8-13-26 SFFPC Meeting Notes

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Santa Fe City and County, Advisory Council on Food Policy
Thursday, August 13, 2026,
9:00AM-11AM
In Person Location: Santa Fe County Extension Office
3229 Rodeo Road
Santa Fe, NM 87507-4892
A. CALL TO ORDER 9:10am
B. ROLL CALL
Susan Perry, Co-Chair - Present
Peter Ives, Co-Chair – Present
nate crail - Present
Eric Renz-Whitmore - Present
David Sundberg - Present
Said Assali - Excused
Coy Maienza - Present
Emigdio Ballon - Present
Erica Renaud - Present
We do have a quorum.
Staff:
Pam Roy, Coordinator
Helen Henry, Scribe
Guests:
Harrison Gibson, Consultant
Joseph Scala, Community Planner, Santa Fe County
Catherine Nolte, The Food Depot
Hvtce Miller, Intergovernmental Outreach Coordinator, Santa Fe County
James Martinez, Nutrition Coordinator, Santa Fe County
Christine Chavez, Conservation and Sustainability Lead, City of Santa Fe
Heather Lamboy, Land Use Director, City of Santa Fe
C. APPROVAL OF AGENDA – [ACTION] July 9, 2026
Prioritization and Agenda Order
Motioned: Sue
Seconded: Eric
Approved
D. ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES – May 14, 2026, June 11, 2026 [ ACTION]

Motioned: Eric
Seconded: Sue
Approved
E. COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE FLOOR none
F. INITIATIVES AND ACTIONS
1. Local Updates/Federal/State
NM State Legislative Priorities: Discuss, review and approve a tentative set of 2027 NM
Legislative food and agriculture priorities for the to submit to the County and City (vote)
Pam sent out the NM Food & Ag Policy Council’s list of 2026 priorities that had been
approved/funded by the legislature and signed by the Governor. The work that still needs to be
done is that the agencies need to submit their budgets to LFC by the end of August, so we need
to monitor the budgets to make sure these priorities are included in the budgets.
Michelle Lujan Grisham is in her last 6 months as Governor so she will not be submitting a
budget although she may work with the new governor on priorities.
Sue: When the new governor comes into office this year, are they are still working off the budget
that was put into place in the past year?
Pam: Yes, although some things may be shifted around. The new governor will probably be
working to get their priorities in place for the new fiscal year that starts July 1, 2027.
The NMFAPC is thinking through their next steps. There was a lot of information that was
shared with the Water and Natural Resources Committee Committee at their interim committee
meeting in Roswell. This was important to help legislators understand how important these
programs are and what their history is.
Peter: Can city and county advisors to this group participate in advocacy?
Hvtce said that he believes. He thinks that we should set up a meeting with the replacement for
Representative Herrerra. He will reach out to her. Pam named other representatives that we
could invite. Sue said that it would be good to meet with her individually and/or invite her to one
of our meetings.
Hvtce asked if this group has worked previously with an incoming governor? No
There will be a gathering at Roadrunner on Friday, Sept 4 to brief gubernatorial candidates
about food issues. This will also be on Zoom. Catherine will send the information so that we can
decide about attending in person or online.
The County and City are working on their own legislative priorities, so we need to coordinate
with them around incorporating our priorities. We will prepare our own draft resolution so we can
get this to city and county representatives. Peter suggested that we have one city and one
county SFFPC member and the Executive Committee to put this together before circulating
things out.

Hvtce: These priorities should be categorized and listed as overarching priorities before getting
specific. Pam mentioned that there will likely be a lot of issues around water resources this year.
Peter suggested that we do a fact sheet on each of the items that the legislature funded last
year - standard format. Pam said that organizations are working on their own fact sheets, but it
would be good for us to put together some overarching numbers and descriptions for the
programs (one page).
Pam went over details re: budget for what has already been approved and where the NMFPC
might be going in the next year. Pam noted that because of federal cuts to staffing, we have lost
three-quarters of the staff in NM that support farmers and ranchers.
Pam: The issue of recurring funding is critical to having long term stability for these programs.
We have been discouraged from asking for recurring funding, but we feel that we need to do
this.
The state office of food systems is now set up with three new staff - at DOH.
Pam: Brief overview of the Farm Bill which includes SNAP. The FB is now in the Senate. Senate
democrats are requesting a delay in the money that states would need to pay for error rates.
The Ag Committee is in recess and will likely come back into session in Sept. Sen, Lujan was
able to get all of our requests into the Farm Bill.
Emigdio brought up the question of seed sovereignty and how we will preserve this aspect of
this work? This is definitely an ongoing concern that will need to be addressed.
2. Update Food Plan from Food Plan Committee
Drafts of proposed maps for Food Plan (nate crail and County team). Postponed to the next
meeting.
Food Plan committee meeting August 21, at 10:00 - 12:00 at the County offices.
G. PRESENTATIONS:
Santa Fe Forward, Heather Lamboy, Director of Land Use and Planning
How this will assist the work of the Urban Agriculture Ordinance and Food and Agriculture
Initiatives
Heather shared some slides which included a schedule for SF Forward.
Stage Gates 2 & 3 have been completed.
There is a Community Partner micro-grant program that helps them get feedback (225+
visioning surveys collected, 8,000 pieces of input from a variety of platforms.
The timeframe is for the next 25 years.
Lots of good collaboration among staff.
End of Dec/Jan they are hoping to adopt the plan so that they can move on to implementation.
The vision encompasses both the city and county.
They have a technical working group.
Priorities

● Housing and affordability
● Community facilities & services
● Environmental stewardship
This process includes a variety of frameworks.
They are thinking through fire defense measures.
Heather will send her slides to Pam/Sue.
August 16 deadline for public comments - go to SF Forward website to add your comments.
Pam let Heather know that we are updating the Food Plan and would love input. Heather said
that there are people who might be able to come to our meetings
H. STAFF COMMUNICATIONS 5 minutes
Website re-build and transfer- Update from Helen Henry
I. ITEMS FROM THE COUNCIL 5 minutes
Member update
J. ITEMS FROM THE CO-CHAIRS 5 minutes
1. New member update
Coy reported that there was an ad placed that closed on Aug 10. They received one new
application which she will send. Sept 8 the candidates will hopefully be on the BCC agenda for
approval.
Discussion around how to handle Said’s announcement that he will be out of the county for
about a year. He will be coming back but will not be able to participate in the interim. It was
decided that we will ask him to submit an email stating this.
2.. Next Meeting: August 13, 2026: Hybrid
4. Topics for future presentations
October: CONNECT Program, Jennifer Romero, Santa Fe County and Nataly Beltron, Food
Depot
Invite Santa Fe area state Legislators
Suggestion: Denise Miller and Kierstan Hansen present on Double Up Food Bucks expansion,
(1 million dollars.)
K. ADJOURNMENT 11:22am
Sue moves
Eric seconded
Approved to move items not covered to the next meeting
These notes were taken contemporaneously and may contain errors and omissions.

Signed by ___________________________ Helen Henry.
I verify that these notes have been approved by a quorum of members of the
Santa Fe Food Policy Council.
Signed by Susan Perry, Co-chair or, Peter Ives, Co-chair
_____________________________________________________