Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee Thu, Jan 8, 2026 · Bicycle and Pedestrians Advisory Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1053 == Executive Summary == The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) meeting focused heavily on pedestrian and cyclist safety, particularly concerning the Zia Station development and the realignment of Galisteo Road. Public and committee members expressed strong concerns about the road's design, citing narrowness, lack of dedicated bike lanes, and potential safety hazards. BPAC discussed its role in reviewing development plans and ensuring multimodal transportation is prioritized. The committee also advanced plans for a Vulnerable Road User Task Force to investigate bias in traffic incident charging and punishment, and approved an application for a grant to support community cycling initiatives. == Key Decisions == - Motion to reorder agenda to move the Zia Galisteo issue to the front of the agenda, approved by roll call vote (Yes - Gabriel, Gerix, McConnell, Piltchure, Pengilly, Schiffmiller). - Approval of December 11th Meeting Minutes by roll call vote (Yes - Gabriel, Gerix, McConnell, Piltchure, Pengilly, Schiffmiller). - Motion to name the task force the 'Vulnerable Road User Task Force' passed unanimously by roll call vote. - Proposal to add the Viscaya Apartments trail improvement site to an upcoming BPAC field trip was agreed upon by consensus. - Motion to direct staff to submit the League of American Bicyclists Community Sparks Grant application passed unanimously. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to reorder agenda to move item 7D (Zia Galisteo issue) to the front of 7A — Passed (Yes - Gabriel, Gerix, McConnell, Piltchure, Pengilly, Schiffmiller). - Approval of December 11th Meeting Minutes — Passed (Yes - Gabriel, Gerix, McConnell, Piltchure, Pengilly, Schiffmiller). - Motion to name the task force the 'Vulnerable Road User Task Force' — Passed unanimously by roll call vote. - Motion to direct staff to submit the League of American Bicyclists Community Sparks Grant application — Passed unanimously. == Public Comment == Public comments primarily focused on the dangerous design of the Zia Station development and the realignment of Galisteo Road, with residents like Aku Oppenheimer and Margaret Marshall expressing strong concerns about pedestrian and cyclist safety. They criticized city staff and developers for implementing what they viewed as flawed plans and urged the committee to advocate for safer multimodal transportation. Concerns were also raised about the city's potential liability for design flaws under state statute 41411. == Topics == - Zia Galisteo Development Issues - Bike Santa Fe Activities - BPAC New Chair Orientation - Bike Parking Code Update - BPAC Meeting Structure & Public Input - MPO Bike Rack Initiative - Public Safety Committee Update - Agenda Approval & Reordering - Minutes Approval - Asakia Trail Extension - Meeting Minutes Efficiency - ADA Subcommittee Role == Full Transcript == Member Betrice Farel, excused. Member Judith Gabriel: Here. Member Tony Gerix: Here. Member Mark McConnell: Here. Member Steve Pilchure: Here. Member Ben Pengilly: Here. Member Gary Shipmiller: Here. Member Helen Wang. I think she's coming. You have a quorum, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Before we vote on the next language, approval of the agenda, I'd like to get a show of hands. There are a fair number of people here on the Zia Galisteo issue. It's not as nice as I thought, but I would entertain the idea of moving item 7D up to the front of 7A so these folks don't have to wait around as we slog our way through other business. Right. So that's my recommendation. If anyone agrees, we could use a motion. I'll move that agenda 7B. A second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Mr. Chair, you cannot do that. We need to do a roll call because Member Pengilly is attending online. Okay, we'll blame it on Ben then. All right, roll call vote, please. Member Gabriel: Yes. Member Gerix: Yes. Member McConnell: Yes. Member Piltchure: Yes. Member Pengilly: Yes. Member Schiffmiller: Yes. The motion passes. Next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes of the December 11th meeting. Are there any comments or changes recommended by any member? If not, I'd entertain a motion to approve. Is there a second? Yes. Second. We'll get a roll call vote then. Member Gabriel: Yes. Member Gerix: Yes. Member McConnell: Yes. Member Piltchure: Yes. Member Pengilly: Yes. Member Schiffmiller: Yes. Motion passes. Item number five, communication from the public. If there's anyone here who would like to address the committee, please come down to the podium and state your name and try to keep your comments about three minutes or so. Yes, sir. Make sure the mic is on. Yeah. Is that amplifying? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to just briefly say my name is Aku Oppenheimer. I'm the president of the Candlelight Neighborhood Association. For six years, we struggled to get a better, primarily a better traffic plan. Repeatedly, the community, parts of the community, countered we were attempting to oppose the development of Zia Station and so forth. All fallacious claims. All we wanted was a better traffic plan. And now we see just how compromised this plan was. So I just wanted to express to you how important I understand there's nothing to be done about the past, but I want you to know how important I find it to be that VPAC, I know it's only advisory, but it's extremely important that it have some kind of voice to register for the record that mistakes are being made for pedestrians and for bicyclists. Because the way Zia Station has been developed, and I will be happy to meet anyone from the committee, take them personally out there and go through the checklist of the dangerous points that have been introduced knowingly by city staff that will make this not a multimodal community, a multimodal transportation-based community as this land use claimed, but the reverse, one dominated only by motorists. Dangerous in the extreme to bicyclists, quite dangerous for pedestrians, and just very opposite of what it was supposed to be, an imaginative multimodal system. And I just urge you, especially if you're a bicyclist, to go there and see what the situation does for a bicyclist. It places them, if any wise bicyclist, and I think maybe the best thing the committee could do is make sure that whatever city information is available for bicyclists, that it warns them to stay away from this intersection because you will now be set up. The bicyclist is suddenly surrounded by traffic, is very eager to get ahead into one of several lanes, get to the light before it changes, and the bicyclist is going to be lost in the rush hour traffic. Then the bicyclist is caught at the very critical point of the intersection of the relocated Galisteo Road and Zia Road. It's caught in a rolled-out Galisteo and the first lane of traffic, a lane that is going to be less than three feet wide, 36 inches wide. So it's a maximally dangerous situation for bicyclists. And the very sorry mood of the town is such that wise citizen input is denigrated, fought against, ignored, and that the EPAC apparently has not much of an advisory role, which I think it would be, I would applaud you all if you can manage to get some more voice in policymaking for pedestrians and bicyclists. Thanks for listening to my comments. Thank you for your comments. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Oppenheimer? Okay, Tony. Steve, I don't have any questions. I'd just like to congratulate you for stepping forward and letting us know. Thank you. Okay. Next thing are communications from other agencies. Bike Santa Fe. Mr. Seatan, are you here? Myself and Genevieve are going to tag team this because it's iffy which one of us are available each week or each meeting. I'll start off by saying we are having our annual member social on the 24th. Everybody is welcome. It's from 2:00 to 5:00 at Sky Cinema. When members come, I'll do my real quick pitch to recommend that you become a member. I actually brought a form with a QR code, and it will pay for itself because you get a beer ticket and you get these beautiful little Bike Santa Fe socks. So it's basically a $25 membership that you get back. We also created yesterday an advisory council for Bike Santa Fe, which will give us kind of another mechanism for people to be involved with Bike Santa Fe without having to commit to be on the board. Not everybody can commit to be on the board, has that kind of time, but they have a strong interest in what's going on with Bike Santa Fe and would like to participate, and so we've created that role. It also gives a way for board members who can't stay as a board member because of time commitment to stay involved with the organization by being on the advisory council. So this is something new that we've just created. We're doing it specifically under the advocacy committee at this time. So if anybody has an interest in getting more involved in Bike Santa Fe in that capacity, then they're welcome to come on board. I'll turn it over to Genevieve. We have our winter social coming up, discussing our accomplishments this past year and hopefully brainstorming some for this year coming. We have another pretty exciting development. Several months ago, an organization called Reanimator offered to purchase some bike racks that will be installed on private property. So Leah's been super helpful and individuals from Reanimator to identify locations in the city in which there's really a need for some bike racks that are currently there. We're looking at grocery stores in particular. So that's a development that's underway. We don't have the locations quite determined yet, but our hope is that we will actually match the cost of the bike racks with the business owner. We would like them to pay part of the cost, and then Santa Fe picks up the rest. That's very exciting for us. We're also interested in having a member participate in the vulnerable road user task force that you all are developing. We do have questions about it. We're sort of unclear on what the plans are, and we'd like to get some done and also if you have any plans for or any ideas for when you'll meet, how frequent it will be, logistical things like that so that we can... I don't question what. How big is your membership? We have about... And you get a... Does every member get an email notification to re-sign up for the following year? We talked about that last night. Renewal system. Okay. Oh, the... I still got this last time. Thank you. It is currently on an auto process, but then trying to kind of set up a... Anyone else have questions? Thanks, Steve. I'm just curious how many members of the PE department... I believe I am, as I was asking. That's why I was asking about the dues. That's the correct answer. Thank you. Next is a report from the Santa Fe Metropolitan Planning Organization, Leah Ingi. Maybe I need to get really close. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the committee. I don't have a whole lot for you guys today except some more on bike parking. I was involved a little bit in the new code update, and I don't know if you guys have taken a look at the bike parking section in the 700-plus page document yet, but I did purchase the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals bicycle parking guidance document, and so they originally we just put it in exactly as they said, and then I guess later, after the fact, they were like, actually, maybe that's something to strive for, but beyond what we need today. But I still think it's really good. I looked at it today. The emphasis is on less short-term parking, so less bike racks outside, more long-term bike parking, like in, particularly in multifamily residences, which is really cool that has not been a requirement. And then some of those spaces are required for electric bicycles to have them hooked up. And then in long-term bike parking is also required, but to a lesser extent for most businesses. So it's a big improvement, and it'll be interesting to see the implementation and something new for developers to, I guess, wrap their minds around and start planning. And then as Genevieve mentioned, so we've been working on other bike parking as an initiative. So this was really exciting because the MPO, we are going to purchase some bike racks from Reanimator, but they can only go on public property, and so we saw that as a limitation of where the need for bike parking is. So it's great that Bike Santa Fe is able to step up and help fill that gap. We still need to prioritize our bike parking locations, but it's looking like some parks, trails, and bus stops will probably end up in the mix. Oh, and then also, we had talked about with former Chair Michael Garcia getting funding from his funds for bike racks, the historic bike racks that go in the downtown area. Not sure what happens with that funding if it's still something we could pursue. We'll look into that. But I did go ahead and find all of the locations, measure them to make sure that measurements all meet code, and I have all those locations all mapped out. So we kind of are ready to go whenever those funds are identified. And that's it. I'll stand for any questions. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Leah, the ones that you're going to purchase with, I think it was Council then Councilor Garcia's funds, those were all in the downtown area, correct? Okay. Because we had a constituent who was very concerned about not enough bike racks in the downtown, not necessarily on the plaza, but surrounding the plaza. So that's great news. Thank you. I understand you say the draft land use code update is 700 pages long. The new, yeah, it's not, it's actually, it's adopted and it's in effect now already, and they're working on getting it into Unicode if you look at that, but right now it's just a PDF that's over 700 pages, but you can, like, you know, control F to find things and... That's a, it's a long code. Oh yeah, this was supposed to simplify. Any other questions for MPO? Thank you. And next item is a report from the Public Safety Committee, of which I am BPAC's representative. The Public Safety Committee has been having a couple special meetings in the last few months to try to update its authorizing resolution and bring greater clarity to what its roles and responsibilities are. That work continues. We had a meeting on Tuesday for a couple of hours. Our last regular meeting last month was mostly a bunch of fire department capital expenditure requests that were examined. I understood correctly that had already been done by the council, so it was kind of more of an FYI versus an action item for the committee. Hopefully, that's one of the things we'll get more hammered out as we update our roles and responsibilities for the committee. There was some interest from some members in establishing more of a citizen's review board for dealing with any questionable complaints regarding the police department actions, or I suppose it could also be fire department actions. But the Mayor, excuse me, who happened to stop by, pointed out that there was, there is kind of somewhere simmering on the back burner, a committee of that sort, which for whatever reason, the city has never really called into being yet. So that's probably how that's going to happen. I suppose that's becoming a responsibility of this committee. So that's what's going on with public safety. Next item, member one, who folks late, but we moved item 7D up to the corner of 7A, more minutes. So 7D and now 7A is discussion on the Zia Galisteo housing development issues. Member Gabriel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is actually a very specific request about Galisteo Road and the redesign of Galisteo Road. It's not about the intersection in general or the housing development because that's not really under our purview. But I live in this neighborhood off of Rodeo Road. I use that intersection, that street a lot, and I am concerned about the design of the street. It seems too narrow. It has a very tight turning radius, especially if you're going eastbound on Zia and turning right onto Galisteo. There's no room for a bicycle. The whole road seems very narrow and it's got a median in the middle, a small median. So, I have a couple of things I want to talk about: one, the safety issues, but also the process for BPAC being involved in providing input. It's my understanding we are only invited to do a technical review on public developments, not private, and I think that needs to change. So I'd like to start with the safety issues, and I don't know if there's anything that can be done, but could the median be removed? Could we put signs that say "bikes may use full lane" or do something to increase the safety for bicyclists? So, I'm opening this up for discussion and would love to hear other people's feedback. I have a question. The median's in Zia, I take it that I assume the intent is to prevent cross-traffic going. No, the median is on Galisteo. It is. It's a small cement barrier. I mean, I don't know if that's what you call it, but... Member Gabriel, Chair Pilchure, member Gabriel is talking about the raised median, not the median that is stripe, stripe median. She's talking about raised median. I'm just going to say, I'm not, I assume this has all been built according to approved plans and inspected and approved by the city at this point in time. Is that your understanding, Member Gabriel? Yes, that's my understanding, and that's why I have somewhat of an issue of BPAC's involvement in reviewing plans. I don't know if, because all of these things were approved. I know in the article that was in the paper, the consultant Leroy Pacheco said there were many levels of approval, and I know that BPAC was not one of those levels. So, Romela, is it ever, do they ever do something like remove a median? When we were constructing or reconstructing the Gabaldon Guadalupe Street, that was federally funded. Then we constructed a small median on Guadalupe Auafria near the Guadalupe Church, and we noticed that the motorists were going over that small median, and so they requested to remove it. But it was in the design plan. That was approved by FHWA and NMDOT, and we requested that to be removed, and it can be done. This project is a private development project, and so if the city will request the developer to remove it, then we just need the concurrence or the approval of the engineer of record. Mr. Bordigary, did you have some comments? Thank you, Chair. Just for purposes of these discussions, I think it'd be nice to have maps, and I don't know that we have that tonight, but I wish we could whip one up right here, and I don't know if the staff has that, but that's for reference for everybody, like where is this and what exactly are we talking about? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Galisteo Road is a public road. How does that, how does that relate to a private development? I mean, is that part of the road now private because it's on their property? I believe so. No, not yet. Okay. Miss Ingvy, could you please, Mr. Vice Chair and Member Gabriel? So, we, the NMDOT, do review development. So we see this all the time that when a development has impacts on the transportation network, then they are required to use their own funding to update the infrastructure. They can relocate a road, you know, add, we, a lot of times they add sidewalks, bike lanes, trails that happens all the time with private development. They pay for it, but it is still public into, like, a public right-of-way. Thank you. So, may I follow up? Romela, who is the, what did you call it? What kind of engineer? Engineer of record. Engineer of record. Is it Mr. Pacheco? No. No. Mr. Pacheco is a consultant representing public works in development reviews. The engineer of record is Bohannan Houston. We obtained a partial plan set just for that road, and I can perhaps ask if the members want me to put it on the screen. I can perhaps ask Mike to put it on the screen. Would people like to see that? Okay. Okay. And may I ask another question while that's happening? Sure. It seems like a lot of the BPAC members are not familiar with this location, and I'm wondering if a field trip would be appropriate so that people can weigh in. It seems like this is a concern for me because it is in my neighborhood. I use it a lot. Would it be appropriate to have a field trip out there? I think if the majority of the members were to go at once, it'd have to be advertised as a meeting. I'm not an expert on New Mexico's Open Meeting Acts, but I think if we went in smaller groups, that would be okay, like say three people. And I don't need to go. Member Gerix, Vice Chair, but I think it's a good idea, but if we did that, we should have somebody from the design team with us and members of the community. While we're waiting, I'm not going to speak for Romela, but I know she's busy, and when I was formerly on the Planning Commission, and this idea of having a quorum, we could advertise it, and it also would be community members invited. So I think that's the way we should do it. My opinion is that we go all together and that we have somebody with us so we all see it at the same time, and that shouldn't be a problem. Just post it as a public meeting. I think one thing it would be good to get clarified too is, is it, what, what input of BPAC can, can even be considered at this time, or is it, or is the project gone on so far to say, "Well, that's the way it is, we're not changing anything." So would we be going there to learn a lesson for the future, or would we actually have the possibility of influencing and maybe having like this median taken? Got the drawings there. Just like this is the plan set. So it's too small on the street. This is Galisteo Road, Zia Road. So this is the approved plan set for Galisteo Road and Zia Road. You will see the raised median here, and I will show you the proposed section. I don't know if you can see it. This is the section G proposed conditions. So there's a sidewalk, 5 feet wide, both sides, 3.5 landscape planter, both sides, 2 feet curb, curb and gutter, both sides, through lane, 9 feet, a raised median. So it's a 3-foot, 3-foot wide is the raised median, through lane. And the old condition, there was no raised median here. It was just a striped median, and I believe before the construction, there was no landscape planter. And this was the design is based on the land use code for a subcollector, for based on land use code for a subcollector. The driving, the driving lane is 9 feet wide. There is no requirement for a bike lane. Yeah. So I have here the land use scope. So for a subcollector, no requirement for bicycle lane. There is no parking on this road. So, but Leah said it should be a collector. So if it is a collector, the minimum bike, bike, bike width should be 4 feet, but this is designed as a subcollector, no parking. And the width of driving lanes in subcollector is 9 feet. For a collector, it is 10 feet. Yes. So, because people are not familiar with this, I wonder, Romela, if we could look at a date or some dates as a committee and post it as a public meeting so that people can go out there, invite the engineers, and the committee can make a more informed decision or recommendation, acknowledging that there may be nothing to be done. How does that sound to people? Any comments from other members? It's not an indirect comment to you, but I'm new here, so I'm trying to understand some things. But this, this roadway is still in a city right-of-way, correct? What's the width of the right-of-way? The width of the right-of-way. Okay. So, pretty narrow, pretty small. I guess I was just, again, my unfamiliarity of why more infrastructure wasn't part of the development. Like if the developer wants to develop whatever it is, you can't have too onerous of constraints, but it seems like the perfect opportunity to improve the infrastructure so that it works for more than just ours. 9 feet is a really narrow lane. So anyway, that's my comment, and I'll have to get some more information to speak more intelligently about how that process works here in the city of Santa Fe. Thank you. When I saw the item on the agenda, I took it upon myself to do a field trip. I went out there and I had a look, and I was sort of surprised and disappointed to see that as one proceeds north on Galisteo from Rodeo, there's a nice wide striped shoulder, probably 5 feet wide, very comfortable for a bicycle. It may not officially be a bike lane, but it functions as that. And when you get to this development, all of a sudden the curb swings out so that you have this landscape buffer between the street and the sidewalk that takes the place of that striped shoulder where the bikes otherwise could be. And it doesn't make sense to me that you have this landscape buffer in lieu of a place for bicycles. I'm not sure what the bicycles are expected to do. It's sort of like the striped shoulder comes to a stop, and I'm not an engineer, but it didn't make any sense to me, and I didn't like it as a bicyclist. I don't know what could be done at this point. But since I've been on the Technical Review Subcommittee, this has not come to us. I don't know if it came to the Technical Review Subcommittee at some point in the past, but if it didn't, why not? It seems to me that any project that affects bicyclists and pedestrians in Santa Fe, regardless of, you know, who's doing it, we should at least be able to comment on it. I mean, I know we only have advisory capacity, but we should at least be able to say, "Hey, wait a minute. I think this, that, and the other thing," and I don't know why it hasn't. And there's other projects that concern me as well. For example, the realignment of the Acequia Trail that's on Santa Fe Public School property. Well, I understand it's on their property, but it affects a city bike trail. It affects bicyclists and pedestrians. The proposed changes to Fort Marcy is another place where it seems like it should come to us because it affects bicycles and pedestrians, needs to be ADA compliant, and we haven't been given any official notification that this is in the works and they want us to comment on it. I don't understand why, and I also don't understand what can be done to change that. Hold that thought. Item 7E is actually maybe not quite titled correctly, but that is one of the concepts I wanted to discuss later on in the meeting here. Morgary: Thank you. I said I was going to only listen, but as a planner, I can't help but notice this too about the situation, and it was the way the Rail Runner put that station in. No offense to the neighbors, but I understand there's no parking. It's like a kiss and ride, right? Which is not functioning city design. Because Galisteo has been what it was, and it has the bike lanes, and it's wide, I parked on it and got on the train. What this clearly does is make it even more impossible for you to park anywhere near the station if you want to get on the train. I just point that out, like we spent how much on the train and the Rail Runner system, and it was never used for all these years, and now we want to use it, but there's no way to park near it. That's a separate issue, but actually, I would be willing to bring that up at some point. Like the neighborhood supports this area, and they get a train, and there needs to be room for parking, and those are public streets. Thank you. Can we have a response? Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mr. Vice Chair. I just want to say that they actually are adding parking, whereas there is none now. Like you said, there will be some public parking in the development, as well as they're adding parking spaces on Elo. So, it'll actually eventually be a little bit better than it was before. Romela, if you know, could you clarify? Are those minimum standards or maximum standards? So, like it's 9 feet period, or can you ever exceed 9 feet? Minimum width. Minimum requirement? So it could be wider? Yeah, possibly. Okay. Yeah. Mr. Miller, when you say on a sub-collector that there's no requirement for a bike lane, neither is it prohibited, is it? Yeah. Yeah. If they want to add bike lanes, then they could add the bike lane. But the logic or the reason for narrowing the road is to slow down the traffic, slow down the motorists. Okay. Well, we had a recommendation from Miss Gabriel that we try to all make a field trip together. So, I assume people might be able to be available during the daylight hours potentially, hopefully. So, I guess my thought is if Judith, you want to work with Romela and see if we can get that set up. I guess it would then need to be advertised as a public meeting, a minimum of 3 days notification. And you had suggested that there also be an engineer at that meeting or some staff member who might have been involved with the project, the SFMPO. Okay. Leah, because SFMPO has a seat at the table for in the development review, and Public Works is represented by engineer Leroy Pacheco, who's a consultant. We did not, we have a division, when we have a complete division, complete division director, did Jennifer Morrow? No. No. So the way they typically do development review is that Land Use has their own engineer, de Besser, and she, and then I guess so she does some of the review for the engineering, and then Leroy Pacheco represents Public Works, and there was, we only brought in Gene Wolfenberger, like she wasn't on the development review team. She was just brought in like when we got into specific nitty-gritty issues about engineering. So, it would be up to Land Use to make that decision about who, you know, adding BPAC to the development team. Thank you. Any other comments? And I guess maybe member Gabriel, if you could coordinate with Romela on getting this thing, the ball rolling on this. Are you willing to do that? Yes, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to do that. And I was wondering if public comment is allowed during this time because it appears that somebody has a question or something to say. I think we can handle one. Did you have something quick? This member here looks okay. Come down. I'm Margaret Marshall. I've lived in the Candlelight neighborhood for close to 40 years. We had a perfectly good Galisteo Road. I have walked the entire area many times over the years, and I really believe this realigned Galisteo Road was done to accommodate the developer, and it is not an improvement in any way that I can think of. This business of, "Oh, it'll slow traffic." Well, I don't think we had a big traffic problem on Galisteo Road in the past. And Judith, I don't know how long you've lived there, but we've replaced something that was working, that was functioning, with something that I think is a real problem. I don't care how much, I mean, I can't imagine that any traffic engineer would look at this and say, "Oh, yeah," and and saying, "Well, it meets the minimum requirements." I think somebody else already said this, we are not prohibited from putting a bike lane, are we? I mean, the first time I saw it sort of emerging with these tiny, tiny legs, like maybe five months ago, six months ago, I said, "What is this? Looks like a toy car." And then other people have gradually sort of come around saying, "Yeah, what is going on here?" Yes, they put some nice landscaping up, but I would have rather have a workable road, an adequate road, a road that accommodates vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, and not some traffic engineers, including the city traffic person, saying, "Well, you know, everybody will get used to it." I mean, I think people will get used to it, but that does not mean it's a good design, does not mean it's a healthy or environmentally sound design. I don't care how many trees or how many rose bushes or plants, which I do hope survive, but they're planting them this winter. So that's my comment, and I'm just saying, let's not be carrying on about, you know, "Oh, it went through so many levels of approval." Maybe it did, but whose approval were we seeking? The developers. And again, this is my community, and this is where I live, and so I am concerned about it on a number of different levels anyway. Thank you. Thank you, member Gericks. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a question for Romela. So, thanks to member Gabriel's suggestion, we'll go take a look and have a member of the engineering design team, but what would you suggest next steps? Or maybe Leah could answer. I don't know. Or maybe, so what we did with Guadalupe, there were a lot, we saw the skid marks on the raised median, and we said that that was raised by the contractor, and the contractor told us that Romela to raise the skid marks on the raised median. What are we going to do? This is a safety issue. And we said that, "Oh, maybe leave it for a while, maybe for a few weeks when they get familiar with this raised median," because before there was no raised median, but they did not get familiar with the infrastructure. So we asked the opinion of the engineer of record if we can remove it for safety reason, and then we got, because it's federally funded project, we cannot just remove anything on an approved plan set without getting approval from the federal government. So this is an approved plan set of a developer. So we just need to perhaps go to Land Use, Land Use Department Director. Mr. Chair, thanks, Chair. I think that that's probably true. I will say though, I know Eric was more involved in this trying to get, so the turn lane, it's like highway standards length, and also there was the concern about the park van being taken up by this turn lane, and there was at least on Eric's part a large effort, and I know there were other people as well, to try and get plans changed to reduce the length of the turn lane or take it out, and they weren't successful working with the Land Use Department and Planning Commission to make that happen. So, I don't know. I guess just pick that as you will. I don't. Planning Commission. I think it would involve first the Land Use Director, who would then have to approve it going to any commission, I think. But yeah, start with the Land Use Director. But this is for me, it's an easier change. It's an easier process to change rather than you have to go to the federal government for approval. This is more on a local level. Yeah. So when we go there, and especially the Technical Review Committee, what do you suggest or what BPAC recommends? I think we need to have a vote of the committee that this is our recommendation to the Land Use Department Director, and from there, maybe she will put it on the agenda of the Planning Commission. I know member Board Gray may know, she knows better than me. She was a planner for the City of Santa Fe. Member Gericks. Thanks, Vice Chair. And thank you, Romela. I think that's a great suggestion then as we, as Judith puts together a field trip, that we go out there and look, that we include the Land Use Planning Director with us, if for nothing else than to answer our questions. Okay. Any other discussion on this item? Mr. McConnell. Well, final comment on, I believe someone stated the right-of-way is 42 feet. So, is the rest of Galisteo just a 42-foot right-of-way? Because it looks like I'm seeing the dirt disturbance of what was vacated where Galisteo used to be. And I'm just curious about if the right-of-way is shrunk at the squiggle. So that section is 42 feet. It gets wider a little bit further down where there's parking. But I will say that it's a, the right-of-way was not a constraint. It was selected as they designed it to be a sub-collector street design. So they had, you know, basically an empty slate. So that's, and then they just, you know, selected this right of width. So, it wasn't because of a constraint. Thank you. I think that's the problem right there. Okay. Any other questions, comments? All right. Sorry, sir. Two more minutes. Okay. Make sure you're talking to the mic. So, there's just one more thing I wanted to say to encourage BPAC to take this as seriously as you already are, and I appreciate that so much. That is that with the way I see this project, the city has allowed the developer to engineer this land swap so that he benefited entirely, and in addition, he offloaded his liability, the public liability, to the city. So if you look at State Statute 41411, you will see that the city is not, there's a waiver of liability which says that the city is responsible for liability problems coming from this design, even if, yeah, they cannot say, "Well, we left it to the developer," or anything there. It's a very strict state statute that holds cities accountable, and that's what we've done. I want you to know that as a result of your not having been given a voice in this at all, to at least state an experienced advisory position, that the city has taken on potentially a lot of liability in the future, and I really thank you for letting me put that on the record here. The city will hear about that in the future if they can't find any solutions to this situation. All right, moving on. Next item on the agenda, I take a deep breath. Continue discussion on the establishment of scope and official name for BPAC's ad hoc committee on motorist accountability and collisions involving cyclists. You've got to come up with an acronym for this. We bought a neater name, maybe not an acronym. If I wanted to present something, Romela, can I try to plug in my computer or use yours? Can you hear me? Okay. So we're presenting, I'm presenting on behalf of our renamed Vulnerable Road User Task Force. Just a brief update on what we've done so far. Our current members are Schiffmiller, Cal Spencer, Bill, Adrian, Marina Sola, and myself. We're currently seeking maybe a couple more members from interested community parties, specifically from Bike Santa Fe, and potentially Santa Fe Seniors on Bikes. Definitely interested in other community groups if we've missed one, but want to be sure that we're being very inclusive here. Ideally, we're looking for at least one member with some legal background since we're hoping to get into legal and/or policy, I should say, since we're hoping to, on the other side of this, based on our findings, maybe make some policy recommendations. Our plan so far is to engage a broad variety of stakeholders just to understand the current state of things. So, the Police Department, then we know the Chief is a bit in flux, the DA's office, take a look at some UNM resources with some contacts we have there, and departments who have done traffic analyses in the past, Bike Santa Fe, and the Public Safety Committee. To answer some of the questions that came up earlier, we imagined that the commitment to this committee would be about a year from anyone, and that so far we've been meeting about once per month for about an hour, with some pre-work and research and circulating articles outside of that. I do think we can adjust this cadence to the committee's needs depending on whether we're trying to publish something faster or if we feel like there's not enough momentum there. Realistically, we don't really think we can get the ball rolling until about February after we have a new BPAC chair, a new police chief, city manager, etc., and of course, until we've actually recruited and said, "Hey, these are going to be the core members of the task force." So that we're not, someone's not joining mid-journey. I'll also call out, I'm on the record super pregnant, so I think I'm probably going to take a few months of maternity leave from my work as well as this committee. So, I've been doing the administrative stuff so far, but I was really hoping that we could identify a chair or a replacement chair or a co-chair just to be sure that we continue to meet and make progress on this while I'm out. I guess I'm wondering if we should go over content tonight or if we can report out on that at another time. Do we have a question already? Member Gerick: Member Gerick. First of all, thank you, Helen, for taking this on. Maybe we could jump to quickly the intended outcomes of the committee, and I'm assuming that's to make some recommendations that would then be given to whom. That's right. Well, okay, I'll go over the questions we're asking. I don't know that we've explicitly answered for whom, but it's almost, I'll go back to the committee for that because we haven't explicitly answered it. But I would say that basically we would go back to all of the stakeholders with our findings. I think it depends on what the findings are as well. I think at minimum we intend to, as a committee, say, "Hey, these are some recommendations we have for the city," and take that to Mayor Garcia because he seemed interested and invested in this, which is exciting, and see where we might go from there. But we haven't run the analysis yet, so I don't want to say, "Hey, this is what we're going to find. We're going to find bias here and then we're going to go speak to the DA or the police about that." But I think if we were to find, "Hey, there's bias in these areas," I think we'd be interested in going back to the parties where we see a disparity between, you know, maybe what's law and how it's enforced, or different rates of follow-through, I guess, in car-on-car accidents versus car-on-pedestrian or cyclist, for instance. Yeah. Okay. We will go over the content we have. This is brief. We've so far put together an outline. I wouldn't say it's set in stone. I expect that as we bring on new members, they might have perspectives and other things to add. But just as a work in progress, the key questions we're asking are whether there is bias in charging and punishment, I guess car-on-car versus car-on-vulnerable road user incidents. Vulnerable road users being cyclists and pedestrians for us. Whether investigations are adequately capturing the vulnerable road user's perspective. What systemic factors are contributing to these disparities in outcomes, and then this is kind of the recommendation part. What policies or practices might be put in place to address disparities, assuming we find them. If not, then great, we'll just say there's no bias. Awesome. Key findings, which we can't know until we run an analysis, and then just primary recommendations coming out of that. So we'll be focused on post-crash investigation, citation, and judicial processes. So a crash happens, it's presumably recorded by the police. That doesn't mean that there's always prosecution that follows from that. So I think we'll be kind of following what happens through the funnel after the incident, like how many of these become something that's cited, how many of them go to court, etc. I think just because of the scope of this committee, where we do have county membership as well as city membership, we plan to gather data for the entire county if possible, but then make clear cuts and say this is the city data versus the county data. Give some background and context on how we came to form this committee or this task force and why we're doing this, and then the research questions, which are the same as the key questions shared earlier. So far, our ideas around how we're going to assemble this data and run the analysis are getting data from really as many sources as possible. I do think that some of these records, like city and county, they may roll up to DOT if all the processes are working correctly, but it remains to be seen. So I think we'll just kind of reach out to any outlet we have to try to get crash data from NMDOT, City of Santa Fe, and then the County Sheriff's Office. UNM a few years ago, I think maybe it was last updated 2023 or something, put together a really great series of data visualizations for pedestrian and what they call pedal cyclist crashes, but it hasn't been updated. So we thought maybe we'd reach out to them and kind of understand sources and methodology there. And then to understand what the follow-through is there, we'll have to, in mass, I think, get a lot of court records and kind of case outcomes to try to map those to crashes. Analysis, we're planning to do a statistical comparison of the charge rates and outcomes, review police reports and investigation procedures to see how consistent they are across all the law enforcement bodies we named, and link this cross-data to judicial outcomes. I'll say we're already running into some limitations. I think Gary has been super proactive in trying to get us data. Response time can be slow, but hopefully we get the data one way or another. Do a literature review. This is where we're hoping someone with policy or legal background can help out just to help us understand, are these issues that we believe exist within Santa Fe or are out there more broadly? Let's see. It's more on the analysis findings, contributing factors. I think we're hoping to get into everything from just protocols, investigating consistency there, as well as getting into infrastructure design, especially if we have someone with a planning background on the committee. Hopefully, we can partner with other folks on BPAC, even if they're not an official part of the task force. And then finally, whatever comes out of this writing, recommendations. I think this kind of covers some initial ideas we had around recommendations, but again, it depends on what the analysis turns up, and we do plan to make everything really transparent. So, we'll include supplemental, any data we use, any analysis we used, hopefully some sample crash reports, and also just stories. I think it's been interesting at our BPAC meetings to hear from members of the community as well as members of the task force itself, just like really close scrapes with life or death. I think sometimes the anecdotal data can be just as powerful as the data we pull up. So, trying to collect a few of those stories from the community. And that's all we have for tonight, but more to come. Any questions? It's very impressive. I think you should go have that baby now and take a rest. Any questions? Member McConnell? Member McConnell: Not a question. Just thank you for as much work as you've already put into it. It's a good outline. Thanks, Member Gerick. Member Gerick: Ditto. Thanks. And if you could email that to me, then I'll make sure that everyone on bikes has a copy. For sure. Awesome. Yeah, that's great to hear. And thanks to the committee. This, I'm presenting it, but there's a bunch of us. We all worked on it together. It's exciting. It's good to get the ball rolling, but it'll take a while. So, stay tuned. This is just like the first episode. Question. You talked about having someone take over while you're on maternity leave. Are you looking for the BPAC to appoint that person, or are you just going to see if someone rises from within those people on the committee? I think it depends on what is allowed because I think typically it's supposed to be a BPAC member who chairs these ad hoc or subcommittees, but Gary already, I think, chairs a committee, so I didn't really want to ask him to do double duty. Romel, is that correct? Romel: Yes. So, in the resolution, we can only have three members at large. Three BPAC members, three members at large, and the BPAC members should not have a member of other subcommittees. So we can control the rolling quorum. However, so you and Member Schiffmiller are members of this ad hoc committee. So we are just going to request that anything that the Technical Review Subcommittee is talking about doesn't share it in this ad hoc committee, which is a little bit difficult because you are the chair of the Technical Review, and Member Wang is a member of Policy. Yes. So this ad hoc committee, I think, has a lot of legs because each committee can make a contribution to the report or to the analysis. If we're only allowed three members at large, does that mean we, we meaning members from the public? So, yeah. So, we're technically already at capacity. You already have three members at large. So, I, and that's in the resolution. We cannot just ask the legal services, "Can you allow five members of members at large for this ad hoc committee or task force?" Are there constraints around how we solicit feedback? Is it possible? Mayor: No. Okay. Mayor: No. No. I guess part of my question was, does this interim chair of the committee have to be appointed by EPAC and the chair of BPAC? By the chair of BPAC. BPAC chair can't bubble up. They can't play rock paper scissors. No. Okay. Miss Gabriel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I have a question. I should be more familiar with the resolution. It seems like if an ad hoc committee is treated the same as a subcommittee, we are always going to have this problem because all of the members are on subcommittees. So there's no exception for an ad hoc committee for membership. So the requirement that no BPAC member shall be a member of more than one subcommittee, it's not in the resolution. It's just the advice from city legal services. So, but is an, could we say that an ad hoc committee is not a subcommittee? It is a temporary working group and that that would not then be restrained by that. I will ask legal services tomorrow because as far as my understanding is, an ad hoc committee is equivalent to a subcommittee. So any restrictions on membership of a subcommittee applies to an ad hoc committee. That would be great to get clarification because that is extremely limiting. Yeah, as to how many partners can be involved in this, and it's a huge job. And as I mentioned, the limitation or the restriction that no BPAC member shall be a member of more than one subcommittee is just advice from city legal services. It's not in the resolution. So there's no problem if there will be three BPAC members who are members of other subcommittees, as long as those BPAC members do not talk about what they talk about within their own subcommittee. Like Member Schiff Miller should not be talking about the issues that they are facing within technical review. Well, right now, it would be good to get clarification on that because right now, obviously, Member Wong is both on the Policy and Planning Subcommittee, and she's heading up this, which now Mayor Garcia appointed her to do. Yeah, yeah. As I said, she can be a member also of the ad hoc committee. It's just advice to control the rolling quorum. Yeah, but if Member Wang wants to invite, for example, Bike Santa Fe, Senior on Bikes, as members at large, then as written in the resolution, we cannot have more than three members at large, and that's a limitation for both subcommittee and ad hoc committee. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I imagine we might just follow a model then where we're very actively soliciting feedback from a couple of designated individuals. Are there rules around whether they can attend our ad hoc committee meetings, or is it just that officially we can only have three EPAC members and three members at large? Yeah. So if your ad hoc or task force will have a meeting and you invited, and if you will have a quorum, like six BPAC members, that meeting should be made public, should be accessible to the public. I should put a notification that the Vulnerable Road User Task Force will meet on such and such a date, and this is their agenda. But if it's two BPAC members, three members at large, and then two members of the public who come, that's not? No problem. No problem. Okay. Okay. No problem. Yeah. All right. I think we can work around that. It just, I guess our additional members maybe would receive recognition in the report in a different category and not be called members at large. So, okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Any other questions, comments? Just a comment, because this affects how we do our, how we can integrate a lot of the issues that we work on here. I just want to say that it was legal opinion in the past. Well, we're going to have a new legal department. I mean, we're going to have a new city attorney. And so, I think it's worth finding out. My question, the real-life example is, yeah, Gary's on the technical committee. This is maybe not to put you on the spot, but is that feasible? Do you think if you were on both, would that be a natural separation, or would that be hard for you to keep that separate? I think keeping them separate would be totally doable. I don't really need to talk about specific projects that we're offering advice on the planning of when we're talking about this Vulnerable Road User Task Force. There's a portion of the Vulnerable Road User Task Force that will address infrastructure, but that doesn't mean I need to specifically cite projects we're working on. I think we can keep them separate. Mr. Chair, we need a vote for the name of the task force. Oh, okay. So, clarify what the proposed name of the task force is. The proposed name of the task force is the Vulnerable Road User Task Force. I have a motion to so name it. I move that we name it the Vulnerable User Task Force. You have "road" in the title there. Oh, sorry. Whatever you said. Vulnerable Road User Task Force. I move that we name it the Vulnerable Road User Task Force. I'll second it. Any final comments, questions? All the, okay. Roll call vote. That's right. Mr. Chair, is Member Pengilli still attending online? Is Member Pengilli still attending online? He is not online. Okay. Maybe we just, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you. Next item on tonight's agenda is discussion of potential solutions to improve the trail behind the Viscaya Apartments, crossing the Arroyo Medio. Member Gabriel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I brought this up a while back. We had a request from a constituent who lives at Viscaya Apartments to do something about the informal path that goes from the Viscaya parking lot across the Arroyo to the Albertson's center, that whole shopping center. Tony and I went out there and met with Bob, the guy who requested it. And I've had conversations with Eric from Mo. And Tony just suggested to me that since these are both in the same area, that we add this to the field trip so that BPAC will understand what it is we're looking at. And once we do that, and if BPAC thinks it's a good idea, make a recommendation to prioritize this in trail improvement in our plan, and ask for budget for a study to see about feasibility of improving that connection because it would make a great connection from that area southeast of St. Francis and the shopping center to the Gail Reba Trail, the Rail Trail, the Chamisa Trail. It's really a good access point. So, are people amenable to adding that to our field trip, and then you can make a better informed decision? The mics aren't catching, but I see a lot of heads nodding. So, it seems to be agreeable to everybody. Any comments? Seems like a good idea. Okay, we'll add it. Mr. Chair, Member Gabriel, can we do it on the same day that we do the field trip for? Oh, that's what we're recommending, is that we combine it all because it's right across the street, basically. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. I think that's it for now. Great. Next item. League of American Bicyclist Community Sparks Grant. Miller, you did a lot of work on this. Oh, it seems like a lot of work for $2,000, but hopefully we'll get it. Yeah. So, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, BPAC is applying for this $2,000 Labs Community Sparks Grant. This is a highly competitive funding application because they are only granting five communities outside GM communities. So, there will be a total of 10 communities that will receive this funding, $2,000 each. However, there will be only five communities outside GM that will receive $2,000. And their main criteria is equity and accessibility. So I was thinking of our strategic plan, and in our strategic plan, there is a task, number 3.1, to assess connectivity because based on our survey, that is the number one factor for bicycling and walking. So the title is Santa Fe Bike Summit: Closing the Gaps in Citywide Bike Connectivity. There were 37 questions. And you have a copy of the application. I stopped at number 35, asking for community or organizations, nonprofit organizations that we will coordinate, collaborate. And I listed, of course, the SFMPO. Number two is Bike Santa Fe. Number three is Santa Fe Public School Safe Route to School Program, whose coordinator is Ryan Harris. And I would like to ask BPAC, who are the two organizations you would like to include? So when we include them, we need to notify them that they are included as partners, community partners, because they will receive a copy of the application. And I wonder if the committee would like to add Seniors on Bikes because of their criteria of equity and accessibility. They're really big on diversity, age, ethnicity, abilities. And who is the other, the fifth one, the fifth organization that you would like? And then I need a vote, a decision. If we submit this, the deadline is January 27th. Gabriel. Because, thank you, Mr. Chair, of the focus on poverty and income, I was thinking Chainbreaker Collective would be a good partner. And I'm not sure about Santa Fe Conservation Trust, but they are very actively involved in the trail stuff. So are we limited? Okay. So maybe Chainbreaker would be an appropriate partner. I thought the same, Member Miller. I was going to say, I thought exactly the same. Yeah. And who's the other one? Seniors on Bikes or Santa Fe Conservation Trust? It seems like the SOBS, because of also the issue of senior access, would be appropriate. Do other folks think so? I agree. I agree. I ride with the SOBS a lot, and believe it or not, I'm one of the younger people there. Well, Steve, thank you. Their age requirement is fairly low. It's 50. You only have to be 50 to be a senior. Be 70. I can almost remember being 50. That gives you an automatic pass if you can't remember. I had a few edits I can send to you by email tomorrow. Is that okay? Are those short or huge edits? They're short. The main substantive one was Chainbreaker. Then there's a few times I noticed you mentioned pedestrians. Should that really be part of this or not? That's the only other question I had. The bicyclist and pedestrians, because that's the title of our committee. What's the decision of the committee? I'm not sure what you're asking. Decision about what? Because Chair Pilchair said that he noticed that when I mentioned bicyclist, I also mentioned pedestrians, but accessibility. For all vulnerable road users. I, not reading all the criteria from LAB, I thought this was purely a bicycle-oriented thing, but perhaps not. Yeah. So, the League defines equity as the just and fair inclusion into a society in which everyone can participate and prosper. The goals of equity must be to create conditions that allow all to reach their full potential by erasing disparities in race, income, ability, geography, age, gender, and sexual orientation. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is needed to assist equality in the provision of effective opportunities to all groups. Accessibility refers to improving and increasing access and mobility options for everyone, including and in particular for people with disabilities. The League recognizes that not every disability is visible to others, and that not every person with a permanent or temporary mobility or accessibility need identifies as disabled. Whether from a cognitive, sensory, or physical disability, or age, temporary illness, or injury, there are people in every community who face a range of mobility challenges for whom a bike or cycle may open a world of possibilities to increase accessibility. So you're right, they are just referring to bicyclists. Yes. It also says that under the background in the document included in our packet, improve communities through better bicycling with $2,000 mini-grants. So, if you've got time, I'll send you my comments. They're mostly just minor edits. Member Gabriel: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I had a few edits also, Romela. I thought I had it on my computer, but I don't. One of the things, there were two things at the end around the data that the two sources cited just said "City of Santa Fe." There was no cited report or program or anything. So, that seemed kind of big to me, but I can send those things to you offline. Thank you. I think it's City of Santa Fe Affordable Housing. My understanding is you need a vote from our committee whether to go ahead and submit. To submit or not to submit. I'm sorry, do you have another question? I just want to say thank you for all your work on it. Member: Mr. Chair and members, I worked on this a day and a half, and it's the most difficult funding application I wrote. So, I guess I'll entertain a motion to direct staff to go ahead with the submittal of this grant application. Second. Okay, I guess I move to do that. Oh, did you move? Okay, I move to do that then. I'll make it easy. Motion. Any comments? Okay, Mr. Pilly's gone. So, all those in favor say "Aye." Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Next item is discussion on BPAC's role in major redevelopment projects. This relates somewhat to what we were talking about earlier this evening, and to me, a concern I had had, I think I may have raised before, is also some of the major projects, like when we started resurfacing the arterial streets due to this bond that was passed a year and a half ago. I think Airport Way being a good example, that BPAC would be able to have some input in terms of how the striping on that occurs in the future. As I think as we did, I worked with Jennifer last year with the AP inventory, we noticed that the bike lane is a little bit narrow, particularly given the fact that there's a 45 mph speed limit on that road, or 40. But it brings to mind that there are projects that are maybe not typical build-up projects, like a street resurfacing, that's something BPAC could be involved in. And then obviously tonight we talked about the benefit of having BPAC be involved in some development review. I guess we maybe we can learn some more about how much discretionary approval staff is using when it looks at these projects, and what the, I think as we also discovered, that some of these standards are minimum standards. They're not maximum standards. So even though, going back to what we talked about earlier, if the minimum standard is a 9-foot wide lane, if BPAC got, well, you might say, "Yeah, but it'd really be great if it was a 12-foot wide, 13-foot wide lane," or whatever the case may be, and that there be a bike lane provided anyway. That's been my concern, is probably more not to give the Technical Review Committee even more work to do, but maybe this is what would happen, but you know, that we'd have that ability to have more involvement in project reviews. Thank you, Chair. I think that's one conversation that, along with, I think the timing right now could be very good with a new chair coming in next meeting. I believe so. Yes. And I wonder if there is a way that with that leadership, preserve an off-campus for these kinds of conversations, the goal of he or she might see from the recommendations that we have much can have at least not only for BPAC, but to include Bikes FA on bikes. I think another example I have, which I actually, I think this subdivision project is occurring out in the county. It's between Rufina and Agua Fria, a little bit east of Ames Road. Twilight Homes, if you go by and see the signs. I haven't gone in there lately, but I went in there once. I was just amazed to find out that it's kind of being treated as two separate developments. It seemed like if you entered the site from Rufina, you can't get through to Agua Fria and vice versa, which, and I didn't even notice, minimally to me, in my mind, there should at least be a pedestrian bicyclist connection between the two sections. I can understand maybe they don't want cars going through and people discovering that's a cut-through to get between the two streets, but to me, as a minimum, that would be, to me, is a great example of why isn't there some type of pedestrian bicycle connection between those two subdivisions? Because it just creates for a better integrated community. I mean, imagine if you're a kid and you developed a friendship with someone who lived on the other side of the subdivision, you'd probably have to have your parents drive you over there or something, even though they might be 200 feet away. You said that because you will have a quorum. Yes. Do you want to have a BPAC meeting that is like a public meeting so that Santa Fe can participate in the discussion? That's the idea. Yes. Expand it to larger. So it's not a BPAC meeting, but we have to notify because you will have a quorum. I have a different opinion on that. I'm jumping in. Sorry. Because I was thinking this along the same lines. We're going to have a new chair, and this is something we should bring up. I think it's almost like we're going to be doing a briefing for the new chair, kind of like, "These are the issues we've come up with." And I would advocate that we as BPAC do that. We've organized it. We're, you know, we're in the know. It's not to keep the public out, but because we also take into consideration and we hear from our partners. But I think so it's not a free-for-all. I mean, it's somehow a little more structured that it be just us. That's my own, I mean, as I'm thinking for that reason. So, it keeps, stays focused. You know, we're the ones up here, you know, dealing with all the issues, and we bring, you know, we bring the experiences of the groups that are so involved in doing a lot of the work to thought. As I mentioned earlier this evening, I'm not an expert on New Mexico's Open Public Meetings Act, but I know when I worked at Washington, there's only certain things you could have a closed meeting for, and this would not qualify. So, we may not widely recruit people to come to it, or you certainly could have such a setup where if you wish, just BPAC discussed, and people are able to watch and observe. I think I don't think we can close the public from visiting such a meeting. To be clear, yes, it would be a BPAC meeting just like that, and you know, we'd be talking and we can get their input. But so yeah, not suggesting a closed meeting or anything. Member Gabriel: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I'm wondering how a new city councilor gets oriented to their assigned subcommittees. I'm assuming there is some kind of orientation. Maybe they meet with the last chair. I don't know. But I was thinking, why not do it at a BPAC meeting? The public is already here. Our partners are here. Perhaps we could give her background material such as our strategic plan. I mean, I don't know how these meetings are very structured, how we would structure a Q&A with the chair or some kind of open conversation where people could express, especially the BPAC members express, things that we would like to move forward. It seems like we've already got the forum for it, and that's this meeting. I don't know, then we don't have to worry about another meeting offline or finding another space. So that's my two cents. So the governing body had an orientation last Wednesday. Last, yesterday, and the first governing body meeting will be held next Thursday, January 15th. So, with the former chair, Michael Garcia, I remember I briefed him before the first meeting, that only me and my division director, John Romero. Yeah. So I was thinking to do the same thing, like what our February meeting will be, kind of an orientation meeting, because we also have new members or newer members, like Member Farel. I did not orient or give her any orientation. And so we can present the strategic plan. Here is our strategic plan. Here is the direction. Here are the tasks. These are the tactics. And it's growing because now we have an ad hoc committee that I foresee that, or my vision is, their report will be included in the strategic plan. The bike summit, which is Task 3.1, what Chair is talking about, connectivity, that will be discussed in the bike summit, and that will be the recommendations from the bike summit will be included in the strategic plan in Task 3.1. So that's a good idea that February meeting will be orientation, and maybe we don't do the communications from other agencies, or it's up to the board. It's up to the committee how you structure the agenda for the next meeting. Gabriel, we do Robert's Rules, right? So, does that allow us at any point a more free-flowing conversation? Because it seems like it's extremely structured. So, how might we go about doing that? Romela, would it be possible if for the February orientation meeting that we reach out to various cycling at Bike Santa Fe folks, Seniors on Bikes, and say, "Look, this will be your opportunity to come at public speaking time and tell the new chair who are you, what you do, and maybe we could prompt them some other way. What are your wish list? Two wish list." Could it be under communications from the public? Another question I have, or could we split the meeting into like part of a work session, which would be less formal, and then, say, the first hour of the meeting, and then the second hour of the meeting would be going through our more normal agenda? I don't know if that's possible to do it that way. And the work meeting would be over the... Yeah. And as you mentioned, it'd be much more free-flowing than trying to get attention all the time, like Ms. Gabriel's trying to get attention. Sorry, maybe I had too much coffee today. I wonder if we could announce this at the Bike Santa Fe Winter Social. There will be a lot of partners there if they would allow us, and we could encourage people to come to that meeting. Yeah. Thank you. So your understanding then, Romela, is that it'll be next council meeting that formal appointment will be made? Yeah, January 15th. And we will know by tomorrow because the agenda will be published tomorrow. The likelihood of this person not being approved is pretty slim, I imagine. There's no doubt. Okay. Any other discussion on this item? Gabriel: I just have a question. So, should the chairs of the subcommittees be prepared to take the new chair through our sections of the strategic plan? I mean, obviously, not word for word, but we don't have any time between now and then to talk about how we want to do that. So, as a chair of the PEC subcommittee, I want to make sure, you know, we could split it up among ourselves, whatever we do. But should we meet with our subcommittees and figure out how we want to do that? I think it makes sense that the subcommittee chairs would be prepared to brief what the subcommittees do, and if there are specific things in the strategic plan they want to bring to the attention. Chair: I was just going to say, since we don't know officially who it is, I think we'll be well served by who's appointed chair of this committee. Maybe it would be nice for him or her to for us to ask because someone comes in with a level of knowledge of this. As I said, I think the person coming in as chair knows a lot. Do they have specific questions? I guess they could ask us, you know, "I want to know more about this. I want to..." I guess that would be part of a work session. We want to present all this, but let's go where he or she wants to take it. The new chair, you know, if I were the new chair, I'd have questions. That's just a contribution to how to structure this or focus it, not all presentation, but like, you know, this person, I think, knows a heck of a lot about all of this. Okay, sounds good. Any other comments? I want to be clear, so for the February 12th meeting, half of it is a work meeting with the new chair, and the other half will be available to the public. Is that what we're talking about? Well, I suggested we do a work session for half the meeting, then our normal agenda would be the other half of the meeting. I don't know what other business items you're going to have for next month, Gabriel. So, if we wanted our partners in the community to also interact, would they be part of the work session? No. Okay. That agenda, the communications from... So, at the communications from the public section, Seniors on Bikes, they, what, who they are. So, would that be part of the work session, though, or... My understanding is that the work session would be about the new chair. Yeah, and I suggested a work session, assuming it could be more or less structured and more free-flowing than our type of meeting we typically have here. That would be, I mean, we'd have to open that to the public, correct? The audience. Yeah, because it's the prerogative of the chair to open the discussion to the public. If the chair invites the public to participate in the discussion, she can do that. Chair Garcia did that in the past. So, I guess I'm a little confused because we just talked about inviting our partners and having them somehow interact in a separate work session. So, Tony, it sounds like you're suggesting that they would share what they do during, we would invite them to share what they do during communications from the public, but that wouldn't be part of the work session. Am I understanding that correctly? I guess that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Okay. They haven't been part of the strategic plan. I mean, it certainly opened it up for conversations as part of the strategic plan. But at some point, the agenda that's shared... I think that would be great to have them share, for us to formally invite them to share what they do, and then also to have this work session. I'm probably just more of a "need to know what's going to happen" person than other people. Thank you. I was going to comment, for example, I sit on the Public Safety Committee. There is no part of the agenda where comments from the public are solicited, unlike what we have on our agendas. There are no comments from the public. Yeah. The public doesn't comment. Well, I guess they might come. There's normally a huge horde of firefighters and police officers there. Make sure we stay in line. Okay, that all, everyone clear as mud to everybody. Right. Next item, subcommittee communications. I have nothing for Policy, Planning, and Law. Miss Gabriel, anything for PE? No, nothing. Thank you. Mr. Shift Miller, Technical Review. I've continued attending meetings about the Asakia Trail extension. Meetings for the Henry Lynch Road have been suspended. There's nothing of great import right now happening with the Asakia Trail, just, other than, well, let's see. They decided that the trail will be concrete, not asphalt. Vehicle access will be an issue that won't really affect us too much. They've been discussing the scheduling of the project and specific interest to us. Thank you. Next item is matters from staff, if any. And Mr. Chair, matters from the Community Committee to Gary. Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure how this falls. I have a question, kind of going back to the role of the ADA subcommittee. Are they advisory, or is their advisory similar? I guess there are other committees like us that are advisory, just in terms of looking at what we've been talking about tonight. Member Bordig Gray, are you referring to the Mayor's Committee on Disability? Yes. They're advisory. Thank you. From the chair, I hopefully, real briefly, I guess I'd like to suggest to staff how to make your job easier. I've noticed between the two committees I'm on that you nice folks take way more extensive minutes than the Public Safety Committee does, and it seems like, boy, that's a lot of work to do that. So, I've often thought, you know, I think I got used to a situation where basically you write a brief summary of comments, and basically you have to just eat minutes on votes, but they could be a lot briefer. And I guess I'm again, I'm just, I feel for you with the length of these minutes if you're preparing. So, is this where you're replacing with a robot or no? Yeah, Mr. Chair, I asked, and I asked Mayor Garcia, I think on Tuesday, if he will bring back our stenographers, and he said, "We have to talk about it in the governing body meeting." Yeah. Because we used to have stenographers. All advisory committees used to have a stenographer, and we lost that in COVID. Yeah. Anyway, I just encourage you to look at it because again, I've often thought, "Boy, these are, it must take a lot of time to put these meeting minutes together." And having done it myself for years, as a staff to a planning commission, I tried to keep the minutes down to about two pages. They didn't actually, they were doing very verbose ones, and I took it over, said, "I'm just going to do these myself," and they never complained, so I thought it's a good idea. Yeah. Anyway, are there any other matters? Our next meeting, as mentioned, will be February 12th, unless we have this special field visit meeting ahead of time, but there will be a public notice provided of that. So, keep your eyes peeled. Is there any public left? Okay, that meeting is adjourned. Good morning. I think we did.