The Albuquerque City Council held its 18th meeting of the 27th Council on Monday, September 21, 2026, at 5:00 PM in the Vincent E. Griego Chambers. All nine councilors were present. The meeting covered consent agenda items, financial instruments, multiple zoning appeals, public comments, approvals, and final actions. Notable decisions included approval of an economic development project for No Bull Prime Meats, denial of several digital billboard conversions, and extension of the Main Street Corridor designation.
The meeting adjourned at 8:44 PM.
Now you know, and knowing is out of the battle. Welcome everyone. Today is September 21st, 2026. The 18th meeting of the 27th Council will come to order. All counselors are present this evening. Um, Councillor Teas and Lewis will be joining us shortly. Um, would you please now join us for the pledge and a moment of silence? Thank you all. Um, Vice President Champagne. Madam President. Civic parking passes are provided for members of the public. You can obtain those parking passes from the council staff at the table near the rear of the chambers. 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 Wemadar. Live streams can be accessed from most smartphones, tablets, or computers. Also, this meeting is closed captioned, so you may name enable that 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 505-768-310 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 proceedings to be as civil and respectful as possible. So please do not make any personal attacks and please no applauding or snapping or any other outbursts during the meeting. The president will provide a warning to anyone causing a disruption upon a second or continued disruption. That individual will be asked to leave the chambers, and if necessary, security will escort that person out of the chambers. Such removal from the council chambers will be effective for the remainder of that meeting. If continued disruptions occur, the president may recess the meeting until orders restored, and if necessary, may clear the chambers of persons participating in that disturbance. The meeting will go a lot smoother if we are respectful of one another. And this time we will move to questions for the administration. Councilor Backup. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'd submitted these ahead of time. But if you can start with the, you know, a lot of folks reach out about the uh UNSER party, Uncer property, Hunserville. Um there was of course Larry Barker investigation. Uh so I just wanted to get update on that. I told folks I would ask that question uh so you could tell us how that what went on there and where the funding came from and so forth. Thank you. Uh Madam President, Counselor Baca. Um it's interesting because this all came around the first year I was here at the city, and um uh it transpired over uh that time period. I'll just give you a quick background, which was in the city's 2023 bond program. We had an item under library, museum and cultural facilities bonds that was identified for the Unsor Mew Museum at four million dollars. It was a project description authorizing the planning, design, acquisition, repair, renovation, construction, improvements to museum buildings and grounds, exhibitions, equipment, collections, and related work. Um it was also included in our infrastructure capital improvement plan for FY27 to FY2027 to FY20231. Um, and it identifies UNZOR Museum as a priority in our ICIP. Um the Department of Arts and Culture purchased the historic Unzar Family property on Central and UNSER Boulevard in May of 2025. Um we announced that in in May publicly um did a public uh press release, and then we had our very first planning session with public input in June of 2025. So we kicked off public input and meeting and uh allowing folks to participate in the design and thinking through this particular piece of property is a great piece of property for us as a city to think about how we can revitalize a specific area of our community to ensure that both it's in a uh metropolitan redevelopment um area as well as being across kind of across the street, cutting corner from our library and uh down the street from the um Nuevo Trisco project with the MRA there gives us an opportunity with four acres to think about how to uh reimagine possibilities in that on that corner that had been sitting um undeveloped and and uh for some time. It's a exciting project in the sense that we have a master plan underway.