Regular Governing Body Meeting - Second Wednesday Wed, Jun 11, 2025 · Governing Body https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/262 == Executive Summary == The City Council meeting covered a wide range of topics, with significant debate surrounding the establishment of a micro-community for homeless individuals and the process for appointing a Deputy City Manager. The micro-community proposal, intended to house families and youth, generated extensive public comment and council discussion regarding its location, operational details, and community engagement. Despite calls for postponement due to community concerns, the resolution to move forward with the micro-community at 2395 Richards Avenue passed, with amendments prioritizing families and establishing substance-free common areas. Another key discussion involved amending the city code to remove a 60-day deadline for the City Manager to appoint a Deputy City Manager. This procedural change, aimed at streamlining hiring, also sparked debate about public comment opportunities and the transparency of the appointment process. Additionally, the council approved external audit services, discussed municipal court updates including a certified DWI Drug Court, and introduced a Vision Zero resolution to improve road safety. Public comments also touched on water conservation and the impact of development. == Key Decisions == - Postponement of Historic Review Board Case until June 25th approved unanimously (9-0). - Consent agenda approved unanimously (9-0) as amended, with two items pulled. - Election Resolution approved unanimously (8-0, with one recusal). - Deputy City Manager job description approved (8-1). - Motion to move discussion of micro-community resolution to after 'petitions from the floor' approved unanimously. - Entry into executive session approved. - Reconvening in open session approved. - Motion to amend public comment process for ordinance change (Bill 2025-16) approved (5-2). - Motion to call the question on postponing the micro-community resolution approved unanimously (9-0). - Motion to postpone the micro-community resolution failed (1-8). - Amendment B (prioritizing families with children and youth for micro-community) approved unanimously (9-0). - Motion to amend Amendment A (regarding substance use in common areas) failed (3 Yes, 5 No). - Motion to approve Amendment A passed (5 Yes, 2 No, 1 Abstain/Explanation). - Main motion (Item 10B - micro-community resolution) as amended by A and B passed (7 Yes, 1 No). - Unspecified bill approved unanimously (9-0). - Appointments to Mayor's Youth Advisory Board (Luis AOA and Quinn Blakesley) approved unanimously (9-0). == Motions & Votes == - Motion to grant a delay for an appellant in a Historic Review Board case until June 25th — Passed unanimously (9-0). - Motion to approve consent agenda (as amended) — Passed unanimously (9-0). - Motion to approve Election Resolution — Passed (8-0, with one recusal). - Motion to approve Deputy City Manager job description — Passed (8-1). - Motion to move discussion of micro-community resolution to after 'petitions from the floor' — Passed unanimously. - Motion to enter into executive session — Passed. - Motion to reconvene in open session — Passed. - Motion to suspend rules regarding Section 4, subsections D and B for Bill 2025-16 and to send the bill to both the Finance Committee and the Quality of Life Committee — Vote not recorded in this section. - Motion to amend the public comment process for the ordinance change (Bill 2025-16) — Passed (5 Yes, 2 No). - Motion to call the question on postponing the micro-community resolution — Approved (9-0). - Motion to postpone the micro-community resolution — Failed (1-8). - Motion to approve Amendment B (prioritizing families with children and youth for micro-community) — Approved (9-0). - Motion to amend Amendment A (regarding substance use in common areas) — Failed (3 Yes, 5 No). - Motion to approve Amendment A — Passed (5 Yes, 2 No, 1 Abstain/Explanation). - Main motion (Item 10B - micro-community resolution) as amended by A and B — Passed (7 Yes, 1 No). - Motion to approve an unspecified bill — Passed unanimously (9-0). - Motion to approve appointments of Luis AOA and Quinn Blakesley to the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board — Passed unanimously (9-0). == Public Comment == The public comment period was dominated by concerns regarding the proposed micro-community for homeless individuals at 2395 Richards Avenue. Residents and representatives from organizations like First Serve New Mexico criticized the lack of community engagement, the site's proximity to youth facilities, and potential impacts on neighborhood safety and property values. Many urged for postponement of the vote, stricter rules against alcohol and drugs, and a focus on families. There was also a local company offering a more cost-effective housing alternative. Councilor Lindell offered a remembrance for Melissia Hellbert, a long-serving city stenographer. A councilor reflected on a fatal incident on a public transit bus, emphasizing community struggles. The Mayor also spoke about community members struggling with basic needs. During discussions on wastewater utility rates, Floyd Cable raised significant concerns about the city's water conservation efforts amidst ongoing development and drought, questioning the sustainability of current growth patterns. == Topics == - Municipal Court Update - Wastewater Utility Rates - External Audit Services - General Obligation Bonds - Community Engagement - Mayor's Youth Advisory Board - Historic Review Board Appeal - Consent Agenda Items - Remembrance of Melissia Hellbert - Public Transit Incident - Community Support and Struggles - Meeting Logistics == Full Transcript == What's the verdict, Madam Clerk? We are live. Thank you. Councilor Dell's checking to make sure she can find it. While we move forward, maybe somebody can come take a look at Councilor Lindell's technology and see if there's a glitch that's keeping her from getting it. So we are live on YouTube, and all the panelists have joined. Let me then call the meeting to order at 5:07. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Councilor Faulkner. Salute to the New Mexico flag. I believe, Councilor, you'll take that one on, and Councilor Lindell, you'll lead us with invocation and remembrance. Thank you, Mayor. You can join me in the "we" version of the Serenity Prayer: "Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I do have a remembrance that I would like to make, Mayor. Probably nearly everyone that's been in this chamber for any amount of time would remember Melissia Hellbert, who passed away quietly at home. She was a stenographer for the City of Santa Fe for over 20 years. She worked for the Municipal League, where she was integral in writing the election code, and she worked for the office of Governor Bruce King. She was 86 years old, born in Tatum, New Mexico, and lived in Santa Fe for over 50 years. So, we're grateful to Melissia for all the service that she provided to the city, for the friendship she provided to many of us, and for the leadership she showed us in stylish shoes. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to highlight and bring attention to an unfortunate situation that we had on one of our public transit buses, which is the NCRTD, the North Central Regional Transit District buses in Taos. There was an individual who was targeted and killed on that bus on Monday afternoon. It just brings light to what we're dealing with as communities, whether it's in Taos or Española, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, just in all of our communities. Keeping in thoughts and prayers the victim and the people who were involved, the driver of the bus, and the passengers that were on there. Pray for our communities. Thank you. Anyone else? Just a few words about people in our community who are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to find shelter, find food, find help. These are the people who need our help, and we are in their service as we try to find remedies. We support everyone in Santa Fe: those who are sick, those who are poor, those who are struggling with their own issues. We want the city to be their side and their service. Let's also think about people in all parts of our country who are under enormous stress trying to keep their families together. Let's take a minute along with those who were mentioned here in Santa Fe. Thanks, everybody. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? And remember, we have a zooming in. City Council Member Councilor Cassid: Here. Councilor Castro: Sent. Councilor Chavez: Councilor Faulkner: Councilor Lee Garcia: Here. Councilor Michael Garcia: Present. Councilor Lindell: Here. Councilor Marworth: Here. Mayor Weber: Present. You have a quorum. Thank you. Are there changes on the agenda, Madam Clerk? I think there's at least one that I'm aware of. Mayor, Counselors, I think our appellant in the Historic Review Board case has asked for an additional delay until June 25th. We do need to either make that part of the motion or make a later motion to postpone. So, we could do it when the item comes up, or we could do it right now. Is there a preference? Move to grant the delay. Second. So there's a motion to accept the request from the appellant, and it would move the land use case to Mayor, Counselors, June 25th, the next governing body meeting. Yeah. So it's with that amendment motion. Is there a motion to accept, or we have to vote on the... I guess I would say move to approve as amended with the delay in place. Second. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll? Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Councilor Marworth: Yes. Councilor Casset: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. And I believe we have one item from consent. Could you read that out? One item has been pulled off, Item 9L. And I believe that's Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Move to approve as amended. Second, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. I also would like to remove Item N. I didn't ask for it ahead of time because we don't need staff. I just want to recuse myself from that item. N as in... Yes, sir. I got you. Item N as in November. So, can we get a motion to approve the consent as amended? Yep. There's a motion. There's a second. Second. Would you call the roll, Madam Clerk? Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Councilor Marworth: Yes. Councilor Casset: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. Beautiful. With that, could you take us to our first item, a presentation, 8A? Item 8A, Judge, an update on the Municipal Court. And here to speak is Judge Chad Chidam from Municipal Court. Judge, welcome, Your Honor. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, Mr. Mayor, Counselors. A couple of updates with the Municipal Court. I'm really here for the biannual update. And the first thing I want to start with is I emailed you all a few weeks ago regarding the court receiving its certification for its DWI Drug Court Treatment Court. I know I emailed you. However, I think it's worth repeating again. We are certified, and which is, it's been a heavy lift for the court. We've been working on that for a while. What that means is we are certified through the offices, or the Office of the Administrative Offices of the Courts Therapeutic Justice Center. And that means that we, not only are we the only Municipal Court in the state to have a treatment court, but we are fully certified. We are very proud of that. And I'd like to thank NFA Police Department, the City Prosecutor's Office, the Public Defender's Office, and Mesa Vista Wellness on helping us achieve that certification. I want to give you a staff update. The Santa Fe Municipal Court, we have one more clerk starting on the 23rd, then I'm happy to say we are fully staffed. Very excited about that. A couple of hires I'd like to mention is Blake Gordon. I recently hired her. She is a licensed therapist counselor who is our court's program director, who's helping me evaluate all the programs, existing programs, and implementing and starting up new programs. The one that we're working on currently is an 18 to 25-year-olds court program. We hope to have that up and running before the end of the year. And I want to highlight a couple of things that we're going to be focusing on in that core program. We'll be focused on self-control, anger management, self-reflection, critical thinking, social skills development, life skills, vocational and educational resources, trauma, substance use awareness, things like that, just to name a few for the young adults that we see at our court. In addition, another focus that Ms. Gordon's going to help work on is our teens. We don't see a lot of teens at our court, except when we do, it's traffic offenses, but we're going to reach out to the schools and to see if there's some collaboration we can work through with working with court requirements and in addition to attendance at school and tardiness, things like that for our traffic offenses for the teens. I hired David Thomas. The former Public Defender is now the Court Staff Attorney and Pro Tem Judge. He did, at the last time, one of the last previous governing body meetings, approved him to be Pro Tem Judge. As a former, myself, as a former prosecutor, Mr. Thomas is a former prosecutor and public defender who he and I work together as a city prosecutor, he as the city public defender. He's not afraid to disagree with me, which I think is a great quality to have, and he has all that experience as a public defender and a prosecutor to bring to the court. One of the last things I want to touch upon is mufflers. I apologize. I had anticipated in the stats that you've been getting to have included the mufflers. That did not happen. It will happen moving forward. But I do have some stats that I want to give you. Since January of 2024, there have been 159 violation or muffler violations filed with the court. Out of that 159, 133 have been resolved. 99 of those that have been resolved have been resolved either because they fixed the muffler or because they came in compliance in some other way. In addition, there have been 20 convictions, outright convictions, meaning they didn't fix it, so they have to pay the fine. There were 12 that were dismissed by the prosecutor per plea agreement, meaning through plea negotiation or somebody could have fixed the muffler and then pled to something else. So that was through the prosecutor per a plea. There were two untimely filed citations. Officers have to file it within a certain point to get to the court before somebody shows up. Only two that were untimely filed, and currently there are 26 unresolved cases. I know I went pretty quick with those numbers. I'm happy to elaborate more, but that's been a request by a couple of counselors to give more information on that. I cannot give my opinion because I want to be at abundance of caution, but I figure those stats you can kind of gather how it's going, but I'm happy to repeat those if necessary or send those in an email to everybody later on date. But please, this is my biannual presentation. Please hesitate to reach out to me prior to see if there's some other information that you would like, or anytime you want to come to the court, please come on by. Thank you, Judge. Are there questions for the Judge, comments? Really appreciate when you do bring us your reports. They're very, they're very meaningful and substantive. You know, you don't have to wait for a regularly scheduled appearance to come see us if something is happening that you really want to call to our attention. You're always, always welcome to come here and brief us on things that are going on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate that. Very good. Thank you, sir. Madam Clerk, I think that would then move us to the first item that was taken off of consent. 9L, requests for approval of a professional services agreement with Car Rings and Rigs and Ingram LLC for audit services in the total amount of $349,880 through June 30th, 2026. Move to approve. There's a motion and a second. Councilor Garcia, did you want to take the floor and bring questions to Director Oster? Sure. Thank you, Director Oster, for being here this evening. This, for the public's context, this is the contract for the folks that conduct the audit, not the folks that are internal supporting the audit. Correct, Mr. Mayor and Counselors. Councilor Garcia, that's correct. These are the external auditors. Okay. And given that we're now on track, so to speak, with our audits, will they begin their work immediately, as immediate as possible, January 1, to allow for them to get an audit turned in on time in December? Mr. Mayor and Counselors, Councilor Garcia, we're actually looking at starting right away, perhaps as early as next week, even before the end of the fiscal year. We've talked to them about doing some control testing and looking at our IT systems even before the end of the fiscal year. There is some of the internal control test work that can be done during the fiscal year. Okay, perfect. I just want to make sure that we're setting them up for success and planning to ultimately, which is the end goal, get the audit in by December, if not sooner. So, I'll keep my fingers crossed it will be in before the actual deadline. So, good luck to you and the team. That's all I had, Mr. Mayor. Any other questions for Director Oster on this particular contract? Thank you. With that, we have a motion and a second. Madame Clerk, could you call the roll? Councilor Faulkner. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Maestas, yes. Councilor Cassutt, yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Chavez, yes. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. And the next item is, I believe, a recusal request, but go ahead and read it out loud and Councilor Garcia can recuse himself. Item 9N, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Ellen Weber. Resolution notifying the County Clerk of the County of Santa Fe that the regular local election on November 4th, 2025 includes elections for one City Councilor from each council district and the Mayor of the City of Santa Fe. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to recuse myself as I am a mayoral candidate in this upcoming election and want to ensure there's no conflict of interest. Thank you. We'll give you a second to step out. In the meantime, is there a motion? Move to approve. Second. We have Councilor Garcia stepping out. We have a motion to approve and a second. Is there discussion? Madame Clerk, could you please call the roll? Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Lindell, yes. Councilor Maestas, yes. Councilor Cassutt, yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Chavez, yes. Councilor Faulkner, yes. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. Councilor Garcia, if you could do what you're doing, that'd be great. Thank you. And we'll wait a minute for everybody to come back. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Could you take us to the next item on the agenda? Item 10A, discussion agenda, request for approval of Deputy City Manager job description pursuant to SFCC 1978, Section 2-4.6M. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion and there is a second. I wonder, is it worth having a moment of explanation as to why this is on the agenda and what the purpose is, because I do believe many people in the audience may not have an understanding about what the procedural issue is that we're redressing with this item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Mark Scott, City Manager. Sir, with apologies, this item is on your agenda. Under the municipal code, there is a provision that says that a City Manager bringing forward an appointment of a Deputy City Manager should bring forward the job description for governing body review. I had failed to do that, not understanding that the job description that was already approved was not adequate to have satisfied that requirement. We're bringing forward the same job description that had been previously approved, and that's what is in front of the governing body tonight. Thank you. Questions? Yeah, Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Scott, for the overview of this. I guess my first question is, given that, as you mentioned, the time period to appoint an individual to this position has expired, isn't this topic moot? In essence, we're approving a job position that you ultimately have no authority to appoint somebody to. So, how, why are we moving forward with this job description if at this point you can't appoint anybody to the position? Yeah, thank you, sir. Mr. Mayor, the other item I didn't reference is the 60-day provision that's in the same municipal code. The provision in the municipal code says something to the effect of, "A City Manager may appoint within 60 days, may appoint a Deputy City Manager." And I did not at any point believe that that was a provision that forbid the City Manager from making that appointment following 60 days. In fact, it seems rather nonsensical to me that there would be a provision that would say a City Manager could make this kind of appointment in 60 days and then all of a sudden, poof, it goes away. It seemed more to me like a previous provision that had been changed and maybe inartfully changed, something that may have said, "shall appoint within 60 days," and then someone decided maybe the City Manager doesn't need a deputy and changed "shall" to "may" and never dealt with the 60-day provision. We have provisions for appointing commissioners within 90 days, and those dates go by frequently without notice. The previous Deputy City Manager had not been appointed in 60 days. I never thought that this was a provision that actually applied in this circumstance to the extent that I would be ineligible to appoint someone. It's being corrected, hopefully, on the agenda starting tonight with a provision to change the code section to remove that. So, I guess I'd answer your question about the job description. If the governing body decides to say we want to keep a 60-day limit and forbid a City Manager to hire a deputy after 60 days, then it would be moot. On the assumption that the City Council might think that that provision does not make sense, then I offer this job description to you under the condition that it would go hand in hand with a change to the code. Okay, that, thank you, Mr. Scott. I appreciate that. And, you know, I wasn't around when this ordinance came about, but we've got to remember that it probably came about way before our city moved into a different government structure where we have a strong mayor and a City Manager. Prior structure, I can absolutely see the potential for a need for a Deputy City Manager. Nowadays, I think folks can argue, "You've got a strong mayor. Why do you need a Deputy City Manager?" And I think that's where it would, it's up to the person who's in that City Manager position to make that call. You mentioned the proposed changes that are on the agenda later. Is there a reason why we're not taking that route and then coming back to this process? Because again, it seems like we're putting the cart before the horse in this process where there is a law now, because the appointment can't be made due to the requirements in the law. A change in the law is being requested, but I, I just, again, I, I see very, the timeline of this is, is wrong. And we'll talk about the other topic later, which I have some grave concerns around. Regarding this position, have you already appointed somebody to this position? Not formally. I tried to. Okay. Can you explain in regards to who you formally tried to, what role this person is playing currently? Yes. I am, I am very anxious and eager to appoint Andrea Phillips to the position of Deputy City Manager. We went through a whole recruitment process and we determined her to be the best candidate. I actually issued an offer letter that she accepted. She has, in fact, physically moved to Santa Fe, at which point the issue of the technicality of the 60-day issue came up. And when it came up, we decided better to follow the literal reading of the wording, even though I will admit, from my standpoint, I'm not sure that I think it's being read properly, to read it literally. But I accept that the safer thing to do is to change the code. So, that's what we're trying to do. In the meantime, Ms. Phillips has very graciously accepted that she is temporarily filling another role that she's qualified for in the city staff, which is the Affordable Housing Director position, and she's helping us out in that capacity until such time that I can make a permanent appointment on the Deputy City Manager position. Thank you, Mr. Scott. And because this individual has started, but there was a previous offer made to her, is this individual being compensated at the Deputy City Manager wage or at the wage of the Affordable Housing Director? The latter, the Affordable Housing Director wage. Okay. Just want to make sure, because there's a huge discrepancy in both pay ranges, and I want to make sure that there's, there's a difference. Yes. Okay. What happens in the instance, and I'm always somebody who plans, that's plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D. What happens in the instance that the requested ordinance change is not approved? I would, I would rather not answer. I mean, the law will, the law will take its course, of course, but I'm not going to talk about where my, what my action would be at that point. So, I think that's quite troubling to me, because then there's no reason to approve this, because again, it gets to the point of why are we not changing the law first and then potentially offering a position to somebody versus offering a position to somebody and then changing the law? I, I will follow the direction of the City Council. Okay. And I guess the last question, just because this is a question I asked you when we were hiring you, and I know this toes the line of HR, but I'm sure the individual is well aware that these are at-will positions, and we are ending the near end of a tenure of an administration. And because you mentioned this individual moved, that's a big life-changing event, and I'd hate to put somebody in a position where they might not be aware of career changes that might be upfront. I, I would assure you that every management employee in this organization right now is living with the recognition of that reality. Right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I appreciate that. With that, I, I appreciate you bringing this forward, but again, I think this needs to come after any law change, and then we approve any position change with that. So, with that, thank you, Mr. Mayor. No other questions. Very good. I think Councilor Cassutt has her hand up. Go ahead, Councilor. You have the floor. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to confirm, there's no, there was no changes made to this job description from what we previously had with our previous Deputy City Manager. Am I understanding that correctly, Mr. Mayor? Councilor, that's correct. Okay. And so, this is really a technicality that we have to approve the job description before anybody can be appointed. Correct. Mr. Mayor, yes, Councilor. You can approve it. You could change it, but yes. Okay. Thank you. I, I actually would prefer to have this approved now before the, the conversation around appointment, because then I have a better understanding of what I'm discussing appointing past 60 days. So, so I would, and, and because we approved this, this does not mean that we are appointing. Am I understanding that correctly, Mr. Mayor? Councilor, that's correct. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, I would just say that I would actually prefer approving this now so that when we are having that discussion, we actually have a very concrete idea of the position that we are discussing, whether or not we would like to change the law for, and what that value brings. So, that was all. Thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you. I believe Councilor Maestas, your hand is up, and then Councilor Garcia. Councilor, you want to go first? I don't think it's, I don't think there's a foot race to the finish line. I'll go ahead and go. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I, I thank you for the questions, Councilor Garcia, Michael Garcia. Similar to what I had, I think that, if it was an oversight, it's unfortunate. I think that, I think we get into dangerous territory when we start making a decision, even though it was not the intent. But now we have to go back and change things around. So my question towards what Councilor Cassid just said was this job description, and you mentioned that this was a job description that had already been previously approved. When was that approval? Do you recall? Mr. Mayor, Councilor, I believe it was when the last Deputy City Manager was appointed, two years ago, obviously before my time. Thank you, Mr. Scott. At that time, I did not support an Assistant City Manager. I did fail that strong mayor model with City Manager. And I'm not against evaluating the need. Obviously, that's in your wheelhouse because I don't do your job. But I do have some concerns over now amending a process that we have in place. How was this, how were you notified that this was not in the correct chain or in the right motions? I think I became aware, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I think I became aware of it the day of the agenda, maybe the day before the agenda, through a couple of emails where somebody had asked about the 60-day provision, and I had not thought it was relevant and had not studied it. So I looked it up and it was there. And after consultation with the City Attorney, it was felt that it made more sense to, rather than to argue that it was a mistake, which is what my argument was, it made more sense to try to clarify it by amending the code. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Yeah, those are my concerns. I'm not saying you don't need an Assistant City Manager. I think that all the help that you can get is important. We do have a model of a strong mayor, a city manager, an advisor, and an Assistant City Manager. So I will yield the floor for now, but those are my concerns and my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. And Council Meth, are you ready? Just really quickly, I don't want to belabor this. In our packets, on this item, is the description for the Deputy City Manager. At the very top, it does say that this position is an exempt one, and exempt at will, which makes it very clear that this person, if need be, can be let go by this administration or any administration in the future. I would, I guess, disagree with my colleagues on the sense that because we have a full-time mayor, there's no need for a Deputy City Manager. I think one of the things that this city really struggles with is having proper management. And I have watched now, as I think many of us have, several City Managers handle the workload that is at their feet. And I have to say, I am deeply appreciative for this work. I think it is extensive, it is considerable, it is a lot. And to acknowledge that you might need help in that position to do the work of managing our city, I think is wise, and I do support this. So I don't think it really, having a full-time mayor to me doesn't mean we don't need management. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Faulkner. So, just for the public's sake, McSherry, could you explain the decision we're trying to make tonight? Councilor Faulkner, there are two matters that are related to this conversation on the agenda tonight. The one that is first on the agenda is non-legislative, and this is about approval of the job description. So the code in Section 2-4.6, under Powers and Duties of the City Manager, part M, says, "May appoint a Deputy City Manager within 60 days of being appointed City Manager. Prior to the appointment of a Deputy City Manager, the City Manager shall present a job description to the governing body for review and approval. The powers and duties designated to the Deputy City Manager shall not exceed the powers and duties of the City Manager." So the item right now is the approval of the job description. And then can you explain the other decision we have to make, Councilors? To the extent of deciding whether or not this is timely in relation to the other matter, the other matter is legislative, and it is a proposal to amend the section I just read to remove the 60-day timeline and to provide that rather than approving the job description, that the powers and duties would still not exceed the powers and duties of the City Manager, and that the minimum qualifications would be at least those of the City Manager, which has been, I think, a concern that was raised by the Council previously. So it seeks to address that. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, Mr. Castro. Thank you so much. City Manager, in this job description, I don't see any mention of emergency management, and that traditionally had been held with the Deputy City Manager. Is that going to be the case now, or is that changed? Mr. Mayor, Councilor, the emergency management role is frequently delegated in different degrees to a Deputy City Manager. For instance, if the City Manager is not available at the time of an emergency, the Deputy City Manager fills that role, and which is a substantial role. So that any Deputy City Manager has to be prepared to step in in emergency management circumstances. And because I know that we currently have an interim, I think that would be an important conversation that we might want to address through the process. But I do realize that it is an important position, and so the Deputy City Manager, I feel, is a very important position regarding, in particular, emergency management. No further question. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Garcia. Mayor, just one more clarification question. This is only to approve the job description, correct? Thank you. Oh, good. We've got one Councilor just stepped out, but I think we still have a quorum. There's a motion on the floor. Madam Clerk, could you please call them? Councilor Michael Garcia. No. And I'd like to explain my vote. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Maroworth. Yes. Councilor Casset. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Council, we're taking a vote if you want to be recorded on the vote on the motion to approve. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Mayor Weber. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. Councilor Michael Garcia, you have the floor to explain your vote. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The reason why I voted no is I strongly believe that we're taking these courses of action in the wrong manner, especially given that an individual has been formally offered a position, is now being brought into the city in a different position to appease them, to keep them on board with the hopes that a law is changed to ultimately appoint this person to this position, which in local words, I would call it a "moa." So I wish the best as we move forward, but this is not how we should be conducting business. Okay, Madam Clerk, that item was approved. Do you want to take us to the next item, please? Item 10B, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Councilor, sorry, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, Councilor Jamie Casset, Councilor Alma Castro, and Councilor Amanda Chavez. A resolution identifying city property at 2395 Richards Avenue as a location for a micro-community to provide shelter and supportive services for individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Fe. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Second. Motion and a second. I believe what I'd like to start with is I believe that Director Henry Hammond Paul has put together a presentation to go over a number of the questions that I know will be arising. And so I would entertain Director Ham and Paul to go through his slide deck, assuming it's available, and then open the floor to questions. Can we postpone this until after public comment, just because I know we have folks in the audience who are willing to speak to this, and if we hear this before hearing the audience, it continues the message that, "Thank you, but no thank you for your input." And I'd love to hear from folks in regards to their opinion on the matter. I would concur. Okay. So there, I'd like to make a motion that we move introduction of legislation to this part of the agenda, and we can see where we are after that. I'm sorry, did you go really quickly? Councilor, you want to do what? You want to move, could maybe I'll make a motion to move this to the end of the agenda, and then we'll see if we're closer to 7:00. I see. I think a simpler thing to do is simply park it after petitions from the floor, and that way it will, there'll be no question about when we get to the item, and we will have heard anyone who wants to speak to this or other items beforehand. Is there, is there a motion on the floor? Not, can I, can I move to move this to after petitions from the floor? Second. There's a motion to take this item and alter the agenda so that it would be after Item 17 on our agenda, which is petitions from the floor. Is there discussion? So, Madam Clerk, can you call a roll on that? Councilor Romeorth, yes. Councilor Cassett, yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Chavez, Councilor Faulkner, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. We will come back to that item after we've heard petitions from the floor. Item 11, Madam Clerk, I believe is next. Item 11, matters from the City Manager. Mr. Mayor, Councilors, I am happy to announce some more employee anniversaries. These are some long-term employees. We have Mark Barela in the Public Works Department, 30 years. It's the longest of the employees I've announced so far. Matilda Arguo Shami from Public Utilities, 25 years. Angelina Garcia from the Police Department, 25 years. Leonard Padilla from ITT, 20 years. Purio Sha Shabaria. Did I come even remotely close? Very, you were close. You were close enough. Your spirit was in the right place. 20 years in the Fire Department. Corina Lovado, 15 years, Community Services. Cassandra Tapia, Police Department, five years. Roberto Romero, also Police Department, five years. And those are our anniversaries for this month. Thank you. Any other matters, Mr. City Manager? Not tonight. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Madam Clerk, can we go to the next item then? Item 12, matters from the City Attorney. Thank you, Mayor, Councilors. I just have a recommendation to go into executive session, and this is subject to Section 10151, subpart H8, discussion of disposition of property, in particular, the city-owned property known as Las Estres Tract 6A. Mayor, yes. Is there a motion? I would make a motion that we enter into executive session pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, Section 10-15-1H, subpart A, for the discussion of purchase, acquisition, or disposal of real property or water rights by the governing body. Second. Is there discussion? Did you call the roll? Councilor Casset. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez, yes. Councilor Faulkner, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Marworth, yes. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion is approved. Very good. We will go into executive session to discuss a real estate matter and be back as soon as we can, and hopefully well within the 7:00 target for petitions from the floor. We could, we could change the agenda. Well, we got to get our team back together again. I know it's just, has me off my, has me. Are you ready to, you have to make an, I will as soon as you're ready. I'm ready. Madam Clerk, are we still streaming? We're still streaming live, Madam Clerk. Yes, we are live on YouTube. Very good. If everybody could take their seats, please. And Councilor Mayor Worth, do you have a motion for us? Mayor: Pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, Section 10-15-1-J, I move that the governing body reconvene in open session and state for the record that the matters discussed in the closed session were limited to those specified in the motion for closure. Second. Mayor: Is there discussion? No, ma'am. And Jamie, you're okay. Councilor Cass is back with us on this one, too. Could you call the roll then, please? And we've had council members have to be excused for the remainder of the meeting. If you could note that she's going to be up. Oh, she'll be as soon as she can get on Zoom. Okay. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Romero: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Mayor: Motion is approved. Very good. So, it's about 10 minutes to seven or thereabouts. I think we should continue with the next item on the agenda, please. Item 14, matters from the City Clerk. City Clerk: Tonight, I don't have anything. Mayor: Okay. Items 15, communications from the governing body. Very good. Let me start with Councilor Cassich because she's on Zoom, and then we'll just go down the line. Councilor Cassich: Thank you so much, Mayor. I actually have nothing today, but thank you. Councilor Castro: So, Saturday is very fun-filled. I'm going to take a couple and leave some for my co-councilors, but "Bridging Differences, Ending Stigma Together" is something that I'm really excited about. Behavioral health, substance use, mental health, homelessness. We will be talking about it with all community members on Saturday the 14th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30, and that's going to be at the Grove Central Church, 2235 Henry Lynch Road, and that starts at 10:00 a.m. Councilor Garcia: I would just like to wish all fathers and father figures a happy early Father's Day. Thank you. Councilor Lindell: Passes. Councilor Bogner: So, I do have one thing I would like to say. We get a lot of grief around the fact that we're on our devices when we're at the dais. And I would just like to remind the community that the people in this room are not the only constituents that are engaged in our hearings. And so, a lot of the time we spend on our phones is also answering questions and taking comments from constituents who are not in this room. So, whereas it might feel dismissive, it actually is not. We're just trying to manage the level of communication that comes from our constituents. And again, the people in this room are not the only constituents tracking our hearings. And so, I just want to bring that up because there are people who cannot attend the meetings or the hearings, and we're trying to manage that as well. Thank you. Councilor Mayor Worth: I pass tonight. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Garcia: You have the floor. Mayor: I'll pass. Thank you. Wow. Well, you guys are very brief. I will be brief as well, but there's no... Oh, Councilor Castro has a footnote. I apologize. Councilor Castro: So, then I'm going to invite folks to Midtown Campus because MATA is also having that event, as well as the general plan update that's going to be at the Hex Center. Mayor: Yeah, there is so much going on. It's if you start making a list, it just extends indefinitely. But you're right to note the MATA event coming up on Saturday. We have between now and the time that we'll be back together again, Juneteenth, we'll have come to Santa Fe, which is something we celebrate. There's a film, "Men Against Domestic Violence," which is a very sensitive and important subject in our community and around the country. I would encourage anyone who is interested in the summer activities in Santa Fe to check the calendar because we are going to be hitting our stride very soon, if we haven't already begun the process of having family events, community events, all kinds of gatherings that celebrate the city. And so, take advantage of the offerings because it is a great part of living in this community. Madam Clerk, that takes care of that item. Item 16, introductions of legislation. 16A, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber. Resolution approving budget amendments and requesting that New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration approve the City of Santa Fe's third-quarter budget amendments for fiscal year 2025. In the spirit of our governing body, I think the caption speaks for itself. 16B, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Councilor Amanda Chavez, a resolution updating the terms of and extending the pilot program supporting physical and mental well-being of City of Santa Fe employees. I don't know if... Well, ordinarily, I think the sponsor is allowed to address it for two to three minutes. She's not in the room; she stepped out. But I think it's well known that this is a project we've had presentations on, and it's based on that presentation and the response from the governing body, this is bringing it forward to extend it. 16C, consideration of Bill Number 2025-16, Ordinance Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, a bill amending Section 2-4.6 to remove the 60-day timeline for the City Manager to hire a Deputy City Manager and update the section consistent with the charter. Councilor Mayor Worth: Yes, ma'am. I have a question for the City Attorney on this one. Is this where we would make a motion potentially to waive some of our rules with regard to this? City Attorney: Counselors, yes. And I think based on a question I had earlier today, I would like to clarify that the matter can still go to whatever committees the governing body would like to send it to between the two governing body meetings. We just didn't know which ones to put because it depends on whether or not you do waive the rules or not. What the timing would be for those. So, there's still the opportunity to go to any of the standing committees that the governing body thinks are appropriate between the two governing body meetings if you choose to waive one or both of the rules that I've highlighted as would make it possible for this bill to pass at the next governing body meeting. Councilor Mayor Worth: Okay. And do we know, Madam City Clerk, which committees do all three committees meet between tonight and June 25th? City Clerk: Mayor, Councilor Mayor Worth, yes. So, we do have Public Works and Utilities on the 16th, Quality of Life on the 18th, and Finance on the 23rd. Councilor Mayor Worth: Okay. And if we were to send it to Quality of Life and the Finance Committee, I believe every counselor would get to see it at the committee level. I believe I'm correct in that because Councilor Lindell sits on Finance, but she doesn't sit on any of the others. So, as long as we go to Finance, we capture her, and if we go to Quality of Life, we capture everybody else. City Clerk: Mayor, Councilor Mayor Worth, I believe that is correct. Councilor Mayor Worth: All right. So, and then one more thing, Madam City Attorney, the two rules that have been flagged. One is to possibly waive what? Help me this email along. The first one is... City Attorney: Sure, Mayor Weber, counselors, they're both in the section about legislation. It's two different subsections of Section 4, subsections D and B. And those relate to going to a first public comment at governing body, which was a new step that we added when we amended the rules within the last couple years that didn't used to be required. So, we added a first public comment in addition to the final passage public hearing. The proposal is, or the suggestion for the timeline, would not affect the public hearing that would happen at final passage. It would just remove... So, so essentially, we're potent... I guess I'm trying to frame my motion. So, the motion for consideration could be to waive the rules so that we don't have to go to public comment at the next governing body meeting. I don't know how to phrase that. We're just going to take that one away. But the public comment on final passage could still happen. So, I guess I don't know how to frame the motion. So, what I want to do, counselors, the final public hearing actually is required by state statute. So, our rules go above and beyond what's typically required for adopting ordinances by local governments. We've just added additional steps to our own procedural rules. Councilor Mayor Worth: Okay. And then the second part was the second thing from today's email was about Councilor Worth, about the public notice that typically we added this as well during the last go-round that the public notice would happen after the bill receives approval by at least one committee. Okay. So, I guess I would like to make a motion that we suspend our rules with regard to Section 4, subsections D and B, and that we send this bill both to the Finance Committee and the Quality of Life Committee. Second. Mayor: There's a motion to suspend rules and move the bill to those two committees. Is there discussion? Yes, Councilor Garcia. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just got to state for the record, I am wholeheartedly against removing public comment at any time during our process. That's our job to hear from residents on any matter. And given that this is a process that is only really coming to light tonight, I strongly believe we need to offer any opportunity for residents to provide their public comment. Now, I've got a question. You know, because we are proposing to waive the rules, I have a question for the motion maker. Why are we proposing to waive the rules? Councilor Mayor Worth: Mr. Mayor, I believe that the City Manager has asked us to work with him in being able to act on the code change that he is finding necessary to make an appointment of a Deputy City Manager and to do so by our next committee meeting, which we can do and still have public comment and send it to committees so that all members of the governing body will have a chance to talk about it prior to its final passage on the 25th of June. Councilor Garcia: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Again, just to note for the record, the motion is to remove one portion of public comment on this matter. Now, City Manager Scott, how detrimental is this change that we're trying to fast-track this and ultimately make it through a process by what, two weeks? Is it mission-critical that we waive our rules and not allow for the public to give comment on this matter so this position can potentially be filled in two weeks? City Manager Scott: Mayor, Councilor, I think that the circumstances are such that it makes all the sense in the world to do that. I think the code section you're talking about is literally nonsensical in the first place. If the public has comments about it, I hope they can come and talk about it. But we're not talking about whether or not there should be a Deputy City Manager. You're talking about whether or not it makes sense that a City Manager who makes an appointment based on a position that the governing body already approved in the budget year after year is looking to see whether it makes sense that that position, and I can certainly argue the need for the position, whether that position should not be appointed because it took the City Manager 60 days, 61 days, or more than that in order to fill it. That doesn't make any sense. I don't know why in the world that's an issue that is taking any time at all for people to consider. Meanwhile, I've got somebody who in good faith accepted a job who's sitting out there waiting to see what's going to happen. You've already made the point that we're asking people to take jobs right now with a real uncertain future. I mean, we're lucky to find anybody who's willing to help us at this point with this kind of uncertainty and to take more time for public input on something that I doubt very much there's going to be much public input about, just to me doesn't make any sense at all. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I appreciate the response. No other questions from you, Mr. Mayor. I see Councilor Cassid's hand is up, so I will recognize Councilor Cassid. You have the floor. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Well, first and foremost, I think one thing is important that I want to state: I don't believe there's any malicious intent going on here. I think what's happened is that there's been a misunderstanding, and we're all doing our best to figure out, or there's been, whatever the case may be, there was the thought that this wasn't actually going to be an issue, and it is. And so now we're trying to go back and put the pieces together and be respectful of everybody involved. So I just want to put that out there. I know that sometimes we get into these conspiracy theories and we start accusing people of things, and I would like us to refrain from doing such things. I do not think that the city manager is trying to pull the wool over our eyes or do anything of that sort. And I respect that he is trying to get the work done, get somebody in place to assist. However, I have a compromise. What we usually do is we put public comment at the governing body meeting in order to allow for public comment to be heard before it goes to committee and the committee starts to consider. I believe Quality of Life will be the first committee. I am happy to add a public comment that will go prior to the discussion and have this on the discussion agenda at the Quality of Life Committee meeting. So therefore, we are still allowing that opportunity. I understand the entire governing body would not be there at that time, but fortunately, we do have everything on Zoom. And so that way it does allow us to hear that public comment. So if there is the work that we would like to do in committee to be done, we do have that opportunity both at Quality of Life and then again at Finance. I'd amend my motion to include that offer. That's a good, I think that's a good addition. Second. I apologize. I endorse what you've just offered. I think we're all trying to find a way to get an expeditious consideration of this but also not shut out public input. So that's a very considerate offer. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Faulkner, did you— So if I understand this correctly, prior to Councilor Cassid's suggestion, we were going to have two opportunities if we chose to have this, two public comments. I'm trying to walk myself through this. So there was, there's two opportunities at the City Council. One, we would, it'd be introduced and we'd listen to it and there'd be a public comment. Then when we go to vote for it at the end, there would be another opportunity. What it looks like now is based on Councilor Cassid's suggestion, there'll be three opportunities. May Councilor Faulkner, being that we're talking about introduction before petitions from the floor tonight, if that's what you mean, there is that opportunity for public comment. Introduction doesn't generally include public comment or even discussion. I think we're getting into some of the substance because it relates to whether or not it's advisable to waive rules or not. But typically just the sponsor introduces the bill with a few minutes of introduction and there's not necessarily public comment at the time of introduction, but at final passage there's always a public hearing. Any ordinance change? No. Can I clarify? Clarify, Councilor. I might not have understood. Yeah. So here's the, here's the way bills move. They first, they're introduced at a meeting. We just did that with a couple of bills. They're assigned to committees. At the next governing body meeting, there is an opportunity for public comment. And I think that's, that is the one I've made the motion to remove. And Councilor Cassid is suggesting that we could still have public comment. It wouldn't be at the next governing body meeting because at the next governing body meeting we'd like to be approving this, this change to our code, rather than just taking public comment, but she's going to allow for public comment to happen at Quality of Life, so there'll still be that opportunity for public comment prior to final passage. And Mayor, Councilor Marza. Yeah, I thought the proposal had been that there was typically three and that now we were going to two, but there is typically two and now the proposal is also two, correct? Correct. Thank you for clarifying. Any others? We're good. If I can, I guess I just would note this, this rule that says that, well, the, the code change that we're trying to make that says that the city manager has to hire a deputy within 60 days. The process that they undertook to get the, the candidate that they have that they're interested in took roughly 100 days. Because they, there was a search firm involved and writing and placing ads and, you know, the publication of those ads took time. And then they had to be interviewed and there's, you know, there, there's an onboarding process. And so, I, I, I just would agree that this 60 days, and when you're a new city manager and particularly when you're coming into a new community, and you're drinking from a fire hose, it just seems like a lot. And, and again, I don't know where this rule came from, but if we need a deputy city manager, I would like the city manager to take the time he or she needs to get their feet under them and then figure out what it is they need and then be able to go out and find the skills that they need to bring the right person in to be part of that team. And I just seems like this 60-day piece is a little arbitrary. And I just want to make that note. That's all I have there. Thank you. Thank you. I, I would second that observation. I think we're interested in professionalizing the management of the city in every opportunity we have to do it the best way. I think our city manager is scrupulous in how he's attempting to do this within the rules, but the rules prohibit from doing the job the way a sound manager would undertake it. You would not pick somebody just to make the 60-day deadline. And so, as a consequence, we get up against a time limit that seems not in the best interests of the city manager, the City Council, or the community at large. And, and, and to be honest, even though there would be even more direct, even though the city manager is being incredibly scrupulous about the way we're bringing this forward in order to make sure there's no ambiguity, I'm looking at the record of, because this is not the first time we've had this issue in front of the governing body. When Mr. Blair was hired, he began his term of office on January 13, 2022. And the deputy that was hired was voted on, was, was began her employment April 28th, 2022, with a 105-day lapse between the two. Now, I'm sure we discussed it and we talked about how to interpret that statute at the time. And we, I think, came to the conclusion that we wanted to make sure that the position was filled in a sound and sensible way. And I think to Mr. Scott's credit, he's going the extra mile to make sure that we're amending our ordinance so we don't get caught in this jam in the future. And I think that's a very responsible way to approach it. So, I hope we can clarify it. And then in the future, there won't be this sense of a 60-day clock that requires action that may not even be in the best interest of the community. Councilor Faulkner. So, I have a question for Councilor Michael Garcia. If the issue was we don't want to eliminate the public's ability to have another bite at the apple, does Councilor Cassid's suggestion resolve that for you? Because either way, we're getting two bites at the apple. And councilors are always welcome to join committees. I joined Public Works the other night because they were talking about something that I was interested in. So, we have opportunity and we're giving the public an opportunity. So, I'm just like genuinely would like to know, does this satisfy your concern? Thank you, Councilor Faulkner, for the question. And unfortunately, it doesn't 100% satisfy it. There's a reason why we have a public hearing process. There's a reason why we added it to the rules as noted. It's to allow for the public to fully engage with us. If, for those of us that sit on this dais can attest to the participation that is in a governing body meeting, you can see how many folks are here this evening versus a committee meeting when there are most of the time zero folks, only city staff. And so I think it's incumbent of us just to follow the process and procedures we set. It was noted around the appointment that former City Manager Blair made. He, I, I do recall that process. He, within an immediate timeframe, got the proposal or the job description in front of us because I remember one of the questions from former Councilor Ribera to City Manager Blair was, "Hey, you're only on the job two weeks. How do you know you need a deputy city manager?" And then we'd never talked about it ever since. It was never brought to the full governing body's attention that the appointment was made out of compliance. At least it was never brought to my attention whether in a governing body meeting or outside of a governing body meeting. So I think, you know, we, we, we owe the process to adhere to what it was the original intention. And as I noted earlier in the meeting, the original intention probably was when we had the part-time mayor and a strong city manager. And it, we get into, we can get down that rabbit hole as we go through the legislation. But to answer your question, Councilor, it does not. Fair enough. Any other questions? We have a motion. Could you please call the roll? Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Explain my vote. Councilor Lee Garcia. Uh, no. And I'll extend my vote as well. Thank you. Councilor Michael Garcia. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Marworth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Mayor Weber. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. We have two council members who would like to explain their votes. So, I, I do care a lot about transparency and I feel like this compromise will get us to where we need to get, but it also allows the public and the City Council opportunities to hear from the public. The way that it's been described to me in this hearing is that there were going to be two chances for the public to have an opinion and to communicate that to the council. This compromise accomplishes that as well and, but also keeps us in a timeline where we can get the people we need on the ground when we need them. Thank you. Councilor Lee Garcia, sir. Thank you, Mayor. I, I didn't support this in, in regards to what I, I believe that again, we're, we're changing the process. I, I think everything that you, you've explained, City Manager, is very truthful and I don't believe there's any malfeasance or ill intent with what's going on here. I, I do believe that we do have a process and the more and more that we change our rules to adapt to that, then I think we run into some issues. So that's, that was my vote. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Sorry, Mayor. I'm just requesting, could we repeat the schedule so that folks know when that public comment might be? I believe the City Clerk has that available. So public comment will be on June 18th, the Quality of Life meeting, and then it'll go to the Finance Committee without public comment on June 23rd, and then it'll be at the governing body meeting on June 25th. Thank you. Thank you. Madame Clerk, could you take us to the next item on the agenda? Item 16D, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber and Councilor Michael Garcia. A resolution establishing the City of Santa Fe as a Vision Zero City and directing the City Manager to take action in support of the Vision Zero goal. Councilor Garcia, this is near and dear to your heart. Why don't you take the first shot at it? Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This resolution is a product that came out of the BPAC strategic plan that the Citizen Advisory Committee has been working on for many, many years. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that we have zero cycling or pedestrian deaths in our community. It will work to develop plans to hopefully and ultimately achieve that goal. So, I look forward to the review process and thank you for the support on the resolution, Mr. Mayor. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. I just add my support for this. I was introduced to Vision Zero probably four years ago because a lot of cities were struggling with pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, and New Mexico is notorious for that challenge. I brought it to the Public Works team. They said, "We're not quite ready," because at that time we hadn't moved forward with things like our complete streets efforts and our overarching effort to see if we could redesign our transportation system to be safer as a priority. Now, I'm very happy that it is timely for us to bring this forward and put Santa Fe on the map as a Vision Zero City. It's a national movement, and I think we really ought to be part of that effort. I share Councilor Garcia's commitment to getting this going so we can be much more mindful of safety as a transportation priority. Mayor: Madame Clerk, the next item on the agenda. Clerk: The next item on the agenda is 17, Petitions from the Floor. Mayor: Very good. If you are here to say something to the governing body, or if you're on Zoom, if you want to come forward and line up, everybody will get two minutes to speak to any subject that they'd like to address. That applies as well to people who are on Zoom. The City Clerk will keep the clock as usual. When you hear the chime, please be mindful that that means that time has elapsed and that we give everybody equal opportunity to address us. So if you're still going with two minutes and you can wrap it up, that'll be super. So please step forward. We need your name and then we will take your comments. Michael, will you place the timer on the screens, please? Can you make sure the light? Thank you. How's that? Much better. Perfect. Matt Johns: Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. When Julia Marvin from Denver's Department of Housing Stability reflected on the success of the... Mayor: Did you give us your name? Matt Johns: Matt Johns, Kachina Ridge. There you go. The success of the All-In Mile High Micro Community, she said, quote, "We did so with extensive community engagement and a commitment to protect neighborhood safety and to work arm-in-arm with neighbors to address their concerns and needs." That engagement began well before a site was even selected and it continued throughout the entire process. Meanwhile, back here in Santa Fe, the proposed micro community at 2395 Richards Avenue is being launched as if best practices were a hindrance, not a guide. Tonight is about process, which we have seen. We have been seeing process. We need you, the City Council, to please use the process of government to recognize and correct a mistake before it becomes permanent, to show us the judgment and care to correct one word. The Richards site is a place for families with children, a place with a lot of families with a lot of children. It's not a place for alcohol and drugs. The current amendment says, quote, "prohibit alcohol or drugs," or we are choosing, I'm sorry, which is prohibited. Prohibit alcohol and drugs, please. We are asking the City Council for one simple, clear correction. Change the word. Forbid alcohol and drugs at this site. You have a process to accomplish this tonight. I please ask your assistance. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you very much. Let's reset the clock and then take the next comment. Yes, sir, you have the floor. Floyd Cable: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Floyd Cable. I'm a Kachina Ridge resident. I was one of those who are not happy about the city proposed putting a micro community at the Richards Avenue location. My home is a line of sight view with the fire station and the proposed location. Oh, by the way, we all like to complain about having to use screens too much, but when you do your remarks in hard copy and you change your mind, that's what ends up in my brain. I was somewhat mollified when I learned here last week that the Council discussed plans to set up the community for families with children, the drug and alcohol-free zone, as a high-barrier community that would both protect the safety of the pallet homes residents and the surrounding neighborhoods, and that the size of the community would be approximately 30 units, which would mean as many as 60 people if it's all done double occupancy, and equivalent to 80% of the Pete's Place capacity of 75 when they're not doing Code Blue. I'd already heard that some of the members of the Council are having some doubts about edging away from those parameters and changing the size. Matt Johns just talked about some of the other restrictions. I'm worried that the language that is currently in the amendment is, I understand, flexibility, but I'm afraid that there's so much flexibility that you could drive, and forgive the metaphor, but you could drive a Tesla truck with one eye closed while listening to an audiobook while going through those holes in the details. I really would, I implore that with all due respect, I implore the Council to toughen up the language, make it tight and specific. As you, of course, know, a lot of you won't be here not too long from now. And it's a lot easier to stick with something if it's firmly written in the guidance as compared to something that is more efficient, less defined. I hope that you'll take steps to do so. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you. Let's reset the clock and you have the floor. Charles Burkart: Good evening, Council, Mr. Mayor. My name is Charles Burkart. I live at 13 Desert Plume Trail. I'm here tonight as both a Santa Fe resident and the owner of Build Swift Modular, a local company focused on fast, economical housing solutions. I'm here to speak about the proposed micro community on Richards Avenue, which I understand will include up to 50 living units intended for families. I also understand the city has allocated previously allocated $2 million for the acquisition of these structures and related facilities and may be considering Pallet Shelter to provide the buildings. I'd like to remind everyone on the Council that the city is not obligated to buy the structures from Pallet, only that you may. I believe it's the duty of the city to ensure that taxpayer money is being spent in a way that provides the most benefit for the most people. I'm very much in support of finding solutions for our fellow neighbors experiencing homelessness. So, I'd like to offer a more cost-effective local alternative. For that same $2 million budget, instead of 50 small 70 to 100-foot units from Pallet, Build Swift could provide 70 living units at 152 square feet each, plus all necessary support buildings. That's 20 more families housed for the same budget. Alternatively, for the same budget, we could offer living units that are complete with private kitchens, bathrooms, and appliances that could be built to meet local and state building codes and permitted for permanent use instead of temporary. The third option, we could match the original 50-unit plan for Richards and still provide the community rooms and sanitation facilities while saving the city over $500,000. With that $500,000, you could fund up to two additional micro communities for 10 families each or use the funding to provide the necessary wraparound services that obviously cost money as well. My respectful question is this: Will the city ensure that we are basically getting the most bang for our buck with available funds by issuing or reissuing a public RFP for this project? And if so, will local businesses be given any preference? Thank you. Mayor: Thank you. You have the floor. Deborah Deacner: Good evening. My name is Deborah Deacner, Kachina Ridge Subdivision. The resolution 2025 calls for up to 50 Pallet Shelter units at the selected site, which should be for family use and should be drug-free. The problem is the city is not offering specifics or a commitment to us, the citizens of the city. The city should commit itself that these units shall be only for family use and that they shall be drug-free and that they shall be alcohol-free. Likewise, the city should be willing to make those commitments. It's a good talk, but it's time to walk the walk. The city fails us despite repeated promises to engage the affected neighbors from residents to the Chavez Center to the business owners such as those who are building the tennis courts and the pickleball courts, as well as the firehouse. The city has not reached out to us. There have been no town hall meetings, no public meetings, no published notices in the local newspaper. The result is there has been no public outreach, no input from the community prior to making decisions that will bind the city and its taxpayers to spending tens of millions of dollars. I strongly recommend that the city not vote on this tonight, not on the resolution or its amendment, until after extensive public input. There needs to be public meetings, town hall meetings with all of these impacted segments of the community as well as the city as a whole. We need the city to engage us, to answer our questions, not just hear our comments, and to be transparent and commit to the three years at this site, drug-free, alcohol-free, subject to community approval, not just the unfettered discretion of City Council. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you. Yes, you have the floor. Angelique Cook Lowry: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councilors. My name is Angelique Cook Lowry. I'm the President of the Board of First Serve New Mexico. Our facility will be opening in September. We're at 2396 Brenner Way, and Brenner Way was named after our founders, Eleanor and Dick Brenner. We are an after-school tennis and tutoring program in education and life skills for the students grade 3 through 12 of the Santa Fe Public Schools. First Serve New Mexico is a good neighbor. We want to be a part of the discussions and the solutions and the options. We have concerns and many questions. We are mostly concerned about our 100 kids that will be at our facility every day, and who will be there after school from 3 to 6 each day, ages 7 through 18. I know there is no one in this room whose heartstrings are not pulled by the thought of a homeless child. Mine are definitely pulled. We would ask that you postpone your vote on the facility site this evening until there's a town hall meeting, I understand, which will be July 1st. And I personally would like to invite all of you to take a private tour of our facility. Thank you, Mayor Weber, for taking that tour last week. And I apologize for my ignorance in that a micro community was going to be built across the street, or I would have asked you more questions than you probably wanted to answer. Again, please postpone your vote on the facility site until after we have a town hall meeting. And I thank you for your time. Thank you. Hi, Mayor Weber, City Council. Thank you for having us this evening. My name is Chris Slaky. I am the program director for First Serve New Mexico. I'm also a middle school teacher here at Magro Middle School, and I've worked in the district for the last 21 years. We have quite a few people from our team here from First Serve New Mexico. We are not here to protest the micro community, but we are here to get information because we felt in the dark and blindsided by it. We're here building this incredible facility, and we had no idea about the plans for across the street. I see in the resolution that it says that one of the benefits of this site is that there are no schools or playgrounds adjacent to it or next to it. But for all intents and purposes, every day after school from 3:00 to 6:00, we are bringing in 100 students, and it is adjacent to the micro community. So we're here for information. We want to know what's going on in the neighborhood that we're building this amazing complex in. We also want to be an ally and of service, but we can only do that if we're a part of the conversation. In order to be a part of the solution, we have to be included in the conversation. So, I would like to second Analik's recommendation to postpone the vote, not because we don't want to see this happen, but because we want time to make sure that we can do it right, be a part of the planning process. We have had numerous students experiencing homelessness come through our program, and so we have offered them services in the past, and we could be a great resource and ally for the community. But again, we can only be a resource and an ally if we're involved. So, we'd like to be invited to be a part of the future conversations. If the vote happens tonight, then there's no time left for us to be a part of those conversations. Thank you. Thank you for coming down. Thank you, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Arch Sprawl. I'm someone who's lived in and worked in Santa Fe for 45 years, and I've seen a lot of changes over those years. My wife and I opened a store on the Plaza in 1979 that was sold in 2003. Of the 179 different suppliers that we dealt with, most of them were local artists and craftsmen. When we sold the store, we invested in a development on the south end of town called Kitchener Ridge. As a designer and builder, I constructed 82 houses, and of this total, 25 of those were affordable units. This included housing for teachers, nurses, firemen, and city employees who, because of the Santa Fe Homes brand program, were able to live the American dream of owning their own home. 20 years ago, our city leaders had a vision for the future of Santa Fe, with the major beneficiaries of that policy being the local people. I do not feel that you, as the current set of leaders, have your constituents' needs as a priority in your decision-making. If you had, you would not have allowed thousands of apartments in multiple complexes all over town to be built in the middle of neighborhoods without fully addressing the additional traffic on small two-lane roads, plus the huge drain on resources like water. There is no doubt that this has been a huge revenue stream for you, the city, particularly since you allowed those outside developers to come here into this community without holding them to the same restrictions the councils forced on local developers like me, which is to provide a certain portion of their project as affordable housing for local Santa Feans. Instead, you let them pay a fee in lieu of providing local affordable housing. And with that money, you're now buying hotels, motels, and now millions to be spent on pallet homes to be converted into housing. I think you need to take into consideration the locals and the local Santa Feans. In closing, I have sons that have lived here, and they're leaving this town because they can't afford it. We need to provide affordable housing for local people. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Lisa Martinez, and my address is 3618 Rodeo Lane. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of this proposed micro community. As many of you know, I'm a former land use director and member of the design, development, and construction community here in Santa Fe. I've been very involved in many construction projects, development projects, including First Serve New Mexico. I worked very closely with the county and with our community members to be able to get that project approved because it is on county land. However, we are also, for all intents and purposes, married to the city as well because we share utilities and we share other resources like streets that surround the property. So, we are very interested, of course, in this proposed project, and we just have questions. We have a lot of questions, and we would like for you all to help us understand what the specific impact of this project is, not only on First Serve's project, but on the Genoveva Chavez Community Center as a whole. Also, the fact that both of these projects serve a huge population of children. It's crucial to emphasize the importance of safety, security, and well-being. We want to ensure a safe and secure environment for all of the kids involved. I don't think any one of us know a whole lot about pallet homes and how these communities work, what the operations are like, what the security measures are that are put in place. So, we can't appropriately judge the outcome of this proposed community in this location without having additional information. So, we would like to know how we can get more of the specifics, and we understand that there's a town hall meeting coming up, which we want to attend. So, to find out more and to be a good neighbor and to be helpful in terms of understanding how we can help the community as a whole, we would respectfully request postponement of this vote until after the town hall meeting. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Lucille Chavez, and I live in Camino Consuelo, which is the Genoveva Chavez. I can see the back end of it. A lot of things were brought up in terms of promises from the city and the impact of this micro community and what's going to happen. I've lived in my house for 55 years, where there wasn't even a park, where there wasn't anything other than the rodeo. The rodeo has been a really good neighbor. They shut down at 9:00. Our area, we have to deal with so much, and now we have to deal with the micro community. We have a school. We have a park for our children. We have a walking trail. We have the Genoveva Chavez Center. We have the County Fair. We have the rodeo. There is just so much that has been thrown on our area that we deal with. We deal with the noise. We deal with the traffic. We deal with so much already. Being a native of Santa Fe, I feel so overwhelmed. I do think it's a wonderful idea, the micro community, but our area can't handle any more. We see homeless people coming down the road at 3:00 in the morning because our neighbors have said that they've seen them. I am not up at 3:00 in the morning. We've seen everything change. And so I ask you to please, please consider, especially you, Jamie, please don't allow this. You know where you live and where we live and what we have to deal with. Carnivals, people that rent out the rodeo grounds for all the functions. 12:00 at night, we're hearing noise, music. Give us a break. Please give us a break. We cannot handle any more. Just because you have property out there, utilize it for other things. Please, I just beg you to please hear our voice and please be a little more open to us in terms of what's going on. Thank you for coming down. Mayor, Council. Thank you. My name is Don Chavez. I live on Camino Consuelo, and this community, our community, has supported people who are dealing with tough times. This isn't just a "not in my backyard" issue. We are carrying a load there. Our community is carrying a load. I don't know about the other communities in town, but we do the due diligence. We try to keep our neighborhood clean. Whenever I take my grandchildren to the park, I'm looking for needles because we've got to keep it safe. We pick up those shopping carts and return them to stores. We are already doing that. We're doing enough, and we think other communities or other neighborhoods should bear some of the burden as well. Thank you. Thank you for coming down tonight. Sarah Rasmusen. I live on Calle Caballo. Just personally, when I first heard of this in mid-March, I put my house on the market. I don't feel safe in my neighborhood. I had been looking at other properties outside of Santa Fe. Through an unfortunate series of events, I now own two houses and pay two mortgages and one home equity loan. I'm really scared for my financial stability. There are plenty of other houses on the market in this neighborhood, probably other people that are experiencing the same fears. In the time that I've lived there, my property taxes have gone up $400 a month. That's $4,800 a year. In the same time frame, I've had my purse stolen. I've had the windows of my cars broken, my car broken, and two mails stolen. A gun was pulled on a neighbor at Alups nearby. I don't feel safe. There was a SWAT team three months ago at my house. There are drug dealers at the end of the street that have lived there for decades, but this is impacting at least a thousand people that live in close proximity. I'm being impacted because of Pete's Place proximity, and I have no confidence in what's happening. I think it just takes the city off the hook. Anyway, I truly believe this is a PR thing. I've got three articles. It's all a PR event. I don't have a voice. I haven't had a voice in this. I moved as fast as I could, but the city moved faster. I feel this truly is a tale of two cities, and I live on the wrong side of the city. So, yeah, you can talk about the other shelters, but they don't compare to Pete's Place, and everyone here knows that. Thank you, ma'am. And finally, I feel, okay, there's so much more I want to say, but finally, I feel abandoned and betrayed by our counselors, our district counselors. I truly do. Thank you, ma'am. Hello. My name is Sheila Kennedy. I also live on Consuelo, but I empathize with my neighbor on Caballo who has had to endure an abandoned property for over three years at 3003 Calle Caballo that was burnt down, squatted in for over a year and a half before the city finally did something about it, and now it still sits there. That being said, I'm also resentful of the fact that the last time I was here, it was pitted against people who either didn't know what was going on in their neighborhoods because we were not given information until the end of the presentation, or homelessness. Either you were for homelessness or against homelessness, and I resent that. So this piece of property that is now being considered, I agree. No drugs, no alcohol. If there are families involved, you are next to the community center, Escape Park, an active park where there are sports and families there year-round. Year-round. I walk my dog there, as does my neighbor who lived there 55 years. I've only lived there 26. Sorry. Yeah, the park is vital. And has anybody reached out to the disc golf community? Because, you know what? They bring people in from all over the country to play that course, up from Albuquerque, coming from Santa Fe, of course, and all over the country to play that course. Now, I also heard that the people who were engineering Richardson Richards Road, the extension, had no idea about this new community. Well, maybe people should talk to each other a little more. I had a lot more to say, and I think I will have an opportunity to say it later. Please do not vote tonight. Thank you for coming down tonight. Hello, Mayor. Can you pull the mic a little closer to you? Is this better? Much better. Hello, Mayor Weber and council members. My name is Michaela Montano, and I do not live in the area, but as you can see, I'm a very proud member of First Serve. I'm originally not even from Santa Fe. I'm from Albuquerque. During COVID, I moved to Santa Fe, and First Serve was what not only made me fall in love with the city but made me fall even more in love with the sport that I loved. And now I am an alumni and coach. I am only 20, so I am now entering the working world, and I am very worried about my future for many different reasons. I live off of Serios in Luhan, which is very close to where the Lamplighter and Pete's Place are. My grandparents, I live with my grandparents, because my mom and I were not able to find an affordable home here in Santa Fe. We have lived there with them for five years, but my grandparents have been there for about 48 years. So, they have seen the neighborhood go from how beautiful they say it was to how I see it every day. And I deal with a lot of different things. Even just coming home late from my job, I have to make sure I let my mom know I'm coming in. So, there's nobody around. We've just had some incidents with cars outside and homelessness and things like that. But back to First Serve, I deal with a lot of different ages of kids, mainly younger kids. But to imagine those kids having to walk around or having to see even more of the homelessness and the destruction that that can bring, I would not want that for this new beautiful facility that we are all so excited for. And that is not to say that there shouldn't be a solution for homelessness. I just think that the location needs reconsidered. And I please do urge you to hold on to this vote till later. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Please don't applaud. Please don't. We don't boo. We don't. You can, I like the hand clap like that, but when we applaud, we can also sometimes not approve of people, and we try to withhold that. Madame Clerk, is there anybody in the Zoom room? There is one hand raised in the Zoom room. Rachel Thompson, you are allowed to speak. Good evening, Mayor and council members. And I just want to start by saying, Mr. Mayor, I wish you would, if you're going to do the two-minute thing, really do it and not let some people talk for 40 seconds longer. I think you've talked a lot about fairness tonight, and I think that would be fair. Silly me, I'm thinking, wow, there would be kids, and they would have that wonderful park off of Kananas. They would have the tennis courts, and I thought part of the mission of the tennis place was to introduce children to tennis who otherwise might not get to play. The Chavez Center, I'm thinking it's what a rich, lovely area for some children, and maybe these families can share in childcare. But I lived until about two months ago. I lived around the corner from there. So, I walked on the Arroyo a fair amount, and there were also two little children right down the street from me who I had some interaction with. And what I learned from them is, you know, that area is not so squeaky clean and beautiful right now. And the, you know, the skate park is full of kids who are totally unsupervised. They're of all ages, and nobody can see them from inside Chavez. And there have been some security issues there. I think this would actually be a perfect thing to go into that neighborhood because we're talking about families with children. I think the access is important, the direction that people will enter. I don't understand how it would look on the site. But I think there really actually needs to be, I would say, protection for the children who would be in these units from some of the outside things because of the Arroyo and because of the skateboards. I just see it as the most tremendous opportunity for people to volunteer and cultivate something really beautiful. And it pains me unbelievably to hear people over and over associating homelessness with just kids who are crazy or drugs or, you know, these are families. They're just families like all of the families in that area. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for speaking up. Anyone else in the Zoom room? Does anyone else want to raise their hand in the Zoom room? I am not seeing anyone, Mayor. Okay. In that case, Madame Clerk, I think that completes petitions from the floor. The change in agenda means now we'll go back to the item that was previously noticed. And if you'll read that again while Director Hammond Paul comes down with his presentation, we'll go to that. Item 10B, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, Councilor Jamie Casset, Councilor Elma Castro, and Councilor Amanda Chavez. A resolution identifying city property at 2395 Richards Avenue as a location for a micro-community to provide shelter and supportive services for individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Fe. And here to present is Henry Hammond Paul, Community Health and Safety Director. Mr. Mayor, counselors, good evening. May I please have the presentation brought up on the screen, and if possible, we have it cover a considerably larger part of the screen so everybody could see it. Is it possible to even, I think it's, yeah, perfect. Thank you. Before I begin, just a few comments. First off, I found it reassuring that a handful of folks mentioned affordable housing. That is, any conversation about homelessness that doesn't touch on affordable housing is not doing service to the real issue at hand. So, we can't lose sight of that when we talk about what I consider to be stop-gap interventions to address challenges in our community. The second point that I'll bring up is as Director of Community Health and Safety, I also oversee Community Services Department, which includes the recreation centers and much of the youth programming in our city, including all the programming at the GEC. So, I'm intimately familiar with that facility and the operations that happen there. The third thing, and this is more just a broad comment that I've been thinking a lot about. I've had team members recently attacked on social media and in comment sections. And I want to just stand in support of the team that I represent, whether it's people working on the ice rink to provide services for our community, struggling to recruit lifeguards so that we can have pools open as often as possible, keep our libraries open to provide safe spaces for community members to explore new ideas and books. The people, the 226 employees that I oversee, are dedicated public servants. They're your, everybody's neighbors here. And I have the utmost respect for the quality of work that they do and how every day they come to work trying to make this community a better place. So, I want to thank them for all of the efforts that they do and the often difficult conditions that they work in. So, regarding micro-communities, why are we having this conversation? So, I'll give a little bit of numbers because I want to do that, and I think data tells an important story. Santa Fe has about 400 homeless individuals on what we call a by-name list. The by-name list is not a crazy concept. Instead of just calling people homeless, people have a name, and the more people you can name, the more actionable that becomes. We have about 400 people on our by-name list. We only have about 280 shelter beds in our city. So, that math isn't great. The New Mexico Department of Health recently studied hospital admittance data, and their data shows that that by-name list or what's called a point-in-time count is actually about two to four times lower than what the real numbers of people experiencing homelessness are. So, when you start seeing that on a big screen, it shows the real dire situation that we have. So, another data point that I think is important is, and I know we have a couple teachers here, so I'm glad that we have that representation. So, there are hundreds of children in Santa Fe who are homeless. The Santa Fe Public Schools reported in 2024 that there are 741 homeless students in the public schools. That's a 7% increase from the year of 2023. And from 2022 to 2024, we saw an 11% increase. There is some nuance to this definition of homeless because it counts things in a what I think is a more inclusive way, which is people who are sleeping in cars, people who are moving week to week to a different couch, people who are housing unstable, kind of been on the precipice of becoming street homeless. Another thing, and I'm not a, I don't have a crystal ball, but I don't think you need one to understand that with the changes at the federal level, we can expect the situation to get more dire. We're seeing massive cuts in services, whether it's the HUD funding, AmeriCorps funding, all these types of programs that support individuals and ultimately aim to empower individuals. So, what does this all mean? One, we have a critical shortage of beds in our city. Two, if we want fewer homeless people in our city, we need more beds. And three, youth and families are suffering. On to micro-communities. Simply put, micro-communities work. These communities are designed to provide stable, safe, and supportive environments for people experiencing homelessness. At micro-communities, residents engage with services and providers so that they can stabilize, heal, build life skills, and reintegrate into society. And the ones that the city is invested in pursuing will always have professional staff who are trained and work 24/7, always staffed 24/7 with residents to accomplish clinical, social, and personal goals. So, we know that these work nationally. We also know that they work in Santa Fe. We have a program that is a pilot. It's been open for a little over a year. They've had 36 residents there in 10 units. After one year, 72% of those residents have either moved into permanent housing or are actively on the path with vouchers in hand or on waiting lists to be able to get housing. We don't talk about this enough when we talk about homelessness, but ultimately this should be an outcomes-driven set of conversations. The idea is not to just provide services. The idea is to put people into the pathway to get permanently housed and move on to stable, more productive, more engaged ways of engaging with their community. So, let's talk about this resolution for a second. The resolution simply just moves this work forward. It, you know, for those who've taken the time to read it, which it seems many people have, it directs the city manager and by that nature, city staff to pursue a micro-community next to Fire Station 7 and the GEC. Staff will be empowered to engage in community notification, engagement, and development. And then pending community input, this site is expected to serve families and will have 30 to 50 units, adding around 60 beds to our community in our homelessness response system. So, we'd be cutting that 120-bed deficit in half. So, what the resolution does and what it doesn't do. First off, it does authorize planning and engagement for a micro-community at 2395 Richards. It allows for the beginning of permitting, community engagement, and site preparation, and it builds on the city's existing operator contract. I'll point out that the city has approved a contract with LifeLink to provide 24/7 services and manage these facilities. What it does not do: it does not immediately begin construction, it does not preclude furthering public input, and it does not commit the city to additional specific sites. I will also point out, and I understand this is a major point of concern for the community, that engagement is specifically named and identified in the language of the resolution. For the sake of time, I won't read it, but it is highlighted there for folks. I also want to point out that I'm grateful that many of the people in the audience who've gotten up to speak have also reached out to me individually, and we've had conversations, and many conversations with counselors as well, because that has led to a set of amendments that I personally, from a professional and subject matter expert perspective, endorse and hope are included in the language of the resolution, making it a formal designation as a site for families and children. We have more than enough need to go around. There are 741 homeless children in our public school system. There's more than enough need. We can have a site specifically for families and children. I think a drug-free policy, given the population, is appropriate. I think biannual reporting is a great way to make sure that there is accountability in this considerable investment that the city and this neighborhood would be taking on. And then I think the three-year reauthorization requirement is important for long-term accountability. I'll also say, and I've mentioned this to a few folks here, that these are not designed to be forever homes. That is not what these need to be. These need to be a parlay into a better and more sustainable set of investments from the city, from the community, from the developer community, parlaying it into things like proper affordable housing. In addition to the safeguards that I've just listed, the micro-communities—sorry, we are working to have micro-communities be a regulated land use. So the city is moving forward with a defined use under city code. These will be permitted with clear definitions and conditions for location, scale, and community compatibility. There are design standards, including maximum occupancy, unit spacing, ADA compliance, design health and safety standards, and a requirement for 24/7 management operations. There is also a requirement for operational oversight. And then the projects will require a detailed management plan, public notification, community meeting, and either administrative or planning commission approval depending on the location and the size. I think there's been, and this is not to kind of refute, there's always opportunity for more engagement. I recognize that because for many reasons, people can only engage at certain points in a process. So we need to continue to provide that opportunity. That said, this is not a new conversation in the city. Dating back as far as 2022, there was a 150-person safe outdoor space, which was what these units were previously called, town hall at the Santa Fe Convention Center. In April 2023, there was a resolution adopted by the governing body supporting this work. And there's been a handful of, since I joined the team in September 2024, a considerable amount of moments when the public has had opportunity for input and conversations. And that doesn't count the one-off conversations I've had with many folks. There's also, this is very much an issue in the public eye, with, at least from my research, over 30 articles, interviews, and reporting from New Mexico and Santa Fe-based news sources like The New Mexican, Santa Fe Reporter, KRQE, and KOB. In addition to all of this, as has been noted by many folks coming up to speak, there is a community town hall on July 1st. And the intention of that is to provide additional information at a broad scale, but also to invite dialogue, discuss additional sites, because if this is approved and we go through the entire process, we're still only adding at a max around 60 beds to our city. We still are at a deficit. In terms of a project timeline, we would be doing about three months of community engagement from mid-June through the end of September, with hopefully construction starting in early fall. So this is something I want to point out: this is a regional challenge, and we need a regional approach. So to expand regional bed capacity, the city is stepping up and investing in micro-communities by for this site providing 100% of the land, 100% of the capital development, 100% of operating costs, and 100% of the units. We need partners to continue to come to the table to help with this. It's not just a City of Santa Fe problem. This is a regional problem. So I welcome the state, the county, philanthropy, and faith-based institutions and community groups to really step up and come to the table and help work on this really crucial and sticky challenge. From my perspective, my job is to continue to recommend decisive, outcome-driven, and humanitarian interventions that focus on outcomes, getting people housed, increasing quality and quantity of beds in our city, and ensuring community health and safety. And I'll just end with a quick testimony from an individual who moved into housing from the safe outdoor space or the micro-community that was at Christ Lutheran Church. It says, "I arrived in August to the SOS. It has been a life-changing experience. I feel I have a huge support system and I'm very thankful to be there." And with that, I stand for questions. Thank you. Yeah, we will, as we've been doing, we'll let everybody on the governing body have a chance to ask questions and make comments. We'll just also, if we can try to take turns and stay within 10 minutes per person, everybody will get a chance then to speak up. Do you want to start with Councilor Cassich so we don't, just because she's up on a screen, we don't forget about her? "Sir, could you actually go to Councilor Chavez for a moment? I just spilled water everywhere." So, we'll go to Councilor. Thank you. "Oh, you said, are you there, Councilor Chavez?" Yes, I am. I'm not able to turn on my camera because I don't have control of it. It's been disabled by the host. So, no problem. You want to see me? If that can be fixed, if not, I can go ahead and continue like this. That's fine with me. Why don't you move forward with comments or questions, and then if we can fix the camera, we'll do that on the fly. But meanwhile, you've got the floor. There you are. There I am. And your hand's up. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So, this is very, so I want to go through some of the comments that were made first. There was a comment made that we have to focus on locals. These are locals. These are locals. I have been in education for 18 years. I have been in Santa Fe in education for eight. And I started my career as an administrator about six years ago, seven years ago now. And this is a local problem. These are families who are couch surfing and living in homes. These are kids who don't have anyone to pick them up because their parents are working multiple jobs, because they're contributing to our economy. This is a local problem. These are locals. So I want to make that very clear. We are not choosing some locals over other locals. We are a community, and this is a local problem affecting many locals: those who are homeless and those who are housed and are experiencing a lot of concerns around public safety, a lot of concerns around drug use, a lot of concerns around how our city has changed. And there can be correlations around these issues. There can be ties, but they're not. We can't assume that families who are homeless are causing public safety issues or are causing drug use issues. There is separation there. I have worked with amazing families who have been unhoused. I have worked with amazing parents who have advocated for their kids to be educated and involved, to be athletes, to be very involved in serving their community, but have nowhere to go home. And so the fact that this is going to serve families is important. And it is our role as a community to serve all locals, including those who are unhoused, especially our children, especially our family. We want a community that has a future that is changed, and that starts with youth. And when we have youth who are living in poverty and when we have youth who are living unhoused, we're not going to change that cycle. So I just want the community to know, you want a positive impact on public safety, then we start with these children who are unhoused. And so the fact that we have moved, and I want to give credit to Director Him and Paul for really wanting this micro-community to serve our unhoused families, because we're going to have a direct impact on youth. And as everyone knows, that's very important to me, especially for those who have major concerns about our future, because the only way we're going to interrupt that cycle is to offer support to our youth who are most in need. And I will tell you, our youth is in need. Eight years ago, I was an administrator of an elementary school who had the highest population of homeless students. That was eight years ago. It was one elementary in Santa Fe serving the highest population of unhoused students. One elementary school. So, imagine if we took into account all of the other schools that were serving unhoused students. These students have parents and they have families that need support, and this micro-community offers that. We have had success with the micro-community we've had in District 2, and we are saying we're going to put a micro-community that serves families in a place where families should be. They should be near parks. They should be near community centers. They should have easy access to all the resources that they need. I'm going to refer to my notes, and I do get emotional because I've seen this firsthand, and that makes it a little different. When you are a public servant that has seen this firsthand, it does become emotional when you see kids who are amazing kids, like amazing kids that have the most amazing potential, living in these circumstances and their families doing their best they can. It's real to you. So, it's very real to me. It's also real to me because I have three kids. I have three kids that I could not imagine not having somewhere to go. I also heard about shared resources. We already are short on resources. How do we spread our resources thin? By serving others. Well, that's what we do as a community. We spread our resources thin to make sure everyone is served. That's how we thrive. Everyone should have resources. Everyone should have equal opportunity to resources. They live here, they serve here, and we support each other by sharing resources. I also wanted to speak to the amendment because I know that was mentioned. I know it hasn't been brought up, but we're not talking about illegal use of substance. I know that there's probably multiple parents that go home and have a glass of wine after they've worked. And we're trying to create a realistic living environment, as all of us have as housed individuals, for those that are unhoused that are receiving support from the city. So, we have families, and I will tell you, you will find a lot of our unhoused families are not working one job. In fact, they're working multiple jobs. They are spreading themselves much thinner than we could ever imagine to support their families. And I will say, if they want to go home and have a glass of wine in the comfort of their home and the privacy of their home in a responsible way, why can't we support them in that? Just like we have that support and we have no one judging us for doing it at home. We have a place right now, and I am passionate, and I apologize for being emotional, but we are separating ourselves from us and them, and that's not what it is. We are one community. We are one community that unfortunately are experiencing our own hardships and our own difficulties and our own challenges and our own paths in life that have either made it really easy or have made it really hard. And there is a problem that we've all vocalized needs to be addressed. And I am very happy we're taking action, and it has to start with action. The only way we could start having community engagement is if we start with action and we move in the right direction. But I really wanted to address opening up in regards to this, that we are a community. And before we start saying locals or not locals, or focus on us instead of them, or this separation, we have to realize that it's not the reality. These are people that have been in Santa Fe for years, that have experienced things that are unimaginable probably to you and I, who are looking for a safe place to go. And as a city and as a city official, it is my responsibility, it is our responsibility to step up and provide that. And so I am in complete support of this. I am in complete support of the amendment that offers an equitable living amongst the adults in our society, amongst the children in our society, to live comfortably and as the rest of us do. So I just ask, please, for those that are stepping up and really emphasizing a separation of us and them, there is no us and them. There is no them. There is just only us. There is us in the fact that we are one community. There is us in that these are the youth that will be us in the future, and what are we going to do about it? And this is a starting point. And so I just want to thank everyone involved in moving this forward. I want to thank Councilor Cassett for the amendment. I completely agree. And I hope that we could move forward in serving our community without this mindset of separation of us and them, and realize that that is completely false and non-existent because we are one community, and we either can make ourselves great or we could just take zero action and keep complaining about the issues at hand. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Cassett, since you're on the screen, do you want to take next and then we'll go down the line on the dais? Councilor Cassett: Yes. Thank you so much, Mayor. And I am very glad that my co-counselor in District 4 was able to really set the stage of this conversation because I think more than any of us, she has really experienced the population that we are discussing right now. I do want to thank everybody for coming out and for the numerous phone calls that I've had over the last few days. What has been really exciting for me is some of my constituents, and even members of the First Serve community, who I've spoken with and talked to them about what this is, how excited they became. I even had one individual who is a manager at a local business say, "Hey, I would love to partner with you guys. This is a wonderful opportunity to provide jobs. I have job openings. Let's get connected." So, seeing the way that people have stepped up in Santa Fe, I do want to mention a couple things. I'll have questions. I'm sure I will run out of my 10 minutes this time and come around because I do want Director Ham and Paul to have the opportunity to speak a little bit more about the details of these micro-communities and why they do not have the impact on neighborhoods as Pete's does. I think one of the most challenging things that I have found in these discussions is that Pete's is the most salient view or vision or example of homelessness and how we address homelessness that this community has. And as Councilor Chavez pointed out, this is a very different population. This is going to be a population where they are in school. They are hopefully already potentially utilizing the Chavis Center or the after-school program at the Chavis Center that the city provides. And I do think that providing these families an opportunity to get back on their feet is one of the best things we can do. And I do understand the fear in this community. But I want to remind everybody that Councilor Chavez and I, we both have three children that we claim as our own that are in this neighborhood, that are on those trails, at those parks, at the Chavis Center. My kids are the most important thing in the world to me, and I do feel very, very comfortable with bringing this community into the areas that they frequent. The other thing that I want to mention again, when we talk about this population, and I know that we'll have the conversation, as Councilor Chavez mentioned, about how we draw the line around substance use. And I agree, no illegal substance use. This is not the community for when we are dealing with really intense issues of addiction. That is not this community. This is a community that is set up for families, for children, for their safety, for their development. But also, I don't, I have a really hard time telling individuals that simply because they are lower income, because they are struggling financially, that they do not have the same freedoms as we do. That we cannot expect them to responsibly utilize alcohol, to have a glass of wine or a beer or whatever the case may be, in a way that is responsible. As I really frequently like to say, maybe I need to be saying it more, poverty is not a morality issue. It's an economic issue. This is not an issue where these people are bad people. They simply do not have enough money. We have a society that has led to this world where it is very easy for people to fall on hard times. I have frequently said that my family safety net has been such a lifesaver for me as I have moved through various changes in my life over the last few years. And I think that we often think that it can never happen to us, and so often we hear from these individuals that it can. So I do understand the fear. I understand that what people envision when we talk about any type of homeless program is they're envisioning Pete's. And I get that we are going to have to earn back trust. And I do have faith in this community and in this proof of concept that I think we're going to be able to do that. We've seen this with the Christian Life Center. I also often bring up Consuelo's Place. I hear a lot from my constituents about Pete's. I do not hear about Consuelo's Place because again, this is a community where this is their home. This is, they provide them opportunities. They provide them a place to stay. They help them get back on their feet. There are rules for the individuals that want to be in these communities. If they do not follow those rules, they do not get to stay there. So I think that is very important. And with whatever time I have left, I want to actually send it over to Director Ham and Paul. If you could speak a little to, or a lot of it to, some of the differences and to why these communities are so different than what is the most in-your-face example that we see when it comes to homelessness, not just in the population served at this particular one, because actually at the Christian Life Center, we are, that is a low-barrier shelter. So we are working with individuals who are struggling with addiction and other really intense mental health issues. But just in the way that this community is set up, it is going to be a gated community. There is 24-hour security. There are rules that have to be followed. Individuals, there is the good neighbor agreement. So there is actually someone for anybody to call if there is any problem related to the shelter at any given time. And again, there are rules that the residents will have to follow in order to stay there. So Director Hammond Paul, if you don't mind elaborating on that, I would appreciate it. Director Ham: Mr. Mayor, Councilor Cassett, thank you for the questions. I think I'll quickly say that the homeless response system is a system. It's not a monolith. We need different types of interventions for different types of people with different needs. I would say that the most challenging population to work with is the chronically homeless. And in defense of emergency low-barrier shelters, those provide life-saving services. There's always a question of how they can be run efficiently and with minimal impacts to the community, but they do serve a purpose in the broader spectrum of what a community needs. That said, what we're talking about with micro-communities are vastly, vastly different. When you're talking about the acuity of people who access these, it's very, very different. Just to kind of list off a few things, and I think you touched on these. First and foremost, the people who are residents at micro-communities go through an intake process. It is not just a show up at the door and get a bed that night type of situation. The providers who manage the facilities 24/7 develop screening criteria and eligibility requirements that meet the programmatic needs and objectives of the given facility and what they are trying to achieve there. So for instance, making sure that there is a background check for individuals if there are going to be children living at a facility. Making sure that, for instance, people, again, these are types of conditions that might exist at a given facility, making sure that people are engaging in case management services. You know, this is not expected to be, and is very clearly not going to be a low-barrier facility, but the other facility, micro-community, that we have is low-barrier. And the people there do engage in substance use disorder treatments, and that's part of their admittance and requirements of being residents there. Ultimately, the function of these is not to be permanent residents. It's to be, it's to be transitional and stabilizing places where people can be for, you know, a series of months, six months or so, to get them to that next step of ultimately getting into, you know, the most dignified and accommodating types of permanent housing that individuals can have. So I'm not sure if that spoke to your question or not. Councilor Cassett: It did. It did, absolutely. I, you know, the conversations around the criteria, around the requirements, and again, this is part of that, that, you know, community engagement component that is, that does come first before we can move forward with anybody. We are, you know, getting an operator. This is part of the good neighbor agreement. This is part of understanding what this looks like. These criteria come out, we will have a contract. The other big differential, and then I know my time is up, at Interfaith, individuals do have the ability to come in and out. With this, though, there are not outside day services provided to non-residents. Correct. Mayor: Counselor, that's correct. The services provided at this location are specifically and exclusively for those individuals who are living there and who've been admitted, for lack of a better word, to live there. I would also say a real positive, I actually am beginning to prefer the idea of a gated community as opposed to a community with a fence around it, because these are people who need protection and care and support. I will say that a benefit of a gated community and a community with locks on the doors is that it allows people to have things that they don't have to worry about where their driver's licenses are or their birth certificate. All of these things end up being major barriers to creating stability and getting access to critical services. Think about it this way: if you need to go to the doctor, but you don't have a safe place to keep your computer or your belongings, you're going to be disincentivized to go visit that doctor because you don't want to leave your things. That ultimately leads to longer, bigger costs to society in terms of people avoiding getting preventative care, people avoiding accessing critical services that will ultimately support them in the long run. But you're in a fight or flight moment so that you end up forgoing these preventative and supportive services and end up needing emergency services. Council Casset, we can come around again if you have more questions. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just really wanted to point out that this is an extremely, it's a very different model, and it has different impacts both on the residents and on the neighborhoods, and that's by design. So, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Professor Castro. Great. Thank you so much. I will try to be brief. I think we've hit a lot of the main points. I just want to speak to why I'm one of the sponsors and how important it is for us to really serve our unhoused youth. One of the organizations that I first came into the understanding around unhoused youth was Quidand Los Nños in Albuquerque, which is a homelessness daycare center for infants to young children. I didn't realize that there was such a huge need for young children until I went to that daycare center and interacted with some of these infants and some of the folks whose parents are out working, as Counselor Travis mentioned, and they don't have anyone to leave their children with. I also learned that some of these three and four-year-olds didn't have a place to call their own until they had their little cubby or their little space that they could really put their belongings. And that belonging is something that all of us take for granted. Having a place of our own is something that I often take for granted. And so this is something that I really want to offer these young people. And one of the myths I would like to dispel, Director, if you could help me, is this idea that we are not serving local youth. Do you have any numbers regarding the youth in our by-name list that are considered local or have lived here a long time? Mayor: Counselor, the statistics that I have are about the way that the Santa Fe public schools reports youth. There's obviously some sensitivity about collecting names, but the 741 individuals identified by the Santa Fe public schools as homeless youth is the number that I look at. And maybe I could just speak a little bit why they're not included in that 400. Of course, the 400 individuals are people who are actively living in shelters or counted on the streets through what's called the point-in-time count. You see fewer youth in those kind of situations. We do have a considerable number of children staying at shelters here. But, for instance, I just last week got 44 passes to the GC for the families who live at Consuelos so that they can access the city's wonderful recreation facilities throughout the summer: pools, soccer fields, everything. So there are a number of kids who are currently living in shelters, but by and large, you see this population kind of being left out of the count. And maybe some of the education professionals here can comment on that, but they're counted more in captive places like schools than they are in shelters. Thank you for that clarification. And I did notice that we talked a little bit about service providers being the lifeline. 24/7 is quite a big lift. Do you know about how many folks they're going to need to staff that? Mayor: I can get that number to you as a follow-up. I don't have it off the top of my head. I know that we have a contract secured with them that was approved, I believe, in April. And it's to manage two sites, but it is outcomes-based contracting. We want to see quality of services that are measurable. My understanding in that contract is that there are three shifts that are allocated in that contract. So we know that there is going to be 24-hour service. Correct. That's correct. Yes. Counselor. And honestly, I think that this has been a really interesting process. Do you want to speak a little bit to the allocation of funds to Pallet since we did hear about that in public comment? Mayor: Counselor, could you please maybe explain the question? Yeah, I apologize. I should have gone a little further. We had originally allocated some funds that were specifically for Pallet, and that since has changed a little bit. Is that correct? Mayor: Counselor, there has been some reprioritization of those funds. That said, the city has units currently that we are planning to use, and then we also do have a little additional funding from what we have reprioritized a small portion of to provide for extra units. And I just also want to maybe point out one thing that isn't abundantly clear sometimes, that it's not only the individual home units that exist on these campuses. There's bathrooms, shower facilities, laundry facilities, and community rooms. So, just as that funding doesn't only buy a single unit, it purchases the kind of requisite auxiliary units that are needed for this type of... Perfect. I anticipated my final question, which was, could you explain a little bit about the sanitation units and the laundry units? But thank you so much. No further questions. Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Michael Garcia, sir, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Director Hammond Paul, for the presentation. It was mentioned tonight that this topic has been in the public eye for quite some time. And there was this somewhat alluding to maybe folks don't know why residents still have so many concerns. And I think that is, in my opinion, blatantly obvious because of the lack of community engagement. And I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'm going to reiterate what I reiterated when this proposal came forward, which was community engagement was requested by many of us on this council to happen first, and then sites come forward. So we can't sit here and wonder why the public loses trust in us. I think we have the perfect opportunity to really extend an olive branch and build some trust back by postponing this until our July 9th meeting, because I think it's incumbent of us to ensure that we're promoting a safe and not only a safe community, but a community that is ultimately going to demonstrate how we can help our fellow residents lift themselves up out of some of the most challenging times probably in anybody's life. And so that would be, that is my position on that. Now, as we get to some of the accountability measures that were mentioned, there was a slide that mentioned that there is going to be a good neighbor agreement in the past. During the first hearing of the Pallet shelter proposal, there was no real accountability mechanism in regards to the good neighbor agreement. And so my question, Director Hammond Paul, is how is that ultimately going to be enforced, and how is the city going to be held accountable to be a good neighbor? Is the resolution going to, is a good neighbor agreement going to come back before us in the form of a resolution, in the form of a law? I mean, what is the mechanism we can ensure that that good neighbor agreement can be enforced? Mayor: And Mayor Weber, counselors, if I could jump in, the resolution that was passed previously about safe outdoor spaces, as they were termed then, required the good neighborhood agreement. So, that's city policy currently. And then the agreement isn't with the city as a party, but it's with our service provider in the neighborhood. That's correct. And just to maybe speak to the one that is currently in place at the Christ Lutheran micro-community, they meet once a month and have met once a month with the community on every third Wednesday. And our team meets bi-weekly with the staff at that site. And those meetings are attended by members of the community where concerns are raised and addressed. If there are concerns, I think it is a, I will say it's attended, but there are not many issues that come up in those meetings given the low impact that that site has on almost everything in the area. Okay. But I don't really feel my question was really answered because the Pallet shelter community at Christ Lutheran is a public-private partnership. This is a public-public partnership. It's incumbent of Christ Lutheran to ensure that they're being a good neighbor and their extensive outreach and engagement with residents. And we've got residents in the audience who can attest that it's due to Christ Lutheran's proactive measures that they've taken that has led to that site being successful. I'll be honest, the city has not had a good track record on that front, and it's the perfect example is the lack of community engagement with these city-owned sites. And so the question again comes back to how is the city going to hold itself accountable should residents have concerns and the city ultimately has to respond to those concerns? Because right now I see an agreement in place, but what is the enforcement mechanism to ensure that residents' concerns are ultimately met, they're met in a timely manner, and they're met in a manner that's ultimately at the satisfaction of the residents of this surrounding community? Mayor: Mayor Weber, counselor, a couple things. One, I will say that the good neighbor agreement is not between Christ Lutheran and the community. It's between the city-funded operator and the community. That is the same setup that we would have at this site. Second, with regard to some of the accountability measures, I think I'd point to some of the amendments that you've included as being good examples of accountability. Things like regular reporting back to the governing body, reauthorization stipulations. Those to me are enforceable and good mechanisms. I'm, I think I may defer to a legal expert on the enforceability of a good neighbor agreement. That's not my area of expertise. When we talk about partnerships, I strongly believe, especially given the focus of this particular site, that the state of New Mexico, in particular CYFD, has to be a strong partner. They have critical resources that can be very vital in helping to uplift these families. Have they been consulted at all throughout this process? Mayor Weber: Counselor, the main entity that we've been consulting is the Department of Workforce Solutions. I know that may sound odd, but they recently subsumed the Office of Housing and Homelessness for the state. They have $110 million that the city is working to tap into to support this and many other projects. I've been in contact with Secretary Serena Nyer and the homelessness czar, if you will. I don't know her actual, I don't think that's her title, but Taylor Cook. I would just recommend that we also reach out to CYFD as well. Understood. I think that's a wonderful recommendation. I'll proceed with that. Okay. Before my time is up, because I will have to loop back to introduce my amendment, just some context around why I'm requesting that this site be 100% drug and alcohol-free. As many know, struggling with addiction is a challenge that is lifelong. I've had the unfortunate circumstance to see individuals go years or decades without touching a substance or a drop of alcohol. All it takes is one influence, that person's life could be back down the drain. Given the sheer intention that this is to support families, I do not want to put any family member in any danger. If somebody wants to begin to lift themselves up and after a hard day's work imbibe on their legal substance, they can do that, but I don't believe this is the site for that. This is the site to promote improving lives and ultimately to protect everybody that's a guest at this shelter community. With that, I do have a question regarding the amendment, city attorney. In my amendment, it was mentioned by some of the folks in the audience that because we use the word "or," so this is on page three, line nine, it states, "Be it further resolved that the city shall prohibit alcohol or drugs." Does that mean it's either one or the other? Or are we clearly implying that alcohol and drugs are not allowed? Because I'm happy to make the necessary change because the intention is to prohibit all alcohol and all drugs unless it is medication prescribed by a physician. Counselor, I'm pulling it up right now, so I don't have it in front of me, but if you do want to ban both, it sounds like "and" would be a good amendment to your amendment. Is it already being moved? Did you already move your amendment? No, I haven't. I mean, I can, I guess I'll have to send you an update to this. Because that was the intention when we were drafting the amendment, that it was going to be a drug-free zone. I mean, I took this language directly from the lease agreement with Interfaith to operate Pete's to keep it a drug-free zone. I think that opens up a can of worms for another contract that we have to amend if the word "or" is used in that contract as well. So, if that's the case, I'll send you an update to the amendment. With that, I'm sure my 10 minutes is up, and I'll yield the floor. Mr. Mayor, may I quickly fill this up in two seconds? Sure. Unless you'd rather have a can of water courtesy of me. I'm happy to lend this to you. I don't think anybody heard me hiccuping. I'll just 30 seconds. All right. 30 seconds while, take your time. I'm just going to ask a clarifying question. So, is the city attorney going to send us a new amendment? I think what's, no, I'm sorry. Go ahead. City attorney, you have a question in front of you. Mayor, counselors, I think we just need to have the ability for everyone to look at it in writing. I'm happy to just copy. I think it's the first paragraph in the second part of the amendment. Is that the portion you're speaking to, Councilor Michael Garcia? So, this is, I'm going to just read the in-context version of the proposed amendment. So, on page three, line nine, in between alcohol and drugs is the word "or," and it sounds like it should be "and." Mayor Weber, counselors, I'm looking at the, I'm not looking at the inline changes. I'm looking at the actual amendment that is signed, which has two parts, one and two. Part two says, "Page three, line five, be it resolved that the city shall prohibit alcohol or drugs other than medication prescribed by a physician." Is that the part we're talking about? That is correct. Okay. I can send that out via email to everyone so you have it in writing with a red line for the "or" being an "and." Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. You good, counselor? Yep. Councilor Lindell, you have the floor. I heard that. Thank you, Mayor. So, I like this project, and I like Councilor Garcia's amendment. This is a close-to-home issue for me, not having any substances on site. I think anything that we can do to lower the risk of substance abuse, it's incumbent upon us to do that. I've been sober for 30 years. We often talk about it in years, but you know what? It's one day at a time. You see people that have been sober for 30 years without having a drink, and the next thing you know, you hear that they've been on a bender, and the answer to that typically is, "Too many years, not enough days." That's how we do it, one day at a time. Yeah, there's responsible drinking, but director, what's the size of these spaces? Mr. Mayor, counselor, the family units are 120 square feet. So, they have a twin, sorry, like a full-size bed and then one twin or a bunk bed. Okay. So, 10 feet by 12 feet, small, very small. For my money, it's too small a space to have someone in a 10-foot by 12-foot smoking a joint with their children in the too close. For my money, it's too close to have somebody with a friend or two from the community, which I want this to be a community. I want it to work. It's too close to have one or two people come in and whether it's a glass of wine or some beers, it's too close. It's too small. I also think that in listening to people in the community, having it be substance-free probably accommodates some of the concerns of the surrounding community. I just don't think it's too much to ask that on this campus, you're not allowed to do substances. That's all. There's plenty of places that you can't do substances. I don't think that you can get a 12-pack and go sit on a bench on a school playground. You're close. You don't want kids around that. You're close. These are really close. 10 by 12. Holy smokes. Small. It doesn't have to be in that space. I don't think it's too much to ask people to have it be a space that we don't use substances. We have another thing that we talk about, that we say, "You know what, you hang around a barbershop long enough, you're going to get a haircut." That can apply to someone that's struggling to be sober or clean. These are, this is close. Your neighbors having wine and beer or whatever, it looks pretty good some days. I mean, I haven't done that for 30 years. There's some days that thought passes through my head, "Boy, it'd be a good day to have a beer," but it's not a good day. So, I really ask this council to deeply consider that there is nothing wrong with asking this to be a clean and sober space. It's so close. That's all I have now. Are you setting it up to clock? Keep track of your own time. You're good. All right. We don't want the wolf watching the hen house. Trust you implicitly. You have the floor, Councilor F. So, I have a couple of things. I would say that when I first heard about these micro-communities, I did ask police and fire for some statistics, and there were more calls in my two-block radius of my home around crime than there was in the micro-communities that we have that are up and running. There were definitely a lot of calls around health issues, but the two-block radius around my house was similar. So, I'm confident that these work just based on pulling the data from police and fire about what the crime looks like in these micro-communities. I would like to offer that I do find it concerning that we cannot delineate as a community from the people who are unhoused and the crime element who preys on that population. The reality is the unhoused population is very complicated. There are some people who are addicted to drugs. There are some people who have behavioral health issues and then become addicted to drugs. Then there's a population that is genuinely trying to transition out of that lifestyle. I feel like the micro-communities are addressing that issue. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that because someone is unhoused, they are inherently an addict. I think we see around the unhoused population a criminal element that surrounds that population and does panhandling and drugs and a whole bunch of other things because that's an easy location to hide yourself within, like at Pete's Place. So, not everyone we're seeing on the street is genuinely unhoused. I think we are really seeing a range of personalities on the street with a range of challenges. I'm not sure I like the idea that because people are unhoused and in transition, and I'm not saying there aren't homeless people who are on drugs, absolutely there are. But I would feel like the people who are in these micro-communities are looking to get out of that space. I don't like the kind of obligation of the nobles that we know better and that we are going to tell human beings who are trying to make their lives work that because you're unhoused, you're inherently an addict. I would think these micro-communities are the opportunity where we can see the unhoused population that is not in that space. I also would offer that there are two ways that we look at addiction. I mean no disrespect to anyone who has a differing opinion than mine. With addiction, you have to find what works for you. But addiction isn't the disease. Whatever trauma someone has had that has led them to have an addiction is actually the disease. Addiction, we're finding in a more modern way of looking at addiction, addiction is a symptom of something else. Addiction is a way of self-medicating. It's a way of doing some things to deal with PTSD and trauma. So, if we continue to look at addiction like if we just remove the substances, we're going to solve the problem, we are not. Addicts will always find a way. Unless you solve, unless you address the disease that led addicts into needing substances to self-medicate, you will never solve addiction. The substance isn't the problem. The problem is the PTSD and the trauma. So, if we can address that as a community, we're more likely to have success around the substance not being a problem. So, I'm kind of on the fence a little bit about whether or not we say no or yes to alcohol or legal substances. I can tell you that I know a lot of housed human beings who are very addicted to many, many substances. So, being unhoused does not inherently mean that you're addicted. Being housed doesn't mean that you're not going to abuse substances. I know more people in the housed community who use substances in inappropriate ways than I know in the unhoused community. So, I just, that's probably not popular, but the reality is we need to address the disease, which is what is driving people to self-medicate. Give her back her clock. Give her back her time. Okay. Councilor Mayworth, you have 10 minutes. Thank you, Mayor. I think we've covered this, but I'm just going to go through it again. Director Ham and Paul, this is a micro-community. It is not a congregate shelter. It's a very different model. And do you anticipate having—I think a lot of what's coloring some of the anxiety and the fear around our micro-communities is people think we are creating another shelter. That's not what these communities are. As you say, they're gated. There's security. People are housed, so they're not on the street. They're in their pallet shelters. There's community space within the property. It's not a shelter, right? Can you color that in some? I would say it's just, sorry, Mayor, Councilor, by design, it's just a very different type of model that is very much oriented towards direct service for individuals and continued service for individuals over a period of time. As you mentioned, the fact that it's, you know, people have locked doors that they can store their belongings. There's no kind of expected spillover out of people's private spaces. There are considerable amounts of services on-site, both physical assets like laundry units and bathrooms and community rooms, as well as behavioral services and mental health services and security. So it's just a fundamentally different model that is not an emergency shelter. The residents at these sites are admitted for longer periods of time, and they build community around that site as opposed to what an emergency shelter should be ideally designed to do, which is to get people in emergencies into shelter. So, you know, I think in the field, the expectation is that emergency shelters aren't housing the same individuals for long periods of time. Those are the first stop on the road towards stability and long-term housing. Okay. And I have so many thoughts running around in my head. And there was an idea brought up that perhaps if we allow the use of alcohol, of legal substances, that people are going to invite folks over and there'll be a party in one pallet. Do you get to have visitors? So let me first address the substance use part of that and then the visitor piece. I'll say this from my perspective of the whole homelessness response system: we need more of every type of service. I've spoken with many providers in the community who have said we need way more recovery beds. We need way more of all types of services and types of beds in our community: emergency shelter, family units, sober units, low-barrier units. So I don't, from my perspective, adding any type of unit into our system right now is a positive. I think so that that's my kind of system-wide perspective on what this gets to, which is ultimately about creating more beds in our homelessness response system. If these units have to be sober units, we will find people to fill them. There is more than enough need here in my professional analysis of where we're at with regard to admitting guests. You know, that that is ultimately something that can be worked out through both the good neighbor agreement, and I would also defer to the operating provider on the best practices that they want to employ there. We trust the providers that we work with to develop responsible and professional guidelines about how these sites are managed. We obviously will contribute to that. I mean, I would have a hard time understanding why a kid couldn't have a playdate with someone who didn't live in that community, but I think it is totally reasonable to say that you can't have a party. Those are very different thresholds, and there's some gray area there. But, you know, at some level, I'm more familiar with operations that are happening right now at Consuelos. But there are kids who live there, and kids can have playdates. Yeah. And a playdate is a very different thing than having a bunch of pals over to watch the game in your 10x12 and down a 12-pack of beers. Correct. Okay. I want to focus on this good neighbor agreement and the community outreach. You had a slide that gave a whole list of the community outreach that has been going on. This resolution, as was alluded to by somebody, would further those conversations, and these community, or these good neighbor agreements, are the kinds of things that will come from the additional community engagement, which will be with the people in the immediate proximity of this site. Am I correct in that? Mr. Mayor, Councilor, that's correct. And the, there's a considerable outreach plan that, you know, once we know that we are in earnest going to be trying to move forward with a location, we will kick into gear, which will include things like mailers within, you know, half a mile of the given area, reaching out to community groups to invite them into that more intimate conversation so that it's a conversation between neighbors as opposed to, you know, one where the entire city has a set of opinions about what's happening in a specific neighborhood. Okay. And so, and that's what we did at Christ Lutheran, which I will note, there was comment that we need to, you know, that this part of town is already carrying enough burden, and we need to lean on other parts of the community. And I would just note that in District 2, we do have the only micro-community, and as has been noted, it is a partnership with Christ Lutheran, and it is a low-barrier shelter. So, and we are not seeing problems there, as has also been noted, and people are housed. They're not loitering out on the street because they're housed. I think the paper has reported that they're building community within the folks that are living there, and how important that is for the people that live there in terms of getting on their feet and finding stability and learning to deal with whatever it is that's plaguing them that's causing them to be on the street. So just note that we in District 2, in another part of town, we have this, it is a low-barrier shelter and micro-community, and it has not been problematic. But I think these neighborhood agreements and the community outreach that, you know, is, we have done some, will be doing more. All of the folks who are concerned about how these operate and, you know, and whatever problems they identify and how to mitigate them. All of that, those are conversations that are going to happen as part of these developing these good neighbor agreements. Correct? Mr. Mayor, Councilor, that's correct. And I'll also just quickly not correct the record, but at the Christ Lutheran micro-community, the only people allowed in the individual units are the people who live in those units. No guests are allowed in those units at that micro-community. Yeah. Okay. And my time is about up. I see it ticking away here. I would also just note the way the amendments that are being brought by, and I'm sure they'll speak to this, by Councilors Casset and Chavez around the substance issues is that, you know, there won't be open use in the community spaces. But, you know, again, if somebody wanted to have a beer in their pallet shelter or a glass of wine, that would be okay under these amendments being brought by Councilors Casset and Chavez, but they still prohibit, you know, the use of legal substances and illegal substances in sort of the community spaces. So, I think that's an interesting compromise when you get, when you get down to how we're talking about this. And also, just because we have families who are homeless with children doesn't mean they're alcoholics. And I think that point has also been made. So, with that, I think my time is up, and I'll leave it there. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Lee Garcia, sir, you have the floor for 10 minutes. Thank you, Mayor. A lot of conversation, a lot of good questions. I want to start off with some of the concerns around what we're doing tonight. And you explained that we would be passing a resolution that directs you as the Director of Community Health and Safety to pursue this community engagement for this site. Is that correct? That is part of the articulation of what is in the resolution. Yes, sir. So, that being said, what are the steps again moving forward? And because again, we're listening to the community that lives in the area. We're listening to the community that does business in the area, whether it's First Serve or others. And obviously, the resolution speaks to the direction of this governing body, but what kind of changes or voice will they have going forward? This passes tonight. Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, I briefly put up a slide that kind of showed a tentative project timeline, and maybe it's helpful to understand the myriad steps that go into actually standing up a micro-community. First, there's considerable regulatory and agency engagement that needs to happen. This is city-owned land, so it's CI, which is a state entity that regulates development on that. So we have to engage with them. We have a land use code that we are putting a formal policy into about the design requirements, how much space can be between these, how many, how far they are from residential zones. It's a pretty comprehensive policy. Another set of steps is actual site layout and design. While these, you know, much to my, you know, my background includes doing humanitarian service overseas, setting up refugee camps, I think there is a world in which having something that can be deployed quickly is valuable. These kind of strike that middle ground. There is landscaping and site prep and considerable design and layout that will need to happen, and that needs to be planned. Additionally, there's a community engagement and input component that tracks the entire process of the development and then beyond the development. Then all of these have to go through agency approvals. It's not like the city can just, you know, snap its fingers and these appear. Again, state land is, or city land is regulated by the state. So the CI, I'm not able to remember the acronym, Construction Industries Division, will be ultimately approving the designs and the work that goes on there. So I don't know if that answered your question. Oh, and then one, the most important piece is when you actually build something, how do you design a program to fit it? And the labor, you know, very laborious process of identifying individuals who qualify and are eligible for this site and ultimately making sure that you're able to put people in there who can succeed. Thank you. And again, I just feel that, you know, we have brought concerns forward in regards to the community engagement portion of this thing, of selecting sites. And so that's a little bit of a concern. I do realize that we can community engage things until we don't ever make a decision as well. And so, you know, that that that's another area where trusting in your leadership is important for me. You know, I think you said something very important at the last meeting that we had is that ultimately the buck stops with you. So to speak, because you're leading this charge and you're pushing, you're giving us your recommendations as to what makes, and I like holding you accountable for it. And I appreciate that. I really do respect that. And so, I don't know that postponing any further really solves anything. It does allow some members of the community that it doesn't seem like they've been able to be engaged around this site. And I did bring this up at one of our committee meetings. I think you might have been Public Works, in regards to first serve. That was a concern of mine. The GCC is another concern of mine, but a lot of these families may already use the GCC. Can you speak to that? Mayor: Councilor Garcia, I don't have the numbers in front of me. I know that, so my team oversees the GC. We serve a broad demographic at all city facilities. Many of the programs that we run, including summer programs, do have sliding scales when it comes to cost to accommodate people of a range of socioeconomic statuses. I know specifically that we have vouchers for individuals who are living at Consuelo's Youth Kids. I will anticipate that many of the children who will be living at this facility, if the resolution is approved and we go through all the steps and it gets the requisite ventures and agency approvals, that many of those kids will have previously spent time at the GCC or other city facilities. You, one last question I have for you in regards to the units. Now, you did state that we have the units currently, so we're not spending money on pallet homes for this micro community. Correct. We currently have either them on hand or on order. Okay. So, okay, that's, you know, just speaking to somebody who made a comment that did offer up alternatives to just a pallet home, you know, fiscally looking at what would a larger unit be cost-wise and more comfortable for those that are utilizing them. And so, it's scary. I can feel the apprehensiveness of community members. I would have the same apprehensiveness if it was right next to my home. And I have this conversation with my neighbors all the time. And I think that, you know, the whole city is dealing with this issue and with crime, and I think we're very gun-shy in regards to, are we going to attract more? How is it going to affect our value of our homes? I mean, all these questions. And so, we still are charged with having to make some decisions that hopefully will help and move our community forward. I do think that, you know, when I talk to people, it's those are sleeping, they're sleeping in cars, they're sleeping in our backyards in the arroyos. And so, I am in support of having a dry community, stating that, you know, that can bring a lot of issues if it's not. And so, I do appreciate the amendments that I brought forth. I think I'll leave it at that. Director, thank you for bringing this forward. I think it's something that's difficult because you do have the concerns of the community, but I do feel that the homework is being done to make it a successful endeavor. So, leave it at that. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. We're going to go around again. Henry, if you want to take a quick sip of water or find a chair to sit on for a minute. I'm going to take a brief set of questions, but I won't be using, unless your answers are very long, I won't be using all of my time. I just want to cover a few things. First, I think it's important to focus on the site itself. And we really haven't enumerated why, from the point of view of the staff and others who have been consulted, including conversations you've had with community members about this site versus others that were on that initial document. What is it about this site that purely from the point of view of addressing community need around homeless families makes this an attractive location? Mr. Mayor: Thank you for the question. I think, I think first off, there's no such thing as a perfect site. That is a fallacy. No matter where you want to put something to support people who are in need, there's going to be a reason why it can't work. That said, this site strikes a considerable amount of balances, which is why staff felt comfortable moving it forward compared to many other sites. First and foremost, its proximity to city-owned and accountable resources, the fire department and the GLEC, is incredibly important. You know, the access to the wealth of services that we have at the GC, as well as the critical life-saving services that we have at Fire Station 7, are boons to this type of investment in my opinion. Second, you know, another important consideration, and these aren't simple things to explain, right? But understanding the proximity to neighborhoods, what does that mean? I personally am of the belief that children and families deserve to live in neighborhoods too. But we understand that there needs to be some sort of buffer at a level to build comfort and trust. This, this site, especially compared to the other site that was previously identified as being a potential, is not directly abutting homes. There is an arroyo and considerable space that is between this site and residential homes. And actually, part of the land use policy that we're moving towards states that within 200 feet it would need to go to a planning commission. That is, you know, we, this site compared to almost every other site is as far from a residential area as exists on city-owned land. And that's an important distinction. This is, when we are talking about the city taking accountability and moving forward with ideas to address public safety and public health, we're only talking about a small piece of the pie. The city is one stakeholder here. We have, you know, a number of properties that we've looked at, but we're not the only ones who have land that could be developed. Sorry. No, you asked for short answers. No, that's good. I'm counting on my colleague keeping track of things for me. I was deeply impressed by the sincere offer of support by some of the abutting uses, including the soon-to-be-launched amazing tennis center and the social purpose it plays. It is a, it's more than a tennis and pickleball court setup. It is a deep commitment to helping kids just as much as this site would. Can you, assuming that you had a green light to dig deeper into this site, pursue it as an option, what kinds of things could be done to build more collaborative relationships with the surrounding uses, with neighbors, with people who want to pitch in and be supportive and believe that our families with kids deserve a shot at stabilizing their lives, getting off the street, getting out of a car, and want to be part of the solution? Mr. Mayor: Thank you for the question. I think the, the short answer to that is, my understanding of my role in this is to provide accountability and quality assurance and to facilitate the conversation between stakeholders. When it comes to actual direct programming, we will rely on the programmatic experts who, at the Lifelink and other providers who do work in this space, to develop those programmatic relationships. That said, we are, I want to be a broker of that and an accountability. You know, I'm not trying to subsume the role of the council in saying oversight, but we are going to be accountable as the oversight on the contract that we have with our operator to provide the right type of services and engage in the right type of partnerships. And I believe, I don't have the contract in front of me, but I believe the contract that we have with the Lifelink stipulates that they are expected to partner with other providers in the area. If this were to be voted on and approved tonight, how soon would you be in a position to meet with some of these good neighbors who want to be part of the solution? Depending on how much sleep I get tonight, I could, I can meet as early as 8:00 AM tomorrow. What happens if I'm admitted, I know we're not operating the facility, but under the contract, if I am living, staying at the facility while I try to stabilize my life and I violate what I presume is a code of conduct that is written out, what happens? Mr. Mayor: Thank you for the question. It's an important one, and the reality is that these kind of things happen. And I will say that the operator is concerned about the whole of the success. That is something that we have had in conversation with them, and while we are working and we encourage providers to work on and treat individuals as individuals, anything that compromises the ultimate success of the entire community is a too great a risk. So, I don't have the data in front of me, and I actually don't, don't know if anybody has been asked to leave the current micro community. I know that from my research and visits to other micro communities across the country, that is, I wouldn't say a common practice, but at least an enforced mechanism that people who don't abide by the rules of conduct don't stay in these facilities. There are codes of conduct that are established, and presumably if something violates it, there is a process for taking appropriate action. That's correct. And we do have a code of conduct currently at the Arroyo Chamiso micro community, and I will be getting an update in seconds about if anything has been enforced there. That's terrific. I'm going to cede back my time and go back to some of the council members who have already had an opportunity to speak, but I think we all have more. We want to, we want to go further because of the significance of this, this proposal. Councilor Chavez, do you want to have another opportunity? I do. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I want to acknowledge that this is a really hard and, in fact, to many of us, scary topic because I think that all of our experiences around what we perceive as homelessness has impacted us in different ways. And I just want to speak to the community and really ask that we understand that our perception isn't the reality of what homelessness really is. I feel like I am grateful to have really witnessed and worked beside the spectrum of homelessness. I have seen the entire spectrum. I have seen the parents doing the best they can but not able to put a roof over their kids' heads. I have volunteered at a shelter and have seen the other side of it where it's just been a chronic situation that someone can't dig themselves out of because of addiction. I have experienced the spectrum of homelessness. I live across the street from Pete's Place. That's where I live. And I will say that, so like, I know it. We see it every day. We see it. But fortunate for me, I have witnessed the other side of the spectrum. So it's not just what I see. It's not just what, and I don't have fear. So I'm not going to say what I fear. I don't have fear. I have not had a negative experience. So I won't say that, but I know that others have. But I do want to say, like, as a community, we have, we have to lean on one another, and I want to apologize as city official, and I want to acknowledge the fact that sometimes we aren't as transparent as we need to be about what's going on. However, around Pete's Place, around micro communities, this discussion has been going through community committee, I'm sorry. It has been talked about. There has been public comment, and I want to say, when we want to serve our community, we can't send false messages out. I know our community in District 4 has been receiving communication that has been false, that has given the message that Pete's Place is closing down and we're putting crate houses up instead, and we're going to have more crime, and we're going to have people wandering our neighborhoods. So we're instilling this sense of fear, and it's not serving anybody, especially because it's not based on truth. It's not based on a true perception of the spectrum of homelessness that we're experiencing as a city. It is a spectrum. Because of that spectrum, I think when we talk about addiction and alcoholism and all of the things that come with it, we can't assume because somebody is on that spectrum that they're struggling with those issues. That is incredibly false, incredibly false. When I think of families who are homeless, the majority of the families that I have interacted with have not struggled with addiction or alcoholism. They have not been part of this system in any way. Their kids are living in hotels with them because they know how to be parents. They are doing the best they can. They are utilizing city services to take care of their children. They're utilizing city services to provide their children with opportunities so that how they're struggling doesn't impact their children. They are not struggling with addiction. Is there a population within that spectrum that does? Absolutely. But our assumptions aren't serving any of us. I feel like we, as a community, need to realize that there is a spectrum. We need to make sure we're educated before we feed our neighbors information that is false. As a city and city officials, we need to be more transparent and more communicative about what we're doing and what we understand. I want to say, Director, you've been, I think, a great starting point in that work. I think that you have really worked hard to not only educate us but advocate and take ownership for the fact that this is a problem that's mine, and you've taken that on as your responsibility. It's not only your responsibility, but I've seen it. I've seen the heaviness on you. I've seen your acceptance of it because you're so passionate about the work. So I want to say I appreciate that. But as a community, we have to be knowledgeable about the fact that it's a spectrum. We have to be knowledgeable about the fact that it's going to take all of us, and we have to know that we have neighbors and individuals here that just need help. If they're serving children, they just need help, and they shouldn't have assumptions put on them. Imagine, and I ask the community that's with us tonight to imagine somebody saying, "Because you have kids in your house, you cannot have a beer tonight." Because you have children in your house, you lose access to what is legal and within your control, because I'm putting judgment on you. I'm taking this away from you. I just want to thank Councilor Faulkner for acknowledging that fact. I liked what you said, and you said it much better than me, but I think that that's where our amendment comes from. I know we have to talk about it more, but there's just a community that needs help. All of us need help in our own way. This help that we're discussing tonight is around homelessness, and we have a great solution, and we have a great solution that impacts kids. So that's why I'm incredibly supportive of it, because the homelessness with our youth in Santa Fe is probably a bigger issue than any of us want to actually acknowledge. It is ugly, and it is hard, and these kids are still showing up for school, and they're still trying their best, and they just want somewhere to go to. Our city is trying to offer that to them, and they're trying to offer that to them in a community that's next to you as neighbors who can be great neighbors, and next to a recreation center that can offer them opportunity, or that is already serving them because our recreation center, GCC, already offers those that struggle financially great opportunity and access to our facilities. So we're just doing good. We're just putting a dent in an issue that is huge. We just talked about Urban Alchemy coming in and supporting us. That is a piece of the puzzle. This is a piece of the puzzle. We have had our community cry to us for action. We are taking action. We're chipping at the problem a little bit at a time, and it's taking all of us, and it's taking our community to make that happen. I just want to end my commentary with, I have appreciation for all of us on the dais trying to make a decision because our community's been crying for a decision. I want to give credit to our Director, who I feel has not only made a decision and had to take action but has said, "I have to prove to the community that this works, and I will take responsibility if it doesn't." I tell you, Director, it's not all on you, so please know that, but I appreciate you as a leader because that's what leaders do. I want to thank the community for being flexible and being willing to move forward and engaging with us to assess whether this works and how to make it better. This is a process. It's going to be a process. It's a process we've all really wanted. It might not be the way we want it, but it's what we've wanted. So, if we move together, educated, understanding the spectrum of homelessness, doing our part, we're going to make a difference. All the things we fear around homelessness will be resolved. The public safety issues, the addiction, all of that. We're chipping away at that problem together, but it does take action to actually address it. So, I just want to encourage education. I want to thank those who are taking action, and I want to really encourage the community to continue working with us, educated and knowing the facts. Let's not instill fear in one another. That's not going to help anything. Let's empower one another to play an active role in coming to a solution. So that's all I have to say. Mayor, I know that we're going to speak to the amendment in a while. I might have something more to say about that, but thank you. Mayor: Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Cassid, I know you're still with us on the screen. Do you have another round you'd like to entertain? If so, you have the floor. Oh, you're frozen. Counselor: I think that most... Mayor: You are now thawed out. Congratulations. Counselor: Thank you. Thanks. As I was saying, I'm setting my own timer, by the way, because I don't have Councilor Faulkner Romero Worth there to poke me when I go over. But I did just want, most comments and questions have been made. I do want to go ahead. I have Councilor Travis and I have a couple of amendments that I do want to go ahead and move. Although I do have one more comment, because of course, I do want to say back to the community engagement piece. I agree this has been complicated, and I understand why there is this feeling that community engagement was not what people wanted it to be, what they felt it should be. I think one of my challenges with this particular topic is it's both community engagement about the potential, but then when it becomes real, it becomes different. So I think that's, I'm not saying that this is necessarily right or wrong, but I do think this is an important conversation to have because there's the concept writ large that these things will be happening somewhere in our community, and then getting down to the basics of what, okay, so in this site, this is what fits, and then what that good neighbor community looks like or agreement looks like. So, I think that that's going to be something we need to continue to have those conversations about. I do want to thank the individuals again that have showed up tonight, that have emailed, that have called, that have texted. It's been a lot of communication, a lot of conversations. What I can say is that we'll continue to refine this because this is not going to be the last micro-community. As Director Hammond Paul pointed out, we have a huge issue in this community. We have a lot of people to help, and this is a good, this is a really good model. It's a really good model when it's done well, and right now we have the capacity with our partners and with us to do it well. So that said, I do want to move amendments. I'm going to go ahead and start with the easy one, which is Amendment B. So it would, on page two, line 24, we would insert, "Whereas the governing body wishes the micro-community on the city property to be for family use." Then it, there would either be an "and" or it would be the last "whereas" clause depending on whether or not Amendment C is passed. Then on page 25, line 25, after "city property," we will insert, "that will prioritize tailored to the needs of families with children and youth." So this one is establishing within the resolution at this point in time. We've been talking about this, but this actually puts it into the resolution that this is in fact going to be a shelter that is prioritizing families and youth as designed for families and youth. So at this time, I would like to move Amendment B. Mayor: Second. Point of order. Counselor: Second. Mayor: There's a point of order. Point of order from Councilor Michael Garcia. Sir, you have the floor. Councilor Garcia: It's been tradition that we go through amendments as the way they were introduced, and so we have Amendment A that has not been considered yet. Is there a parliamentarian practice on the order in which amendments get brought to the floor, or is it just in terms of when they get moved by a member of the governing body? Counselor: I just thought we'd knock this one out because this one's easy. This is the one that we don't have much conversation on. Everybody has talked about we agree this wants to be prioritized for children and family. Mayor: Wherever, Counselors, there's not a rule on that. They are lettered in the order that they are received. Councilor Garcia: But there has, has there been a standard of practice? I feel like there has. I feel like there's been a standard of practice that's in alignment with what Councilor Michael Garcia is saying. Mayor: I agree with that, Mayor. Councilor, so a rule, a point of order has to refer to a particular rule. There is no specific rule. There's a, but there is an objection to this practice at the moment. Counselor: Council, I do feel like there is a motion and a second, and if we have issues with it, we could discuss it and move forward and vote. I feel like that would be the most effective. I'm happy not to discuss Amendment C at this time because that one is the controversial one. But this, this one, I mean, we can just knock out a vote on this one. This is a pretty... Mayor: Well, let's have discussion. Is there general agreement that this is a non-controversial item that we could move on and then come back to item A when the time arrives? Councilor Garcia, does that seem reasonable? Councilor Garcia: My case on the matter. Mayor: Mr. Mayor, point of inquiry. Yes, ma'am. Councilor: There is some similar language in Amendment A. City Attorney, is there a significant difference between the language in Amendment A and Amendment C? City Attorney: May Councilor, I would defer to the Counselors who sponsored those as to what they think is significant about the differences with Amendment, excuse me, the question that was asked was, given that Amendment A has similar language around this proposal that you are carving, you are specifying regarding the designation of the family utilization. Is there, is there, let's not contradict. The difference is that we do put in the "therefore be it resolved" clause. That then, in that "therefore be it resolved" clause, it does establish this is going to be prioritized for families. So that is the differentiation that has to do with the restrictions around who would be the residents of this, as opposed to because of the residence, there is then going to be this condition. Does that make sense? If we don't want to move it now, that's fine. I just thought this one would be an easy one. But, yeah, it seems to me, let's withdraw it. I don't think anything's easy. I think that's wishful thinking. If you wouldn't mind withdrawing it, we can take these up in a different order. But I also think there's some people who still have a chance, they want to speak not to an amendment, but to the broader motion on the floor. Once we've tried to get through perhaps another round, we'll go toward amendments. And I'm inclined to start alphabetically. I don't think it alters our ability to get our business done. I will withdraw my motion. Okay. Council, I'll, I have to draw the second. Okay, we're going to go back around and fully discuss the issue before we get to amendments. Council Castro, did you have further comments with the 10 minutes worth of time? No, I mean, if sponsors would like to sort of talk further about the differences, but I feel that they both address the population that we're trying to serve in this case. Thank you. I'm going to turn to you, Councilor Garcia. You had some unanswered questions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. More so comments, but through the questions, additional questions come up. And I just want to maybe address some of the statements that were made earlier regarding that because the site is being proposed to be drug-free, that it somehow insinuates or implies that we're saying anybody unhoused is an addict. And that is not the case whatsoever. The intention is around protecting folks that are in situations where we as a government have a moral obligation to protect them. And so with that being said, there's a statement made by Director Hemmon Paul that he can meet with residents as early as 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. Am I correct in the way I heard that? Look at my calendar right now. Okay. But I mean, I have an 8:30 meeting, but I can meet from 8:00 to 8:30 and then I have time from 3:00 to 5:00 tomorrow if people would like to meet. Okay. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is why can we make time after this is approved versus if we were to postpone this and you can meet with folks tomorrow at 8:30? I think that would again, those are the little things that would go miles in showing faith and trust to our community. So with that, I'll make this question directed to, it's not a, it's a statement. So I'll make a motion to postpone this item until our end of the month meeting, knowing that you can meet with the residents tomorrow. There's a motion to postpone. I will second for discussion. And there's a second for discussion. And there's a hand up from Councilor Chavez. Is that an old hand or a new hand? No, it's a, it's a new hand. Thank you. Okay. There's a motion on the floor to postpone. Did you designate when the postponement would go until? Yeah. Meeting in June. So, whatever that date is, I can. June 25th. I just want to say I disagree with postponing it. I think that we need to take action. I think we've postponed this conversation quite enough. In fact, probably years before I was elected. So I feel like we need to move forward. I think we have a plan in place. I think Director is being kind in the fact that he's saying, "I want to hear from the community and I will make time moving forward to make sure that this doesn't disturb the community and in fact serves them." And I think that's where we need to go. We don't need to postpone a decision to develop something that serves a need. We need to make a decision to serve a need and see how to do that service involving the community so it doesn't only serve the community that has the need, but the community that surrounds that need. And I think that's what Director was speaking to. So I don't think there, we can't postpone. You look around, we cannot postpone the need that is evident in our city. We have postponed it enough. Action is necessary and I am very passionate about this. And I know I'm not the only one and I know there is fear and there is concern and we have city staff here that is standing up and saying, "I will walk beside you to figure this out, to figure this out so it has the least impact in disturbing your neighborhood or your environment." And that's what we need to move forward with. We don't need to move forward with postponing a decision on starting those conversations because that's all this is going to do. So I disagree with postponing this. Thank you. Other hand. Councilor Faulkner. I would concur with Councilor Chavez. We postponed this from the special City Council meeting last week and we also, this has gone through two committees. Correct. So there's been, along with all the information and all the newspaper articles and all the opportunities. I agree with Kendall Chavez in the sense that we postponed this once already to give the community a couple more opportunities, which we have given the community. We have to take action. What we are doing is not working. If we do not address this as a city and have a plan and a path forward, we are on a precipice as a city with this issue. We either start taking action and making a difference or we're going to, we're going to have a problem that's insurmountable. And so in my opinion, I know that Districts One and Two have been carrying a lot of the lift. And I know being a councilor from District Three, we certainly have our struggles in District Three and sometimes things feel inequitable, but the reality is on the homeless issue, District One is taking a heavy lift and District Two has taken a lift. We have to as leaders recognize that this is a citywide thing. We have to act as a community, as a whole community, and the decisions we've been making or the lack of decisions we've been making is only making this problem worse. And I would offer to the community that we hear you and this, this issue weighs very heavily on us as leaders because we're not only trying to protect a community that desperately needs help. We're also trying to protect the larger community from some of the negative outcomes of a, of the population we're trying to help. And that, and so we have to weigh a couple of things that are very difficult to weigh, but I can tell you as a leader, I have looked into what we're doing. It is effective. Time will tell whether or not we made the right decision, but we have to do something because what we're doing right now is not working at all. So, we have to take steps. We cannot be, we have to have courage and I'm willing as a leader to take hits from the community and from the media because I do believe this is a good idea. Director Hammond Paul has put a lot of research into this. He comes to the city with an amount of experience that we don't see generally in Santa Fe around these issues. And so, I trust Henry Hammond Paul and I trust what he is saying. I've researched it independently. These, the plans we're making now are effective and they will work and I understand the community is struggling with this because all of us are afraid of what might come next if we don't make the best decisions, but just know that we're not making these decisions lightly. Just know that we are hearing from all of you and we're doing the best we can to make the best decisions. Any other discussion? Yeah, Councilor Garcia, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All I got to say is our community has been crying and begging and pleading for proper community engagement to take place. It was just confirmed that staff could meet with community members tomorrow and we can just, it was just confirmed we can hear this again in two weeks. It's obvious that this measure will pass. And for folks that aren't aware, there's four sponsors. All it takes is one other councilor to support them. I think there's support from whether one other councilor on this to support this. So action will be taken. I can guarantee that. But the action that is not being taken is community engagement and support, which is ultimately going to lead to further resentment, further process of trying to regain trust of community and almost more importantly, having residents be proud of actions that their government's taking. So, with that, I'm just, just at a loss of words. You know, I've, I've, I'm here to support residents and constituents. That's what I signed up for and that's what I'm going to do as a councilor. Thank you. Councilor, I believe, Mr. Mayor, you have your hand up. Yeah, Director. Something just, because my name has come up. I've actually met with four of the six people in the audience already. So, and I'm happy to continue meeting with people. But I don't believe that that precludes any actions that the governing body is looking to take tonight. And, you know, I, I, to make myself available as all of this work comes into play. Just on that point, there was much more than six people that provided public testimony tonight. And I appreciate you taking time to meet with four of the folks, but what residents have been asking for is engagement that leads to information, which ultimately leads to lack of information and folks being misinformed because I too have seen and heard of misinformation being put out there. That is a sheer result of lack of engagement of our constituency. If we were properly engaging residents, residents would know darn well what is being proposed. They, they would not be saying, you know, there's a pellet shelter proposed to be set up at Monolucero Park. There's a pellet shelter that's going to be replacing Pete's Place. All of that misinformation that is going on in our community right now would be squashed with the town hall meeting. That first engagement you had on your list when you listed your whole litany of community engagement that took place, that first engagement was a town hall that was widely attended and it was the first step in really beginning to engage the community in a manner where we provided information. We squashed concerns and we began to build that collaborative efforts and I wish we would continue that mindset and mantra, but unfortunately we have not. So with that, I'm all the question on the, well, some of us hadn't have a chance to speak yet, councilor, but we'll get there shortly. Councilor Castro. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Director. You took the words right out of my mouth. I just wanted to reiterate that this is the beginning of a process and that community input is part of that process. I also was part of a couple community meetings with some of the folks here and I've tried to make myself as available as possible. I will continue to do that. Please, even though this is not my district, I am happy to take calls, emails, any questions from anyone regarding this issue. But I do think that it is interesting. And I can't really share what happened in executive session, but we had some interesting conversations about community input and I think everyone on this dais is interested in hearing from the community and engaging in any way possible. No further questions. I see a hand up from Councilor Cassid. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Okay. You know, one, one thing that I think is important, I, it's important that we hear the concerns when people are worried about something. What's interesting is that when people are happy about something, they don't show up, but I do hear from them. And this one especially, I have heard from them. I have heard from many members of District 4 and members from throughout the community that they are in full support of this. They are excited that we're moving forward. I had a wonderful conversation with the HOA president of one of the closest neighborhoods to this, who, when she learned more about it, she said she was thrilled and very excited to have that community engagement and just wanted to make sure that we had her contact info. So it's not that the opinions of those who show up at the community meeting don't matter, because they do. Absolutely, everybody's opinion matters, but also the people that have called and texted and emailed, both positive and negative. I've gotten both. But I just want to point out that there's kind of this idea that we're not listening to the community, but there really is always a slant. Whoever is against something is who shows up. No, sometimes, actually no, we had that last time with our last meeting, a very opposite direction of where we're going now. It's fascinating, the swing. And even that one as well, that was a really tough meeting. And the next day I had tons of people who I saw just out in the world or who called or emailed who said, "Thanks. I really, I'm glad you made that decision. That was the right decision. Thank you for your vote." So I just want to point out because I sometimes think that some of the communication comes from this idea that if the people that show up are not the only ones listened to, or not listened to exclusively, that we haven't, that we're not listening to the community, because we are. And the community has a lot of different opinions, and I appreciate that. They're good for us to hear. It's helpful for us to hear. I think getting the different perspectives and concerns and excitements is really wonderful. And then at the end of the day, it's our job to start to filter those. And again, I think community engagement is a good conversation for us to have. But to say that there is no support for this in the community, and as the representative of the district that this is going into, one of them, and having heard from my constituents, there's a lot of support for this project. There's a lot of support from its neighbors, there's a lot of support from the community at large. And they kind of go, "That's great, good job. We don't have to worry about this tonight, so we're going to go enjoy our Wednesday instead of showing up to chambers." So I do just want to point that out, that this is not a one-sided conversation in the community either. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor Faulkner. And then I'd like to say a few words myself. Okay. So I have to concur with Councilor Cassett. I have received a lot of emails and phone calls and text messages about our decisions, including our decision last week, that we're in the affirmative of what we're doing, and people are grateful that we're making moves to solve this problem. And what I would ask of everyone who wants an abundance of transparency and community input, how many people have to overdose? How many people have to die? What's the number that feels fair while we're taking an extra two and a half weeks to make this decision that we already know we're going to make? What is the number of people who are going to pay the price for us taking longer? That's exactly right. Zero. Two weeks isn't going to make a difference. The will of the council is abundantly clear. So asking for extra time on this issue is only going to get human beings hurt. Our first responders are burning out. We have a crisis on our hands. And so then I ask the community who is opposed to this, how many lives are we willing to sacrifice? How many first responders are going to burn out? What is the human cost to postponing two weeks when we've already had a conversation with the community? It's been in the paper. We've had three hearings about it. What's the number that we're comfortable with so that people can have one more chance to say they're opposed to it? I'm not comfortable with any more time. Thank you, Councilor. I think, first of all, we have people calling for many different things. We have people calling for more input, and we have people calling for action. I can't, the special meeting we had last week where we heard from quite a few people, I didn't hear anybody who said what we're doing right now is working, so don't do anything. Doing nothing's not an option. The status quo is not an option. We are charged with trying our best to make constructive changes that will really produce improved results for people who are experiencing homelessness and for people who are impacted by people who are experiencing homelessness. What I was struck by tonight by the comments we received was how many of them were genuinely generous, genuinely committed to participating in making this action work. I think that's the right attitude. I think that's the way to think about it. That's why there are amendments in front of us because of community input saying, "I'm not intractably opposed to what the city is trying to do to address this very, very complicated and difficult problem. I'd like to make it better by having my suggestion heard." And the fact that we've got amendments that would respond to those voices tells me that there really is engagement and more than just engagement. That's such a bland word. There is real partnership and participation and thoughtful input. If I thought that delaying another couple weeks would substantially alter the proposal in front of us or the capacity of the city to adjust, I would vote for that. But I really believe that the voices that are urgently crying are people saying, "Do something. Take some action. Show some leadership. Don't kick the can down the road. Don't take the easy path of farming it out to another round of meetings. Let's be decisive and take this step as we took the step last week to be problem solvers and to work in good faith with people who want to be problem solvers with us." I know that's who was here tonight. That was the people who are still here tonight. These are folks who want to be part of the solution, and Henry's willingness to meet, whether it's tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day, I think is, first of all, it tells me what kind of a leader Henry is, and it tells me that we are committed not to a quick fix or a head fake. This is serious effort to solve one of the most intractable problems in the country today. And everybody who's here in the audience and everybody who was here in the audience has my gratitude because you're part of the solution. You want to be part of the solution, and we want to be partners with you. So I, I think we are, I'm speaking on behalf of myself. I believe it's time for the city to take action, thoughtful action, compassionate action, and then engage and work with and partner with everybody who Henry had on his slide about the people who need to be engaged in what we do next to make not just this specific site work, but our entire response to homelessness work and work better for the people who really are struggling to get shelter for their kids and themselves. The 15 veterans who we know by name who we cannot find a site to put up another pallet shelter. We have the means and we have the capacity. We need the resolve and the will to do it. Call the question. Second. There's a motion to call the question. Do you want to call the roll on the motion? I know Councilor Lindell was going to be back with us on Zoom as soon as possible, but I don't see her on the screen at the moment. I am here, Mayor. I'm sorry, Councilor. I apologize. I didn't know you were there. Thank you. This is a vote on calling the question, correct? This is a vote on calling the question on postponing, right? I'm sorry. It's a motion to call the question. And we, the motion is to postpone till the next meeting, and the question has been called. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Lindell, yes. Councilor Marworth, yes. Councilor Cassett, yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Chavez, yes. Councilor Faulkner, yes. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion is approved. So we have a vote in front of us now whether in favor to delay or postpone the vote on this item till the 25th or not to. So a yes vote would postpone it. A no vote would not. Councilor Faulkner, no. Councilor Lee Garcia, no. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Lindell, no. Councilor Marworth, no. Councilor Cassett, no. Councilor Castro, no. Councilor Chavez, no. Mayor Weber, no. Motion doesn't pass. Very good. Thank you. I don't know who, if there's more discussion or we want to move to the amendments. I think we should move on to amendments at this. I'd like to go back to moving the amendment that Councilor Cassett wanted to move. Move amendment C. Agree. So still, but sorry, that's fine. Go right ahead. No, I'm sorry. I don't think you had the floor because you, I made a motion. You had a motion. We voted on your motion. Your motion yielded the floor. I've never yielded the floor. Get to continue. It's okay. We're just human beings trying to solve problems. It's not personal. I think I'd like to, I move amendment C. Amendment C. Amendment B that I was moving. Amendment B. Second. There's a motion to take up amendment B and a second. For those of the members of the public who may not know what amendment B is, would a sponsor want to speak to that? Sure. I already spoke to it. Councilor Chavez, do you want to, do you want to take it this time or do you want me to take it again? Happy to talk again. So this amendment is the amendment that would put in resolution that this will be a micro community that is designed for and prioritizes the placement of children with, I'm sorry, families with children and youth. So putting that, that piece in resolution, which has been widely discussed and widely promised, and this will go ahead and put it in the establishing resolution. Is there further discussion or further description of what the actual language is? Is there, I'm happy to read it if you wouldn't mind. I think it would really help. Not everybody has a computer in their lap or the ability to get a hold of our access to our platform. So maybe you could just read the language as it is proposed. I will. So, and on just a little caveat that if amendment C is passed, there will be an "and" at the end of the whereas clause. If it's not, there would not be an "and" at the end of the whereas clause, but obviously does not change the meaning, just the number of whereas clauses we would have. So on page two, line 24, we would insert, "Whereas the governing body wishes the micro community on the city property to be for family use." And then on page two, line 25, after "city property," we would insert, "that will prioritize and be tailored to the needs of families with children and youth." So for that one in context, because that one is actually more helpful to read in context. One moment, please. Let me pull that one up. So the whereas clause is self-explanatory, but the "now therefore be it resolved" would read, "Now therefore be it resolved by the governing body of the City of Santa Fe that the city should establish a micro community on the city property that will prioritize and be tailored to the needs of families with children and youth." Is there discussion? Yes, I just have a question. So again, we're on Amendment B, correct? Yes, sir. When looking at Amendment A, it also speaks to families and youth. So, if they're both passed, how does that work? I'm just hypothetically. They do not contradict each other. They both emphasize the fact that they're for families and youth only. Correct. In my opinion, in my reading of the amendment, Amendment A's "whereas" clause states, "Whereas the micro community should be for family use and for this reason the micro community should be a drug-free zone." So, it combines those two aspects, whereas this one simply states that it will be tailored for families. So, you could think of Amendment A as an addition. So, that's why right now it's just the baseline that we're going to be supporting families only. That's where we're at in this vote. Any further discussion? And I guess just to add to Councilor Travis, so if we were to pass Amendment A, we would be adding that because it's families, we're not allowing drugs. So, one does not conflict or preclude the other. So, right now if we approve this, we're focusing on families, and then we're going to then go on to the amendments that focus on substance. So, this is the baseline population we're serving as families. The rest will be focused on the details in regards to substance. Very good. Further discussion. We have reporting in there too. I'm sorry, you said and reporting is in there as well. Yeah, I just wanted to point out there's some other stuff in the amendments. It's not just on substance, but Councilor Garcia has some... You're not talking about B, you're talking about A. No, no, no, I apologize. Just saying what we're going to go into next. Yeah, we're looking at B right now. Okay. There's no further discussion and there's a motion. Can you call the roll on Amendment B? Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Marworth: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. Very good. So, that's Amendment B. I think let's go to Amendment A. Councilor Garcia, do you want to move it? Councilor Garcia: Make a motion for Amendment A. Second: Second. And there's a second. So, we now have in front of us Amendment A. And Councilor Garcia, again, not everybody has it in front of them. Do you want to give us a synopsis? It has more elements to it than the one we just considered. So, if you can walk through it for the public, that'll be super. Councilor Garcia: Sure. Thank you, Mayor. The proposed amendment adds a "whereas" clause that states, "Whereas the micro community should be for family use and for this reason the micro community should be a drug-free zone, and whereas the governing body would like regular updates about the activities at the micro community." Then it gets on to the "be it further resolved" sections, and it adds a couple "be it further resolved" sections. The first one stating, "Be it further resolved that the city shall prohibit alcohol and drugs other than medication prescribed by a physician to be used or present at the micro community, making the micro community a drug-free zone. Be it further resolved that the city manager, or designated city staff, shall provide the governing body a biannual update regarding the micro community that may include information on services provided at the micro community, the number of residents transitioned into permanent housing, and any challenges experienced in operations of the micro community." The last "be it further resolved" added states, "Be it further resolved that for the micro community to continue operations after three years, the governing body must reauthorize it." Thank you. Did you want to say anything further about it, or should we open it up for discussion? Councilor Garcia: I've said my piece on it right now. Okay. Councilor Cassett, your hand is up. You have the floor. Councilor Cassett: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. You know, we've already had ample discussion about it. I will say that I very much appreciate and like the components on reporting and the reviewing and revisiting in three years. So, I would make a motion to amend this amendment, and I am going to need the city manager's assistance. But I may, let me give it a go. I would amend the amendment where it would strike, "and whereas the micro community should be for family use and for this reason the micro community should be a drug-free zone." So, that would be page two, lines 23 through 25. And then page three, and this is in context, I think that it's already changed, but the "be it further resolved that the city shall prohibit alcohol or drugs other than medication prescribed by a physician to be used or present at the micro community, making the micro community a drug-free zone." And as has been discussed, I have another amendment that would prohibit illegal substance use. And as Councilor Chavez has really put it beautifully, it's not this idea, it's like, "Hey, people really need to, you know, drink," but it has to do with an equitable home. You know, if this is, what are the rights that we have within our home? And the idea that I don't, that the stigmatization of individuals who are in this situation, that they are in such a situation or that there is alcoholism inherently involved. I would like to point out that with the community agreement that goes in and the rules, and with that, the operator would put in, all this does is it prohibits the use of illegal substances. It does not state, and it prohibits the use of substances in common areas. It does not prohibit the operator from being able to put on further restrictions. I think Councilor Lindell's comment about smoking, whether that be cigarettes or marijuana, in tight quarters, you know, that is something that is a pretty big health risk. So, I think that those are conversations that the operator would be able to have, but this does put the baseline of the prohibition on those. So, anyway, that is why I would like to amend. I apologize, I got lost with where we were. That's why I would like to move to amend this amendment as stated. Second: Second. Councilor Garcia, your hand is up. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Mayor. So, we have an amendment. I'm sorry, what's going on? Sorry, there's some conversation here. We have an amendment which was moved by Councilor Michael Garcia. And so, I guess I'm asking for clarification because you're asking to amend his amendment. Is that correct? Councilor Cassett: That's correct. Yeah, correct. Because I think that part of it I highly agree with, part of it, and I would want it in there, but I would like to, my amendment would strike the part that I am not in full agreement with. What are our rules around that, and does it have to be submitted in writing? Counselors: So, we can do an amendment to the amendment. That's as far as we can go in terms of amending motions. And then the rule is that we have to have the amendments in writing. So, I think, let me just make sure I understand what the proposal is. It is to delete the first "whereas" clause in Amendment A and the first "be it therefore resolved." Correct. Councilor Cassett: Correct. Counselors: Mayor, counselors, I can send that in strikeout if that's helpful. It's not clear that if you're removing something that's presented in writing, if that also must be produced in writing, the absence of the writing. So, but might as well, you might, I think for safety, that sounds... Hang on a sec, Councilor. I think Councilor Lee Garcia has the floor. Councilor Lee Garcia: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I've gone down this path before where we're starting to change amendments on the fly, and I don't know that that's in the best practice. I know you don't agree with the wording, or you do agree with the amendment but not fully, and personally, I think you should just vote against it or vote for it. That's what I have to say. Other... I know the city attorney is working on striking the language and sending it. Is there other discussion about the amendment to the amendment? Anybody else? I think there's some value in amending the amendment because I think the original amendment has some great components to it. So, I sort of... Councilor Garcia, you, sir, have the floor. Councilor Garcia: I just want to say it's the proposed amendment is not a friendly amendment, and I concur with Councilor Garcia that if you don't agree with the amendment, then vote down this one and propose a new amendment. It's... I think this amendment is, as stated previously, the intention is to make this a facility that is drug-free and alcohol-free. And if folks want to partake in, you know, imbibing in alcohol or other substances, this is not the facility for them. This is a facility to support our young folks in our community. This is a proposal to support the parents, and by no means is that insinuating that anybody at this site is an addict, is a substance abuse user, etc. I think it's an initiative that we as a city need to set precedent with any city-owned property. As Councilor Lindell stated earlier, we don't allow for any of this activity to take place on any other city property. Why should we allow it in a facility where we are ultimately at the end of the day trying to lift up folks out of being unhoused and allow for them to have a successful transition into housing? So, with that, I'll call the question. Second: Second. Okay, we have a... the question's been called, and we'll call the roll on that motion. Mayor: Which question are we calling? Are we calling the amendment to the amendment? The question to vote on the amendment to the amendment, but do we need to... Okay, it's a vote on the amendment to the amendment, and Councilor Garcia has called for a vote. Except we don't have the amendment to the amendment in front of us. We do now. Okay. Did you provide that? Didn't have it. Okay. So, Madam Clerk, do you want to call the roll on the calling of the question? Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Please clarify. Calling the question on the vote that would require us to vote on the amendment to the amendment. Thank you. Yes. Councilor Marworth: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. So, the motion to amend Amendment A. That's right. Councilor Romero. The motion to amend Amendment A. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: No. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: No. Councilor Michael Garcia: No. Councilor Lindell: No. Mayor Weber: No. The motion does not pass. All the question on the amendment proposed. You call the roll on calling the question. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Marworth: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion to approve Amendment A. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Marworth: Oh, Councilor Cassett. Yes. And I'd like to explain my vote. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: No. Councilor Faulkner: No. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. And we have a vote explanation. Councilor Cassett: Thank you, Mayor. As I've stated, I do disagree with the substance piece. However, I think the reporting piece is very important. So, I wanted to make sure I voted for that. General recommendation, I know that we've talked about this before, but when we separate out our amendments, I think that's a good practice for us to do. So, just a thought there. Thank you. Thank you. So, we have the main motion as amended. Is there further discussion? Madam Clerk, can you call the roll on the main motion as amended? You're looking like I'm speaking a foreign language. We have a motion to approve this item, and it has been amended. So now we need to vote on the main motion as amended. Oh, I apologize. Was there another, Councilor Garcia, did you want to pursue another amendment at this time? Okay, we're good to go here. Main motion. Motion to approve 10B as amended by A and B. Correct. Let me just write this. Okay. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: No. And I'd like to explain my vote. Mayor Weber: Yes. Motion is approved. Very good. Councilor Garcia, you have the floor to explain your vote. Councilor Michael Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am 100% in support of initiating these micro-communities around our city. As I've mentioned previously in the past, I advocate for one to be in each district, but I don't advocate for, or well, I will not stand behind, when there is a lack of community engagement, and especially in the instances where the governing body has called for such community engagement to be conducted before any proposals are brought before us. Because of that, I almost feel like anything I say up here on the dais and requests for staff to work collaboratively with us, it just gets pretty much ignored. And I think it's evident that there is sufficient time for the city to initiate and engage with residents, and that is the priority. And I'm quite disappointed that we just continue to not engage the community, make decisions, and then tell them we're going to engage you after the fact. And that's not the way we should be conducting business. Thank you. Mayor Weber: Madam Clerk, could you take us to the next item on the agenda? Clerk: Next item, 18A, public comment on bills. First, public comment, no action. 18A, consideration of Bill Number 2025-14, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber and Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth, authorizing the issuance and sale of City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, tax-exempt general obligation improvement bonds, Series 2025, in the principal amount of $25 million, payable from ad valorem taxes levied on all taxable property within the city, levied without limit as to rate or amount, providing for the form, certain terms and conditions of the bond, the manner of their execution, and the method of and security for payment thereof, delegating authority to each of the Mayor, City Manager, and the City Finance Director to approve a form of notice of competitive sale of the bonds, for, if deemed advisable, the selection of underwriters to sell the bonds in a negotiated sale, and to determine the maturity dates and amounts, interest rates, prices, redemption features, and other final terms of the bonds in an award certificate, approving the form of an agreement for registrar and paying agent services to be provided by Bachna, and authorizing its execution and delivery, and providing for other details concerning the bonds. Is there a motion? Mayor Weber: Oh, it's a hearing. I'm sorry. I was so taken with your reading, I lost track of what we're actually doing. I thought that was a virtuoso performance. This is, in fact, an opportunity for public comment on this bill. If there's anyone here tonight who wants to come forward, or anyone in the Zoom room who wishes to address this bill, now would be the time to do it. Anybody in the Zoom room with a hand up? Clerk: There are currently zero attendees in the Zoom room. Mayor Weber: And I don't see anyone storming the podium here either. In which case, I think we should move on to the next item. Item 19, final action on legislation, public hearing. 19A, consideration of Bill Number 2025-11, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth and Mayor Alan Weber, a bill updating the rates and fees for wastewater utility services. Councilor: Move to approve. Mayor Weber: There's a motion and there is a second, but this is a public hearing. So, I would again offer an opportunity for anyone from the public who wants to come forward and speak on this item, or who is in the Zoom room, to address this piece of legislation. And I would offer everybody, anyone on the governing body who wants to speak on this legislation. Yes, sir. Now is your chance. Thank you. We need your name, but you have the floor. Floyd Cable: My name is Floyd Cable, and I'm talking about the utility rates, sir. And I just hope that, I know the city's made some efforts, but I hope the city will talk about the, I wouldn't say renewability, but the conservation of water resources. We get billed for water, but you know, I see endless development happening both within the city limits and outside, and I don't see any real serious address about how we are losing water resources at a rate that we cannot replenish. At the meantime, we're increasing the consumption and projecting out for tremendous consumption. I know that every city municipality around the country looks at growth as vital to its health. But we are now facing a not even a millennial drought, but an unprecedented drought. And to see the endless approvals for additional large complexes, or, and God help us if it were, you know, one of the high-tech settings that consume so much water. I, you know, I rightfully, I duly pay my utility bills. I pay my water bills. I get little nicks if my consumption ever gets too high. And but, and I pay my, I pay my share, but I'm concerned about even paying my share, what the city's doing to ensure it's not, I don't want to use a more cultural word, but furthering away its water resources. I'd like to see that be a component of the billing that the city sends out. Thank you. I know that Director Roach has been, it's a public hearing. Is, if I wanted Director Roach to speak to the question of our overall, what, what the water plans are regarding availability of water, is that out of order? Mayor Weber: Could be. Mayor Weber, Councilor, or Mayor Weber, Mayor Weber. I'm not sure I caught whether, how, how it relates to the topic. I'm not, I'm not sure. Does it relate to the bill in front of us broadly? It's not about wastewater spec. The concern was about our water resources going forward. Maybe Director Roach could answer whether that's related to the bill in front of us. I don't know if it is. Director Roach, do you want to just opine? Director Roach: Not the director. No, sir. Not yet. Floyd Cable: But the relevancy is that we're talking about communications, and you know, the cons, you know, what is the biggest concern in the West right now, politics aside, is water. Always has been, and it's even more so. Mayor Weber: You're not wrong, sir. It's just a question of, and I know it's, it's may not be pertinent to this particular legislation. Is it your main specific bill? Floyd Cable: But I think it's germane because we're talking about the public paying for potentially increased rates and not being assured that what they're paying for is going to continue to be there. Mayor Weber: Counselors, it doesn't sound like this is probably this bill, but likely the future water. It's a slightly different bill, but Jesse, do you have any? Jesse: Yeah, we actually, sir, Councilor Romero-Wirth has a good suggestion. We have a pretty good set of data, and Director Roach has even produced some very comprehensive presentations that we ought to get to you and to the public broadly. They are on the city's website, but your question prompts a direct answer to you. If you want to give us a way to send you an email with an attachment, I'd be happy to do that. Mayor Weber: Other public comment on this bill, or anybody outside the City Hall who's on Zoom on the bill? Clerk: No, no one in the Zoom. Mayor Weber: Members of the governing body who wish to oppose a question on this bill. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll? Clerk: Councilor Chavez. We'll get you that info, sir. Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Mayor Weber: Motion is approved. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse, for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you, governing body members. This is a great step forward. Next item, Madam Clerk. Clerk: Next item, public hearings, 20A, Appeal Number 202. This has been postponed. We postponed it at the beginning, took action to move to the 25th at the request of the individual. 21A, appointments, Mayor's Youth Advisory Board, Luis AOA appointment, term ending 12/2027. Quinn Blakesley appointment, term ending 12/2027. Councilor: Move to approve. Mayor Weber: There's a motion and a second. Is there discussion? Councilor: I just want to say that I'm super excited that we had two members of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board graduate, and we already have replacements for them. So that's very exciting. Good work on your part. Mayor Weber: Could you call the roll on these appointments? Clerk: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Aye. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell: Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Yes. Mayor Weber: Yes. Mayor Weber: Motion is approved. Thank you. And is there anything else on the agenda, Madam Clerk? Clerk: No, Mayor. There is not. Mayor Weber: In that case, we're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.