The El Paso City Council held a work session on Monday, February 24, 2025, at 9:44 AM in Council Chambers. Mayor Renard U. Johnson presided. The session featured annual reports from three economic development partners (Project ARRIBA, STTE Foundation, and the Medical Center of the Americas), an overview of the Economic and International Development Department, and a presentation on the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). The council also deliberated in executive session on several legal and economic development matters, returning to open session to take votes on six items.
The meeting adjourned at 4:18 PM.
$815 and no cash matches required. The City of El Paso police department has received this grant since 20 2009 for the last 16 years. The grant period will be from March 1st, 2025 to February 28, 2026. And funding for this will be used for extra duty hours for law enforcement operations targeting trafficking organizations involving drug smuggling, trafficking, and contraband of uh money weapons in our jurisdiction. Funding will also cover for the salary of our county clerk that helped us administer this grant. All right, any questions? Representative Canales. Thank you, Mayor. Um I'm looking at the backup for this item this year uh compared to last year's. Uh this year just has the agenda summary form in the resolution. Uh in previous I definitely last year I'm looking at it, but in previous years I recall seeing the full uh information for the grant application. Um it had like the full narrative information, it has uh the project activities, the measures, is that something that can be included for this year so we can see what it is that we're submitting and precisely what we'll be asking for. Yes, sir. I apologize if that wasn't included, but we can give you the the whole plan uh application, make sure that we get it. Okay, yeah, if we can have that before tomorrow, that'd be that'd be great. And then I'd ask that we move this to the regular agenda for tomorrow, please. Okay, representative Limon. I just have a question for you, so that I will fully understand when we use this terminology. Um how is it determined that El Paso is one of the nation's top safest city? What parameters are used to make that designation? I know I I'm sorry, I know we used to be proclaimed El Paso was designated the safest city. How is that done? Is it still done, and what's the procedure for that? Chief Pacias, good morning. Good morning, uh Mayor Council. Uh we need to stick an oldest thing out. Um back in the day that we used to use Quinlan Press, they were the ones that did it across the nation. Um there. Uh, since uh the council of mayors got together with uh some other organizations, they have done away with the Quinlan Press. So there's several other uh entities that do it. They use a lot of parameters, you know, quality of life, housing markets, things of that nature. So what we're trying to determine, we're gonna be picking basically one uh of those organizations that we think is is best uh as a city as a whole working with all our other departments within the city since they're using so many other parameters, economic development, uh like I said, housing costs, things of that nature, and then the crime issue. But that's that's how we're looking at going forward with this. And you'll be make you'll be making a selection between one of those organizations, or do you take from each one? No, ma'am. There's so many out there now that look at so many different varieties on that. When back in the day when Quinlan Press was doing that, um, we were one of the safest cities of over 500,000 in population. Now that it looks like a lot of these organizations that are on the internet are basically looking at just any city and not really have any parameters as to populations and all the other uh uh demographics can that can affect small and large communities. Okay, but my question, Chief, is what are we using to make our determination? Yes, we're still evaluating what you want to do. Okay, I am sorry, I you did say that. I apologize. And you'll let us know once that decision is made. So that as we reference or as we state El Paso is the safest city, that we can back it up with where it's coming from rather than just arbitrarily designating our city, which I think is a great honor, but that we have something to back it up with. Yes, Ram Warner, we're not gonna mislead. We have to use data to go across the nation and compare us to cities that are relevant to us. Thank you very much, Chief. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chief.