mayor is designated as chair of the board but the board may elect a vice chair and other officers as needed we would recommend having a vice chair in place just in case the mayor needs to step out so that we can continue running the meeting is there any nominations yeah uh district one okay representative um Canales thank you thank you mayor um as I just nominated you I just nominated you've been second so anyway so we have a i i we have a motion in a second for representative Canales since it's uh with that Miss Prine is there a who has a question you have a question I was I was hoping to make a nomination he was I think he was going to nominate somebody but he got beat by yeah so there's no questions uh no question we do have public comment from Mr bonard on item one good morning you have three minutes good morning I actually have some questions to ask is tours 10 still in effect or is it tours 10 a which dominates which one is it does anyone know spoilers for you Dr boner I'm going to go over to my presentation so 10 and 10A are both under the tax increment reinvestment Zone number 10 creation ordinance 10A was a Zone expansion in 2018. so I have a map showing that'll be item number two president you're actually all right so um that that kind of answers my question thank you good morning sir how are you Dr Bono how are you ma'am and with that we have a motion in a second yes sir there was a motion made by board chair Lisa seconded by board director pharaoh to nominate board director Canales as a vice chair on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously that brings us to item number two this is discussion in action on a resolution approving the allocation of six hundred thousand dollars to the Paseo Del Norte traffic signal project from the tax increment reinvestment Zone number 10 tax increment financing fund Karina brescala again for the record so this item is as stated it's a request for funding from the tax increment revenue from ters 10 to Paseo Del Norte intersection improvements I'll start with a little bit of background since this is the first tours 10 board meeting we've had so the Zone was initially created on December 19th 2017 and then expanded in 2018 that is 10A this is really a funding distinction the board it is one board it is One Creation ordinance tourist 10 and I have a map on the next slide that shows the respective boundaries tours 10 has a 100 participation rate from the city 10A is at 33 percent and that is of the real property tax revenue on June 12 2018 the board adopted the project financing or city sorry the board and city council adopted the project and financing plan that governs the allowable expenditures for the tours fund and for that tax increment Revenue part of that project and financing plan was an allocation of 10 of the revenues towards traffic and Signal improvements one of the projects specifically identified was this intersection so here's the ters 10 boundary so 10A you can see is the larger portion 10 is a city-owned property south of Paseo Del Norte and North Desert and then this is the proposed project so it's just off of that desert in Paseo Del Norte at West town if you've driven through there you understand the need for it when West Town was developed their traffic impact analysis did not indicate a specific need for a signalized intersection here as the city has looked at developing the property to the South that we own for commercial purposes if it was developed for commercial that would increase the traffic counts significantly to the point where a signalized intersection is necessary so we've got um designed there and then this has already been designed it is on the Shelf it is waiting for funding so that it can go out for bid so the full scope of work would be the installation of the signals the signal interconnect system all relevant signage pavement markings you know turns um you know your crosswalks that sort of thing your ADA Compliant sidewalks and ramps and then curb and gutters and then rolled curbs depending on the specific location the estimated project cost is six hundred thousand dollars and then this is an overview of the fund balance this is combined so again 10 and 10A have different funding strings and I have a breakdown of that in the backup if anybody would like to look but this is the combined revenues 866 000 estimated to come in this year or projected and then recurring expenses administrative expenses and then obligations for Schneider Electric which was approved late last year they were given as part of their incentive agreement a public improvements Grant out of the tours 10 fund so that's 600 000 the estimated cost for these Capital Improvements at 600 000. total expenditure is 1.2 and then the beginning fund balance is 1.3 million and we would anticipate after obligations and recurring expenses we'd be looking at an ending fund balance of a little under 950 000 dollars so staff is requesting approval of a resolution to allocate up to six hundred thousand dollars for intersection improvements to Paseo Del Norte at West Town the project will benefit the zone and is found to be consistent with and help implement the Zone's project plan and I'm happy to take any questions Motion in a second Dr bonark do you have a were you signed up for it also come on up sir okay thank you again for acknowledging me um so the tours as we know were originally designed to mitigate light and in this area it's one of the fastest growing and wealthiest parts of the city it's hardly blighted and we always hear about the problem with raising taxes in town is because there's this misalignment between the proportion of residential taxes to commercial taxes and largely this area is commercial tax base and when you decided to give away those tax dollars back to these tours and Rob the general fund of that money it really hurts the rest of us and so um again tours 10 as representative Hernandez will recall was created mostly for the exchange for Great Wolf Lodge so it's supposed to be an 18 million dollar evaluation of that property well it's owned by the city so how can it generate any tax dollars are you taxing yourself so really These funds are coming from tours 10 a the larger portion so in November of 21 I came here when this property was supposed to be sold to Amazon and at that time representative schwartzbein and mayor Lisa said that oh we're going to not continue to have terse 10 that we're going to remove the 100 percent 30-year tax abatement and that whoever would receive that property would be liable to pay regular taxes which I support and I'm not opposed to this traffic signal it's a good idea but the issue is you've just passed the the 2022 Bond that's a street bond that should have money to cover these kinds of expenses and what's beginning to happen between tours 10A and this street bond is your double funding a lot of projects for instance the extension of wrestler which goes through 10A is also supposed to be covered by the bond that's not fair that's not fair to the public you're robbing the general fund of these tax dollars and double funding this other project so what I think is most fair and what should come out of this is you should remove the tax abatement from 10 you can keep 10A and we can talk about that at another time but it's it's really double dipping it's triple dipping because then you're borrowing money to give to an entity that you said was going to supply their own funding for other things such as these signals thank you thank you and that item is not on the agenda to be able to move forward on what you're discussing but Mr Gonzalez Mr Mayor what we're going to do is we're going to dissolve 10A the turs 10A at the next council meeting or at least recommend that to the council that's the larger terms so that it can contribute to the general fund for the exact reasons that Mr Dr Bernard was referring to we see that as a strategy for the for the budget for next year well sure it will come on the item for next week so like I said it wasn't on the item today we can't take action on it but we were we'd already discussed moving forward on it remember Pro Temp thank you mayor I appreciate Mr bonat's comments I had no intention of supporting this especially um you know the traffic circle is interesting to me because there's not been any I guess hesitation with development in this area if you look uh kind of to the the shopping districts to the west of it they've put up their own traffic circles their own medians there's been a lot of natural growth that has happened in this area without the need for tours money I think what uh Mr Dr or Mr Bernard had said uh in regards to the the the wrestler dollars and the kind of double dipping I don't disagree my bigger concern is and I remember this from the former representative schwarzbein who represented this area is there's a lot of traffic congestion already at I-10 in Artcraft because a lot of times you see those um those wind uh but yeah the blades coming through and so you're going to have that backup which is not being addressed at all at I-10 but you're also going to have this roundabout how many feet away is it so this isn't a roundabout this is a traffic signal intersection so it's full of the lights the fully signalized okay yeah misunderstanding I mean I just I I don't agree with this Turtles and I I'm not going to support the project but I appreciate the presentation you know this how this is how far from it's not right there where that property is it's actually down towards the Walmart area so but yes so it's right yeah well that makes less sense to me too I mean why would we be using the tours money for something that helps a commercial property I mean like if we're if we're going to fund signalization I think that we should do that from the general fund I just I it yeah I'm just not going to support it thank you mayor thank you and I did have some um members of the community that business people from that area and they're very supportive of the idea that it will help their their business over there representative Canales should I say Vice chair Canales thank you mayor uh TxDOT is going to be completing well starting their project at uh Artcraft and I-10 for their large flyovers specifically to accommodate the the large wind turbine blades and some of the freight that comes through the center that I said Port of Entry do we have any idea of the impact on on traffic and and impact on timeline of this project have to turn that over I've been told that um streets and maintenance is on okay this is Jerry gamero from Capital Improvement um this this can begin immediately upon a transfer of the funds and it should not impact the Artcraft worker was our traffic analysis or the the analysis that was done uh in advance of of the design of this project did that take into account the the potential change in traffic pattern uh due to the TxDOT project Jerry hey Jerry let me answer that San Andreas chief operations officer so the the study specifically to this for this intersection included the proposed development of the parcel that the city owns already and so that in and of itself accounts for and warrants for the traffic signal at this particular intersection it does take into account the model because uh working with the mpo a lot of these traffic volumes and proposed in the future years are accounted for in terms of what's projected for the next 10 to 10 5 to 10 years okay so the but this the uh whatever current version of the traffic demand modeling from the mpo did take into account the Artcraft project correct because a lot of the demand is coming from uphill not necessarily from down from our craft understood thank you the motion yes there was a motion made by board director Fierro seconded by board director Rivera to approve the resolution on item two on that motion call for the vote then the voting session the motion passes seven to two with Representatives anelo Molina the motion does pass that brings us to the end of the agenda there's a motion and a second to adjourn the tours meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the tax increment reinvestment Zone number 10 meeting for Tuesday May 9 2023 is adjourned at 10 22 A.M can we return back to move to recovered third second thank you there's the motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 10 22 a.m that brings us to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken If an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved Council May however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting mayor Pro 10. Miss Prine I have a few revisions you all don't have as well so bear with me so I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions page 3 item two delete per representative molinar page four item five move to the regular per representative anello page 16 item 42 moved to the Forefront per representative molinar page 16 item 43 moved to the Forefront per representative molinar page 16 item 44 moved to the Forefront per representative molinar page 16 item 45 moved to the Forefront per representative molinar page 18 item 51 moved to the Forefront per representative Rivera and page 18 item 52 moved to the Forefront per representative Salcido near Pro tem can you please repeat the first one the deletion completion was item two which is to excuse representative molinar thank you we're not going to excuse him mayor Pro Temp uh the item for me was 52 or 51. yours is 52 listed from what I received from the clerk from representative Rivera had requested 51 to me directly I made an error so it's 51 but well then representative Rivera had also asked that page 18 item 52 be moved to the Forefront thank you mayor pretend foreign anello seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote and if we could take those in order in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously that brings us to item five that was moved to the regular agenda and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city council accepts the recommendation from The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and hereby approves the renaming of the recently renovated softball field across from the El Paso Municipal Rose Garden at 3418 Aurora Avenue to Armando Sambrano thank you mayor thank you Mr Pine I'd love to invite the family up to speak and they have a really wonderful story I was approached by by family members and wanting to to change the name of the park and was able to learn about their father his story I'm very happy to have someone who grew up in the area and really did what they you know played softball played baseball did refereed um did what they loved at that Park and happy to be able to memorialize them for that but I I do want to allow for the family to get up and tell their story good morning and thank you for being here good morning thank you Mary Liam Sambrano our mother was my father's favorite fan and collected an album full of Articles dating back to when he was the young man of 21 of his greatness playing baseball while researching information on my dad I came to find that he was a legend in the baseball softball world we always believed in our father however when we began collecting signatures for the petition to name the park after him we heard so many stories of the people who loved him also he touched so many lives by being the man he was and being such a big part of the El Paso Community which made us more determined to get the part named after him the greatest story is that he was a great father husband son father-in-law grandfather man of God and a greatest Generation Big Red One infantry Soldier he earned the French Legion of Honor award and the Belgium for agari for his sacrifices in liberating France and Belgium during World War II he also received a presidential citation with an O cluster which signifies gallantry and Valor two purple hearts and a Bronze Star in May of 1957 our father was guarding home base when a runner came in and they both collided his baseball softball days were over but For the Love of the Game he became an Umpire his umpire skills were a 99 accuracy and put to the test when he was chosen to umpire the international softball tournament in Rock Island Illinois it was at the end of the tournament the 15th inning bases were loaded and our father called a bulk on the pitcher and a runner came in and the game was over tension was high with fans calling my dads all kinds of names and throwing things onto the field the losing coach came and yelled at our dad but throughout the whole incident my father kept his composure the chief of police escorted rdot the final ruling from the ISC and of higher Association that our dad was correct in the call and he was asked to come back for the six more years the following year the losing coach and team came to apologize to my dad and the chief of police and my dad became long life lifelong friends our dad has five daughters but unfortunately none of us are athletically in kind inclined sorry about that we are kind okay but we were his pride and joy and he was there for us whenever we needed him we would feel so honored to have this softball field for girls named after our wonderful father our dad was inducted into the international Softball Hall of Fame in 1991 in Vancouver Canada only the second umpire to be inducted where his picture is hanging in the ISC Museum in Kimberly Wisconsin he was inducted into the El Paso Softball Hall of Fame in 1974 and the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame in 2002. this park is his heaven and Field of Dreams it's where it all started for him as a baseball player player and ended as an Umpire we are happy to share our Angel and hero because we want his legacy to keep going and will be sponsoring a scholarship named Armando samrano for a deserving baseball softball player at Austin High School good morning I'm one of Armando sembrano's five son-in-laws and I'm here with my wife Marie and two other brother-in-laws Victor Montes and Margie his wife and Bernie Torres and his wife Connie Torres I just like to add what an honor would be for my father-in-law and his family to have a woman's softball field named after him and how fitting it would be for my father-in-law to have such an honor bestowed on him a father who himself also had five beautiful daughters Marie Margie Angie Connie and Sandra thank you again for your consideration and your time thank you all so much for for being here today for bringing this forward and for sharing your stories and with that I'll make a motion to approve when was when was the last time the Empire to softball game what year how in 1974 he just couldn't in fact actually he graduated he played still while I was in high school so maybe in the late 70s late 70s he was he just couldn't do it anymore he would or he would be out there played forever and I got a feeling he called a couple of my games he did play he did call yeah yeah I played forever it's amazing wherever I go in people's they ask who what father is and they say oh my God yeah so thank you thank you for that we have a motion in a second motion was made by mayor Pro tema Tema by alternate call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously congratulations thank you very much [Applause] now we now turn to page 16 item is 42 through 45 were moved to the Forefront and their related mayor would you like to take them together yes ma'am thank you item 42 is an ordinance granting a late medical transport of Texas a franchise extension and amending ordinance number 019172 item 43 is a ordinance granting dominion and ambulance LLC a franchise extension and amending ordinance number 019171 item 44 is an ordinance granting South Texas ambulance response Inc DBA revived mobile Health a franchise extension and amending ordinance number 019426 and item 45 is an ordinance granting life Ambulance Service a franchise extension and amending ordinance number 019173 we do have public comment sorry we have Motion in a second yes sir and we do have public comment on item 44. we have Carlos Alarcon followed by Samuel Dominguez and Michael Sarabia good morning you have three minutes good morning mayor good morning Council we appreciate the time that you have vested and to looking into this so we just wanted to provide you an update based on on our approval for the city franchise so just to give you some numbers um between July 2022 and December 2022 we were primarily serving El Paso County and from there we were able to complete 129 calls uh you know with our ambulances from January of this year up to yesterday we have been able to complete 805 calls which means that we have significantly improved the inter-facility transport response times for our community lessening the wait times for the freestanding ERS for you know other facilities such as assisted livings nursing homes to make sure that we get the patients to their final destination in a timely manner so thank you very much for granting us the opportunity to serve our community and we appreciate that and we look forward to continuing to serve for indefinitely thank you very much for your time thank you the next speaker is Samuel Dominguez followed by Michael Sarabia good morning you have three minutes good morning Council um Sam Dominguez the director of operations for revive I'm here first recognizing that uh I'm more of a boots on the ground type of individual and addressing city council is definitely not in my forte um uh I just don't want to repeat anything my managing Partners will have to say but I do want to say that revive is set out to do uh set up to provide service to the city of El Paso the county of El Paso and we've been able to do that energetically I took on the duty of continuing some of the plans that revived had started prior to my tenure but also I undertook many others such as the recruitment hiring and training of new staff amongst many others since being granted our franchise we're able to build an ambulance Workforce that is almost three times the the workforce that we started with and also we've doubled our Fleet of ambulances that are available for the city um we've developed standards of care and standards in our policy that have positive impact on both our our staff and also our clientele or the patients that we take care of and also the hospital partners that we have we've been able to transport some of the most critical patients that the city that these hospitals have without having to take away from the hospital staff basically we have Critical Care transport capabilities that have not been available in the City previously so revive stays readily available to serve the city to serve its the community to serve the population and our Hospital partners I also invite our council members and our mayor to visit our our facilities so that way they can see that we make a big difference thank you thank you the final speaker is Michael Sarabia good morning you have three minutes good morning welcome back so our city franchise has become a true Beacon of Hope for our community the positive changes that have come with it have truly been a game changer for us with shorter ambulance weights and expanded Fleet and a team of skilled EMTs and paramedics our city is now being better equipped than ever before to handle even the most challenging of Transport calls but the benefit of our franchise extended far beyond just logistical improvements they increase contracts that have come with it are a testament to the trust and the confidence that our community has in our ability to provide exceptional care we are proud to be able to say that our franchise has not only improved the quality of care that we have to offer but has also served as a source of inspiration and motivation for our own team we are now more committed than ever before to providing the highest standard of ambulance care possible every day we work tirelessly to ensure that our community remains safe healthy and well cared for we believe that every person deserves access to the best possible care and we are honored to be able to provide that care to our community our city franchise symbolizes the power of teamwork dedication and passion we are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and look forward to many more years of providing exceptional care and to those who need us thank you guys thank you and again we're going to take off four items together so with that we have Night Motion in a second yes mayor the motion was made by alternate mayor Pope Tim of items 4243 for and 45. on that motion call for the vote boating session is open in the Boating session and the motion passes unanimously representative Salcido Fierro not present we now turn to page 18 the next item that was moved to the Forefront is item number 51. and thank you to all of you all and we do understand the importance of providing the service for our community so and that's why you saw a unanimous vote because we believe that all of you I'll bring by you to what our community needs so thanks to everyone um are there still people are we still waiting for people for 51. item 51 is next you're okay okay go ahead sir item 51 is discussion in action on a request from Union Montwood LLC for city council to Grant an exception from the prohibition of sale of alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of public or private school for a restaurant bar at 9640 Montwood Miss Prime we do have uh speakers and colors yes we do can we take those first men yes sir the first speaker is Eugene Sangre followed by Rosa Rosas Lujan good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning sir again um a city ordinance is put in place for safety is it not my one question to you if you pass this the safety of our children that is a high school directly across the street less than 300 feet away the bar establishment opens up at 11 A.M the kids go to lunch at 11 15. they're coming over there what who's not to say somebody is drunk coming out of there gonna hit one of them children during lunch or after school do you want that on your conscience I know that I don't my children they go to that school so please I'm asking you don't let this happen when the gentleman that purchased the land came around with the petition he said there was not going to be a bar there it would be a beauty salon something that would help the community and in my opinion a bar is not helping the community at all so again please vote no on this thank you sir the next speaker is Rosa Rosas Lujan followed by Webster Powell Guadalupe good morning you have three minutes good morning ma'am good morning mayor good morning Council I am a resident of the Eastwood High School area and I've been there for like 25 26 years it's very calm you have a lot of football games basketball games a lot of activities which is really nice um I believe like the gentleman previously said when we were approached they were going to each house wherever they saw out to get signatures uh to purchase the land I specifically asked is there going to be any alcohol stores any alcohol being served and they said absolutely not we want restaurants we want to promote the area I feel that the residents were like to we were deceived because there's already previous Union Draft House owned by the gentleman okay so I really opposed to that I am all for local business uh growth promotion what have you for profit employment but at what cost I ask that you keep that in mind look at the bigger picture of the accidents we don't want El Paso to be known as just to have another bar in town we want to prom we're already in the national news for what's happening on the border unfortunately we want to bring more positive to the community why wasn't there something to bring and promote uh you know events for teenagers for children instead it has to be another bar and I know that the property owner was appalled by the fact that we call it a bar you know it's bar Tavern Brewery Union Tap House it's all the same and I really believe that this is going to bring more um what is the word more negative uh you know fights brawls drunk driving it's going to increase the percentage of all that in our neighborhood and I just ask that you look at the bigger picture and really take into consideration the safety the peacefulness in our neighborhood that we have really enjoyed and I thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is Webster Powell followed by Guadalupe good morning you have three minutes council members good morning Johnson City staff and fellow citizens thank you for this opportunity to pose a union Montwood LLC request for an exception to the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of Eastwood High School my opposition is based mainly on my concern that granting this exception will pose a unique and avoidable risk to the safety of Eastwood High School students staff parents and the Eastwood High School community at Large before I elaborate on this I'd like to point out that the main entrance to the Eastwood High School campus is on the is on McRae Boulevard not Montwood as depicted in the slide presentation and I believe Union Montwood LLC has provided you guys I'd also like to cite that the McRae parking lot is always utilized for evening school events even for athletic events occurring in the stadium or gymnasiums I'll preface the remainder of my remarks by offering that Union Draft House is more of a sports bar than a grilling bar like Applebee's one only has a look at the two businesses web pages and social media pages to see this clear distinction regardless of how the businesses are legally categorized or recognized I've lived in Montclair the neighborhood directly across McRae Boulevard from Eastwood High since 2001. it's just south of Montwood and is adjacent to the site where Union Montwood LLC will operate my sons graduated from Eastwood High School and I taught there from 2007 to 2000 to 2016. therefore I'm intimately familiar with the student foot and vehicular traffic as well as general vehicle or traffic around the Eastwood campus I'm aware that much of the lunchtime foot and vehicle traffic student traffic that is may be eliminated if the school institutes a closed campus starting next year however this will not lessen the Intolerable danger to students and staff posed by the inevitable few irresponsible alcohol-consuming Union Montwood LLC patients who will leave the business inebriated in the late afternoon and throughout the evening when students and staff are departing the campus at the end of the school day or later after team practices club meetings sporting events and a plethora of extracurricular activities that contribute to Eastwood High's rating as one of El Paso's best high schools please note that to my knowledge and a recent map search no other High School in El Paso is as close to alcohol serving establishments as Eastwood will be at this exception is granted to unionmont Wood LLC furthermore thank you Mr Powell you've reached the three minutes sir I'm sorry and thank you thank you thank you for being here sir the next speaker is Guadalupe followed by Brian East Ingrid Rojas Kim good morning you have three minutes thank you good morning Council mayor liser thank you for allowing us to speak my name is Guadalupe and I've lived in that neighborhood for 40 years plus that's not going to say exactly how long our representative is Henry Rivera and I'm here to tell you that it's not just opposed by the people you see here there's some here that aren't going to speak to support us but Henry Rivera had a meeting at Eastwood High School and it was very well attended as you know it's hard to get people out to come to these meetings and there were close to 100 people there and I would say 98 to 99 were against selling alcohol at that location and we are for me I'm a big small business person I I want to promote people that own businesses from El Paso but this is not a good location for that so I wanted to tell you number one that if there's strong opposal opposing shirt to this whole thing not just the people that you're seeing here so the scenario that one of the gentlemen posed I want to reiterate that at four o'clock if you're ever near a high school when it lets out it's chaos and now you have an establishment 300 feet away had that opened at 11 A.M that has been serving alcohol and those people might come into contact at 4 PM with 16 17 and 18 year olds that really are still trying to get their feet wet with their license not a good recipe so when they were zoning they zoned obviously to not allow alcohol there and there was a reason for that as you heard they were our residents were told that alcohol would not be sold from that location and so now the gentleman that owns this business has to ask for a waiver and we're here to ask you not to do that because the whole premise of this was yes we do need for me nail salons and things like that in that area we certainly don't need alcohol served so close to Eastwood High School well I just want to thank you you know I just want to tell you Eastwood area is very different so you don't have a whole lot of families coming in at once normally what happens is we own our home and our kids want to stay in that neighborhood and the reason they want to stay is because we have the Eastwood cluster schools so from kindergarten all the way to high school we have some of the best schools in the city and even better teachers so people aren't going to leave so these people are there we're established we don't we don't want to have fun and entertainment we want to have a quiet place to raise our families without having to worry about a drunk driver coming through leaving an establishment that had to go through a waiver to be able to sell alcohol so I ask you city council the to please not vote for this waiver we cannot allow alcohol to be served there we're very grateful to the owner of Union Drafthouse for what he's doing for our community he's a good man I don't doubt that but this is not the right place for for that uh establishment thank you for your time thank you ma'am thank you the next speaker is Brian East followed by Ingrid Rojas Keen Rebecca Rojas Carla Munoz good morning sir good morning thank you for listening today uh my wife my and my daughter and I live in the desert desert Hills area the of the area and I'd like to just point out a couple things first of all I love beer it's we we all do really and most of us do anyway but and I'm not against a Draft House or a bar and that's what I'm classifying this is a bar I've been to many of them I know what a bar is this is a bar um I just want to differentiate between the two a Draft House is a beer bar normally typically you sell beer and wine there and that's it you don't sell alcohol at a bar you sell alcohol that is what a draft house does not have both of them can sell food there's one hidden evil about a bar that I believe in anyway and I've been accustomed to it there are fights there and fights escalate if I said scalate horribly sometimes and nowadays they escalate to weapons I to me you're you're placing a possibility of potential possibility of a gun 130 feet from a school why would you do that um these are some of these people they may have broken up with their girlfriend whatever the the boyfriend whatever they had a bad day at work you don't know what's going to happen and you don't need to have this that close to the school uh I want to bring up does anyone remember the three-legged monkey all the problems they had there this school is closer than any of those houses any of them by hundreds of feet probably I was at the last meeting in Eastwood and I didn't speak I just listened and for the most part people were the pro people were taking this as a as an attack against Mr Gretzky and it wasn't it's not an attack about him at all we don't care about him at all we don't care about his charitable events or anything we care about our community we didn't want a drunk person leaving school or an event I mean leaving the bar when there's a school and event going on and it's our people in our community immediate community that will be hurt not his immune immediate community my Common Sense overrides the advantage of this monetary Advantage I understand this has a monetary advantage to many people the last thing I want to bring up is why are we even talking about this if it was if the rule is 300 feet if it was 290 I can understand bending the rule for 10 feet and saying okay we're talking about 170 feet a small little chip shot on a golf course a little poke in the park at a Chihuahua game in the center field that's as far as we're talking about we don't need this please do not allow this to happen there are many more places on McRae that this can be held at thank you thank you sir the next speaker is Ingrid Rojas King followed by Rebecca Rojas good morning you have three minutes um hello my name is Ingrid Rojas Kinney hi art um I live in the desert ridge neighborhood and my son attends Eastwood High School he's a sophomore and um he has been in band and I will tell you the band home games they're walking home across McRae at about 10 10 30 at night after the game would you feel comfortable with your teenager in the dark with a big instrument Crossing McRae with a possibility of an inebriated driver going across and possibly hitting your child now that's at night what if it's an away game we're talking 11 11 30 at night regular day regular day at school school lets out at 4 10. 410 the lights are flashing on McRae people slowed down the minute those lights are off which is about 30 minutes after 40 mile an hour traffic is crossing McRae my son stays for a club meeting robotics okay and those clubs are over at five what happens at five at most bars happy hour and let me tell you people who tell you this is not a bar baloney you know it when you see it a hundred beers on tap give me a break I am justifiably angered that somebody has the right to come and ask you the people we elected to represent us to give them a pass and let them be closer to our children our teens our immature drivers this is a danger and you are the only protection that we have you are it do the right thing say no now I am not against business I am pro-business I would probably visit Mr dusky's establishment if it was at a place further than 300 feet from my school there is a place just down the street next to Sprouts two minutes from Eastwood High School two minutes there's an empty spot there there's other places where they can go and many in my neighborhood would gladly go and give him business but this is not the right place not the right time and not the right risk for any of our children in addition we do not want the noise the noise to our neighborhood just think about St Patrick's Day when they fence in the parking lot would you want that in your backyard say no thank you the next speaker is Rebecca Rojas thank you ma'am good morning you have three minutes good morning ma'am good morning thank you for your time my name is Rebecca Rojas CBRE I represent the property owner we wanted to clarify there was mention of a petition earlier today um that was not a petition for um the business this was a petition we had a land use restriction prior to purchasing the property we had to remove the land use restriction and it was only for residents that lived in the Montclair unit 3 area um that's what the signatures were for after those were obtained we purchased the property and then the zoning process occurred so there were 300 members in the Montclair unit three that we went door to door we visited we had five Community meetings we met with the Cielo Vista neighborhood association Cielo Vista neighborhood association supported us asked that we bring restaurants and services to the area because there wasn't any services within that immediate area um unfortunately we're dealing with this issue of Union Draft House so if not Union Drafthouse what other restaurants we are in current communication with several restaurants such as andeles Julio's and other establishments that could potentially be serving alcohol it is a permitted use in the C1 um zoning and I asked that you grant Union their permit thank you thank you man the next speaker is Carla Munoz Carla Munoz if you're in the Q star sixth place to unmute your telephone Carla Munoz I don't see her phone number in the queue John Jeske good morning you'll have three minutes good morning sir good morning mayor um my name is John Jeske I'm born and raised in El Paso um I grew up in current place and my mother and father were Educators um I know in the past people have said why why don't we retain uh people after college and and uh and come and and stay in El Paso and live in El Paso well I made a 23 23 year career out of it I don't know if you guys know but I'm uh I started my career 23 years ago at G2 I did jeske's I did Garden uh Cincinnati Bar and Grill bikini Joe's Cabo Joes known as Pizza boss chicken and now Union Draft House um just to let you know Union Draft House has one of the best things I've ever done and um the biggest compliment that we get as an organization is that people ask me where to where did I buy the franchise I didn't buy it I didn't buy the franchise it it came from my team and our own brains and uh we're very proud of it and the reason why we decided or we were we were approached and we decided to take on this location was we wanted to be a partner in the community we wanted to be partners in education we are Partners in education we we fundraise for for for school districts Middle Schools elementary schools high schools um we were motivated to to infield develop and be at a location where an outside restaurant or a big Corporation wouldn't look at and be Progressive and make El Paso a better place to live and we envision our busiest nights being after a football game after a basketball game after a volleyball game after a track meet after a baseball game and make that area better and we are not a wolf in sheep's clothing we are a full-service restaurant that I know that we can't appeal to everybody we but we appealed to the majority and we are good for date night we're good for lunch we're good for dinner we're good for families we're good for bodies getting together to watch a watch a game um they say we're classified as a bar because we have 100 beers on tap the only reason why we have 100 beers on tap is because we wanted to focus on local local beers Texas beers have a have more variety for everybody in El Paso and I know I'm rambling a little bit but we're proud of what we've done we're we're responsible in what we do um we're proud to be in El Paso and I think the the main thing you need to focus on right now is I was very impressed with the the thank you Mr Jessica sorry thank you sir we received a letter of support from Rick Macias and it reads city council members and Mr Mayor I'm writing to express my wholehearted support of the Union Draft House to Grant an exception from the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of a public or private school for a restaurant bar requesting to sell mixed beverages for the property located at 9640 Montwood and legally described as a portion of lot a block 20 Montclair number three city of El Paso El Paso County Texas we were told at our community meeting at Eastwood High they have proven to be extremely responsible restaurant owners and are full supporters of the community they support local schools by partnering with bands sports music and any other school function that asks for their help they are a local establishment that has proven to be great employers of el pestilence and are not a fly-by-night restaurant my wife and I have patronized the union Draft House and we're completely surprised at how clean well-managed well-lit awesome atmosphere and not to forget how great the food was some opponents will describe this establishment as just another bar that could not be further from the truth I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of residents arguing against this have never even said put inside a union Draft House my wife and I made it a point to visit to visit one when we were hurt there was a proposal to have one built across from the high school we needed to see firsthand what type of establishment this was we couldn't be happier with our findings again approving the exception will be a win-win for our neighborhood the complaints against it are not fact-based and some are outright ridiculous I hope that council members consider only not only facts and not what ifs as a basis for your consideration for the vote you will eventually make regarding this Rick Macias Tony Campos submitted a a copy of the Complaint Form he sent to TABC in opposition of the establishment and Miguel Rosales letter of opposition that reads I'm requesting that the city council not Grant Union Montwood LLC the requested waiver in the sale of mixed beverages within 300 feet of Eastwood High School number one the safety of the students and teachers should be the first concern for the denial number two the neighborhood residents are going to be exposed to a certain daily danger much like the Cincinnati neighborhood number three the 93 million dollar facility of Eastwood High will be exposed to any incident by patrons of the Union Draft House this can be confirmed by two police officers and one paramedic who have been exposed to incidents at Cincinnati Street these types of establishments draw this type of incidents we number four we will not allow this neighborhood to deteriorate number five should the waiver be granted any harm to any student will be on the city council's hands signed Miguel Rosales neighborhood resident mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you representative uh Rivera I mean I'll go represent Rivera since he had the Madam go ahead sir thank you first of all let me thank everybody got out to speak and and voice your opinion on the issue um when this was first brought to me a medium was a meeting was immediately scheduled that meeting was held on March 23rd of this year 2023 and I invited my colleague representative Hernandez because her areas is uh just across the street with a new redistricting that meeting in that meeting it was rather contentious the Motions were running High people were vocal uh you had some in support you had some in opposition during that time no doubt about it it was never expressed that uh Mr Jeske was a villain here it was just a matter of fact that uh he was he was expressed as a a community contributor to schools and and fundraising as he stated furthermore when we got to that point uh and and the real truth behind this is that Mr Jeske was the victim of not a developer but rather a separate entity who's who who proposed a a supportive letter so he felt it was okay it wouldn't be here had they not withdrawn it short time after after the uh the letter was given it was withdrawn thus having to come to city council that's a that's an ordinance that we need to change because in our books in our alcohol uh TBC laws we it is a written in there about churches about bars being close to or being close to schools uh churches private schools and even public hospitals you know I think that we are one of the few communities in Texas that allows that because if you go to other communities Dallas San Antonio Dallas which I frequently visit out there because my granddaughters are out there uh you hardly ever see a bar as close as this one is being proposed there are concerns there are concerns on on the matter of the school being that close uh having worked there as a school resource officer I can also tell you I suspend I can confirm some of the stories that are were spoken about students uh going across from Craig there was times when I had to do the traffic control for that area at the time that school let out at uh the thing is that the thing is that just like we said we know we're we this I know I'm speaking for myself and I'm pretty sure there's uh some others of my colleagues feel the same way but I'm not speaking for them I'm speaking for myself yes I am for I'm pro-business especially when they're El Paso grown but this presents a very big problem and as a former representative of Public Safety I I find it hard to to Really support this issue I I will actually make a motion to deny it thank you representative um Loretta representative Salcido thank you followed by representative thank you mayor I'm a like you all know I'm a big proponent to supporting local businesses uh but TABC does have a role it's nothing to be within 300 feet of a school or a daycare today I'm hearing from the neighbors they came here and spoke loud and clear I think it's a public safety issue um I wasn't personally in the hospitality industry as well but I always make sure my girls were within the guidelines of TABC the goal of any business owner in any neighborhood is to fight figure ways that they're going to coexist with the neighborhood and if you can't find that it's going to make it very difficult it's only going to cause problems and so I mean I clearly see here this is a public safety issue I hear about the kids students from Eastwood that I that it will be affected and you know that's that's something that I wanted to share with you all but but I will be abstaining from this vote for full transparency in 2015 I was a party to a real estate transaction with the Jeske the lysi so it's more appropriate if I abstain from this item but you all hear the neighbors they're speaking loud and clear and I hear or no thank you take your episodes I'll see that we're upset Hernandez by um staff to present proposal any conditions and then any concessions the the parties have made if any and we'll do that as soon as uh let's make sure anyone else have anything to say from Santa nello you had your light on um yeah it was just you know going to say I you know fully supportive of small business I've seen how the union draft houses have grown I as planning notes I've never supported these as someone who has been in a a junk or a victim of a drunk driving accident I take these laws really seriously and I I do think we're a little lenient on them so I will not be supporting this today thank you very much Mir since I've been on Council um this issue has brought been brought to us before and we've approved those waivers so I see both sides of what people are saying the residents in the area and things like that but um you know either we do it well we don't do it at all and so it's just one of those things that someone's trying to be pro-business and I understand that people do not want it in my backyard and I get that and I understand the citizen who mentioned that there's a business down the street near Sprouts or I should say there's a vacancy there and that place there but uh cars are still going to be speeding people are still going to be consuming alcohol people will be speeding without consuming alcohol they're still a dangerous situation there regardless so thank you thank you sir good morning sir foreign just one slide showing the the map with with the distance and as as through the briefings that we had this is a direct request to city council right it's not your typical similar to rezoning or anything like that there is no direct public notice in these cases where the establishment is unable to obtain a letter of support then the the only option is is to come before Council this also applies to child care facilities as mentioned public hospitals and churches um a lot of times those letters are obtained in fact in this case the originally the the letter was was obtained but again this is uh and as you see in the backup there is really no formal recommendation from staff again this is a direct request from Council um it's actually it's not even an ordinance it's not a resolution uh completely up to city council but yes uh historically these have been pretty straightforward they have been approved in the past again um The Districts take a mostly a neutral stance or they they provide a letter same same same for the child care facilities those are the things we've seen historically regarding these items but again in the specific case um what requires City Council in order for that alcohol license to be approved thank you sir website none this followed by representative I know go ahead um was there any any could you explain any conditions or any concessions the applicant or developer has made as part of the concerns from the public personally specifically to us there there have been none okay made yeah and and I recall hearing from the at the event um that um representative Rivera had made um and uh I did want to ask Mr Jeske um if you can repeat what you told um the the members at that meeting um what you were doing what steps you were taking in terms of your um the time that you would open and close uh your establishment um yeah at the meeting I did say that I was going to make a concession and not State until two in the morning and and what time would you close midnight Midnight on it was like Monday days one o'clock on the weekends okay thank you um excuse me I just wanted to make sure we had the full scope of the information Mr Jeske um I I have had the opportunity to speak to Mr jetsky miss Mr verdas the the property owner as well as the the developer the representative from CBRE um you know we had we had you know real honest conversations about the concerns from the public I was pleased to hear that Mr Jeske would do that I think that's really important for the public to be aware of I would really remiss if I didn't reiterate that my district is the northern part of Montwood and I have had multiple residents on the southern part of Montwood which is not in my district reach out to our office or you know I've spoken to directly but on the northern part of the of Montwood I have had multiple residents reach out saying they are in support of this and then also the syllabus neighborhood association where they've submitted a letter in support you know there is some conflict though from the residents on the southern part of Montwood but folks don't know this but the Cielo Vista neighborhood boundaries actually covers all the way to McRae down to I-10 and you know I know there there's some concern with that you know that their their voice wasn't really heard in the matter um and so so I hear you and I understand what your concern is just the reality is is that they do cover this entire boundary and and they have made a letter in support um after you know you know my my perception on this issue is that there's a lot of misinformation you know I thought it was very unfortunate that the Isleta School District had submitted a letter in you know in no opposition is like a no opposition letter is what they received correct um that was pulled um you know there's comment about why it was pulled um but the board of trustee for the area made clear that you know that he on behalf of his constituency didn't feel comfortable making that decision or supporting that so they had had that letter pulled which is why we're here having to uh make those tough decisions on behalf of the neighborhood I did I did feel there was a lot of missed opportunities a lot of misinformation and we they really had an opportunity to share with the constituency that if there is a restaurant then inevitably would require a waiver that would have to either be approved by a church or School District or they would come to council and I think those were critical facts that were not clearly demonstrated to the public those are the same statements I have shared with the developer I also had made a couple of requests to get contact information so I can help reconcile what I've been hearing from constituents and then hearing about church meetings meetings that were conducted at church on this topic about alcohol waivers or or receiving support or waivers to sell alcohol you know unfortunately I didn't get those that contact information I have not been able to do my due diligence I have not been able to to talk to the representatives at the church they no longer are the other are the Property Owners but you know for me it was really important that I reconciled what was said at the church what I've heard from residents and then my concern you know that residents felt like they were misled what I want to reiterate is that we we welcome the the development we want to the residents want to frequent that site and they also want to provide business to the property owner and any leases any businesses that go there um and and we welcome that you know and I have historically supported um any waivers that can clearly demonstrate a fair honest approach um and how they do this but be clear uh with the expectations on what comes from these developments um and so I do want to be supportive of Representative Rivera I do want to support the residents although it's not in my district but I do have to say that my constituency are in support of this but you know on this matter I want to lean heavy and support the representative for this era because I know there's a lot of nuances and there's a lot of things we can't you know really explain in detail but I feel comfortable supporting the representative at this time it is with much regret that this is going to be you know at the potential risk of the business and and so you know for that I do want to send um you know that that regret to to the property owner and to the business but I hope that this that we can grow from this and learn learn and how to be clear with our expectations how do we clearly Define what an alcohol establishment is and then how we clearly support the residents and their concerns because you know it is tough and and so I I'm appreciative that representative Rivera you know did his due diligence to bring and convene a meeting but again so many so many missed opportunities so many so much misinformation but you know my heart is heavy on this decision and you know I want to I want to support representative Rivera thank you thank you ma'am Canales thank you mayor um I also had the opportunity to sit down with Mr Jeske about a month ago about this issue and we had a very good conversation I told him that I uh have a union Draft House in my district I live quite close to it and that I had never been aware of any problems that they had caused to the the surrounding residents and as a result of that that I uh on the face of this issue had no no problems uh with the with the location near the school but I had to tell him very plainly that what could derail my support of of uh this waiver uh would be the opinion of the uh representative for the district because of how nuanced an issue like this can be um you know my colleague is elected by the people who live in that area to represent their interests um and and I think uh it is largely in a case like this that that District's Representatives uh job to parse through the nuance and and come up with a final decision that benefits ultimately the greatest number of people in that they represent um and so I I didn't want to vote without explaining uh to everyone to the residents to to Mr Jeske and and uh the team at Union Draft House and the property owner uh that it you know I I Echo the sentiments uh brought up by my colleague representative Hernandez uh I I I it's not a decision that I I we take lightly um I we understand the the impact that this has on on local business and we want to be supportive but in this case I I also have to support uh what I'm hearing from the the local areas representative and unfortunately I think well I think that's the right decision to make uh in the context of this kind of decision uh where we are at being asked to to provide a waiver uh of a law so I think that's all my comments mayor thank you thank you sir representative thank you Mr Mayor thank you you know this is a a sticky situation and and with all due respect representative I I just don't understand how an entity can give somebody approval to move forward and then after the process has started say change your mind um it's Mr Mayor may I ask Mr Jeske a question Mr Jeske this to to to help not only yourself as a business owner but also the community and then you there this this big roadblock was put before you about pulling the the letter of recommendation or the letter of support and and so I can imagine that you went into this how much money have you already in time have you and your partners invested in this uh piece of property um probably uh it's over 100 grand yeah Miss Mary that's um that's quite the that probably doesn't include the time no okay yeah we're 90 days behind schedule as well and this is something that we've done in the past um thank you Mr Jessica may I speak Steph in the way I understand this and this is the first time I've I've been exposed to this but we've issued these waivers in the past yes sir um in fact uh going past previous years pretty much all of them have been approved I've been improved yes sir um there's existing long-standing existing same type of situations with these types of establishments and proximity to schools long-standing existing and yes these types of items to historically are approved thank you and again with all due respect representative thank you Samir thank you sir representative thank you mayor well first of all um what we heard here is the fact that you know Mr Jeske is he he's a he's a good man with a good heart and if I can answer you representative Fiero uh this is the first ever location that's extremely close to a school school where students freshmen through seniors are very impressionable and can sometimes be lured by the some of these seniors up there in that area or people that are working in that area in that establishment rather so that they can you know just go in my anger here is and and something and I representatively not brought this up yeah they've been improved in the past but we've got to change what's in El Paso first because the fact that they're giving school districts the authorities give a letter of support and then yank it out when it gets controversial and come to council that's got to change that's got to change and and the fact is that hopefully we can get to it uh whether we need to is there an existing ordinance Mr Stephen for the record yes sir uh the 300 foot exception exists in the zoning ordinance um there is a outright prohibition against this types of use within 300 feet of a school of church or in daycare several years ago prior Council asked to create the exception to the rule so this is all within the authority of the council to do away with if it chooses to do that okay and that and that District before giving the letter support did not notify the residents from the area nor did they not that they're uh notify those uh the the city representatives and it's all of them because collectively we make the decision so they should have notified everybody and the fact is now Mr Jeske Falls victim to that letter and so um I I I'll be looking at that in the future and hopefully we can have the support on that thank you mayor thank you again staff for all your due diligence thank you so much thank you sir representative um mayor Pro tem thank you thank you um yeah I mean I wanted to address the a few things that are happening here um there was a rezoning of this property correct I will and there were some conversations with the neighbors um that this would not be uh there would no be no liquor license it wouldn't be restaurants what was the what the rezoning what did the property owner tell you the previous property well I guess the new property owner right so just a little bit of History this property was rezoned to C1 commercial about a year ago March of 2022 in terms of those discussions whether alcohol was going to be there we were really not part of of that process that was a separate process regarding some some private covenants tied to the property there's a couple of conditions that were part of that rezoning last year the the site plan and then the landscape buffer to mitigate the impact on the resident yeah because I remember this rezoning because I thought well there's not even a lot of commercial in this area to begin with um and I remember that a lot of the constituents saying that they were told that they wouldn't be a bar and restaurant um you know I'm going to go back to the fact that these have been approved I've never approved them I think if there is a rule there should be a rule I do apologize that some of the school board members in that area made this political and gave a letter and then took it away I wish that was not something that they could do because I see Mr Jeske has put a lot of money into it because of having that support but just because something is done over and over doesn't mean you shouldn't change it or stop if it is not serving the community so really the argument that Oak Council has approved this so many times doesn't mean that it was the right thing to do I don't think it was the right thing to do I don't think that there should have ever been an exception though I do think that sometimes there needs to be exceptions for things I think that there's actually one incident I did support because it was a bar previously and it was a new license or a renewal but for me again this area is very residential individuals have chosen to live in an area like this you know you could move to like my neighborhood which is a little bit more commercial if that's what you wanted but to put that onto a neighborhood at after asking you know after the the property owner asks for their support under certain guidelines and then came back and changed that after they had that rezoning I think is is unfair and I think that the council members should consider you know what the position the property owners have been in but I do really want to emphasize that just because something has done before it doesn't make it correct and doesn't mean it shouldn't change thank you well you're welcome foreign thank you I go back to the time that I've been on city council and every one of them has been across the street so whether it was a daycare a church or a residential area we've all they've all been approved and Mr Garcia You've you've seconded that to a point right uh your memory does not recall that we have not voted in favor or against that waiver correct and I understand what you're saying as far as not because we always do it does it make it right but the thing is I'm sure we took in consideration the applicant we took in consideration all the facts and situations that were unique and pertinent to that making decision or that decision making so thank you thank you with that we'll take the question Miss Prine yes mayor the motion was made by representative Rivera seconded by mayor Pro tem anello to deny the request on item 51. on that motion to deny call for the vote I just want to clarify it's a decline the motion with yes is to decline no is to not the client correct I just want to make sure everyone knows yes yes this is to decline no would be not to decline this emotion to deny so in the voting session the motion passes four to three Representatives Kennedy molinar Fierro voting nay representative Salcido abstaining and representatives anello Hernandez Rivera Canales voting I the motion does pass that brings us to item 52 that was also moved to the Forefront and this is presentation discussion and action of the second quarter financial report adoption of the revised city of El Paso budget policy which allows for the establishment of a pay for futures fund to solely support police fire and civilian compensation increases good morning members of council Robert cortinas so is this point right into the record this is going to be a presentation to provide an update through the second quarter on our revenues and expenses there's also an action item attached to this item and this is to amend the budget policies as you all have all been briefed to amend the budget policies to add section 13 related to the creation of the paper Futures fund and then also with the allocation of additional Surplus revenues to the second quarter so overall as we look at the summary overall revenue is up 6.2 percent compared to the same time last year and again this is covering the period of September 2022 through February of 2023 the first six months of this fiscal year overall Revenue again up 6.2 percent a large component of that is the increase we've seen in the sales tax revenue which we'll discuss a little bit more about here in just a minute overall sales tax is up 5.7 or 4.6 million uh franchise fee Revenue that we collect from the pasta water pesto electric Texas gas again as a result of the rate increases that we've seen on those utilities the city has seen an increase in the franchise student Revenue one of the points on here at the bottom of the bullet there on the screen you'll see one of the areas we continue to monitor is the licenses and permits Revenue it's up slightly overall 0.5 percent however fired inspections are up but license permit revenue from the commercial residential is down slightly again only about 290 000 however it's something that we continue to monitor particularly because it could indicate a Slowdown in the economy with building on residential commercial properties on the expenditure side again no surprise here overall expenditures are up 9.3 percent again compared at the same time last year the first six months of this fiscal year compared to the same time last year again the large driver of that is the personal services which is the wages benefits and seller um wages benefits and taxes for our Workforce again a result of the increase that we have in compensation related to not only Public Safety but also our civilians with the increase in the minimum wage that we provided during the two phases this year with the increases also we've talked a lot about what we've seen as far as increasing contracts and the materials and supplies again inflationary impacts and just across the board additional cost being passed on is relatively labor demand and we're seeing that through all of the contracts that have been awarded recently and again these costs are what drove the budget as we discussed last summer and again these things were factored into and again what really drove the budget increase for this current fiscal year so as we look ahead not only providing update to the second quarter but this presentation is important because this is what the Office of Management and budget utilizes combined with all of the historical data to really lay the foundation for what those revenue and expenditure estimates are going to look like as we get a little bit further along with the budget development for the upcoming fiscal year which will begin in September again we continue to monitor throughout this fiscal year not only the revenues but also the expenditures to make any adjustments necessary over the next few months again we'll talk a little bit more about sales tax here in a minute because we have seen unprecedented sales tax growth however with all again the talk of what we're seeing as far as again I know it seems like it's never going to go away the discussion about a potential recession however we need to ensure that we're being conservative on the revenue side in order to avoid negatively impacted City operations and verbally optimistic on those Revenue projections so overall on the general fund Revenue here you'll see I've broken down by category overall City budget 512.7 million you'll see in the second column or third column from the left the actual through February we've collected just over 385 million accounts for about 75.1 percent of the overall budget through the first six months you'll see obviously in that personal in their property taxes since property taxes are due by February 1st we have collected and this is in line with historical Trends 95 of our property taxes sales taxes which again we'll discuss a little bit more detail here in the next few slides overall sales taxes we've already collected over 60 percent of sales taxes through February so historically we should be around 50 and so we're about 10.7 higher than typical and again that's a result of really just unprecedented growth that we've seen continue through our sales tax collection however keeping in mind that this is only represented by the first six months of this fiscal year as we look again as property taxes as I mentioned we just continue to monitor this to ensure that we're collecting property taxes that since this is a larger source of Revenue and we are in line with historical averages as far as the collections through February right around 95 percent as we look at the sales tax the most recent collection we have is for February of 2023 that month came in at 10.6 percent higher than February of 2022 so we continue to see positive growth and you'll see the the trend there are Positive Growth that we've seen since March of 2021 so for about the last two years now we've seen consecutive positive growth in our sales tax collections as I discussed when we did the briefings provide this slide just to provide some context and make sure that we're showing you the data prior to covid because if you see this slide here again we see historically prior to kovid we would average around five percent increase in sales tax would generate about four and a half million dollars of additional Revenue every year the last two full fiscal years FY 2021 and FY 2022 we brought in 14 million and 15.2 million respectively I'm so coming in at 14.4 and 13.7 percent in sales tax for those two fiscal years so again unprecedented we're talking about more than three times historical um averaged of what we saw as far as sales tax growth but you compare that to the bottom box there that the green there for the first six months of this year compared to the first six months of last year we're up about 5.7 percent so really coming more in line with what we're seeing prior to covet with the large increases that we have seen in the last two fiscal years mayor we provided this slide some of the information that you requested I know it's a little bit small but you have it in the backup as well the left hand side there shows the allocation the percentage of what makes up our overall sales tax collections the largest component of that's going to be retail combined with the accommodations and Food Service all of these restaurants and so those two combined make up almost 60 percent of sales tax Collections and then the right hand box there provides where we are year to date this information is through January so this is only five months of data begin because of the lag but really the increases that we're seeing is in the retail trade food service and accommodations and then construction sales tax as well making up the increase that we've seen so far on sales tax or mixed beverage tax continues to perform well coming in at 1.9 million through the first six months about a two hundred thousand dollar increase to the prior year our licenses and permits for the play Inspection Department again the residential and commercial building permits is something we continue to monitor again although it's down slightly compared to last year when you look historically over the last several years and nothing alarming at this point just something that will continue to monitor over the next several months as it could be an indicator of a potential slowdown in the economy as we look to bridge costly Revenue we're up about three hundred thousand dollars compared to the same time last year from 13.6 to 13.9 million so Bridge Revenue continues to perform well however we do know that we're going through the current situation with the migrants I know there's been discussions about potential impacts on the bridges and so this in addition to the license department is something that we'll continue to monitor over the next few months for any potential negative impacts on this Revenue source as we look to the expenditures again this information we have three different slides breaking this information down this is by a strategic goal and so again overall City budget 512.7 million actual expenditures halfway through the year so this is as a February coming in at 220 million 390 000 about 43 of the budget a little bit lower than historical Trends we're typically around 45 to 46 percent and so slightly down but overall expenditure is coming in right now pretty much on target with the overall budget this slide breaks down the same expenditure but this is broken down by category so again you have your personal services which is the wages benefits and taxes again makes up about 73 percent of the overall general fund budget and you'll see they're about 45.2 percent of expenditures through February and again making up the overall 220.39 million through February the next slide just provides a little bit more detail broken down by the subcategory level so you can see all of the different expenditure categories here again accounting for the 220.39 million again 43 of the expenditures again everything pretty much on target not really no surprises with what was adopted in the budget we knew the big drivers were going to be from the wage increases for our employees and they combined with those Contracting material increases which we had factored in and built into the budget on the expenditure side just a couple of sites here on electricity we've seen electricity pretty much flatten off it's coming in at 4.4 million compared to 4.5 at the same time last year we provide this because you'll see the three years prior we were about a million dollars less we have seen an increase obviously with the increases in rates for electricity water is down slightly compared to the same time last year we're at 2.8 million compared to 3.2 million at the same time last year one of the things the council approved a couple of years ago was the funding to be able to go out and do the automated irrigation we started as a pilot project the automated irrigation projects and so that's proven to be successful we continue to do those and be able to save on the water side particularly as we have a large number of parks that require obviously a lot of water to maintain those facilities on the fuel side a fuel costs are up about 400 000 compared to the same time last year as we continue to see fuel prices stay at a high level something we continue to monitor as well and we'll make any necessary budget adjustments as we develop the budget for this next fiscal year and then finally moving into the recommendation as we've discussed the city managers talked about this for a while now and we've actually something we've been planning to bring forth to the council over the last few months obviously with the passage of the fire collective bargaining last year the recent approval of the police collective bargaining agreement just recently we know the financial impacts of that of being competitive of being able to retire excuse me to retain and recruit not only firefighters but our police forced as well as we continue to grow both of those departments with the new facilities that we do have come in online with our new fire stations our new police stations that are currently under construction and again keeping up with that net 30 plan in order to increase the size of our police force and then that combined with the recently approved Council item to increase wages for our civilian employees with that Target goal of getting to the 15 an hour by 2026. and so as we've talked about during a lot of the budget updates we know the largest driver of the budget is our Workforce makes up about 73 percent and so with the understanding that we know we're going to continue to see impacts from these increases over the next several years really being proactive and so this recommendation that we have to create this fund will allow us to do just that it allow us to continue to be competitive to be able to increase those wages for those groups but at the same time it'll provide US savings to be able to set aside now so that we'll be able to minimize the impact on the property tax rate in the coming years and so this item on page slide 21 here is the actual language from the amendment to the budget policies it the budget policy adds section 13 and this secretion of the paper Futures fund that would be established as a reserve of surplus revenues the second bullet point is very important and so we talk a lot about how one-time Revenue should not be used to fund ongoing costs and so in order to not contradict what the city manager said what I've said in the past it's a very clear plan that we've established it's outlined in the budget policy it has a specific purpose and then the very last bullet point on the slide here that it will last for five years it will sunset after that if there are any remaining funds any remaining plans to go back into the city's unassigned fund balance and so on an annual basis we will bring forth not only the recommendation to allocate funds into the program or into the fund that we're doing today for example but also as part of the budget process so just to be clear today's action is just to create the fund and set the money aside into this fund as a part of the budget process we'll bring forth the recommendation to allocate a certain amount for each of those fiscal years to be used to offset the impact from these costs and so just to be clear that action today is just to establish the policy set the money aside and we'll report the recommendation which will be approved by Council as part of the budget adoption and so I know that there's a question about could this be changed this is done by simple resolution it could be it could be changed the future if the council decided to do that if they wanted to change the purpose or if they wanted to change the process that could be changed with um how we go about doing the budget adoption and then the budget resolution as well and so the slide here slide 22 is just showing where the Surplus revenue is coming from right now about 15.8 million is what we have through the second quarter again a large majority of that about 12 million coming from the sales tax again continue to perform extremely well through the first six months we will receive the marked sales tax allocation tomorrow and so that is the second largest month that we actually collected so that'll be really telling of where we're going to end up this fiscal year and really lay the foundation for what we're going to be able to estimate as far as the budget for next year for sales tax and then we have a slide here that just shows the budget to actuals for sales tax collection again you can see the first six months the blue bar there is the budget the red is the actual collected for sales tax and so for each of the first six months we've actually exceeded the budget to the tune of about that 12 million dollars that I just mentioned and so again the action that we have with this item is to adopt the creation of the fund outlined again in section 13 which is on slide 21 that I just mentioned that's that same language and then the allocation of the 15 million dollars of surplus Revenue to be set aside into this fund again for future action uh pending the recommendation from staff as far as how much to use in the upcoming budget year I'll be happy to answer any questions yes representative Rivera I mean uh Pharaoh sorry it's hard to tell the difference mayor I understand um thank you for answering my question before I asked it um but a different question yes sir we're talking about the budget and you have it broken down by strategic goals when the when you bring the final numbers to us it's broken down also by by by different departments specifically is that correct yes it is okay yeah so you'll see the budget by we present by Vision blocks however within those Vision block presentations you see it by the Strategic goal and then all of the Departments Associated so you receive all of the detailed information all the way down to the department level so if if there's a change that we need or would a request at um within the goal we can move it move them around yeah you will see all of that information in the budget numbers yes okay thank you mayor thank you sir there's a representative Kennedy on the pf3 it's a separate account that can be moved or reversed at any time by city council right correct is it any difference than just holding those funds in reserve for that expense in the future it is in the sense that we want to be very clear and have it outlined in the policies because it not only ends up in the policy but it's going to end up in our annual Financial comprehensive report that we do as well and so having it's just very clear to not only the council the community but also to bond Raiders or anybody that's reading that document that they know what because right now it just rolls up into the committed and so for example we have our pension stabilization fund we have our operating in debt stabilization fund as well and so we want to have these separate funds so that we know what balances are maintained within each of those funds right now well I hope for expenses in the future we'd know what they were without putting it into an individual fund my concern is it it doesn't doesn't change access from city council who could abolish this in a single meeting right correct it's done by simple resolution right so to me it's like whether we have it or don't have it we know we're going to have to pay in the future um I don't think a bond writer is going to look to see if if we had enough reserves to cover our intended allocated expenses in the future it's going to make any difference I'm just trying to figure out what the benefit of it is to online specific purpose of why we're doing this that we have the plan in place that that's why and then also as we develop the budget for next year we know that we need to minimize the impact on the property tax rate so knowing that the council supportive of this item in order to to do that so do you know what the item do you know how much it's going to cost this next year for the for the the two um cbas we're still finalized finalizing the budget we know that the police collective bargaining agreement which was recently approved in the first years the 14 million dollar increase okay just from the CBA I'm still trying to figure out how it's different than just allocating money for what you know are your upcoming contingencies I mean it it looks nice but it really doesn't really change anything I don't think I mean if we know it's going to be say 20 million further expenses and we allocate that in our budgeting or if we put it in a fund and then move it into the budgeting it seems like another stop that looks pretty but doesn't change anything because it's taking money for excuse me taking money from current savings and not taking it out of the fund balance not taking it out of the current firm which we would do anyway if we were budgeting and trying to balance the budget we'd have to do the exact same thing correct essentially yes okay but this outlines again a specific purpose it has outlined what the specifics are as far as the amount that's going to be used every year and then has a sunset Clause after five years honestly I believe that we we do a good job in realizing what our expenditures are going to be coming up and I think that this is more Optics than substance it's all again if I may so again go ahead in order to minimize the impact on the property tax rate being able to reinvest this current year savings into the budget for not only next year but over the next five years is going to allow us to offset the impact from not only the fire and police CBA agreements but also from again the increases for our civilians with the Target to get to the 15 an hour so reinvesting the Savings in the current year into future budgets is what's going to allow us to do that and Mr Kennedy with regard to your question as far as the comment you made I understand where you're coming from but with regard to the use of the fund balance it's better to use a planned allocation as opposed to say we're going to use the fund balance you've used a fund balance you do it on a regular basis it's not a bond rating issue that's seen favorably but if you plan it and that's all this is of you planning the expenditure then it is seen more favorably because it's a planned way of spending the money and it's this year's money it's not actually utilizing the fund balance we have allocated reserves now for projects correct from our fund balance no sir we don't have any allocated whatsoever not for fun balance no sir okay but I'm trying to say if we say yes on this how does this lower the impact to the average taxpayer so it's going to depend upon the recommendation that we bring forth as far as how much to use in this upcoming fiscal year which we would have to do anyway I'm saying the difference between yes and no does it save the average taxpayer or a dollar if we say yeah we're going to just do it this way we're going to allocate it this way or if we don't I don't think it does you're still dealing with the same amount of money well it depends upon how much we use in the first year I mean and so that recommendation is going to outline what that savings is going to be on the on the tax rate I think what this does is it better prepares you if you're looking at reducing the tax rate next year this takes care of an expense for next year's budget which gets you in a better position to do just that to put you in a position to look at next year's budget and how you can reduce the tax rate or if you want to go even further than we're just reducing it if you want to look at other options that that that's on the table in terms of next year's budget but but I think that a dollar is still a dollar whether you allocate it here or say this is we're holding it in reserve for we're putting it in the pf3 a dollar is still a dollar you still got the same amount of expenditures it is until you don't have the dollar I mean you're you're looking at allocating x amount of dollars towards the expense that you know you're going to have with planned expenditures that's all this is but this but it isn't enough issue it's a it's how do you pay for next year's a cost with this year's money that's what this is but it sounds like we're creating more and we're not we're just putting it in a different account we're taking it from our right pocket to our left pocket no but it's still ours we didn't say we're creating more we're simply attempting to pay for an expense in next year's budget with this year's money that's what this is thank you representative Kennedy um mayor Pro tem yeah I mean I think I don't want to speak Kennedy but I I do see what he's saying is because we're not we're not approving the expenditure today for that the CBA we're just putting in another fund and I think what he's saying is you can move that money into the general fund you can move it into another fund either way the recommendation to put this to the CBA is going to happen and so I don't I don't want it to seem like you're saying you don't agree with paying that off it's not what he's saying he's just saying that the fund is an unnecessary extra step but as someone who loves a folder within a folder within a folder I'm not going to totally agree with him on that my question I have less of a question and more of an Ask um I know that we have several kind of funds that are set aside one that I can think of on the top of my head is kind of what we did for storm water I know there are a few others I think it would be beneficial it'd be beneficial if someone has been on Council for six years but I think especially for newer council members if prior to the budget we can kind of get an overview of what all of those funds are and how much are in them um that was yeah that was it thank you mayor thank you man representative um I'll hold my comments if there's any public comment until after public comment okay man if there is there any public comment Mr prank yes mayor we do have two members of the public that signed up to speak the first person is Patrick natividad followed by Paul Thompson good morning mayor and city council my name is Patrick I'm the current president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association I just want to take a few minutes of your time regarding this issue here we ask our city leaders to be Innovative and responsible we made a commitment to be aggressive and Innovative in structuring our most current CBA to attract and retain numerous applicants and keep the people that we have here because we're having trouble having people come through the door we depend on all of these men and women every single one of us in this room depends on all of the First Responders that are coming through the door and staying for 20 25 30 years the city manager and his team found a way to structure a system that would in fact take care of wage increases for not only police and fire but civilian employees of our great City his plan would take from excess and not impact on the operating budget for this year and for the upcoming year wages that are men and women not only uniformed employees but civilian employees truly deserve First Responders and civilians are working and some of the most unforeseen and difficult circumstances that I've seen in 31 years as a police officer and a lifelong resident of El Paso Council I ask you today to move forward and approve this agenda item to move the excess funds from the city's excess sales tax and invest in your deserving employees and Mr Kennedy you said that this may be Optics you have thousands of uniformed employees thousands of Civilian employees looking at you all today and investing in their future thank you sir one thing I do want to make sure that you understand that and I'm in support of it don't get me wrong but this Council unanimous voted to support the police department and support the contract and we will fund it we will pay it and we will make sure that everything that was agreed upon will be taken care of we will never back up on that so I don't want you to think because this wooden pass or may pass because it's here it's just a different way of pain as you were saying but sir I want you to make sure you know that we will not back up and we'll always respect the men and women of blue and we will always respect the contract that we agreed upon I appreciate that sir thank you thank you sir the next speaker is Paul Thompson good morning or afternoon mayor and Council morning again sir um two minutes my colleague from the PD Association I'm here to speak for this item I I have I do not have bodyguards with me these are my colleagues from the fire department Kyle Phillips and Tim Fennell I think this is prudent planning and uh I'm here to speak on agenda item 52. I must say I was a little surprised when at the last meeting this item was tabled however I do understand that uh city council some on city council wanted the presentation I want to thank uh City management especially the the office of OMB for their their time and work on on this item I want to thank especially representative Canales for bringing it forth the item in March to raise the minimum wage of city workers to 15 an hour by fiscal year 2026 and for city council supporting him this agenda item accomplishes that goal while I'm the president of local 51 representing El Paso firefighters I have the honor of also being the president of the El Paso Central labor union representing 20 000 union workers in this region including afsme the association representing city employees and we fully support increasing pay for all city workers which are the backbone of this city I have been at City Council meetings over this past year and this is not the first time establishing a pay for futures fund has been mentioned establishing this fund will ensure city employees are taken care of and also ensure the recently approved fire and police collective bargaining Agreements are funded properly in the future I may not look that young or but I've served this city for over 25 years with the fire department and I remember the times when the previous City Administration would come to us in 2006 in 2007 and asked for concessions because these contractual obligations were not properly funded and there was a short or there was a shortfall in the budget and she came to us and asked us for concessions because proper planning did not take place today's agenda item makes sense not only from a business standpoint prudent planning but it's also the right thing to do and I encourage city council to support this item and support your city employees thank you thank you sir and I do want to comment that uh you don't need bodyguards when you come see us sir we respect uh everything you do and and the work you all do and one thing that I can tell you is that you'll always have our word that we have here back thank you sir and with that that will be representative Hernandez followed by representative pure I'm sorry I had to step away and so I wanted to ask um what was the current quarter uh savings that we have 15.8 million so that's the total amount I think in the second quarter so the recommendation is to take 15 million of that and put it into this fund okay so I've had an opportunity to review our bond Raiders criticism over the years since I've been in office since 2017. and I do pay attention to how much we put aside to our reserves and I know there were some questions about it but I only have August of 2022 right before we approved our fiscal year budget last August so then we had an unassigned 51.5 million budget stabilization 50.1 million pension stabilization 22.1 million and then the restricted fund which is 22.8 million um and then it's about over about 150 million give or take and this was August of 2022 um so from fiscal year 2015 fiscal year 2015 our rainy day fund had nine days nine operational days and then fiscal year 2023 to current we're at about 91 days and you know some of the I pulled up some of the bond Raiders and and some of the things that they've mentioned um s p Global ratings back in 2019 they said you know we had a very weak debt and contingent liability position and so um and they say specifically with Debt Service carrying charges at 18.7 percent of expenditures any net direct debt that is 234.3 percent of the total government fund Revenue as well as a large pension pension and other post-employment benefits obligations and the lack of a plan to sufficient sufficiently address the obligations and so if you go and read all of the bond ratings they will specifically say what is your plan another example from Fitch they say spending growth should remain comparable to or slightly above Revenue Trends given the city's expenditure profile Fitch believes the city retains adequate expenditure flexibility based on the management moderate control over Public Safety labor cost its largest operating cost and and what it keeps saying over and over again let's plan let's plan for the future show us directly how are you setting aside reserves and I think that we're doing that we're demonstrating that in our past history with the budget stabilization fund with the pension stabilization fund and then with the pay for futures fund really these are steps to demonstrate not only fiscal responsibility but to show the commitment to law enforcement and to our city employees that when we find excess funding we have a duty to set it aside so that it doesn't get lost it doesn't it doesn't get assigned to other departments and that we carry it over to the next fiscal year so that we can be better prepared to adjust for those cost drivers we know that those cost drivers are the collective bargaining agreements which is why you know we've heard some of the statements we heard today from our Union Representatives now you know I know the you know that it could be perceived as you know Optics or what have you I I really do believe that this is good practices practices with budgeting setting aside dollars to demonstrate to the taxpayer that not only are we committed to Public Safety but that when we do find savings we are going to restrict those savings so that they are not um you know looked at for any pet projects and districts or to any non-critical things like our wages for our Public Safety officers as well as our employees and so now we have 152 million or more plus than an additional 15 million it shows the bond Raiders that we are a plan accordingly I think it's really important these steps that we take and so I wanted to lend that support but give a little bit of historic historical context that our bond Raiders are looking for these type of steps and and that we need to be addressing what those large operating costs are and I think you're doing that with this proposal and I just wanted to share additional information so that as we go in with the with the new Council we're going into the budget year that these steps are critical and how we can achieve not only increasing our bond ratings but demonstrating specifically steps that we are taking to address the concerns from our bond readers so um I just wanted to share those additional additional facts and I hope that you can bring more current facts after this action where our where our budget stabilization pension fund unassigned a rainy day fund where where we're at what is the total dollar set aside and then how many days of operation we have based on these steps we've taken thanks all of that information's in our annual conference of financial report that Margarita and the external archery just brought forth but I'll provide that to the city council thank you sir representative Bureau thank you mayor and now he's confuses me with Chris um Mr cortinas thank you well my comments are really for Mr Thompson there was Thompson I fully plan on supporting this this issue today but a couple things that that you said that I had to address uh number one it was it was um I voted against moving forward with this item last time because I had not been briefed you may you probably were brief because you mentioned that you had heard about it before I had not been briefed Ms cortinas and Miss Cody came to our office and briefed us and and I am in support of it but just just so you know and it sounded like you were a little um disappointed that it was not a follow through you thought I was a little surprised and then I fully understand that we have new members of council since January and uh and so my my comment was not directed at you um it was it was uh you've only been here since January and so and I didn't say I was disappointed I said I was surprised okay all right Michelle just so you know I fully support you the police officers but I will not vote on anything unless I'm brief by staff thank you thank you I fully understand I'm sorry I didn't realize the mayor had walked away I would also uh just like to comment to that as someone who's been here on six years and asked to postpone the item I also had not been briefed and as much as we are supportive I think that you do have to understand that we're responsible for the financials of the city and and asking questions is what we're here to do and I I do think it's a little unfair to say because council members are asking questions they're unsupportive and I think that that really um that relationship and and that that really needs to change because it's it's unfair to us um it's unfair to you and it's unfair to the community um and with that uh it's representative Kennedy I'm back I do want to before I do and it is your turn but I I do want to make sure that that is important as a body here when we have not been briefed and we're not sure of something we do want to make sure and we do have the option to make sure we make the right decision which obviously this is a good thing and it's not we're in support but I think that uh Mr cortinas Mr Gonzalez and their team do have an obligation to make sure that everyone's brief when something's being brought so something like that didn't happen so it's not disrespectful to you or anyone else I think it's uh very respectful of the community when we're not we have not been brief to make sure that we get brief so we can make the decision based on why we got elected and that's to have knowledge of everything before we vote on it and that's all it is um represent Kennedy yeah um first of all I don't remember anybody up here saying they didn't support the CBA in paying everybody's contracts with what was unanimously voted for and to convolute a conversation about the methodology to make it work into saying that it's a lack of support I think is a bit disingenuous I have supported both those contracts and I do support both those contracts I think the methodology I may not agree with the methodology but it's a methodology it's not the contract itself it's not the pay it's not the rate and to attempt to squash honest conversation about the methodology for fear that you will be accused of not supporting a CBA I think is problematic I've never done anything but support it and neither has this counsel and this Council has never been the one that had to come to ask for concessions because they weren't willing to pay for it I don't think anybody up here blindly voted for a CBA not knowing that it was going to cost more money and we had to find a way to do it and an honest disagreement on the methodology is just that a healthy conversation so we can find the best way possible to make sure that these contracts are covered and planned to be covered in the future the nice part is we may disagree on methodology we don't disagree on making it happen we don't disagree on following through to make sure that the city takes care of it for every year of the contract and to go forward or I would suspect we're going to continue the progress and rates and pay rates are going to go up so people can continue to fill spots that are empty and has a progression inside the organization so we don't lose lose people to other organizations as a matter of fact we come become a magnet for other organs we spoke with that the city manager and I did we want to become a magnet for people outside so don't a misunderstand that a healthy and vibrant conversation on the methodology is not a lack of support but is actually because everybody wants to get to the same spot and we're just looking for different roads to do it and I feel comfortable that that Mr cortinas can handle all the financial questions as Mr Gonzalez can and come back with answers and we can disagree but it doesn't mean at the end of the day if it's not the best path forward we're going to take it but do not please try to conflate that with a lack of support for either of the contracts either of the individuals or anybody involved it's simply a nice healthy conversation thank you I believe we have public comment on this uh Miss Turner can I respond real quickly um I never once mentioned that you guys didn't support police and fire your votes for the collective bargaining agreements uh speak loudly to your support um and I think like I said I was surprised that this was table last time um I thought it should have been approved then that being said it wasn't and now after today's presentation I think it's only reinforced that it should be approved okay thank you thank you but it shouldn't be approved too we've all been briefed and I wasn't briefed either and now I have been they came in and gave me a full briefing with everything but we have at least three members that were not briefed and so I think it would have been inappropriate to vote for something of this size without being briefed okay thank you very much Miss Turner yeah well go to you we'll go to your represent us I'll see you this way well I thought you were on your way up here come on up Miss Turner and just ran into the wall yeah I do that too uh just in case he's a gentleman I had forgotten I said in the budget sessions with mayor cabiero because we were dealing with this very issue we train our people and six months later they go to work with the federal government so we worked hard to get basically the basic contract that they have built upon since and I've yet to see members of council and I would like to reiterate this not back police and fire I have said in budget sessions year after year after year not only supporting them but having other people show up in support and then support support them in public so let me say this I've yet to see a council not support our police and fire and that's just the basic facts and you won't see it from here Ms Turner we will support them and I think you saw in both contracts unanimous support and will continue to be unanimous I'm sure because we very thankful for what they do day in and day out and it's um and um oh yeah you know the proclamation today spoken volumes of how we feel about them I'm representative um just wanted to say yeah I I share the same Sentiments of my colleagues uh of course we're all in agreements that we won briefings great and but in that we support the police in the fire so I'm here to to definitely support and I just wanted to motion no proof second and again we've had more than one second before but we can we've had more than one before can we call the question Miss Prine and again thank you all for what you do day in and day out we're very appreciative of uh and these times are tough right now and and I've talked to a lot of you all and thank you for getting up and walking out that door every morning and taking care of making sure our community is safe and we do thank you may God bless every one of y'all Mr Mayor the motion was made by representative item 52 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Council thank you thank you all for being here I appreciate that may or may we go to call to the public no just man please thank you the El Paso city council is local government body charged with serving all of the citizens and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge the City Council meetings are public meetings under the Texas open meetings ACT public comment is on accommodation and not a requirement of city council all persons in attendance are expected to displace Civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting propane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or Integrity which are not pertinent to City business Norman any member of the public use this forum for political statements or campaigning please note that during a call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however Council May propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda this afternoon we have 17 members of the public that signed up to speak the first person is Miriam Ortega followed by Robert Ortega and George Loya and they're all speaking on Hope for chuko third annual Christian event august 19 2023 car show at Lincoln Park good afternoon you have three minutes hi good afternoon uh council members um my name is Maria Montega and then right now we're passing out that would be a a little flyer you know with the uh some pictures of the Lincoln Park that we're trying to use for August 19th this event is a Christian event we are going to have some Christian rappers uh Christian oldies singers Christian performers um and it's also going to be a car show but this is basically to invite all of the community the community out there that you know is uh hurting you know because we are going to be offering prayer baptismal you know it's going to be a great time but the reason that we're here is because uh we need your approval to set up the vehicles on top of the um the the grass area and like you can see in the pictures here it has been done in the past you know we are working with the uh the uh um the the Park inspector and um you know to follow all the rules and guidelines for that day and that event so that no sprinklers or anything around the area would be damaged that's it thank you thank you for being here thank you thank you speakers Robert Ortega also on the same topic good afternoon uh city council uh just uh just it's an honor just to be here and uh just to get to speak and uh just like my wife says this my wife Mary was my wife and uh so this would be the third annual we've uh what we've seen we've seen uh we've seen the community get closer and closer to this event and what what uh what we hear the outcome of it every year is that they're they're uh they're loving it so much because it's it seems like a family friendly it's uh it's uh it's something beautiful and uh the community is is starting to get attracted and attracted more and more to it so we had to bring the venue to a bigger place because we see more and more people being united so what we aim at is just basically unity and we love the unity of the community and uh and uh it's just uh just showing generosity in general in every aspect from prayer to baptisms we we do a lot of things to kids uh we have a kids section we uh we uh we have uh we we do a just a lot of amazing things free food and and all the fun right and uh basically it's just showing love to the community and uh I I would uh really really appreciate it we will really appreciate it if you would be in our favor and and just show uh um give us the approval to to park these cars on top of the on top of the grass and in certain sections where where the inspectors allow us to because uh you know a lot of these people come from uh different all kinds of walks but in that in that very day they unite and for them to put their cars where where they uh where they feel that their cars they work so hard to keep them clean or or whatnot but um they uh it attracts them more to being involved and and uh it's just amazing um we appreciate you I know the the mayor is such a generous guy we see them on the commercials every day but uh it's beautiful you know we believe in generosity and they say at the world of the generous gets larger and larger but I appreciate y'all and thank you so much next speaker is George Loya also on the same topic um good afternoon sitting Council and uh basically Mary and Robert they covered almost almost everything um um we're here just to you know uh try to get permission uh to park the cars on the grass um we've already done a couple of events and we're uh you know in communication with the city permits and with the people from the parks to make sure that everything is in order um we have a couple of vendors that we will be having uh no alcohol it's a Christian event and um we target more people that typically wouldn't go to to your uh Sunday church we try to push for people that typically won't go and that's the The Tool uh having cars is a tool for us to attract more people that typically wouldn't go to uh your Sunday church um other than that um we thank you for having us here we appreciate you um taking time to to hear us out and we would greatly appreciate if we would get your support on this too to get this um Christian event going thank you very much thank you again for being here the next speaker is Melissa harcrow Miss harcrow star six pleased to a mute your telephone Melissa harcrow I don't see her in the queue Mark Fierro Mark Pierro followed by Barbara Valencia their topic is animal services and dog laundering it will need the Elmo for Mr Fierro please thank you city council what is dog laundry adopted dogs are returned to the shelter due to aggressive behavior in bites or attacks where the dogs are put up for adoption again and again the dogs end up going out of the shelter and from family to family every time the dogs are re-adopted the shelter counts out as a save increasing the shelter's save rate this is called Dog laundering as part of best friend's shelter program for a shelter to reach the 90 save rate the shelter will adopt out dogs they know are dangerous and with the bite history to unsuspecting members of the public without disclosing the dangerous history of the dogs in this handbook from best friends they post pictures of dogs looking happy and wearing a bandana misrepresent the dog's characteristics a dog's aggressive behavior and the bite history is never to be disclosed to the volunteers Fosters or adopters when potential adopters come to look at the dog you must give a false impression of the dog would be a good family pet there was a picture there a photo of an attack on a 13 year old girl by a dog named Blue adopted from Los Angeles Animal Services shelter using best friends shelter program police first owner gave blue to the shelter after buying an incident the shelter per best friend's protocol failed to disclose the bite history of the dog to the adopter following the attack the dog was put up for adoption again for Best Friend's policy next there's a photo of argelina both of her arms were mauled in a vicious attack by a dog adopted from Los Angeles Animal Services that follows the best friends shelter program one armhamp had to be amputated almost to the shoulder the dog named OG was brought into the shelter after it attacked a jogger biting both of his arms the attack was unprovoked the dog attacked in an aggressive and vicious Manner and the injuries it inflicted were severe according to the police report and shelter records the shelter per best friend's protocol failed to disclose the bite history of the dog to argelina at another shelter using best friend shelter program a volunteer Eve sustained permanent and severe muscle nerve and tissue damage and now has very limited function in her disfigured and disabled right arm and hand after an unprovoked attack by Henry Eve had absolutely no warning from the shelter staff that Henry had attacked in the past at the time of Eve's attack the shelter falling best friend's procedure had just put Henry up for adoption a fifth time after having been returned by earlier adopters for aggressive behavior and killing another animal a family pet in one of the adoptive homes please rescind the contract thank you mister you've reached the three minutes next speaker is Barbara Valencia also on the same topic okay I will continue on where Mr fader left off Carolyn was killed by a dog or son adopted two weeks earlier from a Pasco County shelter using best friend shelter program her son was badly injured in the attack while trying to save her the dog had been adopted out and returned twice due to aggressive behavior one resulting in a severe bite prior to his son adopting the dog the shelter her best friend's protocol failed to disclose the aggressive behavior in bite history of the dog to her son and most recently a six-year-old girl was attacked by the dog the family adopted from Palm Valley Animal Shelter using the best friend shelter program the attack resulted in having half her face ripped off the attack occurred just eight days after the family adopted the dog shelter record States the dog's demeanor was aggressive towards people documentation from shelter staff States aggressive snaps and growls the shelter following breast Center's protocol did not disclose the dog's aggressive behavior to the family which includes four children under the age of 10 living in the home the day after this attack the shelter put the dog back up for adoption in accordance with best friend's policy the dog has been adopted out and returned three more times for aggressive behavior since the attack on the six-year-old little girl this is happening at every shelter using best friend shelter program and it will happen here shelters using best friend shelter program are knowingly putting the public at risk by adopting and re-adopting out dogs with aggressive behavior and bite history without full disclosure and by lying about the dog's Behavior this is dog laundering such conduct is negligent and Reckless the courts have been determined best friend puts in place as part of their shelter program nefarious practices of aggressive animals in plain sight and concealing what they know to be their dangerous past and prior acts of violence local government in their shelters that willfully choose to use best friends programs policies and procedures do so at their own peril the courts go on to say the primary duty of any government is to protect the health and safety of its citizens a municipal shelter acted on behalf of the government using best friend shelter program is negligently recklessly and knowingly endangering public health and safety the government and the shelter cannot hide its Reckless conduct behind a veneer of animal welfare and conservation in order to achieve a no-kill status City Council this is your notification that you are negligently recklessly and knowingly endangering the health and safety of the citizens of El Paso with the continued use of best friend shelter program the courts have said the city will be held responsible and liable for these actions Miss Hernandez you are now officially notified because you told me two weeks ago well you can't sue the city if we don't know that this has happened now you know it has happened thank you we were don't misrepresent my my statements Mrs Barbara please um and I'm happy to talk to you directly after this no that's exactly the next speaker is Ron Coleman don't misrepresent thank you thank you ma'am no you you told us topic is Animal Services good afternoon sir you have three minutes hi so today's show and tell you guys are enjoying that little puppy just for fact sake that dog was found roaming the couple that found it called 3-1-1 3-1-1 told them if they couldn't take it home Let It Go they did not want to leave a five-week-old puppy roaming the streets of El Paso because El Paso animal services and best friends don't want to do the job they get paid for they took the dog home comes the second part of this problem the Community member care didn't have to take the dog home the dog got attacked by their dog why because they are making people take Strays home and have no clue what's going to happen to them and don't care one of the things you need to understand I've been heard that the community the county is part of the problem for the El Paso's problem the problem with El Paso Animal Services is the lack of doing their job they have left Strays on the street since 2020. the Haas program has been in effect since 2020 it was put in effect by a heartless director and just so we understand each other Maricopa County's animal service director has now been moved to best friends after doing the exact same thing to Maricopa County she was moved out of Maricopa County because she was getting the same results that RX director was getting it's time I'd say this every two weeks and every two weeks you guys blow us off and every two weeks you create more strays more disease more attacks on people in the city of El Paso Google it look at the dates 22-23 the the Google's full of it you know we we have a unqualified director we have people making decisions for our shelter that have less Animal Welfare experience than my grandsons I'm done I'm tired you guys have left so many dogs to die in the street that dog would be dead today the dog that you all think is so cute and adorable when you go to bed tonight and you've got your pet next to you remember what they did what they did to that dog they abandoned that dog on the streets of El Paso is that fair is that what you all want can you sleep at night knowing you're abandoning Strays on the street I can't thank you Mr Cuomo the next speaker is Denise chidus Denise chidus if you're in the Q star six please to unmute your telephone Denise chidus star sixth place I don't see her phone number in the queue next speaker is Paulo Powell followed by Marcia margario Barbara Candelaria Sandy De Francisco also the speaking on Best Friends Animal Society work good morning mayor and City councils nice to see you guys good morning ma'am just a quick reminder I'm Paula Powell I'm a senior strategist with Best Friends Animal Society for the South Central Region but I'm also a long time El Paso resident a retired City employee a veteran a grandmother a mother of three and a mother of three dogs Jelly Bean Scrappy and taco what being a senior strategist means is that I work to establish relationships look for opportunities and find common ground for a life-saving with agencies throughout our region to include my hometown my hometown El Paso our primary goal is to create Pathways reduce obstacles and to introduce Implement and support life-saving ideas and strategies to help organizations save more dogs and cats I wish I would have known all of the resources that best friends had to offer when I was the director here in El Paso and once I started working for best friends 2.5 years ago I realized there was so much more information so many resources so many opportunities that we could tap into a vast menu of support that a National Organization can provide two local shelters and I vowed to make sure that every shelter knew they didn't have to do them all but at least knew of those that menu of opportunities available for support and we are here to help with many programs to direct support your work shelter engagement and program support which includes the embed program that you have going on right now and you're in in I think month four but we also after training and continued education we work with universities Southern Utah University puts out our executive leadership program which your director is in right now we have a network of over 4 000 communities and shelters that we connect with we have Grant making and fundraising opportunities available and El Paso's taken that opportunity many times throughout the last 2.5 years and we have leading industry experts you want that experience you want the people that have the 20 years experience which is not me I I'm the first to say that that's why these leading industry experts are best friends who do the research and do the studying and understand this industry insight and out and know the ups and downs they're here for you I am thank you Miss Powell okay the next speaker is Marcia margario topic is Animal Services no room at the intake good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon mayor Lisa council members I am Marcia margerio given El Paso's geography and the fact that tens of thousands of stray animals roamed the streets each and every day a strategic approach predicated on facts and data not emotions is warranted right now the best and brightest directors in the animal shelter industry are basically rendered helpless they lack the power resources and the capacity to manage this overrun of community animals even as intakes are below pre-covered numbers the disproportion of daily intakes to daily live outcomes is extremely problematic for no kill to be successful today shelters appeal to their Community to help slow down the pace of intakes taking healthy friendly dogs out of their neighborhood and into the shelter conceivably results in those dogs lingering in cages and not returning home in March of this year San Antonio began a stray dog pilot program a 10-person team canvassing two districts to capture and reunite loose dogs with owners or classify them as stray unowned 94 of found animals had owners over six weeks the team reunited 699 pets without them entering the shelter and 619 pets were microchipped preventing animals from entering the shelter saves taxpayer dollars and saves animals lives it would be ideal to be able to control the loose stray population while also decreasing the suffering disease in euthanasia of Selter shelter pets I believe the majority of the Community Values life-saving and if asked will become part of the solution a solution that doesn't involve taking the lives of shelter animals thank you thank you man the next speaker is Barbara Candelaria Barbara Candelaria Sandy De Francisco Sandy DeFrancisco Alan Serna coming up man Mr sirna's topic is concrete and Rubble left on Yarborough drive for over six months good afternoon sir you have three minutes I have some pictures to share if I could that way the council knows exactly what I'm talking about sure thank you can you show the other one first yeah that one and that one first good afternoon Council my name is Alan Serena I'm a local business owner and I live in the Riverside area uh back in September they started construction on a bridge down there on Yarbrough Great Bridge they broke it all apart they took it down and they laid all this Rubble in a field right beside a brand new walking Track that they did Capital Improvements fantastic track wonderful much needed appreciate it a lot of improvement on the city's part on these projects since October I've been calling my city Representatives Office to complain about the rubble that was left there I've called four to five times I haven't even gotten a message back I ran into my city council rep at an Earth Day presentation a couple of weeks ago on April 22nd and I asked him when is this Rubble going to get picked up and he told me it's out of my hands man I can't do nothing about it Henry you told me that it was a text Dot project okay so I said all right text out project thanks Henry great let's get this thing picked up he says all right whatever next day I went to the civil liberties rally over here and I interrupted Jose Rodriguez talking and he was nice enough to give me a few minutes and I asked him about it I said is this text talk can you do anything about it you know and he said well I'm retired I can't do anything about it so I told what Henry said and he said well you know I'm not going to say what he he said about him but he said Henry it's your responsibility so next I went to TxDOT and I went and I talked to the big boss at TxDOT and he looked into it and he says no this is not our Rubble it's the city's Rubble so I'm just here to say hey you know what when are we going to pick this Rubble up because if you look at these pictures it's about a hundred tons of rubble and guess what's happening now contractors or whoever's doing it at night are coming in there they're throwing cinder blocks in there they're throwing trash up in there and this was Dallas if this was Austin if this was San Antonio or Houston you wouldn't have this Rubble here for six to seven months and and basically yeah the issue that I have and I'll put the picture I've been growing trees for over 29 years in El Paso and I've donated hundreds of trees to the city to the zoo to all kinds of other deals and I'm a contractor and if I leave messes like this I'm not going to get paid so this is the project that was done okay by Capital Improvements great project but let me tell you something you see those trees right there you got two big giant trees right next to each other six seven feet apart guess what's going to happen it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out thank you Mr Cerna request we'll have an answer yeah sure I'll have an answer the next speaker is Albert Rivera Mr Rivera's topic is noise no senses and lack of noise meters for eppd officers good afternoon sir you'll have three minutes how y'all doing again today well I'm not doing too good and Mr Chris Canales hasn't done crap for me either I've been trying to call him and get in touch with him to help me out because code enforcement told me I needed to contact my district but apparently he don't work there his secretary does I don't get any phone calls I don't get crap from him what are you and I gonna mean we can discuss the noise that I have in my district when are you going to get up here cojones and use it for the for the neighbor Mr Rivera to ask you to please be respectful anyway my problem is this the police department is coming to my house at 12 30 1 o'clock in the morning whenever I call them without without the equipment to do their job Mr Canales they don't have enough meters centimeters to to do the decimal on these bars that are getting away with it sometimes they don't even show up when I call it 12 30. the cops don't come up when they do come they come without meters Mr Gonzalez how about getting funding for the police department with meters to come do their job so I don't have to go crazy every damn weekend to listen to this noise over and over and if this bird doesn't become neighborhood friendly we need to do consideration and propose rezoning okay they made enough money and put it in that investment in that bar and this new bar hush us took over the Blackboard container Deluxe which I shoot in one and they knew the problem before they even took it and they added a second balcony and they still don't have a roof but they added a second battery next to mine three feet from my balcony and they got a decimal level that they can go 68 69 which is way too high for being as close to my house as that in the future and even now these boys should be regulated with the sound decimal depending on how close they are to the property line you hear me Mr Gonzalez Mr Canales do you hear me every bus should be excluding that with what they have in their in their bar considering the sound system the PA system they have this bird has got a hell of a sound system a PA system that needs to be looked at every bar should be looked at and I'm tired of coming here and I will keep coming until we get something done but one thing for sure get the police department The Meters they need to do the job because they're wasting my time they're wasting your time and they're not able to do their job completely they're showing up without meters Let's help them out and get the proper equipment they need thank you very much the next speaker have a great day his topic is make El Paso the safest city in the state of Texas good afternoon Mr salsa though you have three minutes sir oh thank you I got 30 minutes to say I think three minutes good morning how you doing Jesus Christ I always ask God to help you guys how are you excuse me you want to know my name I know your name I don't even know it right now are you tired I just came from the VA to be a similar my name is I I was like I was saying ask God God my God you got to help you because you have a lot of stress and the stress is killing a lot of people now I want to congratulate right now my uh see red Isabel San Diego because she's doing now well done job I thank you very much thank you and I want to congratulate all of you guys you have a lot of stress I mean to make a good City like I've been doing all my life we have to start with us with us helping you helping you because we have to help we have to help each other not because I live in the east side I don't have the Northeast I do as a matter of fact I'm gonna get uh with my sea rep and she agreed with me like we can help her parts of the city are all our friends of mine they are willing to work with me I May create a lot of project like I opened the express lane by myself corrupt I say carrot Reyes hear me to do it because I helped him that's the only way yeah we all been there as president now please I asked I ask you if like when he was familiar I was a volunteer and I raised more than one million and a half for the city so away when these guys from the shelters of the dogs or whatever they ask you for money you have the resources you give me the the best or whatever to become a monitor for you guys I always promise you that I will raise at least one million dollars so I wait when they come and ask him he has the money and I already called the guys from the dogs I thank you very much God bless you and keep on doing the well done thank you sir thank you much yourself the next speaker is Steven strommer I don't believe he's here uh Miss Turner Lisa Turner followed by Melissa harcrow Miss Turner's topic is transgender and first Veterans of America good afternoon Miss Turner good afternoon good afternoon Miss Turner good afternoon mayor of council I'm in my uh speaking as the nice no National Vice chair for advocacy for the transgender and reverse Veterans of America on May 2nd 2023 the transgender and diverse Veterans of America tdva is excited to announce the launch of this organization and election of its officers tdva is a 501c3 and a 501c4 organization founded by Veterans for veterans tdva's mission is to support all our veterans tdba will work to Foster support education and peer support for those veterans throughout the nation and those who live overseas tdba's political advocacy arm will work to Advocate to develop policies that support care positive outcomes for our transmitter transgender veterans throughout the veterans Health Administration it also will continue to work to ensure these veterans rights and benefits will be protected for all future veterans tdba's vision is to be agile adaptive and local responsive to the needs of our veterans tdva is excited to welcome our community of veterans from across the services and the LGBT Q Plus Community to come together and support each other through peer support mobile and technological utilization and guidance through housing and food insecurity in crisis as they arise in our community join us as we work to improve and secure the lives of veterans who secured our nation's future for more information please visit our website at www.tdba.ag.org or you can find us on Facebook also LinkedIn like I says I am their Vice chair for National advocacy so you will probably be seeing more of me in that official capacity thank you all right thank you Ms Turner always for your time I don't know what to do that's good Miss Turner thank you the final speaker is Melissa harcrow her topic is women veteran State events in June Miss harcrow star six please to unmute your microphone hi good afternoon you have three minutes and good afternoon everyone my name is Melissa hardcrow I'm calling you as a member of the El Paso Texas women veterans group and I just wanted to um inform the public and invite everyone out to a few of the veterans women Veterans Day events we have coming up in June first we have on June for excuse me June 9th from 9 A.M to 1 p.m we have a women veteran state conference and that's going to be at the VFW Post 8 12. there's going to be free lunch it's a free event so we'll be a silent auction and the free business clothing giveaway we have a couple of speakers lined up and we do ask that just women veterans sign up for this event and the next event is Friday excuse me Sunday June 11th at uh economy Wholesale grocers at 411 North Zaragoza that's also free we'll also have some speakers and recognition ceremony and some networking and that is from 10 a.m to 1 p.m and we also ask just women veterans at this event but we also invite the public to join us at our first ever take a walk in her booth fun run walk there will be a 5K and a one mile you can choose to run or walk either one and that's going to be at the Old Glory Memorial at 7 A.M we'll have a t-shirt for participants um 35 registration and the t-shirts have been designed exclusively for us by Viva La Mocha we're very excited about that and if anybody is interested you can contact the point of contact which is Alexis McRae at 915-383-5180 or you can contact me at 915-867-6979 and I'll also be sending an email out to Mayor and Council as we've had to make some updates with these events but thank you all so much I really appreciate everything you've done for the veteran community and we want everyone to come out and help celebrate with women veterans and we hope in the future to keep doing these events annually and get to a point where we can donate funds to veteran organizations and Military organizations and their families thank you all thank you mayor that concludes call to the public thank you we're going to take item 17 then we're going to take a 30-minute break for uh lunch yes sir item 17 is discussion in action to direct the city manager to develop a programming plan for the use of the open space acquisition 2012 quality of life funds and Dual Purpose open space stormwater funds this item was submitted by Representatives anello Molina thank you yes ma'am do we have public comments three people yes sir three people that signed up to speak the first person is Richard bonart followed by Sharon bonard and Melissa Kirkham good afternoon Dr Bonner you have three minutes sir good afternoon mayor and Council so um to me this feels a little bit like paralysis by analysis and I don't understand there seems to be still some confusion and further need to study how to prioritize the 2012 quality of life and 10 stormwater fun boak was charged with reviewing the 2012 quality of life projects and to provide oversight and feedback on Project expenditures and implementation including the five million dollars for open space Acquisitions that's in the 2012 quality of life bonds uh on several occasions boak and osab have made motions and recommendations to city council including this resolution on 2020 on July of 2021 motion made seconded and unanimously carried recommend the mountain to River Trail follow and focus on a natural surface route a line through the open space acquired by the PSB and coordinate with various entities to create a multi-purpose pedestrian Crossing and mountain bike trails this obviously would include necessarily acquiring land in every meeting and vetting by the city since 2008 the mound of River Trail has been a priority priority number one with all the stakeholders the original plan was a route through Arroyo 41. unfortunately that plan was not followed and development wiped out the natural open space now before us if the uh it will need the Elmo please bring it up um is this proposal and as you can see this is a perfect opportunity for the mountain to River Trail um unless the necessary Parcels are purchased this time and we will actually run out of options as you can see there's already developments starting to the north and there's a lot of development to the South this is a second chance this is the last chance so the route was originally proposed to osab by the PSB this is not my idea but I saw it as a golden opportunity and as you see what's kind of covered up by the black years ago my wife Sherry negotiated for that section that's in a conservation easement to be set aside so it would be really nice to follow the recommendations of your boards and do this first as you understand there are limited amounts of funds available we need to use them wisely if you want to spend time prioritizing things of what the remainder is after we do this that's a good idea but this should be a priority an opportunity before it's gone thank you as we discussed that is what the item is to move forward and do there's not a plan it is to move forward on how we would spend down the rest of those funds in the next year understood but this is Paramount that this get done now right now and it's been recommended several times over the years this is not something new right but Council needs to take action to move forward with expending those funds so let's do this now first yes ma'am the next speaker my turn okay and I'm going to follow up and kind of be the same thing that he said only different okay good afternoon mayor and Council I'm a member of Osa open space Advisory Board I've been such for seven years and I don't speak for the board but I am reporting that osab has repeatedly presented recommendations to city council for the use of funds of the two of the 2012 a quality of life funds and the Dual Purpose open space storm water program specifically looking at Mountain to River Trail the number one priority for open space projects since even before 2012 quality of life bond has been the mountain to River Trail although the properties on the open space priority list cannot be discussed in General Session it should be noted that staff has admitted that the original acquisition list has been lost that being said there are those of the original citizenry who recall the mountain to River Trail as always having been a top priority project the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority has already stated they support the mountain to River Project and they have been in contact with staff there remain remains over three million dollars in the quality of life funds and there are funds in the Dual Purpose stormwater account those funds should be used to make this happen recently the city spent 14 million dollars on the Martin Luther King property in Northeast and another 10 million dollars on the nap properties this is the right time for the city staff to work with osab and boak to create a plan for the completion of the mountain to River Trail before this land is developed the mountain to River Trail will enhance ecotourism as the only one of its kind it will be a long trail that encourages healthy activity and connects our amazing mountain a state park and the Rio Grande complete the mountain to River Trail this should be the focus of any planning on using those monies thank you thank you Dr bonark the next speaker is Melissa Kirkham Melissa Kirkham star six please good afternoon have three minutes good morning City Representatives mayor liser and City staff my name is Melissa Kirkham I am a resident of El Paso thank you for allowing me to speak today I am here to talk about open space open space is very important for our El Paso Community we all benefit from open space open space helps decrease flooding and it helps our air and water quality it is also important for native plants and Wildlife I am asking you to direct the city manager to develop a programming plan for the use of open space acquisition 2012 quality of life funds and the Dual Purpose open space storm water funds thank you very much mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you mayor Pro tem thanks mayor I mean yeah I think that uh it's pretty straightforward is that we have recommendations the council has priorities but we've been sitting on this this money the you know bonders in 2012 were up on 11 years now um and it's to to have City Manager work on a plan um work with the water utilities on some of the storm water funds and come up with a plan to spend down those dollars so I'll make a motion to approve here's Prine yes Mary the motion was made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by alternate mayor Pro temolinar to approve item 17. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Hernandez is not present is there a motion to recess there's a motion in the second to recess a regular city council meeting all in favor anyone a post and the meeting is in recess at 104 pm for 30 minutes I spam 30 minutes in 42 seconds oh yeah actually foreign because that's how I am and you know that is Sunday foreign please anyway we are interviewing Lisa you should the smartest person in this room that's funny that would be hard they aren't so seriously Five Little Monkeys Mr Prime can we begin please yes mayor is there a motion to reconvene there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1 47 p.m we're on page seven item number 18. and this is discussion in action to direct the city manager to prepare Parts can we um can we skip this item she's not in here at this moment so we'll go then uh we'll go to 19. yes sir item 19 is update discussion in action on all information pertaining to but not limited to the current funding levels current procurement timelines current project scope and current completion date of the new El Paso Police Headquarters from the 2019 Public Safety Bond and directing the city manager to complete all necessary action to keep the project within publicly shared timelines this item was submitted by representatives anello and Molina thank you mayor yes on this item I became a little bit concerned on what's Happening we're going on four years since the public safety Bond was passed in November of 2019 and even though there's been some land designated over in District Four off Martin Luther King what else do we really know that's happening as far as the environmental the design and the rollout of the money that's going to be expended on that chief operations officer uh representative molinar we we are actually due to bring back a report on the public safety update on the various programs so we'll schedule that at the next council meeting uh to share with you uh the timelines for that as far as the Police Department headquarters we have been working on the programming side of it so we understand the facility working on the cost estimates so that we can right size the facility as you know the covet impact has created an increasing cost and so we're working through contingencies on that so that we can give Council options on how to proceed with the project moving forward we'll share that information with you okay so Mr Rodriguez is saying in two weeks you'll bring this back with a yeah that's our that's our schedule right now is uh that will bring you an update both in executive and public session to give you an update on the public safety program as a whole okay and that'll include the backup will include the funds being allocated the design the environmental timeline correct are specific on the headquarters City Council already approved uh several several months back the actual people owners representative services for a consultant to work with a programming so that works already underway they've been meeting a lot of you know they've completed a lot of the meetings with the police department on the headquarters specifically to understand the size of it uh how big it's going to be working the cost estimates because of the again the cost impacts and the increasing cost we're working on contingencies and and uh so and uh options for city council to consider as far as moving some of those project monies around so that we can bring to council and move that project forward okay and Mr Rodriguez I know we had previously talked about a conservation Eastman in that area would you be able to provide information on that as well specifically the conservation easement will give you an update I do not believe we move forward with that because we wanted to make sure that the development of the academy and we're mixing projects uh here at representative Walmart I want to make sure that we're we're on the same page here right now we are under the conus islands for the Academy project so that's being negotiated and going through proposals through that particular project that's the academy for PD and fire in the Northeast the item that was posted today was for Police Department headquarters uh it's a separate site not a separate projects but we'll have an update for you on all the public safety program thank you you're welcome thank you Representative molinar Sam I have more questions be completed by 22 and then got pushed back or 23 and got pushed back obviously a year because of covid um which would have the new headquarters opening by 24. is that timeline still on track it is not a track Miracle time okay it's not on track um because of the covet impact as I mentioned um you know in the increasing costs uh we're starting to see uh the cost stabilize somewhat so we're ready to move forward like I said the the the both on the Pete headquarters specifically to this item it is a uh it is a proposed to be a design build contract so once we move forward with that procurement it'll start construction pretty close to there but we don't have a timeline no we'll we'll share with you at the next council meeting I don't have that with me today okay I mean um and so since this bond has been approved I've discussed uh planning for the current headquarters and we keep saying we're going to do that for me the time is is ticking and so I would really like to start that process I know there was conversations about a Five Points master plan I don't know if that's entirely necessary would love to do it I'm not saying it's not a great idea but if that's not scheduled within the next year then it kind of leaves me out of that conversation and so I would love to start planning on that kind of what happens with the current headquarters within the next year you're talking about the site once it's not there yes sir yeah yeah we can absolutely um if if need be put it in the next year's budget and start that process now and then have Council approve that because you're right we did have a discussion about what would be there I don't remember if we talked about a master plan or anything like that but that makes all the sense in the world to integrate that into the discussion and the process so we will work on putting that in the budget thank you I appreciate it and do you need action Sam or yeah I mean the actually I mean we're going to bring it back but if you feel comfortable just to hold it accountable you I'll post it for discussion in action okay and I apologize I didn't realize that let me go ahead and make uh mayor Pro tem go ahead and take action that way we have it on record okay so I'll move to direct you to come back Miss Prime the motion was made by mayor Pro Tem anello seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina and the action is to direct the city manager to return in two weeks is that correct with an update thank you on that motion call for the vote Miss Prine can I take mine verbally since I've been having some password issues since this morning's yes ma'am I will ask it to come and help uh your vote ma'am thank you and the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Hernandez not present here may we go to item 20. yes ma'am please thank you item 20. is discussion in action to direct the city manager to hire an outside accounting firm to conduct an external audit of City manager's office for the period of June 2014 through June 30th 2023 involving all travel pay card purchases budget transfers vehicle allowances fuel cards demotions promotions all salary increases new hires at the city manager director and Leadership positions this item was submitted by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina thank you very much mayor so um this item we're going to have a new transition as far as our city management and Leadership and so to me it's like there's going to be a new chapter for the history of El Paso Mr Gonzalez will be exiting and right now we don't know who the next new city manager will be hired so to me it's a really good indication of where we're at financially I know we've been talking about many things I know Mr Gonzalez under you do the budget year round that's a great thing but besides the meat and bones where are we at we've had some issues right now already with gas cards and travel and some other things but we're not going to talk about that all today but we just need to be I would learn to be sure that whoever takes over that that person is has a good strong foundation for decision making and knows and completely understands the health of our city financially and that was my reason purpose bringing this item forward any action motion to approve some motion and a second other comments here's Brian yes heard the motion was made by alternate mayor Pro temolinar seconded by representative Kennedy to approve item number 20. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes six to one representative Cornelius representative Edna does not present the remainder of council voting I the motion does carry and I think uh 121 has been oh yes yeah and I think um I know it's been deleted but we do have uh Council that will be coming in by the name of Frank our show that was hired by city attorney's office to come in and assist uh in the meeting on Thursday thank you Mr Mayor and in the the City attorney already answered the questions I had oh okay good yes sir thank you for that thank you Mr Neiman with that um item 21 was direct discussion in action regarding the higher of outside counsel for the financial oversight and audit committee foak review of misuse of public resources uh that that item was deleted or do you want to delete the item sir yes I'm yes okay so can we delete a motion do you want to have motion to delete the item s was the deletion not included in the revisions there is a motion made by representative Fierro seconded by representative Rivera to delete the item on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro Tem thank you in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously item 22 is presentation and discussion on furry fitness program and approve a resolution authorizing the city manager or his designee to approve a monthly incentive and bonus incentive to city employees as part of the furry canine Foster program incentive pilot thank you good afternoon Council Mary Michelle Wiggins Assistant Director of Human Resources and I'll be joined with my partner here I have Terry capschel director of Animal Services so we're excited to come to you today to bring two different initiatives forward that we want to make you aware of and just kind of want to present to you our first is our city of El Paso furry fitness program if we can go forward thank you so we have launched this furry fitness program and so as I'm sure you're aware we have moved some of our four-legged friends and to the other side of City one due to some space constraints so they've moved in with us so we have new neighbors and so it's important because they're in the back that we that they need to get their exercise just like we need to get our exercise so as part of our shape It Up program we've Incorporated our furry friends into our shape It Up program and so we have employees that are now volunteering during their breaks to walk our friends if you could go forward so on this anybody who comes down the location is at 501 East Mills so it's on the side over here for anyone who wants to participate and we're doing it Monday through Sunday it needs to be during the employees working hours so it needs to be and it can't be like a volunteer it has to be during their working hours during their breaks and right now we have it anywhere from 8 A.M to 10 30. we wish we could do it longer but because the sun is getting so hot on the asphalt and their feet can't handle it so we're having to compact it right now from 8 to 10 30 that we're doing these walks go forward so right now what we're doing the walking is inside the perimeter so if you go in the back there's a back parking lot back there and so they're walking in the back parking lot of the perimeter we've walked it and if you do the entire perimeter it's about a quarter of a mile so when they go down they're able to walk them do about three or four rounds you know around the parking lot so the employees get in their walk the dogs are getting their walk and we're asking for any employees that are in the downtown footprint so it could be you know anyone who can kind of like walk here in the downtown area we're asking them to come and participate okay just want to add real quick I want to thank the mayor this was his idea with respect to the walking and then also he had indicated also which was a good recommendation as well let's do it in the morning because of how hot it is and be hot for the on the asphalt for the dog's Paws so thank you for that mayor yes sir and then we also talked about getting different um type of leash that we're going to get so that same day I asked Terry kepchal to get those purchased and to not use the rope leashes anymore yeah great that's great great thank you no thank you that was another good recommendation all right so how do employees sign up so um with the help of it who jumped on you know with us on this very quickly we were able to put together a calendar so we had this great calendar that you can just go into right now we have it in uh 10 minute sign ups you know while we're working out the specifics we're going to probably bring hopefully that down to five minutes eventually but right now while we're working it out we have it in 10 minutes so the employee just goes to the website you can see where it is on the mile Paso site you go on there you're just going to click and then you get to pick the day and time that you want to go walk it has a release that you'll sign and you know authorizing your supervisor knows where you're at and everything so you'll complete the online waiver we want to make sure before employees show up though that you have on full length pants closed toe shoes and no heels in some of these cases the dogs will walk you instead of you walking the dog so make sure that you have uncomfortable shoes that are going to keep you safe on that and just to kind of go back to the um before I go on to the Foster pilot program the other thing I wanted to expand on is as part of the shape It Up program each employee who signs up and comes down and walks one of the canines is going to get two wellness points towards their shape it up so that's very important that you're going to get credit for that as well so we're just trying to encourage participation another program so we're going to expand even further is we have our furry canine Foster pilot program that's a mouthful and so for our first 100 employees that sign up what we are recommending is we want to be able to the employees who sign up they can get to up to 200 a month for fostering one of our furry canines plus well let's back up a little bit of what they have to do so if you're going to foster a K-9 that means that you you know you're taking them home but you're also you're taking care of them in the hopes that they're going to find a forever home and who knows that forever home might be your home but if it's not you're agreeing to help to find a foster home for you know for the pet and so if you do if you're helping us to do that you will also get a 100 bonus for any any um of the canines that find a forever home and you know I've seen some like on Facebook and different things I've seen some dogs that are on there that I see specific people that are listing the dogs on the program and I didn't know what it was I kind of was trying to figure out how they had these dogs and they were trying to you know find homes for these dogs in participating with Terry on this I Now understand that these are people who have you know were taking Fosters into their home and they're they're actively trying to find homes and so that's what we're hoping our employees are going to do as well is that they will take these they're going to give them you know lots of love they're going to give them that loving home but they're also going to be active in trying to find that forever home so let's see what have I not told you um they go to there trying to find adoption and then the employee will also be supplied with the food the employee doesn't have to worry about the food they're typically given about two weeks about two weeks supply of food so we want to make sure they're well taken care of so again it's just for the first 100 employees that volunteer to do this there's two different addresses that you could so in order to get one you would need to go to one of the two addresses either on Fred Wilson or over here at 501 East Mills that we have here they would go they would show up they would fill out there's an application to be able to do so and then we will work with Terry to be able to work out all the specifics and everything and that is it um so in order to move forward on the second one though of course we would need an amended budget resolution for this so we would need Council to take action if Council does approve this going forward Terry and I are going to work together and we're going to put together a policy that's going to work in coordination to make sure we have everything worked out and it works best for the employees and our our friends is there anything you wanted to add um Terry capsule Animal Services director just a reminder that on that Foster program it is just like any other Foster program Animal Services we will provide all the supplies they need so if they needed to Candle at their home not just the dog food everything else the their vaccinations when they need to come in for those booster shots just like a regular Foster program so we continue with on on that way yeah is what is the funding source for this the funding soars Animal Services okay yeah and is there a limit of the number of employees who can participate in each program are you capping them I mean I don't think we're going to have like 3 000 people signed up but just you know asking for the sake of asking too many questions for the Foster pilot programs it's 100 it's the first 100. okay first 100 I'm sorry I think you said that too I apologize um okay good I'll make a motion to approve Mr Price here we do have public comment on this item we received a statement from Mara kinsberg and Vargas and it reads good evening I fully object to adoption of the above mentioned resolution here and after the the resolution let me rephrase that in a scenario in which one a city shelter would actually be a no-kill shelter two while maintaining an open intake policy three with several satellite locations with enough space so no euthanasia other than for Humane reasons is necessary for that actively spays and neuters dogs and cats free of charge without a long waiting list five with plenty of Animal Control Officers enforcing the prohibition of unlicensed breeding and the sale of pets and abandonment and actually picking up every stray that get reported six and educates the people including kids about animal welfare and breed and sale restrictions the resolution might be a well-like intended idea although I would need some revisions as to the recipient of such incentive for example the recipient should not be limited to just city employees but it should be for everyone who Fosters and rescues stray animals for the city the majority of the animal rescuers are not city employees and the resolution how well intended it might be is that is of discriminatory nature why don't non-city employees animal rescuers including myself get an incentive for doing animal controls the city's work I have been trapping and securing dogs for over a year now as soon as I move to El Paso and it cost me so far thousands of dollars for equipment gas missed work hours transportation to get dogs out of the heat El Paso dog food Etc this is ridiculous in conclusion I urge you to not adopt the resolution but rather spend that money on the purposes as mentioned in one in five if not I am convinced someone will challenge the resolution in court sincerely kinsbergen Vargas the next statement was submitted by Anne McDowell it reads wire city workers more important than anyone else who might Foster animals I do not support the proposed resolution agenda item 22 furry canine Foster program pay everyone or no one thank you and McDowell next statement was submitted by Catherine magni and it reads I'm writing to let you know that as a citizen of El Paso I'm opposed to this resolution please find another way to deal with this issue no on agenda item number 22 Catherine e Manji the next statement was submitted by Barbara Valencia and it reads representative Fierro I'm sending you this email to be read into the record regarding city council meeting for May 9 2023 in regard to agenda item 22 the furry canine Foster program as you know Animal Services has closed intake to healthy stray and lost animals for almost three months with no intentions of opening intake to all the animals in the foreseeable future in fact closed intake has been going on in some form for another three years during this whole time it has been the local rescues and kind-hearted citizens of El Paso that have been taking in and caring for many of the Stray and lost animals they are the ones doing Animal Services job yet they receive no assistance from the city financially or otherwise for these animals offering Financial incentives for one group of people while not offering it to others that are doing the same thing is unfair fostering for Animal Services is one of the there are many volunteer programs the definition of volunteering is to freely offer to do something people Foster because they want to not because they will get paid to do it the City by passing this resolution and implementing this program will be turning the dogs and puppies Into Cash cows for city employees to make extra money these dogs and puppies are living breathing beans are not to be used as aiming for city employees to supplement their income or to make a quick buck with the taxpayers money that money can be used in other ways to actually help those in the community that have taken on the task of taking in and caring for the Stray and lost animals in our city I strongly urge city council to not pass this resolution thank you for your time and consideration in this matter Barbara Valencia Huckleberry Hound Dog Rescue the next statement was submitted by Karen Washington and it reads Karen Washington and positive Rescuers of El Paso is against this Prairie fitness program to be discussed at tomorrow's city council meeting the next speaker is Paulo Powell good afternoon Miss Powell you have three minutes good afternoon mayor and Council Paula Powell Best Friends Animal Society I wanted to stay and comment this afternoon on the furry fitness program and the Furry canine Foster pilot program because it's two of my favorite things Fitness and our furry friends I think it's an amazing Innovative approach to help solve our capacity issues that we're showing at El Paso Animal Services it's a great way to involve the community members who are city employees community members who are city employees in the solution Sydney employee benefits and our HR department continue to find ways to take care of employees and care about their Fitness and well-being I mean that was when I was a city employee it was great all the different programs and incentives that um our HR department came up with really came to light and made me the fit person that I am today so this is just another one of those and I think it's amazing cross-departmental collaboration to solve Community issues is the best use of taxpayer dollars the HR department the animal services department and all of the other city employees who have departments that cross collaboration is going to continue and expand with this type of program this program is a pilot certain mistakes will be made but that is what is so great about a pilot you can measure impacts and make changes before it's a big program that causes a Ruckus right when complete I see this being replicated in other communities much like your rescue Runner program must much like your Standalone scanner that you have that's in a pilot program and it's going through some difficulties now but that's why it's in a pilot so we're working out those difficulties as a community multiple departments so I come in both HR and animal services this is an amazing Innovative approach it's not best friends I tell you it's these two back here so congratulations and mayor congratulations on a amazing proposal thank you thank you yes ma'am I wanted to just make a statement I I you know listening to those public comments I do understand why people who Foster or especially other rescues could feel a little bit why your employees and not us and so I wanted to say that you know we are extremely appreciative to all of the people who have showed up all of the other rescues who have showed up to help animal services and I think um mayor you can maybe speak a little bit more to you know there are some limitations we have with purchasing with giving out money to other individuals or organizations that are not city employees they don't know if you can clarify that a little bit well I mean so we we have control you know over our own employees we have our own funding sources so to go out into the community you know as you say anello would be to go into a whole purchasing and we get into a whole different demeanor on that and like Paula said I mean this is a pilot project um we probably are going to make some mistakes but that's how we're going to learn and we can make it better from there we want to see how this works we want to encourage those that may not even be thinking you know about you know having pets or whatever so Justin in starting the um the furry fitness program we've even started getting emails from people who say you know I live in a small place I can't you know I can't have a dog or I can't afford a dog but you know it was fabulous that I got to go out there and walk a dog so it's it's feeding different um different things for different people you know it's the whole mental health piece and so we're also trying to tie this back into you know mental health I mean today we we talked about mental health earlier at Council we're tying back mental health you know with our employees uh you know the the dogs they need that you know extra love our employees they also need that extra love during these trying times and so we're trying to just to work out what we can do and putting those two needs together you know and coming up with a solid product um we let us work through this work through some of the things and I think it's going to be a great success I I think that um I think we're going to see you know lots of fruits come from this and many different things not just the dogs I think it's going to be great for our employees as well and we do understand you know we do understand the public um yeah and and I just wanted that for like edification you know if it was a means of paying individuals for Fosters you know we do that we apprec we would do that we we appreciate them it's a lot more complicated for the city to do something like that but I think for our Fosters we do Supply food we do correct yeah so we do do what we can in in terms of supplies to show that appreciation but I just I wanted to make the statement to the the people who submitted those comments like I understand where they're coming from I you know I hear that I would maybe feel the same way but it is a little bit more complicated and we're very appreciative to all the volunteers Who come out and walk the dogs and who Foster and this program should not be um us saying the opposite that's that's not what we're doing here we're trying to broaden uh the I guess the reception to these kind of programs so again thank you all for putting that together the goal is to not the goal is to stop paying our employees so that because we don't have any dogs left to Foster that that is the end goal is to not have to and hey I mean I agree with that mental health thing my attitude totally changed once I picked that puppy up in public comments I mean it's like a very real thing thank you all thank you and I think it's important we think out the box you know they come in and say we don't do anything we sit there and we're overcrowded and and we're just sitting there on our hands and every week they come and they get upset and we still didn't do anything you know we're thinking outside the box to do something and to help the overcrowded so we can continue to bring stress in and continue to unite dogs for their families so I do thank you all for thinking outside the box and you know it's a part of the program and we'll figure out how to make it work representative apparel mayor we still have more public comp when you're ready you still have more to read yes okay we'll go ahead and uh I'll let represent Pirro go ahead and then we'll finish the list thank you mayor and thank you very much for this great idea I did want to ask is it possible to bring one of those puppies to every meeting for the mayor Pro tem I have been asking for City Hall dogs for years I just want to say that thank you go ahead it wasn't my idea I believe it was the city manager's idea but you know we're gonna make it work big success the next statement was submitted by Paula Wright and it reads I absolutely do not support agenda item 22 why is this limited to city employees and how would you even come up with the idea to have it for city employees what city employees not do this for free like the rest of us have been doing who will monitor the city employees who are fostering to make sure the animal is being well cared for will there be a home check prior to animals going into these homes I'm in an individual that has picked up many Strays both cats and dogs has done many tnrs for cats does volunteer transport driving feeds feral cat colonies fostered many dogs puppies cats and kittens I have spent thousands of my own dollars doing this this idea is about as ludicrous as animal services not taking animals in Paula right the next speaker is Lisa Turner followed by Regina Wagner good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes problem here you don't even have a policy or any kind of plan laid out before you before you go and start paying people money you know are you going to inspect the homes you're going to make sure that it's safe not only for the dog but for the people inside the home if they have children if they have other animals in the home and how do you prevent an employee from being in this program and turning it into a business in other words they Foster they getting people out and they're actually this is their side business and they're being paid for by the city it's not just oh I'm going to take one dog in for a while and get it out or they'll take one and are they going to be able to take five dogs is this a perfect per dog or is it just one animal it doesn't say anything here so you know I'd like to see a policy before you all decide to start spending money and Institute a program I understand a pilot program but a pilot program will have a set of goals it will tell you what it intends to do right now it's all I see here is we're going to spend 200 a month if you take a dog and then if it gets adopted another hundred so I'd like to see something a plan before you all decide to start spending money thank you thank you Mr Turner the next speaker is Regina Wagner Regina Wagner star sixth place to unmute your telephone good afternoon you have three minutes can you hear me yes ma'am good afternoon under the Foster pilot program the shelters are over capacity and this program will help alleviate some of that animals tend not to do well in shelter environments and unwanted behaviors may start to be displaced a pup will thrive in a home and make for a smoother transition if allowed to participate in a program that allows home to home adoption foster parents can help identify unwanted behaviors and work with the pups to curb these behaviors a great example would be potty training the pub something that that is hard to do in a shelter this this is a pilot program and granted there might be an initial bumps in the road but we must recognize the benefits of this program tops will learn how to socialize with people and in some circumstances with other pets the participants the participants of the program would not do anything to jeopardize their jobs in addition the foster parents will learn to so much about their pups the likes and dislikes and this is information they can pass along to potential adopters this could also assist in helping families to find a perfect fit and reduce the return of a post adoption we're really excited about this Innovative pilot program to move dogs out of the shelter and into foster homes where they can Thrive the shelter is overwhelmed and we need Creative Solutions like this one to keep animals out of the shelter and with families today's city council the pups and I are pleading for your approval of this program please be a savior to these pups by providing them a better chance in life thank you the next speaker is Barbara Candelaria mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you ma'am for that we have representative Canales thank you mayor uh Mr capital I can see in the resolution uh sorry in yeah yeah in the resolution language it has kind of the financial portion of the policy uh is it safe to assume that because this is these are Fosters just like any other Foster that all of the policies and procedures related to fostering a dog uh through the existing process would apply here as well yes exactly so when they apply to be the Foster they still fill out the exact same paperwork any anybody would do so all that that uh contractual um obligations are all there exactly like anybody else so that none of that's different okay and that includes like the completion of the feeding log if it's a puppy for the neonatal feeding log the daily care sheet and all of those things that exactly they'll have to be be able to demonstrate that they are providing the adequate care yes sir okay that's all my questions thank you mayor yes ma'am um and then can you walk clarify for Miss Turner because I it's what I read and you've mentioned it that this is just a resolution to direct you all to come back with that policy correct I think that you all said that you'd be coming back with the actual policy because it's a non-binding resolution right so they would have to be I mean so we can um well you don't have to come back to us but you have to write that policy has not been written yet you have to write the policy and so to answer uh Ms Turner's question so it's for the first 100 and so what we would like to do is offer it to you know the first 100 um one dog but then if we aren't able to fill the 100 then we will allow up to two so so let's say you know that we are able to Foster 80 and we still have 20 left and somebody wants to come and get a second one we would allow up to two um two animals but it would not be more than two they could not but we want to allow we want to allow up to 100 people the opportunity first before allowing a second one to go to someone I think maybe an update um in the next couple months would be helpful I think that the questions were valid and this is just a resolution not the policy but I think that a follow-up on how it's going and kind of the details of that policy would be helpful for public edification yeah absolutely we're more than happy to bring back you know the success thank you ma'am with that we have a we have a motion yes mayor the motion was made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina to approve item 22. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously can we go back to item 18 please yes mayor item 18 is discussion in action to direct the city manager to prepare Parks and Recreation Partnerships and pricing options for senior fitness programs by accepting insurance and other senior fitness programs and this was submitted by representative Hernandez representative Hernandez thank you mayor if we can and and I'll just prompt you if you can move on to the next slide please um we we had met with residents um in the Gary de Palacio Fitness senior fitness program back in October and I really want to thank Dion oh thank you I really want to thank the Dion Mack and Ben five for joining us in that October meeting and we learned a lot first um the residents were really grateful for having senior fitness programs um they also brought a lot of of you know ideas and recommendations on how we can improve the programming and so I wanted to share with you some of their um you know their recommendations and how to move forward and this is what brought this item forward um and so here we you know they they've expressed the transformational changes to their lives there was a a woman who is in her 80s she just had heart open heart surgery she really credited the senior fitness program is saving her life other other residents and I think we met with about 15 residents that utilize our the senior programs at the at the senior centers and the rec centers excuse me we're talking about to carry the Palacio Rec Center they talked about how they now have more stamina they now have more balance they have more strength a lot of them have severe illnesses and this program has been really helpful not only for their Wellness but their mental health they kept going back to the building camaraderie building relationships cultivating relationships with one another they quite frankly say they love each other they call each other the to back each other up and they credit that program to the city of El Paso's senior fitness programs so what we wanted to do is share one of the ideas they had from us and and I and I remember talking to Mr Gonzalez when we opened our community centers to talk about this might be something that we can do to help get access easier to senior citizens and so you're aware senior fitness programs are available through your private insurance through Medicare and any other health care plans and let's just talk a little bit about what is the Medicare work and in Texas who qualifies Medicare is a United States federal health insurance program designed to provide and reduce the cost of health care services for those who are Medicare eligible individuals are eligible for Medicare if they meet one of the following criteria criteria if they're over the age of 65 if you're younger than 65 but if you have an eligible disability by the Social Security Administration or if you have a disease such as s e s r d or ALS in the El Paso County the statistics are are are great there are over 140 556 Medicare eligible folks living in El Paso County over a hundred thousand are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plan in El Paso that is over 71 percent of those enrolled in Medicare in El Paso and what is the silver sneakers program um the silver sneakers program is a is a program that's offered throughout the city of El Paso your ym and YWCA accept them your gyms accept them any health organizations they accept them and silver sneakers is a fitness program that provides participants access to gyms Fitness classes and wherever in their areas if you were just to go to the silver sneakers program and and their website and just type in your your address you'll find where it's available in your community it provides members with nutrition health tips and also provides a social online Wellness Community and most Medicare Advantage part C plans include a silver sneakers membership but you must first have original Medicare then selecting Medicare Advantage plan that includes silver sneakers and we we got this information from their from their website the benefits of the program is to access to conditioning classes all all exercise equipment pools and other amenities customized silver sneakers classes designed specifically for older adults and taught by trains certified instructors health education seminars healthy lifestyle events member-only online support to help with weight loss quit quitting smoking and reducing stress and um we we did a quick screenshot of if you were to type in um you know where it's available uh in El Paso you immediately see this whole lack of access to the program south of the freeway from downtown all the way to the Mission Valley um and you know we we really do see an alignment here with our new community centers one in Chinese one in the Via bajo Alameda area and then the other in the Loma land area those are all new gyms and Facilities that we have that our new gym south of the freeway and there's there's rarely any access to gym south of the freeway so these community centers that were approved by the quality of life bond in 2012 and then later open in the past couple of years really do have an opportunity to provide access to health and support to our senior citizens but it's not only the it's not the only program available for seniors we have silver and fit and that program provides its members with Fitness options Health aging resources members who like the flexibility of working out at home they can choose a online excuse me a Home Fitness kit per benefit year they may even get access to Silver and fit as Medicare beneficiaries through many insurance companies such as Medicare Advantage and supplement plans the benefits again for that program is resources Library full of online classes healthy aging videos they they provide coaching they have access to networks and fitness centers they have fitness center studios and Unique Fitness over 4 000 premium locations and then there's another program called active and fit direct it's a flexible and comprehensive low-cost fitness program offered through the American specialty Health Fitness Inc to help individuals become more active it provides a broad range of fitness and health care programs nationally and it's only available through AAA your employer or your health plan the benefits for this program is there's no long-term contract flexibility to switch fitness centers anytime activity tracking through the active and fit direct connected tools which aggregate data from over 250 wearable Fitness devices and apps exercise equipment online classes to help get started and exercise setup routines um and we we did a quick search online to see which Texas cities are providing senior fitness programs that are accepting some of these uh health insurance private insurance Medicare and we found that the City of Denton Texas Portland Dennison city of Athens Tyler Texas and San Antonio and full transparency I did not issue any open records requests these are um you know just quick online search engine searches and we found that they were promoting these programs either through news releases or their websites or through senior newsletters and you know we felt that based on the conversations with our management and with this wonderful senior fitness group we do have an opportunity to help access our gyms at low-cost or no cost to Residents I do recognize that we already provide low fees for our seniors but when seniors are have insurance I you know I think it's just so important that we allow for them to utilize their own care to pay for these per programs so that they can keep those additional funds in their pockets and this is a request that was made by the public they they want to see the city be more friendly with senior fitness program insurance plans and so the request today is to direct the city manager to prepare a partnership and pricing options with senior fitness programs by accepting insurance and Senior fitness programs such as but not limited to active and fit silver sneakers AARP renew silver and fit and prepare a scheduling fee for the upcoming fiscal year and to work with the city manager to to provide calendar period enrollment to allow for either a monthly fee a six-month fee or annual membership fee and you know the other thing I wanted to mention is that I know that the parks department has done a full review of all the programs they have for seniors and what they had expressed to us is that they have over 400 classes of senior programs and of which about 25 percent of them are free of charge and they may that may have changed since the last time we've spoken but you know there's so so much work that we're doing here and there's an opportunity to kind of kind of put all of this into a package share share with the senior citizens all of the programs we have provide them an option for a low fee either monthly or annually or every six months and I think what's really great about this proposal that it comes directly from our seniors who are utilizing our rec centers and so on on behalf of my constituents and I should say they're not only my constituents they did they did introduce themselves some of them live very close to the album Park area a lot of them came from across the city because they love the program so much and so we would like to explore how we can provide that that program and accept that insurance in this upcoming fiscal year but I'd like to hear more from the Department to see if that might be something we might be able to do this fiscal year or if that's if there's more due diligence that's going to be required to to get that on at a quicker time sure thank you see on Mac Deputy city manager it was a delight to meet with the team out at that Center and we also heard this as one of the priorities at our latest neighborhood Summit and so we've begun to do the research and homework we've been in contact with silver sneakers we will continue to gather information and data and at least have some options available for our community we feel that this is a great complement to our live active and in our be well program that's being run by our public health department and so we will be prepared doing the budget cycle to have that information available as well as look at the packages that are being recommended in terms of the membership groupings as we consider the budget for the next fiscal year thank you for that and we're out of time so thank you is there a motion needed and so I would move to approve there's a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Rivera to approve item number 18 on that motion call for the vote representative thank you and the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Kennedy and anello not present thank you Council that brings us to items 23-36 these are the first reading of ordinances there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Salcido to approve the first reading of ordinances items 23-36 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Kennedy anello not present that brings us to item number 37. item 37 is discussion and action on a resolution that the city manager be authorized to sign a two-year on-call agreement for Professional Services for environmental services at the El Paso International Airport on a test by test basis between the city of El Paso and wsp USA environment and infrastructure Inc and Professional Services Industries Inc move to approve Motion in a second here's the motion made by representative Edna II by representative Rivera to approve item 37. on that motion call for the vote mayor I had a question yes sir go ahead I think this is a question for staff um the two recommended uh company or bidders says they have local offices in El Paso are either or both of them based in El Paso this is Jerry you're on with capital Improvement program neither are based in El Paso but they have a rather large presence okay and I know there were six bidders overall where any of the six local local companies uh yes there were some of the sixth I'd have to look at the presentation no none of the six were headquartered here none of the six headquartered in El Paso okay um did the of the six then did some receive the bonus points for uh having their El Paso locations or was it all of the six some of the six for these type of procurements we don't have have a program for uh uh an El Paso preference that strictly applies to uh construction bids if the bids are within 10 of one another I understood okay I appreciate you answering my questions thank you Jerry thank you thank you voting session is open Council in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item number 38 is discussion in action that the city manager be authorized to sign a contract 2023-0338 single and multi-purpose police service dog with a qualified vendors identified in exhibit a to this resolution there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Salcido to approve item number 38 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item 39 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0329 plants and trees to Sierra Vista wholesale Growers Inc what was that another motion there is public comment on this item from Miss Turner no okay her question has been answered there's a motion made by mayor Pro tem anelo seconded by representative Canales to approve item 39. on that motion call for the vote voting session is open thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously there are the next two items are EP water items would you like to take them together yes ma'am thank you item 40 is a public hearing on an orange establishing a municipal drainage utility system extendable commercial paper program and authorizing the issuance of program obligations item 41 is a public hearing on an ordinance authorizing the issue of city of El Paso Texas Municipal drainage utility system revenue refunding bonds good afternoon mayor and Council for the record Paul Braden with Norton Road slowbright Bond Council to the city I'm just going to make a couple of preliminary technical corrections to the two ordinances that are being considered before Mr Duran does the presentation so with respect to the first ordinance and we provided these change pages to the city clerk expected the first in section 4.01 D which is on page 29 of the ordinance there is a Time referenced in that section that says 1 30 that time actually should be 12 o'clock so in two places in that section that is corrected and then with respect to the second ordinance there's a change being made to the definition on page eight the definition is being conformed to the first ordinance so that the two definitions are the same so subordinating lean obligations now will be defined as means each series of bonds notes and other debt obligations payable from and secured by a lien on and Pledge of the net revenues of the system Junior and subordinate in rank and dignity to the lean and pledge securing the payment of the bond similarly secured and then one more correction to that ordinance it's in section 8.01 B as in boy that's on the page 22 of that ordinance and that section now reads and this is just to conform it with the fact that the ECP program is being adopted the city of El Paso Texas Municipal drainage utility system revolving no payment fund the no payment fund tier 2-4 created by prior city ordinance hereby reaffirmed and shall be maintained for the benefit of the holders of the subordinate lien obligations those were technical Corrections in order for this to move forward thank you good afternoon CFO for El Paso water welcome back thank you sir on behalf of the utility we want to thank you for your support on the last two fun issues we're going to be pricing next week and hopefully we have a successful transactions this one is for the financing for stormwater projects the CIP projects for the utility we plan to do 70 million dollars a year for the next 10 years to complete master plan projects so what we did the the current line of credit that we have is for 25 million dollars and that one is going to expire in June 19th of 2023 so we needed a new financing tool to accomplish the the goal the goal is to complete CIP projects so with data and RFP and we did get five proposals and on this one we Rank and based the the main component on this one was on the experience then do they have with this extendable commercial paper and we did get two proposals that did have experience with the extendable commercial paper uh we did do our due diligence and we did make reference calls and all the reference calls were positive so we want to propose recommending Morgan Stanley as the dealer for the extendable commercial paper and uh prove their recommendation for a line of credit up to 60 million dollars the other thing with this extendable commercial paper is if you don't use it you don't pay any fees if you do do drawdowns you'll be 10 basis points which is 0.1 percent so it's very efficient I think one of the comments was how are we being Innovative in financing this is one of the ways that the utility has been Innovative in financing for our CIP projects one of the other requirements that is by State statue is a parameters resolution so you're familiar with the parameters resolutions that we do on the bonds the only difference on this ones is the this is for 365 days for for one year so you're giving us the authorization if needed to issue bonds up to 61.2 million we did change the maximum printers cost we had 10 percent before on our presentation we met with city council Representatives we lowered that one to six point seven five percent which is uh two percent higher than the current rates and with that if approve we'll go ahead and move forward and complete this transaction by next month that way we can continue with our funding for our CIP projects for some water and with that I'll open it for any questions that the city council may have and of course storm orders to prevent flooding and Public Safety exactly okay do we have any motion second here we do have problems yeah we can hear the public comment first if that's okay we can hear the public comment first if that's okay is there any public comment Ms turner oh go ahead Mr I'm 41. so let me understand this correctly we're Now setting up a total of two more commercial paper programs correct [Music] so we've got one for 80 million dollars one for 60 million one for 61.2 million uh ah this is already included in the budget poured water correct this is already in the budget for Lush for this won't increase the Bills moving forward because it's already been included in the budget no last meeting was uh you additional borrowed 129 192 million in change 40 million it went to reset the uh their original commercial paper to their 80 million now we're adding two more commercial paper programs one was 60 million one was 61.2 Million giving you a grand total of over 200 million dollars in commercial paper at which they can issue in whenever they so please which eventually ends up in my water bill and that 192 million is not in our water bill yet because they haven't borrowed it yet they hadn't paid a single penny in interest or return and the same thing with this I I just wish I mean we're spending all this money and we've yet to dig one foot of trench to bring water from West Texas and by the time they get around to realizing that that we need that water and this will be a dried up will be like Red Sands there'll be nothing out there no if I'm not mistaken Miss Turner they did back in 16 somewhere around there they purchased and spent 500 million dollars to bring water into the area and it was guaranteed basically for an additional 50 years of water if I'm not mistaken I mean we all land in West Texas but I think it was yeah but it was a very very memorable in any pipeline yeah well they said we got 50 years and I volunteered to stay around make sure it works so yeah with growth you won't see it in 50 years volunteered no charge such as four clarification the line of the line of credit for commercial paper that we have on the Water and Sewer utility remember it's two separate utilities is is for 80 million and the board did approve 40 million to refund outstanding notes that one was done on the on the last city council meeting this is for the stone water utility and it's only one extendable commercial paper program for 60 million the 61.2 million is if we need to refund it that's the amount that we're asking for your approval if there's a need if there's no need we don't use it but again this is included in the it's included on the on the current charge for the stone Water fee 5.66 for the typical commercial residential customer thank you Professor Canales thank you mayor um yeah simple comment I just wanted to say thank you for reducing the maximum true interest costs uh cap I know that was basically the only question that I had outstanding from when we met um you know you give a very thorough presentation as always and that makes me feel better seeing the 6.75 so thank you thank you thank you would have a motion in a second yes mayor the motion was made by representative Kennedy seconded by alternate mayor Pro temolinar this is to approve 40 and 41 correct yes ma'am thank you on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative not present thank you everyone thank you that brings us to item number 46. item 46 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from rfh Ranch and farm historic to r-4-h with residential historic at 246 South Side Road there is a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by Representatives Salcido to approve item 46 there is no public comment on that motion call for the vote boarding session is open item 46 thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item 47 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from C3 commercial and c3sc Commercial special contract to see four commercial and C4 SC commercial special contract and imposing conditions at 10202 Dyer Street second there is public comment on this item from Mr mancera good afternoon sir you have three minutes good afternoon my entryman Sarah I uh I represent the property owner and as per the Lobby ordinance I introduce myself I did I thought there was going to be a discussion and you never know that's why I'm here I'm glad that we were able to address an issue that was brought up by a local resident uh concern about the uh noise and the dust that was going over the plot to the property to the residential area and uh with the conditions that were imposed I think that tremendously alleviates and addresses that that issue so she was very happy so my client Concourse with the staff recommendation and we appreciate your support thank you thank you we have a motion yes sir the motion was made by mayor Pro temanello second bit by alternate mayor Pro temolinar to approve item 47 public comment has been taken call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item 48 is a public hearing on an ordinance granting a special permit to allow for an infill development with reductions to average lot lot width front and side yard setbacks and a 75 percent parking reduction at 916 South St Rain Street there's a motion made by representative Granada seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 48 there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item 49 is a public hearing on an ordinance granting a special permit to allow for infill development with a reduction in lot area average lot width rear yard setback and cumulative front and rear yard setback at 5833 Macias Street move to approve there's a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina to approve item 49 there's no public comment call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 50 is a public hearing on an ordinance granting a special permit to allow for info development with reductions to average lot width front-end side yard setbacks and a 75 percent parking reduction at 708 South Saint Vrain Street move to approve there's a motion made by representative Canales seconded by representative Rivera to approve item number 50. there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote and the voting session the motion passes unanimously that brings us to the end of the agenda there's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed oh the regular city council meeting for Tuesday May 9 2023 is adjourned at 2 58 pm thank you okay you'll have a good week cheers give us this nice uh hey you know um yes sir absolutely and I kept looking at Christian's face I'll be right there and I said nothing soon thank you