Anyone opposed?

And the council meeting is in recess at 11 30 a.m.

to conduct the mass transit department board meeting.

Good morning.

This is a meeting of the El Paso Mass Transit Department Board for Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026.

It is now 11 30 a.m.

Present and presiding is board chair Johnson also present in the chambers.

Our board members Chavez Acevedo Maldonado Rocha Boyartrejo Nino Fierro Limon and Canales.

Mr.

Chair, there is no public comment.

Okay.

So all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by Mass Transit Department Board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion and that separate discussion is requested by board members.

Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken.

If an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved.

The Mass Transit Department Board may, however, we consider any item at any time during the meeting.

And we do have all items on the consent agenda, the minutes, and the resolutions for item three and four.

Okay.

There's a motion and second, okay.

Represent Canales.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd ask if we can move item number four to the regular agenda.

I understand uh four post garrison commander Colonel Soika is here and would like to speak on the item, so we can give them the opportunity.

Sure.

Is uh all those in favor to move item number four to the regular agenda?

Aye.

And the item will be moved to four, but if we can get a vote to vote on the consent agenda.

We can do that.

There's a motion and second on the consent.

Uh representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um item number three on the consent agenda is related to items number four and five on our um agenda.

And those are the ones that I have questions on.

So I don't, I'm happy to vote on it, but I do have several questions regarding the termination of this contract that I would like uh our legal department and others to answer.

That is on a separate meeting, yes, I have so you would have to ask your question regarding item three at this time.

Yeah, it they're all related, but I'll just wait till we get back to our other agenda then.

But they are all related because it's the same company.

You just won't be able to uh refer to this specific item when we go into executive for the other item since it's a separate meeting.

Can I get clarity on the termination of this contract?

Then for Trans America in this item specifically is just for Sun Metro.

Is that correct?

Okay, and the ones I'm assuming on our other agenda are for other departments.

Separate from Sun Metro.

Okay, purchase department, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Okay, then let me ask specifically on this termination of this contract specifically for Sun Metro.

Were was any money mishandled by this company specifically related to Sun Metro?

For this contract, there was none for Sun Metro.

Okay.

There was no no mishandling of any funds for this contract specifically.

Representative, if I may address uh Joyce Garcia, Assistant City Attorney.

Um, we do advise that you all take um items four and five before you take this item because the main issues are in items four and five.

Um so item three is a companion.

The reason for the termination is related to the circumstances and facts in items four and five, which you all will be receiving advice on.

Um so we do um advise that you all uh table this item and then um recess the mass transit board once you resolve the other items and then um resume the city council and address items four and five, and then you can return to address this item after.

Okay, then I make a motion to table item number three.

Okay, there's a motion and second.

To table item number three, representative.

Just um quick clarification on on this.

We're going to see this in executive session.

We're gonna move into executive session for this item later.

Because I don't see it on the executive session.

Um list.

So Ms.

Prince said that we were gonna.

I understood that we were gonna go to executive.

For the regulation.

Miss Bryan, is this item related to items that were pulled from the consent items number four and five?

It's a similar item, mayor, but I I wouldn't be able to answer that question.

Okay.

And is is there advice set for items four and five?

We're gonna move into executive to hear more about it.

There hasn't been a motion.

We haven't taken items four and five.

So there hasn't been a motion to take these into executive session yet.

Okay, I I guess maybe you misspoke, Ms.

Prank, because that's I I didn't I understood that we were not going into executive, and I also had questions about four and five.

Those items haven't been taken, sir.

The only action taken on four and five was to move them to the regular agenda.

Okay.

There has been no additional motion yet.

Okay, council wishes to take those items.

They would have to take a you all would have to take a motion to take those into executive session once those items are brought up, but they have not been brought up yet.

Okay, let me ask a different way.

So for this item that we're um we have a uh second for uh tabling, or is there recommendation that we go into executive session to discuss this later today from our legal team?

No, I'm not recommending you go into executive questions.

Can be answered depending on what the questions are here today.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

Okay.

There was a motion to postpone item number three, as Brian had a second.

I mean, sorry, table to table item number three, and that is that the resolution notifying transamerica protection corporation of the terminating the contract number 2023 0188.

All those in favor?

Anyone opposed?

So item number three has been tabled.

I do have a motion to approve the consent agenda, and that would be the minutes, and that is by board member Limon, seconded by board member Fierro.

Voting session is open, and the minutes have been approved unanimously.

Okay, let's take item number four, which was moved to the regular agenda, and that would be a resolution to sign an interlocal support agreement between the city of El Paso and the United States to provide public transportation services in the form of microtransit services, uh to Fort Bliss and the city of El Paso, Al Pasos County, Texas.

Good morning, sir.

Is there a motion?

Okay, there's one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Anthony.

Good morning, Mayor, City Representatives.

I'm glad to be here today and talk about this um partnership with with Fort Bliss and moving forward.

I just want to take you first to the background.

So we've been working on this for a little over a year and a half to include a federal government shutdown that set us back for a few months.

However, we Sun Metro and Fort Bliss endeavor to persevere, resulting in the first department of war partnership with the municipality, with the municipality, utilizing an ICSA.

So we're the we're the first ones.

There's other ones that have done it on like Fort Hood, but they were in a municipality.

So we're the we're the first to do that.

And I I know you like first mayor, so I thought I'd bring that up.

Appreciate that.

So Fort Biss's goal is to provide transportation service for active duty service members and their dependence on posts and be able to connect from there to the Sun Metro transit system, the fixed route to go throughout the city.

Sun Metro is the one who developed the plan to meet the Fort Bliss goals leaderships.

We did that with a lot of work from legal, and so I'd like to give a thanks to Joyce Garcia, my my assigned attorney, and Casper Den Harding from Fort Bliss.

So all this resulted in the uh torch Transit by Sun Metro.

That's what we're gonna call it.

Here's even better news.

This endeavor is at zero cost to our taxpayers, to the city of O Paso, and to the soldiers and dependence of Fort Bliss.

Free, first, exciting.

How did we come up with the name Torch Transit?

Torch was the first combat operation for the division in World War II.

That's how we came up with it.

So that's how we named it.

And they won there.

And we'll win here, leveraging Sun Metro to enhance the quality of life for Fort Bliss service members in the city.

Of note, it also supports the city's strategic plan, two of five pillars.

Infrastructure, the goal strength, enabling easier, safer movement across the city.

Quality of life goal, enhance enforcement, strengthen delivery partnerships, access and experiences.

So what exactly is the new Fort Bliss Transit service?

It's a on-demand service, free service, that goes on the installation and will connect to the fixed route service on three different areas.

That's on Dyer, Freedom Crossing, and William Beaumont.

The hours of service were requested by Fort Bliss, and it's in the IGSA, 84 hours a week is what we're gonna do.

Together with Fort Bliss, we agreed on the capacity 60 trips a day.

But we have the flexibility to increase based upon demand, which we worked out with Fort Bliss also.

This will increase my staff by about 25 positions, mostly drivers, but also supervisor dispatch, customer service, and things like that.

So this is an on-demand service, microtransit, similar to what we did in District 5 that we just started up, which I would say is double the ridership in one week.

Um, but it's a curb-to-curb service, meaning if you're at the Freedom Crossing and you want to go home to your house on post, you can you can go there.

If you are in the barracks and you need to go to the grocery store, the commissary, you can go there.

You can go anywhere on Fort Bliss, and you can get back, and you do it through an app.

So you get on the app and you sign up for your trip, and then it'll tell you how long it takes for the trip to get there, kind of like an Uber, and they'll pick you up the ticket anywhere on post, or they'll take you to the three areas that I just said that connect to the rest of Sun Metro network.

So they can all come out to the city and enjoy the events that we have here.

So the rider face includes easy booking, planning, managing trips, account management, and real-time updates.

And the driver will also get that too with the tablet that he has in the vehicle.

So you can see here by this map the red, and you can see Fort Bliss where the where the population is, isn't just in one area, but we're gonna cover the whole area.

It's about eight or mine miles from end to end, right?

And we took that in consideration with the max amount of trips that we could do and how fast we could do the service.

And so this is the area that we'll actually be covering.

So what I'm recommending is to approve the intergovernmental support agreement between the city of El Paso and the United States Army in the form of microtransit.

Again, the first IGSO with the Department of War, supporting 36,000 military, 42,000 families independents, some 700,000 or excuse me, 70,000 retirees and their family members.

That's that's what we propose to do, and we we ask for you to to approve it.

You know, Fort Bliss was named the best installation by the commander-in-chief.

So now we have two entities that are rated the best working together, partnership to make El Paso and Fort Bliss a better place to live, a better place to be.

Now I'd like to introduce Colonel Mike Soyka, who is the garrison commander of Fort Bliss, and he operates as the city manager of Fort Bliss on all daily operations.

Good afternoon, sir.

Mr.

Mayor, representatives, it's great to see all of you guys.

I'm I'm truly excited about this.

This is absolutely the biggest thing that we can do to improve quality of life for our soldiers on Fort Bliss, and we're doing it in a way that is good for both the city and for Fort Bliss.

So we did a study for our younger soldiers that had financial insecurity across our force.

And one of the things that drove that financial insecurity was that they were spending three to five hundred dollars per month on transportation.

As Mr.

DeKaiser spoke about, some of our soldiers live 10 miles from our PX.

And we have a PX and commissary that's great, and it's great with reduced cost food and other things for them that is meant to be able to help them, but they can't reach that benefit without expending their own money.

And so the Army came to us and said, hey, we we'd like to give you money for buses.

And I said we've tried that before and it didn't work.

Let's see if we can find something better.

And so working with Anthony and his team and his legal team was phenomenal.

We were able to come up with something that'll actually work much better for our soldiers.

And so that's this Uber share like service where a soldier will get picked up where they are, maybe it picks up another soldier along the way and they get to their destination, is going to be game-changing for our soldiers.

It'll allow them to access all the all the resources that are on Fort Bliss, and as Anthony talked about, access all of the great things in El Paso easier so they can get to the Brio stop, which is in one of our red highlighted areas, and hop on a brio and be downtown for two dollars.

And that's a drastic change from them having to spend $20 on an Uber just to get to their PX.

And so we see this as an absolute pillar of our quality of life improvements.

We also see it as another um opportunity for Fort Bliss and El Paso to work together to make lives better for our whole community.

I think this this will be a steady stream of income for Sun Metro for the foreseeable future, as the Army is has already laid in that we're going to do this for multiple years, and we want to continue to just improve this service as we go.

But this is the first step.

So this will begin a about a six-month mobilization period where Anthony buys the vehicles, gets the app running, those sorts of things.

Um but uh it is it is the biggest thing that we could do to make the lives of our soldiers better.

And I'm really excited.

Uh invite any of y'all out when we do the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Uh, I'm super excited to bring everyone out to Fort Bliss to see this.

I think it's gonna be amazing.

So thank you very much for your time and your consideration.

Absolutely.

And sir, before you leave, uh, out of a hundred and four garrisons across the nation.

Yes, sir.

The number one best garrison in the army.

Congratulations.

It's an awesome thing.

And I truly appreciate your commitment with to General Taylor to kind of market our our two our two champions together.

I'm really excited to see that stuff out there.

I'm really excited for your fourth of July celebration this uh coming couple weeks.

And I invite everybody who's out here, please come out on the 27th, come see our Popcos at Fort.

It's gonna be amazing.

Christian, can't be guys.

All right, Representative uh Nino.

Thank you, Mayor and Colonel Soika and Anthony.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Microtransit just kicked off in District 5 about uh two weeks ago, give or take.

And I cannot tell you how excited the members of the community were.

You know, this is really uh it could identify individuals from getting to work to school, health care, groceries, um, and it's life changing.

Um microtransit that kicked off in district five also has the accessibility to get into the William Beaumont.

So it's great that I'm gonna start promoting even this, say, hey, you want to get into Fort Bliss, you get to William Beaumont, and then you could get another on-demand service around to any of the services that you all provide.

So thank you for all the hard work and the collaboration.

I'm happy to support this item and thank you for your service, sir.

Thank you.

Any questions for Anthony or Colonel Soika?

Okay, and we do have a motion to approve item number four.

Motion made by representative by board member Limon and seconded by board member Chavez.

Voting session is open, and the item has been approved unanimously.

If I can have a record congratulations.

If I can have a motion to resess the mass transit department board meeting so that you all can come back to number three okay so second all those in favor anyone opposed?

And the mass transit department board meeting for June 23rd is on recess at 11 48 a.m.

Okay.

Mr.

Move to reconvene the regular city council meeting good afternoon and we have a motion to reconvene the mass transit department board meeting for June 23 2026 at 4 32 p.m.

And this is to consider item three and uh present and presiding is Chair uh Johnson and also present in council chambers are board members uh Chavez Acevedo Maldonado Rocha Boyar Trejo Niño Fierro Limon and Canales item three is I believe we need a vote to reconvene the meeting I'm sorry I believe we need a vote to reconvene the meeting.

There's a motion and a second to reconvene mass transit all in favor aye anyone opposed the mass transit department board meeting is back in session at 4 33 p.m.

And item three is a resolution to notify Trans America Protection Corporation that the city is terminating contract number 2023 0188 armored car services for default due to contractors failure to comply with provisions of contract number 2023-088 0188 this is effective as of June 23 2026 and it also recommends that trans America protection corporation be disqualified from entering into any contract with the city for a period of three years for default and unsatisfactory performance okay any there's a motion and a second any discussion on item number three okay call for the vote and who moved represent canales thank you there is a motion made by board member canales seconded by board member limon and this is to approve item three the resolution voting session is open thank you and the item has been approved unanimously okay is there a motion to