Chris Brown hello one minute good morning see how are you good good it's 9 A.M good morning mayor good morning everyone it is 9 A.M yes sir we have a quorum good morning this is a meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday June 20th 2023 mayor Lisa is present in council chambers president presiding along with representative Kennedy representative Hernandez alternate mayor Pro temolinar representative Salcido and representative Rivera representative anello is joining us virtually today mayor Pro Tema anello can you hear us thank you yes ma'am good morning thank you it is 901 a.m now will everyone please silence our electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and writes for the invocation delivered by El Paso Police chaplain Joe Morata and good morning good morning sir if you'd like to pray with us this morning let's bow our heads together Heavenly Father We Begin these proceedings today with thankfulness and appreciation for the freedoms and the rights that we enjoy in our nation our state and our city we ask for your guidance today for all those who represent and work on behalf of the people of this community grant them wisdom and understanding as they make decisions decisions on how to best serve the residents of our city and the surrounding area we ask that your wisdom guide them and your strengths support them in the decision-making process today help us to be a community that as your word says that we serve one another in Love Today throughout the city of El Paso there are innumerable needs we ask that these many needs are met today some will be met through city services others through Community organizations and still yet other needs will be met through families friends and even the kindness of the neighbor help us to be residents that recognize our part in making our community a safer and a better place and we ask that you also bless protect and keep our First Responders and their families today in your name we pray amen amen Mr Ramirez will you lead us in the pledge sir thank you sir of the United States of America thank you sir good morning everyone and I think hello we need to be real cognizance of our temperature and I think it's important that we talk about it this morning prior to the meeting that uh you know it should be 104 degrees today the city's activating its uh cooling centers and to make sure that everybody is safe but we need to make sure that we watch our pets our kids and our elderly parents grandparents and even Prince and if you're out there make sure that you drink plenty of fluid come in periodic at different times of the day to make sure that you cool off it's uh you know and one of the things that's very very important is I've been looking at uh that we lose a lot of lives during this time of kids being left in cars please make sure that there's no kids in cars and if you can't find your child first place you need to go look is in a car and now that the swimming pools are full let's make sure that we're safe and protect our children so it's a it's best time of the year it's summer we get to spend times with friends family relatives we get to travel and enjoy city council meeting so it looks like we have a lot of great people here today but um but let's do the right thing and make sure that our our family members are taken care of it and that we take proper steps wear proper clothing and um I know that uh it's going to you know get every day going forward it's going to be a little warmer so again hydrate stay hydrated and the best way to hydrate is not at the time but prior to and then continue to drink while you're there but uh you know everyone makes sure we're safe and look to our left look to our right look forward look behind us and make sure we take care of the people we love thank you Mr Pine thank you Mary that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first Proclamation is National HIV testing day good morning good morning sir Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas the city of El Paso the El Paso Department of Public Health HIV prevention provides free HIV syphilis and hepatitis C testing and whereas the city of El Paso Department of Public Health collaborates with local Physicians clinics Community Health Centers Fort Bliss Dona Ana County New Mexico and other organizations promote a healthier safer community Through Community Education on HIV prevention and whereas getting tested and knowing the HIV status reduces the spread of HIV testing is critical to HIV prevention and whereas the Department of Public Health joins the Center for Disease Control and prevention and recognizing the importance of HIV testing and controlling the spread of HIV now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso the June 27 2023 shall be known as National HIV testing day signed the honorable Oscar leaser mayor city of El Paso thank you [Applause] and for the record representative Spiro and Canales have also joined the meeting in council chambers uh come on up please good morning good morning good morning thank you Mayor Lee CERN city council my name is Jacob Ortega health program manager with the Department of Public Health [Music] that's okay you want them to start over while you're recording sir go ahead would you like me to start all over all right thank you so much my name is Jacob Ortega health program manager with the Department of Public Health our program and the community thank you for recognizing National HIV testing day National HIV testing day is recognized each year on June 27th to highlight the importance of HIV testing and the theme for this year is take the test and take the next step the theme emphasizes that knowing your status your HIV status helps you choose options to stay healthy people who receive a negative test can take advantage of HIV biomedical prevention tools such as pre-exposure prophylaxis known as prep and other sexual health services such as vaccines and testing for sexually transmitted infections people who receive a positive test can rapidly start on HIV treatment known as art or antiretroviral therapy to stay healthy and reach an undetectable viral load in closing I encourage you all to stop by at 220 South Stanton on June 27th from 8 to 11 30 a.m and 1 to 4 30 pm to take advantage of a rapid HIV test with results as quickly as 15 minutes thank you all thank you and thank you all for being here it's so important to be proactive in understanding there's so many great medications and you know people can still continue to live their quality of life but you got to make sure you you know what what uh where you are where you're at so it's important to test and understand and make sure that people can still live a quality of life with a new technology new drugs and everything that's out there so thank you representative molinar and thank you all for being here and we asked that this morning's honorees please remain in Chambers until all the ceremonial items have been completed so that city council may have an opportunity to take photos with you the next Proclamation is National mosquito control awareness week percent of shall see them thank you mayor Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas mosquito-borne disease such as West Nile Sika St Louis encephalus among others have seconded and taken the lives of El Paso and County residents and individuals across the United States and worldwide and whereas the city of El Paso Department of Public Health dph investigate 60 mosquito-borne disease in 2022 and whereas the city of El Paso environmental service department ESD engages in mosquito control activities using different preventative strategies to limit the mosquito population before they bite and infect humans and whereas a DPS and ESD work together to educate the community on mosquito bite prevention and conducting community outreach focused on areas of the community where vulnerable groups of population live and whereas our community residents can assist in control of mosquitoes by limiting mosquito breeding across the city and county by eliminating sources of sanding water and whereas the dph encourages all citizens to educate themselves on ways to prevent mosquito bites and decreasing their risk of mosquito-borne diseases by properly applying An approved and effective mosquito repellent wearing light-colored loose lifting clothing and cover the arm and legs and limiting outdoor activities between Dusk and Dawn if possible now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and City Council of a city of El Paso that June 20th to June 26 2023 shall be known as National mosquito control awareness week signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser good morning good morning mayor and Council Ruth Castillo health program manager on behalf of the Department of Public Health emergency preparedness program epidemiology program and also the Environmental Services Department vector control program we would like to thank you this morning for this Proclamation mosquito bites can be of no sense for some of us but they can be fatal and they have been fatal for some of our most vulnerable populations within the community mosquito-borne diseases Also may impact the development of babies for pregnant women that's why during the entire month of July June and August the summer months we are encouraging everybody to make sure that they are practicing those 4ds so that way they can prevent any mosquito-borne diseases if there are any situations in which uncontrolled mosquito breeding is happening in any parts of the city please feel free to call 3-1-1 so that way they can get in contact with our vector control program and they can address the situation again thank you and have a healthy and safe summer thank you okay I want to thank uh you brought a lot of a lot of people here with you and I want to thank you all for being here Ms Erica good morning um it um you know it is if it's time to be aware that we need to spray keep ourselves protected because it's mosquito season and so make sure we all stay protected and and wear the right spray the right clothes and make sure they don't breathe in your backyard and in your ponds and you know empty buckets you leave around the house that so it's important to make sure that we continue to protect ourselves so with that thank you again for you all being here and Miss Prine thank you representative the next Proclamation is El Paso Hall of Fame and El Paso Sports commission week Reuben you want to gather up your group reps of Kennedy who is a former Hall of Famer congratulations former well you too so is the mayor come on over he's going to go ahead and read the proclamation and then we'll give you 30 seconds watch how fast I run yeah as long as you don't let Kenny Lucero talk we're okay um whereas the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame was founded in 1955 to honor those athletes both men and women who in their athletic fields of endeavor brought great credit upon themselves and El Paso County and City and whereas the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame honors each year the Ray Sanchez Memorial High School student athletes of the year and the class of 2023 under President Dr Scott Stein and whereas this year the inductees are abuela mon Jeanette Castro Lawrence Dale laverty in the living athlete category the coach administrators to be honored are Larry is it vucan is that correct okay hey I got one right Pat O'Neill followed by Charlie Miller in the official category Rick Hernandez in the supporter of Athletics category and Eddie Guerrero in the posthumous category and whereas the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame has inducted 401 men and women into this prestigious organization and thanks to the University of Texas at El Paso the individual plaques are proudly displayed in The Concourse of the Don Haskins Center on the UTEP campus and whereas the title sponsor of the El Paso Sports commission president Omar ropele vice president Beau Bagley and their great staff along with El Paso athletic Hall of fame's yearly efforts continue to provide fond memories for decades to come for El Paso Texas the region and the nation now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that the week of June 25th 2023 shall be known as El Paso athletic Hall of Fame and El Paso Sports commission week signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser thank you now that you just gave my speech I guess I have nothing to say here I've known you too long Dr Stein I think you'll be okay good morning I'm Scott Stein the current El Paso athletic Hall of Fame president and a proud 2016 inductee into the Hall special thanks to our Hall of Fame committee members who have worked so hard on this year's banquet ceremony thank you mayor Oscar liser Hall of Famer and city council for the great honor in recognizing the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame class of 2023. a special thanks as well to our title sponsor the El Paso Sports commission president Omar ropelli vice president Beau Bagley as we induct our eight new members not able to attend today our inductees Jennifer Castro Lawrence in the athletic category along with Larry vucan in the coaches category or a family representative of the famous Eddie Guerrero of wrestling Fame in the posthumous category the 2023 Hall class in the athlete category is uliman if you can come forward yellow uwella is one of the greatest High School female basketball players ever from El Paso and an outstanding player at the University of Texas Hook em Horns for legendary coach Jody Conrad a ninth in a 1976 Jefferson High School graduate who once scored 79 points in a basketball game the most ever by a male or female next we have Dale laverty if you can come forward Dale is an Andrus high school graduate in a three-time 400 meter intermediate hurdles outdoor champion in 1984 85 and 86. he's a two-time NCAA track and field All-American in the 400 meter intermediate hurdles in 85 and 86. that's in the coach administrator category we have Pat O'Neill Pat is a well-respected long-time administrator in the Clint Socorro and ysleta independent school districts he was head football coach for Hanks High School in the mid 80s for five years guiding them to three playoff bursts and two District championships he also played football at UTEP [Applause] next in the supporter Athletics category our inductee is Rick Hernandez a long time involvement with the annual High School football All-Star Game and he's the founding member of the El Paso football coaches clinic and a coach himself foreign next in the official category we have Charlie Miller he's been a highly successful volleyball and basketball official for 49 years in the high school and Collegiate levels he's still refereeing and one of his great memories has been able to officiate high school basketball games with his son Andrew I don't know if Andrew's here today next week we'll also honor the Ray Sanchez Memorial High School student athletes and teams of the year again on behalf of the El Paso Sports Commission in the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame thank you again mayor Lisa and city council for very very much for having us here today for more information on the rich history of the El Paso that a Hall of Fame you can go to www.elpasoftheticcolofame.com thank you all I appreciate it thank you all congratulations to every one of you all and I know that um coach Miller refereed a few of my games more than a few so um if you don't mind keep it to yourself today we'll be okay now when I was in high school he did a lot of our games and he did a great job and we've we became friends and stayed friends for a long time and now he's still coaching so after 49 years she's still a coach at Coronado High School JV baseball congratulations congratulations every one of y'all like it was great to be when you were being honored your coach from uh came here from University of Texas for the luncheon well that was uh it was a great tribute to you that the coach would come here and talk to you and really honor you and your accomplishments and she you know and it was a very inspiring to hear about you especially from somebody your coaches and your teammates and people that you got to play with you know the most important part of scoring 79 points I think I asked you that day was how many three-pointers you made in the wooden a three-point shot so they're all two point buckets so the score 79 ports and still be a record in the city is an incredible record and I know that you were an incredible player and a great mentor to a lot of people and and we thank you for that and again uh thank you all for being here and congratulations to every one of you all thank you all thank you [Applause] and the final Proclamation is elder abuse awareness month thank you representative thank you sir the proclamation for the city of El Paso Texas whereas our elderlies have contributed to the general welfare of the State Texas and the El Paso Community by helping to preserve Customs convictions and traditions and whereas these residents are vital and integral members of our society and their wisdom and experience have enriched our lives and whereas abuse of the elderly and domestic and institutional settings is a widespread problem affecting thousands of people across the country and whereas elderly abuse is grossly underreported because the elderly who are being abused find it very difficult to tell anyone and are usually ashamed and Afraid as many times the poor the perpetrator is a caregiver or loved one and whereas elderly abuse happens to men women of all social economic levels all cultural and ethnic groups whether they are in good health or incapacitated in some way in poor neighborhoods in Suburbia and where whereas many of the cases investigated by Adult Protective Services and Texas involves issues of self-neglect and it's our duty to as a community to reach out to the people in need now therefore it be proclaimed by the mayor City Council of the city of El Paso that the month of June shall be known as elderly abuse awareness month how they are [Music] good morning sir and representatives and City officials my name is Grace Ortiz and I'm the faith-based and communication specialist for Adult Protective Services I want to say thank you for supporting elder abuse awareness month with a city Proclamation Adult Protective Services is a state agency that investigates cases of abuse neglect and exploitation for the elderly and persons with disabilities anybody over 65 is considered an elder and anybody between 18 and 64 that has a chronic disability is also somebody that we serve just so you'll get an idea about the population in our our state in our community there are currently 10 000 people turning 65 years of age per day there are nearly 4.1 million Texans who are 65 years or older 1.7 million people with a disability 18 to 64. the Aging of the baby boom generation is projected to yield an elder population of 5.9 million or 19.4 percent of the state's total population by the year of 2030. and at this point one in five persons in Texas will be over the age of 65. June is elder abuse awareness month and APS along with the aps Silver Star board hosted a conference this month only for the sole purpose of raising Awareness on elder abuse and topics to keep our senior community healthy we work very closely with this board and they help us make a difference in the lives of seniors especially those who need it the most I'm providing you with a purple pin today that I'll be given to you in just a bit please wear this purple pin and talk about why you're wearing it make a difference in our community and get involved one of the things I ask you and mayor thank you for reminding everyone about the heat is be a buddy to a senior we're all connected to someone who's an elder a person with disabilities may be a neighbor a family a friend I'm asking you to check on them on those really hot days which will be this week it's really important that you remind them to take medications run errands for them and just like children don't leave them in a car I want to explain to you that there was back in 2001 12 people who passed away because of the extreme heat and because of that I will I will tell you it was all because we didn't pay attention so let's pay attention let's get connected with those seniors and if they need a fan remind them to register at 2-1-1 and we'll get them a fan through the extreme weather task force one day it's inevitable we will all be older Texans my wish is that when I'm an older Texan there will be individuals in our community such as you and me who will have a voice for me I'd like to thank you for allowing me to speak today and I also want to introduce to you our program administrator Jesus Sanchez who is housed here in El Paso Texas good morning honorable mayor and honorable good morning members uh we want to thank you for taking the time to issue this Proclamation I am the proud leader of 30 of the most dedicated individuals you will ever meet who go out every day to people's homes uh to try to offer them a myriad of services often they're not welcomed but I can assure you that once they use their skills and provide the services those people that we serve are very grateful just last year we served almost 5 000 El pasoans uh we not only serve this County but the five adjoining counties um Adult Protective Services is very proud of the work that we do and we want to continue doing it and the only way we can is by involvement of the community if you see something if you hear something if you know something then we ask you to please report it so that we can go out investigate and try to alleviate the situation as best as we can so thank you again thank you well representative Kennedy I learned something new today we're both considered elderly now I'm surprised that got past you mayor mayor would you like to like to consent agenda please thank you 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 alternate mayor Pro tem no Pro Tem good morning proposed revisions for the June 20th 23 meeting agenda page seven item 22 move to the Forefront of the regular agenda for Representatives Hernandez and Rivera page seven item 23 moved to the Forefront of the regular Jennifer Representatives Hernandez and Rivera page 21 item 45 moved to the Forefront of the regular agenda per representative Salcido colleagues do we have any other representative Hernandez yes um I'd like to move item number seven from the consent to the regular please anyone else is there a second there's a motion made by mayor protemolinar seconded by representative Rivera to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously we now move to page number seven item 22 that was moved to the Forefront and item 23 is also related what council like to take those together pardon me out in here would you like to take 22 and 23 together since they're related yes ma'am no the only thing I was going to mention is that because it's a resolution it's ceremonial there so if you would like to do the picture so you're not having everyone wait and then we can come back to item 23. we'll do the resolutions first and then you want item 22 first right do the resolutions first I got it thank you so yes ma'am item 22 is discussion in action to approve a resolution recognizing the invaluable service and support the Borderland rainbow Center provides the lgbtqia plus community in the El Paso region and that the city reaffirms its commitment to promoting equality and dignity of all people no matter sexual gender or questioning identity and that this recognition aligns with the city's values of prioritizing Integrity respect Excellence accountability and people this item was submitted by Representatives Hernandez and Rivera good morning if I can invite the the group to come outside go ahead thank you uh the resolution it reads its follows whereas the Borderland rainbow Center was founded on September 2nd 2016 by Dr Brenda Rish with the pursuit of addressing in inequality injustices facing the lgbtqia plus community and the Borderland region and whereas the mission of the Borderland rainbow Center is to create a space in which lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer questioning intersex lgbtqi people and their allies can heal grow and Empower themselves and others and whereas the Borderland rainbow Center is located at 2714 Wyoming Avenue in El Paso Texas and is the only LGBT lgbtqia plus Community Center within a 300 mile radius that serves residents of the El Paso County Deming County Otero County and so that Juarez Mexico and whereas the Borderland rainbow Center is governed according to research-based best practices for lgbtqia people and their allies and connects them to resources for improved physical and mental health economic stability legal rights education spiritual and cultural enrichment including life-saving therapy support groups and intergenerational services and whereas the Borderland rainbow Center drives their commitment to building a Community Driven space for and by our community Unity by additionally offering a weekly Pantry that serves over 350 people and community events that bring together people of various backgrounds to a safe space to learn and grow together and whereas the Borderland rainbow Center is operated by a dedicated staff to include Lorena Edwards Fernando Mendez Andy Rose descareno Veronica Camacho Diana Martinez Julie Lucas Ashley hendelbritch Alex huckis Luis Orozco and others who are committed to the cause and now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of El Paso it recognizes the invaluable service and support the Borderland rainbow Center provides the lgbtqia plus community and the El Paso region and this and the city reaffirms its commitment to promoting equality and dignity of all people no matter sexual gender or questioning identity and this recognition aligns with the city's values of prioritizing Integrity respect excellence and accountability and people congratulations and I make a motion to approve thank you this Prime we also I think have public comment on this yes mayor we have 10 people that signed up to speak on item number two the first person is Wesley Lawrence well no we'll go ahead and um are you um go ahead and then we can do public comment yes sir uh hello good morning good morning my name is Amber Bettis I am the interim executive director of the Borderland rainbow center now the center and I just want to let you know how important this is to uh the community not just the lgbtqia plus Community but also those who are allied with the community we have an incredible staff who has sat through thick and thin and through good times and bad and will continue to sit here not only with the lgbtqia plus Community but also with our allies thank you so much thank you very much Miss Prine the next person is Wesley Lawrence good morning sir good morning mayor um good morning mayor members of council uh my name is Wesley Lawrence and as many of you know I'm a vocal and local lgbtqia plus activist who serves as a Portland rainbow Center's membership director and I also proudly serve as sd29's committee Manor for the Texas democratic party I want to start off by thanking our president of Rivera and Hernandez for sponsoring item number 22. I can tell you that through this horrendous legislative session that just passed through Austin your support means a lot not only to myself but to my queer brothers and sisters as well um I want to start by beginning my statement by saying that Pride to me is more than just going to a parade or going to drag shows at many various locations it's all about promoting equality and inclusion and lifting up and enhancing queer voices and ensuring that every member of our community is included and feels loved and that our city promotes El Paso as a safe space for every El Paso in when I first found out about the borderline rainbow Center in 2020 I knew it was a safe place that had so much to offer for our community and now that I serve on its board I understand the opportunity that it brings to our city so much more it's a place that understands and loves our community a place that no matter your identity in who you love or who you are you are safe and a place that deeply cares about you know our community and ensuring that our needs are being met and that's why I'm proud to call everyone that's standing behind me not only a friend but a family member as well because oftentimes in the lgbtq community it feels like we're alone whether that's through a government that chooses to oppress us rather than uplift us or often living in a household where our family and our parents just don't understand us and in a society where our friends still understand us it's tiring to continue to fight for equality and inclusion but it's leaders like yourselves and leaders throughout this great nation that fight for equality that truthfully make the work not only that I'm doing for our community but the work hundreds of thousands of people are doing across this great state and throughout the United States to ensure that everyone regardless of their gender their age their sex their identity their expression of of choice is safe and that we can come together to build a better City it's going to be amazing and once again thank you Representatives Hernandez for championing this thank you thank you sir the next speaker is neria rebelles neria reveles will be followed by Andy tiscareno good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning mayor Luther city council members and fellow citizens in the audience I am Nida reveles a proud lifelong fronterisa District 4 Resident homeschooling mom of three I represent the El Paso hub for Texas equality equality Texas and I have recently studied to serve as a volunteer for the Borden rainbow Center thank you for allowing me the time to speak directly to you about matters that affect my family and families like mine I am speaking today in support of items 22 and 23. two important resolutions that would help to protect us against the hate filled ill-informed legislation recently passed in our state you may already know that our recent session of the Texas state legislature broke records in the number of anti-inclusion and anti-in quality Bills ever introduced most of the bills specifically targeted the 2s lgbtqia Bill community of which my family are members although activists and Advocates were successfully able to defeat 95 percent of those bills those that did become law even though they don't become law until September 1st they have already started to hurt us for example doctors across our state and in our city are already beginning to refuse to provide life-saving best practice evidence-based gender affirming care to patients who need it in response to sb14 for example our state is forcing families to become political refugees we had hoped to continue to call El Paso our home sadly with the latest legislative attacks from our state that is no longer a safe or sane option for us we are very lucky to have the means and that we are so close to New Mexico which has recently declared itself a sanctuary state for families like mine that is precisely where my family hopes to relocate before the September deadline we will be texts and refugees it is time for our city to take a concrete stand against hate stand with us against these attacks and help us to keep El Paso a safe and affirming Haven where all people can live with dignity let's reaffirm our position in support of safety and equality for all help us to declare our city as a safe space for all families so that no more of us are forced to flee I urge you to protect my family and others Like Mine by supporting items 22 and 23. thank you thank you the next speaker is Andy tiscareno followed by Aurelio Valdez Jr good morning you have three minutes good morning I also ask that you excuse me my church is acting up uh today so I'm twitching a little more than usual good morning I want to say thank you so much for having this resolution on the bill on the agenda as a member of the LGBT plus Community here in El Paso and as the intergenerational support services specialist for the Borderland rainbow Center I have had the honor to be able to serve alongside so many uh amazing and important people in in this organization that have helped to create a safe space for the LGBT plus community in El Paso that um that's providing services that are in uh very very much needed in our community I also uh want to say that as a former um uh quote-unquote client of of this Center since it first started when I first started uh in my transition as a transgender woman I definitely needed a place like this when I was younger and now that we have a place like this for younger and um you know everyone across the generations in this community that has this safe space to call their second home it's an incredible honor to be able to be on to be uh working alongside everyone creating this space so thank you so much and uh yeah thank you thank you thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is Aurelio Valdez Jr okay well good morning city council Mr Mayor good morning sir I'm the founder of the El Paso genders and sexualized Alliance board as well as the service the west Texas USA Coalition and the National Youth Council so in doing so I'm the leader of the South United States youth um and I bring that up because I've seen some other centers across the country on the state level and on the national level so I can tell you even though this is my hometown the BRC is definitely one of the pivot organizations that when I was founding the El Paso genders and sexualized lands board and seeing other organizations this really is one of the top ten I would say on the Nashville this is a really good organization so I support this into the item all the way so thank you the next statement was submitted by Kenneth Bell and it reads my name is Kenneth Bell and I'm writing in support of agenda items 22 and 23. it is important that our City stand up and defense of our lgbtqia plus Community especially as they continue to come under attack by state legislators and well-funded hate groups throughout Texas and the nation it is a job of our municipal government to look after the well-being of our residents and the lgbtqia plus Community is among the most vulnerable groups some may argue that there isn't much a city council can do but that is not an excuse to do nothing everyone on Council can do something these items are reassurance that our lgbtqia plus sisters and brothers matter many of us will never know what it means to be lgbtqia plus but that doesn't mean we cannot show compassion choose compassion over comprehension vote Yes for items 22 and 23. the next speaker is Carol Cassidy followed by Irene Beatrice Lisa Turner Diana Martinez Carol Cassidy good morning you have three minutes well good morning good mayor and our city council here please I do have Bibles for the three new members I like to present them for Mr Kennedy and Mr fiato and Mr Canales also Constitution books I'll leave them here with the clerk okay but uh so happy you're on this you've joined our city council anyway real quickly here uh Jesus said the great commandment is love God and love your neighbor and of course we love our neighbors we love our neighbors enough to state that as Benjamin Franklin stated of my gosh in the 1700s an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure we need to prevent fires and uh it's easier to prevent them than to fight them the same thing with sodomy to prevent our children from getting waylaid in our schools K through 12 Pre-K all the way through the universities I am a former seattleite I saw what happened to my city from the outrageous assault by the violent they're very violent lgbtq Etc anyway uh yes we have compassion definitely for all of that so real quickly I'll just go through a few things uh according to NCI you guys almost almost know this the one of the leading causes of death for the beautiful young men and little boys and elderly men is uh is colorectal cancer anyway um I lived in Seattle long enough to see the Bailey Boucher house that opened in 1992 and I'm hoping this is on camera this is going to be recorded okay in 1992 in the beautiful city of Seattle this house opened for the young men beautiful young men who never realized their their their gender the creation that the Lord had provided them they were dying from Aids HIV colorectal cancer okay that house is still running they are in Seattle um anyway suppressing the truth by opposing the will of God is what we're looking at here in any case I know I only have a 33 seconds I'll have to move on I was fortunate to visit Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and there to go into the what they call the Hall of the righteous that is so magnificent a tribute for all who have stood up for righteousness during of course the nightmare of the uh of the 12 years of the yes that was supposed to be proclaimed by the devil there uh to be I what did he call it now I can't think right now anyway if I can reference 23 I will come back thank you thank you the next speaker is Irene batras followed by Lisa Turner and Diana Martinez good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning Lisa and council members I just come with a simple question first of all I just want to say um each and every one of you was elected by the citizens of El Paso and you represent them and I just have one question for each one of you and that is this when you make your decisions are well actually who is your Authority the god of the Bible or man self so I'm asking each and every one of you that when you come to make decisions think of the people of El Paso and think of who you represent and who your Authority is and that is all I I leave you with to think about okay thank you thank you and I think I'm going to answer the question real quick and now I don't want to go I don't want to have a dialogue but I think everyone is here will tell you we represent 100 of people and we'll always represent them equally thank you foreign good morning Miss Turner good morning mayor council Miss Turner good morning how are you the previous two speakers you know there are 4 200 religions at last count so who's God are we talking about yours mine theirs next thing we got to talk about is uh with her last name was Miss Cassidy the lady from Seattle I wish you had stayed in Seattle Miss Turner tag right there I don't know Miss Turner we don't we don't do public Miss Turner I fall Miss Turner the right to say what you said Miss Turner address us please I fall for that fly I know you did and I thank you for my life on the line so people like this can come up and demean other people let me remind you of something woman with the coming of Jesus Christ there was a new covenant and a new commandment the second most commandment most important one and that is that we are loved to love each other as Christ loved us that's no bias no Prejudice no judgment and let me remind you of this We Are All One in Christ there is no mail there is no female now you can take your religion and for all I care shove it I'm sorry I'm sick and tired of this bigotry right now the Republicans in the United States Congress have decided to not treat active duty service members to not treat their children to not treat veterans if they want bills passed simply because we're trans I'm a transgender woman what can I say took me a long time to get to where I should be but this is the path the good Lord chose for me this is the fight I'm always chosen to do to stand up against this bigotry and that's all it is you talk about God no you running around with somebody's man's talk has told you what to say swear I can't believe these people thank you Miss Turner the final speaker is Diana Martinez Ms Turner and thank you again for your service and thank you for always being up here good morning and um I started at the Borderland rainbow Center uh with uh programs to promote voter education and so the Borderland rainbow Center we support values of democracy values of you know I mean everyone is created equal right and um and uh you know inclusion and diversity and affirming people in their authentic selves and so it can be more democratic than that and so yes I began there volunteering for voter education registering voters and then from there um what did I do as a volunteer we fed migrants migrants that were sheltered by Annunciation house in 2018. all that in one year in 2018 and since then we have created programs to support the values of inclusion and diversity of the in everything that we do goes into our mission is directly related helping people heal grow and be empowered so you know and it doesn't matter what faith you are it doesn't matter uh how you identify as a what your gender is okay um what matters is that everyone's equal everyone's affirmed in who they are and everyone's accepted and this is a place where people can come we have brunch on Sundays or one Sunday a month and everyone who walks in there feels like they have come home and it's a warm and inviting place where we get to listen to each other's stories and understand one another and so we are a place of love and compassion and I mean what could be better than that okay thank you thank you mayor that's everyone that signed up for item 22. do we have a second yes there was a second by representative rivetta great can we take the yes sir the motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Rivera to approve the resolution on item 22 on that motion call for the vote representative anello I I'm sorry ma'am I don't see you on screen aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Miss Frank you know one thing that's important that um we're all created equal and we should love and respect each other and Live and Let Live so thank you and may God bless everyone look at that uh yeah yeah motion the recess move second thank you there's a motion and a second to recess the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 9 52 a.m in order to take photos with this morning's honorees Council I'm going to ask everybody to join us in the lobby area we're going to start off with the national HIV testing day followed by the national mosquito control awareness and then we're going to do the athletic Hall of Fame folks along with a commission Week sports commission week the fourth one is going to be elder abuse awareness and uh the fifth one is going to be the Borderland rainbow Center recognition if y'all could meet me out in the lobby thank you do we have a motion there's a motion in a second to reconvene the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed we're on item number 23 and this is on page seven and this is discussion in action to direct the city manager and City attorney to develop a plan to uplift the lgbtqia plus Community Voices and Community by creating a plan to ensure that the following recommendations are important to ensure a safe Community for everyone and number one is to create an office of equality and inequality and inclusion Board number two to work together in collaboration with the Borderland rainbow Center to create a one El Paso safer together campaign number three to De prioritize the enforcement of seeking gender affirming Care Now number four to de-prioritize the enforcement of drag vans in our city limits this item was also submitted by Representatives Rivera and Hernandez uh who would want to go first representative thank you mayor thank you and uh I'd like to start out by saying I please sign on the agenda because it's important to always protect and ensure the safety of our community as we said earlier today you said it we felt it they said it when they got it there and I was privileged to place this item on behalf of the lgbtqia Plus and the Borderland rainbow Center um these are non-profits that serves the people around our vast border region their mission is to create a community space in which lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer questioning intersex people and their allies can heal grow and Empower themselves and others I want to especially thank Mr Wesley Lawrence who serves on the board of Borderland rainbow Center for bringing these important recommendations to our attention at this time here I would like to to suspend a three-minute rule for Mr Wesley Lawrence who's going to do a presentation regarding uh the building of moral equal and inclusive El Paso Mr Lawrence good morning again and thank you uh Cassandra and Henry and then miss Prime uh I gave you the the Powerpoints I believe she passed him out um but just just to run through this pretty fast because I know there's going to be a lot of discussion and some floor recommendations um on behalf of council um but the work that I've been doing is it's been on the two-year process um just in order to ensure that every El Paso in um is protected you know especially with the laws that just passed um the Texas house and Texas Senate I can tell you that talking to families here in El Paso both in the queer Community um and outside of that there's a lot of concern and like uh Kenneth Bell mentioned and during the last item during his public comment City councils have a lot of abilities that they can do and Implement policy uh to make our community safer for everyone so I just want to touch a little bit on the first item and then I'll pass it off to to my my friend here Amber Perez who's our interim executive director at the BRC but number one is something that I think is very important uh for our community in terms of an office of equal quality that office does not just serve queer individuals it serves everyone so if you remember the bipoc community if you're a unhoused person if you're a low-income individual this office has the ability to ensure that you do not get left behind because it can tackle things such as discrimination in the workplace discrimination and housing policy discrimination based on your gender or your identity but let's also be clear this this stuff is still happening not only in El Paso but throughout the whole United States and we just saw that in Austin uh with with sb12 which is places a a fine and a possible jail time for drag performers and local businesses that host these individuals so this gives them an opportunity to have their voices heard for them to be safe in terms of an inclusion an equality board that could work in tandem with several City boards you think of like Americans Disabilities Act that also falls under the jurisdiction of something that inequality and inclusion board could do to ensure that our city is safe for people with disabilities ensuring that we come up with policies just like the four recommendations that we have in front of council today to keep people safe and then I'll pass that over to my interim executive director Amber Bettis to talk on the second item good morning again uh so uh the second part of this is to create uh education basically right to create a safer space for El Paso to make El Paso a safe Community um and yes while the Borderland rainbow Center is named in this specifically because we do have an existing uh program that deals a lot with education what deals with creating safety uh that has been used not only by the city of El Paso but by others around the nation we've served if service to Harvard we've serviced Georgetown but with that being said this was not supposed to be just for the Borderland rainbow Center this is all organizations in any organizations that want to have a voice and want to have a hand in this and one of the things that we're really looking to do is to not only create a safe space but for the community outside right but it's also to create a safer space within the law enforcement Community itself what we're hoping to do is to see like one to ten percent of uh First Responders trained right to be culturally sensitive this isn't just specific to the lgbtqia plus Community again of course but it is like to all communities that are marginalized this also would help create a safe space for El Paso um one of the biggest issues that we see of course is this lack of understanding um and the best way to combat that is through education and the best way to build a safer Community is for people to understand their community and like I had stated a little bit earlier this isn't just about the borderline rainbow Center coming in and doing all these types of things it's about all of us as a community with different organizations that are uh partnered with each other to create a safe community yeah and then and then in terms of the third and the fourth item like I said with with the bills that the Texas house and Texas Senate just recently passed our community is going to go through a lot of stress it's going to go through a lot of it's not good but thank you a lot of torture um let me be clear that de-prioritizing um the enforcement of those seeking and receiving gender affirming care um is it's going to force a lot of people to detransition and it's going to force a lot of children or youth for that matter and their families to really question their livelihoods here in the state of Texas and in some instances it's going to lead to suicide and and a lot of households in the state of Texas and speaking to family members and friends and just some of our clients at the BRC they're scared rightfully so when the government comes knocking on your front door and tells your child your family members that they're not welcome in this state to be who they want to be that should be a problem for everyone Republican and Democrat alike this is a people problem that we have to stand up for and ensure that no matter what your family is going through that no one will have to go through the process of being shamed no one will have to go through the process of being harassed intimidated or attacked for seeking gender affirming care receiving it and it's important to note that that this care is is medically sound and it's and it's truthfully what keeps a lot of our families safe here in the state of Texas by allowing them to to be who they are and in terms of the fourth item deprioritizing the attacks on on drag performances here in the state of Texas mainly in El Paso that law is so vague at sb12 that it's going to affect effects not only drag performers but it's going to affect a lot of local businesses and it's also going to affect our Police Department because we have to be honest there is going to be a lot of false police reports that are that are are submitted which is going to cost the city money to investigate these types of things so it's important that we have the backs of local business owners and just every will pass to win that truthfully can be targeted because the the sb12 does not just specifically Target the lgbtq community it targets everyone in this room if we're being honest if you don't like the way someone's dressed you could file a police report come September 1st and that person could face a fine of up to four thousand dollars in a year in jail because of someone's quote-unquote intent um so these these four items are going to be very important and I thank you once again Cassandra and Henry for allowing Council to have this discussion because that is what today is all about it's discussion to see of where the city wants to go with these four recommendations I would hope that we we have a good conversation on this and these become policy for the city because everyone regardless of of their sexuality their and where they come from deserves to be safer in El Paso thank you thank you Ms Prime do we have any um public comment yes mayor there there are a few members of the public that signed up to speak on this side how many we have about 12 folks okay thank you would you like me to call them now sir yes ma'am thank you the first person Isles followed by Andy piscareno Aurelio Valdez Jr Carol Cassidy Irene batras Lisa Turner Diana Martinez Lorena Edwards good morning miss reveles you have three minutes morning again thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak again I want to tell you about Didi Camacho and rumor and Vivica these are drag queens drug performers that we met as a family during drag queen Story Hour now drag Story Hour they have read books to us about love about inclusion about accepting ourselves about loving other people as a parent as parents my husband and I made the choice to take our children to drug story hours so that they can learn that they're not alone that everybody is different and that we can love everybody regardless of what they wear and it's been such an incredible experience for us we have learned and read so many books that we wouldn't really even have picked up before before going to a drugstore where many books that are banned and that are trying people are trying to ban um but they have made such a difference for us and and we see them flourishing and we see them happy and I wanted my children to to have examples of lgbtq people thriving because the narrative around lgbtq lives is you're oppressed and you're gonna suffer and that's true and we are but I also needed them to see joy and love and acceptance and that's exactly what drag Story Hour does for us and um sb12 would not allow me as a parent to make that choice and I hope that our city will stand up against hate and support Parents Choice speaking of Parents Choice gender affirming care is supported by over 29 major medical associations so the people who actually work in health care who do the science they support in fact the American Medical Association has just reaffirmed their their standards for gender affirming care and they actually are condemning legislators that are passing laws like SB 14 that is going to take effect in on September 1st and so um these are hate-filled ill-informed legislators who think that they know better than doctors who think that they know better than parents and I'm here to ask you to please vote in support of parents rights so that I can consult with doctors and with people who are medically trained to make medically trained decisions thank you the next speaker is Andy piscareno and it is Carino followed by Aurelio Valdez Jr Carol Cassidy Irene vatris Lisa Turner Diana Martinez good morning you have three minutes thank you good morning good morning uh so I can definitely speak as a transgender woman who has lived experience in uh what the discuss bills are going to um are going to enforce it's been a long and hard battle for people in my community and and myself included to constantly have to justify our existence and our uh basic human rights that everyone has yet so many people keep trying to take away from us and keep trying to tell us that we don't matter or that we aren't uh aren't worthy of having these rights we're human we are living breathing uh people who give so much to this to this Society to this economy and to our communities we can continuously have to justify ourselves not just to ourselves but to everyone else and uh one of the things I had always been told is that once you come out you don't ever stop coming out and I've taken that to heart because I use my position as a transgender woman to use my visibility and my openness to continue to educate and Advocate as much as I can to show exactly what being trans is because this is what trans looks like the trans Joy trans Liberation it's all about just being human and trying to live our lives to the fullest without having our rights taken away without having to constantly justify our existence and most importantly without being murdered for being exactly who we are because that is a a very dark reality of being trans is that thousands of trans people a year are constantly murdered simply for being who they are and especially within our uh our transgender uh siblings of color who are of the highest statistics in in those numbers I and begging that we as a city can at least make take the steps to show that we that we are different that we won't stand for this uh inhumane uh suppression of Rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness at our Constitution and our uh our Declaration of Independence gives us every one of us in this room whether we are of a religious nature or not I ask that you please consider this thank you the next speaker is Aurelio Valdez Jr followed by Carol Cassidy Irene batress good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning again um so just breeding planning to create an office of equality and excuse me the quality and equality and an inclusion board there's typo in here to work together in collaboration with the Boylan rainbow Center to create a one El Paso saber campaign departure trades the enforcement of seeking gender for me care that's uh with sb14 and then deep prioritize the enforcement of drag bands are cinder limits um all of you should vote for it this is a good bill so everyone vote for it thank you thank you the next speaker is Carol Cassidy good morning you have three minutes thank you so much well you know God in Genesis chapter 1 God created man in His image in his own image he made male and female oh my goodness anyway Satan Lucifer has convinced mankind to favor man's Dei so we have diversity equity and inclusion and inclusion excuse me over the image of of God I am from the West Coast my native state is California for your information in case you don't know this California my beautiful Oregon and Washington State their legislatures have outrageously uh legalized pedophilia and uh my goodness this is an outrage and that's why I'm here in Texas God Bless Texas because what you're proposing here we have no money for this it's our tax money I definitely object on the grounds of our taxes furthermore your day prioritizing oh my gosh well you know that's already against Texas law so that would be asking our good city council here to condone lawlessness we're not going to have that here uh uh my gosh just looking at the the West the West Coast the beautiful states there that are defying actually absolutely defying the laws of God and of nature the laws of nature and of Nature's God are in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence if you're not aware of it check it out that's Sir William Blackstone uh his contribution that the laws of nature and of Nature's God are the Bible and that is the founding of this nation with the with the Bible um anyway I've said enough here and uh one more thing uh though I speak with uh tongues of Angel if I do not have love I am accomplishing nothing and of course there is love right away out there all for all people all of the cree all of the creation that's male and female anyway and to protect our children I mean it was referenced here for parents rights parents have lost their rights in those three states right now anyway uh California Oregon and Washington they're going to have to move to defend their children from the pedophiles anyway um thank you and one more thing hey take a look Google children under the Getty take a look and see what's happening in our nation and the Getty is a museum there in Los Angeles that's the mayor's residence it was given to the mayors of of Los Angeles take a look children under the Getty you want to see something for human traffickers child traffickers pretty outrageous thank you thank you mayor and city council and all that are here thank you the next speaker is Irene mattress followed by Lisa Turner Diana Martinez Lorena Edwards good morning you have three minutes hello again I didn't mean to come up here again I didn't but I do want to reiterate what I said in the first time each one of you responsible to answer to God or you answer to man to self and so I I put that forward to you and mayor liser I want to put forward to a Biblical equality is about it is a situation that is judged with a bias toward Equity not equality thank you the next speaker is Lisa Turner followed by Diana Martinez Lorena Edwards Betina Diaz Camacho Ellen lizarga good morning Miss Turner Miss Turner good morning mayor council morning again I'm in full support of this in fact I think it doesn't go far enough I think we need to make El Paso a sanctuary for those of us who are transgender as to some of the previous comments I I gotta hold my tongue sometimes it's hard but I am willing to buy your bus ticket back to California or Oregon or Washington wherever you wish to go city of El Paso is unique in the whole United States we are basically isolated from everybody else which means we have had to learn to get along with each other regardless of whether we were gay straight trans Mexican Indian white purple green polka dotted because there was nobody else to go turn to so we've had to learn to get along with each other and that's what we want to do here but I do want to point out sb12 all you ladies out there first Sunday in September September 3rd make sure you're in heels make sure you're in dress address because if you show up in slacks under a speak HP what is it sp12 you just committed a violation so better hit that stereotypical female look no more individuality no more relaxed dressing at church in jeans and stuff or if you wear jeans you're going to be a guy so that's going to get you in trouble too most of the laws that Texas and all these other red states have passed uh are based on slave law this is what CRP was about understanding how our laws were based upon the laws that were passed to keep people of African-American descent in Chains that's what it's based on uh again there's some 4 200 religions you pick and choose which one you want to follow you don't get to impose your religion on me or anybody else it only applies to you and nobody else but we have these genocidal laws that have been passed and you as a city council have a responsibility to ignore those laws you cannot go along if you go along with those laws then you can be held accountable as a contributor collaborator or in as conspiratory every person in this city has value it's instead of anywhere else in the world the next speaker is Diana Martinez followed by Lorena Edwards Camacho Ellen lizard good morning ma'am you have three minutes good morning again hello good morning yes I'm Diana Martinez I am a historian so I'm going to remind us of the whole room of a few things and um you know before the 1900s it was seen as immoral for women to wear pants they had to wear a dress so wearing pants was seen as something unladylike and immoral and throughout most of the 20th century people could not wear three items of the opposite sex or they would be fine and imprisoned many times taken to jail and then uh even as far as the 1970s a woman cannot enter a university classroom if she was not wearing a dress as she wore slacks okay and so we don't want to regress back to that okay we want to progress and go forward all right and so yeah and people wearing pants shouldn't be talking about you know what's moral or Godly um and then also uh how can I say a lot of the prejudice against lgbtq Community also go hands on hand in hand with prejudice against people of color because both types of prejudice are rooted in ignorance and I think it is very important that we need to be more bold and effective and committed to Dei because our community is vulnerable is vulnerable to white supremacy and is also vulnerable to uh attacks against lgbtq community and what I mean attacks I don't mean figurative attacks I mean violent physical attacks okay and also violent physical attacks against people of color because it has happened here we have seen that violence we have witnessed that violence in 2018 2019 and 2020 and a lot of it okay so we need to stand Resolute we need to reinforce Dei education for everyone thank you thank you the next speaker is Lorena Edwards Lorena Edwards will be followed by Bettina Diaz Camacho Ellen lizarraga good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning everybody one month ago my child was dealt a crippling blow to her mental health as she watched a building full of individuals at the state capitol decide her future was now in their hands they decided after years of treatment gender affirming care was no longer considered safe because there was still unanswered questions try and try as they did our representatives were not successful in passing amendments that would have protected kiddos like mine that had already begun and were well into treatment at the age of 10 years old my child was seen by a team of Texas Tech El Paso Physicians and properly diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria with ongoing Pediatrics psychiatric and endocrinology consultations she received puberty blockers at the end at the age of 12 and then HRT just shy of her 15th birthday she was spared in that time further development into a body that she did not identify with and as such did not suffer more severe body dysphoria to look at her now you would never know she had been born a male for years she was afforded the chance to be the same kiddo as everyone else to live a life that didn't hold being transgender at the Forefront of her every thought to believe in a future of any kind for years it was like this the individuals in Austin feel that after living her life as her true self after her body developing on par with her female peers of the same age that it would be safer to have her detransition and start to go through a second male puberty because she's not yet the age of 18. they feel that it would be less traumatizing for a junior in high school who had been known to everyone as a female for the last six years of her life to suddenly develop facial hair a masculized facial structure and dramatically lower voice the last of which is not reversible medically or surgically somehow they feel as though this is appropriate to drag her through and advise that she should just wait until she's 18 to become treatment again after these irreversible changes have occurred I challenge you to imagine forcing your 14 year old son to suddenly be okay with developing breasts and letting him know nothing could be done until the age of 18. in which case he could pursue a surgery that he could have avoided in the first place by just having access to blockers and yet treatment for gynecomastia exists and has existed for some time for just this reason this City's only pediatric endocrinologist has already begun Turning Away Family seeking gender affirming care ahead of the September 1st effective Deadlight now as we join other families that are suddenly urgently seeking care in New Mexico we're faced with the question of whether it's even safe to remain I explained to you now the problem is not as simple as getting your meds in New Mexico and remaining here with the school nurse her teachers her counselors be required to report her do I need to pull her from high school to keep her safe there are a million reasons my child could end up in the hospital that had absolutely nothing to do with her being transgender When we arrive will be reported by doctors you can be as far as Deming New Mexico and experience the trauma and be flown here to UMC how far do I need to move away from El Paso or from Texas to keep my daughter safe the next speaker is Betina Diaz Camacho followed by Ellen De zaraga Kian Zaria and Yvonne Diaz good morning you'll have three minutes good morning my name is Diaz good morning and I'm a native El Paso and a part of the queer Community I have been out to friends and family since I was in high school and in the nine years since I have the Borderland rainbow Center and local queer Community to thank for helping me feel confident to be my authentic self and for boosting my mental health I used to be afraid to go in public because I knew I would be criticized and attacked for not being feminine enough or too masculine or even for wearing a pride flag pin in the wrong establishment when I started to visit the Borderland rainbow Center in attend drag shows I was uplifted by the queer Community they showed me how to be confident and unafraid to be myself to be honest I am terrified of public speaking but if I have learned anything from drag queens it's to be loud and proud which is why I am standing here today in solidarity I was present in our state's capital for the hearing of the trans youth Healthcare ban over 2 000 Texans came to oppose this transphobic Bill arriving as early as six in the morning and staying until past midnight when the committee chair cut off testimonies over 400 people registered to testify against this bill but the committee refused to hear the voices of their constituents hundreds of parents trans adults medical and legal professionals religious leaders community members and even children traveled from all over the state and the country to tell their story and battle the misinformation and hateful transphobic commentary that surrounds this law it was heartbreaking to listen to parents who feared having to displace their entire family to another state as well as trans youth as young as nine years old begging our state legislators to be compassionate to treat them as equals and to let them grow up to be happy beautiful trans adults in addition we also heard dozens of actual medical professionals testify warning our government that suicide rates will increase and mental health will decline for Trans youth if this bill was passed but what was most tragic was that after hundreds of trans Texans parents and actual doctors advocated for the rights of these children are state government blatantly disregarded them I am asking that our city council consider how this health care and drag ban are violating our first amendment rights our rights to access Equitable health care and our rights to privacy and personal Liberty and therefore that our city should focus on actual pressing matters I am asking that you do not disregard our Humanity I love the Borderland the people in community here have a kindness that can never be taken from us however I can't say that I am proud of our state or believe that our state government truly cares for all Texans but I am asking the city council as a proud El Paso and one of your constituents to show compassion and understand that this law is an issue of transphobia and queerphobia and should not be prioritized in our community thank you thank you the next speaker is Ellen Luis araga if you're in the Q star six please I don't see Ellen lizard's phone number we'll move on to Kian Zaria followed by Yvonne Diaz Maria Lupe de Lao and Jorge Soriano good morning you have three minutes good morning I am Kian from the El Paso gender and sexuality Alliance and the chairman today I'm here um to say that um I hope you make the right decision I'm only 17 but as a as a non-binary person in I hope that one day that I'll be recognized as just a person and not as um not a human because I am a human and we need to realize that everybody's human regardless of sexuality gender because we all bleed red like what makes me different from from somebody who's straight nothing just of my own identity like we shouldn't have to be silenced because we've grown so much over the years and I hope we continue to grow as a youth I see so many people in my high school who have to hide who they are because of what they think is right and it's not right because we're human and we need to see that everybody should be loved regardless and I don't know why we are spreading so much hate when love is is so much is way more valuable than hate hate is just going to bring us down and why should we bring down people when we should bring when we should be bringing them up um just I hope you could like take it into consideration as Youth and my fellow colleagues like come on like what what more can you do to like put us down we should be bringing everybody up thank you thank you the next speaker is Yvonne Diaz Ivan Diaz star six please to unmute your telephone good morning you have three minutes good morning my name is Yvonne Diaz I'm with Texas rising and um I just want to say first of all thank you everyone that has like come forward and testify um for these items and I think uh we've been working close to the uh Texas legislative session and I know that there has been uh horrible bills like past uh that have been attacking a lot of our communities including lgbtqia plus communities and um I just think that it's super important that a city we started like taking uh into consideration what are the measures that we want to uh to take as a city as a community to protect uh the most vulnerable and um definitely I think it's so important to to continue creating uh inclusivity in our communities and um in that regard so I would like to say that there's like a I am fully supportive of these items but we definitely need to look uh closer especially like um as older bills were also passed and I was invite the city council to take like some time to to really work on the language and to really work on on what like uh will be passed for example um as well as like they built as the 12 were passed there was other ones um that include um like copying the CD from a lot of uh it's autonomy like House Bill uh 2127 uh or more uh like known like the dead star bill that is going to be prohibited municipality or County from adopting enforcing or maintaining uh Allah against certain Texas codes and uh and I will and that will include a lot of um areas uh including labor occupations and businesses and commerce and finance so I think it will be important just to take a closer look and see uh if there's like things that we can really do to improve this and I um and just to check on the on the language of this in order to make sure that families are are fully protected and the state is not going to be coming after us and definitely continue supporting uh the lgbtqia plus Community thank you thank you the next speaker is Maria Lupe de la oh followed by Jorge Soriano good morning you have three minutes good morning mayor and city council most importantly and first of all I do not discriminate against anybody and and I am not here to speak in a derogatory manner against anyone I have compassion to all Integrity in dealing with individuals of our community and servitude to our community I would like to ask why city council is so intent on trying to use our city resources and taxpayer dollars in trying to protect such a small segment of our community the LGBT community is already protected by all our equal opportunity discrimination loss the same as the rest of us are they are protected from discrimination from crime in general if people wish to identify as whatever they want that is their right but that doesn't mean that the rest of us as a society must agree with that view but out of compassion we will respect that view and we respect you city council because I am asked and I am asking you to respect our view and our religious beliefs also why would a city government want to interfere and talk internal personal lives all the way into our bedrooms I also believe that you are discriminating against our children and grandchildren you are just discriminating against our children and grandchildren by promoting teaching them other than math science reading or the basics they need to be able to succeed in life it is not your job or your place in the family unit to try to promote sexual orientation gender identity lifestyle or transgender surgery to our children and grandchildren those matters should remain in the privacy of a family's own home in Texas the LGBT adult population is 3.6 percent and the transgender adult population is 0.66 percent according to most figures I could find that leaves the rest of us who believe in traditional Family Values at 95.74 percent a study from 2023 shows that 90 percent of conservatives believe there are only two genders not two Sexes but two genders only 44 percent of liberals believe there are only two genders 66 percent of people who do not identify as either full conservative or full liberals believe there are only two genders so I'm just saying asking that we all need protection and we all wish to be safe thank you the final speaker is Jorge Soriano foreign a few words I guess um hate discrimination persecution suicide all these type of stuff right I can relate to you guys honestly I can and I'm gonna say this and it's gonna trigger some people right but as a Christian I face the same things you guys face I say Christian sir can you can you address those please here we go thank you um a lady over here spoke about Jesus a gentleman stood up and walked out right who's really facing these persecution right um it says we're here to discuss an action to direct the city manager City attorney to develop a plan to uplift the alphabet Community correct uplift are you trying to put this community above everybody else that's what we want to do we want to everybody be protected be safe and be secure in our city correct correct this is what we want right everybody be protected secure and safe if I'm just here to state that and encourage you guys to stand up for what is right what is correct on if nobody from us will back you up I'm pretty sure God will back you guys up so thank you for your time gotta go back to work mayor that cool thank you public comment on item 23. okay we have representative minello followed by representative Hernandez thank you mayor I first want to thank everybody for giving up and sharing their stories and in the stories of their family and their children because these are issues that do impact everybody in the family unit and the community I want to thank Amber from the BRC for coming up and and I want to address that number two on the agenda because I do have a bit of an issue with this um I know that the BRC or members of the BRC board have been a part of a conversations with multiple organizations uh and working on how we as the city want to address some of these situations and unfortunately they were left out of the conversation with this item um and and you know when we talk about working in collaboration we need to be working with everybody and as a former board member of the BRC I know that that is the mission of the BRC but unfortunately when I see an item to just work with one group when it comes on an El Paso safer together campaign and it is a little bit disheartening to me I know the group that I've been working with are going to continue to push forward an item for the next council member we had a meeting about it yesterday and we still included members of the BRC in that conversation and I would hope that the Borderland rainbow Center would open up to the other organizations in this community that are impacted by this and doing the work when it comes to item one I know that this Council has already pushed for an equity inequality department and officer that has not been initiated yet and I know that the former city manager had some issues with that I'm not sure what they were but I am looking forward to seeing that going but that was a prior action of council um and so you know I'm obviously supportive of this I agree with Miss Turner I don't think that this does enough and and I I've I've heard some speakers today talk about the work they've said suspect specifically the work that I've done and I just want to remind everyone this is not about an individual or an individual organization this is about our community this is about protecting everybody and we need to be working together in collaboration when we're putting these together because when we are creating friction in our own Community moving forward to fight this uh these hateful dangerous um and quite frankly just evil bills that are coming out of the the state we really do need to be working together in our community because we are not going to win if we are dividing amongst each other I also want to point out that just yesterday the governor had a deadline to veto all of his bills I know there were some concerns about moving forward so soon with these and so again I think there's there's going to be a lot of a need for a lot more conversation following this item so thank you mayor thank you ma'am representative none this I have a few comments um and then we and then I have some floor amendments to read into the record first and foremost to the parents of change transgender children to each and every one of you thank you for sharing your stories for being courageous for finding your you know whatever it is that motivates you to stand here at the podium I know we had some teenagers here as well your words is what is what inspires us our words matter when you hear from your elected officials you need to understand that we are here for you we have your back and when your state has failed us time and time again it is now the prerogative and the duty of members of councils to stand up for you we did not ask to be here today the state has launched a full attack on these communities and in response it is our duty to help uplift you to level the playing field so that you all have the same opportunity and so I just wanted to to give you thanks for your courage and for for being here today after these items have posted to the public we were excited to see that there was more conversations of course there is always an opportunity to improve and for those reasons we representative Rivera and I we would like to entertain the following amendments Mrs Prine we provided you a copy in advance um to make it easier for you the the item number one um just my comment on item number one is that the city of El Paso is working diligently to ensure that we are keeping equity and equality at the Forefront in every decision we make um our Department of community and human development um I I believe my opinion is that this would be the greatest opportunity for that department to lead not only equality or an equity officer but to ensure that every policy and procedure that we consider gets fully vetted by a future department and a board you know those things take time and so uh it's it's my hope that we will we will ensure that everything is with the with the lens of equality in every department for item number two we would like to revise to State the following will work to work together in collaboration with the Borderland rainbow Center and other community stakeholders who prioritize equality and inclusion to create a one El Paso safer together campaign we believe that this language makes it inclusive the the third item revised to do prioritize the enforcement of seeking or receiving gender or form affirming care and our city limits taxpayer dollars shall not be used frivolously for programs or efforts to criminalize people who seek access to gender affirming care City funds shall not be used to solicit catalog report or investigate reports of those seeking gender affirming care and police shall not investigate those seeking gender affirming care their lowest priority item number four should State the following to be amended to do prioritize the enforcement of attacks on drag performances and local businesses in our city limits those are the floor emotions at this time I will Circle that and and just to conclude my statements is that we have work to do there's more work to do this will be the first step and as we go we move forward as we go along we want to hear every single one of your voices children regardless of your age there should not be any attack on any person I'm a mother of five children and when you have a child that is facing depression or mental health services I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure that my child is living for tomorrow so legislators need to stay out of families and medical doctors dealings with our children they absolutely need to stay out of it the city of El Paso has a precedence on this when the state has tried to dictate who should mandate mask politicians or public health authorities we said we should trust our medical experts and scientists we have a history and a precedence of doing this already my expectation is that we care for all people and El Paso regardless of age gender sexual reality and it's just so disappointing that we're living in in this state of affairs today and our hope is that this Council will see you will recognize the importance of this and we will strive to make our our policies more Equitable thank you all for your your words and for being here today thank you representative Dropship Canalis thank you mayor thank you sir I want to start off by saying thank you to the borderline rainbow Center um you know obviously you all provide such an important service not an important service a plethora of important services to our community um you know my my wife Nora is a former board member and so I've been able to see a little bit up close what you all are doing and to support members of our community who need support so thank you for for your involvement here um and all of the work that you've done in advance of of reaching uh something like this I wanted to ask a question and I uh and and propose a a small Amendment if I'm off base I absolutely welcome uh correction and and we don't have to move forward with this but I wanted it's just a small question of semantics um it is some item number one is to create an office of equality and an equality and inclusion board um I was able to speak with some folks who I know who work in the the broader field of diversity equity and inclusion um just basically to look at some of the standard terms that folks use uh when discussing this type of work and I also looked at some of the other offices that are working in similar areas in other cities I have some of them here I want to go through there's the Albuquerque office of equity and inclusion Atlanta Georgia mayor's office of equity diversity and inclusion the Austin Texas Equity office Baltimore has the office of equity and civil rights Denver Colorado office of Social equity and innovation what I'm seeing in in almost every other city that's operating this is the use of the term Equity as opposed to equality um there was actually I wanted to point out one in particular that I really liked when looking through these was the Evanston Illinois office for equity and empowerment um and so I I just wanted to uh essentially uh float the question of whether or not the terms that we've chosen uh in in this item an office of equality and an equality equality and inclusion board are necessarily the best terms to move forward with uh it sounded like maybe some members of some folks in the gallery liked equity and empowerment um and if we're going to be giving direction today to the city uh to come back to us with recommendations perhaps we can leave that language a little bit broader so that they can propose something different something that is more standard in in the work of of those carrying out diversity equity and inclusion programs and then maybe something that's a little bit Innovative or or different um that really shows that the scope of this is not just the the work of of uh raising people up to be even with everybody but to raise everybody up uh I like the term empowerment uh and so again um I I will propose an amendment um to uh yes maybe to create an office in the field of diversity equity and inclusion and a board with the goal of diversity equity and inclusion but I think we can maybe eliminate the the exact names here so that we can have a recommendation that comes back to us that second better that that also gets the the additional input of of the rest of the the community that we're inviting to work with us on this mayor may I address uh represent Canales um I I'm not um personally sold on any name you know I've just just the mission and so so long as our Advocates are in support we'd be happy to support uh whatever name would be inclusive at all of all yeah and it's for that very reason that I'm not proposing an exact name today I think we can get the feedback from from the community and uh allow the city staff to to work with the various organizations who will be involved so they can they can come back to us I think that's a really great suggestion representative thank you for that thank you and we do have a second on it remember thank you sir representative Rivera for I mean representative molinar followed by representative thank you very much mayor so um on item 23 number one to create an office of equality and whatever the amendments are and what we're going to call that office I get that however um I know representative none this was already said human and Community Development but my question would be either to the deputy city manager here or to miss Neiman uh what exactly what department or what office would that be included good morning thank you representative Mullin our mayor members of council senior Deputy city manager Tracy Jerome for the record um what staff would ask is for some time to do the research and to come back and to make recommendations If This Were if Council determines that they want to move forward with this today um this touches obviously every aspect of us you know as an organization every Department would be touched by this as you're probably aware when we when we formulated the CFT when we were looking at the police department for example there was an equity aspect of that because again you know there have been many issues and many many concerns that have been raised today so we would like to ask if this is the direction that we're given today by Council that we're given the time to go back do the research understand best practices so that we can come back and make the proper recommendations community and human and human development that department is incredibly important to this but we also have a lot of HR issues we have issues again with our police and fire it touches absolutely every aspect of who we are as an organization so again we would like to ask for the time in the bandwidth to come back so that we can make the best recommendations moving forward as we work together to move our community forward what type of time are you looking for ma'am oh actually no sir that's not going to give us enough time I have had some initial conversations with members of staff and we're going to need more time quite frankly because again it's a lot to do to make sure that we come back correctly we would like to ask for a time frame of no more than 180 days so that we can make sure that all of our staff is coming forward and that we can be as inclusive as possible of staff and Community to understand what we need to recommend to you moving forward okay no more right okay I still have the floor so I still have the floor so um go ahead so the other part in the word and and equality and inclusion board so are we this item means that we're going to create another border Commission besides the office this is this would be Council action and Direction and so again we would need to look at that and make a determination about what that means and again how to make recommendations for breast best practices moving forward we have a number of different boards and commissions in place currently that are looking at lots of these ideas and a lot of these issues and a lot of the concerns already we have a veterans if you know we have our veterans affairs committee we have our our women's our Women's Rights Commission we have a number of commissions and Boards already if if we are directed to go and create an an additional board in this in this um and you know in this motion then again we would like to come back and make recommendations and that may be very well looking at how we can come together and work together we don't want to do redundant you know we don't want there to be redundant redundancy in the work that's being done by our volunteer boards and commissions we want to ensure that questions concerns and and issues within our community are being effectively addressed from a staff perspective and so that we can give you the best recommendations but again that would take some time so that we can come back give you a reporting on what's being done where those holes may may exist and then how we can come together to make sure that we are being as responsive as we need to be for our community so Ms General you mentioned 180 days yes we would ask for that time frame because again there's a lot of work that needs to be done and we want to make sure that we're giving you the best reporting possible I'll make the amendment to come back in a period of 180 days so approximately December of this year 2023. also number two Direct okay go ahead to work together in collaboration with the Border Borderland rainbow Center to create a one El Paso safer together campaign I'm not sure the gentleman's still here BD mentioned in other words there is one entity named in here I would rather say to work together as a community that includes the rainbow Center because I don't believe we're targeting just one entity and I don't think that's correct we're talking about inclusion and yet we're already to talk about exclusion already in the same sentence it doesn't really make any sense and so when we talk about another board or commission to me totally I think we're failing we as the city of El Paso are failing we do have a veterans advisory committee we still have homelessness for veterans we still have suicides for veterans we have a disability community that cannot get rides on the Paratransit I did have a conversation with the district for a constituent recently and he was very upset and he has emailed our office I've had conversations with him and um the Paratransit is not on time and yes I know there's different buses coming on board I know there we have a difficulty on hiring the chauffeurs the coach operators and things like that but it's not working our senior population we just heard right now about so many people are coming on board 65 every day and what are we doing for them how are we doing it for them when are we doing it for them so we could talk about veterans we could talk about the elderly we could talk about the disabled we can talk about lgbtq Community but we need to be inclusive if we're going to do this right we need to be doing it correctly we need to include everybody it's not just one entity that we need to Target we need to do it better we need to do it well and so if it means create another border commission are we spinning our wheels or not I don't know I don't have that direct answer right now but Mr Rome I wouldn't say that yes 180 days would be fine so I haven't received a second on that Amendment and anybody else I'll stop talking thank you representative um Kennedy followed by representative no he's already spoken once and everyone gets twice I know he said he had a motion but I I was going to say that I think coming back with a fully fleshed out proposal is probably in everybody's best interest I do have a couple of concerns um my concern first of all I would say thank you to everybody who came here and spoke I thought it was not only appropriate but at times heartwarming and at times disturbing do don't we have a hadn't we directed an equity in equality in HR position had we directed that as a counsel this could be before I was here there was Direction in the past to to hire an officer and there has been some there have been some recruiting challenges but that is something that we we can revisit depending on where this direction goes today and so there I do know that there there were some recruiting challenges there have been in the past okay I mean I I think if we have that already out here we may be looking at duplicating something here I I agree that we need to make sure we're working with all organizations and my concern on the last two is um I get concerned when we direct law enforcement to go counter to state law I do know that from hearing from previous times when the police force has been here and the chief has been here they're not prioritizing some of some of the items we're talking about my specific concern in number four here the law as it's written um actually makes every topless bar in town illegal and for us to then say we'd like the police to only not enforce it on a portion of those that are in violation is discriminatory on its face to say this portion we're not going to enforce in this portion you can go ahead and enforce and I have a concern about that I will say I think that the law on its face is unconstitutional but that's a different issue to be held at the at the state level I mean when I think back I some of the literature we put out carried a picture of me at a fundraiser for hospice and very honestly I was rocking a peasant skirt could be seen as illegal activity right now so I am sensitive to this and I am concerned on the legalities but I'm also concerned anytime we start directing police how they should prioritize things of their enforcement I would say that it would be a good idea to take the 180 days come back with a fully fleshed out whatever it takes or less than 180 and come back with a fully fleshed out concept where we know what is it going to cost what's it what are the mechanics where are we going forward because I'd like this shot to be successful and not a shoot and a miss so that's my comments are recycling the motion are you just saying that I was waiting to hear what representative Rivera had we have representative thank you mayor and again thank you everyone for coming out here and giving us your story telling us your stories and and uh as you've heard a lot of them were touching a lot of more you know scary but the whole intent of this item is to as has been stated earlier is to protect everybody protect everyone that we we care about and uh border uh partnering with with the Borderland uh Borderland rainbow Center and um the LGBT lgbtqaia is uh essential because uh as you heard uh there's a lot of hate that goes on in that particular of psychology society and so uh it's it's very troubling that that uh people cannot live their lives like they want to live and leave it live it peacefully so this was intent for that uh this motion for this uh item to be placed on the agenda for and my motion was could be to approve a motion to approve for the city manager and City attorney to return within 180 days with a solid ground plan and guidance on how to implement all recommendations if possible listed on this item that's my motion and uh you know I I think it abides to everybody's wish as to you come back and you tell us what can what can't be done as far as that's concerned and so that would be my motion right now okay with the amended items that uh representative Hernandez had also implement we have um Motion in a second I do have representative anello followed by representative thank you thank you um I mean I'm fine with all of this I I don't think you need 180 days I had a conversation with former city manager Gonzalez about three weeks ago and it was not about an HR issue it was about the fact that he thought that the word Equity was too strong I reminded him that it was not council's direction for his opinion on that that's a different conversation but I don't think we need 180 days to come back with the council direction from over 180 days ago I will say that I don't agree that that department should be within community and human development representative Canales read out a lot of departments from you across the country those are their own departments for the most part and I I do believe that that's how that should stand and we'll support this today but I I do want that to be on the record that I don't think that inclusion and Equity staff member and or Department should be within community and human development I think they should be supported on their own thank you mayor thank you ma'am representative mullinar followed by representative Kennedy and like so everyone gets two two turns to speak so thank you mayor I just want to be clear that uh in my earlier dialogue when I was talking about the veterans advisory committee that I'm not blaming them for suicide or homelessness I understand we have to find command sergeant majors that are retired they're both doing a wonderful job for our community not only the veteran Community but the El Paso Community as a whole and I didn't fail to neglect and I don't see Mr Ron Como just yet but we're doing a very bad job with our pets so I just wanted to add that into the record thank you thank you representative Kennedy very quickly was the motion if I get a further definition was the motion to approve this and have them come back with a plan or to come back with a plan for us to approve with a plan for us to then approve correct okay thank you Mr Prime we have a motion in a second well the mayor there are several amendments so we have to run down each Amendment the first amendment was made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Rivera and this was to amend the item numbers two three and four number two to revise to read to work together in collaboration with the Borderland rainbow Center and other community stakeholders who prioritize equality and inclusion to create a one El Paso safer together campaign number three to rise revise to read to de-prioritize the enforcement of seeking or receiving gender affirming care in our city limits taxpayer dollars shall not be used frivolously per programs or efforts to criminalize people who seek access to gender affirming care City function shall not be used to solicit catalog report or investigate reports of those seeking gender affirming care and police shall make investigating those seeking gender affirming care their lowest priority and to amend number four to read to de-prioritize the enforcement of attacks on drag performance and local businesses in our city limits on that Amendment call for the vote so it is all included in a single motion not it's not just a motion to postpone and come back with a plan well this was the first amendment made by representative voting just on the First Amendment just on the amendment yes sir to to revise items two three and four as posted on the agenda thank you yes and now these items will be brought forward but then we're going to give them back to city manager and City attorney to bring back with a recommendation so we're not implementing any of these items today we're just telling this what we want not bring it back in 180 days okay making sure thank you mayor that's a that's a different amendment that would have to pass as well in a separate vote from this amendment that's also a separate Amendment yes sir the voting session is open Council representative anello aye thank you in the voting session the motion passes six to two Representatives Kennedy Molina voting the remainder of council voting I the next amendment that was made and second it was made by representative Canales seconded by representative Salcido and representative chronalis your amendment was to amend number one as posted to read to create an office in the field of equity and I'm sorry I didn't catch the wrist it's okay I did I did email it to you not just about 30 seconds ago I have written to create a city office working in the area of diversity equity and inclusion and then an Advisory board on matters of diversity equity and inclusion the amendment made by representative Canales secondary by representative Salcido and this is to amend number one to read to create a city office working in the area of diversity and equity and inclusion and an Advisory board on matters of diversity equity and inclusion on that Amendment call for the vote representative anello really thank you in the voting session and the motion passes six to two Representatives Kennedy molinar voting they the remainder of council voting I the motion does pass the final amendment was made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Hernandez and this is to direct the city manager and City attorney and this is to return within 180 days and representative Rivera I'll ask for your help on this one on the amendment read by representative Rivera right [Music] just had a quick question um in in light of the um the item the state law going into effect in September as it relates to the number three to de-prioritize the enforcement of seeking gender affirming care is is there a way that you can bring us an update before this goes into effect September one um and I and I understand you need 180 days but given the gravity and the concern of persons who are seeking gender affirming care I think it's it's prudent that we at least at minimum have a conversation to see where you're at so you can come back in 180 days but I really do feel an update should come back on September 1st Miss Newman I'm going to defer to the City attorney before I respond from an operational standpoint so so what we are planning to do um in regards to the changes in the law that will take place on September 1st we're already going through all the legislative changes and then we will be briefing Council in the next couple of weeks in regards to those changes these bills and others like them would be included as part of the briefing to council and then we will be making recommendations to the various departments like the police department or others that would have to enforce or determine what their role is in in enforcing those rules so you will have more clarity as how we will move forward starting on September 1st at the end of the year those changes if we need to implement additional changes will be folded in as part of the work that council is directing us to do within the next 180 days so you are correct that the laws go into effect September 1st so we are planning to have the recommendations to police and other agencies in terms of what will happen before the first okay and that has to go into effect so in light what you're saying what we'll do representative and I will work with your office to to see what how that's going to be presented to the public and if necessary we can just place an update item again because there are there are folks who are either looking to relocate they're looking for some kind of reprieve or some protection to live in their city and so for those reasons why I thought it was important to at least come back with some kind of update on September so we will come back with an update we haven't scheduled it's the state when we'll be brief but what I'm understanding is that you will place a companion item on that same agenda to brief yeah that's that's the intent only for purposes of you there's a you know all the laws go into effect and so we need to have a conversation okay yeah thank you okay thank you anything for me so there is a motion or to a man does right into the record by Representatives seconded by representative Hernandez on the amendment call for the vote representative anello hi thank you and the voting session and that motion passes unanimously thank you now we need a motion to approve the item as amended please there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by alternate mayor Pro temolina to approve the item as amended on that motion call for the vote representative anello bye thank you in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously thank you Mr Price thank you for being here thank you and I do mix uh Council we do have limit of speaking on items supplies so please uh follow the the guidelines you're all upset thank you and with that Miss Prine we go to item 40 45 sir thank you item 45 is a public hearing on an ordinance granting a franchise for Elite Medical Air transport LLC DBA emergent air to operate a non-emergency ambulance transfer service emotional proof second there's some motion and a second to approve me yes ma'am so I actually I know representative Kennedy has an item to talk about the process in which we're approving these franchises I know that that item didn't get moved up first but I would like to postpone this item until we take that item on or if that item passes until South comes back with those recommendations so an item 40 we have a motion a second already on it we didn't I know okay but I'm also making a motion to postpone I was taking your emotion so we have a motion and a second is that what you're saying representative I know is you would like to postpone the item or you would like to no she'd like to hear item 15 first right 17. you want a table you can postpone it if you all would rather do that but I we could also just hear item 15 first because I don't want to postpone this item okay so you want to table it for now and go to item 17. yes ma'am and I apologize that I did not catch that one I'll get the revisions earlier the author of that item is not here um so if we can just hear the sound whether they want to do that because there's much in a second to move so representative see that I'd move this item forward already and it had been second and moved up and voted on so so there's a motion from representative anello seconded by representative Rivera to table item 45 to take item 17. all in favor okay I'll take a I'll take a roll call representative Hernandez no Molly not all right Salcido nay Rivera hi Canales representative anello bye we have a time here no okay the motion fails so we stay on item number 45 which is a public hearing on an ordinance granting a franchise for Elite Medical Air transport LLC DBA emergent air to operate a non-emergency ambulance transfer service and we do have public comment on this item would you like me to call the public sir let's do um You Know Chief only the presentation of public comment first I'll let you do it we can do the staff if that's okay with you mayor go ahead sir yeah I'll give you the lead on that sir okay chief killings with the El Paso Fire Department uh so yes this is an item for um to approve uh Elite Medical Air transport LLC DBA emergent air um on January 26 Elite transport emergency airport applied for a franchise uh Patient Service transfer service to provide uh three MCU with Specialty Care transport capabilities this includes paramedic nurses and specialized technicians which are usually respiratory technicians this is a staff of 30 with 13 nurses and the use of for our Specialty Care transports there's the use of the specialty equipment which includes ventilators and IV pumps for for an example what we're seeing in our community is an increase in the demand on Specialty Care transports for a number of reasons but due to primarily the Standalone emergency departments that are popping up across the the city and an increase in Hospital specialty designations so with those demands we're seeing an increase in both emerging and non-emergent transports which the El Paso Fire Department is having to pick up the pick up the those transports and start doing those again taking away from the emergency response aspect of the the fire department three of the four current franchisees do have Specialty Care transports capabilities but again they're limited and we believe that by adding these this franchisee would help with uh those Specialty Care transports within the community there has been a revision from their last application to the franchisee fees to the franchise fees their fees are in line with those of the current franchisees and again the reminder is that when any of our franchise ambulances are doing transports for the city of El Paso they have to follow the fee and billing of the El Paso Fire Department Chief I got a question for you so we say there's a need yes sir what kind of metrics are we using and how can we back up our statements that we're saying we have we were subsidizing and we're going on non-emergency calls as a 9-1-1 Center which jeopardizes the city I understand and I agree with you there but for us to come back and say we need one what type of numbers are we looking at as far as non-emergency calls that we're making and what would change this to make sure that our community because I know we don't have a lot of ambulances and and I get it so I just want to make sure that what we're saying is we're supporting it based on information we've already done and work that we've done and we can share that with people in here yes sir so for example um if we look at our emergent and non-emergent transports that are being demanded throughout the city uh in 2019 we had uh 45 emergent transports and in 2019 we had 20 non-emergent transports uh that number has been steadily increasing over the years to where in 2022 the emergent transports for the city were 328 and the non-emergent transports were 104. so um that that is the increase that we're looking at trying to combat and so what we're doing on the El Paso Fire Department side is we're adding additional equipment we talked about as mentioned the ventilators and IV pumps so we're looking at those that additional equipment being added to some specialty units within the El Paso Fire Department but also adding training to our staff so with bringing emergent air on board um they're they're bringing a staff of 30 that are already trained to include uh with 13 nurses so that's just the next level of care that they're they're providing within their services to the community okay thank you for that answer sir yes sir representative thank you mayor you know I was looking at when you all mentioned 17 I also went back to look at it and and how come we're not uh taking these two items together what is uh what is the difference between 17 and 45 um 45 is they I know that maybe representative um Kenny's not in here but he wants us to come back with guidelines so what will get us to where we say we need more he wants to okay set guidelines so we don't just come back to council and say we need more ambulances we need more help he he wants us to come back and look at and have just like he was talking about but really have some standards well that kind of contradicts with what you're doing in 45 because to me why can't we have that in hand before we vote for 45. so actually uh that we're just here to present the application right so the application is different than what uh representative Kennedy had had proposed right um and and well I think it's kind of important what do you propose but also uh I mean is it urgent that we are they needed right now right now uh 445 this is a need that we identified within within our community we support moving forward with this applicant right now um we and then the the other item is separate that's that's the the overall how the ordinance is managed if you're asking if there's a need there's a need within the community right now uh for those specialty cares and the data that we we just presented um dictates to us that there is a need and and uh man I would have thought better if we would have heard the discussion with 17 first I mean and then 45 because what changes are you going to propose on that what changes what amendments are you going to propose on the uh for number 17 on the transfer ambulance services we didn't put that item on the agenda sir that was released all right thank you mayor for now thank you I think that I think that we could we could wait like uh rep on the old one or two but okay I think 17 years more is let's set guidelines moving forward so when we do have those guidelines we can bring in more of a discussion of what guidelines we need moving forward so we know what we need and how we activate needing more Ambulance Service to our community and and that's what this item's about not really what we're going to talk about today which is the application moving forward because represent Kennedy says item how do we look at moving forward from today on representative uh Canales thank you mayor yeah I absolutely don't want to speak for representative Kennedy uh it's item 17 is his item and we're not on that item um but I did have a conversation with him about it and and yeah he talked about wanting to modernize the the process right uh collect more data [Music] um I brought up actually the I know we'll talk about this again when we get to item 17 but I talked about the our scooter program and the fact that we collect more data from the scooters than we do from the ambulances and it just has to do with uh how long those programs have been around the scooter program is new and so we were able to implement something a lot more modern and we just want to bring the the data collection and and the standards that we create up to date um so that but that's something different I I think that um uh I have would have some problems if we were to have gone through an entire process of receiving an application from an applicant only to then say on the last day when it's up for approval that we're looking at changing the standards um and you know I I trust the expertise of of you Chief and the department in telling us here that there's a need that needs to be met um and so I I don't have any problem supporting this today um I think that uh if we're hearing that the need is there uh we we trust you and uh looking at changing the standards will only help us to reinforce the the um call for for additional service providers in the future and and justify whether we do need more or not but again we don't have that data whether we change the standard or not we can't magically make that appear for this application and so um again we trust you I trust your recommendation and and I think I'm ready to move forward thank you mayor thank you representative Salcido followed by representative manilo followed by representative thank you mayor and a lot of a lot of our comments were already shared I feel like you've mentioned there's an Express need for the community and I'm always going to air on the need of the community to make sure that they're safe you did mention that they are Specialists you said 30 they're bringing in how much so they're bringing in 30 staff with 13 nurses 13 nurses and just so I can kind of get a better idea of the companies we currently have what is the difference of you know that type of Staffing in comparison to others so some of the some of the other agencies that we have do have specialty carry units like I said there's three out of the four that do are authorized for Specialty Care transports but they're limited uh their staff is primarily EMTs and paramedics they don't have that next level of care for Respiratory technicians and and nurses okay yeah so again your recommendation I am in support of and and I know that item 17 or the other item I'm looking forward to looking how we're going to better collect data moving on forward thank you we're pro terminal thank you mayor um so I'm not going to support this because we're not taking up 17 and I disagree with the comments that have been made um Chief I told you previously or I asked you previously when you weren't recommending the last franchise why you would push this one and not that one um I also I kind of questioned this idea of expertise um and I'm sorry it's so weird I don't know what's going on with it I can't see you um so I'm sorry if I'm like addressing you directly but um I just don't the idea of having a nurse on a medvac I think is being could have escalated in this conversation no one is going to let you fly unless you are in stable condition and so you have EMTs on those flights no one has ever been able to tell me what the difference in care from an EMT to a specialized nurse on these flights are so I went and talked to hospitals and and they didn't seem very convinced that this was a great idea and so it's really important for me to have the metrics and be confident that we are recommending or not recommending franchises based on the quality of the application and I can't do that today which is why I really wanted to move forward with that item before discussing this so since we have not done that and I have not been able to kind of get that information clearly I'm not going to be supporting this today because I really don't believe having been a child of an RN a child of an ER nurse someone who has had a family member on a med flight I just don't think this idea of specialist and then again going and talking to the CEOs of the hospitals in this community and directors of ER is it really cannot understand why we're pushing this specialized nurse flight over other local companies that were here and so one more time I'm just going to say without a process to really unsure what our ensure what our metrics are and how we're recommending these I I'm just not comfortable today thank you mayor thank you ma'am representative Dundas thank you um and I think I've shared with with the public on my concerns about um changing the rules midpoint and then and then asking for an applicant to apply after the fact there's some serious red flags there and concern me and item number 17 has no backup no under I have no understanding of it the public is unaware of what's coming forward with that item so members of council please do your due diligence and give as much information in your backup because what happens is that now you have a public that is completely uninformed with the direction that the council wants to take regardless of that item whether it directs you to go back and look at the rules you have an applicant who's applied fairly who's met the requirements and you all have demonstrated in the past that there is a need and my concern here is playing politics with with critical health care when there are people who are dying who need Critical Care for example my grandmother was one of those people who died for not having Transport Services her death certificate specifically says because there was no transport available to her she died she shouldn't have died because of having no transport so I take these issues very seriously if there is a need and if your metric is two hours of away time then you need to change that metric members of the public who need critical care whether that's flight or from One hospital to another because of the specialized Services they have we need to afford that opportunity to businesses don't play politics with health care and with lives so I believe that this applicant has applied fairly and just based on our rules and our ordinance that we have today we should treat those applicants fairly and of course if there's going to be any conversation about the market or driven market analysis then my expectation is that that we hire a third party vendor who will do that like every other contract that we have with the city we rely on Consultants to give us non-bias and partial information about current market trends and the needs with hospitals if there are CEOs of hospitals that have a concern please call us let us know send us a letter of support or against and so whatever the concern is give us that information so that we can make better judgments but as our ordinance stands today it is my opinion that we should approve this if and if you try to change the rules after the fact um there's some some real risk to the city if you do that thank you for your recommendations and I support you today thank you ma'am and with that we thank you Chief we have a public comment yes mayor the first person is Robert Campion followed by Ray mancera Lee King Carlos Alarcon Henry Athens Rachel herrickson Tony Baird good morning you have three minutes hi good morning mayor and Council Rob camping with Elite medical transport similar Origins Elite Medical Air transport the applicant and Elite Medical Transport but no relation So speaking on behalf of our own ground ambulance entity here today the current health and safety code is very limited in what it requests I'll address that more in agenda item 17. however one of the stipulations of the health and safety code is that the applicant demonstrate a need in the community now need is ill-defined however the burden of proof does lie on the applicant the burden of proof does not rely on anyone else to prove that there is no need it is simply for the applicant to prove all three major Hospital Systems in this community HCA tenant and El Paso Children's Hospitals offer Specialty Care transport Far and Beyond anywhere else you can find in most major cities in America the neonatal ICU teams the Pediatric ICU teams the high-risk OB teams and the vehicles that they utilize have been copied by University of Kentucky have been copied by Vanderbilt University and are led by some of the leading Physicians that we've been able to recruit to these communities the Specialty Care transport needs of El Paso are very well taken care of by our Hospital Partners in combination with the local ambulance services the simple stating that 13 nurses will be available to run EMS calls leaves a lot to be determined as to how will they be deployed what is the level of care being provided and to say that a certain level of service is necessary doesn't necessarily show need there's a lot of needs in this community that aren't as well met as we would like and this while this may be one of them I don't believe that it is today Additionally the addition of a fifth franchise provider into the El Paso Healthcare System is going to be diluting effect to the existing providers if no need exists in January of uh this year this Council approved an additional provider only six months have passed since they were approved and only four months since they became operational we certainly have not been able to feel the net effect of that addition and certainly are not giving them the the proper opportunity to to grow and thrive in our community it is my strong recommendation this agenda item receive a navo today and that the city review and revise the current health and safety code the needs of our community are well met from the tiniest of premature infants to you know the celebrated 100 plus year olds of our community again I would urge you to vote day on this the applicant can always return certainly I wouldn't support change any rules mid-stream however as much as we've seen each other in the last 16 months more so than the last decade I think this is is time to address those thank you all for your consideration on this matter thank you for your leadership to our community thank you sir the next speaker is Ray mancera followed by Lee King good morning Mr marancetta you have three minutes thank you my name is Raymond Sarah and in accordance with the lobby ordinance I stand before you good morning representing the Elite Medical Air transport doing business as emergent air um I've been hearing some of the comments and went back and reviewed the history and I just want to share with you is that before I go into that we do concur with the fire department with EMS they are the experts they are the ones that get the calls so we concur with them and we were this my client was denied that opportunity in September of 2022. especially because there was certain fees that were higher almost three times higher but I want you all to know that uh they have been adjusted and comparable or equal to what everybody else is saying is offering including the uh but now we're providing even much more qualified staff um keep in mind that uh when the first one was approved the live medical life Ambulance Service in 2005 uh immediately they're at firm a Dominion ambulance came in in May and number one objected to number two so we're number three Elite Medical Transport according to the uh to the uh research that I did for City for the city records They objected to uh once the objective number one and two objected to number three coming on board ironically number four comes in uh a revived make revived mobile health and number one two and three come in and object and was what you're seeing right now is uh we are the fifth now I hope we don't have one two three and four objecting uh you will never see us object to providing Services the company and trying to eliminate uh competition you will never see us do that I just want to also let you know is that the Mandate of a city council as you know is to provide for the health safety and well-being of the general public that is your mandate and every ordinance that you pass must meet that criteria and in this particular case we're talking about really health care and the safety and you have heard from your own staff qualified data that they uh know that there's a tremendous need uh yes of course the providers will say we don't need it because they don't want to hurt their bottom line but that is their issue the issue for as far as city council is to make sure that the public is protected because when something happens something goes wrong you wonder why they didn't arrive in time so I just want to let you all know that uh that unless it happens to you you might not know so thank you for your approval the next speaker is Lee King followed by Carlos Alarcon Athens Henry Rachel herrickson Tony Baird good morning you have three minutes hear me okay so good morning mayor and city council my name is Lee King I'm the president of Elite Medical Air transport or emergent air I apologize the last time I was actually out of town at a doctor's appointment so I wasn't able to come up and talk about what all had happened anyways um so our company was born in El Paso in 2007. got one airplane since then we've grown to 10 airplanes we have medical people nurses paramedics respiratory therapists that are part of our community that live in our community and that's what they do is transport so um we do transport patients from here to Dallas Houston San Antonio Phoenix and also we go out to the outlying communities and bring patients back into El Paso from Artesia Roswell Alpine from just different types of things and so to say that there's not a need there's definitely a need what we're trying to do is extend our hand to say that what we do on a day in and out basis we can also put in the back of an ambulance so that there's bad weather or there's other things we just have more opportunity for more resources or more um alternatives to get patients to where they need to be so um so there is that um and I guess really overall I'm open for any questions or anything that at any point anybody has but it's just I'm sorry I'm kind of nervous I don't like to speak for that much but anyways um yeah so that's that's where I'm at so oh one more quick thing um say there's not any as of even last Friday on my way to work we got a call from a hospital requesting an immediate transport of a sick patient to Phoenix and um so we did um set up ground we had to wait two hours when our team was there ready to go and um we're a little bit different in the fact that we have Pilots that are on a timeline when they start they can only go for so long before they're not able to fly anymore there's weather that pops up all the time so even when everything works you know we're just trying to make it that we're having more reliability to get to where we need to be if that makes any sense so anyways thank you sorry thank you the next speaker is Carlos Alarcon followed by Athens Henry Rachel herrickson Tony Baird good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon thank you all for the time I just want to point out a few things since you approved us you know our growth has been significant uh prior to um you know the last inspection from pacifier we had four ambulances one of them was uninspected recently because it was out on on some work out of town but we have grown for to four ambulances from the initial two that we had initially submitted we have purchased two additional ambulances that are getting wrapped in San Antonio that will be bringing to El Paso to serve the community from the time that we were approved by city council we had a 367 percent increase in call volume one of those individuals one of those organizations that use this immediately was the emergent air and we had transported their Crews and patients you know we have completed over 60 to 70 transports um they feel so comfortable with utilizing our services that actually in certain instances their Critical Care paramedics will actually transfer care over to our Critical Care staff so we can finish the transport to the facility our stance is neutral you provided the opportunity for us and we appreciate that I have worked with leaking you know in multiple situations before when I managed the ground ambulance aspect of it you know several years ago so we have a good working relationship uh there as well the other thing that I would like to point out is that thank you to representative to bringing it up to light um Chief killings was a little confused or conflicted you know January 3rd because he did not support us saying that there was no need for us to come in there was no reason there was no data they did not support us so six months later here we are and there's some confusion in his department and his leadership because now there is a need so that makes me kind of think that you know as representative Hernandez was saying some political issues are happening that you know are not visible to the public are not visible to the community and you know that definitely is concerning when it affects the general public you know she's got a personal reason for you know supporting you know health care and advancing Healthcare in El Paso and of course you know those that are trying to do the right thing for the community appreciate that so thank you very much for that um thank you for your support we'll continue to to support um you know the the healthcare needs of El Paso and we're want to make sure that you know everything that that you guys those decisions you make are for the good of the community thank you very much for your time the next speaker is Athens Henry followed by Rachel herrickson good morning you have three minutes good afternoon mayor City Council Members my name is Athens Henry and I've only recently started my tenure at life ambulance but I come to you today not as a employee of life but as a member of the community I was born and raised here in El Paso and I lived most of my life in the Lower Valley I went to Isleta high school and I recently graduated from UTEP with my bachelor's of Science and physics one of the neat things about El Paso is that no matter how the population changes we all know each other that's what makes Healthcare here in the Borderlands so personal receiving a call from a neighborhood your grandparents used to live in to finding out one of your patients is a former teacher we know this community not because we've been here the longest but because we've taken care of our people time and time again today I implore you to vote against the integration of a new provider and to take into consideration the healthcare professionals that have longed to serve our community for so many years please allow them to continue to do what they do best being part of the foundation that holds our culture and City together thank you for your time the next speaker is Rachel herrickson followed by Tony Baird good afternoon you have three minutes thank you my name is Rachel haraxing and Athens is a hard act to follow at then you did an awesome job appreciate you my name is Rachel haraxing I'm president in life ambulance and I'm here today to humbly ask the council to please vote no and one thing that I have to agree with revive is um the fire department did ask the city council in January and did tell the city council that we did not need another provider and we don't need another provider and it has not been proving proven that we need another provider and unfortunately um I I do think that item 17 is important because it's going to make it us look at the system to see if another provider is actually necessary we do actually provide SCT transports us Elite and Dominion we are we actually also life ambulance does a lot of work for emergent air we we transport their Crews all the time and I'm not sure what the 104 calls came from at the fire department was using as an example but remember some of the calls in the city that the fire department do because of their professionalism and their level of care that they provide right they are the only ones in the city on some non-emergency transports they're the only ones that can do it because of the franchise just FYI I so I would really ask that the council please consider saying no today thank you for your support and if you have any unless you have any questions for me we'll do that uh after we get done with public comment okay thank you thank you the next speaker is Tony Baird good afternoon you have three minutes attorney director of operations Dominion ambulance uh June actually this year marks our 16th year in service with the city and the community of El Paso Texas um I just wanted to go back and touch bases yes with the contradiction facts from the fire department September of 22 when emergent air was up for nomination for the agenda of the fire department supported them then revived came up in January they were not supported saying there was not a need now they're saying there's a need again we turn in statistics to you guys monthly on our transports time frames everything else Gold by the franchise is 90 we are all above the 96 percentile so if we're not meeting the goal and they're showing there's a need then that is a metric that needs to be changed by the city council to hire those standards to us to make it more performance enhancing because we are meeting the 90 by far going back into this give me one second sorry I'm a little nervous um again right now for the past three years post covid we've been supporting gate and EMS staffing agencies everything else going uh with the with the function of new students and paying for our students to go out through the EMS program um a lot of the representatives today are here for new business and supporting new business but again like I said this is our 16th year in business supporting the citizens and the city of El Paso when are we going to get support us life Ambience Elite now revive medical that are here proving themselves day to day night in every hour of the day to the city that we are here to help everybody thank you guys thank you and the following was submitted by the all peso Hispanic chamber of commerce and it reads members of council we are writing to voice our strong support of emergent heirs application to obtain a ground ambulance license our community is an aging one and one that is in the need of efficient and timely medical and Emergency Services emergent air has come into our community to ensure that these services are readily available the record of accomplishment proves this that work with other cities and neighboring Counties have shown that they are not only Dependable but also well recognized for their work we respectfully request that this El Paso city council approval Merchant airs petition in a timely manner to ensure that they can do what they do best serve people in great need sincerely Cindy Ramos Davidson El Paso Hispanic chamber of commerce that concludes public comment on this item mayor thank you um Mr Alarcon I have a question for you sir yes you um I want to make sure because it sounded to me like you felt we there was a need based on you have a 367 percent increase in business since we approved your franchise yes and you've only added two ambulances at this point I know you said you had some more coming from San Antonio but if you've had a 367 increase I mean I think Council was right to approve you obviously but now you're telling me that there's a huge need for additional service based on on your you know but you your testimonies prior in front of us and they're not testing on these comments and then what you just told us just now that um in the short term of what five months how long no really how long have you had the service now because I know you were waiting for to approve the logo and all that stuff yeah so technically our our first date was uh March 1st and you've had a 367 increase percent since then yes sir from well actually from March to our previous month which was February which were you know those previous months before February were only focused to El Paso County uh you know of course that first month when we got approved for the city franchise we had a uh that percent huge percentage increase um we um have been able to secure a multitude of contracts with Home Health agencies uh nursing homes assisted livings and just recently the hospitals of providence is uh the last uh contract that that we have secured because they have seen you know that um that we have been announced to the community and we have been able to service the community particularly with you know the critical care aspect of it you know we have been able to complete a multitude of transports from freestanding facilities freestanding ERS to the main or the big box hospitals with vented patients with patients that you know need a you know multiple infusions uh uh you know or have medications being delivered by infusion pumps so we have been able to meet those needs from from those uh you know smaller microhospitals for example in in Horizon and northeast El Paso where you know the you know it was a funny uh you know back when when Northeast Campus was going to open we used to call it or people wanted to call it Shopper or Regional because of the influx of people from from you know southern New Mexico and I get that and and I appreciate that and I just wanted I mean you had a huge increase so yes my I just want to make sure I heard you right that there was a huge need when we decided that it was the right thing to do to you know vote Yes to make sure you guys were here and you wouldn't have a 367 wherever you got it whether it's Northeast East West it doesn't matter where you got it and who you got it obviously was out there and needed and we needed people to help and provide the service so I mean whether you want to talk to home Home Care Providers or whoever that it's very obvious that they wouldn't have said yes to you if they didn't need you that is correct so no and I thank you for that and and thank you for providing that service I appreciate it thank you sir thank you sir now um I also have a question for I think the CEO of emergent I think you were up here a minute ago yes how do you know what question I'm going to ask Mr monsetta you already gave me notes um you all um will provide 13 nurses or those 13 nurses the ones that are currently for flights that you use you said you have 10 airplanes and used flights those nurses are used for flights yes sir so today those nurses are working in with you all and not for the ground transportation that is correct so what uh what additional service would they be providing based on on that information ultimately what we look to do is so we provide a nurse and a paramedic respiratory therapist our ventilators are a lot more advanced than the other providers for medications are a lot more advanced we have nitric oxide we have a lot of different things that just the other current providers just don't offer I'm not saying every patient needs that but it just gives us an opportunity to be more well-rounded if you will so we one of the things when we talk about we have a simulation lab we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mannequins to ensure that we can run ourselves and our people through scenarios um and and so all of this plays into when people get sick and they need to go from point A to point B regardless if it's from El Paso to El Paso outside of El Paso back to El Paso or El Paso to a different community that we're able to help them and and so I guess to answer your question no I mean I see you provide a quality service there's no doubt about that but I'm trying to figure out what additional service will you be bringing if we approve this permit to operate within the city since you have 10 flights currently today so you're not adding any more flights you have 13 nurses today you're not at any additional nurses so what is the additional service that's going to be provided for the city that will basically take away a void so I think what it's going to do is when we talk about Specialty Care Services a lot of the specialty care services are provided by the hospital staff right so revive does have um a nurse that or two that worked with them but not nearly as consistent as we do um when a baby gets sick or a person gets sick and they need the services then typically the hospital staff will provide those services and then they transport from point A to point B where if it's worth us that's not the case so um we're consistent we have our team together we're immediately available and then we we go out from and get the patients and come back in or whatever that is then you're not able to provide that service to the community today um right now for the ground ambulance no sir we can transport from anything in El Paso County out or you know in we can go into New Mexico as long as we cross straight line we can come back in so but um to provide the services within the city limits we're not allowed to provide that okay great thank you for answering that question so do you guys we have some letters before we're good no we're fine thank you very much thank you for answering that Miss Prime looks like we have a motion in a second yes Mary the motion was made by representative Salcido if seconded by representative granalis to approve the ordinance on item 45. on that motion call for the vote representative anello no mayor we have a tie thank you in the voting session the motion passes four to three Representatives Representatives Hernandez Salcido Canales the mayor voting I Representatives Kennedy Pierre or not present the motion does carry may or may we go to call to the public at this time yes sir yes sir thank you we now move to call to the public the El Paso city council is a local government body Church served charged with serving all of the citizens of the city and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge the City Council meetings our public meetings under the Texas open meetings ACT public comment is an accommended accommodation and not a requirement of city council all persons in attendance are expected to displace Civility and Decor that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting profane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or Integrity which are not pertinent to City business nor May any member of the public use this forum for political statements or campaigning please note that during 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 six members of the audience that signed up to speak the first person is Rosalind Carrasco her topic is selection of new chief of police and women and LGBT in law enforcement good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon thank you before I get started I'd like to offer my condolences to the sheriff's department and family and friends of late Deputy Daniel Louetta mayor Lisa and esteemed members of city council I am not here today to impugn the late and current leadership in the El Paso Police Department I am here to ask for a better tomorrow for the department and the citizens it serves however this cannot be done without acknowledging the department has failed many officers who do not look act or think in a way that condones the current police culture there are universals of course all officers should strive to be physically fit tactically proficient and have strong communication skills none however should be pressured as a vote for a certain political party or be ostracized for being a specific gender sexual orientation or other we implore you to take these failures into consideration during the selection of the next chief of police and to create a system of checks and balances to ensure greater transparency and accountability within the El Paso Police Department are held we have drafted suggestions to right these wrongs sadly each of these proposals stems from an actual Injustice various officers have suffered examples include being skipped over or skipping over the most qualified candidate for a coveted position to Internal Affairs investigations based on cronyism rather than the facts Mr Mayor and city council we ask that you demand that our next chief actively support the community and all officers and lieu of lip service until the death settles trust but verify we encourage you to reinstate an all-inclusive Community Committee rather with the intention of supporting marginalized communities in law enforcement to include but not limited to women and the lgbtqia plus police officers as I stated earlier I'm not here to shame or ridicule our police leaders there was a time when I too was blindly loyal to the police department and everything it encompassed people can change but not without recognizing the error of their ways that being said and with all due respect to every person in this room that holds a position of privilege and power if you are not actively doing something about this culture then you too are part of the problem saying you'll look into it is not enough thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is Linda Hannah Linda Hanner her topic is police chief selection good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the El Paso city council thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today I stand before you to shed light on the critical issue that demands our immediate attention sexual harassment and the glaring disparity in treatment within the El Paso Police Department sexual harassment is a pervasive problem that not only undermines the safety and well-being of our citizens but also erodes the trust between law enforcement and the community they serve it is a violation of Human Rights and is staying on the Integrity of our Police Department we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this issue any longer reports of sexual harassment within the El Paso Police Department have surfaced revealing a disturbing pattern of misconduct and unequal treatment it is disheartening to see Brave women and men who have dedicated their lives to Public Service facing such egregious behavior from their colleagues we owe it to them to ensure a safe and inclusive work environment free from discrimination and harassment the consequences of these actions go beyond the immediate victims they tarnish the reputation of our police force hinder effective crime prevention and further alienate the very community that depends on the police for protection in order to restore trust and Foster positive relationships we must take Swift and decisive action to address this issue we must actively promote diversity and inclusion within the police force by recruiting and retaining a diverse range of officers we can foster a more representative and empathetic Police Department this in turn will help bridge The Divide between law enforcement and the community they serve I would like to remind you and the public that the El Paso Police Department already has a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and officers must attend yearly training regarding this policy since the department already provides training and has zero tolerance reference sexual harassment why is it still occurring what the public does not know is that a subculture exists within the ranks of the police department this police subculture promotes disparity and a division against those who promote accountability it promotes the US versus them mentality against the public we serve how can we allow this to continue we must create a disciplinary review board that reports to the city council not the chief of police city council has already received similar recommendations from a local entity border Network for human rights who also recommended this change in order to have a better relationship with the community addressing sexual harassment and disparity in treatment within the El Paso Police Department is not just a matter of policy it is a matter of Justice fairness and the well-being of our community and those who we who serve it excuse me by taking decisive action we can create a police force that reflects the values and aspirations of El Paso let us Stand United in our commitment to eradicate sexual harassment and build a safer more Equitable future for all thank you for your time today [Applause] the next speaker is Elizabeth Crawford Elizabeth Crawford's topic is anniversary of overturn of Roe v Wade good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon thank you thank you so much I just want to briefly speak as we all know is about one year since Roe versus Wade was overturned and in this in this year we've seen a lot of things happen um I'm pro-life so of course I'm excited at the abortion centers across our country that have shut down we've we've seen a lot of good things happen we've also seen hypocrisy we've seen um the usage of um the usage of this issue for political reasons by people who don't truly care about the lives of of children um just want to want to urge us all to to really think about the times that we are living in God hates human Pride and that applies to every form of pride whether that be pride in sin against his will overt sin whether that be pride in human accomplishments God hates human Pride and as we see the direction our nation is taking um a lot of things are humanly speaking alarming but we know that God had said that this time would come and in God's word it says that in the last days men will be lovers of their own selves Covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful and Unholy and as we see things unfolding in our nation and around our world it's setting up for what has been spoken of in the in the Holy scriptures in the Book of Revelation I urge you go home read the book of Revelation everything is setting up for it there's one hope there's one security there's one salvation the Lord Jesus Christ God's word says that God made him who knew no sin Jesus Christ to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him my plea would be every one of us needs the savior in these dark times God hates human Pride every form of human Pride turn to Christ there's still time he he is coming his promises are sure um we we look across our nation and just see everything happening exactly as it was prophesied so I I just urge you turn to Christ God's word tells us to repent and believe the gospel Jesus Christ that I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father but by me he also said therefore be ready for in such an hour as you think not the son of man cometh thank you so much thank you thank you the next speaker is Barbara Valencia it's Valencia's topic is Animal Services now the nation knows good afternoon you have three minutes Miss Valencia if you have some a presentation you need to submit it before the deadline on the day of the meeting if there's something that you're going to be presenting we need to as per The Rules of Order we need the presentation submitted to my office before the deadline go ahead remember you have three minutes you're not gonna let me show it if we didn't get your presentation ahead of time m is required by The Rules of Order I couldn't get here before 9 A.M and you guys were closed yesterday go ahead and you can speak ma'am you have three minutes I'm Barbara Valencia with Huckleberry Hound Dog Rescue now the nation knows the video of last week's ASAC meeting is being shared around the country in that video our Animal Services directors plan for the straight crisis in the city is to continue to lead the Strays on the streets to produce more strays and the nation is laughing at us because his plan is ludicrous Equal justice under the law abandoning an animal in a person's custody regardless of ownership is against the law in the city of El Paso and the state of Texas the director of Animal Services instructs and is having his staff members and city employees to instruct citizens of El Paso to release animals back onto the streets what the shelter director is doing is in direct violation of the city's Title One 1.08.040 violations include the causing procuring aiding or betting of another person to do such Act the Texas Penal Code titled II criminal responsibility for conduct of another section 7.02 A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if one acting with the kind of culpability required for the offense he causes her AIDS an innocent or non-responsible person to engage in conduct prohibited by the definition of the offense two acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense he solicits encourages directs AIDS or attempts to Aid the other person to commit the offense the director needs to be held accountable for what amounts to nefarious and criminal actions the lies need to end at last week's ASAC meeting the director stated in the city of your ordinance it doesn't say I have to pick up animals off the streets that's not true Title VII 7 7.5010 creation and purpose of Department of animal services the primary function includes to reduce the number of unwanted stray dogs and cats in the city deliberately leaving stray animals strain lost animals on the streets does not reduce the number of strain unwanted dogs and cats it increases it the director's actions contradict and go against the city ordinance and then show us the money at last week's ASAC meeting a Committee Member shared that Best Friends Animal Society is giving us millions of dollars where is this money going to who exactly is us how are the millions of dollars being dispersed no one on the committee elaborated on where the money is going or who is benefiting from it as the stakeholders in the city the taxpayers have a right to know thank you thank you the next speaker is Mark Pierro his topic is also Animal Services statistics good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon sir good afternoon thank you very much we can all agree that we are Beyond crisis mode in this stray animal with the Stray animals in our City and surrounding areas but we can fix it in 2019 with a no-kill plan the shelter into the shelter intake on average was over 2 000 animals a month and no animal in need was denied including all the Stray and lost animals the current director's strategic plan has drastically reduced the intake of the number of animals needing Refuge instead leaving them on the streets and surrounding desert defend for themselves these are the exact animals that are in dire need of animal services and is one of the primary functions for animal services to take them in 2019 with the no kill plan the shelter took in more animals and in the role in the rolling live release rate was in the 80 percentiles many of those months were in the high 80s the current director has been taking in less animals but his rolling live release rate is only in the 70 percentiles the current director continues to move the city further and further away from becoming no kill and best friends isn't any better than our current director's live release rate having intake closed for the last three years has caused an ocean of dogs and cats in our city and the director's plan is to use a teaspoon to drain that ocean with each passing day of keeping intake clothes and leaving the Strays on the streets to reproduce the ocean keeps getting bigger and your teaspoon keeps getting smaller any program that is using the intake close policy to attempt to achieve no kill is a fake no kill chuno kill is about saving both the animals in the shelter and in the community we need to go back to the true no kill plan we were on in order to stop the hemorrhaging you can't fix the problem by ignoring it leaving the animals on the streets to suffer isn't going to fix it either it only makes it worse we need to stop following the advice of best friends who are only in it for the bragging rights and greed and doesn't care about the welfare of the animals both inside and outside of the shelter their program doesn't belong in our city thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is Efrain Salcedo and Mr sausalo's topic is a healthy City Council good afternoon Mr Salcedo you have three minutes good morning how you doing hey good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon how are you you last four hours so I don't know what time is it okay so who did what I told you what to do get contact if you need contact you will have no stress at all I'm gonna take care of you I wasn't gonna come but I came because I didn't like the man or the gentleman who was spoken last 15 days ago I think his name is uh Mr Rico he was very aggressive with uh uh I think and I'm like I didn't like that now I respect all of you and most of us we don't know or they don't know I don't know do you have a lot of problems like us you have a lot more promises like we do no I want to take care of you with all my heart and uh I congratulate my favorite because we are talking about uh one program Business Association and the problem that we got and we're going to have like this person Rico he came the other day two weeks ago we can go over there and pick up the trash or whatever what is whatever they need Okay so you can call me any from any part of the city they can call me and I can go myself and clean so we we have a lot of uh a lot of members on my Association they listen to us and they want to to do something for your city us ourselves what are we doing for our city we have to to support you guys to support you 100 percent we have to start with us not with you with a banner that's the only way that we're going to have our city clean and our city is going to be the capital of the war simple as that healthy wise less crimes and everything so take care get contact with the with the sand dirt or grass when fire sun is out his place will go out I thank you very much God bless you and God bless you thank you thank you see you in two weeks in two weeks thank you God bless you guys I love you right okay thank you sir thank you mayor that it's everyone that signed up to speak on call to the public today I believe Ms check has something for you but she didn't sign up to speak oh okay come on up mashect possible God bless you all with everyone from my heart I did not come for the speech but I think this a delivery from a soldier that is stationed close to Russia and it says to Mayor Oscar Lisa thank you for your support special Joseph Joseph hero and his mama brought it to me yesterday knowing I'm coming to the city council this is a special delivery please mayor the hug you're gonna give me I guess to this lady okay and thank you love you people and please please foreign [Music] love you mister [Applause] thank you Miss check is there a motion to recess there's a motion in a second to recess a regular city council meeting for one hour is that correct mayor yes one hour thank you all in favor anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 12 40 PM for one hour this praying what time are we coming back we were due back at 140 mayor Council if you're in back please come up please a quorum of Council on the Deus please do we have a motion to return move to reconvene there's a motion in a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1 48 PM mayor may we go back to the consent agenda and pick up item 7 that was moved to regular yes ma'am thank you item seven is a resolution scheduling standing work sessions in accordance with the El Paso Municipal Charter representative you wanted to move this one to ask questions about is the the language um you'll you'll have to excuse me because I've missed maybe a couple of meetings but it states that city council wishes to have flexible or I can't for whatever reason oh that's why because my caps are on it says the council requested this and so I'm trying to understand what's the motivation here and what are the concerns about having work sessions every other week who requested this and who placed this item on the agenda yes ma'am um there is um there was a there was a has been a request to sort of tighten up and make sure that um all of our meetings are focused that the presentations are focused um there were two holidays we've got two sub two back-to-back holidays with Juneteenth and then with Fourth of July where we wouldn't have work sessions in um and following discussions with with um with leadership it was determined that we might be able to tighten up and make our work more efficient by by going to a one work session a month and making sure that briefings are provided um I think Council you may be I think you you have been advised by interim city manager Carrie Weston that you're going to be being provided agendas in a more um more upfront fashion um and a from an every you usually get the agenda the week before you're going to be receiving the agenda we're in the process of moving that schedule now so you'll be receiving the agenda with with um high-level briefing reviews and memos two weeks in advance and then so there'll be more time for you to get more information we're looking at ways as we move forward and processes and process improvements you know we're about learning and we're about continuous Improvement so we're looking to make sure that we're really utilizing work time staff time Council time everyone's time most efficiently as possible and so we're going to look at seeing if if one work session as opposed to two because it used to be I don't know if you remember way back in the day but we didn't used to have a work session and a regular council meeting every two weeks so again we're looking at how we can find efficiencies in the way we work forward no actually we used to have them weekly and I worked for city council at the time when we had meetings yeah those were regular meetings weekly and then we went to the bi-weekly schedules and then with work sessions as needed and then the work sessions became rather than as we needed them they became more and more regular and so now we got to the point where we were scheduling regular work sessions every every two weeks and a regular meeting and so we're again we're looking for efficiencies and we we would like to test this out so here's here's my concern um well number one it says Council desires to allow for flexible days for regular meetings or work sessions I don't recall that ever being uh directed from city council which is why I was asking the question was there a director from city council to bring back this no we weren't we we were not there was no there was no direction this was something that we were again working through just like we're working through the new the new process of testing getting you the agenda earlier and getting new high-level briefing documents earlier and getting individual briefings as needed earlier so that because we have heard we have heard from a customer just just quite frankly from a customer service perspective we've heard you we've heard all of you there have been moments where there's been things said we wish we had known earlier we wish we'd gotten briefed ahead of time so we're really just looking at how we as a staff can be um you know better providers of customer service to you as you and as we work together to serve the community I mean so just what you're saying I think will this item would do the opposite so we won't have an opportunity to have those work sessions we won't have an opportunity to have those long deep dive conversations into policy or legislative requirements um you know the the other concern that I have is uh when you when we changed our meetings to every other week I mean they turned in some of these meetings turned into Marathon long meetings and so when you remove a work session from twice or three times a month to once a month you know my concern is what where what is the gender review process going to entail how is the public going to be able to participate and agenda reviews when we're having discussions that require work sessions or longer conversations you know there's no ability for the public to to chime in and to take the time along with members of council you know this is you know for some of us this is a full-time job it is expected that we come to City Council meetings or work session meetings in anticipation to work for the public I think this item will inhibit The public's ability to get more information I think it inhibits my ability to to have a a meeting that's not going to be you know forever long Marathon meetings in addition to that with having these long meetings one day everyone gets tired at the end of these meetings we're we're trying to say it's time to adjourn let's move on to another day these meetings are already long and it's as it is if you change it to once a month I really do believe it's going to be even tiring not only to to City staff but to members of council and and all the staff 90 time that it takes to put these meetings together um you know I'm just I'm not sure what the the intention is here but I am concerned that the public won't be as engaged when we are trying to get the public more engaged and so um you know I don't understand the motivations here I think that the intent is probably an honest intent but I think it does the opposite um you know I don't want to I don't want to support this because this is what we're supposed to be doing for the public having these work session meetings then we go into executive session after those work session meetings it how it helps decipher and limit the amount of time that we're spending at regular scheduled Council meetings but I still don't understand the agenda review process so when are we going to have a public conversation with the public to do a gender review and I know multiple people here in the public they participate in those work sessions where we have an agenda review are we going to have that anymore yeah so agenda there there will be a general reviews on the week that there are work sessions and then on the the idea the concept put forward is on those weeks that there is not a work session um we would do like we normally do on a holiday I I would when there's not when there has not been an agenda review the day before like today oftentimes Council will request that we do like a mini agenda review for the con for the for the the consent items and so staff will be as staff was was present here this morning to to be willing to go through any of those items and give that update but the idea is that you'll be receiving um and again it's a sort of a it's a it's a holistic approach to this U.S Council will be receiving uh your agenda much further ahead two weeks ahead as opposed to a few days ahead you'll see a draft you'll be getting a briefing memo with those um so that you understand what what those items are we'll be able to give you all that information if you want additional information from members of Staff we will provide that and then there'll also be an opportunity to to discuss those items publicly before you vote but you'll be getting things Much More Much much further in advance regarding the way that work sessions will work we would like like to hear more feedback from members of council to understand what you'd actually like to do in work sessions this there's there's absolutely no please I want to be very clear and state this for the record there's absolutely no intention of trying to limit the conversation and the and the openness with our community we want to do more of that we want to provide more of that but with that we would like to work with you as members of council to understand really what you'd like to see on work sessions what you'd like to talk about and to get make sure that we're we're really exploring the true nature of what those meetings should be and we will meet as and when it's determined by Council we're here to to provide the professional support to you and to take care of the operation side as you work on policy I think your intent the intentions are well but I do strongly feel the opposite I believe that what we have now is already very limited and the meetings are already very long so all we're what we're doing here is we're shifting and we're putting all of our regular scheduled agenda items and work sessions into one meeting and and I think that's a it's going to be a very tiring to to the public and to members of council and staff so I'm not supporting this today for for those reasons because you know I do want to promote um as much as we can an opportunity for the public to hear agenda items before they come forward and to have those work sessions so that we can do the work that's required so but you know again well-intentioned but I I just I don't think that this is a good idea and I think it's going to make it more difficult for us to have our our regular scheduled meetings thank you representative thank you thank you thank you very much you know and I think the recent work sessions when I first took office in 13 we didn't have a work session then we went to actually focusing on an item that we needed to exactly like you were saying to dig really deep into and kind of train the city council members and the public into an item that might take two three hours and that's what work session that's why it's called the work session to have items and there's usually one or two items that the city managers team would pick that thought it would be really important for us to dig whether it be a budgetary item or an item but it's not an extended of a council meeting and that's what it's become it's a really two Council meetings on one Monday and one on Tuesday but I know that we went from none when I took office to one every other week to when I left we were down the one and there was usually two items on there and there was training that really needed to go deep whether it was a budget item or anything that we needed to know and it was really and we had a lot of public input on those because there were big items that would take two three hours at the city manager and his team really wanted to focus on and I think that's really important that we continue to have those items to be able to you know move forward and have total understanding of a lot of things that we actually go by pretty quickly because they're on an agenda item and sort of a work session item uh representative theater thank you Samir and that's followed by representative Mr own thank you very much for um thinking out of the box and and not doing things like we do every day since I've arrived in January and I need to say that there's not one person sitting up here or the mayor Pro tem who I think works part-time I think everybody up here sees this as a full-time job and does the best they can for their constituents but Mr what this is showing us or showing me just like when Miss Cody now works with our office monthly reviewing our budget taking the time sending us our budget reviewing it with us making sure that we understand where we're at what we're spending what we're not spending this to me is a step in that direction just making us as a council people who were voted in to represent our constituents more effective for our constituents and you know and I'm sure that as we get closer and closer to the budget we're going to be having all day work sessions and so I'm so looking forward to spending this time with the mayor but um so so thank you thank you very much for thinking outside the box um representative thank you mayor um yeah Tracy I wanted to thank you as well I think it's a little disingenuous to say this was not a council item I think um since the passage of covid and full virtual meetings Council has had many conversations about cutting back on the work sessions and the items on work sessions um I think that we started doing them so often hoping that we would engage the public or I could tell you six years later I'm still hearing from people that they don't remember that there's a Monday meeting they don't watch the Monday meeting I mean even the media they're at Commissioner's Court on Monday so they're missing a lot of these conversations as well I also really want to thank you and uh interim city manager Weston for bringing those agenda items up to us earlier I know those came out of conversations about Council being concerned about getting information but it is also something that I brought up in my first couple years in Council because other cities do that they make their agendas available two weeks in advance for their public to be able to review them I know we're not there yet but I look forward to having the conversations to get there and I wanted to thank interim city manager Colonel Weston I think you know I want to be supportive of him as he transitions into this job and if this is something that he's seeing as a more impactful way to move forward with Council weeks I'm fully supportive of that if if we as a council decide that that's that we want to go back to work sessions every week we're able to do that but um right now fully willing to support him in his transition and what he thinks will be more impactful for this Council thank you there's no other comment is there a motion representative um Canalis yes sir thank you mayor um yeah there's one more thing that I think uh is worth discussing and that that's the agenda review as a concept um I mean just to dive into the history a little bit there didn't used to be an agenda review for the city Representatives um the original agenda review was part of the process of Staff putting the agenda together and there was a staff agenda review um in you know we're going a little further into the past now but there was one member of council who wanted to be present at that agenda review and started attending um once one member of council attended then multiple members of council wanted to attend and that eventually had to become a posted meeting so that everybody who wanted to attend could attend um I think over time that a gender review meeting uh transformed into something different which was staff presenting uh the the presentations uh but the the public participation in that agenda review meeting has been next to zero for for years um you know like a few of my colleagues that said people don't know that that Monday meeting happens often and the room is often empty um there are times where items come and go on Monday with no questions you know we see the presentation there's no questions and then the next day there's a big debate about those items and lots of unanswered questions remaining that weren't asked on Monday and so I don't know that I always see the value in in that agenda review meeting um as it's existed in the past and so yeah I'm a little bit curious about how it'll work here with one agenda review one one regular city council meeting that has an agenda review before it and then one that doesn't and it's incorporated into the into the meeting itself um I'm fine with leaving it like this as it is right now but it might be worth reviewing in the future what that agenda review meeting looks like and if we continue to to do it um again it's odd to have I think two different forms of of a gender review within the same month you know alternating between two different meetings thank you thank you sir we do have public comment on this side of Mayor from Ms Turner Mrs Turner good afternoon Miss Turner for City Council on this issue you used to meet on a weekly basis and none of these work session stuff or review was done and then come Tuesday you all would ask not you all but members of council would be asking questions over and over and over and over again I'd come in prepared as a civilian interested in my government but the city and members of council were not they didn't ask any questions until Tuesday so all of a sudden there had to be an agenda review now or these what you call now work sessions where I see you take action and things that I believe that should show up in the city council meeting you take actions during your work session uh you know I look at this stuff and I sometimes wonder if you just go back and doing it simple which is having a meeting every week you won't have these long meetings it seems like you're trying to build the meetings up to where they last a whole month I mean it worked in the past but you keep messing with it and the meetings keep getting longer and for those who don't show up on Monday meetings a little history on that too people would want to speak and they were not allowed to speak so why should somebody show up when you refuse to take input and was it District six six rep talked about all day budget sessions let me tell you I sat in those two where different departments came in all day long and you sit there and listen they were scheduled you know I'd listen to please Fire EMS one day then different ones the next day so I've been through all that it all comes down to quote you being prepared and uh say bluntly that members of Council in the past were not prepared is an understatement but if you all can be prepared you can do this you can have this meeting once a week but there are items that you know are going to be tough I mean you should be picking up the phone and asking questions the moment you get an agenda right now it's 72 hours before it's posted I'm assuming that's when you get it and if it is you should be okay I need okay I need to assist person this person this person and staff should have these people available for Council to ask questions of so I don't know it just seems like you're making it harder on yourselves thank you Miss Tony thank you thank you Miss Turner I think this will help people be more prepared and be able to ask questions prior to yes mayor there was a motion made by representative Kennedy seconded by representative Fierro to approve the resolution on item seven on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes 721 with representative Hernandez voting a the remainder of council voting I the motion does carry that brings us to item number 17 on Page Six item 17 is discussion and action regarding proposed amendments to the emergency and transfer ambulance services Title IX this item was submitted by representative Kennedy representative Kennedy thank you uh this is really one of having looked at some of the best practices from other cities and some of the franchise fees that we're currently doing and the information we get and the information we review and wanting to request that um City attorney and staff have a chance to do a best practices review and come back with recommendations on how not only to strengthen the agreement we have but even some simple things like where it's an application it says the burden of proof is on the applicants to establish a need and it stops there but there aren't any specific benchmarks and in many other cities there are more specific benchmarks on needs also on transfer operations um some of the other cities are much tighter on the available time if there is a non-emergency in particular transfer on a 15-minute window either way for a pickup as a requirement there's a timing and some of it may be internal that things that we may not be doing that there's things we could be doing from our side but what I'd like to do is sit down like if there's a change in ownership take a look at that but I would ask that we direct the City attorney and staff to sit down and in conjunction with firefighters and the providers and come up with a a better information it seems like um having more specific benchmarks and more of an ability for the fire chief to be able to step in with we he may there may be an issue with a provider and the question now is what is his options if there's an issue with the provider let's make sure we have some process where we can say it comes back to council how quickly does it come back what actions can the chief take if he feels that Public Safety is not being served and he can bring it back to us where we can say we're going to take these following steps here's the requirements and I don't have I do have plenty of specifics but rather than go through all of them what I'd like to do is is ask that we direct City attorney and staff to come back with a new proposed ordinance on on emergency and transfer ambulance services and also to take a look at at what's required in that ordinance for when we're asking to look at a new license and what it is we do with that so that's that was what this item was for was basically to request City attorney and staff to bring back a recommendation for a second pharaoh thank you Samir representative Kennedy you you did say that along with the the City attorney and staff we're going to include the fire department correct yeah in my mind it needs to be an all-inclusive conversation no you're absolutely right I think we need to help the fire department with best practices so then when they come before us there's not a real debate on whether it's a need or not the chief can come with a matrix and saying look this is all all the Aries opportunity that this provides or doesn't provide and here's what we need to do for next steps I would uh honestly if I could I was really looking for also I mean some of the providers are involved in the conversation I think this is a fairly wide conversation to say how can we all make the system work better and more efficient and better for Public Safety that's that was my thought representative Chief I got a question for you and I think that's a great idea to make sure we include the people we're asking them to provide a service what best practice works but uh is there also a in their contracts or in the contract should we have today if we don't feel that that provider is providing the service that's required by the city is there a cost to terminate there's really nothing for there's no action for us to take until it's up for renewal um and so we would support a uh something that that would look at the overall process of application renewal and maintenance of the of the ordinance uh in order to you know help help give us the tools to better manage the the overall uh process um right now we base it on the process of is there a need or is there not a need uh and and that's it there's no other ability for us to review or verify information that's provided in the application part so we would have standards of units they provide standards of equipment that's required in the units and you know that might be already stated by the state of Texas or wherever they get their their license but I just think it's important that we have a a just like representative Kennedy and representative Pharaoh talking about a uniform criteria and standards for everybody yes sir and I think they would be great for you guys to join in and kind of tell us what best needed in the industry and and kind of brainstorm together yes sir might I recommend that until we get that process in place that we hold any further applications any future applications just so that we're not changing the game no absolutely and that's why it's important that we did that we you know we didn't go backwards when we moved forward in the item that was the important part of the item with uh Ms Neiman can we put that in the motion that uh so yes sir if whatever recommendations you all are asking us to consider you can put that in the motion as part of what you all are proposing can can you make that Amendment representative Kennedy I would amend that to you know spend any further licenses until we come back and have a new ordinance in place thank you representative Canal is followed by representative Salcido Chief I'm sorry I'm calling you back up one more time do you mind repeating just what you said about uh termination I just want to make sure I heard you right about what well you you were asked about uh you said something that there can be a change made until it was up for Renewal right so right now if we're following the process accurately if we have a franchisee that's not performing um or or violating the the franchise agreement in any way uh there's no process in order to bring them back uh it's it's addressed during renewal okay I'm looking because correct me if I'm wrong I'm looking at the Francis agreement that was just approved I imagine it's it's a standard agreement right there the same for all the providers because there is a section it's one article one section R revocation and termination and it says should the city at any time for any reason decide that the public protection or welfare is not being met as contemplated by this franchise upon 30 days written notice to the grantee the city council May cancel Terminator and revoke this franchise at no cost to the city right but it doesn't specifically say so for example what is it that they're not doing or what is it that they are not doing there's nothing specific that says that this is cause for termination of their franchise agreement so we watch their performance and then when they're up for renewal at that time we take into account how they're performing and and make a suggestion for Renewal or not okay but there's nothing specific as far as that says this uh you know you have three opportunities and three violations whatever it is there's nothing in there that says you know what the process of taking action against the franchises I I think it actually is even broader like it says that at any time for any reason I think that that gives broad authority to uh you as the chief or to your department to bring forward to us any of these franchise agreements at any time to with the recommendation to to cancel or to terminate the agreement and then it's just a 30-day notice um again this is a little bit tangent to the original conversation I just heard that and I remembered that I you know I read through this I remember reading through it in in January the last time we we discussed uh a franchise uh and then again before this meeting today um again I think that there is all I mean in reading this I think that there is already broad authority to come back and terminate one of these at any time with 30 days notice um the other thing I wanted to point out was it's Article 2 Section G the transportation logs um we do already require quite a bit of data provision from the providers I I think the question then becomes how we as a city are using that data and packaging that in order to empower us to understand what the situation is is like and what the need is um right now under Section G Transportation logs it says the grantee shall be required to provide continuous access to electronic unit dispatch data for emergency and Non-Emergency ambulance services originating within the franchise area to the fire chief or designee at minimum the data will contain the following information date of service date and time of request received scheduled pickup date and time unit scene date and time unit transport date and time pickup address drop-off address drop-off department and level of service so again it seems like we're receiving a good amount of data is that something that that we have I mean again it says not we're not necessarily being delivered the data they're required to provide us continuous access to their electronic data is that something that we have access to regularly now so I can let uh Chief artist he's the one that maintenances then and oversees directly the franchisees applications and he can talk about some of those changes that we have Department so we actually added that portion today we we made it and added that so can you talk about section g in the last renewal for the audience and uh so that we can go out and demonstrate our transparency when it comes to uh providing uh um uh the the performance of the franchises so when we came uh before in front of you we had some data that they have provided right and uh we use that data to evaluate their performance so because we added the the franchises to make sure they're performing make sure that they're providing the service that they they fall under the franchise within the time limit the 20 minute 25 minutes 90 minutes so we can't sleep uh auditing them and make sure that they're providing that performance but we heavily relied on the information they provided themselves so to make sure that you know we're you know showing transparency and making sure that you know it was actual data that we're pulling from their database we made that change to the audience we knew the ordinance so that we can provide that that uh that information yeah and that's I mean it's very helpful I think to have all of that information um I'm interested on the other side of it as well how we use that information on the back end to to constantly assess what the need is um so we actually use that information to to determine the need so when we looked at whether there's a need to for a franchise we look at how they're performing if they're meeting the expectation where they're Meeting those metrics there are defining the ordinance that that was assigned to them then that compiled with the you know the the um resources from from the hospitals from the from the Healthcare Community that we meet on a regular basis uh because when we meet there we represent the the ambulance service not only for the fire department but also for the community so we look at the complaints that they have we look at whether the whether they're saying there's a need for transfer service or there there's a delay in transfer service so a couple with that and couple with you know their performance and that's how we engage whether there's a need for additional ambulance services in the community is that a need that we plan to like constantly assess or will it will we just be going back and looking at a window within that data when there's a new application so within within the franchise ordinance uh there's a clause on there that says that we we must evaluate it uh before we do the renewal but that's something that we constantly do uh throughout the year just so that we can make sure number one make sure that we we keep them in check make sure that they're doing they're performing the way they're supposed to be performing we also make sure that we look at that and see what the needs of the community are because when there's a lack of uh resources in the community then the fire department steps in and fulfills that need so we have to evaluate and see what our resources are and and what is what is the need of the community so that we can make sure that we have enough resources in the community for example um when we present that earlier we looked at the increasing number of transports the fire department was doing for those critical emerging transfers that we're doing in in the freestanding these so when we saw the the higher transports that we're doing then we we look at how many transfers those private elements are doing and so French assignments are doing and we see where the Gap is so then we address it with them and say is there a need there are they do they have the resources to do those transfers and so that's why we constantly evaluate those numbers we constantly evaluate the transport set the fire department has to do it because there's a gap in there uh so again we constantly evaluate that data and so up until now we've been doing that without all of this additional data that we'll be receiving uh you said this was just this this section was just inserted in the latest round of renewals and that was about a month ago right so yeah sure and like I said that was true transparency right because before we we just relied on what data they provided and then we relied on the data that the fire department actually obtains from from morrow and transport from our own dispatching so when they provided to the city we dispatch those units so we have that data in our procession so we evaluated that as well okay yeah it's helpful to know that we'll have that data going forward and um I mean again I don't think we need to give you any specific Direction but I just I hope that we can see that data turned into some sort of uh usable assessment of of the need that you know obviously I don't mean to make a bunch more work for people but at least that we can we can generate a report or use that to inform a report at some point before that that renewal process every year it is because one of the things that that we use that data so we do evaluate that data on a monthly basis because so one of the Clauses in the audience is that so they have to meet those metrics um a monthly right and so they don't meet those those metrics uh in four consecutive months then on the fifth month our recommendation would be to terminate the ordinance for that franchise is there like some sort of is there a physical report that's generated on the performance is based on the information they provide in the monthly so every month they provide data to the fire department uh and so we use that data they provide to evaluate their performance so again we're going away from that uh and we're going to us be able to just uh pull that data from their data system so it's just continuous yes sir okay yeah I mean I I would love to again I don't think we need this monthly or anything maybe it's a quarterly or biannually I think the council would benefit from just seeing that report on on the performance um again I don't think we need it every month that sounds like Overkill but yeah sure and the goal is to do that our goal is to be able to pull that data and then provide it right you know uh as as needed as requests that we can provide that data okay thank you and thanks for answering the questions thank you sir uh representative Salcido followed by representative representative thank you mayor and uh thank you representative Kennedy for putting this item on the agenda I think it definitely brings uh everybody to the table allowing the Frenchies also to participate in the staff and everybody so that we create a very efficient effective process so thank you for that and and also want to thank the franchise franchisees that are here that you all serve the community everybody that has a franchise agreement thank you for serving our community and picking them up and and I think what I want to always look at and strive through is to better the times I don't know if we want to look over I don't know if 90 I think it's 90 minutes what I already said in 90 minutes uh no 80 minutes is the the standard we want to maybe take a look at that and see if we can get to El pasoons faster I don't know logistically if that's possible but I think that providing the service faster better efficient is is really what a I want to really strive for so I think that's one of the suggestions I wanted to make into this but I think this is a great item and and I will be supporting it thank you thank you ma'am representative hold my comments until after public comment do we have public comment yes mayor we do first person that signed up is Robert Campion followed by Ray mancera Carlos Alarcon Rachel haruxing Tony Baird good afternoon sir you have three minutes hi good afternoon Rob Campion president of Elite Medical Transport um I assure you we have welcomed the new franchisee with open arms and look forward to working with emergent air and the seating assignments that have occurred are totally organic and uh and by no means intentional so um so just want to speak in support of this agenda item I want to thank representative Kennedy for bringing this to the Forefront the last time that the franchise ordinance in the health and safety code was amended was in 2019 now in terms of law that's not all that long ago however in terms of health care you know a lot has changed in the last four years certainly the the environment here within the city the franchise ambulance providers the emergency responders the fire department hospitals Etc have all you know worked much more collaboratively and collegially so um a lot has changed for the better which is uh wonderful and certainly we'd like to see the uh the health and safety code be amended as well to reflect some of the new requirements of of Modern Health Care and also to forecast a little bit ahead of what may be needed to best serve the city Elite Medical Transport is certainly welcomes the opportunity to join with the city with the fire department Hospital stakeholders border rack consumers as well to find the best practices and certainly you know looking from the application process through uh you know ongoing operations uh just a few recommendations if I made to the to the ordinance is certainly you know developing a more transparent application process that is also fair to the applicant as well where transparent metrics are defined there's a lot of opacity in the uh in the process making it difficult for you know people to understand certainly an applicant should be able to just determine the need and look at the math and meet certain metrics and it's obvious to all parties going we need some more or we don't um and no one's left with any questions um and then as well as ongoing operations the city has made great steps forward and the hospitals or the I'm sorry the fire department's been excellent in the data Gathering process um that is ongoing as we get disparate I.T systems to start talking to each other but I'm fairly confident that'll happen soon and be able to provide a lot of good Insight uh to all the necessary uh stakeholders and then as far as just you know addressing you know things that may come up best practices and care and response Fleet Management Personnel would certainly want to be able to adopt that into a new health and safety code as well so we're ready we're excited to be a partner in this process and certainly support this agenda item and thank you again representative Kennedy for bringing this forward thank you and all your recommendations we look forward to putting them all together thank you thank you the next speaker is Ray mancera good afternoon mayor and city council I'm Raymond said I stand and I stand before you compliance with the lobby ordinance I represent uh uh emergent air and our position when we read the uh item on the agenda with wholeheartedly endorse that we just wanted to make sure that we were part of that study that we participated that was that's why it was so critical that that that you would allow us by granting the franchise to participate uh I think every Department no question about it needs to be has to be oversight the committee but this particular one is very interesting because I think this is the one that gets to the health and safety in general welfare of the community this is the one that deals with their health patience all the other ones might be well they were too late I should you know they're charging too much but no no this one deals with health and safety so I applaud the efforts that are being made and also you're going to find out The Good the Bad and the Ugly there's things that benchmarks and some of them are not going to be able to provide how do you correct that I'm glad they inserted that language in the last in the last contracts because I rated myself and I thought they can do whatever they want to if the last thing you want is for them to have to be self-regulated I think it's important that the uh the fire department can spot check minimum twice a year or three times five year or whatever you do so there's no question about favoritism they're they're scrutinizing me no this is part of their performance it's for them to evaluate you so they're going to come up with what has to be done so that we so that the city knows that whoever is a provider that they're doing the best uh best practices and finally um the it reminds me of the taxi ordinance many years ago when they were fighting not knowing that Uber was coming in but you all had put a minimum of a certain age or year that those Vehicles were supposed to carry because the last thing we want is for people to come to El Paso and you know somebody's picking them up and I in an old car and so I it reminds me of that type of organs that you need to make sure that that the equipment the ambulances are up to par that they don't just hopefully they don't break down by time they get to Alameda but please let us be part of it we look forward to it and uh so I'm glad that you do it and I'm sure you're going to do it do it to other departments thank you so much thank you the next speaker is Carlos Alarcon followed by Rachel herrickson good afternoon you have three minutes welcome afternoon Colorado managing partner with Revival Health um so we were the young players at the game up to a few hours ago congratulations to the emergent there for being the the New Kids on the Block um we've been working with them like we said you know for for several years actually since since the covet pandemic uh with coordinating you know flights out of El Paso for those critical patients so we look forward to working with them as well we also look forward to this opportunity to to work in the process of updating uh the city ordinance and the city franchise regarding some of the requirements we do have a multitude of ideas that uh that would like to implement to make sure that you know of course you know transparency is key for government and also for us since uh you know we have to make sure that we're accountable to the community that we serve so um we definitely look forward to the process to make sure that you know it's fair equitative to to everybody involved to all the other private ambulance services as well into you know ensure that you know there's valuable input input that is evidence-based and data driven to make sure that we continue to improve the processes and the care for for our community thank you very much thank you sir the next speaker is Rachel herrexing followed by Tony Baird good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon mayor and Council I want to thank you for this item representative Kennedy and the reason why I think it's going to help the city Whenever there are applicants in the future it's going to make us you have the the data you need in the future to find out whether we're doing a great job or not it creates a lot of transparency in the system we're looking forward to working with the fire department with this item and um and and the other thing I just wanted to say even though the the requests before you know we were given reports with the new system of them actually being to access our system there will never be a question on whether there's another provider needed so anyway just want to say thank you appreciate it thank you and the final speaker is Tony Baird welcome back Tony Bear debating admins for the record I'll be quick on this one just thank you for supporting this item for agenda 17. um everyone else has already made every comment I could possibly make so I'm just going to make this quick and easy and tell you guys thank you very much thank you sir there that concludes public comment thank you and and I thank you all we're all talking in the same direction about public safety and this is what we talk we're talking about public safety and public health so I thank you all and I know that uh the city is looking forward to having everybody's input to come up with one good system and one safe system that will uh help the city but also help you all be more efficient Hernandez uh thank you mayor um so just just a couple of questions um I didn't hear a timeline on when the item will come back perhaps I missed that um another question I have is um one of my concerns about the the final Amendment or the final additional language Mrs Neiman is related to this idea of a temporary moratorium and I'm looking at the franchise ordinance and I don't see anything that would allow for Council to prohibit any future applications or you know put any moratoriums and so I would like your opinion on the matter before I exercise my vote right so because the language of this ordinance doesn't specify the council house the authority to decide that we're not going to be issuing these these franchises for the time being um in regards to your other question in regards to the the time frame Council didn't specify how much time you want to provide to come back with a proposal um I spoke to Mr Rome and chief D'Agostino we can work internally but in order to provide feedback from stakeholders we would like to have 120 days to ensure that they're also included in the process so that would put us at approximately October in terms of of having a turnaround time um to go back to the initial response you gave you said it doesn't specify one way or another so the right Council so part of part of today's motion would be that the council will not be moving forward with any additional franchise or granting a franchise under this section of the code for now right but I'm just trying to be crystal clear and understanding your response so does council have the authority under this corner okay yes okay um now uh I'm I'm supportive of having a discussion of what these ordinance changes look like um you know I do want to be clear and my concerns because I'm very sensitive to um any efforts to prohibit or to delay or to change the rules so that any current franchisees are not eligible for renewals and I'd like to closely monitor any red lines or any changes to this because I'm very sensitive to that because my concern is that there could be an attempt or there may not be an intent but there could be an intent that could try to change the the game changed rules to wash out any franchisees for any potential renewals so because I'm sensitive to that would like for an exploration as part of your due diligence and staff to make sure that we are not changing the rules to prohibit any renewals and if there is any attempt for that then I would like to understand any state laws or any um you know rules that we can you know just any legal case case law or anything that you can provide that would clearly demonstrate the municipality's ability to withhold any renewals why I'm sensitive to that is because these are businesses that are making Capital Investments and they're doing that banking on the the efforts that they can get original and so I don't want to be accused of any takings or hurting any business models because we change the rules so that we can push out any potential renewals and so I just want the record to say that to share with you my concerns with that and like I said I'm happy to have any discussions about any changes so long as it's in the best interest of the city so based on the conversations that I'm hearing from the councilman from the public if we find something within the next couple of days it's problematic we'll bring it back to the council either an executive session or an open to tell you we're going to have to fix this process this way if there's things that are in the pipeline but to my knowledge I don't believe unless the chief can tell me otherwise that he's pending applications currently is there any applications pending currently uh and there's no applications for new franchisees pending currently I believe there's just an application for fee adjustments um that's pending to the council I'm sorry does the fee application come to the council yes um I don't believe that the motion stated here today was to prohibit any considerations for any fee changes so I think it's just for any new applications and it's an application to the ordinance that's governing that that franchisee um correct but it's not a new application for a new franchise because that's what I understood is the motion so I just want to make sure if the motion is for new applications there's no no new applications for franchisees okay so so there would be nothing on today's motion that would prohibit our ability to review any considerations for applications for fee changes that's what I'm understanding today from the motion on the table um were you going to say anything else Mrs Neiman no so so just for purposes of of again the way we operate is if we if we believe that there's an issue with the action that you all have taken that would places in some sort of Jeopardy we would bring that to council and then address either an executive and open and say look we're going to have to tweak this process to address these issues but moving forward since there's no pending application for new franchise um agreement will proceed to evaluate this process and then come back with recommendations based on best practices okay yeah no I'm happy to support this um so that we can get a better understanding what that looks like and as I mentioned earlier Chief killings I really do believe that there's a lot of administrative work that's required behind the scenes and utilizing a a third-party vendor that can give us a an assessment I think could be a solution not to not to say that I don't have full faith and and your ability to deliver your recommendations I just believe that given the concerns that have been raised today it might just be prudent to have someone do an assessment and make a recommendation to council but at any rate I appreciate everyone's time and effort as we move forward with this discussion thanks thank you representative Kennedy I was just going to circle back that one of the things I think is very good about this is this is Council working with legal and staff reaching out to the fire department and the providers of the service who would be the first ones to tell us if they felt there was something unfair and with all the parties at the table I think we can move forward um maybe not dramatically but solidly going forward so I just want to thank everybody for their participation thank you and I agree with that and I think between all of us and again the providers provide the service we're going to come up with a better and a safer process not only for the city but for you also thank you all for being here yes Prine so if I may State the motion yes go ahead may I State the motion that I wrote down and then and then Council will I'm sorry Council will correct me if representative Kennedy if I'm wrong but I I have direct the City attorney and staff to meet with firefighters and service providers and return with recommendations for a new ordinance for emergency and transfer ambulances Services contained in Title IX to include uniform criteria and standards and to suspend approval of any new franchise licensed applications until a new ordinance has been adopted and returned to city council within 120 days does that cover it that's correct okay thank you representative rivet are you still second that motion thank you okay on that sorry mayor can I ask for just one one friendly change to that it's very minor fight can we change firefighters to the fire department sure so they're not obligated to go speak with individual firefighters and they can they can improve the fire trucks yes so it says direct the City attorney and staff to meet with the fire department and service providers in return with recommendations for a new ordinance for emergency and transfer ambulance services contained in Title IX to include uniform criteria and standards and to suspend approval of any new franchise license applications until a new ordinance has been adopted and returned to city council within 120 days on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously the next item is number 18 and this is discussion in action at the city council accept a donation of fifteen hundred dollars for a marathon petroleum Inc for the Summer Festival to be held at Seville Recreation Center in District 2. this item was submitted by mayor poteminello there's a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem Molina to approve item number 18. on that motion I'm sorry we do have public comment on this item go ahead man afternoon mayor council item 17 no it's 18 19 and 20. uh until such time as you all figure out this p-card mess and his other stuff we shouldn't see any of this come before you I as a citizen want to know that everything is being done right that people are not doing anything illegal I just need my faith restored in the financial status of my city and how you handle your money thank you thank you Mr price there is a motion and a second to approve item number 18 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Kennedy and Pharaoh not present that brings us to item number 19. this is discussion and action to approve a resolution that declares the expenditure of District 2 discretionary funds to be used towards a district 2 Summer Festival which serves a municipal purpose of enhancing El Paso's quality of life through recreational cultural and educational environments as well as by fostering Community Pride and encouraging Civic engagement this is Mayor Pro Temple yeah I just want to move to approve sorry Lord thank you mayor Pro temanello's Ida there's a motion by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Rivera to approve item number 19. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Kennedy Fiero not present item number 20 is discussion in action to approve a resolution to accept the donation from ztec construction in the amount of five thousand dollars to pay for the District 3 movies in the park Series this item is representative and Analysis I move to approve the reserve motion Ms Turner you sign up to speak on this item thank you there's a motion made by representative and on the second it by representative Rivera to approve item 20. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you and the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present item number 21 is discussion in action on the mutual release between the city of El Paso and the city manager relating to his separation from employment picture proof we do have public comment on this item we have Miss Turner afternoon my position is no such action should be taken until such time as a forensic audit has been done and if the qualback provisions have to be instituted then they be instituted thank you thank you Miss Turner website Hernandez no I was just going to ask if there was a copy of the mutual release form that members of council would would see or is it just the basic language from the employment contract that release form was done between Mr Gonzalez's attorney and Miss Lee Rheem and so my question is could we see a copy of it or Missouri oh there's just come in the good afternoon it was transmitted to you by email and so that's the document oh yeah I'm sorry I missed that um can you tell me when I sent that Friday okay and then um is this a public document it is it is okay and could you are you able to share just the highlights of what the mutual release document does because it's not in the backup yes so basically uh it's a very standard Mutual release it was included uh substantively in the city manager's employment agreement and so um the substance basically just adds the amount of his severance pay uh and it does but it is a mutual release and so both uh the city manager is releasing all claims against the city and the city is releasing all claims against the city manager okay and then once this is approved does this give the authority to um to our financial department or to our CFO to render a check to Mr Gonzalez that's right there's some time periods in it that have to elapse under certain laws age-related laws and so with the the passage of those times it would allow that I would the motion as I would see it would be just simply for you to authorize the mayor to sign the uh the release are you able to convey to the public what the amount is that the taxpayers will pay for the mutual release yes it is for uh that it is for one according to the city managers employment agreement he's entitled to one year salary as Severance he's also entitled up to six months of accrued and unused sick leave and accrued in a cap of six months of accrued and unused vacation when those amounts are all totaled um he receives a total of eight hundred and eighty nine thousand nine hundred and seventy nine dollars and 54 cents okay I don't have any other questions I appreciate you sharing those details um you know Mr Gonzalez isn't here today was really hoping that you know we had an opportunity to to give her his Farewell um but unfortunately that was cut short so from based on based on your statements it's 889 000 and change so just short of nine hundred thousand dollars so once this is approved then the city staff can go ahead and render Mr Gonzalez his uh severance pay for being terminated without cause and just wanted to make sure the public understood what this action entailed thank you and his and his lawyers also approved the document and the amount okay thank you thank you and I think Ms Rima I do have a question this was agreed upon in the contract that was presented the council for approval the last time it was approved that's correct and if I'm not mistaken I mean let's be really honest if I'm not mistaken this payout would have been greater every year until the last day he worked with the city of El Paso where there was 2027 he still had the same type of payout so it wasn't like because the council decided to exercise its option under the contract to terminate the contract that actually sparked that Clause I was not correct that was a class that was in this contract that at the end of his contract regardless of when it was he would be paid his vacation pay severance pay and all that and it grew every year to till the end of the contract correct he would have that's correct mayor he would have received his Severance in all instances even if the city did not renew his contract um he would receive he would receive Severance in that event the only time you wouldn't have received Severance would have been is if there was four cause termination and and of course the cause was very strict and required and that was not in in play here in this case and so that is correct in terms of uh as the passage of time uh the way that the employment agreement worked is that the longer he remained employed with the city um he would essentially end up earning more Severance because the cap would not have been in play uh as time went on um and so yes in answer to your question thank you for that representative Pharaoh followed by representative anello followed by representative Molina thank you Mr Mayor I'm not sure this is a question for you or for Ms cortinas and for the Public's knowledge if we had gone to the end of his contract in 2026 it's a long year of questions Mr Mayor 2027 what would have been his payout or paid him right now almost 900 000 but what would have been that number if he had gone and everybody left happy and he just finished his contract as per the contract that was written by members of this Council I can't give you an exact amount of it because it will all depend upon his salary at the time of his separation from the city I mean it's all dependent upon his performance evaluation whether he got the five percent each year oh wait wait wait wait he got five percent each year I thought the performance evaluation but I thought Council capped his salary at 450 000. correct however and I'm not gonna step on this Supreme's toes here I'm gonna let her be the attorney to interpret the contract is that the way that it was worded was that the payout would be based upon the salary that he would have received and so all of those increases would have taken effect at the time of the payout that's what the payout would have been based on is what his salary would have been what have been so the cap essentially at the cap at the separation would not have been in effect it would have been well over a million dollars in just for the public to understand if we had gone to the end of his contract in 2027 we would have written him a check for well over a million dollars for more likelihood that's correct sir thank you sorry mayor Pro Tem how are you sorry that I'm not there with you in person today um can you tell me I don't know if you remember I know you assisted um with this new contract but do you remember what the payout would have been with the prior contract um I do not uh the difference you know the the Amendments the amendment to his contract effectively capped his ongoing salary but he received increases in other forms of compensation basically with the new contract I'm sorry what you're saying he received other compensations with the new contract that's correct okay thank you and I think representative Fiero made some really good points that um the cap that we hear about often was not to not take effect when Mr Gonzalez left if he had remained here throughout his contract so those are all my questions mayor thank you thank my Pro Tem represent mullinar active mayor Pro tem today go ahead sir thank you mayor thank you mayor Supreme I just want to be clear currently currently right now as the city manager Mr Gonzalez's employment agreement and amended it will expire in 2029 correct no it would have been 2027 because it was we did this last year in 2022 so you mean what date would his agreement have gone to if you had yeah is it 2027 or 2029. that's a good question let me look and see if I can tell you the answer to that um it's June 29th I know that his I mean it his employment concludes on June 29th of this year right if that's what you're asking okay well I'm just trying to I've been hearing 2027 I thought it was 2020 in the year 2029 right how long it went to I'm sorry I can't uh if you'll give me a second I can probably find that and my point in making that is that so when representative or Mr cortina's the Chief Financial Officer States Mr Gonzalez based on his performance evaluation if it merited if that would be a five percent increase he was also uh his hourly rate would increase so his compensation for both sick leave and vacation the hourly rate would increase and then he'd be entitled to any other cross-the-board pay increases that all the other non-uniformed city employees are entitled to correct therefore at the end of what 2027 or 2029 it would have been way more than what we're looking at here today that's correct 2029. yeah that's right it would gone through 2029. there we go so it would have been a lot more in 2029 I just want to make sure that for the record the other thing I want to make sure ma'am is that you did in what I read doubly red and triply read is that Mr Gonzalez's attorney our attorneys had the opportunity to read to review this they agreed with it and they're releasing all claims against agents employees the city everything else like that and likewise we the city are releasing any claims against him as well that's correct it's a very comprehensive release the bigger part is Mr Gonzalez agreed on it that's great okay move to approve okay I think we've already got a motion in a second yes we do have a motion on the floor but do you want another second why wasn't it in the backup what you're paying him there's nothing in the backup pardon me you keep talking about well the public needs to know but there's nothing in the backup just decided when it's going to be handled today but there's no dollar amount there's no explanation there's no contract there's squat so when you start talking about the public needs to know please make sure it's in the backup yes ma'am there's Prine yes Mary the motion was made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Fierro to approve item 21 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro Tem manilo aye thank you and the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present that brings us to page 8 items 24-28 these are the first reading of ordinances second there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Hernandez to approve the first reading of ordinances items 24-28 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro Tem anello hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present that brings us to item number 29 and this is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0469 reconstruction of taxiweight G to Jordan Foster Construction LLC move to approve second there's a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Canales to approve item 29. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present next item is number 30 and this is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0430 relocation of taxiway M to Jordan Foster Construction LLC move to approve there's a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 30. on that motion call for the vote for your pro temanello hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present next is item 31 and this is discussion in action at the purchasing director is authorized to notify vendor that city is terminating awarded contract number 2022-0007r collection services for delinquent fines and fees for convenience uh Marin Nicole Cody um May I managing director may we take 31 32 and 33 altogether they're all related thank you sir item 32 is discussion in action that after having provided adequate notice is required by section 22 54.1036 of the Texas government code the agreement for delinquent court fines and fee services pursuant to solicitation 2023-0282r collection services for delinquent fines and fees Municipal Court is awarded to Delgado Acosta Linebarger in Peres LLP and item 33 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation number 2023-0282 our collections fines and fees to Delgado Acosta Spencer Linebarger and Perez LLP there was a motion made on from representative Rivera seconded by representative Fierro and this is to approve 3132 and 33. there is public comment on item 33 from Miss Lisa Turner okay I believe she's she left the building on that motion for 31 32 and 33 call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Kennedy not present that brings us to item number 34. item 34 is discussion in action that the city manager be authorized to sign an agreement to provide Baseline physical exam services for the City's Fire Department between city of El Paso and occupational health centers of the Southwest PA DBA Concentra Medical Centers contract 2023-0117r Baseline physical examinations for firefighters sir Daniela your pro Tem thank you mayor so I have some concerns with this um I think if you do the math it comes out to about 900 a firefighter for Baseline physical and that's not to assume that there's any laboratory or Radiology component and so I want to know if we've considered hiring in-house nurses to do these services or if we can amend the contract with the clinics we have at City Hall or other City facilities to take on this role good afternoon Chief killings El Paso Fire the short answer yes ma'am so we're constantly looking and evaluating this we're sensitive to the cost and the increasing cost of Health Care associated with the physicals for for men and women of the fire department and we're always looking at ways to improve the not only the cost but also the services that are being provided within the contract show how much would it cost to amend the contract we have with the clinicians within our city facilities to do the services that's one of the projects that we're currently looking at trying to look at the overall cost associated with bringing that internal this is a three-year contract you're asking us to approve which we have an option to um to discontinue at any time is that in there I saw that there was within the first two years you could just continue I didn't see it was any time Rhonda Easter from purchasing a strategic sourcing for the record yes we there are options that excuse me the city's termination language is already built into the solicitation where if it was mutually agreed upon that for whatever reason that the city did not want to continue the services or we were put in a situation where Concentra was not able to we could terminate for convenience but it has to be mutually exclusive do we have a timeline on when you will all be able to come back for information on hiring in-house to do these kinds of things because I mean if you take the math um we've got about 1300 firefighters about 250 working days you would need to do about four physicals a day to get everyone done so you could do that with hiring one or even faster with two in-house nurses so do we know um how far or could you tell me how far along you are on that research and when we could expect that back um again we we are looking at it as far as location on on where we would be able to do these types of physicals um who we would do it who we could contract out the lab work for and then the entire process it's something that we started looking at I don't have a timeline on when we would be able to get back to you on on any solid numbers I can work with my staff to see when we would be able to come back but it is on the uh it is one of the projects that we have that we're working through okay yeah I mean I just got a lot of concern with this one so I won't be supporting it today Chief thank you finally got a motion yes mayor the motion was made by alternate mayor Pro tem only in our second year by representative Fierro to approve item 34. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello no thank you and the voting session and the motion passes 721 representative anello voting nay the remainder of council voting I that brings us to item number 35 item 35 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation number 2023-0295r comprehensive Plan update 2023 to Callison rtkl Inc move to approve there's a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Salcido to approve item 35. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 36 is discussion and action on the award of solicitation 2023-0028r disparity study to Keen independent Research LLC move to approve there's a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 36 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello aye thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Council item 37 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0258 and item 38 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0267 Ms Niemann thank you Miss Prime Carla Neiman for the record Council we are recommending a deletion of item 37 and 38 we were served with a lawsuit this morning and two temporary restraining orders prohibiting us from awarding these we will be coming back at the next city council meeting and executive session to discuss what the lawsuits are about we would like motion to delete item 37 and 38. second there's a motion made by representative Fierro seconded by representative Salcido to delete items 37 and 38. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you and the voting session and the motion to delete 37 and 38 passes unanimously item number 39 is discussion in action on the request that the managing director of purchasing and strategic sourcing Department be authorized to issue purchase orders to HD Industries Inc the sole and authorized distributor for the 2023-0539 pro patch proprietary parts there's a motion made by alternate mayor Pro temolinar secondary by representative Fierro to approve item 39. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item number 40 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0410 performs Street markings to jivica markings Inc ident there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Fierro to approve item 40. on that motion call for the vote for the Department um you know our constituents love the markings on the street do you still have in-house Street markers Richard Bristol threesome maintenance yes we do we have an in-house crew and the material this pre-formed product that we're purchasing here will be installed by our in-house Crews okay and then and this contractor will do what this this is providing material just the materials okay so you're going to do it in-house this is just going to provide the materials and then um do you I really appreciated the um update we received in terms of like median excavations and a timeline for that would would love to see your future plans for Street markings throughout the city whether there are Tara roads or residential roads um because that it's like a number one request and we just I would just like some additional information to share with our constituents be happy to okay thank you Mr Bristol Miss pardon mayor Pro Tem manilo I thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 41 is discussion in action to request that the managing director of purchasing a strategic sourcing Department be authorized to issue purchase orders to hola checks sales and services LLC move to approved there's a motion made by representative Canales seconded by representative Hernandez to approve item 41 [Music] on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 42 is discussion in action on emergency ordinance extending emergency ordinance number 01933 authorizing the city manager to assign personnel and resources to assist in addressing the humanitarian and Public Safety crisis resulting from Mass migration through El Paso mayor would you like to take item 43 also yes ma'am item 43 is discussion in action on an emergency ordinance extending emergency ordinance number 019485 due to a humanitarian security and economic crisis resulting from a mass migration through El Paso this part promotion a second yes sir the motion was made by alternates by representative Canales and this is to approve items 42 and 43. on that motion call for the vote it's up to y'all do you want to hear it go ahead chief good morning Mary Council no major updates things uh fortunately for the community the numbers have been low uh we are seeing a transition from what is the normal process of border patrol transferring to our ngos now you're seeing a flip where the bulk of our numbers are coming through our the cpp-1 applications and those release those releases are occurring at the Port of Entry it's much more orderly method from what we've seen in the past the numbers remain low to what we've seen previously as you can see on the presentation we did see an increase during May as we were anticipating the ending of title 42 since then the numbers have have remained steady and are averaging right around 200 per per day so we are we're fortunate in that uh we are maintaining our incident Action planning if there is any type of change in in numbers we always have this planning efforts uh in a ready position if we do need to expand on any of these eight operational objectives in terms of our recovery we are still compiling our costs for the second quarter which takes us all the way to the end of June and once we have those in place we'll we'll update this a table and provide it to council for the next update outside of that if you all have any questions for for myself or chief D'Agostino thank you all for your time Harry no question Miss Prime so there is a motion made by alternate mayor Pro tem walinar seconded by representative Canales I don't see the mayor we need to call for the vote we need to cut Juanita mayor consent for these emergency ordinance there's a motion by alternate mayor Pro timolinar seconded by representative Canales and this is to approve the emergency ordinances on items 42 and 43 on that motion call for the vote alternate Mayo Pro temanello I thank you mayor do you consent yes ma'am thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously with a mayor's consent representative not present that brings us to item number 44. and this is a public hearing on an ordinance amending Title 20 zoning to establish definition for uses clarify requirements update the table of permissible uses and update the table of parking requirements and standards there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by alternate mayor Pro tem molinar to approve item 44 there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote alternate mayor Pro tem or mayor Pro temo anello mayor Pro temanello representative hero the voting session is open I don't see mayor Pro Tem anello on screen and I'm unable to hear her in the voting session the motion passes unanimously mayor Pro tem anello not present item 46 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from RF Ranch and farm and C1 commercial to C3 commercial and from c-4c commercial conditions to c-3c commercial conditions and imposing conditions at 11248 and 11254 Montana Avenue and 3667 George Dieter Drive um oh so this is um in my district and and I wanted to just bring to the attention of members of councils that this morning or yesterday we received emails from our district and so I'd like the opportunity to go visit with some of those residents um and I wanted to ask you um is is there anything uh pressing so we can like we can postpone for two weeks um two weeks should be good yeah okay so and and we had origin originally reached out to those residents but they just reached out to us yesterday because we had asked if you had any questions please reach out to me and so that we would meet with you um and so just you know just to make sure that I'm hearing their voices um they could not be here today um and and I'm not sure if there's any members of the public who who have an opinion on this but we do want the opportunity to sit down with them to to hear their concerns so I would ask um if I could move to approved for uh postpone for two weeks unless there are members in the public who have signed up to speak before we postpone there are two members of the public that signed up to speak sure before I representative will you withdraw your second to allow comments sure thank you absolutely yeah we would love for you all to speak Joanne diomico no we welcome y'all to come thank you by Kevin James Trump good afternoon you have three minutes I live one house away from one of the property lines I'm on Kachina drive so there's one house between me and the back property line of this proposed development the reason I'm here today is I want to make sure that you understand that we are in favor of having all access to continue to drive permanently be prohibited and to include pedestrian traffic as well it's very important to us for the safety and for the the atmosphere of our neighborhood if you know the area we're mostly cul-de-sacs and with a few few streets so it's a very quiet area and we do not want to have that access from that property onto Kachina drive or find the way we are we have no problems with EMS Services when they've been needed to our area because right now it's gated they don't come from that direction the other thing is 500 feet distance if you have something that is going to have outdoor Amplified uh amplification which I interpret as Amplified sound would be music of various types sound travels more than 500 feet so an additional condition of this is what are the hours if this goes on until after midnight we're never going to sleep again I have to get up at 5 30 in the morning to go to work I've given up a day of work in order to be here today those are the issues that neighbors who I've spoken with and one of them homes here today that we really like to have addressed the last thing is a seven foot high masonry wall I know that they weren't too much in favor of that but we really feel that that's a very important aspect of if this is going to be developed just on the other side of our homes that that masonry wall will give some kind of a buffer to some of the noise and some of the commotion that's going on so I want to take any more of your time thank you thank you the next speaker is Kevin James Trump good afternoon you have three minutes all right thanks for giving us a chance to speak um my two biggest concerns was uh was uh traffic and noise um I have a I have a son who is a High Spectrum on autism uh he does have sensory uh sensory issues and uh he's he's had a very very bad pass too with multiply suicide attempts at school uh numerous impatients days at mental health facilities dealing with his issues and the current the concern I have is I mean I'm totally cool with the Commerce coming in I mean we need we need more business we need more Commerce and stuff like that I understand that but the kituna a a wall from from one property to the other property it'll only be a few yards of length that would be needed to add it to completely close off continue to drive and the other concern I had was uh was a noise um I mean regular camera so I don't think would be a problem but like let's say you put a nightclub in there or something like that that's going to greatly with you know that's going to be a real loud all over the place and families like mine that have children that are you know disabled and have sensory issues that's that's going to sell them back in their in their care I mean that the the big reason why I picked that location that we're at is inside like two two city blocks you got you know you got five dead ends over there so only traffic that goes through there are people actually live there and stuff like that that was my whole reason of moving there because I needed some place that was quiet not because I like my peace and quiet but because I have a you know my son requires that in order for him to stay healthy you start putting in all kinds of vehicle traffic and all kinds of loud noise his sensory issues are going to go go berserk and that's that's that that compose a danger to him you know we've come We've ran some long strides he's doing really well and I would just hate to see him end up you know getting worse because of the you know the changes to the outside environment so I'd ask that you kind of take that into consideration so I don't think I don't think continuing a while it's only going to be a few yards and put it in put in a decibel limits much to ask for the residents who pit this bot particularly because of medical needs of their family I don't think that's too much to ask um but but that's it all right thank you thank you sir I'm gonna make sure we have there's a motion hold on we have a I'm sorry we have representative Hernandez and and I really appreciate the two of you being here on my sign up sheet your names were enlisted so my apologies uh for that oversight so um I I did I am a receipt in of your emails uh and Mr Trump I I wanted to share with you that I too um care for for your son I I also have a a son on the Spectrum with sensory issues so I absolutely understand your concerns um and I would like an opportunity of giving your concerns and the the issues you've raised today for you to hear directly from the Department on some of those concessions that would help alleviate your concerns um and so Raul if you can go through that presentation sure and really I'll just hit on the um the rugging for the record of Garcia plan inspections um the there's currently conditions imposed as part of this rezoning that specifically addressed the comments that we just heard from the residents these are the same comments that we heard at the city plan Commission meeting and again City plan Commission meeting and US staff did recommend to impose those conditions to to mitigate the issues that were brought up by by the residents um just going quickly through the uh presentation this is an aerial of the proposed rezoning again it's uh proposed to go to C3 commercial it is surrounded uh by existing commercial as well as uh residential there to the West the comp plan for El Paso does designate this as G G3 just a conceptual this is not non-binding just uh conceptual as far as what the proposal is for this property again uh subject property surrounding commercial and residential properties notices where we're mailed out and therefore residents did respond and didn't voice their their comments and opinions again we did receive the the three phone calls and the two emails of inquiry the residents didn't show up in person to the city plan commission to to voice their their comments so there are several conditions on this property one is that a detail site plan B required prior to permits the other one a very typical condition when it comes to commercial or budding right up to residential in this case we're asking for a 20-foot landscape buffer and again to to mitigate noise and other potential issues with with the residential as well as an extra wide setback there along the residential side typically it's 10 feet in this case where I'm posing a condition that's going to require a 50-foot setback um yeah Kachina drive that's that residential street that the residents mentioned there will be no access no vehicular and or pedestrian axes from this development to um to or from Kachina drive and again that came directly from the comments received from the residents they're also there's also a condition for a 500 foot separation for businesses that propose to sell alcohol in conjunction with outdoor amplification services or businesses and again that's the Medicaid potential any potential noise issues um also in terms of Montana a 20-foot setback in case some sort of vehicular automotive type use wants to go in there we will be maintaining a 20-foot setback along Montana to go ahead and provide a visual opportunity for a visual amenity there along Montana so again those are the conditions that essentially came straight from from the comments we received from residents and are addressing their in their comments that you've heard today and um just to follow up with those recommendations number one can you explain what a detailed site plan and that process to include the public yeah sure so a detailed site plan is is an additional step that is required prior to issuance of building permits the city plan commission is the final Authority on site plan and they essentially capture the final layout the final design of the development along with those conditions so um the the the wall along Kachina I believe there's also a condition for a seven foot wall typically six all that is the the landscape buffer the the extra white setbacks all that is going to be shown on that detailed site plan that is required to be presented to City plant commission and will require their approval prior to the issuance of any building permits I didn't I didn't see the masonry rock wall on the recommendations where can I see that it is on the Ordnance map it's on the ordinance okay okay so just to provide additional reassurances prior to the developer or the property owner building constructing any amenities or any structures they have to demonstrate in their architectural plans that they are complying with these recommendations that's correct that is correct okay as part of that they also have to show the entrances and exits onto the proposed property and to show that they are blocking any axes from Kachina is that correct yes ma'am so upon approval of city council that's not the final correct that's not the final plan the the site development plan then we'll go back to CPC correct and then if it's approved by CPC the city plan commission it's it's final it is final from there they would move on to the building permits okay and throughout this whole process these conditions will have to be reflected in those permit plans okay and um finally the concern about noise you're going to have that 20 foot buffer right and then in addition to that you're going to have a setback of 50 feet correct from the resident the property line to where a building could be built and then anything that could be perceived as like a restaurant that sells alcohol for example you know like the Applebee's chilis you know whatever they recruit to go there if they can if they are demonstrating that they have more than 51 percent of alcohol sales then no business can be put within 500 feet from the property line to wherever the building is going to go so that that 500 500 foot separation is between those types of businesses man and that's that's to mitigate the clustering of these types of businesses that have produced the issues we've seen so you wanted you wouldn't see Bar Bar restaurant bar close together they would happen to be a separation of 500 feet yes ma'am okay yes but then the setback would 50 feet at minimum correct in addition to that we also we also have the seven foot rocket yeah you know I just want to say that you know that is actually a really good policy Direction I I think that the department has heard us and our concerns about the density of having uh multiple bars and restaurants close together so I think this is a really eloquent way to alleviate those concerns with nuisances and noise and this is the first time if it gives the residents any reassurance this is the first time I have seen a a deliberate policy effort to try to mitigate the clustering of bars and so I think the way it's being proposed today is very fair but Mr Trump and and I'm sorry I missed the the name of the the other women here if you all are comfortable with that I'm I'm ready to just move forward to take action on this that way you don't have to come back at a future meeting but if you would like for me to meet with you personally at your home I'm happy to do so as well if you're if you would like to shoot me a thumbs up or if you want to meet if you want to meet you and thank you for your patience I'm so sorry that you all waited this long to to hear this item like I mentioned before I got nothing against Commerce I I support it I think we need more of it especially with our city growing but I am very concerned about the level of noise density that that comes forward to me if it's going to be a low level hey let's let's rock and roll with it but you know they end up wanting to try to put something like Gringo Theory over there that's pumping noise if you hear from quarter mile away you can just imagine what that's going to do to to my kid with the sensory issues and like I said the the the whole reason why I chose the location I did write there on cochina is because it's a very low traffic very little noise and I I got it not just because I like peace and quiet I got it because it's the medical need that my son needs interested if it wasn't for my son I'd put I'd say go ahead bring in the noise I'll throw some stuff in my balcony and start you know partying along with it but I got a kid that has unique medical issues and I you know as as a father and a family man man I I had to address that yes sir and I appreciate that and and then just as another level of of I guess bureaucracy um before any uh you know licenses or you know certificate of occupancies are are initiated it does go through an additional review and so I can assure you the department has worked very closely with our office to make sure that we are mitigating any of your concerns and so we really appreciate you being here I do believe that the policy recommendations and those conditions are are significant concessions on the part of the property owner that directly address your concerns within the confines of the Paula policy directives that we can give because we can't inhibit you know business to open but rather make it as friendly to be good neighbors to residential to coexist with businesses so I think this this might be a good solution these guys are rocking with the changes that they already made consider what they initially want as soon as they heard us they started right away making changes so my thoughts out to these gentlemen I think that's the first time we've heard a compliment so thank you for that for the Department um and took members of council thank you for entertaining that we you know this is why we do what we do to to help the public and address their concerns and so those were the the folks who had reached out to our office and so um you know hearing their concerns today and it being addressed by the recommendations I would change my motion uh to to approve with the conditions listed by Mr Yes Prime yes sir there was a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Salcido and this is to approve item 46. and Council we did email the latest sign up list around 10 o'clock because we did have some folks sign up after we distribute distributed the list so you have the most up-to-date list in your inboxes so there is a motion made by representative Hernandez second if I representative salsilo to approve item 46 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello hi thank you and the voting session and the motion passes 721 representative Molina voting the remainder of council voting I the motion does pass item 47 is a public hearing this point can we um this um we have item 27 and uh what do we have there's three items left sir yeah and we do need to are they going to be that you think these are going to take some time Joaquin no okay go ahead then go ahead okay thank you item 47 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from C4 commercial to C5 commercial at 222 South Campbell Street there's a motion made by representative Kennedy seconded by alternative Molina to approve item 47. on that motion call for the vote foreign ello hi thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 48 is discussion in action requesting city council support for the submission of the staff recommended Grant application to the FY 23 U.S Department of Transportation Safe Streets for all grant program for the network wide safety improvements along El Paso's High Injury Network project seconds since those two motions there was a motion made by representative Canales seconded by alternate mayor Pro temolinar to approve item 48 on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously final item is 49. this is discussion in action on a resolution to approve an amendment to the city's 2021-2022 47th year annual action plan and 2022-2023 48th year annual action plan for Community Development block grant entitlement to increase the Community Development block grant project activity budget for wheelchair ramps at Lakehurst Road and Saratoga Drive increase the Community Development block grant project activity budget for wheelchair ramps along Westworth Avenue and to increase the Community Development block grant project activity budget for sidewalks along Byron Street there's a motion made by representative Kennedy seconded by representative Fierro to approve item 49. on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro temanello bye thank you in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously is there a motion to retire in it there's emotion and a second to retire into executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council of the city of El Paso May retire to Executive session pursuant to section 3.5 a the El Paso City Charter and the Texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter D to discuss any of the following executive session item one Maria Ramirez at all versus Ruben escajeda Jr in city of El Paso matter number 17-1026-8594 under 551.071 executive session item two Maria H Torres versus city of El Paso matter number 19-1045-089 under 551.071 executive session item 3 TGs rate case expense severed from os-22-9896 settlement proposal High eight High Q number utility-three under 551.071 executive session item 4 2023 TGs rate annual gas reliability infrastructure program application for annual interim rate adjustment HQ number utility-4 under 551.071 executive session item five epe requests to amend right schedule number 33 HQ utility dash 12 under 551.071 an executive session item six City attorney and city manager annual performance evaluations matter number 21 1043-688- HQ number 23-816 under 551.071 and 551.074 these matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney and 551.074 Personnel matters it is 3 45 pm there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at six o'clock P.M alternate mayor Pro Tem ex1 he needs to log in he's logging in thank you I donated a cookie to you thank you I don't see mayor potem anello in the on teams I don't think she can vote she would in the executive session thank you I'm sorry sir yes that's yours that's your computer there's two two for Torres there's two for Torres we don't have one for Ramirez yeah one in there one's not in the can we go to two yes thank you ex2 motion June 20th 2023 motion made second and carried that the city attorney's office would be authorized to negotiate the settlement and or make a settlement offer in the case of Maria H Torres versus city of El Paso and matter number one nine-1045-089 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority approved on June 20th 2023. there's a motion made of Molina seconded by representative Rivera this is for ex2 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes with five affirmative votes Representatives not present ex alternate Pro Temp I just sent you ex1 right it's coming in at uh scan in progress would you like me to read it into the record if you if you have it ma'am yes thank you motion uh May June 20th 2023 motion made second and Kerry with the city attorney's office in consultation with the city manager be authorized to accept the mediator settlement proposalena Ramirez at all versus Ruben escajeda Jr in the city of El Paso Texas cause number three 17 CV 00193 dcg in matter number 17 10 26 8594 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in the in order to effectuate this Authority second do you make the motion mayor Pro 2 you don't make a motion move to approve there's a motion made by mayor Pro tem only not seconded by representative Kennedy as read into the record by Miss Neiman on ex1 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes with five affirmative votes Representatives anello Fierro and Canal is not present EX3 motion June 20th 2023 motion made seconded and carry that the City attorney in consultation with the city of manager be authorized to approve the settlement and the Texas Gas Service statement of intent to change gas utility rates rate case expenses under the Railroad Commission docket number s22-00010583 and matter number utility-3 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority improved this 20th day of June 2023. motion made by mayor Pro tem only not seconded by representative Rivera on EX3 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes with five affirmative votes Representatives not present EX4 motion June 20th 2023 that the city of El Paso at the review of the interim rate adjustment file of the Texas Gas Service Company a division of one gas Incorporated on March 10 2023 fines that the requested rate increase was improperly calculated and contains improper requests for rate increases and is therefore denied this motion is intended to Grant broad authority to the city attorney's office to take all action necessary to address these matters including but not limited to the initiation response to any litigation complaints appeals administrative judicial proceedings or process regarding this matter approved this 20th day of June 2023. second there's a motion made by mayor Pro Tim Molina seconded by representative Kennedy on EX4 on that motion call for the vote and the voting session the motion passes five affirmative votes Representatives not present ex5 motion June 20th 2023 motion made seconded and carried that the City attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to approve the proposed rate modification in the El Paso Electric petition to modify schedule number 333 Economic Development rate writer under the Texas Public Utility Commission docket number 55113 and matter number utility-12 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority approve this 20th day of June 2023. there's a motion made and read into the record by mayor Pro tem Molina seconded by representative Rivera on ex5 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes with five affirmative votes Representatives anello Fierro Canales not present ex6 no action thank you is there a motion to adjourn second there's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting for Tuesday June 20th 2023 is adjourned at 609 pm thank you Council