Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, everyone.

It's the 39th meeting of the 26th Council, and we will come to order.

All counselors are present this evening.

We're going to begin with a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance in English and in Spanish.

Civic Plaza parking passes are provided for members of the public.

You can obtain a parking pass from council staff at the table near the chamber's entrance.

Members of the public, city staff, and the media have the ability to view this meeting in person and on live streams 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 your closed captioning services on your television or device at this time.

The video recording of this and all past council meetings will 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 those videos online.

Please call 505 768 3100 for assistance during business hours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

The council will take a break at approximately 7 p.m.

this evening if needed.

With regard to decorum in the chambers, we want tonight's proceeding to be as civil and respectful as possible.

Please do not make any personal attacks and please no applause, snapping, or other outbursts during the meeting.

I will provide one warning to anyone causing a disruption.

Upon the second or continued disruption, that individual will be asked to leave the chambers and if necessary, security will be asked to escort that person out of the chambers.

Such removal from the council chambers will be effective for the remainder of the meeting.

If continued disruptions occur, I may recess the meeting until order is restored and if necessary may clear the chambers of persons participating in the disturbance.

The meeting will go a lot smoother if we are respectful of one another.

We are going to begin with proclamations and presentations this evening.

Councilor Pena.

Thank you, Madam President.

I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of allowing more than four proclamations per councilor per calendar year.

Second.

There's a motion and multiple seconds.

Madam Clerk.

We can just raise hands tonight.

Oh, thank you for the reminder.

All right, all those counselors in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Councillor Penya.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I'd like to ask the following people to come up to the podium.

Peggy Graham with Mandy's Farm, Melissa McCook McHugh with Mandy's Farm, Alicia DeVargas with Mandy's Farm, Jeff Levine with the New Mexico Division of Vocational Rehabilit Rehabilitation, Chris Slov with Pomegranate Orchards LLC.

So as you guys are making your way to the podium, I'm going to just start reading the uh proclamation.

And thank you, Counselors, for joining me in this.

Whereas October 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

And whereas the purpose of Disability Employment Awareness Month is to celebrate the contributions of workers with disabilities and to showcase supportive policies and practices that benefit employees and employers alike.

And whereas the City of Albuquerque is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities through its dedication to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And whereas the City of Albuquerque treated the created an ADA Title II coordinator position in 2019 to address concerns about resident accessibility to city programs, services, and facilities.

And whereas on August 17th, 2020, the City Council adopted R 2084, directing the City of Albuquerque's Office of Equity and Inclusion, Human Resources Department, and the Economic Development Department to collaborate with local disability employment providers to explore opportunities for creating employment opportunities among persons with disabilities.

And whereas in September 2025, the City of Albuquerque created the Pathways to Public Service Program in partnership with LSG and Associates Inc.

and New Mexico's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, which onboards adults with disabilities through a 12 week paid volunteer rotation to introduce them to city departments and results in a two year internship placement.

And whereas the second annual disability employment awareness month conference and hiring event is taking place in Albuquerque on October 15th, 2025, and will provide the opportunity to further discussions with the city about creating employment opportunities for persons with disabilities within local government and the private sector, and whereas several state agencies and stakeholders stakeholder organizations will be attending the conference to highlight the value and talent that people with disabilities add to the workplace and affirm their commitment to increase access and opportunities in the workforce for all and whereas New Mexicans with disabilities are a remarkable untapped resource with a range of skills and abilities to help businesses grow and who are skilled, loyal, and committed, and whereas workplaces that appreciate the talents of all people, including people with disabilities, are a critical part of building a welcoming community and strong economy.

Be it proclaimed that the council, the governing body of the city of Albuquerque, hereby proclaimed October 2025 as Disability Employment Awareness Month in Albuquerque.

Yay.

So if anyone would like to come to Madam President, if anyone would like to come to the podium to say a few words, and then I'll close it out unless other counselors would like to speak.

Good afternoon.

My name is Shawanda Bell.

I am the business outreach coordinator for the New Mexico Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

I want to say thank you all for acknowledging that people with disabilities have the ability to be employed and your efforts to include people with disabilities, whether they have visible or invisible disabilities, are included in all workplaces across Albuquerque and make a commitment to our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Madam President, anyone else?

Hello, Madam President, the Councillor Penny.

My name is Melissa McHugh, and I'm the executive director at Mandy's Farm.

And I just want to thank you all for your leadership and acknowledging this month.

Um saying hi.

We know somebody here.

Hi.

But people with disabilities are so often left out of workforce development and economic opportunities.

So this really highlights the importance that people with disabilities bring to our workforce.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Madam President Chris, did you want to say a couple of words?

Um pretty much already said it, but I would like to thank the city for all the hard work that we've been doing through several years to make this happen.

So thank you all for your commitment to this.

Thank you.

And if there's no one anyone else, no?

Okay.

Well, is there someone else?

You're looking at me like, okay.

So, Madam President, I just want to say, I just actually want to commend the city and I want to commend Chris and Mandy's farm.

You know, we started on this journey many, many years ago of really, I have a brother who has developmental developmental disabilities.

He's actually been working at Walmart for I think he's going on 23 years.

He said he'll retire at 25, so we'll see.

So he has a job coach, but he does his job and he does it, you know, better than some of the other employees.

And this is exactly what we worked on to really try to get here at the city to be able to find placement for people with disabilities.

And I think, as it says in the proclamation, want to commend the administration CAO just now in September, we hired the official.

I mean, we've been doing some work in hiring some people part-time, but this is really like our first official employee at the city of Albuquerque.

So congratulations to the admin.

Thank you for all that work and appreciate all of you guys and all your work.

Counselors, anybody else have anything to add or say?

Thank you all so much for everything you do.

Counselor Champagne.

Yes, Madam President, uh, if I could have the anyone representing from the Rio Grande Down Syndrome Network to come to the podium.

I believe there's a couple of guests.

And why they're making their down, I will take uh uh a page out of Councillor Penius and read it while they're making their way down.

Whereas October uh serves as national opportunity to bring visibility to Down syndrome community and the challenges and opportunities that come with it, and whereas across the country, according to the Special Olympics, nearly 400,000 Americans are living with Down syndrome with approximately 6,000 babies born each year.

And whereas in New Mexico, the Department of Health reported that as of 2016, Down syndrome affected approximately one in every 1,000 births.

And whereas there are three different types of Down syndrome, all three types of Down syndrome being genetic conditions, and whereas the life expectancy of a person with Down syndrome is 60 years, which has increased significantly in the past 20 years thanks to advancements in the medicine.

And whereas with awareness and advancement in medicine, the quality of life of those with Down syndrome has improved with increasing education and career opportunities, independent living, and community inclusion.

And whereas the Real Grand Down Syndrome Network is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower individuals with Down syndrome and their families through advocacy, education, and support.

And whereas the Rio Grand Down Syndrome Network is a collaborative network which seeks to create awareness, ensure inclusion, and promote independence in individuals with Down syndrome serving more than 450 families across Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, and have members as far as Las Vegas, Santa Fe, and I believe Las Cruces.

Yes.

Be it proclaimed that the council, the governing body of the city of Albuquerque, hereby proclaims October as Down Syndrome Awareness Month.

And Madam President, if it's okay, I would like to invite them to uh make a couple of words if they'd like.

This hi, my name is Jamie Martin.

I'm a board member at the Rio Grand Down Syndrome Network.

This is Riley.

Usually when she gets in front of a microphone, she's pretty open to talk.

So she's 17, she goes to La Cueva High School.

Um this is a very important acknowledgement.

So thank you very much.

Um Riley participates in a lot of different activities at school and outside of school with Special Olympics.

She participates in track and field swimming and her favorite basketball.

Um she is an avid member of the Rio Grand Down Syndrome Network.

She participates in summer camps and other programs throughout the year.

Um she was nominated by the girls' basketball coach at La Cueva to be part of the unified pair and will participate at the USA Special Olympics game in 2026.

So this awareness is very important to acknowledge that individuals with Down syndrome are very capable in participating participating just like our typical kids.

Um thank you very much for the acknowledgement and recognition.

You want to say anything?

Is that good?

Thank you.

And Madam President, I do have the proclamation here that I'll make sure you get to it before uh uh you leave today.

But thank you.

Thank you for attending.

Uh I have spoke with you before, and I know you are a speaker.

I know you talk a bunch.

Uh but I want to appreciate, I want to say thank you, and I appreciate you showing up tonight and taking the time.

So I appreciate thank you.

And Riley, if you ever want to come back to the microphone when there's not a room full of people, you can.

I'm sure we can arrange it.

Counselors, any other comments?

Thank you so much for being here.

Next, we're going to go.

Next, we're going to move on to our presentations.

We're going to start tonight's present uh first presentation from Miss Christine Berner, our city economist who's going to provide us an update on the gross receipts tax.

Good evening.

Good evening, Madam President, members of the council, nice to see you.

I do have a couple of slides.

There we go.

So this is the GRT report.

Each of you should have received a copy of this in your email last month.

Please let me know if you did not.

So this is uh July 2025 that we received in September.

And so uh just briefly, the first column on the left, that's the monthly change for July that we received in September.

The second column over to the right is the past five-month percent growth average.

And then the column to the far right shows the share of GRT that each sector has.

For example, retail represents nearly 26% of total GRT and constructions uh now nearly 12%.

And so the food hold harmless distribution was a lot higher this month due to an error at the state tax department, and they they freely admitted this.

And so we did get an inflation for this month then, and that's why it's showing growth at 13.7 percent.

If we account for that extra hold harmless, it looks like our growth rate was around gosh, what did I say it was?

I don't have it in my notes.

Anyway, the expected growth for this month is 3.8%.

Oh, 4.5%.

There it is, somewhere else in my notes.

So the it looks like the growth was about four and a half percent, which is still pretty good for the beginning of the fiscal year.

And so um you can see in that little chart below that accommodation in food, construction, and other services all declined for July while professional and scientific services and retail all showed gains.

And then you can see that the food right there growing nearly 300%.

So that's the issue that I talked about just a second ago.

And then the medical hold harmless and the health care sector in general is doing doing quite well.

And then we can switch to the other one.

There's not a whole lot, but I um in the interest of providing visuals and going forward, I've got a little um chart or a little um graphic here for cannabis so you can see what's going on with that going forward.

And so, just as a reminder, cannabis revenue, or this is the excise tax, state shared excise tax revenue that declined 16.4% in 25 compared to with FY 2024.

And then unfortunately, for July of this month of this year, this fiscal year, it also declined 14.4%.

So far, we're not seeing an increase or or an improvement in that situation.

So I'll be following up with TRD to see you know what their compliance efforts are looking like.

Um and that's really my highlight then um for this month.

We don't have October's revenue yet, so I can take questions.

Counselors, any questions from Ms.

Berner?

Counselor Lewis?

Thank you, Madam President.

Um just uh I mean, looking at construction, so it's a negative 1.9% for the month, um, just a slight increase for the year.

I'd I'd call that slight, certainly not as as big of the as the others, yeah, 0.9%.

And then that share of totals at 11.8 percent.

Um I don't see a year over year.

What do you have the year over year for construction?

So the what the negative 1.9 will be the year over year for July.

So we'll be comparing this year over year last July.

Correct.

Okay, how about how about uh is there a 12?

Is there a 12-month average or the even the five year five-month average year over year percent change?

Madam President, um, Mr.

Um Lewis, I um or Chairman Lewis, Counselor Lewis.

What I did before I came in was to look at um, did I I was looking at building permits, FY25 versus FY24, and we did see a decline in both but building permits and building permit revenue.

So that was building permit, though that was an actual construction, but I can get you the full year.

What we have here this five month is just the past five months versus the previous year's same five months.

So it's it's not a year, but it's what I have available, but I can I can get that full year if you'd like.

Okay, and Madam President, and then um the whole harmless on the food, food um it was I mean it it's yeah, like an outrageously higher, obviously, because there was there was a obviously uh a big chunk that was put in there.

What what was the error?

Madam President, the uh the error was really unusual this time.

It seems to be an actual just flat out error.

What we can determine is that last um month, instead of getting the positive amount of what we were supposed to get, we got the negative amount of what we were supposed to get.

And so this month we actually got about twice as much as we normally would if that makes sense.

So it was just an administrative error, they admitted it, they apologized.

Um, I don't have confirmation on exactly how much that was.

We can only sort of estimate, but yeah, just a just an error fluke.

And Madam President, who who caught who caught the error?

Did they cat the catch the error internally?

Because I know we looked at this report and we saw this outrageous negative amount, I believe, last month, right?

Yeah, madam chair.

I mean, I fired off an email or I made a phone call as soon as I saw this report.

When they discovered the issue, I I have no way of knowing.

Okay.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair.

Counselor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And Madam President.

Thank you for I just want to thank council for making the rule change that would allow us to have better information when you come.

And thank you for tracking the cannabis.

I think that's exactly why I wanted to see it called out to see the nuances happening in the industry, especially after we made the change with hemp and all the things that we did on council.

Um so I really appreciative of this.

Um, and I think this is a bigger question.

Just how do we as council ascertain the financial stability of the city in any like point in time as our economists?

Like how how what would be there's not like a report I can look at.

Um and I'm asking this very specifically because I've asked our team and the administration, you know, what's the general fund balance, for instance?

And I feel like I broke the teams asking that question.

Um just be real, and so how is uh how do we ascertain the financial stability or financial position of the city at any one time?

Loaded question, I know.

Well, Madam President, um counselor Rogers, I don't even have the ending revenue for FY25 yet.

There are a lot of uh pending um adjustments that need to be made.

So while I've got some preliminary information for GRT, full general fund, I just don't have an answer yet.

So as far as that goes, we really don't know yet.

Um, and it's hard to say where we'll finally end up.

But as far as financial stability for the city, I'm afraid I'm I don't believe I'm the person to answer that question.

Thank you, Madam President.

Who is the person to answer that question?

If council, like we I've asked a lot of uh folks, um like is there one report I could look at?

Is there I know it's variable.

Um but who is the right person to ask that question to?

Madam President, um, Councilor Rogers, it really depends on what kind of there's a lot of different ways of of ascertaining the financial um strength of a of an entity, and that's it's it's just not something I can it's something to be explored.

What I have access to is GRT growth, and I'm happy to say that the first month for this fiscal year was good, notwithstanding the the whole harmless issue.

Um, but that's about all I can help you with right now.

I'm sorry.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

We're going to move on to our next presentation.

This is from Acting Director Ellen Braden with the city of Albuquerque Health Housing and Homelessness, who will provide an update on the opioid settlement.

I can see some.

I I had heard this might be with the county as well.

That's correct.

So great.

If you can just make sure to be at that other microphone over here this way.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, thank you.

Good evening, actually.

Thanks so much, uh, Madam President.

I'm here with my colleague from the county, Dr.

Wayne Lindstrom, and we're just going to be given the update.

This is the same update, a similar update is to one that we have provided to the LGCC.

We wanted to make sure that both um bodies, the city council and the county commission had information, um, the same information that was provided to the LGCC.

So Wayne and I will be tag teaming this presentation.

Uh good evening.

Good evening, Madam President, members of the council.

Um, I would just like to um begin by uh giving kind of a history 101 with regards to this whole initiative because it's been a while.

Um you may recall that we had a joint MOU between the city and the county.

Uh we were fortunate to um take advantage of the fact that the Bloomberg Foundation had awarded 10 million dollars to vital strategy, uh, which is an arm of the Boomberg Foundation, but they're an international consulting house, basically, and they were charged with working with seven states on their opioid settlement fund strategic plan.

And we were one of those sub.

Um, so the planning that went into this initiative was not a cost absorbed by either the city or the county.

Um when the strategic plan was finally finalized, finally finalized.

Sorry about the redundancy.

Um we had presentations before the LGCC, City Council and the Board of County Commissioners.

Uh the plan was adopted, and the LGCC decided to form a work group around what the prevailing guidelines and priorities ought to be uh relative to that strategic plan.

And we worked uh for about three months before coming up with an LGC guidance document, uh, which then was endorsed by uh this body as well as the Board of County Commissioners again.

So once that was fully endorsed by all three bodies, we put about the effort of an implementation plan as to realizing what it was that we were being directed to do with these funds.

So with that, if we can turn to the first page, thank you.

And we're still having to deal with that.

And the reason I'm bringing this up is because the actualities are much more nuanced than 150 million dollars in terms of a windfall.

So this 25 million that the city has received to date basically has been distributed over roughly the last five years.

And so with the strategic plan, the work of the LGCC and the subsequent endorsements, we were not prepared to put this money on the street, so to speak, neither the city nor the county.

And this $25 million basically for the strategic plan is a one-time only kind of opportunity to expend over the next three years.

The reason I'm saying that is because if we put $25 million in a procurement process now for reoccurring services, by year four, we would largely have to dismantle what it is that we have funded.

So the LGCC was very intent in appreciating that how do we maximize this one-time investment that's going to make benefit the system overall in time.

The numbers are different for the city, but the principle remains the same.

So we want to be very clear that we're making sound investments in the short term.

You can see on this chart uh the funds that we've expended to date, it leaves about a balance of uh 23 and a half million dollars, what was specified in the LGC guidelines that we issue a capacity and sustainability RFP that was really targeted at small and medium-sized providers to help them build their capacity.

Um that opportunity has been procured, and that's it has been procured, but we did the solicitation.

Uh we've had uh 21 submissions overall, and we're in the process of reviewing those, and we're close to actually scoring them and making some final decisions regarding awards with that particular amount of money.

Um there was a measure to uh work with APS around a collaborative initiative.

Um the crossroads program has been operating within the high schools within APS for a number of years as well as their clinical services.

So APS really made an appeal that with the fact that not just opioid uh conditions but all behavioral health disorders are beginning at a younger and younger age.

Could we make some investments so that we're doing now in the middle schools in the system what we've been doing historically in the high schools?

And so we've negotiated an intergovernmental agreement, and that totals on the part of both the city and the county 9.6 million dollars over the course of the next three years.

The lastly uh we've been uh directed to put out uh procurements of ten million dollars each on the part of the city and the county uh to build infrastructure, and the city has had that uh solicitation open.

I have further information as we move through this with regards to that, and the county will open their solicitation on October 12th.

So that leaves us with roughly six and a half million dollars, and back when we were meeting with the LGCC, we had a number of other projects that were under consideration, and we're vetting those now as we speak.

With that, I'll turn over to Ellen.

Thank you.

And on the next slide, it's it's similar.

We we're showing the allocations from the city funding.

And as of last Friday, the city has received roughly 32 and a half million dollars from the opioid settlement fines.

Um I apologize.

There was this updated slide, but I can tell you the numbers.

So we have about we have 28 million dollars allocated, and that includes I mean that's exclusive of the 10 million for that grant, the capital outlay that Wayne just spoke of, as well as the money for the APS IGA and the capacity building RFP.

Um so we have spent roughly 18 million dollars of the funds that have been allocated and year to date that is not allocated, leaves about 4.5 million dollars that is unallocated.

And I will make sure that you have the updated slide deck with those numbers.

Thanks.

I will we did get it in the iPad.

Yes, thank you.

Well, I'm glad that I'm hearing that the public is also asking for these numbers, and so what we're also gonna be speaking about tonight is our dashboard that will have these numbers as well as the outcomes and the outputs from these numbers.

And so we're gonna be talking about when that will be available and what our process is and having that dashboard available.

Well, you're still up.

Would you speak to the APS report?

Absolutely.

So part of our slide deck also includes APS performance measures, and so these have been included in the IGA.

Um, we are meeting monthly with APS to develop a method for reporting, and we're looking at parent involvement and program impact surveys, surveys.

So, what is the actual impact on the parent and the child?

Um, some other high-level impact includes substance use disorder attitudes intervention data.

Um, are they showing that they're actually preventing reduction or preventing repeat clients from entering their programs?

We're also looking at their behavioral health therapist performance measures.

So, again, how do they how the behaviors that they are seeing in the classroom as a result of being involved in the crossroads program and director?

I don't know.

Do you have a whole bunch more?

I know that we were trying to keep it to a three-minute and then we we did the county for three minutes, and I just want to make sure we get the public some information in the presentation.

Okay.

Um you'll see on that same slide the progress reports and much of that information in terms of the solicitations that we've put out uh for uh this in conformance with the LGCC guidance.

And with that, I'd like to introduce uh John Lonto, who's our data analyst on the county side, who's working on all of the dashboard reports.

Good evening.

I'm gonna hope that you're gonna give us a high-level overview and then maybe direct us where the public and all of us can go to find public facing information as well, please.

Yes, so uh Madam President City Council.

Um the dashboard that we are currently developing right now, and we'll be working very closely with acting uh director Braden will be launched before the end of this year.

Um it'll contain all of the financial measures that you're looking for from this presentation, so we'll have budget allocations expenditures as well as funds received and any anticipated funds from the law um from the opiate settlement funds.

Uh on top of that, we'll also have accountability measures.

That's going to be a second phase of the dashboard that will launch as we uh get these contracts up and running, and we get the performance measures and the and the data from those contracts.

So we'll continuously update the that dashboard as we launch that initial phase in December.

And so the public won't we won't have like a where to go yet until the end of the year, then correct?

Correct.

Okay, is and then director, is there somewhere that people can go to now to see this information that's not just in our iPads so that the public can find it as well.

Director?

Let's see.

Oh, I I didn't want to cut off Council Rogers, Madam President.

No, that's okay.

This information has available at the LGCC website.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here, counselors.

Do you have any questions or comments?

Director, did you have something to add?

No.

Do you have any questions or comments, counselors?

Councilor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

And I talked about this at LGCC, so I'll just for good measure make sure we do it here as well.

Um, in our talks with APS, they are also supposed to pay help kick in for the dashboard.

So we had that conversation.

The A that's not just the county and the city paying for the dashboard since APS got an allotment.

APS should also pay for the dashboard.

So I just want to make sure.

Um I know you told me that that's in the IGA for them that they will be doing that, and I just want to make sure that they pay their fair share as well.

Madam Calm.

Thank you, Madam President, Councilor Rogers.

All right, thank you so much for our last presentation tonight, Counselor Lewis.

Madam President, thank you.

Uh this is a presentation from Miss Jennifer Turner, the director of municipal development.

Give us an update this evening on uh the ceiling, the crack ceiling on our roadways.

Good evening, Director.

Uh good evening, Madam President, Counselor Lewis, other counselors.

Um thank you for providing the opportunity tonight for to provide an update on the Department of Municipal Development's crack ceiling program.

Uh the Department of Municipal Development, or DMD for short, is responsible for over 4600 lane miles of road, which is 7600 acres of pavement.

Or to put that in perspective, that's enough pavement to get you from Albuquerque to Disney World, all the way up to Portland, Maine, back to Florida into Albuquerque again.

So that's a lot of pavement.

So in municipal development, we see two types of asphalt cracks in the road, small cracks, which are less than two inches on older streets, and those are due to uh age or asphalt fatigue.

And then we also see large cracks, two inches or more, which are commonly referred to as thermal cracks, and are due to expansion and contraction of asphalt.

And so crack sealing is a preventative is a preservation treatment that delays the need for more uh expensive and time consuming treatments, such as full mill and inlay.

And so we use two different types of equipment to address cracks.

Uh we have three mastic crack sealing kettles used for larger cracks, and three rubber crack sealing kettles used for small cracks, and each kettle costs approximately 100,000.

Uh we have 10 in terms of application and personnel.

We have 10 blue-collar employees when fully staffed with one supervisor.

Uh currently only seven blue-collar positions are filled, but when fully staffed on average, crews can crack seal one mile a day.

And then small cracks, we use a wand, you can see in the picture, uh, with rubberized crack sealing material, and then large cracks, we use a trough attachment using mastic crack sealing material with small aggregate.

In terms of costs, uh we spend approximately $650,000 per year on crack sealing material.

Um our blue-collar crews, we spend approximately $667,000 on salaries and compensation.

And then when we pay contractors to supplement operations, uh, this past year we've spent approximately 1.4 million dollars.

And then I have a map here, it's small, but you can see that we see uh crack sealing requests all around the city.

We currently have a backlog of a thousand cases, and we've had an uptick in recent requests through 311 and through through the public more generally of approximately 60 um crack sealing requests a day.

To address this back backlog and to address concerns from the council and the public, we have our crack sealing crew working overtime.

Uh we've reassigned other crews to help with crack sealing and patch larger cracks with asphalt, and then we've also recently issued a purchase order for a contractor to support uh crack sealing additional areas.

And lastly, I just want to say thank you to all DMD employees and particularly our streets crews who work so hard every day to keep our streets safe for all users.

And with that, I stand for questions.

Councilor Lewis.

Madam President, thank you.

And director, thank you for the update.

Um and certainly uh, you know, expertise of our crews who who work hard and um and that's that's quite a crew.

I know they're incredibly skilled, and and uh it's uh it's a big job.

Um and then uh and also uh other contractors uh I know that do some of that work as well.

Um it is I mean you mentioned a thousand.

Uh again, I I want to I want to kind of just help with some some some big picture on um ensuring that we um or what we can do to help the department uh not only deal with the backlog but really have a good strong, you know, funded, you know, sustainable funded future uh and ensure that we're keeping up with it.

Um it is it is I think even just looking at that map, just the requests alone, uh the need alone.

I think I I've been on every street in my entire district uh since June.

Um and it's uh it's definitely at the top of the minds of people who live in our neighborhoods.

Um because I I think sometimes people think that it's just the main arterial roads.

Uh these are residential roads uh in front of people's homes.

Um when I I think of two inches uh or the two inch and more are the thermal cracks, um the the the cracks on in my district, and I know this is all over the all over the city are you know four inches, six inches.

Uh I think I put my whole foot in one the other day that was at least 12 inches.

Um and so these are I mean the backlog is immense and and uh it's it's it's a tremendous uh need.

And so um so with with the crew that you have now and with the the contractor, if we were hiring another contractor, um how long do you think it will take us to clear the backlog?

Madam President, Counselor Lewis, um the good news is is that winter is our favorite crack sealing season.

We can use the hot mix in the winter, and and so it's a it's a good time to get it done.

Um I would say depending on the number of new requests that we get in, um, we're probably looking at three to six months in terms of getting ahead of the backlog.

Okay.

And then um what you you're and you're planning on hiring when would you get a new contractor in place?

Um Madam President, Counselor Lewis, we actually are just routing that purchase order to bring the contractor in to add um supplemental resources right now.

So I I think that folks in the city will start seeing more crews out there crack sealing in the next few weeks.

And Madam President, are and and how do you handle the priority list?

Um how do you prioritize each street?

Madam President, Counselor Lewis, that's a great question.

We generally take a first in, first out approach, so uh that folks who have been waiting the longest generally, you know, then when we have crews going out, we'll will go into those first the the first requests that come in.

So is there a madam president?

Is there a pro I mean what about just the condition of the road?

I mean, is there is there a part of that priority list?

The uh the age and the condition of the road.

I imagine a 12-inch crack is a little higher on the priority list than a two-inch crack.

Uh Madam President, Counselor Lewis, uh, that is correct.

If we have an urgent safety situation, then yes, of course, we will always address that first.

Um and just our potholes, for example, um, when we get a complaint about potholes, we have crews that are able to go out the same day.

But crack sealing, as you know, uh is a much more labor-intensive effort.

And so you're moving that priority list from time to time uh when you're seeing different conditions.

I I guess my other question, Madam President, is um is uh so real quick, at what point um is there just replacement, the mill and fill?

I mean, at what point, at what point you look at the condition of the road and go or or the size of a crack and go, look, we're not gonna fill this anymore.

I mean, what are the what's the data or the conditions that would show this is this is uh mill fill?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Lewis, we actually have a contractor that every four to five years drives all the streets in the city and conducts a pavement condition assessment.

I think I've shared that with you before.

And so they'll review each road and say, is this great?

Is this fair?

Is it good?

Is it poor?

And so as we review our rehab program and decide what's next, um, we take into account all the data that we've received.

We also um look at how uh our typical how um pavement degrades uh from year to year, and that goes into our calculations as well.

Um if we see really bad cracks that we don't think that the aggregate mixed with our mastic can address, then we will do an asphalt patch where we patch the entire area, and that's what we're looking at doing right now when we see those severe cases.

Okay, madam chair, last thing.

Um do you have the is there any of this that's a budgetary issue?

Um do you do we need to allocate more capital funds, more money into our uh roadways to be able to ensure that we don't get a backlog and to get ahead of it.

Um I think we have a pretty good idea of knowing what the cost would be and uh and and where you know which streets, what the costs would be.

Um I mean, do we have the ability budget-wise to be able to not only take care of the backlog but to be able to get a good sustainable program that's keeping up with it?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Lewis, I I think every department director would say, sure, if there is unlimited money, we would want um more funds, but we have to live within our budget.

And right now I'm actually three employees down in my crews, and so my first priority is is filling those vacant positions so we can be fully staffed.

Madam President, I I again I think this is something we got to look at then this next year when we do our capital program and we do our budget because I mean there's certain things that are just they're they're they're they're essential, they're a necessity.

Um, and and we have to make sure I think that we're budgeting uh for these essentials, even the ones that we know, especially since we know how much they cost, and I just don't I don't think that uh you know, again, whether it comes to sidewalks and streets and you know a number of things that are essential services that you know taxpayers um you know pay for that should be competing with other um other budget items, and so I guess my you know I mean this is gonna take um you know just some good some of our best financial minds and ensure that within our budget, within our capital program, um that uh again I I and I understand other directors and everybody's living with a budget.

I I just think we should know what the budget for this is and would be, and it shouldn't be competing with other budgets, and it's just one of those line items that we need to make sure is absolutely funded and taken care of.

And by the way, it's quality of life.

I mean, you know, uh these are some of these streets are in some pretty bad uh bad conditions right now, and it certainly is something that uh you know, at least my neighbors have are just I would say losing their minds over, you know, Madam President.

Counselor Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um director, thanks for actually having the crews out there working.

Um your presentation was really good.

The only questions I have a couple of questions related to the cracks.

One of the things that uh I've noticed is when I my road has a lot of really bad cracks where I live, my residential street.

When that road, when I first became a city councilor, I remember that the CAO at that point um called me up and he said, Hey, we just uh filled the cracks in your in your road.

And um I was like very thankful.

However, that was in 2022, it's now 2025, and those cracks are even bigger than they were before.

Um, one of the things that I didn't notice when he filled the cracks, and I'm just wanting to learn a little bit about this, is when they filled the cracks, the cracks didn't take enough slurry or mastic because all they did was just the cracks still was visible.

All it did was just seep down into the crack, and uh we still had a crack, but it was full of slurry and mastic with still the same bump and still the same.

Um do you have somebody that goes back by and actually inspects those cracks?

Because that's one of the biggest complaints that I have.

Yeah, they came down, but the crack didn't get filled.

That all the slurry and the mastic went down is two inches into the dirt, but did not fix the crack.

So, how are you?

How are you going back and inspecting those?

Because if we're out there just hitting the streets and and putting the slurry in and we're not putting enough slurry in, then we're not really solving the problem.

So, how are you inspecting the streets like mine that didn't get the sufficient amount of slurry and mastic?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Sanchez, um great job.

You know, crack ceiling, it's not perfect, and it's a preservation treatment, it only lasts a couple of years, and then you know, we look at whether a more significant rehab is necessary.

Um our crews take a lot of pride in their work, and so if you do see issues, then um uh you know we encourage you to reach out or have the constituents tell 311 and we'll definitely come follow up and try to address any concerns that they see.

Um we're constantly looking at the conditions of our roads, and so and and we do have supervisors that look at um the quality of the work that's been done.

So it's a constant endeavor, but again, um, and I'm sure counselor Lewis can attest to this, like crack ceiling, it's not like potholes, it's it's complicated and labor-intensive, and and we do the best that we can.

But anytime you have concerns, please do reach out and have condition constituents do the same.

Madam President, yeah, I just wanted to say if you can make sure that the crews actually go through and and keep an eye on that because within a day, um, that crack still it still comes back and it is just a crack filled with uh with the slurry in the mastic.

So please make sure if that does happen, have the crews go back and throw another layer over it because it will make a difference for the constituents of Albuquerque.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Grout.

Thank you, Madam President.

Director, you know that you receive my pictures every day.

Um I have my foot in cracks, and um, so you know that I'm I'm looking sharing what I see on the streets as well.

Um I come from a couple of different perspectives, um, you know, listening to people and seeing what they see, but also from my business.

I see cars that come in that are relatively newer cars with low mileage on them, and they already have their amounts or their struts that are blown.

Um, and it's because of the roads, the deterioration of the roads.

Um a few months ago I met with the department, uh, the cabinet secretary for transportation for our state, and he confirmed what I was seeing as well.

Um, how did we get so far behind on crack ceiling?

Um, Madam President, Counselor Grout, um, I am always grateful to hear concerns about cracks.

We definitely want to address them, and so I again everyone, if you see cracks, submit in through 311.

Um, I in terms of uh getting behind in a bigger backlog, um, I think a couple of things.

Uh, first, you know, we do have some vacancies, and that that just happens.

It happens in every city department.

We have turnover, and then when it when you hire new employees, it takes a little bit of time to train them.

So we do have that, but we're working to fill our three.

Um, and then frankly, I think people are just reporting more.

We're seeing an uptick in um six, as I said, around 60 cases a day.

This is summer and fall, it's kind of the crack ceiling um season as folks are out and about with their families and looking at the condition of the streets, and so we just we tend to get more um complaints this time of year, and then we'll we'll catch up over the winter, as I mentioned.

So I think there's a couple of reasons, and then the lastly is in the 1990s, there was a shift in the pavement that the industry started using, and so um they didn't get the industry, didn't quite get the mix exactly right, and so um we tend to see these thermal cracks a lot more in neighborhoods that date back to the 1990s, and um whereas the older uh pavement jobs just doesn't have the same type of thermal cracks.

So it's really the answer to your question really has a number of components.

Okay, thank you for that explanation.

I do appreciate it, um, Madam President.

Um do you do are you sealing cracks year-round or are you waiting for the fall winter months?

Uh counselor uh madam, sorry, Madam President, Counselor Grout.

Uh we seal year long.

Um you'll see our crews out in the hottest day of summer, and then as I mentioned, um, in the winter, it's not like other types of rehab projects where we have to stop.

We're able to use the hot mix and do it year long.

So, yes.

And one final question, ma'am.

Um, when will you get these three people hired?

So you'll be at full staff.

Uh Madam President and Counselor Grout, uh, great question.

We're um in the selection process now, so I am hoping by the end of the year, if not sooner.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor Champagne.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh Director, just a few questions.

Um I'm gonna reiterate and then the job you do and in filling these cracks is fundamental government work, it's what the taxpayers pay for.

Um, so I applaud you and the seven people that cover what you said was 4600 miles of roads.

Okay, that's amazing that you only have a thousand backlog.

Um so thank you for that work, and and I think you need 20 or 30 people if we're gonna stay off that backlog.

Uh you mentioned the catch-up process.

Is that a common thing that you you fall behind a thousand during the winter because there's more or during the summer because there's more calls?

Uh, and then you normally catch up on the winter.

Is that a common practice?

Uh, Madam President, Councillor Champagne, yes, we have done that, we have brought on contractors several times during the past, just when we see a big backlog, um, and we reassign crews as necessary.

As I mentioned, our um asphalt crew right now, we're having them focus on some of those larger cracks.

So, yes, we do uh re reallocate resources when we see a big backlog.

Okay, and madam president, that's usually due to hiring private companies.

The the seven people don't catch up with it.

We have to always outsource.

Uh Madam President, Counselor Champagne.

Again, we have internal crews that we can reallocate.

Um we have them do overtime as well, and then we also bring on the um additional contract support.

So it's a combination of internal work reassignment over time and an outside contractor.

Okay.

And Madam President, then it seems like the you were being you're working well within the constraints.

Uh you had mentioned earlier to a question that if you if money was unlimited, yes, of course, we wouldn't have a backlog and you'd be able to keep up with it, but you will work within the budget that you are given.

Um Madam President, Counselor Champagne, yes.

Yes, so your budget needs to be increased, and I'm sure you asked for more money, but have been told, well, this is what you get to work with.

So this is what the people of Albuquerque get to deal with with the budget that you were given.

Correct.

Madam President, Counselor Champagne, again, I work within our budget.

There's a lot of departments competing for limited resources.

And so yes, again, right now, if I'm fully staffed, that's three full crews going out to do their work.

Um we would be in a better position.

You think you, Madam President, do you think you can accomplish it with 10 people?

If you had fully staffed, that next year we wouldn't have a backlog?

Uh, Madam President and Counselor Champagne.

If we did not have the backlog and we were fully staffed, yes.

Okay.

Uh and then a question last doing uh you had said that uh so 4600 miles, and you got your team currently can do a mile a day.

Um what's the average cost per mile that you're running for for filling these?

You in a day does it what does it cost to do a mile?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Champaign, that would require me to do public math.

So I we've we've learned lessons about that.

Um I will have to follow up in writing with that answer.

I am not gonna go there.

Okay, I appreciate it.

Sorry to put you on the spot with with with mathematics there.

So Madam President, thank you.

Counselor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Director Turner.

I think I was also kind of shook by the how much it would cost for our crew, 667,000, right?

For our crew of you're totally funded for the full amount of staff.

Um, and then the contractor, what we're paying the contractor above that is 1.4 million per year.

Who do we have one contractor or several that we could work with?

Um Madam President and Counselor Rogers, right now we have one contractor and they specialize in this, so it's always good, just like I I view my team as the experts uh when we go to our contractor.

Um, it is one that that does this all day every day, and so it's most efficient to just manage one contractor doing the work.

Thank you.

Who is that contractor that we work with?

Uh um, Madam President, Counselor Rogers, now that I've just advertised about the quality of their work, um but it is dismuke.

Sorry, say that one more time.

Dismuc.

Dismuc.

Yes, D-I-S-M-U-K-E.

M-U-K.

Wonderful.

I'm just I'm always staggered.

I come from healthcare, and so the hot you know, UNM hospital, we had to have five backups for anything that we ordered as as a hospital.

And so I'm always shocked that I I constantly hear that one person, are there more than one companies that could do this work to because I'm just thinking, or do we take that 1.4 to Councilor Champagne's um, you know, kind of line up questioning, add that to your staff budget so we don't have to use the contractor as much.

Right overtime.

And and is this contractor charging us for the materials or do they use our materials?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Rogers, um that that price includes the materials and the labor.

So it includes everything that they're doing.

And again, having one contractor makes it more efficient to manage, so we're not having crews chase other crews all around the city.

Oh no, I understand why it's easier.

Thank you, Madam President, for us.

Right.

But for the people of Albuquerque, it makes more sense to have more contractors or more staff.

Because we can't continue to have this back.

I mean, I I think you're to your to the counselor's point, your crews are doing amazing with what they have.

Um, but we as counselor thinking counselors thinking ahead to the budget, like we could fix this by and I also think the are they comparable the con the contractor, what they're charging us for materials versus what we would pay for those materials, all kinds of things come up.

So I just as a city, I think it would be smart and good business for us to have multiple contractors so that we can get the work done faster, and we assign them the job, so it's not like they're gonna go around looking for cracks and be like, that's my crack, like right.

We assign the crack to them to fix no pun intended.

Um so I just think it behooves us to just multiply if we're not gonna add staff, then we add another contractor so we can get through this a little faster.

And I think in the budget, we we should be able to help you with that.

I think as a council to figure this out because roads are like when I add up the con the calls and emails and texts that we get about constituent stuff, roads is a big one for us that I know I get a lot.

So thank you, Madam President.

Counselor Grout.

Thank you.

I have one final question.

Uh, we get between 45 and 55 million dollars annually from the quarter cent streets tax.

How is that money spent?

Um, Madam President and Counselor Grout.

Uh we submitted through an executive communication a couple of months ago uh a full breakdown of how all of our um trans tax funds are spent.

We have an obligation to provide that every year.

So out of our um crack ceiling positions, two of them are paid for through trans tax.

And then I would uh have to defer to the report we just submitted, and we will be we submit them annually.

Okay.

So I will can get you the updated report.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much, Director, for the update.

All right.

Presentations and proclamations are now over.

We're moving on to the journal.

I move approval of the September 15th journal.

There's a motion and a second by Councilor Grout.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Moving on to communications and introductions.

I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing EC 492 on tonight's agenda for action.

EC492 is the mayor's appointment of Miss Mara Ortiz to the EMS Providers Advisory Committee.

There's a second by Madam Vice President.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing EC 493 on tonight's agenda for action.

EC 493 is the 2026 administration legislative requests.

There's a motion and a second by Madam Vice President.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing OC51 on tonight's agenda for action.

OC51 is the Albuquerque City Council legislative program for the second session of the 57th session of the New Mexico State Legislature.

All those in favor, raise your hand.

Oh, sorry, there was a second by Councilor Grout and Councillor Rogers.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

I was getting on autopilot.

Councilor Grout.

Madam President, I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing R 190 195 on tonight's agenda for action.

R195 is approving a detailed spending plan for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico short-term lodgers tax improvement revenue bonds.

Taxable series 2025.

There's a motion and a second by Madam Vice President.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Counselors, any other changes to the letter of introduction.

Seeing none, I move approval of the letter of introduction.

There's a second by Madam Vice President and Councilor Grout.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Moving on to reports of committees.

Councilor Feblecorn.

Thank you, Madam President.

The land use planning and zoning committee met on Wednesday, September 24th, and reports out the following items in the matter of R 182 that it do pass, and in the matter of M5 that it do pass and be acted upon at the meeting at which it is reported.

I make a motion to accept the committee report.

There's a motion and several seconds.

We'll pick counselor champagne.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Counselors, are there any defers or deferrals or withdrawals at this time?

Seeing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Counselor Lewis.

Madam President, I'd like to pull our 120 or 25173 off the consent agenda.

We're gonna pull our 173, please, Madam Clerk, Councilor Champagne.

Madam President, I'd like to pull R 1 R25 183 off the uh consent agenda.

R 183, please.

Counselor Pena, Madam Vice President.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I pull item B, EC 440 off the consent agenda.

EC440 is the Albuquerque right uptown connect project development.

Pulling EC440, uh and Councilor Grout.

Madam President, I pull item F, EC486 off the consent agenda.

EC486 is the fiscal year objectives report.

All right, EC486, Councilor Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President.

I pull item K R$ 171 off consent agenda.

R-171 is amending the adopted capital improvement program for the City of Albuquerque Aviation Department by transferring funds to existing projects, appropriating funds for passenger facility charges, uh PFCs, uh appropriating and investment funds, approving new projects, closing projects, and accepting federal and state grant funding.

There's no second needed.

I was sorry, I was delayed reading.

Uh so we're going to pull R 171.

Believe it or not, there still is stuff left on the consent agenda.

Counselors, any other items to remove from the consent agenda?

All right, I remove approval of the consent agenda.

There's a second by counselor grout.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

We're going to go back to Councilor Lewis, R 173.

Thank you, Madam President.

R1's R25173 is naming the new multi-generational center in District 5.

The Conway Wood, Northwest Multi-Generational Center.

The multi-gen center is uh is being constructed right now with uh the help of this council and administration.

We've uh uh been able to fund this amazing facility.

Uh the first phase uh eventually on this property, it's about 11 acres of property in in District 5, and eventually on this property we'll have a uh a city pool uh as well as uh city library.

Uh so it's just uh it's a it's a remarkable uh piece of property and really a wonderful facility uh that we're adding to it.

And uh so this this bill tonight is to uh name that multi-gen center after a really wonderful, wonderful man who uh was a real stalwart in our community and somebody who uh really worked hard uh for our community and advocated uh for seniors and so many things.

And we have his uh his family that's here tonight, and and I'm gonna like I'd like to read a um so this these were as statements are actually in the bill, uh, but they're also on a proclamation as well.

We're uh we're actually we're we're dealing with the bill tonight, um, but some of the same language.

So I'm gonna read the proclamation.

And I'd like to ask Mr.

Wood's family if you all would come on up to the podium and and uh some of you that I know would would like to say a few words.

And Councilor Lewis, before you do that, I just want to make sure we have the motion and second on the record so I don't forget.

You got uh Madam President, I move a due pass our 173.

And there's a second from Councillor Sanchez back to you, Councilor West.

Great, thank you.

Um anybody from the family, if y'all would like to come up, we'd love to have you.

Come on, everybody the the the whole family would be great.

So you all come on up.

You all have to see this this beautiful family.

And counselor, maybe as they're coming down, you can start reading if you don't mind.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Is that great?

Uh so whereas the new multi-generational center in District 5 is being named the Conway Wood Northwest Multi-Gener Generational Center in honor of Conway Wood's lifelong commitment to serving seniors and advocating for community resources.

And whereas Conway Wood dedicated his time to improving the lives and well-being of the senior citizens of New Mexico, and Mr.

Wood and his wife, Eunice Wood were faithful attendees at the Paradise Hills Senior Center in Albuquerque, participating from the time the donors opened until they closed.

And whereas Mr.

Wood served as chairman of the advisory committee at the Paradise Hills Senior Center, where he played a key leadership role.

And Mr.

Wood was deeply familiar with the financial structure of senior centers as well as their goals and critical programming needs.

Mr.

Wood helped prepare the Paradise Hills Senior Center each morning by setting tables, filling pictures with ice water, greeting new visitors, answering phones, and encouraging fellow members to volunteer through the RSVP program, thereby fostering a spirit of community service, contributing to the department's volunteer hours and ensuring a warm and welcoming environment for all.

And whereas Mr.

Wood made it his mission to advocate for the needs of seniors by working with local city and state officials to secure funding for senior centers and was a tireless champion for under underserved communities, helping to establish senior services where none previously existed.

And whereas Mr.

Wood consistently rallied government officials, community leaders, and anyone who would support his vision for a dedicated senior center on Albuquerque's west side.

Mr.

Wood often shared stories of working alongside former President Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, advocating for legislation that benefited senior citizens.

And whereas Conway Wood will be greatly missed and his legacy long remembered.

Thank you.

Um Madam President and the Council.

So we're on behalf of our family, we'd really like to express our gratitude for this.

So in addition to his support for seniors, he was he was uh a big bolo tie fan.

Had quite the collection.

A lot of us are wearing part of his collection tonight.

Um so in the 60s and 70s, we we lived in Cortes, Colorado, and that was where he started fighting for a senior center there, and they they accomplished that.

Um, where he did the same there, was successful in getting the funding and getting one built over there, and that's where the story about them Governor Clinton, they were at a meeting and they were going down some steps, and my mom tripped and Governor Clinton caught her, and so he had a lot of fun saying that yeah, my wife she fell for Governor Clinton.

So I don't know what it I don't have much more.

I just really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Madam President and Council.

I just have a funny story.

It was on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal.

Um they decided to take the salt and pepper away from the seniors.

Well, this here says they were seasoned citizens, you know.

And so uh Conway or Mr.

Wood was you know, sitting outside and kind of sad about it, and it just happened a reporter came up to him and said, Well, what's wrong with you?

And he said, Well, they took our you know, salt and pepper and the food's kind of bland and da-da-da-da-da.

Well, anyway, somehow Mayor Barry got a hold of the story.

I guess he heard it in the paper first, and so he decided it said the uh senior center ban on salt and pepper doesn't pass the common sense test.

So Mr.

Barry reinstated them to have their salt and pepper, and uh the front page said salt on Mr.

Wood.

He was pretty spicy and seasoned guy.

Thank you, Councilor Lewis.

Madam President, I I had uh just the privilege of uh knowing Mr.

Wood and sitting down with him, uh, a cup of coffee and talking about senior centers, and he certainly was a great advocate, you know, for the city and for uh for the wonderful people on the west side in so many ways.

Um I remember the time when we also tried to take away coffee from seniors.

I was gonna say that, but I didn't even be in trouble.

And I all of us almost lost all of our jobs over there.

Um so uh uh so thank you all so much and our beautiful family, and thanks for being here tonight.

Thank you all.

Counselors, any questions or comments, either for the family or on the bill.

You want to say anything, counselor Lewis to close.

He also was a very busy guy.

See what he did.

Thank you.

Okay, so to close.

He'd be 102 today.

Wonderful.

All right, thank you, madam, madam president.

President, I uh urge your support.

All right, counselors.

I we're on I don't have it.

It's I lost my page.

R173, thank you.

We're on R173.

Counselors, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed, that passes, and it would have been real awkward if it didn't.

Thank you so much.

All right, moving on, Councilor Champagne, R183.

Thank you, Madam President.

R183, yes, establishing emergency parks, grass and turf replacement fund uh source to address the dying turf grass and in the park citywide.

Uh asked for a uh due pass with this.

There's a motion for a due pass.

Is there a second?

There's a second from Councillor Grout, Counselor Champagne.

Yes, madam president.

This came through FTO.

Um it passed FGO uh with a unanimous vote, uh, but during the comments and the and the back and forth over it, uh I had advised that I would bring this off of the consent so that the entire council can weigh in because it's a uh it's a sensitive, well, it's not a sensitive subject, but it's just a hot topic.

We had just finished up, here we are in in the month of up October.

Our budget just started in July, and for some reason uh it seems like parks doesn't have enough money, even though we uh allocated enough.

So I wanted to, and I said that I would address it and bring it up to the rest of the council.

So I hope I wanted to open up for conversation, please.

Counselors, any questions or comments on one R 183?

Councilor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I'm just understanding this to mean that we're appropriating money from our FY25 if there's a fund balance.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's what it is.

Okay, thank you, Madam President.

I guess my confusion is I just asked, like, what is our fund balance?

What is the financial situation of the city?

And we don't know.

So I think that it's hard for us to say we're going to earmark money that we don't know that we're gonna have for this, which I agree we need greengrass and things in our parks.

But if there's a need in the city like roads that we just finished talking about, right?

What and there's only two million, if we pass this, then that means we would be prioritizing that over roads because we don't know how much money we have right now.

So I'm just how help me through that on how we as a body would appropriate money we don't know that we have right now.

Who would you like to provide information?

Councilor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

I would say since the sponsors pointing to Mr.

Motsko on our team, we'll go with Mr.

Motzko.

Council President Bassan, uh Councilor Rogers, that that's exactly right.

This is a a bill to address the the urgent needed parks that have been overrun by weeds, uh dying grass, and we're hoping working with the administration uh with their hard work staff that that they have at year's end that FY25 will come up with some um fund ballots for for addressing the issues.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

I think because I asked the administration to find 200,000 for case management for seniors at the gateway, right, that aren't getting case management.

And I was told that's how I broke the team, the budget team.

I was told I need to meet with Sonjay Bakda and meet with uh Lawrence and all these people to find the question to that and like answer to that question.

But now we want to um so I'm just struggling with this myself, and thank you for answering those questions.

Any counselor feeble corn?

Thank you, madam president.

Um, just a couple questions on this one.

Um, it was my understanding at the end of the budget process this year that um our budget chair had uh indicated that we would be prioritizing um additional cola for city staff if there was any available funds at the end of the year, and I would just like to ask if that you know if if we're really gonna say that the priority is turf over paying our um staff more.

Um and then I did have a question for potentially I don't know if it's for CAO or for um the director of parks, but one of the questions that came to my mind and people have asked me about on this bill is we're saying that the city's gonna undertake an emergency park turf replacement project, but I also understand that this is not the time of year that we can actually buy turf.

And so I would just love to hear what we would actually do with the two million if that is prioritized for um this um proposal before us tonight, madam CAO, Mr.

Whelan.

Uh Madam President and uh Council Frieblecorn.

Well, even with this, the funding wouldn't even be available till mid-January at best because we are barely going through our year-end close for 25, and uh the general fund is the last fund to close out of all of our funds, so it's being audited right now, and that's what we're working through.

So uh to counselor Rogers' point, yes, we don't know what the exact fund balance is because it's changing on a daily basis as we're closing out POs, we're paying off contracts, we're closing open POs, and then our auditors are making adjustments as we go.

So the the the funds wouldn't even be ready till the mid-January because our AC for which is the annual financial uh comprehensive report, um is due to the state auditor by December 15th, and that's usually when we send it, and then they usually have it for about two weeks, maybe three, and then you have the holiday in there, so it takes about a month because of the time.

Thank you, Madam President.

And so the question was can we buy TERF now?

But let me rephrase the question and say, can we buy TERF in January?

Um is that available in January?

Um, Madam President, uh, Council People Corn.

Uh it's not ideal, so I wouldn't recommend we do a debt.

No.

Thank you, Madam President.

And just one more question.

Um, I spoke to um the parks and rec staff um about a couple of the parks in my area that are looking pretty um brown, um, although it is the fall, so I think they're supposed to kind of look brown right now.

Um, but uh I was it was explained to me that there would be overseeding in the fall in a lot of areas where we had turf that had been damaged or um you know was a bit under the weather, um, and I'm just wondering if that is still the plan to provide kind of um emergency repair to um turfs and parks, Mr.

Whelan.

Madam President, Council People Corn, um you know we have we're more than willing and happy to meet with counselors to discuss our plan going forward.

We've made that offer already to several councillors if they want to meet and talk about our plan on how we're gonna revitalize.

But I have director Simon here who could really explain the seeding portion of that, but um we are willing to meet thank you, Madam President.

I I would like to hear from the director he explained it to me, but I I'd like to make sure I understood it correctly.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Uh Madam President, Councilor Feeblecorn.

Uh, you are correct.

When we have the opportunity and resources, we do some overseeding in the fall.

Uh getting those seeds to germinate requires the proper temperatures.

Uh right now, temperatures are staying a little warmer, maybe a little warmer than we'd like.

Uh but we are seeing some grass seed germinate actually now that we've put down over the past few weeks.

So we we would do that uh as our ability permits.

Thank you, Madam President.

Any other questions?

Counselor, I'm sorry, Councilor Champagne.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh Director, is the fall the only time you seed?

Uh Madam President and Councillor Champagne, no, we we oversee it also in the spring.

In the springtime.

So if something was allocated in January, say the two million dollars, you could access that and use it in the springtime, correct?

Madam President, Councilor, yes.

Okay.

Um, and please do understand this doesn't take away from the amazing work that Parks and Rec does.

I understand you guys work just about as hard as the road people do, uh, and that within the constraints that they work in.

They work uh because I'm sure that you just the same as the past director asked for a certain amount of money to conduct what government is supposed to do and take care of these fundamental uh operations for our city and our taxpayers, uh, and we're told here's the the boundaries you can work in uh and what your budget's gonna be.

Um and I think that comes into to say with the budget in uh of a cola.

It isn't necessarily we're choosing one or the other because I believe this council just passed the patch program last deal that we have no funding for, but we passed a program for it.

So I'm slightly confused about that.

But um, if this two million dollars is awarded and it does come in January because we find it just like we find other money, uh, is it going to be very beneficial for your program and in fixing the issue citywide?

Well, well, madam president, um councilor champagne.

You know, as my fellow director said in a good presentation on the needs of of the streets program in the city.

I think we we all have needs that we'd like to address, and uh what we work with what we're given.

We try to do the best job of what we're given.

So uh of course, you know, we would do our best to invest those funds to get the results that we all want.

Perfect.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Madam President.

Counselor Grout.

Thank you, Madam President.

Again, you know how much I love our parks too.

I see I love seeing families out there using the new playgrounds and the and the fun playgrounds and all of all of the things that we do have for for our citizens.

Um, but I also hear um as I've been walking, I hear a lot about the needs that they're not what they were used to.

And so um, and I know there's different reasons for that.

Just recently I've been hearing that they can't even some of their dogs can't they can't walk their dogs on the parks because of the goat heads that are in the parks.

Um, and so they have to take their dogs home and pluck those goat head stickers out of their paws, and and that's sad too.

So I I know that um I you know we we have a lot of parks, and I want to be able to make sure that we're taking care of them well.

Um could you use this money Madam President, Councilor Grout, we will use to the best of our ability all funds the council puts at our disposal, as would any department, all of which have needs that are difficult to balance, you know, right now.

Okay, thank you.

Of course, and while you're at it, we could give some money to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District since my dogs suffer every day on their ditches from puncture vine.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um, Madam President, I think um uh councillor February did mention that yes, at um year end at the year-in time um when we're doing a cleanup, we want to be able to this is specifically for um fiscal year 25, and and then talking going into the fiscal year 26, seeing what other option opportunities that there might be.

But I think that it's important that we remember all of these things.

I also know that there is a a real real need um in the co in the planning department in the code code enforcement department.

There is also a strong need there too.

So there are many needs within our city, and it is hard to balance and figure out how best to spend money for for all of the citizens.

But taking this in mind, um is it possible that we can defer this just uh a month or um is there a real need to pass it right now?

Counselor Grout, I don't know who you want to direct that question to.

Technically speaking, if the council votes with five and you make a motion for deferral, then it can happen.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Lewis.

Counselor Lewis.

Well, Madam President, thank you.

Um so I mean, these are emergency funds, and this is where this started, you know.

I think it was a little over a month ago.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just I had other counselors before you as far as questions, but I I know that counselor grout was asking you your opinion about a deferral to discuss it first.

Okay.

Um I'll come back to you, I promise.

Uh, but counselor madam vice president, you were next.

Thank you, madam president.

So I just had a couple of questions.

I would support a deferral just because I I do the patch program had no money allocated to it.

This money has um this this has money allocated to it, and I'm wondering, you know, as being committed the whole chair in the past, we really don't allocate money that we don't have, right?

So, what if there's some kind of catastrophe and we don't have any of these this money, and then we're kind of in this position, and then I do agree about that other half a percent that we had been talking about before.

So I would be um amenable to a a deferral because I think this is great.

If the money's there um when we can spend it, then it doesn't change what we're trying to do here today, in my opinion.

But I just want to ask maybe City Legal or you, Mr.

Matsko, somebody um or Julia, um can we actually allocate money when we don't have money at the present time?

Uh Ms.

Kuliton, Miss Keith.

Um I heard city legal or Ms.

Coolidon from council legal council president, uh counselor pain.

This is as I read it a contingent allocation, so it's contingent upon the evaluation of the fund balance for FY25, which I understand would be completed in December.

Um but so I do believe council has the authority to make this kind of contingent appropriation.

Okay.

Anything else?

Thank you, madam chair.

So um if um councilor grout decides to make a uh a motion for a deferral, I would support that.

I don't think it would change anything.

It would still be alive, and I think it's a good idea, but just want to make sure that the money's there.

Counselor Lewis, you're next.

All right, madam president.

Um a couple things on the budget.

So um uh city's own FY26 budget shows revenues climbing nearly five percent uh from 833 million to 873 million.

Uh there was a 21 million dollar available balance that existed in FY24.

Um why any of that wouldn't have been used for parks or streets or other things, but uh again, last year 21 million dollars.

Um our our finance staff uh took a look uh even just today.

Um I mean if there's a question of whether we can't afford a two million dollar park restoration plan, um these are the following departments that are currently projected to underspend in 2025.

Uh community safety by 1.38 million, uh youth and family by 3.2 million, uh HHH by 1.5 million, uh police by 2.85 million, and parks by 2.45 million.

Again, those are projections on underspending of the budget um by the end of the year.

So a little bit about again uh is this is this typical?

Do we do this?

We certainly have um you know uh um you know reallocated and also uh you know we we left this open to be able to um you know help the administration be able to um to find that in ways if they're not spending in some areas you know and they want to use it uh for this.

I mean the bill leaves it open for the for the parks department to be able to do that.

So I think there's some again some financial um uh data here and and uh reasoning that makes a lot of sense.

Um we're we're faced with now and reason again.

Why is this called an emergency you know parks uh turf funding program?

It is about reseeding, it's not about replacing turf.

Um we're we're faced with now and reason again why is this called an emergency you know parks uh turf funding program it is about reseeding it's not about replacing turf I think if we don't reseed it right now uh then we will be replacing turf in the spring and that's exactly what I was told uh by the director uh when I sat at one of our parks uh with him and a constituent um at Hunters Run Park about a month and a half ago now that park uh I have a binder I have a binder of uh 50 or 60 pictures of parks all over the west side um that are close to dying I mean close to just being gone meaning that if we don't do anything with them now uh then we will have to completely replace them in the spring um and uh um you know when when we we sat and looked at these parks um the communication during that time specifically among other things among challenges with labor and things like that was that these are budgetary issues these are budgetary issues if we want I could show you emails from other constituents uh that uh were written by director Simons that said these are budgetary issues and so you know certainly looked wanted to look back because I I didn't want us to be able to miss something I want to make sure that we're funding these parks and by the way uh the conditioning of these parks is not something that I've seen for I mean in the last 15 years I've never seen these parks look like this are neighborhood parks that I've never seen look like this and our our constituents haven't either I mean they're just blown away by it um so uh so certainly again the word was from the department these are we're having some budgetary issues so we go back and look at this budget to make sure the council didn't you know miss something um and when in fact uh um you know it we had discussions during our budget time of um specifically with direct the director of uh um you know did are are we missing anything do you need more is this enough money to have a good quality of service you know to our to maintain our parks at a high level and um uh and and again as with every department there were program savings to the tune of almost a million dollars in program savings uh we had a lot of discussions over whether those were uh cuts or not but the bottom line is that there was almost a million dollars uh in uh in less funding um to park now you could say that we I mean it was it grew year over year but there was about eight hundred uh thousand dollars in program savings uh and again uh wanted to confirm you know um do we need that money do we need that program savings should it go to parks and the word was yes or that we're fine you know we're fine and so again it was just a little shocking to to find out that there were budgetary issues you know and so again um so let's let's solve it you know how do we solve it you know we can't wait until December we can't wait until next budget year certainly um so what can we do now uh and I think this is a sensible way uh to do that um I asked the parks department I asked the the administration look if you got a plan and you can demonstrate a plan that we are gonna you know reseed we're gonna be able to save these these uh parks we're gonna get them where they need to be if you could show me that and show me uh um uh how you're gonna I mean that's paid for within this budget then I'm fine I'll withdraw this bill even I'll even withdraw it's fine you know if you could show me the plan this has been a month and a half there's not a plan um I don't want to defer two weeks or a month um without having any kind of uh solution or an answer you know to that I I'd I'd rather just allocate the money and say you're responsible now to come up with a plan there's no excuse whatsoever it's not a budgetary issue and we've got to get these parks where they need to be council people corn thank you madam president I just I I wanted to ask um the underspend projections that were presented I I'm just wondering where those came from because I have not heard those our financial step Madam Madam President that came from our financial step.

Thank you counselor Mr.

Motko Madam President Bassan Councilor People Corn Uh as Councilor Lewis uh said these were projections we ran a general ledger report this afternoon uh that sweeps the entire um budget uh and at the current locate um at current point of time today this the city overall is underspent by about 11 million dollars several departments are overspent some are underspent so that's that's that number today obviously as um you know associate cao waylon said we won't get this information until the audit uh in December or January but we do run our our running total thank you madam president so let just want to make sure I understand so we just took the total budget and we divided out the number of months that we've covered and we said if they haven't spent an equal amount in every month then they're underspending Madam President Council Feeblecorn it's my understanding that we looked at uh each department's individual

Obviously, as um, you know, associate CAO Wayland said, we won't get this information until the audit uh in December or January, but we do run our running total.

Thank you, Madam President.

So look, I just want to make sure I understand.

So we just took the total budget and we divided out the number of months that we've covered, and we said if they haven't spent an equal amount in every month, then they're underspending.

Madam President, Council Feeblecoin, it's my understanding that we looked at uh each department's individual budget, including open POs, uh various contracts that need to be paid, and what they've paid as of uh today, even though the fiscal year ended on um June 30th, and you know, we give our departments as you know last year's CFO uh sorso said the same thing.

We give our departments time to get those stragglers coming in to pay previous years uh fiscal year uh budget and POs and uh contracts, and then that will get audited at the end of the year.

So what we did today was we just ran this was their budget, this is how much they've they've spent spent to date, how many how many dollars are out the door versus how many dollars were allocated at the beginning of the year?

Thank you, madam president, appreciate it.

And I know there's another couple counselors that want to circle back, but if I may squeeze in just real quick, uh so I don't claim to know everything, and this is definitely starting to confuse my brain a little bit.

So I imagine there's probably many people out in the universe that might be confused as well.

But I would like to clarify that we're talking about the FY25 year, just to be clear, is done as far as the actual fiscal year for the city of Albuquerque for those watching, it ended on June 30th.

We are currently in the FY26 year, so we're talking about cleaning up any remaining funds that come in based off of the GRT and any information that was through the close of that year.

That FY25 before June 30th or by June 30th, correct?

Madam President Bassan, that that is correct.

Okay, but we don't really know exactly what those numbers will be up until June 30th of FY, the FY25 fiscal year until around mid-December.

Is that correct?

Madam President, that's also correct.

Okay, so I think this is a very well-intended bill.

I have plenty of, I mean, I think that we've nailed between streets and parks today 95% of my emails.

Uh, but at the same time, I also have concerns that even though the intentions are good, I think that I we I remember getting a budget for FY26 that started July 1st that was balanced, meaning we started with not really any extra money.

And so, how do we and even if we're talking about overages and under under lower amounts, uh right now, how do we say that at the beginning of a fiscal year?

We have all year long to start balancing things out, where if a department is over or under in this current fiscal year, they should still be able to balance that out until June 30th of next year, or if there's a cleanup in between or whatnot.

But I definitely uh I I have heartburn over saying I'm gonna count on us having more when it's in the near future that we will actually have solid numbers.

Councilor Pena.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I mean, you kind of wrapped it up in a nutshell.

I just want to say that I really appreciate um counselor Lewis.

I think we all are supportive of this bill.

We we really need it.

I I I agree that you know we have some issues with some of our parks that we need to get addressed.

Um although I I must say that um you know there's been some work uh done to a couple of our parks that I'm really pleased with, but um so I think it's a win, it's just that I'm just more comfortable supporting it when we know exactly how much money we have in the bank.

So counselor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

I just have to point out I would like the same level of service the counselor Lewis got when it came to looking at our fund balances.

This is not acceptable.

I asked the same question for my 200,000 dollar appropriation for something I do think is an emergency, which is seniors at the West Side Shelter getting case management, and I couldn't get a breakdown like that from our own team.

Thank you.

So I'm a little frustrated, and I would like to this breakdown that you guys whipped up for counselor Lewis today to also be sent to me so that I can I held off on my appropriation because I couldn't get this information so that we wouldn't have to waste time as a council on these types of things because we don't have access to the same information, depending on who asks the question.

Thank you, Madam President.

Counselor Lewis, I'm coming back to you.

And if you can also with your comments, in addition to that, do a close.

Yeah, Madam President, I mean, I would I'll tell you, I'll move a I will move a uh a two-week deferral.

Um and in that time, um I I will be even willing to withdraw this bill.

If if the parks department can show me that they have a plan with the money that they have that uh to keep our parks from and again, if we don't reseed, if we don't put a massive amount of dollars into our turf this year, right now in the next few months, um then my understanding is that we have to returp re resolute it in the spring, and those parks go off a lot offline for a year before they're used again.

Uh and this is unprecedented.

I've I've never seen our parks in this condition before, you know.

And so that's fine.

I mean, if if you all, if the administration can show us uh that you have enough money right now uh to put together a great plan to do what you said we said you do this spring when we did our budget and and come to us next meeting with that plan at the next meeting.

I'd be glad to withdraw the bill.

If you don't want the money, I'll withdraw the bill.

You gotta show that we're not gonna lose our parks, you know.

Um otherwise, I mean, this is this is the whole reason why this is an emergency bill.

I mean, there's a reason for it, and we clearly um are are gonna have enough money.

I mean, again, why didn't we what what do we do with the 21 million dollars at when we cleaned up could have swept the 20 in the year 25 budget, you know.

I mean, pretty sure we're gonna have that same amount or more, you know, no matter what we do.

Um, but we do have an administration that that wants to spend every last penny on on their priorities here.

But um so I'll make a I'll make a two-week deferral or motion.

There's a motion and a second from Councillor Grout for a two-week deferral.

All those excuse me, in favor, say yes and raise your hand.

Anyone opposed that passes unanimously moving on to EC440, Councillor Pena.

Um, thank you.

Um Madam President, EC440 is Albuquerque Ride Uptown Connect project development agreement.

Um I would move approval, but I just wanted to ask the administration do we have somebody here who can speak on that?

I had asked the question about like sawmill and some of the development that we're doing for parking and the enforcement, and I know this project has um you know a smaller space for um for parking, and I know we were told that you wouldn't or the developer wouldn't be enforcing, but I know they're enforcing um you know, like in sawmill and and therefore you know um affordable housing, right?

Because there's a lot of great things happening there at Sawmill, but then um some of the people that are in the affordable housing projects are feeling the effects of some of those citations for parking.

So I know I had asked that question before, and I don't recall getting a response on that.

Maybe I got an email that I overlooked.

We get so many emails, so just remind me.

Um Madam President, Councilor Pena.

We have um Bobby Cisneris from um Transit who can speak to this um the transit connect project, um Uptown Connect project and what's included in it.

I think did you hear the question?

Yes.

Oh okay, and Mr.

Cisnetos one year, hi Bobby.

Um so when you're um actually talking about it though, I really want you to put it in the context of thinking of an ordinance that we can pass for any kind of affordable housing that we're doing with this mixed use where we have you know market housing, affordable housing, but where we're not penalizing the people who are living in the affordable housing with some of these really high um fees associated with parking.

Madam President, Councillor Pena, thank you uh for the question.

Uh Rebecca Villardi with the contractor did send out an email addressing this very uh question.

Um, I'd be more than happy to forward it to you after I sit down to make sure you have that.

Um through their experiences with similar projects, um it's it's always a fine balance of how figuring out who lives there, who's visiting and then for how long.

So I know that the the developer is constantly working towards that goal.

Um they want to make sure that it's pleasant for everyone that lives within their their development.

Um when it comes to uh passing some kind of ordinance with affordable housing.

I'd uh I'd like to work with the affordable housing folks before I I answer that question.

I'm not too sure uh how we would handle that.

And oh, okay, Madam President.

um it's it's always a fine balance of how figuring out who lives there who's visiting and then for how long so I know that the the developer is constantly working towards that goal um they just they want to make sure that it's pleasant for everyone that lives within their their development um when it comes to um passing some kind of ordinance with affordable housing I'd uh I'd like to work with the affordable housing folks before I I answer that question I'm not too sure uh how we would handle that oh okay madam president so great so I think as you guys are developing these agreements for this project I think we need to incorporate some of that in there whether it's a sticker that people who live there have that live in the affordable housing something to alert them that this is a resident of the community so I'd love for you guys to be able to incorporate that in and then I guess my question next question would be for the staff is how do we like moving forward you know I I'd like to look at an ordinance on how we deal with this but then how um how would this be if we pass it today would we be able to incorporate that into um into the to this developers uh criteria uh council president uh council vice president pinya um i would think that um we can staff can certainly work on an ordinance moving forward to where we incorporate that into development agreements moving forward um but i i wouldn't know um in terms of this particular development agreement if that would be an amendment that could be done to the right what's up madam president council vice president um so this is an e c tonight so as you know council can't not make amendments to an EC it's just as approved or uh voted down in the form that it comes to us but if that was something that wanted to be incorporated later it could perhaps be done as an amendment to the development agreement okay um at a later date perfect um madam president um madam president um uh madam vice president the unique in um this project is super unique because it is a transit um based project so it is built into uh maximizing the opportunity for the individuals living to use transit so we're we have incorporated um mass transit in the essence of the building and so I think when we look at the numbers uh it might make it feel a little off base from others um but in perspective of what you're thinking about in terms of development agreements and when we build affordable housing and really making sure that we are planning for um parking and or I'm sorry available parking and ensuring that we don't have any um kind of favoritism or discriminatory related to parking uh adjacent to those um developments we can absolutely work with you to think about how to how to develop um something that really does ensure individuals have access to close to where they live um as well as access to transit in in both cases madam president thank you I appreciate that so you know with that I'll support this but I really want to you know sit down and meet and so we can discuss that even with sawmill I know that there's a lot of people it's there's a lots of affordable housing land trust um Debbie O'Malley amazing job there but um but a a lot of the people who are living there are receiving um citations really really expensive so um thank you for that um madam president with that I'd uh um move approval there's a motion and a second by counselor feeble corn and I do know counselor madam vice president I know that Miss Villarde is online and she did raise her hand but if you want to make sure to circle back with her unless you want to have an answer right here and now if you want to talk to her more offline or online I think yeah we still have another opportunity right thank you okay thank you counselors any other questions or comments the motion is for approval of EC440 all those in favor raise your hand and say yes yes anyone opposed that passes unanimously councillor grout EC486 thank you madam president um ec486 is the fiscal year objectives report um madam cao um in our 2440 human and family development goal objective 15 triple h was asked to conduct a comprehensive study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Albuquerque housing authority and the triple H and triple H in addressing the housing needs of the city um at the administration responded in EC2 2586 or 486 that all the information was provided in October 2024 we've asked for that information to be provided again and have not received it and we've asked that because we cannot we haven't been able to find it um so can you please provide that information to us again um by the by Friday Madam President Madam President Council Grant that was actually sent to you this morning oh so it was I will make sure it was sent to council staff I will make sure it is sent to all council okay okay thank you very much thank you I I move a due pass uh this motion will be a receipt be noted very I move a receipt email counselor there's a second from counselor feeble corn any other questions or comments councilor rogers thank you madam president I bring this up during our budget season but I think I bring it up again here um this document that we got with the objectives it has the objective statement but it again doesn't tell me what the metric goal is for that objective so we have gateway medical sobering that one's an easy one we know if

I move a receipt email counselor.

There's a second from Councillor February.

Any other questions or comments?

Councilor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

I bring this up during our budget season, but I think I bring it up again here.

Um this document that we got with the objectives, it has the objective statement, but it again doesn't tell me what the metric goal is for that objective.

So we have gateway medical sobering.

That one's an easy one.

We know if it needs to be operational by fisk fiscal year 25.

Easy.

But for some of the other ones, how would we actually gauge that we finished these objectives that we've met these objectives?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Rogers.

Um I uh appreciate the comment because I like numbers and I like things that are measurable, so I know whether or not we have success.

Um I do uh my own side scratch work to make to uh kind of monitor these things.

So when there are numbers in them, they they we are monitoring those numbers and we are reporting on those numbers.

For example, um, you know, economic development has a train a minimum of 300 employees in a hundred businesses through JTA, and then they track those numbers and report on them.

Um, and so we can make sure that we uh when there are numbers in the statements that we are reporting numbers in those uh outcomes, or at least acknowledging if the numbers missing.

Uh I think we do a pretty good job of it, but it is a narrative that you have to read through in this format.

Thank you, madam president.

Thank you for that.

I think that will help during the budget season because you know I I think it's not a surprise.

I like the budget a lot and the budget processes and how it all works.

Um, but I don't I would like to get to a point as a counselor where I can look at these metrics and say, yes, this department is performing, or no, they're not, and maybe we need to move that budget to a more efficient department.

And I we can't get to that level of of specificity and looking at our department performance.

So I think that would be helpful.

Thank you so much.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

All right.

The motion is I flip the page again.

Thank you.

The motion is for receipt be noted of EC486.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

Councilor Lewis, yes.

Yes.

Okay, that passes unanimously.

All right, just so as a little heads up for the audience.

I really I'm I apologize in advance, but we will be going to dinner shortly before general public comment tonight.

I try really hard to do it in advance, but we're gonna that's that's your notice, please.

Counselor Sanchez, R171.

Thank you, Madam President.

R71 amending the adopted capital improvement program for the city of Albuquerque Aviation Department by transferring funds to existing projects appropriating funds for passenger facilities, charges, PFCs, appropriate investment funds, approving new projects, closing projects, and accepting federal and state grant funding.

I'm part of FGO and is part of the uh the group that passed this through FGO, but when uh right after FGO, I uh ended up doing a little bit of traveling, and I walked through the airport, and there was something I didn't see on this, and what I didn't see what I when I walked through the airport, I saw 40 by 30 sign a banner that was in the middle of the airport um talking about a new observation deck coming in.

So I just have some questions on this bill, and so I'd like to ask those questions of of the administration before this passed because me as a constituent of Albuquerque, me as a citizen of Albuquerque, and also a city councilor.

I don't remember anybody talking about a brand new observation deck at the airport until I saw that massive banner as I happen to go through the airport.

I'm not sure if any of you have been into the airport within the last month and have seen that banner, but it's it's huge.

I mean, the banner had to cost thousands of dollars to build.

So um I don't even know if the citizens of Albuquerque even heard of heard that they're looking at observation deck.

Well, I know for a fact that um there was an observation deck built there over 20 years ago, and with that observation deck, it was on the wrong side of security.

When you have security, everybody goes through security, it's on the wrong side of security.

You want to use an observation deck for people who come to the airport, hang out, want to look at the different different the amenities that the airport has, want to look at the airplanes, want to look at the the the uh museum features that are there, and then actually go up maybe to the observation deck and watch a few airplanes land and take off.

But every single person that goes to that would be utilizing this observation deck as of 20 years ago, um they're going straight to their gates and they're not going to the observation deck.

So I don't see it on this, so I just want to ask a few questions about it.

Um it looks to me that um that we're getting an observation deck without any of us here on this dais weighing in.

So I hope you know the administration can answer the questions.

Um, and uh I'd move a due pass on and possibly a deferral after we have our discussion.

The motion is for a due pass.

Is there a second?

There's a second from Madam Vice President or Councillor Champagne, Counselor Sanchez, your questions?

Thank you, Madam President.

Um what's the seven million in lines 28, 29 and R25-1714?

And can you break it down and the source and the intended uses?

Uh Madam President, Councillor Uh Sanchez, we have Acting Director Manyman Riquez, who has overseen our full renovations here and ready to answer questions.

Good evening, counselors, council president Bassan, Counselor Sanchez.

So the $7 million allocation in question is for the uh construction scope of the observation deck build out that you that you raised.

Um I do think it's very important to address the purpose of uh the observation deck and actually have some kind of exciting news to share with you tonight about that.

Um so this is the final phase of our dream of flight renovation project, which I've I've overseen since the beginning of construction.

Um construction will start in our slow season in January, so we've been very deliberate to avoid the busy travel season of the Lin Fiesta and the holidays.

Um but it is very exciting for our city and for the Sunport.

I think as many of you know, uh we've been ranked among the top 10 airports in the country by the Washington Post.

Um, and really what this will do is add not only the build-out of the observation deck itself, but bump out that that space to create an outdoor patio that will allow not only passengers but also other visitors to our airport to see the airfield activity.

And the way we're gonna do this is we're working on a program we call the uh the fly side pass, and that will enable people to apply through a portal and get almost into instantaneous uh approval or denial to go through the TSA checkpoint to the secure area of our airport and actually support our vendors, all of our local vendors in the Ascend uh small small kiosk program, um, the the concessions program that we're rolling out with all the local businesses represented, and also to frequent um the observation deck once it's built out and be able to have that you know really unique experience of of viewing the airfield from that vantage point.

Um this is really actually answering a call uh that we've had from many of our constituents saying they missed those old days where they could really have a great view of the airfield and see airplanes uh take off and land.

And so this is gonna provide uh that opportunity for our uh our passengers and also our residents uh who don't who aren't flying that day.

So one second.

So you're saying that that seven million dollars is in fact for the uh the observation deck.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

And then what did you call these fly passes?

What did you call them?

Uh fly side pass.

Fly side pass.

Okay, so do these fly side passes cost extra?

No, there's no cost.

And how are they implemented?

So there's a system that the TSA maintains called Aptero, and other airports throughout the country do have this program.

Um there's a there's a number of them popping up around the country.

Uh a an interested party would essentially go to our website, they would fill in the personal information into the system, and uh and essentially they'd get an almost instantaneous response, just like you do when you take your ID to the TSA checkpoint, you hand over your ID to a TSA agent and they scan it.

Those that's the very same system that we'd be implementing through our website to get.

Don't they already have a TA pre-check?

Uh that would be different.

That's just for travelers.

So this the fly side pass is for non-travelers.

So residents who want to go and do some holiday shopping, uh, who want to go with their families to to go to one of the restaurants and the food and beverage establishments, they'll have an opportunity to apply and get in that same day or another day if they're applying.

Don't they still have to go through the checkpoint?

Yes, they do have to go through the checkpoint.

So that doesn't sound convenient.

Um what exactly can you break down the seven million?

What what's expected?

What's it expected the fund?

And if you can break that whole down that that whole thing down for me.

Sure.

So basically the seven million dollars is that first investment in our construction costs.

Uh we don't yet know the full construction cost, but we have haven't gotten to that phase of the process yet uh where the the guaranteed maximum price has been established, but that's that's our investment in the construction costs, and it's all for construction.

So the design is covered already, and uh we are in we're just uh have just completed the schematic design phase.

So are you I didn't understand that.

So you're saying that's your first investment, but you don't have the max price yet?

We don't have the guaranteed maximum price yet.

Okay, and and uh why not?

Uh that's part of the CMAR process that we're in now.

So since we're adding this scope of the observation deck to the dream of flight renovation project later on this calendar year, when we're working with uh construction documents at the 30% threshold, we can begin to have the construction company scope out exactly how much it's going to cost to do the build out.

So right now we're actually asking the public to put out one uh seven million dollars for the first investment, and we don't even have a price for the max project.

And then we're looking at other areas of our budget when we need when we need issues um when we have issues in parks.

Um so this is just not making sense to me.

All righty, so the next question is what would you say the percentage of your first um investment um is going to be?

What percentage of the total cost would it be?

10%, 20% it will cover 15%.

Uh Council President Basson, Councilor Sanchez, that initial investment will cover most likely more than half of the construction costs.

I do want to provide one clarification.

This is from the Aviation Enterprise Fund, not the general fund.

So just to be clear, okay, uh, it comes from our enterprise.

Got it.

So do we have any of the current engineers speculating what it would cost?

I mean, I to be to be a really good management manager of of the airport and manage the airport's funds.

This is should have the the actual total cost should you should know that.

Why don't you know that?

There should be some sort of engineering, some something that that could tell us what the total cost is and know what the total cost is right up front, so we can actually have a good idea on how we should proceed up here.

Uh council president, counselor Sanchez.

Um I would not I would not venture a guess at this moment other than to say that I believe that this seven million dollar investment will cover more than half the construction costs.

But I don't think it would be responsible of me to put out a number into the public until we have done the analysis that is doing that.

How about an estimate?

I I don't have one other than to say that that will cover the majority of the well.

You told me that it possibly would cover at least 50% of the costs.

So you're saying that we're looking at about a $14 million project?

Is it safe to say that?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez, it could be that much.

Could also be less.

Okay, and then um is this actually added as just a CIP cleanup, or is there a change order as well added?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez.

Uh, there would be a change order to uh the dream of flight CMAR project in order to do that.

And what's the total amount for that project in reference that you're gonna do the change order to?

Uh Council President, Councilor Sanchez.

Currently, the total amount is about $89 million, $89.7 million.

Okay.

And I know this council has approved a certain percentage.

Um, what's the percentage of the $89 million that this that this will cover and is allowable by a change order?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez, this would be in addition to that cost, because the cost I just mentioned is for the core renovation project that it was established as part of the CMAR process uh a couple of years ago.

So it's a change order and an additional seven million?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez, it would be a change order to encompass the scope of the observation deck, and yes, it would be the seven million dollars plus whatever.

So it could even be even more if you incorporate the change order plus the possible 14 million.

Council President Councilor Sanchez, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking.

So I'm just saying, explain to me how that breaks down the change order versus the uh the this CIP um money that you're getting.

Okay, Councilor President, Councilor Sanchez.

Um the seven million dollar allocation is part of this uh CIP cleanup.

We know we're gonna need those funds to start and get a substantial way along the process of doing this construction build out.

Okay, so I'm still kind of confused.

Is half would be 14 million council president, counselor Sanchez.

Uh the $14 million figure that you're stating right now is not that's not something that I would state today.

Um I don't have that level of certainty about the construction costs.

Okay, so you said what's the total amount of this the the change order contract again?

Council President Councillor Sanchez, we don't yet have the total amount.

Um we're working with uh Jane's corporation, which is the CMAR on this project.

Once they establish the guaranteed maximum price, that's how we then establish the contractual amount and uh push through the change order that would encompass the entirety of the budget for the project.

So now I'm really confused because you said it was part of the original job, so now why are you adding the change order?

I'm I'm I'm just totally confused.

Sure, Council President, Councillor Sanchez.

We always knew we were gonna do the uh observation deck build out, but we didn't we didn't include that in the core renovation project.

Why not?

So this is this is an additional.

Why wasn't it included in the first place?

If you were thinking about it long term, why doesn't all of us know and why doesn't the public know?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez.

Uh, that's because we had not determined yet what the scope would be of the uh the observation deck.

We knew what the rest of the scope would be, but we were in discussions where we wanted to do something really great for the passengers and also the residents of the city.

And so at this moment, uh you know, we're we're we're talking about just that piece, that final piece of the dream of flight renovation.

And so we're we're really treating this as an extension of the core project.

I still don't understand why we need an observation deck when it failed before.

That's my biggest issue Council President, Councilor Sanchez.

The reason for it is is really to invest in a world-class airport.

We we have a wonderful airport.

We just we sorry, we just we just became like you by your words, um, one of the top ten airports in the nation.

Without without the observation deck.

And not only that, hold on, well, let me finish one more time.

And not only that, is I just recently heard that the director of aviation, Mr.

McUh, Mr.

Richard McCurley isn't no longer the director of aviation.

Is that true?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez, that's correct.

Uh Director McCurley did depart for another airport.

That's that's why I'm acting director right now.

Um to answer your your your previous question, I'd like to see us get number one in the country.

We should.

We should we should shoot for the stars.

Um we have a wonderful airport.

Uh it's a it's a as a point of pride for our city.

We are enhancing um our city by showcasing all these local businesses, microbusinesses.

We should celebrate that, and we should we should be proud that we have uh the revenue at the airport to make investments like this in the customer experience.

And how much longer will it take to build um based on the fact that we've had our airport torn up for many many months now?

Uh Council President, Councilor Sanchez, we would be complete in about a year from now.

Uh however, the impact to all the other spaces in the airport would be quite minimal.

It's really located just in that one space.

So all the rest of the concessions program uh is able to complete the openings and function fully.

When do you think we will get the guaranteed maximum price?

Uh Council President, Councilor Sanchez, I believe we will get the GMP close to the end of this calendar year.

Can you get it sooner for all of us, the citizens of Albuquerque?

Council President, Councilor Sanchez, I will do my very best to get it as soon as I can.

Okay, let's see.

I've got a couple other questions that I wrote.

Is there any um restaurants or any um concession areas that are gonna be underneath the uh observation deck that will be affected?

Council president, counselor Sanchez.

There will be uh there's a restaurant by the name of Burke Brues.

It's a full service sit-down brew pub, and that's on the third level, and the observation deck is on the fourth level.

Let's see.

Councillor Sanchez, you have more?

Yeah, I might have one more question, but I'm trying to find it here.

While you look for that, may I go to Council February?

Yes, thank you.

Counselor February.

Thank you, Madam President.

Well, while we're talking about the airport, um, I just uh want to say how exciting the Ascend program is and um when are we going to get the flightside pass program up and running?

Council President, uh, Councilor Feblecorn.

So we're right now in the federal approvals process.

Um we have cleared one very important uh piece of that process where TSA has reviewed and approved our use of the Apparot system.

Uh so the next steps are to amend our airport security plan, um, which does take take some time and it's in the hands of the federal government.

Uh so we we we do need to kind of uh have some patience with them.

We're in a government shutdown, as I think we all know.

Um but uh as far as what we can control today, and if the federal process doesn't drag on uh unnecessarily, then I think we can have it ready within a couple of months.

Thank you, Madam President.

This is really exciting.

I um was several counselors were um able to go to the Ascend graduation and purchase um in my place like way too much from these nine amazing kind of micro businesses that are really starting to take off at our airport, and I'm really excited that we can continue to support them, have more people go out with the flightside pass and the observation deck to really start bringing in more business more business for those incredible um small businesses that are also equity-based and local.

And so I'm just really excited about the idea, and thank you for all your work to make this happen.

Thank you, Counselor.

I'm gonna come back to you, Counselor Sanchez, in just one minute, but I also want to ask a question as well.

Uh, regarding the observation deck being after security, I would assume that that should probably I I would think the reason is is because of FAA regulations and travel safety, in my opinion, is that where the observation deck was located, is that part of FAA guidelines and requirements?

Uh Madam President, uh not necessarily, um, but it is the best vantage point where you can get an unobstructed view of the airfield.

Um, and so that's I I believe that's why we had it built or the city had it had it built a couple of decades ago.

Um we do have a public side observation area uh that's right off of um a Gerard.

However, there's a fence that you have to look through in order to see the airfield.

So the nice thing about this observation deck is we'll have glass walls, we'll have an outdoor patio area that's bumped out from the from the main space of the observation deck, and really a clean, more unobstructed view of all the aircraft out on the airfield.

Thank you for that.

I can say that when I travel, I would prefer people have to go through security if they're going to be able to access the travel gates.

Thank you.

Counselor Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President.

I really appreciate it.

So the last question that I have is that every single gate at our airport has large windows, and every single gate can actually see pretty much everything that the observation deck can see.

Um that being said, I just don't agree with the with the amount of spending.

I really think that the citizens of Albuquerque need to need to weigh in on this, and I don't think they have.

Have the city of Albuquerque um constituents weighed in on this, and what have you done in reference to them weighing in?

Um Council President Bassan, Councilor Sanchez.

Um essentially, I think what you're getting at is whether we've had the adoption of the public and appreciation of the public of things like the observation deck and other amenities.

I can tell you from from my vantage point and working with the public and really being the person over the last year, uh few years who's in who've engaged with the public, they're excited about this.

Um all of the things that we're doing at the airport.

Um, I want to stress a very important point.

The fly side pass, the observation deck, all the other amenities that we're putting together at the airport.

This is what supports the local businesses and the ascend ABQ program, those micro businesses that are in the airport.

This is what's gonna help make them successful.

So I do strongly believe from all my conversations I've had in the community that there's excitement about that objective, and that the community is behind us when we are putting front and center a sense of place and celebrating all the wonderful products and the food and beverage that we produce here in Albuquerque and around the state.

I still not convinced that it's on the right side of uh of security.

Um we've tried this before.

This is something that uh we've tried 20 years ago, and I remember going up to the observation deck, and nobody was in the observation deck.

No one sat in there.

People went straight to their were straight to their gates, and as soon as they got off their airplane, they didn't hang around.

They went straight to pick up their luggage and out the door.

And I just don't think it's a it's something that would make or break um our top one one percent or to top 10 percent of our aviation um being one of the best airports in in the nation.

Um, and I think that we could probably find a little bit better um use by maybe building up some of these these other projects that you're looking at.

Um so with that, um, if there's no other discussion, I think it's really important that that we defer this and see if there's a way to actually make sure that one the public wants it, two, every single every single um counselor wants it, and then also make sure that it that we're doing the best that we can for for the airport.

And to tell you the honest truth, when I've asked since then over the month, and I'm not asking everybody that's walking through the airport, I'm asking the citizens of Albuquerque, and they then the first thing out of their mouth is didn't we already have a failed um observation deck?

Why are we doing that again?

And so that's what I'm getting from the constituents who I've talked to.

So I don't mind deferring this to hear a little bit more, even to the next meeting, um, just so that we can hear a little more from the constituents.

Um you can give us a little bit broader um information.

That would be something you could work on so that you can give this council a little more information in reference to what the final cost would be, information that um when this is going to be expected to be open, how many uh how long is it gonna take to get it open so that you know what's the what's the amount of what's the timeline so that we're not in constructing construction for so for so long at the airport, and that we can get back to business.

I mean, that's what we're what we're really needing to see in reference to um making sure that this is an actual viable uh project.

And I think we can get that done within a couple of weeks before the before the next uh meeting, um, because there's a lot of other things on this bill that we need to look at.

But this is something that I think.

Counselor Sanchez, before we go to any kind of additional motion, there's counselor Rogers that had something else to say, please.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam President.

I I just want to point out there's like 20 some things in this in this resolution outside of the um observation deck, which this is my district, and I am absolutely in touch with my constituents, not just travelers, but folks about missing the observation deck during the renovations.

This was something that we've talked about a lot in the community that folks noticed that, and I'm sorry that you didn't know we had an observation deck, it didn't fail.

It's been open and was closed just for the renovations, and people absolutely have called out asking for this observation deck.

Um, but I want to point out for your district at the Double Eagle Airport, there are several things that we need to close out with AA FAA grants that I don't think you want to defer.

Um, and we there's so many other things that we need in here, like perimeter road rehab for the main airport, uh fire suppression design, that's very needed.

So I I personally don't want to see this deferred just because one counselor doesn't like the observation deck because it's always been there.

Um, and it just was closed recently for renovation, correct?

And it's something that people miss and want.

Um, and I'm I've done several tours and been a very um key part of the Ascend program.

And for our local businesses, um, the observation deck is a nice touch, um, and nothing different than any other airport that has ticket options or are pass options to get past security.

They still have to go through security, they still got to get the scan, body scan, still got to take off the shoes, all the things to get back to the observation deck.

So we're keeping people safe at the airport by giving access to our airport in a new way.

Um, that is absolutely good for our constituents and good for the city of Albuquerque, but I would hate for us to hold up things like the fire suppression design because someone doesn't understand that we've always had an observation deck, um, and it was only recently closed for the renovation.

So I just have to point those things out.

Storm rontage drainage, rehab is in here, inline our baggage system.

Um having my bag got stuck in the in there recently.

That's really needed by our constituents and travelers.

And we have a million visitors right now to the airport for the balloon fiesta.

The observation deck would be an amazing feature for those travelers.

So I would ask as the sponsor that we do not defer.

And I will count that as my close, Madam President, if that's okay.

Thank you, except for this is not your bill to close, counselor.

So we're gonna keep going.

Uh councillor Champagne.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just out of curiosity, and trying to decide where to go with this and listening to both sides.

She pointed out a lot of things that weren't part of the observation deck.

If this is deferred for two weeks, um well, let me put it this way.

If it passes tonight, are those things going to be implemented in the next two weeks?

The money that's being put for fire suppression, roads, perimeter, all that stuff.

Is that gonna be is two weeks gonna in those two weeks is all that gonna be implemented?

Uh Council President, Councilor Champagne, we would not be able to uh expand those funds until they're authorized by this.

I understand that.

Are you planning to expend those funds in two weeks?

Uh no, sir.

Okay.

So if it is deferred for 14 days, it is not gonna lose a step in the process of you guys expending that if it's approved in next meeting.

Council President, Councilor Champagne.

Uh I believe it's it's fairly critical to get moving on several of these projects.

Understandable.

As the acting director of the airport, I would much prefer that we're able to expend the funds and move forward on things like the fire sprinkler system, baggage handling system.

So uh for an airport that operates like a business time time, is money.

And completely understandable.

Uh and Madam President, we're still talking about government operations that doesn't move quickly on anything.

So we know if it is deferred that two weeks is not gonna, you're not gonna blow a hundred and you know, the 14 million dollars in two weeks.

Correct.

Okay, thank you, Madam President.

Counselor uh Rogers, I apologize.

I realize this is your bill.

I should I want to clarify this is your bill by request.

However, Councilor Sanchez is who pulled it, so I want to make sure to iron that out.

Uh so counselor Sanchez, if you want to ask your question and then hopefully do a short close, that would be great.

Thank you.

Um I I recognize that there's a lot of stuff that's on this bill that's important.

Um, you know, it's pretty obvious.

But one of the things more than anything is when you look at the transparency of everything, that's what gets me is the transparency.

And all I want to do is just ask the questions and put it out there so that you guys can give me some of the answers to these questions, what the timeline is going to be, what the amount it's gonna cost to actually do this.

I mean, these are just simple questions that we should have already known, but we didn't.

You know, I didn't realize this happened until I had to walk down through the airport and see a 40 by 30 um banner that probably cost a lot of money for the taxpayers, just the banner itself.

And that's all I'm looking for is I'm looking for answers to why we didn't know, why this wasn't on the bill, um, how much it's gonna cost, um, what the change order is, and not only that, um, like you said, it's the seven million is the first investment.

None of those things, none of none of those things have ever been talked about at all in reference to these items that we're that we're dealing with.

And all I'm asking is for explanation to see what we need to make the best decision for our airport.

And I honestly have gone up to the uh observation deck during the during the times, and I don't see I you know, since it's been open for years, and nobody's ever up there, you know.

And so that's the key.

That's what I'm worried about.

Are we spending taxpayer money?

Are we spending these funds in the right place?

What if we aren't?

What if there's other areas in the airport that could use this to make the airport better?

You know, those are the kinds of things that we need to all be looking at and thinking about.

And like I said, all I'm asking is a two-week deferral so that you can give me a little bit more information, give us and the public a little bit more information so we can help with this decision as well.

You know, if the public comes out and says, hey, let's do this, then let's do this.

If the public comes out and says, hey, we don't want this, then we'll be listening to the public.

Council.

And that's it.

Did you want to make a motion for a deferral?

Yeah, so I'd like to make a motion for deferral for two weeks till the next meeting.

Um, and just if you and just to get those questions answered.

Um, and that's basically it.

Um we already determined that it's not gonna be a huge amount of time, and it's not gonna hurt hurt this airport to the to the detriment.

All we want is answers, and that's it.

There's a motion for a deferral for two weeks.

Is there a second?

Sorry.

There's a second from Councilor Champagne.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

Counselor Lewis, which no.

Okay, thank you.

Three two six, I believe, is the vote.

That fails.

So now we are back on the bill with a due pass.

Uh, and there was a second.

All those in favor of a do pass, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Uh we are going to take a 30-minute break.

We will be back here.

I say 30 minutes, but it's very loose.

So we will be back here at five minutes to eight o'clock.

Thank you so much.

We are back from our break.

We're going to start with announcements.

Counselor Grout.

Oh, budget.

Thank you.

Okay.

Madam President, there will be an intergovernmental legislative relations committee meeting on Wednesday, October 8th at 3 p.m.

via Zoom video conference.

That's in two days.

Councilor Feblecorn.

Madam President, there'll be a land use planning and zoning committee meeting on Wednesday, October 15th at 5 p.m.

here in chambers, and it'll be a hybrid meeting.

For the record, Councillor Champagne is excused for the rest of the evening.

There are no financial instruments, uh, no appeals, and we will move on to general public comment.

Members of the public can provide live public comments to council in person or virtually if they have signed up for public comment per the instructions published on the agenda and on our website Friday.

The public comment ground rules are that each participant will have two minutes to present.

Comments will be addressed to the counselors only through the counselor, pre council president, and any disruptive conduct will result in the removal from the meeting.

After a two-minute time limit has been reached, a bell will ring to indicate your time is up.

Mr.

Cornelius, if you'll please call our first speaker.

Thank you, Madam President.

Our first speaker is Brick Jonasi, followed by Let's Otvo.

Here he comes.

Let's autvo.

Wait, wait, wait.

We're gonna have we're gonna have Mr.

Jonasy, he's right here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um good evening, Madam Council, Madam President, Counselors.

Um I want to talk to you guys a little bit about um censorship today.

So censorship in regards to press, speech, that sort of thing.

Um you'll hear a little bit more about this um from Mr.

Let's Otvo as well.

Um in short answer, the the answer is no.

Um, I don't want to be censored.

If you want to censor other people, you know, and they they agree to it, that's fine.

Um I I don't care what decisions they make, I don't want to be censored.

Um when it comes to the projector, from my understanding is it's the purpose of it is you know, be able to show you presentation, that sort of thing.

I want to be able to utilize the tools just as much as anybody else.

Um, but regardless of that, I did want to speak on a couple of other things.

Um your police downtown.

I've seen them doing better without the horses than with the horses.

Um me personally, I don't like the horses on the sidewalk.

That's me.

Um what you're doing when you're doing that is you're actually making it uh more difficult.

Um and and also when the police are shining their big lumens, um that that's that's worse uh than if the uh the establishment there at the library is doing it because you know if people sue the library, that's one thing, you know.

But if they're sue in the city, that's a whole nother thing, and then you guys are liable.

So keep that in mind whenever you're sending the officers down there.

Um then the other thing is the the police on the on the streets.

Um I want to believe that they're doing a good job.

Sometimes they're not.

Um sometimes they're rude, sometimes uh they cuss, right?

And defining profanity that's gonna be very difficult.

Um I'm not into defining it.

I I believe that everybody has the right to say what they want to say to to basically be able to press.

And yes, there's some things that the court rules against, but you know, those things are different.

So thank you.

Let's autvo, followed by Francesco Artist.

Overhead, please.

I'm not gonna use my tablet tonight.

I didn't have anything planned to uh to actually use.

I think it's important to note that before I give you the yin, let me give you a little yang or vice versa.

Thank you, Councillor Grousler, for uh putting out that little thing that happened Saturday night in District 9 where I where I reside in the area I reside.

And I thank you, uh Mr.

Baca, for uh uh appearing at the uh Northwest event for the planning commission there with the way Muse on uh not so lighted note uh having received this email in the mail it kind of troubles me because you're looking for consistency from what I hear.

However, if I was to take a disc or a thumb drive and bring it to the records department, they wouldn't let me reuse it again.

They want to get their 879 for another request because they're worried about what I might bring in and damage your system with some uh malware or whatever, but at the same time, you want me to put a video that I've made.

Some will be good, some will be bad.

You can look at the events that we post.

They're not all bad.

And when I say bad, it's the it's bad as a reflection upon what's seen, not that I choose to put out bad material.

You can read it for yourself.

There's no consistency there.

Why should I be asked?

It was a request, it's not a it's not a demand.

Why would anybody ask to review a video that I would show during my one and a half or one minute or two minute public commenting time?

A video is nothing more than a series of pictures that did not break any of your rules.

It's on an eight and a half by 11 and a half, eight by 11 and a half inch tablet presented.

And I will mention one other thing real quick.

It's a shame to have this fine gentleman's channel taken down while he's giving us public comment at the last meeting.

Thank you.

Francesco Artist, followed by Lisa Christofferson.

We haven't seen Mr.

Artist this evening.

Thank you, Madam President.

Lisa Christofferson, followed by Dennis Curtis.

Thank you very much.

Uh, Madam President Basson and City Councilors, um, I'm here again, of course.

Uh ICE, National Guard, and a black man who was killed in Albuquerque that we need um answers for.

So, due process was included in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights to protect people from and against government decisions that deprive.

Due process is needed and essential to ensure fairness in all legal matters.

The fifth and the fourteenth amendments explicitly state no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law under any circumstance.

And of course, I'm thinking about Chicago.

The government is required to respect due process before it can take action that affects a person's life, liberty, or property.

The Fifth Amendment gives protection from the federal government regardless of where um American lives in this country, including Albuquerque.

So my question continually why are we allowing federal agents to kidnap an adduct abduct without proving that the detainment or the deprivation of liberty is lawful and that there's a warrant.

Um aren't you all supposed to be for rule of law?

When I look at what's happening in Chicago, and now we know that um that landowner, that property manager was from out of state, called the ice on those own people because they'd been complaining they didn't have what they needed at that apartment complex, so they called ICE and they took everybody black, brown, didn't matter, they were all American citizens, uh, except for some of them.

Um zip tied.

I believe that kind of a thing could happen here.

We had a democratic governor and a democratic uh mayor who pulled to Trump before Trump even pulled to Trump and sent in a National Guard.

I am not even exaggerating when I say that there are truly fears in our community that we are not safe and that anybody black or brown or speak Spanish is gonna get hauled off by somebody we don't even know if they're an actual agent.

Can you not strengthen our laws so that we can be safe?

Dennis Curtis, followed by Roberta Curtis, Roberta Curtis, followed by Loretta Naranjo Lopez, Loretta Naranjo Lopez, followed by Jessica Saxton.

Good evening, City Council President and Counselors.

My name is Loretta Naranjo Lopez.

I'm here as the president of Santa Barbara Martinez Town Neighborhood Association and also a member of the Stark Neighborhood Alliance.

And we're asking that the City Council reject the LUPS report and make an amendment to remove 101 Lomas Boulevard and 2289, 229 Broadway Northeast from the downtown MRA redevelopment plan.

And um I the understanding from the city of Albuquerque is that our MRA doesn't exist, but according to the planner that uh um developed the that wrote the plan and also was part of the MRA office.

She says it does exist, and so does John Q.

Hammond's Industries Embassy Suites that used the MRA and this and the MRA was used at that time in 2004 and in 2013.

So the evidence is there.

I've asked you to look at the October 6th letter that I sent today with outlining that this does not meet the MRA requirements, and also that um because these are these two parcels are not blighted, but also that I'm concerned that counselor Joaquin Baca was on the advisory committee and should not be voting on this.

Um he should recuse himself.

Uh he's also given um allocations for one million for his area for downtown and 800,000, and you're the council on R24160 voted to give us 250,000 to update our MRA plan.

According to the city finance department and Terry Bruner, the city council didn't allocate the funding.

So you do vote and not and there's no funding available for the MRA.

So it's concerning to me that these things are questionable.

Why are MRA is not accepted, and why isn't there money allocated when we've already asked for a proposal of the scope of work by the site southwest?

Why would we go through all that trouble to ask for the scope of work and we get nothing?

So I would like you to investigate this.

Thank you.

Jessica Saxton, followed by Tanawa Downing.

Good evening.

My name is Jessica Saxton.

I'm the civil rights advocate and litigator from Washington, D.C.

I am here to provide notice to the council this evening.

This is in accordance with USCS rules of civil procedure, as well as Rule 17 and Rule 20 of the United States Supreme Court.

The Constitution for the United States is the overarching requirement that every state must follow.

I don't think that any one of you here would disagree with that.

States are not able to enact their own alternative legislation and substitute that for the guarantees of the Constitution.

That would mean that your state laws are more powerful than the Constitution, and that is simply unlawful.

So clause one of Amendment 5, like the previous lady was just speaking about, says that no person should be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on presentment or indictment by a grand jury.

That also includes our citizens.

Unfortunately, your state has enacted a law in its inferior constitution that permits your public officials, your law enforcement officers, your judges, to charge by way of information as opposed to indictment, and that is simply unlawful.

An emolument violation is when you pay a public official to commit a crime.

There are two areas within our constitution that reinforces this.

The first is Article 1, Section 10, and that's where it states that no state shall create any law that shall impair the obligation of a contract.

Your police officers, your prosecutors, your judges, they're all under a contract.

You are under a contract.

That's a contract to perform based on the oath or affirmation that you took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

The second area that reinforces is the issue of an emolument violation and paying public officials to commit a crime is the 14th Amendment.

And that's where it states that no state shall create or enforcing a law that shall enbridge the privileges or immunities of United States citizens.

Privileges and immunities of the United States citizens are at a bare minimum those that are enumerated within the Bill of Rights in the First Ten Amendment.

So I am here to provide notice and let you know that you cannot continue to pay public officials to commit crimes against the citizens.

It is a crime.

It is an emolument violation, it is unlawful lawful and it is illegal.

I do have a notice that I would like to put on the record tonight explaining more about this, and I encourage you to uh do the right thing.

Thank you.

Tanwa Downing, followed by Janice Herrera.

I'm sorry, hold on one second.

If you can go ahead and give that to the clerk right there, that would be great, Miss Saxton.

Thank you.

Good evening.

So my name is Tanaway Down.

I'm a civil rights litigator that Ms.

Saxon was just leading into.

I'm about to uh argue this case in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of more than 700,000 people who are currently in prison here in America illegally and constitutionally because the states have failed to follow the very basic procedures process coded by the Constitution for the adjudication of a crime.

I want to provide a little bit of clarification, obviously you can understand what was just said and what we're actually asking from all of you.

I have approximately 12,000 criminal applications on behalf of victims that have been charged by way of information as opposed to indictment from right here within the state of uh New Mexico.

Many are from within this county and the city.

Uh these these appidavits, they identify two particular crimes.

All right, the first is Title 18 subsection 2.2, which is deprivation of rights under color law.

The second is Title 18 USC subsection 2.1, which is conspiracy to deprive the rights.

So law is a criminal conspiracy with regard to public officials, all of you.

That states that any person who, having knowledge of any of the wrongs conspired to be done, and who have the power to prevent or aid in the prevention of the commission of the same, neglects or refuses to do so, may be held as defendants the action.

So upon having been provided with this notice, letting you know that your agents, the law enforcement whom you all pay, are acting unconstitutionally by relying upon Imperial State Statute to abridge their obligations coded by the Constitution of the United States of America.

I'd ask you guys, please let's work together to fix this problem because the alternative is that I will have to convert this crime up, they've said criminal complaints, and I don't want to do that.

That's not the path that I want to go down.

All right.

Now I know that you guys are gonna go and you're gonna ask the attorney as soon as we're done whether or not what I'm saying is true, and that attorney's gonna point you to case from 1884 called her Tato versus California.

And before you choose to rely upon that as foundation, I must remind you that the Constitution of the United States of America is the foundation, not a judge-made ruling.

Supreme Court of United States has no constituted authority to be able to alter men or destroy any of the provisions or guarantees constitution, because that must be done by an authentic act of people in accordance with the special many procedure of Article 5.

Furthermore, judges cannot legislate, we know that because clause one article one says all legislative power is best in Congress of the United States.

So I pray that you guys are gonna make the right decision here.

I know it's a tough one.

You guys are gonna have to decide as soon as we're done whether you're gonna go and you're gonna follow a judge-made ruling, the lowest form of law, or the object to which your Fidelity's bound, Constitution of the United States of America.

But just to leave you with this, I want to say that that the United States Circuit Court has identified in that an erroneous view of the law is an automatic abuse of discretion.

An erroneous view of law would be in your legal contemplation, the lowest form of law, a judge-made ruling, is superior to the Constitution of the United States of America.

That would be an obvious erroneous view of the law.

Thank you guys so much, God bless, and have a great rest of your night.

Janice Herrera, followed by Adale Rose Bennett Herrick.

Good evening, Council President, members of the council.

My name is Janice Herrera.

I'm a resident of District 2.

Today, as I walked in, I saw a signage for a rosary rally on the plaza.

This is timely because yesterday a woman I know asked me to pray for her.

This is a person who's touched my heart, and I've held her in my thoughts today, but additionally, I ask each of you who hold power to reflect on actionable measures to mitigate this ongoing crisis situation.

This woman has showed me her kindness by one years ago when I started doing mutual aid.

I was carrying a box of food and dropped car keys out of my pocket unnoticed.

This woman who is unsheltered ran down the block, picked them up, and brought them back to me.

I've also seen her make great personal sacrifices to care for her pet, providing him with food, water, and even first aid.

Yesterday when I saw this woman, she was in tears.

Today she had a court date related to repeat charges for misdemeanors, public camping, obstructing the sidewalk, and trespassing.

She had missed some court dates and had been arrested already.

She was afraid of going to MDC and losing her dog, her safety net.

About three years ago, less than 10% of the population at MDC was considered transient.

Now more than 50% are transient, with a majority facing misdemeanors or bench warrants associated with those.

Criminalization is not conducive to rehabilitation.

Poverty is not a crime of the citizen, but it is a crime of the state.

One million visitors are expected to temporarily shelter in the metro area for balloon fiesta.

Well, I do welcome the lunatics and the excitement and the revenue that they bring.

I question how you all can support funding to leverage this hotel and lodging that we obviously have in great abundance.

We have the resources to get the estimated 10,000 people who are unsheltered into decent housing instead of incarcerating or institutionalizing them for existing within the cycle of poverty.

I thank you for your attention to this matter.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

My name is the Nimiski.

Now, what I'm showing right here, uh consent and agenda.

Octaver six.

Page one.

Now we'll go to page two.

Three, I mean.

Page two.

Go to page three.

Here is what I'm showing.

City Council, violating, law, the own charter, and also lost.

Not the law we that is also state constitution.

Unite when state or new New Mexico became state joined it union, adopted United States constitution.

Same applied.

That is first amendment and many other loss.

So not allowing public speaking on consensus agenda hiding.

Another vote, what are they doing?

Hiding.

Now let's go further.

Politics and politician.

Can we trust politician?

I'm talking about housing.

Let's made in housing.

Um well what they're doing.

Manipulating, lying.

All saying is do you practice what you preach?

No.

That's exactly what they do.

They do not.

James Shanley, followed by Janet Sayers on Zoom.

Madam President, Councillors.

You are all familiar, I'm sure, with the Albuquerque Journal polling reported October 2nd of voter perceptions of city performance on the crisis of homelessness.

The failing grade would surprise no one who drives around Albuquerque with their eyes open.

Yet, citizens of Albuquerque are not seeing any pivoting from a plotting well-worn path of inadequacy.

We do hear tired cliches like 75% refuse services.

But we never hear, well, who was it who asked the question.

One was a stakeholder committee panel discussion during the public engagement meeting for the state fair redevelopment project.

The panel included a neighborhood mom, a decades-long advocate, an activist for the unhoused, a formerly homeless person who runs a nonprofit while completing a master's degree at UNM, and the Southeast Area Commander of Albuquerque Police Department.

There was more expression of vision, practical resolve, and willingness to collaborate to fix this in their discussion than I have heard anywhere.

Describe the depredations and challenges they have confronted with our system.

Yet we have in our city people with the experience, the knowledge, the skills, and the commitment to contribute substantially to implementation of practical, humane, and effective measures to end the catastrophe and suffering on our streets.

Albuquerque can restore its health, safety, and commercial vitality from edge to edge.

It's time to bring those people to the table.

Thank you.

Janet Sayers, followed by Nicole Finch.

Sayers, you are muted.

All right, thank you so much.

Uh good evening, Madam President, members of the council, and city staff.

I'm Janet Sayers.

I live in District 9.

And first, I just want to thank you for uh the commitment of all of you to serve on the council and give up uh time, energy to make policy and decisions for our city.

And so I am here tonight on behalf of the library advisory board and the 19 branches of the Albuquerque Bernleo County system.

And I'm glad to report that today that eight of those branches were open, and tomorrow all 19 branches will be open with the exception of Alamosa, which has been undergoing renovation and hopefully will be open very soon.

That's in uh councilor Pena's district.

Um we are glad to report that through the efforts of the administration and the council that our library board is um continuing the task of really having representation from all areas of the city.

And tonight on the consent agenda, there was uh person for from District 7, and we will be welcoming her to serve.

And I also wanted to just comment that we're continuing the efforts to uh get commitments from various members of the legislature to support Capital Outlay in this coming uh session of January, and we are now up to 475,000.

And uh Diane Torres Velasquez, who's a uh state rep from the Northeast area, has made a commitment to support with $50,000.

So we're we're gonna keep going and uh and hopefully we'll we'll get to our two million dollars by by the end of this calendar year.

But again, thank you for your time, efforts, and your commitment to the city.

Thank you so much.

Nicole Finch, followed by Sarah Azebo.

Madam President, counselors, good evening.

I'm Nicole Finch, and I'm a member of the Library Advisory Board.

October 5th through 11th, 2025 is National Banned Books Week.

Across the country, we're seeing an increase in attacks on books by and about black indigenous and people of color, as well as people in the LGBTQ plus community.

We're lucky that the book banning element in Albuquerque is small, but it does exist, and we cannot afford to be complacent about it.

Our librarians in the Albuquerque Bernalio County public library system are professionals trained in librarianship, dedicated to the mission of providing a major information source for the needs of a metropolitan population.

If you look at the library's collection development policy, you'll see that the collection they develop also serves the popular and recreational needs of the general public and reflects the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the community.

The library upholds the right of the individual to access information, even though the content may be controversial, unorthodox, or unacceptable to others.

This banned books week, I thank our library director, Kate Alderete, and all the librarians for the incredible work they do to provide the serious and the silly, the informative and the entertaining for all of us in all our diversity to enjoy.

Thank you.

Sarah Azebo, followed by Anami Goss.

Good evening, Council President and Counselors.

I am deeply disturbed by the report of J.

Von Gamon's death and how it has become public knowledge only recently through social media over one year later.

I urge you to get the facts and push to address all issues this brings to light.

I have also been frightened and concerned to see unmarked black SUVs being driven by Albuquerque public school employees.

The drivers are identified as school resource officers in this time of ice disappearing people in unmarked vehicles.

I ask that you investigate this, as I have asked the mayor's staff and the APS superintendent to do.

If these employees are to be a resource for families, this is not a friendly signal indicating support and it incites fear within the community.

Additionally, I am still wondering why Robinson Park is roped off and has been for months now.

Changing tone, I want to give a huge shout out to all mutual aid groups across the city.

These groups fill the gaps to support community members where city services fail.

This has been evident with mutual aid increasing food donations to unhoused relatives across the city.

When gunsware house was closed, causing a great shortage of meals where there is a high need for assistance.

Mutual aid groups also stepped up to help me relocate job core youth after the city and county hotel vouchers were ended two weeks ago before their expiration date to make room for balloon fiesta tourists.

Overnight, these groups rallied to find safe housing options for these young people, transport them to their new residents, collect furnishings for their homes, and offer ongoing support.

Currently, they are stepping up to support a number of young children to find a safe home after ICE took their parents from them and left them terrified to return to their home.

Systems of government have a place in our society.

They were designed to support community members in times of need.

Where these systems are overwhelmed and failing, it is the strength of these community-based mutual aid groups funded by love and monetary donations from individuals that provide real aid.

I wish these two structures could work in tandem to uplift us all.

I wish the gaps in the systems troubled some of you as much as you're troubled by the cracks in the asphalt and not need a turf turning brown in our desert city.

Tonight I just want to thank those in the mutual aid community who give themselves to care for others.

Thank you.

Anami Das.

Hi, can you all hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Awesome.

Um I want to echo the sentiments expressed about Javon uh Givens death and the uh APD response to it.

I'm trying to be very careful with my words out of the abundance of caution for um the situation and respect for his family.

But um it sorry, I just read the police report and it was only like four pages.

Um, and that's uh disturbing in a lot of ways.

Um again, I I don't want to like pass judgment or whatever.

But uh I want to insist that the administration and uh APD address the issues uh related to that case in an effort to uh alleviate the anxiety surrounding the situation.

Um yeah, I'll I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Madam President, that concludes general public comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We are going to move on to approvals.

Councillor Grau, OC51.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, OC 51.

The Albuquerque City Council legislative program for the first session.

Actually, it'll be the second session, I think.

It's the first session of the 58th session of the New Mexico State Legislature.

Umed.

There's a motion and a second by Councillor Feeblecorn.

And Madam President, we have several amendments that we'd like to offer.

Let's start with Councillor Rogers.

Amendment in your packet, counselors is A.

We'll call this number one.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, and we have it on the screen for everyone.

Thank you.

I'd like to move amendment number one.

In the attachment at the heading for each council district, add the name of the counselor for that district.

And when I was reviewing the booklet, I just thought we should include the name of each counselor.

They don't all know what our district numbers are.

Um, and so just to clean up the uh what's going to the legislature, I'd like to add each of the counselor names next to their district.

There's a motion.

Is there a second?

There's a second from Madam Vice President.

Uh, just to clarify, is this in addition to the number of the district?

Yes, madam president.

It would be in addition to the number.

We're just adding the counselor's name for the district as well.

Thank you.

Counselors, any questions or comments?

Councillor Rogers to close.

I urge your support.

The motion is for amendment number one to OC 51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

We're going to move on.

Councillor Rogers, amendment number two.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, and amendment number two is a little longer, just to fix some of the city council district six capital outlay requests.

First thing we would like to do is delete the request for multiple hygiene trailers.

We received our quotes back, and I have enough funding to purchase what I need, so I want to delete that from our requests.

I would also like to delete the request for city council district six traffic calming and replace it with the new request as possible just to from feedback from legislatures to be specific.

We do have 10 residential streets that are actually identified through our participatory budgeting project.

So I just wanted to call that out.

The Highland Multi-Generational Center.

I would like to delete that.

Um Highland Senior Center does not want to be a multi-generational center.

So I want to correct that from our community as well.

Um number four would be delete the request for Walmart property acquisition.

And I just want to update that to say vacant property acquisition and add CVS and Walgreens and some other uh nuisance properties in my district to be specific based on feedback we got from legislators.

Five, delete the request public safety equipment, and we're just updating that to be more specific on where the automatic speed cameras would be placed.

Um and uh we also need trailers, not just speed cameras.

So I want to add that.

And then the next one is just clarifying real-time crime centers specifically, uh things to help district six specifically.

So I wanted to make that clear.

Number seven is at the end of the list for district six capital outlay requests.

We're gonna list participatory budgeting.

And again, that's just so our legislators know that these requests came directly from the community and not just my wish list.

And I'd urge your support.

There's a motion and a second by Councilor Baca.

Counselors, any questions or comments?

All right, seeing that there seemed to be a close from Councillor Rogers, madam.

Uh all those in favor of amendment number two to OC51, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Amendment number three is Councillor Grout.

Thank you, Madam President.

Amendment three.

Um, in the attachment for City Council 9 capital outlay request, add the following gateway youth assistance and housing navigation campus funding for the next phase of the gateway youth assistance and housing navigation campus to acquire property plan design and construct housing and classroom space.

And this request is for phase three of the gateway youth assistance to construct classroom space and additional housing.

There's a motion and a second by counselor feeblecorn.

Any questions or comments?

Counselors.

Seeing none, the motion is for amendment number three to OC 51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Amendment number four, Council Feeble Corn.

Thank you, Madam President.

Floor amendment number four is in the attachment for City Council District 7.

Legislative requests, add the following request.

Middle Rio Grande Housing Collaborative Funding, enact legislation to support and fund the Middle Rio Grande Housing Collaborative Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Albuquerque and Burnley Oak County to support and coordinate the acquisition of property, planning, designing, instructing to improve affordable housing in the Albuquerque Burnleo County area.

There's a motion and a second by councillor Febalcorn or Councilor Rogers.

Councilor Feblecorn, any additional opening?

Thank you, ma'am.

President I I'll just say that uh this was in last year, and it was a last minute request from the um Rio Grande Housing Collaborative to be included again this year.

So we're just doing as they asked.

Counselors, any questions or comments?

The motion is for amendment number four to OC 51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

We are on to amendment number five, Council Fablecorn.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam Amendment number five is in the attachment for city council district seven legislative request.

Replace the description following restrict fire work statewide with the following.

Amend state law to expand fire work restrictions statewide and to specifically allow for local social host ordinances for the possession and use of fireworks.

There's a motion, is there a second?

There's a second by councillor Rogers.

Counselors, any questions or comments?

Councilor Sanchez.

Yeah, I'm just curious.

We have uh firework displays all over the city that are actually legal displays.

Can you give me an idea of how that affects them?

Councilor People Corn?

Madam President, it wouldn't affect them at all.

Um, this is an expansion of illegal fireworks.

Uh, right now the city um has a uh prohibition on certain types of fireworks, and this is a working group with state legislators that have been working on ways to expand that prohibition outside of the city of Albuquerque, and also um trying to think through how to do social host ordinances so that it would be easier for ATD and AFR to cite folks for illegal fireworks use within the city.

Councilor Sanchez, it also says possession.

So if somebody's driving from one state to another and they have and they happen to get stopped or pulled over, how does that affect um an individual who's driving from one state to the other or even across the city limits?

Councilor People Corn.

Madam President, possession of the illegal fireworks is already prohibited in the name of illegal fireworks.

Any other questions, Councilor Sanchez?

Yes, so a truck or anybody transporting fireworks is that's 100% illegal, and and that's what we're looking at.

If you can't, I mean, there's there's many of many semi-trucks and that drive through our state, um, transporting commerce from one state to another.

Um, so that's also covering them as well.

Madam President, that is the existing situation in the city of Albuquerque.

This amendment is to add to my district seven legislative requests for social host ordinance so that we could further expand the ways in which APD and AFR could enforce our prohibition on illegal fireworks in the city of Albuquerque.

Madam Vice President.

Um, thank you, Madam President.

So the way I read this, though, it doesn't say illegal, it says uh restrict fireworks statewide, and then you amended to say amend state law to expand firework restrictions statewide.

It doesn't say illegal fireworks.

So is that just implied as part of this language within the state law?

Madam President, yes, this is a working group that has been set up by uh Representative Dixon and several of the counselors have been attending as well, and this is the work that they are working on to say um ways that we could reduce the amount of illegal fireworks that are being used in Albuquerque, and one of the problems with that is that there are easily accessible illegal fireworks outside of the city of Albuquerque because they are not illegal outside of the city, and so they are looking at ways to further the restrictions outside of Albuquerque throughout the state of New Mexico, so that we would have fewer illegal fireworks being used in the city of Albuquerque.

Thank you.

Any other questions, counselors?

Can Councilor Grapp.

Thank you, Madam President.

What is a social host ordinance?

Madam President, social host ordinance is a way that we would be able to set up if it was allowed under state law that would allow AFR and RAPD to cite based on actual use of fireworks on your premises.

Right now, one of the biggest problems with citing someone for illegal fireworks use is that we have to have an AFR person kind of standing there seeing this happen in real time, and it's a criminal uh offense now.

So the idea would be to change it to a civil citation, like we've done on several other things, including animal welfare um citations, and then have it where we could use drones or other drive, you know, somebody could be driving by and see if fireworks, an illegal fireworks set off in your on your property, and that would be sufficient for a social host ordinance to have a citation against the owner of that property.

Councilor Grout.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

What if the person is renting the house?

Madam President, that is all going to be dealt with in the state legislation.

Again, this is not city legislation, this is our state request, but there are certainly mechanisms for determining who is in control of the property at the time that the firework is set off.

Thank you.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

I will just add that I mean I love fireworks, but I also really like our laws, and so I I can understand some of the concern for it.

However, I do know that there's several other things that end up in this legislative priorities packet that I don't always agree with, and I don't even I'm not even saying I don't necessarily agree with this.

I just uh think that for district specific stuff, there's I mean this is kind of how we roll in our big giant legislative asks booklet that gets provided every year.

Counselor Peoplecorn to close.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, you know, I don't think it's any secret that I think that the big giant legislative book that we provide the last two years that has no um citywide priorities makes any sense at all.

And uh I would oppose the use of that in the future, but the reality is that this is a district seven legislative request, it's gonna be a district seven legislative request no matter what this body does, and I don't think that we want to set a precedent of engaging in knocking out other counselors' legislative requests for their district.

And I don't think that we want to set a precedent of engaging in knocking out other counselors' legislative requests for their district.

With that, I erge your support.

Councillors, the motion is for amendment number five to OC 51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Councilor Baca, amendment number six.

Thank you, Madam President.

Fire station six improvements, funding to acquire property plan, design, construct, and equip the renovation, updating, expansion of fire station six in Albuquerque's North Valley to meet current fire service needs.

This requests funding to renovate and expand an outdated and undersized firehouse in Albuquerque's North Valley that serves the North Valley and parts of the Northwest Mesa and Northeast Heights.

There's a motion and a second by Councilor People Corn.

Any additional questions or comments?

Your support.

The motion is for amendment number six to OC 51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Amendment number seven, Councilor Grout.

Madam President, floor amendment number seven.

Um I would like to in Council District 9 capital outlay requests.

I would like to update the metropolitan redevelopment bond tax abatement financial incentives.

Increase metropolitan redevelopment bond timeline terms to further the ability to use MRI MRA bonds to meet state housing milestones and MR uh areas.

We all know we need to create incentives or we need more housing.

Um so we need to create incentives for affordable housing and increase the length of the tax abatement for housing development in MR areas.

Um it is a great way to do that.

Um this will ask the state to allow us to lengthen the tax abatement.

That council will still decide when and where and for how long that abatement should last.

And I do urge your support.

There's a motion and a second by Madam Vice President.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

All those in favor of amendment number seven to OC 51, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Amendment number eight, Councilor Pena.

Thank you, Madam President.

This is your microphone, Council Penya.

Sorry.

I think this is on our iPads.

Yeah.

So this is floor amendment number eight to OC 2551.

And what this is is in the attachment for the city council district three capital outlay requests.

Insert the following request.

And I don't know if Councilor Grout or any other counselors want to be a part of this.

I'm doing it as a district three request, but I met with my um the member from the library board, and as you can see, they're all making some wonderful requests to all our state legislators for uh library improvements.

And this councillor Penya, I think this is a different one.

Uh we just need to change it on the screen then is fine.

Yeah, if you can change it to the case.

But I would like to make sure that we have the the library one on the board then.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I can see it on my phone, but I can't see it that far away.

That's okay.

It was the tower was okay.

That's okay.

So I'll just continue.

So this um what it says is funding the Albuquerque public library improvements to plan design engineer acquire right-of-way construct equipped improvements to the Albuquerque public libraries.

And speaking with the member, obviously they're asking for the um HVAC system, but we thought to make it more general so that if they um were able to secure more than the um money necessary to do the HVAC, they had additional money to improve our libraries here in the city of Albuquerque.

So the explanation is request funding to improve public libraries in Albuquerque.

Um there's a motion for amendment number eight.

Uh is there a second?

I'll second from lots of people.

Can I can I also be on that?

Councillor Councillor Grout would like to be added as a sponsor.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

Counselor Pena to close.

I heard your support.

All those in favor of amendment number eight to OC 51, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes, anyone opposed that passes unanimously.

Councilor Pena, number nine.

Thank you, Madam President.

So amendment Council Penya, your microphone.

Darn it.

Um floor amendment number nine is in the attachment to the city council district three capital outlay requests.

Insert the following funding for tower road improvements, plan design, engineer, acquire, right-of-way, construct, um, equip all the general um subtitles just to be able to try to get um improvements, um, basic infrastructure to uh tower road, as you know.

I have a few roads in there, like um, I think there's Sage and Blake, but this is another one, and this requests um request funding to improve Tower Road in Albuquerque Southwest Mesa to build out a heavily used um collector street to improve traffic flow, and I move a due pass.

And this is actually something that the community has been working on, and they've been able to secure money from the state legislature the past two years, and they're gonna continue to seek the money.

There's a motion and a second by councilor grout.

Any questions or comments?

Moving on to so amendment number nine, OC51.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Counselors, any other amendments?

All right, we are back on OC 51 as amended multiple times.

Any questions or comments or anything to add, counselors?

Councilor Grout to close.

I urge your support.

The motion is for OC51 as amended.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Moving on to EC 493, Councilor Grout.

Madam President, EC 493 is the 2026 administrative legislative request.

I move a receipt be noted.

There's a motion and a second by counselor rogers.

Uh let's go ahead and go to public comment and then we'll move on to discussion.

Thank you, Madam President.

We have Adale Rose Bennett Herrick, which I think is not present, followed by James Shanley.

James Shanley.

Madam President, counselors.

Uh I I realize that what is involved here is largely a formality, but in uh in reviewing the what you are acknowledging receipt of, there is some cause for alarm, particularly with respect to uh the homeless initiatives and having listened to some of you over the past several months at various times, seem to express a little frustration about the transparency and accountability of some of the things that are happening in our city.

When I read our immediate focus is to enhance and expand our existing support services.

I see a giant deja vu printed over this page.

And I whether it's possible or not, I would like to urge that council proactively as these things take shape, uh, scrutinize them closely.

Uh, for example, establishing and supporting micro communities.

I hope that the next micro community will be instead of 194,000 each for the tiny homes that the Santa Fe supplier who can install them for $18,000, functionally identical to what stands today on ZUNI might be considered.

Uh I also hope that uh things like tenants bill of rights and uh zoning changes are not simply going to be a recycling of already failed and rejected strategies that you are not going to have to listen to landlords stand before you and tell you that if you pass something, they're gonna sell their properties and stop making them available to renters.

Um I guess in in summary, I I just hope that given the lack of effectiveness about with so much of what has been spent over the past seven years that you will hold the city accountable for a higher standard of execution so that the people who are suffering the consequences uh can uh actually get some remedy.

Thank you very much.

Madam President, that concludes comment.

Thank you.

Counselors, we're back on EC 493.

Any questions or comments?

Anything to add from the admin.

Madam President, thank you.

I just uh want to point out that we did in our IGR committee, go through this and to ensure that we complied with our ordinance, obviously sending it forward for uh as an executive communication.

Uh just to point out that we have three priority areas identified in our capital program, housing and homelessness, um, public safety and quality of life, um, which has been consistent uh both last year and this year.

And then, of course, we have our Metro Crime Initiative for policy priorities as well as our metro homelessness initiatives and our pedestrian and bicle bicycle safety uh priorities uh related to policy and legislation.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, and back to counselor grout to close.

I urge your support.

The motion is for a receipt noted of EC493.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

We are on final actions.

Counselor Baca, 083 by request.

Thank you, Madam President.

083, repealing chapter 14, Article 5, Part 1 and Part 2, the flood hazard and drainage ordinances, adopting a new flood damage prevention ordinance in its place and amending the title of chapter 14.

I move a due pass.

There's a motion and a second by Counselor Rogers.

Counselor Baca, did you want to open?

Sure.

Thank you, Madam President.

The ordinance was drafted to comply with the recommendations made by FEMA after that agency's most recent review of the city's floodplain program.

The City of Albuquerque is FEMA's designated floodplain manager for Bonaleo County.

West of the mountains, every five years, FEMA reviews the city's floodplain management program.

And following the most recent review, requested changes to the floodplain and drainage ordinance.

I urge everyone's support.

Counselors, before we go to that, as a close any questions or comments.

And I do see that we did have one person signed up to speak, but it doesn't look like Mr.

Artist is here tonight.

So with that, the motion is for 083.

Do pass.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

Counselors Rogers Grout and Baca, R180.

Thank you, Madam President.

R 180 is appropriating funds to serve individuals experiencing substance abuse disorder.

Use disorder.

I move a due pass.

There's a motion.

Is there a second?

There's a second by Councillor Grout.

Counselors to open.

Thank you, Madam President.

So this is an appropriation for from our opioid settlement dollars.

And it would be to expand the program that we already have currently in ACS for specifically opioid outreach.

And what's exciting about this is it's in the plan that we talked about, we got a presentation from about from the LGCC and the plan that we put together on how to spend opioid settlement dollars.

We really talked a lot about expanding current programs that had good outcomes.

And I'm really excited because this program is absolutely that in ACS.

We heard a little bit about it before from our director Jody Escobel.

And really this particular appropriation touches on three different recommendations that we got from Vital Strategies and would allow us to expand the program that we have in ACS.

And so I urge your support.

Before we go to an urging, let's go to the public comment.

I always hate that part because I don't want people to think we're done.

But I know that we have some public comment.

Thank you, Madam President.

Janice Herrera, followed by Tad Namitsky.

I'm speaking now as a health promotion specialist at the Health Equity Council.

In my role there, I facilitated surveys and focus groups about the spending money with opio people with opioid use disorder and their families.

I also centered these voices at the listening sessions and town halls that were hosted by Vital Strategies.

A couple notes.

The data that Ellen Braden compiled on spending of the opioid settlement funds to date is really informative.

And I would like to remind the council that members of the public have repeatedly asked for an online dashboard tool to track those spending funds in real time and look at incoming projected funds.

I do hope to see this still.

While I'm excited about the statistics shared in R25180 about the success of ACS outreach navigators and getting clients placed into housing, and would definitely like to see this program grow.

I do wonder how the addition of new staff and voucher funding will prioritize specifically people with opioid use disorder.

And make new housing programs low barrier to entry for those folks.

Well, I would love to see everyone get a voucher across the city.

Opioid settlement funds in specific were granted in acknowledgement of the deaths and sickness that rippled through our community because of opioids and pharmaceuticals.

Funding must have ways to prioritize those most directly impacted, please.

Also, for those unaware, hotel vouchers have upper limit caps on room rates, and that is why every year people in poverty are pushed out to the streets during balloon fiesta.

I commented years previously about picking up an elder in a wheelchair whose heading home voucher ended from the hotel curb for that reason.

Um so you know, as we look at vouchers, how can we solve that and write it into the contracts as well?

Thank you.

Tad Numinsky, followed by Lindsay Fox.

Would you give me overhead again?

Okay, let's go back to topic.

Here is I'm gonna file with city clerk office through public records examination.

That's what I did mention last meeting.

How many people leaving of support?

And how many sources of go to those programs program all together?

Now what I can finish, that's it, highlighted.

Roger, Radio, Louis, Louise, Basana, Basana, Philbert.

Those are hiding.

Legislation hiding inside of consent agenda, public not allow anything.

That is ridiculous.

Well, then the loyalists don't worry about talking job on the highway.

State gets plenty, plenty takes money from refinery from running all these.

So that is how about casino in and so on.

So anyway, that's what I want it.

Bring that to attention.

You don't have to live.

Thank you.

Lindsay Fox.

Good evening, Council President, Counselors.

I'm Lindsay Fox, and I'm the director for the Center of Inclusive Health at University of New Mexico, and you may know us also as the mobile medical team, the street medicine team.

And I'm speaking today in support of this bill as over the last three years that we've partnered with ACS.

We've made incredible strides in providing health care directly to those folks on the street, in particular opioid use disorder, as well as a whole compendium of mental health diseases.

And you know, strategizing with Director Escavelle and other members on the team and actually working and embedded with ACS.

We've really made great strides in bringing specifically opiate use disorder treatment, Suboxone to those on the streets, but also helping them with mental health and other chronically chronic and acute medical illnesses.

And we think that by taking this to the next level, we'll be able to reach more people.

We're limited by staff but also funding, and we hope to expand our services across more of the areas of the cities because right now we're sort of concentrated in areas of high acuity, high utilization that are identified by our ACS partners.

So I'm here to answer any questions, but also just want to give my support because as a provider on the street who sat on the curb with folks struggling with substance use disorder.

I've really been able to see the synchronicity that ACS navigators, their capacity along with our teams can really affect change in our constituents and our neighbors.

Thanks.

Madam President, that concludes comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Baca.

Thank you, Madam President.

Just want to uh, you know, I think about a week, week and a half ago, Councillor Champagne and I um joined Director Esquivale at uh the Rocket Noon Day at one of the pop-up events, and uh Director Fox was was there with her team working.

And uh so a very big thank you to to Director Fox and and what what they're doing out there.

Um they're they're really helping.

They're boots on the ground, have it in effect right then and there.

Um, and not just there, I I see them when I walk home pretty regularly.

So thank you.

Um excuse me.

So all that said, you know, ACS is is not only improving, but they are they're getting better and better.

Um they have a track record and they're keeping stats, and you can actually see the difference that's being made.

Um absolutely fantastic work, needed work, important work, and so I urge everyone's support on this.

Thank you.

Councilor Grout.

Thank you, Madam President.

I too see the great work that um Dr.

Fox and her outreach team does.

They visit a property in my district where they serve a community of folks that need help.

But they're see they're getting great services and great help and we're seeing them go back into the community working like the people that they're serving they're now able to function go to go to services get treatment but they're also going back into the workforce and so that's that's a good thing.

So I see I see the great work that she's doing.

I would like to ask Dr.

Escapel to come forth just to give us a little bit more information about what we can expect and what they what they've been able to do so far and what what this is going to help with what they're doing.

Absolutely council president counselors it's an honor to speak to you guys tonight.

Thank you for the opportunity um just a quick snapshot in the first six months uh we've we piloted this kind of idea to have these navigators walk folks through the system um so with two navigators we had 80 individuals served 62 of those individuals are are housed and 84 of those which I think is important are still housed right and that's six months later or so right so we we understand that we are navigating the system in a way that's making a difference and that was just two two folks so we understand that with this system that is working with full full system changes and and support around them that finding stability in the house in the streets finding um them taking resources understanding that that we're here we're we're trying to navigate the barriers that they might be running into taking them to get IDs taking them to appointments regular support and care they're they're able to make those decisions like you had mentioned counselor to to kind of walk through that um we um this isn't in in theory this is in practice um we see this working counselors any other questions or comments counselors now to close just to make sure I didn't miss anything thank you madam president so in closing I just want to speak to a couple of things um specifically the 1.9 is for recovery housing which I'm expressly you know thinking it's fixing a gap another gap that we have we only budget 2000 in HHH for eviction prevention and so I was excited to see a lot of the funding really earmarked for um for housing stability and recovery housing um which is a huge need that we know for folks who you know suffering from substance abuse aren't always unhoused right and folks lose housing and that are faced with that choice to go into treatment or lose housing right because they can't cover those months of rent and be off of work and all of the things to get that treatment so I think we're gonna see more success um by expanding this program and I urge your support thank you the motion is for a due pass to R180 all those in favor raise your hand and say yes yes anyone opposed that passes unanimously counselor grout R195 thank you madam president um our 195 is approving a detailed spending plan for city of Albuquerque New Mexico short term lodgers tax improvement revenue bonds taxable series 2025 I move a due pass there's a motion and a second by council feeble corn council grout grout to open thank you madam president um let's see here uh council approved issuing a one million dollars in lodgers tax bonds a couple meetings ago I believe at that same time we also um passed uh legislation um requesting the um administration to come back with a plan for spending that money and so that this is that plan it includes projects to get ready for the Route 66 centennial such as lighting um banners arts installation and public exhibits um and just uh a matter of note this um funding can only be used for tourism related things and so that's what it's meant for and I urge your support before we go to that we have public comment thank you madam president we have Lisa Christofferson to speak Dr.

Counselors, any questions or comments?

All right, seeing none and with the already the urging, the motion is for a due pass of R195.

All those in favor, raise your hand and say yes.

Yes.

Anyone opposed?

That passes unanimously.

We are moving on.

There is no other business.

Uh admin QA.

Counselors, any questions for the admin?

Counselor Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, something was brought up earlier in the meeting, and I just want some clarification.

I want to know why.

Um, so why is Robinson Park closed?

Mr.

Wayland.

Council President and uh Council Sanchez, we're still rehabbing the the uh the grass has several areas that because of overuse are just completely dead, so we're doing that.

We're working on some of the irrigation and some of the fountain area.

Thank you.

I just was worried that it had to do with balloon fiesta and that uh park is frequented frequented by a lot of homelessness right on uh central avenue.

So thank you for that.

Appreciate it.

Councilor Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um so there's a uh a speeding camera um on well, I guess I won't tell where the location is, so we're really supposed to know, or people, but anyway.

Um it's it shines uh it flashes right into the backyard of a neighbor in in the district, and so and it just it just obviously it goes off at all hours of the night, and you know how you know how bright those are, and it literally just goes right in the back of these this family's house.

And so I guess I would just ask if we could can we work together to see if we can just get that moved uh adjusted.

I think the easiest way we maybe put it across the street or move it down the road a little bit.

Um just just want to see if we can work on that together with you all.

Uh Madam President, Councilor Lewis will absolutely work with you if you have the address of the home that it's shining into that will as helpful in addition to I suspect I know the location, but we'll we'll we can make sure we address that with you to find a rather resolution.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Baca.

Thank you, Madam President.

I uh had some questions for Dr.

Sanchez that I sent early today about the RFP, but I believe she just left.

I saw her here just a little bit ago, but now she might have stepped up to the case.

Madam President, Councillor Baca, I I very likely can answer your questions.

Okay, so first question how many inquiries did we receive to the RFP?

Um Madam President, Councillor Baca, we did receive on the chemo theater.

So it's how many inquiries uh to or responses to the RFP for the chemo theater have been received today.

Is that correct?

Councillor Backa?

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh Madam President, Counselor Baca.

Good thing I knew what you're talking about.

Um we received one response to the chemo theater operating uh operator uh RFP.

Okay, and then my second question um I imagine you under you you were copied on the email for uh from the Lensic and the Somos groups with concerns about the RFP.

Um Madam How do we plan on addressing that or are we all gonna get together?

Uh Madam President, Counselor Backa, because it is a uh public procurement that's open right now with a response.

Um we will go through the process uh related to that response, and and the team will do the appropriate procurement process.

Once that is closed, we'll be able to discuss um uh any other feedback that we may or may not have received related to that.

We don't want to um interfere with the uh procurement public procurement process by ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President.

I have some questions for APD in regards to some of the comments we had during public comment, and I sent this ahead of time in regards to the Jayvon give given case.

Um I've received several phone calls, emails, texts since Friday, um, when the news hit social media, and I just wanted to ask some clarifying questions just to clarify what we're hearing in the community and really just get the facts out there.

Um, and this was a black male um who was um identified as I am sorry to say the words uh now that I've just had to say it out loud, but um DC, right?

Chief of staff chief of staff Hernandez.

Can you just walk us through the facts of this case as far as when APD responded to finding him deceased?

Yes, um president and council uh Rogers, first of all, I want to my thoughts and prayers are for the family.

Um it's always tragedy when a life is lost.

Um we were notified of this obviously last week, but the date of incidents that occurred for um J Bond actually occurred in September of 17th, September 17th of 2024, which was last year.

Thank you.

And so and then it so can you tell me about why we're just hearing about it now and maybe why the family's just hearing about this now?

Madam President, uh Counselor Rogers.

So um how this occurred is um at the date of the incident, um, we were able to identify with Mr.

Um J Bond on September 17th of 2024.

Um, unfortunately, um he was found deceased at that location at 10 um 200 Corralis Road in a vacant um building.

Um during that time, we're attempting to notify alongs with um coordination with uh OMI of the next Akin.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to make contact with anyone.

So fast forward a year later on October 1st, we were notified by Javon's twin sister that she wanted to report him missing.

Um so we started, we did a missing persons, and of course, we had the detective that day, hours later, look into the case, and he would dig in and investigate it and found that he was actually deceased a year before.

So notifications were made that day to um his twin sister of what had occurred.

And unfortunately, you know, obviously getting that news, she was very upset.

Sure, thank you so much for for clearing that up for for us and for the public.

I think a big question that I'm getting is just what was the investigation as far as APD side in if there was foul play or no foul play in regards to his death.

So as I looked into this, um, our standard operating procedure uh 2-21 blaze out the responsibilities of officers along with the uh crime scene investigator of what protocols are to take about unintended death.

So this was an unattended death.

So what occurred is that when the officers arrived on scene, um you did follow protocol and immediately notified a crime scene investigator as well as uh office and medical investigator that responded out to the scene.

The scene was processed.

Um the office of medical investigation revealed that there was no foul play and that it was a suicide.

However, we continue to continue with the process.

The standard procedure is to continue to process the scene.

Um, and of course, OMI took over the investigation.

Um to this date, they have not changed their rolling.

Um, so we have continued, and that's where our investigation had ended.

Thank you so much.

Um I appreciate you taking my call and and kind of helping me unpack this because there was a lot of uh confusion, I think, in the community, um, especially the black community, especially hearing that he was committed suicide by hanging himself.

Um, because for our community that's typically just not usually not the case for us historically, it's not something we do to ourselves.

Um, and so this one was really hard for our community um and to not know that this happened till a year later when his family reached out, but I just wanted to say to community to to his family, um, the city of Albuquerque on behalf of the city and counselors, like we absolutely take these things seriously um and uh work together to make sure we hold our community um as folks you know unpack their feelings around this.

So um just appreciative um for you all working with me to also re-check in with the family and make sure um that they're okay because I think that's my biggest thing is is um just making sure the family feels supported by our city after he finding out this news.

So thank you so much.

Counselor Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President.

Just I have a couple of questions.

Um of the questions that there's two questions, two different subjects.

Um actually there's a few questions, two different subjects.

Um I actually requested I sent over a I just sent over an email, and what I wanted is I wanted uh the administration to provide the number of employees who were moved from unclassified to classified service during the 2025 calendar year to be broken down by date and by month.

And then I also wanted in reference to this conversation employees starting job title department division in the unclassified service, the employees ending job title department and division and the classified service and the date on which the conversion was effective.

Just wanted to and I just wanted to see if that's been sent over to me yet.

Madam President, um Director uh Stoker from HR is here to uh provide some information on that.

Uh good evening, Director.

Good evening, Madam President.

Councillor Sanchez.

I did get your email.

Uh I'm sorry I didn't get back to you in writing yet.

I'm working on compiling a full report with the information you wanted.

Um we need to verify the information so I can probably get that to you by the end of the week.

Um it looks like between 15 and 20 uh employees transitioned from unclassified to classified this year.

There are also some vacant positions that were reclassified, but that's part of what we're working on uh gathering the data for you on.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Let me know when you get it, and uh and I'd like to take a look at it and might have some more questions next meeting.

Thank you.

Okay, another subject.

Um Ms.

Keefe, I've actually sent over a document to you as well.

And in that document, I was one I was requesting some information as well.

And um what I was requesting was the amount of whistleblower lawsuits that have entered your office in the last um eight years.

Um Councillor President, Council Sanchez, I apologize.

I will get that to you.

Um I will talk to risk management and get that to you.

Thank you.

By when would you have that, please?

Um I I will have to call risk management.

I I don't think it's something that will take them very long, but I'll have to check.

Okay, so when did you receive my email?

I'm not sure.

So if it's not that long, I just did you ignore my email or were you I'm not sure I remember seeing your email, but I will look for it.

So thank you.

Counselors, any other questions or comments?

Uh I will say I have a couple of one comment.

Well, director, I had asked you a while back, um, and this is based off of Counselor Sanchez's comment just now, but per the whistleblower ordinance, which is still being updated, I promise it is coming.

Um, but per the whistleblower ordinance, I think that it says in there we are supposed to have an update, and we had looked into it, but I don't we're supposed to have I think it's an annual update on it, and I don't think we if you remind me if I'm wrong or right, but I don't think we've ever had one.

And so we definitely need to look into that because it is something per the ordinance that we were mentioning.

So I guess for all parties sitting up there, can we please just look into that and figure out how to get it on a calendar so that in perpetuity this can be something that we all get moving forward?

Uh and then my real my other question is regarding our 25188.

This was the acceptance of state funds uh that included the IGAs with the intergovernmental agreements with the state.

There were some deadlines in there, there were some requirements in there.

Um council hasn't necessarily heard back, but I know that I've had discussions.

Uh, Madam CAO, can you please provide everyone an update and reassurance that we are in compliance and also kind of the plans moving forward?

Yes, thank you, Madam President.

Um, I appreciate the discussion that we had so that I could ensure we um met what you were inquiring about.

Um it within the intergovernmental agreement with the state um with uh the secretary of um workforce solutions, Secretary um Sarita Naier, there are um several kind of milestones and and and obligations that we had.

We've discussed previously our obligation to provide uh data to her, um, and that I shared that my intent is also to share that with city council.

Um our intent is actually to share that with the public as as well.

So we are um two weeks into the two programs that currently are operating of reporting data.

We've been doing some refining on that with based upon feedback from Secretary Nair's uh just just some brief feedback and then uh form uh finalizing that um taking out some kinks in that.

But we are working with the University of New Mexico, his who is our reporting partner in this under contract to support us across all of this as indicated within the IGA, and so they've been uh kind of tweaking and finalizing that.

Our intent is to provide for you all a monthly report on the the data so you can see uh four weeks of data at a time and see those trend numbers.

Um as we look at it, it's uh requesting unduplicated head counts.

That's one of the challenges is to making sure that we know who we're counting each week and whether they were counted last week or and and so just being very effective in that.

Uh we will uh also be launching a public dashboard um with the intent of that being live in early October so folks can see the reporting data that's included.

Uh in there, additionally, the IGA included for us to be uh providing fiscal reports uh by the and we'll be able to do that first fiscal report in October, which is the expectation.

We uh re executed, I'm sorry, we routed and ratified all of the contracts once the appropriation occurred here at council.

So those are being uh fully uh completed so that everyone will each one of those contracts will be um uh started and on board and open on time with uh the men's and women's navigation funding will ensure that we have those open October 16th and 17th, and then the young adult, um, as we all know that opening is in February.

We intend for it to be February 1st.

Everyone intends for it to be February 1st.

Uh, keep saying that as my uh meditation mantra at night.

Um we also have um ensured that um the the sorry I've got too far down in mine, I didn't keep up.

Um there were some security requirements, all of that is is fully complete.

Um we are uh ensuring that we can report on the requirements related to trash um pickup or um litter.

We also have our construction is underway that is funded.

There were two capital projects within the funding the Gateway West fund uh project is underway, and the contractor for the roofs at um medical respite is being brought on board now, so we are on time on that.

Um we have begun the integration for our UNITAS data entry, and we have completed the training that was required for all of the providers, so uh met that requirement.

There are additional items, including meeting with them and as well as other um you know in in uh items to include um uh evaluations and access, and we have been able to ensure that we facilitate all of that.

So we will continue to um track maintain and keep our data um uh available and and ensure that we have it accurate by the what's great is when we uh give our first four-week report, it will be the two programs we'll have had four weeks, and then the second four-week report will have all of those programs up and running besides young adult, um, and we'll continue to provide those reports.

Thank you, madam CAO.

So you in addition to the four weeks.

Do I remember that you also said we would have the I mean the best attempt at unduplicated numbers, but then also cumulative numbers as reports keep progressing?

Uh Madam President, yes, that is our goal is that we will have the opportunity to show the cumulative impact of individuals served, but uh both you'll you should be able to see it weekly, monthly, and then the the aggregate.

And then my new question based off of the update is you said that there should be a dashboard in early October, but I'm very skeptical since it's October 6th.

Madam President, um, I feel still very confident that we're gonna be very close to early.

I guess that's a that is a relative uh time frame.

So we're all gonna wake up tomorrow and it'll be there.

I'm just teasing.

Just teasing Madam President, or by the 11th or the 12th, or I will provide you with a more exact date.

Okay.

Counselors, any final questions or comments?

There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Now you can run out the door.

Matthew, now you can run out the door.