Microphone. Microphone test. Sound test. Microphone test. Yes. Microphone test. Microphone test. Microphone test. Hello. Hello. Well, good morning everyone. We are going to get started. Good morning, mayor. Good morning. Good morning, El Paso. Good morning, city council. Miss Prime, we're ready to go to work. Good morning. If everyone will please take their seats, the meeting can be get started. Good morning. This is a meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Prom Chavez, Representative Asdo, Representative Maldonado Roachcha, Representative Boy Trejo, Representative Nino, alternate mayor Prom Fero, and Representative Lemon. It is 9:02 a.m. Will everyone please silence your electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by El Paso Police Chaplain Rabbi Levi Greenberg. Good morning. I brought my own today. So I'll start off with an act of charity. Sovereign of the world, look favorably upon the mayor and the members of the city council and all of us gathered here today and bestow upon us all the joy of life, good health, and prosperity. Bless these distinguished individuals who have been chosen to make laws and decisions for the citizens of our city with the wisdom and understanding in their noble pursuit of justice and equality. This is not only a civic responsibility but also a holy endeavor. Our tradition teaches of seven universal laws given to mankind by God through Noah, including the instruction to foster a moral society governed by law. These laws also include the importance of serving God alone, respecting God's name, and the prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery, and cruelty against all living creatures. Grant us all the wisdom to appreciate your kindness in gifting us a new day with new opportunities to bring more goodness and kindness to our world. After Passover, the festival of redemption, there is a Jewish tradition to count the days until the anniversary of the revelation at Sinai, which occurred seven weeks after the Exodus. After the Israelites were granted their freedom, they joyfully counted down the days until they would be told of their responsibilities at Sinai, how they would play an integral part in perfecting our universe together with all that exists. We count the days to express the fact that every day is truly valuable. Time is our most precious commodity and it is up to us to make every moment count to utilize our time to bring healing and joy to others thereby bringing peace and tranquility to ourselves and the entire world. Almighty God, give this honorable council guidance so that they will always be conscious of your presence and will strive to enact laws with honesty and integrity in accordance with your will. May our city serve as a beacon of light for people of all faiths and walks of life. And let us say, amen. Thank you, Rabbi. And this morning to lead us in the pledge of allegiance we have students from Congressman Sylvestra and Karolina Reyes Elementary at the invitation of Mayor Pro Tim Chavez. We have Ivana Vong, Joanna Vong, Malachi Borggas, Luciana Edmonds Stoino, Mey Smith, Jaden Webster, Ian Rubio, Marlon Lawrence, Jack Young, and Mika Dominguez. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America. America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee. One state. [Applause] Red promise to make the dream work by being kind, safe, respectful, and responsible today, tomorrow. [Applause] I don't know how to get All right. There we go. And then take a step back for me. And then everyone All right. Ready? One, two, three. [Applause] How are you doing? What a treat it was to have uh Congressman Sylvester Reyes and and Catalina Reyes Elementary here this morning. And also they got a mayor's challenge coin. So they're part of my teams of excellence. So uh we want to thank them for coming out. That was a real treat. Miss Bryan, our proclamations. Yes, sir. For those of you receiving a proclamation, your group will have up to six minutes collectively to speak at the podium. That brings us to the mayor's proclamations. The first proclamation this morning is National Police Week. Representative Mino. Thank you, Mayor. If we could have the police department come up forward, please. So, proclamation for the 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 have been killed in the line of duty, including including 2,16 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 DC. And whereas by joint resolution approved on October 1st, 1962, Congress authorized and President John F. Kennedy book proclaimed May 15th of each year peace officers Memorial Day in honor of those who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty. Further designating the calendar week in which May 15th falls as police week. And whereas in the city of El Paso, Texas, and every American community, law enforcement officers with the El Paso Police Department are committed to the preservation of life, property, risking their lives to protect us from those who would defy the law, providing law and order, and service the cause of justice. And whereas the city of El Paso and the state of Texas honor the heroism and of our law enforcement officers, especially those who have given their lives so that others might live, asking God's blessings for the family and friends they left behind. And whereas in the 152-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, Texas, during Police Week, the NA the nation's flags will be flown at half staff on Peace Officers Memorials Day under public law 103-322 as amended. Now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and the council of the city of El Paso, Texas that the week of May 11 through May 17, 2025 shall be known as National Police Week and that May 15, 2025 shall be known as El Paso Police Officers Memorial Day signed by the Honorable Mayor Bernard Johnson. Thank you. Good morning, Chief. Good morning, Mayor Council. Thank you very much for this proclamation. Um, not just for the police department, more importantly for the 35 families uh that gave the ultimate sacrifice. Those families didn't know that their officer was never going to return home that night. They knew the risk that their officers were involved in. The officers know the risks uh every day by putting on the uniform and going out there to serve our community. Uh all their tomorrows were given up for the community of El Paso. 35 families since the inception of our 152y year history. It's no coincidence that uh u Memorial Day for police officers in the military is also the same month as as mothers mother's day. The example of sacrifice uh and the willingness to to give up uh oneself or somebody else. the US military uh guaranteed the uh the freedoms that we uh uh live under the US Constitution, but it's the police officer that goes out every single day and serves uh under the Constitution to make sure people are able to live their uh lives uh uh in liberty and freedom and enjoy what this country offers them. cannot say enough about the officers that every day they go out, they don't get to pick the call. The call picks them uh out there. They they don't know uh what they're facing. We have incredible individuals that go out every single day and serve this community. And that's not just the uh men and women in the uniform. It's our civilian staff, too. I don't want to take up too much time because I would like uh uh our funeral committee that puts all this together to talk about the the things that are happening this week uh to honor our fallen officers and all officers across the United States that have given their ultimate sacrifice. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Lieutenant Limpard. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. So like uh Chief was saying, we do have a couple of events that we have this week that we honor our fallen. It started off yesterday. We did do uh graveyards to clean up at the cemetery to make sure that their grave sites are always looking nice and sharp and that's just some small token that we can do for the fam families. And also today we're here at the proclamation. And then also on Friday we have um the memorial police memorial which is going to be out in Northeast at Chuck Henrich Park. It's off of John Cunningham and um Andrew Officer Andrew Barceno. And you guys are all welcome to attend. It's open to the public. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Good morning, Sartida, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association. I want to thank you all for taking the time this morning to honor u like the chief said, not only our fallen officers, but their families. Uh the families and the community are the ones that have to endure the pain and the sorrowness every single day. Not just the week or the day of uh the memorials that are set. Uh yes, we put up memorials, we put up uh placards, we put up their names on a wall. So we come together once a year as a family in blue. But it's the family that they left behind that we need to think about each and every day because those are the families that gave their sons, their daughters all across this country and this city and this county so that we could be free. So for that I thank you very much. Thank you. With that, mayor and council, I'd like uh our funeral committee and all those involved in these events to introduce themselves for public record. Good morning. Uh thank you for having us. Sergeant Akuna, I oversee the funeral committee and the honor guard of this department. Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Um, officer David Aaran. I'm chairman for the El Paso Police Department Funeral Committee. Good morning. Morning, Mayor, City Council, Assistant Chief Biones. I also have the honor to work with the funeral committee. They do an awesome job. So, we're very blessed. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, executive chief Victor Seud. I want to thank council and leadership for all their support and the hard work done by the funeral committee. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, mayor, city council. My name is Cynthia Yinyaga. I am a funeral committee board member. Good morning. Good morning and thank you for the support. My name is Astred Van. I'm a funeral committee board member for the El Paso Police Department. Good morning. Thank you very much for this recognition. We appreciate it. And and Chief, uh before you guys leave, we we just want to say thank you to each and every one of you. And we understand the the sacrifice that you guys take every day by just putting on that uniform and representing this community. to know that you may not come home once you put on the uniform in the morning and when you go out to do the service that you do. We cannot thank you guys enough because it is a job that most of us will never ever understand or know what you guys do. But we thank you. Your community thanks you. You have kept this community very very safe for many many years and we are very honored to to have the National Police Week uh here today in your recognition. And for all the fallen officers across not only El Paso but across the country, please know that our thoughts and prayers are with the families. Thank you. And I know every single officer on the department would say that all of you and every person in this community is worth the the sacrifice and the work they do. Wow. Thank you so much, Chief. [Applause] Is it a push or is it a push or a pull? Is it a And then the crookedness of the here. Yeah, I couldn't find him either. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, that works. All right, big smiles right over here. Ready? One, two, three. Couple more just in case. Ready? One, two, three. Thank you. One, two, three. That's good. Thank you so much. Of course. And the next proclamation is coach Tony Harper D. Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor. If uh Coach Harper and his family and friends and Spanky, principal, any other staff members, students, good morning. This is a proclamation of the city of El Paso. Whereas coach Tony Harper, a distinguished figure in high school basketball, began his coaching career at the young age of 22 and has since amassed an extraordinary 1,159 victories over the course of his brilliant career. And whereas coach Harper has dedicated the last 11 years to Cathedral High School, competing in the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools Division, where he has been a mentor, leader, and inspiration to countless student athletes. And whereas a proud graduate of the University of Tehas El Paso and a protetéé of legendary coach Don Haskins, Coach Harper has not only brought technical skill to the game, but also instilled in his players values of perseverance teamwork and sportsmanship. And whereas over his esteemed career, Coach Harper has made significant contributions to multiple schools in our community, including Burgess High School, El Paso High School, Montwood High School, and Cathedral High School, leading Montwood to the region 15A title game in 2006, and Cathedral to the TAP's final four in 2014. And whereas coach Harper's legacy includes coaching his sons Jason and Gregory as well as mentoring division one athletes such as Roman Martinez at the University of New Mexico, Nathan Hedgecock, US Army, and Mark McCall at UTEP. And whereas coach Harper's dedication to an individual player development and his ability to inspire and believe in his athletes has left a lasting impact as expressed by Cathedral sophomore guard Julian Scalante who said he was the first person to believe in me from a basketball perspective. And where is now entering retirement, Coach Harper looks forward to spending cherished time with his beloved wife and lifelong partner Andre while leaving behind a proud and lasting legacy of athletic excellence and mentorship. Now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso that Tuesday, May 13, 2025 shall be known as Coach Tony Harper Day, signed by the honorable mayor Renard Johnson. Congratulations, coach. Good morning, coach. Well, you need a lot of help to go through all this stuff. And standing beside me is my wife, camera person, uh, cook, baker, everything you could want. And, uh, always always there to, uh, give me the the impetus to be a guide to kids in school so they'll come out better than they went in. And uh we have a couple of uh players right here. Uh we have Come on up. Introduce Diego. This is Diego. Patrice. This is Patricio. Good morning, guys. I think the other kids are take getting ready to take a test, so you know. Uh and then uh with us today is our principal, Mr. Eduno Sanchez. Thank you. And good morning. Morning. Our assistant principal, Mr. Carlos Pores. How you doing? Carlos Porz, athletic director. Good morning. And a a person who played for me uh and was a very good basketball player. uh he an ex Burgess Mustang and I still stay in contact him uh to this very day. Mr. Joe Rosales. Joe, good morning. Mayor, council members Joe Rosales. Good morning. Thank you. Back in the back is my youngest son. I wish he was that big when we played. He was a very good player, an excellent student. Uh he worked for the paper uh for a long time and he's a great guy to have around. Still uh my number one Jason Harper. Hey, Jason. Thank you. Oh, sure. Joe wants to say something. Oh, okay. Mr. Rosales. you don't know the importance or maybe maybe people do know how important role models are aside from your parents. And I played basketball in my life. My eighth grade year, ninth grade year, I still remember I went through a really bad injury at MacArthur High School. And I uh it was just a something between me and the coach. I was always very respectful, but the coach kind of took it out of me. I had an injury, almost lost my leg, and then my dad got all over him. So, he he wouldn't play me, and he took my confidence like you can't imagine. And I remember one day, Coach Harper comes from Burgess High School and we just finished a game and I was very low on my confidence and he said, "Don't worry, son. you will be a player and you will play for me. And it lifted me up like you can't imagine. And this is the man that I know to this day. If he tells me to go run a baseline right now, I'll run a baseline. And it just the love that I have for coach, the strict coach, the great coach that he was. And I played for another good coach, Dolan Richardson. We were national champs. This coach could have gone as far as he wanted to, not just high school ball. I'm sure he could have won several national championships in college, but it's just an honor to be able to be part of his life and the molding and the uh values and morals and he was part of my success and his lovely wife too who's always been by his side and this is great that you guys are honoring him. Lily Mayor, uh, I really appreciate that and thank you so much, coach, for everything you've done for me personally and all the other kids that you've coached. [Applause] Yes, I'm Andre Harper and I just want to thank all of you, city council, mayor, for this honor. We have been blessed to live in El Paso. We could have gone other places, but there are many, many reasons a person should live in El Paso. This is a wonderful city. Thanks for your direction and thank you for this honor. You're very welcome. And I'll leave you with one thing. It's been with me for my entire life. And uh before every game, my wife writes up uh individual things uh that happen in that that might happen in that game tonight or whatever. And she is the one that uh keeps me going in the right direction. It goes like this. Lives battles don't always go to the stronger, faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is a man who thinks he can. and I've I've carried that with me for 57 years. So that's how long we've been at it and we're still trying. Thank you very much. I appreciate city council people and all who are involved with basketball at El Paso. Uh and and just a a big thank you and especially to these two gentlemen back here who gave me a chance to be a coach at Cathedral High School, too. Uh, it was a blast. Thank you. You're very welcome, Representative Oto. Thank Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just wanted to say something to Coach Harper. Coach Harper. Um, it's an incredible legacy that that you've had at many different schools. And part of that legacy was at El Paso High. And my uncle was on your team. He graduated in 1988 from El Paso High. And he still talks to you to this day. talks about you to this day. So, you really have left an impact on him and I'm sure many many others. So, thank you for everything you've done to our community. Yeah. For our community. Yeah. And and coach, it's it's not often we have legends that are inside city council chambers and I have heard so many stories about you and your coaching career. Uh oh. And it stands today though. I mean, you've got you got Joe Rosales ready to do a baseline. So, I kind of wanted to see that this morning, but I've got to tell you, you know, uh you you say you're going to retire, but I don't know coaches that retire. And one of the things that you you did today that I know you've done for your entire coaching career is you've always put the team before you. You started off by acknowledging your your lovely wife. Then you went through some of the players and your son, and then you went through some of your team members. So, you're always going to be coach, and you're always going to be El Paso's coach. So, thank you for all that you've done for this city. Just remember one thing, not a lot of highs, not a lot of lows, just nice and easy all the way. Never be in a situation where you put yourself in all kinds of of of trouble. Uh, be a helper and be the kind of person uh especially if you're a dad that you'd like your kids to be. Thanks. Thank you, coach. [Applause] A new one. It's nice and shiny. I'm going to put glitter all over it. I don't know if it would be appreciated, but I'm going to do it. Thank you, guys. proclamation. I'm sorry. And for the record, Representative Gonales has joined the meeting at 9:26. Zoom on this. Thank you. That's a new lens. Yes, you guys look great. All right, perfect. Yes, that looks good. All right, big smiles. Ready? One, two, three. Couple more. Okay, few more smiles. One, two, three. More. One, two, three. Thank you so much. [Applause] Feel like I have a really supportive team. [Music] Miss Bryan. Yes, sir. The next proclamation is International Audit Awareness Month. And the proclamation reads, "Whereas internal auditing is a vital part of strengthening organizations and protecting stakeholders of both the public and private sectors. And whereas internal auditing helps identify and manage the organization's risks and ensure policies, procedures, and controls are in place and working appropriately. And whereas internal auditing is an increasingly sophisticated and complex activity requiring specialized knowledge, training, and education. And whereas internal auditing is an established profession with a globally recognized code of ethics and international standards for the professional practice of internal auditing. And whereas the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Internal Audit Profession's most widely recognized advocate, educator, and provider of standards, guidance, and certifications, celebrates its 84th anniversary in 2025. And whereas historically, the global internal audit profession promotes awareness about its value during the month of May each year. And whereas the contribution of internal auditors to the success of organizations in the global economy at large deserves our recognition and commendations. Now therefore, we are proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso, extending greetings and best wishes to all observing international internal audit awareness month, we congratulate the Institute of Internal Auditors, IIA, on its 84th anniversary and the IIA El Paso chapter on its 46th anniversary. We also invite the citizens of El Paso to join in recognizing professional internal auditors for their contribution. The month of May 2025 shall be known as international internal audit awareness month signed by our honorable mayor Renard Johnson. Good morning. Good morning Mayor Johnson and council members. My name is Nik Alvan and I am the vice president of the Institute of Internal Auditors El Paso chapter. On behalf of our chapter, I would like to sincerely thank the county of El Pas, sorry, the city of El Paso for the plamcomation recognizing May as internal audit awareness month. At this time, I would like to introduce our advocacy officer, Julie Franco, to share a few words. Good morning. Good morning, mayor, city council. The IIA is a global voice recognized authority and leading advocate for the internal audit profession. A local chapter pro proudly serves the El Paso, Texas and Lusa, New Mexico region. We have a total of 150 supporting members with which 56 are certified internal auditors. Our members work across internal auditing, risk management, governance, IT audit and related fields, helping to strengthen transparency and accountability in both public and private organizations. From July through May, we offer valuable training, education, and networking opportunities from our members while giving back to our community by partnering with local charities and organizations. We deeply appreciate your support and recognition, which helps elevate the vital work internal auditors do in safeguarding public trust and strengthening organizational integrity. Thank you so much. Thank you. [Applause] You want to introduce the rest of the team? Good morning, city council mayor. Good morning, auditor for the city of El Paso. Good morning, Esmeera. Um, auditor for the city of El Paso and secretary for the IIA El Paso chapter. Good morning. Good morning. Miguel Leas, auditor for the city of El Paso. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Serio Caro, auditor, city of El Paso. Good morning. Good morning. And congratulations to you guys. I mean, you're not acting like auditors. You guys are being very shy here today. But uh again, thank you for all the awareness and all the hard work that you guys do on a dayto-day basis. We know it's not easy and we know it's a field that uh needs a lot more awareness uh to it. And how many members did you say were 150? 150. Wow. And growing, right? Yes. Good. That is good. So, but thank you guys for the the the very hard work and detail work that you do for a number of companies, for the city, for the county, for everyone that you work for. But thank you guys for all that you do and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] And the final proclamation this morning is Mayor Walter Miller D. Represent Fier. Thank you, Mayor. Last but not least, yes absolutely. Whereas our friend, our mentor, Walter L. Miller, I probably called him Walter two other times, so it's an honor to even call you Walter, has faithfully served the residents of Horizon City since 1998, beginning his public service on the town's board of adjustments and and being elected the Horizon City to Horizon City Council in 2000. Whereas Mr. Miller's deep commitment to his community led his election as mayor in 2007, a role in which he served with distinction and guided Horizon City through a period of transformation, growth, and development. Whereas under Mr. Miller's leadership, Horizon City's population grew over 300%. from approximately 5,551 residents to 2000 in to 2000 over 24,168 residents reflecting his effective governance strategic vision for the city's expansion and whereas Mr. Miller played a key role in establishing the Horizon City Economic Development Corporation, fostering a foundation for new business opportunities, job creations, and long-term economic investments in the region. Whereas his impact extended beyond municipal boundaries and through nearly three decades in the the environmental consulting field and through his service on the El Paso Chamber board of directors, the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, where his leadership helped advocate uh regional mobility, infrastructure planning, and economic development across the El Paso area. Whereas following following his tenure as mayor, Mr. Mr. Miller continued to serve the community as place one alderman, providing continued leadership, demonstrating an enduring dedication to public service. And whereas in recognition of his outstanding contributions to local government and regional development, the Texas Senate adopted Senate Resolution number 415 on April 16th, 2025, congratulating Mr. Miller on his retirement and honoring his legacy of service. Whereas Walter L. Miller's career exemplifies the profound lasting impact of dedicated local leadership in strengthening communities, fostering civic engagement, and improving public life for generations to come. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso on May 13, 2025 shall be known as Walter L. Miller Day, signed by the honorable Renard, Mayor Renard Johnson. Thank you. [Applause] Good morning, Mayor. Well, good. Uh, mayor, council, I I certainly thank you for this award, uh, this recognition. Uh, it's been I've had a really good run in in the community. One of the the many things I guess I've learned over the years is things happen a lot better when there are there is cooperation and understanding instead of conflict. And I found that on the various boards it's easier to find the middle ground. It works out better. Um, and that's what I've I've what Horizon has become is we understand how to work with our community, how to work with our neighbors, and do what's best for the for the folks that live here in our community. So, thank you for this. I I'm not I don't particularly enjoy public speaking, so I I'm usually very brief at this. So, thank you again, and I appreciate the honor. Thank you. And and mayor, before you leave, um I just learned today your name was Walter. I mean, I've called you mayor for for for many, many, many years, and I've had the pleasure of working with you on a number of boards, and to see the great work that you've done and and the great work that you've done in the city of Verizon. And I know you're not going to be able to retire because you're always going to have your finger into something, but we want to congratulate you and and honor you today and and and have Walter Miller Day. And you will always be a mayor. And uh it's been a pleasure to to serve alongside of you. And I I look forward to that next chapter of what you've got cooking that you're not telling everybody. But we thank you for all your service and everything that you've done, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, May. [Applause] Not quite sure. Yeah. All right. All right, two. One, two, three. Two three. Thank you. [Applause] All Okay, Miss Prime. Yes, mayor. Council, per the rules of order, no use of personal cellular devices, no personal communication should take place on the deis while the meeting is in session. Once you obtain the floor from the mayor, you will have up to 10 minutes for debate and may speak twice per item. Please speak into the microphone and refrain from side conversations at the deis while the meeting is in session. Mayor, would you like to go to item one? Yes, please. And sir, there's a related item on the agenda. I don't know if you want me to also read that one into the record, please. Okay. Item one is discussion and action on a resolution adopting the rules of order for city council meetings to take effect on May 27th, 2025. Item 24 is discussion and action to allow for public comment on all agenda items as they are heard during the meeting with a threeminut time limit on each item. This item was submitted by Representative Lemon. Okay. Is there a motion? Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay, we're going to have some discussion. Miss uh Neiman, you have a Yes. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Carla Neman, for the record, can I t pull up the presentation, please? So, council, I just wanted to take an opportunity to go through the presentation for the council. So, it's intended to provide uh notice to the public in terms of the changes that the council approved this past week or two weeks ago, excuse me, and then um give you all an opportunity to ask any more questions or clarification if necessary. So, these are the highlights of the revisions that the council made. Um so, it was it was intended to be an update to the rules of order to streamline the council meetings. So, it updated the structure of the meeting. It updated the procedure for obtaining the floor for the council members. And then it combines both public comment and call to the public at 10:00 a.m. And then we have a new public comment conduct policy. And then these updates were recommended as a as a as a result of the meeting that took place on April 29th. So, here are the updated order of the of the meeting. You'll have the 9:00 a.m. pledge of allegiance. You will have ceremonial items, which are all your proclamations or recognitions. 10:00 a.m. will be the official beginning of the meeting. It'll be with a roll call and the invocation. You will have public comment on all items that are on the consent agenda and then regular agenda items. Then you will immediately proceed to call to the public, which are items that are not on the agenda. Then you will proceed to consent which is traditionally one vote of the council and then the first reading of ordinances which is also done by one read one by one vote of council and then you will immediately proceed to the public hearings. Public hearings will continue to have their own public comment period. So, if the public wants to speak on a public hearing, which is traditionally your zoning cases, as well as when the council sets their tax budget and their tax rate, that's those are public hearings. And also, when you all are issuing that, those are public hearings. So, those will still have separate public comment periods, not at 10:00 a.m. And then immediately thereafter, items that are moved to the forefront will be placed in that order. And then the council member requested items, any operational focus updates, regular agenda items, which are traditionally most of your uh resolutions contracts purchasing items, and then um executive session, and then you have also stated that you will be taking a lunch break between 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. The new U amendment to section 12, obtaining the floor. Um, specifically, each member of council has a right to speak twice on the same motion. However, a member of council cannot speak the second time until everybody else that has wait is is signed up to speak uh as council member speaks at least one time before another member gets to speak a second time. Um, no member can speak longer than 10 minutes each time and then only speak on the item that is the debatable motion. There are no time limits for members um when you are conducting a special meeting of the council. That is um up to the the the coun the mayor and the council to decide if you want to hold yourself to any other time limits at that type of a meeting. And then as you all know u Miss Prime is your parliamentarian. She will keep the time and notify the mayor if you spoken your 10 minutes. This is section 13 right of citizens to be heard. Again, as I stated earlier, public comment is scheduled at 10:00 a.m. for all consent and regular agenda items. Call to the public will begin immediately um following public comment at 10:00 a.m. And then public comment on public hearings, as I stated earlier, will continue to occur when the item is heard. Uh section 17 of your rules of ordinance, rules of order, time and the location of the meeting. This updates a separate resolution that council had and it is now part of your rules of order. It is regarding virtual attendance by the council meeting by the council members. You have up to up until 3 months before the scheduled meeting to ask to speak or to attend a meeting virtually. Your deadline to notify the clerk's office is at noon on Wednesdays. Of course, there are opportunities when there is an emergency and you cannot attend the meeting. You have until 5:00 pm the day before a regular council meeting to notify the clerk's office that you need to amend virtually and that allows the clerk to update by revision of the agenda that you will be attending virtually. Um requests are granted on a first come first serve basis and then no more than two members of council are allowed to appear virtually and and also you cannot appear virtually on back-to-back meetings. Remember that you have to have your screen on at all times and the public has to be able to see and hear you as part of the meeting. Anytime that you lose connection for a technical reason or you purposely turn off your camera, you are considered absent from that portion of the meeting. Um, I want to highlight the new exhibit C that we added to the rules of order. Um, exhibit C is now a an explanation of what the council's policy is when the public comes to speak at call to the public or public comment or when addressing the council. It provides the written policy that delineates what is appropriate conduct for members of the public who wish to speak. It provides definitions for what is considered disruptive or defamatory. you're um the the public is required to conduct themselves in the same courteous and civil manner that the council members are expected to display on the deis. Um the authority lies within the mayor's um purview to call attention to a speaker who is not keeping within these rules. The mayor is allowed to give them a warning for example if they're spoken past their time, if they're not sticking to the to the topic at hand. if they're using abusive, offensive, defamatory language, obscene language that is not permissible. Um, and the mayor has the opportunity to tell them, "I'm giving you a warning. You're you're not allowed to continue in that fashion." And then if they proceed down that path, the mayor can ask them to be escorted out of the room through the use of our law enforcement officers. And then they are banned for the rest of that meeting and that meeting only from participating in the meeting. However, they would be able to allow to return as long at a future meeting as long as they're not behaving in the same fashion that got them kicked out in the first place. Um, are there any questions? Representative Canales. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I I want to be exceptionally clear about what's being proposed and and what exactly it would look like during a meeting because I've heard a lot of incorrect information over the last few days. uh a lot of misunderstanding of what the proposed changes are. Uh so, Miss Neman, I'll ask you to just confirm these things as I say them. Public comment on agenda items beginning at 10:00 a.m. will have no aggregate time limit, right? There can be an unlimited number of speakers at 3 minutes per per speaker maximum, just as that has been in the past. A public comment. Yes, sir. Public comment on items posted on the agenda. Correct. And then the council uh will hear call to the public which the same speakers will have three minutes just as they have and there will be a 60-minute aggregate time limit for that just as there always has been. That's correct. And so the only change being made is a move uh is moving those uh those periods for public comment to the beginning of the meeting. That's correct. Um, and then the last uh option for public comment is public hearings and in those uh public comment will still be heard when the item is heard because that's what state law requires. That's correct, sir. And so uh none of the time limits have changed or are you know are being proposed to to to change. Correct. The time limits are remaining the same. It's just now at 10 a.m. And that's both the time limit for an individual speaker and time limits in aggregate for all of the speakers. Correct. Are exactly the same? Yes, sir. Okay, because there's been quite a lot of misunderstanding about that. Um, I saw some reporting in in media saying that everything was being limited to 60 minutes only, that if there was a controversial item, we would cut people off after 20 speakers. Uh, none of that is correct. That that is not correct. The 60-minute time limit only applies to call to the public and it has always been 60 minutes. In in your memory since you've been at the city, do you ever recall uh us reaching the 60-minute time limit on call to the public? I I don't since I have been here. No, sir. I don't have not to my knowledge right now. I don't remember having called to the public. We very frequently have many many speakers on a particular agenda item that is that is public comment and that's public comment which has no limit and will continue to have no limit. Correct. Um, I, you know, I I've heard the concern that the the impact of a comment is reduced if it isn't heard right before the vote. And I don't disagree with that. I I think that effect is fairly slight. I I personally would prefer to hear from constituents earlier in the process because I think that plays much better into my decision-m about a particular item. Um, but but I understand that concern. I just think the trade-off and it's a trade-off we discussed last uh last meeting is is that this makes uh it more convenient for someone to come and give the comment in the morning at a predictable time. If if they want to comment about five different items and one is, you know, the first one is heard at 10:00 a.m. and the last one is heard at 4 p.m. They're sitting around here all day waiting for their opportunity to speak for three minutes. Um, and I see the value in making that predictable for them to speak at the start of the meeting. Uh, and and then they can go on about their day. Again, we stream the meetings online. They're on YouTube. They're very easy to access. They can continue to watch uh to to understand how something turns out. But I I think it makes a lot of sense to allow them to speak at the beginning of the meeting and to go on about their day after that. Um, I I also saw this these the proposed changes described as a a restriction on citizen input that was in uh an opinion piece in in local media characterized this as that. And I don't think this restricts anybody's ability to comment. Uh people will still be able to speak about any number of items that they want to sign up for on the agenda. Again, as you confirmed at the beginning, there's no additional time limit. You'll have exactly the same amount of time and access that that you always did. you'll simply be able to arrive early in the meeting and give the comments at a predictable time. And I see great benefit to that. Um I I said two weeks ago I'd be happy to try this, see how it works. Um I think if if we see some dramatic drop off in participation, which I don't think we'll see. I think we'll see the opposite. But if we see some dramatic drop off in participation, we can always go back. But this will greatly help to run an efficient meeting and also to uh offer that predictable speaking time to to the members of the public so that they're not wasting their day sitting in the back of the room waiting waiting for their chance. Um and and so I just wanted to offer that opinion. I think uh you know it's it's uh disheartening sometimes when something is proposed and then there's a whole lot of misinformation uh out there about what it actually means, what it actually is. Uh, and so I I'd hope that uh we can consider making this change and and monitoring how it works. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Represent Represent. Thank you, mayor. Um, I appreciate Rep. Canal is kind of talking about the misinformation because I also read an article in the paper yesterday that was saying that this would be limited to 60 minutes. So, um, Miss Seaman, thank you for clarifying that. That was my understanding what you said that call to public is 60 minutes. The other one can be unlimited. And so I I just really whatever happens today, I just want to make sure that we're very clear on what this looks like moving forward to not have confusion. Um because it kind of adds to the misinformation and I feel like right now we also have to clarify that and and do a little bit of overtime on clarifying what exactly these changes are. Um, overall I think we had a very long discussion um, a few weeks ago and I've been thinking about this a lot. There's been a lot of people that have been reaching out to me through email, through calls, um, constituents that have been concerned about this. So, I I've been putting a lot of thought to this and I I understand where my colleagues are coming from with saying, you know what, this is a predictable time for people to show up. They're not here all day. But then there's also people that want to be here all day or are really wanting to um make sure that they feel impacted by what people are saying up here, right? Um, sometimes they come in and they say something they're say they're preparing some remarks that are going to be changed by the discussion that we have up here or what a presentation comes up. Um, when a presentation comes up by staff, they might infuse some of their commentary based on what they see on the item. So, I also see the the value there. And there's also those people that are are here and maybe they're speaking for others, right, that couldn't make it to the meeting and because of X, Y, and Z happening in their lives. So, I I just wanted to try and offer an amendment to kind of do a little bit of both on what what is here. So, I I want to move to include language in the rules of order for the El Paso City Council that allows the public to make the choice between speaking during the 10:00 a.m. public comment period or when the item comes up for discussion. All right, there's a motion in a second. Discussion on this item. No discussion. Okay, Miss Prime call for the vote on this amendment. Yes, mayor. So, the motion was made by Representative Asos, seconded by Representative Lemon, and this is to amend the rules of order to allow the public a choice as to the time they would like to speak, whether it's at 10:00 a.m. or when the item of interest is discussed. On that amendment, call for the vote. So it really helped to rush it out and the voting session and that motion passes 5 to3. Representative Chavez Rocha Fier voting nay. Representatives Lemonade voting I. The motion carries. Okay, we're back on the main motion. Representative Rocha. Thank you, mayor. So, um, what there was a lot of media that that assumed what my intention was without even speaking to me. And there were a lot of um messages that I received actually from both sides. I received a lot of messages from community members that were saying, "Thank you. We're tired of waiting all day." Um, and I just wanted to take the time to share because one of the things and and I may take up all 10 minutes here, so I apologize, but El Paso has always led by example. The law that changed back in 2019 is the very first time that public comment became part of these meetings. As long as I can remember, El Paso has always included public comment, but it was not always okay. So when that 86 legislature came and they passed that on the I believe it was the opens meeting o open meetings act is that correct miss. So um when that passed that allowed for public comment in these spaces but it was not a requirement prior to that. So, in my opinion, El Paso has always been the leader in allowing the public to be part of the local government to have your say, to have your speech. We've always exceeded those state minimum standards every single time. We've gone further by allowing comment by phone, by allowing comment by mail, and by allowing comment in person where the open open meetings act only allowed it, I believe virtually, if I'm not mistaken, was the only opportunity that people would be able to actually have their comment heard. So, the other thing is that we're not just compliant here in El Paso, we're proactive. and and I can quote the the section here from from this uh the open meetings act which is 551.007 and honestly if the public isn't given the opportunity to comment on an agenda item at any time under this section of the open meetings act that item can become voidable. That is that is what happens when we do not allow public comment regarding an agenda item. The other thing is is that we have always provided to to try to protect the integrity of our decisions and I can speak for this council in particular and ensure that we are legal and ethically bound and compliant. So those that that piece is my statement on that. However, there's also the intention wasn't to restrict public comment and it it's all opinion, but my opinion is that it's restrictive to make you wait all day long to be able to have a comment said. I had my staff, we were working late and we we we pulled just the last six months of data, just the last six months of data as to how long it takes people waiting. And so I'll go back to our last meeting which was um April 29th and we had somebody waiting 6 hours and 38 minutes to speak 2 hours excuse me to speak 2 hours and 45 seconds out of that two minutes. Sorry did I say hours again? Sorry. Two minutes and 45 seconds. Two. Yes. So, out of the 10 people that signed up, one left. The prior the prior meeting, which was on April 15th, we had 36 people that signed up for public comment. Out of those, 11 left. 11. That's onethird of the people that signed up for public comment did not make public comment. And why? Because that one averaged 6 hours and 48 minutes to get somebody to the to the podium to make a comment. I think in my opinion that's restrictive. The other thing that I have and just a few more and I promise I'll be I'll be done. February 25th we had 12 people that signed up. On average everybody waited three hours three and a half hours to say their piece. Now that's because what what we've done and what we've allowed to do for council is to move items around. It's actually very disorganized to do that in my opinion. That's just my opinion. I feel that it's it's better when somebody knows it goes in order, but because we're being conscious of public that's out here waiting, we pull items up on the agenda to be able to get them out. And even when we did that, we had one person waiting over five hours. So to me, that's the restrictive piece. It's the sitting around and waiting. I don't know who in this in this um in the gallery right now can afford to wait over four hours at a time every two weeks to have your public comment heard. I know I can't. And so that was the purpose. That was my intention behind this. So, I wanted to make sure that I made that public for everybody to to not assume what my intention was or assume that what you wrote in your opinion or your blog was correct. It is not. And so, for the record is why I wanted to come on today and say this was my original intention. It was never to restrict public comment. As Rep. Canal is confirmed. Everybody has the same amount of time. In my opinion, for me, I by the late afternoon, I'm pretty much spent mentally. I'd rather hear what you have to say early on. That's just my preference because I'm a little sharper at that time when it comes to listening to what you have to say. I want to be able to give that person my full attention. But I will tell you over the last six months worth of meetings, especially the last one, and I'll go before we we uh came on, December 17th was the last council meeting that was had here. And there it was an average of seven hours that people waited in order to hear their public comment behind the agenda item. So that's the piece. I also pulled it for call to the public. and call to the public. We've had um I think five, seven, 11 people that have roughly called. I think it's about on on average it's about seven people that sign up for public comment. They speak an average of 2 minutes and 33 seconds. Yet they wait three hours three and a half hours on average until they speak. That's not efficient to me. And so when I look at what the ACLU has provided when it comes to protecting public comment, we're in line with that. When I look to see what we what we're talking about when we talk about um legality, we're within the legal limit of that. And I think we're actually more because on average, based off of what I researched, public comment is limited to two minutes. In El Paso, we've allowed three. And I think that's more than adequate for um for being able to to provide your comment in what is described as I know a limited public forum. This is still business at the end of the day. Council is business. We're doing the city's business. And so I wanted to make sure that I I made it clear for those that that took it upon themselves to speak for me early on without reaching out or or having a conversation and in a respectful manner. This is why I went and I was I co-sponsored this with with Rep. Fiero. It was never the intention to restrict public comment or not make you part of the process. It was to try to be considerate of your time to get you back to work on time to be able to get you to if you needed child care. I look forward to people taking advantage of coming in at 10:00 a.m. so that they are able to get back to their day. If you're missing out on work, if you have to be here, and you're not getting paid, this is an opportunity for you to come to counsel, have your voice heard, and then go back and do the rest of your day on what you what you need to provide for your family. So, thank you so much for the co-sponsor, Repro. Thank you for the clarification, Rep. Canales. I appreciate it. And thank you to my colleagues for allowing me this time. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Representative Fiero. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Representative Maldonado, on the the research. And you brought up some very good points. I mean, this was never intended to keep FE people from um being part of the process, to restrict their public comment, to us not being transparent, um to keep people from not sharing their thoughts and opinions on on agenda items. It was quite the opposite. I believe that this is a living document and this is an opportunity for us to increase participation from the public. What by moving it to 10:00, I expect more people to be involved. Um, Representative Ato said that some people want to be here all day. I I I guess, but I believe that if we if we limit it to between what this bit what we anticipated to do, we'd get more participation. we'd have more people knowing what time they could arrive here and knowing what time um they can have their their say and then go on to to um make a living and pay taxes. Um I believe um this is also and and miss um we have the research, we have the data that shows this is a best practice in Texas. you know, these these changes are what Texas and and other communities are doing and they're they're showing that it's a positive thing for the community. You know what happens when we sit here, we have people speaking on agenda item 31 and they're waiting four and five hours. Um I'll give you an example that happened a couple weeks ago, a couple meetings ago. There was a young lady here with one of the unions who wanted to speak and we went through that array of can you move my item up mayor? Can you move my but by the time her item got moved up it was fourth in line. She had to wait four or five hours and had to catch a flight. If that person, if we had had this in place at that time, that person could have spoken between 10 and 11 and not had to make a choice whether they wanted to make their flight on time or they wanted to stay and have their say in council. You know, structure is a good thing. Um, structure is is going to save us money and make our staff more productive. you know, they also would like to get back to their their desks to their offices and and uh do the work that that um we're paying them for and the citizens of El Paso are paying them for. So, I I think this overall this is a great opportunity for us to to bring structure to save taxpayer dollars and to have more involvement when it comes to community say. Thank you, Mayor. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I have one last thought and and this is this is very special. I want to thank uh Representative Canales publicly for his leadership in addressing all the false narratives on social media. Um he was the only one that would that went on there and and um cleared the the mis the misrepresentation and the false narratives that were being spread. So thank you Chris. Thank you mayor. Thank you represent represent Limon and council please no side conversations while the meeting is in is in in session. I've seen some side conversations take place. Thank you, Miss Bryant. Represent Lima. Thank you, Mayor. Let me just begin. Um Carla, page three on the presentation right now. Yes, ma'am. It can you pull up the presentation for Representative Lemon? Well for everyone, page three. As you look um as you look at the order updated order of meeting meetings, I believe that the item that is posted at 10:00 a.m. which is roll call and invocation should come before the pledge of allegiance as we've had before. Um, so I'd like to make a motion to amend this motion that roll call and invocation come at the beginning of the meeting because that sets the stage for a meeting. Okay, there we have a motion on the table to amend the original motion. Is there a second? Wow. All right, Miss Brian here. No second. That motion fails. And I will continue, mayor, because I still have the floor. Thank you. Thank you, councel. In looking at the discussion of moving public comment on regular agenda items to 10:00 or thereafter. We've heard a lot of different things today and um I do want to state because I think that my motion or my item will become moot because we've already made a decision as to to do this but I also wanted to have an opportunity when I left council meeting the last time and I was traveling home I I had this really unsettling feeling that I had voted in mistake. that I had voted erroneously and the only person that voted against it was representative ADO and I was going home I was thinking like okay well how did that happen what's going on what happened here I could only think of occasions where I have been on council um and seen people wanting to speak on a particular subject The decision to wait as long as it's necessary to speak on an item that is close and dear to their heart is more important than efficiency and it's more important than uh we're going to do better for the people. Today we just passed an item that is clearly going to give the public the choice. They can either wait as it is or they may speak at 10:00. I think that that is an excellent resolution to this. But to simply put people in a little box and saying no, you have to speak at 10:00. I I just didn't I don't think that that was the right vote that I made on that item. when we start looking at um at this item, it's going to give us a predictable time. Well, people now will can speak at 10 or they can come back and speak at another time. But the most important thing that was discussed on this item is the effect of moving agenda items around. And I too have been guilty. Um the person that representative Fiero spoke about reached out to me and said I have a plane to catch. I must speak before and this is important. The motion failed but that's not the important the most important thing. It's that someone wanted to speak up and somebody wanted to say something. We got into all sorts of tangles in moving items and then we paused for a press conference and we did all sorts of things that were not listed in our agenda and so therefore we were all over the place and people did wait until a very very long time. I would hope that if we are going to begin that process again of moving agenda items that we realize the cause that it will have on the public. Um and I know that it'll it's going to come up. It'll come up very very soon. And so I think that if someone wants to come and speak to the public so be it. If someone wants to speak on every item so be it. But in the last four months, we've only had one person that spoke on many items. One person. And so I don't think it's right that because one person did something that we should throw it all out with with the bathwater. So thank you, Representative Asdo, for making that motion. And at appropriate time, I will um remove my Thank you very much. Thank you, Representative Lemon. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. Uh I want to speak on a couple of things. The first is just to recognize that I think um all of us that are sitting on this dis do our due diligence and our homework prior to coming to council meetings and I would like to recognize everybody's effort in terms of you know uh getting data and just looking for precedents on certain items and that was the case for me and others uh on this dis two weeks ago when we were discussing how to amend these rules of order. And for that reason, for all of the homework we do before we get to one of these meetings, we were very intentional in making sure that we did not commit the same mistakes that other cities have done in the past, such as Austin, who, you know, did have to go through a lawsuit because of limiting public comment. So, I want to make clear, just as others have done before me, that this is not what this is about. This is about making people part of the process. And I want to speak a little bit more about that because I have received um emails and calls regarding this agenda item. But strangely enough, most of the people that I've received those emails and calls from, I've never seen sign up for public comment. And that's not the way it should be. I want to receive emails and calls from my constituents, but I also want to see them here at council. And they don't always have to come to council to speak on an item. They can also engage with any one of us at our meetings because I follow all of my colleagues on social media and I know that they are all being active actively involved in their community at meetings or conversations or cafeesitos or different events around the city. And we make ourselves available to the public because we want you to tell us what your thoughts are. We want the public to engage with us. We want the public to be a part of this process with us. This is a new journey for many of us on the dis and we are eager to hear from you and we appreciate the emails and the phone calls but we also want to see you here at council and that is why now you can come at 10:00 a.m. and know that you can speak up exactly at that time. And so this is an invitation to the community to be a part of this with us and an invitation for everyone to know that we are uh doing our homework and that we really when we come here to make decisions, we have the best of intentions to include everybody in those decisions. We know our decisions affect our community and believe me none of the decisions that we are making we take lightly. This is very serious and uh we thank you for engaging with us but we want to see more participation. That is what this is about. So thank you mayor. Thank you represent Chavez. Representative um Canales you're good. Okay. Okay. Uh any further discussion on this motion? represent. Sorry, Mayor. I I just wanted to um kind of confirm with Miss Neman the the reason that we have the pledge of allegiance at 9:00 a.m. Then the proclamations and recognition, which are the ceremonial items before 10:00 a.m. roll call and invocation is because we could start the meeting without a quorum if we wanted to. Right. It's actually um the 9:00 a.m. is not considered an official meeting of council because you all are doing ceremonial items. So you don't need a you don't need a quorum of council to do proclamations or ceremonial items. 10 a.m. is a roll call so that you all could officially have a quorum of council and begin having your meeting and deliberating and taking action. Okay. So that was the intent to kind of clarify that and make it very clear to the public. Yes, sir. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. And Miss Neman, would you help clarify what we're going to be voting on our Miss Prime? So they'll know what we're So it'll be the official adoption of of the rules as we went through them on this presentation and then they will go into effect at the next city council meeting. Correct. So you are voting to you've already voted on the amendment. So you need to vote to approve as amended and then the rules will take effect at the next city council meeting. All right. represent Lemon. Thank you, Mayor. Just one last comment and thank you for bringing that up. So, technically when we meet when those of us that meet at 9:00, we will begin the meeting. Those that arrive late, it doesn't matter because they're not here for the meeting. Our meeting starts at 10:00 and I think that's disrespectful and for that reason I will be voting no on this item. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion on this item? All right, seeing none, Miss Prime call for the vote. Oh, we have public comment. Yes, mayor. We have Patricia Osmond who's joining virtually. Miss Osman, good morning. You'll have three minutes. Good morning. Good morning, council. Um, I want to say I believe some people's comments may have been directed at me and that is fine. And so there are some issues that uh Canales and some other members did not bring up that I listen to right now. And this is one reason why speaking during an agenda item is very important because what was not considered was this and which is a red flag that people may have written about which is part of the language. provided to however that the time allowed for each citizen's appearance before city council will be limited to a fixed number of minutes at the discretion of the provide pro presiding officer which is the mayor. So yes, citizen's time can be limited. It also states that a citizen cannot mark all or sign up for everything. Now, mind you, I have signed up for quite a few items, never all. But El Paso has had a very long history, yes, of public speaking. It didn't start with me. It didn't start with Miss Turner in the gallery speaking on various items. There was Teresa Galo when her father was a mayor. There was Truly Deo decades ago. I have been part of the public sphere for many decades in public transparency. Really quick, uh the YouTube video that everybody can see so that y'all are aware the audio is very low for anybody who listens to it live and especially afterwards on the bot so that you can speak to your IT is for for full transparency. But several several issues Uh the the groups of 10 or more they must members must give up their citizen three minute right and have one person do it. So apparently y'all have been doing that for a while unbeknownst to me. Part of what is unclear also is when citizens are speaking even at 10:00 a.m. and they are speaking on several agenda items. This was not made clear. Is that person going to have three minutes per agenda item or just three minutes now to speak on agenda items at 10:00 a.m.? That is still not clear in any of this. Quite frankly, not only did you all make decisions yesterday in regards to commissions and Linda, which is which commissions being public and on air is another avenue of transparency, public comment to the council transparency. And the reason for all this transparency is because the decisions that you make, yes, they are business, but they are city business done with citizens tax dollars. Even federal tax dollars still come from local So it is not a privilege, it is a right because what you are doing is with our tax dollars. Thank you Miss Osman. Thank you. The next speaker is Mike. He will be followed by Amber Perez and Lisa Turner, Carol Cassidy. Good morning, sir. You have three minutes. Good morning. Good morning, city council. Good morning. And I want to thank uh represent representative ACO for his amendment. He is my representative. Thank you. And I want to thank all the the rest of you who did vote for it. I think it's very important that you hear the public speak during an item as I am doing right now. It has an a direct effect on y'all. you get to hear what the people who you're serving have to say about an item as opposed to pushing us off into in the morning so that you can forget what we said earlier when you get to an item and you just go through as you wish. Again, government is for the people by the people not upon the people. You all are responsible to us a lot. As the previous speaker said, you deal with a lot of tax dollars and you need to hear what we have to say about how we want our money spent. You have a fiduciary responsibility to us. We don't have it to you. You need to listen to what we say. You need to take our opinion and use it as consideration for the decisions you're going to make. as far as having a a more efficient meeting. Well, when the effect is so negative, the efficiency metric doesn't apply. The the problem with the meetings seems like it's more of scheduling and management of the meetings. And that's something you should look at instead of uh trying to find ways so that you don't have to hear what the public has to say. I want to thank you all very much. and I hope you'll vote for this. Thank you, ma'am. Leon, thank you. The next speaker is Amber Perez. Miss Pettis, star six, please to unmute your telephone. Amber Perez, good morning. You have three minutes. Uh, good uh good morning, mayor and council. My apologies that I wasn't able to physically uh my apologies that I wasn't able to be there physically. I'm on a panel today. Um I uh initially signed up to to to say very much so I think what I said last time and uh during the course of this uh items discussion I have definitely changed that. I would like to thank um representative for uh creating this uh kind of middle ground where uh we're able to to do what council is is saying right which is allowing for time for people to be able to come at a specific time and also honoring the decision of those who maybe feel very impassioned um and empowered to go and speak at when the item itself is being read. Um, I think this is a uh definitely showing that the city listens, that you listen, that this is truly uh a community that is made up of of those these checks and balances and that's at the end of the day, we all want what's best for one another and for our community. So again, I can't help but but thank you for for finding a middle ground where we're able to kind of kind of meet everybody in the middle. So, thank you so much. Thank you. The next speaker is Miss Lisa Turner. She will be followed by Carol Cassidy. Good morning, Miss Turner. Good morning, Mr. Prime. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor Council. Good morning. I am your institutional memory. Uh, I've been coming to city council since Mayor Ramirez. That's quite a few mayors. You want to know how to streamline your agenda? Come talk to me. We'll sit down. I'll tell you how to do it and you'll be more than efficient. Miss Roachche, you talked about somebody waiting six to seven hours for public comment. I think I remember that day because we didn't you didn't do your job by having public comment at the posted time of 12:00. You post something on the agenda, you best follow it. Okay. A lot of these problems you have, you make them. Now, I'm worried about the uh the pledge and the prayer at 9:00 and the proclamations. Let me tell you, if you don't have a quorum here and you have these peoples for proclamations and three or four of you don't show up, it says a lot. It says you don't give a you know what about these people. You don't care about what's happening in this this city. You don't care about the people. I know what the city attorney says, but unless there's some law that says you can't do it and call a quorum at 9:00 a.m. in the morning and then do this, then that's what you should do. Cuz God help you cuz everything's going to come apart cuz you're humans. I know what's going to happen. Three or four of you are not going to show up and groups are going to take insults. Uh now you say you're going to start at 10:00 for people who want to talk. Uh and then sometime after that and nobody knows when it's going to be. You're going to have public comment. How is that going to work? If 60 people come down to talk at 10:00 on agenda items, that's 3* 60. I don't know who's going to do it. I don't know how many people are going to be here. I don't know if I just want to come down for public comment. I don't know when it's going to be because you don't have a posted it. You need to have it posted. Set a time for public comment. It's part of speaking on agenda items and public comment are two different things. They need two separate postings. I'm afraid you will be in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Now, pay attention to 551. 77E. Uh, a lot of politicians get Thank you, Miss Turner. You've reached three minutes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Turner. Criticism. Final speaker is Carol Cassidy. Carol Cassidy. I don't see her in chambers and I don't see her in the queue either, mayor. So, that concludes public comment on this item. All right, Miss Bryan. Uh, seeing no further comment on this particular item, would you please call for this vote? Yes, sir. The motion was made by alternate Mayor Pro Tim Fiero, seconded by Representative Gonales, and this is to approve the rules of order as amended. On that motion, call for the vote. in the voting session. And that motion passes 7 to1. Representative Lemon Vini. All right. And I just want to say, you know, this is the intent of what we were trying to to get at here is to engage more public participation and it's complicated and we will continue to work through this and if we don't get it right, we'll make changes. And again, you know, we were wanting to be very respectful and and I don't see, you know, I'm learning, you know, sitting in this chair that, you know, we want to be respectful of your time. And we have had people that have sat in this this chamber that were in a condition not to sit for six, eight hours while we were conducting business. So, our attempt was to make sure that we gave them an opportunity to voice their concerns on an agenda item early enough that they didn't have to sit through the the council uh meeting. So, if we don't get it right, we will tweak this and we'll get it fixed. So, uh we ask for your patience, but we want more engagement by our public. We want you to to know what time we are doing this and we we'll get it dialed in and we'll get this this fixed for the public. But we want you to know as the public your voice is very very important to what we do on this DAS. We could not be doing our jobs without public input. So the last thing we want to do is to restrict public input. We want more public input. So, I want to thank those of you that are here today that were offering uh your opinions and your suggestions on how we should move forward. And the more information and the more thoughts we get, we'll get this fixed. But I think we're off to a very good start and I thank council for for voting today. All right, Miss Prime. The next item, please. Yes, sir. 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 Prom. Thank you, Miss Prine. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions. Page six, item 15. Move to the regular agenda for Representative Asseo. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the consent? Okay. Miss Bryan, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Prom Chavez, seconded by Representative Lemon to approve the consent agenda as revised. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Representative Feder not present. Mayor, would you like to take the item that was moved to regular? Yeah, let's take item number uh six 15. 15, I'm sorry. Item 15 is the award of solicitation 2025-0157 security guard services MCAD to night Ice Protective Services Inc. for a term of three years for with a total estimated amount of $1,181,535. This contract will provide security guard services at various museum locations, museums and cultural affairs department admin administrative offices and MCAT sponsored markets and festivals. Okay. Is there a presentation on this one? No. Okay. Is All right. Is there a motion to approve this item? Motion approved. Second. All right. Let's uh represent Basto. Thank you, mayor. So, what one thing um this is, I think, the one of the first meetings where we have something over a million dollars on consent as we made that rule change not too long ago. But I I I have the heartburn on the the million-doll plus, you know, big big contracts like this. But as I was looking at this one, I saw that this represents a 103.64% increase due to increase in non-armed security guard service hours, addition of armed security guard services, and hourly rate increases. So my my basic question on this is why was there such a huge increase on this? Good morning. For the record, Ben F managing director. Um, so some of these are estimates, sir, over the three years. Uh, but a big part of our increase is actually increase in security required or recommended by the office of emergency management for our large scale festivals and events. Um, we are very cognizant that safety uh safety is paramount in the planning of those large scale events, especially as we've seen over the last few years. um at other events nationally uh issues. We want to make sure that we are prepared and ready and so you will see an increase in armed security um for those events. Also, as we look at exhibitions uh at our sites, sometimes there are requirements uh when we borrow an exhibition. For example, there's a Freda Kalo exhibition coming up in the spring at the Museum of Art. uh when we borrow artwork from other institutions, they oftentimes will require things like armed security or increase in security because of the assets we'll be borrowing. Okay, that makes complete sense. I really appreciate that explanation and I I because I was looking at this and like are we just getting the same services and just paying a lot more, but we're getting additional services and more security out of this. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Miss Pryan, call for the vote, please. Yes, sir. The motion was made by alternate mayor prom, seconded by representative mayor prom chavez to approve item 15. I'm sorry, it was representative seconded by representative canales to on that motion call for the vote and the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. All right, let's take the next item, Miss Brian. Yes, sir. That brings us to page 10 to item number 19. And this is discussion and action on a resolution authorizing the expenditure of district 5 discretionary funds in an amount not to exceed $1,500 for the purchase of water safety gear and vests. This expenditure will support the upcoming opening of the city's water parks and serves a municipal purpose by enhancing the quality of life for the citizens of El Paso by providing a safe and enjoyable experience for all visitors to the city's water parks this season. This item was submitted by Representative Nino. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this item? Motion. Second. All right. We have a motion and second. Any discussion? Miss Prime call for the vote? Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Nino, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez, I believe. On that motion, call for the vote. And the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Okay, let's take item number 20. Yes, sir. Item 20 is discussion and action to direct the city manager to allocate $1,000 from District 1 discretionary funds to support the purchase of refreshments for movies in the park at Braden Aboud Memorial Park on May 23rd, 2025. The allocation of discretionary funds will support the purchase of popcorn, snacks, ice cream, water, and other refreshments for the District 1 Movies in the Park event scheduled for Friday, May 23rd, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. at Braden Aboud Memorial Park. The featured movie will be inside out too. And this item was submitted by Mayor Promchis. Motion to approve. Second. There's a motion and second. Uh discussion. Represent Lemon. Mayor um or I guess Miss Prime if I may. What is the difference? If you look at item 19, it reflects district 5, which was from Representative Nino. When you look at 2021 and several others, it says all districts. What's the difference? And shouldn't it reflect the district um that is placing it on the agenda? You are correct, ma'am. For future, you for future, we will make sure that the district is appropriately noted. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing this up. Thank you, Miss Limo. All right. There's a motion in a second to approve uh item number 20. Yes, sir. On that motion, Representative uh Chavez, you have a comment. Okay, Miss Prime. Yes, sir. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Item 21 is discussion and action that the city council accept the donation of $2,500 from Schneider Electric for the District 1 community cookout at Westside Community Park and other signature community events to be held within the district. This item was submitted by Mayor Pro Tim Chavez and it is in district one. Okay. Is there a motion to Yeah. Motion to I was wondering if I could take Miss Prime 21, 22, and 23 together since they're all referring to the same event. Yes, ma'am. Item 22 is discussion and action that the city council accept the donation of $500 from Rio Vesta Behavioral Health for the District 1 Community Cookout at Westside Community Park and other signature community events to be held within the district. Item 23 is discussion and action that the city council accept the donation of $5,000 from job materials for the district 1 community cookout at Westside Community Park and other signature community events to be held within the district. Thank you, Miss Prine. And just to let the public know, um, we are doing a community cookout and I do not want to use taxpayer dollars towards this event. So, I am very, uh, thankful that I received some very generous don donations from people in our community. It's going to be a family fun-filled event. Everyone's invited. It's going to be from 11 to 3 on Saturday, May 31st. And this is uh, just for the purpose of, you know, building community engagement and uh, participation. So I'm very excited to offer this in honor of all the constituents in district 1 and others who want to join us. Thank you. So we'll take that. Okay. There's a motion and a second. Any disc represent limo? Yeah. Oh okay. Okay. Let me clear you up. Okay. See no comment. Call for the vote. Miss Frank. Yes sir. The motion was made by Mayor Proimch. Seconded by representative Rocha. And this is for items 2122 and 23. On that motion call for the vote. and the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. That brings us to item 24 which council discussed. It was discussion and action to allow for public comment on agenda items as they're heard during the meeting with a threeminut time limit. And this is representative Lemon's item. Mayor, I wish to delete this item. Okay. We have a uh motion and a second to remove the item. Miss Bryan, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Representative Asdo, and this is to delete item 24 on that motion. Call for the vote in the voting session. The motion passes unanimously. Okay, that brings us to item 25. This is discussion and action on a resolution to authorize the expenditure of district 3 discretionary funds in an amount not to exceed $1,000 for capital costs related to the new pet pantries at El Paso public libraries, mobile microchip scanners and related treatments, which serves municipal purpose by nurturing and promoting a healthy sustainable community for El Paso pets and pet owners and to allow the city manager to effectuate any budget transfers or contracts related to these these documents. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the motion? Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Representative um Rocha. Thank you so much, Mayor. I appreciate it. And and thank you to Rep. Canales for leading the the charge on the pet pantries. It's an issue that's come up quite frequently in District 3. And so I'm really happy to to move toward getting that pet pantry installed. It'll be at the Jose Cistos Library on Hawkins, which is the only library within, uh, District 3 at this time. And so, um, anything that we can do to support that, it's also going to have a microchip scanner, which I understand is going to be better weatherproofed so that, uh, it can withstand some of the weather that we've been seeing, so that individuals that find these pets on the on the streets in your neighborhoods can potentially take this uh this pet over to the scanner and be able to find its home and return it to its owner. Um, I think it's a great move in the right direction when it comes to trying to find um ways to help the community, especially the pet pantry. I'm a huge fan of of this um of this effort, Rep. Canales. So, thank you so much for the opportunity. Represent Canales. I wanted to say thank you right back to you for following through. uh you you made the commitment to support this uh when when I uh had my item on the agenda for my discretionary fund. So, I appreciate you uh adding your your contribution to it. And again, these will be placed throughout the city uh at all the libraries and the projects moving along quite quickly. So, we we hope to have them deployed very soon. But, uh this this is a big help. So, thank you, Miss Prankoff for the vote on this item. Yes, sir. Motion was made by representative Roach, seconded by represent mayor pro Tim Chavez and this is to approve item 25. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Okay, let's take number 26. Item 26 is discussion and action on a resolution to authorize the expenditure of district six discretionary funds in an amount not to exceed $1,000 for capital calls related to the new pet pantries at El Paso public libraries, including mic mobile microchip scanners and related procurements, which serves a municipal purpose of nurturing and promoting healthy and sustainable community for El Paso pets and pet owners and to allow the city manager to affectuate budget transfer budget transfers or contracts as necessary. This is Representative Fiero's item. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this one? Second. We have a motion. Second. Representative Fiero. Thank you, Mayor. I too would like to uh thank Representative U Canales on his leadership on this item. Thank you. Although you said thank you to her, not to me, but that's okay. Um but more importantly, mayor, our our pantry is going to be at 1865 Dean Martin at the Irving Schwarz Library. And and I want to uh give a big shout out to the staff at the library. They they're just do a wonderful job, but they're always willing to adapt and do whatever it takes to to make sure that the public is is taken care of. And now that the these the dogs and cats are being taken care of. Thank you again, Representative Canales. Thank you, Mayor. Represent Canales. Thanks, Mayor. And thank you right back to you, Rep. Pierro. uh maybe took a little bit more twisting your arm, but you came through on the money you promised. So, uh no, um you all have been great to work with and and I'm so happy that you have decided to contribute this additional uh funding to to the project. I think, uh again, the public's going to be really excited when they see uh the pantries deployed because uh I'll pull back the curtain a little bit and say that we we already have the the storage uh containers and we've we've tested them out. We've loaded them up with with pet food. Uh and they're very impressive when you see them. Uh I think it'll be a great service to the community. So uh watch this space and uh we'll we'll have an announcement soon about when these will get rolled out. Thanks. Fantastic. Thank you. Uh Miss Prime, call for the vote. Yes, sir. There's a motion and a second to approve item 26. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. Second item number 27. Item 27 is a presentation of the animal shelter advisory committee annual report for calendar year 2024. This item was placed by representative Canales. Okay. This just a presentation, right? Repres. Okay. Represent canales. Thank you. Uh Miss Prime, should I give it from here? Is it better if I go to the podium? What makes the most sense? You can you can control the presentation if you go to the podium. I'll do it that way then. Yes, sir. All right. So, I'll take off my my council hat for a moment uh and introduce this presentation. In my role as the chair of the animal shelter advisory committee, um we hope to have committee members here to present. Uh I know we postponed this item from from two weeks ago because they couldn't make it at the last minute and the scheduling didn't work out. So they all send that they all send their apologies. Uh you'll see usually their attendance is really great. So uh they couldn't make it here, but they do make it to pretty much every single meeting. Uh as you know from our conversations, that's not always typical of every committee. So I'm I'm grateful to them for that. Uh the the animal shelter advisory committee is one of the only committees that uh until yesterday was already required to uh produce an annual report every year and deliver that report to the council. Uh we have to do so by April of the following calendar year. So two weeks ago you were uh delivered the report in person and we're following up with this presentation today. Uh the ASAC also uh has a strategic plan that's not necessarily a standard for all of the committees again until uh the new requirements that we approved yesterday, but the the committee has a mission that the animal shelter advisory committee will advise, support, and advocate for the well-being of all animals in the El Paso community. Um the the purview of the ASAC actually extends beyond just the city. This is one of the committees that we're required to have by state law. Uh and and the purview extends to all animal shelter facilities uh public or private within El Paso County. And so uh we're taking a look at a much broader uh array of of animal welfare concerns beyond just what happens within the city's shelter, although that's a large focus. Uh and we have a vision that El Paso will be the leader in animal welfare. I won't read through all of these, but we do have specific strategic goals, and of course, they align very heavily with the city's uh vision for what we we uh want our animal shelter to be. Uh again, that's supported by the the first one, the main pillar that we will we want to support the city of El Paso's initiative to reach and sustain a 90% or greater live release rate. Uh that goal is by 2025. That's the end of our strategic plan. We are very close to that number. Uh, and so we'll see where we land by the end of the year. But I I think that goal was set several years ago at a time when it sounded very ambitious and the the the shelter has done a great work u a great job to uh put in the work to reach very close to that number. Uh this slide shows the committee membership in 2024. You see more members there than there are appointees because a few uh cycled off and cycled on during the year. But that number down at the bottom I think is is the most impressive. There was close to a 98% attendance rate uh for our meetings in 2024. Uh the the members of of the committee uh the ones who have served before and the ones who are serving now have all been incredibly dedicated. Uh and again that's not necessarily typical for for every committee at the city. Not that the the members aren't dedicated but this is an exceptionally high attendance rate. So again, thank you to the members who did a great job uh making sure that they were available and and active in every meeting. And I will note that these meetings are are virtual. They're held on Wednesday nights uh once a month. And uh the the committee has had the discussion about returning to in person, but the the virtual attendant the the the attendance I think has been boosted by the fact that these have been virtual and it makes it accessible for people to attend. Uh a little bit by the numbers, we held 11 meetings during the year. Uh to discussed a total of 35 different agenda items. Uh we welcomed four new members throughout the year. So four folks uh cycled off of the board and we welcomed four new ones. And we had a total meeting duration of for the year of 17 hours and 11 minutes. It's a lot of time spent discussing uh all of the concerns within animal welfare. And these are the main topics we discussed. Uh we talked a lot about the Westside adoption center, the the renovation and expansion obviously throughout the calendar year of 2024. Uh the council initiated that process of the the renovation. Uh and I think uh we we have seen the progress at that facility uh throughout last year and and continuing to today. Uh we we discussed pretty heavily the timelines for construction, improvements to the space. Uh a lot of discussion about a veterinary suite and what's possible at that location. Uh and and we also discussed the ongoing funding and and operational considerations for the expanded facility once it's finished. Uh we discussed return to owner strategies very heavily. So, uh, a big focus of the committee has been increasing return to owner rates. So, if an animal is lost, uh, finding the right strategies for getting that animal back to its owner, back to its family. Uh, this included better access to public microchip scanners. It's one of the things that we just discussed in relation to the pet pantries. Uh, that's one way that we can get more scanner access out into the community. Uh, utilizing social media for for alerts about lost pets. uh and engaging with with rescue groups to help the city's efforts in in uh reunification of animals. Uh we talked about uh we we created a mobile microchip subcommittee that actually was created in 2023 but most of its work happened during 2024. Uh this is has been an ongoing discussion uh both by the the subcommittee and also in in the the full membership to talk about ways that we can get more mobile microchip scanners out into the community. Be that tethered in public locations placed with local businesses. Uh we have microchip scanners at our fire departments. Uh we want to have as many options as possible for people to uh you know if they find a pet in their neighborhood, a lost pet, they don't have to travel very far. It's not a big burden for them to try to figure out who the owner is and and start that reunification process. Uh we discussed overcrowding and and euthanasia rates. Uh the shelters capacity has been challenged a lot over the last uh over the last year and uh unfortunately there has continued to be some youth in Asia. you know that we this the the shelter operates on a no-kill model, but that doesn't mean that there's zero euthanasia. Uh and so uh we discuss very heavily intake trends uh the the foster program and the impact on on the capacity at the shelter uh that that that has. uh and a lot of a lot was adoption strategy and and ways to reduce youth in Asia rates through community engagement and and um incentivizing people to come adopt. Uh and we also spoke about the the budget and funding sources for animal services. Um it's something that came up quite a lot uh from 2023 to 2024. there was quite a significant budget increase for the department and so there's a lot of discussion about the impact of that and and where that additional budget would be would be deployed and there are a few concerns that came up that were that uh were discussed multiple times throughout the year. Uh one was stray animal welfare. Um, we we talked about access to shelter and food and medical care for for strays, particularly for uh, you know, strays that the a member of the public was finding and and bringing to the shelter. Um, we we talked a lot about ways to improve community education about responsible pet ownership, making sure that your owned animal doesn't escape and become a stray. Um, as well as partnerships with the other rescue organizations across the county. Uh we talked about spay and neuter programs and veterinary availability. I plug all the time uh that we have veterinary positions available. Uh anytime I see anybody uh on social media or in person anywhere who I learn is a a veterinary student, I immediately bombard them with the the information about our our available positions because nationwide there's a shortage of veterinarians. We're also impacted by that. Um and that has a big impact on the number of spayneuter procedures that we're able to carry out every year. Uh and so that was a frequently raised concern that we don't we need to build additional capacity uh for spay and neuter purposes but also just for uh you know general medical capacity within uh the city shelters. Uh we talked there were concerns about uh public education and outreach. Um, I don't think anyone on the committee criticized this the city's work in getting the word out. Uh, there was an immense amount of of public education work that happened, including campaigns on on local television uh, last year. Uh, there was the the campaign with the message make adoption your only option. Uh, that really hit the airwaves last year in a good way. Uh but we we talked about the need for maybe more messaging about as I said before responsible pet ownership. So not just the adoption portion but also once you have an animal uh making sure that that animal is well cared for and that they stay uh you know under under your control in your possession and and they don't uh get loose and then make their way back to the shelter. Uh that's that's a difficult problem to address. and we talked about uh city ordinance clarifications. There's been some discussion about potential uh work to title 7 uh and there were concerns raised about about city ordinances related to animal control uh specifically trapping, breeding, some public safety concerns. Uh and those uh are things that the the committee discussed potentially being addressed as the city looks to make updates to title 7, which is the animal uh portion of our city code. And then we made some specific recommendations uh to the council. Uh again, uh the the animal shelter advisory committee is an advisory committee. uh their their key function is to make specific recommendations to the council and this annual report has been the the mechanism by which the ASAC does so over the past several years. Um I'll mostly click through that slide I'll click through that slide quickly but uh it does have an explanation of why this is the method by which we deliver those uh those recommendations. Uh the first recommendation that the committee approved this year was to continue progress on the west side adoption center conversion. Um again I don't think there's any question that this would continue. Uh but the the committee wants to make sure that the the council u is committed to providing that shelter with the support that it needs, the adoption center on the west side uh in the in the former Morehead Middle School building. Uh and recommends proceeding through the next phase of construction as quickly as possible. Uh there's there's currently construction on the the upper level. If you've been to that site, it's kind of a a split level. And so there's the main building uh of the actual adoption center and the parking lot area. That's all being constructed right now. Uh there's a second planned future phase and and the recommendation is to proceed to that phase as quickly as possible after the completion of the first phase. The second recommendation is to expand the mobile microchip scanner program. Uh again, these are recommendations coming out of calendar year 2024. And so I think the the pet pantries program at the library and the attached microchip scanners is a big part of addressing this recommendation, but we can continue to do more. Um, there have been discussions about potential other programs that uh I think the committee will be bringing to the council, but I also will be bringing to the council over the next few months for ways that we can deploy uh other microchip scanners potentially, including to veterinary clinics, uh, to our city community centers and recreation centers. Uh and we also envisioned a a potential expanded online directory of where these are located uh so that people can access them easily. The third recommendation was to enhance public education and outreach on pet ownership and ordinances. I think I preempted myself a little bit in explaining uh the the concerns that were raised. Uh but the the committee wants to make sure that uh title 7 is exceptional exceptionally clear and that the city does a good job of explaining to the public what the uh what the law says what they're required uh to do with regard to animals and their pets uh and what the punishments for not not complying with that are. Um the the committee recommended educational workshops, multilingual resources, and potentially partnerships with schools to improve uh public understanding of of pet ownership responsibilities. Uh the fourth recommendation is to develop and fund a comprehensive spayneuter program. Um, I will say again the the city put together an excellent spayathon event recently uh that that led to uh surgeries on more than 400 animals and I think that's a great success. Uh the the committee specifically talked about, you know, potentially expanding mobile clinics and that kind of spay-athon programming. uh possibly providing some sort of financial incentive for for pet owners to spay or neuter their their animals uh and partnerships with local veterinarians to address the staffing shortages that we feel at the at the shelter. Uh recommendation number five is to implement a structured adoption follow-up program. This is also something that the shelter has been piloting over the last few months. uh they engaged a digital program, a digital platform I should say called Pzil uh that does uh automated follow-ups with adopters after one day and after one week and uh at at intervals after that. Uh collecting information about how things are going with the pets uh you know how how the how the how the adoption process went first and then uh how the how the pet is adjusting and how you were adjusting to being a pet owner. uh and and doing those regular check-ins. Uh we we see a real problem with uh you know the the idea that pets could be returned or abandoned after they're adopted from from our facilities, either the city's facilities or other rescues within El Paso County. And so, uh, we we think that a post-adoption welfare and tracking system like the one that's again already being piloted somewhat in response to this concern, uh, is a good strategy moving forward. And, uh, recommendation number six is to support and strengthen the city's trapneuter return program uh, for cats. So, there are certain parts of the city that have larger stray cat populations than others. Uh we are we have a a uh trapneuter return uh initiative already. Uh but we the committee felt that the city could uh expand uh access to humane trapping equipment, you know, cat traps that are humane and and uh allow those animals to come into the shelter uh to uh get their surgery and then be released back into the community. um and and strengthening partnerships with local uh groups that privately do trapneuter return. Uh we think a public education campaign could also help residents understand the TNR process a little bit better um and understand the benefits in in uh how TNRes the feral cat population over time. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about TNR. Some people are upset that the cats are released again into the community. Um, you can't always contain a feral cat, but if the cat cat can't reproduce, then into the future, uh, you you can reduce those populations, but do it in a way that's humane, uh, without without significant amounts of euthanasia. Those are the only those are the six recommendations. Uh again, the committee endeavors every year to make them uh achievable. They're not necessarily like the the biggest pie in the sky goals. They're things that that the committee feels that the city should actively be working on uh or is actively working on and should persevere with. And we want to give a special thanks to all of the staff both from animal services and from the city attorney's office who support the the work of the committee. uh they the the meetings are incredibly well attended by staff including staff who doesn't have to be there. Uh I think we we see across the board at at animal services those employees are incredibly dedicated to their work. Uh it's not easy to work in an animal shelter. Uh it's definitely not physically easy or emotionally easy. Uh and so they're all folks who are very dedicated to to the work that they do and they provide extra special support to the animal shelter advisory committee. So, thank you to all of the staff there uh on the screen and uh we'll entertain any questions. Representative um Chavez, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chris, for that wonderful presentation and for the work that you do and that your committee does. I'm sure that thanks to your leadership, you know, attendance is also uh great because of that. So, I I appreciate it very much. I have a couple of questions just so maybe we could have this in open discussion. Um there has been a lot of concern for the Westside adoption center, you know, in terms of when it started, some inadequacies that were there in the beginning. I know that it's moving towards a phase two. Could you talk about the improvements and how uh that has been evolving? Sure. um the the one at Morehead and I I I'll preface it by saying I'm not the expert on the construction project. Uh but I it has been coming along. Uh you can go out to the site today and the construction crews are out there. Uh again, the phase one involved the the upper level. So it's uh the parking lot facility which used to be the tennis courts at Morehead Middle School that are you know that that area is being paved as a parking lot. It has a walking trail around it for people to who walk animals from the shelter. Um, it involves the outdoor meet and greet kennel areas. Uh, so like the dog runs where people can come, you know, if they're adopting a pet and they have a pet, they can bring their pet and they they have their meet and greets there or they can uh interact with an animal before they adopt. So, it has those. Uh, and then it has the main building. Uh, we all call it the Pizza Hut building because it looks like a Pizza Hut. Uh I think it was the I don't want to guess. I don't remember what it was in Morhead Middle School, but it's uh the southernmost building on the property uh kind of off to the left as you're looking at the the entire facility. And that will be the main entrance, the welcome area. It will have some kennels for dogs and for cats. It's quite a large quite a large building. Uh that's the phase one that's already underway. Again, council approved the construction contract last year. Uh and and that's proceeding. Uh there's not a construction contract for phase 2, which includes the second building down below on the lower level. Um that's the building that's currently in use. So that was temporarily converted uh into into kind of temporary shelter space. Um I it serves its purpose quite well, but it's I think if you've been in there, you can tell it's obviously not like a fully finished building. Uh the plan is for when phase one is complete, those animals will move into the into the phase one building, the Pizza Hut building. uh and and it will take some action from from the city, from the council to move on on phase two on the construction of that second building. So, how many animals are there now? Do you do you know? Oh, I don't know off the top of my head. Um but it's going to grow into something bigger, I'm assuming. Right. Capsules here. Approximately 100. 105. Okay, that was close. And I think it's a great addition to, you know, just having access to the public for adoption. Yeah, there's been pretty heavy activity there. Um folks are there all the time for adoption, for foster. Uh I I live it's very handy for me. It's quite quite close to where I live, so I'm there very often and and I see a constant stream of people at the adoption center. And then we've had great volunteer events there and other events as well. Uh the the Wagawan for example last year in October was a was a great community event. Uh they they come up with great names. Um and uh Rescue Runners, one of our excellent volunteer partner uh partner organizations has had regular uh events there to have their volunteers come walk the the shelter animals. And I will say the last one that they did there at the Westside Adoption Center, uh not this past weekend, but the one before, uh I was there and they got I think they got through the animals in record time. Every single every single dog went out, some of them more than once and the volunteers were were amazing. So, uh it's it's been quite a popular addition to the the animal services and a big need I think in our community. It's filled a great need. Thank you, Chris, for that. Represent. Oh, wait. I have one more question. Sorry, Mr. Sorry. And we see Terry's here, too. So, Terry, come on. No, and it's actually just on his recommendations. Um, I know recommendation number five is about adoption, but something I didn't hear you talk about or maybe I missed it is also about the opportunity to foster animals. And I know that maybe it's not a recommendation of yours, but if you could just speak a little bit more about that, just because I know that there's also a great need for foster families. There is a great need for foster. Uh, we we didn't make a recommendation here because actually we we think that the foster program is going quite well. Um there are maybe you can help me with that number. How many animals currently out in foster? Roughly 2400 rough roughly 2400 animals. It's a lot that are out in in foster. So we have very many dedicated uh foster foster parents for the for the animals in the El Paso community. Um but it is something that uh we we've spoken about and actually in developing this recommendation we talked about the potential for doing some sort of structured follow-up for the foster uh the fosters as well. It might be more of a challenge. just something that we talked about like maybe for this upcoming year as as the uh department rolls out PZEL and and the check-ins for adoptions, maybe they can add on additional support for for fosters and check-ins for fosters in the coming year. Okay. Well, thank you so much and thank you for all the work that you do for for our animals and for our community. And thank you for the presentation, Chris. I appreciate represent. I have a I have a foster right now, a 14-year-old if anyone's looking for an older dog. Oh, thank you represent Ro. Anybody else? Thank you so much, Mayor and Rep. Canales. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um, I know that there this is something that comes up quite frequently in my district as as Mr. Kevshell knows, we meet we meet pretty regularly uh trying to to sus out some type of opportunities and ways to better the situation that we're under. So, I know that based off of and and I'm just saying this just for public comment because I want it to be part of the record. I think in in 2024, uh, animal services took in about 2,300 animals roughly. Is that right, Mr. Capell? Right around 2,300. 23,000. 23,000. Oh my gosh. 23,000. A couple zed. Wow. 23,000 animals. there's 2,300 in the in the um animal services location. And so that right there for me, recommendation number three is super important, which is the pet ownership. Um I think that we need to to one work toward some some spayneuter programs as well. I think it we we definitely need it. And and one thing that I want to make sure that's out there is that El Paso Animal Services is the only location that provides services of these kinds for all of the municipalities within this area. And so that includes everything from Los Cusus kind of area, I think, but it includes Horizon, all of those outstanding county areas. And so, um, just the the sheer work that you all are doing to improve the situation, I'm so grateful to it. And I think that, um, we hear a lot on the other side. And I know that there have been some, um, individuals that have come to me and and tell me that the only option is to possibly euthanize. I would never be able to put myself in that position. And I I don't think we'd ever be able to find staff should that happen. And so I'm just so grateful for the work that the animal services advisory committee does um to be able to provide these recommendations to us that are well thought out. And I and I hope that this is the framework for all future boards and commissions to be able to provide something very similar to to bring to council so that we understand what the what the goal is and what that end work um product is going to be. So I just wanted to tell you thank you for all the work that you're doing and thank you rep. Canales for bringing this to to council today. Y represent Nino. Thank you mayor and thank you Rep. this as well and everyone who's part of this extremely important board. Quick question for you and I know that I have my my my monthly meeting also with Terry. I I see a lot of great recommendations and I'm curious in regards to the recommendations. Would those be something that comes forward to council that so that we could actually take action or what would be the process of us moving forward with some of these recommendations? Uh it's up to us. Okay. Not up to us as the committee. it's up to the members of the council to place items uh on the agenda related to these these recommendations. Um some of them of course would have budgetary impact and so I think as uh the the city staff works to develop a proposed budget and the council considers the budget over the next few months. Uh it's something that we should think about. Uh you know again these these asks aren't necessarily free. They will take staff work. Some of them will take funds uh and and we'll have to make the the decisions about what to prioritize. Great. No, thank you. And and I know I've had conversations with Miss Mack as well. And right now we are in the budget process where council members can make those specific budget requests and we could advocate and allocate, you know, specific funding for specific programming or things that we see that could be best fit. So I think that's also the perfect opportunity for us to look into our budget council request of where we wish we would like to, you know, allocate additional funding. But again, thank you so much for all the great work that you're doing as well with this board. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll point out one more time, this uh this annual report is is on the calendar year and so it is only covering the period up to December. And I'll credit uh staff at animal services and and you know all the way up to the city manager who has been very responsive to to a lot of these recommendations. And it doesn't necessarily take uh a long time. So some of these are already being worked on uh because they were things that the the committee discussed throughout the year and just anyways because they're good things to do. So like I said for example the implementation of PZEL the the excellent spayathon last year uh or this year uh these are reflections of some of these recommendations already being implemented uh without the council having to take any action. Any more questions for represent Canales? Rep. Thank you for all the great work that you're doing and your committee are doing and this is a very very good uh uh annual report that you provided us. And you know what I think is particular they've already mentioned it you know that you gave us some very detailed recommendations that came out of the the report that we can now you know look at adopting as as council in future meetings. But, you know, your your commitment and passion to the animal services has been stellar and and I I'm glad that I was able to support a number of your initiatives and do what I could to to help move this forward. But thank you and the committee for all the great work that you did and on this annual report. Thank you. Yeah. And I'll just say to close it out, thank you once again to all the members of the committee because it's they they put in an incredible amount of time and effort as well. Um I I know it's the committee I serve on, but I I think it's one of the better one of the better committees uh in terms of the the output that they generate from from the meetings that they have. And so uh I'm very happy that after yesterday, other committees will also be generating this type of of work product that comes with, you know, specific recommendations. I think it's very helpful for the council to hear these things and so I'm I'm glad that you all agree. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Terry. Did you want to say anything or you I'm good. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you, Terry. From San Metro. Yes, sir. Did you want to Sun Metro at 11:30? Yes. Okay. We can go to the first reading of ordinances since those are quick. In the meantime, if if you'd like, you have what, a minute? Yes, sir. Okay, let's do it. Okay, this is the first reading of ordinances. These are items 29 to31. I make a motion. I make a motion to approve the introduction of the first reading. Okay. of ordinances. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Miss Prime. Call for that vote. Yes sir. There's a motion made by Representative Lemon, seconded by alternate mayor prom. And this is to approve the first reading of ordinances. These are items 29 to 31. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Representative Rocha not present. It's 11:30. Mayor, let's do Mass Transit. Is there a motion to recess a regular city council meeting? Second. There's a motion and a second to recess a regular city council meeting. All in favor? Anyone opposed? And the meeting is in recess at 11:30 a.m. to conduct the Mass Transit Department board meeting. Good morning board. This is the Sun Metro Mass Transit Department board meeting. It is May 13, 2025. It is 11:30 a.m. President Council Chambers. Chair, Mr. Johnson, Miss Chavez, Mr. Mr. Ato, Miss Maldonado Roachcha, Miss Boyjo, Mr. Nino, Mr. Fiero, Miss Lemon, and Mr. Canales. Point of Miss Roachcha is Yeah. not present. Oh, I apologize. Miss Roachcha is not present for the record. Um, and today we have no public comment. All matters listed under the consent agenda, including those on the addition to the agenda, will be considered by Mass Transit's Department board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by board members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items in the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. The Mass Transit Department board may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. Uh and we have four items on the consent agenda. Okay. Motion to approve. We have a motion and a second. Motion by Mr. Nino, second by Miss Leone. Yep. All right. Let's call for that vote. Okay. And the session's open. Okay. And that passes unanimously. We're missing who was unanimous with representative Ro not present. Yep. There we go. The mayor vote. votes. The mayor votes on this. I vote on this one. Yeah. No worries. Representative Fio. Thank you, mayor. Um, in regards to uh item number four, I want to take the opportunity to thank um Randy for being here today. It's it's unusual not to see Myron here today because we saw him at the swearing in of the mayor and the new council members and he was at the state of the city where he heard District 6 was the heart of El Paso. So, thank you for being here. And where is Randy? Randy, yeah, thank you for taking the time to to to come down and visit and be back in El Paso. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay. Can I get a mo a motion to adjurnn? Motion to second. And the Mass Transit Department board meeting has adjourned at 11:33 a.m. Is there a motion to reconvene? So move. There's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? The meeting is back in session at 11:33 a.m. We're on page 12, item number 28, and this is a presentation on FY25, Tourism Development by Destination El Paso. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, mayor, city council, madame city manager. Uh, full disclosure, this is my first presentation. So, um, usually it's a proclamation or something of that sort. So, I guess we have to ask it to bring up the presentation. That sounds good. Okay, Dr. Asso. Um, so this presentation was requested by uh by city council uh which we were more than happy to uh to come up here and give this presentation this morning. Um I guess I have to introduce myself. I always forget to do that. My name is Jose Garcia. I'm the president and CEO for Destination El Paso and I'm here with the ubiquitous and uh Miss Brooke Underwood. She's standing in my blind spot over here. Um and so we will be conducting this uh presentation together. Uh, do I call for the next slide? Oh, I can. Which one? Oh, the fancy arrows. Got it. Thanks, Rep. Canales. Haha. Okay. Sorry again. A little bit of a learning curve. Uh, forgive me. Um, who who who is Destination El Paso? What are we what what do we do? Well, today Brooke and I here are primarily here to talk about tourism promotion. Okay. And that was what the request was. What are we doing to drive visitation to El Paso? Um Brook's going to go uh into a deeper dive about Visit El Paso. Visit El Paso is uh our de facto tourism marketing arm for the city of El Paso. Uh I'll go into uh El Paso live. El Paso Live is like what I'd like to call the facilities and events uh that Destination El Paso manages um for the city of El Paso. Um Visit El Paso and El Paso Live is funded through hotel occupancy tax. What does that mean? Hotel occupancy tax that is tax that is collected by the hotel uh from the visitor. So, anybody that's staying in a hotel pays hot hotel occupancy tax that is then collected by the hotel and then remitted back to the city. Um, and so that is how El Pas uh visit El Paso and El Paso live is funded. Um and so la couple weeks ago we had a proclamation for National Travel and Tourism Week and we talked about the impact the economic impact that visitation has that tourism and travel have on the city of El Paso and it's and it's incredible. Um I started out last the couple weeks ago saying that it relieves the taxpayer of about $700 of burden in property taxes. And I think that's pretty incredible. And that's what because there's a almost $2.3 billion and that's B billion total direct uh economic impact that the city experiences through travel and tourism. Over 32,000 El Pasoans are employed by uh travel and tourism and the hospitality industry. Um and then to talk about the hotels, there's about 10,400 sleeping rooms in the city of El Paso. 1,200 of those are downtown. uh all of those collect hotel occupancy tax. El Paso boasts and we lead the state we and you know we uh we lead the national average in hotel occupancy at about 73%. The state's at about 63%, national average is about 63%. Uh so we're very very proud of that. Um and then our average daily rate is about $102 and then our revenue per available room is about $75. Now, revenue per available room. Some rooms are under construction and so why that number changes a little bit. Um, another number that I like to uh talk about when we talk about the economic impact is 3.8 million visitors or just a little over 3.8 million visitors come to the city of El Paso. And that's where you get that 2.2 billion is where they're staying in the hotels, they're visiting our restaurants, they're shopping at our retailers, um, going to our bars and clubs, etc., etc. Um, and so with that, that makes uh that makes travel and tourism the second largest uh sector, private sector, okay, outside of government and whatnot. Second largest private sector uh in the city of El Paso, which we're very proud uh to promote. Um, and so with that, I'm going to turn the next part over to Miss Brooke Underwood so she can talk about Visit El Paso. Good morning. Good morning all. Broo Underwood. I do feel a little guilty that this isn't my first presentation and I could have helped my boss. So, I did not. I am happy to talk about Visit El Paso. I have been in place at the destination marketing organization for 17 years. It's been my pleasure to serve on behalf of this city. It also happens to be my hometown, so it's easy to sell something I love. Um so I oversee the visitor uh the efforts uh as far as leisure tourism, convention, development, sport and film. Um tourism driver obviously we craft that narrative. Um it comes as no surprise as you all travel and encounter individuals and you tell them you're from El Paso. Sometimes you can see the grimace on their face. And so I find that as a personal challenge and my my life's mission and work um to change that narrative and and dispel those myths. Um and so obviously that is is one of the main goals of this department. Uh obviously there's economic impact. That's how we measure success. Um and we aim to boost visitor spending uh in every capacity whether that's retail tax, hot tax, rental car tax, mixed beverage, etc. Um but that supports local businesses, especially in this area, especially in downtown El Paso. Um there's a de a domestic focus but also an international focus and we target both drive markets and those fly markets which are very important to our success advertising. So we have a multi-channel marketing u both broad and targeted. I know that sounds very uh uh opposite uh ends of the spectrum but broad is obviously important for that branding that top of- mind awareness for El Paso. Um but then targeted campaigns identified those niche markets. Um and so we I really double down on some of the data that we subscribe to. Um we um heavily invest in things like datafy which is a dashboard that tells us major feeder markets, how much people are typically spending in the market and those points of interests. Um um I mentioned uh that strong digital uh um vertical um advertising u method. Uh we engage in social and targeted search ads. That's very important. If you're searching for outdoor or recreational things, ecoourism, cultural heritage tourism, we want to be able to serve you appropriate ads and things we can deliver on that promise. Um, our social followers are quite high. We've got about 158,000 um followers, but our website view is even more impressive. So, we have about 1.1 unique views to our website each year. So, that's not um people uh returning. Those are unique one-time visitors. Um and then earned media and I'll talk a lot about that a little bit later in the tourism as well but please note 5.1 million in earned media. Um the next slide and I'm not sure if I need to advance it or if ID needs to advance it. It's actually our promotional video and it's used in a number of different ways. Um the one uh minute 30 second long video uh is primarily used to market the destination, dispel those myth and provide new uh imagery and um uh uh something for people to latch on to because when you hear El Paso, many people think um desolate border town without infrastructure and things like that. So, by providing them some fresh imagery um and u compelling um video uh that that helps dispel those myths. I want to point out that this was done all produced locally, local talent, local videographer, and then of course you'll recognize all of the images throughout the video. it. We lost the the slides on the screens. You have a joke or anything? We were on We were on slice. Well, Jose and I are happy to reenact the entire video for your pleasure. While we're waiting, council, uh, uh, this, uh, presentation came out of a discussion I was having with, um, Representative Oavdo, and he asked what were the things we were doing to increase local spending, and as we talked about sales tax. So, we thought this was a really good way of sort of, uh, putting this within context of how we really do those things. They're they're working it is working on bringing up the video. represent Fiero. Mayor, am I to understand that this is the first time Mr. Garcia has been here? It's not leaving with a gift or an award or something. Uh, yes, Rapto. This would be the first time that you guys did leave with a gift or we didn't leave with an award. Oh, there should be a limit on that. Mayor, there's no Okay. Um, have to reenact. We are going to go ahead with the reenactment. Actually, we will. Can you go to the top and pull up the video on YouTube? Let's go through the rest of the presentation. Um, I'll speak a little bit more about the video and then they'll pull it up on YouTube because that is one of the methods by which we promote that video. Another way is I frequently use it as does the team for convention development and the tourism uh development team. Uh, we use it in bid presentations but also in attendance boosters. So, it's not only important to put those im that imagery in front of people before they make their decision. It's also important that the year prior to them coming to El Paso, we really hype them up. And so, uh, this video does just that with with some fantastic music as well. Uh, we can use it in small vignettes. So, if you if you identify, there's plenty of eating, um, and, uh, uh, eeries and and different, uh, dishes that El Paso is known for. Uh, but hiking and different outdoor activities, things, of course, ecoourism is one of our main focuses. So, we can use these in smaller 15-second or 30-cond vignettes specifically to talk to a segment tourism development. If we could go back to the Let's ask it to bring the slides back up with the video. It would you mind bringing those slides back up, please? Lucky me. I wish this would have happened during Jose's part of the presentation if I'm being honest. Okay. Uh back to tourism development. Um we uh do tour operator outreach. Um and we do uh a very specific targeting to travel professionals. If you consider uh the method by which people plan a vacation or travel in Mexico, it's still very uh focused on travel agencies. So, educating them, providing with them with that imagery, telling them the annual events that they're already to see and do here in El Paso obviously helps them do their job a little bit better. We also um just returned from Texaw and Travel uh Texas uh Travel Alliance annual meeting where we helped educate all of the different visitor centers around the state um because that is a primary um touch point as people come and uh come and uh exit the state. So, it's important to make sure that they're armed with all there is to see and do in El Paso. Um, we briefly discussed eco and cultural focus. Um, and we actually have a dedicated position uh at Visit El Paso for that very reason. Um, obviously advertising and and um promoting those cultural assets is really important. Uh, I don't think people realize we have the oldest continuously working missions in the country. Um, and just right here in our in our own backyard. Um we uh travel to national and international trade shows uh talking about those very assets um uh things like uh Waco tanks and other assets um um that uh we can definitely deliver on the promise. Um we host conferences. So if you think about just in recent years we hosted the outdoor writers association. We've hosted international food bloggers and then the Society of American Travel Writers and organizations like that contribute to that $5.1 million in earned media. Um, and so if you think about earned media versus advertising spend, I have a dedicated portion of my my budget that goes for uh advertising, whether it be tourism, convention promotion, film, or any of the other related departments. But that earned media is where we bring in travel writers. They identify what they're focused on, whether it's food and culture, outdoor activities, cultural heritage sites. Um, and they go back and write fantastic stories and sometimes two or three per visit. And when we track the impact of what those do for our reach, that's where we get that 5.1 million. And that's not just a a a guess. That is actually there are are uh formulas that we employ to identify how much value uh there there is. So think about that 5.1 million increasing our reach. We also provide uh trainings and um brochure creation for individuals that don't have the capacity or the budget to do so. Um just because a smaller association um doesn't um have those means doesn't mean that we shouldn't advertise or promote them as well. So we step in and we act as their advertising agency or their creative team and help them market their association. We also provide tours. Uh we actually just concluded one uh this Saturday at the conclusion of national travel and tourism week. Uh we took a group out to the Sakuro mission to bodega and to link. So it's important that we um also promote those to our own visitors. Uh you can be a visitor in your own city. Um and then of course community collaboration both with the city and the county and then those individual associations is critical to our success. Um the next slide which I have and you don't is uh convention development uh and sports. Um super important. I have to tell you this is the favorite of my children. Uh this is where I cut my teeth at Visit El Paso. So I spent 10 years in the meetings and conventions uh segment. Uh obviously bringing these meetings and conventions in uh contributes to economic impact and we do that a number of ways. We prospect and confirm different meetings and we have access to databases um and we can identify things that are a good fit for El Paso. Um and what um uh their minimum meeting requirements if they align up with with what we have available in hotel rooms, in meeting space or even in um outdoor um off-site adventure. Uh we also increase our involvement uh with decision makers at trade shows. I spent a week in Tulsa at the Societ at the Sports ETA um uh symposium which allowed me over 20 one-on-one appointments with individuals that have rights to sporting events. So, I met with USA Boxing and I met with track and field and I met with pickle ball which we're all very familiar with and is on the rise and so to bring those tournaments here for weekend uh stays obviously increases uh occupancy and then of course influence is hot. Um, so all very important. A couple of other things that I'd like to mention, we uh closely work with some departments, uh, city departments on bringing convention activity. Uh, one of which will happen later this year is the code enforcement. I know everyone's super excited about having extra number of code enforcement officers in your community. Uh, but also the Texas retirement systems. We're working with Carl Remus currently as that convention will will also happen here. Um, but I do want to commend those individuals that work on the city or even on the county. um as they come and tell us I belong to this association and I'd like to bring that association here to El Paso. We all benefit from that increased education and accessibility. Uh and then film and creative industries. Um we market El Paso as a unique and affordable destination for all types of media production but post-production is also very important. Uh we have a fantastic resource in Drew Mayor Oaks. uh he worked for um the state film office but has spent time in San Antonio and Houston um and then of course in southern New Mexico. So he's very familiar with the assets here. He's very familiar with the state code um and has been championing um the the bill uh that sits before um the house um as far as the the funding um incentive for film. also super important. He's made several trips to Austin to work with uh his counterparts and colleagues from around the state to really champion what that what that incentive would do for economic impact in this area. Um he also cultivates and develops those uh local assets. We find that when this happens, and I'm going to put it into existence, I'm going to put it in the universe that we also need to make sure that our local crew is uh properly prepared and trained. And so Drew hosts a number of different workshops and partners with the state on um the uh accessibility to information and um certifications. Um and then of course Drew also manages the film permitting on behalf of the city and works very closely with fire uh streets police um and other departments. Lots of departments signed off on that. And then finally, it's worth repeating as we close National Travel and Tourism Week this past Saturday, um uh we we find that these are these metrics show that the impact and the efforts that we uh we put forth are are returning those dividends. This is the return on investment. Um 73% is is nothing to shake a stick at. That's quite uh important to note. and we regularly lead state uh uh occupancy numbers and we report on that on a monthly basis to our advisory board. Um I also wanted to mention that um we have a very experienced and dedicated team of marketers working to bring all sorts of visitors and tourism to the community. Um and we were recently selected as the DMO of the year for 2024. And then just a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, uh we uh graciously received the Gan Phillips Hospitality Award for uh 2025, something we've never um been nominated for or been able to bring home. So, um very super pr proud of the team. I've got a number of years um in in my my colleagues have a number of years of experience and uh and uh of course put that all to good use for um the city of El Paso. Great job, Brooke. Um, so now kind of switching gears a little bit, we're going to talk about El Paso Live. As I said earlier, El Paso Live is what I like to call the facilities and events. Um, we are uh tasked with managing uh different facilities throughout the city, primarily downtown. We manage the convention center. It's a 80,000t exhibit hall with some auxiliary space. We manage the Abraham Chavez Theater uh adjacent to the convention center that seats 2,500 people. Uh we manage uh the crown jewel of downtown uh the historic plaza theater that seats 2,100 people. Uh also downtown we manage Arts Festival Plaza. It's the plaza between the the mu art museum and the plaza theater. Uh it's about 10,600 uh square ft. Um, and then outside of downtown, we manage uh the Mcklligan Canyon Amphitheater. Uh, really, really cool venue up in Mcklligan Canyon. It seats 1,500 um, people. Um, almost 400 events a year combined through all the venues. Um, and then a total all of attendance of almost 400,000 folks. Um, so activating these venues is uh very very important for us. Um they also lead to the economic impact uh for the city of El Paso. Folks do come in uh to check out the shows obviously uh the convention center handinand glove with our efforts um with uh meetings and conventions and bringing uh out oftowners to um uh to El Paso. Um some of the things we do on the event side is the Broadway in El Paso series. Uh we just finished up an incredibly successful uh season and we just announced our next season uh for Broadway in El Paso, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Whiz 6, uh Clue, Clue on Stage. Um and then uh rounding it out with Beauty and the Beast. So really excited about our Broadway and El Paso series. Um I'm not going to take all the credit for this um because I call it the Hamilton effect. Um, but when I got here, there was about 1,500 subscribers for Broadway in El Paso. We did Hamilton uh and now we average about 2500 subscribers uh for Broadway in El Paso. Um, and it it's showing in in the percentage of tickets that are being sold. Um, and then of course we produce our own special events and we do our own festivals. Um, we do that again being tasked with activating uh downtown, of course, uh, lending to the fabric of what our city is. Um, some of some of the uh uh festivals and and events that we do is the Sun City Craft Beerf Fest that's coming up. Uh, Brooke and her team do the Sun Bowl Fan Fiesta. A new one uh that we just uh did and we're in our third year is Vivamos Mexico celebration of Mexican Independence Day. When we first did it, we didn't know we were going to get 250 people or 2500 people. We got 6,000 people our first year. Following year, 10,000 people. And uh we're working hard uh to make it bigger and better. Um and then of course uh starting uh this month in a couple weeks uh Alfresco Fridays uh music series that's in the convention uh center plaza. Um and so I think now we're going to go ahead and play the video and we got it all uh queued up. Thanks. [Music] All of my [Music] Come find the hidden gem of the Southwest. Visit El Paso, Texas. So, as Brook said, that uh obviously was all produced in El Paso. Uh produced by El Pasoans. All the local talent is uh El Pasoans. The narrators, El Paso. Um we have uh four or five different 30 second segments. Um we share this with Texas Tech, we share this with UTEP, we share this with anybody who wants to use it to help attract whatever it might be uh from economic development to student recruitment, whatever it is. Um we we developed this video so that it can be used um kind of across the board for uh you know for whoever wants to use it. So, um, with that, uh, it is an honor and a privilege, uh, to partner and work with the city of El Paso, Madam City Manager, your staff, uh, Richard Bristol, Ben 5, and then, of course, all the city councilors and mayor. Um, it's a labor of love. Uh, as you can see, uh, Brooke has been with us for, um, 18 years, 17, 18 years. Uh Veronica uh Castro reminded us yesterday that um that May 16th is Veronica Castro day and that's for her long 20-year tenure uh working at Destination El Paso. And so with that, uh Mr. Mayor, city reps, uh we stand for questions. Yeah, we've got a few questions. I just want to remind the council members that at noon we have called to the public and there's been some public sitting here. So represent Alto. Thank you, Mayor. I um thank you Miss Mack for bringing this to council and thank you both. It's always great to see you. I will tell you that for your first presentation I think you did better than Brooke. Dang, Dr. Oavo. [Laughter] Dang. We have to we have to get back together. So like I'm like Uber. No, I I I think that seeing these numbers and what you've been doing with what you have is is really impressive. I really can't believe what you're doing with the convention center and the state that the convention center is in. And I really wanted to give you an opportunity, Brooke, to just kind of give us an insight on how you sell El Paso when we are trying to bring conventions that don't fit in the convention center. happy to do that. Um, I don't like the word no. I don't take it well. Um, and there's a number of instances where we were told no and that just wasn't acceptable. And so, uh, I don't find myself to be a people person. I don't I don't even like the term. I find myself to be a problem solver. And so, if you tell me that space is an issue, I'm going to find you space. And then I'm going to sell you on the idea on why you don't want to be cooped up in just a convention center. I want you out exploring the community, experiencing the fabric of downtown or the airport area or wherever your meeting may take you. Um, it is a challenge and I I think that uh if you sell it correctly, um, many conventions say that they want to be all housed under one roof, sleeping rooms and meeting space and that's just not a luxury El Paso can afford. And so we talked to them about how it's a benefit to have multiple flags or multiple properties represented if you follow Marriott points or if you're a Hilton honors person. Um, by coming to downtown El Paso, you can appease all of those different um point systems and and those requests by your finicky board members or your attendees. Um, as far as the building's concerned, uh, we sometimes pivot. If you look back to the Texas Society of Architects, it made a lot of sense to put their general session inside one of the theaters. I mean, they're architects, so they totally um, uh, could appreciate uh, the historical plaza theater or even the unique architecture of the Chavez. Um and so identifying creative ways. Now I would like not um I'd like to have more space. Um and I think that is critical to our success. Uh if you look at some of the other uh convention centers around the state, they um tout a million in exhibit space and a million in breakout. Um and we our small but mighty convention center uh is 133,000 square feet allin. So we do have to get quite creative. I appreciate you bringing that up. Um, but I don't find it to be uh an obstacle that I'm willing to lose business over. Um, in fact, I'll share that we have submitted the national a bid for uh the League of United Latin American Citizens and our competition is both Philadelphia and Washington DC and we're going to bring that home. There you go. That's really great to hear. Thank you. I um also there's a lot of challenges at the Abraham Chavez. It's not ADA and it's full as of asbestos. if you start hitting the wall and trying to renovate it, that's a huge challenge that I think we really kind of need to start having those discussions about that. Um, the last thing that I had was um, oh, and the chairs are really uncomfortable at the round shows. Um, but I wanted to kind of ask about the water parks. And I know that the water parks have been losing quite a bit of money since they came in. And for my constituents, something that I continue to hear is they closed our pools, the ones that we could afford with taking our own food, and it's cost prohibitive for us to visit the water park. So now we have nothing and we have crumbling pools in our communities that are just kind of sitting there. their eyes at this point. It's been a big priority of mine to try to reopen these nation to Grand Views, for example. So, I know that you're managing the water parks. How is that kind of playing a role into getting attendance up and what are you seeing are some issues with um getting more people there? Well, I'll I'll field the water parks question. Um and this was prim this presentation was primarily for visitation and and tourism promotion, but um the the water parks uh attendance has plateaued. Um, and what we've seen is kind of a been there, done that sort of thing. Last year, uh, Wet N Wild opened up a new, uh, a new attraction. Um, and then of course you had the Elmont opening as well. Um, so we continue to to promote it as a affordable uh, accessible, familyfriendly attraction. Uh, all four of them are spread out through the the the east side of town. So they are uh they're very uh accessible and and they are very affordable. Um we've uh we've put in different uh initiatives to uh to make it more affordable in that you can bring your own food and beverage uh to each of the water parks and we saw that that resonates well. Um and so uh we just continue to to marketing it um and uh try trying doing different special events, different promotions, things of that sort. Thank you Dr. Get you out of here on a high note. represent Nino Jose Brooke everyone at destination El Paso visit El Paso. We're so grateful for all the work that you guys do. You guys have such a fun job and you guys bring so much energy and you get to highlight really what our city is about. Um I love that you guys mentioned about like internal tourism, people visiting other parts of El Paso. I became an ambassador like six years ago and I love that program that you guys had because it really takes you through the entire history and different quizzes of what our region is and what it brings. So, I'm really um you know members of the public and council if you guys get the opportunity to do so. It's an easy course online. You get a certificate, you get a pin that you become an El Paso ambassador. But again, thank you for all your team because then I'm part of that. That's when you guys get to invite people to go visit different parts of our region and really, you know, fall in love with the process of falling in love even deeper with El Paso. So, thank you for all the great work. Thank you, Repino. Uh this is where Brooke steps in and says to have her referral um use her as a referral. Um, and you know, Repino that goes back to America's friendliest city, you know, the ambassador program, um, it just the more El Pasoans know about El Paso and they're intimate with all the different things to see and do in El Paso, um, makes them better ambassadors and stewards for the city as people are walking around and uh, and you see that every day. You see that every day if somebody's walking around downtown and they have kind of a confused look on their face, an El Paso one will walk up to them and say, "What are you looking for? How can I help you?" Um, and I think that's what's really incredible about uh who who this who we are as a city. And so, thank you for those comments. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. And I'm not trying to put uh Dion on the spot, but just do they have the funnest job at the city? No, I do. Okay. Please don't mistake. We get told no a lot. We just don't accept it. So, it it is a challenge. We just we just go back and keep fighting for it. And if I may, anecdotal story about one of my first experiences with uh with Brooke on the on the sales on the sales mission was when we were doing our presentation to the Texas Democrats for their statewide convention. It was us versus San Antonio. Um and San Antonio went in did their presentation. They have we have a million square feet. We're going to put your entire convention center in this wing. and uh within two blocks are 30,000 sleeping rooms. Thank you very much for choosing San Antonio. And the left, they literally left the auditorium. And so then Brooke steps up, gives the whole spiel for why they should come to El Paso. And this young man walks up and was like, "We can do everything in San Antonio super easy. Um you guys have three meeting rooms." And Brooke literally walks out to the middle of the stage and says, "We don't want you in the convention center. We want you all over El Paso. We want you to experience El Paso." They did the vote. We got 75% of the vote for them to come to uh to El Paso, which they did last year. So that's when when when she when she gets a chip on her shoulder and like she said, we're a finalist for the League of United Latin American Citizens against Philly in Washington DC. Um, you know, we're we're gonna let Brooke loose and uh and we expect to bring that one home too. Yeah. Thank Thank you both. I mean, I want to say that to be in your company is to understand why we're such a friendly city and I think you embody just the best of us and it's no doubt that whenever you go out there to uh pitch El Paso, we know that you know we are in good hands because of you. So, we appreciate that so much. Um, I I also want to thank you because I know that you're attracting tourism, but you're also uh driving economic growth and revenue to our city, which is invaluable. So, we we appreciate that. And lastly, I just want to say thank you for coming to the room where it happens. Ah, represent Brocha. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate it. So, I want to thank both Jose and Brooke. Last week we uh they hosted us at destination El Paso for our community meeting and we actually had a very great turnout. I would say there were about half and half of the business community which I was very surprised to see and uh some constituents from from that uh from my district. And so I just want to tell you all thank you so much because you all hosted such a beautiful event for us and it was state-of-the-art and I still get comments about the renovations that have taken place and I would encourage anybody to have your community meetings at Destination El Paso so that they can see the progress so that they can see the art they can walk the property. It makes a huge difference to me and to the people that that shared that with me last week to be able to see you all in action on your turf. So, thank you all so much for all the great work that you do. Thanks. Well, they they took all the words, you know. Um I wouldn't want to go up against Brooke, though. I can tell you that. Yeah. Um and again, thank you guys for all that you do to promote uh America's friendliest city and you do a tremendous job. You've heard it throughout council and uh keep doing what you're doing and we're here to help any way we can. But thank you guys so much for what you do. Thank you. We appreciate your support. Thank you. Miss Brian, let's go with call to the public. Yes, sir. That brings us to call to the public. The El Paso City Council is a local government body charged with serving the citizens and these meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge. The city council meetings are public meetings under the Texas Open Meetings Act. Public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of city council. All persons in attendance are expected to display civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting, profane, threatening, or abusive language. Public comment will not be used for personal attacks, nor may any member of the public use this form for political statements or campaigning. Please note that during call to the public, the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda. However, council may propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda. This afternoon, we have eight members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Elizabeth Crawford, followed by Danielle Brricette, Salvador Guerrero, Frank Ldios, Ron Ko, Claudia Contra, Siller. Miss Crawford's topic is motherhood or not. Good afternoon, Miss Crawford. You have three minutes. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you. It is a blessing to be back in El Paso. I've really been happy to be back. Um I would like to speak in in light of this month um as we honor Mother's Day. Um I'd like to start with a passage in God's word that's familiar to to many people. John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Uh, lollipops and brown lunch bags. What do they hold in common? They hold for many fond memories of childhood. Opening a brown lunch bag packed by mom with tender loving care. Snacks sometimes a note of encouragement inside. Being given a lollipop as a reward for good behavior or just as a special treat. They are sweet memories of childhood. standing on the sidewalks outside the abortion centers, both the Planned Parenthood and privatelyowned abortion centers in New Jersey and in other parts of our nation. These two objects have been put to sinister use. The brown bag holding inside the abortion pill, the second pill, we work hard to get the word out to young ladies about reort abortion pill reversal that though they've already taken the first pill, they don't need to take that second. and that baby. There have been many babies saved by a change of mind. Lollipops given to young ladies having late term abortions coming out after day one to return the next day to expel the baby. A lollipop to keep the mom's blood sugar up. It's ugly and it's tragic. I know that many regard Planned Parenthood as a philanthropic organization helping poor women in need. It is not. Um, in New Jersey, I often was on the sidewalk with a a lady, Rosie, who ran the pro-life ultrasound van outside the abortion center. Rosie had served for many years in New York, had worked for many years in New York City, Planned Parenthood, and we had numerous conversations. One day she said to me, "The even the graphic pictures that many people hold outside the abortion centers don't come anywhere close to the nightmare of what goes on at Planned Parenthood. I recently met a young couple in New Jersey on the sidewalk outside Planned Parenthood. I approached the couple. They were going in young in their 20s. She didn't want to talk. She hurried past. He wanted to talk. Finally, she turned and on the verge of tears said, "I did it last month. I wish I could undo it. I wish you'd been here out out here last month when I was going in. I love kids. I wish I could bring my baby back. I think of my baby every day." We talked about the Lord, about forgiveness that is found in the person and in the work of Christ on the cross. El Paso as a county and as a city has endorsed the Planned Parenthood agenda. Planned Parenthood is not a philanthropic. Thank you, Miss Crawford. You've reached the three minutes. The next speaker is Danielle Br. Thank you, Miss Crawford. Danielle Brousett's topic is safety in the McGuffin Historic District. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Mayor, city council, thank you for letting me speak with you today. I'd like to address the escalating safety and sanitation issues in the McGoffen Historic District, one of the city's oldest and most culturally significant neighborhoods. It sits just steps from downtown and should be a point of pride for El Paso. And yet, it is too often treated as an afterthought in our broader tourism corridor. My name is Danielle Brazette. I was born right here in El Paso and started giving weekend tours at Waco Tanks before I was 10 years old. That's where I first fell in love with El Paso history, a love I've been sharing ever since. Now I manage an education and history nonprofit in the McGuffin neighborhood. Our work brings 10,000 people a year to this part of town. Tourists, school children, families from every corner of this city and county. We work hard to give them a welcoming, enriching experience, a place where our city's story can come alive. But lately, I worry that the story people walk away with is not one of pride. On April 22nd, two of my staff were threatened by a drug dealer who prays off the homeless individuals in the area. My colleagues were told they would be shot. That wasn't an isolated incident. A few weeks earlier, EPCC fashion students attending an evening rental were chased by a man who jumped the fence and continued to harass these young women. Even with staff and uniform security present from our front steps, I regularly see open drug use, prostitution, and public defecation. Elderly residents are harassed while walking home. Last week, a tourist asked me why a city worker was scrubbing blood off the sidewalk near the park. And I had no good answer to give. This isn't just uncomfortable, it's unsafe, and it's not fair. Not to the residents, not to our visitors, and not to the unhoused people who are suffering without services. This neighborhood needs attention. We need public restrooms to manage the human waste that is now overwhelming. We need trash cans. We don't even have enough to give people the option to do better. We need safe daytime spaces for unhoused individuals when shelters are closed or f or full because right now all they have is the shade of a fence. And most importantly, we need a continuous police presence at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Noble and Noble Street. And I'm not the only one saying this. I've heard it from teachers, from families, from small business owners, and from elderly residents afraid to leave their homes. Everyone in the district is asking the same question. How bad does it have to get before we take action? The McGoffen district is one of the oldest neighborhoods in El Paso. It's a place where our culture, our architecture, and our values all come together, and it deserves the same investment and support we give other parts of the city. As you guys said, you've reached 3 minutes. Thank you. Thank you so much. The next speaker is Salvador Guerrero. Salvador Guerrero Frank Larios. Mr. Lario's topic is safety in the McGoffin district and it will need the the Elmo, please. Thanks very much. This is Thank you. Is that Yeah, that Yeah, that's that'll do it. Thank you. Mhm. Back on. Can you see that? Not yet. I think they're going to go hit a button there, Frank. Thank you. There we go. Oh, great. Yeah, we I'm going to be speaking about the same subject. The address that Mrs. Danielle was referring to. It's right there on Myrtle and uh Novel. Uh and that's pretty much the epicenter of everything that is going on. I want to come back to this uh to this map, but let me just show you what what just happened here recently. Uh this was a stabbing that took place on April the 18th right in the same corner Noble and Myrtle. Uh and then let me show you a little bit more here. Uh this is also happening on the 18. You what you see there is people just preparing their drugs. This is right in front of my building which is right next to that vacant lot on Myrtle in Novo. This is also on April the 18th. Uh this is on Easter weekend. the door right to your left, that's the door to entrance. My my uh apartment building, the the tenants couldn't walk out of the uh the the the building because this guy was um unconscious and just laying there. Um he picked him up and I don't know what whatever happened with him. Yeah. Um this is this is yesterday. This is same same location. Noble and Myrtle. This is what what these people do when they're there in the area. Uh and this is again this is right in front of the uh the uh the the property novel in Myrtle. U let me get back to the uh to my map and let me show you what what's happening. Yeah. Uh what you see there is the I I pointed out the uh the properties that I own by the uh the opportunity center which is one two three four. Uh there is actually a total of 12 properties that is that uh the opportunity center owns. Uh there are two or three uh east of Myrtle uh west of Myrtle and two or three on McGuffin. Yeah. And the first one of course was the big one that was it got there in 1994. The last one was in 2024. And over the years the more properties the the bigger they get the the more serious the problem is is is for us. Um I believe that uh one phone call is all it's going to take to fix this. I believe we can do that. Um, and in the meantime, uh, I'm willing I also spoke with Mr. Canales and I need to follow up with you on that and you let me we you let me know when we can proceed with this. I'm willing to purchase the property there on Noville and Myrtle. I'm willing to purchase the property and donate that to the city of El Paso. if they can commit to us that they're going to build a substation, a a small police substation, that's that's uh I'm willing to do that and we I want to get that that going as soon as possible. In the meantime, going back to the one phone call, Mr. Johnson, we can get the National Guard over here. Thank you, sir. You've reached the three minutes. Thank you, Representative Leon. Mayor, um I would like to speak on this because last week coming back to the office after lunch, I drove exactly down this street and I saw the the homeless camp that was up there. We have had incredible success by calling that into the 311 and then following with code enforcement. Within one day, they're removed. And so would certainly encourage you to use the 311 app, sir, because that is absolutely unacceptable in any part of our city. And and I'm sorry that you and the people in that area have to live under those kinds of conditions. Thank you. We we we do that. It won't be actually these pictures were taken yesterday around this time. You're exactly right. They went back and everything is clean right now. It's not going to be it's not going to be long before they are going to be back right there on the same on the same uh street. Yeah. It's it just keeps going. Yeah. Yeah. They do a pretty good job when they come in and clean, but by tonight some somebody's going to set up their little camp. By tomorrow, there's going to be two. By before the weekend, it's going to be full again. And I guess we just need to follow up because who's going to last longer? you know, they're going to move on eventually if this if it's cleaned up. Um, and so I'm hoping that something can be resolved. We've been hoping something changes there, but uh is this is one of my my statements also. I I know the process works to a point, but we need to be more more more I don't know, we need to change something a little bit. We need to change something so the result can change. You know the the the process we keep doing the same thing. The result is not going to change. Yeah. And we haven't seen that in in 18 years. It actually keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Thank you so much. And then I know COD is here in our police department. So maybe they'll come over and continue the conversation. Miss Prime. Yes, Mayor. The next speaker is Ron Ko. Mr. Ko's topic is exercising his constitutional rights for rescue of 1983 and animal services. He will be followed by Claudia Contra Siller. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm going to bounce around a little today. Speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of the first amendment values and is entitled to special protection when animal lives are at stake. Now you know why I keep saying constitutional rights. This is a copy of the task force recommendations for our original nokill plan. This had to be presented to city council in order to change the shelter plan. Can anybody show me the one of these for the new plan that's in place or did we just violate city policies and procedures? Next thing, I had a conversation with somebody the other day and they were telling me how some people that you talked to said that the shelter was doing such a great job. I'd like to point out that they don't deal with the community. They don't deal with the strays. They don't trap or catch. I don't know. You know, I'm speaking from the community's end. Speaking of the community's end, I was asked by some community members to ask you all when we were going to start protecting the community and stop protecting his royal highness. The community's tired. And just for the record, Riverside, California has sued the county. They've sued that county has the shelter for violating California laws. Sound familiar? They were found guilty. They have been told that they can't do this. They've also been charged by the rescues. They've charged the county, the person who hired the unqualified director and the unqualified director for wasting taxpayer money. I sent you all the email before the last meeting. They actually refer to El Paso probably because we have a lot in common. Um, damn. Sorry, forgot the other one. Mr. Ko, and I'll remind you, please no personal attacks during your comments. No personal attacks, sir. I didn't personally attack anybody. I didn't name anybody. I was well within my rights. Thank you. Oh, PETA. I sent you all a article from PETA. In this article from PETA, they slam El Paso hard over our issues. PETA, a national organization for animal welfare. You all have, if you haven't seen it or you haven't looked, you have a copy of it. I emailed it to you. I'm sorry, folks. I email you things to help educate you on what's actually happening in the world and especially in El Paso. We are being pointed at as a disgusting example of animal welfare. When are we going to fix it? Thank you, Ron. The next speaker is Claudia Contra Siller. Miss Siller's topic is animal cruelty against cats. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Uh, I am the cat lady and I'm here to represent the cats and to back the blue right now in their 152 birthday. They have a ceremony for the memorial ceremony this Friday and as leaders uh you all should be backing them up 100%. Um, yeah, this Saturday they have an event there are 200 officers short. Animal Services is 330 officers shirt and they are the ones taking care of the city. I have some pictures and we only have two three minutes. I hope it stays like this and it's not lowered down to 2 minutes. It please. This kitten was locked for I don't know how many days where he lives. They put some rocks here. You can see his eyes. I I liberated him. I went back. They put a lot of sand. The person doing this uh threatened me with pepper spray. Thank God for the police department because pepper spray, it's a weapon. The next day it was covered with cement. And this is going on and it's going on a lot. I'm just the only cat lady that comes here and talks about it. And I backed I bug the blue 100%. And you all have the resources. You have money. The the tax property is being used 43% for schools. Some of us don't have kids. So I think that's a little bit too much. 29% is being used for the police, the for the fire department, for the sue, and a lot of other stuff here. Well, I have the icons. And I think the police department deserves more. The animal cruelty deserves more money. Give them more money. And they should be taking the they they should be taking the animal cruelty calls 24/7. The entire department. Uh 311 stops taking calls at 11. And if and everything I say here, it's directed to the entire city. I'm sorry if I come a little bit too strong, but like I'm very tired. Uh they're poisoning cats every day, everywhere. Just look at the next door and uh the police department deserves our full support. One time I was at a gas station and there was a shooting at a bar and I told them there's a shooting there and they started running towards the bullets and that's when I started appreciating them more and they deser deserve more money and I'll say it in Spanish and please uh if you all don't like the cats well I'm talking to everybody you're wrong. People who don't like the cats are wrong because they're the next speaker the same as value as a dog is Miss Patricia Osman. Miss Osman's topic is transparency, first amendment civil rights of citizens and undue influence of donors and vendors on elected officials. Miss Osman star six please to unmute your telephone. I don't see her in the queue. We'll move on to the final speaker which is Carol Cassidy. Miss Cassid's topic is restriction of freedom of speech. Miss Cassidy, star six, please to unmute your telephone. Carol Cassidy. Good afternoon, ma'am. You have three minutes. Thank you. Okay. Well, greetings city council me the manager and Mayor Johnson. Oh my goodness. If you were elected uh or EVM selected to serve the hardworking taxpayers of El Paso City, how dare you attempt to assault our constitutional first amendment right abridging the freedom of speech. Your item number one to restrict our voices is a real threat against our constitutional republic. Please vote no item one. And voters wake up here. El Paso City's debt for 2024. Oh my gosh. Could make us all homeless. It's 3 billion 2,559,000. And that's on the Texas Bond Review Board. Take a look. Cut all for the city and the mayor. Cut all your administrators your bureaucracies. This three billion plus debt means bankruptcy. My gosh. Take a look. President Trump's working desperately to save our nation from the Democrats and Rhinos fiscal destruction of our country. 37 trillion. Oh my gosh, it's unsustainable. As is this city, three billion plus added to the other four taxing entities on our CAD statement. And God bless the CAD, they're doing their job, but the but the taxing entities are out of control here. So quit dis uh dis disrespecting we the people. Please do what's right. Fiscal responsibility. We need a doge here. Uh there is a doge I believe being set up I hope with the Texas legislature. Uh they're kind of out of control of course anyway. And I'm bidding you to do fiscal responsibility in the name of Jesus. And I want to say thank you to that beautiful cat lady. Oh my gosh. My husband and I have rescued now seven cats and they live in our own. Oh my gosh, we can't take any more in. But anyway, uh and my name is Carol Cassidy and I'm a Texas and El Paso proud citizen here prayer warrior. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Prime. That concludes call to the public this afternoon. All right, let's take item 32. Yes, sir. We're on page 14. Items 32 and 33 are related. if I may read them both. Sure. Thank you. Item 32 is an ordinance changing the zoning from R5 residential to AO apartment office at 1814 and 1818 Arizona Avenue. Item 33 is a public hearing of an ordinance granting a special permit to allow for infield development with 50% parking reduction also at 1814 and 1818 Arizona Avenue. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion and a second. discussion. Representative Canon. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to say thank you to the Guihadro family. Uh, you know, they this this took quite a while to get this arranged for them and and they went through some difficulty, uh, dealing with with this property. So, uh, thanks for their patience and I'm glad that this resolved. All right. Thank you. Any other discussion on this item? All right. Hearing none, Miss Bryan, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Ganales, seconded by alternate mayor prom. And this is to adopt the ordinances on items 32 and 33. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. All right, let's take 34. Yes, sir. Item 34 is a public hearing of adornance granting a special permit to allow for infill development with reductions to average lot width, front, rear, and sideyard setbacks and 100% parking reduction. This is at 903 Park Street. Move to approve. All right. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion on this item? Hearing none. Miss Prime call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Canales, seconded by alternate mayor prompo to adopt the ordinance on item 34. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay, let's take 35. Item 35 is a public hearing of an ordinance changing the zoning. If we could take 35 and 36 together, please. Yes, ma'am. Item 35 is a public hearing of an ordinance changing the zoning from RF Ranch and Farm to R4 residential and imposing a condition at 8700 PL. Item 36 is a public hearing of an ordinance changing the zoning for parcel one from RF ranch and farm to C1 commercial and parcel two from RF ranch and farm to C2 commercial and imposing conditions. This is northwest of Sagosa Road and west of North Loop Drive. Mayor, I make a motion to approve items number 35 and 36 on the agenda. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none. Miss Bryan, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez, and this is to adopt the ordinances on items 35 and 36. There's no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. All right, let's take 37. Item 37 is a public hearing of an ordinance granting a non-exclusive franchise to Rio Grand Waste Services, Inc. to operate and maintain a solid waste collection and hauler service within the city of El Paso. Is there a motion to approve? Motion and a second. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, Miss Prime call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by alternate mayor Prom Fiero, seconded by Representative Thjo. And this is to adopt the ordinance on item 37. There is no public comment on that motion. Call for the vote. in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Okay, let's take 38. Item 38 is discussion and action on a resolution that the city manager or designate be authorized to affectuate the listed budget transfer to add funds from renovations master project into fire station 16 renovation sub project in accordance with updated project scope and expenditure needs the funding sources public safety bond to approve. There's a there's a motion and a second. Any discussion on this item? Seeing none hearing none. Miss Prime call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Lemon, seconded by alternate mayor promos to approve item 38. On that motion, call for the vote in the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Let's take 39. Item 39 is discussion and action on a resolution authorizing the submission of of an application to the office of Congresswoman Veronica Escobar requesting an appropriation from the community project funding program in an amount of $5 million with a federal government contributing $4 million and a $1 million match from the city for the Seundo Bario safe streets project. Okay. Is there a motion on this to approve? Second. Motion and second discussion. Representative Canales. Thank you, mayor. Yeah, I wanted to give a thank you to staff uh who packed packaged this quite quickly. Um this is a project that's been around on our books for a while in different forms. Uh it's been pretty fraught with with uh different problems with the funding sources and whatnot. So, uh I'm grateful that we're able to include this in the community project funding requests this year. I think it's a very worthwhile one. Uh again, we we've completed one tiny segment and it's not exactly this project. It's uh immediately adjacent the on Campbell Street. It looks excellent and so the community is really excited about the possibility of replicating that throughout the neighborhood. So, thank you. Thank you. Any more discussion on item number 39? All right. Hearing none, seeing none, Miss Prank call for this vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Ganales, seconded by Representative Lemon, and this is to approve the resolution on item 39. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. All right, let's take item number 40. Yes, sir. The final item is number 40 and this is discussion and action on a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the office of Congresswoman Veronica Escobar requesting an appropriation from the community project funding program in the amount of $5 million with a federal government contributing $4 million and a $750,000 match from the city and $250,000 match from the Deck Plaza Foundation for the I 10 Deck Plaza project. Is there a motion on this item? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. Represent Canales. Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah, I don't think that this one is news. Uh, applying for these federal funds was part of uh the the potential strategy that was discussed when uh when staff uh spoke to to the council about all of the potential funding sources. Uh and again I I've been very consistent in saying that I I am happy to support this as long as we're aiming for uh state and federal funds for for this project. Uh this is a a good opportunity to uh take a chunk albeit at a small chunk out of the the price tag of this project and and uh you know receive support in partnership with uh with the federal government. So uh happy to support it today. Okay. Thank you. Any more discussion on this item? All right. Hearing none, seeing none, Miss Prime, please call for this vote. We have public comment on this item. Number 40. We do. We have Bruno Vasquez. Mr. Vasquez, star six, please to unmute your telephone. Bruno Vasquez, star six, please. Good afternoon. You have three minutes. Good afternoon. Uh, good good afternoon. Um, city council, uh, mayor, uh, fellow citizens. My name is Bruno Vasquez. I am a local architect, but can everybody hear? Yes, sir. Yes. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I didn't I didn't realize that. Okay, here we go. Um, so my name is Bruno Vasquez. I am a local architect uh proud member of the American Institute of Architects here in El Paso. Uh a couple of weeks ago, uh my colleagues and I uh had an opportunity to present our support for the Deck Plaza project in El Paso and we want to reiterate our support. We also want to extend a helping hand. uh we had been reaching out to various organizations not just the city of El Paso uh but also the community foundation in an effort to uh provide and lend our expertise uh proono uh because not just as architects but also as residents of the city we want to see this project move forward. We want to make sure that our um uh membership is uh able to provide help and uh organizing community meetings and providing technical uh support uh to help answer a lot of the questions that uh community members, neighborhood associations, other um uh private industry and and and and anybody else interested in this project may have Um, we want to do it because we see this as a great opportunity for our city. We we often hear some of the uh concerns that some of our fellow El Pasoans share about this project. Things like we are not Dallas, we are not Phoenix. And and you're right. Uh, in fact, I would emphatically say thank God for that. We are Eluko and we can make this project our own just like we have made a lot of our uh uh other cultural assets our own. Uh architecture plays a big role in the way that culture develops but it also plays a big role in how an economy develops. We see this as a great opportunity and again just want to reiterate the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects to support and provide a lending hand to this effort. Um, thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Eddie Chavez. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, city council members. I know most of you, not all of you, but anyways, you know who I am. And I um I came out here cuz I saw this uh another carrot for the city to spend more money. Once they see money from the government, they want to make uh they want to join in. We we should have learned our lesson when we did our uh another white elephant, which was uh that the trolley. It was supposed to be a big thing and supposed to bring so many people and everything. And look at it. We're paying for it and it's going down. As a matter of fact, I think we still owe $91 million to the state because that money was used by Lily. Uh, not Lily. I'm sorry. Nylon. I'm sorry, Lily. I know you were fighting against her all the time. So, it was a good entertainment when I used to come to the city council meetings. Poor poor leisure leisure made Mayor leisure how he had to be referee all the time. Anyways, I known her from we come from the Chiita. So, we're that's we're cousins. We call each other cousins. But anyways, I'm against this because this money could be used for something else. Plus, now we got the arena is going to come out in uh Northeast. I think they're going to be competing against it uh this um event. So, I was hoping that the city council would uh think it twice and spend this money even though they're going to get money from the government, but it's a carrot. You know, you guys uh you see it and you get drawn into this thing. I'm just a little taxpayer from a high school education. But I tell you one thing, I done more as a neighborhood association than a lot of you guys up there. So, and I can't wait to finish my book so you guys can see all this thing that's going on. But you guys, I I want to commend you though that I finally see something human in this city council. You finally thinking about the the people that come up here to try to talk and to come out here and encourage them to come out. I do it everywhere I go. Thank you so much for all your jobs. God bless you all. All right. Thank you so much. Miss Bryan, call for the vote, please. Yes, sir. The motion was made by representative Canales, seconded by alternate mayor prot. This is to approve item 40. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. All right. We have a We have a motion and a second to adjurnn, Miss Prime. Yes, sir. There's a motion and a second to adjurnn the city council meeting. All in favor? Anyone opposed? And the regular city council meeting for Tuesday, May 13, 2025 is adjourned at 12:46 p.m. Thank you council.