Okay.

Just making sure everyone stops by.

The room right across us.

Oh, okay.

Okay, we can use it for my club.

Good morning.

This is a special meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty six.

It is nine twelve A.M.

Mayor Johnson is present and presiding along with Mayor Potem Chavez, Representative Acevedo, Representative Malonado Rocha, Representative Boyatrejo, Representative Pierro, Representative Limon, and Representative Canales.

Representative Nino is running a few minutes late.

Uh before we get started, Mayor, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Both objectives, and core strategies toward a two-year action plan.

This morning we'll begin with a public comment.

We have Ms.

Carmen Rodriguez.

Good morning, Ms.

Rodriguez.

You have three minutes.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm glad to be back.

Um I just want to share some observations that I made while uh sitting here with you yesterday.

And um I think if you think about it, uh you will remember that housing came up a few times, but it was uh present in almost all of the materials in one way or another, terms related to housing like affordability, like uh in-fill development, like mixed use, and I bet that if we did a search of all the terms that were used or were stated uh yesterday that housing would be on in the top.

Yeah, it's almost like it's all over the place, but not clearly in front of us, and I I thought that was very interesting.

Of course, I had it at the top of my mind, and I and I noticed that, but I just bet you anyone want to take a bet uh that it was very very prominent.

Um, the other observation that I made is is well, something that I've made throughout several years.

When uh people come to town to look at El Paso for economic development purposes to see if they want to come.

It's very sad to me when I hear we took them to the nice parts of town, because there are many places in El Paso that we don't want them to see, and we avoid taking them there, and I just think that is so sad that we are ashamed, and instead of doing something about it, we don't confront it, because even humble houses can look nice, they don't have to be mansions, they can be small, humble-looking, many of them have flowers in their gardens in El Paso.

And I that's just a little sad point that I wanted to mention to you because I think it's relevant.

We talk about belonging and loving our city.

Let's love all of our city.

Um, three representatives including included housing in their priorities, I think every single one of the representatives, and of course the mayor.

Mayor, you represent all of El Paso, even the dilapidated housing.

You represent them, and you all can do something about them.

Uh sometimes I ask myself, well, maybe there's a policy that I'm not aware of, you know.

Um, I try to keep up with the city, I try to watch it whenever I can, and uh housing is not really ever confronted.

And I say ask myself, well, maybe there's some kind of unwritten policy or an old policy that I don't remember that maybe we just don't confront and we don't do anything about housing.

Have a good rest of the day.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment.

I'll turn it over to Julie to get us started.

All right, good morning, everyone.

Uh Julia Balton Wunnyos.

Here we are, day two, uh wonderful day to be a part of local government, but then again, that's every day, right?

Because we're choosing to be here, as we heard resoundingly yesterday, and we'll continue to hear and fill throughout the day today.

So, as I promised yesterday, we're shifting into strategy development today.

So expect a lot of engagement.

Um it's gonna be dynamic, but at the end of it, I think we'll all feel very proud that we're walking away with something that's gonna help us ensure that we're able to move action forward that's visible for our residents for our community.

So this morning, we're gonna be providing a brief overview of the placemat that is essentially our tool, our strategic planning document, and then we're going to transition into these interactive breakouts by pillar.

So Roman and I will provide some framing for that, and then we'll shift into those conversations.

And then as we move into the afternoon, um, we expect some of that to continue on, and then Nicole, Cody and I will walk through the action planning.

So based on the course strategies that landed from those exercises, what does that look like when we pull all of that information together for you all to review and consider?

And as we make our way towards the latter part of the afternoon, having a conversation around adopting uh possibly an action plan that formalizes that process for us.

All right, so jumping right in.

Why a placemat?

And so you all will recall you don't have it in front of you because and you don't need to have it in front of you, just to be clear, because I know it can get very overwhelming as we heard from our city manager.

It's a lot of information, but today is really about focusing in on those key things.

Remember, we talked about strategic thinking is the art of where to focus.

And so we want to ensure that today is really about that strategy component.