June 16th to order.

Councilor Tyler, will you lead us in the pledge?

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God in a visible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

Start off by uh asking everyone to please silence all electronic devices.

Which I need to do myself while while attending the governing body meeting.

For the record, I'm gonna announce the names of the governing body members.

When I say your name, please acknowledge your presence by saying present.

Counselor Dabson.

Present.

Councillor Lennon Tyne.

We will Councilman Time is not here yet.

We will announce his attendance when and if he arrives.

Counselor Tyler.

Councilor Colbert.

Present.

Councillor List.

Present.

For the record, public comment will not be taken at this work session.

Members of the public are invited to listen in, but we will not be taking public comment.

Moving on for to items of discussion.

City Rio Rancho Economic Development Overview.

City Manager Geisel.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body, good afternoon.

If I may, I'm going to present from here so I can uh see the uh my talking notes and the uh slide deck because I left my printed copy upstairs.

Um so I'm gonna uh present from here.

But um would just like to cover a few things here.

As uh the title I put on this uh presentation is economic development overview initiatives and opportunities in today's date of June 16th, if I'm not mistaken, today is flag day.

Um or yesterday was, I apologize.

Um so if I have the date wrong, I apologize, but I know we're right around flag day.

Was it Sunday?

My bad.

I'm gonna look that up and correct and correct myself.

Um kind of overview of uh um the agenda um for today.

Uh Alberto and I are both going to give uh uh present some material and then we'll have uh an update from the Sandoval Economic Alliance and then uh the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce uh will provide an informational overview of uh their activities.

Um if you recall in uh June of 2024, which is two years ago, um approximately, maybe not to the date, uh we had a presentation, did an economic development update.

And uh one of the thoughts um going into this uh to this work session as we uh prepared um you know, akin to how uh April has become the the roads work session.

Um, you know, that's uh you know, with with BJ, we've kind of turned that uh April work session into a roads update.

Uh had some thought about potentially making June a recurring economic development, economic themes uh uh presentation uh for us.

Um some of the slides I'm gonna have here are um recycled and repurposed and updated from what I uh presented in June of um 2000 and uh June 2024.

Um you know, want to kind of provide a little bit of a history of economic development and diversification efforts uh you know over the time, you know, history here in the city, a little bit of uh uh you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been type thing.

And so this is a slide that I've slightly updated and uh it may sound a little familiar.

I would say that this slide is uh you know in broad strokes accurate.

Um I may be off by a year or two when I reference something, but uh definitely uh you know, in the realm of um, you know, from accuracy that pertain in the realm of horseshoes and hand grenades.

It's uh close enough to um to do things.

So initially Amrep had an in-house function uh to mer to market commercial properties, um, and in turn to uh you know spur demand for residential construction.

Um good example of that is uh um good example of that is uh um give me one second.

So I have my talking notes now, so I'll just be able to go from here.

Um good example of that is um you know the area around quantum that you know is something that I think Amrup developed in with their in-house functions.

Um and then Amrit morphed that uh in-house function uh into the original Rio Rancho Economic Development Corporation.

Um that was created sometime in the late 90s, going to the early 2000s, um, and somewhere along the way, I think you know, sometime after the turn of the century, the city started to support and fund uh the old or the former RREDC at about a hundred thousand dollars a year.

In the early 2000s, the city created a CVB tourism function to drive um economic activity through visitation, i.e.

events, sports tourism, small meetings, uh, with the goal of, as I call it in the tourism space, heads and beds and butts and seats.

Um broadening of this initiative was the construction of the Rio Rancho Event Center, um, which was a you know, at that time known as the Santa Ana Star Center, um, and that was approved in 2005, opened in October of 2006.

Also around this time frame, the city adopted an overarching economic development policy and plan.

Um it's also when the city had uh enacted its grip ordinance, and then economic development manager position was added to the city manager's office and has been on the books uh since that time frame, 2022 years ago or so.

REDC was influential in the recruitment of many economic-based employers from the late 90s through the early 2000 and early 2010.

Companies such as Lettrasonics, Insight Lighting came in that era, and they're still long-standing employers here in our community contributing to um contributing to our local economy, creating jobs, as well as uh the recruitment of uh different call centers.

Um call centers in many ways kind of uh you know, morphed after the pandemic, but Bank of America continues to operate in uh enchanted hills, employing a few hundred folks in that range.

Um, not sure on the exact numbers, but continue to be a quality employer.

And then Hewlett Packard uh came to our our city in 2010 here in the city center.

Uh that was part of that was a Rio Rancho EDC effort.

Um, and they've been operational since uh with a inside insight support center, and then but transitioning in the in the height of the Great Recession in the early 2010s and um other challenges, the governing body at that time started to question the funding of R R E D C and funding was reduced and ultimately cut uh circa 2012.

You know, in that period of time in in those years, and then even transitioning uh when Keith Rieseberg became our city manager with these efforts here uh in Rio Rancho.

Um, I think there's you know varying opinions on how to uh collaborate um with other entities and and other governments uh that I would say that are to the north of us and across the river, but in different of uh the the different folks, um there was always a strong sentiment of Rio Rancho needing to think about itself, fend for itself when trying to steer economic development for the region and for the community.

Continuing on, as I mentioned here on the kind of the the history, uh city manager Keith Riesberg was hired in 2013, and one of his first tasks from the governing body of that time was um to revisit the city's approach to and support of economic development, given that the city had uh previously um seized the funding of RREDC.

In partnership with the county, the R R R E D C or the EDC was restructured into SCA, the Sandoval Economic Alliance, with both the city and county governments contributing 200,000.

The new entity removed that removed Rio Rancho from the name from the name in favor of a broader regional name.

So for a long time was the Rio Rancho Economic Development Corporation, and then became the uh a broader Sandoval Economic Alliance.

The original operating contract with SCA was for 200,000 a year, and that was in place from 2014 to 2019.

Fundamentally, the contract served as an operating grant with broad strokes, scope of work, scopes of work, and um truthfully in my opinion, in hindsight, um, or even at that time I would uh I would say um could have had stronger deliverables and metrics.

CLART focused largely on attraction and recruitment in its initial five plus years.

A new RFP was issued in 2019 and awarded a new contract for one year with three one-year extensions at 200,000 a year.

The contract was not extended in 2020, right before the pandemic.

Uh we had a work session around that time in uh winter of 2020.

Um I don't remember if we're wearing masks or not, Peter, but it was it was right around then when it was all about the the go sideways, and we looked at things such as uh you know, basically a models analysis.

What were the models for um economic development approaches?

Uh a few years later, 75,000 was in the FY20, added to the FY23 budget.

That funding rolled into FY24 with an RFP for economic development support services.

Um that contract started in FY24.

Uh it was a um one year with four with with renewals for a total of four years.

So FY26 represented represents the the year we're wrapping up uh year three of the four-year award.

The this is another kind of repeat slide.

One of the things that is different in this initiative with Sandoval Economic Alliance with the RFP and the contract is we in integrated specific scopes of work to move away from what I'd call an operating grant.

There's a time and a place for operating grants, very common in the nonprofit world.

But this, you know, we focused on specific areas of scope of work that we thought were important activities to support economic diversification, economic development in the community.

Those specific scopes of work, business retention and expansion, microeconomic gardening, site readiness, and then also chip manufacturing ecosystems.

These scope of works over the years, and I anticipate Fred will talk a little bit about these.

What we tried to focus on here is this is what I would call activity-based scopes of work, not outcome basic, you know, scopes of work.

Sometimes you see, and I remember about 10, 12 years ago, I took an IEDC class at the International Economic Development Council class on metrics, and many times people have metrics of you know job creation and capital investment, um, which are the outcome metrics.

You can't always control the outcomes, but you can control the activity.

Um so when we get into like business retention expansion example, real core fundamental part of economic development, knocking on the doors and visiting with the companies that currently are economic based employers in your community to talk to them about what's happening.

You can establish a metric, we want you to have 20 BRE engagements a year to get the pulse of what's happening in our economy.

Um continuing uh a little bit on the chamber.

Um, while the city does not have a contractual arrangement with the chamber, there is a relationship and interactions that add you know between the city and the chamber that add value to the chamber and add value to our broader uh community.

I do want to say very clearly um at this point in my presentation, and also um in Albertos, we are not trying to pit one business organization against another when we talk about them.

Um I've been in and around economic development pushing 15 years now.

Uh while there may be some overlap in the organizations and uh what they do, I personally believe they fill different needs and work on different paths and then trying to achieve this bigger, broader goal of um you know, growing and supporting the Rio Rancho economy, the Rio Rancho uh regional economy.

Um but just wanted to highlight a a couple things about the the relationship uh with the chamber.

And I say chamber, and then down below I have a little footnote and affiliated entities, including the veterans in business, the Rio Rancho Community Foundation.

I suspect Jerry will have some rounding out and clarifications on some of the stuff that I may have here.

Um, but uh um you know the city has a basic membership with the chamber.

The city is regularly invited to provide comments and updates at the start of chamber board meetings.

Um I think they're they're monthly board meetings.

We tend to rotate um who goes to represent the city and provide updates between the uh uh the mayor, which it hasn't been the mayor yet, I think, since he's we haven't had the opportunity to go yet, but the uh former mayor Alberto and I, so have a you know, rotation of going to present, also gives the chain you know, the chamber board members a chance to hear from different voices and uh we obviously talk about things from um a different uh different perspective.

Uh mayor presence and presentation at ribbon cuttings, kind of a big highlight of the, I think of the the chamber ribbon cuttings.

Now for a decade plus, maybe going back even longer than that is the mayor being there to help welcome a business or celebrate a business in partnership uh with the chamber.

Uh the chamber through its Rio Rancho Community Foundation uh hosts uh the mayor's gala.

Um I think the name has morphed a couple times in the last few years, but is now back to being the mayor's gala, is my understanding.

Um that's an annual fundraiser for money to go to nonprofits in in Rio Rancho, I think slated for late August of this year, if I'm not mistaken.

And then the uh hometown hero banner program.

Um if you look on 528, we have a series of banners that we rotate throughout the year.

Um there's a general welcome to Rio Rancho message, but in the period of time from uh Memorial Day to Veterans Day, um the the uh the banners that are up there are uh veterans uh who live in Rio Rancho or from uh Rio Rancho.

Um the chamber uh uh coordinates that program and the city provides uh the installation of those banners along uh along 528 coordinating with the DOT.

So I'm just as we kind of start thinking about you know economic development support and economic development initiatives.

So just as we kind of start thinking about you know economic development support and economic development initiatives, I thought um, you know, I know today the federal open markets committee was meeting to talk about interest rates, so I'm not sure if my economic observations are as exciting of whether the interest rates are going down or not.

Um don't think I'm gonna make the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

Um, but when we think about this kind of this broader our local economy, um, which is also part of what would be kind of the you know, the northwest quadrant of Albuquerque.

Um, you know, Rio Rancho is heavily influenced by the broader economy of the MSA, you know, the the Albuquerque Metropolitan Statistical Area and the state.

Our annual budget book has a multi-page discussion on macroeconomic factors in the region and the state.

Why is that?

Because it has a heavy influence on the state, uh, you know, specifically the uh the the city's budget, but also just the overall labor market and things uh that sort.

So um, you know, and we have benefited from tailwinds for nearly a decade now.

Broader economic expansion and the pandemic ultimately resulted in a positive for Rio Rancho's local economy.

Destination sourcing, also known as GRT collected on e-commerce uh purchases uh that are purchased and delivered within city limits, have bolstered GRT collections.

Um about 2019-2020, destination sourcing went into effect.

Um, and we have seen a in an increase in our retail gross receipts as a uh as a byproduct of that.

Um obviously it is uh um it's part of that benefit is it's helped compensating uh help help offsetting the uh the reduction and hold harmless as that continues to get phased out.

We've also seen over the last eight plus years now strong residential construction and population growth.

Um recently shared the most uh the the latest US census update population update.

We saw uh population growth of a few thousand couple thousand folks.

Um many other parts of the state pretty much had flat population growth.

Um but with you know strong residential construction and population growth, we see construction gross receipts tax, which is then followed by retail gross gross receipts tax.

Um that's people you know moving in, moving up, and settling in into the community, and you layer in that process of someone moving into the community with the destination sourcing.

Um I remember when I moved into my first house in Rio Rancho in 2005.

Most of the purchases to get the house up and running were made in Albuquerque in the Cottonwood area.

Because of what we have in our local economy now, there's more options to purchase locally, but obviously someone moving into a house is gonna do a lot more online shopping, and we get that direct benefit.

Uh also as we see that you know, as you know, we see this.

Um, you know, question to be posed is are we getting to the point where we're starting to have critical mass on rooftops?

Those of us who've been involved with Rio Rancho for a long time, um, you know, have always said we get the rooftops, we'll eventually get the retail.

Well, you know, and the there is a I think a hypothesis to be to be made.

Are we starting to see that a turn there um with with new retail coming into the community?

Plaza Enchanted Hills has become a vibrant uh retail location, the block.

We've had three grocery stores come to the community since 2020.

Natural Grocers was uh a new construction, 2019, 2020, 2021.

The year's kind of become a blur.

Um Market Street new construction and then sprouts going to existing space in in Plaza Enchanted Hills.

You know, theme here is general commercial development, follows consumers and traffic patterns.

These are some of the drivers that we're seeing in our increases in gross receipts tax.

New Mexico as a state, long time ago, hitched its horse to gross receipts tax.

Other states have hitched their horse to property tax.

Um so our number one revenue source, about 60% of our budget comes from gross receipts tax, which is a volatile uh uh it is a consumer-driven, volatile um, you know, type of revenue generation.

And another, I think important factor is we look at what's kind of last eight to ten years.

Um, you know, anchor and institutional employers have been adding jobs.

Uh anchor and institutional employers out there are kind of like uh a cousin to e-based economic base employers, um, and that you know, they uh you know that they provide steady jobs, steady incomes.

I did not do a tally, but if I just kind of do a mental recollection of the news stories and the economic impact analysis and annual reports that I've seen from these different entities, I'm gonna wager that we are you know north of 15,000, if not closer to 20,000 jobs added in the metro area, um, including you know northern New Mexico from these anchor institutions, uh Lanel, Sandia, which who both allow for uh work from home.

So we've had a lot of, we've had city employees lead to take jobs at LANL, um, and we're we're seeing a lot of that.

Uh Russ Medical Center, UNMS UNMS RMC continue to expand.

Uh Russ Medical Center, UNMS UNMS RMC continue to expand, state of New Mexico in the uh in the Luhan Grisham administration, I think over 5,000 jobs have been added at the state, City of Albuquerque's added jobs, Rio Rentral Public Schools has had some expansion with uh Shining Star and CTE, you know.

So why does that matter?

These are stable employers at a minimum.

Rio Rancho is gonna get its proportionate share of those jobs and those employees living in Rio Rancho.

But I think there's a hypothesis or an argument to be made that we may be getting our our disproportionate share or punching above our weight and having more of these employees living in our community.

Um as a community that is uh committed to quality of life, um, as we know in many different ways with quality schools and city facilities, uh infrastructure investments, public safety investments, we're natural place, and we've been recognized in different uh different platforms, um, natural place for people to migrate to uh to live, whether they're in state relocations or out of state relocation.

So these are all several of the things that I I would hypothesize or put forward that are factors that have had a positive influence um on our economic expansion, which has manifested itself and the expansion of our of our revenues as a city and our ability um to operate and deliver the um operate the city and deliver um on our our our core missions over the last several years.

As I transition into that, um, and you know, what is economic development mean?

And uh in part of that, you know, as I talked through that previous slide, and I look at this slide and I and I look ahead and it'll probably circle back towards the end of after all the other speakers is we've had the good benefit of uh of tail ones, a strong economy.

Economic development, the topics become much more important when we get into the point where we transition into recession, we start to face start to face headwinds.

Um and so as we think about, and one of the things I'll close with on my section and come back to it, you know, we are at an interesting time for us to you know have a new round of conversations on what do we want economic development to look like in Rio Rancho?

Where do we want to focus our priorities?

Where do we want to make our investments of resources and relationships and partnerships?

Um you saw a version of the slide and had a couple other slides you know, pre you know, in in 2000 in 2024.

Economic development's a term that gets tossed around a lot, and it means different things to different uh the different people at different times.

Um I used to make a joke when I worked in Santa Fe that you know, if you had a questionable bill, you would try to package it as an economic development bill to see if you can get some momentum behind it, or if you can get the cabinet secretary to come testify in behalf of your bill.

Um it kind of you know gets bantered around.

But I also think it's a way for us to think about what does it mean to our community?

Um, and and as we talk about this different things.

I think it means different things to the five of you that I see before you this this afternoon, um, and where do we may want to effectuate um ourselves and act.

But ultimately, I think big picture when we talk about economic economic development, everybody wants a stronger economy.

But within that, you know, we have different intermediate goals and priorities, but even a stronger economy then means different things to different people.

Um for some folks, your business operator, it may mean company profit is the is the number one thing.

Other folks look at maximum employment types of jobs, things of that sort.

So it means different things, um, but ultimately I think what it's it big picture going in the direction of a stronger economy.

This is also part of, I think, of you know, our our 2023, the 2028 strategic plan we identified that's revisit and talk again about economic development coming out of uh the pandemic.

Um, and as I mentioned, we talked about we had a work session in 2024, and I'm leaning in the direction of making this a recurring theme in a future June, months of June, so we can continue to advance uh the dialogue and hone in on what do we want economic development uh to be and mean uh for our community.

In that kind of spirit of things, um, this is a very busy slide.

And I remember creating this framework in 2015 or so and running into Keith Reesberg's office, and I don't expect you to make sense of it.

I'll you know, I'll I'll connect some thoughts here in a second.

But running into Keith's office and showing it to him and like probably like a nine-year-old going, hey dad, look what I drew, and Keith going like, okay.

Um, but what I think what the the idea here is really to highlight that the interconnectivity um associated with economic growth, not economic development, but economic growth.

If we think about economic growth in the context of prosperity for our community, solid quality jobs, solid jobs, um, you know, uh which lead to a can you know should lead to or could lead to a positive well-being for our residents, that ultimately translates into the form of revenue uh for the city.

The revenue comes as a byproduct.

But it highlights that it's multifaceted.

If we look at our end-end goal of growing the tax base, but it in between having high quality of life and in well-being for our community.

It also shows that you know these different components of this, you know, if you want to call it an ecosystem or a local economy, we think about a local economy are driving dollars, driving dollars and generating um dollars throughout the the economy.

And then we start to think about that in the context of economic development initiatives, economic development or organizations.

Whether that's in the finance, the marketing, workforce development, uh, entrepreneurial, small business development, business retention expansion, it's many aspects.

And I share this because you've heard me talk a little bit in the past about and not or you know, I think uh a piece of it is when we get into you know investing in investing and focusing on economic development, where do we want to focus?

Is it uh you know, are there trade-offs or is it more expansive?

Um so really again, the takeaway on this slide is you know, the the interconnected how it's interconnected and the different parts and pieces come together, and then where does the city role fit into it?

Um a little more honed in on economic uh development organizations and the in the different roles, and I think something I may not have said it yet, you may hear it from Alberto, I may say it may say it a little later.

We have you know different efforts, different initiatives taking place in in economic development, and sometimes that leads to overlap in missions.

Um, and really when you get into those overlaps in in missions, are those are those overlaps complementary?

Do they lead to um you know collaboration, or do they lead to you know conflict and and maybe territorialism?

This was a a slide that Danielle Casey um circulated when she came on board as the uh the the president of area 2022 time frame, don't remember the exact time frame.

And I thought it did a really good job of explaining or highlighting how there are different organizations working on different pieces of the puzzle, um, and there is some overlap.

Um, you know, you look at it from you know, the uh the the state, um, you know, the the you whether that's the economic development department, um they have rebranded or the new Mexico Partnership, focusing on state level state level competitiveness, incentive program administration uh administration, statewide strategy funding, lead generation marketing, regional area, really being a regional representing the the the focusing on the four county area, um, you know, regional data, site selection marketing, lead generation, proposal responses, toolkit and competitiveness, base business growth and market in intel market intel, and then local, whether that's county, city, government, uh, EDOs, business organizations.

I obviously have worked on the local and the state level, not the regional in between.

Um, but I think you know, part of what I believe, or I took away from Danielle's slide, and she actually took this from um an economic development author, um, is you know, you market regionally and you and you strive to sell locally.

Um companies look at regions.

Um, you know, very, very rarely is someone sitting in a corporate boardroom who's going to engage with a site selection consultant saying, I want to build a new factory, I want to build a new office complex, and I want it to be an you know, village V or ex-community in Texas or Louisiana, and they drill entirely down into one specific community.

When they drill entirely down to one specific community, it's usually because the CEO owns a house there and wants to have a reason to take the corporate jet to his house on Thursdays and fly home on um literally that has been documented.

So I'm not making uh making that up.

Um, but I also think you know, a few other things that are helpful, and I think this contextualizes the efforts of Alberto, uh, SCA, the Rio Ranto Regional Chamber of Commerce, vis-a-vis the rest of the metro area, vis-a-vis, um, you know, V VC of the state.

I think it also underscores that fundamentally uh economic development's a team sport.

Um it's a team sport that a lot of people don't recognize that it needs to be a team sport.

There's a lot of lone wolf cowboys and economic development.

There's a lot of me, myself, and I, but it is it is best done um when it when it is looked at on a on a on a team collaborative basis.

Um that doesn't mean there's not point guards, that doesn't mean there's not people taking the lead.

Um, and it's not also doesn't mean that we don't respect that there's time that people have certain relationships, but it also helps understand that you know, where again go back to this notion of overlap and missions.

How do we cooperate and collaborate um when we have an overlap mission?

How do we cooperate and collaborate when we're moving things uh forward and down uh the pipeline?

This is a real life example of Phoenix.

I think it's one of the reasons why Danielle highlighted it so much.

So this puts it you know, broad into the broader context of of Phoenix.

Um really kind of talked a little bit about this already, but um a lot of people hold Arizona Commerce Authority, uh GPEC as best in class in the economic development space and uh creating a local and regional approach.

So as I transition to Alberto and I will um circle back, just want to kind of you know, done a lot of seed planning to try to share some thoughts with you guys and some context as you hear the different presenters today.

Ultimately we'll circle back and talk uh with you at the end about potential direction.

Um things I I think are important.

We look at it from a local basis, um, not just economic development, but also diversification, growth, stability, and and vibrancy.

Those are all things that drive and influence our I think our local economy.

Um when we ask ourselves or we start thinking about what does economic development mean, uh, what do we want our focus to be?

Um, and these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Um, do we want to have a greater focus on kind of what I call keep it local, support local?

This is very common, and I would say smaller communities, main street type programs.

Um is a common space where we see uh uh chamber of commerces focus their activities.

Um that kind of then can transition into a broader, you know, the the notion of retail.

Um, you know, we've always had a lot of interest in retail in Rio Rancho because of the gross receipts tax influence and the fact that we had so much gross receipts tax leakage going down the hill.

Um some factors have kind of shifted that some again, broader population, more retailers, um, as well as uh as destination uh sourcing.

So, you know, do we is retail a prior become a greater priority area for us?

And is that in the context of shop more in real rancho, or is that in the context of retail recruitment?

Um retail recruitment's a whole other beast um and a whole other uh other topic to dive into the because the reality I think on retail recruitment is um it needs to be a broad shotgun, you know, not a I really want retailer X in our community, and we're gonna focus everything on retailer X and only retailer X.

Um where does the focus tie into uh economic base employment?

And then also alignment with state priorities.

Alberto will touch on this some, you know, in particular aerospace and defense.

Um the notion of and versus or um, you know, where does that fit in?

And then uh lastly, I would say any efforts in economic development, um, you know, it is always the recognition of it's a long-term investment that may not may not pay perceptual or real dividends for for years to come.

Um but the time uh to be talking about economic development um is is really or when you talk about economic development, it's something to look out five, 10, 15 years uh down the road.

Um we as a community today, I think you know, I mentioned electrosonics, insight lighting, some companies.

We still enjoy the great benefit of some efforts that were put in place 30 plus years ago here in our community to um to recruit companies.

Obviously, Intel is one that um continues to be a great contributor.

Um I have some additional thoughts on this that I can keep on uh elaborating or rambling.

Um, but what I would like to do at this time is uh invite Alberto to come up.

Um he'll dive a little deeper into a couple of these topics and uh introduce a couple other things, and then from there um we'll have uh uh Fred followed by Jerry.

Thank you, Mr.

City Manager.

Before we move on to Mr.

Sois, are there any comments or questions by counselors for Mr.

Geisel?

Hearing none, Mr.

Solis, you are up.

Hear me now?

Okay.

All right.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body.

It's good to see you this afternoon.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to come to speak with you.

Alberto Solis, economic development and business relations manager.

Next month makes it a makes it two years since I've come on board in this position with the City of Rio Rancho.

And I'm pleased to share with you what I've experienced, what I've worked on, and uh also what I see as wonderful opportunities for this community.

And uh so this update will look at how we actively are planning for Rio Rancho's future along the lines of what uh Matt was saying.

So what will we cover in this update?

We'll cover fact finding and in fact finding insights and learning.

There we go.

We'll cover advancements and accomplishments, collaboration and alignment with Rio Rancho.

Thinking Matt, collaboration and alignment with Rio Rancho Economic Development and Business Partners, in other words, how we're working together, economic development opportunities for Rio Rancho, and goals moving forward.

So what I want to show you is how through uh the day-to-day navigation and my role, uh also our regional partnerships and our strategic marketing of assets like the Rio Rancho City Center are designed to deliver smart sustainable growth for the citizens of Rio Rancho.

So in the fact finding uh in the last few years, in terms of fact finding insights and learning, as the uh saying goes, we have two years and one mouth for a reason.

So I asked myself, what have I learned?

And uh a lot of what I learned, and first of all, I want to take a moment to thank uh those I work with, Matt Geisel, City Manager, Peter Wells, Deputy City Manager, Ryan Chavez, who is also in our office, and others who were there when I first started, especially in the administration and the city manager's office, in recommending that I take the time throughout my first year, especially in the early months, to understand how the city of Rio Rancho works, how it's structured, and who are the people doing different jobs and and um and what are the capacities that we have and who are we accountable to in terms of our residents here in Rio Rancho.

And so that helped give me perspective, helped me put me on put give me a sense of direction every day when I came in and what I was trying to accomplish in terms of understanding in a small city government that is able to work well together internally, who I who I can work with, who I can collaborate with.

So some of the some of the fact-finding and insights and learning include the history of Rio Rancho and its economic development progress and successes, how the council manager form of government works and why, how it's advantageous, introductory meetings with members of the governing body, and I know that I have some pending still that I need to work on, and so I will get to those.

Also uh meeting with city departments leadership and staff and learning how we can collaborate internally.

Along with that, um I was also uh learning more about the industrial revenue bonds and local economic development act incentives that we have awarded in Rio Rancho to to local companies and their tracking requirements.

I also have been learning a lot uh about the business landscape in Rio Rancho, economic-based companies, anchored employers and small businesses, as Matt mentioned previously, and uh most recently in since I've been in this role, but more importantly recently, the importance of site readiness and the status of Rio Rancho sites.

Both those that are owned by the city, as we have here in in uh city center, for example, and those not owned by the city.

In April, um, as I started uh developing more relationships and learning who is doing what roles within the city of Rio Rancho and outside of it, for example, Sanibel Economic Alliance, Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce, and other groups.

I convened the small business assistance and economic development partners meeting uh for those entities that represent and work in Sandoval County.

Um and I did that in April to begin focusing collaboration and and and continue that through quarterly meetings, and that will continue.

Also, in these two years, uh experienced uh advancement and accomplishments, and I'll share those with you.

Certainly by taking this approach, I was able to develop knowledge of City of Rio Rancho departments, its leadership, uh, who are in those uh leadership roles, and other uh key staff members that are working in uh in the development side.

So, in other words, working with Amy Rincone, Director of Development Services, Brian Babia, Planning and Zoning Manager, and other planners on the staff, and I was able to uh attend many of the development review committee meetings and then be able to speak to those when I'm meeting with companies about that consultative process that the City of Your Rancho provides companies.

And so uh in meeting in attending those meetings and working with other uh folks from the fire and rescue, police department, uh utilities, and uh public works, for example, I started developing rapport and working relationships with directors, managers, staff across the departments and the administration.

I started building relationships with the business and economic development partners in Rio Rancho, Sanival County, metro area, and in New Mexico to collaborate with them.

I do have a background in economic development.

I worked for the city of Albuquerque back in the day in the state of New Mexico as you may know.

And so really able in this role to begin to leverage those past experiences and also as a uh defense subcontractor with the Air Force Research Lab to start looking at ways that re I could collaborate with them on behalf in the betterment in Ri-Rancho.

So also uh as I mentioned earlier, with the assistance of Ryan uh Armijo, I began to um uh work on um managing and tracking LEDO deliverables and tracking the compliance, and so that was helpful to understand what companies we have here in Rio Rancho that have benefited from these um economic development incentives.

Um in 2024, I participated in uh I think I was just a few months in, and I started participating in Rio Rancho in a site readiness exercise for Rio Rancho City Center that was coordinated by the state of New Mexico, and they hired a consultant named Global Location Strategies out of Virginia.

And uh our role was to uh gather key data that would be used for analysis and then be willing to follow up on due diligence that they would provide us, which they did.

And uh we did this for up to about 70 acres, which includes about five tracks uh here at City Center, and I'll show you here in a little bit.

And uh I want to say that as since I was new and new to Rio Rancho as well, um I really benefited from the help of uh people uh within the city and outside of the city.

A lot of guidance for Matt and especially uh instrumental help from Fred Shepard, president of Sanibel Economic Alliance, who uh will be speaking shortly as he was also doing site readiness exercises for land at City Center owned by UNM and other other entities, and so he was able to provide a lot of perspective, which helped me uh and which has helped me a lot uh year to date in my knowledge of City Center.

But there were also others that I was able to work with uh the legal department, uh Josh Noel and others in the in the city attorney's office, um obviously BJ and Public Works and Steve and back then Jim Chais on in uh in utilities, and of course, others that I met with fire marshal and others that I've been able to work with to understand you know what what would help with effective development in City Center.

In uh February 2026, about a year and a half after we submitted that analysis and it was evaluated that data and it was an evaluated and analyzed, uh we were informed that those 43 acres that we participated in were one of five sites in the state of New Mexico that re received a designation as strategic economic development site for investment by future employers, economic base employers or perhaps anchor-based employers that would be looking at Rio Rancho as a place to establish their operations or expand their operations to.

And this was uh this selection was made by the state of New Mexico's site readiness advisory board.

Thanks to thanks to this designation, we were invited to apply for site readiness grant funding from the for uh from the New Mexico Site Readiness Fund, which has available to it 28 million dollars.

Uh this money to the best of my understanding was going to be rolled out over about three years, but they actually began to accelerate it so that more of these uh communities could have access to it.

Um we applied for 1.5 million dollars, which would help fund phase two of the college boulevard construction that would extend it to Broadmoor, thus providing um improved accessibility from Paselda Volcan and uh and in and helping establish a just a growing uh health care hub, as you'll see in future slides, and I'm gonna show you.

But also uh making the uh the site the city center uh much more shovel ready, which is something that the uh the site readiness um advisory board was asking for.

I'm gonna show you uh an image of the uh the highlighted area of three tracks that were really the ones that were submitted that were chosen by this uh consultancy to uh recommend to us to focus on and that the state site readiness advisory board decided to designate as a strategic site.

Here we have 43 acres in these three tracks, 9A, 9B, and 2C, which uh Matt and those of us refer to as the Pizza Slice.

And uh as you can see, it runs between King and uh Civic Center Circle and Call and Center, and it has College Boulevard phase one already finished going through it.

Um Health Sciences Rio Rancho campus is there and further further north, ECNM.

But this is interesting because um prior to working on this exercise in my role, I I didn't have the best appreciation for the amount of land that's available and the importance of having site ready land that uh economic-based employers, anchor-based companies, especially in growing industries that I'll show you in a little bit, are looking for.

And a lot of times when I was in an Albuquerque at different events, um I would say what my role was and what I was doing here at Rio Rancho for the city, and people would say, why would companies look at all the way out in the city center in Rio Rancho?

I've been there once to the Santa Ana Event Center back in the day, maybe to watch you know the the the uh the Scorpions, but why would the companies go out there?

And I said, Why wouldn't they go out there?

And so I'm gonna share with you later why I think that tide is turning and why we we are at the cusp of some important opportunities.

Next, I want to share with you, as I mentioned, the um the collaboration between at least three uh important organizations here in Rio Rancho that have had a long um standing in helping develop business commercially and industrially and otherwise.

In terms of Rio Rancho economic development and diversification, there are three interchangeable organs entities.

Uh uh, for example, us at the city of Rio Rancho, we are the local municipal authority, and as Matt presented in that um in that slide that he had earlier, uh we provide a lot of the um the leader leadership in terms of in the oversight on permitting, infrastructure planning, land development, and so on, and uh business registrations and other ways that companies can be more involved formally working in Rio Rancho.

Uh our partner organizations as Matt mentioned earlier, our San Diego Economic Alliance we have on the contract.

Um C is uh in their focus and their strengths, if you want to look at it this way, is in business retention and expansion, recruitment marketing, and lead management.

I'll expand a little bit on how on what that means and how they do that.

And then as well, uh Rio Rancho Regional Chamber, uh without a doubt is the business community hub here in Rio Rancho and assist and lead in business advocacy as we know.

There are additional partners in this in this uh ecosystem that help us, but by interchanging among the three of us and kind of like a team sport, Matt and I have discussed and others have discussed and uh this was with Jerry and and uh Fred, that it's kind of like in basketball you have point guards, and so you the ball is gonna get to one one somebody, and you everyone kind of will at some point play the role of point guard, and either you're gonna you know drive it up and lay it up or you're gonna uh shoot from the for three-pointer, or you might be able to slam it home and you have 30 seconds to do it.

But not and I'm a hockey player, so yeah, but if I you know if I sound like it's obvious I don't play basketball, that's why.

But that those mechanics are really important because they translate over into the business world into what we do here, you know, in government, local government, and business.

And uh it does take a collective collaborative effort in order to drive opportunities from the very beginning, the inception, the concept, and so on, and the uh navigation all the way to fruition and not just the the breaking of ground, but uh when you with the shovels and so on, but also actually that company growing, sustaining and scaling.

Obviously, uh the way this works is that uh San Diego Economic Alliance as an economic development organization and the chamber are also able to work together uh and not necessarily through the city.

Other additional partners that uh we we find very important to work with include obviously at the state level, the New Mexico Economic Development Department, New Mexico Partnership, as Matt mentioned earlier, that is out there uh at the tip of the spear, leading a lot of the marketing for the state, is aware of our land that we have here and the value that we have.

Um UNM Health Sciences Rio Rancho campus, CNM Rancho Campus, and then of course for small businesses, uh New Mexico Small Business Development Center at CNM, which covers both Sandoval County and Bernleville County, and of course Sandoval County and it and the municipalities within the county that we reside in.

We must and you know recognize as well the importance of an educational pipeline.

One of the things that I learned as I started working here in Rio Rancho and living as a resident in Chandler Hills was that we are blessing this community because it is a safe community with good schools.

I can attest to that.

My wife's a third grade teacher at Visa Garani Elementary and excellent schools here.

Had I known that I would have moved my family here when my children were younger to go to schools here, but uh hindsight is 2020.

And then, of course, Rio Rancho is also a stable community in the way it's governed by this city and its city government, governing body and administration.

It's also a scalable community, meaning people want to establish roots, people want to stay here and live here, people move here like I did almost five years ago, and companies want to come here, companies that establish here also can grow.

So safe, stable, scalable is the way I market Rio Rancho when I'm talking to communities and people from different industries.

So Rio Rancho Public Schools play an important part.

Programs like Rio Tech help develop the next generation of our skilled tradesmen and women.

Um for creating helping kids develop STEM knowledge and skills, and uh an important recognition here is also our regional partners, as Matt mentioned earlier area, otherwise known as the Albuquerque Regional Economic Alliance that we have the opportunity to work with.

So now I'm gonna go and quickly and uh mention uh more about my role.

Um, in terms of uh driving and supporting economic development, I'm sorry, driving and supporting economic diversification initiatives.

And this is something that might help you understand um how I look at my my role and what makes it unique in what I do in relation to say San Diego Economic Alliance and Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations.

So my role bridges are internal city operations with external business leaders to ensure that every project we pursue aligns with the long-term long game view.

The good thing about being here with the city is that we don't have to act hastily to create opportunities and deals.

We can we can take a very um critical thinking, independent thinking way of looking at things and can have a long-game view at things, especially with the land that we have here at City Center.

Uh, some of these um roles that I that are part of this initiative to diversify is internal external liaison, for example, as I said, bridging internal city hall operations with external business community relations, kind of an inside-outside role.

Uh project navigation, guiding economic development projects through internal city processes to accelerate the timelines.

And that is where the uh development review committee is really helpful for me to understand how that works and uh working uh closely with, for example, Amy Rincohn and Brian Babia and their team.

Um, the economic development toolbox stewardship in collaboration with the state of New Mexico, uh, being able to evaluate and recommend city incentives to our city manager and you, the governing body for review.

Strategic partnerships, cultivating active relationships with local, regional, and statewide business leaders to connect with Rio Rancho businesses, such as the Chamber of Commerce, uh San Diego Economic Alliance, and other groups.

Asset marketing.

Like I said, this is becoming more important, more important as our city center land gets more shovel ready.

And uh that's actively promoting 70 plus acres at Rio Rancho City Center, and as I mentioned earlier, prioritizing the 43-acre strategic economic development site that has garnered a lot more attention recently.

Uh last but not least, ecosystem collaboration, partnering with local, regional, statewide organizations to drive business attraction, retention, and expansion.

So, with that said, my goal isn't just to cross transactions off a list as an economic development manager, it is to play the long game for Rio Rancho by managing both the internal city navigation and external market relationships.

I ensure that the businesses we attract and the way we develop our 70 acres or other land in Rio Rancho provides a smart, sustainable growth that remains strictly accountable to our citizens.

Economic development shouldn't come at the cost of the well-being of our citizens, as we as we know.

Next, I want to talk about the what I see as observations and strengths in our partners.

For example, San Diego Economic Alliance.

C supports the City of Rio Rancho with overall economic development strategy with close collaboration and deliverables, as Matt mentioned previously.

C is knowledgeable of economic development resources such as incentives for new and expanding businesses in Rio Rancho.

The organization is a proactive marketer of Rio Rancho and efficacious link to New Mexico partnership and area for leads.

I don't want to steal Fred Sunder, but he can elaborate more on that dynamic.

As well, Sandoval Economic Alliance prospects, economic based companies.

So, in other words, another value here is that prospects to expand into our community.

Economic based companies and anchor employers may be more open and candid with non-governmental economic development and business representatives like San Ball Economic Alliance, like Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce, more so than it might be with us as local government.

That's just the reality that we've experienced.

Last on this in the slide, business retention and expansion efforts that are conducted by Sandoval Economic Alliance, Fred and Mike at C provide insight into existing employers expanding, or sometimes the risk of leaving Rio Rancho, which is really important for us to be able to see ahead of time.

Next, I want to move on to my observations and what I've learned about Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber, the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce is the business community hub for local business without a doubt.

Here in Rio Rancho, this is where the businesses convene as as they become members of this organization.

And it's natural in any community that people look for the Chamber of Commerce.

We see that in Albuquerque, and we see that here in Rio Rancho.

The organization provides proactive business advocacy.

It's in touch with local small business opportunities, challenges, and growth plans.

It has become recently, well, I say recently because I've learned about this recently, but I'm sure longer than that, it has become a new business lead generator through proactive marketing across Albuquerque metro area.

In fact, when speaking with Jerry and his team, I used to think that regional meant just in San Diego County, so not just in Rio Rancho, which I like because I like collaborating with other communities that we are we are neighbored here in our county.

But what it really means is that they're also marketing down into Albuquerque and even places like the village of Los Lunas.

And they confirmed something that I saw when I first moved here.

Businesses and in other communities are looking to expand in Rio Rancho either by necessity or because they see the opportunity that there's opportunity to come here and expand their business operations.

And I would say uh last point here is not their knowledgeable Rio Rancho's business base and local economy.

I say this because the collaboration between these at least these three organizations are very important, not to mention the other ones I mentioned uh two slides ago, because there are clear opportunities that I'm seeing here in Rio Rancho and that we are seeing as partners in Rio Rancho.

And uh here are the economic development opportunities that I'm learning about.

Uh aerospace and defense, obviously with Castellian bringing this Blackberry facility three miles from here in San Diego County.

Um we are getting a lot of attention, uh, but that not from necessarily big manufacturers like that, but the smaller, more nimble, more innovative uh contractors that work with U.S.

Space Systems Command for national defense or even exploration like oil and gas industry.

Bioscience and biotech companies are outgrowing their laboratories.

Um we've been up in Santa Fe or in Albuquerque, and those these are companies that aren't necessarily homegrown here, but people that have moved and relocated as transplants to New Mexico and they want to stay in New Mexico.

So with us being only 45 minutes south of Santa Fe and half an hour from Albuquerque, uh those companies are taking an interest in maybe wet lab opportunities here at Rio Rancho City Center.

There's a large demand for health care as we may know uh from outpatient clinics uh to otherwise uh from dental to mental health to other services that can be provided.

Obviously, as we will see here in a little bit, uh we have a hub developing here at Rio Rancho City Center through the uh San Diego Regional Medical Center, the Center of Excellence for orthopedic surgery and rehab, and of course, uh even wellness with our senior center uh recreation and of course the uh the work that uh UNM Health Sciences uh campus is doing, training our future nurses and others, for example.

Um, higher education is the fourth area here that's really a key opportunity to transform Rio Rancho City Center into an employ regional employment hub because as we have UNM Health Sciences and CNM, I think there are opportunities, and we've discussed this for Ed uh Jerry and others and Matt, of course, internally, that there are opportunities for other institutions to look at a Rio Rancho campus up here.

Um we New Mexico Highlands is already here in uh in Rio Rancho and or in the and are the most northern institution that we have in the state in terms of that size of a university and could work with Los Alamos and labs that maybe provide a pipeline academically.

Um obviously uh New Mexico Tech, Dan in Socorro, if they were amenable to it and interested, would probably benefit from having a Rio Rancho campus with all the aerospace focus that will be coming this way.

And of course, and uh I wouldn't rule out even though Maloba wouldn't rule out in Mexico State, um, maybe having an extension out here in the city center, because they, for one, have an aerospace engineering undergraduate degree and they're doing great things down in Las Cruces.

So our goal is to establish a regional employment hub at the Rio Rancho City Center.

To accomplish that, we must strengthen and focus our collaboration with local, regional, and statewide partners as we've been talking about, and you'll hear more from our partners.

Um I, as economic development manager, intend to convene continue to convene local, regional, statewide partners moving forward, whether I organize those meetings here or I collaborate with our partners to attend their meetings within Rio Rancho or in the metro area.

And last Rio Rancho's competitive advantage is that we are, as I said earlier, a safe community with good schools, stable community with accountable local governance and scalable with families and employers that want to establish roots and grow in our community.

Goals moving forward as I begin to close.

Um we've expanded our efforts to show the potential here at City Rio Rancho City Center.

Uh, probably about a year into my uh role here.

My wife and I were having breakfast at one of the restaurants in Rio Rancho and after Mass on a Sunday, and um and it was bustling, a lot of people there, and you know, I was more knowledgeable, Rio Rancho, and love living in Rancho.

I just love this community.

And um, and you know, not a nosy person, but I heard someone from another table talking to their guests from out of town about Rio Rancho, and and I happened to hear, yeah, it's it's grown, a lot of things are happening, but city center sucks, and there's nothing there.

And so I about to stand up from my table, and my wife grabbed my arm and said, Don't do it.

And so I looked at the guy to see if he plays hockey because maybe I would meet him in the corner at the Mac on one of the shifts.

And uh, but that really lit a fire in my gut, and I decided to, you know, I need to really realize what we're blessed with and privileged to be doing here.

And uh and this is why yeah, in terms of goals moving forward, I see uh a wonderful opportunity that might be repeated by our partners who are gonna present later, and definitely by what our city manager presented that we have uh land here that there's no reason to act hasty with, but to act strategic with a lot of the smart growth, not just in Rio Rancho, but in our metro area, uh, can happen here in this four industries that I told you that I mentioned to you.

So, in closing, economic development is not a series of quick isolated transactions, it's a long-term commitment to our community's future by maintaining a dual focus on internal processes and external relationships, like I shared earlier.

We will ensure total accountability uh to our residents, I believe.

Every decision made regarding our efforts, incentives, and our 70 acres that we are currently marketing at Rio Rancho City Center is vetted through a single lens.

What's that lens?

What what creates the smartest, most stable growth for Rio Rancho?

Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, thank you for your continued leadership and support as we play the long game to secure generational prosperity for our citizens, and with that I stand for any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Solis.

Sir comments, questions by council.

I'm just gonna ask something now instead of calling.

If everyone takes 30 minutes, we're gonna be here past our regular time.

So real quick, I know that you talked a little bit about what you had to do to learn the job.

That's all good and well, and I'm I'm happy that to hear all that stuff.

Two things.

What jobs have we created from the business economic development side for you?

Businesses, growth, and retention.

What businesses have we grown from the city perspective?

Because part of your job is to grow businesses.

What businesses can you document and show me that you've grown?

What businesses have we lost and retained, job job perspective wise.

And then we talked a little bit about the site readiness.

And on the site readiness piece, it kind of bugs me because we talk about site readiness.

How many sites have we had ready?

How many sites are ready?

How much interest have we had in those sites?

Not maybe down the future, maybe hyper, you know, hypothetically, one day, whatever.

How many people today have said we are interested in your sites?

How many sites that we prepared site readiness-wise, and people have said we want those sites.

So I know that's a lot.

So I can write it all down and I can ask you again later, or I can just get with you later.

But at the end of the day, those are the things I want to know.

I don't want to know like I get it.

We're we've been doing site readiness, we've been preparing for site readiness.

We've been that's a great thing, and we really need to do that to get businesses here.

We can site ready prepare all day long.

Where's the people?

What have we done?

Yeah.

I I agree with you, counselor, Mr.

Mayor, Counselor, members of the governing body.

Um in terms of jobs have been created.

I'm I'm not personally aware of jobs that have created under my watch, but I think that collaborating with our partners, I know that you know businesses have moved to Rio Rancho or started here.

Um but that's what I mean by um the an initiative that I saw um in attracting uh aerospace companies to come here just because I I come from that world.

Uh I worked in that world, and uh by attending, for example, last month I attended a conference in Albuquerque where you had all the DOD DOW folks in in town with uh local business and contractors and uh an opportunity that that exists in the Southwest, not just in Rio Rancho, or the government is looking for companies like Castellian that can move more innovative and faster to build there.

That's fine.

But what I'm saying is that it's not is i i aside from that kind of uh production, the engineering is critically important, and there's a need for these kind of companies to cluster.

And so I agree, that's why I say that you know, with I mean, obviously there's there's no rush to you know to to bring any kind of project out to uh a site like city center, but there's a great opportunity for that because what I see when I look out my window when I walk around is a campus.

And um, and I just personally I just believe coming from that world that there would be uh good employment opportunities by bringing companies that have five to fifteen employees that would scale to 25 or 50.

Well, in terms of companies that have been lost, the only one that I know on I mean I think you know I'm it's under my watch because I was on city payroll, of course, it was U.S.

cotton.

And and that's one of the reasons why we're trying to collaborate a lot among our different groups, so we're not siloed and working independently of one another.

And as we interact with these companies, we're all on the same page of what we're learning with those companies.

It shouldn't be that any one of us, myself, Fred or Jerry or anybody else that's collaborating, people from the state coming in into town, should know something about a company that the rest of us don't know, especially when it when it has to do with opportunities to expand and grow the operation, or if we're at risk of losing that company, right?

Some things are sensitive and some things are under NDA, but for the most part, if we're collaborating effectively, I think we can prevent that from happening.

And I forgot your last question, sorry.

Okay, so yeah, here's the big thing.

The site readiness piece.

And I get I get that we're working on it, right?

But we have a bunch of other sites within you just mentioned U.S.

Cotton.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a site that's ready, right?

Right.

Um, we don't even need, I mean, the likelihood of city center to get these sites occupied is going to be way past my time here, just because there's gonna be a lot of infrastructure that's needed, roadways and stuff like that.

I think it's gonna take several years, but there's other site ready stuff, like you just said U.S.

cotton, and I'm sure there's a bunch more than I don't know about that I'm sure you guys do.

Yeah, but that's where when all this came up about this was only about originally about funding, but now we're into this other world.

But when when all this comes about, really what it is is you you hit it in the nail on the head.

Strategic partnership between two other entities beside yourself.

My goal originally a long time ago was to have our own Matt Geisel was the the guy that was gonna be economic development seven years ago when we did all this shuffling, it was build our own economic development within the city of Rio Rancho so that we're taking care of us, and we're looking out for the city of Rio Rancho, right?

And you're now that guy.

But I do expect those partnerships and the site readiness and all this other stuff.

But when we sit here and we're talking about this collaboration, and everyone's gonna tell me, Oh man, we're doing this and we're doing this, and we're out here doing this.

It's like, okay, what do we have?

Well, what are the things at the end of the day?

What do we got?

Yes, Mr.

Mayor, members of good money.

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor.

Members of the government body, counselor Tyler.

You know, I said something I forget the exact context, but I I referenced five, ten, fifteen years.

Economic development's is a long game.

If we're gonna talk about site readiness, one of the things when I made all my post-its when I was leaving the job as secretary, hey, next secretary, these are things you should work on.

Site readiness funding was one of the things that was on that list.

New Mexico has a state 20 years behind the rest of the country in having site readiness funding.

I applaud secret former Secretary Keyes, current secretary black for getting a site readiness program in place.

And it started with public sector land, and one of the reasons they started a public sector land is they wanted to use that as a pilot for proof of concept before they could bring in private private sector land because of the anti-donation clause.

So we had the good fortune of being able to start with that as part of the pilot program in 2024, which Alberto referenced.

It's a long game.

It's a long game.

We have 70 acres here in the city center.

70 acres can get gobbled up like that, depending on the use.

But when we look at our antiquated piloting challenges in Rio Rancho, there is a reason why we've had a lot of info on Southern Boulevard.

What fits on a long narrow lot off of Southern Boulevard?

A car wash.

Because we don't have 50 acres on Southern Boulevard, unfortunately, today.

Um so this is a long game.

And what we're doing here may not pay dividends in any of our time in their tenure or the city.

It may be someone, you know, who will be you know land on second, you know, land on second base thinking they were hitting when you're born on second base thinking they hit a double or whatever the the the phrase is.

We don't know when it's going to pay dividend, but we do have a much greater sense of this property, its utilities locations, what is needed next.

That's why we identified the first roadway going through the site college boulevard to provide connectivity, and then the next the next site.

So we are one of five sites that the state has identified for what they're considering priority economic development.

What will come of it?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe just one point and 1.5 million dollar grant to build the next portion of the road.

But it it is part of us playing the the long game.

Um as I discussed, you know, we've had the good fortune of we've had a strong economy.

Um whether that's by luck, by accident, or a lot of other things.

General commercial development, residential commercial development has been having in Rio Rancho because you know things have you know turned, you know, turn, you know, we we've had a lot of good good processes.

We've had, but and I'll allow Fred to elaborate on his efforts on BRE and how he's helped companies apply for J TIP and the jobs they've applied.

Last five, six years, this governing body has supported incentive packages for Intel and deluxe design.

So when we think about economic development or economic diversification, is it projects that have been supported?

V-a V, a growing uh uh economy which leads to people wanting to have food trucks in our parks during YAFL practice because we have more kids than ever before playing YAFL.

That's all part of the the the uh the equation is as we think about it.

But there's other companies, and I'm sure Jerry will talk about companies that have chosen to come in Rio Rancho.

TLC has decided to open in Rio Rancho.

That is a byproduct of a growing community.

Dale Armstrong and his wife and his business partners said, okay, it's time.

We're gonna, you know, Dale has been telling me for five years, I'm gonna open a Rio Rancho location.

He did that on his own.

That's a byproduct, right?

So do we count those jobs under Alberto's watch for Dale Armstrong, or do we not?

Or we just say, hey, they're gonna get a certificate of occupancy, and those hundred employees, most of those, the good thing about that actually is most of those TLC employees people just already live in Rio Rancho.

He just gave them a shorter commute, and it made it easier for them to go pick up the plumbing supplies rather than driving at 5 30 in the morning down to Eatith.

They are three blocks or three miles, they pull in, they can get their stuff, and they're servicing Rio Rancho residents.

So there's things that happen in our economy.

You know, the the block, you know, that has been a collective effort.

And you know, one thing that's always, you know, I was, you know, I mean, things happen in the economy, and fortunately, we're seeing a growing, expanding uh economy.

What are those causes?

Has it always been a leader incentive?

Maybe not.

Probably, you know, but what we've seen at Plaza and Chanada Hills in your district, the block.

Alberto's been doing a lot of micro, I'll call it microeconomic gardening in this context, working with those small on, you know, small retailers, trying to help them figure out what business model works works best for them.

So, you know, I think there's these big pictures, and that's a little bit of I go back to, you know, I go to that that slide where it's a really messy slide.

There's many components, and it's multifaceted.

But the only measure of a good economic developer in my book, and this is I go back to when I talked about that that metrics workshop I took.

If we're gonna measure economic development only and solely on how many jobs did you create, we're missing a lot of marks in playing the long game of economic development for what the community community needs and thinking ahead.

Thanks, Matt.

I appreciate that.

Again, I understand the long game.

I've been here for almost 12 years now between both planning and zoning and city council, and I'm still waiting for the long game.

I'm still sitting here with it, right?

We're all working on it together.

So, Mr.

Mayor, members of the governing body, if I may, as an example.

When I got here in 2005 for Poulty, everyone said more rooftops will bring retail.

We saw three grocery stores.

It took a long time.

So how are we measuring economic growth?

That's why I say what do we want to be?

We need guidance from the governing body on what we want to be, right?

It's I've heard you talk a lot about retail, Counselor Tyther.

Is it retail?

There's three there's examples of growing retail at the village, the grocery stores, those are coming as a byproduct of an expanding economy.

But now you're asking about economic-based jobs.

You know, do we want it can't be all of the above, but we need some need some guidance in all fairness, okay?

Because, you know, and I mean we've it's it's uh it's to me it's amazing.

We have forgotten that we've added three grocery stores in this community in the last six years when 15 years ago, everybody wanted more grocery stores.

You know, that is a sign of growth and development.

All we hear about is chicken and car washes.

Because we drive right past the three new grocery stores and only look at the car wash and coffee place.

Well, like if you'd let me finish.

All I was gonna say is we get the long game.

I've been here waiting and working through the long game as well.

The one people who don't get it is the citizens, they want to see results today, right?

So that's what we're trying to get to is making sure that everyone understands that we're working together collectively between all the organizations we have, whether it's the chamber or whether it's the C or whether it's our own in-house group that we're working together for the future, but we're also worried about today as well.

That's what I was gonna say.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Taylor.

Additional comments from council.

Mr.

Mayor.

Council Calmers.

Thank you.

Um I think one of the things that's important and and we'll keep continuing on, but it's important for us to continue to keep in mind is that the city of Rio Rancho in city standards is you know, a very young city.

I often use the the metaphor of like just 40 years of a city, uh, is not a very long time.

Um, and so there is still a lot of identity creation that we are going through as as a city, trying to understand what type of city do we want to be when it comes to our economic development.

Um, I often think about you know, in the city standard, like we have the housing, we have our schools, and now it's starting to think about it's like a teenager trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up, right?

And that's really where we are as a city, really defining our economic footing and our economic grounding because we've laid a very strong foundation in the city of Rare Rancho.

Um, and and in my you know, time being here, really learning uh a lot about economic development and and you know, thinking about these things, it's really economic development is really about planting seeds in a garden that you'll never get to see grow, right?

Because that is that site readiness, that is all of those things that we're planting seeds, we're preparing a garden, we're tilling the soil that is really going to be for generations to come as we think about what's ahead of us.

Um, and so our job, I think, especially on the city side, not speaking to the role of the private entities that we'll be hearing from later, um, but as a city, our job is to make sure that the infrastructure is present so that um entities can come in and be successful.

When we hear all the time people saying, why don't you bring a XYZ business store?

Well, that's not the job of a city.

There is I I don't know of a city that's built a grocery store or a mall or what it's the job of the city to ensure that those that the conditions are set so that we can accomplish that.

And so one of the things that I would like for us to continue to think about, which we we have done, is we've set in place the economic drivers that we can through the leaders and through TIDS to be able to help to support those.

But I think it's also there's also opportunity for us to look at our ordinances to make sure that we have set aside ordinances and policies that continue to help businesses grow and expand our small businesses develop.

And so I really want to think about what do we do from a policy standpoint as we work with our pri our private partners to do their work in their sectors.

Um, and so let us kind of continue to think in the role of what we do here versus what our private partners will be doing in the future.

Um, and I look forward to hearing from at least two of those.

But there's many in the state that are doing that work.

Um, and so I'd like us to also keep our eyes open to how else we can collaborate with others.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Councilor Carbh.

Anything further from Council, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you for your presentations.

Moving on to the next section of our presentation, we will hear from Mr.

Fred Shepherd and Centerville Economic Alliance.

Mr.

Shepard.

Mayor Weimer, uh, members of the city council appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Uh understand uh councillor Tyler's comments, and uh I will try to speed things along as best I can.

Um but I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Um so I wanted to go over a few things, and I I thought it'd be good, and this has already been touched on a little bit, wanted to expound a little bit um from kind of my perspective.

Um there's kind of two pillars when we talk about economic growth, and I think we've had some of that conversation today.

Uh our primary focus is Central Economic Alliance is is working on the economic base jobs.

Um got a little slide here that kind of has some information regarding that.

Um the other side on the the welt circulation, a lot of that is the retailers, the restaurants, things like that.

Those uh we will support if people call and ask for data and stuff like that, but that's not our main focus.

When those types of companies call, that's it.

Opportunity where we're gonna refer them over to the chamber to other entities that might be able to assist them, small business development center, whatever the case may be, um, score as well as another uh entity that we that would refer to.

Um so one another way to look at that is the types of businesses we work with are gonna be businesses that are not trying to drive people in through the front door.

They're the businesses that are here that employ people, but they're dealing with people outside of the state, you know, the intels, they're not trying to get the general public in their door, whereas the grocery store is trying to get the general public in their door, and so we're not gonna focus on those.

Our primary focus is of the companies that are not necessarily trying to get the pr the general public in the front door.

Um, but these two go hand in hand with what if you have one and not the other, you're gonna have some type of leakage of some sort.

And you're not gonna find any community that doesn't have leakage, it just doesn't happen.

Uh when we go on vacation, there's leakage.

But the point being is that we want to try to have as symbiotic uh uh you know environment as we can.

Um so it's important to have both of those types of businesses and jobs in the community.

Uh just wanted to give a brief update.

Uh, we are a 51 uh C6.

Um we operate more like a 501c3.

Uh we try to stay out of any kind of uh uh you know lobbying or anything like that.

But here's a group uh uh a list of our board of directors, and we actually do have our chair, uh Dr.

Laura Borton and Burton in the back here from UNM Health Sciences as well as uh our chair elect Jimmy Blotter from the Mexico Gas.

Um we got a quite a good array of uh different um people that are on there.

We have the city and the county that are represented.

Uh we do not our bylaws do not allow elected officials on our board.

Our bylaws actually say that the city manager, a county manager or their design designeer those that uh are on our board.

Um quickly go over some of the the contract deliverables that that we've had in a contract the last couple of years.

Um this kind of touched on a bit, but site readiness uh kind of going over that, uh business retention expansion, uh some things with that, and microeconomic guarding.

I will quickly shuffle over to kind of some of the deliverables.

So uh I think uh city manager Geisel did a good job of explaining this.

Um when I was at the state, this was a focus that I do remember him telling us about is hey, let's let's focus on what we do have available that we can sell, that we can market to the outside entities and the businesses.

Um the funding for the pilot program actually came about because of a local legislator and those conversations.

Uh and I will say that uh City Manager Geisler had a big role in that as far as really pushing that along with that legislator and then getting other legislators involved to be able to help uh support that and get the initial funding.

So we had this in our contract, and the first year we did some uh we focused on the landfill, um that was one of the areas we focused on.

When this came about, it was kind of uh an opportune time where we said, okay, let's collaborate, let's figure out how we can take it a little bit further.

And so working with GLS as Alberto mentioned, um you know, this is something when when uh they came out with this, yes, it was only public land.

One to be kind of a test, but also the reality is as we look at this and in hindsight.

I give you an example.

When we mentioned this is hey, this is an opportunity for private entities to get their land, go through this analysis.

There's a private landowner here that has some land that's set aside as industrial.

And I reached out to them and said, hey, here's an opportunity to get you know, go through the site assessment, but there's a small fee and a small fee of a thousand dollars that's gonna get your land marketed by the state and everywhere else and help push it forward.

We're not paying a thousand dollars for that.

Um it really kind of blew my mind because they're not gonna be patient that the government has the ability to be patient with.

Um mentioned the long game, they're more driven by the profit now.

And so if I was looking at crystal ball, that land that's set aside as industrial.

I would expect in the next several years that they'll be bringing that land forward to try to get it rezoned as residential because that's where they can make money right now.

So I just want to bring that, you know, to kind of mention that as well.

So as we kind of looked at the sites, there's a list of the different sites.

When they first came about, there were actually 28 sites that were that went through the assessment process.

Four of those were projects and locations that we had a direct hand in.

One was Section 36, and I'll mention that a little bit later as well.

But that was a parcel land that was initially not in the sites that they were going to identify and we're going to do an assessment.

And I went to the state and asked that it be included.

That is land that was designated and identified as potential development, developable land for industrial decades ago.

It's been pitched to projects in the past, and it has sat there foul for years and years and years.

With those eight sites, the the second year, there's another four sites.

Tell me how ventures had two of them.

Quell Ranch was in the second round, that is private land.

So out of the eight from this area, four of them have been designated by the state with like a bronze certification as being site ready.

There's different levels of that.

With that designation comes the opportunity to get funding.

And I'll applaud the city and uh the staff for going through the process of applying for some of that funding because very few entities did.

And so hopefully the likelihood of getting funding for future development is greater.

Um two of the sites and the little asterisk that are on the on the state website, actually, two of those sites, Quell Ranch and Section 32 are both listed as featured sites.

Um this is something that was took up a lot of time, a lot of effort trying to get the information for them to be doing analysis and for us to look at it and say, hey, what are the next steps?

What can we do with this land?

What are the opportunities?

BRE, business retention expansion.

Um we reach out to companies, there's a direct outreach.

We don't always get in the front door with some of these companies, but we try to maintain contact with them.

And when I have the list in there of like 47 companies, 45 companies, those are not where they just received a blast email from us.

Those are companies we've reached out to, whether be a phone or whether we've had in-person contact, but maybe we didn't actually have a full sit-down understanding of what's going on in their business where we count it as a you know an engagement and a visit there.

Um with those companies, we don't always visit the same companies every year.

We try to get in the major employers every year, but there's uh quite a few um unique businesses each year that we visit.

Um of the networking events we did, we had one at Rio Tech in December where we had a lot of the manufacturers come and just get in the door of Rio Tech.

It was the had opened that August for students.

A lot of them, even though we've talked about it in the past, they had never been in there, weren't really aware what they were doing in there.

So it was an opportunity for them to learn about what was going on in there.

We took it a step further in May, we had another event where we brought in Rio Tech and CMM and had an opportunity for just the company.

What we did is we focused on the well companies that that use welders, and we brought them in so they could actually see what the program was going on, what the students are doing.

We had the instructors there from CNM, so there could be direct feedback from either group.

Ideally, I mean we were trying to bring the companies there so they could say, hey, this is what we need, we'd like to see this.

Oh, you teach that, that's great.

Can you do this?

That was the idea is to get them talking to see how we can best make sure that the the uh the entities, the educators are producing the res the the uh skills and trades that the employers are gonna need, and then um assists.

Uh so this year we we had one small company that we've assisted that um added nine jobs uh that was one of our local businesses that were expanding.

There's actually two in the process, and I mentioned this because I appreciate Matt Geisel talking about the fact that we can't control what the company does.

Uh for an example, there's one company that I put on here as pending.

Um we have probably spent well over a hundred hours, man hours with this company uh this this last fiscal year working with them.

Um there's been lots of starts and stops on the project of them potentially expanding.

Right now, it's still uncertain whether they're gonna be expanding or not.

Um we can't control that.

This is a company that is headquartered elsewhere, but what we can do is we can try to assist how we can and make sure all the pieces are in place and create the environment as uh Councillor Colbert had mentioned, create the environment to where they can and and understand the opportunities for them to expand.

Um we also do uh a survey.

Um with that survey, it gives us an opportunity to hear from the companies, it's an anonymous survey.

Last year, 20 companies responded, and we asked them questions like what are your what is your opinion on the business climate of the city, of the county, of the state, of the national, you know, what's going on in the nation right now.

And it's it's it's been interesting to kind of see the responses.

I will say one thing we've learned over the last two years is the companies that have responded typically have a much higher view of the the business climate locally than they do nationally or even in this throughout the state.

So it does speak to the idea that that there is a better business environment that from their perception here than there is in other parts of the state and throughout the country.

Um however, there are those that are honest and say, hey, they they have challenges, and it's that every company's gonna have different challenges, and the idea is to try to help them with it however we can to overcome them to be able to create that environment so they can create jobs.

Microeconomic gardening.

Um I touched on this a couple years ago, but the economic gardening program was created in part because hey, there's a lot of smaller businesses here that often get overlooked.

We had a pilot program for the economic gardening program, but that was for stage two businesses that was between 10 and 99 employees, over a million dollars in sales.

We have a finite number of businesses that kind of fit in that role in that area, but we have a whole bunch of smaller businesses that might be able to get services that and might be able to we could use things that we had used in the economic garden program to tailor towards them to the smaller businesses.

That was kind of how the microeconomic gardening program came about.

Um with that, there were a number of startups.

Um keep in mind at the time that all this was going on, the small business development center had left the area.

They no longer had a local presence here.

Um at the time, uh West was here, but maybe not as strong as a presence as they could have had.

And there was a need in the community of okay, who's gonna assist and help these local small businesses?

So we tried to help fill that role.

Um again, we were trying to focus on economic based business those.

We weren't focusing on the retailers and things like that.

So there were some companies that still we refer to SBDC and others, but maybe that's another role that could have been filled.

Um as time went on, and I'll say in addition to this program where we would help these companies, we also did a small business uh training series.

We did that in conjunction with the UNM Health Science Services.

We actually had the training meetings here in City Center.

Um Dr.

Burton was a great facilitator of that.

We also worked and collaborated with SBDC with West and SBA and getting the information out, having them come do trainings to businesses of all types of here's some things that you can do uh ranging from how to start a business, how to get funding, how to protect your business.

Um and those were very successful.

As we move forward now, we look at it, SBDC that as West actually became a very strong presence here over the last couple years, those employees have actually now transitioned to the small business development center.

They have a much stronger presence.

Plus, in addition to that, the SPDC just uh have a kind of a center director that's now focused and centered here in uh in Rio Rancho.

And Alberto has been a great resource on this as well, is being able to help with the businesses.

So as we continue, we're gonna continue to help these small businesses as we can.

Um, we're gonna continue to refer to others, uh collaborate with them, you know, whether it's to the chamber to SBDC to be able to refer to them and get so they can get the resources they need.

Um a couple years ago it was mentioned, you know, many times these small businesses they don't know what help what help is available, and they don't know where to go to find the help.

And so there's a lot of they don't know.

And it's not that they don't want to know, they just don't know where to go to get the information.

And so we're gonna continue to try to be a resource to be able to help get that information out to be able to help them grow.

Um, I will say that one of the companies we assisted we went through this program, we were able to help them a couple years ago hired four new employees.

So we're starting to see some of these companies, and at the same time, I've had others that have decided, hey, being a business wasn't for them.

And so we're gonna see that with a lot of startups.

There's a high uh failure percentage with startups.

Um that's kind of a quick overview of what's in our contract.

But there's a lot of things that we do that are not in a contract that we still are gonna do, and we're still gonna help provide services.

Um, you know, pocket listings, uh, Councilor Tyler, I appreciate the comment you made about there's probably a lot of buildings out there.

There's a lot of buildings out there that are not even listed on the open market, they're not listed on carnum, they're not listed by a broker that's getting national recognition here or even you know recognition in the state.

Um we try to keep the tabs on those types of properties so we can refer opportunities to them.

Uh cost of living.

Um, this is something that gets used by so many different organizations.

It's something that people look at when they're looking at moving to a new community, and this is something that we update quarterly.

Um, and it's a national database that's been going on since like 1968.

And so we've been providing that data since way before my time.

I can't take credit for that.

Um, but there's a number of uh of things that we do.

Uh I did want to focus on a couple things on there, and I'll I'll mainly focus uh let me touch on the Cole a second, the cost of living.

One of the things that's been wonderful, and and and Jerry might touch on this as well is you know, we've we've had a lower cost of living, but we've also been blessed with with some of those tailwinds as as Matt had talked about.

Um we've had a higher household income, which has helped been a driver to bring in some of those other industries that are more the restaurants, the retailers, and things like that.

Um but on there, entrepreneurship, BRE, those have been kind of the focus within our contract with the city.

But attraction is something that hasn't been under contract, but something we've still continue to do.

Um I put this up here just to kind of mention um there's different organizations, and I'm glad that the city manager Geysula touched on this, you know, of the roles that different organizations play.

Um you can kind of see on here that that there's where we get our leads from, what the opportunities come from, and I can touch on that in a little bit here, but if you look at the economic development, I guess it's economic development New Mexico and the New Mexico Partnership, those are statewide, they have a statewide focus.

And the partnership has a contract with the economic development department to market the entire state.

The thing is though, is once they have a company that might be interested in New Mexico, they send out the information, we get the information, we respond, and that's what gets us on the radar for that potential company even consider Rio Rancho.

Without those responses, that company won't even consider Rio Rancho or Sanoma County because they're not getting the information.

So it's important that that is being done.

Area, Alakri Regional Economic Alliance, is more the regional.

And so they'll they'll market kind of hey, how does the region fit in here?

Um, and they also do some of their own lead generation, as you can see on here.

We're boots on the ground, we're focused here on Rio Rancho and Santa County, and that's gonna continue to be our focus on what we can do and what is our our opportunities here, and how can we position ourselves to be in the best position to be able to recruit companies as well as create the environment for our local businesses to expand.

So opportunities, you can see there's a drop-off tune opportunities and leads.

That's you know, we have we have projects that will be looking at coming here or inquiring through the state that hey, they need a three million square foot existing space, not going to be available in our community, right?

So those, if we're not able to respond, we don't have something that's gonna fit, it's not gonna become a lead.

The leads, once we get that, you know, we're providing the information.

But when you get boots on the ground, that's where the company actually comes and visits.

And and the percentages you see off to the right, those have stayed fairly steady over the last couple years.

That's the difference has been on the prospects over the last year.

There's been an increase of companies that have come through the New Mexico Partnership that are looking at the area that have actually come and visited.

And I'm I was excited to I'm I'm actually on the board of directors for the New Mexico Partnership.

And I was excited to see that because a lot of times they would bring a lot of opportunities and would respond, but we didn't actually have them come and visit per counselor uh Tyler's comment, getting them here to actually look at the site.

That is starting to happen more and more and more.

A couple weeks ago, there was a company here that came and looked at City Center due to the work that Alberto and Matt and the city staff had done to get that site certain, you know, through the certified process.

Um there's a lot going on.

Um you look at the assists, you know, this is just as of May 31st.

Uh, we like I said, we had that one small BRE as well as uh Project Ranger that we had assisted with.

Um I want to mention that when there's a company that announces it, our work with them does not end the day they make an announcement or the day they have the groundbreaking.

As an example, when Castilian had their groundbreaking that very same day, I was in the car with some uh executives from the company driving around looking at other additional sites.

Over the next couple months, there was many emails and conversations and other tours where they were looking at potential existing space throughout the region and the city, including the city center.

So there's still a lot of work that goes on even a company and an odd odd dare to venture, and I'll just state that when a company that the amount of time that is spent with existing businesses once they're here is way more than what's spent getting them here.

The amount of time we spend with the company that's looking to expand this local company is way more time than we spend with the company that might be looking to, and it's not that it's not you know, per you know, active conversations with the company may be looking to come here, but the company that's here that's looking to expand, we're finding out we're finding out information about what the roadblocks may be for expanding.

We're finding out what's going on at headquarters, we're finding out all those different things.

Where a lot of times that information is not shared, there's not a back and forth with the company because they're looking at multiple sites.

Um I just put this up here again as kind of say, hey, look, both of these go together.

The types of businesses that that and I'll give you an example, we had a semiconductor that actually came and looked at City Center several years ago.

And as we were touring them around, we toured them around three different sites in Rio Rancho.

Two of the sites, they looked at it and they said, This is great.

The lands here, that's wonderful, that's perfect.

Where are my employees gonna eat lunch?

We went to a third site, and it was not the ideal site for their type of project, but they said, Hey, there's restaurants here, I can see where my employees would go.

And so they have to go hand in hand, and they both are very important.

So, but again, that wealth generation side of things, that is our primary focus, those economic based jobs, bringing new money into the community.

Just quick overview.

We use very, very conservative estimates when we have a project that we've assisted.

Um, and when I say that, we have the opportunity to put in there, let's say that they're gonna hire X number of jobs.

Typically, in any project, no more than 50 percent, we put that actually we say that live the employees are gonna live in Rio Rancho or Sanival County.

Typically on projects that are outside the city limits, it may be like five to ten percent live in the city.

Even if it's a city project, we typically only put around 30 percent live in the city, and maybe another 20 percent live in the county.

We try to be very conservative.

As an example, if the project is not in the city of Rio Rancho, that direct city tax revenue is zero in when we run these estimates.

So this is a very conservative estimate based off the projects we've assisted, uh, and this does not include project ranger or the other project we've assisted this year.

Um, this is just through 2025.

Um, but you can kind of see the numbers there, the total economic output, the direct city projected direct city tax revenue, and local household spending.

At the end of the day, um, you know, direct, you know, those are the the net new jobs over 1,400, almost 1,500 jobs.

Um as far as the you look at the uh the ROI for every dollar we've gotten from the city, about five dollars has been five dollars has been returned, so about a 400 percent return.

Um with that, uh I just want to say thank you again, and I'll uh stand for any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Shepard.

Questions, comments from council, Mr.

Mayer, Council Calworth.

Thank you, Fred, for that uh overview.

Um I'm curious just on a couple things real quick.

Um, if you could if it's available for you to provide us.

I'm curious about the survey results that you generated for us to help to under help us to understand the landscape and how again, as a city, we can better support that business landscape.

So if those are available, and then I would also like to see the microeconomic gardening report uh again as um a way to understand what's going on in the uh city environment um with our small businesses and how we can continue to help to support those.

Um so if it's possible, I'd love to be able to see those two reports.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Ryan.

Thank you, Councilor Cromwell.

Councillor Turner.

Uh I'd like to also see the same thing as Council Colborth, but I also want to list of those 12 companies that you have listed for the two years, the 26 and 25 that you have in the gardening report.

For me, I'd appreciate that.

And can you go back to your jobs created piece or the the okay?

So that 2.1, no, that's fine right there.

That 2.1 million, that's projected.

That's not what we've seen, correct?

Uh Mayor Weimer, uh members of the council, Councilor Tyler, uh that is correct.

These are projections based off when they make the announcements.

Um however, I think it would be safe to say that uh again, very conservative.

For example, when Intel expanded, um it's gonna show zero for the city, but we know a lot of city employees are gonna be, whether it's eating lunch or cross street, doing different things that's gonna generate GRT for the city.

And so again, that's a very conservative uh a number.

Um and the 1400s job created, is that projected or actuals?

Uh Mayor Weimer, members of the council, counselor Tyler, um that is both actual and projected.

Projected because there's some of those projects that are more recent that they haven't gone through the full hiring process, and others have actually hired more than what they projected.

Okay.

So how do we come?

How did we come up with the projected numbers?

Is that just a guess or how did you come up with those?

Uh we actually use the numbers that were based off of what the announcement was initially.

So, for example, we do a five-year projection.

So if a company announced in 2020 and they said 20 jobs, we'd put in 20 at that time.

So everything's projected that's on there.

Or a mix between projection and actuals.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Rabbit.

Thank you, Councilor Turner.

Mr.

Mayor, members of the government body, um, Fred, I can talk a little bit about uh LEDA tracking or in the state's economic impact analysis and how they track uh the job creation that's you under JTIP or LEDA.

Would you like to I can touch on that, yes?

Yeah.

So why don't you start with JTIP and I'll do that?

Because we don't see JTIP at this at the city.

So the companies that we assist that go through the JTIP process, JTIP is the job training center program.

That company the program is a reimbursable program.

So if a company says, hey, we are gonna hire nine employees, they don't get that money up front.

They actually have to go through hire and train those nine employees before they get that money.

Um those are new jobs.

They're not replacement jobs, the money's not available for that.

So every uh year that they basically sign a one-year contract with those programs with the JTIP program.

However, it's really a six-month contract because they got six months to hire and six months to do the training.

So with that, we're able to go back and look and say uh we can look at the JTIP staff to say how many were awarded and how many actually went through the process and actually got the reimbursement.

What number goes along with that?

So the state does uh a really good job of tracking those types of jobs.

And not every company goes through JTIP.

Um we'll have companies that will choose not to go through that program because they're private and don't want to have to uh provide a copy of their financials.

Um that's kind of a a common theme with some of the companies that decide not to go through the process.

Mr.

Mayor, members of Garbardi to to build a little bit on uh Fred's talk conversation on JTIP.

One of the things um through their uh BRE efforts, um they support a lot of companies with JTIP applications.

JTIP is uh stands for the job training incentive program was put on the uh the books of New Mexico state law in the 70s and it's actually been rated um one of the best job training programs several times um out there.

It's actually very it's also very financially beneficial program that rewards um high-paying jobs and uh and uh high you know and also upskilling and and and things of that sort.

So really focuses on the manufacturing and what we call the economic base jobs.

As Fred referenced, it is a post-performance incentive.

Um so you something's announced on the front end, the incentive is only rewarded for actual accomplishment.

So company state will announce after the JTIP board meeting when they award the contracts, X company is gonna do 10 jobs.

You know, commonly what we see is people do about 80 percent, 85 percent of what they they announce.

Um so there will only be payment on on that.

The other thing the state does is many companies will receive a leader grant and a JTIP grant.

And let's say the the the LEDA grant is for 50 jobs and they'll come in to do JTIP five times at 10.

That doesn't count as a hundred.

It's still the same 50 jobs that get get tracked.

Um LEDA uh when I went to the state and um took the position of secretary, um, was what was much more as it and Fred knows this um uh was much more of a pre-performance incentive.

We're gonna give you a check and we hope that you perform.

Um and over time we morphed it into a um midstream and post-performance, uh, you know, definitely accomplishment metrics, uh milestones driven uh and incentives.

So the state funding or whether there's local funding is distributed as certain milestones are attained, and then there's the clockback provisions.

So again, as Fred was saying, company announces 50, that's the number that the state puts into their metric tracking at the time.

And then as the companies go through the process, state does, and this is something that kind of evolved and under um secretary keys from some of the the work that I had done on making it you know, you know, milestone driven is then they run economic impact analysis on a yearly basis where the companies who have received LEDA grants submit a questionnaire, they talk about their hiring, they talk about their their their expenditures in the community, and then they run that back through an economic impact analysis on an annual basis so they can monitor what was anticipated on the front end and the performance on the back end.

Um the um, you know, so there is while there's anticipated, and that is what now it's and it's stated in everyone's, you know, even the Mexico Economic Development Department's LFC scorecard.

There is a post-performance monitoring and tracking and compliance that takes place that ultimately is designed to ensure a robust utilization of um the taxpayer funding that's supporting economic economic um economic development.

So to answer the question, it's a blend depending on where you are, but it's not just press release, 100 jobs, no one ever asks a question again, move on to the next press release.

Um that game is is long been over uh when it comes.

So thank you.

Councilor Coleman.

You still have the floor.

Um I think good.

Oh, right.

I didn't know.

I don't know if I had it.

Wasn't my question.

But I'm good, Mr.

Mayor.

But I would like to make a motion that we extend the meeting to at least 530 so that we give Jerry enough time to speak as well.

Second.

Motion and a second, any discussion.

Hearing none.

Mr.

Mayor, we don't actually need a motion, we just need consent by council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Got that.

Mr.

Shepherd.

Anything further from council for Mr.

Shepherd.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Very informative.

I appreciated all the hard work you put into this, Fred.

Um, very informative.

And thank you and your entire team too for coming this afternoon.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

You're welcome.

Next up and last on our list is Mr.

Jerry Shallow.

Last but not least.

Welcome.

It should be on the main page.

There.

PowerPoint, yes, sir.

Thank you.

What's that?

Okay.

Magic.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Councilors, City Manager, thank you for having me here today.

Um, Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce is really the leader in the region for growth and expansion of businesses in the community.

It was founded in 1980.

Prior to the city of Rio Rancho is actually created back uh to get the city uh incorporated.

It failed two separate times, and uh local business leaders at the time wanted the uh city to get incorporated, and uh so this they went up to Durango, had a retreat up there and said, Hey, we need one of those chambers down there, and then local business owners and community leaders went door to door to get the vote for the city ordinance to pass.

That being said, the chamber's been around since 1980.

It's a 501c6.

Um, in addition to that, it's uh also one of the top two or three largest chambers in the state.

It is definitely the fastest growing in the state, and it's top ten in the U.S.

Um we have affiliates and subsidiaries, so the chamber is just not the chamber.

We have Discover Sandoval and Discover Sandoval was tasked with a number of years ago with recruiting when Intel was recruiting heavily, as was Sandia National Labs, as was Los Alamos National Labs.

We heard from local businesses that said, hey, I'm losing employees left and right to these folks.

And this was created out of a demand by local businesses for the workforce to retain the workforce.

When we met with them, we found out real quickly, nobody knows where Rio Rancho is, nobody knows where Sandoval County is.

Everybody knows where Albuquerque is and the challenges there of bad schools, high crime.

So talking to the organizations, found out real quickly that those organizations said we get all the way to the finish line, find somebody that we like, and we find out they're not moving to Albuquerque.

Hence, we started Discover Sandoval, and what that led into was Rio Rancho being the primary source for expansion and residence.

And we've seen substantial growth since that program was started.

In addition to that, we have Leadership Sandoval, which is uh gosh, 34 years old now.

It's a great leadership program, always listed as one of the top one or two in the state.

Um we have the Rio Rancho Community Foundation, which Matt Geiselhead spoke about that uh does the mayor's uh does the mayor's gala every year, and that is set up to raise money.

All matter of fact, a hundred percent of the funds goes to nonprofits in the community every year.

Um from the chamber overall on who we are.

We're Rio Rancho, Sandoval County, we're Corrales, we're Bernalillo, we're Placitas, we're also the West side of Albuquerque.

And I'll explain a little bit more on that here in a bit on how that got started and actually got started off of Shop On Southern.

Um, stronger workforce, stronger community, and um really to get everybody to work better together.

One thing that we are proud to say in Rio Rancho, uh, and we do this when we go to legislature when we go anywhere.

This is the most dynamic city in New Mexico, and definitely in the Southwest.

And what we've got to do is we have to tell our story, and that's what the chamber does.

It tells a story of Rio Rancho.

Our dedicated team includes myself.

I've been now at the chamber at 10 years.

Um I have a certification through the uh University of Oklahoma Economic Development, OUEDI.

Um, Audra Dodson has been with the chamber now for a year, but longtime business owner.

Rio Rancho Printing is where she comes from, way back when, if you can remember that.

Um Kim Moore, she's been here at the chamber for now four years.

She manages our events and uh discover Sandoval engagement and branding.

Lisa Morrison is the digital communication, social media, video, website, and branding for the chamber.

Susan, 16 years with the chamber now, office manager, manages the program for uh Leadership Sandoval and the Community Foundation, and then Jaime Gardo, he is uh responsible for business expansion, the veterans programming, and for sales at the chamber.

Um with OUEDI going through economic development.

What is a national trend across the country through ACCE, which is the American Chamber of Commerce Executive Association, as well as IEDC, which is the International Economic Development Group.

Both of those have teamed up together, and what they do is they are working together to get those two to work well together, IEDC as well as ACCE.

So, based on that, um, a number of years ago, we changed our organization to focus in on the combined site of ACCE and IEDC.

So, hence our focus is um when it comes to our members is business retention and expansion of those businesses, including providing data analytics.

We give that to a lot of different businesses so that they can expand and grow their business at another location.

Um in addition to that, business attraction, marketing, tourism, and relocation, workforce and talent development.

We do a lot around workforce.

Um, I'm the uh Sandoval County Rio Rancho representative for the MR Coggs Workforce Connections of Central New Mexico.

Um we work on entrepreneurship and small business support, infrastructure, community advocacy, quality of life.

That is probably the biggest piece, and uh City Rio Rancho in the past 10 years, I can tell you has come a long way.

You guys have the city's done an outstanding job on quality of life programs, whether it be parks or the hub and a number of different programs, senior facilities.

So business retention expansion.

So from that standpoint, we support existing employers, we advocate for them, visibility, uh referrals, networking, uh we do a lot of networking programs.

That is not networking is not for the chamber, is we are in a very small state.

Everybody's one person away from the person you want to talk to.

And that's what networking does is it brings the community together and also brings attention to Rio Rancho.

Whether it's an event here in Rio Rancho, if it's in Berlio, it's in Corrales, or even it's in the west side of Albuquerque, it brings attention to Rio Rancho everywhere we go.

We assist businesses during expansion, relocation, and operational changes.

We've seen a number of those in the past five years.

We uh work with property owners, um, developers, focusing in on helping them get to the next step, whether they are looking to expand, grow, make an alteration to their facility.

Number of things that the chamber has done in the past, um, shop on Southern.

The reason we were the regional chamber now for about uh gosh, 14 years now.

We acquired the Bernalio Chamber, we acquired the Sandoval Chamber, the West Side Chamber went defunct.

But during Shop on Southern, that was the big game changer.

When we were doing that, if you look at every road piece of road construction across the state, businesses close.

And Southern Boulevard is our main street.

And Southern Boulevard at that point was the majority of where our businesses are, and it still is.

That being said, we worked with the city, we worked with at that time uh city manager Riesburg as well as uh Mayor Hull and the counselors in the district, as well as BJ and the entire team there, and we created an entire program around Shop on Southern, and one of the things is hearing from the businesses very little of their business was coming from Albuquerque, very tiny.

People would go to Albuquerque for leakage from Rio Rancho, but Albuquerque would not come to Rio Rancho.

Hence, we took the regional a step further, started accepting members from the city of Albuquerque so that we could bring attention to our Rio Rancho businesses.

And I we can go through the list on all the businesses that have increased their revenue five, ten times as much because of now people are aware of a Turtle Mountain, a brew lab, Harris Jewler's, a number of those businesses that were in that corridor.

That made a huge difference.

And by the way, uh for those that weren't here at the time, that's the first time ever, and Mayor Hull used to tout it, and he should tout it as he's running for governor.

But that was the only road construction site ever in the state of New Mexico that added businesses, and that was because of the cohesiveness of this group.

So that was Shop on Southern, Country Club Plaza at the time, revitalizing it, uh went through P and Z.

We fought that heavily.

It was supposed to be a storage unit.

It was pretty much vacated, they were selling it to be indoor outdoor storage.

We fought that heavily, and at the time the uh group that owned it said, fine, if you think you can sell this, then push it through.

So we did a huge marketing campaign to turn Country Club Plaza around.

And now you see it today, and it's a great facility.

Turtle Mountain Expansion, if you all recall uh Enchanted Hills, um Councilor Tyler will recall this.

We were running out of businesses very quickly.

I think we were down to three.

They're all vacating very quickly.

We did uh tree lightings, Rio Rancho had never done a tree lighting as a city before.

We did them there for two years straight, um, working with the the new ownership group coming out of bankruptcy on that facility.

Um they were gonna do a spec building.

So during that, we decided to, hey, everybody that everybody's gonna want coffee or hot chocolate.

We're gonna find out from the residents of Rio Rancho what do you want to see here?

And it was a good restaurant, brewery, Turtle Mountain came up many times.

So we put that together, we put uh Amy and her team together with uh Nico, and hence now we look at that shopping center.

That's the power of small business is Turtle Mountain turned that whole shopping center around.

Now you have the hub there, you have all the spaces filled, we got sprouts in there.

Matter of fact, I will venture to say we don't have the block if it's not for Turtle Mountain going in there.

That's the power of small business in our community.

Rio Tech, we started working on Rio Tech a long time, long time ago.

We uh brought that to the school board at the time the school board said everybody goes to college.

We argued that idea and that thought, and we gave examples and we showed how graduation rate would go up four or five percent.

School board changed their mind, agreed that CTE was huge.

We played an integral part.

We worked with Dr.

Cleveland very closely on making that happen, and it's another great thing that we have.

It came to fruition.

Um Market Street started working on Market Street in 2017, and went to Lubbock, saw that hey, United has this store called Market Street.

My kids loved it, thought it was the best grocery store ever.

And uh reached out to the state manager for Albertsons out of United, and then lo and behold, wasn't for a pandemic and wasn't for uh a merger, potential merger between Smiths and Albertsons, we probably would have had that store five years earlier.

But uh things happen, and uh those are great stories that we love to share with future businesses coming to Rio Rancho on the impact of this city can make.

Umic attractions support uh targeted industry growth.

We work closely with our health care.

That includes uh the medical malpractice we were at the legislature for the past two years working on changes in medical malpractice.

It finally occurred.

Um we did that.

Rio Rancho is prime, and we talked about this, it's already been gosh, about eight years ago, that Rio Rancho should be the hub for health care in the state of New Mexico.

We have two hospitals plus Loveless, plus a lot of medical and physician facilities.

So it was uh that's huge.

We work with retail restaurants, manufacturing technology.

Um we promote Rio Rancho in Sandoval County for business recruitment and investment everywhere we go, you'll see it on social media.

You'll see matter of fact, you will there's a good chance you won't even see the advertising that we do.

We actually advertise it outside the market.

It's what we do for Discover Sandoval, and I'll talk more about Discover Sandoval.

Uses around data driven tools, market analysis.

There's a couple different things round in the corner.

There's um you're gonna see uh large job announcement here rounding the corner.

You're gonna see some additional uh investments in uh the area that are rounding the corner here very quickly when they're ready to announce them.

But those are things that uh we provided the data so that they could uh see the changes in Rio Rancho.

The struggle that we do have in Rio Rancho is we've grown so fast.

You know, if you imagine we've gone from 94,000, 95,000 to 118,000.

That's unheard of.

You have a lot of businesses that will not look at New Mexico.

Matter of fact, everyone wants to hear about Trader Joe's, Trader Joe's, they are looking at Rio Rancho in the West Side, but at the same time they're saying, well, we're not gonna pull that trigger because New Mexico is not growing.

But we can raise our hand and say, yes, we are.

So we uh share that data-driven tools, and that shows them how Rio Rancho is changing.

Matter of fact, a key piece of that data is Mariposa is considered on nobody's data.

It's too far away from the Walmart on UNSER, and it's too far away from the Albertsons on uh 528.

But at the same time, when we pull that data, we find out they like to go to that Albertsons on 528, they like to go to Big R, but they don't go to that Walmart, they go to the Walmart on UNSER.

So we can take that data, and that is a well-off community with a lot of uh about with a lot of uh Los Alamos employees that makes a high dollar income that will help us with city center when we're talking about restaurant retail, those type things.

We build relationships throughout the region in the state.

We work with uh economic developers, whether it's from area, we work with C, we work with Sandoval County, we work with Santa Fe, we work with Valencia County.

So uh we work with all of them.

From the standpoint of market analysis and data strategy.

Here's just a little bit.

I threw some of this stuff in here.

Is that we have 47,000 residents at community out of out of Sandoval County on a daily basis?

That's a lot of folks leaving the county for a job.

They're going to Santa Fe, they're going to Los Alamos, they're going to Bernoulli County.

The same time, that equates to uh $3.1 billion in payroll that is coming from outside the city.

Identified, that's the impact of outbound.

So when you have all of these folks leaving the city every day, the calculation is we're about 1,600 businesses short in Rio Rancho versus other cities like Santa Fe or Los Cruces.

And that happens for two reasons.

One is, I heard this earlier, we're a very new city.

Two is where the Santa Fe and Las Cruces aren't next to Albuquerque.

Roswell's not next to Albuquerque.

Farmington's not next to Albuquerque.

So the way we were originally built led a lot of shopping to Albuquerque, hence Cottonwood.

So we've got to do is from that standpoint to recover that number.

We've got to bring those businesses here, and that what that leads to is economic based jobs so that they are here during the day.

We talk to restaurants, they need to have two meals a day.

If you're here during dinner, good luck at getting a Turtle Mount eating at Turtle Mountain at 6 o'clock.

Whether you go north or south, it's a lot of times an hour wait.

So we need more economic based jobs.

That being said, from the chamber standpoint, we host SBDC and SCORE.

We used to host West.

They had a restructuring, decided that they were going to do everything out of Central Albuquerque.

Hence SBDC and SCORE, we reached out to them and had them come to Sandoval County.

That's a big key.

We don't, as a chamber, we don't refer Sandoval County, Rio Rancho residents want to start a business unless they can offer the services here in Rio Rancho.

They have to be able to offer those services.

Reason for that is if you uh send them down the hill to Albuquerque, whoever's helping them with that business.

Guess what?

They're gonna give them all their contacts, which are in Albuquerque, and before you know it, that business is in Albuquerque, not here where we need them.

Um we provide networking, marketing, education, and leadership programs.

We do our business after hours events, we do our businesses brewing events, we have a women in leadership luncheon.

We do our visionaries breakfast, we do our veterans in business.

We are helping the new uh veterans chamber get started through the chamber through our membership.

We are helping them get going and get started.

Our veteran in business group is a co-branded group now with the Veterans Chamber to get that up and running.

It is key that veterans in our community have resources, and having that really helps out a lot.

We do a lot of number we do a number of luncheons that is uh provides crucial information and largely touts the great things the city Rio Rancho is doing.

We offer training throughout all kinds of different pieces of training that support businesses.

Um, in addition to that, we have 64 nonprofits in Sandoval County.

We're the only chamber in the state that has a nonprofit alliance group.

And the reason is uh, and we've heard this many times, there is things that the city can and can't do that nonprofits can't do.

So uh it really goes hand in hand uh as we've uh we we've touted in the past that you're not a compu you're not a community until you have nonprofits doing some great work.

Um we provide the direct link between business government and community leaders.

So uh we like we love working with you all, getting you guys to events so that people are aware who their city counselor is or who their legislator is or who their county commissioner is, because that really makes this home.

When they know who you are, that's the biggest key out there, and we drive that home every day and invite you to events and uh make a huge difference.

Um, from the state chambers standpoint, um, connector between local government education, as I touched on a minute ago.

Um, that includes helping businesses out, um, being that go-between when someone is frustrated with the city, or you have this new business is coming into the city, and their contractor has said there's a difficult, you know, we're having difficulty here and this and that.

It's amazing how when you pull back the onion, most of the time it's not the city's fault.

Very first thing that we ask for on that is uh what's really great about the city, and this really came out during the pandemic, is uh they tag when it was received when you ask for that.

Pretty amazing how uh all of a sudden it was tagged today.

So uh it's really added a whole lot.

We work with the uh fire department, fire marshal on different issues and challenges that may be happening out there and work really well with uh all the entities.

Align the city and the county with the regional priorities that are happening out there.

Um that includes MR Cog.

We represent uh community at uh not only for roads but also for workforce at uh MR Cog.

So those are two key huge pieces.

Um we promote the city at all events, including tomorrow.

I'm a panelist for the energy symposium, and we'll be talking about all the great things that Rio Rancho does from the water reinjection system to working forward and working closely with business and being a business-friendly community so that we can get further investment.

Um we work to improve long-term economic resilience and um help grow our tax base.

Advocacy, this is a big piece that we work on during the legislature, is um when the city of Rio Rancho has its capital requests and its funding requests, or there's something around in the corner that uh could adversely affect the city.

We want to make sure that the city of Rio Rancho is heard, same time we do that for businesses, hence medical malpractice, different taxation pieces that would adversely affect them.

Um of those things.

So that includes uh one of the big things we've always been pushing is Paseo do Volcan workforce.

Um you have JTIP and then you have Workforce, which is the WIOA program.

Matter of fact, um, through uh Workforce Solutions, we just obtained a significant amount of money for uh Rio Tech.

So that's gonna flow through workforce connection specifically for Rio Tech for internships and apprenticeships.

So that'll be a nice thing to have.

We do not fund that well enough in the city for high schoolers, and that creates that opportunity.

Matter of fact, not just city, but the entire state doesn't fund that well enough.

Workforce solutions has the funding.

During the legislature, we also have a uh during the 60-day session, we do Rio Rancho Day at the legislature.

So that's where we celebrate Rio Rancho.

We invite all the legislators to come out and hear about what all the great things that are happening here, as well as giving uh folks the opportunity to meet legislators outside their area.

Um Rio Rancho Day uh during the 30-day sessions.

We used to do them in Santa Fe, but 30-day sessions are so fast, so furious, that we've found that they are much better served by actually getting more folks and business leaders and leaders in the community involved here locally.

Hence, that's the one we just had at the neighborhood.

This uh was it past March?

I think it was March.

Um worked closely with legislators and businesses.

Um the other things that we did as well is we were pushing really hard for the site readiness bill, the trade port bill, and the utility expansion bill.

Those happened during the 60-day session.

Give you an idea of the uh those bills.

Getting those passed in a 60-day session is hugely impressive.

Hats off go to uh uh Secretary Black.

Um he's a former uh chamber leader, and he knew exactly how to make that happen.

We coordinate with chambers throughout the state.

Uh matter of fact, uh myself and uh Bridget uh the president of the Santa Fe Chamber lead the uh chamber association.

So uh we represent 36 chambers throughout the state, get them onto a monthly call, and um talk about all the commonalities amongst the communities on what needs to be done.

On the next piece, community development, quality of life.

So economic development is more than recruitment, it's building a place where people want to live and work.

This is what makes Rio Rancho not only a great place to live, but this also makes Rio Rancho is the key for jobs in the future for the state of New Mexico.

Programs and events uh strengthen community engagement and regional identity by getting those out, whether it's on social media, getting the attention out on them.

Everybody in Albuquerque knows about the Rio Rancho Chamber and all the things that we do.

We hear that repeatedly that we're the best chamber in the state, and we drive for that.

And every time we can get somebody that is not familiar with Rio Rancho into Rio Rancho, that is their first step.

Um we support tourism and retail activity, restaurants.

We do things like uh shop small Saturday, those type things.

We're also the only visitors' center in Rio Rancho for visitors coming to town.

Um major events, we do our boots and bling event where we celebrate local businesses, Octoberfest, which dates way back if you can imagine Haynes Park.

Matter of fact, when Rio Rancho Inn was still a best western.

That's how far back that goes.

The former owner started Oktoberfest, and when I came to the chamber ten years ago, we polled residents of Rio Rancho and says what would you know ask them what would you like to see return or what is missing?

And overwhelmingly, it was Oktoberfest back into the community.

And then, as I mentioned, Small Business Saturday.

For the time being talking about Discover Sandoval, Discover Sandoval, as I mentioned, how it was created was to bring jobs here or to protect our jobs, shall I say, in Rio Rancho and Sandoval County.

So employers like Insight Lighting or Electrasonics or a number of others were not losing their employees.

So that's why it was created.

We used geofencing techniques to market outside the city.

We would identify where there was a surplus of a certain engineer per se, like an application engineer.

Santa Clara, California was a spot.

So here's the fun part when uh Facebook was uh laying off.

We geo-fenced Facebook using Facebook.

So uh those folks that worked for Facebook work for Google or were in that area in Santa Clara, they saw Discover Sandoval.

And what that did there is that dramatically, we go back five years now.

We have the fastest growing income in the state of New Mexico and definitely fastest in the Southwest.

Um it's Discover Sandoval because Rio Rancho, you get the suburban life, quality of uh living, great schools, low crime, um, great fire department, public safety is huge.

Um Corrales, you can live in the agricultural area.

If you're in Bernalio, you can live in a historical area.

We found that folks from California love the train.

That was really unique.

So uh they wanted to get north and south very quickly, they used the train.

Um placitas, if you want to go hide in the mountains, that's your place.

So, but bottom line is no matter where Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos, Intel, where they were recruiting, we had a site for them to live in.

Um saying that it really helped with talent recruitment.

So when uh Castillion was coming out here, and uh you saw a lot of the social media posts said though, we're gonna bring a job, a lot of jobs from out of state.

I actually we already did the work in Rio Rancho over the expansion of Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos and Kirtland Labs and a number of others.

The people that fill those jobs are already here.

Now, the huge part with that is we create the opportunity where now they get a short drive, and now they're gonna shop and they're gonna eat in that local restaurant, they're gonna shop at that local grocery store, they're gonna go to our Walmart, they go to our Target, all of our local shops.

Um, why does this work matter to Rio Rancho?

So from 2020 to 2025, went from 54,000 to 89,000 median income.

Average household income is 99,000.

Um we were talking about bringing Market Street here, as you can tell, that is a very different grocery store for the state of New Mexico, something you would see in Texas, even perhaps Arizona.

One of the things that we had to do is we had to identify how the median income was changing in the city.

Hence the uh that grocery store market street now, which uh Councillor Colbreth is in your district, number one grocery store in the state of New Mexico.

So uh has more visits than any other store in the state.

Um more economic-based uh jobs reduces workforce leakage.

What workforce leakage is is we're losing GRT.

We're losing revenue for those businesses.

I mentioned we have 1600 businesses short.

We're losing those because if you work in Albuquerque during the day, or you work in Santa Fe, you work in Los Alamos, you might be getting a dry cleaning, you go into that restaurant, you're hanging out over there, you're gonna go to the uh you're gonna go have a cocktail after work, you might stop at the mall at Coronado Mall, all of those type things by getting those economic-based jobs here.

That's the big driver, and that fixes retail, and that fixes the challenges around that.

So bringing those jobs here adds a whole lot.

And then that also includes increases the GRT for the city of Rio Rancho.

Our low daytime population is creating that workforce leakage.

If you give a night look at uh the businesses, main street businesses that are out there, we compete more with Farmington than we do with Santa Fe or Las Cruces.

And the reason for that is they don't have Albuquerque next door, and Cottonwood was a big driver at the time.

Umide range of uh multipliers that could really impact the city overall and prevent future downturns.

So we have health care, we are our health care partners right now having a difficult time.

Um not so much of what's happening tomorrow, but what happened yesterday.

That's what's affecting them right now.

So that being said, um, having more businesses that are technology based, more businesses that can whether it we don't do call centers anymore, but we have TLC, number of those type businesses where we have uh those different businesses, electrical plumbing, we're moving those headquarters out here to Rio Rancho.

That's a big key into further expanding our economic base in the city.

That being said, um from a regional workforce standpoint, um we continue to outpour out uh pace national trends.

Even though we have not created the jobs that we should be creating, we're still out, we're still outperforming the national trend.

We're out we are so far ahead of the rest of the state of New Mexico, it's impressive.

Strong concentration of health care manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and skilled trades.

The other thing we have to keep in mind is is that during the pandemic is when you're looking at businesses.

One of the thing that is really hard to measure is folks that work from home.

That's still happening.

So they're working from home, they may have their jobs still may be in Denver, still might be in Utah, still might be in California, Arizona, but they're choosing to live here in Rio Rancho for the quality of life.

Um we've supported the efforts of Rio Tech, C and M on the workforce partnership out there.

Um funding expansion for state and federal internships, so we've got that income that came in, and then advocate for uh relocation of America's job center.

That is workforce connections.

Um I went to workforce connections.

If uh you're not aware, workforce connections used to be based at the train station in Bernalio.

When I became chair of workforce connections, I relocated it.

It's across the desert from my office.

You can't miss it.

Um we are the economic, we are the workforce base of Sandoval County, and it shouldn't be here.

So by having it here is key.

So that's seen dramatic improvement.

Also, what that did is that brought in a lot more workforce dollars coming from the federal government into Rio Rancho, which is huge.

Um 21st century economy, regional success requires alignment of workforce infrastructure, housing education, business development, um, mega trends, including AI.

That's a big piece.

As we hear from quantum computing, health care, AI is gonna be another future expansion without being a data center.

Doesn't have to be a data center.

Um Rio Rancho and Sandoval County, we're positioned for future investment.

We've just got to take advantage of it.

Yes, sites are a challenge.

There's no doubt about that.

We don't have huge sites just based on our antiquated plating.

But at the same time, we do have sites.

And uh those sites we've uh just got to identify who we're chasing and how we're chasing and what we're chasing.

But the biggest thing is let them know that Rio Rancho is here and open for business.

That's the big key.

Pause me for a second, we're at 5 30.

So we're either gonna have to extend the meeting or wrap up.

That took that long already.

Yes, you did.

We have a motion to extend.

How much longer?

Like two more minutes.

Okay.

We'll extend, we'll extend for 10 more minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes.

But not all for getting we get we get eight minutes.

You got two minutes.

So we have a motion and second, we're good.

Yeah, we don't need a motion on this consensus, right?

Overall, what I'll just get to is at the last work session that was brought.

I was actually in Portland.

My daughter graduated from college.

So I was actually out there, and uh there was a discussion around 20,000.

What would the chamber do with it?

Um if the chamber was granted 20,000 dollars, um could look at uh city membership.

Currently, the city has is it the membership level that doesn't exist anymore at the chamber at 250 dollars.

It's been that way for 16 years, 18 years.

Um MOU for such things as um retention or expansion of existing businesses, workforce expansion, um recruiting businesses, however, you guys would like to phrase that.

But bottom line is is no funding would go to the chamber for operational expenses.

Um return on investment, we've got to reduce the 47,000 outbound commuters, capture uh more GRT.

We've got to grow the GRT, that is the big part, and make sure that we can uh do more things in the city, increase daytime uh population to help the restaurants and retail, strengthen business retention of the businesses, keep them here, and um just work closely in a partnership, and that's it.

Appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jerry.

Questions, comments from council, Mr.

Mayor, Council Colbrith.

Thank you.

Um not specifically uh for Jerry.

Um thank you very much for the presentation.

Um I think one of the things like everybody keeps saying that economic development is a team sports, right?

We always say like there's no I and team.

Um, and so I think that it's I I'm laughing because like everybody mentioned like all these projects, many of them were the same, and it took everybody to make all of the projects happen.

Everybody, um, all of the entities had to work to make those projects happen and an economic development.

You know, I talk about the three-legged stool, and I think we've had a great discussion of the three-legged stool here today, and so it's trying to figure out how we make that happen.

A quick little AI search shows that there were there's three thousand businesses in the city of Rare Rancho, over three thousand businesses, umere 1500 to 2,000 undeveloped acres of C1, C2, and M zoned acreage in the City of Rio Rancho.

That means there is plenty of work for everybody, and I think one of the things that we are missing in the city is not effort, but we're missing collaboration, and I would love to see more collaboration between the entities using the individual strengths instead of competing in areas where somebody else might be stronger and leaving parts unoccupied, or using our energies and and doubling efforts where we shouldn't be.

Um, and so what I would really like to see.

I don't really know where we land on anything, but one thing that I would love to start to see is like a quarterly economic collaboration meeting with the entities that presented here or others that come together and talk about how we move the city of Rare Rancho forward together, um, so that and and not overlapping and not competing, um, but moving forward collaboratively.

That's how we will move forward as a city.

There's enough work for everybody.

Um, and doing it together is how we'll succeed.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Colbert.

Mr.

Merck, Councilor Taylor.

I agree with Councillor Colbert.

Well said, I mean, I think that's what we said initially.

It was all about collaboration, and it was about working together.

That's what when what we talked about when we started all this, especially back on during the uh budget hearings.

But I'd like to go back to where we were at earlier in the budget hearings and why a lot of this came around was about giving the funding to all these organizations and make sure they can continue to do the work and the partnerships and develop everything that we want them to develop.

And I did some research as well.

Other cities do give to the regional chambers through uh MOUs and whatnot to do economic, and I I would like to renew that and maybe look at doing that at uh mid-year budget if if everyone would agree to it.

And in the amount, I'm still open to.

I mean, 20,000 was a number I put out there because I thought it was something that was reasonable, but there was also asks that I would ask from the chamber too.

But there was also asks that I would ask from the chamber too.

I would ask that if we do do this MOU, we get a seat on your board.

Um we would also set metrics that similar to what the C has.

So it would be um you would have to report back to the city manager uh quarterly with all of the with all the numbers.

Um I would also like to uh make sure that there is a portion of our MOU that makes an agreement between you, C and our ED manager that you all work together collaboratively, just like Councilor Colper said, and come up with ways to progress the city and benefit the residents of the city in a positive manner so that we don't continually come back here.

My goal is not to take money from one organization to give to another.

My goal is to keep giving to organizations that continue to help us make City of Real Rancho better, but also in that it's gonna have to be, as Councillor Color said, a partnership of teamwork, meaning you're gonna have to give a little as well as we're gonna try to give a little, hopefully.

Um, but I would like to to renew that and see where the council stands on the or thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Tyler.

Counselors, counselor list.

Uh I just wanted to thank everyone who presented today.

I think it was extremely um important for us to be able to hear from each of the entities kind of what they're doing, how they got to where they're at.

I think it's an important reminder refresher, whether it's because we have um newer folks sitting on the council or whether it's because these conversations are coming to be, but I think there was a lot of uh need for clarification when we were having the budget hearings, and so I just appreciate everybody coming and bringing us some information.

Um I very much uh agree with the sentiments of partnership and collaboration that my counterpart um had expressed, and I also very much um agree with uh counselor Tyler and the considerations for you know, if we're asking for a partnership, what does that look like?

And we need to support all the people in this partnership.

So I look forward to what these conversations will look like in the future to be able to support each and every one of you.

Thank you, Councilor List, Mr.

Mayor, Councilor Debson.

Um, it almost seems to me like we in order to engender this partnership that we're talking about, that we're that maybe that there should be a board, an economic development board that includes everybody, all parties that meet regularly quarterly to talk about how we could work together to make Rio Rancho better.

Um, because after listening to everything, and yes, I thank you guys a lot for a lot of stuff.

I didn't know I learned a lot from this presentations.

But um a lot of the things that you guys are doing are do have a little bit of overlap to them.

Um I can see that um C kind of focuses on business to business type of things, and and the chamber seems to focus more on business to consumer type of things, but that doesn't have to stay that way.

Um, but anyway, my my point is I think it would be a good idea to have a kind of a board that includes all everybody on the different economic departments, and maybe somebody from our from the from governing body.

So thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Counselor.

Well, you guys took all the time except 30 seconds.

Thank you.

I just I too wanted to thank everyone for presenting today.

One of the things that I wanted to or hope to take away from this was what do you all do?

What is it specifically that you do?

And I heard loud and clear what exactly you do.

Jerry, thank you for oh my gosh, I knew you did more than ribbon cuttings, but I didn't realize the extent to which your tasks are.

So that was very, very helpful.

Uh, Fred, same thing.

Um, I appreciate everyone coming in today and presenting, and we are at 540.

We are adjourned.