Charter Review Commission
Mon, Sep 14, 2026 · Charter Review Commission
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1577-charter-review-sep-14-2026

== Executive Summary ==
The Charter Review Commission met on 09/14/2026, approving its agenda and focusing heavily on the upcoming community survey and initial charter draft refinements. The Commission approved the detailed marketing plan and the 24-question community survey instrument, which is set to launch on 09/21/2026. Significant time was spent revising specific questions within the survey and sections of the charter draft, particularly concerning the roles of the city manager and mayor, city council structure, and public involvement in budgeting. The Commission also set 12/03/2026 as the date for a public input session.

Further discussions included a report from the Budget Strategic Planning Subcommittee, which recommended a strategic plan requirement for the city but no action on council vacancies. The Commission also debated the effectiveness of its subcommittees, ultimately deciding to maintain the current structure but tasking the Governance Subcommittee with producing a foundational report for the next meeting. Research on city manager turnover was assigned to Commissioner Villareal, and the next full commission meeting is scheduled for 10/22/2026.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the community survey with agreed-upon changes.
- Approved 12/03/2026 as the date for the public input session.
- Agreed to strike 'professional' from 'professional city manager' in Part 2 of the charter draft and Question 7 of the survey.
- Agreed to strike 'strong' from 'a strong elected executive' and replace 'elected executive' with 'mayor' or 'elected leader' in options B and C for Question 8 of the survey.
- Added an option for 'the mayor and the council collaborating together' to Question 11 of the survey.
- Changed 'short-term' to 'medium-term' for 3-5 year goals and replaced 'in the city general plan' with 'not sure' in Question 13 of the survey.
- Revised 'Dashboard' terminology in Question 14 to 'easy-to-read online summary showing progress on its goals' and will explore 'select all that apply' with an exclusive option D and potential ranking.
- Replaced Question 16 with two new questions: 'who should be involved in the creation of the annual City of Santa Fe's operating budget' and an open-ended question on 'How do you think the public should be involved in setting budget priorities?'
- Revised Question 19 options to explicitly include the number of districts (e.g., 'two City Councilors per district, four districts').
- Rephrased Question 20 into two open-ended questions: 'What in the city is working well today that should stay the same?' and 'What in the city is not working well and should be redesigned?'
- Struck Question 21 due to redundancy.
- Moved demographic questions to the end of the survey and discussed adding an 'under 18' age option.
- Reached consensus to move forward with a strategic plan recommendation, requiring further refinement of language.
- Reached consensus to take no action on filling City Council vacancies or requiring a councilor to resign to run for mayor.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Approval of the agenda — Passed 6-0
- Approval of the community survey with agreed-upon changes — Passed 6-0
- Setting 12/03/2026 as the date for the public input session — Passed 6-0

== Public Comment ==
No public comments were received.

== Topics ==
- Community Survey
- Subcommittee Functionality
- Public Engagement Strategy
- City Government Roles
- Survey Data Analysis
- Neighborhood Association Outreach
- Meeting Efficiency
- Budget and Strategic Planning
- Commission Awareness

== Full Transcript ==
Michael, are we live? We are live. It's 5:03. I would like to call the Charter Review Commission meeting to order. May I please have roll call?

Yes, Madam Chair. Commissioner Chavez? Commissioner Duran? And if I could ask you all to please make sure you're speaking into the mic so that we can pick it up on YouTube. Commissioner Gold? Here. Commissioner Granio? Commissioner Perez? Here. Commissioner Ray? Commissioner Vela? Here. Commissioner Villareal? Present. Chair Ortiz? Present. You have a quorum, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Xavier. Appreciate that. So, there being a quorum, let's move on to item number three, approval of the agenda. Gentlemen, do I have a motion?

So moved.

Commissioner Gold for approval of the minutes. Do I have a second? I'm sorry. Approval of the agenda. Do I have a second?

I second.

We have a second by Commissioner Duran. Any discussion on the agenda? We have a motion and a second. May I have a roll call, please, for approval of the agenda as presented?

Yes, Madam Chair. Commissioner Duran? Yes. Commissioner Gold? Yes. Commissioner Perez? Yes. Commissioner Vela? Yes. Commissioner Villareal? Yes. Chair Ortiz? Yes. The motion to approve the agenda has passed.

Thank you for approval of the agenda as presented. We do have an item number four, approval of the minutes, but we do not have minutes ready at this time, and I imagine Xavier will have them at the next meeting. Is that correct?

Madam Chair, that is what I am anticipating. I will double-check with Elizabeth Martin, our stenographer, just to see when those minutes will be ready.

Appreciate that. And whenever they're ready, I mean, I know that was a long meeting, so I know it takes time. Whenever they're ready. So we'll move on to item number five. Do we have any public comment?

Madam Chair, there's no one in the audience, and we have nobody on Zoom for public comment.

Okay. Well, moving right along, we're going to go to item number six. And this is a presentation that's going to provide us information about our survey rollout. We've had previous information provided at other meetings, but this is further clarification. And I think Xavier is going to provide that report to us. I believe you have a two-pager on your desk that lists what he's going to be talking about, so you can reference that. And I'll turn it over to Xavier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this document that we're looking at here was pulled directly from the marketing rollout that Chris Peralta is working on with Hutton Broadcasting. I am by no means an expert on what is in this rollout. If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them, but I may have to get with Chris Peralta to get back to you on some of those answers if I don't know the answer, just to clarify.

Okay. So the week of September 21 will be the survey deployment and continued promotion. Survey launch and application amplification through all city and select third-party channels. That'll conclude survey promotion through all channels and mediums. Survey call to action added to all promotional material. There'll be a focus on item-specific individual social posts through planned social media campaign, AB tests, continue to evaluate results. We'll continue general awareness around the Charter Review Commission and purpose. This, we will encourage public input, meeting, and public comments. Call to action, there'll be a link to visit for more info and for folks to stay updated. We'll continue to deploy both general and specific info to create a link between the commission's purpose and specific items they are reviewing through all channels, and there will be continued public input meeting promotion.

The promotional material and channels will be through flyers distributed throughout the city facilities and complexes, a renewed social media campaign including graphics and copy, both for general awareness and specific items being reviewed, radio ads through Hutton Broadcasting, informational videos that'll be put out through city channels and Hutton Broadcasting, newsletter entries that'll go out through city channels and through Hutton Broadcasting, website prominence, excuse me, that'll go out through Hutton, and we'll also have QR cards. After all of this is done, the comms team will pull and analyze the campaign data. The next week after that will be continued promotion. We'll continue survey promotion through all channels and mediums. We're going to focus on item-specific individual social posts through planned social media campaign. We'll continue general awareness around the Charter Review Commission and purpose, encourage public input meeting and public comments. A lot of these are the same as the first week. We'll continue to deploy both general and specific info to create a link between the commission's purpose and specific items that are reviewing through all channels, and we'll have continued public meeting input and promotion. We'll be using the same promotional material and channels. We'll have promotion around the survey, and we'll continue to pull and analyze the campaign data.

So here's a survey launch overview. The primary objective is to launch the survey and integrate the survey CTA, that's call to action, into the entire campaign. Key activities will be deploying the survey, promoting the survey across all available channels. We'll add the survey call to action to appropriate campaign materials. We'll continue item-specific messaging, continue AB testing and optimization, maintain general commission awareness, continue public meeting and public comment promotion, and continuation of the flyers, social media, radio, video, newsletters, website promotion, and QR cards. We'll have a measurement focus. We'll have weekly reporting on survey starts, survey completions, completion rate, traffic sources, QR code activity, website traffic, social engagement, and content performance. The campaign should now operate as an integrated funnel: awareness information, website survey/public participation. And so one of the things that the promotional campaign will really enable us to do is analyze how the message is getting out, who's seeing the message, and how we can better promote it, so we can hopefully get this information out to more people who would be interested and generate some more public engagement. And I stand for any questions.

Thank you, Xavier. Commissioner Ray, we are now looking at these three pages that's on your desk if you're familiar with what we're looking at. Yes, ma'am. And we are on item 6a, survey rollout. Questions from the commission. Commissioner Perez.

Thank you, Chair. Xavier, I wonder, we had talked at a previous meeting here about how to mitigate for people inputting their feedback several times over to make sure that the loudest person isn't getting more say than the quiet person. Is there a way that it's measured if a person already submitted the survey that they're not, the tenth time that they're submitting it?

Sure. Vice Chair Perez, I would have to double-check with Chris Peralta on that. I'm sure there's a way to check to make sure that these surveys aren't being inputted over and over again by the same people, maybe through, if we were able to see their IP address where it's coming from. But I would have to double-check, but I can double-check and get back to you.

Thank you. Good question. Mr. Perez, anything else? Madam Chair, just a clarification. Did you tell us or staff tell us what is considered city channels? I couldn't remember if we talked about what those channels entailed.

I believe, Chair Perez, or I'm excuse me. Chair Ortiz, Commissioner Villareal, I believe the channels would be through our social media and through our, yeah, our newsletter lists, like, our email lists. And I'm not, I think that's primarily what it consists of, and that would, I believe that would be in addition to the channels that Hutton will be providing.

Okay. I think, I can't remember who brought this up, but we were talking about how it would be helpful to send the survey to neighborhood associations. They, we have a list of neighborhood association contacts to share with their listserv, I think in land use. So I think that would be a good avenue to share. And I actually heard from one neighborhood association president that they would like to see that through that channel.

Okay. Chair Ortiz, Commissioner Villareal, we can absolutely look into that.

Thank you. Any other questions, Commissioner Villareal? I have a question on the last page under key activities, it mentions maintain general commission awareness, which is awesome. And I'm wondering what that will look like.

Chair Ortiz, I'm not too sure on that. I believe that was part of the initial marketing plan that we had at our meeting a few weeks ago. But I can get some more details on that.

And so I'm guessing some of this PR is already ongoing, being put out there regarding the meetings. And I'm curious how us commissioners can know of what's been put out there so we can echo and reinforce what is being said out there to those individuals that we associate with.

Chair Ortiz, that is something I would have to inquire about with Chris Peralta. I will check with him, and I will get you an answer.

Right. Great. Any other questions from commissioners regarding the survey rollout? Good. And then, Xavier, one of the motions we made at the previous meeting had to do with the survey and the rollout and then an additional suggestion or template of what might the input sessions look like with the survey. And I understand staff is looking at that currently.

The staff is looking at that currently. Yes. They don't have anything prepared as of yet, but it is something they're working on. I'm hoping to have that to you very soon.

You wonder we can start using that information along with the survey once we finish having that conversation this evening and moving forward for our input sessions. Thank you. Anything else on the presentation? Okay. We're going to move on to item number seven, discussion and possible action. I'm going to start with the review and approval of the community survey. And as you remember, we all worked really hard at the last meeting, rolled up our sleeves, and we went through the 24-questionnaire instrument and made some adjustments, suggested adjustments, which Richard Duran and Carisha Vela worked on. And what you see is a product in your packet. Is a product of their work. You'll see the questionnaire as was presented at the last meeting. You will see in red what I thought I captured in the conversation, so I may have captured it incorrectly. And if I did, you need to correct that for me. But stuff in the red is most of it what I captured in writing. There's some elements in purple that Commissioner Vela rechecked the work and added to for clarification. And I think this instrument now looks more like what this commission wanted it to look like when we left our last meeting. So, would Commissioner Duran like to go through it? Or I'm not sure how you want to handle this conversation at the end. I would hope that once we have this instrument looking the way we want it to look, we could have some approval so that the communications team could start putting this in the format that they need to put it so that it can be responded. Commissioner Duran.

Thank you, Chair. I would just want to make sure everyone had an opportunity to review the edits that were made. And in terms of the best use of our time since we have other agenda items that may take more time, I just want to figure out the best and the most efficient way to get through this agenda item.

So if everyone has reviewed, are there any other comments that you have based on the revisions that were made? Yes. Well, then let's go through line by line to make sure we capture everything. Commissioner Graham, you want Commissioner Gold to address the comments? Yes. In the intersection. Commissioner Gold? Thank you. And I think we've made great progress at our last meeting, and I thank you, Commissioner, for leading us on that. A few little items to consider to further clarify this.

Starting on part two, "How the city should be run," it starts with a declared statement that the city is a full-time mayor who runs day-to-day operations, eight-member City Council, and a professional city manager. I would strike "professional" because although we have a city manager, he is the fire chief who came up through the ranks as a firefighter, did a fine job running the fire department. He'll be the first to tell you he is not a professional city manager. So I just dropped "professional."

Second, at the very end, the last sentence in that paragraph, it says, "A few of them separate two different functions: who should set the city's direction and who should run it day to day?" I said, "Just carry out that direction by leading the staff" instead of "run it day to day." Strike "run it day to day" and insert "carry out that direction by leading the city staff."

Madam Chair, on that point, Mr. Vega. On that point, I was wondering if that sentence should just be struck completely and if we even need it. "A few of them separate two different things: who should set the city's direction." And I guess it, I think it's worded weird, but maybe after your edit, we could lose the whole sentence. Fine. I would support that. Is that all right? No. We're deleting the last sentence in part two. "A few of them separate two different things: who should set the city's direction and who should run it day to day." And I agree. I think those topics are covered in the questions below.

We strike "professional" as the descriptor in the first sentence. It's an actual statement. And on question seven, just for consistency's sake, the first sentence reads, "City day-to-day operations can be led either by an elected mayor or by a professional manager, a professional city manager," only because option B here does talk about a professional city manager. I just insert "city."

Madam Chair, can we work on that question since we're there instead of spending? Yes, Commissioner. I think this is a good way to approach this. Yes, Commissioner Varell, on that question. Can you remind me why we said it was changed for that second sentence? "Who should be responsible for carrying out the direction of elected officials?" I don't think that's what we're asking. Yeah. So I was trying to figure out what were we trying to say for seven. "The city's day-to-day operations can be led either by the elected mayor or by a professional city manager that the city hires for the job." Who should, I, this assumes the differentiation between policy and administration. The idea that the elected representatives, the people, set the policy, and therefore, the professional staff carries it out. That's what it's hinting at, but if it's not clear, we could clarify it.

I think we should be careful about assuming that people are going to understand this because I think that this distinction is very, it's very difficult to make unless you understand many ways that a government can be put together. And so I think that I'm not really sure exactly how this fits in because we're not, we haven't given them the option of having a professional city manager at this point? I mean, where do they get that option? In question seven. In question seven. Yes. Question six is, "Who makes overall policy direction?" And it's amongst the elected officials, the mayor, the council, or the two together. Question seven is, "Who carries out that direction day to day?" And there, it could be the mayor. It could be the professional city manager, some other combination. Or it could be just the city manager. Yes. And that's option B. No. That's a professional city manager, which is a distinction that you're making specifically to promote your point of view.

Okay. Would you be more comfortable just saying "a city manager"? We took out the word "professional" in the narrative right underneath number two. And so if we took it out, if we took it out there, could you say, "taken out your Richel Velo on that point?" We have another question that asks about the requisite experience of a city manager, and so we might capture both points across those two questions. That sounds like a good place to, yeah, want it. So, Mr. Perez? I just have a wording suggestion for this question then. What if we say, "The city's day-to-day operations can be led either by the elected mayor or by a city manager the city hires for the job. Who should be responsible for carrying out this responsibility?" That way it's like one, the other, maybe both. I don't know. Right? But then we get into the appropriate qualifications. Right? Desirable qualifications in a different question. I want this question. The word "professional" is remaining in number seven in two places in the first sentence and then item B, or is it not? I'm asking. Yeah. I'm trying to clarify. So we're take, that's what I'm asking. Is that Commissioner Duran? What I heard is to add "a professional city manager" instead of "a professional manager." So are we keeping this questionnaire based on what we have now or based on what we want to have in the future? That is a really good question. I think "city" remain, I think that "city" should remain because it is the position, the city manager. I am open to taking "professional" out of this question, both in the premise and the options because I think we cover what the city manager's qualifications might be in question 10.

Okay. That, that maybe takes us away from submitting a leading quest. I have more "professional" in there. I think it's, what are we trying to get out of these questions? This is a distinction between the mayor and the city manager. This is an appointed role versus an elected, elected one. I'm not sure "professional" in this question seven takes away from the information we're trying to survey for. And in combination with the answer to question 10, we determine what, what the qualities or experience of that manager position might be. So I think we're getting our answer. Well, Commissioner Bellhop, I understand, number seven, if we take the word "professional" out, we focus on who should be doing that. Elected mayor, the city manager, either, and not the qualification. In this question? Yes. Which, which I, I, I think makes sense to me. It simplifies the question and points to who is supposed to be doing this. And I think by what mechanism as well. So leaving "professional," we're still measuring through the survey distinction between an elected person or an appointed person. And then we, we explore what that appointed person's qualifications might ought to be in question 10. I think it simplifies what we're learning from the response in question seven, and I think what else we want to know is captured elsewhere. So I would, I would recommend that we take out "professional" in the question and in the answer so that what we are measuring by their response is just the elected versus the appointed question. That makes sense to me. Commission, what was your agenda? I'm with that. Commissioner Wright? You're good with that? Okay. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Duran, you're, you're on the roll, our role there. Question eight? Any comments? Yes. Along the same lines about adjectives that may be leading, option A, "a strong elected executive with real authority." I'd suggested that we strike both adjectives "real" and "strong." One, "real" got tight, taken out, but I suggest you remove "strong." And then B, "an elected executive leader who sets the tone, represents the city." Executive implies authority over the city organization, and B is not that option. So I suggest striking "executive." "An elected leader who sets the tone, represents the city, resides over the council while the day-to-day administration sits for the professional manager." I'd, I'd take out "executive" there and similarly on C. "Nick, elected executive with the only ceremonial power," which I've never seen before. So it's kind of a hypothetical option. Can we take it out on C? Again, taking out "executive," "an elected leader." Oh, and adding "leader." Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Make your chair. Okay. An elected leader. But, darling. Okay. Commissioner Evans, you have something on that one? Yeah. Commissioner Gold, can you explain it to me again? I'm not following why taking out "executive" is important. Because if you say that this is an executive position, it means you have authority over the organization. B here is talking about somebody who does not. This is typical council manager form of government where the mayor is part of the council, leads the council, but the city manager runs the organization. Right? And putting "executive" in here implies that this person not only does all of these things, well, then it, it, and then it's contradictory. Then it says, "but then the day the administration remains of the city manager." So it's at odds with one. So I just suggest strike an "executive." Thank you for that clarification. And I'm following. The only thing then that's just if we're getting into semantics, "an elected leader" implies one person, and we're talking that the council. Well, we're talking about the mayor's role is the question you made. So this is strictly about what the mayor does. Right. So that's why I'm wondering why we're taking out "executive" when by definition, the mayor is the executive. Yeah? No. That, that's, I see. Okay. The debate. That, that's something we're going to try to get out of this survey and I hope discuss as a commission. Mr. Perez, no further comment under it. So, Ter, would it be helpful instead of having "elected executive" just using the word "mayor"? Yes. That's fine. That, that'll work. Thank you. So, we are on number eight. A, we're taking the word "strong" out. The word "real" has already been crossed out. B, we are crossing out "executive" and adding the word "mayor." B, we're crossing out "executive" and adding the word "leader" or "mayor." You said "leader," "mayor." "Mayor." That's fine. Yeah. I thought that the suggestion was everywhere where it says "elected executive leader," we just put "mayor." We leave the word "elective." All right. So, all right. Madam Chair, just the first one does say "an elected executive." Right? We're keeping that one for A. Are we? Are we? Commissioner, I thought I heard that we were going to change that to "mayor." For all mayor? All the executives are mayors. Correct. Let's read everyone read that and make sure that works. What, where, where was the other option? K. We're taking the word "strong" out. All over existing stolen. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Look at that. Make sure we're good. Okay. Commission Duran. Number nine. Mr. Gold, anything? 10? Yes. Speak to. Yes, sir. Please. I, I question the utility of this question. And the reason I do is that some years ago, the National League of Cities did a survey and tried to get some sense of how Americans viewed their local government. One of the questions was, "What, what does the city manager do?" One out of 20 Americans respondents could answer what a city manager does. So when we go to ask our residents, what qualifications does the city manager need to have in order to carry out these duties, it presumes that a majority of our residents are pretty familiar with what the city manager is and does. I would submit that Santa Fe has had poor experience appointing people that had various levels of alternative government experience, but never having run cities before for the job of city manager.

In fact, Commissioner Vela's research, which we'll get to shortly, indicates that a turnover of city managers in Santa Fe is roughly around two years. And it's at that point that they burn out or are fired. And part of the reason is that it's a specialty job. There is a whole lot to learn, be trained on, and to experience before you take on a complex full-service city like Santa Fe. Expecting someone that has some governmental experience to come in and learn it on the job while taking care of the day-to-day affairs of Santa Fe hasn't worked out for us.

So, heaven forbid any of us would have a heart condition, but I don't think any of us would go see an ear, nose, and throat specialist to deal with it, assuming it's all medicine, so it should be close enough. Similarly, if any of us got a notice from the IRS that we were about to be audited, we probably wouldn't ask our neighbor, the bookkeeper, for help. We'd go see a tax specialist to deal with it. City management is a specialty. For ten months last year, we had a professional city manager in Santa Fe. But if they're turning over every two years, you cannot expect continuity. The organization doesn't take the city manager seriously because they come, they go, and we can't make civic progress. So, I'm just not sure that this tells us a lot because I'm not sure most of the people in Santa Fe could tell you what the city manager is or does day-to-day.

Commissioner Perez?
I agree with that statement, but then that's my question with this whole entire. So, either we want to ask questions that people may or may not know anything about, or we don't. But we don't get to nitpick which questions we think they may have good information on versus others. I don't think most people in the city know what the mayor does, what the council does, what the city manager does, what the support does, how government works, who directs departments. This is why on the community side of things, we included a little bit of education about how these things work, which is not present in the survey. I don't think it needs to be because it's a survey. But again, if we're asking some questions, we should ask all the questions. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Vela?
I agree. Can you all hear me? I agree with Commissioner Gold's comments on the specialty of the role, and I think it would serve us to get public input to support whatever decision we end up making. I think that while it's not an exact question of the six in the resolution that we've been asked to answer, I think it pertains to most of the questions because it has to do with who appoints and can fire the city manager. There are questions about the budget that the city manager might participate in in a future state. I mean, they've participated in it now. So, I think it's I think we should try and understand what the public's perspective is. Just like the rest of the questions in the survey, they may agree or they may disagree with what we ultimately recommend. I don't think that our charge is to disregard our own research and decision-making as a commission with respect to the community's input, but to consider it. So, I would like to get this information in one way or another. What we do with it, I think, is ultimately up to us. It may indicate an opportunity to educate. It may agree with what we recommend. But I think it pertains to enough of the questions that we should try and glean the information somehow.

Anything else, Commissioner Vela?
I kind of like this question from the standpoint, we're trying to collect data. And yes, city members and citizens may not know all of the functions of the jobs, but they know what they want. And this might tell us what they want to see in that particular position as they view it. And we have a lot of intelligent people in the city of Santa Fe. I personally like that question on there, and I would think it would inform us. I'm not sure how deep it would inform our decisions, but I think it's I think it would inform us a lot. I kind of like it there as well.

Any other comments on this question? Do we meet this?
I agree with you. And if people really don't know, there's an option for "not sure." Okay, great. Anything else? Any wordsmithing that needs to be done on this question?

To mention, Commissioner?
Yes. Well, there is a there is a part on qualifications in the target. And I no, this is a model part. Sorry. That's the reason it was so strict. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. I'm glad you I think I think that there there is a mention of qualifications in our own charter. If I could find the copy of it quickly. We can come back to this if you find something that you feel we need to be made aware of. Well, let me let me look for it, and you guys go on. Okay. Thank you so much.

Any other potential wordsmithing, Commissioner?
Not wordsmithing, but a question for Commissioner Gold. Commissioner Gold, it seems like you're after you would like to have a professional city manager based on the comments you've made?

Absolutely.
Okay. So in asking these questions, how would you frame it, and what would the options be to get to that point? We have a number of questions here that get to who does what in the city government. What's the council's role? What's the mayor's role? And what's the city manager's role? I'm comfortable with asking those questions. This is an in-the-weeds question, and it's one that I think should be discussed and deliberated at the commission level because we've been asked by the City Council to delve into these issues over a year's time and make recommendations. I hear you that we should collect data and get the public's perception on, and then I won't fight that. That's fine. But I'm just pointing out to you that the city's history here is very clear. Okay, thanks.

Okay. Commissioner Ray, did you find what you needed? Okay. Well, let's let's move on, and we we might come back to number 10 if Commissioner Ray had some to add. Commissioner Duran. Question 11. Yes, Commissioner Perez. I would like to see an option B, the mayor and the council collaborating together. Question 11, option B. Collaborating. Yes. Sure. Okay.

Part three, budget and planning or planning and budget. I thought we were okay with it from last meeting. We didn't make any changes, so I'm just making the assumption we're good. Okay. Part three, planning and budgeting. First question. Yeah. Sure. Yes. Thank you. Just a point of reference. Where should short-term, three to five-year goals be set? In public administration, short-term is viewed as one to two years, medium-term is three to five, and long-term is five and beyond. So, I would just call it medium-term and just clarify that.

Commissioner Perez?
And speaking of in the weeds, I think that probably less than one in 50 people in the city know the difference between a city budget plan and a general plan. So, I don't know if it'd be worth giving a little bit of context, or just throwing the question out, hoping that people who know something have something to say.

Commissioner, what is anything else?
We should I think some context sounds appropriate, and I think we could approach it in the way that we approached the opening of part two where we have the context written in. We don't have any context for this section of the survey, and so that might be enough. For that, it might be helpful to look at the notes from some of our community meetings. We had somebody in the audience describe in layman terms what how they see a general plan and a strategic plan. We could look into that and offer it to the commission to see if it's good wording for that. It's like ascending. Thank you, Commissioner.

Mrs. Vela, were you finished? Okay. Commission Grant, Commissioner Gold.
Along those lines, Commissioner Vela, I I I think we could say that the city has traditionally planned and budgeted in 12-month cycles. That that makes a difference here. Now we're talking about looking a little bit further. And I would strike C because a general plan is strictly about land use and development. It doesn't deal with overall city operations and services and such. You would never see strategic goals in a general plan. I don't even think it's a good option. It's it's it's A or B to me. That that makes sense, Duran. That makes sense. And I'd also then replace C with "not sure" if people don't know the difference between them. Agreed. Crossing out the narrative in item C and adding in its place, "not sure." And we'll get some context on the budget and on the strategic plan to clarify for leaders what they are. Is that Commissioner Vela doing that? So, are we still on 13? I'm sorry, Deb. Yes, Commissioner. We are. No, it's okay. Could you repeat your question? We needed some context on budget and on strat plan. Was that going to be done by Commissioner Vela? Or I I can lead that. I'll follow up with Commissioner Perez on the comment she's referring to, and I'll capture Commissioner Gold's. And don't think I can have it by the end of the session. So, we want to come up with a way to ratify it before we send it off because I don't think we'll meet again before the survey is supposed to be sent. So, we can figure that out. And we can ratify on with knowing that two lines are going to be added with the currents in the commission by commission. Request you to fix it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm just just trying to make sure that we know what the assignments are so that we can get this done real quickly. Okay. Anything on item 13? Commissioner Ray, did you have something? No. No. Okay. Commissioner Duran. Sure. I I just wanted to clarify that we are striking short-term and putting medium-term. Are we just striking that out and put three to five-year goals? So, it would read, "Where should three to five-year goals be set and measured?" Budget, strategic plan? We're not sure. Yeah. Second, what works? Second, I strike out medium. I mean, as if they're terms of art, nobody's going to know what they mean except us. And so why put them out there? I think in this contextual preamble that we're talking about, I think it's an opportunity to distinguish short-term versus medium-term. And I think it's valuable because we we want to identify short-term being covered by the budget and medium-term being this unaddressed, yeah, unaddressed scope. So, I think we should distinguish them, and we I can cover that in that, in that context. Thank you, Commissioner. I just pulled up the comment from the community meeting, and what this gentleman said is, "A general plan measures our goals. A strategic plan sets out the process to reach the goals." No. Madam Chair, it's partly true. The thing is the general plan, we're taking it out, so I don't even think we should explain it because it'll confuse people. But I think what we should explain what a strategic plan is as opposed to budget and in terms of 12 months versus Exactly. Three to five to ten year. Yep. I like that better. The general plan is long-term, but it's a comprehensive policy document for physical development, land use, etcetera. Okay. And check. Is it red? Are we what are we doing in item C of this number 13? We're we're we're still discussing this. We're adding, we're striking in the city general plan, and we're adding the words "not sure." And we are changing in the beginning, the first sentence, "Where should medium-term three to five-year goals be set in mesh?" Is that correct, Ms. Jones? That's what I'm hearing. Okay. And and Commissioner Vela is going to add a little bit of context on between budget and strategic. Good? I have a question. Yes, Commissioner. So, is medium-term being kept in at this point?

I heard, "Yes, yes, what I heard." Did I hear correctly? Okay. Anything else? Mr. Duran, are we ready to move on to 14? Does anyone have any comments on the new 14 that Brandon added as alternatives? I like it. I do too. I'm glad you got rid of dashboard. I have no idea. I'm sorry. Good. The team. And I'm sure we didn't take out dashboard. No? What is a dashboard? Somebody tell me.

So we could maybe reframe it, but the dashboard is referring to just a website or a web page. Well, the concept of a dashboard is sort of a high-level, at-a-glance understanding of how things, the state of things. In this case, it would be progress towards goals. And so the concept of a dashboard is, and we say online progress report on its goals. I would recommend data/information. Yeah. We can take out the vehicle because I think the essence is the thing. Yeah. So over time, it may not be the same thing. Yeah. And it may not be a dashboard at all. So I think the essence of what we were trying to get at is transparency. Maybe like an online tool. Leave it at that. Sure. I would still recommend easy-to-read online data/information.

A more colloquial term would be to call it a summary because the dashboard is at a very high level. It's 30,000 feet. So the idea is that you could just look at it at a glance, get a sense of how the city is doing against the big stuff. So there's another descriptor here that's probably better than summary, but I agree with the concept that dashboard is kind of inside baseball. We had a couple of simpler ways to describe what we're after here. And I think you should remember that much of the population of the city is over 60. I appreciate that. I can rewrite it and make sure that it gets to the essence of what we're trying to learn and is approachable. It's a snapshot.

Can I just make a recommendation based on this? So would it be okay with this language if the city published an easy-to-read online summary showing progress on its goals? Good. And then we're going with Commissioner Bella's alternatives here in purple. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, that one's done. So I'm crossing Commissioner Bella's work off of that. So you're free from one question. The city published an easy-to-read online summary showing progress in the schools. How would you use it? A, B, C, D, follow-up progress, policy deficient for Canville. This is really great. Understand how tax dollars are used. Would not use it, and that is used for Mr. Bella.

If it's technically feasible, and Xavier, this might be a question for you to convey. If it's technically feasible, and this applies to another question that I don't think we've gotten to yet. If we can do a select all that applies unless they choose D. So it can be some or all of A, B, or C, or D. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Great. So go ahead. Madam Chair, Commissioner Bella, I can check with Chris Peralta to see if they'll ultimately be building the survey once you guys approve it into JotForm. I'll see if, let me guess, let me get some clarification on what you're asking. So you want a check all that apply, but you don't want if they choose D, you don't want them to be able to check all the other ones. Yeah.

The alternative, if that functionality doesn't exist, is we just, when we look at the data and we see D in a response, we understand that that is the, that is the, how do I say this? That's the ultimate answer. So if they picked A and D, we would just register it as D. Does that make sense? Yes. I have maybe a recommendation. Maybe you could make it A, B, C, D, E, D being all of the above, and E, none of the above. Maybe because it could be two of the three. I don't think that solves this problem exactly. That's understandable. Yeah. So we can, I'm happy to work with you offline to figure out what's possible and then orient it so we get the information we're looking for. Madam Chair, Commissioner Novello, that sounds good to me. Commissioner Novello. I'll miss him.

Okay. So I'm just going to throw another question in along those lines. So what about if we ask them to rank them? One, two, three. That all that. Is that useful? I think it could be interesting, but I think the survey is impossibly long already. Right. No. No question at all. Maybe that could be a follow-up on a community meeting. Right? Like, this is kind of what we learned. What do you all think? What's most important? Tease it out in a different format. That would be my recommendation. Ms. Shovella, where's your hand up? Thank you. Can you share this? I think it could be a solution to a constraint in what the tool can do. I'm not sure it gives us information we want to work with at this stage. I think what it could inform is what this information looks like. If it is a dashboard or if it is a letter from the city manager or something like this, or a report or something like that, and what would be featured in it. So we, I don't intend to, my motive is not to complicate this and make it more difficult, but so I'm just throwing that out because select all that apply kind of made me think about that. So we can think about this. You don't have to really decide now.

I think there's actually, the more I think about it, there's an advantage to it for the reasons I just mentioned. I think at a minimum, this question helps us understand the demand for this information in general. Secondarily, and the what the options might help us discern is which information is most valuable. For example, Las Cruces has a dashboard that shows progress on specific initiatives. It doesn't tie that to spending, and it's debatable on how accountable it holds city officials. So there might be different ways we might recommend the city implement this based on what we think the priorities are. So I think actually ranking them would serve us if it's possible, Xavier, through the survey tool. And I never thought ranking and check all that apply does not need to be applied to every question. That could be just for certain questions that might lend themselves more easily to that. I'm not sure. Mr. Perez.

As a supporter of ranked-choice voting in our city, I think it's great to have our residents practice ranking things, and things that are not our elections. So I fully support that. I think then we should have this be just one question, right, instead of like, select all that apply and then rank them, rather just like, right. Rank these in order of importance and rank only the ones that you care about. Right? So like, agree. You need to a particular class specific. Sure. Make sure. Maybe I missed something, but why don't we just, I think someone brought this up. Why can't we just add a D that they want to pick A and B, and then E would, I would not use it? Because they could either select to hold city officials accountable to understand how tax, how tax dollars are being used, both A and both B and C or both A. Oh, I got it. I didn't see A. Okay. Got it. I should read all of the questions. Sorry. Okay. We, okay. Brandon, what's the summary on this one? So I will, I'm sorry. Commissioner Bell. I, excuse me. No, no problem. I will connect with Xavier offline to figure out what's possible. And then from that answer, figure out what gets us closest to the information we're seeking with this question. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Duran, shall we move on? Yes. We are now on question 16. It's an open-ended question, and I was wondering if we want to have some options for people to pick.

Madam Chair, we skipped 15. Is that, we still have that in the mix? Well, we do, but no one commented on that last. Okay. They didn't make recommendations for any revisions. I just skipped it. But do you have any recommendations? Not on 15, but on 16 when you're ready. If you're ready, I'll run 15. Well, that was my, not on 15. On 16. That was my homework. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I think someone asked me to do this or given a suggestion, and this was just an open question, a placeholder. But the question was, who should be involved in the creation of the annual City of Santa Fe's operating budget? That was my suggestion, and it would be, A, the mayor, B, mayor and city council, C, the city manager with mayor and city council advisement. Mr. Pavett, I think it's important to put in should the public. Yes. That was the second question. Okay. So there's like a two, I was just going to suggest it, but that was the first one because we didn't put, we didn't have a question that matched what was in the resolution. The creation and the development of the budget. So I just put a suggestion. Who should be involved in the creation of the annual City of Santa Fe's operating budget? And then I'm open to what the options will be or choices.

One comment, and I'll look to staff to correct me if I'm wrong. But state law requires that the public have a say over the adoption of a budget. It has the weight of an ordinance or any other major action of the governing body. Hence, the public has a right to be present, hear it, and comment. Correct? Chair Ortiz, Commissioner Gold, I believe that is correct. Yes. I don't really see the need to ask people should you have a say on it because they're already guaranteed it under state law. Commissioner, the reason, go. More on that. Well, I'll stop there. Okay. Commissioner, the reason why I'm bringing this up is that in some of, in all of our community meetings, people have said that they'd be interested in the city adopting a participatory budgeting process where the public actually has decision-making power on how to spend as a percentage of the budget. And that's something that the city's, our elected officials are currently sort of like, discussing about. So like, it's not just you already can show up to a public hearing about the budget, but like, do you actually want to have some decision-making power over how a portion of the budget is spent?

May I respond, Madam Chair? That's a novel idea, and a number of cities are experimenting with participatory budgeting. But unless we introduce the concepts, explain what it is, and then ask people if they'd like to participate in it, I think it gets lost in this two-part question. I don't think most people understand what you're talking about here. So this would take probably a paragraph to explain what participatory budgeting looks like, and it changes city to city, state to state. So this is a cutting-edge concept that you're introducing. It's a good one, and maybe we can discuss it at a community meeting when we have people around the table. But the way this is currently worded, it presumes that the mayor accounts are going to adopt a budget without public comment, and that's not allowed. It should be. Madam Chair, so I broke it up into two questions. I asked that one question about who should be involved in the creation of the budget. We can put whatever options. And then the second question, I said, how do you think the public should be involved in the prioritization of the city's budget or something along that lines? Because it's kind of open-ended without saying participatory budgeting. I know that's a term that's not everybody knows, and people are actually using participatory budgeting. It's not being tested. It's actually being used in other cities. So what would be the best way for us to engage or have the public have a question that says, how do you think the public should be involved in the, I said preparation, but that's not the, that's not the right word. Should be involved in prioritizing aspects of the budget or something to that effect. I just think that we need to ask that question because I do think the public wants to be more involved in the budget process.

Well, that's an interesting question because that leads me to think the strategic plan, when you're developing your goals and your objectives and your KPIs and guardrails, whatever you're putting in there, will involve, meaning if you're doing a strategic plan, and part of that is a conversation of, and you have goals developed, that they should be funded, and some budget would be in that conversation. I'm not helping, I'm not clarifying. I'm just thinking out loud in terms of public will be involved in equation's strategic plan. So is it that both of you need to be involved separately from what is currently in the city, the ordinances, and the city charter?

Richard Gold, I need to respond. Please. I'm thinking that we're mixing two or three different concepts here. One concept gets back to my favorite, which is the form of government. In the strong mayor form of government, the mayor proposes a budget to the City Council, and the City Council adopts it or not. It's very clear that that's the strong mayor form of government. In the council-manager form of government, the city manager hears from the council and proposes a budget, and the mayor and council then decide whether or not to adopt that budget, modify it as needed, and adopt it. That's one issue over here.

But what I think I'm hearing you're leading toward, and we're going to get to it later under Commissioner Velez's research and analysis, is what was attempted this past year was to start the budget process with the council having a discussion of what are our priorities for this coming year? Where would we like to see additional time and emphasis? And we had a public meeting on that before the council acted. I think that's a desirable way to go. It involves the public at the front end. It allows the council to set some parameters that then the staff responds to as they're preparing a budget. So, and so I, that's a separate issue over who proposes it. And I think that this question should be better phrased in terms of the latter, whether or not the public and the council should set some early priorities on the budget.

But, folks, the reality is year to year, the budget is 95% baked before you even start. The reason for that is unless you're going to get out of the business, providing police patrols or code enforcement or planning approvals or civic events, unless you're going to get out of some of these core city services you provide, most of the budget is required to continue those services. So what you're really doing when you're budgeting is about the last 5% of the budget is if there are revenues above and beyond what's necessary to continue the current level of service, where should those little monies be spent? And that's where the council needs to come in and say, and here are the areas that we want to do more on. And that's really what budgeting is about these days.

All that being said, I think that we should still ask because we've heard from the public that they want to have a bigger role in decision-making, a role in budget decisions, that we should ask people what do you think the public's role should be in our budget? I don't think, again, it's like, yes, we're getting in the weeds, but the whole survey is in the weeds. So what's the harm of asking? I'm not arguing that. Oh, excuse me. So you have a question?

Thank you, Chair. I'm interested in following up with what Commissioner Villareal is proposing to have sort of maybe two separate questions to get at this. Right? Like, who's in charge of leading the proposal of the budget? And the separate question, how should the public be engaged in decision-making questions around the budget? Something like this. And then we can have a couple options there. I don't think we need to introduce the concept of participatory budgeting, but just like, should the public have an active role in making decisions around the budget? Yes or no?

I support the splitting of the question, changing it from should the public be able to weigh in to how. In my conversations with the city councilor from Las Cruces and in the material that we'll talk about later tonight, her experience was that most of the public input ends up being in the strategic plan, and the budget ends up being a reflection of that strategic plan. So I think whether it ends up in the budget setting process or in the strategic planning process, we can still use the answer to that question, whether it's in one place or another.

We have, I'm sure, Veda, you're going to say something. No? I'm sure. I was just going to read the option. Okay. At hand. So 16 is not the question. We're erasing that question. And instead, it would be replaced with two questions. One would say, and I'm open to how it is framed. But this is basically coming from the resolution where they ask us to consider whether the mayor, city manager, or the city, sorry, whether the mayor, the city manager, or the city councilor should propose the city budget and what should be required in it. So the question I have is who should be involved in the creation of the annual City of Santa Fe's operating budget? A, mayor; B, mayor and City Council; C, city manager with mayor and City Council advisement. And maybe there's a D. Mayor and City Council. And what was C? C is city manager with mayor and City Council advisement. And maybe D is unsure or another option. I'm fine with rewording this. I just want to put a question that fits the question at hand in the resolution.

I'd like to have wording. I do too. And would you consider adding another letter that would just say the City Council with the city manager? Basically, yes. A or to cover those. Just kidding. It's just to get some information. It's this conversation. Well, it's a very strange question. I don't know. Well, do you have any other proposals onboarding? I think that the first three are fine. Okay. The fourth. Because we have A as mayor, B as mayor and City Council, and C as city manager with City Council advisement. Mayor, oh, city manager with mayor advisement? City manager with mayor and City Council advisement. And then the proposal was to add another option. Which was? Which was City Council and city manager. Right? Is the, I'm sorry, is the mayor then a member of the City Council? Mayors are not part of city councils. Well, they can be. That's the scenario. That would be called a governing body then. Possibly. Right. No, I just, I'm not sure where we're going with that addition. I think, like, all the questions, we're just collecting data. I find the question quite interesting and very much in the weeds. But for the sake of, like, what we're getting here, I think I like what Commissioner Villareal presented. Right? It's like sort of, like, conceptually, it's like an executive, sort of a collaboration between the executive and legislative, or it's administrative with the collaboration of the, like, those are the three categories because then we can get into, like, oh, maybe it's just the mayor and the city manager with the advisement of the council, or maybe it's the council with the advisement of the city manager. Right? Like, there's too many options, but I think this gets us as sort of, like, the three main categories, I guess, I would say. That's fine. Duran. Fine. So I've written down four. Four being not sure? Yeah. They don't cancel. I think that might confuse folks, but, you know, I get, I understand where you're coming from, giving people options. But I think because it to kind of model what questions we have above it, these are kind of our main answers. Mayor, mayor and City Council, city manager in this case with mayor and City Council advisement, and D, unsure. Because maybe it's more advisement from the mayor and less from the City Council or the other way around, but, like, those are nuances.

Sure. Ella, please. Is it important to distinguish prepare versus present? And I'll ask folks with more experience in this realm than I do, than I have, because the resolution question says propose. It says prepare, and I have a sense that they mean different things. Yes, we should follow, agreed. Resolution says proposed. Which verb does the resolution use? Proposed. Oh, propose. Proposed makes more sense because the development of a budget is a highly complex, technical matter. The mayor and the council are not going to prepare the budget together. It's a 400-page document, right, with thousands and thousands of numbers in it. This is heavy administrative work. What the difference is here in reality is in the strong mayor form, it's the mayor's budget. Mayor tells the staff, here's what I want to see in the budget that you send to the council. It's my budget as the mayor. In the mayor-council form of government where the council and the mayor together set policy, they give direction jointly to the staff. They'll prepare a budget that represents what they as a majority of the governing body, to use your term, has to say about what they want in the new budget. That's the reality. And in practice, if it's the mayor's budget, it immediately sets the mayor against the council. It's feeling that it's been left out, that it's not hearing what it, it, it, every choice that this is too much of the mayor's authority at being spoken. When the mayor and the council are working together to give direction to the staff, then there's less of this ownership issue. Instead, they're focused on where's the money being spent, what are you going to get for it.

So, Mr. Velez, just to make sure I understand, that was very clear. Is it, in other words, the, the, it's a role of approval of what is presented or what is, it's a question of who gets to say, who gets the final say. Is that fair? No, excuse me. Because under any form of government, at the end of the day, the City Council has to adopt the budget, and that's true across all forms. The question is, who shapes the budget that the council gets to work on? Gotta berate over. And the question is, is it the mayor, or is it the mayor and council? It's not really the city manager's budget. The manager is responding to his or her elected leaders, his or her bosses and staff, and leading the administrative effort to pull it together. But it's really important that the elected representatives of the people decide what do we want to see in this budget, and then staff goes and tries to put it together and presents their best thinking, but then the council can modify, agree, dispose of in any way it chooses. That's the distinction. Policy and administration.

Wilson Allen. So to summarize, we agree that prepare should be replaced by propose. Yes. And I would propose that we add some of that context to the preamble of this section, where we talk about what presenting the budget implies. What did I say? I'm confused now. Setting it. No, you're right. The question would be who should propose the annual city budget with A, B, C, D, whatever. Will those A, B, C, D's be similar to what's in question number 11? Or similar to one of our other questions? May I suggest a different framing of the question? And not to add more complexity, but here. That I'd like an answer to this question. And my understanding was no. That we had the voices that we were just talking about. The mayor, mayor and City Council, the manager with the mayor and council's advisement or not. I understand that, Christian. The reason I asked the question is because I, I thought I just heard Commissioner's vote for the sentiment meant city manager does not propose a budget. And when he said that, then we should not have that as well. That's why I, right. But they could.

Are we asking leading questions, or are we asking what they think? Make sure they're not. Well, just going back to the city manager is kind of the quarterback. They get input from staff, obviously, because they're overseeing the directors and the departments, and they also get feedback from the mayor and the City Council. So that's why that was one of the options. But rephrasing something to the effect that, "Who should be responsible for setting the overall direction for the preparation of the annual city budget? Mayor? Mayor and Council? City Council?" "Who should be responsible for setting the direction and parameters of the annual city budget? The mayor, mayor and City Council, just City Council?" The idea here is that the elected leaders set the tone for the new budget, and then the staff responds by preparing a budget that, as closely as possible, comports with that direction.

So, Rick, I think that that's confusing because you're giving authority to the City Council to propose the budget? I'm giving authority to the City Council or the mayor or the mayor and the City Council to set the parameters for the budget, set the strategic goals that should be reflected in the budget. We're not asking them to prepare the budget. No, I understand that. But you're basically, who formulates the budget? The ideas that go into the budget is what you're talking about, I think. Again, in practice, 95% of the budget is already prepared. I got it. It's steady state. It's continuing what's being done. Okay. So it's that little incremental margin difference between expected revenues and expenditures. What does the City Council think is most important?

I think also that the numbers make a difference. And a lot of times, the numbers actually do come as suggestions from either the executive or the legislative branch. And so I don't know. I don't know what to do with this. I'm happy with just the three things that we had: mayor, the city manager with the mayor, the City Council advisement, the City Council, and mayor. I'm not sure. That's a fourth one. So let's decide on the question. We've started with one question and moved on to a couple of different variations. I personally think it's a good idea to use the language that is in the resolution that speaks to who should propose, as we're focusing on where it's supposed to be. And then determine what options we're going to give the people taking the survey. Is it going to be mayor, mayor and City Council, or City Council? Or is it going to be mayor, mayor and City Council, city manager with City Council, and mayor advisement, and then unsure?

Madam Chair, I'm just wondering for Commissioner Gold, would it help to say something like, "Who should propose the priorities for the city's annual budget?" "Who should propose priorities for the city's annual budget?" A, mayor, B, mayor and City Council, C, city manager with mayor and City Council advisement, and D, unsure. Okay, that's great. There was a second part to that one. I mean, everyone loves it, loves it, loves it. The second part I heard conversation about is, "How do you think what's involved in the preparation?" Are we still including that question, Commissioner Villareal? "How should you think, how do you think the public should be involved or engaged in aspects of the city annual operating budget?" Or, sorry, "Engage in aspects of the city's budget?" Something simple. I don't know.

Mr. Valla, the reasons I mentioned before, I think if we abstract it from the budget process and use the language that we just decided on to say setting priorities, "How should the public be involved in setting priorities?" Then we can apply that wherever it ends up making sense. Hang on, hang on, Commissioner Vella. "How do you think the public should be involved in setting priorities?" Budget priorities. Budget priorities. Okay, period. Well, I think budget priorities can still work because if those priorities are set in a strategic plan and executed in the budget, it ends up coming on the wash. Commissioner, love the question. What are some good options, or should we leave it as an open question? I vote open question as well. Okay. Commissioner Duran. Sure. I agree. I agree. Leaving it open. Understand.

15b. We're moving on. 17? We just struck some language there. Does anyone have any comments, or is everyone good with that? Number 18, we took out "empty" and inserted "vacant." Mr. Duran? Number 19, we took out "for City Council." We struck "keep the current structure," and we included "two City Councilors per district," "one City Councilor per district." We struck "add an at-large council position," and we added "add a fifth district with one councilor in that district," and, D, "not sure." Mr. Perez? I think "add a fifth district with one councilor in each district" so that we're not confused that we have two in each district that's up to the fifth. And the at-large, I'm assuming that that's because we can't do that for state law. Correct? Like that question that, "add an at-large council position," we're not allowed to do at-large, are we? I don't think it was discussed last. I don't think we can do it under state law anyway, so I'm glad to see it struck. I think they have to be districted under court law, under court cases. "Add a fifth district with one councilor in each district." Anything else?

Wondering if we need to say anywhere representing, like, "one City Council representing." Right now, it just says "one councilor per district." Oh, and we don't need it? Or no? It doesn't make sense. Can you finish your question? That was my question. Just if we needed to put in "representation" or "representing." "What should the structure of the City Council districts look like?" "One City Council representing a district?" Answer, "Two councilors." Yeah. I'm just curious. Does it make sense if we're just saying "per district?" Are you talking about, like, giving people an idea of what that means in terms of numbers, Commissioner? Not numbers, but just, I don't know. When it says "per," I was trying to figure out if that would confuse people. If you don't think so, I don't think we need to change it. Okay, good.

Part five, number 20, we struck out "or redesigned." Does anyone have comments on that? Excuse me. Could we go back to the last one? What did we finally do with the fifth district? Number 19, 19c. As I understand it now, it reads, "add a fifth district with one councilor in each district." We say, "reduce the size of the City Council to six." Is that what we're saying? Or we're doing it to five. What are we doing there? Well, that option in and of itself would have five districts with one councilor in each. And what happens to the mayor who now is the tiebreaker on the council? I don't have an answer to that question. I'm just looking at this question. This question is strictly about how you comprise the City Council. It doesn't address the mayor's role. So we're assuming that the mayor then is a separate executive at this point. This question doesn't address any way, shape, or form. It's asking about how the city is divided into districts and how many people represent each district. Should we say that we're reducing the size of the City Council? Option A does not reduce the size of the City Council. Option B does, and option C is somewhere in between.

Chair? Thank you, sir. This question was actually added because we heard some feedback from your listening sessions about the structure of the City Council. And were they confused? No. They've made recommendations to have a fifth district with one City Councilor per district. So we're just giving other options based on the feedback that we heard. Okay. I can understand that. I don't think that "one City Councilor per district" necessarily means that we're going to reduce the number of districts. But this one definitely reduces the number of districts, and so it definitely reduces the size of City Council. Must be me. Yeah. How am I confused? I don't understand what the problem, what's confusing people. Commissioner Gold. Because Mr. Romo, the question here gets... What did you call me? Mr. Romo? No, that's not my name. I'm sorry? Never has been. Ray, pardon me. Excuse me. Commissioner Ray. Thank you. This question is about how many districts should there be in Santa Fe, and how many councilors should represent each district. Option one is to keep things as they are: four districts, two councilors per district. Right. Option two is to say, "Let's reduce the number of councilors per district to one." Right. And option three says, "Let's add a fifth district and have one councilor per district," meaning five. These are three options that we're testing for public interest. Okay. I don't read number two as saying that we have to reduce the number of districts. It doesn't. It says, "one City Councilor per district," which would be four. But if we kept the number of City Councilors that we've got now, it would be eight. This is reducing the number of councilors, not reducing the number of districts. I think it's a confusing question. I agree that it's confusing because we started off in a different way when we first had this question. And we're even talking about explaining what this current situation looks like. We should, do we recall that conversation? Kind of. But would it be better just to keep in the word "four" so we're specifically talking about four City Council districts so that we know in each district, because we have four right now, and keep the current structure, which is two, or we can keep the current number of districts four and add one or just keep it to one, or we can add a fifth district with one councilor in each district. An option. And I have Mr. Perez and then a commissioner. Well, again, this is, it's just adding back in the word "four." Yeah. Because we currently, we have four districts. Okay. On item C. Mhm. Okay. Alright. Commission. So to maybe reiterate what you just said, so add to the question itself, "What should the structure be?" Wait. No. Because then we have a five... I'm making a proposal. What if we keep the question as is? "What should the structure be, the structure of the City Council districts look like?" Option A, "two City Councilors per district, four districts." "One City Council per district, four districts." "Add a fifth district with one councilor in each district." Does that sound okay for folks? Okay. Well, I think that we should, I think we should have the option of "one City Councilor per district," but reduce the size of the districts, which would be eight or nine districts, whatever we're doing. Well, instead of having and just, like, split the districts in half so that... Create more districts than four. Right. Right. That that option would need... Well, it would re-read, right. Propose it? Because in B, we're going to have "one City Councilor per district" when there are four districts. And then the next one might be "one City Councilor per district with eight districts." So just adding an extra choice? Yeah. I got it. But we have been four choices and then "not sure." Right. A two... Okay. "What should the structure of the four..." No. Just request. We're not, we're leaving the "four" in or taking it out, ladies and gentlemen. Leaving the word "four" in or out for the quest. Sure. I believe we're taking it out because we're adding additional language to our final language. "Structure of the City Council district looks like." A, "two City Councilors per district, four districts." "Eight one City Councilor per district, four districts." B, "one City Councilor per district, eight districts." D, "add a fifth district with one councilor in each district."

Did we get that? Any other comments, Commissioner Ray? Is that helpful? I think that's much better. Thank you for doing that. Thank you.

Mr. Vella, I would like to extend the offer of my services to create a preamble for each section to define any terms that might be unfamiliar to the general public, establishing that there are four districts today with two city councilors in each. So I'd like to offer that. My question is two-part: Is there anything in the charter that describes the makeup or requirements of a district? Is it a population equal population division? Is it a minimum size?

Madam Chair, Commissioner Vella, let me look into that, and I'll get back to you. I believe it's population.

Just to finish my question, I'm wondering what we'll do with this and what problem we're just addressing. I think I'll just state my assumptions. I think our current, some might critique our current model as overrepresentative or too diffuse. I think folks may also critique it for the districts, as the city has grown, not accurately representing their constituents based on how the city is divided. I don't know what the answer is, but I'd like to get clarity on that. I would like clarity on the question that we are trying to answer with this public input on this question.

That's a question. It's a good question. What are we trying to get to? Insight on that. Just basic information about what is required for a line of district. So, yes, it has to be equal population, and in some cases, down to like one voter. I'm not sure what it is in Santa Fe, but for congressional districts, it's supposed to be down to one voter. It's supposed to be contiguous, sort of like not a funny shape. And also, it's supposed to not split up communities of interest. So if there's like a neighborhood that's established, that should stay within one district. Those are the three requirements for drawing maps around districts in general, at any level. And for the second question about what we're trying to get here, I think it's just we're trying to get who wants to be represented. Like, do they feel like what we're doing is fine and they feel represented, or do they feel like they see a difference? And it's come up in our community meetings, so I think it's worth just sort of helping with a question about it.

Would you play that, Mr. Vella, please? I see that in the charter. Thank you for clarifying those requirements of the charter. It's section 6.303. It also has an impact on the voting dynamics of the council. So I don't know how that percolates through the other discussions that we're having, but I'm fine with the question as it's written. I'm just curious what we're trying to figure out.

Trisha, I am also, as we've changed it, I'm also rendering validity. You can continue to go on that point on this question. Points across the country, if you look at cities of 90,000 population, most of them are represented by a council of five, sometimes seven at most. I believe when some of you interviewed the Las Cruces Council, somebody asked, "Why do you have so many councilors in Santa Fe?" I don't know the answer to that. I'm curious. Mr. Pedens, do you have an answer for that?

Well, I don't have an answer for that. But again, I want to remind folks that people do it in a lot of different ways, and the city of Nashville has 48 councilors for a city that's maybe twice as big. So it's a matter of how people like you are represented, and it should be the choice of the residents.

Xavier, you have a comment? I do have just a brief comment. One of our former employees, Javier Martinez, our constituent services manager, was the city manager for Española. Española does have eight council districts. I just thought that would be a point of interest for the commission. Thank you. Appreciate that. Is there anything further? So question number 19 is there. We've added A, B, C, D, E. Are we good to move forward, Mr. Duran?

Yes, Chair. I'm going to turn this over to Commissioner Velez since he made all the changes and the rest of the document. Thank you. Commissioner Velez. So for 21, I don't think there's any issue or any change.

Excuse me, Commissioner Vella. It's asked in number two. So this is a redundant question. We could drop this. Let's verify. Question two says, "Which part of the city do you live in, council district if you know it, or your neighborhood?" This question asks your council district or neighborhood. It's the same question. Ask it once. Striking 21?

Mr. Vella, I think there's a question of whether to strike 21 or move some of the demographic questions from part one to the end. This was recognized as best practice and lowers survey abandonment. So if you get right into the meat of it, people strike it on two then. Get rid of two.

Well, what I would, this is not a fully formed thought, but talking about how long have you lived in Santa Fe? Are you a lifelong resident? I would move those to part five. And then we would need to make sure that part one has substance still after those are moved. Maybe we come back to that so we can discuss it. But that's format, and we work on format offline. Sure. As long as we all agree with the content. Does that work? Okay. Mr. Vella. But thank you, Chango, for the observation. Appreciate it.

Chair, a quick question to Commissioner Vella. You said that it's best practice to leave sort of demographic questions to the end, and that's what we see in every survey. But I don't understand the logic there that you just explained. Are we afraid that people are going to drop off before they finish the thing, and then we don't get their information?

Well, they can't submit it unless they get to the end. So if the questions are required for them to submit it, then we won't miss that information. Okay. And I'm not an expert, so we can look into the best practice on it, but this is, as I was going through these questions, that demographic information at the end. Oh. Okay. So for 22, the explanation is there. ACS is the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau's ongoing survey that replaced the old long-form census. These are the categories that they use. So in an effort to compare apples to apples, if we get the opportunity, these are the ranges that I direct.

Madam Chair, what if we get somebody that's younger than 18 that wants to fill out the survey? I think they should be able to fill out the survey. Under 24 for choice A. Under 24? I think we should leave choice A and add an "under 18" because the point is that it matches the ACS data. Okay. It's under 18. The next, any questions there? The next one was not contested. We struck question 24. The new question 24 is race or ethnicity. These are also standardized categories. If anyone has, if no one has an issue, we can go through. And I think that's it. For direct? Is it Commissioner? Commissioner has a question about question 20. I thought we skipped it. Did we skip 20? It says, "Perhaps make into two questions." Did we decide on that? Oh, we did skip it. It says right now, "What is the single most important element of our city's governance model that should be protected to better reflect the community values and improve how decisions are made?" We struck out "redesigned," and we thought that would be a second question, but we didn't decide.

Sure. I think splitting it into, with the same verbiage, free response, makes sense to me. As a person who is sitting in this commission and thinks about this all day, and this is my job, I don't know what this question means. I think the wording is a little convoluted, and I would like to, like, I don't have an offer because I don't know what is meant here, but "our city's governance model," I don't know if I don't even know what that means. So what are we trying to say there? Can we find, like, a run-of-the-mill, Chevelle?

So we're in section, anything else. So perhaps this is an effort to capture things that weren't represented by previous survey questions. I think the essence of what we're trying to see is what things should remain the same and what should change if we haven't addressed them directly. I'm totally open to rephrasing the question to make it more intuitive, but I think that's what we're trying to capture. Just like that. Say it again. What things are working? What things should remain the same or what things should change that we haven't discussed?

Well, it'll have to be two questions. Sure. But open-ended like that? Yeah. I think that's what we're, if I'm not mistaken, I think that's what we're trying to capture. What does the commission, Commissioner, is going to craft a question that says what works, what doesn't? Yeah. As vague as we want to make it, what in the city is working well today that should stay the same? And the second question should be, what in the city is not working well and should be redesigned? And get rid of the governance model to those people. Are we good? Good. Thank you. Mr. Perez, are there more? Mr. Gold?

One possible way to phrase that would be, "What is most important to retain in our current city government structure to best reflect community values and improve how decisions are made?" And then the flip side of that is, "What would you like to see changed or reformed in our government structure to best represent community values and improve how decisions are made?"

Yeah. It sounds fine to me. Sure, Pat. I think it's still a little vague, like what government's governance structures. Like, I just think that those terms are a little inaccessible to folks. So we can just say what we have said before. Like, is there anything we haven't asked in this survey that you want to make sure we keep in the way our city goes, right, or anything that you think we should change? But don't mention governance models or governance structures. Like, what are we talking about? Unless we have a little blurb, right, that you have offered to draft for every section, which incidentally is going to make this longer. So, like, let's be careful about that. No. I'm sure, Pat. We good? Simple time. Questions, Commissioner?

Just to be clear, Commissioner Vella is going to propose a language for this question 20. Correct. And it's going to be a long, what works, what doesn't. It's going to be very simplified. General. What it is. Narrative. Okay? Anything else, Commissioner? You promise? Mr. Duran?

No. Just a point of housekeeping. Are we going to follow the same process as we did last time to incorporate all of the revisions? You, I, and Brandon? I'm happy to help. It's not quick notes. I'll be happy. Start it off. It'll take just a few minutes. There's no, it's no problem. So I'm hearing Brandon's going to make all the changes and then send it to us for review. Oh, and better. Is that what you were suggesting? I was under the, I was under the, oh, right now. No. No. No. I was under the impression that we weren't going to require a review before we submitted them because we've discussed all the changes that I'm proposing to make. Okay. But we did that last week, and we still deliberated on questions that we all had already settled on. So if we, if we are agreeing to that, you're going to make the changes, and then you're going to submit it to Xavier's team. And what, what's the time frame?

Xavier. Sure. Ortiz, Commissioner Duran. But we're looking to roll the survey out, I believe, the week of the 21st, according to the plan that I presented earlier in the meeting. So I think we probably need to approve it tonight if we want to stick to that. And we, we can have a final version and have a consent consensus agreement, I think.

I'd be willing to share it over email, blind copied. If there are still technical changes that need to be made, I think we could definitely do that. I think you've taken notes on changes that I have not. So if we can connect before, let's say, close of business tomorrow, I think we can implement the changes and have you share it. Give folks 24 hours to review it, and then send it over for them to prepare. That would be Thursday, the day of the final version of the survey.

Chair Ortiz, Commissioner Vela, yes. I believe that would be correct. So we have a process in terms of how to capture all of the comments. We take it tonight. I think I've gotten 93% of them. It should be as well. So we'll use the same process we did before. Just one thing that I want to note, that I was wrong about. The first question, number one, we talked about how long have you lived in Santa Fe. We gave time ranges. My suggestion was having a lifelong resident option, but I realized I don't think we need one C, the question, unless you all feel differently. But that was my suggestion, the one C. I think one B covers how long people have lived in Santa Fe. It's like one less question.

I think that's good. It adds to the... You're right. Okay. And we're taking one C off? Yes. And then the other thing I just want to note, and just to be consistent, there are some questions for the A through D that have periods after each phrase or word, and I don't think we need periods because they're not sentences. If you look at all the options for every single question, the A through D for each question, they have periods at the end of each of them. The sentences do, but some of them are just words. So no periods, right? Got it. And that's it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anything else? I will entertain a motion. Did you have something?

Yeah. So something like when it says "not sure," that's not a sentence, and so take away the period. Got it. Oh, this is a generation deal. I don't know. So, and it's okay. I'm... I'll go with the flow. I will entertain a motion at this point in time.

Move with the changes that have been agreed to tonight that we approve this community survey, and empower Commissioner to provide some introductory remarks and incorporate the comments made this evening so that we can hit our deadline of the 21st to launch it publicly.

I have a motion by Commissioner Gould. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Bello. Any further discussion, Commissioner Bello? Clarification point. The motion you made is to just approve everything we did so that we don't have to go through this again. Great. Any further discussion? The process to edit it will be started with myself, and we'll look at it, and Mr. Bello, the same process you used before after everything that was presented. And that will be sent to Xavier, who will read it out to everyone for a quick look. No major revisions at that point as we voted on. We just did. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Aye. Commissioner Perez? Aye. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Bello? Yes. Commissioner Villareal? Yes. Commissioner Duran? Yes. Chair Ortiz. The motion is passed. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to item 7B. Annual Commission meeting dates. How many people do we have? I want to make sure we have a quorum. Five is a quorum, correct? Half commission plus one is quorum, so that would be five, Madam Chair.

Annual... How do we decommission meeting dates? We talked about last time setting a date for December 2 for an input session. Is that correct? And I think Xavier was going to go look at the available locations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was what I was... Madam Chair, I believe the decision was to schedule that input session sometime in the first two weeks of December, and then I would check the availability. I did check with the National Education Association to see their availability. They have flexible availability for the first two weeks of December. So, really, the commission needs to decide on a final date so I can get that cemented in so we can have that public input session.

So we did. I unfortunately have to leave, but I know that I'm not going to be in town the first, second, and third of this. It's not going to be... Excuse me? Madam Chair, December 3 is a Thursday, and we usually have our meetings and community listening sessions on Wednesday or, sorry, Thursdays. So the input sessions... Right. Commission meeting. Correct. So I believe we are also doing the input sessions on Thursdays as well. If we're looking at Thursdays, the third or the tenth would be the options. The third is... but I do not have because I'm at a conference. But third, fourth... I think the only... The only challenge with the third is it's the week after a holiday. So, I would take advice on how well attended that might be from Xavier.

Chair Ortiz, Commissioner Vela. That's kind of hard to say. There have not been very many holidays with how many community input sessions we've had, and the attendance still has been minimal. So I don't think I could accurately give you an answer based on that. I mean, if we start getting more turnout with the rollout of the marketing plan, I might be able to answer that question further down the line, but since we need to make a decision now, I really don't know how to answer that question. Appreciate that. Just stepped out for a moment. So does December 10 look good to all, ladies and gentlemen? No? Oh. Oh, okay. Either date works for me. Okay. And this is what we have to remember is that this is in the possession, and the duration of the format would change. And so we need to make sure that people that are going to be helping to make it successful are available.

We're talking to Mr. Duran about the input session in December. The two dates we are looking at are December 3 and December 10. What is your availability, Commissioner Duran? We've got a couple of positions that are available either day. Mr. Ray, are you available? Yes. But I'd like to suggest that we also look at the eighth, which is a Tuesday, and maybe we can pick everybody up then. Although it's a public input session, so it doesn't really need everybody, I guess. So does the eighth work? I'm not available on the eighth. Yeah. Sugar Bear is not available at all. The eighth, tenth. I'm sorry. Third or tenth. Okay. So we have three, four commissions that are available either the third, eighth, or tenth. Did I hear that correctly? Okay. I think the third is fine. We don't have any data to suggest that the holiday will affect it, and it's earlier in the bigger holiday month, and it gives us more time to work with what we learn. Sure. Vidal, are you available on the third? Oh, we're doing the third then. Okay. That work? Do we need to vote on this? We do. I would recommend making a motion and voting.

Now we have a January 14 date already set for a potential... That's a full commission meeting. Do we need to set any other dates in January now so that commissioners... Not yet. Mr. Bello? I don't know that it's imperative that we do that tonight. We'll have to figure out what the design is as well. So I would be okay with pushing it. I have a suggested availability for December 3. I would need a motion and a second. So moved. Second. Motion by Commissioner Gould and second by Commissioner Villareal. Roll call, please. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Vela? Yes. Commissioner Villareal? Yes. Commissioner Duran? Yes. Commissioner Gould? Yes. Chair Ortiz? Yes. Motion to hold the next public or the December public input session on December 3 has passed. Thank you. Terry will notify and place these folks that they'll have to put that on their agenda to start revising that. And now with this addition, we now have... We'll have input sessions scheduled in all four districts twice.

Okay. Let's move on to item 7C, Budget Strategic Planning Subcommittee Report, and this is going to be, I think, a joint effort from Commissioner Bello and... Thank you both for all of our work on all this. Commissioner Bello, you have the floor. Thank you. So I want to address this actually in reverse order of how the packet is organized, starting with page 14, titled "Problem Statements and Charter Placement Analysis." I don't think it would be a good use of our time together to read all of this verbatim. And so I think it may constrain some of what we discuss tonight, but I think it'll set us up to have a more in-depth discussion next we meet.

The way it's organized is first by questions and scope. So what was our committee focused on? Those are questions C, D, and E regarding the city budget, the strategic plan, and the council vacancies. Section 1.2, Committee Positions, represents the things that we agreed on, putting forward and discussing. Those are: determine which recommendations belong in the charter; provide recommendations for these and other legal vehicles to accomplish the entirety of what our recommendation changes. In other words, and what will be emphasized in these materials, is there's a place where it's appropriate for certain things to be in the charter and other things to be determined by ordinance and or resolution. I don't think that should constrain us from putting our full recommendation forward, including potential changes to ordinance or potential resolutions. Establish a strategic plan requirement that addresses a three to five year time horizon. We found consensus on this. The three to five year time horizon would be considered the medium term. Mandate SMART goals (measurable, time-bound, etc.) in budget and or the strategic plan. If you guys aren't familiar with SMART goals, they're specific, measurable, attainable, something else, and relevant and timely. Thank you. With timely and measurable being the points that I would emphasize, we talked last week or the week before about how the budget today has strategic goals set in it. Many of them are not measurable or time-bound or met. And so whether we adopt a strategic plan or not, our recommendation would be that this is required or wherever goals are set. And the last part is take no action on vacancies on the council. We've talked about this in the past. It's a two-part question. The first is resign to run. Based on our research, our personal positions, and public input, we don't think, and precedent from the last Charter Review Commission, we don't think that this is necessary to change at this time. The second part of that question is, how should vacancies be filled in the council when they occur unexpectedly? Based on the status quo, which is how other cities, our peer cities in New Mexico, approach this, and our understanding of the impact that this process has, we would recommend not taking an action on this as well. Of course, open to discussion with the commission. Before I go forward, are there any questions?

Can I... Oh, I'm sorry? No. I saw it on his face. It's okay. Yeah. It's your fault. I wondered, for expediency's sake, are there a couple here that we could take easily and take off the board tonight? For example, does anybody think that we should be messing around with how the vacancy should be replaced? Is that something that the commission really wants to discuss, or are we comfortable with the way it's currently laid out in the charter and ordinances? And second, do we really think that having a councilor have to give up his or her seat to challenge the mayor for the mayor's seat really will result in better government in Santa Fe?

I agree with you, and maybe I wasn't clear, but our recommendation is that we take these off the board. In other words, we're in agreement.

This is page 14 of 21 in the packet. It was basically the same question, and Brandon answered it. Commissioner Vela answered it. So the bottom, thank you. The bottom of this section, recommendations, strategic budgeting, is the other artifact that we have in the packet. So I'll point you all to that in just a moment.

The next section, what placing something in the charter implies, I think this has been sort of an open, vague question that we've talked about. And so this is some concrete information as to what are the consequences of placing and appropriateness of placing things in the charter. I'm not going to read it verbatim, but one of the strongest takeaways is that it is the most permanent, not absolutely permanent, but it is the hardest to change of the places where a law can be housed. And it's also more for structure than it is for the actual execution of a given idea. So I'd encourage you to read through this to inform our future conversations because I think one of the questions we'll ask is what part of our, let's say, strategic plan recommendation do we put forward as a charter amendment recommendation, and what parts of our recommendation would go into ordinance or otherwise.

The next section, three, problem statements, opportunities, and likely vehicles. So this was a collection of our research. I'm not going to read through this, but I encourage you to so that we can discuss the nuances of it next time. It's organized by the problem that may exist. You may disagree. I'm happy to discuss it. But the problem we identified as a commission, where it lives or how we came to determine that, the opportunity for improvement and the likely vehicle. Again, the vehicles being charter, amendments, ordinance, and so on. So that takes us through a couple of pages.

We get to section four, supporting context, and this is the section that Commissioner Gold was referring to earlier. We have, and I'll just kind of go through by theme. We have had very little consistency in city managers over the last eight years or so. It's been a mix of short-term, permanent, and otherwise interim city managers, and we don't believe that this helps us advance our priorities and initiatives. There was a question I looked into about vacancies in city staff positions. This might be data that we reflect on later, but I think it shows typically between a fifth and a quarter of positions vacant, which I don't think we would aspire to. I think we would aspire to do better. There's been improvement recently. I don't know for certain what we can attribute this to, but there was mention of increased compensation and benefits that might have helped with retention. But it might be something to dive into later as well. Worthy of discussion.

And then section 4.2, excuse me, strategic plan precedent in other cities. This talks, it kind of gives a sense of, both within our state and also amongst cities of different characteristics, how they've approached this challenge. I mentioned, I think, earlier that in Las Cruces, maybe in the previous meeting, that theirs is not in the charter. It's sort of a voluntary, but it is a council initiative. But it means that it can be abandoned or changed without much in the way of public input or a vote. So I encourage you all to read through this just to compare the different approaches. Again, our position as a committee is that we should have a strategic plan. We can skip five, and then we have sources for your reference. So that's the sort of report out. And then if we go back to page...

Before you go on, can I ask you a question? Bless you. So don't look at five. Those are just data requests that you all have moving forward. There are places we can do a deeper dive. You can look at them. I just don't want to cover them. Yeah, I get it. Okay.

The other thing I wanted to know, just curiosity, you started with the city manager turnover essentially in 2018, but did you look prior to that? Like, maybe even 2000, like a different administration because this is basically one administration. So I'm just curious if you looked at... I think it's worth going further back in time. I was investigating a sentiment that was over this period of time. It's also since the current form of government was put into place. But I think it's worth looking further back in time and just seeing how things have changed and what the situation was. Yes.

So is your... I think my suggestion would just be to at least partially look at a previous administration because then you can see maybe where it changed, where there's more confidence in turnover in this new structure. I don't know if it's because of that. That's fair. So just to compare. Because right now, it just shows when we went into the strong mayor structure. Sure. Thanks.

No. So I would take us then next to page nine. This is a deeper dive into the recommendations that we want to put forward. Again, I'm not going to read it verbatim right now unless there's something, Mr. Duran, that you want to point out. It does, after we go through the recommendations, it reiterates what belongs in the charter: goals and priorities, budget and goals, budget authority and public participation, financial accountability, and process. Yeah. Sorry. That was not what belongs in the charter. It goes through each of those and distinguishes what should be in the charter. So that list is not what belongs in the charter, but it goes into detail as to how those should each be applied. And I think that'll come into play when we talk about other things outside of our committee as well, what belongs in the charter and what belongs elsewhere. And I think the rest of it is just context. So I think it would lead to better discussion and decision-making if we took time as a commission to process this information so we could come with opinions and questions in our next meeting. But this is awesome. Actually, all of this is very helpful. I'd like to spend more time to review it.

Just a clarification, this section that says what belongs in the charter, well, I'm going by what's in our... It's page 10. And then, yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'm looking at the online agenda, and it says what belongs in the charter. So those illustrative charter language, is that, are those suggestions or are those existing language? Is that, is that existing language in the charter?

Chair, Commissioner Villarreal, those are recommendations if we adopt some of our recommendations. Okay. And then it's just an example of the type of language that shouldn't be included in the charter so that we're not having to go back and change the charter. Got it. So it's more like general language. General. Right. And then the process, with that type and the methods that would go into actually ordinances. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Let me do the page for recommendations. I've read this all, but I haven't. Well, they're in two places. So in summary, you can find them on page 14 in section 1.2, committee positions. And they... 1.2. Is that what you said? Mhm. Okay. So one, two. Those four bullets. Yep.

So I'm not sure how the commission wants to proceed on this so that, if there's a lot of work in this regard, there's already recommendations, and we don't... This committee probably doesn't need to be reporting on this if the commission has a consensus in terms of, yes, recommendations are the way to go. That's, or the recommendations are not the way to go. So more research will be needed if they're not the way to go. But if what the recommendations are in a direction that initially believes is appropriate, work can be done to start finalizing the language of the book, like if that might rest and we want to.

I agree, except in the case where as we're talking about the budget, the question that the governance committee has been given is who sets the budget or who presents it. I think these recommendations generally stand independent of those decisions, but there is some crossover. So as we learn more about the work that they've done, it may absolutely... Yeah. So which of these recommendations? The information that we're moving in the right direction, let's finalize the perfect narrative, work on that. As I suggested, I believe the final two questions, what to do to fill a vacancy on the city council and whether or not a councilor has to vacate his or her seat in order to run for mayor. I agree with your recommendations that we take no action, that the current charter and municipal code language is adequate. Is there a consensus on that? Do, do, okay. I really don't want to take your votes yet because I think we have a lot of work to do, and we need to make sure everything might, there might be overlap. But I'm just trying to figure out how to give our subcommittee some directions. Let's take, put some things to rest and finalize stuff and then not reporting on the no resigning and bill vacancies are okay. That work in terms of these records, does that work for everyone? Yes. Okay. That, that's consensus, and we'll just keep that on.

And then the others, Mr. Miranda from, oh, Mr. Gold, do you have more? I just want to thank and commend you. This is really good staff work. I agree with you, Winnie. I was very impressed in reading all of this, and I think it gives us a really good framework to address these questions. I would very much like this commission as a whole to begin to work through these questions together rather than send you back to do more committee work. I think you've given us enough now that it's time for the commission to come to grips with the remaining questions.

I appreciate that. It was a group effort. And I think at this point, what I wanted to accomplish this evening was to make clear what we are confident in, which are those, our positions today, and give you some context to digest in time so that we could come back and nitpick. Questions, for example, if we agree as a commission that a strategic plan would benefit the city and we want to make a recommendation for this, we would then have to discern what part, what language goes in the charter because it will be, it will be minimal, frankly, as compared to the whole establishing of a strategic plan. But then we'll have to answer similar questions as to what the governance committee has been tasked with, which is this is the strategic plan. How is it set? Where, you know, where are these instructions ordained? So I think we've accomplished what we wanted to do in terms of this committee update.

All right. It's fine to put through. I don't, you know, going through. I need to get consensus on that. We could. It's a, it's a partial answer to the overall question. Well, I guess, okay. The value would be, is it, are we going to continue pursuing it? So, yeah, I think we could really formalize it. I think we're close. As this won't surprise any of you, I've got some nomenclature questions that I think we could clean up. The overall thrust of the recommendations, I think, makes good sense. And your division between what would be in the charter and what would be in the code administrative procedures, I think, is correct. The other commissioners on that. So minor inconsistencies. We believe it should be in the charter, which you go over with the end of language. We'll place in the charter condition. Some terms. Some procedure we'll understand as soon as I make them. You're prepared to make them now? Well, are there any concerns? Oh, for the sake of time, I'm trying to get a consensus if we think we should move forward and see if we do, potentially, we should go provide information to the commissioner.

Nella, as we move in that direction, is that local? Madam Chair, I would like to look at this document in detail. I mean, I did, and I want to reread it because after our conversation with the survey, there are just some things I need to digest. And I am looking at the time, and it's 7:30, and I don't think we should be continuing to work on this and wordsmithing or any major decisions right now because I'm going to be leaving in a few minutes. I need to excuse myself soon, and so I'd rather move on.

Okay, I appreciate that. But if I can get a response to the question, are we in consensus that that plan would be something that we're going to move forward on, and are we okay to have the, we should provide some information to further refine that? Just trying to get it half moving forward. That work? Okay, I've seen heads enough. Okay. Anything else, Commissioner Bello? I wish. That's all. I think that makes good progress. So let's, any question? Let's move on to item 6b, Outreach Subcommittee. Michelle Villareal, I guess, by default, do you have anything to report? No, nothing to report.

I'm sorry, 7e, Governance Subcommittee. Do you all have anything to report? Okay. Subcommittee status was the other item on that, and that was the result of the question from Commissioner Pool regarding the functionality of our subcommittees. And so I said I would put that on the agenda, so I think number 11f. And I'll just add that the Budget and Strategic Planning Committee, you saw a lot of work in there, Brandon, and we're still going to do whatever we need to move forward, but we're still functioning, and I think it's worthwhile. So any other comments from other? I think you should. Thank you. And I agree. I think in the last two meetings, we've begun to make real progress. Preparation of the draft survey gave us something that we could all look at and work through, and we've already, we adopted it tonight. And that survey will become the basis of the future community input sessions. So we hit two bases there with the adoption of that survey. That's really good. This is excellent staff work, and there's enough here that I think that the full commission should be able to weigh in and make progress on the remaining questions. And I would suggest that we do that rather than have you go back and work further in your committee, because I believe seven or nine minds are better than three or four. And I think we could make more progress on the work that you've already done for us, and I thank you for that.

Similarly, we need to get to the seminal questions that have been posed to this commission about who does what in the city government. What does the mayor do? What does the council do? What does the city manager do? And how do they interrelate? Because that affects all of this. And the sooner we get to that, the better. I would recommend that we move back to meeting as a commission rather than dividing into committees so that we can get the benefit of everybody. We're a little bit behind schedule, at least by my calculation. So to speed along the deliberation and decision-making, I would like to see us meet as a body. I've said it doesn't have to be as formal as being here at the dais. We could meet in the council, or the council, not the chamber, but the conference room, and see each other a little bit more. But I think we need to get to the meat of this sooner rather than later. And that would be my recommendation, that we disband the committees for now. The Outreach Committee did a great job in the first few. We're now asking staff to give us the plan for the remaining outreach. We're making real progress here on strategic planning and these other questions, but we've got to get to the meat, and that is who does what in the city government and why. And I think it's best for the commission as a body to grapple with those questions.

I see where you're going and the benefits of all of us contributing. I think it's been helpful, though, for you all to give us something to look at. And I think before we disband our subcommittees, that we should go back to our governance entity and all of, well, the other ones, I feel like you all are kind of making more progress than us, and just come up with some of the things that we've actually looked at, a summary. I know we've given you all a summary in past meetings, but having it all in one document of some of the things that we've looked at and some of the questions that are unresolved, and then we have something for you all to look at. So I think the Governance Subcommittee needs to meet at least one more time, a couple more times before. I just think it'd be helpful for you all instead of just being like, "So what do you all think?" But so I think we have some things that we can at least express to you, what we've talked about, what information we got from some of the outreach and research we did, and also our points of, our, what do you call it, different opinions about certain areas.

It's a very, yeah, I agree with Commissioner Gold that coming together and discussing it as a group will get us further faster. I would like to see a foundation on the governance side, just at least a list of the problem statements. And it seems to be the case that there's been a challenge reaching consensus, which I think is fine. I don't think that was the assignment necessarily, but I think you guys have probably put together and collected a foundational understanding of the current state, some of the challenges it may present, and some of the potential paths forward. And whether or not they're all pointed in the same direction, it would be helpful for me to weigh into the conversation to have that foundation provided.

Thank you, Chair. I believe that we need to continue with our subgroups, our subcommittees. The Budgeting and Strategic Plan Subcommittee that we sat on, we did a lot of work, and it was a lot of work in our research and to bring it forth so that we actually have something for you guys to look at. If we function just as a full committee, who's going to do that research? I don't think that the city staff have the capacity to do the research for us. And I think it makes sense to bring the information back so then we can have the conversation and deliberate on whatever recommendations. And I've heard that there's not consensus in the governance work group, but I would really like to hear the difference of opinion as a full committee so that we can provide guidance to maybe recommend more research or pose more questions. But I think we need more information to chew on as a commission.

I think, and to answer the question of who will do legwork when it's needed, I think a solution could be either the most interested party or default back to the folks who are working on it. So, for example, I would like the entire commission to be familiar with what the work that we've done on the Budget and Planning Committee so that we can talk about it as a group. I will take Commissioner Villareal's request to expand that part of the research, which was city manager turnover over a longer period of time. I'm happy to take that as somebody who put the research together and who's interested in answering the question. So I would say, for the legwork to solve that problem in lieu of a committee meeting necessarily, it either gets assigned to somebody who volunteers or goes back to that committee to research and represent. But I think the deliberation in the committees is just creating an extra step for us to figure out what our consensus as a commission is. That's what I would like to try and avoid.

I agree. In our subgroup, we're basically done with our work. We've already, we have formulated our recommendations that after you have an opportunity to read, then we deliberate and make some decisions. But I don't have enough information one way or the other from the governance work group to provide any feedback or to say yay or nay. So I would really appreciate that the work group bring back information for us to review so that we can make comments. And after that, then maybe we can reconsider the future going forward with the subcommittees. But I appreciate what you said, that we can assign it to someone who's interested, but people sitting on each of these subcommittees were interested in those topics. So I don't know how that would be any different.

The only concern that I have right now is because Commissioner Bettis isn't here. Will she have time to be meeting in, in subgroup, in the Governance Subgroup? With that three. It's a beta. Okay. So yeah, I cannot. No, no, I can't. I didn't expect you to be able to. I'm just saying that I think that we need to get her input. There are three of us here. Is it, and I've heard we need more foundation on the government. We need issues, challenges, we need pros and cons, we need options, we need, you know, the differences of the hand. We need more information. And yes, we're going to work as a commission doing this, but we need that basic foundation. And absent that, we are going to have the same conversation that we're going to need, and I don't want to see data. I would really love to encourage our three governors of committee members to meet, and please, please, please, please, please, please get involved. Remember that you know the dates of the meeting, and for you to work, because I need just brief. We've done that because we're not really people who both come up with scrums, sendable paper by the foundation. There are differences of opinion, possibly different options. I mean, I think it's more critical and needed. And we as a commission, we'll, we'll have this conversation and make decisions. Make decisions, opinions with no facts. So is it possible to have the government's ability to develop something similar to what your fellow did and bring it to the next for our discussions?

Madam Chair, I think it won't be as detailed as your report. I think what we could do is just the things that we considered, the things that we researched, and ongoing, quite like, questions we haven't even touched yet that we still need input or that, yeah. I think we could just do, like, an outline of things that we're considering, where we have differences of an opinion or it's good based on research. Yeah, it's not going to be as much information, but it's a starting point. So I think we can meet and just kind of figure out what, what we want to share and then what we still need to identify as questions that have not been answered. And my question is, when is our next meeting so that we can figure out when we're going to meet in between that time? Our next meeting, full community meeting, is over to my Tuesday. Right? I've got to schedule. Madam Chair, that's correct. You will also see it on the agenda on item 11, next meeting. Just want to make sure. So we could have, that would be just so beneficial to the full commission that we were very willing to provide our two cents. So we need a foundation. We need some backup beliefs and expertise that many of you on the committee have. If this is in writing, you get time. I read everything in your mind. It tells me to have it in writing ahead of time. They would be public there to ask, not necessarily to make it applicable, but clearly strategic. We need to have some foundation. Yeah, I think, I think, really, it's not for lack of wanting to meet or even having the desire to have those conversations. I think it's just what had happened the last couple months with the focus being on our outreach. And then we ended up having to take on that role, and it was a lot of work.

And this got put to the side, which is not okay. But we have time to bring it back up and meet again as a subcommittee. Okay. Maybe status remains as is. Then we'll look forward to on October 22. I need reports with background documentation. And as much as she possibly can, it doesn't have to find things, but give us something to start so that we can at least say, "Well, the majority wants to go in this direction." Wait a minute. We don't know yet any more information here. Just give us, okay.

Anything further on that? Matters from the staff? Madam Chair, I have nothing at this time. Matters from the commission? Any agenda items besides an agenda item for that commission? No. Addison, the chair, I got, I saw an email from one individual that wrote us in. I'm assuming all the commissioners got them. Brick holder. Yeah. It was, it was a, it was a good piece of information. So have we gotten any more other than that one? I know he's, I'm sure he said, Madam Chair, as far as written comments go, like, physically written, that's the only one we received. I'll check with the comms team to see if we've gotten anything else through the public comment portal online. Great.

Okay. Next meeting is October 22, 5:00 PM here in the Chambers. I really appreciate all the hard work that you've put in. I really appreciate the comments that you're putting forward. I think we're, we're moving in the right direction and it's all we do at this point. Thank you. Meeting adjourned at 7:40.