Regular Governing Body Meeting - Second Wednesday Wed, Nov 12, 2025 · Governing Body https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/267 == Executive Summary == The Governing Body held a Regular Meeting where key discussions included an internal audit of the city's financial close processes, an extensive update on the Midtown Redevelopment Project, and a lengthy debate on a proposed increase to the city's minimum wage. The internal audit, conducted by Baker Tilly, found that while financial processes are generally solid, documentation needs significant improvement. The Midtown project update detailed progress on infrastructure, legacy buildings, and potential development proposals, with councilors expressing strong support and appreciation for the project team's efforts. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to public comment and council debate on a proposed increase to the minimum wage, initially from $15 to $17.50 per hour, with an amendment proposed to raise it to $20. Public comments overwhelmingly supported a substantial increase, citing the high cost of living in Santa Fe. Councilors debated the economic impacts, the appropriate nomenclature ("living wage" vs. "minimum wage"), and the need for a wage that truly allows residents to afford basic necessities. The Governing Body also discussed a resolution to establish micro-communities for unhoused individuals in each city council district, focusing on equitable distribution of services and the process for site identification and community engagement. The meeting concluded with approvals for budget amendments, a motor grader lease, and several board appointments. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda with one item (9R) pulled from the consent agenda for discussion. - Approved the consent agenda as amended. - Approved a Budget Amendment Resolution (BAR) for $1 million from the general fund balance for the Shelby pedestrian bridge replacement. - Approved a lease agreement with John Deere Financial for a motor grader for streets maintenance, totaling $365,798 over a 5-year term. - Approved appointments to the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board, Immigration Committee, and Human Services Committee. - Approved an amendment to the motion regarding speeding and noise penalties, clarifying the speeding penalty at $100 and noise at $500. - Approved the main motion as amended regarding speeding and noise penalties. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda with item 9R pulled — Passed. - Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended — Passed. - Motion to strike specific duplicative language (lines 10 and 11 on page 4) from a proposed amendment — Passed 7-0. - Motion to call the question on the main amendment (as amended) — Passed 7-0. - Motion to approve the main amendment (as amended) regarding micro-communities — Passed 6-1. - Motion to amend the agenda to go to item 19B — Passed. - Motion to table the discussion on renaming the wage ordinance — Failed 4-4 (Mayor cast deciding 'No' vote). - Motion to change 'living wage' to 'minimum wage' in the ordinance — Failed 2-5. - Motion to approve a Budget Amendment Resolution (BAR) for Shelby pedestrian bridge — Passed 8-0. - Motion to approve a lease agreement for a motor grader — Passed 8-0. - Motion to suspend rules to extend the meeting beyond 11:30 PM — Passed 6-1 (Councilor Lindell voted no). - Motion to approve an amendment to the motion regarding speeding and noise penalties — Passed 7-0. - Motion to approve the main motion as amended regarding speeding and noise penalties — Passed 6-1 (Councilor Castro voted no). - Motion to approve appointments to the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board — Passed 7-0. - Motion to approve appointment to the Immigration Committee — Passed 7-0. - Motion to approve appointments to the Human Services Committee — Passed 7-0. == Public Comment == Public comments were primarily focused on the proposed minimum wage increase and the Midtown Redevelopment Project. Many low-wage workers shared personal stories of struggling to afford basic necessities in Santa Fe, strongly advocating for the wage increase. Business owners expressed concerns about the impact on profitability and the 'ripple effect' on wages for more experienced employees. There was also public comment regarding the city's progress on homelessness solutions, particularly micro-communities, and concerns about campaign sign violations during the recent election. == Topics == - Internal Audit Process - Traffic Enforcement Cameras - Affordable Housing Development - Water Utility Rates - Budget Amendments - State Legislative Priorities - Route 66 Centennial - Keep New Mexico Beautiful Grant - Community Support & Outreach - Mayoral Voting Change == Full Transcript == Michael, could I be made a panelist, please? Madam Clerk, are we anywhere close to streaming? Yes, we are streaming on YouTube. Very good. But in that case, according to my clock, it is 5:03 for a regular meeting of the governing body on November 12th. Let's begin with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilor Faulkner, a salute to the New Mexico flag led by Councilor Lindell, and then Councilor Romero Wirth, if you'll kick us off with some remembrances and an invocation. Please rise as you're able. Good evening, everyone. I am not going to do a prayer, but really more of a moment of reflection. Like many nights, we are here with big decisions in front of us. Tonight being no less so. And I think I just want to reflect on the work that goes into the decisions we make as the elected representatives of this community. It's our job, our responsibility to look at the proposals in front of us very carefully, to study the pros and cons, to look at the materials that are provided to us, to listen to the community with their various viewpoints, and to really dig in at a level that not everybody has time for because it's not their job, it's not their responsibility, but it is ours, and we take that on willingly. And I'm grateful for that role and honored to serve in that role. And I think as we make these decisions tonight, we know that we have done the work of weighing the choices, of connecting with community, of looking at the studies, looking at the experience, looking at the situations that we're trying to address. And in the end, each of us will, having done that work, weigh all that information and make judgments, make decisions using our judgment about what we think is best for the community. And I just want us to reflect on that. I want the community to reflect on that, that we don't go into this lightly. And in fact, there's a lot of work both in front of the public and at home in our offices, and meeting with constituents. And I just want to take a moment to think about the roles that we have, the work that goes into these decisions, and just a reflection, Mayor. That's all I have. Thank you. Are there remembrances tonight? I would just take this opportunity to reflect on the people here in Santa Fe and New Mexico and around the country who are unfortunately struggling with serious issues of food, serious issues of healthcare, serious issues of opportunity, and trying to make ends meet, not made any easier by things that are happening in our nation's capital. And so, it's incumbent upon all of us here to do our best to reach out to our neighbors, knowing that everyone here is a neighbor, we are all a community. And if someone needs help, they need support, if they're hungry, they're not healthy, they are alone, we all have the obligation and the responsibility. And it is part of the Santa Fe way of being to reach out to our neighbors and our community members in their time of trouble and lift them up. So let's take this opportunity when times are hard, through not the responsibility of people on their own, but broader forces, to be there for each other, to make sure that the burden of others is carried by those of us who can. Let's take a moment of reflection before we begin the meeting. Thanks, everybody. Madam Clerk, if you would please call the roll. Councilor Cassett. Here. Councilor Castro. Presente. Councilor Chavez. Here. Councilor Faulkner. Here. Councilor Lee Garcia. Here. Councilor Michael Garcia. Present. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Romero Wirth. Here. Mayor Weber. Present. You have a quorum. Thank you. Before we get into the business of the evening, the agenda and so on, I want to take a minute. We had a charter amendment voted on that will change the voting of the Mayor. And while that has not yet gone through the final process of being approved as a final decision of the voters, I respect it. And so tonight, I will only be casting a vote to break a tie. Because we haven't yet changed the way the charter is actually configured until the election is certified, that means that my vote will be recorded as an abstention unless there is a tie, in which case I will be allowed to pass the tie break. So, for the purposes of your keeping the vote tally, Madam Clerk, that's going to be my way of handling the election and the voters' decision. With that said, are there any changes to the agenda, Madam Clerk, that we need to be aware of? There are no changes to the agenda. Can we get a motion to approve? Motion to approve. There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion about the agenda? Councilor Garcia. I brought this to Deputy City Clerk's attention earlier. Item, was it R? There was an item that was duplicated that's on consent that should not be part of the consent, and just wanted for future reference, make sure folks don't think we passed it in consent and then we're hearing it again and or introducing it. So, Councilor Garcia, so what had happened was we published the agenda as it is right now all the way through R, and then as of this morning when we updated the Zoom link, it accidentally published as an S, which was a duplicate of what is on introduction. That was removed because it was not originally published like that. So, there is no longer an S on this agenda for the consent agenda. Okay, perfect. Just wanted to make sure. Great. Thanks for the clarification. So, we have a motion to approve the agenda and we've had conversation. Madam Clerk, could you call the roll? Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Romero Wirth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. And the consent agenda, Madam Clerk, what's been removed? One item has been pulled for discussion, 9R. And that was pulled by? I believe it was pulled by Councilor Garcia, but let me check. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So, can we get a motion to approve consent as? Move as amended. A second. There's a motion to approve consent as amended. Is there any discussion? Would you call the roll on that, please? Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Romero Wirth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you, Madam Clerk. So, with that, I believe we go to item 8A, if you want to announce. 8A, presentations. Month-end and year-end close internal audit. And here to speak on Zoom is Baker Tilly Representative Chelsea Richie. Thank you. Can you, if I share my screen, will everybody be able to see my screen? Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Well, nice to be here with you all tonight. It's been a while. I'm Chelsea Richie. I'm a director with Baker Tilly. And we are here to present to you all today the month-end and year-end close internal audit. This is Emily. Can I give a little bit of background before we dive into the report? Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening, Councilors, Mr. Mayor, members of the governing body. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you this evening to discuss the month-end and year-end close internal audit that was performed by Baker Tilly. Before I hand it over to Chelsea to dive into the details, I just wanted to provide a little bit of context for you on this report. The first thing that I wanted to highlight was that this is an internal audit project that's different than the external audit that we're currently undergoing with Carr, Riggs & Ingram. The external audit looks at three main areas. One is, are the financial statements fairly presented in accordance with governmental accounting principles? The second is our internal control structure, and the third is our compliance with federal grant requirements. So the external audit contains three different opinions on those three areas. Internal audit has more of a process focus. So you'll see as Chelsea takes you through this report, this is looking more at business processes and at documentation. The month-end and year-end close process has come a long way over the last three years. The internal auditors noted some areas for improvement, which I think we are excited about. They're definitely achievable things that we can do. The main area that I think I see in this report that we can really improve on is our documentation of processes. One thing that I was really gratified to see in having Baker Tilly take a look at the month-end and year-end close processes is that the process itself, as we described it and as we demonstrated it to Baker Tilly, seems to be pretty solid. The feedback from Baker Tilly is not necessarily that the process itself is not what it needs to be. It's more that we need to improve our documentation of those processes. So that was really good for me to see at this stage, about three years into this process, that the steps that we're doing are the right steps, and where we have opportunity for improvement, one of the main areas is with documenting what we're doing. So I do want to note that this, the issues that are noted here in the internal audit report, have not come up in the external audit before, and that's primarily because the focus is different. Like I said, this is a process-driven audit rather than looking specifically at compliance with generally accepted accounting principles, internal control standards, and federal compliance requirements for grants. And then, let's see, in one of the findings, there is language around a tabletop exercise. It's the third finding, and I just wanted to clarify on that one that that is in relation to business continuity for information technology systems. It was brought to my attention that there might potentially be some confusion about what type of tabletop exercise we were talking about there. So, I'll let Chelsea go into more detail about their findings, but I just wanted to clarify on finding number three, the tabletop exercise documentation that they're talking about related to an IT-led exercise on business continuity in the event of a catastrophic event that disabled our technology systems. It wasn't looking at something like an evacuation of the city in the event of a fire, something like that. There are different types of tabletop exercises. So, in this particular case, it had to do with, could we continue to operate from the finance perspective if our IT systems were compromised or we weren't able to access them? So, just to wrap up real quick before I hand it over to Chelsea, I really appreciate this work that Baker Tilly did. I appreciate them working with us on the process. We were also being audited by Carr, Riggs & Ingram at the same time and going through lots of other projects. So, one of the things that you'll see in the report is that the responsiveness from the finance department was not up to the level that we strive to achieve. That's an area for improvement that we're working with our team on, and we really appreciate Baker Tilly being patient with us and giving us extra time to provide documentation as part of this audit. So, this is a process audit of our month-end and year-end close process, and I'm looking forward to turning it over to Chelsea to take you through the project and their findings. Thank you. Elsie, you want to pick it up from there, please? Wonderful. Thank you so much, Emily. As Emily mentioned, this internal audit was really looking at month-end and year-end close processes, not anything number-wise, but really those internal controls in place and processes that the city has. As Emily also mentioned, there's been a lot of change in the past three years, and that's one of the reasons why this internal audit was brought up to be of high importance and something that the city wanted us to look into. We started this internal audit in February and we ended in October. The city has a lot of other things going on, especially in the finance world, and so there were times that their focus needed to be on other things. But I did want to point that out. We like to try to get these done relatively quickly just to get in and out of departments, and so when there is a lag, we want to explain why. There were three findings. As you're probably familiar with our last reports that you've seen, we do our findings in risk level definitions: high, so this could be a really high-risk negative impact to the city; medium risk; and then low risk. So, not a low likelihood of causing significant impact to the city, but still wanted to show its attention and improve efficiency and effectiveness. As Emily mentioned, there were three findings and recommendations. The first one was a lack of policies and procedures. The city has not developed written policies and procedures for the month-end and year-end financial close processes. Without having documented financial procedures, this really could lead to various financial risks as well as inconsistencies if people are not aware of what processes need to be done. So, really developing and implementing those written month-end and year-end close policies and procedures will provide more structure and guidance for employees involved in these key financial processes. I think that this really can be attributed to the lots of change that has been happening in these past three years. And so hopefully, talking with Emily and her team, this is something that they can definitely work on now as they're starting to solidify processes. Number two, the lack of formal review processes and documentation. This was also another medium risk. When we were looking at the June 2024 utility accounts receivable aging report as well as a citywide cash reconciliation, this was for September and December of 2024, we didn't see any evidence of review and approval. That's not meaning to say that there was no evidence of that review and approval, but we didn't see anything on the documentation. So really making sure that there are procedures around those formal review processes and approvals will be really important, showing that the city is doing their due diligence in this area. Last but not least, Emily also mentioned this. This was unavailable requested documentation. So we were not able to see some support on some recent tabletop exercises. These were really surrounding the city's disaster recovery around what would happen if data was lost for that month-end and year-end closing. And so making sure that that information is available, especially when auditors come around, is really important in making sure that they have procedures around this. These things will be really important to make sure that there's that required financial and control documentation maintained as well as readily available for purposes such as the audit. I did want to talk about some good things that we did see that came out of this audit. One is communication. As you'll see in the detail of this report, we did review and talk with a lot of different individuals across the city, and it does seem that the city does have solid month-end close communication, and they're making sure that these month-end tasks are done and completed timely. So, there is definite improvement around this area. And last but not least, talking to employees, we were really able to see that there was openness to feedback and they really want to make sure that they're doing the right thing when it comes to month-end and year-end processes and procedures. And so really, we're wanting to see recommendations come out of this report. With that, I will open up the floor to any questions or discussions. Thank you so much, Councilmember Worth, the chair of our Finance Committee. If you want to kick this off and then everybody will have a chance to either comment or ask questions. Thank you, Mayor. I did want to comment on this, and I just wanted to let everybody know we did have a good conversation about this at the Finance Committee on Monday. And I want to emphasize a few things. One, this month-end and year-end close process is a fairly new process for the city. We've been doing this, I believe, three fiscal years now. And I think the timing of this audit is very timely so that we review what we've been doing before we get into any bad habits or people get accustomed to one way and then we have to retrain in another way. So I think the timing of this is very good. I also just want to note we initiated as part of our internal audit plan a review. We asked for this audit. And I think that's an important piece. It is an important part of getting accurate and timely financial statements for the audit so that we are on time. And I would also just note that our Audit Committee, which is made up of members of our community with a lot of financial background, really an incredible group, has also reviewed these findings and has made some suggestions and has commented. So I just want people to understand the thoroughness of this information. It's timely, and I just think it shows a lot of responsibility and oversight on our part that we've initiated and that we've done to make sure that we're doing what we should be doing. And now that we know the process itself is good, I know that we'll work quickly to get it written down so that we don't lose it as we transition, whether it's employees or other actors that need to know the process, and so that it takes the test of time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Let me just go to my right. Let me start with you, Councilor Castro. We'll just go down the line. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director. Thank you, everyone, for the presentation. I just have a couple questions on timeline. Are we planning to implement some of these new procedures for the new fiscal year? Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councilors. Councilor Castro, yes, I think these are things that we can implement during the current fiscal year. As far as what I would recommend in response to these findings, for finding number one, we need to write down what we do. We were able to describe it and we were able to demonstrate it to Baker Tilly. We just don't have it written down. And today's world, "written down" could mean different things. There are software that you can use to capture clicks and document procedures that way. We can record videos of people doing the process, we could take screenshots and write down words. There's lots of different ways to capture documentation of processes. So, now that we've had an outside look by an independent organization, Baker Tilly, taking a look at what we're doing and providing us with some validation that it's the right thing, that we're doing the right things, we're now ready to move forward with that documentation. So that one, we know how to do that. We need to basically just allocate time on people's schedules to prepare that documentation. Number two, what this one is, these reconciliations, the AR aging report and the cash reconciliations, these existed and we were able to provide them to Baker Tilly. What was lacking here was evidence that a person other than the one who prepared the report or the reconciliation had reviewed and approved it. So that doesn't necessarily mean that that review and approval didn't happen. It just means we didn't document it. And that's a real easy fix. What that could be is just something like putting a date stamp with the reviewer's name and the date that they reviewed it onto those reports, incorporating that into our business process. So that's very achievable as well. The last finding relates to documentation of things that happened in the past. The tabletop exercise occurred in 2023. So, it's hard to go back and recreate documentation of things that happened in the past, but on this one, we can use it as a lesson learned as far as making sure that we're retaining documentation for key events like tabletop disaster recovery exercises in a location where folks can access it and can find it. One of the issues that we had here was that there was turnover in the area that hosted the disaster recovery exercise. And all of the people that had been involved in the planning and the execution of that event were, they weren't at the city anymore. So, we know that that documentation exists. We just couldn't locate it, and that turnover played a big role there. So, making sure that we're developing shared files and repositories of documents and information that are accessible and that are known by multiple staff members is really key to addressing that issue going forward. So from where I sit in the Finance Department, I think these are things that we can address in the current fiscal year. Wonderful. Thank you, Director. That's great to hear. Kudos on all of the hard work. And also to Councilor Maroworth's point, I think it's wonderful that we are willing to take this internal look, and all over this report says that you're willing to do the work. So, thank you so much, and no further questions. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for everything you do, Director. I think this is very proactive, and this is what we need to be doing so that we make sure we're on track and true to our word that we won't end up in situations that we have been in the past. I am just wanting clarity on number one, though, just because I imagine that we probably have a strong foundation of some written communication because I would imagine we have been communicating a process by email. We've been having agenda items in leadership. I imagine there's some type of foundation because it seems like we were able to complete this successfully, which means departments knew what they needed to do. So I just wanted to see if you can just inform us a little bit about what communication has looked like so far with this so that, because I think it will be evident that there is a strong foundation, that this is very achievable. We just need to put it in writing, put it in a process, maybe put it in training so we have it readily available, everyone's hearing the same messaging. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilors. Councilor Chavez, thank you for the question. It's a really good one. I can talk about some of the communication that we're currently doing, and then I can also maybe look to Chelsea to talk about additional things that they would recommend that we add as we move forward. In terms of communicating our month-end and year-end close processes, we have an email that our controller group sends out to city staff each month notifying them that the month-end close is approaching. We typically try to do the month-end close by about the 20th of each following month. Our controller group, sometimes Josie Balden or Clayton Pelich from our controller group, will send out an email reminding people that we're getting close to month-end close and that it's time to wrap up any activity from the previous month and get it into the system. Another example of communication that we send out citywide about the month-end and year-end close process is our year-end closing memo. We have about an eight or nine-page memo that we sent out in March and continued to send out throughout the spring and summer, detailing important deadlines and key dates in the year-end close process. That memo is something that we developed three years ago, I think was the first time that we did that, and we've continued to evolve it and develop the processes. One thing that was exciting this year that we had struggled with in the past was that we were able to load the approved budget earlier this year and make it so that users could start entering requisitions for the new fiscal year before the start of the fiscal year. That was something we had really struggled with in the past, that folks had to wait until after July 1st to start entering their requisitions. This year, we were able to make that available a week earlier so folks could have more time to start preparing for the new fiscal year. So, for the month-end process, the primary communication that we have going out is that email that comes from the controller group. Then, for the year-end process, we have our year-end close memo which covers a lot of key dates and events throughout the spring into the early fall timeframe. Additional documentation that we have is an internal checklist that we're using in the finance department for journal entries and adjustments that we need to make at the end of each fiscal year. These are things that we do once a year and it's easy to forget. But we've created a checklist. Our accounting officer, Matt Bonifer, has put together a checklist. So, as we were working through our internal processes in finance for year-end close, we were able to go through that checklist and say, "Okay, did we do this? Did we do that?" just move through those different journal entries and different things that we needed to check before we finalized our trial balance. We also have some documentation from the Munis, from Tyler, the creator of the Munis software, about how the system functionality works for month-end and year-end close. Patrick Lucero, whom we recognized at the Finance Committee on Monday night, has really been our expert in that area of what are all the steps that we have to do in the system to close a month and to close the year. So we have some documentation that was provided by Tyler that we use as part of that process, and then we've created videos of ourselves actually doing it to document what issues we've run into and how we resolved them. So we're working through this. We have some documentation, and we are really trying to make sure that communication is robust throughout the city about month-end and year-end close. I feel really good about where we are compared to three years ago, just in the way we talk about month-end and year-end close. It wasn't something that was really part of our regular conversation when I first joined the team here at the city. And now, when we say, "Oh, month-end close is coming up," people all around the city say, "Oh, yeah, okay. I need to finish this." It's just kind of established that consistent routine each month. That's really important to staying on track so that we're not behind when we reach the end of the fiscal year. So, are we looking for bringing, because that's a lot of written process to me. So, I'm just trying to understand the goal that we're trying to accomplish then, because it seems like our staff has written reference in this process already. So, we're looking more at centralizing that process in a package of some sort. Is that what the difference is? I'm just trying to figure out that difference. Yeah. Thank you, members of the governing body and Councilor Chavez. I think it would be great for Chelsea to talk a little bit more about what specifically they would recommend there. But I do think bringing it all together into a comprehensive package is a piece that I think would be helpful. Yes, thank you, Emily. I will say I think having everything in a centralized location is really important. I think different departments might have processes that they believe are how they're supposed to close their year-end or month-end process, but it's not centralized to the city. So, if you look at page eight of the report, we do list out what really should be developed in that written policy. So, talking about roles and responsibilities of who should be doing certain procedures through the month-end process. Also including a close calendar and deadlines. So, when a reconciliation needs to be completed, who's going to approve it, who's going to review it, what are the different types of close procedures, as well as review and approval requirements. We think another really important thing to talk about is the documentation and record retention. How long does a city need to have this information for both month and year-end would be something that you would also want to include in this policy. Another really important thing that we always like to talk about is the use of technology and tools. How is the ERP system involved? What are the different processes for the different types of technology that the city uses for their month and year close? And then last but not least, we really recommend in all policies and procedures to have some kind of training and communication. So, when is this policy going to be renewed? How are employees supposed to understand and learn this documentation? Is it done on an annual basis or when they start a new position? That sort of thing. Thank you so much, Chelsea. All right. So, it seems like we have a good foundation. We're missing some components, and we need to centralize it. And I agree, when everything's in writing, we're able to train so that everyone is understanding everything the same way, right? Which reduces the chance for error. So, I think that there is a foundation there. I appreciate your work as always. Thank you so much. And I think this is a great step to just continue making sure we're on track. So, thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Mr. G. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Director Oster, Deputy City Manager Phillips, and Ms. Richie for the presentation. Ms. Richie, can you help me understand how we determine risk? Ultimately, we rate each finding and determine whether it's high, medium, or low risk. Absolutely. This is really professional judgment, I think, is number one, but it's also factors and inputs that we have learned from the city. So, thinking about what we've learned from the risk assessment, what we know to be inherently risky for cities the size of the City of Santa Fe. Those are all inputs that we like to consider when we're thinking about this professional judgment of the different type of risk. Okay. So there's not like a matrix, a scoring calculator, or anything like that. It's just up to the individual to say, "Well, I feel this is a high," when actually maybe a colleague of yours could have said this is a medium or potentially a low, right? You know, I think that when we look at our findings, hopefully how we describe our findings would help assess for the reader why we chose that high, medium, or low. This is also talking with management as well. So, before any of these reports are ever provided to any committee or to the City Council, we're talking with the city and making sure that they believe that we're on the right track. And if they don't believe that we're on the right track, we explain in our report what led us to those decisions. Gotcha. Gotcha. And so, thank you for that clarification. And so, given what you said, I'm having trouble trying to understand why not having standard operating procedures wouldn't be considered a high risk. Because I look at it in this context: if Director Oster and Deputy City Manager Phillips and anybody else dealing with this process were to hit the lottery and leave working for the city tomorrow, how are we going to know how to get the work done, which in my opinion is a high risk? Yeah. I will definitely give Emily a chance to talk about this. I will say that, just from the conversation we had tonight, there are processes in place and staff members, although they might not be in a centralized location, there is a process that different departments within the city are doing. So, while they might not be centralized in one location, they do have a process down and employees do understand how this functionality works, which would probably make us not have it as a high risk. Now, if you were talking about procurement or something that is inherently risky, just talking about those words, that might change our view of if you didn't have a procurement policy. But talking about month-end and year-end and understanding the situation that this has been an ever-changing process for the city the past three years, I think there are lots of different inputs of why we chose this to be a medium risk. Okay. Thank you for that. I really appreciate that, and I applaud Director Oster for getting the month-end closeout process initiated because that's, I think, what was leading to us really being in a challenging predicament getting our audits completed. And so, I guess given that these findings have been addressed, and it sounded like from Councilor Castro's question that are we working to comply, where are we at? I mean, I know that it said we just need to put it on paper, but we start off with a plan to put it on paper. Do we have that plan to put it on paper? What does it look like? Do we have a timeline when we're going to get these SOPs in place? Can you help me understand a little more? Certainly. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, Councilors, Councilor Garcia, thank you for the question. I think the plan is really to continue to work with staff every day to develop documentation of the processes that they're doing, both around month-end and year-end close, but just in general as well. When I first came here to the city, we were not in a place where we really had the bandwidth to dedicate resources to that. But we were working to build up our staffing and work through a backlog of things that needed to be taken care of. Now that we're caught up and we're current, we can allocate staff time to documenting procedures, and like we were talking about, there's many different ways of doing that. But as far as what is the plan to do that, I think from my perspective as leadership, it involves demonstrating it myself. So, documenting the processes that I'm doing myself and sharing that documentation with others, encouraging others to do the same, and asking a lot of questions about documentation just to make sure that that's ingrained. One of our goals and objectives for the current fiscal year has to do with developing a culture of documentation in the Finance Department and really cultivating that. That goal was brought forth by our controller, and I really appreciate that wording. This particular process falls mostly in the office of the controller, so I know that our controller really understands and embraces that. We're actually incorporating that into our goals and objectives for the current fiscal year to just really build that into the culture of our department. So, I would say it's a day-to-day effort, a work in process, and it requires a conscious effort to slow down and take the time to document processes and also update them. As Chelsea mentioned, it's not a static thing. So, when you document a process, you're not done forever. You have to continue to update that and re-evaluate your internal controls as the environment changes, as the IT systems change, as accounting standards change. Things around us are always changing. So, they sometimes refer to it as a process of continuous improvement. I think Moss Adams or Baker Tilly uses that language here. So that would be my answer there. I think the primary way that we're working on these findings is by cultivating and really focusing on developing that documentation culture in everything we do in the Finance Department. Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Director, in regards to timeline, do we have a specific timeline that we're looking to have these SOPs in place? Mr. Mayor and members of the governing body, Councilor Garcia, I think the end of the fiscal year is a realistic timeline for these. I'm hoping some of these are fast, some of these we can do quickly. A comprehensive written policy or process for all of the activities associated with month-end and year-end close is quite a bit. So, I'll say by June 30th, but with the goal of having that done earlier and just focusing on documenting as we go everything that we're doing through the process. As an example, we just completed the MUNS part of the year-end close process last week in the MUNS system, and we took a video of the team doing that process. So we have that to start with, and we can take screenshots from the video, and we can provide additional context about what we're doing. But we're doing it as we go. So I think by June 30th feels achievable to me for these findings. Mayor: Okay. Thank you so much. And would that timeline also be in place with finding number two, which was also a medium risk? Mr. Mayor, Councilors, Councilor Garcia, I think this one we might be able to get done faster because, as I said, in response to Councilor Castro's question, this is really adding one more step to our review process where the reviewer, maybe they sign off and they date it, or they use an electronic stamp. One of the things that I want to avoid with this documentation is a kind of unconscious slip back into paper. I don't want to print out a 150-page AR aging report for utilities every month just so we can have somebody physically sign it. I think we can do that electronically. We can print the report to PDF and then have somebody use an electronic signature and date stamp to document the review and approval. Same thing with the cash reconciliations. Those are Excel spreadsheets. And I think adding just a box is one thing I've seen in the past that shows the reviewer's name, the review date, and if it was approved or if there were changes needed. So, that one I think we could probably complete, I'm going to say by March 31st, end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year. Thank you, Director Oster. I appreciate that and the aggressive timeline on that last finding. Just to kind of reiterate what I always do when we have audits: audits are there to help us improve. A lot of folks look at it as, "Well, it's all negative, and we just got to make excuses for it," so to speak. And it's a way for us to learn where there are weaknesses, but more importantly, where we need to improve. So, thank you for already setting the wheels in motion, whether it's the recording of processes with staff or thinking about how you can add these signature boxes with timestamps. I mean, because ultimately, as you mentioned, processes are going to continuously change. Technology changes, and we need to make sure that as everything moves forward, we know that there's going to be steps that need to be added some way, shape, or form. So, thank you for what you're doing, and thank you, Mr. Richie, for the update. No other questions, Mr. Mayor. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Mendell. Councilor Mendell: Thank you, Mayor. So, Director, I don't have any real specific questions on this. I've been watching this process for a while, and I don't think that there's been any department that's been more highly scrutinized than the Finance Department over the last few years. And it wasn't always with a tone of getting better, a critical tone a lot of times. And you just kept your head down and kept working and put together a team that you always encouraged, and you turned down the volume of the noise, and you got it done. And I'm eternally grateful, and I hope that the citizens of Santa Fe are eternally grateful also because it was a mammoth, huge, big deal, and there was a horrible amount of noise, and it wasn't right. You couldn't have worked any harder, and you worked smart, and you worked efficiently, and look where we are today. It's really something. No department that I've watched since I've been here for 12 years has shown the improvement that the Finance Department has shown in the last several years. The department's a beacon in this city of what happens when you put the right team together, you have the right leadership, and the way you encourage people. It's a totally changed environment, and I'm really very, very grateful to you that you held that team together, and you didn't let people just peel off. In fact, they didn't just peel off. You brought in some of the most talented workers that we have in this city. So, I don't have any specific questions about this. It's all going in the right direction, and I'm deeply grateful to you and your team. Thank you very much. Mayor: Council Faulkner. Councilor Faulkner: Well, some of my colleagues have already asked the questions that I was going to ask. The luxury of being in the middle of the day is I do want to say I'm super encouraged that we are being proactive about audits, that we are seeking our own audits and external audits, and a lot of things that are what a good organization does. And I do want to praise you, Director, you're a very strong leader, and you can tell by the way that the people in your department feel about working under you, and you can tell by the way that you, of course, corrected the city. And so I'm very pleased to see that we are proactively, now that we've got the audits out of the way, we're proactively trying to create a situation where we will never have to be in that place again. And so I just want to commend you on that, and thank you for all your work. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Council member Worth, you want to, we're good with you. Councilor Cassidy, you're zooming in. Do you want to take the microphone, please? Councilor Cassidy: Thank you, Mayor. Just briefly, again, thank you for all the work. I know we had a good discussion in finance, and I appreciate Councilor Lindell hearkening back to where we've been because it reminded me of when we had the real delay in the audit. It was that March of 20-something, I don't remember, but when things really got challenging for a minute. And I know that the month-end and year-end close process were really at the center of some of the biggest challenges that we were seeing. So I do want to recognize you and your team, and the fact that we had this process reviewed so quickly. That was a great decision to have this be one of the priorities of the internal audit plan because we know that this is a really big issue. It's been something that we have needed to address, and it is really fresh. So I think that that's a really wonderful opportunity when we're doing something new. I think my only comment would actually be that would be for Deputy City Manager Phillips and Manager Scott about this kind of this idea that we don't have our processes written down is not unique to finance. We've heard about this in other departments where we're really concerned about somebody who's getting close to retirement because they've been there for 25 years, and all the knowledge is in their brain and not anywhere else. So, I think that this is actually a good opportunity for us to think about being proactive of where else do we have processes, whether it's in the Finance Department or Parks or Land Use or wherever it may be, that we know we don't currently have written down. And that we have just these incredible brains of these amazing staff members that if we do not have those, we would be in a little bit of trouble. Or on the flip side, I've seen scenarios where a process has been developed, and it's what is kind of decided is the practice that we do at the city, but when you actually look at the written down process, it doesn't match. So, I think this is a really good opportunity for us to realize that this is not going to be unique to finance, that there are processes that need to be written down that are not. I see that there's a mic. Yep. Go ahead. Deputy City Manager Phillips: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor, and Mr. Mayor, members of council. I absolutely agree with you. I was standing here kind of shaking my head, "Yes, yes, yes." Documenting processes and procedures is an issue that's pervasive to all communities and all organizations, especially with changing technologies, and just, it's something that is a constant work in process. So that's definitely something that is a core function of the City Manager's Office and something that we are looking at beyond these internal audits. What can we do citywide? So it is part of that succession planning to ensure that we have that continuity of operations as staff turns over, as it inevitably does. But also making sure that we're really training people on the processes that are written down as well, and then having a constant look at and continuous improvement if we need to make some adjustments there. Are there ways that we can do it better, faster, cheaper? Are there ways that we can eliminate steps and still get the same outcome and still have our internal controls in place? So, I absolutely agree with you, and it's something that we are definitely working on even beyond this internal audit. Councilor Cassidy: Well, that's wonderful to hear, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not surprised to hear that given the professionalism of the team in the City Manager's Office that I cannot praise enough, and really the forward thinking that we have seen from this team. So, thank you. I'm glad to hear that. Mayor: Councilor, I think the City Manager has his hand up to add a little race note to the question. City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilor, and I'll be quick. I just want to not only thank Andrea Phillips for how hard she's worked on those issues since she's been here, but in the back row, I also want to acknowledge our colleague Rod Gould, who has been leading internal process improvement all year long. And we're working on procurement process, we're working on recruitment process, we're working on budget process, we're working on employee evaluation process. All of those systems are under improvement, and so I appreciate the comment and assure you all that these are things that we're doing. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Back to you, Councilor Cassid. Thank you. And thank you, City Manager Scott. That is again wonderful to hear, and also I'm not surprised given the team that has been assembled, because really that experience and that professionalism in the realm of city management as a profession, having you all here has been really incredible, and I think that we really will benefit from the changes and assessments that you're making. Nothing other than that, nothing else. Thank you, Ms. Richie, for being here, and Director Oster, as Councilor Lindell stated, you have really just been such an incredible leader, and I know that a lot of times it seemed like people should be tearing you down, and they did, as opposed to really recognizing the incremental steps that you have taken to get us here. So I just really want to recognize you and your team, your incredible finance team, who obviously we get to see a lot of during budget hearings and at Finance Committee, but you have just an incredible team behind you, and really appreciate all your leadership. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Lee Garcia, sir, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate the, I really like the presentation, and thank you for all the work that you've done, Director. I think in the past, I have been one of those individuals up here on the dais that have been somewhat critical about what we're doing, but I think it's important that as elected officials, those by the people of our community and responsible for taxpayers' dollars, it's important that we do it in good taste, but that we keep people accountable. And I think that's very important for us to understand and realize. And all kudos to you, Director Oster. I mean, you know, this city was in a deep, dark place when I came on board with this, and before that, with our audits, with where we were, being able to even having a, needing to have a fiduciary agent to handle our money because we weren't in a good place. And so we've come a long way, and because of your team and your leadership, I think we're at this juncture now. And so I do really appreciate that. And I think that it is our responsibility as elected officials to have those hard questions and ask those, and it's our right and responsibility to do so. Again, kudos to you. There obviously is always going to be work to do. I don't care if it's a small business, a government entity, there's always work to be done. There's always improvement that can happen. And I think as collectively we can always put our heads together, we'll be in a better space in the future. So thank you. Mostly comments, nothing about the audit. Appreciate Baker Tilly and all the work and the work that the city has done in collaboration with them as well. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mayor, any other comments before we call it? Just want to thank you all for the presentation tonight and for the work that went into getting it ready for the evaluation. Thank you to our outside consultant. Much appreciated. And it is, as has been said, the whole purpose of a management audit, as separate and apart from a fiscal audit, the whole point of a management audit is to learn how to do things better. It's self-evaluation and self-improvement. So this is a pretty good scorecard, but there's still work to be done, and there will be already work that has been done that continues to make us a better-run organization. So thank you to you all, and kudos. Much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and City Councilman. Thank you so much for joining us. Madam Clerk, you want to take us to the next presentation? Item 8B, Midtown Update. And here to speak is City Manager Mark Scott and Asset Development Manager Carly Vendetti. I imagine that you're going to take the microphone lead on this. That is correct. Thank you, Mayor. I will be setting up and I will begin shortly. Thank you. We will wait with bated breath to see if the technology works. Fingers crossed. Oh, look at you go. Excellent. Well, it seems to be working. Thank you, Mayor, members of the governing body. We appreciate the time this evening to update you on the progress of the Midtown Redevelopment Project. Before I get started, I'd like to thank Interim MRA Director and, of course, City Manager Mark Scott for his leadership over the past couple months, as well as those partners in this effort, including Public Works for their continued collaboration and all of you. So before we dive into the meat of the presentation, it's important that we get back to where we began, looking at the vision of Midtown, where we attempt to build an inclusive new city center to foster creativity, culture, and economic opportunity. Of course, to achieve this vision, we must stick to our plans, those redevelopment plans being the community plan and the master plan. How I describe these to anyone on a given day is the master plan helps us build the built environment. How so? How will we do it? And the community plan describes for whom and how. Of course, these two are united by four principles: honoring the environment, designing for equity, creating a local economy, and embracing our culture, all at the same time. So to look at Midtown is to look at the greater Midtown neighborhood. And when I say the greater Midtown neighborhood, 64 acres has been the College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, as well as Runs Army Hospital back in the day, but it exists within a larger context. So we went ahead and created this graphic to kind of better describe where it's situated. The Midtown site, of course, at the center here in darker black. Darker gray is the Midtown Metropolitan Redevelopment Area, previously outlined in 2016 as the Midtown Link and identified as the redevelopment area by all of you earlier this summer. That is, of course, supported by local businesses, schools, community centers, and neighborhoods and the neighboring communities that are both named as neighborhood associations as well as unnamed neighborhoods. Across Serios, we have Casa Allegre. Across St. Michael's, we have Hope Man. Some of the neighborhood associations also include Rancho Seringo, Santa Fe Midtown, Casa del Cero, Casa Carlos Ray. I don't have to tell all of you that this is the convergence of three different districts. So looking back at our progress starting in 2018 when the university closed, the city began its efforts. We assumed the property and subsequently began community engagement. Support at that time was unprecedented, and we continue to feel support in that way. The city continued with RFP solicitations later on for the Legetta Designed Visual Arts Center and the Greer Garson Studios at the south of the site. In 2023, the MRA was established, and negotiations began between interested parties. 2024 brought a unanimous approval of the Aspect Media Village DDA. And now on to 2025. This is where our main meat of the update begins. We've continued with pre-development work across our legacy buildings. We've continued infrastructure design. We are currently at 60%. We've contracted with a demolition vendor. We've received development proposals. And we continue planning efforts. So where we are now, when I say legacy buildings, I am alluding to four different structures. Some would also say seven. The Lego buildings, which is the Visual Arts Center, is comprised of quite a few buildings. The Greg Garson Theater is at the north of the site along with Fogson Library, both which were designed by Philippe Register, as well as the Garson Studios to the south, now under control by Aspect Media Village. The Garson Theater and Foggen Library are now under the stewardship of our part-time project manager Nia Mack, who has become familiar with the current conditions as well as the quirks of those buildings. Over the past couple years, there's been quite a bit of collaboration between Public Works and the Arts and Culture Department to work on assessment reports done by Wilson & Company, RMKM, as well as a feasibility study that is underway with Art Space and Auto Trove. This feasibility study, while it's not complete, has recommended an approach that retains the Garson Theater as a city-owned local performing center for local creative groups. We look forward to sharing the findings of that report in the near future once it's been finalized. As for Fogson, most recently the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration awarded a $100,000 grant to Fogson, which we are working with Public Works to deploy. In many cases, we're looking at the archival of all of the current collections. As part of our broader effort to revitalize both the legacy buildings and the campus at large, we're currently at 60% design completion for infrastructure in collaboration with our team led by WSP, as well as engineers from Wilson & Company and landscape architects from the company Work. In that case, it is WERK. Don't want to confuse anyone in that case. Infrastructure design includes everything from the right-of-way planning to roads, sidewalks, innovative green stormwater infrastructure, also called GSI, on-street parking, EV parking, landscaping down to the detail of individual tree irrigation, as well as the parks. This section right here is a sneak peek at the 5.9-acre Arroyo Park. Not only can you see to the north some of the age-appropriate play infrastructure, but there are many paths meandering along the way and shared-use paths on the right side connecting to St. Michael's. Many members actually attended our Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission meeting last week to get a briefing of the 60% infrastructure update from our engineering team. Of course, demolition must take place as outlined in the Midtown Master Plan to achieve any of this. From infrastructure to development, it needs to happen. So there's room and the right resources to move forward. Lasal Hall and the student apartments are slated for demolition first. These buildings were chosen with the help of Public Works. The student apartments are likely the easiest to come down in the place of the future Arroyo Park because they are stick and stucco composition, while Lasal is identified as one of the behemoths on campus built by CMU block and quite a bit of additional concrete. So that is directly behind the, on the photo here, directly behind the band shell where you can see where future central spine infrastructure will go. Ongoing development. A lot of the progress that we see these days can be attributed to Aspect Media Village, but I would love to start with some of the progress the MRA is bringing forward, including the removal of SFUAD signage. I know the first time I went to campus, I had no idea where I was headed for emergency services, and it was very difficult to find my way around. Not only are we removing this, we're working with a vendor, Rustic Nomad, to work through wayfinding signage as well as entry signage at both St. Michael's and Seringo Road. So these are the proposed conceptual signage renderings. We're still working to finalize these and move forward with additional signage at Suringo. As I said, we will be reusing the concrete bases and foundations. Moving along to Aspect Media Village progress to the southwest of the site. Aspect Media Village includes the legacy building I included earlier, the Greg Garson Studio, as well as Driscoll Hall. Onate Hall was actually demolished at the end of this summer, early fall, and Art House continues to take shape as the 129-unit development adjacent to Philip's properties on the site. Looking at the progress on campus, Greg Garson has been stuccoed and painted. As you can see here, it's in great shape, and Aspect Media Village continues to diversify their tenant portfolio. They are actually the new home of Wise Fool Circus, our local circus here. They have a wonderful space in Greg Garson Studios. In addition, the screen is framed out and awaiting seat installation. Hopefully, you can see it in the second photo here, some of the framing done. Seats are waiting to be installed. That will be the 13th cinema at Sky Cinemas. And finally, Aspect Driscoll, the last photo here included, will be the brick-and-mortar home of Tender Fire Kitchen. The screen and Tender Fire Kitchen are both likely to open within the next 60 days. Moving along to proposed development. The city went out for direct disposition of properties as of April 4th, closing that period disposition on June 20th. There were eight parcels up for disposition. Those are all in dark gray here. There are varying sizes, and we received quite a few proposals. All of those proposals were accepted and evaluated based on criteria as mandated by the master plan. Mandatory criteria from the master plan include complying with affordable housing, inclusionary housing, not allowing any short-term rentals across the site, job creation, access to jobs, as well as communication with the Santa Fe community. Other priority evaluation criteria in this case include those from the community development plan. While they're not mandatory, they are taken into account when we are reviewing them. Those include prioritizing metrics like long-term affordability, supporting local businesses, job training, community programs, and commitment to the public arts. So, I have two proposals that we've received that we would like to move forward with as an agency. The first one being for the Blue Mesa Center for the Arts. This is right at the entrance of St. Michael's, right beyond that signage I showed you previously and above the park. This is parcel H1A as proposed by Dr. Glenn Ericson. And it includes a mix of uses including arts lofts similar to Siler Yards. In addition to live-work units, this developer has proposed a cafe, a public institutional use, and potentially an art store. This site plan is strictly conceptual at this time. It's still very early in the process. In addition to this proposal this evening, we have one for the New Mexico Innovation Hub on two parcels, J1A and J1B. This project is led by David Perez. As part of this proposal, the team submitted very early renderings, very, very early renderings. Included here, some of the proposed uses include bioscience, office space, climate tech, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and workforce training in addition to housing as well. To learn more about the Innovation Hub, you may visit their website, New Mexico Innovation Hub. And then finally, while this is not a proposal, this is something that the agency is looking forward to submitting to the public for RFP, and it is a 100% affordable project as called for in the community development plan with steep affordability. These renderings are from the master plan. This site K1B is adjacent to the visual arts center and future civic uses. While it is not a proposal yet, it will likely go out as I said as RFP, likely for a 4% LITC deal due to the current landscape of federal funding. So, finally, we have planning initiatives that are ongoing with the agency. As mentioned, we have undergone the metropolitan redevelopment area designation. Thanks to all of you, this past summer, we worked through the area designation as well as the criteria required through the state statute. There is another visit to the governing body required in this case where we must move forward with an ordinance to require the adoption of the plan. This plan would then include delegating commissioner authority as well as strategies to alleviate the criteria previously identified in the first ordinance. Last but not least is the Hopewell Mann neighborhood stabilization plan. This effort is, of course, to hopefully stabilize Hopewell Mann due to the unforeseen or potentially foreseen gentrification that could occur with the development of Midtown. This was also called for by the community development plan and is led by the team Mass Design within the Hopewell Mann neighborhood in addition to Chainbreaker Collective, Santa Fe Indigenous Center, as well as Ideas and Action. This program is well underway. We were in the learn phase, well into understanding what our desk research is and ground-truthing that with the community. We look forward to evaluating stabilization strategies in early February in the form of a workshop and the prioritization of these strategies mid-March. So I am happy to stand for questions. There is an open invitation to both the site of Midtown as well as to send me an email if this brought up any additional inquiries for you. But in the meantime, I do invite Interim MRA Director Mark Scott to further update you on policy. Mayor: Thank you for that. Mark Scott: Mr. Mayor, members of the governing body, I know I'm not speaking loud enough. I'll move this up. Mayor: Thank you. Mark Scott: I just want to say thank you to Carly Vendetti. I mean, she's been amazing, absolutely amazing. In the time I've been able to work with Carly, Carly has the spirit of the master plan down cold. She's just absolutely committed to this and makes sure that everything we do stays, keeps the integrity of the plan. We're very lucky that Carly is here doing this. I just have a few things I wanted to talk about following up to what she did. The five dots are just up there because I didn't have PowerPoint and she had a leftover slide. So I said, "Put the five dots up that way you all will think I have a power." There are some things that are going to happen in the next year for the next governing body that I think are critically important. The momentum in Midtown has really picked up. As recently as when I started in February, I was hearing from people all over, "Yeah, will it ever happen?" It's going, it's moving very aggressively at this point on many fronts. All of the work that the Aspect Media Village work is significant. The infrastructure work. We have weekly meetings with the infrastructure team and go over minutia of detail. The plans, they may be 60% plans, but you could almost build from them. They're already developed to such a level of detail. I'm quite sure that these plans are going to make it to 100% completion by mid-spring, which essentially means that our infrastructure plan will be shovel-ready. In talking to officials from the state, that of course is very important to them. They want to make sure that we spend the money they've allocated, and we want to spend it, and we're going to be geared up to move on that. The other half of that issue, however, is once we have shovel-ready plans, we need to be ready on our financing plan. So, early in this, in this next year, it's going to be time to bring to the governing body some proposals on actual financing to get started. If you look at the options for financing, and it'll be all of the above. I mean, this isn't one of those. We're talking about something in the $60 to $70 million range on infrastructure, counting contingency. That does not include Ver Garson Theater, does not include Fogelson, does not include a parking structure, but it includes the rest of what you've, what Carly went through. It includes the green spaces, the Arroyo Park. I'm very excited about the two park areas and the design that's coming on that. Those are included in the cost estimate. But when we look at what the options are for funding it, obviously one of the big ideas behind any redevelopment agency is TIFF funding, the tax increment financing. We've had an analysis done of that. It's very promising as you go out in time. The trick with TIFF funding is that it only provides you tax increment on what the growth in tax is. So when new development occurs that creates either property tax or gross receipts tax, we'll be able to get dedicated to the Midtown area those revenues that are incremental. And we're hoping that we will also be able to entice our partners at the county. The state would also be eligible to contribute to our TIFF funding. I don't know that the state has ever done that before, but it's one of those conversations that are legitimate to have. So TIFF funding becomes an opportunity, and over time you can, it lasts for 20 years, and over time it grows to a considerable number, but it doesn't start from day one. I mean, it's get a little tiny increment with the pizza place and other places that are going to be opening. We may be qualified, they may beat us before we get certified, but other developments that come along, we'll be able to start collecting. So we have a challenge in the early years in terms of using TIFF to be our financing vehicle. We also have the potential, provided we can show them how serious we are about getting this done, to entice some funding from the state. We will count on that potential source. And as you may know, we're planning on having our legislative breakfast this year on the Midtown campus, and we will have shuttle buses to do the whole tour to show off the progress that's being made there. So hopefully the state can help, especially helpful on any early money that they can provide. There will be other sources of funds. The sale of land is a resource. We have some other debt that we're collecting, or that we're paying right now in other areas. If you look at our debt chart going out into the future, it gets paid off in certain other areas, which leaves us a little more capacity for going out and doing some GRT debt. And I suspect that will be part of the equation. I think that is the city's capacity for additional GRT debt is ample. We're not overly burdened by that kind of debt, and I think that we'll find that there's some real opportunity there, especially early on. As the years go by, you can actually structure your debt to where it reduces over time because we'll have more capacity coming available from other sources. Hopefully the housing developers will be able to qualify for housing subsidies. I look at Bogelson and the theater project, and I think those are ripe for philanthropy. And I'll get myself in trouble, but I just don't understand how something like the theater couldn't qualify for lodgers tax funding. It seems to me that that's what that whole project's all about. So, I'll get myself in trouble. So financing, this is going to be a big package, and we're going to have to bring that in early in the next year to get started on this. That's going to be the critical path item as it relates to Midtown. The other thing that Carly mentioned was the fact that we still have to get certified as a redevelopment agency. We call ourselves that, but we still have to get certified. That's coming early in the next fiscal year or next calendar year. That will be an important step. Part of that is deciding what authorities this body wishes to provide to the commission. We have this very, we need one more member, but we've got four very solid members of our MRC, Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission, and they're ready to go. They're going to give you some suggestions on what levels of authority they would like to see you consider for allocating to them. There's a long list of potential authorities that a city or a government can provide to a redevelopment authority. You don't have to give them any. In fact, in many, I don't know about New Mexico, in many states, the governing body itself can be the redevelopment agency. In this case, you've already created a commission. That was a good move. And I will look forward to what kinds of authorities you want to discuss providing to them. That takes some time. It takes some thought. It needs to be done cautiously, but they're ready to go and hopefully we can get that on calendar fairly early in the next year so that that can move along. Without that, we can't get certified. We can't get certified. We can't start being eligible for TIF funding. So, those are critical path items. And we have other development projects coming along that we're going to want to have your involvement very actively in moving from ENA levels to development agreement levels and getting them off the ground. So, busy year coming up. We're excited about it. I'm excited to work with Charlie and we think we're doing pretty well. And I should mention Alisa, who's sitting behind me, who is the entire MR staff. Carly's the only full-time employee. We have three part-time, half-time employees. We've got Alisa who's managing six divisions and whatever good I am. And that's what we're trying to do. And I think it's moving along. So, thank you very much. If you have questions, I'll bet Carly will be able to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. Recognizing that I was chided for always starting at the ends rather than the middle, let's go to Councilor Faulkner for opening questions. And she has suggested that we try to adhere to the 10-minute, so everybody gets an equal amount of time. And we'll go around as many times as folks need, but let's each take a 10-minute bite at the apple or less. So, Councilor Faulkner, you get to have the floor. Yes. This is a huge lift. We've been working on this for a long time. I think if we do this right, it can be very impactful for the city. And so, I just want to commend staff on the diligence that we're putting into making this the right space. And I do know that sometimes the community gets frustrated, but we have a huge infrastructure lift that we have to contend with before we can move on to some other phases. And so, just ask the community to be patient that without the infrastructure, the total project isn't going to work the way it needs to work. And so, I know there's frustration in some of the people who want to participate as part of the Midtown project, but we also have to recognize we have to get the foundation right before we can move on to anything else in this project. And that's all I have. Thank you, Councilor. And thanks for being on your own clock, Council Mayor Worth. And then we'll just go down the line and then we'll start in the middle on this side. Thank you, Mayor. As you were talking, Carly, and City Manager Scott, I just have to flash back to where we were eight years ago. And how much work has been done. I mean, really extraordinary. And there have been stops and starts and things outside of our control like pandemics and market downline. And it's just really amazing to see what's beginning to happen here. There's some momentum. There's something to show for all the sweat that's gone into getting us here. Carly, I 100% agree with the City Manager. You being, you taking your energies and your talents and really leaning into this project is noticeable. And I thank you for that. Because we needed somebody to really pick up and keep us moving forward. So, I just, it's just extraordinary honestly how far we've come and I just look forward to seeing, I remember when the railyard was not a real, what it is today and that took 20 years and it's coming along now. But these things, to Councilor Faulkner's point, do take time. And but, you know, wow, what potential. And I think we're rolling in the right direction. So, I just want to thank you for all the work. And I don't know if we have a timeline of all the things that have gone on in the last, you know, I mean, the development of the plans were a big deal. The master plan, the community plan, that was big. Then the platting, I mean, there's just, I don't think people realize how much goes into this stuff. And now we're talking about a financing plan. But I don't know if anybody's had time to even talk about the milestones of what has been accomplished, but it's significant and I think it's starting to bear fruit, which is very exciting. So, congratulations. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Cassid, I know you're still on Zoom. You are up to take the microphone if you're ready. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Carly. I could sing your praises all day long as everybody else has and I just truly appreciate the amount of work that you have put into this. I remember when you first came into land use, we knew that you were one to watch. So, having you in this position on this really important project is really something that I think the community needs to know is good for us and really good for this project and we should be very grateful to you and thank you also, City Manager Scott, for stepping in. I know that there is a lot already on your plate and this is no small task. So, for everybody that's on this team and is providing that support, I really, really do thank you. A couple things. I apologize if I missed them. When will we expect to be looking at these ENAs? I know we have two that are coming up. When would we expect to have those coming forward and actually voting up on those? Mayor Weber, Councilor Casset, those are currently with our legal counsel for review and we're working off a template, so it should go by pretty quickly. If not December, then beginning of next calendar year. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. Really glad to hear that. And I'm really excited that there are some projects that are able to move forward. I know as has been mentioned, the infrastructure piece is significant and needs to happen before a lot of other things can be happening on the campus. So, to see that there are some areas where we are able to move forward is really wonderful. And then City Manager Scott, again, I apologize if I missed this. But the financing plan proposal, when would we expect that we'll be able to dive into that? Mayor, Councilors, the, I think it needs to come about very early in the new year. We're working with our financial advisor and I should, I mentioned the half-time people, but I should mention that they actually have names, Jack Kelly and Nia Mack. But Jack has been working on the financing plan. So, we should have something I think to put in front of you for first concept review right after the first of the year. It's critical path stuff. Okay. Wonderful. Well, glad to hear that. That's moving quickly as well and thank you for all of that work. I know that that is also really complex. Carly, you had mentioned a couple different assessment reports. Where can we find those? Where can we take a look at those? I didn't, I noticed they weren't in the packet. I don't think they were linked on the PowerPoint, but do we have access to those? They were not in the packet, Mr. Mayor. Councilor Cassid, they were not in the packet and my apologies. They are pretty extensive reports. I'm happy to give you a copy. They should be up on our website as the MRA has a live document library shortly. So, I will send you a direct copy of those, but they should be up on the website soon. Wonderful. And the website, is that still the Midtown Santa Fe website that we've been using for the past few years? So, it's Mr. Mayor, Mayor Weber, Councilor Cassa. It's actually an extension of the government website now. It was previously a third-party website. It's been incorporated into the .gov. So, it can be managed by our comm's team and they've actually redesigned it in the recent months. So, we're really grateful to their team. You can get it through the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency or under the Community Development Department umbrella. Got it. Got it. Wonderful. Well, thank you. I will, I'll go take a look there. Thank you all so much again for the work for the report. Really, really quite excited to see this gaining momentum. There's been a lot of work that has been done. I know that from the public standpoint it, it looks like it's been slow moving and I guess it has been slow moving, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been thoroughly moving. And I really just can't express my gratitude enough to both of you and your team as well as all the individuals who have been working on this for the past few years because there's been a number of staff members that have been involved and community partners that have been involved in getting us to this point. So, thank you so much. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Lee Garcia. You may, just real quick, thank you for doing what you're doing, Carly. I know. City Manager Scott, I don't know if when you came on, you kind of knew that you might end up having your finger on this project. It's big. I think as Councilor Faulkner stated, it's a, it's a potential huge economic driver for our city. You know, it also will provide places for people to live, which is important, and I think that it potentially will bring some of our youth back home to work because they're going elsewhere. I think that's a really important aspect. Our youth are going to other cities, Los Angeles or New York. And the jobs are here. They can be here. And so, I think that's a big aspect of this. Not to mention what it brings back to the city and funding. So, it's still, I think, a long ways out. There's a lot of work to do. And I think as you said, City Manager Scott, it's really going to take a collaborative effort of the future governing body to make sure that we, we do have a finalized project somewhere light at the end of the tunnel because, you know, the longer it takes us, the more it costs us and we got to get the ball rolling on it. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. I'm going to start to my right with Councilor Lindell and then we'll just go down the line. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Carly. And thank you, Mark. Gotten a lot done in the last few months. The thing that I would encourage the governing body to consider is giving the MRC the power and the ability to lead on this project. And I won't be here, but I would encourage people to not micromanage this. We put together an extraordinary team. The people that sit on the Metropolitan Redevelopment Committee are really an amazing team and that they would give their time and effort to this project. I hope that the governing body will give them the power to carry out the duties that we've asked them to rather than to micromanage it. And those are my comments on this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Garcia, sir, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Scott, got a question for you and maybe Carly as well, but you're the one who had mentioned it in your comments regarding the infrastructure resources that are needed. And I wrote down $60 to $70 million. So, we have a request, and it's part of the ICIP package we put in earlier this summer. It's going to be part of our legislative package resolution that we're introducing tonight for $10 million. That's 1/7th of the need. It seems far too short than what we actually need. And so my question to you is, should we bump that number up? Thank you for the question. It's a very good question. We were coached this year. The state spent a lot of time coaching potential applicants that going after $20 million projects or more was probably not worth the effort because they're not going to fund that level of project. What they've coached us on is that there are also opportunities through administrative departments of the state, through loan programs and grant programs. There are other places that we can also apply, and we would intend to do that for some of our infrastructure. For instance, sewer lines and such are eligible for grants. So they've really kind of steered us away from the big numbers by showing us how infrequently that kind of funding gets done. But on the other hand, they've also asked us to show us what kind of funding we need, not only in the first year but in future years. So that, I think, as we prove our case and prove our ability to spend that kind of money, the opportunity does exist to ask for additional funds in future years. And I, that's why those numbers exist. I suppose we could have gone with 20 and let them turn us down, but we were coached actually to go with those numbers. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And given that the number one priority on the list right now is for homelessness initiatives for $15 million, I think I'd be more comfortable asking for 15 than 10, given that's some guidance given. It's the governing body's ultimate decision. So with that, I'll be bringing forward an amendment to raise that just because I think that's what is going to really spur the development once we get that infrastructure completed. Right. Makes it much more feasible and much more of a product that a potential applicant can come in and actually get some work done. So, lastly, I just want to say thank you for your comment around utilizing lodgers tax around Greg Garson. But I'll take it a step further and say that that whole campus can and should qualify for lodgers tax, given what we are envisioning to be done with that campus. It could be somewhat tourism-driven as well. So I think there is that justification. So you're not going to get in trouble with me by any means. I think I'm in whole agreement with you there. I'll second that motion. Well, I'll third it if that needs a third as well. And with that, I'll yield the chair. Madam Mayor Prom. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to really emphasize how amazing the process has been because I think often with government agencies, we fall short on intentionality. And this project has proven the opposite. And the conversations we've had amongst governing body members with staff, everything has been so intentional and staying true to what the community developed. And I think it's just been a really amazing process to be part of. And I will say that I think that that whole intentionality increased significantly, Carly, with your leadership and guidance. The way you communicate, the way that you know those plans, it's amazing. Just watching it has just been really great and to see the commitment. But it's being, the process is long because we're trying to be intentional, and we're trying to be intentional because the community really was the driving force behind what this vision is. And to respect that intentionality is an absolute. And I'm just, we're very lucky that you're kind of leading us on that path to stay true to that. And I just want to emphasize you're doing it very well. So, thank you and City Manager to you as well. It's just been a really wonderful process to be part of and the conversations that we have and how much I feel like that's something that we're very united in as a governing body is Midtown and staying true to the community, staying true to what it needs to bring to Santa Fe. It's just, I don't know, this really positive bright light in the work that we're doing. And I thank you for your guidance in that. Thank you, Mayor Castro. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Deputy Director and City Manager. I think that it's really important that we sort of talk a little bit about the responsibility and the fiscal responsibility that you alluded to. When we talk about shovel-ready projects and where we need to find funding, can you delve into that a little bit and what these projects might look like? You can use the two that we looked at in the presentation as examples if you'd like. I guess I would like the public to have a little more clarity. What do we mean about shovel-ready projects and finding funding? Thank you. When I talk about shovel-ready, what I'm saying is that the project, because the plans will be done, we'll be ready to break ground. There'll be strategies on where to start and how to go. But I'm actually talking about the entire infrastructure package, which is, I mean, you don't have time for me to say all the things that are in the package, but very innovative storm drainage system, all the streets, all the utilities, the electrical. Carly said down to what the trees are planted in so that they drain right in a royal park where it's the runoff that will actually irrigate the, how many, 500, 700 trees that they're talking about. It's a very elaborate project, and the open spaces, the central plaza, and the royal park are terrific. They're great designs. I can't wait for the public to get to experience that. So those are the kinds of projects we're talking about on the public side. And then, of course, there's the private side. And when we're talking about funding sources, we've heard state funding through ICIP. We've heard the potential of some tax kickbacks, if you would. Increments. Tax increments, if you would. Government people don't use. And I do believe that we have the ability to look for other sources of funding. What other sources of funding should this governing body be looking towards? And I do hear my colleague suggest that we should be giving that authority to the redevelopment commission. And so if we could be helpful in any way, where would we look for other sources of funding? Well, there's, you know, I mentioned, I think it's going to take a certain amount of debt. It just, it just does. The housing projects are going to be eligible for certain kinds of funding. The library and theater project are really ripe for philanthropy and foundation grants. So there are, there are other places that we'll be able to look. Would we be able to do any type of utility bonding similar to the way we did on streets? Utility what? Is there any bonding or any types of that type of loan that we might be able to look into? I believe that there will be some through the state that we can do. And so, yes, in fact, basically, we, that's what we'll be funding for the most part when I talk about infrastructure, the various utilities. Perfect. Thank you so much. I think that was a great explanation, lots of clarity. If there's any other questions, we can go to the website. Thank you, Carly. Thank you, City Manager, and the entire team. Mr. Mayor, can I mention one other thing that we didn't mention? Absolutely. When you go out to Midtown right now, it doesn't look that there's a lot of weeds. There's a lot. It'll help to have some of the demolition done after that's cleaned up. But we're also bringing forward a bar that allows us to do a $130 landscape project. But I want Carly to also tell you about the goats. Carly's not the only goat we're going to. So, in the case of the bar, we're actually working with Public Works through a pre-existing contract with Franco's Tree Service to have continuous upkeep of this campus because it requires reinvestment, right? To upkeep that in the way of keeping the weeds down, supporting trees, volunteering trees out of the way. So, in the meantime, we will be taking a herd of 35 goats out to the site and bringing them throughout multiple paddocks so they will eliminate the goat heads because they can process the goat heads rather than getting knocked down by, you know, string trimmers and then dispersed to other portions of campus. So, goats seem to be the answer. Thank you. Thank you for the very organic approach. Were you, were you done, Counselor, at that point? Okay. I just have, I want to come back to the point of momentum that you were making earlier and that the pace is picking up and the wind is really in our sails. The two proposals that are in front of us now, you were asked about the timetable for getting an ENA or ENAs in front of this body. What will that take? Is that just a matter now of getting a draft that goes back and forth between the two sides that then comes to us for a vote? That is correct, Mr. Mayor. And as someone who's familiar with JotForm, it is within JotForm, and we are undergoing that process of drafting and deliberation. And is there any way for you to quickly summarize for the public what those two proposals look like in broad brush terms, understanding that they're still very unformed? That's what the negotiation requires. Then economics and other things have to be firmed up. But as a going into proposal, what are we looking at with the combination of those two very enthusiastic proposals that have come to us? Yes, of course, Mr. Mayor. They are very enthusiastic proposed developers, as you said, that are excited to move into exclusive negotiation agreements and have their time to explain their development proposals in front of this governing body as well. Really quickly, the Blue Mesa Center for the Arts, as proposed by Dr. Glenn Erickson, is proposing mixed-use development, and it's really at a ripe opportunity and a ripe spot north of the student apartments where there is no pre-existing development where they may tie into pre-existing infrastructure, all except for sewers accessible off of St. Michael's. And in that way, they would have some 30-odd units as currently proposed with the affordability as required by the master plan, as well as a cafe, potentially a public institutional use. For those of you who don't speak land use, that, of course, means a museum or the like. Moving forward, potentially very much an artist theme in this case. So, having folks that are both committed to living among like-minded folks as well as those that are committed to the craft. So that is H1A, the Blue Mesa Center for the Arts, just at a very high level. And then moving along to the New Mexico Innovation Hub. Many of us in the room may know David Perez. He is proposing this mixed-use development as well over on J1A and J1B. There's a mix of, you know, lab space, office space, individuals who maybe have retired from the labs and want to continue their work in philanthropical and beneficial ways to the community through the sciences. So, in that case, there would also be housing supporting that development. We see housing across the Midtown campus. Thank you. Thanks very much. And the idea that those are in the works right now is really encouraging. It demonstrates what it makes real what you said about momentum and about the pace picking up and about, I think it confirms the market is telling us that there are people interested very much in participating in Midtown and developing it and bringing it to life as a really important new center for the city. So, thank you very much for that. Any other comments, questions? Thank you both of you and all the rest of the team for the great work and for the very clear and thorough presentation. Appreciate it. Let's see. It's almost 7:00. I would make a motion that we move to petitions on the floor since it is approaching 7 o'clock. There's a motion to move next to petitions from the floor as an amendment to the agenda. Is there any discussion? Madam Clerk, do you want to call the roll on that motion, please? Councilor Fulner: Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Romero: Yes. Councilor Casset: Yes. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. So, where we are now in our agenda, rather than going in the strict order for the agenda as adopted, we have a commitment to try to, as close to 7:00 as possible, to open the floor to petitions from the floor. Anyone who wishes to address anything other than what is on the calendar as a public hearing. So, if you're here for one of the two public hearings, please don't come forward now. If you have something else that you'd like to talk about concerning the city and you'd like to take the floor for 2 minutes, now is the time to step up to the podium for that. But hold your comments if it has to do with either of the two public hearings, the living wage or any or the other one. We're not taking that up right now. I'm sorry. Yeah, three. So, anyone who wants to talk about something other than the public hearings, now would be the time to come forward. And Madame Clerk, is there anybody on Zoom who wants to use petitions from the floor at this time? We have one person, Stephanie Benonato. You are allowed to speak. Thank you. Stephanie Benonato. I'm just thinking about the election last week and I'm sorry that only 31% of the voting eligible voters actually came out. However, I'm happy that people did vote and that we had rank choice voting. I do have to say that there were a couple of candidates, however, who did not seem to be able to follow the rules. They were not elected thankfully, but I think the rule about posting on public property is really clear. And when you're told by the city clerk not to post on public property, but you continue to do so, that is even worse. And I feel that one candidate in district who virtually littered our neighborhoods with campaign posters, sometimes on both sides of utility poles that were on sidewalks and in public parks, even though that person is a park employee. And so I just really wonder about the training or the education that the city clerk does give these candidates when they are starting their campaign in terms of what's appropriate and what isn't. Thank you. Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, make sure you're, if possible, keeping the time. I don't see a clock up there at the moment. Is there anybody else in the Zoom room for public, for petitions from the floor rather than one of our scheduled hearings? I am not seeing anyone else with their hand raised. Okay. In that case, that would complete petitions from the floor. Oh, you wanted to talk about something other than the, I apologize. I didn't, I thought you would have stepped up. Please, if you have something other than the matters in front of us for hearings, did not mean to cut you off. Please, you have the floor. Very much. Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Oh, excuse me. My name is Tomas Rietta. I am with Chamber Collective. And Chamber is a membership-led economic and environmental justice organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are here to speak on a different thing, but I wanted to just also be here to speak for Chainbreaker has been working in Hopewell Man for 20 years. The work that was presented today on Midtown really represents a leap forward which was recognized all over. And so we wanted to commend the city staff. We wanted to commend you all up there on the council for making this happen. It is definitely the case that it is eight years worth of work to get us here and that is the speed of democracy and community and that is the speed that we are going to be here moving forward again. Chainbreaker has been engaged in organizing in the neighborhood around Midtown for that entire time and we know that there are changes coming. We hope that they are good ones. We will be here organizing for that in the next administration for the next many years. We do have a community development plan that was part that did come from the community and we will be here to make sure that that is implemented as it moves forward. So, we are looking forward to continuing to work with those of you who will be here for the next couple meetings, for those of you who will be here for the next several meetings down the road. And so you will be seeing us here speaking. This is the kind of forward thinking that is making not only local and Santa Fe based work possible, but this is a national issue on Midtown and the development Midtown and the way that it's happening here. Later tonight, you'll hear other national issues which go hand in hand with this work. So this is not just, this is not the beginning. This is not the end. To ironically quote Winston Churchill, this is that it may be the end of the beginning. So looking forward to that again and thank you so much for all of your hard work on this. We will be here for years to come. Thank you very much for coming down. Yes, I did. I apologize to you as well. I didn't know you were standing in the aisle there. Go ahead. It's Fine. Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. My name is Katkin Cade. I was here last month to express my concern that despite a very visible homelessness problem in the city, there have been no shelter beds added nor micro communities put up in over a year. The living wage vote tonight is a great step. The affordable housing provisions and the land use code update are helpful. It seems that rental prices are plateauing finally. All of these are helpful for preventing more homelessness, but these policies do not address the excess number of people on the streets now as we head into the winter months. Instead, we're talking about whether homeless dogs should be allowed on medians, which seems like a misdirection of our energies. Over the past couple of months, I've been trying to get more information about the status of the micro communities projects. I have not gotten email responses from Henry Ham and Paul or Christian Woods. I thought I might stop in their office on my lunch hour, but I haven't been able to even find out where their office is. It's not listed on the website. Tonight, I mean to check the building directory and ask the Santa Fe New Mexican reporter, Karina Julig, if she knows where the Office of Homeless Services is located. It should be available on the website. Here we are a year past when the first micro community pilot was put up with no progress on increasing the number of shelter beds or putting up pallet homes to open up shelter spaces. At previous governing body meetings, I learned that there have been 15 homeless veterans identified as potential micro community residents. Have they been helped? What about the families with children? Those on the streets seeking a drug and alcohol-free space or those who need a low barrier space to sleep warmly and safely. I just want to throw out one more thing. When I lived in Los Angeles, my city council representative made a point of bragging that he got the first micro community built in his district. He made it a point of pride and he challenged other counselors to do as well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming down. Hello, my name is Marca Emerton. She's always a hard act to follow, by the way. I had, I figured out my little list here. Most of them are questions about Midtown and probably better served by asking Carly in the back of the room later. But two of the things I wanted to bring up is we're all very concerned about Consuelo's place in Midtown. Does it get to stay? Does it not get to stay? And another thing, one of the other things is in her faith. This would be a great place in there for their new planned shelter that they have going, which is going to be great in that some place in Midtown would be a great place for that. So, I wanted to put that forward. Another question I have, and I don't know if this would be for the Midtown people or not, but the Yano Street Library is going to be closing, I hear, through the grapevine and kind of move to Foggesson, which sounds okay, except we're all going to miss the Rainbow Bridge, which many people were raised with. But the one of the best pools in town was in that building and I think they closed it because of the fact that the moisture from the pool was affecting the books. That's what I've heard over the years. But we wanted doing, you know, having more pools, which most people seem to want. We might want to look into that. Also, another concern I have about the Midtown is we're having so many tall, really not attractive buildings being built all over town. Many people are concerned about that. We want housing, but what are we sacrificing to get it? And when I look at the drawings, which I know people work very hard on, I'm seeing more tall buildings as opposed to what I would like to see is more community. And I don't know how you make these two things come together, but that's also a concern. And also, as Cat just said, the Pallet Homes, where are they? We managed, oh my gosh, I won the Academy Award. Yes, that's your, that's your walk-off music. Thank you for coming down tonight and having such a good attitude. I appreciate it. Anyone else who is not here for the hearings who would like to use this time for a petition from the floor, please do come forward. And anyone else in the Zoom room with a hand up, Madam Clerk? There is no one in the Zoom room with their hand up. All right. In that case, I will assume we've completed the work of petitions from the floor. Do you want to take us to the next item on the agenda? Or I guess the next item on the agenda has to is the one that was pulled off consent. Am I correct? Yes, Mayor. Why don't you read that and then we'll see what, I think Director Hammond Paul had potentially suggested taking it up not tonight but at the next meeting. But why don't you read it and then Director Hammond Paul if you want to come down to the podium. 9R consideration of resolution number 2025-TBD sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, Councilor Jamie Casset, and Councilor Pelar Falner, a resolution requiring a micro community in every city of Santa Fe council district by January 1st, 2027, or if that timeline is not met, a presentation explaining the barriers to meet the timeline and recommending how and when the goal of the micro community in every district can be achieved. So, Director Hammond Paul, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I, I did get a message that you were not absolutely committed to having this heard tonight and with other matters that involve public hearings, you would be at least open to considering taking it up at the next governing body meeting. Mr. Mayor, City Councilors, I'm happy to follow the will of the governing body. I was merely reacting to the considerable positive energy that's in the room right now and not wanting to, or wanting to respect the number of folks here who've come here for other legislative matters. I'm happy to follow the advice and the guidance of the governing body, but ultimately, yeah, it's up to you all. Mayor: Pick it up now. Okay. There's a desire to deal with this tonight. So, let's move forward and we'll go forward with the agenda. Would you, it's taken off the consent calendar by Councilor Garcia, but not everybody's familiar with what the legislation is about. So, if you wanted to quickly summarize, and then I'll turn it over to Councilor Garcia to ask questions or make comments or propose amendments as he sees fit. Well, apropos some of the comments from Ms. Kincaid, who just spoke and who now has my contact information, these are complicated things to get stood up in our community. This resolution, as it currently stands, is a means of helping bring forth a way of distributing, acknowledging that we need additional shelter beds in our community, finding a way to spread those geographically throughout our community, and encouraging ways that staff can be enabled to see these developed quickly. So, there's a handful of amendments that councilors have put forward, kind of changing the way this all works, and I don't know if I'm best suited to speak to those. I'm happy to give staff's perspective on best practices that we see other places in the country. But effectively, no more than the title would say, which is a micro-community in every district. Thank you, Councilor Garcia. I'm going to turn it over to you now because you took it off of consent. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Director Aman Paul, for that update. One question that I'm going to pose to you, Mr. Mayor, since you sponsored this, was during the discussion, whether it was at Public Works and Utilities or Quality of Life Committee, there was a bit of, I guess, unknowing of was the intention of this resolution solely focused on city-owned property or city-owned property and publicly owned property? Because I just didn't know if we were trying to give staff the direction to ultimately work to establish these sites on city-owned property or is it any of the above? Mayor: Great. So, great. Thank you. I apologize for not being at any of those committee meetings. I probably should have taken it upon myself to do some of this background before we got to tonight. I think the overall philosophy that has been addressed by Director Hammond Paul is simply to make sure that we look at the sharing of the solution to homelessness as something that is everybody's responsibility. And I give credit, I'm sorry that Councilor Faulkner stepped out. She has been very articulate about making that point over and over again that this is not one district's problem. It is all of our problem, and frankly, it's all of our responsibility. I think calling it a problem may not even be the right way to talk about it. So, my intent in producing this resolution and getting support for it has been several things. One is to make concrete that commitment because it's one thing, as we all know as elected officials, to talk about doing something, but it's another thing to concretize it. And we have seen this happen in the past where we did pass a very, very specific legislation about our cooperation with the county to address the homelessness needs. Putting that into writing and voting on it is a substantial step that goes far beyond a merely performative action. Secondly, it was not only about city-owned land. It's about any kind of support that could come to the city, including city-owned land. But our current, our one and only at the moment, micro-community is, as we all know, on land of a faith-based organization. I think that's phenomenal. I've reached out to other faith-based groups to ask if they would follow suit because I think having it not simply be on city-owned land expands our options, and it also again gets more buy-in and more support from groups that are not only the City of Santa Fe. We've talked in the past about the school district, the state, the county, as well as nonprofit organizations or faith-based groups stepping up and saying, "Yes, we want to participate in addressing the needs of our homeless community." And I continue to believe that there are untapped resources in Santa Fe who, if they were approached with the right opportunity, would step up and take on what we heard earlier, some a group of veterans who should never be homeless, a group of kids and moms or dads who should never be homeless. So, thank you for the question, Councilor. It really is an all of the above. But we do know, and you've been very forthright about this, that there is city-owned land, and if we're going to use city-owned land, we need to be very clear about how we do that in a process involving community and also involving elected councilors because there's a responsibility that we all bear to take on this issue in our own district or citywide. I hope that offers some help. Councilor Garcia: It does, Mr. Mayor. I truly appreciate that. Just let me refresh your memory and everybody else's that I was the first councilor to call for a pallet shelter in each district. And I don't want that to be lost. And so with that being said, also going through the process at the committee level, and correct me if I'm wrong, Director Ham and Paul, as we're discussing and debating this proposal, there are considerations to be made if there are other homelessness services in a particular district that might meet the needs of a pallet shelter. And so my question is because we've now got a pallet shelter in District 2. We'll have a pallet shelter in District 4. We've already approved that. This resolution would only address Districts 1 and 3. And it was at the committee level, if I'm recollecting correctly, that there was an argument made that there are shelters in District 1 and that might meet the need of meeting the criteria of a pallet shelter. So then ultimately that only leads a pallet shelter to be proposed only in District 3, or am I misunderstanding that in essence still the box that the criteria that this resolution is setting forth is because we've got pallet shelters in District 2, already one lined up in District 4. This proposal in front of us is requesting that pallet shelters be set up in Districts 1 and 3. Right? I mean, because we've, this is saying in each district, 2 and 4 have met that criteria. The folks that have not met that criteria, District 4, is that, am I understanding the proposal correctly? Because if that's the case, then I want to make sure how we are moving forward with ultimately with charging folks such as yourself of where the energy and effort is going to go towards trying to identify these locations, whether they be public property or private property, and more importantly, as we'll discuss with the upcoming amendment, the collaboration that must be done between staff and the councilors of those districts. Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, there's a lot to unpack there. I think in some ways it might be helpful just to go, what are we trying to achieve with this? And then work forwards from there. So, one interpretation, and this isn't necessarily the position of staff to, I think I can have a perspective on this, but I think this is really in the hands of the council. You know, the intention, for instance, to have this be about city-owned property, I believe was to make it because these are common, these are things that are benefit everybody, but nobody wants them, right? Nobody wants a homelessness services in their backyard. So, you know, by having it be city-owned property, my understanding of that was it would actually help expedite building something that we know we need but is very difficult to get buy-in around. Turns out that building things on city property is quite difficult. So that's where potentially if we're, if we're thinking about how expeditiously we can do this, maybe it does make sense to, for instance, expand this to be inclusive of not only city property, again, if we're optimizing on speed, not, you know, it turns out that faith-based properties are the best in terms of optimizing on speed to do this because of the uses that those properties are already zoned for. So that's one kind of frame to think through. I think in terms of your question of is this really directed at Districts 1 and 3, you know, that's a, I think like a fair interpretation in some regards of it, but I do think it's more about the collective, as I understand it, like the collective acknowledgement that this is born by all members of our community. So this, you know, again, not necessarily my place to have a perspective like this, but the symbolism of saying that, yeah, every district has a role to play here, I think there is, you know, value there. But in practice, this probably would be most directly, well, you know, and there's, there's other pieces that have come forward in amendments here that not only talk about the location but talk about helping staff find ways to do this more quickly. So, so there is kind of another component, but, but yes, Districts 1 and 3, as we currently have it, do not have one slated for develop. Councilor Garcia: Okay. Sorry, that was a... that answers the question because ultimately I want to ensure that we are giving staff clear-cut guidance in how we as a governing body expect movement to move forward because it would be quite frustrating if, you know, we try to establish another pallet shelter in District 4 without even trying to establish a pallet shelter in District 1, for example. Right? Because in essence, District 4 has met the criteria of having one in their district. One doesn't. I don't, I want to ensure that staff is spending its time meeting the goals of the governing body. And to me, this is where I guess we got into that conversation of private public, right? Because we've put out the RFP for public owned property and it's been unsuccessful. I mean, privately owned property has been unsuccessful. We have the one at Christ Lutheran, but we put out further RFPs and it, there's been unfortunately no further developments from it. Right? We only have... There's been one submission, but it is, you know, slow in the uptake. There's a considerable amount of risk that a public or private entity would take to pursue this. And, you know, again, I'll just be frank here. There is a challenge when we start slicing and dicing the populations that are eligible for these. Everybody's going to want kids with families, families with kids, and nobody's going to want a substantive part of our population who does need support, which is people in active recovery or people in, you know, having active addiction. So, you know, there, there is slow movement on that additional one that's been submitted, but I think marrying that with the needs that are identified in our community is, is challenging. Councilor Garcia: Gotcha. Okay. That just helps me understand the overall intention of what we're trying to achieve with this because I, I'm in complete support of establishing the micro-communities in each district. We, we need to just ensure that we're all marching to the same sheet music. So, so thank you, Director Hammond Paul. No other questions, Mr. Mayor. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. I think Councilor Castro has had her hand up to try to make a point or ask a question. Councilor Castro: Indeed. I just wanted to make a point of clarification and I wanted to make sure that Councilor Garcia and I are thinking about the same discussion in committee because I did bring up some additional services in District 1 in particular that we have been voting on. We're going to be looking at some donations of land. If we look at Amendment A, I think that my intention is sort of reached here in terms of the geographic area. District 1, as an example, is a very large district, and I often talk about it in terms of the tale of two districts, where we have a lot of facilities and resources on the Awafia corridor and not so much on the north side. So, when we're talking about equity, I think we really do want to look at geographic equity. This amendment is actually getting to some of those root intentions of making sure that we're taking on the burden as a community rather than as just a district. Thank you. Did you want to move your amendment? Oh, I'm sorry. That amendment already passed in committee, and it is part of the legislation. Already in. Okay, very good. Thank you. I was not in those committee hearings. Councilor Lindell, your hand is up. Mr. Hammond Paul, how many facilities in District 1 offer shelter to unsheltered people? Mr. Mayor, Councilor Lindell, I don't have those figures in front of me. I do think that there are probably marginally more in District 1 than in other districts, but I don't— Marginally? I'd say we have six or seven. Yeah. And we have districts that have none. So, I would not really call that marginally. Would you? I think the data that I looked at was looking at, for instance, the Connect Network, and this doesn't answer your question specifically, which is we have some 80-odd organizations in the Connect Network providing a variety of types of services to our community. That distribution is pretty equal. We see about similar numbers of services serving needy residents across districts. I think that when it comes to a very specific type of service like shelters, again, there is an overweight in District 1, but if you look at it in terms of broad social services, that is more evenly and equitably distributed. So that, again, that's a partial answer to your question, but hopefully, what I'm getting at makes sense, which is that there are lots of services in our community. Homelessness services and shelter services are one of a lot of types of services that meet folks' needs, and those services are distributed relatively. What are the other services you're talking about? Food banks, health clinics, mental and behavioral health resources, case management services, things that could be considered an attractive nuisance in the same light, of a different standard, but in the same light that one might look at a shelter. Places that draw folks who have intense sets of needs to a given location. I just think that the easy way to do this was to say, "All right, one in every district, that's what's fair." But I don't think it's fair. I think that District 1 is carrying a very sizable burden for overnight sheltering of people that don't have shelter. And do we need more? Yeah, we need more. We need a lot more. But I don't think that it is the goal. I just think this was an easy way to say, "Okay, every district's going to get one." But that wasn't really the fair way to do it or to distribute the services fairly. So, I think it's disappointing to take the easy route, or what appears to be the easy route, because I don't think it is the easy route. So, yeah, I'm not happy with this. I haven't liked it from the very beginning. I've talked about it, and we didn't really come up with anything that makes a fairer distribution. I mean, like I said, District 1, and Councilor Faulkner and I have talked about this at length, and she agrees. District 1 has six or seven facilities at this point in time. We have other districts that have none. We have other districts that have, I don't know, one or two. I just don't think this is right. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. Other com— We don't actually have a motion on the floor at this time. We've been debating the merits of the idea, but we didn't ever get a motion. Approve. Second. There's a motion to approve. I'm open to more discussion, obviously. Councilor Faulkner, your hand is up. So, I have to concur with Councilor Lindell. I do think that District 1 is taking a lion's share, and coming from a district that is often disenfranchised, I don't think it's fair to any one district to burden a particular district with any kind of at-risk populations or high needs for their constituents. I will say that Councilor Lee Garcia and I have voluntarily been selecting a piece of property that would house the micro-community for the veterans because we have the Veterans Federal Veterans Center on Airport Road, and we also have the police station there. So, it seems like it'd be a good fit. I do feel like every district needs to—the councilors of every district need to step up, and the constituents in every district need to realize that we're in a space where I say this every time we talk about this issue: it's going to take everyone. And to think that the constituents through the City Council, that any one of us are not responsible for solving this problem, is folly. It is going to take everybody. And I keep saying this, but just to concur with Councilor Lindell, District 1 is taking on a lot. And that's why Councilor Garcia and I feel like in our district, we want to help do some of the lift for our unhoused constituents. And we also want to be in a position where we're proactively helping to solve the problem rather than reacting to being reactionary and not thinking through how we solve this as a city and as a collective. Thank you, Councilor Cassid. I notice, or I've been obser—it's been pointed out to me that your hand is up, so you have the floor. Thank you so much, Mayor. And just to go over Amendment A, which was moved at Quality of Life and passed, what it talked about was basically the density of where services are. I know that I sound like a broken record when I talk about the Serrios Road corridor. And as Councilor Castro mentioned, Awafria, there's this concentration of services in these areas. I think what's challenging, and to Councilor Lindell's point, districts are—it's kind of the way that we divide up the city, but it's not necessarily accurate in its division because when we divide into districts, we divide by population, not by geographic size. And so, in that sense, I think we have a really hard time understanding which district is taking on how much of how many services in one area. District 4, as I say over and over again, we are the smallest geographic district. We have the most housing going up in the district. I think I'd be interested to see what those numbers are now, but for a long time, we've had a lot of housing, and part of that is Midtown's there. I believe District 1 is the largest geographic district. And so, I think, and this isn't to say that District 1 is not pulling their weight, or that there isn't this need to look at other parts of the city. But I think that that is the challenging piece is that we can say there's a lot happening in District 1, and it's still pretty concentrated in an area that, I mean, if we look at Serrios Road, we look at Interfaith, or now Agape, the impacts of that were felt in District 4, right across the street, in District 1 and District 2, down the street. District 3 was not too far away. So, it is a challenging way for how we think about this. And so, I think that one of the big pieces that we're going to have to grapple with is that you technically can have something in different districts and have it very close together, which we know does not serve that part of the town. It does not serve the individuals who are going for services. We know that that becomes an area where if there's anybody who would want to be preying on individuals who are in these really precarious and vulnerable situations, that they can go to one place. And we've seen this happen, and that we need to move it apart. So, I think that said is that this is a really nuanced conversation, and I don't want that to be lost. And it might be interesting to look at what is the responsibility that districts are taking on, instead of per capita, per square mileage, kind of the same way that we can't necessarily compare directly how much water one community uses to another without looking at the number of people, the population of that community. But I do think that the key piece of this is that we want this to be distributed throughout the city. And to be perfectly honest, our district lines are arbitrary. They're drawn up based on population and based on trying to be as representative as we can of the entire population and making sure that not a single district has a greater share of the population, but not necessarily looking at the landmass. So, that's what we were trying to get to with that amendment, really talking about the geographic dispersion. But it is also why I am both comfortable and cautious with the language of one needing to be in every single district. Because again, Districts 3 and 4, we're pretty, we're pretty tight together. Four services in those districts are going to be felt more heavily, even dispersed throughout the district, than four in Districts 1 or 2. So, I don't know how we better represent that other than discussing the districts because that is kind of how we naturally think about the division of the city. And if anybody has a better recommendation, I would love to hear it. But Amendment A is kind of where we, what we landed on as we were struggling with how do we talk about this in a way that really means that we don't want, we don't want things concentrated in one area. And we do want to make sure that throughout the city that there are services that are being provided for individuals who are living in those parts of the city already, who want services in that part of the city because that's where their family is. Or simply because we know that there are a lot of people who are not interested in having these in their neighborhood. And as Councilor Faulkner always so perfectly puts it, that this is a responsibility that the entire community has to take on. So, I just want to give some of that context for Amendment A and what the thought process was behind that. And again, if there's a better suggestion for how we discuss that, I would love to hear it because we definitely did grapple with how do we both discuss our intention of making sure that it's spread out without putting parameters on it that would be too incredibly stringent that it doesn't give us the flexibility we need to actually get these up and running. So, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Sir Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. So, I just want to say the need is so evident that this decision should be based on need and opportunity. The, like, this district's doing more, this district's doing less, I think is really irrelevant because a lot of the homelessness we don't even see. District 3 probably has the most community members homeless with five families living in a house. But because we don't officially call it a shelter, we're going to say they're doing less. So, the problem is just relevant and everywhere. And so, I think to define where services are being held more so than other places is not accurate because we have community members stepping up to service community members right now because we're falling short as a city. We have families feeding four other families in their homes unofficially, and that's not getting measured as a need being met in a district because we're not working closely with those specific families. So, this whole number game of who's serving who more is really inaccurate. It's not a true picture. It just isn't because we have community members doing city jobs right now, in my opinion. So, I think, yes, we all have to take advantage of any opportunity that appears to be present in our district to meet a need because the need is there. And a lot of the need we don't even see, and it's significant, and it's huge, and we probably can't do enough with committing even to this and meeting that need. So, I just want to emphasize that because I know there are very obvious services that are happening that we can quantify. But I will tell you, there is so much more need than we can even comprehend right now. And if it wasn't for our community showing up for community, we'd be in a bigger mess than what we are right now. And I think that's just the truth that we all have to accept. And it is. It's like, let's do what our community members do that welcome families in their home, and let's just welcome people in need in our districts and in our city and serve them. And I so I love this because, yeah, it's all of our job to show up. We have great examples of community members doing that. Let's stop having a conversation about who's doing less, who's doing more, and let's just show up. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Castro, your hand is up. And actually, Councilor Garcia, he hasn't spoken yet. Councilor Garcia, she yields to you. Thank you, Councilor Castro. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I think the conversation around who's providing services and where, and when I look at this legislation, I really look at giving the power to the director to identify through the districts what makes most sense and where and why and how can we achieve this? Because when you're looking at areas that would be potential sites for a micro community, you do want to make sure that it succeeds. And being successful in anything is making sure that it works. And when it doesn't work, we do see what happens. And so, I think it's very important. I do look at the city as a whole. I do realize that we are separated by districts, but yes, we are one Santa, and the south side comes to the north side, and the north side comes to the south side, and we do see the issues and the struggles that each and every individual is going through. So, I do support, you know, every, I think what it more says is that representatives in each council district could work with staff to help move this process forward in each district, wherever that might be, and to help with not having it give it its maybe because there's negative things that can arise from these things and how that doesn't negatively or adversely affect the community. But, you know, to Councilor Travis's point, everybody should be involved with this because if someone's not sleeping in an AOYo, we, you know, they're sleeping on a sidewalk. And if it's something that we can do as a community to help another individual sleep inside a warm place, then that's important. So, I think that we all as a collective should work together, and I think that's what this legislation speaks to. Thank you, Councilor. And now back to you, Councilor Castro. Thank you. And I will try to be brief. I really appreciate the effort. I think that one thing we were talking about today was services and networks. The unhoused community is a community, and I think it would be great for us to look at what services are provided around the city and potentially bring something similar with different healthcare services, childcare services, all the other things we might need, and do maybe a community mapping to let folks know where those services are. Thank you so much. And I yield the floor. Thank you. Other, somebody's got a phone ringing. Could you, I should have said this earlier, please. I goofed up earlier with my alarm, but try to silence the phones in the room. Other comments or questions before we go to a vote. We have a motion on the floor. We have a second. Mr. Mayor, we still have unfinished business. Yes, we still got an amendment that Council Faulkner and I... Yep. So, would you like to, I, who wants to move that, Councilor? Councilor Faulkner, feel free. So, Garcia, you have the floor. Okay. So, for those that aren't aware, the city clerk sent it to us in the email. And this kind of just gets to what we were talking about earlier in regards to just making sure we're all on the same page and we're all working together to ensure that we're trying to achieve the ultimate goal, which is establishing these micro communities. And so, Councilor Faulkner and I put together an amendment that tries to address that. There are a couple of whereas clauses, but what I'm going to focus on is the further resolve sections because that's where the action is taken. And so, this amendment adds a couple of these sections. So, I'm just going to read them. It says, "Be it further resolved that the city manager shall direct city staff to develop the implementation plan in consultation with city councilors, community stakeholders, and local organizations to receive suggestions about and identify viable sites within each district to develop micro communities. Be it further resolved that micro community sites may include city-owned parcels or properties owned by faith-based organizations, nonprofits, or individuals or businesses that are willing to partner with the city in good faith. Be it further resolved that the city manager or designate shall bring proposed city-owned micro community sites to the governing body for review and approval. Be it further resolved that for micro community sites located on non-city-owned parcels, the city manager shall direct staff to lead coordination of community engagement efforts to support advancing feasible projects. And be it further resolved that the city manager shall direct city staff to identify and implement strategies to expedite identifying and developing micro community sites, including reviewing land use, permitting, and other administrative processes to ensure that they support rather than delay implementation." So, in essence, we're just trying to ensure that we're all working together to get any micro community site established. But then it also kind of looks internally to say if there are any issues that the city is being more of the prohibitor in establishing these sites, we begin to look at how we modify the city's processes that can help to encourage the development and placement of these micro community sites. So, Councilor Faulkner, I'll hand it over to you if you had any other further comments. No more comments. I think you covered it pretty well. It's just, it's an effort to just further, like Councilor Garcia said, solidify that this is going to be a partnership and that we don't want the city to be the reason why we don't get the services that people need out to the community. Is there a motion to approve Amendment C? Second. And discussion. Councilor Romero Worth. Thank you. I guess I have a little bit of confusion. I know how this started was at the committee level when we were trying to decide when a potential site was ready to come forward. So, we had a big conversation about, is it, you know, we identify a bunch of places where you could put it, but we haven't done any of the work around vetting it. Then we got into this conversation about, is it a, is it a, is it public, is it city-owned private property or privately owned property? And if it's city-owned property, the governing body decides what happens with city-owned property. So, it makes sense that those at some point need to come forward to us, and we have to say, yes, we want to use this city-owned site for this purpose. But then we get into this question of the, the, the ones that are privately owned, and we don't control what people do completely with privately owned property. And so, I, I guess what I, but the other thing that we have talked about in this process is these, help me, Director Hammond Paul, they're called good neighbor agreements. Correct. Is that the right counseling? So, when, so this, this idea here that, that the micro community, let's see, the city manager or what one is it, the one where you're supposed to do community engagement. We've already, I think, that the micro community sites located on non-city-owned parcels, the city manager shall direct staff to lead coordination of community engagement efforts to support advancing feasible projects. So, I think we've already done that. We've already, I don't know if we did it in a resolution, but I know we have already said that whenever we do these sites, whether they're public or private, you have to go to the surrounding neighborhood and do and develop a good neighbor agreement, which is essentially a document that says, this is what the city's going to do, this is what the, the landowner, the host is going to do, and this is what, you know, this is how we're going to address the neighborhood's concerns. So, it seems like we've already, this, I don't know that you need that resolved, and it, it causes confusion to me because we're in a different now conversation, and we're adding things when I think we already have things that address that particular be it resolved. That's a very long-winded way of getting to my point. Thank you for the comment. Councilor Faulkner, you want to respond? I would just offer that I don't think there's harm in reinforcing something we already have in place. I, I think that in this particular case, because we're, this is a controversial issue, I don't feel like there's a lot of harm in reinforcing something we've already agreed to. And it's a way of saying to the community and to staff, like, this is a priority to the governing body, to the community. So, I, I don't, I don't see that there's an issue by doubling down on this. And, and I don't have a problem with doubling down or reinforcing, but we're using different language. So, I, I, I think we should, this language should refer to the community, the good neighbor agreements, because otherwise it sounds like we're adding on. And so, we got to develop a good neighbor agreement, and we have to do, and maybe people down the road when there are other people sitting up here and there are other people staffing our, our departments. Is it going to be confusing what we're talking about? I, I, I don't know. It may not be a big deal. Maybe we just let it go, but we don't use the same language, which is that we've already required that we go out to the community to develop these good neighborhood agreements. Mr. Mayor, I, I can clear this all up easily. Go ahead, Councilor Garcia. So, this clause is talking to feasible projects. The, the language that Councilor Romero Worth is referencing is talking to approved projects. So, after, for example, let's, the only privately owned pellet shelter micro community site we have is with Christ Lutheran. We did not require community engagement beforehand. We required community engagement after through a good neighbor agreement. What this is saying is as we are trying to establish privately owned sites. We are asking staff to lead the coordination of community engagement of any feasible project. So this is kind of the before work. What Councilor Romero Worth is referencing is the after work of after it's approved. Now, Councilor Romero Worth said we can't control what is done on privately owned property. I completely agree with that. But what we can control is how our pallet shelters are used. And that's what we're proposing here now is the use of the city-owned pallet shelters, whether it's on private or city-owned sites. Am I correct, Director Heal? Because if a privately owned person wanted to go purchase their own pallet shelters and put them up, we have no say so. But if a private entity comes to us and wants to use our city-owned pallet shelters, I would expect that the governing body would give final approval before any of the pallet shelters are used because there's a liability issue there, and we need to ensure that if such placement occurs, that ultimately the governing body is okay with that and approves any liability issues. So that's where we want to make sure that when we get into the differentiation between public and private, the city still has a say so in this matter if they are going to be city-owned pallet shelters. Yes, you may go ahead, Council. I also think that the city does have control in some spaces around zoning. There are some private entities that might want to participate, but they're in the wrong zone. And so the city has some controls here that I think we can leverage to improve the situation. And so I think that's why we felt that it was important that in this circumstance related to this piece of legislation, that we say the city has some controls. It's not like we have no control. We have some controls. Thank you, Councilor Chavez. Councilor, I'm sorry. Director Hammond Paul, did you want to speak to any of the aforementioned questions about pallet shelters, risk, liability, things like that? Mr. Mayor, councilors, I think my only comment here is that, and this is where I might return back to something I said, which is what are we trying to accomplish with this? Because I think some of the things are actually setting us up to move. Are we trying to say we need these and we need these quickly? And is that what we're solving against? Are we trying to solve against this is a hard pill for anybody to swallow? How do we do this in a way that makes as many people happy as possible? I think there are very different challenges that we're trying to address, and some of what we're getting at here conflicts with both ends, right? So are we trying to make it easier to do a hard thing, which is done by enabling city land to be used expeditiously? Things like doing multiple levels of community engagement and approvals helps address the pushback element and satisfy broad swaths of the community, but probably will increase timelines. And there are positives to the community engagement piece. Don't mishear me on that. But it definitely will make it harder to do this quickly. So again, I think it's to the governing body in terms of what are we trying to achieve with this resolution, and then kind of working forward from that. I see merits to all of those angles, but I do think there is a slight conflict in this. Thank you for addressing that. Councilor Chavez, you had raised your hand. And Councilor Casset, you're next. I just wanted to say I see a difference in the community engagement and the good neighbor agreement just because of distance or who's involved, because I think Director, the good neighbor agreement is more isolated around the site, where a community engagement is a larger expansion, and that's how I see it in our previous conversations. Or District 4 is when we really want to engage the community, we can look at really community that could be helpful or could have a voice or could help things be successful, even though it's not in the actual neighborhood, which is more so the good neighbor agreement. Correct, Council? I think there's a differentiation. Yeah, there's a difference there. Thank you. Any other, I'm sorry. Correct, Councilor Casset, your hand is up on the Zoom. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I think on the same lines that Councilor Chavez is trying to understand, when I was reading this, I actually assumed this was following the same lines of a process that we already follow. I mean, and to the point of it being on private land, especially if it's coming from this, chances are we're funding it, so yes, there's automatically going to be city involvement there, aside just from the pallet shelters that we would be providing. I mean, we have been providing contracts for the wraparound services and the actual functioning of the micro communities. So now I've heard a few things go back and forth. So if I could get some clarification real fast around just the envisioning of what this, what this changes from what we are doing, say with Richards, or what we did with the one at CLC, that would be helpful for me because I mean, what I was really reading is that for me, it just was codifying this idea that we've already discussed quite a bit, is that we will, you know, have these community engagement moments, that we will have staff coming through. They'll be identifying sites. They'll say, "This is a viable site. This is something that we want to move forward with." We're going to be having these discussions and we're going to be having these good neighbor agreements. But I'm not sure what a larger community engagement process would look like if we are talking site-specific as opposed to a good neighbor agreement, because if we're talking site-specific, chances are the people that are going to be really curious and interested are going to be the people that we'd want a good neighbor agreement with anyway. So, I think this conversation's confused me a little bit more. So if I could get clarification on that, that'd be extremely helpful from either of the sponsors. Councilor Faulkner, your hand is up. So I think one of the things that we're trying to focus on is that in the past, like Councilor Garcia had mentioned, we sought community outreach after a decision was made. I think what we're trying to do is establish a process where when we've identified some sites, we engage the public before the selection was made, and we do that through the city councilors of whichever district we're talking about. But the important thing is, if we expect community to take on some of the responsibility of making these decisions, then we need to engage the community before the decisions are made and not after the decisions are made. And so I think that's really one of the priorities of what we're trying to do in this legislation is to just say, we're going to engage community first, then make a decision, rather than make a decision and then engage community. Other questions? Just a quick comment. Thank you, Mayor. I do agree that they're not mutually exclusive. You can have community engagement. You can also have good neighbor agreements. Good neighbor agreements are just that, an agreement. They're not legally binding. There are a lot of reasons that we want community input on the front end. So, I support this effort. Thank you. I would just add a footnote, and I say this with full, as Councilor Lindell has said, full recognition that others will be responsible for implementing this and I will not. But I do want to plant a seed in the members of the governing body who will be here after the 1st of January. We've left out of, I think in this conversation, we focused on community. We focused on the need for unhoused people to get shelter. We haven't focused on the staff. So I'm going to take a minute and speak on behalf of our staff. And Director Hammond Paul, I think quite diplomatically, pointed out some of the tension in our equally valid but slightly conflicting policy goals. We want to go forward and we want everyone to participate. We want governing body members to take responsibility and be an advocate for this. And we want to be sure that the community is consulted and we want to move quickly. You know, there's a sign in some stores that says you can have it fast, good, and on time, only two out of three. And so we're trying to have all three out of three. I am concerned that staff is going to end up being the meat in the ham sandwich, that they're going to bring, they're going to do all this work ahead of time. They're going to do all the work to identify sites. They're going to do a lot of pre-site preparation, negotiation, engagement, and unless the members of the governing body in whose district that proposal is designed to go have the courage of their convictions and the political will to say, even after community engagement, if the folks still don't want it, we are still going to have to have the ability to say yes. Otherwise, staff is going to be in a very uncomfortable position of continually bringing things forward that are ready to be adopted only to see them potentially shut down. So, I would, it's just a footnote. It's a cautionary reminder that the people who are working extremely hard already to try to find these sites need your support when the going gets tough. Otherwise, I think you'll discover that the process leads to failure rather than to more sites, more people housed, and more community engagement that actually fits the bill for all three of those things. So, it's really just a cautionary tale to please not only remember the community, but remember the staff who is responsible for doing all of this hard prep work. And if they bring you something that's a tough choice, you've got to give them your backing or this resolution won't work. Yeah, Council Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think Councilor Faulkner did definitely think about that, and it's outlined in this resolution. So, let me reiterate here, and this gets to the point you're making. It says, "Be it further resolved that the city manager shall direct city staff to develop the implementation plan in consultation with city councilors, community stakeholders, and local organizations to receive suggestions and identify viable sites within each district to develop micro communities." So, the way I read that is that the staff is the facilitators. They work in consultation with the councilors, the community, local community-based organizations, and that's where the suggestions are then farmed. It does not solely rely on staff. We completely understand staff is bogged down. I wish I had five of you, Director Hammond Paul, because we definitely need it. And that's where we're recognizing this, that this work has to be in consultation and cooperation with each other. So that addresses the concerns hopefully, Mr. Mayor, because we cannot get five more of you, Director Hammond Paul. I mean, I wish the city manager would allow for the budget to happen, but that's just not the way it works. And this is where we have to get creative of how we are going to work together, not only as a government, but with the community to ultimately determine these tough decisions, whether it's pallet shelter locations or any other city services. We as a city are strapped, and this is how we're going to be moving forward is we're going to have to work hand in hand together with staff, with the community, with business to ultimately get things done. And so, by no means, Director Hammond Paul, this is not going to all fall on you, your staff. It's going to fall on all of us. And this is where the success is going to rely upon how much each of us puts into this. Thank you for that. I look at it slightly differently in that I think the model that Councilor Faulkner and Councilor Lee Garcia have set is really what I'm looking for. I want to see the city council member in that district saying, "I am going to help find that site, and I am then going to take it to staff and be the active agent who says, 'I am not waiting for you to bring me proposals so I can vet them. I want to be the person, the leader in my community, who is actively advancing options so that it's not a wait-and-see opportunity. It is more agency to be out front.'" And then staff can fill in behind and say, "We'll do the hard staff work. We'll look at the zoning. We'll look at the site preparation. We'll do community engagement." But if you have a site you're ready to go with and you're willing to champion it, we are—you're the leader, we'll follow you. And I think that's the model that Councilor Faulkner and Councilor Lee Garcia have already talked about within their district. It is really going to make a huge difference as far as leadership with this issue and not waiting for the staff to do the prep work. Staff will do the prep work. They need to know that it will be rewarded because the council member or council members and mayor are all working collaboratively to advance the site selection process. Councilor Faulkner: I would just offer that I don't think that the way the language is now negates that from happening. The councilors cannot self-identify sites if we don't know what sites are available. So then that's why we need staff to tell us what sites are available and consult with us. So then we decide as councilors where the best site is for our district, and we're the best ones to do that because we're closer to our constituents. We understand the specific issues within our districts. If we're doing our job, we have a good relationship with most of our constituents. So I think the consultation part is that I can't identify what sites are viable. Henry Hammond Paul can, and he can say there are three sites in your district, and then Councilor Lee Garcia and I can say, "Well, we'll take this site." The consultation part is like bringing together staff's assessment of what are the viable sites and then the councilor's abilities to move their district and to do what is best for the city and their district around this issue. So the consultation doesn't put all the weight on staff, saying to staff, "Identify what sites are viable," and then as councilors, we're going to work with our communities and with the director to identify what sites are best for our district. So, I don't—I think we might be, and this happens all the time in policy, we might be defining things a little differently as we go through this process. Consultation to me is like Henry identifies sites, we talk to our community, and we do that consultation. To some of the members of the council, it could mean something very differently, and this is one thing that I would like to work on moving forward. I would love it if we could start using definitions in our legislation because I find we have a lot of conflict around just having a different understanding of what consultation means. Thank you, Councilor Lee Garcia. Councilor Lee Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I concur. I think that with Councilor Faulkner, and back to the direction of this amendment here, it just allows collaboration between both. It can be initiated by a councilor. It can be something that's brought forth by the director or somebody who they designate to start looking at a specific site. And so, I think again, you can probably look at it in a couple of different ways, but to Councilor Michael Garcia's point, that "be it further resolved" really allows for collaboration between both, and it could be initiated by either. So, that's where my feelings are. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Mayor Worth. Councilor Mayor Worth: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, colleagues. I do appreciate the conversation. I can't decide if I've got more clarity or less, but "be it further resolved that the city manager or designate shall bring proposed city-owned micro community sites to the governing body for review and approval." Shall bring proposed. So again, we had this conversation at the committee level, and I'm still not sure where we landed because I think there were different ideas advanced in different committees. But shall bring if they're proposed, have they been vetted? Do we know that they're even possible, or are they just—and this gets to the definition question. So we've used words like "identify," "proposed," "vetted." I don't know what the city manager is supposed to bring us. Is the proposed one that the city manager knows is something that all the things have been looked at? It's got the right zoning, the drainage is okay, we've got the infrastructure to support it. It's good to go, and as long as we give the okay, they can go. Or is it just, you know, here's a bunch of them for you to look at, and we agree that those are all good if they meet all these other criteria? I'm confused about what this language means. And so I don't know if the sponsors want to clarify or the director wants to, but this is also a conversation we had at the committee level. No, I can clarify, and this is the same exact response I'm going to give that we gave last Wednesday. A proposed location is a location that we as a city want to move forward with for approval. So, a proposed location is something that's not only been vetted, but we want to seek approval for. So a proposed site is something that we're bringing forward, just like any proposal that comes before the governing body. It is something for the governing body to consider. Now, at that point in time, for the governing body, they will then determine, "Does it meet the criteria?" That's the ultimate decider. But the city manager at that point in time will be presenting the location or locations of these sites. So hopefully that helps to clarify, Councilor Romero Worth. Councilor Romero Worth: Yeah, thank you for that. We have a motion on the amendment. Is there more discussion directed to the amendment? Council, we have a city attorney hand up. Great. So I just wanted to point out, I believe one of the amendments that passed says that all sites will be approved, and this one speaks to city sites. So all sites would be required to be approved. I'm just pointing that out. Right, and that was an issue I brought up with. So amendment B, which says "all sites," was approved. That's in the language. Amendment C has that duplicative language, and so I recommended we pull it from amendment C. I'm happy to pull that because it is duplicative in my opinion. And so... You want to amend your amendment. So I guess I'm just flagging it. It's not illegal. It is duplicative. One speaks to city sites, one speaks to all sites. Right, and I did flag it, and it still moved forward with it. So happy to remove that, and that is—let me try to find it. That is, sorry, I closed that window. You—I'll come back to me, Mr. Mayor, and I'll pull it back up. Okay, well, I think we'll just give you a minute to find it, and then we'll move forward. So, Mr. Mayor, I was able to find it. Thank you. That is on page four, line 10, where it states, "Be it further resolved that the city manager designate shall bring proposed city micro community sites to the governing body for approval." That's the one that's duplicative because the amendment I had put forward says any, not just city, any micro community site, and that's in the language already. So, I'll make that amendment to remove those that that that whereas clause or that "be it further resolved." I think we have to take one amendment at a time. Mayor, councilors, I think this would be an amendment to the motion on the table. It would be to amend the proposed amendment. Is that accurate? Yes. Yeah. I think you're amending. Yeah. So maybe we can walk through that again. So my motion... What are you—what are you reading from, Councilor? So, I'm reading from amendment C, and I'm going to make a motion to amend my motion and remove on page four, line 10 and 11, to be completely struck, and that language says, "Be it further resolved that the city manager or designate shall bring proposed city-owned micro community sites to the governing body for review and approval." I'll second that. So that's a motion to amend. To strike. To strike that from the proposed amendment. Correct. Is there discussion about that amendment? Can you call the roll on that amendment, please? That that striking of language. Yeah. Can I just ask a clarifying? So it's striking lines on page four. 10 and 11. 10 and 11. Thank you. Okay. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Mayor Worth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Aye. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. So that amendment to the amendment has passed. Sorry. Did we have a second on that on that motion? Yes, it was Councilor Faulkner. And I'll call the question on this amendment. Okay. So, we have a—oh, we have to vote on calling the question. Do you want to—I'm sorry, I didn't give you time to get organized. Councilor Garcia has moved to call the question. It has been seconded. It requires a vote. Also, Councilor Faulkner. Okay. Councilor Mayor Worth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Motion is approved. Call the question. So now the question has been called on the amendment. Correct. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Order. So, I'm calling the vote in reverse order as to how I wrote it on the motion. Sorry. Order. What? What? What is your question? I'm sorry. I voted first on two votes ago. What? I see you don't—I... Is out of order. So, we're—why are we—we're out of... Councilor Lindell, Mayor, we're out of order because my motion sheet had you in a linear order, and now I'm having to backtrack because we started with a ladder motion than I had. But I'm happy to change the order if you'd like me to ask Council Mayor Worth. No. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. No. Motion is approved. So, we have a main motion as amended. Is there any further discussion of the main motion as amended? Could you call the roll on the main motion as amended? This will also be out of order. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Councilor Mayor Worth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. So that completes that item from consent. I would like to make a motion to amend the agenda to go to item 19B. Second. There are lots of folks. Yeah. There's a motion to amend our agenda so that we would now go to item 19B. Is there discussion on that motion? Could you call the roll And this proposal is similar to that. There have been a number of concerns that have been raised over the last five months that you've heard at various committee meetings, that we've heard in the civic engagement. And we've reached out to experts locally, regionally, and across the nation to assess whether or not these concerns will lead to negative implications or whether they can be mitigated. To understand those, we have done substantial study. I want to talk about three of them, then go to our conclusions and a recommendation from staff. The number one concern that we've heard most about this proposal is that it will hurt small businesses, that small businesses will have to lay off employees or close. Based on what we've learned from a number of studies, including one done by two professors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dr. Robert Poland and Dr. Jacqueline Wicks Lim, which was completed last month, the implications for small businesses are very manageable. And in fact, there will be productivity increases if we increase the minimum wage, and the retail adjustments and pricings will be de minimis, and I'll get into that a little bit further. Generally, the remedy that's suggested for this is we ought to exempt small businesses from the living wage update. That was done before in Santa Fe. In fact, the original legislation in 2003 did just that. Any business that had more than 25 employees was included in the ordinance. Anything less than 25 employees was exempted. It didn't work out very well. A number of businesses gamed it. They divided their businesses into two or three to avoid the living wage. They miscounted their employees, making enforcement extremely difficult. They would hire up to 24 employees and then not a single more to evade the living wage ordinance. As a result, the city found that enforcement was extremely difficult and that it violated the maxim that there should be equal pay for equal work. If you're working in a very small business, doing the exact same job as a medium-sized business or a large one, the thinking is you should be paid equally or very similarly. The original ordinance failed in that respect. As a result, your predecessors, several councils before, removed the exemption in 2007 and said, "We're going to go for uniformity for equality and ease of enforcement." According to Dr. Riley White, who you've heard before, many cities have followed suit, and they've gone for uniformity and simplicity as regards to small businesses. The BBER report, that's the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of New Mexico, did a study in 2007 to find out how did small businesses and workers experience the new law. What they found is that the exemption didn't even affect most of them because they had to pay more than the living wage at the time just to get employees and to keep them. What other studies have shown, including a business group called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, is that the workers that are benefiting from the increase in the living wage spend their money locally, and so you get a multiplier effect locally. And that lower wages hurt competitiveness because the small businesses are constantly losing their employees as soon as they can get a job that pays a reasonable wage. The next issue was that this will cause a wage spiral in Santa Fe, that the increases in the wages for our entry-level and lowest-paid workers will cause an inflation spiral that will mitigate any benefits. The increases in costs estimated by the Poland study that I just indicated says that the increase in retail costs will be two-tenths of 1%. The increase for hotels, 0.8%, meaning eight-tenths of 1%, and restaurants and bars, 1%. So to give you an example, if you bought a couch at Jackalope that cost $400, if you made this increase or the law in Santa Fe, it would go to $401. If you bought an entree at Santa Cafe for $50, it would cost you $50.50. If you bought a Big Mac, it would go from $7.29 to $7.38. Because much of our hospitality industry is aimed at tourists who are less price-sensitive than our residents, these increases will probably not be felt. And there will be productivity increases because if you pay your entry-level workers a little bit more, they're more likely to stay. And if they're more likely to stay, their morale is higher. They provide a higher level of service. You avoid having to recirculate your employees regularly. And as far as inflation goes, the major drivers of inflation are not really affected by entry-level workers, such as housing, fuel, and healthcare. So we don't see it leading to a wage spiral. And further, the thought that renters will suffer because their landlords will increase their rents just because we have this rent increase or the wage increase didn't happen in 2004, according to the BBER study. Next, the concern was that young people or trainees would be negatively affected by raising the living wage. Higher minimum wages don't reduce teen jobs. This is the result of a major study done by the University of California across all 50 states. It was supported by another study done by the National Employment Law Project. Bear in mind that of the minimum and entry-level workers, about 90% of them are not teenagers. And in fact, the average age in Santa Fe County would be 36. Across the nation, it's more like 40. And so the teens need this additional money because they're supporting their families or they're paying their ways through college. Lower youth wages only benefit high-turnover businesses like fast-food restaurants and discount retailers that are planning to rehire their entire staff within six months. Those are the ones that benefit from it, that churn their employees. Support for internships and other pathways to employment seems to be a much better way to go, according to Professor White. We have the example here in Santa Fe of the community college internships program supported by both the city and the county and currently 43 employers. They're getting kids out of high school and getting them valuable employment experience that then leads to ongoing jobs. So the evidence across the nation and locally is that young workers benefit and employment losses are minimal if you increase the minimum wage for young people. So bottom line, as you've heard, the $15 an hour that is our current level of the living wage has little effect or impact in Santa Fe. Community support for raising it to $17.50 is great. 79% would recommend that increase right now. The level of support increases on the south side of town to 89% and 84% respectively. As indicated by Alisa, incomes have not kept pace with rents. It is the major driver of the cost of living in our city. So rents are up 74%, but income's only up 36%. So half of what the increase in rents are, and even less if you look at home prices. Yes, to the city's great credit, there's been a surge in housing permitting in Santa Fe from 47 to 840 units since 2018 every year. That is having an effect. That's beginning to level off the increases in rents. However, this increase that we're recommending as part of the update would benefit roughly 9,000 entry-level, low-wage workers in Santa Fe, 20% of our workforce. We have indicated that this is not the panacea. It is not the only issue that will solve the problems of affordability in Santa Fe. But when you combine a better living wage with the emphasis that you're making on affordable housing, the commitment by the state to subsidize childcare, and the small business support that Johanna has just described, we think that we can move the needle. The total cost increase is manageable, and it will reduce turnover in businesses. We think again, the blending of inflation with rent data will be the first time in America that we've done this, and we think it makes sense given how important housing costs are to everybody's day-to-day lives. We think it provides stability support for workers. Whether you look at it through any number of lenses, whether it's a lens of community character, who gets to live and work in Santa Fe, whether you look at it in terms of economic equity, whether you look at it in terms of affordability, which is a term that's getting a lot of use now nationwide, or even economic development. This is a carefully calibrated proposal that's been developed over many months that we think benefits a great number of workers in Santa Fe with minimal negative impacts on local business. The city and its partners stand ready to work with local business and do so over the next year to prepare them for this change. It's time to update Santa Fe's living wage. We have an amendment. We'll clarify a couple of items on legislative intent. My colleagues and I are happy to answer questions after you've heard from the public. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you for the presentation. I think it's important now, we've got a large audience here. People are already lining up. The City Clerk, you'll keep the clock. I know we have a lot of people who want to speak. And in the interest of fairness, if you could state your name and then speak for two minutes and try to respect the boundaries. Also, please refrain from applause or reactions. This, we're not commenting on people's testimony. We're respecting everybody's right to speak their peace to the governing body before this issue comes up for a vote. So whether you like what a speaker says or you don't like it, it's all the same. Just show respect to everybody. So with that, you have the floor and take it away. Joe Suzinski: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, counselors. I think their side will have 45 minutes. Our side might just have four minutes. I wish I could talk for five. My question is... Mayor: We need your name, sir. Joe Suzinski: Oh, my name is Joe. Mayor: Joe Suzinski. Thank you. My question is... Joe Suzinski: I'm sorry. I don't think the stenographer got your last name. Okay. The question is, how many people have the job skills that can make it where an employer can afford to hire them at $17.50 an hour? Some people that are hirable at $15 and can be profitable are not profitable at $17.50 an hour. So, I'm presenting the other side. I want employers to be able to make it, you know. I brought yellow pages here. They say a picture tells a thousand words. Some of these businesses will not be here at the $17.50 an hour. I have a little gift shop. I have over nine years seen five different businesses move next door to me, and businesses do go out of business. You know, El Rancho has been in business for how long? 190 years. Did you know that? 190 years. They said they're going out of business, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, because of economic reasons. Economic reasons. Economic reasons are rent in Santa Fe, are labor in Santa Fe, and the materials you're selling. I'm in a crossfire between my landlord, as some would say, is from a capitalist standpoint, and the living wage, which some people are going from a socialist standpoint. My business is 38 years old. I want to make it to 40. It's difficult. And if there's a living wage that is mandated, then I cannot afford to pay my better employees what they deserve because I'm forced to pay the ones who are... I care about. I love everybody. I want everybody to have what they need. But there's balance. You cannot, what's the expression, cannot get blood out of a turnip if there's not enough to go around. Either the business closes or I don't know what. I've been probably two minutes. Mayor: Thank you. Joe Suzinski: Send a letter to the editor, but we need to be able to afford to stay, or else no one has a job. Mayor: Thank you very much for coming down tonight. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, counselors, my name is Paul Bamonte. I live in District 2, and I just want to go back a couple of years to the pandemic because during that time, we relied on so many people. We relied on our city workers, on our grocers, on our servers and our cooks. And during that time, we called them heroes. And it's my belief that we as a city have failed them because so many of them cannot afford to live where they work. And I'm here to speak in support of the increased living wage. I think it's the minimum that we can do, and I think we should have the understanding that it's still not enough. The proposed increase doesn't necessarily help anybody live here who cannot afford to do so today. What it hopefully will do is provide a bit of a buffer for someone so that if their car breaks, hopefully they don't have to decide between buying food and/or paying rent or fixing their car. It provides that small bit of relief for people. So I would hope that you consider approving this measure so that people have that breathing room. But please understand, it's just a start. It's not enough. And my hope is the governing body starts tackling one of the main issues, which of course you all know is affordable housing, and getting that under control so that people can finally start to live where they work. So thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Hi, my name is Todd Wager. I'm a Santa Fe resident here to express my support for raising the Santa Fe minimum wage to $17.50 because Santa Fe workers should be able to afford living here. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity since the 1970s, it would currently be at $26 an hour. And that means that wealthy investors are now pocketing half the money that used to go to workers. And instead of that wealth going towards workers' families, wealthy corporations are reinvesting earnings not into the community, not even into their own businesses, but back into greater ownership of the political system to the exclusion of everybody else. Inequality and the related lack of public representation leads people to check out of politics altogether and leaves a void to be filled by extremists. Raising the minimum wage is one modest way to increase public trust in our system. This will also help to increase wages for many workers at the lower levels of income and help to reinvigorate the local economy. To reiterate, wealth equals power, power equals wealth, and the lack of wealth for workers means a lack of any people power in our government. Raising the minimum wage is a small remedial measure to help rebalance our economy and our democracy and to provide effective relief to those who need it most right now. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Larry Keller. Honorable Mayor, honorable City Councilors, I didn't want to miss this one. You guys, I haven't been at this lectern for almost 23 years. As you know, the first living wage was enacted in February of 2003. Wow. This elected body has touched the hearts of everybody in this community. Design Warehouse down the street, a half a block away, is turning 44 years old tomorrow. I opened it on November 13th, 1981. Through thin and thin, I've always said, as people have asked me, "How are you doing, Larry?" Through thin and thin. But I'm here. Delighted to be here in front of this forum again tonight. I think a lot of my success has just been treating my coworkers as if I wanted to be treated myself. In a very quick fashion, I've never let anybody put quarters in a parking meter. I've always taken care of my coworkers' parking, tried to offer them sick leave, paid vacation, and the living wage. Thank you. Thank you so much, the City Council, for making this thing happen. Thank you, sir. Hi, my name is Lauren Lie. I am a Santa Fe resident. I am also the chapter president of the National Treasury Employees Union, NTEU Chapter 340, and the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Santa Fe chapter. I'm here to support the minimum wage proposal. While $17.50 is a far cry from a livable wage, it is a minimum wage, and it is worth raising the baseline because those good jobs that pay a living wage are the foundation of a good economy that works for the people. It's also about acknowledging one thing: that workers are the ones who create all wealth. The wages that they get is just a meager portion of what they're owed. So, if we don't raise this minimum wage, it's just allowing these bosses and these owners of businesses to just continue to steal those workers' wages and then call it profit for themselves. And I just want to say too, there's that quote from FDR, who basically, I'm going to paraphrase it, basically no business should exist if they can't pay their workers a livable wage. It's a bad business model. And I for one want to say, as a resident of Santa Fe, I do not want to visit a store or support a business that does not pay their workers a livable wage in this town because that's my community. They deserve it. And if you cannot figure out a way to pay your workers what they're worth, and really they're worth a lot more than $17.50, I don't care how bad of a worker you are, it's still labor. So please support that bill, and we need to get to work on really actually addressing the minimum wage. We need to go to $25 an hour. Honestly, even this one-year implementation is kind of disappointing, but we'll take it. Right. Thank you. Thank you for coming down. Good evening. My name is Victoria. I'm a member of Somos Unidos. I'm a mother of three minor children. The smallest one is two years old. I have been living for a year and a half in Santa Fe. I work two days in a laundromat, and they allow me to bring my children with me to work. I also attend the food assistance program. It's a help that for us, it helps us have the complete basic nutrition that we need per week. And there we pay for everything, like insurance, rent, and all the cost of living and the cost for the children because they are in the peak of development. So they need clothing, shoes, amongst other necessities. Some families here, we work really, really hard every day just to be able to thrive and move forward. We pay rent and we take care of our children and we try to put food on the table for them. But with this minimum wage of $15, it isn't sufficient. So, I support you raising the living wage to $17.50 per hour. It's not luxury, it's a necessity. So, please vote yes and please vote in favor of our families. Thank you. Thank you for coming down. Good evening. My name is Leticia. I've lived in Santa Fe for 19 years and I've contributed to the economy of the city. I have two jobs. I work part-time at McDonald's and I also work at a pizza place, and there I earn $3.50 per hour as a server part-time. I had to take another job to be able to complete the basic cost for that month. And I have four minor children. Their ages are 17, 16, 10, and 5 years old. They're all minors. And one of them has special needs, and he requires a lot more care. While my son is at school, I was able to grab a third job during those hours. We are six members in our family, and both parents have to work because of how the cost of living and how expensive it is. So I spend about $400 per week just on the basics. And my children, they are constantly growing and they have different needs. So the services that we use are super expensive. The prices have gone up, like rent also is constantly going up, and no one's really asking if we are able to pay it or not. And so families like ours have to come up with a way to resolve being able to pay. And so we work a lot and just to be able to live, but we're really only just surviving. We need your support for families like mine so we can have a better quality of life and so our children can continue their education. So please vote yes on raising the living wage. And I wrote this, but I also wanted to let you know I've been awake since 4:00 a.m. today and I'm very tired, but I thought it was very important to be here in support of this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can you pull the mic down a little closer? Thank you. Even more. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Cecilia Buong. I've lived in Santa Fe for 32 years. I've contributed to the economy and I do pay taxes. I work at a store and also at a fast food restaurant, and I earn $16.45 per hour. This really isn't sufficient to be able to cover all the cost of living like food, clothing, medicine, and basic necessities. And to be able to cover some other costs, I had to get another job taking care of an elder person. And I also am being supported. I get a little bit of help by my children and the food banks here in Santa Fe. And the cost of living here in Santa Fe is way too high. Unfortunately, I had an accident in my workplace, so I was fired, and at this time my children support me economically. I think that raising the minimum wage would benefit us a lot to be able to pay for my rent, food, and even some medical debt that I'm behind with. So please vote yes on raising the minimum wage and living wage. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Gail Barita. I've lived in Santa Fe for 20 years. I've worked in a restaurant most of this time. I contribute to the local economy. I do pay taxes, and I'm a part of the immigrant community that represents 15% of the working force in Santa Fe. I'm a member of the G4G project. And through this project, there was a survey done, and the members of the community in key industries in Santa Fe reported that immigrants in Santa Fe represent 15% of the workforce, and in certain industries where the demand is more, like construction and hospitality and other general services, that's where our community is laboring. We also have a very high impact in the economy of Santa Fe. We pay about $122 million in taxes, and we have a very high purchasing power of $365 million. This means that we actually do invest in our own community. We buy clothing, we pay rent and food and others to maintain our families. So because of this, I support the raising of the living wage. I think it's just and necessary for our families who daily go out and work for our families. How many more families are going to have to decide between paying rent, buying food, or medicine? And I think this year, more than ever, we need this raise because we might not be able to purchase food because the food stamps are at risk. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Miraa Ria. I've lived in Santa Fe for 18 years. I have three children, and I've worked in the restaurant and hotel industry. I contribute to the economy and I pay taxes. At this time, the minimum wage is not sufficient to cover the expenses of rent, food, and utilities. The basic groceries have gone up too much, and my rent goes up every year at least $30 or more. And if I'm late, I'm charged $100 a day. This is why we need a raise to the minimum wage so that families like mine have a better quality of life and we can invest more time with our families. I think that this is important for our society because family is the nucleus of society, and a lot of times we spend so much time working that we are unable to be present with our families. Excuse me. I'm getting a little emotional, but sometimes my children feel like I care about work more than I care about them because I have to choose work over them. Sometimes I can't attend their activities, and if I miss one day of work, then I won't be able to pay the rent. That's why I think this issue is so important so that families like mine can be successful, so that I can support my children in going to college, which unfortunately was not possible for me. That is why we need a raise to the minimum wage. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and counselors. My name is Bridget Dixon. I'm the President CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, and we have more than 600 member businesses part of our organization. And we appreciate the city's outreach and the goal of helping Santa Fe workers and a wage that they can live on. What we're hearing from our members, and we mentioned it earlier during the survey, is that most of our businesses are paying their employees more than $20 an hour. However, the concern isn't the starting wage, it's the ripple effect. When the base wage goes up, businesses often need to raise wages for their more experienced employees as well. And those increases across all levels add up very quickly. For many small locally-owned businesses, these costs can impact staffing, benefits, and long-term stability. We simply ask that any changes be implemented carefully with attention to timing and practical impact on local businesses so that Santa Fe can support both strong wages and a healthy business community. Thank you. Thank you for coming in tonight. Please get right in front. Olympia restaurant construction. Thank you, sir. We're out of time for this. Thank you. Thank you so much. My name is Diego Ortiz Sosa, and I am a member of Chain Breakers. I've lived in Santa Fe for over 20 years. I want to tell you about my work history. I worked for a tire repair shop for about four years, and in less than a year, my boss gave me four raises. Even so, the salary was very low, and I kept asking for a raise. He asked me if I thought he was rich, and I told him that my work was worth it as a disciplined and consistent worker. This physical work that many employers do not want to do, but they also do not want to pay a fair and rewarding wage to the worker. I have been mistreated by bosses. They have stolen my salary and used me to complete jobs, and sometimes they have not paid me. During these years, I have devoted myself to different types of work, from cleaning, restaurant jobs, landscaping, mechanical work, etc. And even so, I have not managed to achieve economic stability. All of this effort only made me sick with thyroid problems due to the physical labor. Many workers are not rewarded for their effort, physical labor, and dedication in different jobs where they are frustrated and live day-to-day surviving because they do not have economic stability. A living wage is necessary because we deserve it. We are the lowest paid and most insecure jobs for tenants. This law will help me because it will make my earnings more stable and guarantee a living wage rather than leaving it to chance. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Philip Suazo. I live in District 3, and I am a chamber member. I spoke in support of the living wage proposal when it was introduced and also attended the town hall meeting directed towards Southside residents. I am happy to report that since I spoke with you last, I have gotten a new job which pays me below the $17.50 being proposed. As a new hire, I know I will need to prove myself to my employer. I look forward to earning my higher wage in the near future. In the city survey, 30% of businesses have fears that this increase will impact them. I know that feeling of worry. But council members and Mayor, you all heard from Dr. White at UNM's Anderson School of Business that very few businesses are impacted, about 1%. All the same, even once I am able to get a steady, well-paying job or a raise for my hard work and experience, the rent increases will wind up eating whatever little I gain. The amendment seeks to break that cycle. Vote yes on this proposal so we can ensure that Santa Fe remains livable for working people, the vast majority of whom are renters in this city. And I also, being a member of the community of the recovery aspect, having to take care of my recovery and work with this increase will help me find suitable living where I'll be situated comfortably, and I can attend to both my recovery and to my work ethic. And this, I beg you, thank you, council members. Thank you for coming down tonight. Good evening, council members and Mayor. My name is Kenneth, and I live in District 3. At work, bosses complain that they have to pay us more, but bosses should be complaining to our landlords instead. Finally, this bill recognizes the vicious cycle that Santa Fe residents and workers find themselves in. We as members of Chain Breakers urge the City Council to pass a proposal. Rent is too high, and wages are too low, and we all deserve a dignified home and a living wage. There is no reason to delay this any longer. With so much economic uncertainty at the federal level, this is something that local leaders can do right now to provide for the Santa Fe people, just as New Mexico state leaders fill the gap with the SNAP recipients. I think that you guys should vote for this proposal, and thank you guys. Thank you for coming down. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and counselors. My name is Jill Dixon. I'm the Executive Director of the Food Depot. As a teenager, I played competitive ball, and I feel flutters before the biggest game, and I feel a little like that right now. I'm not really sure why. I'm here tonight to be one of many uplifting voices for members in our community as a food banker who has seen people in our lines for the last 13 years. Folks that are working hard, that have credentials hanging from their rearview mirrors and have car seats in their back seats. We know they're working. We know that they're working hard. I'm also here as a business owner who's made the decision to raise our wages of our lowest paid employee being above $20 an hour while still offering full benefits to our employees. So, I carry that perspective as well. Hunger is a policy choice. Recently, the New Mexico State Legislature and the Governor's office made a decision, several decisions, to choose abundance and food security for our people. And I hope that you will join them in making the right decision tonight to advance the minimum wage and help support our people. We ask this body to take that similar action because it is the right thing to do. People who are working hard deserve to be able to make ends meet without making sacrifices between food and medicine and car repairs or being present for their children's events. We all deserve to be able to be present for our children and still pay the rent. Five years ago, the Mayor, on behalf of the city, asked Sher Hooper, then Executive Director of the Food Depot, a really serious question. How do we make sure that 5,000 children in Santa Fe don't continue to go hungry? And the Food Depot responded with a serious answer. There need to be many interventions that help people meet their basic needs. And one of those needs to be an increase in the wage. And here we are tonight with that choice before you. The Food Depot stands on the line every single day providing food to other organizations, and we hope that you will take this opportunity to lead and take those people out of our line because they can pay their bills themselves. Thank you. Hi, Mayor and City Council. I'm Mary Ferguson. I live in District 2. I'm a member of the Food Depot's Board of Directors, and that's why I'm here. I'm representing the Board of Directors of the Food Depot. We want to compliment you, the governing body, for the attention that has been given to the proposal since it was first introduced in August. You've ensured that citizens have a voice and they're able to talk and tell you how they feel. The public commentary and the responses to both the city's survey of its residents and the Chamber of Commerce's poll of its members leave no doubt. A significant majority of Santa Fe residents believe the current minimum wage is too low. It's too low to enable families to meet essential expenses, and that it should be increased. We share along with some of you the belief that the proposal could be stronger. But this is a positive step that needs to happen. It would be a mistake to delay increasing the minimum wage. This proposal's provisions can be, and we hope will be, improved in the future. But in the meantime, our workers who keep our community in operation, who do so many jobs for all of us, they need to be able to live, and right now they can't live on the minimum wage. So please help. This will help. Thank you. We urge you to approve this. Thank you for coming down tonight. Hello, Mayor, counselors. My name is Amanda Brigal, and I live in District 2, and I work at the Food Depot. And I want to first say thank you for being so thoughtful with your amendments and for listening to the community. I went to several listening sessions, and I just appreciate taking the time to really give people the opportunity to share their opinions, and there was plenty of time for people to be able to share those on this proposal. I also want to say that I understand that this is a proposal submitted under Mayor Weber and the current administration, and there is a new administration coming in. But I want to also say that I hope you all see this as a commitment to the future legacy of the new council and the years ahead that we have for Santa Fe and the stronger city that we all want to see for the current council and for the future council. And so that's why there's no need to wait. I do appreciate that Mayor-Elect Garcia has said that he's ready to get work done right now for the residents of Santa Fe and get it done quickly. And I hope that starts tonight with a yes vote from you all. I also want to say a public thank you in front of this body to the City of Santa Fe for supporting the Food Depot the last few weeks. This has been a very hard month for the people in Santa Fe, for the food banks, for the food organizations. And I want to thank you all for encouraging people to donate, to volunteer. I want to say thank you to the people in this city who have stepped up and started food drives. This SNAP freeze has shown more than ever why we need a living wage and why people need to be able to support themselves. And so thank you again for a yes vote tonight. Thank you for being here. Mayor, governing body. My name is David Cos. I've lived in Santa Fe all my life. And I want to thank you for bringing this legislation forward. A lot of people say, "Can you hear me a little bit better?" Okay, I'm getting rusty, but I... He's getting tall. Liz used to do this for me 20 years ago. At least. Now, first, I just wanted to start by thanking you for your work, and I know Councilor Marworth and Mayor Weber and Councilor Lindell are the one or two meetings left. So, I know this is a ton of work, and I appreciate it, and I'm going to go home after this. You guys are going to have a couple hours more work to do. But I wanted to tell you how important this is that we needed this update to our living wage law. It's our law. Santa Fe adapted this law, made it our law, and I want to see these changes go through. I think it's an excellent idea. Change the cost of living increase to track housing. That's a really good step, and I just appreciate you doing this. I wanted to say that I can tell from the community tonight that we haven't forgotten our history. I didn't start this. Jimmy Martinez, when he was a District 1 councilor, started. He was the only sponsor. Everybody told him he was crazy. And then Frank Montana came, and Matthew Ortiz, and then Miguel Chavis, and I got elected. We finally had four votes. We didn't know if we'd have five, but we worked that really hard, and we got there with the help of the community. It's not like I need another yellow t-shirt, but Somos has been so important for this living wage work. We did that study with BBER at the request of Councilor Worsburg, and we found no change in inflation, no change in business startups, no change in business closings. It had a totally positive effect in that 9,000 people got a raise. So, stick to our law. Thank you for the work, and I hope this passes tonight. The last thing I want to say is I lived having that cut off and people having 24 employees, but those are contractors. They're not employees. We found this with the Chamber of Commerce and the restaurants and the hotel people. Treat everybody the same, and then business has a level playing field. They're not trying to second-guess. It's getting away with paying sub-minimum wage. Well, thank you very much, and thank you for your work. Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Hello, my name is Morgan. Thank you, Mayor and Council, for your time. I'm a proud member of the working class. I've done labor organizing for over 20 years, just as an unpaid person that cares. I'm here in solidarity with my neighbors, both housed and unhoused workers. Apologies for my casual dress. I, like many other people that are here, have come directly from our work, be it from a job site or their very important and often unpaid domestic labor as caretakers and parents, most of whom are women. I raised my wonderful son of my own, often on low-wage jobs. I've worked in the fields during harvests, as a ranch hand, maintenance worker, warehouse worker, just about every hard labor job that you can think of, alongside dignified, proud workers that for generations have proven their skill and their quality of character through this work supporting their families. I firmly believe that so-called "low-skilled labor" is in fact essential labor. It's what makes a town a town, a city a city. Workers doing this work were not long ago hailed as heroes. Where's their hero pay? Hospitality workers, maintenance workers, sanitation workers, mechanics, cooks, transportation workers, etc. All of our brave, hardworking neighbors have a right to dignity, security, to joy, moments of rest, time with their families, all these things that their labor value creates from the ownership class or the ownership class for the wealthy. So with more empty homes and homeless, unchecked wealth inequality and displacement of workers that run these cities, this is truly an intersectional task. Firstly, respect has to return to the workers, the ones that make all things possible, the majority. Raising the minimum wage is just one small step in this task towards solving a very solvable problem, and it can't come soon enough. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you for being here. Mayor: Mayor, City Council. I'm David Thompson. I live in District 2. Seeing all the support here from our workers here in Santa Fe reminds me how proud I am of our city for establishing the original living wage. I'm also a vice chair of the County Democratic Party, which is supporting this living wage increase. You've probably seen my analysis of the city's survey results using the 87507 zip code as a surrogate southside. Those results showed even higher levels of support on the south side than the already high support citywide. So I thought I'd also look at the response from business owners on the south side. Now, there wasn't a huge number of responses, but I thought it was interesting that the results from this group were split exactly down the middle between those supporting this measure and those opposed, and also split down the middle between businesses who predicted a negative impact on their business and those predicting a positive impact. The arguments against this increase in the living wage are very familiar to me. We heard the same things two decades ago, but after the living wage was implemented, we didn't see major problems. We still have lots of small businesses. And as a national leader in the living wage, the impacts here in Santa Fe were very well studied. You've seen the Bieber study. It showed minimal negative impacts on businesses and substantial positive impact on workers. I urge you all to support this needed increase in the living wage. Thank you. Thank you for coming down. Mayor: Very good. Good evening, Mayor Weber and councilors. My name is Lindseay Hurst. I am a resident of District 2, and I am here in my capacity as the Executive Vice President of CWA76. We represent about 3,000 public workers across the state. We are here to ask you to support increasing the living wage here in Santa Fe. We believe this is critical. Many of our state employees specifically, who are low and middle income, are opting to leave Santa Fe to live in Albuquerque, whether that means commuting or requesting a transfer to an office in Albuquerque. The department I work for is looking into office space in Albuquerque because of the number of employees seeking to leave Santa Fe. This is because of how expensive it is to live here. So this not only impacts our lowest wage workers, it also impacts those in the middle income when rent and housing costs go up so quickly. We stand in solidarity with the workers here in Santa Fe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor, Council. My name is Jerome Romero. I'm a resident of District 3, and I am here in my union capacity as a Regional Vice President for Communication Workers of America CWA776, representing 3,000 state employees within the city and an additional our members out in Meowof, and also our baggage handlers at the airport and our AT&T workers and union members. I just want to comment on Santa Fe taking leadership on this and really raising the minimum wage for a number of people. When the city raised the minimum wage last time, it forced the state to eventually adopt legislation to push those minimum wages above $15 an hour. It doesn't sound like much, but that affected 8,000 state employees. It brought them above $15 an hour. Some of them, for the first times in their careers, those folks had been left behind. Some of them were still making $8 an hour while their bureau chiefs were making $150,000 a year. And so, I strongly encourage the support of this bill and thank you again for being the light, the capital city, and leading the way on this. Mayor: Thank you for being here. Hello, Mayor, counselors. My name is Matteo McCulla, and I do not possess such lovely titles, but I am here in support of the proposed wage increase. Affordability is a major issue not just facing Santa Fe but is facing the nation. The recent current events, including the SNAP pause, have shown that the current wages, again, not just here but across the country, are not sufficient for a survivable living. So by increasing the minimum wage, we are also setting a precedent that raising the minimum wage is a good thing, not just in New Mexico, but across the country, and making sure that more people can have a livable wage now and forever and will not ever need to rely solely on SNAP for food. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you for being here. Last two minutes, I promise. My name is Ivan Corno. My name is Ivan Cornejo. I am the current chair for the Santa Fe Immigration Committee, and I am currently a program director for a nonprofit organization that supports families who are struggling with homelessness, housing instability. More than 10 years ago, I was here as a college student asking for the minimum wage to be raised. Back then, aside from being a college student, I was working two jobs. Today, as a professional adult, I'm still working two jobs, representing a community that is struggling with housing, representing an immigrant community, and more than anything, a personal testimonial. I feel like we're definitely part of the most vulnerable communities here in town. However, a powerful and strong one. Tonight, you have the tool, you have the choice to supporting our families, to help them thrive, to provide more resources, to make a better living. So please, I ask you tonight to have your vote yes on supporting this increment for a better thriving community. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you for coming down. Mayor: Madame Clerk, do we have Zoom participants with hands up? Clerk: We do. Mayor: Okay, I'll leave it to you to go through the people who are in the Zoom room. Clerk: We're going to start with R. Poland, you are allowed to speak. R. Poland: Can you hear me? Mayor: Yes, professor. R. Poland: Okay. I'm Robert Poland. I'm a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass. I've done multiple living wage studies for municipalities, states, and for the U.S. economy overall. I've written two books on the subject. Most importantly for now, I have written now two studies for Santa Fe. One in March 2003 regarding the proposal at the time to raise the minimum from $5.15 to $8.50 an hour. That was a 65% increase in the minimum wage, which is far larger than the 17% increase being proposed now from $15 to $17.50 an hour. In 2003, our study projected that the impact would be to improve living standards for lower-income workers and their families in Santa Fe and concurrently would not significantly impact the operations of businesses. Our projections have been affirmed over time. The results have been studied by others, including ourselves, and have shown that the impact on the estimated negative impacts on businesses were not borne out. Our current study has already been summarized by city staff. So I'll just run through it very, very quickly. All of the data in our study are based on publicly available data. So anybody could run the exact same types of study, we did the same tests, and would get the same results. Quickly, we find that about 9,000 workers would get raises, and that includes both the mandated raises and so-called ripple effect raises for workers who are already above $17.50 and would get raises. Unfortunately, I guess I'm out of time, so I won't be able to continue. Mayor: Well, if you want to give it a quick wrap-up, given the fact you're zooming in from two hours away, I don't want to give you special treatment, but I know you have a summary you'd like to leave us with. R. Poland: Okay. Well, since the main findings have already been stated by the city staff, I'll just say that based on our results, we conclude that the city can make this adjustment to raise the minimum wage without significantly impacting business operations, including prices and profits, and that moreover, the notion of establishing carve-outs based on number of workers is unnecessary and unfair to workers. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Mayor: Thank you, and thank you for zooming in. Who else is in the Zoom room? Madam Clerk, Gregory Wagger, you're allowed to speak. Gregory, we're not hearing you. I don't know if you're unmuted or not. Gregory Wagger: Hi. Sorry about that. Mayor: There you go. Gregory Wagger: Thank you. Hi. Yes, my name is Greg Wager, and I'm a resident in District 2 in Santa Fe. I'm here to express my support for the minimum wage increase proposal. I work full-time at the Santa Fe Humane Society for Animals. I also sub with the Santa Fe Symphony, and I'm deeply immersed in the community and invested in the culture and well-being of Santa Fe. We need much more than an increase to just $17.50, but this is something that will be a lifeline for so many working families and people who make Santa Fe the special place that it is to live. We desperately need this. I work full-time, and my girlfriend works full-time here at the Hospital Presbyterian, and it's hard enough to just put food on the table for her seven-year-old child. I'm trying to build a family here, and we want to have a home someday, but rent is incredibly expensive. For people that work all of the time, we don't get to see our family enough because we're just trying to stay above water. I love this city and want to stay here. So, please, this should be a very easy thing and a no-brainer. It will help all of the workers, and in turn, we'll be able to put a lot of that money directly back into the economy and recirculate it, so everyone will be in a much better place. The data has been clearly laid out for everyone, and we just need to do right by our workers. We love this city, so we're going to be reliable. You can continue to count on us to work hard. We want to live here, and please help us do that by supporting this increase in the minimum wage. Thank you so much. Thank you for zooming in. Appreciate it. Thanks. Madame Clerk. There are several other people in this room. Does anyone want to raise their hand and speak? I'm not seeing anyone else. Very good. Is there anyone else in the council chambers? I know you're all here to be part of the proceedings, but I don't want to cut anybody off who hasn't had a chance to speak. If we're good with the public testimony, I would entertain a motion, and then we'll have some amendments and some debate. Second. There's a motion and a second. And now, I believe, and there are questions, obviously. I didn't mean to cut anybody off from asking questions of either staff or anyone else. That's also fair game at this time. I would just, for the sake of time, I would like to move my amendment, and then we could discuss after that, if possible. So, we'll make a motion to move the amendment. Give me one second. I believe it's Jay. Okay. I would need a second. Then there is a motion to move the amendment that Councilor Castro has proposed. Is there a second for that amendment? Trying to jump right away. Sorry. It's okay. Take your time. Is Sig online by chance? Sig is very much online. She just doesn't have her camera on. I'll second it for discussion purposes. Okay. So, we have a motion. Councilor Castro, for those who aren't able to read what the amendment says, do you want to briefly summarize it, please? I apologize. So, it is a very slight amendment. It is changing the amount of the increase from $17.50 to $20. Very good. And there's a second. So, it's in front of us now for discussion and then a vote. Councilor Garcia, you provided the second. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Castro, for opening up some discussion. This is for everybody, not just city workers. Right. Indeed. And just to clarify, the reason that I am submitting this amendment is because of the research that we heard just recently, and also some of the research that we had done. I might need some staff. Elisa, if you could help me. The research that we did with UNM, it specifically spoke to the amount of increase that could be allowed for without negative impact. Could you express a little bit more what that study did and why there was a range? Mr. Mayor, Councilor Castro, we have Dr. Riley White, who has zoomed in to speak to the study that you're referring to. I think he's going to indicate that there was a range of increases that we could contemplate that would probably minimize the negative impacts on businesses, but at the same time, maximize the benefits to workers. The 17% increase that is in the proposal is in that range. Moving to $20 begins to get us into the range where there may be more negative impacts on workers. Hence, the suggestion at $17.50 for now. If you would like to hear from Dr. White, I believe he's available to speak to it. I did see that Dr. White turned on his camera, so I believe he has some things to say. Doctor, if you could clarify, please. Thank you so much, Councilor, and thank you so much, Rod, as well, for the wonderful overview of the situation. That's true. Whenever you're evaluating something like minimum wage, you're looking at, or living wages, you're looking at a mixed bag of potential trade-offs. And as indicated by Mr. Gold, the $17.50 measure is where we would be looking at a number of different simulations, a number of different policies, what would be considered reasonable and what would not be considered reasonable. One of the metrics we might use is looking at the median wage of a region, something like Santa Fe, which is about $29 an hour for a median wage in town, and what would represent about a 60 to 65% level of that, something around the $17 level. When we push higher to numbers like $20 or even higher, that percentage becomes closer to the median wage of the region. It increases the risk of potential market effects. But I still think, given the situation and looking and measuring both of those variables, and a testament to all of the other additional knowledge that we have here, a $17.50 floor in this way represents the closest bit towards an optimal increase that's both meaningful for workers without causing potential negative externalities at the employer level. So, looking at things like employers not being able to adjust accordingly to it. So, it's an attempt to find a Goldilocks position in an otherwise complex environment of wage policy. Thank you so much, Dr. White. And so, when we're talking about that increase, and we're looking at about 9,000 workers in the city of Santa Fe, and the last increase was closer to 60%. Can you explain to me what those negative impacts might be and what it would look like for businesses in Santa Fe to increase that, increase to closer to 20%, closer to the 60% increase? Oh, you said, so if we started today and increased our living wage from $15 up... To $20. I apologize. Oh, to $20. Okay. And so, when we come, there's a series of studies that have been done across the board, not only from other economists and other people that have engaged this. So, what do you expect when you raise wages higher? So, for instance, what are the negative effects that would arise from it? We have everything from, and let's kind of, maybe we can address each of this in a singular, kind of one-by-one concern. And so, when you raise wages in this way, there's risk of, and we found typically there's very little employment effects in raising wages above a certain level. And while it hasn't been rigorously empirically tested, if you look at the Kates's effect or Kates's numbers, looking at something around two-thirds of the minimum wage policy is kind of of the median wage in a region. These levels kind of give us the boundary between what we expect to be causing minimal concerns or potentially higher concerns. And so, it's about business's ability to adapt and their ability to counter a number of different concerns that might come up with adjusting to a higher minimum wage in their workforce. So, it's based on cost of living data. It's not ideological. Looking at questions about why not $20, I think it's a bridge proposal where you can monitor the outcomes and observe whether the housing cost index is effective to guide future adjustments or not. And the fact that the plan isn't static and provides a mechanism for automatic data-driven increases, so wages track real costs rather than other issues at time, is a benefit to this. Those negative effects in the long run, those price impacts, right? Those are negative. They're single digits at best. That can increase the other impacts that we've seen limited research showing increases in landlord rents, other things like this that happen across the town, employment effects, hesitancy in hiring. These are usually offset by increased productivity from workers. And this has been seen in a number of different studies that have approached this. People who are paid higher wages, employers typically require more of them, more out of them, and they manage that time well. At the individual worker level, there's adjustment in hours, right? And so, one concern is, of course, that's always brought up in a number of studies that have been observed in different ways, is when wages increase in this way, that does put downward pressure on hours that employers allow these employees to work. They require more of them. They often have fewer hours. But so far, and so, when you're balancing these effects, this creates that minimum, the minimum amount to be substantial but without causing those greater negative effects. And I do think at the $17.50 level, based on all the evidence that we've seen and shown, the effects for on the employer side will likely be minimal. So, just to sum up, and please correct me if I'm wrong, we're looking at negative impacts of a minimal. We're looking at single-digit percentage impacts on businesses, very limited impacts on employment. Potentially, that employment impact is going to be in a reduction of hours, which we've heard today that folks would like to spend a little bit more time with their families and be able to earn a little bit more. And that those increases are going to result in more spending in our local economy, which could potentially be greater earnings for those same businesses. We've heard that 60% of our businesses are paying $21 or more in the city of Santa Fe already. And we've heard that the most impacted workers are going to be low-income workers that are service industry workers in the city of Santa Fe and can't afford to live here. So, with that, that is the reason that I am suggesting we raise this to $20 an hour. We know that the MIT calculator and Food Depot has suggested higher than that, and we've heard suggestions today from the public that they would like to see higher than that. So, with that, I would like to, unless anyone would like to discuss more. Let's see if there's a hand. Let me offer other people an opportunity. Garcia, you seconded it. You're good. Anybody else want to discuss the amendment before we take a vote on it? I do have to concur with Councilor Castro. I don't think this is a living wage. This is a minimum wage. Living wage would be somewhere like $34 if you calculate what it takes to raise children and afford housing in the city of Santa Fe. Thank you. Other comments on the proposed amendment to go up to $20 instead of the $17.50 number. Mayor, I'd like to speak to that. Councilor Lindell, and I see Councilor Cassid's hand is up as well. I didn't raise my hand. If you want to take Councilor Casset first, that's fine. She's saying she's perfectly happy to cede the floor to you. Thank you. I think that there's merit in this, and I agree with what Councilor Faulkner said, that we're talking about a minimum wage here. isn't really a living wage, and we know that. But I also think that this has had a lot of discussion in the community. It's been presented to the community as a minimum wage, and all of our public discussions have been at $17.50 an hour. I would, as much as I think $20 is probably appropriate, I would be uncomfortable to move to $20 without having it presented to the public and allowing for public discussion to the $20 rather than the $17.50, which is what we presented and talked about. Thank you. Mayor: Thank you very much, Councilor. Councilor Cassidy, your hand is up. Councilor Cassidy: Oh, thanks so much, Mayor. Dr. White, if you could pop back on again. Thank you. I just want to clarify because what I heard and what I heard Councilor Castro summarize are different. My understanding from what you were talking about in terms of data is that essentially we have to thread a needle. We want to have as much impact as possible that's positive while decreasing negative. And at $17.50, based on the various research, the various economic models that we're looking at, we think we've done that. However, when we start to get closer to $20, that's when we're not so sure about that balance anymore. That there does likely look like there's going to be potentially more increased negative. And I mean, this becomes a policy choice of what we feel like we can live with. How much negative impact do we feel like we can feel comfortable potentially risking? And what do we think the pros and cons are of that? Am I understanding what you were saying correctly that I know that there's, you already said the name of the, I'm going to assume it's economist who came up with this model that we are now giving his name to this thing, but we've already looked at this number and that $17.50, we are within that range that seems pretty good. When we start getting to $20, we don't quite know as much of what may happen. Dr. White: Thank you, Councilor Cassidy, and I appreciate the question. You're exactly right. We do have to thread the needle. So, as we move closer to $20, the key is monitoring outcomes, not just wages, but things like turnover, hiring rates, small business margins, which are often single digits themselves. And what we've seen historically in Santa Fe and similar cities is that moderate, phased increases produce these front-loaded benefits, better retention, higher consumer spending, those positive things, and diminish the negative effects as the market adapts. So, if inflation or housing costs keep rising, the $20 isn't necessarily a shock. It's a continuation of a trend that the economy has already priced in. And it will get there likely just through the nature of the way that the model is built, right? It will arrive there unless inflation is literally zero. And by tying future adjustments to measurable housing and cost of living data, we make sure this wage growth stays in line with the real economy in a way that's predictable for the businesses that are trying to accommodate that. And in similar research as well, looking at Seattle, other places and other areas, there's been the impact is, you know, we have those staggered minimum wages that go up, and the ones that represent larger impacts, and those larger impacts do have greater outsized adjustments on the business side of the equation. And so $17.50 is truly an attempt to get there in a way that would absolutely minimize any potential downside risk for employers and employees themselves. Councilor Cassidy: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification and that information. I mean, and I think that we all agree that this is not a living wage. Santa Fe is extremely expensive. We It's a minimum wage, and I do not want to confuse the present nor the future with the conception that we're thinking that this is an actual living wage. So, I'm proposing that we rename this ordinance to a minimum wage ordinance. This is no disrespect to our predecessors that actually passed a living wage decades ago, but acknowledging that the proposal is going to be a reflection of the current time, we have to acknowledge that this is a minimum wage. So, my amendment renames this ordinance from the living wage ordinance to the minimum wage ordinance. It's as simple as that. I do not want any other else in the body of the bill to change that title and naming of it because I sit here and I cannot live with calling this a living wage ordinance when we know that the data shows to have an actual living wage is that some studies show $27, some studies show all the way up to $34, $35 an hour. And I think we're doing an injustice to the public by calling this a living wage. So, I don't know how I move forward with this. I admit I submitted it tonight just out of pure frustration of us continuing to call this a living wage when it's not. To me, that's like calling a blue sky red. We just don't do that. We do the best we can as a government to be truthful with the people, and by continuing to call this a living wage is not truthful. So, I know our rules require it to be in writing. I'm happy to put it on a word document, do whatever is needed. However, Councilor, I can just forward your request. I think your request is in writing. Okay. I can just forward it to everybody. Sure. And I think what I put in writing is just to change on page one, line 18, to change it from living wage ordinance to minimum wage ordinance. But I'm sure throughout the rest of this entire ordinance, there's a reference to living wage ordinance, and it needs to also be reflective that we're changing it throughout the entire ordinance. This is a reference to the pre-existing living wage. Hang on a second. So, we have a motion to substitute the word minimum wage for living wage both in the title of the ordinance and where it appears in the body of the existing and new amended ordinance. Is that what I'm gathering? Yes, because I'm in full support of raising this wage, but this is the toughest pill to swallow to continue to call this a living wage when it is not. We're carrying on a term that was used decades ago affirmatively because they did affirmatively decades ago change it to a true living wage. Right now, what we're doing is we're raising the minimum wage because if we want to actually adhere to being a living wage ordinance, then at minimum, Councilor Castro's amendment would have passed, and that's not what's in front of us. So, I don't know how we go from here as city attorney, but... Councilor, your proposal was just one line of changing. So, if you want to make a different proposal, we'll need that. There's only a couple uses of the word "living," mostly not in the context of living wage. You want to make a different proposal. What I want to do is in essence stop calling this ordinance a living wage because it's not. A living wage ordinance was passed decades ago to implement a true living wage. What we're doing is we're now updating the living wage ordinance to reflect a greater minimum wage, not a living wage. So, I want this to reflect the actual actions that are taking place. And so, if at minimum it's the proposal I made, but if there are any other references to the title of this ordinance throughout the bill, I'm requesting that those changes be made as well. Well, I mean, I'm scrolling through the draft bill now, and it gets a little, depending on how absolutely scrupulous your proposal is. There is a whole section that talks about livable wages, why livable wages are so important to a community. There's the term "livable wages" appears over and over and over again in the justification and logic for the bill. Doesn't it change the caption? If it does change the caption, I'm fine with that because again, the overall intention is to reflect actual technical terms and... For clarification, I'm sorry, it's really not appropriate to caucus on the dais at the moment. So, Councilor Garcia, I think you have a request from the city attorney to maybe do some more writing while other council members discuss a little bit the proposal you're advancing. And Mayor, our counselors, the caption uses it just to reference the title that it's given and the line that Councilor Garcia is suggesting amended, but the caption is true to what is being proposed already. It says, "Amending Section 28-1.5 to increase the city's base minimum wage and update the formula for calculating the minimum wage annually." So, it's pretty accurate with the discussion that's occurring right now, the caption. I have questions when it's appropriate. I think Councilor Castro's hand was up, and then we'll go to you, Councilor Marworth. Sure. I just wanted to get some clarification. The intent would be for us to follow through with the original intent of the legislation, which seems to be a living wage, which was why I suggested the amendment, but not to completely change the ideology of what we're trying to do to support workers, which is to create, and I am reading from, I apologize, page three, section nine. "It is in the public interest to require certain employers to benefit from the city actions funding for the opportunity to do business in the city to pay employees a minimum wage, a living wage adequate to meet the basic needs of living in the city of Santa Fe," which is very different than a minimum wage. We have all stated today that that does not meet the basic needs of living in the city of Santa Fe. So, I think that would be a different ordinance in my opinion. Mayor, counselors, I think something that's important to notice is that the findings on the first three pages are acknowledged as being the findings from 2002 as amended in 2003 and 2007. So, those are not the findings that you would be adopting today. There are new findings after those that would be today's findings. So, that's on page four. Sure. Sorry, just clarification. It was the intent of the original legislation to be a living wage, not a minimum wage. Councilor Mayor Worth, you have the floor. Actually, I think Councilor Cassid's been waiting longer. I'm sorry. Okay, Councilor Casset, your hand is up. Yeah, I think that City Attorney McSherry actually made the point, which is that when I'm reading this, it's saying that, you know, amending this ordinance, we've been referring to it to the living wage, but it very clearly states in the caption that we're talking about the minimum wage. And so, I don't know how that works within, you know, talking about a previous ordinance that was titled something, and we are now doing something else that I feel, I feel that when we're reading the bill, we're pretty clear. We're talking about a minimum wage. I think that there, I mean, we, we changing the caption, delaying this vote, I don't think serves, serves the community well. I mean, they've come out many times. I think that it is, it is pretty clear that it is minimum wage. What living wage is is complex. It's not an actual, I mean, what's hard is that it's not, there's not an actual defined term. I mean, we can use the MIT living wage calculator that changes, that changes based on family size, that changes based on where, where, you know, one is living. It changes based on what somebody else in your household is making. So, it is not a very, it's a, it's a kind of an ambiguous term, and there's a lot of different factors that go into it. Now, do we want to come forward, you know, at some point and bring, say, we don't want to refer to this as the living wage ordinance. We want to refer to this as the minimum wage ordinance. And I guess this is a question for City Attorney McSherry. Is that how does this show up outside of what we are voting on now? How does this show up in code? When you get to that title, does it say living wage ordinance? I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm uncertain how this shows up now as we make these edits. Counselors, the way it currently shows up is as the title in 28-1.1, and that's not being amended in this proposed bill. It would still be the name of the ordinance. Okay. But you do use the words minimum wage in various places, including the caption and the text. Mhm. Okay. Well, well, thank you. I appreciate that. That's all. Mayor, Councilor, do you have a motion you want to, excuse me, I'm sorry. Yeah, you did cede the floor to somebody else. Did actually. Back to you, Councilor Marworth. Yeah, I guess I just to echo a little bit, Councilor Cassid, I am a little concerned. This is a, this bill has been out there. It's been through committees. It's, we talked about this a lot, and it just makes me a little uncomfortable to throw this last minute curveball. I'm worried about unintended consequences. I think we aspire to a living wage. We're not there yet. There is an escalator here with a cap. You know, I don't know what that's going to do over time. Maybe it gets us closer to a living wage at some point slowly, predictably, stably. So, I, I don't know. I'm, I just, I don't, and this has been litigated. I, I don't know what, what happens if we start changing terms. We had an earlier conversation on another bill about how important the terms are and how we define them. And now, so I, I, I just worry, like, if you want to do this, I, I suggest let's pass what we have in front of us now, and, you know, you guys work on and and really study what changing for living to minimum does and make sure there aren't any unintended consequences. I just think this is a, this is way too much too late. Thank you, Mayor. And one sec, Councilor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Mayor. I don't see the big deal with it. It means the same thing one way or the other, and I, I really don't feel like it changes. So, I would support and second Councilor Garcia's amendment. All right. So, coming back to you, Councilor Garcia, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just going off what Councilor Romero said, Councilor Romero, do you honestly feel this is a living wage? Nobody said it was a living wage, Councilor. Okay. Okay, with that point being said, we need to change the title. Because we need to reflect our legislation in the manner of what the true intentions are. And as I mentioned, the true intention of when the living wage was passed decades ago, they were actually passing a true living wage. Kudos to them. Now, what we're doing is we're actually trying to get a minimum wage passed that is striving towards a minimum wage. Living wage, striving towards even a min. I mean, it's, to me, it's, this is chaos in the sense that somebody would even insinuate that I'm proposing to make this change to slow it down. That, that is the falsest thing I can hear. I wish this would pass tonight, but I wish we would actually call it what it is, is a minimum wage. I wasn't accusing you of slowing it down. I didn't say you were. There was another councilor that was... Let's, let's let go of the back and forth on that point. But my point is that we need to strive to support our residents because I, I guarantee, however this passes, if it, if we don't change the language here, whether it's members of this governing body, members of the community, members of the media, everybody is already calling this a living wage, which is not true. Let's begin to correct the dialogue and call it what it really is, a minimum wage, because if we want to move forward with the intention of this legislation, then get to a true living wage. I know that's going to be the most challenging thing right now, given the economic situation that not only our city is currently in, but our country. But let's at least begin to be truthful. It looks like, just my quick word search, there were four changes. I know Marcy sent a document, and I apologize. I think we were trying to look through it, and maybe Marcy, will you help present this? Because I don't think there are any unintended legal challenges. Changing a name does not change the implementation of anything. **Speaker:** So what is the question, Counselor? **Speaker:** So I tried to pull up my proposed amendment, it didn't come up. So, how many times does it actually truly show up in reflection of the title of the bill being changed from living wage to minimum wage? Because again, we're not changing the overall intention. We would still have a $17.50 outcome. **Speaker:** Did somebody lean on a light switch by accident? We lost a little bit of light in here. Thank you very much. Thank you for fixing it. Go ahead, Counselor Garcia. I'm sorry. **Speaker:** I'll yield the floor to Miss Marino. **Speaker:** Sure. Mayor Weber, Counselor Garcia, I did, the way I did this was I did a word search for living wage, and I count one, two, three, four, five, six, six places in the bill where we would change that language. However, I would recommend one of them stay because it's part of the original findings of fact. So, I wouldn't think we'd want to go back in history and change what they were saying. And one section that I wouldn't know for sure what to do with would be section 10 of the bill. That's going to be page 10, line 11. This one I wouldn't know for sure. I would need advice about what to do. The language says, this is the severability clause, and it talks about, it says, "The requirements and provisions of this section and their parts, subparts, and clauses are severable in the event that any requirement, provision, part, subpart, or clause of this section or application thereof to any person circumstance is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, unenforceable. It is the intent of the governing body that the remainder of the section be enforced to the maximum extent possible consistent with the governing body's purpose of ensuring a living wage for persons covered in this section." And I guess we could say minimum wage, but I, you know, **Speaker:** And I think that's the overall intention of why our minimum wage is higher than the state's minimum wage or even the federal minimum wage, because we're striving towards a living wage. So there is that intention. We're still using the intention of a living wage, and we're striving towards the living wage because we are far beyond federal minimum wage. We're far beyond state minimum wage. This now puts us in a new category, and we can change it, call it whatever we want. I mean, let's get feedback from the community, but I do not want to call this a living wage because we are misleading. We can call it a wage. Honestly, I just do not want us calling it a living wage. It's not fair. **Speaker:** Counselor Garcia, so to just to clarify, you would leave that section and leave it as a living wage. **Speaker:** Yes, because that's the intention, is to strive towards that, saying that we're wanting to pay a living wage for folks. The concern I have with this is that we've now morphed what the original intention of this ordinance was, which was actually paying a living wage. And we didn't catch up with time, and we've lost that intention. And now what we're trying to do is catch up. We can't fully catch up and truly call it a living wage, but we can call it a competitive wage. I mean, call it whatever I think we all would agree on, but I also think we all agree that it's not a living wage. So that's why I went with minimum wage because that's what ultimately it is here in the city of Santa Fe, that no employer, whether it's the city or public or privately owned business, is going to pay less than $17.50. In my opinion, that's the definition of a minimum wage. That's why I put minimum wage. So I think if we can take them, I'm happy to table this so we can look at this. I found four sections, four matches where when I searched "living wage ordinance" that it's in here. A couple of them are proposed to be deleted, such as on page 8, line 9, and this was the formally section to delete it. So, **Speaker:** Can I ask you a question really? **Speaker:** Sure, absolutely. Along this line, I am more than willing to co-sponsor with you getting this where you're wanting to go. Is there any reason, this question is to staff, can we move past this and amend this at another meeting so that the record reflects what we're trying to hit? But it seems like there are some spaces where we don't quite know for sure which parts, which sentences, or what part of the structure this should not be applied to. And so I'm just like, I'm more than happy to co-sponsor with you if we can come back and amend it so we get it. But my question is, and I agree where you're going, Counselor Faulkner, but my question is, so let me bring us back to the overall impact of this, right? The immediate impact is that city employees, beginning January 1, 2026, will receive the fair compensation of $17.50. Right? Now, when we look at external stakeholders, that doesn't take place for another year. So the expediency of getting this right needs to be done now in the sense that we need to ensure that our city workers, even though it's a small amount, they start to get paid this wage now. And I understand, well, let's come back and amend the title. Why can't we do that right now? What's the problem? Why can't we just take, we table this. We work on the rest of the, we've got much more work ahead of us tonight. We can chew gum and walk at the same time. We can, I can sit in the back with Marcy. You and I can go through this. We can bring it back tonight and get it passed, or we can at least consider my amendment, and then if nobody wants to adopt it, then so be it. But at least we would move forward in a manner where we're standing in solidarity with our workforce to show them that we acknowledge this is not a living wage, but more importantly, we're going to be bumping up our minimum wage to support you. But with that, I'll make a motion to table this item until later on in the meeting. **Speaker:** Second. **Speaker:** There's a motion to table the item to allow time to work on an amendment. Could you call the roll on the motion to, I'm sorry, Counselor Cassett. Yes. **Speaker:** Thank you, Mayor. One quick comment. Counselor Garcia, **Speaker:** I, unfortunately, this is a non-debatable motion. **Speaker:** Table motion to table. **Speaker:** Table is a non-debatable motion. **Speaker:** Yeah. And you know, you've had your hand up for a while, and I'm sorry it's been totally disregarded. **Speaker:** Thank you. **Speaker:** Apologies. But we do, it's a, as our parliamentarian points out, this is not a debatable motion. So we need to call the roll on tabling this to consider an amendment in the future. So if you'll call the roll on that, Madam Clerk. **Speaker:** Council Lee Garcia, **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Council Michael Garcia, **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Counselor Lindell, **Speaker:** No. **Speaker:** Counselor Marworth, no. Counselor Cassett, **Speaker:** No. Counselor Castro, **Speaker:** No. **Speaker:** Counselor Chavez, **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** Counselor Faulkner, **Speaker:** Yes. **Speaker:** You have a tie. **Speaker:** I vote. Mayor Weber, **Speaker:** I vote no. **Speaker:** Motion fails. **Speaker:** Now, Counselor Cassett, unless you wanted to discuss the tabling motion, you did have your hand up prior to that even becoming a motion if you wanted to comment. **Speaker:** Yeah. No, I mean, it wasn't about the tabling motion. I just, I wanted to correct Counselor Garcia's insinuation that I was saying that you were purposely trying to delay this. In fact, it does delay this. And so that is what I would like to understand, that, you know, maybe it doesn't matter at this point, given that we are not tabling this at this moment in time. But my understanding is because of the change in caption, and this is a question I believe for City Attorney or City Clerk, is that I do not know if there would be enough time within this, within this calendar year to still pass this if this were to occur. So I was, that was my primary question because it does in fact delay the final vote on it, regardless of whether or not that is somebody's primary intention here. So, City Attorney or City Clerk, can you please provide some information there? **Speaker:** Mayor, Counselors, this is only in the caption to the extent that it's the name of the ordinance. The action of the ordinance would still be the same. It says to increase the city's base minimum wage and update the formula for calculating the minimum wage annually. So I don't think changing the name, which is just in a parenthetical, from living wage ordinance to minimum wage ordinance would really change your notice to the public. If you felt like it would, then we, and you should re-notice it, but I don't see that that's a substantive change. **Speaker:** Okay. Thank you. That's, that's actually incredibly important information here. So I, I do very much appreciate that. Thank you. **Speaker:** Thank you, Mayor. I, I guess City Attorney, I guess I'm a little confused because the notice to the public is so that they know what we're talking about. So if, if this, if the caption just said the citation, the legal site, nobody would know what that is. So to me, I really think that the living wage piece of it is, is the important part about, about giving the public notice about what we're talking about. So I, I'm not, I'm not sure I agree with you that that could be separated. Mayor Weber, Counselors, to be clear, I think the action in the caption is the important part to increase the city's base minimum wage and update the formula for calculating the minimum wage annually. **Speaker:** Okay. I wonder if Professor Poland, are you still online? I know it's very late back in Massachusetts. Have you signed off or are you still there? **Speaker:** He has signed off. Yeah, it got late. Mr. Thompson, you're still here. Can I ask you a question, sir? And maybe while I'm doing this, Counselor Garcia, you can use the time. **Speaker:** Mr. Mayor, **Speaker:** Can we get an update like where we're at here because, yeah, **Speaker:** It's, we have, we are, well, we were talking, **Speaker:** Discussing the minimum wage or what it's named or, **Speaker:** That's what we're discussing. **Speaker:** Going to talk about. Okay. We're going to, we're discussing whether the name a living wage minimum wage is different now than it was 20 years ago. And I, I, you know, I, I, excuse me. **Speaker:** Wait, I, **Speaker:** Because I'd like to clarify the record. I think we're, you know, if it's really, really critically important, the living wage, as you were part of the team that advanced this 20 years ago. You've got, you've got standing on this. Is there a, excuse me, can we, we have, can we have some, yeah, **Speaker:** Mr. Mayor, I'd like to call a point of order. Does Mr. Thompson need to swear in because he's now city staff and he's now testifying, and is he an expert? I mean, what, what's the justification? **Speaker:** Well, he testified, he gave testimony earlier in the evening, and so I thought I had the opportunity to ask him a question. **Speaker:** None of them were sworn in. It's not a land use case. **Speaker:** That's the guidance. Madam City Attorney, Counselors, I don't think we've been swearing in for legislative matters. It's generally for then for quasi-judicial. This is not quasi-judicial. This is not a hearing adjudicating rights. Okay. But just so I can understand, if I wanted to call all of these members up here, to see, would they rather call it a minimum wage or living wage? I'm going to do the same thing. Reopen the public hearing if we hear from a member of the public after we close the public hearing. Mayor, councilors, I don't think we typically ask questions of testifying public. I apologize, Mr. Thompson. Put you on the spot and raise anybody's hackles. So, I appreciate you being willing to come answer my question, but we'll let it go. Fair enough. I don't want to open a can of worms. It wasn't my intent to do that. I just was trying to get a fact. So you are ready, Councilor Garcia, with a proposal? Yes. So based on my search that I did, there are three sections in this ordinance within what's being proposed because there is the word "living wage ordinance." I'm not proposing to change anything that says from "living wage" to "minimum wage." I'm only looking to change the name of the ordinance, which is "living wage ordinance," because that is what we would be referring to here. And so the first iteration is on page one, line 18, where it says, "This section may be cited as the living wage ordinance." So that would be changed to "minimum wage ordinance." Then on page five, line one, this now reads, "This living wage ordinance is adopted pursuant to the general welfare and police powers conferred upon the city of Santa Fe, Section 3-17-1." That would now say, "This minimum wage ordinance." Then on page 10, line 10, it currently reads, "Nothing in this living wage ordinance shall be deemed nor shall be applied in such a manner." It would be changed to "nothing in this minimum wage ordinance." So those are the three iterations. When I did a word search for "living wage ordinance," that is what came up. Okay. Now again, I'm not proposing to change any of the historical context around living wage or try to imply that this is a living wage. Again, we're only proposing to change the title of this legislation to reflect what it actually is, which is a minimum wage. Now, at a point in time when we actually truly get to a living wage, we should change it back to living wage. But that's my interpretation. If there are any additional iterations of "living wage ordinance," not "living wage," "living wage ordinance," which is the title of this bill, then I would ask that maybe the city attorney or city attorney staff correct me. But those are the three sections and those are the three instances that I'm proposing to change in this legislation from "living wage ordinance" to "minimum wage ordinance." So I'll make that motion. Councilors, the other one is line 11 on page one. It's in all caps, so it doesn't show up in the word search. Okay. So line 11. Okay. So, but you said that's we're changing the previous name of the title. We're not, we can't go back and change historical name, right? Or is that this is the conversation that was had between, I thought, between yourself and Councilor Romero Worth where we're referring to old legislation? Mayor Weber, Councilor Garcia, I think two different ideas. One is whether or not the caption can be changed without delaying the legislation. My opinion is no, because I think the caption has placed the public on notice as to what you're doing. The other is, can you change the name of the ordinance without changing the historical matter? And I think the answer is yes. And I think you would need to reflect the name that you're changing the ordinance to consistently in the caption and the body of the legislation. Okay. So, I think in addition to the three iterations I mentioned, then that would be the fourth. Even if we change the caption and we have to re-notice, we still have sufficient time to get this through final adoption in December where it could still take impact in January 1. Mayor, Councilor, regardless, I don't think you need to re-notice it and I think you don't actually have to change it either. So I think I see where Councilor Marworth was coming from earlier is currently called the living wage ordinance. It's fine. That is what you're amending. Now you're calling it the minimum wage ordinance. You could just strike that entirely in the caption if you wanted to. Section is the same. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can leave it as, I mean, I want to, right, and that was my thought of not amending the caption, the title. Yes. So I want to move forward with the three original because I think that we get throughout the intention and we honor still, in essence, I want to ensure we're honoring the past work of the giants whose shoulders we're standing on that actually got this to where we are right now. Without all that work that was done decades ago, we would not be able to have this opportunity in front of us. All I'm asking is that we reflect the current times and call it what it truly is. So I've made the motion to make those three changes. Very good. There's a motion to change the language in three places. And I'm the second is from Councilor Lee Garcia. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second. I think we've discussed it unless there's any last. I have Cassid has got her hand up. I've got questions. I'm, you know, not, I'm trying not to interrupt. Okay. Thank you. I didn't notice. Who's trying to think this through at this hour? But, you know, I didn't, others of us who want to talk. Okay. Apologies. I didn't see Councilor Cassid's hand. Councilor Cass, I thought that was an old hand. So if you have new, if you want, if you want to take the floor, go ahead. Yeah, I just, I, um, is there anywhere else in code where this is cross-referenced where if the name is different that this is a problem or Aaron, to your point, if this is cross-referenced somewhere else, um, you know, does the section number take care of that, that concern? Councilors, I'm checking. It's a very good question. Got a spinning circle. Cross-referenced, at least the word "living wage" is another section. So let me, let me look at those. Can we pause on that for a second? Sure. Are there any, do you have another? I had another question. I know, I didn't know if Councilor Cassid. That was my only question. Thank you. Councilor Mayor Worth. And again, what concerns me about doing this on the fly is the as potentially unintended consequences and we don't, we, we haven't had time to think this through. What about litigation? This was litigated. And I don't know, I don't know what, I don't know what rulings have been made referring to it in this, in one way. I don't know if it, if we mess anything up by changing it here tonight. Councilor, the litigation was about whether the city had the authority to pass a different, it wasn't really about whether it was living wage or minimum wage. It was about whether or not we could have a different minimum wage than the state, whether we were preempted by state authority. So I don't, I don't think the name of the ordinance would change that. There might be cross-references that could be confusing, whether they would cause major problems. So like, for example, there is a cross-reference to the Santa Fe living wage ordinance in chapter 24 about the traffic operations program. So the language and other sections certainly would be inaccurate if you change the name to this ordinance. And I guess my other question is, so I don't know that even back when this was originally adopted, it was a living wage. It was a minimum wage even back then. So, I don't know. I, I don't, again, I'm just concerned about changing this on the fly and not really spending the time to completely understand if we're doing harm. Thank you. Other comments or questions? I'd like to call the question. Okay. The question has been called. Is there a second on that? Second. There is a second. Could you call the roll on calling the question? Fortunately, Councilor Faulner has stepped out for a minute, but let's call the roll. Councilor Lindell? Yes. Councilor Worth? Yes. Councilor Casset? Yes. Councilor Castro? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. Councilor Faulner is excused for this vote. Councilor Lee Garcia? Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes. Okay. Very well. And now we have two missing council members. So, let's pause to see if we, yeah, she'll be back or I, I think we're at consequential votes here. And I don't know that she's going to want to be excused, but she may have had to step out. So, let's give Councilor Romero Worth a minute to try to alert Councilor Faulner to the vote that's in front of us. Should we be right back? Okay, good. So, the proposal in front of us is the one advanced by Councilor Garcia, which would in three places replace the language of "living wage" with "minimum wage." And the question has been in four places. No, I think didn't you say three? It was three because you left the other. We, we found four, but the title of the caption. Yeah. It doesn't change. It doesn't necessarily need. This is the problem. Written amendments. Okay, we're not debating the, the motion anymore. We had a, a measure, a vote to take a vote. I just wanted to make sure we know what we're voting on. As I, as I recall what you said, Councilor Garcia, you said three places. Yes. Okay. There is a motion on the floor. If you would call the roll. Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes. Councilor Lindell? No. Councilor Marworth? No. Councilor Cassett? No. Councilor Castro? Councilor Chavez? Councilor Faulner? Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia? Yes. Motion fails. Very good. So, we. I beg your pardon? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you, who did, who got left out? Did I, I thought I called you, Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes. I already had you as a yes. I apologize. We must know. I could have switched it up. Yeah, we, we must be accurate in these things. Call the question on the bill. Second. There's a motion on to call the question on the main motion on the bill. And there is a second. Could you call the roll on calling the question? Councilor Marworth? Yes. Councilor Casset? Yes. Councilor Castro? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. Councilor Falner? Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia? No. Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes. Councilor Lindell? Yes. Motion is approved. Very good. So, we. I'm, I, I try to be fair. We don't applaud. We don't boop. Thank, I appreciate you're sticking with us to this late hour and, and I know you came to hear the vote. There's a request to explain the vote. I'm going to make this brief because I think we're all texted a little bit at this point. Most of the information that we're relying on, I don't feel to say that there was no impact when we did it in 2004, that's over two decades ago. We did not, we had not gone through a recession, a housing crisis, COVID, and an administration at the federal level that is unpredictable. And so my concern is that we are dealing with some unknowns and I don't want to see the people who are trying to help the most be the ones who are impacted the worst. There is a risk when you do a minimum wage like this that the very people you're trying to help will be hurt. And I personally don't feel there's an indication that the companies that are not going to pay or won't pay the living wage or aren't paying more than $15 an hour right now either can't or won't afford it. And those are the companies along Airport Road and some other small businesses. And if we had amended this to protect small businesses, I would have been a yes. But we did not. So I'm a no. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for sticking with us. I appreciate your patience. I know it's been a long night. We still have more work to do. So, if you're going to head out at this time, if you could be as quiet as possible. We are still in session and we've got, it's 10 after 11, and we've got more, or 3 after 11, we got more items on the agenda. With that, Madam Clerk, can we go back to the regular order? Item 10, 10A, request for approval of a budget amendment resolution, BAR, to allocate $1 million from available general fund balance to Parks and Open Space FY26 WIP construction for Shelby pedestrian bridge replacement. Second. There's a motion and there is a second on this. Is there any discussion on it? Madam Clerk, can you call the roll, please? Counselor Cassett. Yes. Counselor Castro. Yes. Counselor Chavez. Yes. Counselor Fogmar. Yes. Counselor Lee Garcia. Yes. Counselor Michael Garcia. Yes. Council Lindell. Yes. Counselor Marworth. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. The next item, Madam Clerk. 10B. Request for approval of a lease agreement with Deer Credit Inc., John Deere Financial, for a motor grader for streets maintenance in the total amount of $365,798, including NMGRT, for a 5-year term ending September 2030. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion and there's a second. And there is a totally competent staff person waiting to answer any questions if there are any. Are there any? Madam Clerk, could you call the roll? Counselor Castro. Yes. Counselor Chavez. Yes. Counselor Faulner. Yes. Counselor Lee Garcia. Yes. Counselor Michael Garcia. Yes. Counselor Lindell. Yes. Counselor Maroworth. Yes. Counselor Cassid. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. Thank you for being here and for being patient and being willing to answer questions. We really appreciate it. Could you take us to the next item, Madam Clerk? Item 11, matters from the City Manager. Mr. Scott, you have the floor, sir. I'm going to give it back to you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Could you take us to the next item, Madam Clerk? Item 12, matters from the City Attorney. Madam City Attorney, do you have any news for us? I need to pick a microphone that works. Yes, Mayor, Counselors, I do. We did get a Court of Appeals decision this afternoon finding that, and this was in the Throne et al. case related to the old POS trail rezoning from R1 to R3. The Court of Appeals held up the District Court, which had held up the governing body's decision on the rezoning. So, congratulations to the land use team, to the Planning Commission, to the governing body. Former Assistant City Attorney Pat Faggali was our attorney in the public hearings. Rebecca Manuk Herman handled the appeal to District Court and the Court of Appeals. So, congratulations to everyone. The court found that the city did not misapply the legal requirements for rezoning, based its decision on substantial evidence, did not act arbitrarily or capriciously, and provided due process. There's a lot of other very specific and granular discussions in the opinion, but those are the overall findings. Thank you. Thank you, Madam City Attorney. Madam City Clerk, back to you. Item 14, matters from the City Clerk. I have two. One is I just am really thankful to my team for all the hard work they've been doing the past couple of weeks. We had a Halloween event. We had campaign finance reporting days after each other, and it's just been kind of a busy, busy, busy, busy time. And so I just want to send a thank you to all of them for how diligent and hard they've been working. Second, I'm happy to announce that we will, we have sent out our contingent offers and we will be fully staffed, which is awesome. You gave us two new positions, so we're going to be fully staffed, which is exciting. That is it. Thank you. Go ahead, Madam Clerk. Item 15, communications from the governing body. Very good. Let's go to our Zoom participants first so I don't forget them. Counselor Lindell. I have nothing. Thank you, Mayor. Counselor Cassett. Thank you, Mayor. The only thing I have is I want to wish a very happy birthday to my nephew, Asher, in California. So, happy birthday, Asher. Thank you. Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Counselor Cassett. Counselor Castro, I'm going to turn to you first just because I'm looking right at you. Sure. Thank you so much. And I actually am going to take a page out of Counselor Faulner's book and plug the toy drive and the PADA. I don't know if there's anything in particular. I know that we're still taking toys and you can drop them off at all businesses. And we also are looking for donations for baskets and especially for teens, any events, any types of experiences. It's a little tougher to get toys for them. Thank you, Counselor Chungus. I just wanted to wish our athletes right now that are entering tournaments. We have boys football at secondary level that are going into their tournaments. We have volleyball. I want to wish them all good luck. Santa Fe Independent Youth Basketball. Good luck to the girls. They'll be competing the next two weekends. My daughter's one of those girls. So, go Angels. So, good luck to all of them. I think the competitiveness that comes with sports is just so beneficial for our youth. So, good luck to all those teams these next few weekends. Thank you, Counselor Garcia. I guess in that same vein, congratulations to the St. Michael's Horseman girls soccer team for winning state championship. Good job. Good job. Other than that, carry on. Thank you, Counselor Faulner, you have the floor. Hey, again, toy drive. We're also collaborating with the Food Depot and we're doing the toy drive and the food drive together. So, anyone who's helping with the toy drive is also helping with the food drive. Food is awesome, but financial contributions are even better because we can really get people what they desperately need. Like a case of Jiffy Peanut Butter does not go as far as what you could give in financial compensation. So, anyone who wants to participate, I think you can look up the Northern New Mexico toy drive. Postada is well organized. We have a huge lift this year and I would encourage anyone and everyone in the city who wants to help. We're taking on kids who are in hospice who don't get Christmas, and we're also taking on CYFD. And so the lift is a lot bigger this year with a lot less resources. So I, everyone, get involved if you can. Thank you, Counselor Mayor Worth. Nothing tonight. Thank you. And Counselor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just officially on the record, I know Counselor Michael Garcia stepped out, but wishing him congratulations as Mayor-elect for this coming year. And thank you, Mayor, for eight years of being at the helm. It's a tough job. And thank you to all the people who ran because it's tough. It's really hard to be out there listening to people and whether you agree or disagree with a certain person, you know, it's still challenging. And so, I think that, I'll just make a comment about the discussion that we just had over the living wage, minimum wage, or whatever it might be. I think there's a lot more conversation out there than just one-sided. We, we, we basically heard one-sided tonight. And, you know, there's a lot that are out there that business owners who really truly do pencil in what they can afford to pay people. And this is not a business-friendly community. Thank you. Thank you for the comments. I am very, very grateful to everybody who ran. It's not so hard if you're unimposed. Counselor Garcia, Counselor Chavez, you guys worked so hard to get those votes and I'm very proud of you both. But it does take a lot of work and it is a, it is public service. That's why it's called service. And so congratulations to everybody who not only got the most votes, but the people who didn't get the most votes who worked hard to get their ideas out there. That's a, that's a service unto itself, and I appreciate it. I also want to say a quick word about the Veterans Day ceremony yesterday. It was really very, very well done. Unfortunately, we had a cancellation of Navy Week, which put a little bit of a damper on things, but I thought the turnout at the convention center was really phenomenal. The young people who came from the master's program were inspiring. And Santa Fe is a city that truly does believe that serving your country in the armed service is a true act of patriotism. And we, when we do events like that, we, we do them well. I also want to reinforce what Counselor Faulner said about the food drive. It's good to donate food, but cash is king. If you can send money to Food Depot, they know how to use it a lot better than we do as volunteers. So, please, please, this issue of, we have enough, we have enough food, we don't have enough money. So, please contribute if you can. It's a great organization. They do phenomenal work. And as we heard tonight, the need in our community for all kinds of support for people who are struggling to make ends meet continues to be a, a severe challenge. So please contribute. Mayor, I think we need a motion to suspend our rules and I would make that. There's a motion because we're tiptoeing up to 11:30 to suspend our rules to go beyond that. Second. And a second. Could you call the roll, please? I think Counselor Cassett, who is ill, has signed off. I was just about to do such things. So, I will let you guys make that decision. Thank you all. Yeah. I hope you feel better, Counselor. Thank you. Good night. So, this is to suspend our rules to go beyond 11:30. Don't fill that. Counselor Chavez. Yes. Counselor Faulner. Yes. Counselor Lee Garcia. Yes. Counselor Michael Garcia. Yes. Counselor Lindell. No. Counselor Maroworth. Yes. Counselor Castro. Yes. Motion is approved. There are still some things we can count on in a world of change and uncertainty. With that, That a long time ago. Counselor, I have nothing but love in my heart for you and you know that. Could you take us to the next item, Madam Clerk? 16. Introduction of legislation. 16A, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Counselor Signney Lindell, Mayor Weber, and Counselor Michael Garcia. A resolution authorizing the installation of 75 banners from March 2nd, 2026 through November 2nd, 2026 on City of Santa Fe owned light poles commemorating centennial anniversary of Route 66. Council Lindell, your name is first in order. Do you want to say anything about that? I, I think the caption explains what we're doing. It's a, it's a, it's a good tourism idea and I think actually we'll all enjoy it once they're up. Sir Garcia. Ditto. Ditto. Thank you. Next item. Madam Clerk. 16B, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber. resolution approving budget amendments for the Buckman Direct Diversion Board and Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency and requesting that the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration approve the City of Santa Fe's first quarter budget amendments for fiscal year 2026. I think as has been said, the caption explains what we're doing. Item 16C, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, Councilor Sydney Lindell, and Councilor Elma Castro. A resolution authorizing donating properties identified as 1522 and 1650 West Alameda Street to a developer certified as a qualified grantee under the New Mexico Affordable Housing Act to develop low-price dwelling units pursuant to City of Santa Fe's Affordable Housing Ordinance. I will pass. Councilor Castro, do you want to speak to this? Your name is there. We need more housing and we need more affordable housing. And Councilor Lindell, I don't know if you want to weigh in on it. Your name's on the resolution. No, that's fine. Thank you. Very good. Next item, please. 16D, consideration of Resolution 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber. A resolution establishing the City of Santa Fe's priorities for consideration by the New Mexico State Legislature during the 57th Legislature, State of New Mexico, second session 2026. Again, I think it's self-explanatory. Item 16E, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber and Councilor Jamie Cassett. Resolution accepting a grant from the Keep New Mexico Beautiful Beautification Program administered by the New Mexico Department of Transportation, entering into a grant agreement for a total amount of $90,000, term ending June 30th, 2026, identifying the City Manager or City Manager's designee as the signatory for the agreement. I'm sticking to my prior comment. Okay. 18. Public comment on bills. First, public comment, no action. 18A, consideration of Bill Number 2025-25, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Councilor Amanda Chavez, Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth, and Councilor Jamie Cassett. A bill updating the rates and service charges for water utility services. This is a public comment opportunity. No action and no explanation at this point from the governing body. But if there's anybody either in the room or online who wants to, or on the Zoom room, who wants to speak to this update to the rates and service charges, now would be the time to come forward either to the podium or raise your hand in the Zoom room. There is no one in the Zoom room. In that case, and there's nobody coming forward. So, we'll move on. 19. Final action on legislation public hearing. 19A, consideration of Bill Number 2025-6, adoption of Ordinance Number 2025-TBD, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber, Councilor Sydney Lindell, Councilor Pilar Faulkner, and Councilor Michael Garcia. A bill relating to the Santa Fe Traffic Operations Program, amending Section 24-4 to remove the requirement for police department oversight, provide for the use of cameras that detect vehicle noise violations using an automated compliance enforcement system, and impose a fine for system detection vehicle noise violations. So, this is a public hearing again. And I don't know whether I suspect Deputy Chief Valdez is not in the Zoom room with us. I would be happy to have anyone who wants to address the bill who is taking advantage of the opportunity as of a public hearing to step up or if I gather there's not anyone in the Zoom room at all this time of night. There's one person in the Zoom room, but they are not raising their hand. Okay. And nobody's coming forward. I'd entertain a motion on this. To approve. Second. There's a motion to approve this item and there's a second. Is there discussion? Is there any value in speaking to it? Council amendment. Ah, yes. Good point. It's not mine. So, do you move? Yeah. I think is this your, this is your amendment. Councilor Cassett, I think was. Yeah, she was going to be the, it was actually me kind of in second chair, but I'm happy. I got to, I can't even pull it up at the moment. Do you have it in front of you? It has to do, I believe, with the, counselors, I can explain this one. So, the, there's actually a limitation on the amount that we can. Do with the state statute limits us to 100. So, we, it's a technical amendment. We have to come into conformance with what the limit is as set by the state, not as we wished to have it set. So, in that sense, we're amending the language or the number that was in the original legislation. So, we're back in conformance with the state. It's from what to what? So, what was it? I think for subsequent violations it was going to be 150 and so now subsequent violations would be 100. You can't go above that without. And the first violation is. It's 50 for certain types of violations and 100 for others. So, it's 50 for over 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, I believe, and 100 for school zones and other special areas. All subsequent, 100. We were seeking a higher number and it turned out that that was not allowed under state statute. Can somebody be interested in moving this amendment? Motion to approve. The amendment. Sorry. Sorry. I just had a technical question, but we can move the amendment first if you'd like. Is there a second? Second. Yep. Technical question. So, my understanding in this amendment is that the speeding portion is at 100, but the noise portion is still at 500. Is that correct? Counselors, it's just the technical part. So, it's just conformance with the statute which is only about speeding. The state statute doesn't address sound. Thank you. Any other discussion about the amendment? Did you call the roll on the amendment? I apologize. Go ahead. So, I know that we're thinking that the money from this program is going to fund this program. When you, and I know City Manager Scott, you've said that, I think it's based on volume that you think this is, we're going to be able to pay for this, but you, and I don't know if any models were run, but moving, and I understand that we need to do this to come back in conformity with the state statute, but is that going to affect our ability to pay for this using the, the cost of using the penalties? Sorry, it's late. Will it be self-sufficient? I just didn't know if you, if you had thought if when you said that you had done some sort of calculation or modeling to suggest that $500 was going to pay for it and if that's going to be affected at all. Yeah, it's rare. Go ahead, Ken. City Commander. I don't, we, I don't remember doing any modeling of the cost and I believe part of the money that's collected goes to the state. So, it's conceivable that this wouldn't entirely cover the cost, but I can't answer that question on the spot. I do know that speed cameras, the volume of ticketing can be very high and especially when you use mobile cameras and you can move them from location to location. My experience has been that we actually had to limit how much we used the equipment because we were getting too many fights and that was creating its own issues. So, I think volume will be high, but I'd have to do some analysis to know how it breaks out. Thank you. Other comments before we go to a vote? Okay, there's a motion and there's a second for this technical fix. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. So, we have a main motion as amended. There's discussion of that. Can you call the roll on the main motion as amended, please? Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth. Yes. Councilor Castro. No. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Madam Clerk. 21 appointments. 21A, Mayor's Youth Advisory Board. Jack Elling, reappoint term ending 12/2027. Helen Marlo, appointment term ending 12/2026. Nadia Yazdani de Clerk, appointment term ending 12/2026. Approve. Second. There's a motion to approve these appointments. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Motion is approved. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And we have another appointment coming up. 21B, Immigration Committee. Dr. Laura Lopez, appointment term ending 2/2027. Sorry for butchering everyone's names. Move to approve. Second. Motion is to approve and there is a second. Would you call the roll, Madam Clerk? Councilor Lindell. Yes. Councilor Romero-Wirth. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Motion is approved. And the next item, Madam Clerk. Item 21C, Human Services Committee. Jeff Valdez, appointment term ending 03/2026. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion. One more. There's a, you got to turn the page. Oh, I'm sorry. I said a second motion. Kamari Rabari, appointment term ending 03/2026. I'll move to approve. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Could you please call the roll? Councilor Romero-Wirth. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Lindell. Yes. Motion is approved. All right, Madam Clerk, is there anything else on our agenda for tonight? Nope. And it is 11:28. We beat the clock. Thank you everybody. We are adjourned.