The Las Cruces City Council met on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, beginning at approximately 1 PM, with Mayor Eric Enriquez presiding. The meeting included presentations, public comments, and unanimous approval of several resolutions related to financial audits, budget adjustments, capital improvements, and affordable housing. Key public concerns centered on surveillance technology, lead and copper rule compliance, homelessness, and public safety.
Your life. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to City Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, January 20th, 2026. It's approximately 1 PM. I'm Mayor Eric Enriquez. Before we start, I want to mention that we have the American Sign Language Interpreters up front and available at every regular city council meeting. If you please join me in the pledge, I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and produce the law with liberty and justice for all. So anyone from the Catholic schools that want to come up and join me. It is an honor for us to know that our efforts as students are seen and often appreciated beyond our school walls. Thank you again for taking the time and support our recognized. Thank you again for taking the time to support and recognize our school and for your continued dedication to our city and its families. We are very grateful for this proclamation and the opportunity to be part of such a supportive community. Thank you and have a wonderful day. All right, again, thank you all. Thank you for being here and attending this proclamation, and we wish you all a great week. Thanks. Next, we have a presentation from our sister cities, and Katrina will come up and do the introductions. Community engagement is also the city liaison to the Sister Cities Foundation. Today, our Las Cruz's sister cities will be doing a presentation to mayor and council regarding a trip that uh Sister Cities and our counselor Cassie McClure took to our sister city Lerdo, Mexico. Um of our sister cities members that are in audience are Tim Chapel. He's the chairman of Lerdo Affiliation Committee. He's going to be doing the presentation. Cassie McClare, our city counselor, she attended the Lerdo Delegation to Lerdo. Uh Mr. Ron Burunda, he's the vice president. Also members, um Elaine McKinney, Hale Huber, Gabby Buckman, Joni Newcomer. Thank you. And you say this. Oh good afternoon. Um mayor and uh council members. Um let's see, here is their first slide. Um thank you for the introductory, Katrina. Let me start off here. First, I'm gonna talk about what Sister Cities is because I know some of you are are new to City Council, and I just want to give a brief rundown of what we do. We had an exchange, and we went um I'm gonna talk about that in just a second, too. Um in 1956, President Um Eisenhower started Sister Cities after going through two world wars and realizing that governments are not the best at making peace. Um he started Sister Cities International to promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation. One individual, one community at a time, sort of created what we call citizen diplomats. Okay. Um, Las Cruz's sister cities, we have two, one in Lerdo, Mexico, which we actually formalized in 1982 and then Nienburg, Germany, which we did in 1993. Um Las Cruz's Sister Cities Foundation is a 501 C3. Um nonprofit, so if anybody wants to donate, you can write it off on your taxes. Um if you're not familiar, Lerdo is part of the Tri-Cities area down in Mexico with Torreon Gomez, Palacio, and Lerlo. It's about 550 miles as the bus flies. And uh you can see here from the picture, it's it's down there. Um beautiful spot. It's in the southern part of the Chihuahuan Desert, just like we're in the northern part. Um, the fourteenth to the seventeenth of November. Fourteenth was a travel day, and seventeenth was a travel day, so we're actually there for about two days.