Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let's see, Councilor Dabson, would you lead us, please?

Thank you.

Under God.

Liberty meeting.

Thank you.

Please remain standing for just a moment because I'd like to take this time to reflect on all of our first responders and the fact that they put their lives on the line each and every day.

So if you would join me in a moment of silence and reflection, as we keep all of our first responders in our thoughts and prayers.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

Okay, so we get this meeting started this evening.

I'd ask everybody everyone to please silence all electronic devices while attending the governing body meeting.

If you need to take a call, uh please uh step out into the lobby over here or outside.

And for the record, uh yeah.

It's okay.

Um for the record, I will announce the names of the governing body members when I say your name, please acknowledge your presence by saying present to uh counselor Dabson.

Present.

Thank you.

Councillor Linantine, present.

Thank you.

Counselor Tyler, present.

Thank you.

Counselor Weimer, present.

Thank you.

Counselor Colbreth.

Present.

Thank you.

And Councilor List.

Present.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to uh public forum.

Uh we'll set public uh comment this evening to two minutes.

And first uh uh in an individual uh Mr.

Van Horn.

Oh crap, I can't believe it.

Good evening, Mayor, Counselors.

I sent you all an email with uh, as I said last time I was here, I would send you an email that gave the mayor's responses to the questions that I gave to you back in August the 14th of this year.

And uh I hope you all had a chance to read it.

I've only been contacted uh by one counselor, and I appreciate that very much.

Uh what I wanted to bring to your attention was that there was very uh important things that the mayor had brought to light.

He said that there's significant additional funds that are required to hopefully make the treated wastewater injection system actually work.

He said the cost of removing PFAs, that is forever chemicals from treated wastewater is incredibly high.

And he said that the cost of removing medicines from treated wastewater was unaffordable.

So I did ask questions.

I asked whether or not the city is keeping track of the total to date and projected future costs of designing, building opera and operating wastewater injection system.

If the city is not keeping track of this, how can the governing body rightly make decisions about city water rates and wastewater rates?

I also asked to consider whether doing nothing to remove or even reduce medicines from treat to wastewater before it's released into the river or ejected is good for our city or for anyone downstream from our treatment plants.

No one has yet checked for possible impacts of medicine in treated wastewater that's being discharged in anywhere in New Mexico that I know of.

But I do know of studies north.

If they would make sure that they bookmark it so that what I said would actually be available when they press the bookmark on the online recording.

Because the one uh from last week my speech was skipped over.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Farrell.

Uh first I'd like to say uh happy anniversary to my wife.

That's how important this is.

Uh I told her that uh every anniversary be unique and nothing more and you can bring her to governing body meeting.

We'll take care of this, I guess.

All right.

Hey, tonight I just want to talk about a few uh things.

Oh, thank you very much for the time, guys.

Uh mayor, counselor staff.

Uh tonight I want to talk about a few things.

It's uh invisible invisible.

One of the invisible parts is just what Steve Van Horn brought up.

And if you guys don't know you, it's you used to be on the utilities commission.

More guy, modern were um that we're all part of that.

And I'm not gonna go back over what he said, but you hear what he said about what's happening with our water.

Um that's the invisible part.

You don't see that, you don't see the conversations, you don't see any of that stuff behind.

But the visible part that you have is here's an example of the filter in my shower head.

Brand new 45 days.

You're supposed to be last for six months.

This is what happens in 45 days.

This is what the city is putting through, and I know you guys aren't doing this as you want here.

Maybe there's just some information you need.

Um this is 46 days for that to clog up and get like that.

It's not from my pipes, it's from what we're being sold.

So please look into this.

You know, um we want to see we want to see more of the watchdogs that you guys used to have, like the uh utilities commission that was taken out in about think 2017.

They weren't political.

These people weren't associated, they were engineers, they were smart guys that could help you guys figure out what's going on with our water.

We need to do something about this.

And before any more bonds or more stuff that's pushed towards the injection.

Let the residents know what the costs are, what the water quality data is and the long-term plan.

Let's bring back those watchdogs.

Let's bring back the utilities commission.

Our aquifer is our lifeline, and it protects you protecting the residents who depend on it and yourselves and for the generations to come.

Thank you for your time, guys.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on to comments by counselors.

All right.

Hearing none.

Moving on to the consent calendar.

I'll take a motion to approve the consent calendar, please.

Motion to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

I have a motion and a second, Miss Davis.

Consent calendar, please.

Thank you.

Councillor Lennon Time.

Yes.

Counselor List.

Yes.

Counselor Dabson.

Yes.

Counselor Tyler.

Yes.

Counselor Corbett.

Yes.

And Councillor Weimer.

Yes.

The consent calendar is approved.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on to public hearings.

Anyone with a pecuniary interest on an item uh under public hearing and wishes to address the governing body shall register with the clerk.

Each comment will be limited to two minutes.

This hearing will be handled in accordance with the rules of procedure, section three.

Um item number 14 D58, approval of TSBG licensing LLC defined pickleball uh to transfer a location of a dispenser liquor license.

Uh Miss uh Miss Davis.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Good evening, members of the governing body.

Tonight I bring before you a transfer of a liquor license to transfer it over to the new uh defined pickleball on Rio Rancho Boulevard.

Um, this would be for uh location or I'm sorry, just for on-site consumption.

And um, as always, with a liquor license, we have to do a local approval prior to it being the approval process being completed through the board or governor uh excuse me through um the alcohol and beverage control board.

Thank you.

I'll take a motion to approve D 58.

Move to approve D58.

Second.

Have a motion and a second.

Any comments by council?

All right, hearing none.

Uh Miss Davis, D58.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Counselor Weimer, yes, Councillor Dabson.

Yes, Counselor Tyler.

Yes.

Counselor List.

Yes.

Counselor Culbraith.

Yes.

And Councillor Lynn and Time.

Yes.

D 58 is approved.

Thank you.

Moving on to 028.

Ordinance of the City of Rear Rancho, New Mexico amending the zoning classification, property legal legally described as Unit 21, block 22, uh, and the listed lots.

Um Director Rincone.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the governing body, Amy Rincohn, Directory Development Services.

So the item before you today is um 028.

It is the ordinance that would amend the zoning for unit 21, block 22, lots 4 through 26, 28 through 31, 45 through 48, block 23, lots 3 through 10, 14 through 23, 28 through 32, 38, 42 through 64, block 24, lots 41 through 49, 51 through 56, 58 through 66, and 68 through 70 from TZ and R3 to R4 single family residential.

And so this is generally located on the corner of uh Wilpitt and Shiloh to the north.

So this item was previously considered by the governing body on August 14th.

At that meeting, the item failed in a vote of 6 to 0.

The council members extra uh expressed strong concerns and emphasized that a master plan in addition to a zone map amendment for R4 instead of R3, which was the previous request, should be submitted and considered.

A master plan has not been considered.

This went in front of or not, I'm sorry, uh was not submitted.

Uh this went in front of the planning and zoning board at their October 14th meeting.

Um the planning and zoning board recommended denial and a vote of zero to five.

Um so with that, I will stand for any questions.

Okay.

Um I'll take a motion to approve O28.

Motion to approve RO28.

Second.

Thank you.

Do you have anybody signed up to speak on this item?

Ah, thank you.

Um, I'm sorry, I think it's uh Nicosha.

Shuttlebacher, Shuttlebauer.

I'm gonna say that.

I knew I was gonna say it wrong.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Okay.

I'm actually here as the applicant, so I hope that will explain the design or the files here.

So um good evening, Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body.

It's very nice to see everyone in person here this evening.

Um my name is Nicosia Schottelbauer here on behalf of Cielo Bonito Development.

Uh Director Rincone has just presented the scope of our request.

So I would really like to focus my time on some of the finer details of our zone map amendment request this evening.

I want to take a moment to review the history of this project.

We began this in the fall of 2023.

In the spring of 2024, we held our DRC meeting where we were informed that our master plan did not need to accompany our zone map amendment request.

Later, staff advised that a master plan would in fact be required.

We submitted a draft master plan in October of 2024 without our engineering plans, followed by the official master plan in April of 2025.

At which point we received staff comments.

After addressing the comments, we formalized the application for the ZMA and the master plan in June of 2025.

At that stage, staff indicated they would not support the master plan because we did not have 100% ownership.

Consequently, we withdrew the master plan and submitted our conceptual plans instead.

Staff recommended approval for the ZMA for R3, and the PCB board voted to recommend approval at the June 2025 meeting.

However, staff later identified noticing errors, and then the revised noticing errors also contained errors.

So this required us to represent at the August 12th PCB meeting.

Again, staff and PCB recommended approval without our master plan.

We presented the R3 request at the August 14th governing body meeting.

Now during that discussion, I believe it was expressed that the R3 zoning would allow for too much variation in density and would not just stick to single family homes.

Um and that's why we really didn't want to move the project forward.

Um we understood that and we agree with that assessment.

So following that feedback, we reviewed the specific area plan and the surrounding zoning and our conceptual layout and adjusted our request to R4, which is what we've resubmitted for today's hearing.

Again, this was without a master plan, and staff indicated they didn't want to support it without the 100% ownership.

Um so at the last PZB meeting, they did recommend denial, and so did PZB.

Um I only share this history because we really want to aim to demonstrate our ongoing responsiveness to staff's feedback and our continued commitment to ensuring that the project advances the shared goals of the specific area plan and the comprehensive plan and provide cohesive development within RIA Rancho.

So just to reiterate, the zoning designation that's outlined in the Paseo Gateway West specific area plan for this area is medium density residential, which includes R1, R2, R3, and R4 zoning districts.

As I just said in August, we had requested R3.

Today we're requesting R4, which does remain consistent with this SAP's goals.

But more importantly, it does commit this land to be developed as single-family homes.

Here's our latest concept plan.

I know in the map that you have in your packet, in phases one through three, there are a couple lots that are not included in tonight's request.

That's simply just because we were unable to include them in time for this meeting.

But as of today, moving, if we move the project forward, we could go build out phases one through three to give hopefully the governing body some faith that we can move this project forward without having big holdout lots or ownership that hasn't agreed to this project.

Here's an example, just taking the existing lots and what we could build out today.

Staff's primary concerns appear to center on two issues.

The absence of the master plan, which they said prevents the city from ensuring the timing size, and features of the proposed park, and the lack of implementation strategies for specific infrastructure.

So I'd like to start with park space.

Just by code, it would be a if the full project were to be built out.

That's based on building out 351 homes.

Our current lot count for phases one through three is 233 lots, which is really only 1.97 acres, but we would like to move forward with the 2.9 acre park because we believe in the vision of being able to do all five phases at some point.

So even if phases four and five never proceed, we are offering more parkland than required, and this represents our financial commitment on our part that exceeds the city requirement.

If we go for our preliminary plat, we build the park, get our final plat.

If for unforeseen circumstances, the halt's the project, we go to a preliminary plat, the city will have a bond to go ahead and complete the rest of that park.

So we really feel like in either case, parkland is guaranteed with or without that master plan.

Regarding our infrastructure implementation, utilities will not be routed outside of the public right-of-way.

And as we advance with phases one through three, both Petrulo and Wiles must remain, and the utilities will be installed to serve those parcels, as well as the parcels within phases four and five.

Those lots will have access prior to the subdivision's full build-out.

Access and traffic traffic circulation are addressed by the specific area plan, and grading and drainage are reviewed and enforced during our subdivision approval.

We've just received our traffic impact analysis, which is based on the entire five-phase concept of 350 homes, and there are no mitigation measures recommended.

So if in theory we only built out phases one through three, the access points as dictated by the specific area plan and from the data in the traffic analysis would be designed for 351 homes and would adequately plan for any other future development within these blocks.

Finally, I want to return to the issue of the master plan.

So I've pulled a slide from Director Rincone's presentation of the updated DPM, just kind of outlining the objectives of really what a master plan is looking for.

So if I just try to do a quick comparison of all those items, our conceptual plan can address what the objectives of the master plan are, and the existing SAP also addresses these topics.

So in closing, our team has really worked diligently over the past two years to align this project with the goals of the Paseo Gateway West specific area plan, the city's comprehensive plan and the feedback we've received from prior meetings and from staff's requests, and we've tried to adjust our submissions as this guidance has evolved, and we do remain committed to responsible development.

Our revised request for the R4 zoning remains consistent with the area's medium density residential designation.

It reflects the feedback from prior meetings and ensures the project will be a complement to the surrounding neighborhoods and remains single family homes.

So although we do not have a master plan, the project still meets all the applicable city requirements.

Likewise, our access infrastructure and utility improvements will be built to city standards and within the public right of way, ensuring full compliance and connectivity.

I want to thank you for your time, your consideration, and we really appreciate the opportunity to continue to work collaboratively with you staff and the PZB board.

Thank you.

And I stand for questions.

Thank you.

Do we have anybody else signed up to speak on this?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Um I have a motion and a second.

I'll turn it over to the council at this point, or uh and Amy's here, so if we have any questions for Amy.

Mr.

Mayor.

Counselor Tyler, Amy, what was the PCB just ruled 05 against, correct?

Mr.

Mayor, Counselor Tyler, that is correct.

So they recommended denial.

Did they give what was their the reasons to uh I don't have the specific minutes in front of me, um, but they uh went along with staff's recommendation of denial.

Um and then also I believe uh something that was a a major factor was that this is a development that's gonna be over 50 acres.

Um and the DPM that was just adopted at the previous meeting uh set the acreage standards at 10 acres.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Mayor?

Councilor Landatine.

So the phase out has, and that was a really well uh worded defense of your position.

Um the phase out that you're proposing has five different areas, is that what we're saying?

Correct.

So today we could build phases one through three, phase four, which is really the southerly portion, we have one holdout lot.

Um we feel confident that they will be included in the subdivision.

So really what the biggest holdout is that phase five.

Okay.

I'm sorry, since you're referencing, can you put that uh slide up there, please?

So there we go.

Okay.

So that won't show the holdouts, but the one in the packet does.

So I guess my question is phases one through three.

Um hold on.

What is the uh what's the percentage of land that you or of all the properties that you have in phases one through three?

I know you're excluding phases four and five because I'm assuming that there's more that you need to grab their future.

So for phases one through three, we could go build it today, right?

So the there's three, well, one, two, three, four lots that were not included in this zone map request, so we would have to come back and make sure that those are included to then move forward to the preliminary plotting actions.

So I would like to say that's you know if we're using technicality, that's four owner four lots, which are half acre lots out of that entire subdivision.

But we feel that we have a hundred percent ownership of that.

Um I think the challenge, uh correct me if I'm wrong is you know why we wouldn't have a master plan for this, because if we don't include those other phases, it completely changes your grading and drainage, your you access your utilities, and so we really want to design this so that we can try to at least do the first three phases, you move into phase five, and then work, take the time to be able to work on um phase four just because of the ownership challenges.

So you said in phases one through three you believe that you own 100 percent?

We don't own 100 percent.

We have um since our last presentation, we had four or three owners who didn't have paperwork ready for us to put in the zone map requests.

But they have told us that they are willing to move forward.

So I can't say we own them, right?

But they've given about uh given us their commitment that they want to be included in that project.

Okay, it's in process.

So uh we were we were I was here and probably most people were when we um approved that infill project that's right against Shiloh there, really close to the school.

It was not popular with the residents.

Um for good reasons, honestly.

I just drove it three weeks ago.

Um so what really makes me nervous about this is I already know how this is outstanding.

Um so what really makes me nervous about this is I already know how this is outstanding, this is not your fault, but how bad Shiloh and Will Pitt is with traffic and access because um you know that's about a 600 person elementary school that's right there, and then that road lookout right over there, and all of the roads that you're referring to, I believe none of them are currently paved.

So meaning every you know, whether you do one through three or one through five, every one of those cars are coming back to Will Pet down past the school Shiloh to uh dump down to King to get out.

So that was the challenges before just in approving that little those two little courts that we put in there.

Um they're in there now and have been for about a year.

Um, but that's that's a lot of my initial concern about that.

Can you address some of the uh access if you if you could?

Thank you, Counselor Lenantine.

I'd love to.

Um so in previous conversations, right?

The school does not want to have any sort of additional access on Shiloh.

So that is why I believe in the specific area plan and in the conversations that all those access points are being driven to Patrulo and Wiles down Wilpit.

And at this point, look over, we would like it to remain for fire access.

So all of those traffic points are going out to Willpitt, and then with the traffic analysis that we did, um they are not showing that with even 350 homes that there are any issues with on those roadways that they they can foresee right now.

Okay, well, if you're coming, uh if you're coming to Willpett, you're still going to go down to hit King.

So I I I think that there will be particularly you know, certain times of the day.

But okay.

Um that's all I have for now, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor.

Council Counselor Weimer.

So I want to continue on this the thinking of Councillor Lendentine on the the percentage of ownership.

Um can you speak to that?

What percentage specific numbers do you actually own?

And let's start with just the first three phases, and then how does that look with all five phases?

So, in whole, if we were looking at the entire project, there's 124 lots, and 21 of them are not under our control.

So that's 17 percent that for the entire project that we don't have.

And what about one through three?

So um we're gonna get technical.

We don't own them, right?

But we are under contract, and so there are only um three ownership entities in that first three phases that we are not under contract, and that's not to get into weeds, but we have just issues that they're having to work through with probate and things like that.

Okay, yeah, and I I do recall your discussion on 100 percent quote unquote.

Yes.

So um maybe question for Director Rencom.

Can you speak to the park discussion that was brought up this evening for the bonding of that park and tying it to the preliminary plat and whether or not that satisfies the concern that staff has so Mr.

Mayor, uh Counselor Weimer, um I can talk in generals uh about the park.

So so those were comments from uh the the parks department.

Um so um in general, I think what they were trying to reference when we're talking about parks is when we look at uh the DPM right, so what was just adopted, uh the preliminary plot, depending on the timing, may come in uh in January or after January, so it would go under those new standards.

Um and so any parks under three acres um won't necessarily or don't have to be uh combined um into one big piece, it could be uh smaller pieces.

So um until we actually see those preliminary plats, we won't actually know if it's going to be one large chunk or something smaller.

Master plans kind of give us a little bit more of an understanding if it's gonna be uh a solid piece or not.

Um it's not guaranteed again because we don't I I know we have a conceptual document, right?

I I totally get that we have that, but um it is not something that staff can rely on, and it's not something that we're gonna be able to enforce or or lean back on.

Um and so um when it comes to is there going to be some type of park?

Absolutely, that is part of the standards.

Um, and then depending on um a further item a little bit later tonight with the chapter 155 that that language will be adopted into the ordinance uh moving forward um for uh all those other standards.

But um it's it's one of those things that yes, there'll be some type of parks.

Will that be one contiguous piece?

I don't know because there is going to be the option that it doesn't have to be that with the language that would be adopted with tonight's uh chapter 155 amendments.

I don't know that that exactly answered your question, but in a roundabout way it did, and it it helped me understand also your concern over this not being a master plan.

Right.

And so that brings me back to the question that I asked earlier today, and thank you for responding.

Is it as simple as changing the name from conceptual plan to master plan?

Is that something that could be done and would that document then meet the requirements of a master plan?

Mr.

Mayor, Councilor Weimer.

Um in theory, yes.

Um the the problem that we run into with that is that we heard last time and and we didn't have the same people show up this time, but we heard previously that somebody was unhappy that even on the conceptual plan that that it was showing a road over their lot.

Um and so there would be some concerns that there might be some feedback with that again um if that was to go through.

Um but the concept of it where it's at, yes, it could be relabeled um and come back in.

Um there could be some changes to the layouts that all of the holdout lots uh were left out so that it would be 100% ownership and they uh reconfigured the layout.

Um so there would be some options for uh what a master plan could look like thank you.

Um Sherl Bauer, again, we're talking about the percentage of the lots.

And you said there's about 17 percent.

Is that inclusive of the three or four that are under contract but not a part yet?

No, I believe that calculation was the 17 percent that we don't have control of at all.

Okay, it's all five phases.

Counselor Weimer, may I just make an additional comment on the parkland?

Yes, not to split hairs here, but um I understand the concern about without a master plan, we don't know what size of park it is, but I think um at this point our parkland is under the three acres.

So it's by virtue having to be an HOA park, it's not considered a public park anyway.

Um so if we split it up into a bunch of little parks or one big park, I'm not really sure why that would um concern how we build out the subdivision because it's not considered a city park.

Okay, thank you.

That's all we have for now, Mr.

Mayor.

You have the floor.

Thank you.

Council Colbreth.

Thank you.

Um, Amy, um, you mentioned this a bit earlier, but um can you just speak a little bit more to the um the master plan as a binding document and what the role of the master plan is here?

Yeah, uh Mr.

Mayor, Council Colbert, yes.

So um generally when we adopt master plans, um we we adopt it by resolution, so we're able to point back to it as as a guiding policy document.

Um, and then generally what we do is well uh when it comes with an accompanying zone map amendment is in that zone map amendment ordinance.

I always look to the door to see I have my microphone on, sorry.

Um we look to in that zone map ordinance.

Uh we put in language that if there is any type of design standards, guidelines, any of those types of of things that we put in the master plan, um, that the zoning actually points back to that master plan and it actually has um teeth uh whereas um a lot of times if we didn't do that, they wouldn't have the teeth for those design standards.

So so we give those uh master plans a little bit more teeth when they come with that accompanying zone map amendment.

Thank you very much.

Um and if I recall in our um the the DPM that we'll be reviewing also later today, we've discussed the opportunity for the full master plan and then a kind of more slimmed down version in some of the smaller developments.

Those even a slimmed down version of a master plan would still meet that same type of master plan requirement and binding of a document, right?

Uh Mr.

Mayor Council Coperth, yes.

Um and actually, so what we're discussing tonight though is just um the second reading of chapter 155.

Uh we actually uh the governing body did adopt the DPM of the Bambus meeting.

But yes, so that slimmed down version um uh that uh of a master plan um that would start between that 10 to 20 acres um has uh less standards um in there and so technically a um uh a developer wouldn't need to actually put design standards in there if they didn't fill the need to put build those in there.

Um so really we would just be looking at design standards from 20 acres and above.

And then um the size of this property, um this development you said I'm sorry, I can't remember in terms of homes or acreage, sorry acreage.

Um if we did the entire five phases, it would be 66.13 acres.

And one through three.

Who uh let's see, I'm trying to give me a quick second here.

I think that put us at a I want to say it was close to 30.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think the I think the issue at hand um for me at least is that we shall uh we have the the moment um uh with all of the the best most wonderful um intentions and ideas um and plans um and for me what the master plan does is it gives the residents the city the staff um assurances and with the ability to enforce those insurances um of what may be there um aside from kind of the concept at this initial phase um and so my concern is not um in the in the cons the conceptual plan as it's presented my concern is really for the future um and what may happen in the future without the city having any ability to enforce that future which we would have some at least some ability to do so in a master plan um so that that is a bit of my concern um on today um as we look at this item but thank you very much for presenting thank you mr mayor thank you Mr.

Mayor Councillor Lundin Time if no one else um thank you for explaining that uh I I do like um the concept of phases one through three um better however because we did uh and staff did a lot of work and we voted on the DPM I knew at some point it would it would mean that people that were in the process there was always gonna be people that got caught up in the process no no matter when we updated you know all of that and so I figured we get tested with some pretty you know good projects but that's you know outside of what we were looking for when we finalized the DPM and and obviously I didn't realize it would happen this fast but here we are and so because of that I just think if since we're coming off of laying out these standards that took a lot of time and a lot of staff work and and going back and forth to get to uh for me it's just um I I do like that phase I just think that we probably need to stick to the guns that we decided to as a city for the future moving forward and so um I don't uh I don't hate this I think that it could be a good uh it's in my district I think it could be a really good uh housing development here and um but I think without a master plan it's just um not what we're looking for at this time but thank you Mr.

Mayor yes Mr.

Mayor sorry yes thank you so much um so I hear the feedback of the governing body um I would just like to um express that this has taken a lot of work as you can see we've worked for two years to try to assemble these parcels and really the ownership entities are um struggling with how long this process has taken um so my request would be tonight is if we could move forward with the zone map amendment and possibly place the condition either with the zone map amendment approval that we have to apply for a master plan or that that's a condition that is done with our preliminary plotting actions.

We are honestly not trying to get out of it but we do need this project to move forward with our zone map request um Amy is that a viable condition that we can put on a on an approval that says that they'd have to submit a contingent on a master plan submission within 90 days or whatever.

So Mr Mayor so Mr Mayor so um the applicant did uh bring this forward uh as an option at a meeting that we had uh prior to this uh to this meeting a few weeks ago um the problem that we have with that so I know that we have done that with planned residential development um SU zoning um and so we did that with the golf course and we did that with arrowhead uh the concern that I have with those this one is when we do plan residential development there is an expectation that there's going to be a site plan there is an expectation for a master plan and there's an expectation that they can't actually go to building permit or to preliminary plat because of that SU without coming back in front of governing body.

When the governing body issues um or adopts zoning that zoning is in place those entitlements are in place.

So once that's in place I can't stop a preliminary plot application from coming in or any type of building permit from coming in the way I can with an SU.

So I don't think that there is a legal way for me to put a condition on straight zoning that would require them to come back for a master plan.

Okay.

Okay.

And and I guess I'm gonna go back to the original timeline when you all first submitted and you had a master plan in your first submission and um and it was that rejected because they didn't have a hundred percent ownership so uh Mr.

So uh Mr.

Mayor, that was during um that uh initial feedback that we received from governing body about um uh and and we heard it from uh our the public comment and everything to on the master plan ownership just in general and some of the conversations that we had with the stakeholders.

Um and so there was that time frame where they had a master plan um very similar to what the conceptual plan is in front of you that how it hold out lots that they showed uh lot layouts built over or roads built over that the those holdout lots.

Um so they did have that at the beginning.

Um and then we did say as staff we didn't feel comfortable in recommending approval without 100% ownership.

What we have seen for other holdout lots is that if they don't have 100 percent ownership, they work around, they change the layout to show those holdout lots that still have access to the roads, but don't actually put any type of uh lots or houses or parks or anything else on top of those holdout lots.

Okay.

Okay, I don't have any other further questions.

Anything else by council.

Okay, I have a motion and a second.

Ums Davis 028.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Councillor Weimer, no.

Councilor Tyler, no.

Councilor Colbreath, no.

Councilor Lynn and Time.

No.

Councillor Dabson, no.

And Councillor List.

No.

Oh 28 fails.

Okay, thank you.

Um moving on to R 131.

Resolution amending Northern uh rainbow specific area plan.

Uh Director Rincom.

Excuse me, Mr.

Mayor, it's actually R 133.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I I said 131, didn't I?

I'm sorry.

133.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, so item number 16 is the resolution amending the northern and rainbow specific area plan.

So this area is uh located south of northern, um north of Sandia, and it is to the uh west of rainbow.

Um this would uh specific area plan would expand the planned boundary uh to the lots that are along Rainbow that you can see highlighted in red, and then also some additional lots um to the west of the existing boundary.

Uh this plan also updates land uses, updates uh figures inside of the plan, statistics and standards um to match up to current day numbers.

Um so just to to kind of zoom in on the land use map on the left hand side you have the existing land use.

Um so you had um commercial along northern, um, then there was sandwiched in the middle, some residential, and one in that middle, that's that big purple chunk, um, and then residential that went down to Sandia.

Uh the proposed land uses would have residential starting at northern, uh going I would say a good third of that first block.

Oh, thank you.

Um, and then uh the commercial um the M1 would turn into more of a combination of C2 and M1 uses.

Uh there would be some higher density in the middle along with some uh medium density further to the south to Sandia, um, and then there would be uh some drainage and parkland to that western portion.

Um and so currently the planned boundary is 236 acres.

The expanded boundary would go to 285 acres.

The planning and zoning board reviewed this item at their meeting on October 28th and recommended approval.

Uh and with that, I will stand for any questions.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um before I take uh speak speakers, uh I'll get a I need to get a motion in a second.

So motion to approve 133.

R 133.

I moved to approve R 133.

Thank you.

Second.

All right.

Um Brian Aragon.

Mr.

Mayor Brian Ottagon with Amor up Southwest.

Um I was actually here to answer questions.

I can't do that.

Oh, microphone.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Is that better?

Yeah.

Mr.

Mayor Brian ought to go on with Amrit Southwest.

I'm here to answer any questions that the staff may have given the presentation.

We also have uh uh Michael Wright, who is with consensus planning here who helped prepare the document and Yolanda um yeah, right back here, another engineer who's helping on this uh uh specific area plan as well.

Okay.

So with that, we stand for any questions that the council and board may have.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh the same with you, uh Michael.

Uh yes, that's uh Michael Wright with the consensus planning.

Yes.

Um we are here on behalf of the applicants, uh, as well as on behalf of the microscope.

Brian Anderson from Pulti as well as Kevin Patton from Polte is here online.

And we also stand for any questions uh in addition to Brian closer.

I apologize, excuse me, let me start again.

Uh good evening, everyone.

My name is Michael Wright with Consensus Planning.

Uh good evening, Mayor, governing body.

I appreciate your time, staff.

Uh thank you again for the early presentation that Director Racone put together.

Uh I stand for questions.

Like I said before, uh the applicant, uh, Amra Brian Aragorn is available.

Uh the applicant on behalf of Westway Homes instead of West Bay Homes, uh Brian uh Anderson from Hulte, Kevin Patton from Pulti is here as well as the engineer of Yolanda Poider from uh BHI.

Thank you.

All right.

Um I have a motion and a second.

Uh any comments by council?

Mr.

Mayor?

Yes, Counselor Dabson.

Um I don't forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but there's um already people living uh in this area.

What will happen to them?

Uh as far as I know, there are four current property owners there and one existing business.

Uh nothing negative will happen to them.

They should actually increase their livelihoods and the surrounding areas with new homes, new residents, new community projects, amenities, infrastructure.

Uh we have nothing but to gain with new neighbors and having a new relationship.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor.

Councilor Weimer.

So I think the only concern I have about this request is the lots that are fronting rainbow and how they will access rainbow.

And the reason I bring that up is I don't know how many there are, but there are two or three dozen, I'm gonna guess.

And if each of those has a driveway entering onto rainbow, that does not seem like a good situation.

Can you speak to that?

Of course.

Um I'm sorry, before you speak today, can we pull the plan back up the so that we can reference the where it is today and what it's going what it's proposed to be?

Okay, thank you.

Uh can we actually go back to the aerial uh exhibits?

Uh you have a better chance of potentially seeing uh those homes along Rainbow.

Uh there should be uh two there should be two residential single family homes along Rainbow and closer to Northern.

Uh there'll be uh one residential uh halfway down closer to fifth.

Um how are they going to access rainbow?

Um currently they will have access to rainbow.

Uh any additional uh development that we are proposing uh essentially will reduce those curb cuts along rainbow when it is expanded to 156 feet wide.

That is the Mr.

Cog um proposed uh right-of-way.

Um in anything we are trying to reduce those number of curb cuts and provide uh constant access through rainbow, but those existing lots will still have access from their driveway, and uh the future developments will essentially be have a a walled subdivision that will uh only provide access or egress at um seventh and fourth and third.

Okay, I'm not sure I'm totally understanding your explanation, but uh let me start again.

Go ahead.

Mr.

Weimer, uh Mr.

Mayor, um if I may help respond.

Uh and Mr.

Weimer, I think you're discussing your concern is the lots on the east side of Rainbow.

So right now there is an existing overlay zone on those lots that limits the access.

Part of the addition of or one of the benefits of including these lots within the uh specific area plan is that we can go in then and develop those as subdivisions and reduce the number of access points.

We would basically take the areas where we have contiguous lots, do smaller subdivisions and create one individual or possibly two, depending on the the uh uh planning and uh entitlement process so that we can reduce those number of access points onto rainbow.

So it does having these lots covered with the specific area plan allows us to to create those um development areas.

Does that help, Mr.

Mormon?

It does.

Um can you so how deep are those lots existing?

I want to say those are the the half acre lots or two seventy-five.

And we would be dedicating the necessary 28 feet of rideway along rainbow.

So then we would essentially go and eventually go through and re do a rezone on those properties so that we could create some smaller uh lots and thus reducing the access points to rainbow.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, that that does help.

Okay.

Okay.

Um Director Rencohn.

With that discussion had and the fact that the document that we're asking to be to approve this evening takes those lots that are on the the east side of Rainbow out of the equation when it comes to master plan, are we comfortable doing that?

Mr.

Mayor, it's a pretty easy question.

Uh so Mr.

Mayor, Councilor Rheimer, I I don't actually think it's the easiest question, right?

I I do think that it is one of those things that when uh when it comes back in, right uh when we look at the implementation of of the other master plans that we expect to be coming in uh later this year um uh within this specific area plan, um how th what infrastructure is gonna be implemented with those, um w how rainbow is is gonna function in the future as it expands out.

Um I think those are all conversations that we're gonna have.

Um I think it I think not including it overall um in a master plan not not the greatest, but I think what's gonna honestly happen is that it's probably they're gonna be so small that they won't need a master plan and there'll be uh smaller areas that are gonna work around um and and try to um try to solve some of the issues with the holdout lots that they're gonna have in between the ownership on that side.

So I think even though um that bigger picture would be great if they were gonna come in as a master plan, I don't think it's gonna be detrimental for those properties on that side not to have one.

So and so that I understand what the existing conditions are, those lots that front rainbow now legally could have access directly.

So that's correct.

So this is for lack of a better way to say it, perhaps the best solution given what we've got in front of us.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Councilor?

Mr.

Mayor.

Councilor Lunatine.

Just so just to circle back and make sure I'm understanding.

Will there be driveways that hit Rainbow Boulevard?

Because there currently are, and moving forward, that's gonna be a big problem.

There's a new subdivision out there that's three years old, Camino Crossing, that is walled off, and there's one access point in, which is a great scenario because of how fast and you know what we know rainbow will is and will be in the future.

So uh Mr.

Mayor, Councillor Lennon Time, there uh will be probably a few holdout lots that uh don't come in that will have access onto rainbow uh directly.

Um and then there um so yes, there will be lots that will have direct access.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

And if I can you still yes.

If I can add to that, but the the process with a northern rainbow step amendment including those lots is our best path forward to consolidate all those driveways, all those uh curb cuts into a proposed plan going forward that it ultimately reduces that and it allows the traffic and the flow of rainbow to progress the way it should be.

So we are this is the process forward to reducing those number of driveways.

And one more time, can you see the next slide?

Um it is now and what it's proposed to be.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, right now is it uh so just once again I'm not trying to belabor it.

Every one of those east side lots could have a driveway.

Yes.

Yeah, and so could they have the there is uh regulations and language that they would need to share curb cuts and share access points.

Um but the unfortunate is that depending on when lots come in and things like that, they're gonna get the direct access, and then uh it's the neighbors who have to figure out how to work with them in the future.

Right.

So that's considering how what rainbow is going to be in the future.

That's that's you know, scary point.

But uh looking at the proposed side of this, it reduces once you grip all of these together, it reduces the total access points here to one, two, three, four, five, six, um on the western property.

So uh as opposed to what it is right now.

Um I yeah, this is just those tough areas with all those and all the antiquated plating and uh the individual property ownerships.

So thank you.

Okay, anything else from council.

All right, hearing none, I have a uh motion and a second on R 133.

Miss Davis.

Thank you.

Councilor Liszt?

Yes.

Councilor Colbright Yes.

Councilor Weimer?

Yes.

Councilor Lynnantine.

Yes, Councilor Dabson.

Yes.

And Councilor Tyler.

Yes.

133 is approved.

Thank you.

Uh moving on to second readings, uh 27.

Ms.

Rincom.

Uh so Mr.

Mayor, um, item number 17 is 027.

So this is the second reading of the ordinance that would make um a update to chapter 155, which is our subdivision ordinance.

Um, I didn't prepare anything extra this time, um, but if there's any specific questions, um I will stand for those questions.

Thank you.

I'll take a motion to approve O27.

Motion to approve O 27.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second.

Uh, do we have anybody sign up to speak on this item?

No, sir, we do not.

Any comments by council?

Hearing none, Miss Davis 027.

Thank you.

Counselor Colbran.

Yes.

Counselor Weimer, yes.

Counselor Lennon time, yes.

Counselor Tyler?

Yes.

Counselor Dabson?

Yes.

And Councillor List.

Yes.

O 27 is approved.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on to discussion and deliberation.

Uh so for uh for comment purposes, uh, we've got R 134, R 135, and R136.

We're gonna take all presentations at the top of each of these and all public comment at the top of each of these, and then we will move into subsequent votes on each one of them.

So, but uh the presentations and comments will be before all three and for all three.

So if you have comments about these various different things, uh please uh address them at this time uh during the comment period.

Uh with that moving on to discussion and deliberation, uh Mr.

City Manager.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, good evening.

I'm gonna nowhere else pulling up the uh the PowerPoint.

If I may, I'm just gonna present from my uh chair here this evening.

And uh we have uh three items before you as you introduce Mr.

Mayor, R 134, 135, and R 36.

Next slide.

Um these three items, and we'll go into detail on them.

Uh the first one is uh in no particular order, but a resolution authorizing a budget adjustment for the economic development expenditure for project ranger of a million dollars.

R 35 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to negotiate and enter to an agreement for water and potentially wastewater services for Project Ranger, Castilian Corporation, R 136 is a resolution approving an intergovernment intergovernmental agreement, IgA with Sandoval County, pursuant to the local economic development act leader and the city of Rear Rancho's local economic development plan and support in order to support the extension of New Mexico 347 for sale of the Volcan from Unserto Rainbow as part of the Project Ranger Castillo Incorporation initiative.

If I may um from kind of a order of flow, given that we have some speakers and uh the company is in attendance uh as well.

I'd like to provide a brief overview of the items before you.

Uh after that, I'd like to turn it over to Chief Wentzel of the Rear Antrofire Rescue Department to provide an overview of uh overview of our automatic aid, emergency response and pre-incident planning, uh safety planning, given that the city provides automatic aid, and he'll go into greater detail for the areas west of uh the city limits.

And then from there, uh invite the New Mexico Economic Development Department, uh Director Mark Roper to provide any remarks or presentations that he may have, uh Castilian uh presentation, uh public comment, and then counselor uh QA.

Um so quick overview, as I think uh you all know by now and uh for the benefit of the public.

Sandoval County and the New Mexico Economic Development Department have been the lead agencies on the recruitment process of Project Ranger to New Mexico.

Uh this engagement goes back probably about a year now.

The Sandoval County Board of County Commissioners has voted unanimously 12 times on Project Ranger Action Items at six different meetings dating back uh to June 25th of this year, and you can see the dates on the uh on the calendar or on the on the PowerPoint here, uh subsequent votes on 723, 827, 924, 108, and 1022.

Um as I have uh equipped, uh we are the caboose on this item, and in some cases they were the caboose that hasn't exactly been uh connected to the train either.

Um there was a community meeting on 1021 in uh uh Northern Meadows at the elementary school there.

Um this community meeting uh stemmed from uh two items.

The state land office uh land lease had a requirement for public engagement.

Um however, that really wasn't time-specific or have a deadline for it.

And um, Mr.

Mayor uh would like to uh acknowledge your efforts and communications of the Cabinet Secretary of the Economic Development Department to really advocate for that community meeting to take place and help get the word out about the project.

It was well attended, about 250 to 300 people uh attended that.

Um and uh it it was I think was a beneficial thing for the broader community to understand what Project Ranger is.

Um granted what it is also can sound can sound uh very scary, and I think uh Castilian Corporation um will walk through kind of some of the realities and where the rubber hits the road on perception versus reality with their project.

Before the governing body this evening are really three specific narrow action items um not really pertaining to the broader and economic development and inducement incentive package.

Um that process has taken place.

Uh the company and the economic development department in Sandoval County are very advanced uh in that phase.

It would be um a million dollars and an I and an IGA for funding for Pasale of the Vulcan, and that's the corresponding budget resolution, um, and authorize a negotiation of the water service.

These items have a staff recommendation of approval.

Um I will go into uh these items a little bit on um and it's elaborated in great detail on the ABM uh to why there's a staff recommendation of approval on on these items.

Um, you know, Paseo of the Vulcan, I think it's twofold.

Um it has been a long-range uh planning goal for many people in the Northwest Quadrant, Sandoval County, Rio Rancho area.

Um, as we know, uh there's really only two ways in and out of uh the City of Rio Rancho.

We look at it from the long term in that transportation planning.

And if you look at a 2040, 2050, 2060 transportation planning organization map, no one is showing another bridge over the river.

Um this would only address the first two miles about a 25-mile uh journey down to I-40, and whether that ultimately connects into a Trisco, atrisco or connects all the way down to I-40.

Um, it is conceptually and potentially the first step towards opening up another route in and out of the city and also to unincorporated Sandoval County.

I mean, more specifically and more germane today, and I think this is something again I'd like to point to you, Mr.

Mayor, is um keeping the traffic associated with this project out of Northern Meadows.

Um this would be a route to the site, and when this project first came forward uh to us and our different steps where we we have been involved, um that was a concern uh raised uh I think by by both by that the by you, Mr.

Mayor, and and city staff is the potential for construction traffic, um, you know, freight traffic, even though it was only a couple trucks a week, as well as uh you know the the workforce driving down through um northern uh northern meadows.

Well, King Boulevard is rated uh as an arterial, it is also a neighborhood street.

And so I think a more immediate targeted next couple years piece to the speciale of the Vulcan is funding.

So there is a direct route to the site into traffic.

Um the prospect of the potentiality of traffic going through northern meadows would be drastically um reduced.

The second is uh water service outside of uh city limits.

Um it's been a couple decades now that the city took the step to rein in, I will call it, or close the spigot on water service outside of city limits.

Um and uh there has been uh resolutions in place uh to ratify that position.

Um over the years, I would say that along the way there was creep in providing water service outside of city limits because we do have water infrastructure.

Um we have three wells, uh booster stations, uh main service lines in the county that is part of our pumping permit area, and it became easy to say, yeah, we'll just go ahead and allow you to connect your house to this water line.

Um and it was supporting residential growth.

And I think really the the decision led in the direction of if we're gonna use our water resource through our pumping permit that is allocated to us of the 24,000 acre feet, we rather support residential growth within city limits, not outside of city limits.

Um this is different in that it is a uh it isn't it an industrial economic development project.

The the use and the use and the intent of the water um in that regard is not the same as, and I hate the every house is important, but it's not another house, it's not another subdivision.

Um it is in the support of uh we'd be in the support of economic development.

Um, furthermore, uh we have water infrastructure in that area.

Um, and actually being the water service provider is a way for us to be able to monitor and protect our water, um, our water service, our water infrastructure, our aquifer.

Um, as I said, we have uh infrastructure of three wells out there as well as uh monitoring wells.

As flagged in your uh ABM, I did highlight uh two pending issues that are out there.

And now uh Chief Wentz and I will be able to talk a little bit about both of these in today's presentation.

Um these are uh you know issues that I you know, trailing issues, hanging chat issues, everyone described it that are still out there over the last um 30 days.

Uh the the first one is clarity and timing around the extension of the sale of the Vulcan.

Um, you know, again, Mr.

Mayor, referring back to your conversations uh with the project team with the uh the Secretary of Economic Development, really emphasizing the importance of PDV as the route outside of the city uh to the project.

Um right now, our understanding as reported uh to the county is uh the total uh cost is about 20 million dollars to go from UNSER to Rainbow Boulevard uh to city limits.

And that is proposed to be built in two phases, phase one, phase two.

I think one of my future slides is an actual exhibit of that.

Um each phase is about 10 million dollars, is my understanding, and funding is identified for the first phase.

Funding is unidentified uh for the second phase, and uh the uh there is a proposal that the county is looking at they presented to our public works department and some other folks last week to actually do some improvements to 28th Avenue and use that as uh the route uh um exiting the city.

And then uh without stealing uh Chief Wenzel's uh thunder by by any stretch, um, really looking to uh um get some clarity, um, some meat on the bones, uh, as I've used that term a few times in this project on real rancho fires rescue's roles and responsibilities with respect to the authority having jurisdiction, fire plan review, emergency response, fire safety, pre-incident safety planning, and all these I think are really that broad bucket um or that broad theme, there umbrella is in line with some of the public comment that we heard at the October 21st community meeting.

This is a question mark that the community has, and how will Rio Rancho Fire um be in a place to protect the community but also respond effectively in the best in class in the world-class manner which they do in delivering their fire and EMS service to an area that's currently in our automatic aid uh arrangement.

I'm gonna this quick slide um and before I hand it back over or invite Chief Wentzel to speak.

Um, this is uh it's a little hard to see.

I have a printout of any of the governing body members that like to see it, but over there on the blue on the far right of the screen, that is phase one.

That my understanding is uh communicated by the county to us on uh Friday, um Friday or Saturday is um that there's funding in place to get the sale the Vulcan two Meadows uh boulevard.

Um there is pending funding to be determined.

Lots of good ideas, lots of good intentions is my understanding to secure funding for phase two.

So while that is uh being determined or worked out potentially through some right-of-way acquisition issues, I'm not quite sure.

Um, in addition to funding if there are any other hurdles for phase two to be uh complete, um the route would I'll just call it jog over to uh 28th Avenue, which is the green line, and continue um with uh some version of improvements within city limits.

Um and then I'm not sure uh if it would be improved or just an all weather road uh outside of city limits, and uh that green line is 28th Avenue until it jaw jogs back to the alignment of the Platted 29th Avenue out to the site.

So that's you can kind of see phase one and then phase two, and then the subsequent phase is outside.

But you can see again um that blue line is proposed phase one for uh Paseo of the Vulcan.

The red line is the future uh Pasale of the Vulcan alignment going out towards ultimately um I-40.

At this point, Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, I would like to um invite Chief Wenzel to go through some information he has uh um that addresses a lot of the questions we've had, progress that has been made on the questions uh so far, and then uh once Chief Wenzel uh uh concludes there, I would uh like to invite the economic development department and project ranger uh that to speak.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, good evening.

James Winzel, Fire Chief for Rancho Fire Rescue.

Uh as the city manager said, I'm gonna be expanding on some of the concerns that we had with the site, our interactions with the team from Project Ranger, Castillion as well as Sandoval County Fire Rescue and Sandoval County Administration.

So it kind of comes down to three main areas that I'd like to discuss tonight.

The first one being uh limited and inconsistent communication within Rio Rancher Fire Rescue and my staff.

So the initial communication was a little bit vague, and I think that was mostly due to confusion with who has authority having jurisdiction.

As you know, this is Sandoval County proper land.

However, the state fire marshal actually oversees the code enforcement due to Sandoval County Fire Rescue not having a fire marshal's office.

The automatic aid agreement places VR Rancho Fire Rescue as the responding agency to this location.

So there's a bunch of different hands in the cookie jar, if you will.

I will say that in the recent uh previous weeks um we have seen an increase in communication with Project Ranger, San Diego County, and I think moving forward, that's uh strong indication of joint effort and ensuring that we have safety out there uh to the appropriate level that we deem fit for our first responders.

The second point I'd like to uh discuss today is the overall effects of the department, and that kind of covers two main areas.

The first kind of our routine calls, the call volume, um, what we can anticipate with a facility of that nature being built, and the second goes into more of the back of house ideas, which are um the administrative duties such as site safety planning, pre-incident planning, fire inspections, and whatnot.

Finally, the big topic of authority having jurisdiction.

So, as you know, we have automatic aid.

Automatic aid differs from mutual aid in that if a call comes out in this area of the county, the Rancho Fire Rescue automatically dispatches.

We don't have a request for mutual aid.

Our units and our crews respond immediately.

So, with that being said, there's about six different types of calls that I anticipate Project Ranger and how it'll impact rearancho fire rescue.

Those are listed on the screen and start with uh kind of the lowest and then go all the way to the highest.

So fire alarm activations, false alarms, somebody pulls uh a smoke, a smoke alarm or a fire activation, EMS calls, including falls.

This is uh encompassing the employees who may work there, as well as visitors, uh increased traffic to Northern Meadows, so on and so forth.

That takes me to point three, which is motor vehicle accidents, and then motor vehicle accidents that include uh injuries.

The fourth is hazardous material that could be hazardous material that's being transported in or out of the site, as well as potential uh accidents within the site.

Number five, we have small case small scale fire suppression.

So this could be something as small as a brush fire, um, accidental, you know, toaster fire, uh crews are trying to make something, it uh still activates the system, but we would have to respond.

And then six is the all hands on deck.

Something's happened.

Uh this is what we're hoping never happens in a facility like this.

And those are kind of how we look at uh gauging what our potential impact might be.

So looking at automatic aid agreement, I think it's important to understand um kind of the evolution of the automatic aid agreement.

So 2013 it was established and it was placed in uh formal methods, if you will, and then we revisited it in 2023.

In 2023, it was revisited and it was established with a little bit more data collection on our end in terms of how many calls we were actually going to within that portion of Sandoval County, and then we implemented a new cost analysis matrix that allows us allowed us to kind of come up with an idea of what uh providing that service cost that was used or that was developed using a wild line deployment model as well as unit out of service time.

So, how long and how long and how many times were our crews being dispatched and then not available to respond to the city and citizens within it.

Finally, that'll be revisited at the end of 2026, where is due for uh renegotiation in 2027.

Obviously, we we continue to take that data request into uh consideration.

We have our call matrix that allows us to uh anticipate potential calls in the coming years as well as review previous years.

We'd also be factoring project ranger and the anticipated call volume and implications from that site.

So the potential impact of the call volume.

So we use Intel as a as a gauge, if you will.

Uh on average, we run 75 calls to Intel.

Intel, as you know, is also within Sandoval County.

There's a couple differences with Intel as opposed to Project Ranger.

The first is Intel sits very close to the city in terms of boundaries.

So as soon as we enter the site, well, we may be on Sandoval County property.

As soon as we exit, we're immediately on the big thoroughfares of 528 and within city boundaries.

We're closer to hospitals, so that does go into consideration as well.

And there's two big potential impacts.

One project ranger will pull resources from station six and station two.

As those units go to respond, the other stations then have to cover and backfill those locations if a call were to generate in those districts.

It kind of starts the domino effect, and we potentially start running our crews a little bit thin for coverage within the city.

There's also the pre-incident safety planning.

That is a time commitment.

However, it's vital for familiarization within the site.

High target hazards such as Project Ranger require first responders to actively engage with the site crew on their premise and make sure we understand exactly where everything's located, where we're supposed to go, where we're not supposed to go, and how we mitigate any emergencies that are that originate there.

So it showcases why we have automatic aid with Sandoval County.

There's seven stations within the city that would be able to provide assistance to that site before Sandoval County's fire station located at 528 and 550, station 21.

Again, that's just for point of reference.

So moving on.

AHJ and permitting.

So there was a variance request that was submitted by this uh two from the company to the state fire marshal's office as well as New Mexico CID construction industries division.

They had two main points on that.

Excuse me.

The first was that they required no fire sprinklers in the hazardous buildings, and they referenced Department of Defense Standard 4145.

We are fully aware and understand that request.

That is an industry standard to not have water suppression in those facilities due to the being oxidizers and the potential volatile reaction.

Number two is no fire hydrants for hazardous buildings.

Again, referencing DOD standard 4145.

We're currently working with them, uh Castillion as well as Sandoval County, to ensure that hydrants are placed on the facility to the liking and the requirements set forth by the International Fire Code 2021 edition, which the state of New Mexico and Rio Rancho Fire Rescue currently follow.

State Fire, who operates and acts as the authority having jurisdiction for this location for fire code, has offered an approval to the first request, which is no sprinklers.

Again, we've gone into explanation of why that's okay.

However, they have said that fire hydrant exception is deferred to the local AHJ.

In their words, given their responsibility is the responding party.

So they place that on the local AHJ.

That in this case would be Sandoval County.

So what does it all mean?

Site specific when we look at Castillion, they verbally indicated yes to putting fire to having the installation of fire sprinklers in the non-hazardous buildings.

There would be the pending resolution that is before you tonight that would allow for water and then would most likely allow for the implementation of fire hydrants as opposed to water storage tanks.

AHJ-wise, who is AHJ?

The authority having jurisdiction for this site remains with Sandoval County.

However, this afternoon, in a discussion with Sandoval County administration and the state fire marshal's office, including myself, we discussed the possibility of MOU.

That MOU would offer an official formal request to the various parties and what expectations and involvement they would have on the site.

I find this to be very, very important.

I think rear ranchal fire rescue deserves to have that seat at the table as our responders are the primary responders to this location.

We have to have an ability to understand any variances and exceptions in the suppression systems so that our first responders and their safety is kept as a paramount requirement.

Moving on to the site safety planning.

So pre-incident planning, as I was talking about earlier in the presentation, it's very time consuming, but it's a kind of a necessary evil.

Due to the high risk classification, we would warrant pre-plan and area familiarization for all of our crews, not just stations two or station six, but the entire fire department on all three shifts.

That's done so we can establish the working relationship with the on-site security guards and response team.

So we understand again how to navigate their their location, uh, what are areas that we can and cannot go to.

And then ultimately, all of that feedback is pulled back and we use that to create an incident action plan.

So as you can imagine, a sign of this magnitude would require annual fires fire inspections, just like any other commercial property.

A plume study.

And we'll go ahead and uh Mr.

Roper.

Thank you, Ms.

Mr.

Mayor, uh members of the members of the council.

Um record, I'm Mark Roper.

I'm the division director of economic development for the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

And I am here to speak on behalf and in favor of uh Project Ranger.

Uh the New Mexico Economic Development Department has been uh working with this project for roughly a year.

Uh our analysis has shown that uh this will be recording in progress.

Sorry, go ahead.

That's that's okay.

Yeah, very good.

Um we now are on the record for sure.

There we go.

Uh our our analysis is indicated that this project will generate six hundred and fifty million dollars in overall economic impact uh over the next ten years.

Um now when you talk about overall economic intact, that's taking in to all all things induced, indirect jobs, uh all of that discretionary spending and all of the uh additional ad things, total economic development.

But when we when we really look at a project, we want to drill down and look at the fiscal impact.

What's the fiscal impact?

Because we want to see where our return on investment is going to is going to come from.

And when I say our return on investment, I'm talking about the public dollars.

You know, how how is this project going to impact the public dollars?

This project will bring back uh approximately 30 million dollars in direct fiscal impact.

That means tax dollars that'll come back to the state, the city, and the county.

Now, because this project is located uh outside of the city limits and not within the boundaries of Rio Rancho, the impact on the city is is not as as great as you would anticipate, but there's still significant impact to the city of Rio Rancho because we we all know that the majority of these 300 jobs are going to live in Rio Rancho.

Uh which I'll digress a little bit from the from the data here.

Uh I know all of you that live in Rio Rancho, we are going to be really happy that there's 300 jobs that aren't crossing the river to go to work.

Uh they're going to get to stay on this side of the river to go to work and won't have near the impacts on the traffic on the arteries that go uh go to the east side uh to those jobs.

Uh it will create about six million dollars in direct uh fiscal impact to the city of Brio Rancho.

About four and a half million dollars in direct uh uh fiscal impact to San Debal County.

So as you can see, uh a return of thirty million dollars, and these are all based on ten year data.

As I mentioned, this this will bring 300 high-paying jobs, high paying jobs, meaning the average salary will be over 100 K on the jobs.

The construction of this project will uh have approximately 440 construction jobs to get this project fully constructed.

And as I mentioned, as we're looking at the overall economic impact, we look at induced and indirect jobs uh that will be created by the activity of this project, uh, both on a construction and a full-time basis, and that will be another an additional 400 uh jobs in the Sandoval County Rio Rancho area.

Uh a couple of other uh items that uh I'd like to speak to these 300 high-paying jobs or another opportunity for students of New Mexico Institutes of Higher Education of New Mexico High School, specifically real Rancho High School.

Uh the whole entire Rio Rancho school districts, including Cleveland and others.

Uh opportunities, job opportunities.

Uh there they won't be leaving the state of New Mexico to find those job opportunities because they're going to have those opportunities right here in their backyard.

It's going to give the opportunity for certain New Mexicans that have left because they weren't those job opportunities weren't here, and they're going to be able to come back to Sandoval County to Rio Rancho to New Mexico to get these quality jobs in a very exciting industry.

Uh an industry that New Mexico has a lot of history in developing, but we really haven't done a very good job of making these things in New Mexico, manufacturing these products.

We're really good about inventing them and then letting somebody else build them.

So this is a really great opportunity to bring this product back to New Mexico.

As uh the city manager pointed out, there's been multiple, multiple, multiple hearings uh and and uh public actions by Sandoval County.

Uh but I want to specifically reiterate a couple of those that the city manager mentioned, and that that's on um the specific dates of July 23rd, August 22nd, September 24th, October 8th, and October 22nd.

And while the while these dates are uh are important, is those were all actions taken by Sandoval County that by statute included a public hearing, meaning that citizens had the right to come and speak on behalf, similar to what you're doing tonight.

Uh so there's been multiple opportunities for the for the community to speak uh on this project and hear about that.

As the city manager also pointed out, the company at the behest of uh the state land office and more importantly at the behest of the mayor uh to have this community meeting uh and it was done in Northern Meadows at uh Cielo Azul elementary school, so virtually in the backyard.

Uh the company came in and made their presentation, answered questions.

Uh I know, and they stayed, uh they stayed after uh the time to answer individual questions with the company.

Uh and you'll get to you'll get to hear from the company later.

But they they've proven that they have a true commitment to want to be a good member of the community.

And I appreciate the uh the fire chiefs uh comparison to Intel.

Um 75 calls to intel on an annual basis, ten times more employees at Intel than there will be at Project Ranger.

Uh so I guess that means there's only going to be about seven calls annually to Project Ranger.

Uh again, Mr.

Mayor, members of the council, the New Mexico Economic Development Department has evaluated this project.

We have put five million dollars in uh state lead of funds towards this project as part of the project participation agreement that was passed by Sandoval County, and we greatly encourage you to support this project.

Thank you for your time.

I'll be happy to answer any questions when the time comes.

Thank you.

Um we want to move on to the applicant now.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body.

Um, yes, uh Andrew Kreitz, representative from Stealing Corporation.

Perfect.

Uh yes, Mr.

Kreitz.

Hi, welcome.

Good evening.

Thank you, and thank you all for your time.

My name is Andrew Kreitz.

I'm CFO and one of the co-founders of Castellian Corporation here to speak on Project Ranger.

Um I want to say first of all that uh as the city manager was alluding to earlier.

We are very, very cognizant, and I would say very empathetic to the fact that what we are doing, and we'll get into some of the details here in a moment, sounds scary.

Does not sound like uh uh it's not the sort of thing that that most of us encounter in day-to-day life, um, and it's sort of very specific to the industry that we at Castellian work in, which is aerospace and defense.

That said, what we really want to do today is be as transparent as we possibly can.

We want to walk through as much detail as we can, and we want to shine a light on both uh what we will be doing at the site and some misconceptions that might be out there because our goal is to get uh you as representatives of the people comfortable, but also to get the people comfortable directly.

It's it's why we did the community meeting last month.

It's why we're very committed to spending time with people to answer their questions and really shine a light on what are we doing, how we are going to do it safely, and what the benefits to the community are going to be.

Um I might add as well, before I forget, um we of course look forward to your your your questions and answers.

We have a number of uh members of the Castellian team from site development and manufacturing here.

So uh I'll answer as many as I can when the time comes, but we'll defer to my teammates on any of the technical questions that might be uh uh outside of my purview.

Um the other thing I'll say, this is very similar to the presentation that we work through uh with the community at the community meeting.

So we have a lot of content to cover.

I'll move uh briskly through it so that we can cover everything.

A lot is very important, but again, welcome the QA on the back end to make sure that we get all of your questions answered.

Um with that, could we uh perfect?

Thank you very much.

Excellent.

And let's see if uh there we go.

Um so just starting very directly.

What is Project Ranger?

Project Ranger is a scale production site for solid rocket motors, and it's a final assembly site assembly site for all up rounds.

That means a whole missile from tip to tail.

So, what are we actually doing at the Project Ranger site?

Well, as I said, we'll be assembling the rounds.

I'll talk a little bit later in detail about uh sort of what that process looks like.

We'll be manufacturing the solid rocket motors.

We'll talk more about that in detail later as well, but it's a mixing and casting process.

We'll be assembling and testing electronic components.

So that means the flight computer for the missile, control actuation systems, radars, that sort of thing.

Um, peace parts being assembled mostly uh in sort of a lab setting on on benches.

What we are not doing uh is synthesizing ammonium perchlorate.

We'll talk a little bit more about that towards the end.

Um we will not be launching missiles, so there will be a static fire test site.

That means that uh the rocket motor is held down securely horizontally, we attach sensors to it, you ignite the rocket motor, you collect data.

We're not going to be doing flight testing, we're not going to be launching missiles uh into the air and over people's homes or anything like that.

There's no flight operations that are planned.

Um we'll not be manufacturing chemicals.

We've also in the last uh last day gotten some questions about other sort of heavy medical uh heavy metal chemical processes, things like plating or chrome plating.

We will not be doing any of that at this facility either.

Um it is is just the items on the left.

I don't want to belabor this, but I I do want to at least briefly cover why are we doing this and why is this so important?

And for this, we we really sort of need to look a little bit to history.

We need to look at um the era immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

Um it was the area of the peace dividend, it was the area of the United States being the sole remaining superpower, is an era uh of sort of great optimism around peace and prosperity.

And unfortunately, what we have seen, especially over the course of the last decade, is that the world remains a very, very dangerous place.

Um we see conflicts uh that not so long ago would have been unthinkable, a land war in Europe, uh the ongoing conflicts uh in the Middle East, the threat of conflict in the Western Pacific.

Uh we see our adversaries, notably China and uh Russia, making great strides in military technology and manufacturing, and the reality is that during that era of the peace dividend, we as a country took a lot of that manufacturing capacity offline.

What we are finding now, and it's hard to overstate how acute the problem is, what we are finding now is that U.S.

and allies, that means NATO and Pacific Allies, our munitions inventories are at effectively all-time lows.

Um we don't have the production capacity to make up for consumption rates.

Uh if you look at just one example, uh missile called THAAD, that's a terminal high altitude area defense.

It's an interceptor that uh uh shoots down incoming missiles to protect U.S.

assets and allied assets.

We expended 25% of those missiles that have ever been produced in history during one week of uh conflict in the Middle East.

I say all this because it really tees up why what we are doing is so important, why there is urgency about bringing this capacity online, and why there is so much focus from the Department of War, from the administration and really I should say from Congress and the Armed Services on finding a solution to this quickly.

This is a very much a bipartisan issue.

Um the the charges being laid uh led by the current administration, of course, but we saw a lot of push and a lot of pressure and a lot of work being done here in the prior administration as well.

And I won't belabor this either, but just for perspective on specifics with hypersonic strike, which is what we at Castellian are working on.

Um it's actually hard to overstate the scale of the Chinese lead over the United States in this particular and strategically critical arena.

The Chinese field approximately 10 active hypersonic systems today with very high production rates.

The United States is at this time bringing its first system online, um, and the Chinese have a speci have a significant lead on us from a technological standpoint.

The reason that this is so critical, the reason that this is so important is because of our sort of unofficial company motto, which is P3 deterrence.

We have very high conviction, and again, this is a bipartisan issue, Republican or Democrat, from the foreign policy side, there is very high conviction that the best way to prevent the war, whether in Europe or whether in the Western Pacific is to ensure that the United States has an effective conventional non-nuclear deterrent.

That is something we have lost over the last few decades.

It is something that we at Castellian are very proud to be working very hard to close the cap on.

One thing I want to address with talking a little bit about members of our team.

Castellian is a young company.

We were founded in 2022.

However, although we are a young company, we are staffed by industry veterans.

We are a heavily ex SpaceX company, but we also draw uh quite a few members of our team uh from across the aerospace and defense primes and from across the national lab system.

So my co-founder, our CEO, Brian Hargis, uh was the program architect and head business development person for what is now called StarShield, which is a critical U.S.

capability that SpaceX provides with on orbit um ISR for the intelligence community.

Uh Sean Pitt is our COO.

Uh he led Falcon 9 rocket sales for the continent of Europe, selling to uh European uh satellite firms and to U.S.

partners and allies.

And if you look across the engineering side, we worked with Jacob Swears at SpaceX, also on the Star Shield program.

He led development of the host satellite there.

Taken counts who leads our seeker team, spent uh 20 years at Raytheon and L3 Harris.

He is one of the experts in the world on developing radar seekers for missile systems.

Uh we worked with Satam Satyarthi, also on Star Shield, and he's our VP of engineering.

Um extensive experience working classified in critical programs in space.

Um Paul Perry was an early employee at Zipline, which is the world's largest drone delivery company.

David Ferguson, who leads our avionics team, designed the Crew Dragon flight computer while he was at SpaceX.

So the flight computer for the capsule, which takes our astronauts uh to the International Space Station.

Uh design of that was led by David Ferguson.

Uh he was also instrumental in development of the Starlink and uh Star Shield flight computers.

Uh Bobby Pinero, who's who's here with us tonight, spent 12 years at SpaceX leading manufacturing across a variety of critical teams on both Falcon 9 and Dragon.

Uh won't hit every name on this second page here, but at the community meeting we had with us Captain Greg Zettler, who recently retired from the Navy.

He actually led the United States's uh premier hypersonic program conventional prompt strike as a Navy captain.

He was also uh captain of USS Norfolk, which is a nuclear-powered submarine.

Uh he unfortunately was not able to be with us tonight.

He's actually speaking at a national hypersonic conference, um, but brings huge experience and expertise in this arena.

Um we also have with us tonight Alex Raisler, uh, who's come over from Sandia where he was also an expert on hypersonics.

Uh and then if we're talking about the advisors in the bottom left, they're not full-time employees with Castellian, but they have been uh close advisors to us since the early days, and we worked very closely with them.

That's Dr.

Lisa Porter and Dr.

Mike Griffin.

Uh Mike Griffin is critical leader in the hypersonics community.

Uh he's a former former NASA administrator.

He actually led NASA after the uh Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, led that investigation and shuttle return to flight, and he was also under Secretary of Defense for RDTE.

I say all this because once again, we we are a young company, but we bring really deep expertise and deep experience across aerospace, across the defense sector, and in hypersonics, especially.

Uh just to give kind of a quick overview of our facilities, we're headquartered in uh Torrance, California, in the Los Angeles area.

Uh we have operations in West Texas uh and in Allen, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas team in DC.

And of course, we're we're talking today about uh what we internally call Prop Site 2, which is Project Ranger, the scale production site.

Just a couple points on this slide, talking a little bit about our government contract work.

So uh you'll see on there if you sum those numbers up, it's a little bit over 30 million dollars shown.

That right box is a recent set of awards.

These are integration contracts with the U.S.

Army and with the U.S.

Navy.

So this is taking our first product, which is called Blackbeard, and integrating it onto existing U.S.

Army and Navy programs, conducting test launches, and preparing for scale production.

Uh I can I cannot disclose the the dollars on that contract today, but I can tell you that it is a multiple of the sum of all the other contracts on the page.

Also noting we've just closed our Series B, that's a 350 million dollar financing round that was led by our financings have been led by uh firms called Andreason Horowitz, Light Speed, Altimeter Capital, and General Catalyst.

I bring those names up because within the world of venture capital and growth equity, those are considered some of the sort of blue chip of the blue chip names.

The takeaway that I want you to have from this is from the customer side, from the Department of War, from the armed services, there is very high conviction in what we are doing, and there is, I would I would say a very intense demand for us to be able to deliver these capabilities to U.S.

forces as soon as possible.

This is seen as a strategically critical need.

The department is putting their money where their mouth is.

Across the bottom, I only bring this up because these are these are investors that have uh helped build very successful companies across different sectors in the past.

Uh they're coming in in a very big way from an investment standpoint, and we are very well capitalized today to make all the investments that we are talking about here in Rio Rancho, um, and to to close out development of what we call Blackbeard, our first hypersonic system and bring it into production.

Getting down to some sort of brass tacks on the site and the operations, just starting out with sort of look, we said we're manufacturing solid rocket motors.

What is a solid rocket motor?

Um that's a diagram from an old textbook on the left there.

But what it what it is is it is a uh I'll talk about the production process in a moment, but it is a uh uh solid mass of rocket propellant, um, which what ignited produces thrust through the nozzle, as you can see in the image there.

Um solid rocket motors are the standard rocket motor that is used in almost all U.S.

missile systems.

And they're commonly used in U.S.

and Allied missile systems for a number of reasons.

Um, they're storable, they have very long shelf lives, uh, they're affordable, they're very efficient to make.

And three, they're insensitive to outside environments.

So that both means that hot or cold, humid or dry, you can cycle them through, they'll survive that and they'll still work very reliably.

But it also means that you can drop them, you can bang them up, um, you can you can be pretty rough with them as as uh as the armed forces tend to be, and you can count on them to be stable and you can count on them to be safe.

We'll talk a little bit more about that later uh with a program called Insensitive Munitions.

It's a really important point of this, but I I want to really hit the point that these are very stable energetics as compared to if you look at liquid rocket motors, you know, those are powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen.

Those are very volatile, um, those have short shelved lives.

Those are the kinds of propellants that power um, you know, the the Falcon 9 rocket that SpaceX uses, or uh there were a couple of launches today from from Blue Origin, those sorts of orbital launch space rockets tend to be liquid.

We're making solids here.

In terms of what the process of making solid rocket motors looks like, um this always sounds a little bit silly, but it it is actually a lot like baking.

Um you have three sort of main groups of ingredients.

You have inert propellant materials.

So those are uh chiefly rubber uh material called IPDI, uh, which is actually used in cosmetics, um, a number of other uh inert uh chemicals, mostly liquids.

You got your liquid ingredients.

And then there's two main, I'll call them dry ingredients.

The first is ammonium perchlorate.

We'll talk more about that later.

But that's your oxidizer in the rocket propellant, and that's a powder concealed in containers.

And then you have powdered aluminum, and everyone knows what aluminum is, but this is uh a finely ground powder version of aluminum.

Um these are mixed in it honestly, it kind of looks like a large bread mixer.

I know it's more sophisticated than that.

There's a lot of federal standards about uh sort of process safety and all the standards that we have to meet in order to produce the DOD, but like fundamentally the intuition is it has big mixer blades, and you are you're adding your ingredients in the right order and in the right ratios, uh and you are mixing them together into a slurry.

Uh once you have that slurry, you cast that slurry into the rocket motor cases.

These are long metal tubes that have been machined.

You move those long metal tubes into uh into a cure oven, basically just a large room that's held at relatively low temperature, actually.

Uh I won't get into it.

But um, and then those cure over the course of a number of days.

So you mix your slurry, cast it in the tube, tube sits at temperature, and then by the end of that process, it's solidified and you have a solid rocket motor.

Uh that point you take it over, and all the other electronics I was talking about, the control actuation system, which moves the fins, the flight computers, so forth and so on.

All of those are integrated into an all-up round.

Those are placed in a special DOD and DOT approved container and can be shipped off to Uncle Sam to be deployed.

Why Rio Rancho?

Um, so we we did a I guess not quite national, but a a pretty broad targeted search for what the best location in the country would be uh to go construct Project Ranger, Prop Site 2.

We knew we needed three things.

The first is an excellent and patriotic talent base.

I say both of those words advisedly.

Um this is a technically challenging uh process.

Uh it's part of the reason the jobs that we'll be creating, we'll get into this, are are high paying sort of full career jobs.

Uh you need people that are uh skilled, trained, uh, good attention to detail.

Uh and I say patriotic advisedly too, because this is a critical national security mission, and we want people that care about the national security mission.

Well, we looked in quite a few different places.

Perio Rancho, your proximity to Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs, as well as Kirtland Air Force Base, large veteran population, sort of a long history since the state's I shouldn't say the state's inception, but uh certainly since 1940s in aerospace and defense.

Um that heritage, those skills, that will to work on these sorts of programs are here.

Uh not everyone has that.

Uh Rio Rancho has it in spades.

Second, I mentioned speed.

The government is very, very focused on bringing this capability up quickly because our adversaries are moving fast.

So we want rapid access to electric and uh internet utilities.

We have excellent paths forward on both, and I might add that we are doing both uh fully at Castellian's expense.

Last, we need a large contiguous land area, and section 36 is ideal for that.

Now, one of the things that we do not need uh is large amounts of process water.

The main use for water on site is potable water for our employees, so it's bathrooms, kitchens, so forth and so on.

Um we we do not use water as an input in our processes, which means that sort of the one thing that the the region does not have in abundance, which is water we we don't really need, and it ends up being a really good fit.

Um, in terms of our investment, so we are planning in excess of 100 million dollars of investment in year one.

We want to be committing hundreds of millions in the years that follow.

This will be one of the premier and nationally important sites for missile production in the United States, um, and we want to be able uh to build a lot of capability here uh that will enable all the strategic goals that I was talking about earlier.

Uh that means that we are committed uh by the end of year five of this project in creating at least 300 jobs, uh and these are high quality aerospace jobs.

Just to talk a little bit about sort of what we typically offer.

Um we offer full benefits to all of our employees.

Um all of my employees have ownership stakes in the company.

Everybody gets stock, um, everybody gets gets skin in the game, and and as we perform and as we grow, everyone gets to share in the upside.

We're really proud of that.

We think it's a really critical part of one building the company culture that we want to build, but two, also sharing uh sharing the company's success and sharing growth and wealth with our employees.

Uh about half of these roles would be engineering roles, about half would be touch labor or technician roles.

Um as EDD was alluding to earlier, uh the mean compensation across those roles will be approximately 100,000 per year.

Uh in addition, we are committed to investing in partnering with local schools, trade unions, and universities.

Uh part of the talent point that I I forgot to mention earlier is we were very impressed with the local school and university system.

Uh New Mexico Tech in particular stands out, but really uh many schools in the university system here, as well as as uh uh the community college system um are outputting some really high talent folks that we are excited to work with, and we want to make investments in those.

We want to work with them on STEM education.

Uh we were at the R4 uh uh opening yesterday, and we're excited to work with them.

We think there's a lot of opportunity here that's that's mutually beneficial, and and we hope we'll have big spillover effects, positive effects of the community.

Um we also got a number of questions about well, where is this site positioned?

Um if you head out there, we were out there earlier today.

Um it does feel quite remote when you're out there to be honest.

There's rolling terrain around you, uh, you really don't have direct line of sight to any of the community.

Uh you're a little less than three miles away from Northern Meadows, a little over two miles from Camino Crossing, and you're about two and a half miles from the Rio Puerco switching station, the uh substation out there.

Um so it those are substantial distances.

You definitely feel isolated while you're out there.

But the question, and I think it's a very fair question, is how does that compare to other operations around the country?

So we did a little bit of digging here.

This is just sort of a summary.

But what we found is that relative to some of the other major production sites around the country, Project Ranger is located further away from most from I'll say sort of major community areas.

We have a few images here.

You can see this is a site in West Virginia that also produces rocket motors in all up rounds.

That's about it's just over a mile to some fairly substantial community areas.

And if you look up uh in the northern edge, it's only about 900 feet uh across a river to uh to a home from a process building.

Uh similarly at this Arkansas facility, it's about half a mile from a process building to a local church.

Um in Camden, Arkansas, there's a number of similar examples, but there's uh I would say large energetics and munition storage buildings that are located about a mile away from a large community.

Actually, there's a university there with university housing.

Uh and then at the Promontory Utah facility, which we'll talk a little bit more about later, it's about a mile from some process buildings to uh uh to a community just north of uh uh of the Northrop site.

So just to contextualize a little bit, what's normal, what do you see elsewhere uh around the country?

Um getting into site safety and site regulation.

So this is a table showing all the various codes and requirements that we will be regulated by.

Um so you'll see quite a few there, uh, which are governed by the construction industries division, which is of course a New Mexico state body.

Um you see DOD Manual 4145.

We will talk at length about that in a moment.

That is a critical document that will govern our operations.

And then, of course, uh you'll see a number of other New Mexico State agencies that will govern us, including uh the Environment Department and Department of Transportation.

In addition, although they're not technically a regulator, under the terms of our lease with the state land office, we also have a number of uh above and beyond those uh those uh uh regulations we were talking about, a number of other steps that we are required to undertake and which we are undertaking in order to ensure that the community is safe and in order to ensure that the site operates safely.

So uh first, uh as Chief Wenzel alluded to uh is a plume study.

We are already conducting that study right now in conjunction with Sandia National Labs.

And I might also add uh a number of these recommendations, so these are safety and environmental security related recommendations.

A number of these recommendations came out of a safety study that was conducted by Sandia and peer reviewed by Los Alamos, assessing potential impact of Project Ranger and safety of Project Ranger.

So their overall assessment was was effectively that this is well within the bounds of of what's normal and and this can be done safely.

But here's some incremental recommendations that we have as a national lab that you can do this even more safely and burn down risk.

Um has incorporated all of those requirements into our lease.

So that's the plume study.

Transportation study is already complete to assess route safety in and out, and we'll talk more about transportation safety later.

Uh includes implementation of electrostatic discharge and lightning protection.

So of course, you don't want lightning to strike one of your energetics buildings, but given the climate we're in, you're also worried about electrostatic discharge.

So we have monitoring and procedures in place to to uh uh prevent accidents of that nature.

Uh I won't I I don't have to go through every single one, but I'm happy to answer questions on them later.

That that does also include protection against runoff, um, mitigations against noise from static fires, um, spill containment measures, as well as robust site security uh and and coordination and emergency response plans.

Um zooming in a little bit on NMED, we have been in close contact with them.

We've already done the number of reviews on air quality.

So, as I mentioned earlier, we will be doing static fires on the site.

So that means that we'll be igniting rocket motors.

We have been working with MM and in NMED, excuse me, on the composition of the plume from those rocket motors, any potential pollution effect or any effect on the community, um, and and NMED has has reviewed that work.

Um we're also working with our water quality management bureau.

Um we don't expect to have close involvement there just because uh we don't have water on site, um, but we're also partnering with them on hazardous and solid waste management.

Um the current plan is that any waste from the site uh will be picked up or moved and properly disposed of uh by a licensed and approved contractor.

We'll not be incinerating on site, but we're partnering with an NMED to ensure that all that is done above board according to Reg correctly, safely, and environmentally safely.

I mentioned DOD 4145 earlier.

This is a really critical set of rules, and this is just a little bit of an overview.

Basically, the Department of Defense has a set of rules contained inside of 4145 that govern production of energetic materials, which means all-up rounds, which means solid rocket motors, and sets a large number of requirements on how this can be done safely and how this can be certified.

It has to be proactively certified by the Department of Defense to ensure the contractors are manufacturing in a safe way and they're not jeopardizing their employees or the neighboring community.

This goes back the department's been involved in this back uh since as you can see there in 1928, but a lot of the learnings come out of the second world war and the early and mid-cold war.

So the document we're talking about today, 4145, was released in 1986, and it undergoes constant revision, constant updating or incorporating best practices, lessons learned from around the country.

This is really critical because if we want to be able to run our business, we have to be compliant with this.

We have to be certified by an organization called DCMA, which is a federal entity to ensure we're compliant with it.

Getting into the details of what it actually says, you'll see the site plan in a minute.

I'll say sort of layers of protection or belt and suspenders a lot throughout throughout this evening.

Um 4145, there's multiple layers to protection here.

So when we see the site plan, one of the most obvious, most important ones is you want to separate different processes, and you want to have spacing, substantial spacing, between the individual process buildings and the facility perimeter.

Basically, what this means is you're not putting things together that could mutually uh cause an accident or cause admission event.

Um you're implementing, as I'll talk more about in a moment, uh hazard analyses, trainings, procedures.

There's a whole bevy of rules that govern, I mentioned the mixers earlier, the govern well safe safe operation of mixers, but also specifications for how they can be built, how they can be operated, safety codes are how they separate to prevent an explosion.

You have to you have to comply with all these things.

You have to implement procedures, implement training, you have to undergo constant improvement, constant review in order to prevent an accident.

And then you also have the separation of buildings, um, uh fire breaks, so forth and so on, so that if the worst happens, this is the Belt and Suspenders, um, that accident is contained to the area of a single building.

It doesn't propagate throughout the site, it doesn't cause a larger fire, it doesn't jeopardize the neighboring community.

Um45 also governs, and I think we talked about it a little bit more on the next slide.

There's also a number of other requirements there for on-site safety.

So a number of hazardous operations have to be run remotely for 4145.

I was talking about mixer operations.

If you're running the mixer, there isn't some person standing there holding the button down, operating the mixer.

All that is done in a separate secure area so that uh those operations are done remotely and there's there's no safety risk to the employees involved.

Um other than that, um, we've actually been intentionally conservative on our assumptions around setback distances.

Um we'll have a full perimeter fence, uh, both to protect the facility and to keep uh the public safe around the entire facility.

Uh we'll have 24-7 security, and our uh requirement is going to be that those uh that 24-7 security force uh has first aid and in many cases EMT training as well as full, I would say partnering with first responders and full understanding in how to implement uh the emergency response plan, how to respond to emergencies.

Uh we will also have not as robust as the city, of course, but frontline fire suppression capabilities on site.

So this is the overall site layout, um, just to provide a little bit of orientation on how large this is.

It's about two miles from east to west, about one mile north to south.

Um the monitor, the the captioning is covering it, but if you look at your hard copies, uh the building, uh, I believe it's building Z on the southern end of the site is a 200,000 square foot building.

So this is a sizable area, and those are very sizable separation distances between each of the individual buildings on site.

I'll actually go to the next slide here and show you the hazard arcs.

So these are called the inhabited building distance arcs.

These are some of the separation distances uh between operations on site, and these are also the separation distances between any hazardous operation, any energetic material, and members of the public.

You'll see none of those circles cross the red dotted line, which is the outer perimeter fence.

This is just sort of an overview of the site without the fence to give you a sense of what it would look like.

Static fire testing, we've had a number of questions on.

The main things I want to emphasize here are what I mentioned earlier.

We're working with New Mexico Environment Department on plume and environmental effects to make sure that there is no long live defect from the static fire testing and no jeopardy to the environment.

And then of course the other very understandable question is noise.

The noise in Northern Meadows will be equivalent, roughly, this is if you're standing outside, by the way, not if you're inside your house.

It'll be roughly equivalent to the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

It'll be on the order of 80 decibels.

Those tests will only be conducted during business sort of daylight operating hours or normal operating hours, and we are required by the lease to comply with local noise ordinances with our static fire testing.

In terms of frequency, the number of tests per week will vary.

But we're talking about a normal frequency on the order of several times per week, uh not many times per day or every hour or anything like that under normal operations.

This is a critical part of both our facility design and our training and procedures.

So this is once again belt and suspenders, right?

We want to be training, we have to be training actually per the regulations and pro 4145.

We have to be training all of our employees in how to move materials safely.

We have to be training them in how to respond to a spill, and we have to have procedures in place so the materials are only being moved in an area where you're not going to, you're not accidentally going to spill uh ammonium perchlorate, you know, on uh uh on open soil, anything like that.

So procedures, policies, training critical.

But then the second layer of defense here is spoil management plans and also designing the facility to be as inherently resistant to spills as possible.

So that means having specific rooms inside of specific buildings where any chemical transfers are taking place and ensuring that those buildings have specifically rated dust collection systems to make sure you don't have escapes or hold up the dust that could either cause uh a physical hazard, an ignition risk, or build up over time and create an environmental risk.

I will say very directly, ummonium perchlorate, uh which is the oxidizer I mentioned earlier, it's a it's a powder.

Um of the major concerns for that uh that that folks in the community have, absolutely that we have is you you do not want that uh going into the ground, you don't want that getting into into groundwater.

If you look, there are horror stories from the early Cold War from 1950s, 60s into the early 70s, where missile production plants did have uh exposure or or spill events with ammonium perchlorate.

Well, that is precisely why these uh regulations we were talking about earlier are under constant review.

Uh it's precisely why those regs are updated, and those sorts of events have been factored into the regulations and requirements today.

They've been factored into our policies, procedures, uh, and into our building design specifically to ensure that those sorts of things do not happen again.

Um that track record has drastically improved over time.

You know, it's it's obviously really unfortunate that any communities were affected by it.

But the good news from that, and I think this is the story of a lot of environmental policy in the United States is that those really unfortunate incidents have fed into new best practices, new procedures, new technologies, and new requirements to prevent them from happening in the future.

And as a new facility, we have the benefit of taking all of those lessons learned into account and being required uh to comply with them.

Uh, in terms of the covariance Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue, of course, has has covered this a bit, so I won't belabor this point.

Um, but uh we've already discussed use of fire sprinklers.

The only thing I want to add on the pollution point is um the the critical the the three critical things with the sort of placement of water and fire suppression are uh you want to protect the first responders, um you want to protect the community, and of course you want to protect the environment.

That means that uh the guidance here is if it's an energetics building and there's no human life at risk, um you let the building burn.

Uh you can cane it, of course, you don't either the the firefighters are there, and this is part of the emergency response plan, and we're working with them very closely to make sure that that fire doesn't spread or cause harm to the community or to the rest of the site.

But the priority is making sure that the first responders are safe and making sure that in the course of suppressing the fire, uh, you don't create a situation where you're you're spreading chemicals on the ground.

And that's sort of well understood, and that's factored into the guidance and into the regs.

Um so again, that's that's what we've been covered by Chief Lenzel, uh, but just to make mention of it.

Um we did have some questions from the community on an incident that took place in April 2025 at the promontory uh facility.

This is a Northrop facility in Utah.

So this was a facility that was making sodium perchlorate.

I mentioned ammonium perchlorate, that's one of the key ingredients in the rocket propellant, right?

So they they were actually making the ammonium perchlorate.

This is like a precursor to it in the synthesis process.

This is not something that we will be doing as part of Project Ranger, um, but we can still use it as a case study.

So in this case, policies procedures were not correctly followed.

Um there was a spill of some material that should have been cleaned up, and there was an accident with uh with a forklift striking some of that material and igniting it.

Bad situation.

But once again, we talked about sort of the belt and suspenders here.

Um this was a a failure of the belt, so to speak.

There's a failure of procedures and and of training.

However, um the other safety measures they're in place did their job.

All the uh employees made it out of the building, there were no injuries.

And if you look a little bit the setback distances, you can see that building suffered severe damage.

But if you look at some of the other buildings nearby, there's a building about 350 feet away, which is entirely undamaged.

And the bottom right, there's actually a building 120 feet away, uh, which also has storage uh in its in its yard area, uh, which is also undamaged, and there were no injuries, no harm to any folks in that building.

Uh we included this slide just to contextualize.

If you drew a hundred and twenty-foot boundary around the entire site, uh, and some of those buildings are not not processed buildings, um you'll see that there's a substantial amount of margin between that and the perimeter fence.

Lastly, transportation safety.

So we've been talking a little bit about the facility itself, um, how we keep the operation safe, how we keep the community safe.

The other key point is there will be trucks entering and exiting the facility with ammonium perchlorate, um, and they'll be exiting the facility with the finished all-up rounds.

So, how do we ensure that folks are safe during transportation?

And for that, we want to start with an incident from 1967.

This is during the Vietnam War, which is the USS Forestall incident.

Uh, this is an infamous incident in Navy history.

Uh, it was a terrible incident.

134 sailors died, hundreds more were seriously injured, and it came about because of a munitions accident.

Um a rocket was accidentally fired, it was it was sort of a freak accident.

Well, then there were a number of bombs, which had not undergone any sorts of incentive munition testing the day of the Korean war, or immersed in jet fuel, the jet fuel cooked the bombs off, the bombs detonated.

As I was saying earlier, many uh many sailors were killed.

Um the forestall, which is a U.S.

aircraft carrier nearly sunk as a result of this incident.

And the reason this incident is so important is the Navy basically looked at this in 1977 in 1967 and said, never again can this ever be allowed to happen.

We cannot have a situation where we are at risk of losing a ship and losing this many lives because of a munitions accident.

And this, you know, it's been updated, revised, and proved many times, but this is sort of the genesis of what's called the incensive munitions program.

Um all up rounds, so the finished missiles in their cases that we will be manufacturing, have to pass these standards and this battery of tests uh to show that they will not uh basically go off uh and and present a danger to to folks around them.

And this is a pretty exhaustive battery of tests.

So this includes being uh fast heating, basically immersed in jet fuel fire, slow heating, which mimics a fire inside of a truck, uh bullet impact, which is uh being shot with 50 caliber rounds, uh being hit by fragmentation, um, sympathetic reaction, so other rounds going off nearby uh can't set them off.

Um this is all the way up to a shape charge jet, so so hitting it with with a rocket launcher or an anti-tank weapon uh and and a drop test.

So we have to prove to the Navy that we can we can meet these standards, um, and the these standards will apply to all of the uh packaged all-up rounds that we will be manufacturing and shipping out of this site.

So from transportation safety perspective, uh what if there's a truck fire, what if a truck overturns?

Completely fair questions, completely reasonable.

Like I I I would be worried about these as well.

Um and the answer is the Navy is also extremely worried about that.

They have the history of this uh of the of the forestall and other accidents, and they've implemented these steps to make sure that nothing like that uh repeats itself.

Um so this this is a huge, huge mitigant from a safety perspective for those shipments leaving the factory.

For shipments entering the factory, um the main energetic material that will be coming in is ammonium perchlorate.

That's the oxidizer that keeps coming up.

So we buy those directly from the manufacturer, they're packed in steel drums, uh, and inside of those drums they're they're they're double packed inside the plastic bags.

Uh they have to go through that battery of tests that's listed there in order to prove that the Department of Transportation that packaging is safe.

So that's dropping, pressurizing, uh, so forth and so on.

Um I I will say that we did some research on this.

Uh we worked with some consultants who are experts on energetic safety.

We can't find an instance of an ammonium per chlorate shipment catching fire uh in the United States.

So these are the standards, uh, but in terms of sort of case studies, uh, we were not able to locate any uh in transit.

Uh I will also say, and this comes back to sort of what I opened with, which is we are very empathetic to the fact that this sounds scary because it's exotic.

It's not something that the folks uh encounter very often, or at least that's not something people think about.

But I think what's really helpful is to sort of contextualize it.

So a truck full of missiles sounds very scary, to be honest.

Um, but if you actually compare it uh to the amount of energy in, say a gasoline tanker, you'll find that for both the all-up rounds uh and for uh ammonia perchlorate, you're talking about an energy in the gasoline tanker that is tens of times higher uh than what's being transported into the facility.

Um that might seem counterintuitive, but this is just sort of you know it's it's exposure therapy.

You're used to seeing gasoline tankers, you're used to seeing propane trunks.

They are in a lot of ways actually a lot scarier, but you see them every day, so you don't think twice about it.

Um this is sort of the the obverse of that, where you don't see it every day, you think a lot about it very understandably, um, but there are a ton of safety measures that we've been talking about today, a ton of testing, and then sort of the inherent level of energy inside of that truck is is actually lower.

Um this is the the shipment route in and out of Project Ranger.

Um so uh the same anger was speaking a bit about this.

This reflects the the path along Paseo de Volcan.

Uh and then just to contextualize, um if we're talking about hazardous material transport in and out, under normal operations, our expectation is you're talking typically one or two AP deliveries per week, uh, one or two payload deliveries per week, and three or four all-up round shipments leaving the facility.

Uh these are not hard numbers, they're not caps.

We can picture exigent circumstances, god forbid, where these numbers increase because of national emergency, but under normal operations, uh I want folks to understand that uh the hazardous material transport, we're we're talking about you know high single digit, maybe on the very, very high end, very low double digit numbers of shipments per week.

It's not like a you know it's not a distribution center, we just have a continuous stream of uh of chemicals going by.

Uh I hope that has been helpful.

Uh emphasize again that that we really sincerely want to answer people's questions.

We want to get people comfortable.

Um we want to to be as direct as we can be and and happy to defer to some of my colleagues uh if you folks have uh uh test uh technical questions at a moment.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh coming back to you, Mr.

City Manager.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the government party, um my suggestion would be uh at this point, Mr.

Mayor, that you proceed to public comment.

Okay.

We'll do that.

Okay.

Uh we're gonna go ahead and do public comment uh in front of a motion tonight, uh, because there's gonna be a lot of discussion back and forth.

So we'll get uh the public comment and input before the motion.

So uh we'll start off with uh Mr.

Van Horn.

Mr.

Mayor's counselors.

I uh signed up to speak on R 135 resolution authorizing the city manager to negotiate and enter into an agreement for water and potentially wastewater services.

So this what this resolution does it says there's gonna be an exception to a long standing policy that Rio Rancho does not provide outside its city limits water or wastewater.

There's a big very important reason for this.

I heard tonight that uh from economic development that $650 million is what's projected as a benefit.

So it seems to me that that's the price tag it takes to get an exception to a longstanding policy.

That would enable the next comer who offers $652 million to get an exception because all it takes for an exception is to write a resolution that says this is a one-off.

I want to tell you that today KRQE announced that there was a toxic chromium plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory that spread to Pueblo de San El Defenso land with contamination levels exceeding state groundwater standards.

The New Mexico Environmental Department says there's no interminate threat to drinking water on Pueblo land or Los Alamos County because the plume is not near any known drinking well yet.

Says the U.S.

Department of Engineering Energy's chromium mitigation efforts failed.

And because of that, they are planning to file a lawsuit.

We heard tonight many risks.

This plant is going to be th near three of our wells.

They're transporting stuff that has no limitation on transport.

It can take it across the bridges, across crossing the Rio Grande.

We know what happens here when we get a hundred year flood in our arroyos.

And this stuff doesn't like water.

So I think you've heard many risks tonight.

It comes down to what it usually comes down to.

It's all about the money.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Mayor.

Council.

Staff.

Yeah, that was some pretty heavy stuff he just laid on you.

And that's true.

That just came out about three hours ago.

And it's not a coincidence.

Let me tell you.

And you guys have a hard decision to make tonight.

Really hard when you've had all this money, these econ guy, man.

I want a job.

He made it sound great.

Does he live in Rio Rancho?

No, I do.

All these people here do.

You guys do.

Um this project didn't come from you, and we know that guys.

It came from the county, from the state, from people who will never have to answer for long-term consequences the way you, I, all of us will live here.

And I don't believe for a second that any one of you guys up there want to put Rio Rancho at risk.

Please look at all the information.

There's so much more that's needed.

We're not saying no, we hate economic growth.

There's a lot of questions that need to be answered.

It's awesome to see that Chief Winslow went over and had more questions.

I love that.

I love some of the questions that are coming up here.

Um we've kind of lived through this pattern before, guys, with the county, and how they pass things, and then we got to try to cover it, the low-income apartments by Home Depot, the new ones going across from the courthouse, the tags over the battery storage, the little fence around it.

Um, all decided by San Valley County, and every time Rancho and our residents were left holding the outcome.

Now, Project Ranger, another approved uh uh county thing here, they want the Rio Rancho taxpayers asking us to build a road, stand the water, and shoulder the long-term risks to our aquifer, our safety, our health, and possibly declining in home values near Project Ranger.

This is exactly why Rio Rancho fought for home rule status for the outside governments, outside entities cannot use our city as a backstop for their decisions.

If this facility is such a regional benefit, like the econ, everybody's saying this economic guy.

Did we try to annex the land?

Would the county lettuce?

Why are we being asked to break that long-standing rule?

It's Steve Van Horn just brought up.

Is it money?

I know you guys aren't like that.

I know that you guys will care about the people.

You've been elected by these people.

Now we've learned something we learned about the report is that we know that Sandia's safety report isn't even an approved safety review.

Sandia literally states that, and they admit they have research partnership with Castilian.

So is this this wasn't an independent assessment?

The report also warns of toxic byproducts from those static fires.

You saw the picture.

Where's that flame going?

Look at the where's it going, guys?

We're right near Roya Scout is gonna have to look at this.

Thank you for the time and a lot more.

Gotta go and join my wife.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Um Secretary Darden.

Good evening, everybody.

You can hear me okay.

Um so I actually am an employee for Bernle Oak County, but I'm a resident here of Rio Rancho.

Um my family moved here the first time in 2009, and we fell in love with it.

Like I really appreciate the land.

So I just would kind of like to try to encourage you guys to just have more of a second thought, more of a more pending thought with the impact that this is going to do to our environment.

Um I really do worry about like the water usage and the strain on our already strained aquifers that we have here in Rio Rancho, since we have no existing surface water.

Um, a slide that I I was actually present at the October 21st public meeting, and there was a piece that was actually mentioned um and the slide before about the water usage, saying that it's gonna use approximately 50 households worth of water.

I did notice that that actually was not included in this slide in this previous presentation.

Now, 50 households of water doesn't seem like a ton, but the average American household right now is using about 400 gallons of water.

So you put that in perspective at 365 days a year, that's almost eight million gallons of water a year.

And I was actually a little bit off last time, but eight million gallons of water is quite a bit on a very arid area that we live here in Rio Rancho.

I do also worry about the residents and the property owners in that area.

I'm actually a property owner myself.

That's something I take great pride in, and I take great pride in this land, and I really that's part of the reason I got into the environmental field is to give back to the land.

And I know there is something that was mentioned earlier about the area being very kind of remote, a little bit desolate.

There are people that still live out there, Mayor Greg.

They might not seem like people that you probably invite to your dinner table.

They're probably not people that you would particularly see in like a northern meadows neighborhood, but they're people, and I do can I'm very concerned with what's gonna happen to those people.

I I've become very close to some of those people out there, and I worry about that.

Like there's not been any mention of what will happen to those property owners, what will happen to people who want to give back to that that area.

Um, I do also worry about our national security with the labs with the um Kirkland Air Force Base.

Do we really want to put national security a threat on top of it?

I know that was mentioned at the public meeting on October 21st by another concerned individual, and I still in the presentation um did not see much about addressing that concern.

I do I am in support of economic growth for Rio Rancho.

I think we need it.

I mean, I also don't enjoy driving across the river every single morning and dealing with I-25 and all that chaos.

Um is it really at the expense of the health of our citizens and our land?

That that's something that I know, like was mentioned before, you guys have a hard decision to make tonight.

And I do appreciate you guys and your uh team for doing a lot of your research and like giving back to like the community.

That that's beautiful.

I love that.

But I just really think that is it at the expense of our land and our people right now.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Jay Block.

Senator Welcome, Mr.

Mr.

Senator.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, and um to the counselors.

You know, uh, when I'm listening to Mr.

Kreitz's presentation, I I kind of went back to a time in our history which was very dangerous.

Um I was reminded of our Sputnik moment in October of 1957 when our country was falling behind the Russians in the space race and in the missile race.

Today, our country is severely significantly falling behind the Chinese and the Russians in the hypersonic race.

As a former uh retired Air Force officer who has been around this business in missile operations and spacelift operations, and been in industry as well for about 10 years uh doing this and uh seeing the information that Andrew was touching on.

This is the type of stuff that keeps me up at night.

Tonight, you as counselors and leaders of our great city, the best place to live in New Mexico, too, by the way, Mr.

Mayor.

So thank you for all for your leadership.

You have an opportunity to make sure that Rio Rancho plays a critical and crucial role in our national security.

The country is counting on you tonight.

This is our chance tonight, is our chance to take that step to close the gap with our competitors in our global competition.

Why do I care so much about this?

Well, I care because it's my background.

I know Councillor Tyler is a veteran in the United States Navy.

I know Mr.

Van Horn is a veteran, United States Navy.

I'm a veteran as well and a combat veteran.

And my background is I believe gives me some credibility when it comes to Castilian and operations like this that will benefit our community and our country.

The governor, I've talked to the governor many times on this.

She supports this.

I've talked to the lieutenant governor, I've talked worked with Rob Black, I've worked with the county, the state land office.

This has been an incredible bipartisan effort between Republicans and Democrats to bring this great company here to Rio Rancho.

And I will tell you, Mr.

Mayor and fellow counselors, this is the finest aerospace team I have seen in my 30 years in the military and in aerospace.

You won't find a better team than what Castillian put up there on the screen.

No one compares to that.

It's incredible.

And I understand the safety issue.

I live here with my family.

I've been around this business with my family for over two decades.

This company has a robust risk management framework to make sure that they are protecting people in Rio Rancho.

And I want just lastly would like to thank them for making a uh an incredible contribution already in our community at the um R4 uh creations yesterday where you and I were at Mr.

Mayor.

They they donated a nice check to that company because they believe in this community, they believe in Rio Rancho.

And I ask you to support this company and to help our national defense in our moment of crisis in this country that we're facing today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Wayne Johnson.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Counselors.

I'll be brief.

I just want to let you know that uh myself and our the county team from Sanibel County, our DCM, Mr.

Masterson, uh Fire Chief Mr.

Bagley, and our uh public works director here.

If you have questions about safety or about roads that we can answer, we'd be happy to do so during your deliberation or your discussion.

Obviously, we're here in support of this project, and uh thank you for your consideration, Ronald uh Bohannon.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, my name is Ron Bohan.

Um I'm a metro resident and not a resident of Rio Rancho.

Uh my family's only been here for 65 years.

Um I'm the second generation registered professional engineer, raising third generation registered professional engineers.

A little bit about my background.

I spent 10 years on the professional engineer, professional surveying licensing board, uh, both appointed by Susanna Martinez and then reappointed by uh our current current governor.

Um this project is pivotal.

This is a great project for the metro area and specifically for the city of Rio Rancho.

Uh, this project sits a thousand feet above the groundwater.

So there are the the limitations of or the potential of contaminations are very minor.

It's a perfect fit for the southwestern environment.

Contrary to popular belief, we do have a lot of water, but this industry uses very little water.

In my 40 years of as a professional engineer doing land development and civil engineering, we've had our fair share of contracts at both Los Alamos and Sandy Labs.

This is the first time that we're seeing the fruits of a labor of that a lot of these elements that have come out of both labs can come to a manufacturing plant that the state of New Mexico and specifically Rio Rancho can benefit from.

What this means is you now have a state of the art technology manufacturing plant that will be able to feed off of both Los Alamos and Sandia to make those next generations because this is the very first generation.

I'd like to close in support saying this is equivalent to an individual that started in Albuquerque in the late in the early 70s.

His name was Bill Gates, and we would really like to see this technology take off in New Mexico.

I urge your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jerry Shello.

Mr.

Mayor, City Council's project is great for Rio Rancho.

Yes, it is in Sandoval County, but it is great for Rio Rancho.

$650 million economic impact.

That's not going to be economic impact in Sandoval County.

That's going to be economic impact in Rio Rancho.

That is from jobs created where people are going to live.

I hear all the time from folks that live on the west part of the city.

They want grocery stores, they want retail operations.

They want businesses out there.

Yes, this project is three miles away, but these folks are going to be living in Rio Rancho.

That's going to create opportunity for expansion for retail.

It's going to create the opportunity for Paseo de Volcan to finally expand to rainbow.

That's what needs to happen on this project iso de Volcan needs to go to rainbow so that rainbow will connect to Southern and we have a loop back loop around the city.

It's a great opportunity.

Just to give you an idea, here in Rio Rancho, our median income has gone up from 54,000 to 85,000 since the census till now.

And I will tell you the reason why is folks are living in Rio Rancho that work at Sandia National Labs, work at Los Alamos National Labs, and work in Santa Fe.

The reason they're living here, we have a great place to live here.

Rio Rancho is the best place in the state to live in, and definitely top 10 in the Southwest.

But here's the bottom line is we have all the talent right here in our backyard, and we lose revenue GRT dollars, tax dollars every day because we send it to Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Albuquerque.

This creates the opportunity to bring that right here.

So with that, I urge you to think about our future, our schools, our potential.

Matter of fact, one other thing I want to bring up is our population count, age 19 to 34.

If you take a look at our population, it's the lowest of any population source in the in Rio Rancho.

We leave school and high school and they don't come back until age 35.

Take a look at it.

It's public record.

This is a is a company, is the brings the potential that these jobs are going to bring people here and keep them here.

Thank you.

I urge you to approve this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, that's all we had signed up to speak on public comment.

So before we start uh hearing from the council, and before we start taking motions, I'm gonna go ahead and take a uh let's take a 15 minute recess.

So we'll let we'll reconvene at 9 o'clock.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

Go ahead and call this meeting back to order.

Thank you for your patience.

Huh, let's see here.

Okay, we've got all the public comment done.

Um, and then uh Mr.

City Manager, did you have anything else before I go ahead and take a motion and open it to council debate?

Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body.

No, I don't I do not have this time.

Okay for questions.

Thank you.

Um let me get to Okay, so R 134, and as I said, we're gonna go through uh uh we've done all the discussion and deliberation on R 134, 135, and 136.

So when the governing body is done with their questions uh and their comments, and we start the motions, we're just gonna go uh on a motion of one thirty-four and then right into one thirty-five and right into one thirty-six.

So with that, I'll take a motion to approve R 134.

Mr.

Mayor, member of the government party.

If I may suggest, um, it may be um more appropriate for the motion to be made under one thirty-six, given that one thirty-four is just the budget adjustment.

And I think that's a good one.

Oh, okay.

All right, well, we can start with one thirty-six, that's fine.

I mean, they're kind of like I said, they're all tight.

Yes, one thirty-five or one thirty six, but one thirty-four is just a budget adjustment.

Okay.

Then we'll go ahead and start with our one thirty-six.

We'll tell a motion to approve our one thirty-six.

I move to approve one thirty R 136.

Second.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll go ahead and open this uh up uh for discussion by the council, but before we get started there, I just want to say thank you to everybody that gave their input uh and the public comment, uh, the presentation uh from Castillion uh and all of the individuals that are here tonight to uh speak uh on this project.

Uh I certainly appreciate that.

Good given a little bit of historical context.

I also want to say uh to economic development department, uh, when I approached Rob Black on a couple of different Secretary Black, I should say, uh on several occasions.

I said uh uh Secretary Black had informed me that they had been talking to different communities, uh informing them, kind of talking about this project, and I bluntly asked, have you had a meeting with the community of Northern Meadows?

And at that point, that's when the public meeting came forward.

And I was very insistent about that, and I think you guys did a great job.

You got a lot of people there, 250, 300 people, and and uh after that meeting was over, I called and thanked the Secretary for taking care of that because uh it really showed that initiative to put that information in the public, especially to the individuals that were being very specifically going to be closest impact.

Well, I appreciate the notifications that went out to the north and the conversations of the outer perimeters and not necessarily rear rancho.

That meeting in Rear Rancho was missing, and that had not happened.

And we are the most directly impacted community.

So I want to say thank you for that because um we're really starting to work through some of these things so that we really daylight some of these things.

And and look, while I agree, uh Mr.

Roper, there's been six meetings that are all available to the public.

Um I've had some concerns about some of those meetings, like two million dollar land purchases on a consent calendar.

That doesn't allow the public to comment on that item.

That's a consent calendar.

You there's no debate on it.

So when you have something like that in there, it doesn't really open the public up to where they can do what they're doing here tonight, seeing all the presentations, hearing all the facts, and then hearing it publicly debated by the elected body.

So those are there's some concerns there, and I know we're gonna vet some of these things out and we're gonna talk about them.

I I'll I'm gonna say I I really like the project.

I'm not gonna I think that's it's a great job creator project.

Uh when we first started this and we started these conversations, my biggest concern was what we're gonna be dealing with tonight.

Is what is this trucking route?

Because the original trucking route was going to go right through Northern Meadows, down King, and that was a non-starter for me.

And I think you all anybody that you that was there when this we first started talking about this, and they laid out the map.

I said, Oh, that's not gonna work.

And we looked at Will Pitt and we uh or uh uh there's a not Will Put oh what's that other road that goes to the north of Northern Meadows uh Progress Progress, thank you.

We looked at progress and going around there, and I said, and and we had all these discussions.

I said, I'm not I'm not understanding why we don't just use Pase of Con.

It's right there, and it goes out to this site, and it goes from one highway to another highway and then gets out to the project, and then at some point in the future that can be connected down to either uh a Trisco Vista, uh a Trisco Vista, or down to I-40 and create that trucking route.

And eventually, in the future, that also gives direct access to the airport.

So you start to tie all these things together from a transportation, and yeah, I used to own a shipping company, so uh I built crates for some of these things, you know, back in the day for Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos and uh we built we built shipping containers.

And there's one thing I do know that when it comes to mill spec packing and mill spec transportation, there's some of the highest standards uh that you're gonna find globally.

So I absolutely agree with all of that.

What I want to make sure is that the public, especially Rio Rancho, knows exactly what's going on here, and and that's why I appreciate everybody having this meeting here tonight, and so that we can have this.

Uh I have to agree with the city manager that we're kind of in a caboose situation uh because really all the decisions have been made.

The the all the leases are in place, the the state land office is signed off on it, and what we're looking at here is uh getting Pase of Conn developed out so that there's not a transportation route that goes through directly through a neighborhood like through King.

Um, and then also having control over our water supply, making sure that you know new wells aren't being drilled just out west of the city that could impact directly our wells.

So I think these are some really critical factors when we look at this particular uh uh economic development deal.

It's not about the ultimately the money and and all that, all that plays into the economic benefit to the community and to the state.

It's not necessarily about that.

Right here tonight, it's okay.

At this point, what is the best progress or best situation for Rio Rancho?

How do we make the decisions that best benefit our community and protect our community in the most ways?

So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there before we get started, uh, because I've been involved in some of the conversations that have been going on, and uh once again I I appreciate everybody uh and the conversations that have happened, but there are still concerns that need to be answered, there's still things that need to be looked at, and uh I know the governing body is probably gonna have a ton of questions tonight, so with that I'll go ahead and open up the floor to uh the council.

Mr.

Mayor, I guess I'll start.

Counselor Tyler.

What I guess I will.

Um I want to thank the company for coming out.

I wish it would have been sooner.

It's unfortunate.

Um I want to say that I think that you all were put in a uh a position of cat and mouse playing getting everyone going back and forth between everybody, which again is unfortunate.

Because I think the state and the county have made decisions, and we weren't part of the initial uh progress of this development.

I think it's unfortunate for you all that this is where we're at.

And like the city manager said, we're in the caboose, or we got it in the caboose, one of the two.

I don't know which one he said, but we're there, right?

And uh I'm gonna go through and I have some questions for several of the folks that spoke.

Um, and then we'll I'm gonna get those uh questions answered.

Well, some of the things I also want to talk about, first off, the mayor alluded to the state land.

And as far as I know, whenever we do development throughout New Mexico, and and Mark, you'll be able to come up and correct me if I'm wrong.

Um state land office usually requires how many, I think it's like at least four public meetings for state land office purchase when they start to do the land.

Am I correct?

I'll ask you that when you get up there.

But anyways, um I know that they're buying land right next to Cleveland Heights, or they're they're selling land right there for development, and I know there's public postings everywhere.

I didn't see any public postings.

The mayor says, and just talked about that great, and I even got great feedback from Councillor Lenintine and the mayor about the community meeting that was at um the school in Northern Meadows, which is not in my district, um, in my district, and I'll argue with the mayor on this, is directly impacted because your route goes right through my district from PDV all the way up, right?

Past once you get up here, past the uh the the uh city center, that's where mine ends.

So everything in between.

Okay, so my residents are just as impacted and have just as much care about what's going on as everyone else.

Now, I think that that meeting that you all had, from what it sounds like was very informational.

I think that that would have benefited all of our residents, and it's unfortunate that that didn't come forward sooner.

I you know, I keep saying that.

Um it's unfortunate that we can't all work together to benefit one group, which is your all, and that's our problem to deal with later on between the city, the state, and the county, right?

But it's unfortunate that you guys got thrown in the middle, and I want to apologize up front for that because that's not what any of us would want from anybody in treating any new business that wants to come to New Mexico, Rio Rancho, or the Sandoval County area.

Okay, so I want to start with that.

Um first I'd like to ask Mark if you could come up for a couple seconds.

I have some questions.

Since you want to talk about a little bit about the 300 jobs, and and I know there's no guarantees in life, right?

I know that that the company can sit there and tell us, oh, yeah, man, we got public safety locked on.

There's nothing ever gonna happen.

And I'm gonna talk about the USS Forest all here in a minute.

But there's nothing that's ever gonna happen.

Well, something's gonna happen.

Is it gonna be us or somewhere else?

We don't know.

So I can't ask you for a guarantee because you're never gonna be able to guarantee me that.

So when you sit there and you tell me you're gonna give us 300 jobs, can you guarantee me that all 300 of those jobs are gonna be current New Mexico residents?

Because 300 jobs for people that live in California do mean no good.

Mr.

Mayor, uh Councillor Tyler, uh members of the commission.

It's a council.

No.

Uh no, I can't give you that guarantee, nor would I want to.

Uh we you obviously we want the company to hire quality people.

As I mentioned earlier, this is an opportunity for New Mexicans that have left New Mexico for quality jobs to come back to New Mexico.

Immigration into our state is not a bad thing.

We need new people to come into New Mexico, preferably former New Mexicans to be able to come back to quality jobs.

No, I can't tell you that all the people will be current New Mexicans.

Thank you very much.

So, again, when we talked about the multiple meetings, and you said it time and time again that Sandoval County had, I guess 12 some odd meetings.

Real rancho, we had zero.

No meetings, no council meetings, no council involvement, nothing.

Now, for whatever reason that is, I don't know.

And you and you alluded to that.

You talk a little bit about the six hundred million dollars that's gonna be brought into real rancho.

Can you tell me a breakdown where that 600 million that's coming to Rio Rancho, where it's coming into and from, if you have those numbers?

Question mayor um members of the council, uh councillor Tyler.

The six hundred and fifty million dollar total economic impact is to the state of New Mexico in its entirety.

You said real rancho, though.

No, I did not, sir.

Okay.

I what I said the fiscal impact in the city of Rio Rancho was three million dollars, is what I said, sir.

Okay, three million dollars.

Okay.

Um you also talked a little bit, and and I'm gonna have Chief Winzel come back up here.

We were you we were using, and I know Chief Winsl was, he was using um Intel as an example because that was an example that's been used by um everyone else during this project, and he used that as a basis to come up or formulate some type of response to something that all of us are concerned about.

But you alluded to and said we're only gonna have seven calls for service out there.

Are you gonna guarantee me that Mr.

Mayor members of the council?

Um it's simple math.

Okay.

If there's if there's three thousand employees and you have 75 calls, simple math and algebra would say for 300 employees, you would have seven and a half calls.

No, I can't guarantee that.

You ever been a firefighter?

Nor nor can I guarantee you know, but I have a nephew and a son that are.

Guess what?

There is no guarantees in emergencies.

Absolutely.

So seven calls.

I don't believe in it.

I'm gonna have Chief Winslow come up here in a minute, huh?

I didn't say I could guarantee it.

Okay.

So I just wanted to go over that.

And then the 300 jobs, I I just wanted to make sure it was a five-year plan, correct?

It's not gonna happen on day one, it's a five-year transitional plan.

That is correct.

Okay.

All right.

Um just check my notes to make sure I hit everything from you.

Perfect.

Mr.

Masterson, I have a question for you.

Uh, we talked a little bit about um the agreement that's going to be between Rio Rancho and Sandoval County.

And I know that that agreement was worked on previous to this meeting, and it's an agreement that for the the powers and the decision making process, and it's gonna be a shared one.

We all know how that goes, right?

Between the city and the county, it doesn't work out well.

So my question for you is is this going to be an agreement that we're gonna be able to work through?

Because honestly, when I look at who's responding out there, it's not you guys, it's not the sheriff, it's not the fire, because we can't get, I mean, there's only four five deputies on patrol, anyways.

And I don't know how many firefighters I think you got like eight over there, and whatever.

But it's important that agreement I think is important to the city, and as well as probably to the county, because you can't provide the service that we're gonna be required to provide because of that automatic aid.

So, is that going to be something that we're gonna be able to work on?

And can you talk a little bit about that and how you're gonna accomplish that and how it's gonna be a joint venture and effort to make sure that it works well for everyone involved?

Mr.

Mayor, Councilman Tyler, you have my commitment right now in the county's commitment, the Sandoval County will be partnering with Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue and State Fire Marshal's office to ensure a joint collaborative effort moving forward when it comes to the fire and safety of the Castilian project that includes everything from pre-incident planning to annual inspections to of course the incident action plans and any sort of emergency response that may come.

Hopefully, it never does.

However, that being said, I also will commit that we understand in Sanibol County that this facility is in the county as such, and I live in the city of Rio Rancho, so I hope that the Rio Rancho Fire Rescue Department is available.

Should I call 911, right?

So I'm fully aware that should a large-scale emergency occur in that location, that it is becomes the county's responsibility to deal with that long-term situation for as long as the situation is uh is is present.

And our goal would be to try to re reduce the impact to the city of Rio Rancho and allow a lot of the Chief Wenzel's resources to return to the city to facilitate calls within the city.

That's gonna require us to bring in additional staff.

We understand that.

This is in my opinion, if we have a large-scale incident like this, uh, Mr.

Mayor uh Councilman Tyler.

In my mind, I kind of think of it, and I know it's a little bit of a different situation, but I think of it as like a wildland fire or something of that nature, right?

We're gonna have a lot of resources coming together, we're gonna have to do a lot of inner uh coordination and unifying command to ensure that.

But the whole objective is going to be to try to get the first responders, the local responders back to their respected agencies and bring some subject matter experts in from uh potentially even around the state, as we do with wildland fires.

I have very good relations with a lot of as does our fire chief and Chief Wenzel.

We know a lot of people that will be able to call in quickly to support this should that need arise.

I can also commit uh Mr.

Mayor uh Councilman Tyler that worst case scenario, you know, and we need uh additional law enforcement, we need uh emergency management to help us look at potential impacts to northern meadows or something of that nature.

We will be right there with you and the city to ensure that those uh parameters are being met and that we have site security, and that we are working in collaboration with anyone from the city of Rio Rancho to make sure that the citizens of Rio Rancho who are also citizens of Sandoval County are safe.

I'm glad you said that because that's something we can't forget, right?

The residents of Rio Rancho are part of Sandoval County, yes, sir.

And I think those residents have been forgotten throughout this process, and that's why we're having this meeting tonight to make sure that they're not forgotten.

The other piece is is I'm glad you said that, and I'm look forward to seeing that agreement between you and Chief Wentzell and the city to make sure that we have that cooperation.

You you alluded to a minute ago, though, the PD, the law enforcement response.

Have you guys and have they even been talked to about any potential incident do you know out there at the facility?

What's the uh emergency operation plan for any potential not to say there would be, but it's a dod facility where they're gonna be making.

What about any potential threats of potential terrorism?

Have they thought about that?

All right, or have you guys mr.

Mayor uh councilman Tyler?

I I have talked to the under sheriff about this project and about site security at at the facility, uh, understanding the potential impact that it's going to have.

Mayor, uh, Councilman Tyler, I I have talked to the under sheriff about this project and about site security at the facility, uh understanding the potential impact that it's going to have, uh nothing immediately, right?

I mean it's it's no it's not foreign to any of us that there are our people that just go out there, right?

So uh whether it's it's just someone that uh is exploring the site or whether it's a potential terrorism situation, it is something that we need to be aware of.

I'll also offer as well that we have several of our officers that I believe Rio Rancho does too, who work closely and collaboratively with the FBI, and uh not to not to get into too many details, but I I believe I don't know am I okay to say this the uh project has actually met with the FBI as well uh to try to come up with some of those uh contingency plans, things of that nature to look at site security.

So those will all still be part of the uh collaborative effort moving forward when it comes to law enforcement as well, and you have my commitment at about that as well.

That's cool.

I used to work on some of those same task force, so I appreciate that and I understand that.

So um right on.

That's really what I want to what I wanted to ask you for and get from you now.

Um, Chief Winslow, I just have another question.

Can you clarify?

I know that um Mr.

Roper alluded to um some of the calls for service piece seven.

Is that seem like reasonable or I mean he's saying it's based on math yeah basic math, so do that for me.

Probably uh uh the comparison between Intel and the Project Ranger site would be like apples and oranges to the extent that Intel has a full emergency response team.

They also have a medical doctor as well as a physician's assistant, and they also have an on-call uh registered nurse 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as a second registered nurse who is there, uh I believe banker hours.

The calls that we respond to intel are calls that that medical staff cannot handle.

So the true volume, how many calls those 3,000 employees have is unknown.

We don't pull data on that because we're not dispatched.

We're dispatched to serious calls where that medical facility and staff cannot handle, which is why they call us and they'll be transported in the hospital.

Okay, thank you very much.

Welcome.

Uh County Manager Johnson, I I had one question for you, sir.

And it's along again that same MOU and that same agreement that we're talking about because I understand that um I'm sorry, I call you chief, but I know you're not chief anymore.

Uh that he's here, counselor, we all do from time to time that slips up.

Wayne, you Mr.

John, you and I have worked together for a long time.

And um I would like to see that the city and the county work together better in the future, right?

So part of that agreement that we just talked about is something that I'm gonna look to you to also agree with the city staff that that's something that we're gonna work on, and we're gonna have that MOU in place, and I I'd like to get your commitment to that as well.

That we're gonna work on that, we're gonna get that in place so that we can move these projects forward, any project like this or any project in the future, because if we lay down a good foundation of commitment and working together, then it will extend to any projects in the future, not just this one.

So I'd like your commitment as well.

Mr.

Mayor, uh Councillor Tyler, I am happy to make that commitment.

It has been one of my goals as county manager to have better relations and better interactions with the city of Rio Rancho and all of the communities that we serve as the county of Sandoval.

So you have my own reserved commitment in that regard.

Okay, thank you very much, Mr.

C or County Manager.

Appreciate it.

Umrew, you're the last one, buddy.

Perfect.

All right.

I liked your uh USS Forestall, and I like how you said that in the transportation that those type of incidents the U.S.

Navy tried to eliminate and and did so, right?

But in 1988, we had another one of those incidents.

It was on the USS Nimitz.

And you know why I know?

Because I was there.

I was one of the firefighters on the deck.

So I know it.

So I know that we can't completely eliminate any of those threats, even though we would like to try to.

So I I agree with you on the transportation piece, and I think that it's very important that we all understand that piece as well.

Some of the things I wanted to ask you is you, you know, we talked a little bit about we needed to understand your customers and what your customers are looking for.

And and what I'm gonna ask you is to understand our customers, and our customers are the residents of the city of Rio Rancho.

And based on that, I've I have a great need to make sure that they're as informed as possible.

And I think the project's a good project.

I I don't disagree that it's something that is great for the nation, it's great for the city, it's great for the county.

I do disagree on how it came about, not on your part, but just in general on cooperation between all of us, right?

Um do I have your commitment today that you're gonna go ahead and in if this project, because like we've said, we're pretty much stuck.

Doesn't matter what we do almost.

We're we're stuck.

The decision's been made.

But what I'd like to do is get a commitment out of your company to actually have a couple more community meetings in my district, which is the other one that's is impacted, and I don't know if any of the other counselors and they can speak for themselves.

But I'd like at least one more, because I have another community called Mariposa that's just as impacted, you know, and as well as all the enchanted hills when you start driving down and up and down PDB.

Just commitment that you'll have some meetings and and we can drive that home and make sure they understand what's going on in the community.

And at least they have the opportunity to to meet with you.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I I'd like to add, um, you know, we get some some questions inbound to just serve our corporate information email address.

We make a point of responding to all of those any time folks have follow-up questions if they want to talk on the phone.

I'm very happy to get on the phone with them and chat.

Um we're not we're not sort of, you know, uh uh uh a large faceless multinational where this is one one division or something like that.

This is a critical operation for us.

We will all be spending a huge amount of time here.

The folks working at this facility will be members of the community, they'll be living here, they'll be fri our friends, our colleagues.

Um we want to be good citizens, we uh good citizens and we want to be good neighbors.

Um and we want the people of Rio Rancho to be comfortable with what we're doing and understand what we're doing.

Okay.

So I'd like to see those meetings if if there's something that can be worked out between city staff and and your staff, that would be something that's greatly appreciated for me, and I'm in a hurry.

I know you guys are getting worried out, I'm sorry.

Um we talked a little bit about the safety study and the recommendations from Sandia National Labs, and I know that those were recommendations.

Have any of those or all of those recommendations and concerns by the labs been met?

Uh the transportation study has been completed.

The plume study is underway.

The other requirements have been factored into the lease that we have with state land, so they're being factored into the architecture and civil engineering for the site, and they will be incorporated into the site um by the time it begins operations.

Okay, and all of the jet testing or the the rocket, the rocket motor testing, I should say, not jet testing.

Is that going to be is there going to be a uh blast deflector on that, or is that going to be open-air burn to the outside to the environment?

Uh that is still being designed.

I will defer to my team on if we have any details on that yet or if it's still underway.

Bryce, I believe the design is still being done correct.

Design design there is still underway.

That said, the full emissions profile uh as well as the annual rate of testing has been provided to NMED and has been reviewed by them.

Okay.

Yeah.

And the the conclusion at this time is that uh a permit is not required, but obviously we're staying in close contact with them.

Uh if they require monitoring or further information, we'll absolutely do that.

Yeah, and I'm not so much worried about the permit.

I'm worried about the fire that could be caused by open brush fires or whatever, if in fact something like that would happen, you know what I'm saying?

Good good question.

So uh we do have extensive experience with that at our energetic site in Midland, Texas.

Um, at that site we do use a blast deflector and a combination of blast deflection uh and ground clearance fire breaks have prevented any incidents there.

We'd use similar strategies uh in Rio Rancho.

Okay.

Um let me just make sure I got all my uh I had so many different uh notes here.

Okay.

I appreciate Oh, and are your guards, your security on site, are they going to be armed or unarmed?

They will be armed, and they'll go through all of the relevant certification processes that go along with being armed, including uh psych evaluation and so forth and so on.

So there will be state certified level three arm guards.

Uh I I I don't know the state certification levels if I'm being honest, sir, but um whatever state of New Mexico requires, uh they'll be compliant with, and we will have uh some secure spaces on the site.

Um so uh we intend to hold them to a very high standard.

And that's gonna be something I'm gonna make sure that you guys I would like to make sure that you all ask because I know PD hasn't been a part of the planning process for a lot of this, that they get roped in on that so they know what those guards look like, how they're trained, and what the response level is from PD to them.

So uh we will be engaging there.

To your question earlier, we've mostly engaged so far with federal authorities in order to understand the threat environment.

So we're still still at the stage of saying uh we're designing the facility, let's make sure we're incorporating defenses against whatever the FBI other relevant agencies are going to flag to us.

Um and as that site security plan comes together and is implemented, then we absolutely will partner with uh all local authorities, but but certainly Rio Rancho PD to make sure that we're tied in tightly with them.

Well, make no mistake, FBI is not going to be responding if somebody is trying to knock down the door out there.

No, I guarantee it.

They'll still be at home sleeping, they're gonna need to get woke up.

Okay.

So with that, I'm gonna end my questions for now, but I do want to thank you very much for being here, and I apologize for everything that's occurred because I don't think it's um representative of who we want to be as a city and a county and a state in the future.

We'd like to work together and make sure that we have good uh partnerships, and I don't think that was demonstrated to you all, and I want to apologize up front for that.

Okay.

Counselor thank you, Counselors, Mr.

Mayor, Councillor Cobras.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um thank you, Councilor Tyler, for that extensive line of questioning.

I appreciate you getting some of those initial questions out.

Um so I just have a couple of follow-up questions.

Um the first question in regard to the plume study.

Um maybe Andrew, we can start there.

Um, but there's the the plume study um that is underway.

Um, but I'm curious about how those results are going to be evaluated and who is determining acceptability of that study.

Um so we're working with Sandia National Labs on that.

The output of that study will be understanding what the output or what the the potential impact from a range of events would be under various wind conditions.

So that will uh factor into our emergency response plan, how the fire department responds, um, whether we need to issue any warnings, notices to surrounding communities depending on uh prevailing wind conditions and making sure that we have the right resources, the right procedures in place uh to know what's in the plume, what's the potential impact, where is it going, uh, having that plan in place, and this comes back to the emergency planning that we would partner with local agencies and with all of you on uh to make sure that if this sort of extreme worst case scenario were to happen, uh we know what to do, uh the procedures are in place uh to go execute and make sure the public is safe.

Great.

And then that that plume study is your describing it, it sounds like it's mainly um focused on like the atmospheric uh plume, but then is there any concern for any kind of uh particulate um coming down onto the community?

My understanding is that that is within the scope of the study, correct?

Yes.

That is uh within the scope.

Okay.

Um and so then I guess back to the question of evaluation of acceptability of the study.

Um so that is going to be those results will go back to you all to determine that there's those, and I I believe we're also required to share them with state land.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, thank you.

Um then in regard to um, I think and so I I will say um, you know, my my main concern is around kind of the health and the safety of the community.

By and large, the transport is the lowest risk issue, right?

Um the big those that they're intended to be in, you know, challenging environments.

And so that the transport really becomes the the smallest issue.

Um it's really about the the safety um as it relates to the products that are on site um and then the long-term consequences thereof in these, you know, very, very unlikely events that we hope never have to happen.

Um hope that they never happen, but that is something we certainly have to keep within our sites.

Um but thank you again very much for um being here.

Um I have a question just in general, and you're you're good.

You can sit down for now.

I don't know.

You might have to stand up again.

Um it's not it's I I mean I can ask the question, it would be rhetorical by nature.

Um my concern is that we are starting, I I've heard repeatedly tonight, um, that communication has started um with the Rio Rancho uh firefighter uh fire department staff, um, that these communications have recently begun, that there's been good headway that has recently been made.

Um I I wonder um is it a surprise to anybody that Rio Rancho is he like that we are here?

Um I I wonder why um that wasn't taken into in into consideration as to who would be the first responders if there was an event that happened, whether it was an event that required fire or an event that required law law enforcement.

I I find it fascinating that it has just recently come to um light or awareness that those who have been involved with the decision making thus far.

I believe Councillor Tyler mentioned that it's been upward of 12 meetings, um 12 votes, 12 decisions have been made regarding uh this.

Um, and then all of a sudden, um, with a lot of effort from our staff, um, we had to come to the table.

And so while I appreciate Counselor Tyler's effort and getting um these verbal commitments, I'm fascinated that they're necessary.

I'm fascinated that it's it needed to even happen at this late stage.

And I find that very concerning.

Um, and so while I appreciate words, um, I appreciate actions even more.

Um and and at this point, I'm very concerned by the the lack of action that has been um seen.

Um so Chief Windzel, could you come and talk a little bit more?

Um this is something that I've only recently learned about this authority having jurisdiction.

Can you tell me about what that means and the importance of that to this project?

Mr.

Mayor members of everybody.

Yes, so AHJ refers to who is in charge of the actual uh location, who has the ultimate and final say so, if you will.

Um with this project, Sandoval County is the authority having jurisdiction.

Ultimately, all decisions rest with them.

So the uniqueness of the property rests in that there's three agencies that respond and participate in providing safety to that location.

While Sandoval County may have the authority having jurisdiction, the state fire marshal's office has authority having jurisdiction for plan review, code compliance, um the the duties that would normally be done with the fire marshal's office through the automatic aid agreement between ourselves and Sandoval County Fire Rescue, Rio Rancho Fire Rescue provides the emergency response.

So that's where it gets a little bit tricky in terms of identifying the decisions that are being made at the location, and if they are uh one involving Rio Rancho Fire Rescue, and two follow within the same standards that we would like to see at that location.

Hope that that answers your question.

Yeah, that's that's very helpful.

It because it sounded to me in in some comments a bit earlier that kind of maybe there was an idea that Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue would just kind of show up and then leave.

That doesn't exactly match with what I feel like I'm hearing from you as what the expectation of your role would be there and and the role of of your staff.

That is correct.

Uh this site uh is much more complex than say a structure fire on the West Mesa undercorporate unincorporated section of Sandoval County, where our crews will respond, uh provide initial response, and then transfer the scene over to Sandoval County Fire Rescue once they arrive on scene.

Due to the risk and the potential hazards at this location, I would assume uh due to the size of Sandoval County and the size of Rear Rancho Fire Rescue, both agencies would be remaining on scene for quite a long time.

Uh in conversations with Castillion and Project Ranger, I believe this uh the the mitigation and the the um suppression technique not using water, which is traditional, sounds a little bit different, but not traditional for this location, um, would require crews to stay on scene for upwards of 15, 18 hours, potentially even longer.

Due to that, we would establish different working sessions and try to make sure we're recycling crews in and out.

Uh echoing on what Deputy County Manager Masterson said with getting rear rancho crews back into the city uh in the event of a fire at Castillion, I think it'd be a pretty hard goal.

Uh, if I'm honest in full transparency, I think this would require Albuquerque fire rescue.

We'd be calling both of their hazmat units, we'd be uh dispatching the Mexico State Police for their emergency resource officers who are highly trained at Hazmat, specifically to the technician level and can offer um assistance with contacting New Mexico Environmental Department, and we'd also potentially reach out to the Civil 64th uh Hawk Battalion right up the road on uh Northwest Loop.

So, yes, uh it's very complex, and I think that's the one of the issues here is is kind of peeling back those layers of uh almost as an onion if you will, uh, trying to find out exactly whose role um each agency has and and what it really truly means to respond there.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

That's kind of what I I thought I was hearing, but it's not my area of expertise.

Wanted to make sure that I was hearing that correctly.

So I think therein lies um uh another set of concerns for me is that um the details, the devil is always in the details.

Um and even if if even here today there's some perhaps nuanced differences um that still leaves some area of concern.

Um, but I appreciate um the the hard effort towards um getting getting to this point um and hopefully an MOU will be able to be put in place um at some point in the future.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

I will just reiterate a couple of the other things that both counselor Tyler and Mayor Hull discussed.

I appreciate actually Mayor Hull really pushing for the community meetings.

Again, they're community meetings in October when this has been addressed and voted on for months by people who also represent the citizens of Rio Rancho.

Is just it's an area of concern, but that is it is separate from the issue that we have before us today.

We have really just three items that we're considering.

And this is this is certainly a challenging, a challenging issue and is complicated, I think, by some of the decisions that have been made thus far.

But thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

That's all I have.

Thank you, counselor.

Counsel.

Counselor List Um I want to say thank you so very much for everybody who's been working on this.

I think that if you haven't figured it by now, you'll continue to hear it.

Um it's pretty disheartening to be sitting here, and that this has been taking place for a really, really long time, and Rio Rancho has not been an equal participant, and that puts us in quite a predicament to be here today.

Um I do want to say that I am so grateful to Castillion.

I was able to attend the community presentation, and I will say personally, I learned more there than I had learned at all in this process.

And so I appreciate you guys taking the time, all of you talking about your areas of expertise, what you bring to the table.

I think that that helped a baseline of understanding for our community.

Uh I do know that I I was present when these public meetings were requested.

I know that they've been continually requested by different folks attached to the city, and so I'm I'm very much saddened that these didn't start taking place months ago, because by now we should be so many meetings in that 90% of all the questions have been answered and resolved.

I think it is super unfair for the people of Real Rancho to walk out of that presentation and stand in the parking lot and say this is a done deal, it doesn't matter.

I think that is extremely disrespectful and disheartening.

I think it's extremely hard to hear.

Well, it's in the county anyway, it doesn't affect the city.

But when all the presentations come, it's oh, but the city will benefit, and oh, here's what the city's gonna get, and oh, the city, but that's but that's not it.

You don't want to be a team unless you want to be a team.

Um, and I I don't really have the words for my frustration in that our public safety have not been at the forefront.

I think a seat at the table is not enough.

If our fire rescue is required to respond and be the representatives, then their voice needs to be the loudest in the room.

They need to say this is what we need to do our job.

This is what we need to keep our men and women safe.

This is what we need to keep the employees safe.

If we have 300 people working there on a great day, all 300 live in Rio Rancho, but nonetheless, they're people and they're in our community wherever they live and drive in from.

Every single one of those 300 people deserves to be safe.

Every single one of those people deserves to have input that is well thought out.

I have to tell you, I was raised to believe that sprinklers save lives.

So when I was at your presentation and I heard that uh there was an exemption and there was not going to be fire sprinklers everywhere, I really struggled with that, and I had to ask some questions and kind of go back and look at some things.

I am of the belief, and I could be wrong, and you have all your justifications, but I am of the belief that there's probably buildings that administrative assistants will be working in without chemicals that can have fire sprinklers to save their lives.

So I I struggle to understand how this entire facility would not have that.

I also um don't understand how the responding agency that comes with fire trucks that has to come from miles from their home station are not gonna have a fire hydrant in which to put the water in the truck to fight said fire.

So I feel like there's a lot of questions that have been asked that have not been answered, and again, had certain entities been invited to the table earlier, by now you'd have those questions answered, and this would be a very easy decision for us.

I want to make it very, very clear that I actually am very enthusiastic about the patriarch our uh patriotic opportunity to to do this project and to serve our country.

I'm very excited about the job opportunities.

I'm excited about a lot of things.

And most importantly, there are some very, very important questions on the table.

And I don't think it's fair to ask us to vote until those are answered.

I cannot support this project until those questions are answered.

But I do think this is a wonderful project, and I do think you have a place here, and I do think that you will be welcomed.

But today, this is not where it needs to be.

And a gentleman's agreement about sure, we'll have an MOU and sure we'll we'll invite Rio Rancho to the table, that's not gonna work.

We've talked about multiple people have already put out who's responsible for this, and I'm responsible for that.

So, what happens when you show up and then the other guy wants it to be his way?

Who is in charge?

There needs to be a spelled out protocol of this is exactly who makes these decisions in this area, this is exactly who makes these decisions in this area.

Because we already know that there's a challenge in some of that decision-making ability right now, and we can't just say everyone's gonna be okay and shake hands and walk away.

This is a big deal, and this affects a lot of lives.

I'm not putting our fire and rescue, I'm not putting our law enforcement, and I'm not putting the civilians that are working there at risk because people can't sit down and put in writing that a competent individual is going to make the decisions.

With that, I um I also would just like to go back to the comment I was a little bit taken back and annoyed with the intel comment.

Um, I think it's very unfair to make a snide comment about intel, and there'll be no issues over at this facility because the numbers are less.

Even if the numbers were less, the travel time is significantly more.

The time that you're going to spend transporting is significantly more.

So the wear and tear on our equipment is significantly more.

So I I just I think I think that's just representative of where we are in in this situation by now.

By now, it's just hurry up Rio Rancho, vote yes, give us our road, give us our water, and let everything that we've already put in place happen.

So residents of Rio Rancho know that I care and that we support you.

We want this economic development to be here.

All I can do is say that I'm gonna protect the men and women that we have the ounce of ability to protect.

Well done, Mr.

Mayor.

Counselor, did you want to expand on you on your question on the um authority having jurisdiction?

We got into that a little bit, but I didn't know yes.

So, well, I sorry, I didn't want to like hash into it because everybody's kind of gone over it, but it's kind of been said, yes, we'll agree to this, yes, we'll agree to that, yes, we'll agree to this.

But then Chief Winsel just came up and very clearly stated uh that the state fire, the state gets to oversee the fire marshal component, that the city of Rio Rancho would be the responders, but then the county oversees the space.

And so, what does that exactly look like in all of these things?

That's a very broad oh, yay, all three of us get to come to the table together.

But who's gonna have exactly what role and who's gonna have the ultimate decision-making ability in certain situations?

Because it doesn't do any good for Rear Rancho Fire Chief who has to show up to say we need A, B, and C to be met, and then somebody else to be like, yeah, that's not important, we're not gonna do it.

Yet he still has to send his men and women there to show up.

So it makes no sense.

So I would like to ask that whenever this thing comes out in writing, clearly spell out what that looks like and exactly whose roles are what, because it's it's silly to just make a pretty little agreement so it looks nice on paper that we're all gonna play nice, but when it comes down to brass tax, that's not what's gonna happen.

And ultimately, as this whole scenario is, it's real rancho folks that are the ones that are gonna be left to do the task with whatever's in place, not what should have been in place.

Thank you, counselor.

Counsel.

Mr.

Mayor.

Councilor Lilentine.

Um so I I do really appreciate um Castillian coming out and um having that meeting at the elementary um school there.

This is in my district, and um well, that was in my district and the uh neighborhood, large neighborhood that's most closely um adjoining this is also in my district, so I really appreciate you guys.

Um I I do really like your approach.

You came out and said, hey, this sounds scary, here's all the stuff.

I don't I don't feel like you've been um trying to hide the ball for like you know, people that I had 300 people there, they threw you a lot of different questions.

Um you allowed a good amount of time.

But um in walking out, uh I I didn't ask any questions, I had knew a lot of this information, but I wanted to kind of see how the response of the community was walking out, people weren't uh super negative towards your comp your company.

Um and I think it's evidenced by tonight that there's not a lot more people in the room.

I feel like you guys did a good job trying to assuage the concerns and then also admit up front that uh kind of the fear of the unknown is quite large.

Uh I obviously agree, we're all gonna agree, I'm sure, on uh kind of uh the disappointments of of you know and what at what point Rio Rancho was brought in on different things.

However, I don't really hold that against you guys that much.

I feel like you were working, you know, probably working through the channels that you felt like you needed to.

I'm assuming hindsight that you would, you know, would have maybe done that portion different had you known maybe some inner workings of uh what's happening in our area and kind of the history of uh shared responsibilities and things.

Um I do love Councillor Colbreath's point though, of uh no matter how we got here or we feel you know slighted in getting here, what's in front of us is what's in front of us to vote on.

And so I do appreciate that because we are being asked to provide some water, and we are uh also benefiting off of the possibility here for a roadway.

And so um I appreciate that.

And so I do I share a lot of the concerns.

I feel like uh obviously there there are concerns.

Um I'm kind of along with the rest of the council, just uh kind of concerned mostly about how Chief Wenzel feels about this and if we can resolve uh that portion because uh we can vote on something and then but they have to enact it, they have to deal with it uh should a situation arise.

Um but I do appreciate you guys uh again giving um uh this really thorough presentation and uh I thought it was very informative and really appreciate it.

Also love to see if there's any way that uh we could look to get more of that road done.

Uh I know that just you know on you guys as a as a smaller uh company uh but obviously going to great heights literally and figuratively.

Um you know that's obviously a big ask, but it is a really important project to us, and so I know it goes a long ways um towards uh helping us if we can get uh another way out of the city and obviously another way for you to transport uh things.

But I I at the end of the day, I definitely agree with Councillor Colbert.

The transportation portion is the most minor of all of the issues that we're gonna talk about.

So pretty much all that I have.

Um well, Chief Winslow, let me just ask you this.

Um I'm assuming that this is not um uh this might be an obvious question, but concerning automatic aid, since it's since it's out of the city, I'm assuming that since we'll have increased response time to this area that that doesn't affect our rating because right ISO rating.

There is that potential, for sure, right?

Because they're gonna pull call logs from the previous three years and they will look at that, right?

So that does affect our ISO score, which is currently a two.

We are pushing aggressively for a one.

That is a goal, that is something I I I uh set as a uh priority when it wasn't named chief.

So um yes, that will go into consideration for sure.

I think that is something we will track with data, right?

We will look at through our records management system and and to identify exactly what that looks like uh and then potentially address that through the automatic aid agreement when it goes up for uh negotiations again at the end of uh 2026.

So the first priority is always the citizens of Rio Rancho, and then obviously making sure we provide the highest level of care to them as well as making sure every single firefighter in the department is safe.

Firefighter is an inherently dangerous job.

Um it's taking that risk and understanding it as best we can.

So yes, it it very much could to answer your question.

Okay, let me ask you this.

I know this is a question you can possibly know the answer to, but when you sit here and think about all the concerns that are in your mind regarding this, because that's your job to think of the potential things.

That um poll on the ISO rating is you know looking at the last three years of calls or whatever.

Is that something that's pretty uh high in your mind?

I know the safety of people, obviously.

Um, but I know that we worked really hard, and and with that ISO rating comes more access to funding and then we can fight for so it's very important and for us to be able to have uh that and I appreciate that it's one of your goals to get us, you know, moving up there.

Um is it is it kind of a uh a minor concern of yours or is it more major concern?

Coach Lingleton, yeah, it uh it's hard to say.

I think initially my gut reaction is it's uh it's there and it's making some noise for sure.

Um it's something that we have to evaluate and keep eye on for sure.

The hard part about the location of Project Ranger is it's deep within fire stay uh fire station two's district.

Northern Meadows, as you know, station two is located at Cherry and Unser in North Hills.

So the response time to Northern Meadows is is a tough one naturally.

To then go to outside of the city and respond to Project Ranger and then transport to a hospital.

Now, Sandoval Regional Medical Facility is nearby, I believe it's a couple miles away.

Um the problem is they're only a level three trauma.

So if something happens major, they have to go to UNM downtown.

If it's a cardiac event, you at Sandoval Regional cannot take that.

We have to go to Rust, which is the closest hospital.

So it's it stretches the resources, but it also really affects what we call UI unit hour utilization, which is how often an apparatus is not within its station capable of responding.

We try to keep that under 20%.

So we we monitor that with station two, and we see and and data doesn't lie, right?

So we we uh we analyze that data as best we can, and that's the best we can do moving forward is looking at that and then addressing uh our response protocols and our automatic aid agreement as we continue to move forward.

Do you know off the top of your head what's the distance between station two to the project ranger site?

I do not.

Okay, that's fine.

Um okay, I think that's pretty much all I had.

Thank you.

Council Weimer Councillor Weimer.

So I'm not gonna pile on.

Um my fellow colleagues have have said it very well and said pretty much everything I had in my notes.

I I would like to talk though a little bit more on this public hearing bit.

Um you guys clearly know how to put a public hearing together, public meeting together.

This is very informative and tells a lot of answers.

And I think Councilor Liss said the best.

Wow, I'm just hearing about it tonight.

And we can say, well, yeah, but you could come to any of the other 12 meetings.

This wasn't at any of the other 12 meetings.

So um looking back, and I can't remember how many months ago it was several months ago though, we met with a consultant that was hired, I believe, by your your team.

They met us in the conference room.

We said, tell us about the project.

The response was you're supposed to already know about this, and they stormed out.

Okay, that's a simple way of putting it, but that's essentially what it what it was like.

So we seven months ago, your own team knew that we wanted to have more information.

And here we are to reiterate all my colleagues at the 11th hour, and being the kaboose, finding get this thing approved.

So I'm just I'm super frustrated.

I think you're hearing that loud and clear.

So again, I'm not gonna pile on.

I'll I'll leave it at that, Mr.

Mayor.

But I just wanted to bring that up.

Thank you, Counselor.

Counselor Dabson.

Well, it sounds to me like the problem isn't Castillian.

Um I also would like to have a uh a public hearing, have a meeting, town hall in my district, which is just below his district, and I apologize that I'm talking funny, I'm hearing myself in my ear.

So I it's kind of weird.

But um Chief, well what would make you feel the most comfortable?

Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, that is an explosive question, open intended.

Um it's a it's hard to say, right?

I think uh what would make me feel comfortable with it is knowing that every single one of my firefighters has the highest level of protection.

That's what would make me comfortable.

Um outside of that, we deal with the the calls as we come as they come in.

It's what we do every day, right?

We're professionals, we respond when the public calls us.

Um making sure that the my members can go home safe for their families, it's number one goal.

However, I can get there, that's what I want.

That's what I'm on board for.

So I think with Project Ranger, um, you know, making sure we do that.

That's the common goal.

That's the shared vision.

I would I would uh say 100% with state fire marshals with uh Sandoval County Fire Rescue.

Everybody on board understands that.

So we we just got to clean it up a little bit to make sure we get there and we can ensure that as best we can.

Okay.

When uh does having Sandoval County, the AHJ limit you in any way or make things more difficult.

Well, I think you know the council, yes.

I think it does make it a little bit difficult.

I think maybe difficult is not always the easiest word, maybe challenging, right?

Um it really depends.

I think the the dialogue has increased.

I think there's open communication that's being transparent.

Um and helping us make sure we achieve that primary goal of keeping everybody safe that has to respond, as well as the employees and other uh other visitors and citizens within the city.

So that's fine.

Um I am also very interested in having this problem um project move forward.

Um I'm hoping that everybody's questions can be addressed um and um I do hope to hear from you guys about talking to my constituents.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, so now that we've heard from all six of the counselors who are gonna start the rotation of follow-up.

So counselor Tyler, did you have a follow-up question?

I have two questions.

One, Andrew, I I guess you're speaking for the whole company, correct.

Until you stump me, sir.

Well, I'm not gonna stump you.

I uh who's the gentleman that's sitting next to uh Senator Block.

Uh Tom, I want to compliment you for shopping at Albertsons.

I saw you getting your Starbucks there today, and thank you for spending money in Rio Rancho.

So I just want to ask one question.

Yes, sir.

If you've heard all of our concerns, and and they're all valid, and I think you would agree to the exact same.

If we were to push this off for, and I'm just asking, okay, if we were to push this off for four weeks, six weeks to get all of these questions out and answered and get the public meetings done, and then come back.

Would that be something that you all would entertain just so we could make sure that our customer is good with the sell of this product?

And you if you need to talk to somebody and think about it, I don't but it's something that I would like to propose because I would like a couple of meetings, she would like some meetings, they would like some meetings, and I think it's something that can be done very rapidly.

I think that gives us time to get the plume study.

I think that gives us time to work out some of the other particulars on some of the other stuff that's going on between us and the county and the state um and work through it all.

But I know you're on a timeline.

I I get that, and I get I get the urgency.

But I do think that if you take these couple of weeks, and we wouldn't be here, right, if we had all done it from the very beginning, but it didn't happen.

But if we could take just a couple of weeks, I think this project could be seen through and would really shine in Rio Rancho and and it would eliminate a lot of your hurdles, if not all of your hurdles.

And that's just something I want to ask you.

Sir, I I uh I think uh we we've heard you loud and clear, and I uh uh honestly I I sort of regret that you did not feel more looped in earlier into the process and more of the information didn't come to you and to your constituents early in the process.

Uh one of you was saying uh that you know surely if you if you did this over again you have done a few things differently and and absolutely we were sort of working uh working along the path that we understood we were supposed to work along, and I'm I'm sorry that you uh you all feel like you're in the position that you're in.

Um what I would say is we are working, and the requirement to be honest comes from our customers, and it comes from our customers at the highest level inside of the administration and the Department of War inside of Congress.

We need to move very expeditiously on this project.

Um I think my concern, given we're up against the holidays, is that in practice it will actually be difficult to I'm I'm concerned about sort of it turning into uh uh uh a continuous or sort of rolling delay.

Um I would be strongly inclined to continue to move forward today.

But what I would say is that you have our company's commitment, my personal commitment to spend whatever time is needed to one um work with the public, work with your constituents, work with each of you personally to make sure your questions are answered.

Number one.

Uh and number two, uh we also hear loud and clear uh and I I I want to sort of emphasize this, uh we feel it very viscerally as well.

I mentioned it earlier, but I really mean it.

Um we're going to be spending a lot of time, us personally, this group, me personally, uh, at this site.

These will be our friends and colleagues, they will live in this community, is extremely important to us, is extremely important to me as a co-founder of the company that our employees are in a safe environment and that they are uh uh even even in in some worst case scenario uh that they remain safe and that the first responders that come are safe.

So uh the other commitment I would say is working as closely as required.

Um whatever resources are are required from our side is Castellian to coordinate with first responders to ensure that uh that emergency response plan, uh all the concerns with sort of coordinating the agencies is done properly and is done in a way that Rio Rancho uh fire and rescue is comfortable.

Um I think some of the and Chief Winslow, I I uh please do disagree with me if you uh if you do disagree.

Um I think for us, similar to the way that we engaged with this body and with your constituents, uh we were working with other organizations, understood that they were sort of lead there.

Um we fully understand that Rio Rancho is sort of critical agents here.

We've done our our best to uh move as quickly as we can uh to partner and and get concerns answered.

We can't begin operations either under the state land lease uh or under uh DOD 4145 without a a very robust emergency response plan.

Um so we we can't even begin working with energetics until that's done.

We are committed to making sure that that is done properly, and we're committed to working with city resources to make sure it's done to their satisfaction.

And and the only reason I ask is because I think that we have a meeting, when is our meeting, Mr.

City Manager in December the 18th?

Is it I think that we could get all that done and and be back in here by December 18th.

It would be an egg uh it would be a uh quick time turnaround.

There would be some meetings that be held, and I know there may be some other stuff, but uh it's something that I think would drive the success of the program through the council, because I don't know where it's gonna lay.

I could I can guess.

I can I can do my math, but it's something where um I think it would make it more successful for you all in the future.

It's something I want to throw out there.

I don't know if I need to make an amendment on that or if you want me to hold off until afterwards.

We're still going through follow-up comments.

But that was my question.

So think about the December 18th piece.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate your time.

Any other follow-up comments?

I'm sorry, any other follow-up comments from council or questions.

And Mr.

Mayor.

Uh yes, Councilor Colbrook.

Thank you.

Chief.

You're a popular guy tonight.

Thank you.

Um so clearly there is there have been a lot of concern, right?

And questions raised um really that goes toward um the emergency response related to the um the project.

Um I think that my question to you here, right, is that do you see um in this current context as we stand here today, um, through whether it's an MOU or some other device, that we would be able to put forth a project um with a plan um that with an MOU attached with the stipulation that if an agreement is not reached through the MOU, that then everything stops there.

Mr.

Millionaire, members of everybody, Castor Colbert, I think yeah, I think that would um that would work.

I think that allows us to ensure uh re-ranchive fire rescue has the the seat at the table that we have a voice in that decision-making process, which has been lacking um and ensures we have the the safety component that we're looking for for not only our members but also the facility and the citizens as well.

So I would I would say yes.

Thank you.

That's all Mr.

Mayor.

Anything further?

Uh anything further from council.

Um, but yes, Mr.

Oprah, go ahead.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the the council.

Um this is a competitive process.

And Mexico is not the only location that the company is looking at.

Um so I ask you to take that into consideration.

Um that uh it could go someplace else.

Very quickly.

So thank you for that consideration.

Thank you.

And you know, yeah, counselor list.

I just have to follow it.

Um I I appreciate the comments about them having alternative options.

Um again, had we been included in this conversation a long time ago, these questions would have been answered and the comfort level would be very different.

And I think most of us would be um much more comfortable moving forward.

So uh I I appreciate that continued conversation.

But again, when we have our fire chief who has only had a matter of days to ask questions and those have not yet been answered, it's very unfair to put us in a predicament to move forward when when that has not happened.

Mr.

Mayor Councillor Millennium.

Yes, sir.

Um I think for all the reasons that they had stated and kind of the time of year that we're coming up on.

And um that's a lot to get done in four weeks, and I don't think that would happen.

I think this is going to 2026, and so for those reasons, I wouldn't be in favor of going that direction.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else from Council?

I wanted to, yeah, and and Andrew, I wanted to give you the opportunity to come back up and address any any concerns you heard while we were up here.

So I want to give you that opportunity to kind of uh respond to anything that you heard that might be a concern.

Thank you, sir.

Um I actually did want to make one quick uh clarification, Councilor West.

The the non-has integration buildings, so the buildings that do not have energetics, um, the the current agreement is that those buildings will be sprinklered.

Um just wanted to clarify that point.

Um we were just conferring, and I I was thinking about a little bit more.

Um we're hoping to start construction very soon on this site.

However, um we would not begin any production of energetics.

Actually, we wouldn't have energetic materials on the site until at earliest Q4 of 2026, um, probably around a year from now.

I bring that up because uh one, as far as all the community meetings go, uh we are absolutely committed to doing those hopefully this year, and honestly, if it's helpful early next, happy to continue doing it.

Um I will I will very happily chat with anyone and and answer their questions um most any time.

Um secondly, though, I think that the timeline for when we would begin production when energetics on would be on site is really really important because it gives us a very long time horizon through which we can work with first responders, we can work with your cities agencies when we work with Chief Wenzel.

Make sure that we go well beyond just sort of uh an MOU.

We get to an actually detailed plan.

It's critical for two reasons.

One, for all the reasons you've enumerated, safety of first responders, um, effective emergency response.

That's that's required.

You can't just sort of have a loose understanding and and hope to uh hope to respond.

But secondly, uh going back to the 4145 requirement, going back to the state land requirement, we're not even allowed to begin operations.

We're not going to be allowed to bring energetics on site until that detailed plan is completed and has been signed off by inspectors from the federal government.

So even if we wanted to go down that road, which we don't, we would not be permitted to.

These both the community outreach um which we commit to and the sort of uh robustness of the emergency plan and partnering with your agencies, those are those are required for us to be able to uh uh begin operations at this facility.

I don't think that's helpful.

Any other follow-ups from any of you?

Thank you, sir.

Excellent.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, yes, if I may, yeah.

Um Mr.

Mayor, if I may, um I'm gonna heard the word uh uh a comment from Councillor Lindertyne.

If I could put forward um a potential alternative to the governing body, if I may, um, with a couple of potential amendments that hopefully could put some um I I don't know if uh safety blankets and what's the term I want to use, but some you know, a couple uh a couple measures in place that hopefully could address some of the pending questions.

I'm probably just gonna jump up over here instead.

Um because uh um but I've heard everybody um there you go.

Um, Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body, I've heard amongst the different things that have come up this evening.

Um particularly wanted to talk to me a little bit more about what it pertains to the rear enter fire rescue.

Um and you know I have my aggravations and my frustrations on how we got to where we are today, but that's a topic for another day.

I'll tell my kids, my grandkids about that.

Or um when Councilor Tyler and I are talking about um Phaser David Razors to clean up our hair over a beer, we'll we'll talk a little bit about it.

But I think we've heard you know there's three items for the governing body.

Um and uh uh Jimmy Wentzel, uh, little Jimmy, uh Chief Wentzel.

Um you know, I coached soccer back in the day uh together 20 years ago.

I actually gave him his first job.

Um whether he acknowledges that or not, I think I did.

But we used to code in soccer, we used to say the most important play and soccer is the next play, and what we can talk about is where we are today and what we can look at um going forward.

Um we do have some very strong thoughts, um, and I support Chief Wentzel in these as it pertains to our role as AHJ, and those thoughts come from yeah, and I don't want to go talk a lot about what happened in the past, but where they come from is you know, we heard unofficially conversations about requests being the state fire marshal about variances, and we didn't understand those.

I don't want to go talk a lot about what happened in the past, but where they come from is you know, we heard unofficially conversations about requests being the state fire marshal about variances, and we didn't understand those.

We weren't included in those, and that caused some concerns.

I want to applaud Chief Winsel about three, four weeks ago.

Um he started to have conversations directly with Castilian, and they got into a good rhythm of iterative information, and sometimes you know the shortest point or the shortest distance between two points is talking directly, and we have made some some headway there.

Um he's also advocated for some group meetings uh with CID, which has a role in this, state fire marshal, and uh Sandoval County Fire.

I think the first of those meetings actually happened today.

So I know you mayor, counselor Tyler asked some questions of county staff.

Those were appropriate questions.

Um, because if we're gonna do this as a team, you know, as a you know, you don't pick your teammates, sometimes you have a dysfunctional team or whatever you want to call it, but you got to work with them and you gotta figure out how to way to win.

Um, economic development is a competitive business, and I think that's what Mr.

Volker was trying to indicate with with that.

Um I think Sandoval County uh has put the state of New Mexico in a place to be very close to potentially moving this to the finish line, and there's a lot of strategic needs that uh this this project can represent.

Um, but you we have, and and I'm gonna present two potential amendments for the governing body to consider um to the IGA that I hope can serve as a backstop, but also really clarify, memorialize what the governing body is saying here this evening on how do we go to the next steps and how do we move this forward.

And those would be uh two additions to the IGA with Sandoval County.

Um, one as it pertains to the road construction.

We haven't talked a lot about that.

I can go back to that exhibit.

Um, but the first one as it pertains to Rio Rancho Fires Rescue.

AHJ is used as a term, a little bit of art here.

Um I'm not saying that Rio Rancho Fire is fully advocating to be the AHJ in all aspects of when it comes to the site.

Um we do work with State Fire Marshal quite regularly, where they do these firefighters speak, turf over responsibilities to us, um, and we're looking to establish what that is.

Um what we are trying to do here is exactly what we do with Intel.

Um we are Intel, Intel's in a comparable because that was given to us as a comparable, but we are at Intel on a regular basis from the basic supporting state fire marshal for the basic annual fire inspection, but an enormous amount of pre-incident safety planning, which we also do with our hospitals, which we do with our schools, and we want to make sure we can do this for the reasons everyone's highlighted.

But the language up here would be a proposed addition, uh subsection C to Section 5 of the inner the IGA, the Internetal Government Agreement, and I'll read it into the record um and I can hand this out and it's on the screen.

Rio Rancho Fire Rescue, parentheses open parentheses, RRFR is the primary first responder to the proposed project site due to a current in-effect automatic aid agreement.

Therefore, prior to release of any funds by the city to the county pursuitant to this IGA of this agreement, the city and the county shall enter into a written MOU that establishes the relationship between the city, the county, state fire marshal's office regarding the fire safety and emergency response related to the project.

The MOU shall include which entity is the authority having jurisdiction and in what context, which entities responsible for plan review and approval, fire code enforcement, annual fire inspections, site safety, pre-incident planning, incident action plan development, and any other relevant terms relating to the fire safety deemed necessary by the parties.

The intent of this language is to clarify the goal, what has been stated, and to put some meat on the bones.

I'd use that term that term a lot in this project that's gets get some meat on the bones.

And so we know what we're doing as it pertains to the automatic aid, and heaven forbid there is a bad call out there, but also for the basic calls of understanding that one, hey, someone got ran over by the forklift, they have a broken leg, we have the site there of familiarization, everyone knows what's happening.

That pertains to the the the fire side.

Mr.

Mayor, one of your priorities that you established at the beginning of this project was we don't want it going down King Boulevard.

Whether that is the risk of the what's in the trucks or just the nuisance that is created when we're bringing commercial traffic into a residential neighborhood.

Two ways to think about that.

Um I think lots of good intentions as it pertains to what's happening with the sale of the Vulcan, but all we know for certain right now is there's funding to get phase one up to Meadows.

And I know your request and your ask and your expectation, Mayor, was to get the city limits.

Sounds like there's opportunities for funding to be made available, different parties, different players, whether that is capital outlay, additional grant money from economic development department, DOT.

Sounds like those things are in the works, and we'll see how they may be able to come to fruition.

But for the purpose of I think clarification and not just a hope and a prayer that we'll get uh PVD built to Meadows, but a real plan concerted um path at a subsection D to section five of this agreement that reads as follows.

Prior to any release of funds, which is underferring by funds, here's the million dollars by the city to the county pursuitant to this agreement.

The county shall the can the county and the city shall enter into a written MOU detailing the sale of the Vulcan construction plan.

Any ancillary and related projects and improvements, i.e.

improvements related to 28th Avenue, Northeast, and anticipated timing for all phases of road construction.

The MOU should also include identified funding sources, anticipated maintenance responsibilities, improvement and design specifications.

So the intent of this language is hey, let's get the sale of the Vulcon built, and I hope it also sends a message to the other funding entities that we need to figure this out.

And ultimately, if the goal is to achieve the sale of the full con, it sends the signal further down.

Um I understand the loud and clear the request for additional community outreach from the governing body.

Um I've heard Andrew and the company indicate that they're willing to do that.

Um I would two twofold, I would put forward these amendments for your consideration as an amendment for lack of better agenda.

Modification of the staff recommendation of approval.

Um on December 18th, we have a governing body meeting and a work session.

Uh we stack both those meetings on that day, and be it in the work session or in the city manager's report at the meeting on December 18th.

Uh we invite we ask the steeling and the overall project team to come back with a report out on additional information on the community outreach that has been delivered, um, as well as we can give an update on where we are in the development of these MOUs.

And these MOUs, we also by the by default, if we're not making headway, while it's just the funds, those funds remain with the city.

So, Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body outstand for any questions you may have.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so I have a motion and a second on R 136, and the uh city manager is proposing these two-minute amendments to uh kind of solidify what we the commitments we got tonight uh from the county.

Uh the deputy county manager and the county manager agreed that this is all in the purview, and I was glad you guys stepped up and said pretty much what we just said right here.

So adding these amendments to the IGA should be pretty pretty easy to kind of get those added in there so that we're all working together, uh Mr.

County Manager.

Um counselors, we have no objections to those amendments.

They're good practice anyway.

So thank you.

All right.

So before we uh before we uh move uh at this point, since I have a motion and a second, uh, does one of the counselors want to offer up uh one of these amendments?

Mr.

Mayor, I'll offer up um both of these amendments.

That's fine.

Okay, so I'm uh one at a time, so I have an individual vote.

So thank you.

Um we'll do amendment one and do I have a second on amendment one?

Second.

Okay.

Now this is amending the IGA as outlined in R 136, which we have an open motion on the floor.

Ums from council on the amendment okay, hearing none.

Uh Ms.

Davis on the amendment.

Thank you.

Councillor Colbreth?

Yes.

Councillor Weimer?

Yes.

Counselor Lynn and Time.

Yes.

Counselor Debson.

Yes.

Counselor Tyler.

Yes.

Counselor List.

Yes.

Thank you.

The amendment is approved.

Okay, moving back to R 136 as amended.

Uh, did uh Councillor Lennon Time, did you want to offer up the second amendment?

Mr.

Mayor, I will offer up the second amendment for R 136 as stated uh by um city manager.

City manager Geisel.

Thank you.

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

I have a motion and a second.

Any comments by council on the amendment?

Hearing none, Miss Davis on the second amendment.

Thank you, Councillor Weimer.

Yes.

Counselor List.

Yes.

Counselor Tyler.

Yes.

Counselor Dabson.

Yes.

Councillor Lynnantine?

Yes.

And Councillor Culbreth.

Yes.

This second amendment is approved.

Okay, moving back to R 136 as amended.

I have an I have a motion and a second with the two amendments.

Ms.

Davis, if you'll call a roll on R 136, please, as amended.

Counselor Tabson.

Yes.

Councillor Tyler.

Yes.

Councillor Colbreth?

No.

Councillor Weimer?

Yes.

Counselor Lynnantine?

Yes.

And Councilor List.

Yes.

Okay.

R 136 as amended is approved.

Thank you.

Moving on to R 135 resolution authorizing the city manager to negotiate and enter into an agreement for water, uh potentially wastewater services for Project Ranger Castillian Corporation.

I'll take a motion to approve R 135.

I move to approve R 135.

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

Ms.

Davis, would you call the roll, please on R 135?

Thank you.

Counselor Lynnantine?

Yes.

Counselor Dabson?

Yes.

Counselor List?

Yes.

Counselor Tyler.

Yes.

Counselor Weimer?

Yes.

And Counselor Culbreth.

No.

R 135 is approved.

Thank you.

Moving on to R 134, a resolution authorizing a budget adjustment for economic development expenditures for Project Ranger.

Can I get a motion, please?

Motion on one thirty-four?

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

Ms.

Davis, call the roll, please.

Thank you.

Counselor Colbreth?

No.

Counselor Weimer?

Yes.

Counselor Tyler?

Yes.

Counselor Dabson?

Yes.

Counselor Lynn Tyne?

Yes.

And Counselor List.

Yes.

R 134 is approved.

Okay, thank you.

That concludes our regularly scheduled agenda.

Mr.

City Manager, do you have a report for us this evening?

It's going to be a short 15 minutes this evening.

Okay.

All right.

Did you want me to recess before you do that?

All kidding aside, um Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, thank you for your um your well-intended and concerted deliberation uh this evening.

Um there will be more to come and we'll be back on December 18th with an update from uh Project Ranger on their status of community outreach.

Um we will follow up with them.

And I'd also like to thank Chief Wentzel.

Um we've had to spend a lot of time together in the last couple weeks thinking through this and discussing this.

So um thank you for his support and uh very concerted and professional and dedicated thought processes throughout.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Chief.

We really appreciate all your hard work on this and also to everybody else that's worked hard on this as well.

Thank you for uh for all of your participation in this and thank you to the council for your careful consideration of all these items.

Uh with that, having nothing else, we are adjourned.