Good morning, everyone, and I hope everyone had a wonderful blessed Thanksgiving.

It's good to be back.

Ms.

Brian, I think we're ready to go.

Yes, Mayor, good morning.

This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, December 1st, 2025.

It is 901 a.m.

Mayor Johnson is president and presiding in Council Chambers, along with Mayor Pro Tim Chavez, Representative Madonado Rocha, Representative Limon, Representative Canales, Representative Nino, and Representative Borietre Juice running a few minutes late.

Mayor, we have a quarter.

All right.

Fantastic.

Representative Russia, would you lead us in the pledge, please?

The United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God in the NISP with liberty and justice for all.

And that brings us to item number one, and this is a presentation by Warren Godell, Executive Director of the Kelly Center for Hunger Relief on the impacts of hunger and food insecurity in El Paso.

Fantastic.

Good morning, Warren.

Good morning, Mr.

Mayor, Councilman, Councilwoman.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Having been a member of a school board and run for office in the past, I understand the fortitude that is necessary to deal with the whole process of running and then serving, and I greatly appreciate your energy and your efforts on behalf of the city of El Paso.

Thank you.

And IT will bring up that presentation.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I'd like to give you really just a high level overview on food insecurity in our community and its impact.

Kelly Center for Hunger Relief is a nonprofit that is trying to serve El Pasoans and help them address hunger and food insecurity in our community.

Food insecurity is an official term of the USDA.

It's been studied for 40 years until recently when the government discontinued their annual surveys of this.

Texas, as you can see by the slide, it has more food insecurity than any other state.

The line of people you see there is what I walk into every morning when I come to work.

That's Tuesday through Saturday.

These are the numbers.

This is 2023, 2024 numbers.

They come from studies by a team of researchers at UTEP.

They have taken the first look, real look at food insecurity in El Paso that we can find has ever been done.

In the past, these numbers come from interpretations or of annual excuse me, of census work, but the 35% you see there, food insecurity in El Paso was actual surveys done by UTEP of the El Paso County population.

The United Way looks at it a little differently.

They take a basket of cost of living every year, and they measure that against census data of where our population sits.

There, households that live at or below poverty, when you can see those numbers for El Paso.

And what they call Alice households.

These are people that are working but not making enough to be self-sufficient.

If you look at that those numbers, if you add up the households living at or below poverty, plus those who are working but not making sufficient money to be self sufficient, that number for El Paso is 53%.

That's one in two of our neighbors are not making enough money to be self-sufficient, and they need some sort of help at some time during the year.

That's a lot.

It's a big number.

Now, that's a range.

So if you're at the top of that range, you're making almost enough money to be self-sufficient.

You don't generally think of yourself as food insecure.

So that's one of the reasons why the food insecurity rate is at 35%, as opposed to the self-sufficiency rate, which is at about 53% or the lack of self-sufficiency.

Ironically, a lot of people who answered the survey of food insecurity didn't feel they were food insecure because they go to Kelly or the food bank for food.

So they're getting food, they need food, they need help, but they don't consider themselves as food insecure.

Now the impacts of hunger are well studied over many years.

I won't belabor it, but it has mental health, physical health, well-being, school and work suffers.

There's all sorts of ways in which food insecurity is a drag on our economy and our life.

And part of Kelly's work has been to try and determine the return on investment for trying to deal with the issues of food insecurity and hunger.

So the first study that you saw, the rate of food insecurity comes from UTEP.

It was our attempt to try and figure out what's the scope of the problem we're dealing with in our community.

The second step is working with Dr.

Tom Fullerton at UTEP to try and figure out what is the economic impact of food insecurity in our committee in our community.

And these are the numbers he came up with on his survey, his research.

Now please look at that percentage on the bottom.

That's per that's the average percent of personal income that goes to deal in our community every year with the impacts of hunger and food insecurity.

That number, almost 2%, is usually for social determinants, you're usually looking at 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 in terms of percent of per capita income.

2% is a very very large number.

Now I took a look at the number of households that Kelly served through our pantry in 2024 and took a look at how those households divided up on city council districts.

This was done by Zipcode.

Um it's a you know, it's the best we can do, it's approximate, it's not you know exact numbers, but it gives you a sense.

Now, this is just Kelly.

This is not all the food pantries.

We are the largest independent food pantry.

The food bank has its own food pantry, which is about a third larger than Kelly.

We deal primarily with central, we're the partner for the food bank and distributing food for central El Paso region.

And then this I wanted to show this to you.

It's the households that Kelly serves on a monthly basis over the past three years.

Please note that the chart on the lower end begins at 12,000 and goes up to 20,000.

If we were to present this in a more realistic chart with the chart starting at two at zero rather than 12,000, those lines would be pretty much indistinguishable.

It's a flat service over the past three years.

There's not a lot been a lot of variation in terms of the number of households that are coming to Kelly.

There's a lot of confusion over whether Kelly is a food bank or what.

We are a center for hunger relief.

The region has one food bank, it's the El Pasoans fighting hunger.

They are a trucking company, they're a warehousing firm, they're a distribution firm, they're a logistics center, and they do offer some social services to the people who are suffering from food insecurity and hunger in our community.

Now Kelly's a little different.

We are a food pantry, that is our DNA.

If you're hungry, come to Kelly, we'll give you a fish, go home and eat.

But we're also a Fresh Start program, which is kind of the core of our work in this community.

Fresh Start is all about helping individuals who don't want to be on that food line develop self-sufficiency and economic mobility.

We're trying to solve the problem of having so many people on our food line.

This program is basically you're hungry, let us teach you how to fish, let us teach you where to fish, let us teach you how to get to your fishing spot, let us teach you how to cook the fish, how to clean the fish, what kind of lures to you?

Is it's all the messy things that go into helping people overcome the things that are keeping them from being self-sufficient and very positive members of our community, positive in the sense of economic development.

That fresh start program is about 10 years old.

It's been funded partially by the Paso de Norte Health Foundation.

The initiative that has been funding it over the past decade has been discontinued by the foundation, and this program, the funding for this program will end in July of 2024.

Kelly funds about a half of the cost through charitable donations, and the Paso de Norte Health Foundation has funded the other half.

Now, in addition to the pantry and our Fresh Start program, we have a relationship with a farm in Anthony, New Mexico.

Basically grows the food, the fish.

So we distribute over 100,000 pounds of fresh produce every year that is grown and delivered to Kelly by the Jardin de Malagros farm.

We also have institute of closed closet.

The original reason for opening a closed closet was to provide clothes for people who are going to interviews and for jobs.

We wanted them to have good clothes so that they could make a good impression on the interviews.

What we found out is the demand for clothes is overwhelming in our community.

We've been distributing thousands and thousands of items of clothing every month to our community.

The line out the door every other Tuesday morning is as big as our food pantry line.

It's really eye-opening.

We also do research, the research I've talked with you about this morning, the rate of food insecurity, and the cost of the hunger and food insecurity to our community.

That's really the return on investment for our donors to invest in our work.

It's how we're trying to make the problem go away.

And we also do advocacy where we can to try and help change some of the rules that determine how people can access food or not access food, the safety support nets, etc.

But we're primarily about our pantry, our Fresh Start program.

Fresh Start is got a small staff, there's five staff, I guess, all together, but we leverage about a dozen student interns from colleges and from about 12 different colleges and universities around the country that are doing their internships in El Paso.

I always try and ask the people I'm presenting to why are so many El Pasuans food insecure?

And that's a discussion I hope that you'll have with me someday when you stop by Kelly and take a firsthand look at our work.

Why?

How did we get here?

I think that's important for us to figure out and understand.

But more importantly, what can we do now so that in 25 years, I'm not standing here presenting to you guys saying we have 35% rate of food insecurity in El Paso?

What can we do?

And how would this changing this?

If we could say reduce that 35% to the national average of 12%, what would that mean for the economic vitality of El Paso?

What would it mean to have all those people adding taxes instead of taking through social services through health care through a lack of educational attainment?

Just think of the vibrancy that we could add to this community.

So I I usually kind of sum up by having you look at that line of people again and asking you where would you rather see those people in line at Kelly in the morning?

Or at Target at UTEP at the ballpark at the museums.

Where do you want to see that that line of people and how do we get them off that line and into the stores, into the workforce, into the life of our community as more active and productive citizens?

Kelly's model is more than food.

Um we are our food pantry provides us with a gateway and a hub for support of individuals trying to become self-sufficient.

We collaborate with about 50 other nonprofits around town to try and target support where it's most needed and most effective.

Um we provide that hub and that sort of a partner to our clients to help them navigate the system and uh follow through on opportunities.

And I wanted to show you this boot because it's kind of become the symbol for me for Kelly.

When we first opened the food pantry, the half of the building that or the closed closet rather, the half of the building that people come into to go upstairs and look at clothes was jammed full of people.

And I'm sitting in my office on the other side, and I hear this little girl crying at the top of her lungs.

Mommy, mommy, mommy.

And the mother, you gotta walk over there.

What's going on?

What's the problem?

And the mother sits the little girl down and she says, Honey, what's the problem?

Why are you so angry?

And this little girl looks up at her mom with these big wet eyes, and she goes, I want boots.

And everything in that little girl's life was tied up in the uh possibility of her getting a pair of boots.

You could tell, I mean, if you if you've been around kids, you know they get focused on things that it's really hard to get them off that focus.

This little girl was focused on boots.

One of my staff members members went upstairs, like I say, is just as we're opening this this clothes closet.

We had probably six pairs of shoes in the place, but she found a pair of boots up there in this little girl's size.

She brought them down, sat the girl down, the little girl puts these boots on her eyes, they're as big as saucers.

She gets up and she starts strutting around.

She is the happiest little girl in the whole world.

And that switch in her mind that flipped.

That's what Kelly's all about.

People come to Kelly and they are upset.

And if we can give them hope, if we can give them help, if we can give them self-sufficiency, that switch flips, and they start walking around feeling good about themselves.

That little girl, she could do anything she wanted that day.

There was nothing that was beyond her.

And that's kind of why we do what we do.

And I've tried to explain a little bit about what we do.

And I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have and continue this discussion one-on-one or in group at any point in the future.

Thank you.

Warren, thank you so much for the the presentation and those some of those numbers are certainly alarming.

I'm gonna turn it over to Representative Canals, but I do have some questions when he's done.

Representative?

And for the record, Representative Acevedo joined the meeting at 903, Representative Fierro and 907, and Representative Thanco at 913.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you, Warren.

I think you know, I I've seen this presentation many times now, and it's no less alarming uh to see at this time.

Um, you know, and and over the past few years, the numbers have stayed relatively constant, as you said.

So we we haven't seen a reduction of the of the problem that really was exacerbated by the pandemic, but has existed for quite a long time.

And those figures are 2023 and 2024, excuse me, 22 and 23, so they do not reflect the current economic environment.

Right.

Um and I guess for full disclosure, I I'm on the board at Kelly um and you know, we we have these discussions quite often, and and I thought it was important for Warren to come present to the council um so that the we all and the public could have a better understanding of what the food insecurity situation looks like in El Paso and um you know start to think about ways that we might look to address it as a community.

So um thank you again, Warren, for coming.

I as as Warren did, I'll I'll say I invite the rest of the council.

If you ever have uh a free morning, or if you can make a free morning, please join uh Warren at Kelly and I'll join you there too.

Uh it's it's really uh I I don't know if it's we we talk about this a lot, disheartening or or heartening to see the line at Kelly, right?

It's it's a lot of people who need assistance, but it's a lot of people who are getting assistance through uh the hard work of people at Kelly and the generosity of the community, and so um it's I think it's it's worthwhile for everybody to come see it for themselves.

And thank you.

And I appreciate your time that you've taken, Mr.

Mayor.

Um Chavez, uh, thank you for having come by and been a volunteer there.

It's different when you go and you're looking these people in the eyes as they go through the line and getting a sense for who they are.

And half the time you'll get cursed out because you don't have in front of you to give to them what they want, and the other half of the time they're going, God bless you for being here and doing this, thank you so very much.

And it's everything in between when you're providing this kind of service.

But I do encourage you wherever you can to get out.

It's a great chance to see your constituents and to get a better sense of who they are and how they're feeling.

I am firmly convinced that food insecurity is the greatest drag to our community's economic development.

If we could have these people out there being self-sufficient and contributing to the economy as opposed to taking from the economy, it would make a huge difference to the people who want to bring their companies to town, the people who just want to come and stay here instead of leaving and going someplace else.

So I really do equate food insecurity and the addressing that with economic development in our community.

And just uh one last word, and that's it's easy, it's just a five-block walk up the road here.

Um so as I said, any time anyone wants to come uh visit.

I'll I'll either walk up there with you or we we can meet up at Kelly and uh happy to do a morning shift with you.

So uh can you can you talk one just for one more second, Warren, about like when when are you uh when are you serving food through the pantry and what what's available at what times at Kelly?

Yeah, the pantry is open Tuesday through Friday from nine until two, and on Saturdays from nine until noon.

The uh fresh start program is pretty much Monday through Saturday.

Um our closed closet is every other Tuesday.

The alternating Tuesdays, we partner with the guiding star uh nonprofit to do diaper banks for our clients, and we have kids and families in there getting diapers, getting um formula, getting um clothes, getting um parenting classes, just whatever we can do to help them be more um secure families.

We also run probably 12 or 13 times a year, different kinds of fairs.

So we'll have health fairs, job fairs, resource fairs, love yourself fairs on Valentine's Day, love your colon fairs when Texas Tech wants to come out and talk about the health of your colon and all sorts of other fairs that try and bring people together to offer services to our community.

And last question here.

If you're an individual or you have a group that wants to volunteer at Kelly, what what should you do?

Come on by.

We'll put you to work.

Um we started measuring volunteer time and hours um last year in May, and we are currently on track to um have 2,250 volunteer individuals volunteer at Kelly this year.

We we depend on those volunteers for our services to the community.

All right.

Thank you again, Warren, for being here.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Warren, thank you again for all the great work that you're doing there.

Uh and again, I've been out there several times and and have donated and also have seen the the clothing store upstairs and and everything that you're doing.

Uh and Representative Canales, thank you for putting this on the agenda to keep it at uh at uh the awareness high that you're doing.

I do have a couple questions, Warren.

Yes, um you know, this is not a badge of honor.

You know, I'm looking at the food insecurity rates for the the U.S.

Texas, and then where El Paso sits.

I mean, our numbers are startling uh to say the least.

So what can we do better as a community?

Is it is it more civic community engagement and how do we reduce the stigma?

What can El Paso do better to really make a dent into that number?

I think the first thing that you can do is to give visibility and acknowledgement to the fact that we have a problem.

I think that's the first and most basic thing.

I don't think that there's anything in your budget for the coming year that addresses food insecurity at any level.

From my perspective, serving the people through our pantry line is not solving the problem.

Okay.

It's helping, it's helping to keep people from being hungry, but it's not addressing the reason that they're hungry or reducing their need for assistance in the future.

So I would think that as a council, you might want to give some thought to what information do you need to figure out solutions to the problem rather than looking at how can you put money into just band-aid overing the existing problem.

What what got us here?

Okay.

So a decade, excuse me, 50, 60 years ago, there was guys in a back room, and it was mostly guys back there, that made a decision to market El Paso as the place you could come for the lowest wage workers in the country.

That was a strategic initiative of the city.

And that has had an impact.

I mean, it really has impacted generations of El Pasuans who are not making enough money to be self-sufficient.

If you come and volunteer and ask people who go through the line, are you working?

You'll find that most of them are working and working more than one job.

They just don't earn enough.

So when you compound that with at the same time in the 50s and 60s, the redlining going on that forced all the immigrant community to live in the segundo barrio and attend their children attend schools that were receiving little or no support from the El Paso public school system.

You can see where there's some systemic racism going into the issues that created this problem.

I think University of El Paso has done an incredibly impactful thing that probably will have more of an impact on this problem long term than anything else I can think of, and that's their paid dirt peat scholarship program where kids from any economic background can go to school and go to college.

Now, if we can only get our kids better prepared to go to college, that would also have an impact.

But I think trying to think about how we got here may help you trying to think about what kinds of things we can do going forward that can change the environment.

Um minimum wage as the solution.

It I think is a necessary piece of our world to have a minimum wage, but the more you increase the minimum wage, the more you increase costs in the community.

So it's a it's it kind of balances out in an unproductive way.

But you know, I think the other reality that I face daily is that you can really divide the people on our food line into three different segments.

You've got about a third of them, maybe a little more, who are senior citizens.

They don't have the capacity to go out and earn more money and become economically mobile and self-sufficient.

They are just because of where they are at their age and place in this world, reliant on places like Kelly food pantry, the food bank food pantry, just for survival.

So 27,000 households came to Kelly last year.

That's unique households.

The average household came to Kelly seven times during that year.

They could have come 52.

Those people aren't there because there's free food.

They're there because they need help.

And that's a that's a startling number that only they only come seven times on average.

And then you've got a number of people who reflect the direct correlation between hunger, food insecurity, and mental health.

People who have mental health issues have a much greater propensity to need a food pantry than the average person, and the average person who needs food has a much greater propensity to have mental health issues.

Whether it's this more simple mental health issues like anger, depression, anxiety, or whether it's more complicated when you get into schizophrenia and all those kinds of things.

But there's a significant part of our population that depends on pantries and are also trying to deal with mental health issues.

And we see that reflected in our pantry line.

And I want to just publicly thank both the um the county, what do they call the the guys that do the work for the the police work for the county, the constables, constables who came and supported Kelly during the COVID crisis and were there as a presence, a physical visible presence really helped keep the lid on a lot of acting out that tends to go on at a food pantry line.

And today we have a number of police officers that come by to our fairs to our closed closet days.

They just have a visible presence at Kelly.

Again, just knowing that there's authority around helps to make it a much um smooth smoother and more acceptable behavior for clients who might otherwise be angry and let us know by their anger.

Lots to be done there.

And and Warren, thank you for that answer.

And and I agree with you.

So the the last question is, and you and you touched on it already, but just to to bring it home is so how do we help as El Paso?

You know, you talked about volunteer, but what is the best way we can help you get through the holiday season?

Is it just um Mr.

Mayor?

I'd like to push back on one piece of that.

Okay.

As you saw from that chart of our pantry usage, this is not a holiday issue.

This is not even a snap issue or a or a political environment issue.

This is the reality of El Pasoans on a day-to-day basis.

Um, and I think the realization that it's not something that just you need help during the holidays.

You know, people come out of the woodwork during the holidays to give us extra clothes, to give us Thanksgiving food to give to our clients.

Um, the community is very very generous and they do that a lot.

But the holidays are really two months or one month of the year.

It's November from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

We our lines start in January 1 and they go through December 31st.

So I think from my perspective as at this point, a professional in the nonprofit world, the biggest help that you can give to those of us who are trying to address this issue is visibility and credibility for the work we do.

Kelly is 100% dependent on charitable contributions to fund our work.

Our budget is now about 700,000 a year.

I can comfortably raise about 550 of that each year.

And luckily, we built up some reserve during COVID when people were extremely generous, and we're able to use that to make up the difference this year and last year.

But at some point, we're gonna have to shrink our work to match the amount of public contributions that we receive at Kelly to support our efforts to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the ill.

Well said, and uh again, Warren, thank you.

And I know it takes a village to get this done.

It's a team.

Yeah, and thank you for what you're doing.

And and I know it's not easy, and I also want to recognize that a paso fighting hunger is here as well.

Chris is in the audience listening to the presentation.

Yeah, as well.

So again, thank both of you guys for what you're doing for this community.

And we're I I do want to just always um reinforce the fact that our food pantry is a collaboration with Postumes Fighting Hunger.

They provide the food every morning, two tractor trailers, one tractor trailer, it's there every morning.

30, 40 pallets of food that we distribute during that day, and then they do it all over again in the morning.

We provide the distribution, the logistics, the site, they provide the food.

Without that partnership and that collaboration, um, there's a lot of people that don't have that resource.

Wow.

And Chris, now that you're on the spot, did you want to say anything?

Sure.

Good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

Just introduce yourself to Chris for the record.

Okay.

Good morning, Marrick.

Uh council members, this is Chris Shegel.

I'm the interim CEO at El Paso and Fighting Hunger.

So I'm sorry I'm a little late to the to the party.

I'm sure Warren did an impeccable job explaining what we're up against here in the region.

And I really appreciate what he said at the end.

This is an ongoing thing.

I think attention is drawn to food insecurity and the people in need during the holidays because I think it it's it's something that tugs at the heartstrings during during the holidays, but it goes on year-round.

It is a constant fight.

The fight rages on with the same intensity, but our charitable giving and things go down during that time.

So we're actually it's not the holidays that is the challenge, it's what happens afterwards.

So we're really getting into a season coming up here in the new year that is a challenge.

Now we're we're looking at some ways that we can innovate and do different things at the food bank during that time, but they're they remain untested until we try them out in the first and second quarter.

And I'm talking in terms of fundraising.

So one of the things on our plate, too, is you know, Kelly is our number number one distributor and um of a food number one pantry.

So that gives us a central location for food distribution.

You know, our location is far east side, southeast side by the Zaragoza Bridge.

That means that some of our community has to travel all the way across the El Paso to get to the food, and we want to change that.

We definitely want to continue and maybe bolster our relationship with Kelly as well as uh identify some partner pantries on the west side to where we can have an equitable distribution so people can get the food easier.

My my goal is 20 minutes to food.

Um it's gonna take us a bit to get there, but what that means is anybody in the region should be in in travel transit time, 20 minutes to get to food.

Um right now they're spending some time somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 minutes, maybe more, depending on traffic, especially with the construction if they're coming from the west side.

So some some unique challenges ahead of us, but um uh without partnerships like Kelly and the other pantries that we have, and and uh some of the charitable Al Pasoans that have stepped up in recent times to really help us, uh you know, it'd be even harder in the fight.

But do you have any questions, Mr.

Mayor?

Any questions for Al Paso?

Fighting hunger.

Okay, Representative Limon.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much for what you just said, Chris.

Um, I know for for example, in our particular parish, the allocation of food from your organization was seized during this year.

And so that was one of the areas that received food.

Of course, we purchase it really in reality.

Um chance of re-adjusting this distribution to allow for more ample distribution throughout the city versus in just one area?

Yes, great, great question.

So I'm not sure the reason why that was uh stopped distribution at your parish, but I'm not sure I can dig into that.

Um I imagine had some to do with staffing and/or ability to meet that that need.

So we have 65 pantry partners in town, uh Kelly being the number one, they distribute about 10 percent of the food in the region.

The food bank handles about uh 85.

The remaining 64 or so partners distribute the last five percent, and so there's a lot of factors that go into determining whether the pantry is able to sustain operations.

Uh, one of those is staffing, has to be staffed and entirely run by that pantry because we don't have the additional staff to do that, and then also operating hours, and then also it has to kind of fit within our distribution system uh locally.

So I can I can dig more into that, but I would I am definitely open, and we are moving towards a more equitable distribution in the region for sure.

That's great news.

Um we'll certainly reach out to your office and maybe we can have a conversation on this.

We'd love to.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you to Warren and to Chris.

Um, I I am happy to hear that there will be possibly a distribution center on the West side because I know that years ago it was um planned, but for whatever reason it wasn't able to come to fruition.

So I'm hoping that that will be something soon to accommodate for the needs on that side of town as well.

Um, Warren, could you speak a little bit about who is eligible to come through your line?

Um I know you spoke a little bit about the different types of people that come through, but how do you become eligible?

Every person who comes through Kelly or the food bank's pantry goes through an intake process.

And there are a series of about 15 questions that the Department of Agriculture tells us we have to ask.

They include household income on a monthly basis, your residents, and a number of whether you participate in other social service programs like Snap or WIC or whatever.

So we go through and we ask everybody when they come through, and they have to reapply every year.

They these questions, and then we track that information.

The basic one is your household income, and there's a chart for who's eligible and who's not, and then if there are extenuating circumstances.

So we pretty much are serving anybody who comes by and says we we need help.

The government, while they tell us to ask these questions, tells us also that we cannot require documentation.

So we have to just take the word for the people that come.

It's not a pleasant experience to do that in the summer.

Heat, the spring rain, the winds in the fall in the winter.

It just is, you know, like I said, the average person comes to Kelly, the average household comes to Kelly seven times during the year rather than the 52 that they're eligible.

That database is managed by the food bank and is being rolled out to the other pantries so that we have the ability to tell somebody, hey, you were at the food bank this morning or yesterday, you're not eligible to come to another pantry till next week.

So that we've got those tools in place to try and track that and maintain that.

But I think just the fact that the average household only comes seven times in the year, once every other month, really tells you a lot about the need in our community.

And I want to thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Um it has been my experience that when people come through the line, many times you know they're they're ill.

Um, and and sometimes you know, they they hesitate to to look you in the eye for whatever reason.

And so we always have to make sure that we we treat people with compassion and show empathy and and not judge them for whatever they're going through.

Kelly tries to maintain a value system that really puts an emphasis on being non-judgmental, being welcoming and service-oriented, and with the 2,250 volunteers that come by, every one of them comes with a different preconception of what they're what they're doing and who they're serving.

And the a common occurrence is for someone to drive into the parking lot in a nice relatively recent car and park and come get in the food line, and the volunteers are going, what are they doing here for?

They got this beautiful car.

Why are they here?

And we always try and tell them, and I'll tell you as a volunteer, ask.

Ask them, don't assume, don't put your own judgment out there, just ask.

And what they're what they find time after time after time is that it's a lady whose husband was the sole breadwinner.

He owned his own business, he died six months ago.

She's been too embarrassed to come to a pantry for help, and she finally got to the point where she had no other choice.

Her car is one of her few remaining assets, you know.

So you can't you can't judge.

You can't just see people coming and say, Oh, you don't need to be here or make that assumption.

And the only way to really know is to come and do intake or come and do food distribution, and then you'll get a real good feel because your gut will tell you what you need to know.

Thank you.

Thank you both for the work that you're doing for our community.

Yeah, again, thank you guys for being here.

And I know I speak on behalf of the entire council.

Thank you for what you're doing for this this entire community and the compassionate care that you're showing our neighbors.

Uh and and to your point, Warren, you know, you don't you never know who's in those lines.

Um I went to the pantry there on Fort Bliss, and I saw our soldiers, our men and women in uniform that are fighting for this country that are having to go because they're food insecure to get additional food just to make it.

So I appreciate you you telling us to ask, you know, and hear their stories and let them be seen as to why they're there looking for additional food.

The sort of the roundabout answer your question of what can you do?

Yeah.

The greatest need for the food bank and for Kelly and for all the other nonprofits that are serving the needy community in El Paso.

The best thing that you can do is give visibility to our work and credibility to the need for the community to support our work.

That's really what it's all about is who's willing to use us as their surrogate for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.

Absolutely.

And I know many of us have been to to both the Kelly and both to to the food bank, and we'll continue to bring awareness and support you guys.

And again, uh a big thanks to your teams, because I've been out there and I've seen the amount of volunteers that it takes.

It takes an army just to do this on one day.

So congratulations to your teams and keep up the good work and we thank you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Bryan?

That brings us to executive session.

Is there a motion to retire?

Second.

Second.

There's a motion and a second to retire into executive session.

All in favor?

Anyone opposed?

And the city council of the city of El Paso may retire into executive session pursuant to section 3.5A of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas Government Code Chapter 551, Sub Chapter D to discuss any of the following executive session item one.

Application of El Paso Electric Company to amend the Texas Business Solar Power Program.

PUC number 58862, HQ number utility-76 under 551.071.

Executive session item two.

Statement of intent of Texas Gas Service Company, a division of One Gas Inc.

to increase rates within the company's incorporated areas of Central Gulf West North and Rio Gran Valley service areas.

OS-25-000-28202.071.

These matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney.

It is 9 48 a.m.

Okay, Ms.

Bryan.

Council, is there a motion to come out of executive session?

Second.

There's a motion and a second to come out of executive session.

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

And the work session is back in session at 11 o'clock a.m.

Mayor Potem EX1.

Thank you, Ms.

Pine.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the city attorney, in consultation with the city manager, be authorized to hire and retain outside counsel and any other necessary consultants and to file an intervention in the application of El Paso Electric Company to amend the Texas Business Solar Power Program under the Texas Public Utility Commission Docket No.

58862 in matter number high Q Utility Dash 76 and to take all steps necessary, including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Second.

All right, Miss Bryan, there's a motion second.

Representative.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to say that I received 1750 from the Opus Electric Employee Puck.

Thank you.

Ms.

Bryan.

Yes, sir.

The motion was made and read into the record by Mayor Potem Chavez, seconded by alternate Mayor Pro Tem Piero, and this is on EX1 to hire and retain outside counsel and file an intervention on the case on that motion.

Call for the vote.

Ms.

Pine.

Representative Mino.

Aye.

Thank you.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

EX2.

Motion made seconded and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to do the following.

Number one, enter into a partial settlement in the statement of intent of Texas Gas Service Company, a division of One Gas Inc.

to increase rates within the company's incorporated areas of the Central Gulf, West North, and Rio Gran Valley service areas in matter number OS-25-000-28202, high Q Utility-67.

And number two, continue opposing Texas Gas Services Company's request to consolidate its three existing service areas into a new single statewide service area and continue litigating this disputed consolidation issue at the state level with the Railroad Commission of Texas and to take all steps necessary, including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Thank you, Mayor.

I didn't hear a second, Mayor.

Oh, yes.

Second.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Ryan.

Thank you, Ms.

Pine.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I just for the record I want it to be known that this is a very difficult decision.

I heard a lot of constituents at uh a couple of the community meetings that were held in my district that are opposed to any increase whatsoever.

And while that is something that I want as well as a as a citizen of El Paso, I know that these situations and these cases will bring an increase no matter what.

And so it is it is my opinion that this is the best outcome that we can provide for the citizens of El Paso at this time.

And so I just wanted to make sure that I put that out on record and that it has been a very difficult discussion and decision, one that I have wrestled with a lot, but I do not want rates to go up the proposed 27% at all.

And so it is it is my opinion that this um settlement or partial settlement will allow us to continue fighting against consolidation, which is essentially something that I uh completely oppose.

Thank you.

Representative Acevedo.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think this has been uh a very difficult situation.

There's a lose lose lose situation any way you look at it, and overall, as we look at the the 41 million that they're asking for, 28 million of that is for El Paso.

And so when we're talking about consolidation, I think for Al Pasoans to understand what consolidation means in just one aspect is any natural disaster that may happen on the Gulf Coast, we will be subsidizing that.

And I I don't think that is fair at all.

Luckily, we are are very um lucky here in El Paso to not have really horrific natural disasters and for us to have to subsidize that.

That makes no sense to me.

And I I think we should continue to fight consolidation.

People are going to see big increases in in their bills, the increases that I think are unprecedented.

And when you look at what El Paso Electric is doing, El Paso Water is doing, a trifecta of big increases will really affect El Pasoans overall.

So I I think we're we're looking at this and seeing that El Pasoans are gonna lose.

But I am gonna vote against this today because I think we could still negotiate more and and have um some room to say we have 28 million of the 41 million that you want.

And if we're not settling this, I think they should come to the table and and give us a better settlement than the one that's at hand today.

Either way, I think whatever way this goes, it's going to be a really awful outcome any way we look at it.

So I want to continue the fight for a little bit longer, and that's how my vote will reflect today.

Thank you.

Any more discussion on this item?

Thank you, Mayor.

All right.

Um Ms.

Bryan.

So the motion was made and read into the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by Representative Canales, and this is to enter into a partial settlement and continue to oppose consolidation of the three existing service areas on that motion.

Call for the vote.

Okay.

So on this item that I'm getting ready to vote on, you you know, as you can see, there's been a lot of discussion about the the rate going from 27% down to 10 percent.

I think today we'd run the risk though that if we don't at least continue the discussions and to enter into a partial settlement and to oppose the consolidation, that we can always fall back to the 27%.

I think this is a very hard vote for me to take today.

Uh any increase to any of the taxpayers uh in the residents of El Paso is something that we certainly don't need, but to have a 27% increase is something that is certainly out of the question.

So my vote today, if I vote no on that, you know, we run the risk of going back to 27 percent.

If I vote yes today, we we we can be around the 10 percent uh uh number that is being offered.

Uh we also have to factor in legal costs, you know.

What is it gonna cost us to continue to go down this fight and how much more will that be passed on to the taxpayers?

So this is a very, very difficult uh uh vote for me today.

So uh again, it's very tough, but um I think we can continue fighting longer, and I'm gonna vote no on this one in the voting session and the motion fails with a mayor breaking the tie voting nay, representatives Chavez Trejo, Limon, Canales voting aye.

Representatives Acevedo Rocha, Niño, Fierro voting nay, and the mayor breaking the tie.

The motion fails.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion.

There's a motion and a second to adjourn the work session.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

And the work center session for Monday, December 1st, 2025 is adjourned at 1108 a.m.

Thank you, Council.