Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the April 27th committee of the whole meeting.

I call this meeting to order.

Looking super full over here.

Good job and welcome administration and a few of our honored guests.

Members of the public, city staff, and the media have the ability to view this meeting in person and on live stream through four different platforms Gov TV on Comcast Channel 16, the Gov TV website, YouTube, and Zoom webinar.

The live streams can be accessed from most smartphones, tablets, or computers.

Also, this meeting is closed captioned, and you may enable the closed captioning services on your television or device at any time.

The video recording of this meeting will also remain available for viewing at any time on the city council's website.

Council staff is available via telephone if members of the public need assistance, finding the videos online.

Please call 768-3100 for assistance during business hours, which are Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 p.m.

Members of the public have the opportunity to address the committee if they have signed up for public comment per the rules per published on our agenda and on our website on Friday.

Today's the first of three public hearings the council is required to hold on the city's operating budget.

Today's meeting will focus on the social goal budgets, which include community safety, city clerk, civilian police oversight agency, arts and culture, economic development, family and community services, Albuquerque fire rescue, parks and recreation, police, and senior affairs.

On May 4th, the council will hold a second hearing to discuss the city's physical goal budgets, which include animal welfare, aviation, city support, environmental health, finance and administrative services, general services, human resources, internal audit, inspector general, legal, municipal development, planning, solid waste, technology and innovation, and transit.

The council will then hold a third meeting, committee of the whole meeting on Thursday, May 11th, to consider amendments or committee substitutes.

No live public comment will be taken at the May 11th meeting, although written comments will be accepted.

At the end of the May 11th meeting, the budget as amended or substituted will be sent to the Monday, May 15th City Council meeting for adoption.

Live public comment and written comments will be accepted at the May 15th council meeting.

We are now going to move on to public comment.

Members of the public are able to address the committee if they have signed up for live public comment per the instructions published on the agenda and on our website.

Speakers will be moved into the meeting room and will remain muted with their camera off until they are called upon to speak if they are on Zoom.

Everyone will have two minutes to provide comments, and after that, people will then be muted and returned to the attendee if they're on Zoom webinar.

So here are the public comment ground rules.

Each participant has two minutes to present.

Comments are to be addressed to the committee members only through the chair.

Any disruptive conduct or non-germane commentary will result in removal from the Zoom webinar.

Mr.

Cornelius, will you please call our first speaker?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Our first speaker is Neil Cooperman, followed by Paul Broom.

Greetings, uh counselors.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.

My name is Neil Copperman.

I am the director of AMP Concerts.

Uh, we are an Albuquerque-based nonprofit, and uh we provide programming across the entire city of Albuquerque, both ticketed and free programs, and I am here to request consideration for city funding of AMP's free community programs as part of this year's city budget.

Uh AMP was created about 16 years ago, and I just like to share some examples of the kind of free work we do across all of Albuquerque.

Uh we work in every district of the city, um large part because one of the things we do is free monthly programs at the local libraries.

We do two free events at all of the different libraries, and uh since we started that program in 2011, we've brought over 20,000 people to the city libraries uh to enjoy free music events.

Um we have an exciting new collaboration with the Albuquerque Open Space Division and are doing free events in the uh international district and the West Side, uh, early morning uh nature festivals and evening concerts at Los Pablanos Farms and the new Teharas Biozone.

Uh during the pandemic, we were one of the first organizations in the country to start streaming and uh did regular programming through the entire pandemic, uh, kept all of our staff and paid around 200,000 to local musicians and contractors uh while they were all out of work.

Um we were in the process of launching a new school series at South Broadway Cultural Center in 2019 before being shut down by the pandemic.

Uh we were able to do nine events uh in that series for over 2,000 students with artists from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Italy, Colombia, and across the United States.

And just this week we had uh artists visiting from Mali, Cuba, and France.

Uh, aside from their ticketed concerts, we brought them out to visit Atristo Heritage and Albuquerque Academies.

So these are examples of what we've been doing, and we just uh would encourage the city to um some of you counselors to support us in getting some city funding to uh help expand and continue these kind of programs in the future.

Thank you for your consideration.

Paul Broom, followed by Melanie Majors.

Thank you, Madam President.

My name is Paul Broom.

Uh good evening, everyone.

I just came here to just introduce myself again for this budget process, and uh I wanted to thank uh the three uh counselors, Councillor Pena, you, Madam President, and uh Councillor Fidel for being at our uh credentials committee meeting a few days ago to talk uh to discuss with us as well as other unions the uh proposals for compensation uh fiscal 24 and appreciated your time that you spent there, and I appreciated the comments and the questions that you had that were there.

I represented the the police uh APOA, Albuquerque Police Officers Association, which has two bargaining units.

One, of course, is the police bargaining unit, and the other one is the prisoner transport operators.

Both of them are actually facing serious problems in terms of staffing, recruitment and retention is what we're one of our major priorities in our negotiations this year.

I hope it will also be yours as we go forward.

Many of you have worked with for many years, and you have worked hard on this issue.

We're just gonna have to work a little harder this year, so it's gonna be a tough one.

But I look forward to working with you and good luck with your budget.

Thank you very much.