Well good morning, everyone.

We are going to get started.

Ms.

Bryan.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning, everyone.

This is a session of the El Paso City Council from Monday, May 11th, 2026.

It is 904 a.m.

Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Potem Chavez, Representative Acevedo, Representative Boyatrejo, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro, Representative Limon, Representative Canales, and Representative Madonado Rocha will be arriving later this morning.

Mayor, we have a quorum.

Okay, Representative, would you lead us on the plate, please?

And to the Republic for which it stands under by individual.

Okay, Miss Bryan.

Yes, that brings us to item number one.

And this is presentation and discussion by the El Paso Central Appraisal District's executive director and chief appraiser, Dinah Kilgore on the City of El Paso's 2026 pre-preliminary values and protest period.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning, Council members.

Thank you for having us this morning.

Um we'll try to keep this short.

We know you have a busy schedule, but we do want to get going and give you an idea of what's going on in El Paso city limits and within the county for this year.

Okay, thank you for taking the time now to come do this first.

Oh, you bet.

Um, first of all, my name is Dinah Kilgore, executive director, chief appraiser for the El Paso Central Appraisal District, and David Stone is our deputy chief for the El Paso Central Appraisal District.

So we'll both kind of be team team teaching here as we get started.

I'm hoping this is on this one here.

Yeah?

Okay, gotcha.

All right.

For those of you that are new, um, appraisal district all throughout the state of Texas are mandated by a statute to appraise at mass appraisal.

So with mass appraisal, we're looking at a universe of properties, not just a single, and a lot of property owners say, well, why aren't you getting more information to my house than somebody else's?

Well, because we are mass appraisal.

So we did look at and reviewed all of the properties again in for uh for 26, 2026, to see what the market is doing.

We are seeing a bit of a stabilization in the market uh this year.

We're not seeing those big double-digit percentage increases overall.

I think uh for the city of El Paso is about a seven percent increase was was our average.

Uh advantages of mass appraisal is we we we can afford it.

If we did a single property appraisal, it would take multiple years and millions of dollars uh to be able to do that, and we'd have to turn right around and do it again.

So uh with that kind of information, you can see why mass appraisal is the way assessment offices, not only in El Paso County, but in the state and in the country, uh appraise that mass appraisal.

Um the disadvantages of mass appraisal, of course, are the fact that we don't know the particulars about a property.

So that's why I thank you for having us here so we can discuss protesting and how to protest and deadlines uh before that final deadline uh hits us.

Uh annual tax calendar.

This is important because there are deadlines for property owners.

Number one, put in your exemption.

If you've got if it is your homestead, get that homestead exemption in our office.

Come down, file, uh bring us your your electric bill, something that shows your address on there and your identification.

Um you're entitled to that, don't pay somebody to do that for you.

Property owners are entitled to have their homestead exemptions.

We want to make sure they have them on their exemptions.

I'm gonna turn it over a little bit.

Let David talk about some numbers, and then I'll come back and talk about protesting and what property owners need to know.

Good morning, David.

Good morning, David Stone, Deputy Chief Appraiser.

So it's about uh $3 billion increase.

But I want to caution uh council that these are preliminary numbers.

The taxpayers have not had a chance to protest their values, the values will always go down between the preliminary numbers to the certified number.

So this is just like our first look, and uh don't get too excited.

Uh it's gonna go down some.

Uh as far as residential property, uh, we went up from 35.7 billion to 38.2.

On commercial property, we went up from 10.2 to a yeah, to 11.5.

On multifamily, we went up from 3.2 billion to 3.9 billion.

On business personal property, we went down 3.4 billion to 2.6 billion.

The reason for that is the Texas legislature enacted a new business personal property exemption.

All business personal property at each location gets a 125,000 exemption off of their property value.

So as you can see, that caused a significant decrease in the business personal property value, almost a billion dollars.

So that's new and that's ongoing from now on.

So you'll see this hit this one time, and you should probably remain pretty stable after the this year.

We shouldn't see large decreases in the future.

This it's like a one-shot thing because this is a brand new exemption.

Uh all other property, we went up from $4.1 billion to $4.5 billion.

I know it's hard to see on these graphs.

There's a little tiny gray bar on each one of them.

That's the new construction.

We do not have very much new construction that we're picking up this year anywhere in the county.

Here's another pie chart that's showing basically the percentage that each of the various property types contributes to the taxable value.

As you can see, the majority is provided by the residential single family homes at $38 billion.

The next biggest group is the commercial is $11.5 billion, and then we have the other three groups that have a less of an impact on the overall value.

Basically, the residential property makes up 63% of the tax roll, and commercial property makes up 37% of the tax rule.

This chart is showing our our appraise appraisal level on the various areas of the city.

What that is is we take the appraised value that the appraisal district appraises at divide the sales price of the property.

So if we're at one, that means we're we're appraising exactly at market value, which is what we're supposed to do.

If we're below one, that means that we're appraising that less than market value, and if we're above one, that means we're appraising that more than uh market value.

Now, the standards from the Comptroller's Office state that we should be between 95% and 105% of market value.

And in all areas of the city, we are within the acceptable guidelines from the Comptroller's Office.

Now I expect these ratios to come down a little bit.

If you'll notice most of the areas of the city or the county are above one, that means they're slightly over appraised.

I expect after we go through the equalization phase and the property owners have a chance to protest that those ratios will come down a little bit.

So we're hoping that when we end up the season in July, we'll be at uh at market value.

And that's important for us because this is a property value study this year from the Comptroller's Office where they check our values and make sure we're at market value, and that affects school district funding if we're below market value.

So we we try to stay as close to one as we can get.

This next uh graph shows a history of the average home value for the city of El Paso going back to last 10 years.

Um the blue line is the market value, and the reddish line is the taxable value.

So as far as taxable value goes, we've gone from about 124,002 ninety-nine 10 years ago to 240,733.

So we haven't quite doubled, but as you can see, the graph took a steep increase starting in 2021 because of COVID.

We all over the state we saw the real estate market took off during COVID for whatever reason, and uh now we're starting to see it level out.

If you look at our 2025 to 2026 slope, it's a lot uh shallower than it was from 2020 to 2025.

So we're we're starting to level out again.

Now we're getting kind of back to normal.

Uh, and we're seeing that across the state.

Um every year, every two years the compontroller's office does a property value study to make sure that we're appraising property at 100% of market value.

The chief uh reason for this is school district funding.

So over the last three property value studies, we were at 96% in 2020, 98% in 2022, and 100% in 2024.

Um years, the Comptrollers Office does a map study, which is a methods and assistance study to make sure that we're following the law and administering appraisal values according to the property tax code.

Every year since we've started getting our map study, we've been at a hundred percent in all categories.

Okay, thank you, David.

So let's get into the protest process.

One of the first things I'd like to bring up is the fact that some property owners' values may have gone up slightly or stayed the same, but their taxable portion went up, and that is a lot of questions we're saying.

Well, wait a minute, why did my tax part go up?

And that's because of that 10% cap.

Uh legislation several legislations ago passed that uh section where a property owner will pay no more than 10% of what they paid the year before, no matter what the market happens.

Well, as the market starts to stabilize, you're catching up to that cap.

Um, but it will go up 10% every year until you hit market.

One of the things legislation is looking at doing, we you know they're already starting to talk about what they want to do next year, is lower that cap instead of a 10% to a 5%.

Well, that's great, it'll only go up 5%, but how long will it take to get to market?

So every year you're going to see an increase in what uh what you pay as a as a homeowner.

Um so that is a lot of what are the questions that we are receiving when folks are filing their protest.

May 15th, guys.

May 15th is a deadline, are 30 days from the date of their notice, whichever is the later date.

So May 15th, we have it all over the news.

We were on seven extra yesterday.

So we're, you know, telling everybody May 15th.

And what we tell folks, go ahead and file the protest.

If you decide not to continue with it, that's fine.

There's no penalty for not showing up.

Just don't show up to your hearing.

But meet that deadline.

Then you can do your research.

People need to bring in evidence.

We need to see hard copies because you have to leave your evidence.

Don't bring your phone in.

You know, we don't want people bringing their phone because we can't touch their phone.

So they have to bring in the evidence.

The ARB needs to see that the appraisal review board, which is made up of citizens from all of y'all's uh areas.

So we need to see your evidence.

What's wrong with specifically with your property?

So that's one of the things that we try to tell folks.

And I know city representatives, y'all have been having your representative meetings.

I'm sorry I was not invited.

I would have loved to come and speak.

Mr.

Acevedo, thank you so much, Dr.

Acevedo for having us at yours.

We really appreciate that.

Because we want to get the information out there.

We've been doing this for a long time.

Everybody knows, you know.

We all have property taxes that we have to pay.

We know the evaluation process, but we have new homeowners.

So it's really important that we tell them what they need to know and what they need to bring.

One of the nice things about that we do in ours is you can meet with an appraiser one-on-one.

We recommend that because I think it's very important that property owners get to know the staff that are doing the work.

They can meet with us one-on-one, it's confidential at that point.

We can visit with them.

If they disagree with the appraiser, then great, you go to the appraisal review board and you have another hearing there with the appraisal review board.

We've made it a lot simpler.

We did this before it was required by legislation.

So we were ahead of the game by having virtual hearings or over-the-phone hearings or in person.

You can file, there's a QR code on your notice.

You just click on it.

You can go online, you can go to our portal and you can follow the protest.

So there's many ways you can come into our office and file.

We have kiosk where you don't even have to talk to somebody, you go up to the kiosk and fill in the information, it automatically sends that protest into the system and schedules you a hearing.

This is very, excuse me, this is very hard to read, but it is something that we like to put in here for you if you've gotten the presentation with your backup.

And that shows for 2025 the breakdown of the number of protests that were filed by the different categories and what was heard formally and informally at the appraisal district.

So I'm not going to go over all of that, but you do have that information.

I think it's it's important for you to see how busy we are during the summer.

And we're expecting probably around the same-about 46 to 48,000 protests.

A lot of it is because of the cap.

I think we'll see less in personal property because of that exemption that's on there now.

But we do want people to come in.

There are, after they have their protest and they go to the appraiser, disagree, they go to the appraisal review board, and whether they agree or disagree with the appraisal review board, they'll receive a board order, and then they can go further.

They can go through arbitration or through district court, but those all cost a little bit of money, and there are a lot of organizations that will take advantage of that and go ahead and file for arbitration, even if they think they got what they wanted at the ARB hearing.

Tips for filing a protest, these are really good information.

Make sure you're looking apples to apples.

When we talk to property appraisers, they say, Well, my neighbor, well, did your neighbor not add an addition?

Does your neighbor not have a pool?

Have you upgraded your home to refrigerated air from eight from just uh the swamp coolers?

There are differences even in the same neighborhoods.

I don't know if y'all have driven uh down edgemere lately across from Burgess, but you can see where they've taken the older homes with a carport and torn them down and built bigger homes.

So those are things that are individually that we can your characteristics that we can look at.

Then we're mass appraisal.

We use a we appraise a universe of properties, we look at a neighborhood, so your individual problems we won't be aware of.

We do not go inside.

Um so you will need to bring pictures.

Prior to COVID.

If we were invited inside, we would, but because of COVID and because of the nature of people's attitudes, we're safety first when it comes to our employees, so we don't let them go inside.

Um make sure you have all your exemptions, that's very important.

As the city of El Paso, you allow exemptions.

You have passed through resolution for exemptions for homeowners.

So that's one of the first things we'll tell them, check it out.

Go to our website, epcad.org.

You can go to the property search, you can put in your address, and it'll pop up and you can see what exemptions you have.

There's a multitude of exemptions for senior citizens, disabled veterans, spouses, where their spouses passed away due to military duty or peace officer, something like that.

There's all kinds of exemptions out there.

Request our information, our information's out there.

A lot of people don't realize they can once they file that protest, they can request the information.

Now I'm not going to give them if they're in Logan Heights, they're not going to get the information for Chaparral Park.

They'll get the information for Logan Heights because that's what we used in setting up the values for Logan Heights.

Bring your closing statements if you just purchased your property, closing statements, appraisals.

A lot of folks are getting refinancing.

You know, when the finance, when the interest rates were going down, they were getting refinancing.

That's great information because they had to hire the finance company had to hire a MAI appraiser, and so that appraisal is very good information.

And pictures, we tell people pictures, pictures, pictures.

What's the old saying a pitcher says more than a thousand words?

So that is very important for us.

CMA, a market analysis.

We do a market analysis based on the data that we have.

As some of y'all will remember, Texas is a non-disclosure state.

We are Texans.

We don't like anybody to know any of our business, and so we don't tell anybody anything, which is really kind of harmful for appraisals because we don't have that access, but we are mandated under statute to be at market value every single year.

So that's why you'll see reappraisals every year.

So a lot of times you can go to a realtor and ask for a CMA as a homeowner.

So when your constituents are asking you what can they do, this is the type of information they can do.

And of course, uh equity, are they really the same as the rest of their neighbors?

And I'm going to go on through that.

You guys have that.

I think this is interesting.

A lot of times, city representatives will ask us what happens after a property owner files a lawsuit.

After they go to the ARB and they decide they want to file a lawsuit, we have between 2011 and 2025 about 2,256 accounts that are under lawsuit right now.

The value of 3 billion, 3.7 billion is only about 5% of the appraisal role.

But property owners are entitled, it's one of the rights that they have is to be able to file a lawsuit.

And unfortunately, our responsibility is to go through with that lawsuit.

So you will see that number staying pretty pretty close to the same.

People will file suits every year, and that that's what they're entitled to do.

Everything that we do at the appraisal district is set by statute.

It's set by state legislation, that's set by property tax code, and then overseeing by the Comptroller in the two reviews that they do, the value study and the maps review.

So if anybody wants any changes, we got to go to our legislator to see what they can do.

This is very interesting.

Mr.

Stone brought this up.

This is that House Bill 9.

I believe we spoke with City Council when it was first being talked about, right before the legislation met.

The loss for the city of El Paso, like David said, is right under 1 billion.

It's 920 million.

This is the first year for the exemption.

Now, after this, it will pretty much stay at that loss, but it won't be such a big hit.

You'll be able to know every year that exemption of 125,000 for all personal property.

And to explain that a little bit, every McDonald's gets 125,000.

So every McDonald's, every 7-Eleven, every Circle K, every individual business will get that.

Where it will be combined will be in a situation like a Costco where you have the gas station and the store, and maybe they have the gas station under another corporate uh entity, but it's all part of Costco, they will only receive one.

They won't receive two, they'll receive one.

But that is still a big hit for all of the entities.

And this is everywhere.

This is schools, this is municipalities, this is county.

It's uh across the board another thing that y'all need to be aware of in 2026 this is our election year for three of our board of directors so that is something that we'll be dealing with this year if you all remember legislation that was changed uh a couple of years ago um that was in May to get the three elected on we're now part of the November election process I believe you all have some uh city council members that may be running I know maybe some commissioners there's other municipalities that will have um folks on the ballot in November well we're gonna be there also we've already been visiting with the election administrator Miss Lisa wise to uh get all the information that we need on our board meeting next week there'll be an order uh for the board to approve to order the election for us just like y'all have to do and commit with a contract with the uh elections administration there for the county so that uh and that will happen every two years um just like just like y'all so um other than that uh we're here to answer any questions mainly we wanted to get that information out about protesting and the deadlines very good thank you for the uh presentation quick question and we got several questions here but on page uh number nine we have page numbers can you tell me what that one's about it's it's the one that talks about the residents making up 63 percent of the oh yes taxes that one yeah yes so we normally talk 70 30 you know that the residents are paying 70% of the the taxes commercial base is paying 30 percent this one's showing sixty three thirty seven are we making progress towards moving taxes from the residents over to the commercial base for our numbers we've always been in the not always but last several years we've been in the 60 percentile range um so that's kind of standard for us I'm not sure what numbers uh y'all are using but um this is pretty standard for us okay is is that number Robert oh Robert I'm sorry so one of the things you're gonna see mayor is as they covered is that loss of that business personal property tax exemption that impact so that's gonna essentially reduce the commercial base and so that's about a billion dollars loss of commercial property values that the city will not collect in this coming fiscal year.

So as we've been working very hard to increase the commercial side to take the burden off the residential side what was approved by the state and then it's been approved by the voters this past November was essentially provided more property tax relief for commercial which means again lowering the commercial tax base for the city.

Because it's capping the personal property the business purpose correct but it's providing essentially a tax relief it's providing an exemption which is lowering the property taxes.

Okay so that's a billion dollars yes sir okay and then um on page 11 which and you talked about this last night on ABC 7 extra you talked about COVID and then we were kind of you know staying steady and then COVID hit and then it went up and now you're seeing it stabilize again.

Yes sir so what good you talked about that last night so what caused that again and why are we seeing it's really strange.

It's not just here in El Paso County but throughout the state and even throughout the country when COVID hit we were seeing increases prior to that of you know three, four five percent maybe very stable nothing really big well COVID hit and in 2021 we started seeing a crazy market.

That's the only way I can explain it homes were selling overnight there was bidding wars they were selling for thousands more tens of thousands more than what the listing price was and that was happening quite often we had a lot less inventory of new homes I mean at one point I think we had one day's worth of new inventory at that time.

So the in 2021, 22, 23, we were seeing we were still seeing that.

We started start started seeing that kind of leveling off last year, and then this year we're seeing it quite a bit.

We now have about 3.8 months of of new inventory as of January 1 of new homes.

So you see from a day's worth to 3.8 months, and we want to be about six months.

So we are seeing that, which is great.

One thing about El Paso is I think we've always kind of followed the trend.

So we are seeing San Antonio and Fort Worth value big value drops.

We're not seeing value drops in Austin or Dallas.

We're seeing more of a stabilization, and that's what we're seeing here.

Your average home values, I believe, David has a slide up there, is not that much higher than what it was last year.

257 average this year to 252 last year.

Now that's that's off of the appraised value.

That's not like the realtors will have a different number because they have MLS.

Yeah, they're showing 265.

Right.

Yeah, ours is going to be just based on on our values.

Okay, and then the last thing, you you did a really good job answering.

You know, I don't have kids in school, but why am I paying taxes?

And you answered that last time.

Can you answer that again?

Sure, I'll be happy to.

Uh it's part and parcel of being uh property ownership in the United States in the state of Texas.

Um it's all part, it's like using the community college, uh the hospital, uh, school districts, uh the city and the county, those are all taxing entities, water districts that as homeowners are property owners, real estate owners, uh, are part of what we are responsible for.

Um so whether you have kids in school or not, but I always say, but don't you want to uh don't you want a child that's very educated where you have to go to the doctor, the dentist, or your accountant?

You know, you want them to have that really good primary background, so it's worth it.

Yeah, well, thank you for for answering that.

Okay, we got some more questions, Representative Trahill.

Thank you, Mayor.

You asked one of the questions that I had very good.

Uh on page nine.

I mean, I'm sorry, on page eight, and you have it broken down here.

You have the dark blue is other.

What is other?

Oh, other will be.

Is this the slide you're talking about?

No, it's on page eight.

That one.

Oh, one more.

Oh, sorry, going the wrong direction.

That one right there.

Yes.

Okay.

Other is going to be like agricultural when we're talking about other properties, agricultural properties, uh, builders' inventory uh for homes are going to be under the other category.

Okay, thank you.

And then uh page 10.

When you look at the 2025 value appraisal label in the different areas of town, oops, that one, yes.

Okay, and you look at the different areas.

Northeast, what is that cover?

Like, where does that start?

The the northeast uh area, market area is um from oh gosh, 54.

Um, when you've got the central, that's gonna be more of your I'm trying to think of the school districts that are that are more covered.

Like Rusk, um that's gonna be Fred Wilson boundary, yeah.

Fred Wilson, yeah.

Okay, all the way out.

Northeast goes all the way out.

Now, these numbers being that the statute states appraisal districts must be between 95 and 105%.

We're within the confidence level at the beginning of the hearings, um, we'll see what happens after the hearings.

Okay, how is it how there's there's some changes here for so, for example, from the west side to northeast.

Why is there such a difference?

From the having sales information mostly being able to get the data, um a lot of times the the like Northeast, for example, uh they're great about coming in and protesting.

Um, so we have more data from them than we will say on the west side.

Got it, got it.

Okay, and then slide 14.

The protest, and so how does the how do the residents receive the information on the protest?

Do you all provide any information on that?

Yes, okay.

Definitely.

When the notice of value goes out, um our postage is very expensive because when our notice of value goes out, there's a lot of um extra flyers inside there, extra documentation.

It'll tell them how to protest, uh, if they want to protest online through the online portal, there's instructions there.

Uh, tells them what to bring in.

Uh, when they receive their appointment letter again, there's a uh information in there about the best things to bring in in the way of evidence.

So there's a lot of information that goes out in the mailing for the notices and in the mailing for the appointment date.

Okay, and that's also where you can find the QR code.

Yes, ma'am.

On your on your notice, there's a little bit of QR code on the on the very front page that you can click on to.

Do you have the information there for seniors and veterans as well?

Oh, yes, all the exemption information is on there.

Okay.

Are you able to share the QR code with the if I would love to have a copy so I can send it in my newsletter?

We'll send it to you.

I I don't have it with me.

Okay.

I didn't bring it up.

No, yeah, no, I don't think it would be something great to share.

We can we can definitely send that.

Um and it is, I believe it's on our website too, isn't it?

You can go to the website to to our property search screen, and there's a button.

Um I think it's property services, and if you click on that, it'll take you to a screen that explains how to file a protest with a button that you can click and will take you right to filing the protest.

Okay.

There's a lot of uh information on our website.

Um we've got a lot of links that you can go to that will help you help you file, and plus just come on to our office.

We have a taxpayer liaison officer, and we have other employees that will uh help walk you through the process.

Do you all work with any nonprofits to help seniors?

We think we go out all the time to speak to different organizations neighborhood organizations, uh the veterans.

Uh we deal with them uh quite a bit uh in explaining their their different types of exemptions that they have and working with them, yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

Um representative.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

And and a couple of my questions were already answered.

I just want to um reflect on page two.

Did I get this correctly?

That there was an approximate seven percent appraisal increase.

Did you say that or did I?

Oh, yes, we're seeing uh across the board countywide.

Uh we're seeing about a 4% plus or minus, but in the city limits, because you do have the larger properties, we're seeing about a 7%.

Okay.

So that's the average, right?

That's the average as well across the board.

Okay.

Some are higher, some are a lot less, you know, some, but we did do a reevaluation of all of the um million dollar homes.

Um, so that's probably where you're gonna see your biggest increase in uh the city limits.

And so after years of of the work that you have done, on average, what percentage of protests are successful?

Oh, I'd say about 70%, 72%, something like that.

Okay.

Um we in the informal process, I believe last year we were about 73%.

Um you can see on there is a slide there.

What page?

Um, not sure what page.

Go ahead, David.

Is that it?

Okay, yeah.

This is a slide that shows in 2025, um, it will show you commercial, business personal property, and residential, and it'll show you what was filed and the value, not just the numbers, but the value.

So your percentage number wise and value-wise are different, and I'm giving you number wise, not value-wise.

Thank you.

Page uh 10.

Going back to that page.

Uh Representative Trejo asked a question about that.

Um, A and B, the West Side.

One more or back.

We'll go back when I'm not sure where you're at, right there.

And it shows um the appraisal level.

My question is is this after protests?

No, no, this is before the protests.

Okay.

You just forgot to.

Um, because okay, I I've got to change it.

It's uh 2026.

No, that that's correct.

Basically, what this is showing is we looked at what our values were for 2025.

David, would you mind getting to the mic?

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Um, what this chart basically shows is we had our appraised values for 2025, then all during 2025 we collected sales, which happened after we set the values.

So basically, we're trying to check and see are we still accurate or do we need to change values in our system?

So I believe these uh ratios are after we already did updates for the values going into 2026, but um basically we're checking to see how did we how are we comparing to last?

Are we still at market value or do we need to adjust?

And and this is what we did here.

And part of the problem, like because you you can see, you know, it's obvious there's a discrepancy between market area A and B and the rest of the county.

Um the problem with that is we're doing mass appraisal, so we have to we have to build cost tables for the properties on the west side have to be the same as properties on the east side.

Now on the west side, maybe the properties are selling for for more than a similarly constructed property on the east side, and we can adjust for that, but it's it's um because it's mass appraisal, it's hard to target just one area of the county and say, Okay, we're gonna raise your value more than everybody else, because then you get into questions of equal and uniform because that's one of the things that property owner can question is why are you raising me so high compared to somebody else?

So because it's mass appraisal, it's hard to get very you know micro-targeted in certain areas of the county, and it just so happened that after we applied all the adjustments that we were gonna make equally, it turns out that the West side is still a little bit undervalued, and that's probably something that we're gonna have to look at again next year.

And let me remind we're not undervalued or overvalued, we can be between 95 and 105.

So we're we're on uh confidence level from the state.

And um, Representative Lamont, yes, this is what we utilize when we're going into the next year.

So this is what the information we're utilizing going into 2026, so that after the hearings we can compare where we were at the beginning of the hearing process and where we ended up, and then that helps us know what we need to fix for 2027.

We we work multiple years.

And I think I certainly am gonna hold on to this document or review next year because that's a big difference right there.

It's five percentage points.

So that uh let me go up to the next one, page 14, and I know it's we're running a little bit out of time on my time.

Um upload evidence.

What is evidence?

Evidence is I have a foundation problem.

I need pictures or estimates from a uh a contractor of what it would cost to fix it.

Um my roof totally came off, and I've had to replace it, and it caused a lot of damage.

So pictures.

Remember, January 1 is our assessment date.

So if you uh have a roof that blows off on February, well, that's gonna be for the next year.

Evidence is what it would cost talk to a contractors uh with the internet now, it's really a lot easier to be able to go on to the internet and ask um what is it, hey Siri, what does it cost to uh repair plumbing in a bathroom?

You know, so that type of thing.

What type of damage and what it has to be is okay, does the damage affect your market value?

Is it something that will affect your market?

And a lot of it, I talk about older neighborhoods.

So maybe the market is at 300,000 for the homes in that neighborhood that have been upgraded, and you still have shag carpet and avocado appliances.

That's one of my favorite go-tos.

Well, you're gonna have to upgrade that a little bit to get the $300,000 average market sale.

So that's the kind of information we need to know because we don't know that.

And so evidence really is about deficiencies within the bit the home.

Deficiencies in the home or a marketing market evidence.

You know, you've talked to a realtor, and you have a market analysis that was done.

You have a closing statement, you have an appraisal that was done.

That's evidence.

Anything, think about it as okay.

I'm going to go in and I want to convince somebody that they're wrong and I'm right.

What do I need to have to convince them?

Okay.

Thank you.

And my final one is on page 17.

And this question is, is the value of a property public information?

Yes, it is.

It is.

Anybody can go to our website, uh, EPCAD.org.

Uh you can go up to the top right under property search, you can click on that and you can put in an address, and it will take you to that property record and it'll take you to that value.

Now, until the notices go out, you may not see the current years, but once the notice goes out, which majority of the notices are out, they are all out, you'll be able to see the current year.

Now we're still working some industrial properties.

So if you were to look up, say, for example, like the refinery, those are numbers that are still being worked on.

Um, you would only get to see 2025 value.

But once all of the notices are out, then you'll see the 2026.

And of course, once the hearings are over, you'll see the updated numbers.

Very good.

And anybody can have access.

Thank you for all the responses.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you, Representative.

Representative Canalis.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I'll add, I think you have other wonderful information on the website as well.

Um I think we frequently use your GIS layer in our office that provides a lot of information that's helpful, and role value history and deed history and all kinds of things on your website.

So we appreciate that you have that as a uh good reference for the public.

Um as I have done, I think the last few years.

I'm gonna hit you with a few rapid fire questions if you don't mind.

Some of it is a little bit redundant from your presentation, but I think it's important for people to hear it as simple as possible sometimes.

Um so I'll start here.

Does the city of El Paso or any of the taxing entities that you serve, and you serve many, determine the method by which you appraise property?

I always like that question.

Uh no, they do not.

By statute, we have uh regulations that we have to follow under state law under the property tax code.

A taxing entity, about the most that they can do is they can bring to our attention some new development that's going in so that we can be aware of it, so we can watch for that.

Um during the protest season, a taxing entity like a city or a school can protest the the value, the entire value that we sent, and go through that process.

But to tell us how to appraise or what to appraise or to make adjustments, that's against the law, and uh not going to do that.

And at your time at the uh at the appraisal district, does the city of El Paso ever process the the value on our roles?

I'm going to take the fifth on that one.

Sure.

I'm not going to answer that one.

Um who does oversee your appraisal process?

The state controller.

We follow legislation.

The state controller is basically our auditor.

Uh, they run the uh property value study, and they run the methods and procedures review, and they are the ones that uh will oversee.

If you were to call as a citizen, the state compontler and ask a question, they probably will not answer it if it has to deal with your value specifically.

Um they'll tell you to go to the appraisal district and let them talk to you or talk to an attorney.

Um, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, they are over all of our appraisers.

We are all licensed and have to have education courses and exams that have to be passed.

So they are also an overseer of appraisal districts.

Okay.

You mentioned that Texas is a non-disclosure state.

What does that mean?

And does it make your job harder?

And I guess then are all states like that or are appraisers in other states uh are they given access to more information?

Um yes, they are, and they wonder how we can do it.

A non-disclosure state means that the sale price or the purchase price is not disclosed.

Decades ago, it used to be part of the deed.

You would have a stamp on the deed and it would tell you how much the property, because there was a state sales tax uh for properties.

Well, there's not anymore.

So that went away.

So it is a non-disclosure.

So a commercial property does not have to tell us how much they're purchasing it for or selling it for.

And that makes it very difficult for us because we have to be at market value.

If we're not at market value and we do not pass the value study, then the state gets involved and they do an audit, and school districts can lose funding if appraisal districts are not at that market value.

When I meet with International Association of Assessing Officers, I've been on their board and I've been on committees, and when we talk about this, they're amazed that we can do what we do without the information.

Because the majority of the states here in the United States have disclosure.

They have information that they can work on.

I think it's amazing, and I believe it's Florida.

When you sign when you fill out a rendition on your business personal property, you are your commercial property, you attach your your three years worth of IRS filings.

So they they uh tip their hats to us here in Texas for doing what we do without the information being available.

So you have to determine within five percent either way, and essentially you do it with math.

Right.

We do we talk to a lot of people, builders, developers, uh, financial corporations, mortgage companies.

We send out questions to buyers and sellers every time there's a transaction.

It's really funny sometimes we'll get two different numbers because what a buyer thinks of what they paid for and what a seller thinks they got.

Sometimes they're a little bit different, so uh, but that's all part of the the research that we have to do.

Okay, you mentioned uh that you well, you have to appraise that market value you're required to by law.

You mentioned that there are potential consequences if you don't school district funding.

Can you explain that pretty briefly?

Yes, uh property value study is done uh every other year for all counties uh in the state of Texas.

During the value study, they will send a field representative that will do their own appraisals and they'll do their own field work.

They're supposed to be doing a random sampling of all types of property within the cat within the county.

Um they will stratify those that information and come up with what they feel is is the right values.

If we feel that is incorrect, that it was below the 95%, then as appraisal district, we have done this.

We can file a protest with the state and take our information in to get that adjusted.

And we've been really lucky.

There's been only one time that we've actually had to go all the way to uh hearing at the Computer because they didn't believe our farmers had to pay so much for water.

We're in a very arid area and uh field appraiser was new here and didn't understand that.

Um, but we've been really good about about keeping that up.

Um we can we can protest that if for whatever reason, and it has happened in other counties.

We're just very lucky here, they don't get their numbers up, then they get into what they call a grace period, which gives them a year to get their numbers back up between 95 and 105%.

If they fail again, then they'll bring somebody else in, kind of like the TEA will send somebody on the schools, they'll do the same thing with appraisal districts, but then they start removing funding, that state funding from the school districts that are affected by that.

So the schools could get less uh per student less state funding.

They're already having issues, so you know this is very, very important that we stay uh within that what they call the confidence level.

Now we were really hoping uh during the last uh census that we would hit a certain level because if you're over a billion in uh million, million, uh sorry, we're billions of dollars and millions, and this gets kind of confused.

If you're over a million in population, then we have 10%.

You can be 90 to 110% at market, but we didn't quite hit that number, so we do have to be between 95 and 105.

Hope that answered your question, Representative Canal.

Yes, yes.

Um, and then if a property owner is not sure if they are uh receiving all the exemptions that they qualify for, where should they go for help?

Uh 5801 Trowbridge.

Uh come down to our office, we'll pull up their record, show them what they have, explain what what they you know may qualify for, then give us a call, somebody will talk to them.

They can go online.

All of the exemptions are listed online, the applications are online.

They can go to the property search and see what their code is as to what exemptions they're getting.

They can look in their notice.

Your notice of value will show each entity that allows an exemption, it'll show a different value under each entity that allows that exemption.

So your hospital will be at your market value, unless you're veteran, but your other entities may be a little bit less.

So you can see you are getting your exemption.

So there's multiple ways to determine if you're getting that.

So they can go in person to your office, they can go uh online, and they can do it by phone.

Yeah.

Uh lots of options.

I'll add they can feel free to, my constituents at least can feel free to come to me.

I'm always happy to help check.

And you know, thank you, Representative Canalis.

Any time that a constituent uh notifies uh one of y'all, just if you will send us the information, send us an email.

Your office staff has done it before, uh they'll send us an email, and then if you'll give us that information, we will contact directly with that property owner so that you're not caught in the middle of something that you're not allowed to be involved with.

We're very uh we're very cautious about property owners' information.

Uh we just don't give that out.

I mean it's online, you can look up the property, but when we're dealing with somebody about an issue, uh that's kind of between us and them to we get it going.

Uh but we will definitely give you a follow-up as to uh that we spoke to that person and what we've been able to do.

So please, you know, uh never hesitate to to send that people send that uh constituent our way.

Yeah, you've been very helpful in the past with our constituents when we've reached out.

So thank you.

That's all my questions.

Thank you so much for coming to present to us this year and every year.

I think it's uh good for the public to understand the process um and to understand what's available to them in terms of exemptions, uh protest options, things like that.

Uh I know that the time is short, so uh hopefully they they can take something away from this.

Well, there's a lot that's available, um, a lot of exemptions, a lot of information, uh links to you know, all the different entities to the comptroller's office.

So our website has a lot of information.

We want people to utilize it.

All right, thank you again.

Thank you, thank you.

Representative um, thank you, Mayor.

It's always great to see both of you.

I appreciate all the information that you always have, even if it's 70 slides like at my community meeting.

It is always really good information to digest for constituents and there's just so many questions around the work that you do, right?

Um one thing that has kind of come up with constituents is that there have been some properties that are going above market rate, um, whether it's in bidding wars and there's a lot of properties that are hot and people really want those.

So I kind of wanted to understand a little bit more on how that is affecting values going up.

Okay.

Um it depends on if it that's the norm now.

If it is a uh unique individual instance, we're not allowed to sales chase, so we're not gonna use that one sale uh again, you know, whatever information we can get here in Texas.

Um but we'll look at everything that's going on and we'll try to get rid of the outliers.

I always tell everybody if you were in in uh college math, you have your bail curve and you have those outliers on the low end and the high end, and we'll try to get rid of those and look what the median is and try to come up with something.

So somebody may say, Well, that home's a lot bigger, but it uh how come it's not appraised even more?

Well, to be equal in the process, we have to make adjustments either up or down.

Um so one sale in an area is not gonna make that difference, just like um say the electric company puts up a bunch of power lines and everybody comes in and goes, you need to lower my value because of these power lines.

Well, let's wait and see if it affects the market.

If it does, then we will.

If it doesn't, then we're not gonna make any adjustments.

So that is one of the things that it it is kind of hard because we have to be equal, we have to be at market, but we also have to be equal.

So sometimes we're not quite at market so that we can treat everybody the same.

Do you do you keep track of any of the data where you kind of said, okay, yeah, this is kind of a trend in this neighborhood?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we do.

We'll we'll look at uh every year.

That's why uh some years um this year we looked at everything, but there's some areas that we didn't really adjust because we didn't have um a preponderance of evidence or preponderance of information to be able to change it from what we were last year.

So we do that's why I was making a comment.

We work multiple years at one time.

We go back and see what had happened and and see the trend.

Um again, January 1 is our assessment date, but we will look at activity six months before and six months after.

Well, not quite six months because we have to send notices out in April, but we will look to see.

Um we talk to realtors, you know, we're reading all kinds of articles of what what's happening in El Paso County so that we can try to follow that.

I'd love to see we're not perfect, but we try.

I would love to see that that data if you could share it, if it's available or something, just to kind of understand those trends.

Because it is something that has come up throughout, and I could think of a few neighborhoods, but that's just me anecdotally not backed up by data.

So I I would really appreciate that if if you're if you could share it, um, but understand if you can.

Sure.

And and I guess the other thing that I wanted to ask you specific to that is do you track where um these people are coming from if they're coming from California specifically?

Because I've seen that over and over again.

I haven't met anybody that is like, hey, I moved to El Paso from California.

I so I and I keep seeing that discourse, and so I wanted to see if you can.

No, so we don't.

We don't track um things like that.

I think probably your chamber of commerce or the board of realtors, something like that, would track that information, but we don't.

Okay, perfect.

And then the last thing that I had for you is there are quite a few constituents that I've talked to that are so disillusioned with protesting.

They've done the last three, four years, and their values continue to go up, or they go in protest and nothing comes down, or they're um just kind of seeing that you know the the issues persist at their homes and they don't understand why their value keeps going up.

So there are people that are telling me that they're not gonna protest, that they're that they're over it.

I'm encouraging them to do it and uh you and I'm telling them that you encourage them to do it, so what can you say to that?

Every year stands alone, unfortunately.

Uh with the admiral tax process here in Texas, every year stands alone, so we have to look at each year individual.

So if a property owner comes in, say two years ago and said, I have all of this damage, well, the next year we're going to assume that it got fixed.

Um it's a new year, um, so you'll have to bring that information in again.

Um so what we do is we'll we'll try to work with them, but we we can't really carry over.

Now, if you go before the appraisal review board or you come uh to an informal and we don't have any new evidence to change it the next year, we probably aren't.

But if we have new evidence or the market has changed, and that's the big issue the last several years is the market.

The market continued to increase.

Now, and not just the market, but the cap.

A lot of people will come in and say, Hey, why am I paying more this year?

I went to the board last year.

Well, but you've got that 10% cap.

So, and I'm gonna I'm I'm a hands person, so I'm gonna do this.

So, here's your market value, and here's your cap, and you got it lowered to here, but your cap's still down here, so you're not seeing so your cap goes up 10%, or you're still here, you got it lowered last year, but your cap hadn't hit that.

So, every year it's gonna go up 10%.

And that is one thing that we try to really explain uh to the property owners here, the homesteaded, this is on your homestead, uh, is because of that you may see changes every year, your tax, you know, your uh assessed value is going up every year because that cap goes up 10% until you hit the market.

With a stable market, which is what we're starting to see now, that'll be good because they'll be able to catch up to that.

So then there actually will be, you know, with unless something, you know, market goes crazy again, uh, you might not see any increase.

But until that cap catches up, you're gonna see that 10% uh jump.

And that's something that we try to explain.

It's very confusing to a lot of people.

And and you foresee that not stopping anytime soon in the years to come.

Yeah, no, I think we had.

Do you remember how many we had this year that reached it?

We had about 48,000 single family homes, but their market value did not increase over last year, but their appraised value increase because they were capped.

We had probably I think another uh 20 something thousand that they did not have any increase at all.

So the market is leveling out, but but the problem is when you when you get that cap, yeah, you get your value lowered that year, and maybe for a couple years afterwards, but that cap is gonna keep ratcheting up.

It doesn't get rid of the increase, it just delays when you're gonna see the effect of it.

So we have a lot of people, like you said, 48,000, that their market value did not change this year, but their appraised value went up because their cap is still ratcheting up 10% every year until they equalize to the market value.

So that's probably what they're seeing, Dr.

Acevedo in when they're talking about you what I go in every year and I get it lowered.

Well, they might have gotten the market lowered, but the cap is not affected.

And the cap is not something that can be protested, it is what it is by state statute.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation.

Um on slide six.

Um I was making a comparison between residential and commercial.

It seems to me from this slide that residential values went up 7%.

Commercial values went up 13%.

Can commercial properties also protest their values?

Okay, yes.

Um, I'm wondering what the process is for something like that, only because last council meeting, the council uh we took a vote on something regarding a company in my district who had purchased some property, and when they purchased the property, they were under the understanding that the property was worth a certain amount of money, they purchased it, they received their appraisal value, and it came back almost 300% higher than when they purchased the property.

Um there was a huge discrepancy there.

So, how does that process work?

Um so things like that don't occur and people don't get surprised by the property value after they've purchased a property.

Well, number one, come in and tell us.

Um trying to get uh commercial information is you know, pulling teeth from a rhino.

I mean, it's just ridiculous it's uh ridiculously hard to do.

Um there the process for uh commercial property owners is the same as as all property owners.

While the protests bring in the information, commercial properties normally will hire a representative that will represent thousands of commercial properties.

With the appraisal process, we have to look at cost, market, and income.

And uh businesses uh real estate will look at income.

What are the rents?

What are the expenses?

And we set up income tables.

Majority of our commercial properties are appraised under the income approach.

What are the rents?

What are the expenses?

Standard rents, standard expenses.

If something is different in a property, then they need to file a protest and come in.

Every, I will tell you, probably majority of our protests.

If you were to look at residential, commercial, we have a percentage of residential that will file, maybe 50 something percent commercial be almost 100%.

Uh, they do file protests, they hire attorneys, they hire uh uh agents.

You saw the the lawsuits, the 2200 lawsuits.

I'm gonna tell you 99% of those are commercial.

Um they do uh agents will will represent them for a fee and take them through the entire process.

So when a commercial property owner comes in and says, Well, I didn't pay for that.

Well, give me the sale, and we'll be happy.

Come in, follow protest, bring that sale in here, come in and talk to us.

If we've had no information in the past, then what we've had to do is set a value based on what standard rents are, what standard expenses are, what management that we're seeing, like an apartment complex.

Um, are you a low-income apartment complex?

Are you high-end?

We have tables uh set up for that.

We'll look at the basic cost approach using uh Marshall and Swift.

What are the what is the developers here?

You know, uh expenses uh for lumber and materials, that type of thing, and then uh again what the income.

Even if they are brand new, we'll look at what, okay, this is a apartment complex, they're gonna be asking X amount of rents.

We need to be equal with the other apartment complexes.

Um, and that's where we lose a lot of value during the hearings.

Is you get one complex that will come in, and under the statutes, they have what they call the downward spiral effect, and they'll get uh an apartment complex adjusted, and then everybody else will come in and go, Well, you got this one adjusted, and we'll say, Well, there's specific problems with that one, but they use that on an equity, and it's called a downward spiral, and all of your values end up going uh down below what is as market and hurts us on the value study.

So for anybody that is looking at developing, we've we have worked with the uh border borderplex uh on on talking with some of the companies that are coming in.

But uh we really would like for them to visit with us.

We'd be happy to tell them what the values are and how we came up with it.

Can't change it until the next year because again, January 1 and then protest season.

Once the notices go out, uh we do not change those values other than through the uh protest process.

But yeah, tell them come in.

I'm just wondering.

I'm just wondering if there is um just a bigger discrepancy between the actual uh market value and the appraised value on the commercial side versus the residential, and if there's some money that is being left on the table because of that discrepancy.

I would say yes, throughout the state of Texas, not just here in El Paso County, but throughout the state of Texas.

Property owners, commercial property owners have better resources, they can hire an agent.

Agent will file thousands and thousands of protests.

Um they can then, after they go before, and they don't come through informal, they go right to the formal hearings after the formal hearing, even if they got uh a bit of a change, they will file a lawsuit, 2200 lawsuits, guys.

You know, so they can file a lawsuit, and they will.

I cannot go to court on 2200 lawsuits.

Um, so we end up going through uh mediation with a mediator and and come up with a number because it costs, you know, it's taxpayer dollars.

Um my legal budget's only so much.

So you can imagine 22 lawsuits.

So in the state of Texas, that is part of the business plan for for uh commercial property.

So if you want to ask, is there a discrepancy?

I'm gonna be first to say in all the years I've been here, yes, there is.

Uh, and now with business personal property, that 125,000.

It was meant to help the smaller maw and paw type uh businesses, like your nails, your beauty shops, your small retail, your small markets.

It was meant to really help them with markets being the way they are and and with the tariffs and the issues that they're dealing with.

Um, unfortunately, you see 920 uh million dollars in value that y'all are gonna lose every McDonald's, every fast food, um, did they really need to have that kind of uh uh deduction uh or exemption?

I don't know, legislation determine that, and we just follow what the legislators tell us to do.

So, yes, uh Representative Chavez, there is a discrepancy.

I wish I could uh tell you there isn't.

That's it's something to think about and strategy.

So the legislators.

Thank you.

Representative.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Ms.

Cobor and for all of you being here today to give us this presentation.

Uh, there's been a lot of great questions asked today.

Um, during one of my community meetings, and this has been a question that often pops up is if an individual does not have an exemption on their home, what is the process for them to one ensure that they do have an exemption, and also are they able to track back a year or two in regards to not having such as a homestead exemption or any other exceptions?

Uh yeah, your exemptions you're allowed current year plus two years back.

So if property owner came in this year and filed in an exemption, then they could go back to only two years.

Um so just come to our office if you're not sure or give us a call.

I always tell everybody it's my responsibility as a homeowner to make sure I've got everything right.

I'm gonna get in the car and I'm gonna drive to the appraisal district and I'm gonna talk to somebody so that I'm comfortable with the fact that I do have it.

Um get on the website.

Uh pull up your property and see if your exemption's on there.

It'll it'll show up on there.

Um, so that's another way to check if you don't want to come in.

Um, but I think it is our responsibility to make sure we've got the exemptions that we're entitled to.

A lot of veterans uh think that if they're not 100%, they don't get some kind of a uh a discount.

Well, they do.

Even if they're 10% or 30%, there is uh an exemption that is allowed for for veterans, and as their percentage changes, they need to let us know.

We're not gonna know.

Uh so they they need to let us know.

Uh, we try to keep track of home homesteads when people sign so that if we know that they turn 65, we'll try to put that on in advance.

But um, it's best to come on in and and make sure you've got that exemption.

It does make a big difference to have that exemption because the over 65 of the homestead is not just for the different municipalities, it's for your schools.

And it's a big exemption, 140,000 exemption for a homestead, 200,000 for an over 65 or disabled.

Um, so it it's good to come in and and uh see.

Do you have it?

Check your notice, it'll have on there, it'll say um HS or OV.

Um there'll be some some coding on there, and then you can look under where the values for the different entities are broken down and you see where you're getting that exemption.

Um, there's disability if you're disabled and unable to work.

So there's a bunch of different go to our website, it's all explained there.

They can read about it and they can determine if if they qualify for something.

I think that was that was it?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, one thing I need, I'm sorry, Representative Nino, but I would like to press this.

We can go back two years to grant it.

If you have an exemption that is not yours, say you lived with your parents and your parents passed away and you stayed and you never bothered to get it changed, and we find out I can back assess for five years.

That's stated in the statutes, and we have to do that.

So I always tell everybody don't think you're getting away with something because it will catch up.

Yeah, well, thank you for that.

I just wanted to inform residents that if they don't have an exemption and they should um that they could always go back again the two years.

So thank you for that.

Hey, it's our we're we're entitled to have that exemption, so let's get it.

Well, thank you very much for the presentation and the great information.

We appreciate you guys doing this every year.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you guys.

All right, Miss Bryan.

That brings us to item number two, and this is discussion and update on the sister cities agreement between the city of El Paso, State of Texas, and the City of Juan, state of Chihuahua, and the United Mexican states.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning.

Kim Davis here.

Um I want to start by thanking the opportunity to present um to all of you.

Um, this is not that right.

Yes.

I'm sorry, if you wouldn't mind IT pulling up the other presentation, this is for item four.

Thank you.

We're on item two, the sister cities agreement.

Yes, thank you.

Would you share the presentation?

Yeah, because our backup has this presentation.

Is there a different presentation?

Yes, and item to you is for the update on the sister cities agreement.

Let's see, that's what it is.

This is the policy agenda.

Yeah.

It's yeah, it's my asked if you can send it to us.

So, this might stop it.

I think we're having some IT problems.

So I hate to do this to you guys, but we're gonna move to item number three, then we'll come back to you guys while we get loaded up.

All right, thank you.

All right, thank you, guys.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item three is a presentation by the opportunity Center for the Homeless about the Welcome Center, which provides initial stabilization to support triage and refer to an appropriate community provider, as well as services, including immediate access to necessities, short-term shelter, meals, access to showers, and laundry.

This item was placed by Representative Connales.

Representative Camals, you want to speak now or okay.

Yeah, just very quickly, thank you, Mayor.

I think it's important that the council hears about the welcome center.

It's a program that has been funded by ARPA for several years, and I think has uh really been transformational in the way that people access uh the services that they need for housing, shelter, behavioral care, other things that they might need.

And so um I wasn't sure of about the general familiarity of the council and frankly the public uh with the welcome center program, and so I I invited uh Mr.

Martin uh from the Opportunity Center for the Homeless.

Uh I know there are other uh other folks here, partners uh from Amistad and from United Way who have joined us today as well, uh, to be able to answer any questions, and uh I think uh with that we can let you take it away, Mr.

Martin, and uh deliver your excellent presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you very much.

And before we get started, I do want to acknowledge and follow up with what Representative Connells has.

To my right, we've got Bill Irvin, who is an employee of the Opportunity Center.

If he'll raise his hand, uh he is actually the program lead as it relates to the welcome center.

So when we get to questions, he may be able to answer some directly.

With United Way, I've got uh Juliana Uhas, who is their newly chief operations officer.

Okay, newly promoted into that, and along with uh Beto and Joel, both with the Resiliency Center, and then last but by no means least, I wanted to acknowledge Claudia Taylor with Ami Stud as we work through this.

Before we get into the presentation, I do want to set the context.

What we've seen in our community in Al Paso is we've seen a significant increase in the unhoused population within our community.

And I do apologize for the dated information, but the last normal year that we've had as a community has been 2019, just prior to COVID setting in.

And then once COVID slightened up a little bit, we had the migrant influx, both of which have impacted us for the last four to four and a half years.

But to put this into perspective, the opportunity center for the homeless being one of the largest providers within the community.

Mr.

Martin, give me one quick second.

Ms.

Prime, we have a presentation on this.

Yes, IT.

Can you please bring up the presentation for item three?

Okay, there we go.

Now we're just no worries.

But in 2019, the Opportunity Center to put this into perspective, we worked with 1,499 unique individuals.

Almost 1,500, if you give me the luxury of rounding up at this point.

This past year, that number was 3,472.

We have seen a hundred and eleven percent increase in the unhoused population served by one entity.

That's also further illustrated when you look at the results that were recently released by the Al Peso Coalition for the Homeless through what they call the longitudinal study analysis, which is an annual report that is given to HUD.

They had close to 2,800 unique individuals.

However, their data does not include that of the opportunity center during the same time frame for a single year.

Our numbers were 3,400.

So if you combine the two, that's gonna put you roughly in about the 5200 range, if I'm doing the math correctly within my head.

I will recognize that there is overlap between the two data collection systems and an educated guests about 20%.

So we're looking at numbers that have significantly increased over the last five years.

Now, what's happened within the past couple of years, actually three years, in July of 2022, the El Paso Helps Initiative was put into place through the efforts of the Department of Community and Human Development.

This is a city backed initiative.

It includes three funded partners that are represented here today, each of which will speak on their own as we work through it.

But I wanted to focus on the fact that with the Al Paso Helps Initiative, we have become community infrastructure.

And that's really the key word that I want to focus on during this presentation.

It is a coordinated homelessness response system, summarizing and giving us demonstrated results and system impacts.

And it outlines why sustaining and enhancing this effort going forward through a public-private partnership is essential.

So today we're here to inform policy discussion and partner engagement.

If you go, I think I guess it's under my control.

There we go.

As I mentioned, Paso helps operates as a form of public infrastructure, not because we have labeled it as such, but because of how it functions.

The system integrates prevention, street outreach, shelter stabilization, housing placement, and medical and behavioral health response into a single coordinated system.

Just like other infrastructure systems within our community, whether it be public safety, emergency response, or public health.

Al Paso helps addresses a predictable and recurring community condition.

Unsheltered homelessness is not random, nor is it fleeting.

It concentrates typically in specific corridors or in specific areas.

It recurs among individuals with long-term instability and directly affects emergency services, hospitals, public spaces, and neighborhoods if left unmanaged.

And I found it of interest that the previous presentation by the central appraisal district recognize that it also affects the evaluation of property.

So therefore, an effective response requires that we have standing capacity as a community through coordination and readiness, rather than just one-time interventions.

Today I've already introduced to you some of the key individuals, but Al Paso Helps brings together very complementary roles that functions as a single system, a systemic response.

Soon you will hear from United Way of Al Paso County, which provides upstream prevention and housing stabilization, preventing households from entering homelessness.

Engaging individuals experiencing an unsheltered homelessness and navigating them toward shelter or housing.

And then finally, I will step back up to talk a little bit about the welcome center.

The welcome center being a program of the opportunity center, which operates as the front door stabilization and triage hub, providing safety assessment, shelter access, and placement coordination.

So individually, these functions reduce homelessness at distinct stages.

Collectively, they form a durable response that protects downstream systems from crisis overloads.

With that, I'd like to introduce Claudia Taylor with Ami Stad and let her speak just briefly with regard to, and I apologize, I already got myself into trouble.

I would like to introduce Veto with the United Way of Al Paso County, then Claudia with Ami Stad.

I got it backwards there.

So let me get the United Way folks to come up.

Good morning, Beto.

Thank you, Mira Johnson.

Thank you, City Reps, for allowing me to be here to highlight two specific things.

The first one is how the United Way's mission and the services we provide aligned with El Paso.

Helps to uh to create a more resilient uh community with a humane face that takes into consideration the needs of all those people who are less fortunate than us.

Uh out of the center, the Center for Resiliency.

What we do is we provide uh homelessness prevention services through resiliency navigation services.

It is a preventive approach that empowers people to tackle any challenges or for unforeseen situations that they may encounter by connecting them with uh resources within the community, but also by um educing them and uh making sure that we drive a lasting uh a lasting change.

Uh as John mentioned, we provide uh this like stabilization services that are trauma informed and that are culturally sensitive.

Uh we provide also short-term uh targeted rental assistance to ensure that people or households who are at risk of homelessness are able to remain housed.

Uh and throughout the past six years, we have been around in response to COVID, and then we evolve into uh more uh homelessness prevention and basic needs uh service.

Uh we have been able to actually uh disperse over three million dollars to ensure that people remain housed.

Uh and we have served like over uh 1,900 households, which also has a really long-lasting impact, not just socially and uh individually for the families, but also it uh represents savings for the community at large uh by not having to address in a responsive manner to uh to these uh these individuals.

And we have also served uh and stabilize 4,862 individuals.

Uh, the majority of these households never enter a shelter or crisis the crisis system thanks to the navigation model, which creates a personalized and individualized uh care plan for each household and each individual of that household.

Uh, and that's how we collaborate with El Paso Helps.

And uh and what we do also aligns with the uh welcome center in a way that uh it is a great community um community um hub, not just a point of entry for people who need services, uh, but also it provides us on the preventing end the perfect space to serve the community in uh in an environment that is safe, in an environment that is culturally sensitive.

Their staff is so knowledgeable and so willing to work with external partners that uh we really don't know like who could be like what we would do without uh their collaboration because they truly serve the most uh the most underserved and the people who need who have the most severe and dire needs.

Uh, and they channel them to us, they refer them to us, and uh they're an integral part of this infrastructure that John is talking about.

They uh they're a very key essential piece in how not just uh we work, but El Paso helps as a whole, serves the community in an effective and sensitive way.

Uh, from getting referrals to even uh offering peer support services during the most recent uh city um outreach search that we did last year, uh last month, I'm sorry, we were able to provide uh peer support groups there uh to ensure that we we create like this like um this hub and this sense of safety for everyone.

Uh so um I can only say that uh I hope like uh John like well I know John will talk more about it and how important the services offered by the welcome center are and how they ensure that all the services that are provided to the homeless are provided in a way that is accessible, which is so important, uh, reliable, culturally sensitive, and uh and um provide a safe space.

Thank you so much for your attention.

And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Thank you, Beto.

Good morning, Claudia.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

Um, I appreciate the opportunity to be here and uh for allowing me to speak.

Um, as a member of the EP Helps Initiative, Amistad serves as the primary street outreach and engagement partner, which means that we are actively boots on the ground out there dealing with some of the most vulnerable population here in our town.

We do work primarily with the chronically homeless, which if you uh are not familiar with the term, it means that we are working with individuals who have experienced homelessness for 12 consecutive months, or within the last three years have experienced four or more episodes of homelessness that have totaled up more than a year.

Um, this makes it a little bit more challenging to get them connected to services, especially shelter and or housing, because they have been through just about every program out there and have not been able to succeed at it.

Each time that these individuals go through these programs, it makes it a little more difficult and more difficult the next go around.

We have been able to successfully engage 1,355 clients through the street outreach, and out of those clients, we were able to house 221 into permanent housing.

The welcome center was an integral part of this.

Especially within the last two years, we have been able to work more collaboratively with other agencies that serve the same population, which has been a huge change for our clients.

Normally, when we approach the clients, we have mental health that approaches them and asks them to do certain things.

We have housing providers that such as ourselves that approach them and ask them to do certain things, and it becomes very, very overwhelming for the client.

The welcome center serving as a point of contact, like I said, hub for these individuals, has allowed us to all meet there and work collaboratively so that we're not competing with each other to provide these services and to make sure that our clients are successful in meeting their goals, whether it's mental health, housing, whatever it is that they are choosing to prioritize.

We have also had a lot of success in engaging a lot of the individuals that are out there for longer periods of time because the welcome center is the only shelter in town that is able to receive individuals at any time of day or night.

Amistad has the only 24-7 street outreach team in town, I think also in Texas and possibly in the nation.

We have had a lot of people ask our Department of Community and Human Development in some of the presentations that they have done out of state in other cities.

They are very interested in the model.

This model only works if we are able to take our clients somewhere after hours.

Without the welcome center receiving them, there is absolutely no other shelter that receives past five o'clock, sometimes three o'clock in the afternoon, and definitely not on the weekends.

When it comes to the population that we serve, the chronically homeless, it is crucial that we get them where they need to go in the moment that they are ready.

If they say yes now, if we hesitate five, ten minutes, they might change their mind, and it might be another week, another month before we can get them to the point where they're ready again.

We have also been very successful in bringing in more individuals to services because in the last year we had a uh couple of events where we went out into the community and we actively brought people together into the welcome center.

They served as a hub where we had medical facilities and we had mental health providers, we even had animal services present there.

Most of our clients do not engage and do not want to go to shelter because they have companions.

They have pets that help with safety and with their mental health.

The welcome center has opened up space for them to bring their animals, and during these events, we actually had animal services there to help vaccinate, to help chip their animals, so they were more willing to come and engage.

More recently in April, we had another outreach event, and it was even more successful.

We had people actually coming to us asking to go to the welcome center so that they could get the resources.

So it is becoming a more successful event each time that we do it, and we do have more agencies becoming involved so that we can collaborate and provide a tighter safety net for the most vulnerable population in our city.

And it has been, again, I cannot state how crucial it has been that we are able to do this at the welcome center because they are able to provide us that 24-hour access for our clients.

So I thank you again for this opportunity, and if you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.

Okay, thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about the welcome center.

The welcome center is a bit unique.

Yes, it is an emergency shelter, but it also does so much more.

We purposely left the opportunity center's name off of the welcome center because the opportunity center opens or operates an open door shelter, which means we are working with the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the mentally frail, the elderly.

And so the welcome center has become essentially what the name implies: a point of welcome.

It is a front door stabilization and triage hub.

Triage is the key.

We use the term navigation more so than we do case management as we work through that.

So it is that point of acute homelessness and entry and crisis access as we work through it.

And you just heard United Way and Ami Stad talk about their numbers.

And if you go to the next slide, you can see a general idea of what we've done within the welcome center.

And I want to caution you, these are not unique.

We have created a system.

So there is overlap between the numbers as we work through it.

But since we opened, which was in August of 2022 in our case, we have served just under 3,000 unique individuals.

Of those, 562 have been placed into housing through our partnerships.

But also important, we've been able to make permanent placements into emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, and specialized shelters.

An example of a specialized shelter would be the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence, just to put that into perspective.

We've also had 134 direct referrals for medical and behavioral health services.

Now the numbers that I provided you along with Ami Stad and United Way are aggregated numbers since the beginning of the initiative.

But let me put this into perspective on an annual basis.

That's a little over 1,200 individuals per year that are served through prevention-based services such as AMI Stud.

361 individuals per year through outreach and navigation.

And in the case of the welcome center, that's 818.

And so that's actually annualized returns.

These figures reflect system outputs, not individual or program outputs, but system outputs.

And as I mentioned to you, they're not additive in that nature because there is overlap between the two.

But what you're going to find is that there is a significant cost savings to the community.

We here in El Paso pride ourselves on being a very resilient city.

We tackle what's in front of us at that time.

And so to a great extent, we're reactive.

And what El Paso helps represents is a proactive approach to get in front of that particular situation as we work through it.

And to give you an idea, when we started this initiative about three years ago, okay, we would meet every other week.

We'd have about 10 people at the table.

If you go to a meeting today, that number is approaching 70 to 80.

This is built up over the years.

Yes, there are three funded partners that are underneath that initiative, but this is just a list of some of the other partners that are involved, and the list keeps growing.

And in fact, this is not a complete list as we work through it.

This particular slide sort of shows you that development, but I do want to talk a little bit about some of our system partners that are unfunded.

The Department of Veterans Affairs.

Claudia alluded to the fact that back in July, in fact, it was July 29, 30th, and 31st, we did what was referred to as a VA search.

Okay, it was the Department of Veterans' Affairs, it was mandated for them for all homeless veterans within our community.

But it was the VA that says if we're going to go to the trouble to hit the streets, we're going to do everybody.

And the numbers were simply astounding.

Most recently, through the El Paso Police Department, we were asked to do what we refer to as the April Outreach Initiative.

And I notice that Chief Pacius is sitting over here in the corner over here.

I have to acknowledge the police department.

But what I want to emphasize with PD as well as the fire department at this point is we're working together, which is very unique.

I've been working with the homeless for a little over 20 years, different organizations, the majority of which have been with the Opportunity Center.

I've never seen this level of cooperation between city departments, and I'd be remiss in not referring to, and I always get the name wrong, the community driven innovation department.

If I got that correctly, I got it right over there.

Okay, as we work through it, as well as again, I'm going to mention the Department of Community and Human Development.

The results have just simply been incredible.

And that's one reason why I indicate that we need to look at our homelessness response as a community as public infrastructure.

And just to put this into perspective, when we talk about public infrastructure, we have communities that we're all very familiar with that are already doing this.

San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Albuquerque, Santa Fe.

They all recognize the benefits of taking a proactive approach on the front end.

They all do it a little bit differently.

And as Claudia had mentioned, we have developed a model, a model by which other communities are now looking to us, because one thing we haven't mentioned, which is really underneath the city umbrella, is what we refer to as the El Paso Helps Portal, where individuals can reach out directly and talk to a lab person as they pick it up and they run through it.

Can I quantify the cost savings to the community?

No, because we're simply not tracking that as a community at this point.

But I can tell you that with other communities, we're seeing savings in the millions of dollars by simply taking a proactive approach.

Because you need to recognize that our hospitals are impacted on a daily basis.

In fact, one of the things that we're doing under El Paso helps at this point is looking at medical discharges within the community.

We at the Opportunity Center get a hundred to a hundred and twenty referrals every single month from our local hospitals and our behavioral health institutions.

At the top of the list is Al Paso Behavioral, formerly known as UBH, because I think many of us can't get over the fact that they're no longer UBH at this point.

UMC, the Providence campuses, the tenant network, all of these individuals are impacted.

And to put this into perspective, just recently we had a discharge from Las Palmas who had been in the hospital for 34 days.

Total hospital bill 437,000 and change.

Stage three cancer, the man is in his 80s.

This are the people that were here.

And so we need to recognize that homelessness is not episodic.

We need to continue to move forward as we work through them.

Because our hospitals do absorb a significant amount of uncompensated care.

So we need to take on the idea of a public-private partnership.

Because this is infrastructure.

It's infrastructure within a community.

And I'm not going to read the slides to you, but I think the information is there, and you can glean from it.

But why is these partnerships essential?

I talk a little bit about federal funding.

We as a community do rely on federal funding, and we understand why.

But even now, with what's happening at the federal level, there's questions as to what the future is going to look like.

We're looking at significant changes within the COC funding streams, the continuum of care, and I do apologize for the acronyms.

We're looking at potential changes with ESG funding, which is the emergency solutions grant.

And the predominant thing that's under discussion at this point is the absence of funding for rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing if you want to refer to it as such.

So we need to have a response that is not inherently episodic.

We need to look at something that goes forward.

We also need to recognize that there needs to be shared investment in this.

I've had a lot of discussions, for example, with the downtown management district, as to what we can do and do better as we work through it.

But thanks to you, the city council and the mayor, albeit a previous group, not all of you, but some of you in that respect.

I do apologize in that okay.

The reality is we're doing something that is just simply and credible.

Is it to where it needs to be yet?

Not yet, but we need to continue to enhance it.

We need to take those steps.

I mentioned to you that dramatic increase that we've seen just over a five-year period, which if you put it into numbers, that's a hundred and eleven percent increase.

We've all driven down the streets, we've seen the large number of encampments.

We see them growing in certain areas.

We've identified even more that we were unaware of through the two outreach initiatives that we talked about.

And as I mentioned to you, there are other communities that are taking this approach.

I've always heard a lot of discussion about the Haven for Hope and San Antonio.

Well, to be honest with you, that concept is already here.

It's through the El Paso Helps Initiative, and so we need to look at what needs to be done going forward.

This is just a summary slide of all the numbers that you just recently heard again, aggregated results.

But I'd like to close at this point.

We didn't want to take up too much time because we'd like to answer any questions that you might have.

But I think these two statements really sort of synthesize what we're talking about.

Homelessness is continuous.

There was a lot of discussion in previous years about getting to effective zero.

In other words, developing a system by which those that come in are placed just as rapidly as they come in the door, because you will never end homelessness.

It will always be there.

And I've said it differently before, and in fact, I've said it in front of this body, that no one entity is the extra expert, but collectively we are the experts.

That when I started working with the Salvation Army 20 years ago was non-existent.

You had a lot of great providers doing great work, but they were working in a silo mentality.

With El Paso helps, what you're seeing is those providers coming together.

And with that, I'll close and we'll answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you, John.

Uh, representative Canalis.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, again, I think it's very evident from hearing from yourself and the other presenters how vital a piece of the the overall system the welcome center is in particular, not to mention all the other uh services that uh are provided.

Like you said, by the collective group of experts that the city works with, uh but you know, you all are the ones uh out providing the services more directly.

Um I wanted to make the council aware, as I mentioned towards the beginning of the presentation, uh the welcome center uh to this point has been sustained by an allocation from uh by the American Rescue Plan Act, so the recovery funds from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Um that funding is ceasing, and so as I understand things now, and uh perhaps you can elaborate a little bit more, Mr.

Martin.

Uh, the rest the um welcome center to this point uh does not have an identified funding source moving forward.

Is that is that correct?

That is a correct statement.

The ARPA funds that we've been able to utilize, and we've used a little bit of CDBG funds over the last few years as we've worked through it, but those ARPA funds are going to sunset at the end of August of this year.

And other parts of El Paso helps remain funded, right?

The I know the city has allocated a portion of of Home ARP uh funding for uh El Paso Helps.

Uh it's not funded in its entirety, and the rescue I apologize.

The welcome center is the uh the portion that remains the largest chunk unfunded.

That is a correct statement, and yes, you are correct in what you're saying, but I will defer to either Nicole or Adela if you'd like to get more detail on that.

Nicole was ready to jump in.

I saw her jump up.

I was just doing my job today, which is fine with me.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Nicola Rodriguez, Director of community Human development.

Um the council approved a plan for Home ARP funds that uh that essentially funded the rest of the services.

However, transition uh, I'm sorry, emergency shelter is not a um eligible expense under our I mean Home ARP.

So we'll we are I try and identify a future funding source.

In the meantime, it does not have a funding source at this time.

And what is the amount of the gap in funding that we have for Wellcome Center?

It it's approximately anywhere from five to eight hundred thousand dollars per year.

That that number ranges.

We've we've done anything, everything that we do is on a reimbursement basis.

They're their reimbursements that they send to the city range anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 per month.

Okay, and that's based on a few years of actuals going back to when we started with our balance.

Yes.

Okay.

Um again, I just uh want to emphasize uh 2900 individuals and families served.

It's uh quite a lot of people that that would have very different outcomes uh as you explained, cost us uh even more money on the back end um through medical care through other interventions.

Um in my opinion, it's worth the investment up front.

And to expand on Nicole's answer, when it ranges from 50 to 70,000 a month, two months out of the year are three paycheck months, and that's where the variation comes from.

Okay, and I think the next three paycheck month is gonna be July.

Okay.

Right, and then so that's the reason for the variation because the costs are fairly consistent from month to month.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

Um I certainly hope that we're able to find the resources to sustain the program.

Um I think it's been uh very, very beneficial to our community, and um of course I can't guarantee it to you, but uh it's it's my hope that that uh through the development of our budget we're able to find uh something available for for the sustainment of the program.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor.

Representative Thomas.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, John, for the presentation.

I want to take a moment to uh recognize Commander Lopez from the West Side Regional Command Center, who I know has been um spearheading the effort of heart.

Um uh and I know it's been very successful.

I had the opportunity to be at both events at the West Side Regional Command Center last year and uh this year as well.

Um, and so I wanted also commend Project Amistad for all of the work that they're doing.

I know that I've been in contact with them directly uh regarding some very specific cases on the West side, and they've been always very helpful, very um accessible and uh willing to step up any time of day, any day of the week.

So I think that's a great benefit to our community.

Um and Denise, also who's sitting in the back, because I know she's worked really really hard on this, and and I want to thank her specifically for for her efforts regarding heart.

Um, if any of you ever have the chance, I know I did.

I jumped in a patrol car one day, and thank you to Chief Basillas and his entire department for the work that they do.

Um I was able to to ride along uh district one one morning and and see the pocket areas of of where the unhoused are actually uh living and the challenges that our police department faces with that.

So um I know we've had a lot of public events lately.

We just had a big concert recently here, and we had another one last year.

And something that people tell me when they come visit El Paso, we just had a delegation from Chihuahua here last week.

Something that people can identify when they visit El Paso is is the fact that they don't see a big issue with unhoused individuals in our community.

And many times when we visit other cities, it's it's apparent that there are these issues in other cities.

And and sometimes we don't know why we don't have the issue the issue, but I think from your presentation today and with the HART initiative and the work that 30 agencies are collaborating on, I think it's apparent why we don't have the in-housed issue in El Paso as big as in other communities.

When we talk about tourism, economic development, attracting companies to establish themselves here.

I think that's a big component of it.

Um and I I don't know if you want to speak to that about why this initiative is so successful and how it really benefits other areas for other reasons as well.

Well, before I respond to your question, I would like to commend Chief Basillas and his crew as well.

To see the El Paso Police Department take a humanitarian approach to working with the unhoused is just simply incredible, and I know that's very different from other communities when I talk to my colleagues in other communities as well.

It's just simply outstanding.

So I'd like to commend him and his crew or team, whatever the appropriate term might be at this point.

Okay, as we work through that.

Essentially, what you're seeing in direct answer to your question as we sort of work through that, is collaboration is the key.

Rather than having individual providers work within what I used to refer to as that silo mentality, working together with one another.

And I mentioned to you that triage component as it relates to the welcome center.

Triage is a little bit different than say case management, and that's why we refer to our staff as navigators because they get them to the price.

And one of the most obvious examples I can get you, male or female, if they're a victim of domestic violence.

Typically, our outlet is going to be people such as the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence.

We're looking at La Posada.

We're also looking at the YWCA, all of which are partners within this initiative.

And so it's that level of collaboration that has made a difference.

And that's why I'm so caught proud to call El Paso home.

I was born and raised here.

But like most kids, I left town after high school and then ended up coming back.

So I guess I don't have a brain when we used to refer to the brain drain as we sort of go through that.

But the reality of it is collaboration is the key.

We need to look at systemic responses.

And there's other groups that I didn't mention when I talk about partners, but for example, academia.

We've got UTEP and Texas Tech highly involved in this initiative.

And for example, there is a group of third year medical students through Texas Tech that provide a clinic with the appropriate supervision every other week at the welcome center.

And just recently they focused on wound care.

But we're not simply looking at we're looking at the drivers.

I mentioned to you the number of referrals that we get on a monthly basis.

What we're concerned with and what we're approaching right now, when it comes to medical referrals such as UMC or any of the private hospitals within the community, we're only seeing a 50% engagement rate, which means 50% are out on the streets.

When it comes to behavioral health, we're looking at about a one-third engagement rate, passive behavioral real vista behavioral, the list goes on at this point.

And so we're working with those institutions to say what can we do better so that we can, I hate to use the word capture, but engagement, to engage more individuals upon discharge.

Does that mean that we look at a warm handoff within the institutions themselves to ensure that they're coming through?

And I would invite each and every one of you to join us at one of our meetings.

I think you will be wonderfully surprised.

We meet the first and third Thursday of every month, currently on the top floor of the Blue Flame Building, which is the 17th floor.

And so our next meeting will not be this Thursday but the following Thursday, and I don't have a calendar in front of me.

But it starts at 8:30 in the morning, and I would ask you just to step in and listen.

And I think you're gonna be amazed at the level of collaboration in the direction that we're going.

And I hope I answered your question.

No, I think I think it's great, John, and I just wanted to point out the fact that it really takes all of these agencies coming together, collaborating to uh think of how to approach this issue, and I think everyone has done an excellent job.

I've seen many volunteers at the times I've been at the Westside Regional Command Center.

So there's a lot of people in our community that are willing to step up and we should show our appreciation for them.

And I I think that the work uh is great and the results are there, so I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

John, uh Claudia Beto and the entire team, thank you.

And collaboration is the key.

You know, like you said, the chief, the hospitals, the schools, it goes on and on and on, which makes this a really good example for the rest of the state and the rest of the country.

So keep up the great work, guys.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, and I speak on behalf of the team that's here, and it truly is a team.

We thank you for the opportunity to give you sort of an update on what we're doing with the Alpha Sohelps Initiative.

If you have any questions, reach out to us independently, and we'll be more than happy.

I think I'm in your office later this week.

Okay.

So we'll go forward from there.

Okay.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

All right, Ms.

Prime.

Yes, sir.

Would you like to return to item two?

Yes.

Thank you.

Item two is discussion and update on the sister cities agreement between the city of El Paso, State of Texas, and the City of Juarez, State of Chihuahua of the United Mexican states.

Good morning.

Hello again.

Kim Davis from Economic and International Development Department.

So today I'm gonna be presenting the sister cities agreement with Ciudad Juarez.

And I'm gonna walk you through the presentation summary.

So we're gonna have overview, which are gonna be our strategic focus areas, our objectives, what are gonna be our collaborative areas, how it's gonna perfectly align with international policy agenda, and finalize with our next steps.

So first of all, we would like to start with respectfully request the approval of the updated of sister cities agreement.

This agreement will formalize the existing relationship that we already have with Juarez to provide a structure framework to advance priority across priorities across the region.

And I'm gonna walk you through a little bit of the history behind this program.

So this was first created in 1956 by President Asen Howard with the primary purpose of creating peace and diplomacy between people to people across nation.

This idea was born from the People to People Initiative and later become Sister Cities International.

So what is gonna do?

It will give formal communication channel between um both city governments, it will give for framework coordination on regional priorities, and what is gonna be matter for us.

So it will facilitate institutional collaboration between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.

Uh some point that I wanna um point out is that it will continue beyond leadership.

And what another uh good fact about this program is that it will not implicate any financial obligation.

So this is gonna be barely good faith between both cities.

We wanted to focus on our foundation of our existing partnership from 2005.

We hold an agreement, and this agreement will focus on promoting economic activity and crowd sector engagement, and we wanted to keep that um that focus from 2005 to to today.

Our region has evolved tremendously.

So we wanted to uh take advantage of that greater opportunity, and we saw um the sorry, we saw this opportunity to better reflect today's reality necessities.

So, what are gonna be our strategic focus areas today?

We're gonna give more focus on tourism, education, and sustainability.

Now that we have the great team of um climate in the city, uh climate has been one of our greatest partnerships uh to develop this update in this um in this agreement.

Today uh the city holds eight cities agreements, which is six with Mexico and two overseas, which is Querétaro, Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Torreón, Juarez, and Chihuahua.

Chihuahua has been the only one expired by now, but we're gonna uh work forward with that one.

The other two, it's Frontera de Jerez Espana y La Adera Israel.

So we wanted to focus on three objectives, um, threehold.

Reaffirm this reaffirm the strength, um sister cities relationship that we already have with Ciudad Juarez, establish a framework on for sustained by national cooperation, and the third one, we wanted to base our third objective to align into one of the main pillars of the strategic plan, which is quality of life.

What are gonna be our collaborative areas on this updated agreement?

So we have economic and trade cooperation.

This one will far will fall perfectly in um here on FDI.

This is one of the main focus of our international policy agenda, which Adriana is gonna talk to you a little bit later.

Our institutional coordination, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more in the following slides.

Community and cultural engagement will fall perfectly into culture and education and regional sustainability, as I was explaining a little bit before.

Um, how are we um working um aside with the climate with the climate team?

And this update is gonna be perfectly aligned with our sister cities agreement.

International, sorry, international policy agenda.

One of the main focus of this policy agenda is to strengthen relationships with Mexico.

And how we're doing to for implementation.

So we have designated teams from both sides of the border, and we have came along of international sufferers committee.

This committee, it's um monthly reunions with different stakeholders.

So we have municipality from Juarez, we have um city departments such as FTC 68, we have um international bridges, destination of Paso, and I wanted to give an ex a perfect example of how the outcomes of this international committee has um we have built.

So, as Ms.

Chavez was saying, we the last week we have a designated group from Chihuahua that came on to visit us.

They were they left a maze to looking at the AMD and the um innovation factory.

Uh, a couple of investors came, so these reunions have helped build us relationship with municipalities from Juarez from Chihuahua.

Um, these investors left with consider with the consideration of the later on probably investing our city, and this is just um an outcome of our our relationships in about uh from these um community, and one of our one of another strategies to continue by national partnerships and strategic communications, and I'm gonna walk you through the to the finalize with the next steps.

So on June the 3rd, we're gonna have the formal the formalization and the signing with Mr.

with Mayor Johnson and Mayor Cuellar, and we wanted to continue to continue uh leading these meetings and finalized um we're talking with IT to better have an international portion of our current economic development department um website in which we wanted to launch um all of the programs that we're working on and to better reflect and have um more transparent communication with all the stakeholders and the residents, and um I'm so sorry, I'm very nervous, but um if you have any questions, please let me know.

Um thank you again for for the for your time.

Kimley, one quick question for you.

Uh how often do you guys meet?

One once per month.

Once per month, and it's well attended.

Oh, yeah.

So we have it it started one year ago from I believe five uh participants, and now we have over 30.

Wow, and each time we have more in some and some, um, I think we have we had done a really good marketing job from uh um, you know, word-to-word, and as I was saying, these meetings had gave us the great opportunity to meet with the stakeholders and primary, see what can we uh help, and vice versa.

Um, and yeah, we uh we actually were thinking to have the meetings um uh bimonthly, but they were like, no, please let us let us continue to be like some something constantly, and we have one uh one month in person and one and one month hybrid.

Very good.

And no one knew you were nervous.

You did a good job.

Thank you so much.

Representative.

Thank you, Mayor.

And and Kimberly, this is this is her first presentation, and nothing could go worse than the wrong time, the wrong presentation.

But mayor was very good and gracious to kind of step, you know, move them.

Thank you very much.

I know you're nervous, but we won't fight.

Thank you.

This is a wonderful uh move.

As our country closes more and more, um, and sides away from international cooperation with other countries, it is wonderful to see that our city moves in the opposite direction.

Um had the chance to meet a few of our visitors from Sudade Chihuahua.

And it was really such a warm, friendly feeling from them.

They want to learn from the city, they want to participate.

And it was good that we were able to host them and also to share.

Expense to the gastronomia event that's happening.

Those are the kinds of activities that are so good that we can all participate in.

If you drive to Chihuahua, certainly much much less if you fly.

But thank you for bringing this to us.

It's it's um it's a great step in the right direction.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly.

Let me, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Actually, one of the um one of the meetings that we hold these these past three three days was when we with destination El Paso, and we were talking about how can we help promote tourism in both sides of the border.

And that's how our friends from Chihuahua invited us to um Antojo to uh culinaria, and I think this is very important because we we're promoting collaboration and we're we're trying to promote how can we help each other because at the end of the day, we are like a national um by national cities and by national community, and at the end of the day, whatever we do will reflect on the on the others.

We we breathe the same air at the uh, you know, so we're here to help.

Thank you.

Representative.

Kimberly, congratulations on your first presentation to the council.

Um during my briefing, I had a question about um kind of you touched on it a little bit about the climate.

I wanted to see what collaboration we're looking in in regards to we just recently adopted our climate action plan and also what further conversations we're having with our sister city quarez when it comes to you know aligning efforts of what we're trying to advocate for.

So actually, one of our stakeholders is from a strategic and legislative um affairs, and one of the main reasons we try to hold these uh these meetings is it's collaboration.

So, climate team, we have been in talks with the climate team on the Juarez municipality.

Um they we were trying to see if we can collaborate with campaigns.

You know how our um our climate team has give designated time to be planting threes, and I think these these this is a great opportunity on to see how how can we um in conjunction collaborate?

So this is like an exchange ideas, um, and actually, as I was saying, it's a it's part of our committee, and if we want to come up with everyone, oh sure.

One of the things that we have coming up is is ULAQ is presenting their own international policy agenda, and we know that it's one of the items that they're going to consider there as well.

So, one of the things that we have going forward is deciding how both agendas are going to fit together in that regard, how we can share campaigns, how we can support one another, and and what Kitten says is very true.

We are fortunate to be able to work with uh Fernando and all of his team at Society and Legislative Affairs that'll be helping us guide that project work and determine those uh initiatives and priorities together.

Great.

No, that's exciting.

I mean, we live in the same climate, same environment, so this is great to know.

Um, one last question uh is there interaction with our border relations committee in regards to all of these conversations as well.

Are they involved in the process?

Well, now we are getting ready to really kind of pick up steam with that group again.

We're working closely with uh Amy to be able to kind of revamp.

So since it's been a while since we've had that group together, it's an opportunity for us to really start fresh, determine a new mission, a vision, an objective that we want to accomplish, and now guided with all of this exciting work that's coming up, it's a new opportunity for us to engage, and then it will be up to that group to determine what they want to prioritize within the areas that we're looking at.

Okay, great.

That's good to know.

That's exciting.

All right, no further questions.

Thank you.

Representative Trail.

Thank you, Mary.

I think I answered my questions.

I was looking at your your PowerPoint here on what changed.

Kimberly, by the way, very good presentation.

And what changed uh tourism education sustainability and and prior to that was what we already had um one of the main focus from the 2005 was um culture.

It was tourism as well but we want to what we decided to give like a better emphasis on this time is to um better reflect the reality and necessities of the right national region now.

So better say didn't change we just wanted to give it a better focus and emphasis.

So from for example on culture on 2005 it didn't give any um designated space for for education so now we want it to be culture and education we wanted to give um a better uh focus now that we have designated teams such as climate social destination of passo tourism was a prior before but now you know how the region has evolved we wanted to be able to um reach that evolution and being able to uh move forward um at the pair of of that evolution so you better say um it didn't change but we wanted to um giving a better um emphasis on those on those areas sustainability wasn't before um if you look into the both agreements the language didn't change much we want to just to um adapt to to uh to a better language and to also um align with our policy agenda okay and with education what are what are the ideas there or what are you is it that you're looking to push forward with education actually one of the main the stakeholders of our committee is um a nonprofit organization from Juarez they um want their main focus is to scholarships and um push forward is students and we this is not something probably right in the right in the loop but we wanted to we we have been talking so probably long in there on um have exchange exchange students help them as much as we can um keep going I would add that part of the changes that we've had is in the way that we can approach projects the original agreement in 2005 had us do one project a year so it was a little bit limiting in what we were allowed to do.

So now we can go with different initiatives at the same time and part of the push that we have for education is going to be matching with our targeted industries for economic development.

So knowing that we have partners on on both sides of the border that can work together towards advanced manufacturing towards the aerospace so all of these areas is an opportunity for us to connect a little bit better.

We know that there are a lot of students across the border every day that go to UTEP.

So a lot of that is already in line it just lets us explore that opportunity a little bit more and design more initiatives around education and the needs that our community has.

Very good okay and then with tourism are you looking is the regional marketing of tourism or what would change there.

Yes ma'am so that was one of the requests that Ciudad has they're very interested in having a cross promotion of tourism and cultural events on both sides and potentially hosting some together in the future.

So this will allow us the opportunity to explore what those opportunities can be and to speak with their tourism team that's uh inside the economic development department and our work with destination and pasta so we can design some of those together very good thank you both representative thank you mayor um you're doing great it's okay um you'll get used to it but overall I um I'm really happy with where we're heading with this and what we kind of talked about when in the briefing is how can we make this a really big deal, right?

Cause a lot of what we have seen not just here but in in other places, sister cities are are really exciting at the beginning and you sign them and then you're just a sister city.

But I I really um appreciate the intent behind what you're kind of doing here, specifically slide nine with economic and trade cooperation, institutional coordination, community cultural engagement, regional sustainability.

Um that that is really great.

On how um you're going after these different things, you're you're having different meetings.

You said there's about 30 people that are attending, but even for feedback that we can provide, right?

Um would would be great.

This the specific sister cities agreement with Ciudad Juarez can really position us as a border community that we are and really show the collaboration that I don't think we're really seeing in another border communities, so we could be the first.

Um I always go back to the San Antonio Monte Rey, um sister city agreement, you know, San Antonio being the gateway to Mexico, even though they're 200 miles away from the border.

We are literally the gateway to Mexico, so there are a lot of opportunities here to really cement that with Ciudad Juarez.

Um, you know, the San Antonio Monterrey partnership has art involved, and you could see that they are sister cities with um with the La Antorcha de la Mistad that they have in San Antonio and in Monterrey, and they really illustrate that.

So how can we bring art into it?

How can we celebrate culture?

How can we celebrate food?

How can we do language?

How can we come together to do an event on both sides of the border at the same time?

Though those are things that I think people will really go to.

I think other other work is important, right?

Um in terms of promoting tourism, but if the community can see that both cities are coming together during uh a week of events and people are going to both sides of the border, that's really great.

Um every time that I bring somebody to El Paso, I always make sure that Ciudad Juarez is included.

So I I make them bring their passport and tell them that we're gonna go across the border for one of the days and kind of take them through the tour because for me it's it's really one community, and um that that's really great.

One question that I wanted to ask you is how are you going to measure success?

Have you developed KPIs?

Are you doing that soon or um how how is that process going to work?

Now that we're going to be able to start by initiatives, there are a few different ways that we can measure it.

And it'll depend on the area that we look at.

So if you look at education, we can look at how many students are going to be engaging with you tech more.

We're thinking about starting a new student organization with all of our sister cities, so we'll have a chapter of students on each side that will be able to engage with each other a little bit more.

We started looking into the Mac and what we can do with them in terms of creating programs with our sister cities.

And to have that kind of engagement.

So as we develop those initiatives, we'd be happy to come back and tell you what they are and how we like to measure them and how you can participate in them more.

So we have more opportunities now than we ever have.

Okay, that's great.

And um last week we were at the destination El Paso luncheon and they unveiled something that was really cool, the El Paso Made campaign.

I I was a really big fan of what what they're doing there, and and that works really well.

I loved every single thing that they kind of highlighted in in El Paso.

So I'm hoping that we can answer that question on what is the brand of El Paso Ciudad Juarez that we are doing that as one community.

Um, you know, I I have some um uh a letter that uh a constituent sent me.

Her husband used to be on council many years ago, and I the stationary that she sent me the letter on was El Paso, Texas, the international city.

So what what are we as a border community?

I I hope we could really answer that through the sister cities.

And and overall, um Destiny Show Paso has really done a great job in in many different areas.

One thing that um they they've done in the last year or two is kind of taken delegations to Queretaro, other places in Mexico, and I think this is also an opportunity to kind of line up those efforts to kind of say, okay, um, we have the sister cities agreement, or we're doing this with Chihuahua.

How can we both come together to reach different goals and and outcomes?

Um I'm hoping that Destinational Paso has a big voice in everything that you're doing with with this.

Okay.

Well, that's great.

Um, really excited about this, and I'm hoping that we could get more sister cities.

There's some ideas that I have, but also hoping that we could have them come here for a week.

We could go over there further uh for a week, right?

Aquat is super easy, we could go there all the time, but others that are further away, I'm really excited about the potential that you have with what you're doing with Sister Cities overall.

Very good presentation.

Um I noticed it's an action.

Do we need to have action on this?

In the beginning it said action.

Is that No, actually right now it's just um um update.

So in June the third is gonna be the actual um action and voting.

Right now it was just an update, and it was precisely doing this way, so we can exchange um ideas and suggestions from you, uh, but it's not gonna be until June the third.

Okay.

That's yeah, no, but the the presentation said discussion and action.

If you go to the first slide, requested action.

Approval to the update.

Yeah, it's gonna be until the third.

It was just like no, go to go to the very first slide, number one.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, so the uh approval for the updated content.

So just to make sure that you agree with the content that we've discussed today, then on June 3rd when we have that by national city council meeting, we'll have the go down one more.

Let me just make sure my eyes are requesting.

Okay, very good.

Just making sure.

But this is great.

So um thank you guys for for putting in the work on this.

Uh very good presentation, Kimberly.

And I think this is really good when you have council alignment on both sides of the borders that are behind this, and I can tell you that um uh um Mayor Cruz Perez Quayar and Mayor Bonilla, all of us are in alignment.

Your councils are in alignment, so this is very, very good.

So thank you guys for putting this together.

We look forward to June the third and and moving forward.

But uh great job, great presentation.

Thank you for the support, go please.

Yeah, thank you guys.

Okay.

Ms.

Bryan.

Yes, that brings us to item four, and this is discussion in action on revisions to the international policy agenda and updates on implementation.

Is there a motion to approve this item?

All right.

Okay, good morning.

Good morning.

We're in council.

I'm Adriana Pulesio with international.

You know what?

I'm I'm stuck on the international part for the last presentation.

Economic and international development.

And today I'm going to tell you about the updates to our international policy agenda.

And all of this uh lines up for our by national council meeting that's coming up on June third.

And we've given you a little bit of an update of what that agenda is going to look like, but part of the exciting conversation that we're having today is that we know that Ciudad Juarez will approve and implement their very first international policy agenda ever, much like we did in April 14th of last year.

So today we'll go over the objective of the agenda, a brief overview, how our programs link at the uh agenda level and in our work with strategic and legislative affairs, and we'll go a little bit into detail on that international affairs committee meeting that Kim was telling you about earlier, and then some additions to the policy.

So the the bones of the uh policy are gonna be the same.

We have those three priorities that we had last year.

So we're looking to establish those relations with the three orders of government in Mexico, improving border infrastructure, and facilitating uh FDI.

The way that we're going to channel that is going to shift a little bit.

At the time, we really wanted to make sure that we had everything right with our neighbors first before we expanded.

We feel that we've uh been able to achieve that and it's moving forward as we were discussing earlier.

So now it's an opportunity to look a little bit more widely.

So these we decided to add four kind of new key initiatives.

One of them is around USMCA and keeping a close eye on what those developments might be like.

We'll know more in July, but it's important to start talking about that now and coordinating with our neighbors to the north as well.

So we can keep each other informed and we can make decisions together as those changes emerge.

So we are looking a little bit outside of that US Mexico corridor, but never forgetting our neighbors and the ones that started all of this process with us.

And then we're adding a couple of new ones.

So we're adding a tourism and sustainability to align as well with the new sister cities agreement and making sure that we have that alignment and projects throughout in all of our engagements.

Here is one of my favorite slides.

So this is where we have the alignment with all of the policies that the city has with between economic development and strategic and legislative affairs.

You approved last year our first federal policy agenda, I believe, as well.

And in looking at them and in talking with CSER, we noticed that there was a lot in common.

So we've decided to take the step to elevate the international policy agenda to the same level and have all three of them work closely together.

So we have more overlapping than before.

You'll notice that this one is a little bit busier than it used to be.

But this is this is a very positive thing.

It shows that alignment more as we develop new engagements.

So now working closer together with the Department of State with the U.S.

commercial service, working closer with international bridges and finding more ways to advance a ports of entry grants, incentives, and responses like the tariff tracker that we've had, and all of these things that involve all of these three areas at the same time.

So, like Kim mentioned earlier, we did start the international affairs committee meeting in February of last year, and this was to start working on that international agenda and how we could get all of the departments in the city that work with Mexico in any capacity in the same room to talk about any issues that we have, projects, how we can support one another, questions that maybe each other could ask.

And this has started to evolve.

So, like Kim mentioned, yes, it was a group that started with city departments, it now includes other city programs and it includes stakeholders from the three orders of government in Mexico, and now we have a request from Chihuahua to be a part of that group as well.

Now that the policy agenda is working and is moving forward, we decided to find a new project for us to work together.

And we've decided this year to start a new process and determining what our regional value proposition really is.

What makes us different?

What makes our community special and separate from the rest of what you see in the border.

So we are working together from both sides to determine what this is.

We want to make sure that it's data oriented, that we have evidence to move forward, and our audience right now is a private sector.

So we can articulate that together.

As we know when the private sector, when anyone really looks at it Paso, they look up to a Juarez as well.

So it's an opportunity to take ownership of that story and of that narrative.

So that is what we're doing now together every month.

And once we are ready and we have confidence in what that value proposition is, we'll come here together as a group and tell you about that new mission.

So here are the proposed amendments to the agenda itself.

We have the current side and the proposed changes.

You'll notice that in the current one in the 2025, it's still very Sioux Al Juarez-oriented.

So it's an opportunity for us to expand the language and make it a little bit more inclusive, to make sure that we have room for Chihuahua for other markets for other countries that we haven't explored too much with before.

We know that the interest is there, and we've gotten communications from markets as far as Pakistan.

So now is the opportunity to make that movement.

So you'll see in red what those changes are, and you'll see that trend.

So we're moving from just programs with Ciudad Juarez to include other global regions, other international state governments, foreign national governments in our work with intergovernmental relationship with strategic and legislative affairs.

In terms of infrastructure.

Our priorities are the same.

But now we're keeping in mind those changes that we're seeing, like USMCA, how we can work with that to strengthen our foreign trade zone.

In terms of FDI, we're still moving strong there, but we want to make sure that our transition assistance program has the word international in it.

We want to make sure that when people look at our website, they look at our programs, that they know that there's something specifically designed for them, that we have all of this in mind as the international city that we truly are.

And now expanding the program work so it's not just departments, but this is a way for us to work closer with destination El Paso and have them be a part of our conversations and the initiatives that we move forward now in implementation.

This is the same that we're seeing with strengthening our international partnerships.

We're looking at other global capitals, other partners that we might be able to engage in.

And we're not we're not leaving behind Juarez or anyone in our immediate neighbors, but perhaps now working together with them to be able to look at other areas.

So one of them is Windsor in Canada to start talking about USMCA and how that interaction on both borders for them to know about Ciudad Juarez and how they operate, how we interact.

And they have a similar uh dynamic with Detroit.

So how can all of these cities come together and prepare for changes and learn from one another?

So these are those four main initiatives that we're adding.

And you might see in your backup, this was part of appendix B where we have all of our major initiatives and big goals that we want to achieve.

One of them is strongly around USMCA.

There's gonna be a little bit before we know what happened with the public comment, but we did submit letters and we were a part of that conversation.

But it's our ability to be able to track that information and to share that with our partners and make better informed decisions, not just at the government level, but to be able to support the private sector as well.

Strategic and international engagements just allows us to look a little bit beyond the US-Mexico relationship and find new opportunities for alignment.

And this at the same time helps us look at other opportunities for sister cities engagements because we won't just have the policy side, but the cultural component as well, where we can engage, like Kim was saying, on the government side, but also person to person, and we can get to know each other at a deeper level that way.

What our communities mean to us, who we are and how we portray ourselves to the rest of the world.

And here we have that part of alignment with sustainability and resilience.

We do want to make sure that we have that alignment with the climate action plan, that that becomes a part of our conversations going forward, and that we can find other partners that have similar initiatives so we can grow and learn from one another and hopefully potentiate what is already happening.

And then on the tourism side, to be able to have that cross-promotion with Ciudad Juarez, that's gonna be our first stop because this was at their request that we add this language.

But the hope is to be able to move in this direction with other communities as well, like we were talking about with Chihuahua, we have Sacatecas that is reaching out as well and wanting to strengthen and renew that relationship.

So the world is looking in our direction, and it's a moment for us to be able to make the most of that and kind of channel our work forward.

And those are all of the updates that we're making.

So that's kind of the trend that we're following, and this one is coming to a vote.

So we hope that so we have the action to approve and adopt the updates to the City of El Paso International Policy Agenda for 2026.

Very good.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Adriana, for this wonderful presentation.

Just a quick question from something you just said.

So on slide 15, when you talked about um tourism and then specifically mentioning Ciudad Juarez because they've requested it.

Um I know that you're gonna start conversations with the city of Chihuahua as well.

So if they were to request something similar, would we come back and amend uh this again at that time?

Or yes, ma'am.

Part of the conversations we're having with them is that now they'll have their own international policy agenda as well.

So we'll be developing those both documents at the same time.

The sister cities agreement, working with that policy agenda.

So hopefully we'll be able to come back quite regularly with that kind of advance and change so we can keep you updated on what's going on and be able to adapt to what we're seeing on partnerships.

Okay, so every time we go into an agreement with a sister city, potentially we'll we're going to amend the international agenda.

Is that what I'm understanding?

Not every single time, only when we have any actions that are kind of stepping away from this.

So what you guys are will be approving if if we approve the agenda the way that is it is now, it just gives us the space to be able to work on all of these things.

But if anything were to change substantially uh in the language of it, we would come back.

Okay.

Just because it mentions Ciudad Juarez, but it doesn't mention any other any of the other sister cities specifically for binational tourism.

So I'm just wondering if we should keep it more open to include any sister city agreement, or you want to specifically mention we could make it more open to include any community that that we choose to work with, like we have in the rest of the document.

But um in kind of imitating the spirit of what we had last year and making sure that we have everything right with our neighbors first was the intent uh behind this part of the language.

But if we want to make that change uh later on, we certainly can.

And this is gonna be a document that continues to evolve uh with the work that we all do together.

Right.

And I think it's because Visit El Paso already does engagement in in those sister cities.

Um they have boots on the ground and are very active in in all of the events that they have going on in those cities.

So it just seems natural for us to probably promote tourism through our agenda as well.

Just a suggestion.

I'm just letting you know.

If not, we can probably come back and amend it again if necessary.

Thank you.

Represent Nino.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Arena.

Congratulations on our work on this.

During my briefing, I did have a simple question or a question that I wanted to follow up on.

I was doing a lot of comparisons between the 2025 international policy agenda, the actual document that we adopted versus what's being presented in front of us today.

And on uh the actual document on page three where it says foreign direct investment FDI program.

I noticed that the business one stop shop is not included within that um bullet point.

Mm-hmm.

Is it I know that we briefly talked about it, but is there a reason as to why that was not included on this amendment?

Oh no, the the business one stop shop is a part of everything that we do, and they're a part of our uh international assistance transition program as well.

It might have been something in the formatting, but they are absolutely a part of everything that we do, and we're very grateful to have their expertise.

Okay, yeah, no, and I think it's important to highlight that that it's not included on the actual policy that we are going to be essentially adopting, but I think it will be extremely important to ensure that it's included on the foreign direct investment program and include the business one stop shop on there.

Because again, I was doing the comparisons between the documents that we adopted in 2025 to the new document that's being presented to us.

Thank you for for observing that and we'll absolutely make the change.

I do have that here in my slides, but I will make sure that the document reflects it and highlights it in the way that it deserves to be.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um again, I'm just kind of thinking through on sorry, I lost my window that I had open.

Um on the on the appendix in terms of where we're at with um by national tourism, or just um, you know, kind of mentioning CLWAs.

Is there a way that the sister cities initiative can be more prominent in the international agenda where it's its own section and maybe there's not necessarily that update to small language here, but it's just already overall there, and then it gets updated in that way.

Do you see that?

Well, we would need to go through a similar process, but just to update the the sister cities agreement.

So right now the language of it is pretty ample, so we have a lot of kind of opportunity to explore what it is that we want to do and how we want to pursue that initiative in particular.

So we if you want it to be more specific about the approach, that's something that that we could do.

So when we have those conversations with our sister city once the signature is complete, then we can kind of come together and develop strategy on how we want to implement that.

But but right now the the language I would think is sufficiently open that we can explore that together.

Okay, yeah, I'm just thinking through on how serious we're getting about sister cities, that it really deserves almost like its own tab or our own section within the policy agenda and all that work could live there in a really nice way.

So just kind of throwing that out there where we're not getting stuck on some of this language because if it's already such a big deal there, then we don't need to be doing it for every city.

Okay, well, we can definitely explore that because that's one of the reasons that we were thinking about adding a section to our website.

So we could increase transparency that way, and so both communities can see what's going on and what it is that we want to move forward.

So your recommendation would be to add a sister cities section to the policy agenda.

Yeah, because right now it's kind of it fits within the international agenda that we have, but I think it should be its own section within the whole agenda.

Okay, that's something that we can definitely explore, and I'll bring that up to legal and make sure that doesn't that that's something that we can do within the agenda process.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Representative.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Adriana.

Always so polished, do a great presentations.

And the proposed not necessarily to be included here, but food for thought in the future.

I've had this conversation with Miss Mac about the incredible need that we have through animal services for veterinarians, and given the fact that there is a veterinary school in Sudat, what is and how can we bridge that divide between the two?

At some point in time later on, like to sit with you.

I've already had some conversations with uh colleague on the what is um council, Fernanda, and of course, Juana Cereto, um Ms.

Mac, that we might be able to pursue that and see how we could make that an interface to provide the necessary um extra veterinarians that we need in our city.

So hopefully we could do that in the future, but just for thought, absolutely.

Yes, thank you very much.

I took the liberty of bringing that up with Chihuahua when they were here, and they have a veterinary school as well.

So maybe that's another avenue that we can have to to solve that issue.

That would help us.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, any other questions for Adriana on this particular item?

Okay, Ms.

Prime.

Yes, sir.

The motion was made by representativity moon, seconded by representative Chavez.

Thank you.

To approve the agenda on item number four on that motion, call for the vote.

Representatively more.

Thank you.

And the voting session, and that motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all.

Good job.

Thank you so much.

Good job, Kim.

Item five is discussion and action approving phase two of the shade canopy program.

Everyone's excited about this one.

Is there a motion to approve?

Second, Pablo.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning.

Uh members, Pablo Caballero, Park Center Creation for the record.

Okay.

This is gonna be a quick and short presentation.

So again, requested action today.

It's to approve the rollout of phase two of the shade canopy program funded by the 2022 community progress month.

Looks we are on the presentation, but uh the park uh selection criteria.

Of course, we do equitable distribution of shade structures across the districts.

We look into community feedback, identifying playground shades as a constituent priority.

We analyze, we utilize our GIS analysis, identifying gaps in existing shade canopy coverage.

We also focus on elevated consideration for parks with documented community requests.

And finally, we look into the playground equipment age and projected life cycle needs.

And thanks to our great job that planning and parks, planning and development team is doing negotiating uh quotes and with vendors and contractors, the total expenses for phase one were only three.

That's why we came up with a second phase with the additional funds.

As you can see on the list here, we were pending just on blackish hester uh park installation, but uh last Friday I got the great news that the whole phase is completed.

So, phase one is totally completed now.

Here's some images from phase one.

You can see Veterans Park right next to Inca do Park, followed by Haddis Family Park, and Officer David Ortiz Park, just to name a couple of them.

Now for phase two, again, we have a $2 million budget, funding source, community progress bond 2022, and parks is recommending the following: Pacific Park for District 1, Marywet Park for District 2, Riverside Park for District 3, Arlington Park for District 4, Rainbow Vista Park for District 5, Loma Linda Park for District 6, Sleta Park for District 7, and Tula Park for District 8.

If approved today, the anticipation schedule completed some of them by winter 2026, ending the entire phase two completion for winter 2027.

With that said, that concludes my presentation, and I'm open to any comments, feedback or questions.

I think you have some very happy council members representative LeMont.

Yes, definitely very, very happy.

Uh Pablo.

What about canopy constructions that are missing right now?

And I'm thinking specifically of Travis White Park that hasn't had a canopy for a long, long time.

Are there funds to replace those canopies?

The cover over the playground?

Uh we don't have additional funds right now, ma'am, but that's something we can look into with our resources or other funding strengths that we can cover for.

And I think there's there's I think every district that you go through, you're gonna find um somewhere where the wind has either knocked it down or something that has happened, and I'm curious about that.

I do want to commend you.

This is this is great news, and the team that was able to squeeze out additional um resources uh for our community, but most important of all that you look at equity, and you're very good about looking at the district, the city very well.

Thank you, gracias.

Representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Pablo.

It's been great working with you and the team.

Um I'm I'm very happy with the park that you've selected for district one.

I went out there on my field focus Friday and looked at it and um I think it's it's gonna be great.

Um, when was phase one approved and completed?

When was that?

It was approved on November 8, 2022.

Completed just uh last week, the whole phase.

2022.

And that was so right now we're approving for two million dollars, right?

For one canopy per each district, and in phase one was a total of three million dollars.

Yes, ma'am.

And it was allocated five million dollars for the entire program, but thanks to the efficiency, we came up with additional budget.

Well, the same budget but uh with better pricing.

And how was the distribution decided back then?

Same thing, ma'am.

We look into the criteria, and then we prioritize uh a playground for each district back then we had a couple of venues that are sports venues like Diamond Fields uh that needed shade, and parks looking to those venues as multi-district since they're utilized by all of the district through our leaks and tournaments.

So that is why like in phase one, I was looking at the list on slide four.

If we could pull that up, but it says that there was I think um canopies for the bleachers.

Right, and there was I think one for districts one, Inca Dove Park, but then there seems to be um some districts that have multiple um I guess amenities that were completed at that time for them.

Yes, ma'am.

We're looking at uh Veterans Park, uh Diamond Fields, Legal Fields, uh Marty Robins, and Capistrana Park.

Uh those, like I said, are sports complexes that are utilized by all of the districts to our leaks, and they were missing and needed of shade, so we recommend back then on 2022 to put them on the list and we cut it up.

But I think all districts have sports centers, right?

All districts, uh, not all of them have complexes like this, but those were the ones that were missing shade.

Okay.

At this point, we just have one more uh to cover, and that's Eastwood Park.

And I know and I know there's a huge need in our community, um, and I just want to point out that in district one I have 52 parks and 71% of those parks with playgrounds do not have canopies.

I get requests all the time um regarding canopies.

So I I know that during phase one the distribution was not perhaps as equal as maybe it could have been.

Um, and I'm I'm just uh pointing something out that's uh a need in my district, and hopefully in the future we can get um equal distributions as is in phase two.

Thank you, Barbara.

And I totally understand, ma'am.

Uh another perfect example for that.

It's like for instance, uh you and district five are the only ones that have uh West Side Sports Complex and East Sports Complex.

So every time we do a big investment like last year at the West Side Sports Complex, we consider that to be a multiple district investment because it is utilized by everyone.

So it's just we're being equitable as much as we can.

Thank you, Pablo.

So shade shade canopies was number one in our 2011 um surveys, and it's number one in our most recent surveys.

Um Pablo and I were having a conversation.

I think we have ninety-five playgrounds that still don't have shade covering.

Um the sports community very much were advocating for um the sports facilities as a part of that discussion.

We had several neighborhood associations come in and really talk about that.

And so I think as we were preparing for the 2022 that really they were looking at those as two separate buckets um of funding.

But um we were really happy with the team.

We actually had this list and we didn't want to show it publicly because we didn't know if we had enough money.

So I'm really happy they were able to come back and bring it back and get this done for the community.

Thank you, uh Miss Mac.

And of the 90s some that you just mentioned, 37 are in district one.

I'm far I'm tracking it.

And I know it's a goal for all of the city to have canopies over their playgrounds, especially since we have so much heat in our community and and we want to make sure that we create spaces for families to enjoy.

But um I think Babylon the team has done great, and like I said, I'm very happy with the selection you've made for district one.

Thank you, Pablo.

Thank you, ma'am.

Pablo, remind me we have over 300 parks.

Yes, sir.

Lots of work, lots and lots of work every day.

This is exciting.

Thank you, and thank you for being able to squeeze some additional funds out and to get the two million dollars to do some more shade canopy.

So this is good.

Thank you, sir.

All right, any other questions for Pablo?

Okay, Miss Bryan.

Yes, the motion was made by Representative, seconded by Representative Boya Trejo, and this is to approve phase two on item number five on that motion.

Call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

Pablo, thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay.

Ms.

Bryan?

Yes, sir.

Item six is discussion and action authorizing city manager or designee to submit nominated census tracts within the city of El Paso to the Texas governor's economic development and tourism office for consideration for designation as opportunity zones in alignment with a city strategic planning process.

Sorry.

Okay.

Good morning.

Hi, good almost afternoon.

Um try to make it quick.

No, take your time.

So on behalf of Strategic and Legislative Affairs, I'm here to uh share this presentation on new designations for opportunity zones here in our region for the city of El Paso.

The Opportunity Zone Program, well, first of all, El Paso is positioned to allocate for a new selection of opportunity zones and enhance our pillar of economic mobility.

Opportunity zones is a federal program.

It is a federal tax incentive that encourages private investment in local low income communities through reductions of the capital gains tax or um deferrals of this tax.

So this uh really reflects the city's growing emphasis on leveraging federal and state level tools to advocate and create lasting funding opportunities.

That's support our community priorities.

So, really gonna talk through why this is so important, particularly in terms of our economic mobility pillar.

So this is this program is among the breadth of tools that uh we are leveraging in order to build opportunity and prosperity that reflects El Paso.

Opportunity zones uh execute the core strategies of the city's economic mobility pillar.

Um this includes supporting individuals, low uh local businesses, and key industries for our region, in addition to supporting the expansion of housing options and affordability for the city.

Um, so real truly what we're trying to do here is really increase the suite of vehicles or tools that we have to create growth opportunities here in the city, really strengthen economic mobility and our local identity to keep families rooted and thriving in El Paso.

Now, as I stand before you, the opportunity zone program is going to be reauthorized.

So we're preparing for the new round of opportunity zones that will come in 2027, January of 27.

Umity zones uh were first authorized through the uh tax cuts and jobs act of 2017.

This program when it was enacted, um, included the approval of eight census tracts here uh within the El Paso city boundary that were designated.

Um just looking uh to this first iteration, we don't have ready readily available data as to what zones received investment in Texas because that was not uh required back then, but now as the program has been made permanent for this next year, there are new reporting requirements, and we want to be sure that we are positioned to uh select key zones for our city.

So I'm just gonna show you here.

So the map that's up here, these are the tracts, the census tracts that were selected in 2018 as opportunity zones.

Um during that time, as I mentioned, there were eight census tracts, and as we prepare for the new round of selections for opportunity zones, we're working to ensure, particularly thanks to uh your support and increasing our advocacy as we push uh we'll we're pushing to the governor's office to make the selection of the next round of zones.

Really want to be sure that the areas that are recommended, which I'll show shortly here, want to be sure that they reflect the key areas across the city that would benefit from additional investment.

So I'm going to show you that map now.

The map that is here before you is what we're presenting as recommended tracts to be selected as future opportunity zones.

As I mentioned, today's presentation is going to be we're seeking your approval of what we've recommended, but this does not commit the city resources or funding to specific projects.

We are not vouching for a specific project.

Rather, as an economic development organization, we put in the recommendation for these zones to be selected.

So what does that mean?

That means that the census tracts that are on the map here, if they were selected as opportunity zones that will give folks, you know, developers really the option to leverage this incentive program within those census tracts.

So you can see here this time around, we really opted to select across the or recommend across a breadth of the city.

But as one key note that I'd like to mention here, is you know, in our consultation, we did find that the census tracts that were eligible among those census tracts.

D5 actually didn't have any census tracts that were eligible for this program.

And I just want to note it here because you may, as you see the census tracts, we do have representation across the city, save for district five.

And we we can discuss that further, but as you can see here, you can take a look and we can discuss that further.

So what exactly went into this map?

We have consulted with you all as well on this map, but it's very important that this criteria that we present to you all, which will be relayed to the governor's office, that it really be inclusive and representative of our strategic priorities, and it's based on recommendations from our city departments.

So first there's the list of eligible tracts.

So this is what the IRS released as potential zones for nomination or census tracts.

This was an interdepartmental assessment.

So we consulted with economic development, community and human development, planning and inspections, strategic and legislative affairs of course, and also our urban and planning and design departments.

And additionally, running running it through you all and reviewing city council, whether this is reflective of community sentiment or any considerations as we propose these to you all.

In addition, we do also have data that were provided by the city departments, and that includes places that are really ripe for potential future development or rezoning, and we use the El Paso Housing Needs Assessment as a determining factor criteria for these recommendations.

From the city's perspective, we are making the recommendations for these zones to be selected.

But what role does the city play?

As I mentioned, this is really a tool within our toolkit of incentives that we can offer to potential developers or projects here, includes, for example, tax increment financing.

City owned real estate is also a leveraging force for these designations, and just the suite of economic development incentive agreements.

Briefly on implementation, these investments are redirected into a qualified opportunity fund.

And this is I think it's worth noting that the actual vehicle for investment through opportunity zones is done on a private basis, so it is not necessarily through the city, but rather it could be a corporation LLC or public-private partnership.

And I mentioned that it could be stackable with city managed incentives.

So I'm gonna go into what exactly does this look like on the ground.

How did this work in the past, or what potential projects can this really be leveraged for?

So this really brings, as I mentioned, our economic mobility pillar strategy in action.

So first just looking at investments that have supported businesses and key industries.

There is an example here of Centel Centennial Yards in Georgia.

And this project was specifically cited as an opportunity zone designation really helped attract private investment in this area.

So it was a underused downtown downtown rail yard that is being rebuilt into a mixed-use neighborhood that includes housing offices, retail shops, restaurants, hotels, and as you see here was paired with a suite of other investment tools to help bring that into life, including, for example, tax agreement financing.

So you can see here, and it supports the focus area, for example, of infill and cross-cross-sector economic partnerships.

Another one to note here, this also supports individuals, local businesses, and key industries.

The investment that we show here was a rehab of an industrial facility in Chicago that was repurposed into an advanced manufacturing hub or prototyping facility for hardware and electronics.

And this example was also a case where there were these anchored investments.

So the opportunity zone was seen as one of the determining factors for this being built in the zone that it was redeveloped, rather.

Now these examples that I have here, this is an example of a direct investment from an opportunity zone that supports an additional strategy in our economic development pillar, which is expanding housing options and affordability.

So in Birmingham, Alabama, there was a fund created from the opportunity zone program, and this went into rehabbing a long vacant building.

And this building was turned into rental units, but it included, for example, free rent for folks who were enrolled in a workforce development program.

So that's just to say this also has community benefits, not just it for the location because they have to be low income census tracts, but also for leveraging programs that can be partnered as part of this redevelopment.

Okay.

And another example that we have here is also a rehab of a building where there were four historic downtown buildings in Conapolis, North Carolina, and they were reactivate reactivated.

In this case, it was a mixed use complex, and it included an anchored, sorry, it was anchored by a flagship food hall.

So it just comes to show like the potential for what kinds of local businesses and facilities that we can use to bring projects locally into life.

And this also supports our focus area of infill and efficient land use development.

So we have these examples here.

What we're really looking for today is an action to have essentially your approval for the nominated census tracks that we put here on the presentation.

And this will be compiled into a regional application to the state governor's office.

Just something that I really want to note here as well is that this incentive has very high potential opportunity for investment.

I know it's in the name, but folks who invest in this program, they take their entire capital gains, they redirect it into the zone.

The folks who are thinking about these capital gains incentives are making quite an investment and profit, and not to mention they also have the folks who would use this also kind of have a philanthropic way of thinking through their funding.

They're intentional, and so that would really really it just has a potential to drive, I've seen investments between 500,000, usually typically they range in the millions, like one million, there's some that went up to 50 million.

So it's just something as well to note about this.

So I'll just go into the next steps in the nomination process.

Right now, we're bringing this to you to uh you know approve the recommended tracks.

And so from there, we are going to take this into a regional application.

It will be submitted to the Texas Office of the Governor, and then the state is going to put forward their recommendations that will go to the IRS or Treasury.

So that's just to say we've advocated early, we've met regularly with the governor's office.

We're working with our partners in the county as well who are actually also touching on this.

They're presenting this today at the commissioner's court.

And from there, we will look for the designations which will take effect in January.

And we're acting, it's not mentioned here, but we're actively ensuring that we have a say in this process, and once the nominations are come through, that we have that there's room, and we're um investigating to see if we can dispute or negotiate the potential selections.

So from that, we'll just we'll put this together.

This will be the backup in our application to the governor's office.

Um, and that's that's what's gonna happen next, or what we're looking to do next.

Um, and with that, I know it's nearing lunch, but I will take I will take any questions or thoughts.

All right, very good.

Uh Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor.

Oh, sorry, my bad.

Thank you, Mayor.

Alejandra, thank you so much for your presentation.

I know that we had uh deep conversation last week about the opportunity zones, and I want to touch base on to you know the presentation itself says OPASCO's positions to advocate for a new selection of opportunity zones and enhance our pillar of economic mobility.

And I started doing a lot of research in regards of, you know, district five was not included in the first round, and then now it's not being included in the second round.

And so at the end of the day, we're also not the deciding body when it comes to designating these opportunity zones.

Um, but would you be able to share a little bit again of how these areas are determined?

I know that we talked about a map that the governor's office uh Texas Economic Development has, and that's where pretty much the eligible tracks are located, correct?

Uh yes, that is correct.

And then once these tracks are selected, they are in place for 10 years.

That's exactly right.

They will be in place um until 2037.

And when it comes to determining an eligible track, what is can we revisit in what what is taken into consideration of what would become an eligible track?

So eligible tracts are on the basis of a low-income community.

So what does this mean?

It is folks who relative to the annual meeting income of our city, region.

Um there's a higher uh share of folks with uh that have average lower median income than our region.

So it's relative to ourselves, or if they have a greater share of, they have more than 20% of folks who live in poverty within our census tracts, uh, sorry, within our region.

So that's um, it's it's actually I also want to mention that it's the same criteria as the new market tax credits, but it is on the basis of income.

No, thank you for that.

And you know, when we started the budget process last year, uh staff put together a different demographics of what each district covers, right?

And district five, according to the data that was presented, we have an average medium house quote income of 44,995, and that's the entire district.

So then I started to really question of um could there be opportunities of ensuring that we advocate for future opportunity zones that we might miss out on, right?

I mean, the presentation talks about opportunity zones, execute course strategies of economic mobility pillar again, support individuals, local businesses and key industries, it supports expansion of housing options and affordability now.

Um I know that we had a conversation of the actual also resolution that was adopted by the RS that includes data set limitations, and I'm gonna read that really briefly where it says while the appendix to this revenue procedure and the information resource provide a list of population census tracks that are eligible for nomination, there may be a population census track that could be eligible for nomination as a QOZ that do not appear on the list.

So, even though some of the the population tracks are that are being presented might not be eligible based on the current information that is being presented there could be an opportunity for us to advocate for other opportunity zones that we feel could fit and could be designated as such.

And again I know that I had a lot of different conversations now based on the research we started me and my staff started going back and looking at each individual census track in my district and we were able to identify according to the federal financial financial institution examination examination there could possibly be a census track in District 5 that could be nominated.

You know according to the 2025 FFIEC geocode census report indicates that census track 0103 is has a below poverty line of 20 point thirty seven and a track medium family income of a hundred and two point thirty three which could potentially make it eligible now and I'm giving a brief uh brief uh background because I know this is a conversation that I had with staff and um again there's always an opportunity to essentially provide data and do an analysis of us advocating for uh potential tracks that are part of our community that we could potentially miss out on and again I'm thinking about the 10 year aspect of what comes forward right so um mayor I would like to make a motion to amend directing the city manager to analyze track 0103.58 located within district five to include current data collected at the census track level to determine if track 0103.58 may be nominated should it satisfy the requirements as stated on the IRS official methodology and lists of eligible tracks of opportunity zones uh as it's stated on the revised proclamation 2026-14 and I'm gonna send that over to Ms.

Prime and hopefully I could have your support counsel to include district five of part of the conversation and again we are not the final determining body rather this is giving the opportunity that we don't miss out on opportunity of us advocating with all the data that could be presented uh and making sure that district five is not part left out of the conversation okay there's a motion in the second on the amendment quick question for you though uh when you do that does it pull away from another area that you've already identified from it does not altogether we can nominate up to eighty-eight census tracks for a region or a little in the 80 ballpark okay um so no it does not okay perfect all right any further discussion on the amendment okay miss fry yes mayor the motion was made by representative seconded by mayor potem chavez and this is to amend the direction on item six and it reads as follows to direct the city manager to analyze tract zero one zero three point five eight located within district five to include current data collected at the census track level to determine if track zero one zero three point five eight may be nominated should it satisfy a requirements as stated on the IRS official methodology and list of eligible tracks for OZs and then revision PROC dot 2026-14 on that motion to amend call for the vote and the voting session and that motion passes unanimously okay let's take the main one Ms.

Fry said the main motion was made by uh alternate mayor potential seconded by representative okay call for the vote to approve as amended on that motion, call for the vote.

And the voting session.

And that motion passes unanimously.

Andrew, good job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a motion to retire into executive session.

Second.

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

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

And the city council at City of Al Paso may retirement to executive session pursuing to section 3.5A of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas Government Code.

Chapter 551 sub chapter D to discuss executive session item one.

Miguel Angel Rodriguez versus City of El Paso calls number 2024 DCB 5578 under 551.071.

Consultation with attorney, it is 1212 p.m.

Is there a motion to come out of executive session?

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

All in favor?

Anyone opposed?

And we're back in session at 12 45 p.m.

And we're on EX1.

Mayor POTEN.

Thank you, Ms.

Prine.

Motion made, seconded, and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to reject mediator settlement proposal in the matter of Miguel Ángel Rodriguez versus City of El Paso, cause number 2024 DCV 5578, and to take all steps necessary, including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Second.

Yes, the motion was made and read into the record by Mayor Potem Chavez.

Seconded by Representative Canales on EX1 to reject the settlement on that motion, call for the vote.

And the voting session.

Mayor, I would like to request a transcript of my comments that I made during item number six.

Okay.

No objection.

Thank you.

Okay, there's a motion to adjourn.

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

Thank you guys.

All in favor?

Anyone opposed?

And the work session for Monday, May 11th, 2026 is adjourned at 1246 p.m.

Thank you, Council.