Special Governing Body Meeting
Tue, Jun 3, 2025 · Governing Body
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/785

== Executive Summary ==
The Santa Fe City Council held a lengthy and contentious special meeting primarily focused on addressing the city's homelessness crisis. A major point of discussion and public comment was the city's proposal to terminate its lease with Interfaith Community Shelter (operators of Pete's Place) and contract with Urban Alchemy, an out-of-state organization, for both street outreach services and the operation of a low-barrier shelter. This proposal generated significant public opposition, with many residents and local organizations advocating for continued support of local providers and questioning the transparency and fiscal responsibility of the city's plan.

The council ultimately approved a four-year, nearly $9 million contract with Urban Alchemy for public safety services and an emergency services contract for a low-barrier shelter. These decisions were met with strong dissent from some council members and the public, who raised concerns about the lack of competitive bidding, the high cost, Urban Alchemy's track record, and the potential negative impact on established local services and community trust. The meeting also touched on broader strategies, including the development of micro-communities and the need for greater collaboration among city, county, and state entities.

== Key Decisions ==
- Agenda for the special meeting was approved by a roll call vote (7 Yes, 1 No, 1 Absent/Not Voting).
- Motion to approve a four-year, nearly $9 million contract with Urban Alchemy for public safety services was approved (7 Yes, 1 No).
- Motion to approve an emergency services contract with Urban Alchemy for operating a 24-hour low-barrier shelter was approved (6 Yes, 1 No).

== Motions & Votes ==
- Agenda Adoption — Passed (7 Yes, 1 No, 1 Absent/Not Voting)
- Motion to deny the lease termination for Interfaith Community Shelter — Failed (lack of a second)
- Motion to suspend rules and extend the session past 11:30 PM — Passed
- Motion to 'call for the question' (end debate and proceed to a vote) — Passed (Councilor Casset, Faulkner, Lee Garcia, Romero, Mayor Weber voted yes; Councilor Castro, Michael Garcia voted no)
- Motion to amend the contract (likely to reduce its term or alter conditions) — Failed (1 Yes, 7 No)
- Motion to approve the original contract (likely the four-year, nearly $9 million public safety services contract with Urban Alchemy) — Passed (8 Yes, 1 No)
- Motion to approve an emergency services contract with Urban Alchemy for operating a 24-hour low-barrier shelter — Passed (6 Yes, 1 No)

== Public Comment ==
The public comment period was extensive and overwhelmingly critical of the city's proposed plan to replace Interfaith Community Shelter (Pete's Place) with Urban Alchemy. Themes included: strong support for Pete's Place and other local providers, concerns about Urban Alchemy's high cost, lack of local understanding, and track record; accusations of a rushed, non-transparent process that bypassed public input and competitive bidding; fears of displacing vulnerable individuals and disrupting vital services; and calls for the city to invest in existing local expertise and affordable housing solutions. Many speakers shared personal stories and emphasized the importance of community trust, local control, and compassionate, trauma-informed care. Some business owners expressed frustration with the current conditions around Pete's Place but still questioned the proposed solution. There was a strong sentiment that the city was not listening to its residents.

== Topics ==
- Urban Alchemy Shelter Contract
- Homelessness Crisis Strategy
- Emergency Procurement Process
- Rules of Conduct and Civility
- Youth Mental Health and Suicide
- Agenda Changes and Procedures
- Urban Alchemy Operations and Impact
- Interfaith Shelter Inaction
- Fiscal Responsibility and Contracts
- Community Suffering and Support
- Pledge and Invocation
- ARU and Paramedic Support

== Full Transcript ==
Madame Clerk, are we streaming?
We are live on YouTube, Mayor.
Alright, very good. Thank you, everybody. If you could quiet down. I'm sorry we don't have seats enough for everybody. It is 5:04 p.m. by my clock. I'm going to call to order the special meeting of the governing body. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilor Lee Garcia, salute to the New Mexico flag led by Councilor Cassid, and invocation and remembrances led by Councilor Romero Worth. Please stand if you are able.

[Pledge of Allegiance]

If you all could stay standing for a minute for tonight's invocation. I relied on AI for a prayer for strength and courage. May we have the strength to face our challenges with courage and wisdom. May we be patient with ourselves and others. May we cultivate compassion for all beings, and may we find the courage to act with kindness and understanding. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Councilor. Are there remembrances from the governing body?
I did want to mention, and I don't have details or I don't want to share details, but we did lose a youth member to suicide over the last week, which has been a huge loss to a lot of our youth sports organizations. I can't emphasize enough how much our youth are suffering and go without services because services are without within our state. Unfortunately, the mother of this individual serves youth. She is an educator. She goes above and beyond for the children she serves, and she's gone above and beyond for her own child as well. And unfortunately, has still lost her child due to our inadequate services for behavioral health. And so I want to remember this young man who had a huge impact on his teammates, on his coaches, on his educators, on his family. And I want to just wish with my whole heart he is in peace and is no longer suffering and knows that he is loved and acknowledged from all of us here.
Thank you, Councilor. Are there others who...
Yeah, go ahead, Councilor.
Just briefly, I want to remember Jonathan Joss, who was the victim of a hate crime in the last few days. And yeah, go with power.
Any others?
I just remind everybody that we have people in our community who are suffering. They're suffering from loss, from sickness, from ill health, mental health, suffering from lack of means or opportunities, and we should all keep them in our minds and keep them in our thoughts. They are important parts of our community, and they are all us, and as such, we are careful to bring them into our hearts and thoughtful of their needs. So let's take a minute and not only remember those who have been called to mind, but all of those who are out with us in Santa Fe needing help. Thanks, everybody. Please be seated.

Madame Clerk, could you please call the roll?
Councilor Cassid? Here.
Councilor Castro? Present.
Councilor Chavez? Here.
Councilor Faulner? Here.
Councilor Lee Garcia? Here.
Councilor Michael Garcia? Present.
Councilor Lindell? Here.
Councilor Romero Worth? Here.
Mayor Weber? Present.
Everyone is here. We're going to try to behave with a little bit of respect and civility. Whether people agree with you or disagree with you, let's all listen to each other. Councilor Lindell led the meeting last week, I think, with excellent manners. We try not to clap. If you approve of somebody, wave your hands. If you don't, just withhold comment. And we'll do our best to give everybody an opportunity to speak and be heard with respect and with civility. So, please, please try to do that tonight. Are there any changes to the agenda, Madame Clerk?
I think there is one note that needs to be made. There are no changes to the agenda. I don't know the note that needs to be made. Sorry.
Madame City Attorney, I believe there's something that is, we need to remind, it's not being voted on tonight, if I'm not incorrect.
Mayor, member counselors, the resolution is just on for discussion tonight, and it is for final passage on Governing Body next week after it goes to Quality of Life. It is not an item for a vote tonight, but it is staying on the agenda for discussion.
Move to approve.
And sorry, Mayor. I actually want to propose a change if that's okay.
Yeah, please.
I would like for the termination of the lease, item A, to be moved to the end of the agenda if possible, along with item C. They sort of go hand in hand, but I would like the opportunity to discuss item B before item A if that is possible.
Sure, you can make that motion and we can discuss it. I think we got the motion that we move item A and C to the end, but take up item B previous. Correct. Is there a second to that motion?
Quick question. Could we just, if you want to talk to contract with Urban Alchemy for this street outreach first, why don't you just move item B to the front agenda? That way then we go into interface right after.
Either way works. So, yeah, I would like to move item B to the top of the agenda. Is there a second?
Can everybody please mute your cell phone?
But I didn't hear a second. I'm sorry. I apologize. Okay. Well, with that then, could Mr.
A quick question just because I did have a question and this did arise over the weekend that when the original agenda was published on Friday, it did not have item number seven, Petitions from the Floor. It was still not there when I looked Saturday afternoon, and so I did exchange emails with City Manager Scott around that, and in between that communication, I noticed late Saturday evening it was added. So, the question is to City Attorney, does the 72-hour rule apply over the weekends or is it solely for weekdays?
Councilor Garcia, Petitions from the Floor is not a matter for discussion, which is why we allowed any topic to happen during Petitions from the Floor during all of our meetings. So, we don't limit the topics during Petitions from the Floor. So, they can be added at any time.
But my question was that was not part of the original agenda. This was an added agenda item.
Mayor or Councilor, but it's not an item for discussion, which Open Meetings Act only governs discussion items that the council will be engaging in. So, it's discussion of the public body, which is the governing body. Petitions from the Floor don't involve any conversation from the governing body.
Just asking for clarification.
Very good. Thank you. So, is there a motion to adopt the agenda?
Second.
I just want to make, I don't know if everyone's having the same issue, but I am struggling with internet right now. Am I the only one?
You too.
You need some IT help?
Maybe.
But go ahead and continue. I could read off of a partner.
Okay. Well, we can also get you some IT help if you need somebody to give you a hand with rebooting your computer. So, there's a motion on the floor to adopt the, to approve the agenda. Madame Clerk, could you call the roll?
Councilor Castro? No.
Councilor Chavez? Yes.
Councilor Faulner? Yes.
Councilor Lee Garcia? Yes.
Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes.
Councilor Lindell?
Councilor Romero Worth? Yes.
Councilor Casset? Yes.
Mayor Weber? Yes.
Motion is approved. Thank you.
Mayor, before we get into Petitions from the Floor.
Yes, Councilor.
I would like to have a point of order. I think it's really important how we conduct ourselves here this evening. I hope that we'll all be courteous, listen to one another. And one of our rules on page 17, section V.G.4.C says that public participation in public hearings, all remarks shall be addressed through the presiding officer to the governing body as a whole and not to any individual members. And I just want to give that caution and ask that you all abide by that so that we can have a very respectful and good discourse here this evening. And if we do slip on this, I will call a point of order. So, I hope we can all be respectful of one another and that you can address your comments to all of us. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor. Before we get started, I think the City Manager...
Mayor, just one other point. I apologize. So, folks on occasion forget to give their name and where they live. We'll try to be very, when we get to the Petitions from the Floor, we'll have a couple of comments, but thank you for the reminder.
I think the City Manager has asked for a moment of opportunity to say a few framing comments before we go to Petitions for the Floor, which is the first order of business. And I see already some folks are lined up. And that's what we'll be doing. And then we'll also have not only people here in the room, but from the Zoom. But I first turn to the City Manager who'd like to say a few framing words.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to set context a little bit about why we're here tonight, why we scheduled this June 3rd special meeting. I think it's pretty clear to everyone that the circumstances that have existed now for quite some time out on the street, especially in the area on Cerrios around Harrison, that those conditions have been getting worse. We get calls constantly every day, calls, emails, from people saying, "Do something. Do something about this. The conditions are getting worse." There's more people on the street. There's more drugs. There's more crime. There's bigger mess. And people are just ready for us to take a stronger stand on this. I think it's time to say the status quo is not good enough. The nature of the homelessness crisis changes. It does get worse, and it's important when you address that to address it as a comprehensive strategy and not just a bit here and a bit there. So the city staff was asked to prepare strategy and prepare concepts to come forward to address this whole homelessness issue and not just homelessness, but the impacts of homeless on the community and to do so in a comprehensive manner. So that's why tonight on the agenda, when you look at it, you'll see that we have four items of discussion, and they each deal with a different aspect of the problem. We deal with people on the very basic levels, the sheltering of people, trying to help them find food and just medical conditions that they can sustain themselves. And we deal with people on all sorts of other issues with mental health, just basic life skills. So we're trying to put something together that allows us to look at all of these different aspects of the problem at one time in a comprehensive strategy, just not one-off efforts. So on the agenda tonight, you'll see not only the issues of the shelter and how we move forward with that, but also a contract that the staff is recommending that is for street outreach services. This is new. This is a new approach to dealing with a problem that's tried and tested around the country, putting professional people that are well-trained, they're value-driven, and asking them to go out into the street and deal with people with their problems on the spot. They're not a security force. They're not a police department. They're a street outreach effort. And tonight, you'll have an opportunity to hear from some of the representatives of Urban Alchemy, the company that we've been talking to, who are here today and can talk to you briefly about what they do and how they do their business. We're also going to, we also have a discussion item on the agenda tonight that relates to the next step in the housing sequence, which relates to the small communities, the micro-community concept that we'd like to pursue here. And this is not for approval tonight on the agenda, but it's an item for discussion because it's part of the equation when you deal with homelessness.

We need to not only deal with shelter, we need to deal with transitional housing. And then preferably, hopefully in the long term, we're able to move people from transitional housing into permanent housing. We have opportunities to do that. The city's invested in shelters in order to do that, and we're very hopeful that we can move that agenda along. And then ultimately, the long term, which is not on the agenda tonight, but should be on our radar screen at all times, is the creation of permanent housing, affordable housing where people can aspire to live going forward. So that's the concept. The concept here is to develop a homelessness approach that we can actually address the entire range of services that are needed to carry through.

None of this suggests that the efforts that people have done in the past, or that hopefully will continue to do in the future, are not worthy of not only our praise, but our continuity. And we're hoping that we will be able to engage people on an ongoing basis in all of the different types of services that are provided. One thing we feel strongly, however, is that the circumstances, especially in the Cerrillos and Harrison area, have overwhelmed the community. They've overwhelmed our ability to deal with those in the circumstances that exist today. And so we're looking for strategies that allow that to move forward so that we don't have to live with those conditions into the future. We're looking for alternative locations in the long run, and we expect to be able to get there. But nothing that we bring up tonight should be interpreted by anyone as anything less than very appreciative of the services that have been done in the past. And we hope to engage all caring people going forward in this effort to deal with the people in our community that need our help.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, City Manager.

Yes, I would like to correct the record. I think the guidance given for petitions from the floor was incorrect, and I'm going to cite our rules, what it actually gives, that way the speakers tonight have full guidance in regards to what our rules are when you address the body. So this can be found in our rules under the City Governing Body Rules, Section G. Item one is petitions from the floor. Item A, it says, "Each speaker may speak up to two minutes unless the presiding officer determines that other limitations are reasonably necessary to conclude petitions from the floor within a reasonable time frame in the context of the remaining business before the governing body." Item B, "Members of the public cannot cede their allocated time to another member of the public, but they may make arrangements with the city clerk to speak in a specific order." Item C, "Presiding officers shall disallow comments or questions from the public that are not directed to the governing body. Governing body members shall not respond to comments or questions from the public regarding petitions from the floor." So the guidance earlier given that you can't direct comments to an individual is not in the petitions from the floor rules. I just want to make sure that if there's going to be any objections or calls to order, that it falls within the allowable requirements within petitions from the floor. Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Councilor.

Mayor, I'd just like to find out what version of the rule, because we did redo them. These are the most recent rules that passed 2022. I'd like the ones that I read, read different. So, if the city attorney could clarify what version she's reading from. These are adopted January 12th, 2022 for the record. These are...

Mr. Councilor, I think you're both reading from the same sets of rules, but different sections under G. There's a section about petitions from the floor, and then there's a section about public participation and public hearings. Tonight is not a public hearing, it's petitions from the floor as per the agenda item, right? Okay. Let's go to petitions from the floor. And as we get started, and I know some folks are already lined up, which I appreciate. As has been noted by Councilor Castro, please provide us with your name so we can be very clear about who's speaking to us. And also, you don't have to give us an address, but generally speaking, it'd be nice to know whether you are a resident. And we will have a clock which gives everybody the same amount of time, which is two minutes. If you could please stay within the two minutes. And finally, as has been noted earlier, and as was done so well last week, and as some of you have already started to do this evening, rather than applaud, the symbol for applause is very, very welcome. Please don't comment on the speaker, don't approve, disapprove, just listen respectfully and with a sense of civility toward everybody.

Mayor, we're...

Councilor, so the petitions from the floor section is consistent with the public participation in public hearings. It also disallows comments or questions that are not directed to the governing body in part C of petitions from the floor.

Well, I think we understand the point. Let's try all to be on our best behavior. With that, can we start with the petitions from the floor? The clerk will start a clock, and if you'd give us your names, and we will take our first petition. Madam Clerk, do you have the clock? Okay, make sure you get close to the mic.

We are the New Mexico Raging Grannies. I'm Marcy Madison, Paige Grant, Jean Palmer, Allison Lemons, Anna Katherine, Jean Darling, and Raging Grandpa that just started, just joined us this evening. I don't know his name. Jim Elliott.

Not for seeing when I cannot find a meal. When the cops destroy my camp. Millions go to billions, go hungry. Make more long to the well to tell tax or. Life shouldn't have to be this hard. The system is all wrong. But for now, it's...

Thank you. Thank you. We're waving. We're not clapping. We're waving. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please step up if you're next and give us your name.

Anna Katherine. A shelter, Pete's, offers very important services, but cannot control some clients outside its boundaries. We are talking mental issues, addiction issues, isolation, alienation from regular life. Rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater, is there a way the city could take responsibility, monitoring and redirecting difficult clients outside the shelter's walls? Or would it help if clients were allowed to stay at the shelter during the day? What if Pete's were offered some of the big money about to go to out-of-state experts?

I'm going to ask one more time that we not clap or yell. You can wave your hands and be polite, but if we have these interruptions, it's going to be really not conducive to a very good dialogue and a good discussion for the whole evening. So, please remember, it's respectful to wave your hands in appreciation. Don't boo, don't clap. Thank you. Back to you, ma'am.

I'm very concerned about bringing in a group from California at enormous cost. I am very concerned about bringing in a group from California at enormous cost. The idea that a fine-sounding and pricey group from a more sophisticated place knows more and can do more than we can is so hollow and sad. It has been tried here again and again. I used to work as a counselor in the psych unit at the hospital and watched money being used to buy the special new manager's Porsche while nothing changed in the unit. Some years back, the state hired an Arizona group to clear up accusations against local counseling agencies and to do things better. At great expense over the course of several years, the Arizona group accomplished little and eventually quietly left. It seems terribly American to imagine that large sums of money and experts from elsewhere will somehow magically and rapidly solve painfully complex issues. Homelessness is a problem that haunts us all, that should pain us all, and I hope we can effectively address it right here. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, you have the floor.

My name is Jim Elliot. I live on Calle Luna, 87501. Now that the yellow signs on Harrison Road have helped bring this issue to a head, there are still many concerns that have not been addressed and should be before going forward with the Urban Alchemy contract for Pete's Place. One, how is Urban Alchemy going to clear the streets, in particular Harrison Road? Why can't we do it ourselves? They're trained. Why can't we train? Why haven't we called a general meeting with representatives from cities such as Prescott, Arizona, who have had successful efforts dealing with such issues in their cities in an open discussion that includes citizens of Santa Fe? Three, why haven't we tried our own unique solution appropriate to the city different, including prisoner expertise from Project Echo, and also the items I mentioned previously? Why is the fire department called to do hazmat cleanup when other means are much cheaper? How can we keep the estimated 2,000 individuals involved and volunteering their own time in the current Pete's Place setup to still be engaged in dealing with the homeless? How can we justify paying about 20 times more, that's 1.5 million divided by the 80k we're currently giving them, for services that we have no guarantees? And how can we avoid the smell of corruption? There is a lot of explaining to do, and citizens of Santa Fe and those who have sacrificed their time in addressing this problem so far, they are the ones who need to know the answers to these questions. Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you very much.

Naomi, sorry. Naomi Boland, District 1, 87501. I actually work on Cerrillos Road, and I deal with this every day. I've spent most of my adult life outside of the state of New Mexico, and three years made a choice to bring my children back here so they could attend and take advantage of the state's lottery. Worst decision I've ever made for my children. Worst, worst decision I've ever made. So, I want to start with that. Secondly, I was there when Pete's Place was painted by Coronado Paint and Decorating because I worked for them back then. I work for them today. I am appalled by what I see every day. We have failed. We have failed. There is no other solution except we have failed. Just like Governor Lujan has just deployed the National Guard, our city is in a state of emergency. We need our version of a National Guard to address this issue and clean it up. Now, I'm not saying that I support the long-term contract. However, there is value in a short-term agreement to make this more manageable. You have 5% of your police sitting there every day. That's 5% of officers that are not patrolling or proactive policing and being able to engage in the community on a positive way. So, we have given our police department a terrible reputation. That's all they're doing, enforcing. Let me talk about Monday. State police all day. All day. We had to lock our doors for the safety of our staff and our clients because there was a cartel drug deal in our parking lot. We couldn't get them there fast enough. Why? Because we are overtaxing our officers on Harrison Road. We just don't have the support. It is no longer feasible to continue operating the way we are. While Pete's, when it started in its infancy, was an incredible idea. An incredible idea. They have outgrown. We are a smaller city with large city problems. We need someone to come in and help manage the situation until we as a city can find a long-term solution. And that absolutely includes relocating this facility. They do not belong on Cerrillos Road anymore. They need a larger facility with more control and a lot more accountability for what the attention is that is being attracted.

And I apologize, I'm over time, but I just want to equate: drug addicts are a vulnerable population. Children are a vulnerable population. Cartels, sex traffickers, they prey on vulnerable populations. And we just gave them the bait. Thank you.

Yes, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. My name is Gene Darling. I am at 64 Vista Del Oro in Santa Fe. I am a retired minister and I am a member of the Interfaith Leadership Alliance. As such, I am here to support Pete's Place. We helped create that organization almost two decades ago, and they have a plan to expand and improve their program. They're calling it the Resource and Opportunity Center, which would move to a different space. Their space is tiny. I was looking at it from a vertical, from the air, and they need the kind of help that has basically been withheld by the city. We need an open process for this to go forward with any changes that take place here. Perhaps you need to have open bids. I think we should help the shelter go through with their plan and create this Resource and Opportunity Center. Just a fraction of the money that you were talking about with this other group would do wonders.

Pete's Place is dealing with human tragedy. My church in Chicago had a shelter in our basement. There was one young man who was so full of promise, but he was addicted to opioids, and there was too long a wait to get into a treatment center. He was found in an abandoned house. He died alone. That's the sort of thing that should not happen. I know that at Pete's Place, Corina is constantly rushing out to give treatment to people who are overdosing. So they are working with a tiny bit of what they need to really do the job right. So, let's think about how to really make this work properly. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Hunter Redmond, 612 Old Santa Fe Trail. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Mayor Pro Tem. I am Hunter Redmond. I am the owner of Architectural Alliance. I grew up in Santa Fe and have been practicing architecture in this community for 24 years. The Interfaith Community Shelter engaged my architecture firm, as well as Shopworks Architecture out of Denver, to assist and facilitate in the design of a new Resource Opportunity Center for homeless individuals. Shopworks Architecture specializes in community design, including affordable housing shelter design, using a trauma-informed design process. They have implemented this through many projects throughout Colorado, the Southwest, and elsewhere. They have a wonderful website. I highly recommend you look up Shopworks Architecture and take a look at the projects that they have successfully completed and the ones that are in process.

My architecture firm has many years of experience in both commercial and residential architecture here in Santa Fe, including a long relationship with local land use departments, contractors, engineers, and other entities critical to successful building projects in our community. We have been working as a team with Shopworks and the Interfaith Community Shelter. Shopworks has completed a trauma-informed design assessment for the shelter and preliminary programming for a new building. My firm is refining the program and has started conceptual spatial relationship design. The new building would provide a larger facility with more services in addition to the ones currently provided: overnight shelter, day shelter with indoor and outdoor spaces, more office space for community partners to provide services such as vision and digital care. In terms of the site, we're also assisting in doing feasibility studies for potential sites. However, a site has not been selected. We are carefully considering and studying before moving forward, but we are in progress and making some progress. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I'm not a raging grandpop. I am a concerned member of the community and a concerned homeowner. My name is Floyd Cable, Aina Ridge Drive. I'm here to talk about the pod community proposed for the Richards Avenue address. 50 units with a capacity of two people each, probably be less, but that means a population of 50 to 100 people. It seems that Pete's Place currently has a capacity of approximately 75 people. Rhetorical question: Is the city simply hoping to shift the headaches at 2180 Cerrillos Road to a different neighborhood at 2395 Richards Avenue?

Given the trends in the city's crime and quality of life issues, including even the basics of road and park maintenance, it's hard to have faith that the city will, at the pods project in Richards Avenue proposed, not simply replicate the issues that currently exist at Pete's Place. Before any groundbreaking is scheduled, the city must have a firm, detailed plan in place, vetted by independent entities and subject to public input, to define the future, the nature, and the goals of the project. Is it meant to be a high-barrier facility focused on people who are sober, capable of caring for themselves, and simply in need of interim housing as a springboard to permanent housing? Is it to be a safe shelter where residents are not considered to be at risk from other residents, and the surrounding communities are not subject to personal and property endangerment? Is the facility going to be staffed with trained personnel? And who's going to be their employer? And where is the funding coming from? Is the shelter going to have clear and effective means to remove people who fail to honor their responsibilities as residents? Is the project meant to be a temporary solution, or is the city going to be appropriating money five or ten years from now because the pod shelters are worn out and need to be replaced? That's not my definition of a temporary solution. If the city is going to be effective in its pods project, it needs to know this and share them with the community, and also involve the community in the discussion. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, Mayor, Counselors, I'm Joe Dudiac. I'm Chaplain Joe. I live at 2042 Calle Lorca. I'm Executive Director, Founder, and of Chaplain Joe Street Outreach. We go out and we hike to where people are, whether they're under bushes or wherever. We hike to where they're at. We bring them survival equipment, survival supplies. We also know the resources that are available here in town, and we guide them towards the resources that they can go to, which includes shelters, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, I don't see anybody really arguing that the shelter hasn't been overgrown for, it's outgrowing its space. And there are things in place to try to move it to a better, appropriate location and a more appropriate, bigger building. Now, with this company they're bringing in, I hear they're talking about they're going to bring professionals in. They're going to bring people with trauma-informed care, people that are trained in de-escalation. Well, here at the shelter, the volunteers, they're all trained in that. They're professionals. They're trained in all that stuff. And if you look around the room, look at all the expertise just in this room. And that doesn't even include the community. And so if we were to tap into locally here, and we could spend a lot less money and tap into local people who know the homeless, who know the culture, who are vested in the community, I really think that's the way to go. You could spend less money, a lot less money. You could spend some money to, you know, to help the shelter and then put some more of that money into fast-tracking getting the shelter into a more appropriate place sooner. And, you know, I think the shelter, really what the deal is, what the problem is, I've worked there 12 years, and the problem isn't on property. It's not perfect. It is a shelter, but the problem is on Harrison and around Harrison, and the Interfaith has no authority over the individuals on Harrison. And just very briefly, I know I'm out of time. We also have, and I got a list of like ten different organizations that do street outreach. Thank you. A lot of them are in this room.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. Can you put the mic down a little bit? Much better. Thank you. All right. Mayor Weber, City Councilors, fellow community members, my name is Kate Nelson, born and raised in Santa Fe, living in District 2. I hate public speaking, so bear with me. I work as a Family Nurse Practitioner with La Familia's Healthcare for the Homeless Clinic. Our team administers care eight hours per week onsite at the Interfaith Community Shelter. In collaboration with the Interfaith Shelter, we offer full-scope primary care, substance use treatment, and psychiatric treatment next door to the dining room. The partnership allows many who struggle to access care to receive life-saving medical treatment with efficiency and ease. The majority of people who receive treatment at the shelter are elders, many with complex and severe medical conditions. As frontline providers, in collaboration with many organizations in this room, we know the invaluable role that the Interfaith Shelter serves in Santa Fe.

In a town where housing costs have been increasing for generations and affordable housing options can't keep up with demand, many guests stay at the Interfaith Shelter. Many of the guests who are staying at the shelter have been displaced from their longtime homes and have literally nowhere to go. The Interfaith Shelter is and has been the last low-barrier safety net for our community members suffering evictions, displacement, and fleeing abusive environments. Many of us in this room have seen the devastating results when out-of-state groups are brought in to replace established community organizations with deep roots and hard-earned knowledge. We must honor the absolutely essential work the Interfaith Shelter has done for our community over decades when no one else was here to do it. I agree. The conditions surrounding the shelter are difficult and need to change, but terminating the lease with the Interfaith Shelter will not resolve these conditions. Likely, it will make them worse. What terminating the lease will do is undermine a deep-rooted local organization who has had the courage and dedication to offer support to our community members in need.

I know I'm over time. Bear with me. I'm close. Rather than terminate the lease and outsource millions of our local dollars to an out-of-state contractor with no context nor connection to our unique and beautiful city, give the Interfaith Community Shelter the funding it needs and deserves to address the immediate concerns and thoughtfully, strategically plan for the future. Mayor Weber, City Councilors, our elected representatives in this democracy tasked with caring for our whole community in a city that touts its liberal ideals and in a time where public support is under threat, consider your vote very carefully. Thank you.

I'm afraid we're going to have to call time. If everybody goes a minute and a half over, we're going to have a lot of four and five-minute speeches.

I'll drop one sentence.

No, would you please stop now? Thank you. I really appreciate everybody's care in producing statements, but the two-minute time, if everybody slips, we're going to have a lot of slippage. So, please try to observe when the alarm goes off. If you can wrap it up, that'll be super. Yes, sir, you have the floor.

City Council Members, Mayor Weber, City Manager, my name is John Alphone. I live in District 3. I am on Morning Lane. And I was asked to actually come here by someone who's actually homeless.

I'm a school teacher. I was working in Pecos Independent School District. I was teaching Spanish until Friday, and I taught English Language Arts at Tierra Adentro Charter School. I think the issues here are very complex. I am definitely an advocate, and as a member of the community, I can't but sympathize with the people who have nowhere to go. I don't think they want to be on the streets. This place offers some kind of refuge for them, and I think we need to honor that. I've seen homeless populations all over the United States. I've traveled extensively, so this is not unique to Santa Fe.

I'm very sympathetic to the woman who has a business next to this location. Perhaps there can be some kind of 6 to 12-month probationary period. Ripping the band-aid off and just letting the hemorrhaging happen is not really a very effective way to deal with a problem. People are just, that's just covering up a larger issue, and it's just moving it. So again, as a member of District 3 and as somebody who lives in this community, I don't think these people want this, and they have a myriad of mental health issues, some of them. And even if they don't, it's their life. So I thank you for your time, and I hope you continue supporting Peace Place.

Thank you, Mayor and counselors. I'm David Thompson, a resident of District 2, and I'm a vice chair of the County Democratic Party. The party voted this weekend to oppose the proposal to cancel the current lease at Pete's Place and award an operations contract to Urban Alchemy. We sent that resolution to all of the members of the governing body. I'd ask that it be included in the record at the meeting.

Our reasons for opposition include a concern that changing operators doesn't really address the problems outside the shelter, which the facility has little control over, and also the dramatically increased funding. Interfaith currently gets $158,000 per year, while Urban Alchemy will get $1.5 million. But our biggest concern is that this proposal is being considered as an emergency, bypassing most public input, reducing the period for public consideration to just four days, and eliminating normal contracting rules. Why is this suddenly an emergency that justifies bypassing all the usual procedures that protect the rights of city residents to have input to their local government and to protect our city's finances via a competitive bidding process for contracts?

Pete's Place has been there for well over a decade. The problems for the neighbors are serious but far from new. Why does this suddenly need to be decided today? Moreover, what justifies suddenly spending 10 times as much as the city currently pays Interfaith to run the shelter? If the problem is a lack of control over the surrounding neighborhood, $1.5 million could pay for a lot of policing. I understand that Interfaith has asked for a more permanent police presence in the neighborhood but has been turned down. If police are having to respond to problems in the neighborhood over 10 times per day, surely it would be cheaper just to keep them there. And this also seems like the kind of work our new alternative response unit could help with.

Finish up quickly. The Democratic Party of Santa Fe County deplores the lack of transparency, community inclusion, and a proper bidding process for this proposal. Since this contract contradicts democratic values, we call on the city's governing body to abandon the effort to proceed under dubious emergency rules and follow a normal legislative process that includes full public input. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for wrapping it up. I appreciate that. Yes, you have the floor.

Hello. I'm Sam Sandoval. I reside in the Casa Solana district, but I work in the Siler district, Cerrillos Road. I spend most of my waking life at work because between my two paychecks and my paycheck that my spouse earns, I still live paycheck to paycheck, much like most American citizens. We are at least a paycheck or two away from houselessness. And with that being said, we do not need more police funds, and we do not need an outsider to solve this housing crisis. We need affordable housing. We need rent freezes. We need to keep the local problem local with local. We need to solve the local problem locally.

A couple facts real quick. I don't speak publicly very well, so I apologize. Homelessness sets the floor for everyone's wages. Fear of homelessness keeps poor workers in line. Middle class gets told poor workers are unskilled, so they don't deserve to have livable wages while the rich continue to profit off of both of them. We sell ourselves to capitalists because they systemically restrict us from land, hold basic needs hostage for profit, create militarized governments and classist, racist, sexist laws to violently force this arrangement on us. They established two political parties to serve them, gave us a vote, and called it democracy to instill a false sense of legitimacy. They use schools and mass media to convince us that there's no other way. Our labor is not consensual. None of this is consensual. And for you to continue to outsource our issues is continuing to erode our consent.

Another thing that I'd like to say is, oh, I lost my train of thought. I'm not going to waste y'all's time, but please keep this local. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Whoops. Free Palestine.

Okay. Okay. Remember, we're not clapping or booing, and we're just listening respectfully. You have the floor. Go ahead.

My name is Jared Rodriguez. I live by Avenida de la Paz. I've lived here all my life. I have watched the forces of gentrification, colonization erase my city. And it is astonishing that these same forces are now going to colonize our poverty. Why don't you just give that money to the local shelter? It's crazy. $1.5 million. That's really all I got to say is this is just another taking from us. You're taking our ability to help our poor people from us so some guy from California can drive a Bentley. And all I got to say is by the grace of God, there go I. I could be homeless. And I'm a Christian. I stand before you, a poor, powerless Christian, to tell you the words of my Lord and Savior. What you do to the least among you is what you do to me. Free Palestine.

Thank you. My name is Cotton Reichel. I live on 609 Heron Street.

I don't think we got your name, and you got to slow down just a little bit while we catch up to you.

Yeah, no problem. My name is Cotton Reichel. Thank you. I live on 609 Heron Street. I've done social work locally for 10 years, and I grew up in Española. Nationwide, every time the rent goes up $100, homelessness goes up by 9%. And I can't tell you how much rent has gone up year over year locally, but I know that it's a lot more than 9%. And people without houses is a problem with rent solutions. And apart from the plan to expand pallet shelters, Pete's is the only low-barrier place in town for people to stay. It doesn't require sobriety. It doesn't require prior stabilization. There are 75 beds at Pete's. The transitional housing services you mentioned in your opening are great. I love St. E. I love transitional housing. I love the planned expansion of the pallet shelters. But none of what you mentioned solves that there will be 75 people who simply will not have a place to go if Pete's closes.

Urban Alchemy has a history of closing encampments. Pete's was funded by the city $158,000 last year, while UA was offered $1.5 million. I worry that by evicting and defunding Pete's and funding UA, we are further defunding thinly resourced social services in favor of funding public safety while calling it money earmarked for housing. I'm asking that before we try that, we first try money earmarked for housing that goes to housing solutions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. My name is Sue Carr. I live down on the south end on 1419 Zapal Road off of Airport Road. It has expanded vastly in the 10 small years that I've lived here, and so I appreciate that things are expanding. I've also worked at Pete's for 10 or almost 11 years, and now I'm working in transitional housing with St. Elizabeth, and it's an honor and a privilege to do all of the above. So I left out a third comment I wish to make last week, and that is in the area of compassion. Compassion takes guts. It takes grit. It takes courage. It takes a willingness to roll out of bed the next day, heave a big sigh, and say, "Oh, I'm going to go and do this all over again." And what message is this conveying? Oh, we'll leave it to the professionals because compassion is too hard. Is compassion too hard? It's not too hard for the people who work at Pete's. It's not too hard for those volunteers. It's not too hard for the people who go out and say, "Hey, I have a cup of coffee for you." It's not too hard for them. It's not too hard for the city of Santa Fe. We can do this, but do not relay that message. Compassion is just too hard, and we need a professional to show us how it's done. That's not true. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everybody. Good evening, counselors. Good evening, community of Santa Fe. My name is Justin Green. I'm a county commissioner for District 1. I live in District 1 of the city of Santa Fe as well. As I sit here or stood here listening to the differentiation between $150,000, rough order of magnitude, and $1.5 million, I begin to wonder what could Interfaith do with $1.5 million. And I think that there's an opportunity here to ask, to say, if you had that money, could you solve this? That is the beginning of this. But as we talk about homelessness, this solution, it's like we're sitting on the deck of the Titanic and trying to choose a new captain. That ship's going down. What we need to do is we need a new ship, right?

And so the new ship is a new facility using a campus model that is large enough to deal with all of the issues, both morning, noon, and night. Our problem in the area around Pete's is that we turn homeless people, vulnerable people, into vagrants for 12 hours a day, kicking them out of a shelter, throwing them onto the community that's around there. That's not tenable. And a street outreach plan might help. And maybe Interfaith can put together a street outreach plan, but if there's nowhere to put people for morning, noon, and night, there's not a solution in here. That solution includes a shelter at night, which we operate, but it's too small. That includes a service center where there's drug treatment, there's sobering, there's medical treatment, there's job training, there's all the things that people can better themselves for six, eight hours a day. And then there should be some respite spaces, a garden or whatever it is, so that people can stay in a contained, safe location for the community here. This works in San Antonio at the Haven for Hope. This is being stood up in Albuquerque at the Gateway Center, which I took a tour down there, and I'm organizing another tour soon. I invite you to join me on this tour. We will do multiple cohorts here. We have an opportunity to do this with a campus concept. Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Could I ask folks, we've got a line of people waiting to get into the room. So if you've spoken and you can step out of the room and let other people come in so we don't end up violating the fire code, that would be super helpful. We've got people waiting to get their turn at the microphone, and stepping out lets them come in. Go ahead. You have the floor.

Hi, my name is Gloria Ann Marie Ortiz y Montoya. I am a native Santa Fean that has lived here most of my life, and I've also been homeless in big cities which have shelters like what Justin was talking about.

You don't put them out on the street during the day. You help them. You give them hope. We're all human, right? We all have a heart. You've got to humble your heart to these people on the streets. How do you know they weren't, didn't have a business and they lost their business and they lost their home? They maybe got divorced and they landed up here. We don't know where these people come from. A lot of them, we've got to give them hope.

And Pete's, thank you, Pete's, and Chaplain Joe, you're my hero because I've seen you out there many times. And it's right about the community that knows our own homeless people. Have any of you ever been homeless? Have you had a family member that has been homeless and on addiction? Then you can speak because it's hard. I have a son who's addicted and he's been in and out of programs, but he turns to Pete's for food, for shelter. And it's just very sad because the cost of living in Santa Fe, from when I was a kid, my parents bought their house for $7,000. Now it's worth $500,000. And now the rent in three-bedroom homes is $3,700. A lot of people are getting homeless. A lot of people live in their cars. And these encampments, we could reach out. We're Santa Feans. We could reach out to these people. We don't need somebody from San Francisco that doesn't know our city. We don't need that. We need people that know Santa Fe and that know the homeless so we can help them.

And that haven of hope that Justin was talking about, I'm part of the collaboration for the S3 volunteers and we're going to go down there. Great. Thank you. Look at it. And that is a good place to start. Build them a new place. Give them the money. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Oscar Rodriguez. I live at 941 Calle Mejia in District 1. I just want to highlight the recommendations from your staff. Indeed, and by the way, they were pretty obvious recommendations here. The problem had gotten out of hand and you needed to bring more resources to it. I think a million and a half dollars more a year, I guess that's the measure of the resources that need to be brought to bear. I would support that. But I would just ask you to take full stock of the context of your decision. You want to augment resources, not bring down the resources that you bring to bear already and come up with a net negative. And I would tell you that what you see these guys here, that's more than a million and a half dollars a year of community engagement and community support, the kind of stuff that every community absolutely needs to solve its problems and to create for a great quality of life. And so I would just ask you, just take full stock of that. And in order for you to not then end up in a situation where you brought to bear $8 billion and ended up shorter than you were at the beginning with this very big problem, I would ask you to commit tonight as you make this decision. Commit tonight that you will find a way, that the city will find a way to keep Interfaith going, Interfaith engaged, and keep this more than $8 million worth of resources working on this problem. Anyway, so that's my message. I hope you take that seriously. I, for all those of you who I know are good people, intelligent people, step forward strong. This is a big problem. Yes, it does need more resources. I would just hope that as you work out the math, that you fully appreciate what these people represent in terms of the value. Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Amanda Kuyard, and I am a member of the unhoused community here in Santa Fe. And I have written a poem to read you tonight and kind of give you a perspective of how I ended up here.

An emotional orphan, the firstborn of the generation that chose to raise their children. To some, it may sound like a grand gift given. For at least three previous generations, children created and walked away from, left with family members in orphanages and group homes. Growing up overhearing stories of invisible family members being forced to attend family gatherings, expected to be wide open and trusting of these strangers. People, children, regardless of their age, looking for something they believed they lacked. Lost and scared little girls and boys wondering why mama didn't come back. I remember being way too young to be so aware that the love they were searching for would not be found there. The parents spewing their excuses. I never heard anyone accept loving accountability. Never heard, "I did what I believed was best for them." Only versions of, "You don't understand how hard it was for me." It did not surprise me to observe how those who were given up on would be mentally and emotionally, seemingly, somehow more strong. They got and stayed married and not only kept, but lovingly and attentively raised their babies. I won't deny wondering what was so special or terrible about me that I was kept in this space of maybe. Maybe I was good enough. Maybe I could be whatever I wanted. Maybe I was chosen. Then again, maybe no one else wanted me. Maybe this was a terrible nightmare. Maybe it was my responsibility to show them. You said, "Trust them. Open up. Let them in." And then victim-blamed me when I divulged their invasions that passed the barrier of my skin. "They're family. They didn't mean it. You misinterpreted the situation." Any excuse to prevent a perceived loss that would lead to them being abandoned. What about my abandonment? Why was it okay for me to be alone at the cost of my abuser living in my home? Personally, the path to hyper-independency appears as a clear connect the dots. Everyone around you is going to choose what feels best for them. You are the only person you've got. Ultimately, being self-reliant as a result of my emotional solitude is exactly what frees me to be of service to the multitude. Your emotional abandonment caused me to develop unconditional self-love and acceptance. Thank you for the front-row view of addiction and codependence. Creation requires space, and in my isolation, I created love in between the hate. I became the seamstress weaving my fate. I was chosen, you thought, by your love and generosity. The truth is, I am chosen in every moment by me. Thank you very much. Appreciate you.

Let's reset the clock. That one didn't quite start on time, so keep an eye on it. It doesn't automatically start. I want to mention that if you do take up my offer to step outside and let other people come inside, you can still participate in tonight's evening events and discussion through either YouTube or Zoom. It's useful to let other people get into the room and get their chance to speak as well, and it's a generous thing to do. Yes, please go ahead. You have the floor.

Hi. My name is Cora. I am also a member of the unhoused community, and I have written something to read tonight. Control services. What about just talking to the people, asking them what they genuinely need, how they genuinely want to live? We are not, we are humans, not zoo animals. Some of us choose to live this way because it's safer. Safer than lying in a bed next to an abuser for some false sense of safety. Then kept being told, "You're the problem." I slept on the side of the street because it was safer than being harassed or assaulted. Sovereignty is upfronting when you've never experienced it or seen it. Some of us want a camper, not another prison. The more we continue to try to shove away and hide the problem, we continue the cycle of avoiding instead of taking the risk of being vulnerable in communion. It says in the Pledge of Allegiance, "One nation." Let's be one. Stop the division and the separation. We are equal. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead. You have the floor.

Thank you. My name is Dave Weir, and I live at 1340 Canyon Road. I'm a board member of the Interfaith Community Shelter, but more importantly, I'm a donor and one of the hundreds of volunteers who, along with 26 dedicated full-time staff and health and welfare service providers, make up the caregiving community that's known as Pete's Place. We're young and we're old, affluent and poor, liberals and conservatives, and we represent a wide variety of faith and non-faith-based institutions. In a world that is increasingly cruel and a political climate that seeks to divide us, not unite us, this care community was built around a common cause to serve the most vulnerable residents of our community, including the elderly and those with mental health and substance abuse issues. The problems at Pete's Place are not inside the shelter, but outside the shelter and beyond the capacity of the shelter operator, any shelter operator, to solve. We're encouraged by the city's proposal to finally invest substantial funding in a street outreach program, which effectively run, should significantly mitigate the legitimate public health and safety issues around the shelter and along Cerrillos Road. As you know, we have been developing plans for a new 24/7 shelter and resource opportunity center we call The Rock, where emergency shelter and much-needed services can be delivered in a more appropriate location. However, delivering on this vision will take two to three years. And terminating the city's lease at Pete's Place will not only put our guests at risk, but will destroy the care community required to make The Rock a reality. Staff will disperse and find new jobs. Donors and volunteers will find new causes or even worse, become apathetic and withdraw their philanthropy. It would be a gross case of political malpractice and a self-inflicted wound caused by the city from which it will be difficult to recover. So, vote no to the proposal to terminate Pete's Place lease. Vote to extend it. Vote to invest some of the $9.4 million proposed to be paid to Urban Alchemy into The Rock so that we can continue our work and make The Rock a reality. We need the city's help now even more than ever. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Guthrie Miller, District 2, resident of Santa Fe since 2000, Quaker, and volunteer at the Interfaith Shelter over the years. The situation at Pete's, and we see it all around, shows the reality of late-stage capitalism. Urban Alchemy involves magic in turning base metals into gold. I see a lot of magical thinking here. The Nation magazine turns that into, "UA turns homelessness into gold." And this is in the usual capitalist way, commodifying human distress in this case, as we see in the prison industrial complex. Some of the things that haven't been so much emphasized so far is the $8 million over four years for street outreach, which is, quote, "putting uniform UA practitioners onto the streets." And these are people that have been clients that have, as my research showed me, have given, say, two weeks of online training. There's a lot of thought that's been gone into the underclass created by capitalism. It's horribly traumatizing, and it's a very, very difficult task resocializing people that have come from that terrible background. And we should have a jobs program like bringing these people into contact with normal working people outside of the culture of despair that they found themselves unfortunately in. Santa Fe needs to govern, not by magical thinking that some capitalist enterprise is going to do the work for you. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Weber, and good evening, council members. My name is Clarissa Miller, and I reside in District 87507, which, if I am not mistaken, to be honest with you, I kind of forgot which counselors manage that district.

It's on your sign. You all, we've got that. I wanted to say thank you to the community of Santa Fe first and foremost. You all are so brave, and I feel so inspired. What inspired me first was my friend Asa. Asa was able to, and the full name is Asa Benson Core. Thank you so much. So Asa Benson Core was able to start on Saturday afternoon a petition on Change.org called "Save Pete's Place." I trust that you all will go home tonight and read this petition. I just want to let you know real quick while I refresh my screen. Hold, please. We have 451 signatures. This morning we had 422.

I believe that the one thing that we can all agree on is that there's a lot of pain, and some of us are feeling so much pain that we are here despite our social anxiety, despite our health. We are putting ourselves out here, and I just would ask that you would really halt the decision for today and consider opening a discussion with Pete's Place and the community. I also just want to say as a final closing remark that I do my research, and nowhere on the city page could I find how long I had to speak. Thank you. It's two minutes. Yep, I get that now. But for future respect of our community and for future respect of all voices, I would like to request and move that you all would update your website tonight. Thank you. I'm proud to be in Santa Fe, and I thank you for hearing the people. Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and council members. I've come before you numerous times, so I feel like I don't even have to tell you who I am, but I am Terry Rivera. I'm a lifelong resident of Santa Fe. I've lived here all my life. I'm 85 years old, and I feel like I have to say what I have come to say to you today. First of all, how can the mayor and councilors justify giving so much money to outsiders? To make things worse, the city cut funding to Pete's Place by half. The $78,000 given to Pete's Place pales compared to the $1.5 million you are willing to give this outside organization. And on top of this $1.75 million that you're willing to give them, you have already made a contract, signed a contract with them, giving them what? $7.9 million more. That's money that the interfaith community would only wish for, would only dream about, and they could do a lot of things with that kind of money. So why are you taking the money away that they need so desperately?

Santa Fe leadership makes these decisions prior to gaining the insight of the community, stakeholders, and government partners. Why was a vendor chosen without allowing other options or bidders? How was this vendor chosen? Why are you not following through the ROC plan? In case you haven't heard, Santa Fe is so far removed from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Portland. 3,200 police calls in 2024 equals nine per day. Why not assign patrols to the block? With a portion of the $1.5 million, you can hire additional law enforcement. Thank you.

I want to say something else too about the business people that are right there next to Pete's Place. I understand their frustration, and I know what they're going through. I've been there. I've seen it. I've been at the restaurant, and I've been at Pete's Place. One thing that you could actually help them with is putting outdoor toilets so that the people from Pete's Place—I went to take stuff to Pete's Place, and a man stood in front of me and peed in front of me. Why? Because there are no toilets. There's nothing for them to use. Thank you, ma'am. Of the $1.5 million you have given, you should consider that as an option. Thank you very much.

Appreciate you being here.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Donna Rietta Athenio. I'm Terry's daughter. I would just like to say that the city leadership continues to send a message to our community: you're not capable, not smart enough, not skilled enough. This is the message you continue to give us by sending all hiring people from out of state and trying to fund this contract. Support and invest in your own town. Trust in Interfaith and expand the resources instead of reinventing the wheel. I talked with my mom recently about nonprofits, and she and my father used to regularly give to St. Jude's and all of those large, huge visibility nonprofits. And my mom was shocked to find out how much the CEO made at most of those large nonprofits. Think about what you're giving the money to here. This is a growing nonprofit. They're interested in making money. It's more capitalistic than actually truly serving the public. I'd venture to wonder how much their CEO or manager makes. So anyway, with that, I would offer that I hope you really reconsider and try and be a lot more open about what your deliberations include. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Shannon Murphy, District 1 on Mesa Vista Street at 7501. Thank you for having an open comment period tonight. I understand how the city is relating to this issue of the unhoused population growing because it's one of, I think, several issues that are driven by global forces, and they're going to continue to escalate over years and decades. And I think it's clear that Urban Alchemy has an interesting model, and I can see why that's attractive. But I think the idea that communities can address these rapidly escalating global issues by bringing capacity in from outside, especially in a way that displaces our local capacity, is a really flawed idea. And I think that the communities that do that, especially at great expense relative to the size of the community, are going to really struggle to keep pace and to remain stable in the face of all of these escalating challenges. So, if the city is prepared to spend $1.5 million on this issue, I personally think the only way I could see the city doing that in a way that feels like it's in integrity with our values as a community is if you were to put out an RFP and give the local ecosystem of providers an opportunity to propose their own solution. If you feel like there are capacity gaps that currently exist, you can frame that as part of the RFP and allow the local ecosystem to bring in outside capacity in a way that gives them agency and grows their own capacity as opposed to in a way that displaces it. So, I hope that—I also just want to thank the members of the unhoused population that came and spoke here tonight because that was very meaningful for me to see those voices are not off space. So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Anetta Cara Rasmussen, and I live on Zia, and I have been in Santa Fe for almost 30 years. This has been a very difficult week. The news about the cancellation of the shelter lease has been devastating to me and a shock. I'm so taken aback by the process and what to me has felt like a lack of transparency. To me, the shelter represents the very best of Santa Fe. People from Santa Fe taking care of each other, taking care of the most vulnerable. I'm a volunteer at the shelter. Thursday night is my favorite night of the week because that's the night where I, together with a team, serve dinner. We also serve lunch on Thursday. We know the guests. It's going to be hard for them with the changes. Please think about the guests when you make these decisions. When you vote tonight, I know who wants cheese on their chili beans. I know who likes the chocolate syrup but not the whipped cream on the ice cream. That's the knowledge I have. Look at all of us. All of us have gathered knowledge, stories, have connection. I want you to imagine your favorite holiday photo. Who's in that photo? For me, it's going to be my mom and my dad and my siblings. Then imagine for a minute that you rip that photo apart, and instead of the people that you trust and are there and that you know, you replace those faces with strangers. That is not a good holiday picture. And that is not the holiday picture that I am longing for. We are a community. Please preserve our community when you vote tonight and come and serve dinner with us any Thursday night you like. There's always use for more people to scoop ice cream. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Councilors, my former colleagues. My name is Joanne Behill Coppler. I'm a former city councilor. I'm a candidate for mayor of the city of Santa Fe. I'm a resident of District 2, a lifelong Santa Fe resident, and a donor to Pete's Place. This issue has been on your table, on your plate for a very long time, and I appreciate the work that you do, having sat on many other issues like you have. But it seems like there's been a lack of political will to address this. It's a hard issue. Certainly it is. But I think we need to remember that Pete's Place is a home. It's a home to shelter people. But the issue here is a city issue, and you can't escape that. The Interfaith Shelter has been proactive at attempting to solve its problems, including asking for police presence and asking for new space. I did two ride-alongs with two different police officers when I was a city councilor, graveyard and swing shift. There wasn't much that the officer could do when he, when we both found everything outside Pete's Place in disarray, people with mental health issues, drug problems, and the like. $9 million would sure go a long way toward planning a new location for the shelter to include mental health assistance, drug rehabilitation, and housing. In the meantime, I think the city should provide more police presence, enforce the loitering and drug use as you do on the Plaza. As its landlord, give guidance. If there's something you don't like going on, some of their rules that are not working, maybe, and maybe there are some, it appears there could be, then give guidance to them. You're the landlord. Awarding this contract will really change not a whole lot except to bind a future governing body with a bad idea. And you will be binding a future governing body. Four years is a long time, especially if it's not working. Doing this, approving this, is merely rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. So, let's do something different. Work with Pete's Place. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi everybody. Thank you for letting me talk today. I am Leticia Montoya, and let's talk about what the real problem is here today. The problem that's stemming, it's drugs. Drugs are the poison of our street. So if you look at it, why if people are getting displaced from their homes, the drug dealers are coming to them, and it's easier for us to be outside. And I'm telling you right now that this is stuff that I've learned in the last three and a half years because I am running for mayor, and I understand the problems because those people that live out there are people that actually lived in Santa Fe from old families. One of my daughter's friends, Echo, died. Nobody, and they took her to the hospital, and she was brain dead. But that's the root of the problem. If we fix that, then we won't have a homeless population. We'll have people in houses. We'll have public houses, not affordable houses, public houses, resources. These people are humans, and I know that the locals of Santa Fe are upset because they don't want them around. But you know, when you're out there and you see, they belong to someone's family. It could be my own child. I was born here at St. Vincent's Hospital. My family goes back 17 generations. This is my home. Where do I go? I need to fix the problem. And the problem can be solved. I'm going to tell you, you change one vendor to a new vendor, the problem's still there.

So, you need to hit the root of the problem, and that's the drug addiction. Let's fix that problem, and homelessness will go away, but we'll also have affordable housing. We're only allowed to live here, but I think we all deserve. If we all function together and live together, we will be successful. Santa Fe, we will all get along, from the rich to the poor, and then we won't see nothing different. Let's do it together. I see it, and I've been doing this for three and a half years, and I can't tell you, you look at me, I can't make this up. It's a reality. It's a reality to all of us. Thank you. God bless you, and I wish you all good luck because you guys got a big battle on your hands. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And can you, that thing will move, so it'll actually go up closer to you if you lift the whole stand if you'd like.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here.

All right, Mayor. Folks might not be able to hear on the YouTube, so we can make sure that mic is on, please. I think it's on.

Hi, my name's Christina. I live out in Las Cienegas, but I work off of Cerrillos. I'd like to thank the Mayor and the council members who are here. It's really difficult to stand.

Madam Clerk, can you fix the clock? We're running in a deficit rather than giving this lady her fair time.

It's a little difficult to stand here and talk to some of you who haven't even bothered to make eye contact with the people standing up here talking, and I'm really sad about that, and I appreciate those of you who are giving us your attention. First of all, I used to volunteer at Pete's. I helped make the bunk beds there a long time ago. I do not volunteer there anymore. The problems I see and that I'm hearing are outside of Pete's Place, and I don't understand why you guys are not giving, not even Pete's, the community the supports that they need, that we're begging for, that we're asking for, the dialogue that we are crying out for, the decisions. Give us some power, too, not behind closed doors. Where's the transparency? Where's the support for people in our community?

I've done my research with the little bit of time we've been given with this new company that came out of, I don't know where, someone's buddy. I don't know, but that's a lot of money to be giving when Santa Fe community is struggling financially to be giving outside. And I hope that you guys have also done your research. It's easy to find things that support it, but there's also a lot of issues with Urban Alchemy, and I hope that you're looking at that. I feel like right now, and this is my opinion, that we are rushing to a decision because y'all didn't like being called out. You were called out and told, "Clean up this mess," and don't rush to a decision. Do your research. You have people here in your community that want to support, that need your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, you have the floor.

Good evening. My name is Joey Brady. I live in District 1. I understand that many community members are unhappy with what is happening in our city. I know that things have gotten worse and that many community members want to see a change. I work as a street outreach worker for The Life Link in Santa Fe, and in my job, I do open office hours for my organization at the Interfaith Shelter. I was a volunteer at the Interfaith Shelter cleaning showers for a year before I started with The Life Link. I care deeply for my community members who are unhoused and unsheltered in Santa Fe. I know the Interfaith is not perfect. I know that we always have things that can be approved upon within organizations.

The city seems to be resigned to blame the Interfaith Shelter for the way that our city looks around the area of Harrison Road and thinks that bringing another organization from out of state will fix our problem. We in this community are the experts on our own community. Please invest in us. Invest this money in your local experts. If we are going to invest almost $8 million in Urban Alchemy, I personally would like to know what the plan is. We as a community have not been told what the plan is going forward. Interfaith Shelter's lease does not allow for them to allow drug use on their property. So we see many people who are kicked out and not allowed on property due to using drugs on property. Will the lease agreement for Urban Alchemy at 2801 Cerrillos Road allow people to use drugs on property? If not, how will Harrison Road look any different? We, the community, have not been given a plan. Please give us a plan and give us time to speak on the proposed plan, not the same day that you plan to vote to approve this plan.

Last, I will say, as someone who works with Interfaith and is there every day, the only time the bathrooms are closed is when they are cleaning the bathrooms, and due to various reasons, there are people who cannot receive Interfaith services, and this cannot be blamed solely on Interfaith. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Hi, my name is Bailey Steel. I've been a shelter worker, street outreach worker for about four years in Santa Fe now. And through my email correspondence with the Mayor and City Council members this week, they've insinuated that we are impeding progress by being upset about them bringing out-of-state organizations into Santa Fe. And I don't think that our community is opposed to out-of-state organizations with helpful ideas coming in, but we are rightfully upset about the extreme disparity in the level of support and finances being offered to Urban Alchemy instead of local organizations and the harsh termination of Interfaith's lease. We are also concerned about the lawsuits and allegations of abuse Urban Alchemy is facing. It feels as though Urban Alchemy is being treated as a superior expert organization, and the knowledge, relationship building, history, and experience of local organizations like Interfaith have been disregarded and ultimately treated as disposable. I would also like to ask what efforts the city has made to receive input from the unhoused people who will be most affected by this decision. We demand more transparency from the city in this process and more funding and support for local organizations. I ask that you vote to renew Pete's Place on behalf of all the people who call it home. Thank you.

Wait one sec while we reset the clock. Okay, you have the floor.

My name is Maya Fern, and I live in the Fort Marcy area. I worked at the Española Pathway Shelter recently, and I was, in fact, the individual who started the controversial tent encampment. So, I speak from experience when I tell you that 100% destabilizing an already unstable population is never the answer. The day that Española Pathways disbanded their encampment, my phone has not stopped ringing since, and it's people experiencing trauma. They don't know where to get their next meal. Here in Santa Fe, if you ask somebody on the streets where you can eat, they're going to tell you Pete's. If you take that away, you're sending people into crisis whose life is already hard enough. This is not the answer. I speak from experience, and I urge you to reconsider. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, you have the floor.

My name is Beverly Kellum. I am a current homeowner in District 1. I raised my children here and have deep ties in this community for the last 28 years. I'm the Deputy Director of the Interfaith Community Shelter and have been with this beautiful organization for a decade. I altered my speech at the last minute. I was very disappointed to hear a county commissioner just a few moments ago making a complete misstatement about Interfaith and to see you, Mayor, nodding your head as if you understood and agreed. The Interfaith Community Shelter does not turn people away during the day, and I think it is very important for all the city councilors to know that. Let me repeat, they are allowed to stay both inside and outside the shelter during the day. They have access to water, restrooms, services, and lunches.

Yesterday afternoon, City Councilors Faulkner, Castro, Hasset, and Romero Worth were inside City Hall strategizing while a large group of people were outside rallying in support of the Interfaith Shelter. After their meeting, Councilor Faulkner came out and spoke to a group of our staff members, presumably to give them the bad news that they are unmoved by the pleas of our supporters, that they are still committed to voting against Interfaith. I asked Councilor Faulkner, "What does Urban Alchemy offer as a homeless shelter provider that Interfaith does not?" Because that is the real question here with respect to our lease. I get that they offer street outreach, but the homeless shelter services listed on their website could have been copied directly from our own. More street outreach in Santa Fe is something I support, but the street outreach element is completely irrelevant to the discussion of tearing apart our amazing organization and selecting another shelter provider. Councilor Faulkner stumbled around a little bit and finally came up with the answer that Urban Alchemy has more capacity. She couldn't tell us what that means, so I have to assume it means more money. Since their contract with the city is for 10 times the amount the city provides Interfaith with a comparable grant, I have to agree with Councilor Faulkner. They have more capacity.

The Mayor suggested that our volunteer-based model is no longer sufficient for today's needs. Interfaith does not have a volunteer-based model. We just happen to have a hell of a lot of volunteers who are passionate about our mission. Is the Mayor suggesting that Urban Alchemy can prepare better meals and serve them more lovingly than our volunteers? Or that Urban Alchemy could do a better job folding, organizing, and helping our guests find the clothing they need? Or perhaps they could clean the showers better than our volunteers? Thank you.

I'm sorry, Mayor. Just point of information. I think the director failed to mention where she lives. It's a homeowner in District 1 and have a 28-year history in Santa Fe. I go back and forth between Santa Fe and Fort Collins, Colorado. Thank you for being here.

Yes, you have the floor as soon as we reset the clock. You're good to go.

I'm Wendy Rayma, Two-Spirit Run in Santa Fe. I've been here in the city for 13 years. I work for the shelter. I am the volunteer coordinator, and yes, we have an extraordinary group of volunteers, and the Interfaith Community Shelter is led by a professional board of directors and management team, an Executive Director who has a trained and degreed social worker, a Finance Director who has a business degree and a master's degree in economics. Interfaith has a team of employees who are trained in trauma-informed care because homelessness is massive trauma. They are trained in de-escalation techniques, life-saving CPR, and Narcan distribution, which, by the way, is why the fire department shows up so often. They are picking up a live body instead of a dead one. Thank you.

We have established relationships with a host of partner service providers, many who are here with us today, all doing the work of getting people housed, getting people treatment, sometimes just helping them make it to the next day. Many of them, helping, working together day after day at the shelter. What we haven't had is the funding of the city that you are now pouring in or proposing to pour in to an out-of-state entity. Funding for increased security, street outreach, and aesthetic improvements to the shelter, all of which we would love to have any smidge of that in order to do the job that you are asking us to do without that same support.

We welcome collaboration with the city and would be happy to have conversations with all of you about what it is you exactly want. We have not been allowed that opportunity despite the Facebook post that claims we have. Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here. I'm David Montoya. I live in District 1. Let me just say I don't know if I've ever been more proud to be a Santa Fean than tonight. And I want to thank all of you guys for showing up with your hearts and with your passion and the things that you truly believe in. And I want to thank all of you on the council and the mayor for putting up with us for as long as you have tonight. It takes a lot of fortitude.

I think that what I want to say tonight is going to get a little bit boring and talk a little bit about procurement. I know it's not a sexy issue, probably not as cool as preparing meals on a Thursday night and knowing who likes cheese and who likes chocolate syrup, but procurement is the basis and foundation of how government purchases things. And I think that when we talk about the street outreach project, there were two people who bid on it. Urban Alchemy won, that one's in the bucket. But I do want to talk about proper procurement procedures when it comes to determining who runs the shelter. What's the hurry would be my first question? Let's tap on the brakes. Let's issue an RFP. Let's have a bidders conference. Let's have folks sit down and answer this RFP because, you know what? In an open and fair competition, I think that's just what everybody wants here. In an open and fair competition, my money's on Interfaith. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. Ronald Trujillo, District 4. You know what? I'm proud to say there was I and Council Ortiz to put forward the resolution to purchase the old Pete's Pet and make it Pete's Place. Pete's Place has been a godsend in this city. My wife and myself and my kids for seven years, while I sat on that as a member of the city council, we worked Pete's Pets every Saturday night. So we saw what happened there. We met with the homeless people. We saw that. My challenge to you, counselors, have any of you gone over there? I'm sure when there's a photo op, boom, take my picture. Look at me. Work there. Visit with the people. Listen to them. Don't just say, "Oh, gee, take my picture so I can put this on my brochure." It's because it's election time. Interfaith has been railroaded by you guys big time. I talked to Kina. I'm in shock that you're willing to give $1.5 million to an out-of-state organization that has issues. Read up, gentlemen and ladies. Read up what's happening. Don't make this decision lightly. The Interfaith Shelter has done good work and they'll continue to do good work if they have the backing of the city council.

You know, this is an issue that I just heard now. I saw County Commissioner Green here. Where's the county? Where's the state? Remember the city falls under the county. The county falls under the state. Where's the collaboration? Do you guys talk? Because it sure seems like you guys don't. You guys need to start talking to the county and to the state. This is not just a Santa Fe issue. It's everybody's issue. And until everybody comes around and everybody starts helping, you know, I love that phrase by President Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask not what Pete's Place can do for you. Ask what you can do to help Pete's Place." It's very important. Don't take this lightly, you guys. This is an important thing and it's important for this entire community. Thank you.

Espino, District 4. One of the couple of things that I wanted to share with you is I used to work for the state and I was a licensing for the licensing and certification. And when Governor Susanna Martinez decided to dump the behavioral health, I can't tell you how many people went without services. Why? Because they didn't have that relationship. These relationships mean everything. When I was on the board and we were the core team, we knew all the people. And yeah, they can probably meet the people, but when you're homeless, it takes a lot to believe, to trust other people because you've been put down so many times and looked away and all those things. These people are the ones that they trust. And you want to bring in a $1.5 million contract of people they don't know. Let me tell you, it failed in behavioral health and it will fail in Santa Fe. And I don't know how you can hold a renter, the renter from the Interfaith Shelter, responsible for what happens on a street because that's not part of the property. So you all need to make some amends there. And I give the Castros a lot of credit because through the years they always treated the homeless with respect when they were there, when they were in their parking lot or causing problems or whatever. So, some of you have been to the shelter, maybe not to serve, but some of you have been part of the solution. And I just suggest that the rest of you think about the fact that you are taking people that are already marginalized and remarginalizing them to a bigger extent to where they don't feel safe. They don't feel they can come for services. When we were there, we got people jobs because they believed in themselves. Darla Swanson, she would iron the shirts, do practice interviews with them. We have people that still have those same jobs because someone local believed in them. You guys are local. Believe in this community that's there for you, that's been doing these things. And if you have that extra $900,000, wow, what could you do with that? I remember when I was on the board, we were always asking the city for more money. And guess what? It was never given in that amount. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, you guys do a really tough job.

We need your name, sir.

My name is Tiller Russell. I live here in Santa Fe. I'm a filmmaker and a father of four. And I just want to thank you for the work that you guys do. We live in a city full of passionate people faced with really complex problems and you guys are here listening to all of us. So, thank you. For the past number of years, every Thursday night, I have brought one or all of my children to Pete's Place. And we eat together at Pete's Place. And I have to tell you, we often eat better at Pete's Place than we do when I cook, certainly at home. And we look everybody in the eye and we treat, we address them by name respectfully, whether they're in a good mood, bad mood, had a horrible day, just lost their house or been on the street for years. And we're asking for your help and we're asking for your support so that we can continue doing what we're doing. It may sound like a romantic job that I have as a film director. It's actually just a bunch of problems all day long that you're having to find solutions for, which is exactly what you guys are doing, which is what all the brilliant staff at Pete's Place and all the dedicated volunteers do every single day. And when you're solving problems, I think the key is to analyze what those problems are and to make sure that the solutions that you're putting forth are adequate to them. And changing who it is that's providing these services is not solving the problem of the gentleman who spoke about having to face knives when he's going through or people sleeping in it. That doesn't solve the problem. And the CEO of Urban Alchemy makes $339,000 a year. Take that money, give it to Pete's Place or put a cop on the side of the road to police what happens outside. Please help us. Please support us. We need you. Thank you for being here.

We need to reset that. Hold on one sec. Yes, you have the floor.

My name is James O'Connell. I live at 2729 Cayro. I really, I would like to commend the bravery of the mayor and the city council for proposing a plan that angers both sides and fixes nothing. It seems like bringing, for the amount of money that we're willing to spend on bringing out someone who has no ties to our city, you're really risking angering organizations that have deep ties and deep organizational abilities, especially during a mayoral election year. I hope that you guys keep that in mind and you keep how many people showed up to Pete's Place in your mind too when you're considering the proposals tonight. Thank you.

Thank you for coming. Okay, good on time. Go right ahead.

Ernango, Miss Chavez, I'm in District 3. Moving forward with giving $1.5 million to Urban Alchemy is a slap in the face to locals. I've been volunteering at Pete's for a little over three years and I agree that something definitely needs to be done. But it is financially irresponsible and disrespectful to taxpayers who invest in a company from out of state instead of restructuring and investing in existing social services and true affordable housing for locals who cannot continue to live in an increasingly unaffordable city. Invest in healthcare, social services, and mitigation of substance abuse. Don't continue to bring outside solutions to local problems. We also need more transparency in this process and everybody knows that. UA has a poor track record and has historically mismanaged their own locations. I'm asking you to vote no on moving forward with giving this contract to UA. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for coming down.

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes.

My name is Veronica Regales. I am in District 3. I'm a volunteer. I'm also a board member. And I represent Santa Maria de la Paz Catholic Community on the board. As the city of holy faith, as you all know, it's a number of different faith communities that came together to help or basically build this up and not let another person freeze overnight. Really, I think what I want to say is we're hearing the same things here this evening about the location particularly. So a question that I have is how does bringing an outside organization to the same location, how is that going to solve the problem? Another thing that I know is we work so hard to raise money and it feels like, you know, you're a single mom working two jobs and then taking care of the children at night and yet we're going to freely give money to this outside organization. So that you know of, I mean, how are they, how is this, how is it fair basically, I guess is the question. Like why haven't we been given that opportunity? So I'd like to just urge and plead with you to, if there's a doubt at all, to please vote no this evening on the proposition to terminate our lease and to enter into a contract with an outside organization. I urge and plead with you to work with us to build the rock, to further the vision and the solution to help, you know, with the community, the businesses and the work that we're trying to do for those less fortunate that we're trying to serve. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Good evening. My name is Laura Yoder. I'm in District 4. I'm currently the Deputy Director at St. Elizabeth Shelter and Supportive Housing. But I've been working in our community for over 20 years with a lot of people in this room on housing and homelessness. And I find it really difficult to understand why so much money would be put into an outside program when we could use that money to really support our programs that we have now to be able to get the training that they may be using within their communities to, you know, just providing technical assistance to us. I remember back when Interfaith started and I don't know if you all remember, but it was a round robin with the faith communities because it was a year that we lost so many people in the cold and that's how they started.

We all came together as a community, and we pulled together blankets, trying to figure out how many people we could fit in that faith community. But that was how we worked. We work together, and going forward with us working together, we need the support. We could increase our services if we had that type of money. I'm looking at housing developments. Look at the Lamplighter. That is a project that has been sitting there and not going anywhere. I'm not involved that much anymore, but how could that money that we're giving now be used for supportive housing? So, really kind of rethinking is what the ultimate goal is of bringing people in, but you have to have a continuum, and Interfaith, without Interfaith, there couldn't be that continuum. They accept people as they are. We have a little bit higher barrier, so we're all working together to the main goal of permanent housing. So, give it another time to rethink what might be happening. Thank you.

Thank you. The low rider there. You hear me? Okay. Yes. My name is Erica Kid, and that's my boss. I've been a provider for about 20 years in behavioral health as well as homelessness services. For 20 years, homelessness looks a heck of a lot different. Everybody knows that. I'd like to take a moment to give a shout-out to all the people that cannot speak on their behalf that are at the shelter right now and all the volunteers that are feeding them. Where would we be without them? Well, potentially right here.

One of the things I'm noticing, because I'm kind of big into services, and street outreach is a big deal. If anyone saw those signs outside, that was my doing. Well, that was homeless people's doing, in which I bring those out, and I often purchase their signs to help show people and create connections that people are real people, and they have talents, and they have some killer senses of humor as well. So, one of my concerns is the trauma-informed care. I took a little time to look through some pictures and images, and I'd see these really black outfits. So, they're kind of beefcake fellas, and no, no shame, guys. I'm really glad Urban Alchemy is here. But if I'm somebody who's houseless, terrified, traumatized, potentially even assaulted, I think I'm going to look for Chaplain Joe with his little bell. Do you want to stand up, Joe? Feeling a little safer with Joe. Joe, if you're still in the room. Feeling safer there. I think UA looks great for policing in a very rugged sort of way. Makes me awfully nervous personally. We're about connections. We're about community. If you all are really serious about ending homelessness, community is the answer. Community learning that people are people and not just them. And there's your community.

Thank you for coming down. My name is Dorene McCurley.

You got to get a little closer to the mic. I don't think folks can hear you very well.

Can you hear me now?

Much better. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Dorene McCurley. I'm 86 years old, going on 87, and I'm the case manager at Peace Place. I want to tell you that some of the people that I work with are elderly like me. They're losing their memory. I haven't yet, but I could be soon. I really worry about them. I woke up this morning around 1:30, and I was so anxious because what's going to happen to the people who were already there? They're elderly women and men. They're not on drugs. They just lost their place to live because their rent outpaced what they were taking in. Some of them have animals. You also take care of the cats and dogs. They make me smile. It's just so disturbing. You all have the money because you're giving it to another organization, and I don't understand why you never gave it to us. Before I was at Peace, I was at the Youth Emergency Shelter for 16 years. Then after COVID, I moved to Peace Place, and it's a different environment, but I have met some of the clients I had at the Youth Shelter, and it's really sad. I'm not smart enough to know what the answer is. I have never gotten politically involved. I just care about the people, and I want them to be safe. That's all. Is to be safe. And you have the power to do it. You really do. That's all I can say. I want to thank you.

Thanks for coming tonight. Yes, you have the floor.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Bowen. Some of you know me. I am the Executive Director of the Human Rights Alliance. To preface a few things, support to all of you for everything you've done. I understand that I look like a privileged white man standing up here to speak. So, no, I come from a different place. We as an organization are very concerned about this decision on multiple levels. Many of you have named the reasons why. There are a number of issues with Urban. Forget it.

Yeah. Okay. Yes. Oh, go ahead. You have the floor.

Yes. But the amount of money that this organization has in its coffers on a regular basis, given that they just give services, is quite impressive. But I don't know if that's the answer for the city and the way that the city works, and the fact that bringing an outsider in to solve a problem is not necessarily the best way to handle this. So, our concern is who is the liaison from the city who will be working with this agency? What are the marching orders that they will be given as to what they need to do? And how will those marching orders be followed up on to be sure that the people who are the most vulnerable are taken care of? The unhoused, the unhoused who are trans, the unhoused who are queer, the unhoused who are indigenous or people of color. They don't have a good track record for some of those things. Maybe it's just conjecture. Maybe it's just people complaining. We're not really clear, but we know that we need to make a decision, and the decision that is made will outlive some of you because a number of you will be leaving this council coming up. So, we hope that you will think about this decision. We'll side with the City of Santa Fe. Thank you.

Thank you for coming down. Yes, you have the floor.

Thank you. Mayor Weber, councilors, my name is Susan Ule. I live in District 2, and I would love to see you keep the lease with Interfaith and cancel the contract with UA if you have one. Give the $1.5 million to Interfaith instead of $158,000 and let them show you what they can do. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Let's reset the clock one sec before you go. Okay, you have the floor. Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Max Avery. I am in District 1, and to correct an error that I've heard a couple times, I've seen several of you all at different homeless events around town, and thank you for coming out and thanks for listening to us all tonight. A couple quick to why you should listen to me a little bit. I've worked in homelessness for about a decade. I've done street outreach in four states, two countries, and I have two cousins, one uncle, several old friends, and three old roommates who will be unhoused tonight. And so I luckily am not and have not been, but I have been around it quite a bit. And so I want to point out when we talk about expertise, I have never seen more skillful folks at de-escalating than I have at Pete's. Seeing Strider, seeing Chaplain Joe, seeing Sue de-escalate folks who, when you are have people being mean to you all day, you're going to unload it at some point. It's hard to control. And trying to be able to be there for someone and to help them be able to be in a communal space is hard. And folks at Pete's, there is a lot of expertise who are great at helping folks through that. Mayor, I wrote to you earlier this week, and you expressed support for Interfaith Shelter, and you expressed hope that they would continue to operate as they are. So, thank you, and thank you. And I actually didn't write my councilor. Sorry, I should have. So, I just want to point out this room has expressed a lot of support for Pete's. I like to think that this has some value in listening to us all today. There have been a lot of potential solutions put out, and I hope we have a chance to see some. Please don't terminate their lease. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for being here tonight. Can you hear me?

Yes, you're good.

Maybe I don't need the mic. My name is Julia Albright. I'm the General Manager at Zpet Hotel and Spa at 1196 Harrison Road, right behind Pete's Place. Those yellow signs. Who knew that something so innocuous would create such community unity? Whether you agree, whether you disagree, it's all out there. And at this point, I'm not a speaking person. I'm a behind-the-scenes girl. But at this point, if I could, I'd rent out the billboard on either side of the 25, and I'd put the message there. But when people coming into Santa Fe, the city different, and they see that it's different, they'll know who to blame and who to talk to. And I am in 1,000% support of Pete's. 1,000% not there. As far as Urban Alchemy, I don't know. I can't even add to anything. But as far as the building and being out of compliance that we've known about, at least me, the owner of Zpet, and the people that were on that lawsuit, not sure if Dr. Miller is aware, but we're going to go ahead and endeavor to make her aware of the fact that that building and property is not in code, has not ever been in code, which is one reason it can't operate there. It's never been transitioned over to human services properly. I have the blueprints. I have the agencies and the people involved in acquiring that information five years ago. And I will go ahead and forward that to Dr. Lena Miller with Urban Alchemy. I can't make this up. This is okay. I have a long-standing client who not only knows this person, but was roommates with her and is anxious to go ahead and discuss with her anything that we'd like to be discussed beyond the transparency that has been so highly spoken of. But let me tell you something, Mayor Weber and council members, your actions are screaming so loud, we can't hear what you're saying anymore. And one last thing, God, every faction should be as important as the other. Homeless people, businesses, residents, we should all matter. And we don't because we're being terrorized. And the homeless people trying to get into Pete's have to go through that cesspool of criminal activity on Harrison to get there. That's an issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks very much. Oh, careful. You okay? Thank you. Glad you're okay. Glad you're okay.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Marisol Atkins. Greetings, Mayor and members of the council. I live in El Dorado outside of the city, but I've been a consultant in social services for over a decade here, serving our community. Prior to stepping away for a bit to take care of my father, who's ill and could have ended up at Pete's because he has Alzheimer's and invested with a fraud, I was working primarily in the housing and homelessness arena here for over three years. We did develop plans over three years ago. We did call it an emergency over three years ago. So, I'm a little confused about this current piece that's happening now. I appreciate all the work that the city has done, and I've been reading things and hearing things about the mobile hygiene unit and bringing 120 units online at Santa Fe Suites. I just want to remind everyone, those initiatives happened in partnership with our local nonprofits. Santa Fe Suites, yes, Community Solutions came in. However, a month prior to the deal closing, there was no operator, and St. Elizabeth's and supportive housing came in and stepped in to fill that gap.

The mobile hygiene unit that was purchased with COVID money sat for four years. Interfaith Community Shelter offered to get that running and applied for a grant from the Department of Health. Pallet shelters or safe outdoor spaces, micro communities, local people stepped up. A local faith-based organization, Christ Lutheran Church, stepped up with the LifeLink. So, when there are people here who are willing to step up and provide the services to our residents, I just encourage you to support the local folks. We care about our people. We need to be part of the solution. We've done a lot of work in the community to build those bridges. And I just want to end with this quote from the Black Panther movie: "Now more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth. More connects us than divides us. But in times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe because we are." Thank you.

"Do you hear me?"

"No, you're going to have to get a little closer."

"Right here is fine."

"Perfect. Thank you."

My name is Aliab Kinanesh, 4203 Ldale Soul. I am a pastor here in Santa Fe, and just like all of you, I serve our community. I moved here knowing full well I wouldn't be paid enough. I wouldn't be given the proper housing. I can't afford housing here, to be completely honest. But just like each of you, I accepted this position because I care about people. And I believe in my heart that each of you accepted this position because you love people too, and you serve people. You're willing to go beyond the paycheck that many of you receive, just like me, along with those who serve at Pete's Place.

And I realized as I've just been listening to all of this, I just moved here a year and a half ago. And so I know personally I would never want to move near Pete's Place with my little boy and my wife. I wouldn't want them to be walking around Cerrillos Road. That's why I moved toward the south side of Santa Fe. It's an issue that is really complicated, one that is not going to be easily resolved by some foreign company, but one that I think will never be resolved truly. It will only be managed at the end of the day because we're broken. People are just broken. No matter who you bring in, no matter what you decide, we will always have this issue at hand. You will always get constant complaints and calls from countless businesses and homes all across Santa Fe.

But for me, the reason why I hope and I plead that you change your mind, those of you who aren't voting for this, the reason why I believe that you should choose Pete's is because you can't buy this type of dedication. You can't buy this type of love. You can't put a price tag. They're fighting for their jobs. They're fighting to continue to serve people, not because they want the fame, the fortune, or the paycheck, but because they care. And so no matter what you do, no matter who you bring in, I promise you as a pastor who works with volunteers on a volunteer basis, you can't buy this. So please, I urge you, I plead, and as a pastor, I counsel you: choose your people as they have invested in you. Now invest in them. God bless you guys. Thank you.

"Thanks for coming."

"Can y'all hear me?"

"Yes."

My name is Christine Winfield, and I live in District 2. I speak tonight in honor of Patty Moscos. I have experienced homelessness. Everyone deserves a full belly and a safe place to lay their head.

"While you sit there disrespecting us, smacking your gum and switching between..."

"Hang on everybody. Can we just stop that please?"

I've been a volunteer at Pete's for over 10 years. I work at La Familia. You put property values over people and development over decency. This isn't the city different. You're doing the same old thing that's going on around the country, and they're failing. And so are you. You've been ignoring this issue for decades. You've been ignoring Pete's for decades, and then you pop up with this magical solution while they've been holding the front line doing the work that you should have been doing. The One Door Campus was rejected. Midtown Campus goes into being dilapidated and disrepair because you want outside developers to come give you money for it. Those people could... everything we need could be there. Could have been there years ago. Instead, you want Netflix. Shame on you.

"I'm going to ask you, please don't applaud. I love the waving hands, but we got to neither boo nor applaud. It's great when you support somebody, but could you please... we're not taking everybody. All right. No, we're going to take a 10-minute break. Please stop. We have all been very respectful in listening to you tonight. We don't deserve this. I think when things get a little hot, it's best to take a 10-minute break. We'll be right back."

"I bet."

"Father Luc."

"Madame Clerk, are we still Zoom? Are we still streaming live?"

"Yeah."

"Mayor, we are still live on YouTube."

"Thank you. Thanks everybody. If we could resume, I'd appreciate it. Everybody, please quiet down. I think it was a good idea to take a break anyway. Two and a half hours is a nice long stretch. But I also do want to remind everybody that it's really important to show respect to everybody in the room, to be civil to everybody in the room, and to be respectful to other speakers, but also to the members of the governing body who are listening and taking notes. And with that, I would turn to Councilor Faulkner, who would like a moment of personal privilege."

So, every now and then as a leader, you get an opportunity to have a teachable moment. The AirPods that I use are because I'm visually impaired. I've been legally blind since I was 11. I cannot read the written word. I have to use audio, which is why I wear AirPods, so that I can read the notes that I take on everything that you're saying back to myself, so that I can read the packet, and so that I can be the best leader that I can be. And so, I want to thank those of you who brought this up so that we had a moment where we could learn about each other and our differences, and what also can bring us together to be the best decision-makers we can be. I know that this is a very disempowering moment for everyone in this room, and for that I am deeply sorry. But I do think it's important you know that I'm not wearing AirPods to ignore you or dismiss you. I'm wearing them because I cannot read the written word.

"Thank you, Councilor. So, let's all remember that we're here to try to respectfully hear each other out, and we're all here for the same reason because we love the city. So let's try to be civil, respectful, and very, very conscious of the differences and the similarities that bring us here together to solve the city's problems."

"Councilor Felner, one more footnote."

"Just a footnote. I probably will never stop chewing gum because I get nervous and chewing gum makes me feel a little more relaxed. Okay, with that I'd like to resume what we were doing here before, which is to listen to residents who have come for each to have a chance to speak their piece about the issues in front of us. And you have the floor. Please take us away."

"Thank you. For someone who was a little apprehensive about speaking, this has put me on the spot. I feel relaxed."

My name is Sue Kingston. I live in District 2. And as a prelude, I want to thank, I wrote this weekend to all the councilors and to the Mayor, and I got many really helpful responses, and I thank you for your investment, not just tonight, but for a lifetime. And I also thank the room for giving me a chance to speak. I would endorse many of the stories about Pete's Place. I support Pete's Place, but I want to put my focus someplace else for the few minutes I have to speak. My profession is English. I've spent my life looking at text, talking to students, trying to together learn how to fashion a sensible argument and sentence. It's really an art which I love.

So I have three questions which came from primarily the PDF files that I appreciate Councilor Romero Worth sending me, and I think it's an important part of our conversation. It's a focus I would like to propose. There was a mention that the Urban Alchemy group would identify and create oasis respites. So I would be interested in knowing, two of them were mentioned, what these are and where they would be. Number two, which is about the policing and the arrests or lack of arrests or potential arrests near Pete's Place. This seems to be one of the big issues. What would Urban Alchemy do that's different, and how would they complement or replace the local New Mexico and local police? And number three, they were to locate a new location for Pete's. Where would that be? When would that be? Who would identify and execute that location? Why is this better accomplished by Urban Alchemy than by Interfaith? And just as a footnote, let's put our money with the people who are already here. Thank you for your time.

"Thank you for coming tonight."

Hello, my name is Maline McKeen. I am a resident of District 1, a longtime volunteer in Santa Fe. We do bi-weekly food distribution downtown. I've done that for about five years now. So, I would first off like to say that I do empathize with the business owners who have stated their frustration because I also work off Rufina Circle. I see it every day. But also, I also see the rising housing costs and how the rising housing costs are in direct correlation with the rising homelessness in the country right now. So, I'd like to echo what everyone else has said before me, that we should keep our resources here. I have full confidence that the people who currently run Pete's and run the services we have there will continue to do so. And that's all for me. Thank you.

"Very good. Thank you for coming down."

So, my name is Pelican Lee, and I've lived in Santa Fe since 1978 in several of the different districts because I've always been a renter. And let me tell you, it is harder and harder to be a renter here in Santa Fe. Now my question is, why isn't $1.5 million been given to the Interfaith Shelter years ago? If they had had that $1.5 million, they probably would be moved by now and the rocks would be in place. The city needs to support Interfaith Shelter in moving to a different place. They're as unhappy where they are as the community is. And the obvious place to have a larger and comprehensive shelter with all of the services is Midtown Campus. Now it seems like the city has squandered that opportunity, and I don't know. I was part of the process to create the ideas for Midtown Campus, but we did not have a homeless emergency at that time. And I think that what we have now is different than what we had when we created that plan for Midtown Campus. And it seems to me that it would be obvious to change that plan in order to have the resource and opportunity center that Interfaith Shelter is talking about on Midtown Campus. So that's what I'm speaking for. And I'm also speaking for Interfaith Shelter, which is our local community group, to continue to run Pete's Place because our community is our resource. Also, we need to look at Albuquerque Community Safety, which does street outreach in Albuquerque in a very well way. And it is local people, and that's what we need is our... we have the resources here for the local people to be doing what needs to be done. Thank you.

"Thank you for coming down tonight, Mayor Weber. City Councilors, my name is Annie Rasplin, and I apologize for being a little late. I was giving a training to advocates on working with children who've experienced trauma."

What the symptomology is, mitigating factors, and treatment. I decided to stop by on the way home because one thing I've noted is, though I commend you all for putting a lot of focus on homelessness, I feel that there should be a greater focus on infants, children, and youth who are homeless. I've worked about 30 years in public service in Santa Fe and 20 years specifically with children who've experienced trauma, child welfare, and incarceration.

One thing I've seen is homelessness is a commonality with many of these children. And homelessness in children is not a determinant, but it can be a predictor of long-term challenges, becoming a high utilizer, and adult homelessness. But I've seen much success, and that it takes a very nuanced approach. When you work with children who've experienced trauma and are homeless, it's often complex. It needs one-on-one relationships. It needs a case management component. And it needs the resources that are in the community and knowledge of them.

I think one thing in Santa Fe that we're really quite blessed is we have some incredible resources here: Adelante Youth Shelters, Miho, an alternative response unit at the fire department, La Sala Crisis Center, and their mobile unit. A lot of them are at risk of losing resources and funding and closing. So I ask you to really think about children who are unhoused when you have these conversations. Who do you want working with them? And I ask you to seriously consider watering local flowers before you look elsewhere. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments. Wait one sec. Give me one second to recalibrate the clock. We've got music going on. Okay, you have the floor. You should be able to hear me because I have had a career in theater. My name is Cheryl Odum. I live in District 4. I moved here 45 years ago to take a job teaching at the College of Santa Fe. 45 years. It was the best 30 years of my life, by the way.

And when I first got here, California girl, I kept hearing from people, "You're not from here, are you?" From what I grew to understand were people that were locals. And I didn't want to be not from here because I fell in love with Santa Fe. So I did everything I could to educate myself and to be accepted as a quasi-local. And here we are bringing in a corporation of people who aren't from here. And that is a big concern.

Santa Fe is grounded, grounded in history and tradition. I don't care if you're homeless or if you're a millionaire or whatever. There's a thing here that people don't get when they first come. And that's my big concern. And since people keep mentioning Midtown, it's College of Santa Fe, Midtown campus. Just knowing the few brothers that are still alive and talking to the ones that were alive when the college first closed, nothing would make them happier than having some homeless people have housing on their campus. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you for coming.

Yeah. Good evening, Mayor Weber, city councilors, members of the public. I'd like to thank everybody for being here tonight. Especially want to honor some of our elders who came, very touching. My name is Lisa Kakari Stone. I am the Santa Fe County Commissioner for District 2, part of which overlays with Pete's Place and the interfaith community. Next week marks the anniversary of my uncle's passing. His name was Paul Kakari, and he was homeless for 40 years, but he was not without housing. He was able to survive, and my sister and I went out there to help him transition out in the Washington area. And the reason why he was able to survive so long is that he was able to go from place to place with comprehensive services.

I wanted to just speak tonight that tonight I know your decision does not come easy. I know that as an elected official having to sit where you sit, the last thing you need is for me or anyone else to give you a scolding. But what I hear tonight, I came to listen and I didn't plan to speak. I hear that a meaningful pause is needed. It was a meaningful pause to take a break, and we all came back with deeper understandings of what was going on and learning a little bit more about each other.

If the place closes without a long-term plan that has lived experience input, my concern is we're going to continue to increase those in the adult detention center. I am very upset that 90% of those in our detention center are on psychotropics. We have a great team and staff there. But we have transitioned as a society where detention centers are treatment centers. We do need emergency housing in Santa Fe. We need midterm housing and long-term housing. And I'm here to commit to work as a county with you. We need trauma-informed care. And what I hear tonight is that this is a policy decision, but all hard policy decisions are people decisions. And I heard so much that there's so much more to lose by losing the public trust of all of your local community by making this a transactional event rather than a relational event. I stand with you. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. Thanks for coming down.

Hi. You can hear me, right? Yeah. When you're down into the mic, real close. That's good. Thank you. Okay. So now this is going to sound... We didn't get your name though. I will give it to you. Okay. Thanks. Alicia Dilva, District 2. And this is going to sound a little counter-narrative in the sense that I feel privilege and gratitude to be able to speak freely for the allotted two minutes. I just want to say that. And I feel privilege and gratitude that I'm in a room with a lot of hearts and here too, of course.

So one of the things I was thinking about as I've been listening is how there is a commonality. We are all human beings. We've all witnessed a lot of changes. I've lived in Santa Fe since I was in my 20s. I cannot deny that I have distracted myself. I have closed my own heart as I've seen every corner on Cordova and St. Francis or different places, Siringo, with people in various states of living in public because that's the only place they can live. And I have homelessness closer to me. One of the people I care most about, I've watched him go in and out of homelessness. And I recognize that everyone is deserving of dignity and place. How do we come to that is my question.

I was looking at an Einstein quote and it says, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius, a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." What I'm asking for all from all of you, from all of us, is to find what is the common ground that we can move from where we build as opposed to continue what is divisive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, councilors. Dylan Schwegel, former case manager, former outreach worker, now living in District 4. I've spent a good deal of time while I was working at Pete's Place. And so I experienced what I think a lot of people here would agree. A big part of the problem at Pete's Place is the overcrowding. We can agree that the location is not great considering the number of people who utilize those services. This overcrowding draws in the many people who hang out on Harrison Road because of their personal relations to the people who are allowed into the shelter.

Now, in the face of that problem, the logical answer I think would be to support Interfaith Shelter in finding a new location, number one. Number two, expanding the options for shelter in this city through pallet shelters, micro-communities, safe spaces for people to camp or to park, the conversion of motels and hotels, and even potentially a campus project such as the one that's been floated for the Midtown campus.

Now, I commend the City Council for its investment and its support in expanding pallet shelters. But that brings me to the question of the money that's slated to be given to Urban Alchemy. Now look, a couple years ago I spoke with some gentlemen from Urban Alchemy and they seemed like good people. But I have read some concerning things about the practices and the conduct of the staff.

Now putting that aside, when I saw the number, the amount of money slated to be given to Urban Alchemy compared to the budget for Pete's Place, I thought about the number of times I and many of my colleagues here found that only halfway through the fiscal year, we are already running out of money for certain programs and services. And I can't help but think that money would be better served being given to those people who have that relationship, have those connections, and have built that trust with the people that they're serving.

And very quickly, it took over a year, much longer than expected, to establish the first pallet shelter community of only 10. Now my question is, if Pete's Place closes, how long will it be to establish 50 under Urban Alchemy? And where will those people who go to Pete's Place stay in the meantime? Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Council. Good to see you. I wanted to bring up a fact that I'm a Santa Fe... Oh, sorry. I'm a Santa Fean. We need your name, too. Oh, sorry. I'm Noah Dalling Luhan. I grew up here. Thank you. And I have personal experiences with homelessness. I know I was kicked out of my house when I was 15. And if I didn't have grandparents that took care of me, I would also be benefiting from these services. But the reason I went to college is because of city-funded resources at the local high schools. This was essential to me going to college.

And I think that we need to have a city-led initiative to actually get this done. Albuquerque had similar problems. They had rising rates of homelessness and crime. And so they established a separate department, Health, Housing, and Homelessness. And they recently opened the biggest shelter in the entire state of New Mexico. I had a tour of it. And they have up-to-date facilities. They have clean bathrooms. They have over 100 beds. And the area around the shelters are very nice and well kept up.

And it's these kind of programs that we need to have here in Santa Fe and not delegated to outside state interests that will help create actual positive lasting change. And we've seen it work in Albuquerque with lowering rates of unemployment, homelessness, crime. They have programs where people are allowed to work one day at a time and then be paid for that day. These are the kinds of things we could be doing here in Santa Fe, and I don't know why there's no collaboration between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and we're looking to organizations in California. So that's my concern and thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for coming down.

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and City Councilors. I am Lily May Ortiz, lifelong resident of Northern New Mexico and current resident of the beautiful city of Santa Fe, District 4. I've been before you a few times as a member of your Charter Commission and also as the chair of your Independent Redistricting Commission. So, I know how hard you work and I thank you for the work that you do and I hope that you will take into your heart and be cognizant of the overwhelming support that the Interfaith Shelter has received this evening. I have been surprised and happy to see that so many people are out supporting it. All of the great things have already been said. All of the positive attributes have been said. I'm not going to repeat them. I want to make three points. Local control. I'm a firm believer in local control. I believe any organization that's run locally knows best the problems and the pitfalls in that organization. They have the experience.

They have the expertise. I believe we should maintain Interfaith and allow them to learn from their mistakes, to build on their successes, and to continue improving what is a very difficult situation in terms of homelessness. There's no magic bullet, and no city that I'm aware of in the United States has figured it out. They're all working really hard. So, I'm a firm believer of local control.

Also, I ask you to compare apples with apples. We're looking at, from the information I saw in the newspaper, a $158,500 annual expenditure to Interfaith, while this new vendor, an out-of-state vendor, is going to be receiving $1.5 million annually, an $8 million contract over four years. I think we're not comparing apples with apples, and we're having expectations of a vendor that gets very little money and comparing that to a vendor that's going to get lots of money. The contract that I read online did not outline to me any outcomes or any goals or any specific measures they're going to be looked at that convince me of the success of this new organization coming in.

And then lastly, change for the sake of change is not always good. It can be change, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be positive and benefit the citizens of our city. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Karina Lopez. I'm the Executive Director of the Interfaith Community Shelter, or as the Mayor referred to me in the hallway, the belle of the ball. I struggled to know what to say to you all this evening that you haven't already heard. Should I point out the irony that the city's solution to address homelessness includes leaving a local organization unhoused and essentially leaving them out on the street? Should I point out that Mr. Scott is correct in stating that the police department and fire department get many calls for service? Many of those calls coming from Interfaith, like other businesses in the area and around the city, we call for assistance and support when individuals are breaking the law and violating city ordinance.

I think of how $1.5 million, our full annual budget, could better be utilized. As Commissioner Green pointed out to me earlier, $1.5 million could pay for 15 police officers, or just dedicating even six officers to the area around Harrison Road and the Surreals Road Corridor and still have thousands left, excuse me, left over for navigation services or more street outreach or just full funding support for our local street outreach providers such as Lifelink, their Pathways program, Chaplain Joe's Street Outreach, or Southwest Care. But you already know that this funding could be allocated locally.

So instead, I want to talk to all the people here this evening and watching online, and especially those who are currently unhoused and came here this evening. Your dedication, tenacity, courageousness to speak up makes this challenging evening and the potential displacement of our staff, volunteers, and maybe even our guests a little less painful. Thank you. You all are what gives us at Interfaith hope that this city can and will do better for everyone in this community. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks everybody for the hands. Give us one second to reset the clock, and you have the floor.

Hi there. Thank you all for having this conversation with us. I really appreciate it. Now, whenever I feel conflicted, I'm sorry, my name is Angie Grady. I'm at 1190 Harrison. I have a business and I'm also a neighbor to Pete's Place. Whenever I feel conflicted about something or too emotional, I think about Grandma's Law. What would Grandmother expect from us? She would expect that we feed the hungry, that no one freeze to death in the street, that we are kind and helpful to our neighbors, that we do our best.

When I looked up this company, I couldn't find anything to brag about, unless you want to brag about lawsuits. When it comes to the people that are already providing services in our neighborhood, we need to give them all of the tools that they need to be the best that they can be. We're not asking for perfection. We're asking for leadership. We're asking for transparency. We're asking for you to help us be the best Santa Fe that we could be. And imagine how proud the day when all the grandmas are bragging about what a great job we did. Thank you. Thank you.

One sec. And you have the floor.

Thank you. My name's Elizabeth Grover, and I'm a resident and a business owner in District 1. I don't think you understand how nerve-wracking it is up here. How many of you were able to do this? I congratulate you. I think I'm going to cry. All right. There's a lot of things that I'd like to talk about, but I do understand the time limit.

1968, that's when I came here. I was a toddler, leaving my toddler years, and I came to the property where the Loretto Chapel is. I've seen a lot of changes. I was there when the Sisters of Loretto were there, and I remember seeing my first experience with someone who was unhoused eating from a trash can, and Sister Carlanne took me by the hand and she said, "This is something I need to teach you, and that is the difference between sympathy and empathy." Sympathy was understanding that he was hurting. Empathy was working with him and taking the action. She took him by the hand and took him over to the cathedral, and he received a meal. That's where the priest also called on to their flock, and he received a bed from somebody who had an extra bed in their home.

By 1986, when we saw the, what would you call it? It was President Reagan took apart a lot of the system, and we ended up seeing a mass influx of unhoused, and that's when the Interfaith came together. I was involved in that with helping bring about, I apologize for going over, bringing about sheets and blankets, pillows. We helped donate. In 2006, we saw an influx of deaths due to the cold. It was a horrible winter. Pete's Place came about because of that incident. It was a response to that incident. Again, I was proud to be a part of that in helping gather blankets, pillows, silverware, anything that was needed for it.

Now, we're in 2005. It's very different from where we were. And I'm not proud of where Santa Fe has gone. We're not that community anymore. I'm not seeing it. I have tried to work with Pete's Place, and I keep getting shot out. I, as a business owner, as someone who is desperate, I am so tired of being a victim.

Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up. If you, thank you. If you have a finishing sentence or a concluding thought, please give it to us. But we're a minute over time. Thank you.

And thank you everyone there. I think that Pete's Place, you have the funds. The money has been given to you. Please use it in making another facility and help the people that you serve. Thank you. Thank you for coming down tonight.

Good evening, Governing Body. My name is Katherine Rivera. I'm a resident of District 1. What a powerful night for the city of Santa Fe. The decision in front of you is not easy. It is a structural decision driven by the realities of our city. But regardless of the decision you make, I think it is equally important. What we do next matters. To the city of Santa Fe and the staff, I implore you to use this opportunity to do better. Refresh, establish, and keep the neighborhood agreements. Santa Fe has failed on that. Consider drug-free zones outside and along the perimeters of the shelters and micro-communities. You can do that. Revisit our city's loitering rules. The last time I looked at the loitering rules, there were two, and both of them involved saloons. That's how old our loitering rules are. Your next act will be rebuilding, but not just operations. It'll be regaining the trust of the residents of the businesses in the city of Santa Fe. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

You have the floor.

Very aware that I'm like the last one, so I'll try and... No, I wouldn't jump to conclusions, but... Well, go ahead. You have... There's no one behind me, so I'm anxious as hell.

I'm Janelle Bohannan. I live off South Meadows, but I'm also the Director of Outreach Services for the Lifelink. I currently run the one micro-community. I was actually at home watching it on YouTube, and I was like, "I need to get over there and say something to you all." As much as I appreciate everything that has been done and how the city supports the work that Lifelink does, I can't turn my back on a community partner like Pete's. That's the one thing that I can say as a native Santa Fean that we do have, at least in the social services, is we do have a community. If we knew what you all were looking for, we would have answered the call just like we've answered every other call. The call for Code Blue, Code Red, an emergency pop-up shelter that my staff ran during this winter. But we answer that call if we know what the needs are.

I think that the slap in the face for me personally with entering a contract with Urban Alchemy was not knowing what direction to go into because again, we would have answered that call where the Lifelink is that behavioral health piece to all the social services or the unhoused services, and I would never turn my back on Pete's or anything that they would ask us. It is a community, and I want to stress that if we were given that opportunity as Santa Feans, we would have answered it. And I want to make another point as soon as, as fast as I can. So, I run another grant that's run by SAMA, and they recently did a visit to our site, and one of the things they asked us is, "How do you serve native populations, Hispanic cultures?" And I was dumbfounded that that was a question worth asking. But that cultural competency is also important in what we do. So, thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name's Elizabeth West, and I want to take pity on that wonderful woman who just spoke. I thought, and somebody else here tonight said, "Yeah, I really would like you to say something." So, I got to thinking of how important it is to make a connection with you guys. My, sorry, you guys, Mayor and City Councilors, because I know you're working hard, and I don't feel like attacking. I really don't. But I do have a funny feeling of sadness and sometimes fear. Now, sadness usually leads to depression. Fear leads to anger. And so when you get all those into a stew, it's kind of tricky.

And I was thinking, what is it that would be a helpful idea? And maybe somebody mentioned it earlier or in some other lifetime, but I think it was you, Councilor Romero Worth, and some others who had at one point really wanted to work with a group called the Equity and Inclusion. And I don't know where that went, but something like that would be a liaison sort of effort where people like me who are not afraid of speaking up on occasion. I'm a little nervous tonight, but anyway, who want to help make connections with people, and some of you know I'm looking over you, Madame Castro. I know that I've had some real arguments with people, and I'm incredibly proud of ending up making some of those people into friends. And I have to say, going back to Chart, that although there was much maligned business about how we're going to work around that, it actually did provide an opportunity for me to have an almost transcendent experience. So, I'd like to revisit that.

Couple more seconds. Revisit that Equity and Inclusion idea and have maybe a rotating bunch of people who come on and serve and have a conversation, and then you all would be able to hear from us, and we could hear from you. That's what transparency is. I mentioned that before. It goes both ways. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming down.

Hello everyone.

I ran to get here in time, so I'm a little out of breath. My name is Amy Farra Weiss. I live in District 187501 and I'm the founder and director of the St. Francis Challenge, a nonprofit I started in San Francisco in 2015 to end the crisis of street homelessness. I have a unique perspective because I've worked alongside Urban Alchemy in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. I considered them allies and kindred spirits and appreciate their slogan.

My organization was the first in the Bay Area to push for what we called SOS, Safe Organized Spaces, transitional outdoor shelter. During the pandemic, we even lent our shower trailer to one of UA's sites at no cost, so residents could bathe with dignity. In 2021, I moved to New Mexico and was later contracted by the City of Santa Fe to write a report on interventions to street homelessness, which laid the groundwork for the SOS pallet shelter. I interviewed dozens of people, including the late and beloved Joe Jordan and many guests outside Pete's Place.

I wasn't planning to speak tonight. I was supposed to be telling jokes at Wayward Comedy, but listening in at home, I felt the need to stand up here instead and say this: Urban Alchemy is a solid organization. They deserve the outreach contract they properly bid for. But Interfaith also deserves a chance at even half the $1.5 million being proposed to have, as Bev put it, more capacity and to work alongside UA's outreach team for support. I'm kind of sick to my stomach because I ran so hard.

At the end of the day, UA is not more trained or more committed than Interfaith. Choosing to shift that funding now would be deeply demoralizing to the community, and we need an activated community. Like someone said earlier, if you have any little bit of doubt, please table this proposed change for at least a year of collaboration and capacity building. San Francisco and St. Francis are both named after, and Santa Fe are both named after St. Francis. I think Francis would be loving on Interfaith right now, trying to find a win-win solution. But that guy is also famous for speaking to the birds because no one would listen. So please, more collaboration, less. Thank you.

Mayor: Anyone else want to come forward now? Now would be the time. And I'm not sure that's on at the moment. Scared of germs. Okay.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Natasha Katco. I live in District 4, and I do want to just correct something. I've had the pleasure of serving with multiple city councilors at the Interfaith Community Shelter, and so thank you to Councilor Castro, Councilor Chavez, and Councilor Casset for joining me on those nights of serving. I wanted to come up here tonight, and I also am not very comfortable with public speaking, but I do pour my heart out into this organization, and I'm here to speak out against the city's proposal to allocate $1.5 million to Urban Alchemy while consistently underfunding the Interfaith Community Shelter, our local shelter that has faithfully served Santa Fe for 15 years.

The Interfaith Community Shelter has worked tirelessly to support our most vulnerable neighbors. And yet, every attempt to collaborate with the city has been met with resistance. Let's be clear, the need for the Interfaith Community Shelter exists because of failed government systems. Our shelter is responding to the fallout of decisions made at the city, state, and county level, decisions that have left people without housing support or a path forward. The Interfaith Community Shelter stepped up where government systems failed. Why then is the city so eager to invest millions in an outside organization while giving only a fraction of those dollars to local efforts?

Outsourcing services to an out-of-state group like UA will disrupt the trust and stability and clearly will not and cannot replace the emergency shelter that we provide to our community. The Interfaith Community Shelter has helped thousands of individuals with limited funding from the city, with most of the funding coming from community support. Even a portion of the $1.5 million being considered could fund critical measures we've already asked for. Instead, the city is choosing to copy models from cities that have made no real progress. Thank you.

Thank you very much. You got to get much. Yeah, there you go. Thank you.

My name is Dustin Garber. I was born here at St. Vincent's, and I've lived my whole life in District 4. And I obviously see that there are problems, and it's not safe in certain places. But that's every shadow that you can hide in from the heat up and down Cerrillos Road. Anywhere I go that's commercial in this town, and I take one step away from active registers where the police would remove them, there are people seeking some kind of shelter desperately. And there are many reasons why. But what you have stopped doing here, and the shame of this city, the shame on this council, and the shame on you, Mayor, is that you're not thoughtful. And this action has not been thoughtful. And these emergency actions are not thoughtful.

I live walking distance from the pallet shelters, and it is a problem. But I'm not against them. I'm against the thoughtlessness. We need to be thoughtful. We need to remove these emergency actions and do things appropriately. Make plans, find zoning that's appropriate, and build permitted structures. I have lived homeless. I have struggled with people in my life being mentally ill and addicted to drugs. And I have lost people in my life from these things. And it is a serious thing. And anything we can do to save one life is worth it. And if you close this thing without opening 200 new beds, you're murdering people. So, shame on you for even considering this. Thank you.

Yes, you have the floor.

My name is Elizabeth. I live in District 1. I've been really debating what to say today, but Mayor, Councilors, I ask you please, please slow down with this vote. Think about how many people we're affecting right now by moving forward with this, by moving forward with this closing of this vital resource in our community. We're denying people the ability to live. We're denying people the ability to have a meal, have a clean shower. There is so much intelligence and experience in this room. I believe if we all sat down right now, we could come up with a much better solution. So, yeah, I just, I come to you humbly and I ask you to please, please consider a better solution that brings our amazing teams, our La Familia, Lifelink, La Familia, all of our amazing teams that do what they do in an incredible way. Bring them to the table and ask them what their experience is.

I'm currently in school for social work, and last year I took an amazing course about substance use that opened my eyes to just how deep this addiction goes and what a disease it is and that there's no fast solution to countering such a devastating disease that we are dealing with as a community, and we have to find our way forward. But it can't be through making quick, quick decisions. We have to do this in a well thought-out way, and we have to make sure that in the meantime people have a safe place to go. So thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you very much.

Madame Clerk, is there anyone on the Zoom room who wishes to be heard at this time?

There are numerous people in the Zoom room. So if you're in the Zoom room, please raise your hand. I'm going to call out your name and allow you to speak. The timer, I believe, I'm going to have to tell you probably when your timer is up. So, Rachel Thompson, you are allowed to speak.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilors. My name is Rachel Thompson, and I live in District 2. I just want to say about Pete and Karina that when we were organizing the warming center at the Salvation Army, they were invaluable. I went to them for information on training volunteers, for how to do a clothing closet, for where to get Narcan training, for with John Singh, how to do housing navigation, and with their showers-to-go program, they attracted more people to the Salvation Army than we would get on any other day. And Karina routinely stopped by on Thursdays for the first period of time that we were opening and said, "Please let us know what we can do to help." So, not only are they doing what they're doing with their own facility, but they are sharing their expertise to a program such as ours. So, extremely valuable in that way.

I just have wondered about this Built for Zero program and then also the cities that Urban, I can't, I have to call them Urban Outfitters. I can't think of what their name is, but Urban Alchemy. What kind of housing do they have available? Because my concern would be that, you know, we can, we can outreach our hearts to our hearts' content, but where are we putting people? The $9.4 million, I think that's going to be committed. I'm seriously wondering, like, where did that come from? And also that's three years worth of $3 million annual contribution for affordable housing to the affordable housing trust fund. I've helped navigate somebody who was a salon worker. He had a stroke. He ended up living in his car. I worked with him to get him housing, and around March he was 1,500th in line for one particular county voucher. We have no housing, and I, I, I really want to see builders and homeless people, I'm sorry, the builders and homeless advocates working together. I was at a meeting last week where both were...

Rachel, your time's elapsed. If you could wrap it up, please.

Okay. And they were on opposite sides of the room. We need to get the two halves of this problem, the whole housing spectrum. We need the builders working alongside the homeless advocates to address the overall housing issue. Thank you.

Thank you for calling in everyone online. Just so you know, the timer is on the YouTube. It will turn from green to yellow to red. So watch out with that. Let's see. Ginger Robertson, you are allowed to speak.

Good evening, and thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. I spoke at last week's meeting. And I am the Chief Operating Officer at La Familia. Under my domain is healthcare for the homeless. One of the things that is striking to me about this entire thing, it's not the money, it's not the outside agency, but what seems to be the absolute lack of awareness of the governing bodies of the services that already exist in this city that are working on these issues. But also the ignorance to the fact that going through with this contract is going to disrupt many of the services that are provided at Pete's Place Shelter because they are directly tied to Interfaith Shelter, not the city. And that includes the life-saving medical care that we provide to approximately 400 of this city's homelessness people experiencing homelessness every year.

If nothing else, I believe that this is a done deal. Okay? And I, I, I really don't think that there's going back on that. But as far as terminating the lease, as far as terminating the support of Interfaith Shelter and all of the city partners, I am asking each and every one of you to at least stop for a few minutes tonight and reflect upon all of the expertise that you have heard in this meeting tonight and understand that your actions may cost lives. They may cause disconnect in city services, and they are certainly going to cause a disruption in vital services to the people that need these services every day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Randy, please state your name. You are allowed to speak.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Good evening. My name is Brandy Vanpel Ramirez, and I am the CEO of La Familia Medical Center, and I want to thank you, Mayor Weber and the City Council for having us this evening.

I want to echo everything that Ginger Robertson just said. She is the Chief Operating Officer at La Familia. We have partnered with the Interfaith Community Shelter for 15 years. We provide medical support twice a week at Pete's Place. And I cannot emphasize enough that there are so many people in that room and on the phone that would love to get together with the city to collaborate and find solutions to our issues instead of bringing in an outside agency from California.

We work very hard in this community to gain trust of our patients, of our community, of our staff, and bringing in an outside agency will do nothing but damage the work that has already been done. I have written to each of you in an email stating that La Familia would love to be at the table in collaboration with community partners such as LifeLink, Interfaith Shelter, and others to help solve this issue.

I also want to state that it is not a Pete's Place issue. It is what is going on outside of Pete's Place on Harrison, on Cerrillos, and how important it is that the City of Santa Fe step up their services to ensure that people are safe. But also, we've had a number of fatalities in that area due to people crossing the road, people not paying attention, and there's a number of safety things that need to be addressed as well. I ask all of you to please, as Ginger mentioned, step back, listen to what's being said tonight, listen to all the expertise at this table and those that have been willing to step forward and lend their expertise to help solve this issue in Santa Fe. Thank you.

Thank you for being on Zoom. Stephanie Beninato, you are allowed to speak.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, very clearly.

Okay. I live in District 2, and I have to echo many of the concerns about transparency, the rushed process, the failure to give Pete's Place the resources that you're willing to give to an outside agency, and also even the $8 million for outreach that could go to many of the other nonprofits who do that kind of work in the city already.

I too wonder if this isn't a done deal. And yes, you're spending a lot of time allowing people to speak, but are you actually listening? Are you actually reconsidering your positions? Because I think a lot of times it's helping people try to feel listened to or heard, but not really changing anybody's mind.

And in terms of transparency, because so much has already been said about Pete's Place, I want to talk about the pallet shelters on Richards Avenue that you're also going to be voting on tonight. And I remind you that you swore up and down several times that there would be community input as to the location of these shelters. And here we are. It's a resolution that's been introduced and you're going to vote on it tonight, and it will happen at Richards Avenue without any public input. So when you find that people are not trusting you, this is a great reason why, because things get done behind doors. Things are already decided, and then you come and you have this three and a half, four-hour public input, but will it really make any difference?

And again, I think that if you give Pete's Place $1.5 million this year, they could improve the situation much more easily and in a better way than Urban Alchemy. And the $8 million that you want to give for the next four years to Urban Alchemy, why not give it to the already existing nonprofits who do outreach and help them expand their services? Thank you.

Thank you. Eric Smith, you're allowed to speak. Oops, sorry, I did the wrong order. Selena, you are allowed to speak, and then we'll go to Eric Smith.

Good evening. Thank you for the time. My name is Selena Benavidez, and I live in District 1. The compassion and grit of the Pete's Place staff and volunteers is absolutely incredible and amazing. I just think that it's time that we discuss an ugly truth: that the homeless crisis has outgrown the current facilities and system. It's just simply not working anymore, and Santa Fe has reached a boiling point. For the sake of preserving public safety and the future of the city, we need to do a pivot. The status quo is failing to meet the overwhelming surge of homelessness that our city's endured the last few years. And Santa Fe needs a different facility in a new location with a new system.

Pete's Place and volunteers are obviously trained professionals who will never stop advocating, and that makes them excellent candidates for the local jobs that come with Urban Alchemy and partner organizations and whoever comes in. They also will be valuable sources of experience. The new system could keep what worked and change what didn't, and they'll be the ones to really know about that, the new system. Excuse me. Someone else coming in doesn't mean that we're going to end our local partnership in action. They don't know our city, right? If they're coming from another place, let's show them. Let's share it with them. Instead of framing this as an us versus them, insider versus outsider, it should be framed and discussed as a united solution.

Our city cannot sustain Pete's Place as is. It's placed a severely undue burden on those who live near Pete's and the businesses that are on Cerrillos, which is a major thoroughfare for our city. It's a major artery, and the frustration is spreading to other neighborhoods as the ripple effects spread through our town. Ending Pete's Place lease shouldn't be the end. As others have already pointed out, we're going to continue to provide beds, showers, food, and support for the unhoused community because that's what they deserve. This gives us the opportunity to create a better facility for them and with improved services that works with our local law enforcement and city leadership. Thank you.

Thank you, Selena. I think we ran out of time there, but is she off now? Okay, let's go to the next person then. Eric Smith, you're allowed to speak.

My name is Eric Smith. I live on Harrison Road at Rufina in District 1. I'm pursuing a PhD at UNM in Applied Public Policy at the Department of Political Science. I believe this external relocation of public responsibilities regarding homelessness will undermine Santa Fe's governmental capacity and future resilience by eroding expertise, infrastructure, and accountability. Often when municipalities rely on distant external providers, they reduce direct experience in managing social services and developing policy. And by replacing a deeply embedded local resource, abruptly removes that accumulated expertise, effectively resetting community learning to a baseline. That loss of institutional knowledge will diminish our government's ability to respond effectively to crises or changes in homelessness.

The external entities often prioritize short-term contract-based solutions with immediate metrics over sustainable community capacity building. This creates a focus on short-term efficiencies instead of investments in things like a gateway center, affordable housing, and mental health services, which are vital for lasting resilience. Consequentially, these communities remain dependent on external providers whose interests may not align with the local community's long-term health and stability. Ultimately, this erosion of local sector expertise will limit Santa Fe's strategic flexibility and responsiveness, hindering its ability to innovate and adapt to future social policy challenges. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Reed FSY, you're allowed to speak.

Yes. My name is Reed FSY, and I've been homeless until March when I fortunately, I live in District 1. I also participated in the Lived Experience Advisory Board for Homelessness sponsored through the S3 Initiative. And it just seems to me that in some ways it almost seems like your sudden announcement was almost like a divorce decree delivered under a door saying you had given up on the community. And I wanted to emphasize what previous speakers had said, the difference between transactional relationships and transactions versus relations in that the heartblood of the provider community is within developing empathy and relationships and heartfelt regard for others, as well as their, you know, the typical tasks that they do to provide for others. And over the years, you must have at least a thousand providers giving hundreds of thousands of hours of their time either volunteering or as part of their work, and to disrupt such a thing dramatically, I take issue with that.

Furthermore, I would encourage you, like other speakers, to give pause, either two months or a year, as one speaker suggested, maybe six months, to involve the full S3 Initiative, which includes the five major funders and all of the providers, in order to come up with a better plan. Furthermore, one other thing I would say is, well, two things. One, Karina Lopez, in a presentation with the Santa Fe Haven Initiative, had located two possibilities for actual buildings. A ballpark figure then was like $8 to $10 million, which is about what you're paying for services for four years. So, I would encourage you to, you know, recognize that a campus-based facility that's not in the corridor currently occupied by Pete's Place might be a better idea than just stringing it along for another four years and to work with partners to raise the money for that. Thank you, Reed.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Your time's up, but I appreciate you zooming in. Jessica, you are allowed to speak.

Thank you, Mayor Webber and City Councilors. My name is Jessica Montoya Trillo, and I live in District 4. I'm continuing Family Nurse Practitioner Kate Nelson's statement read in person earlier. Put yourself in the shoes of someone experiencing homelessness. Imagine your loved one in those shoes: your son, your daughter, your grandmother, your spouse. Our society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. And we are all here tonight watching. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Next. Next Zoom person. Madam Clerk. N. Bookbinder, you're allowed to speak.

My name is Nancy Bookbinder. I live in District 2. I would like to shift the conversation to fiscal responsibility for our taxpayer dollars. I have worked in the public sector, the private sector. I've worked for government, and I've worked as a consultant. I have never seen in 35 years a sole source process that ever benefited anyone but those who closely wrote their request for proposal. One of the things that's very helpful in writing a request for proposal that others can respond to is that you are forced to outline what are the end points of this contract? What are the goals? What is important? What will the organizational structure be for carrying out this contract? What are the resumes of the people who will be providing this work? What is their understanding of the local environment and community and what you're hoping to deliver?

It is important when the request for proposal is developed that not just a few people sit in a room, but that the community is involved with you and city government of what they are looking for and running our community shelter so that there is a fiduciary responsibility that is carried out for the taxpayers' money in this proposal. And scoring of these proposals based on the contents of what the city is looking for, what the residents are looking for, what those who are served as unhoused individuals are looking for, can only benefit the community and the use of our dollars and get community buy-in.

This doesn't have to take two years, but as others have said, it is important and should be discussed by the council. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry, we really don't need that. Everybody's able to hear what she's saying. Just let her talk. Excuse me, sir, would you please control yourself?

Madame Clerk, who's next? Phone number 1346248777999. You're allowed to speak. You were still muted. I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Hello? Can you please identify yourself? You have the floor to speak for two minutes on anything you'd like to address the governing body about.

Yes, my name is Christopher Anderson, Mayor and City Councilman. I'll be real brief because I'm out in the field. I work with the International Faith. Pardon me, I'm literally out in the field. Let me step aside so that way you can all hear me. Currently working overtime right now. I work there at the shelter. I wanted to add in that over watching and listening to everything that's been heard, the majority that I could while I'm out here, that we're saving lives. We're saving our community's lives on a daily basis. I have been a part of DNR, excuse me, of resuscitating, calling 911s, working with Santa Fe PD, working with our state police officers. We're getting a whole bunch of progress. We are making headway. We are helping our community that we serve. It's an honor and a pleasure to serve our city and our citizens on a daily basis.

I want to share this, that it is our great pleasure and honor to serve all of you. We look and ask humbly, respectfully, that you find the intellect, the wisdom to resolve the matters. I understand it is very complicated, and I would say in our congressional representative out in Washington, Ben Ray Lujan, let's do the right thing. Thank you, folks. God bless.

Thank you. Thanks for zooming in. I appreciate it. Miguel Gabbadon, you're... Oops, sorry. What? Miguel Gabbadon, you're allowed to speak.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. I'm hopeful that you can hear me because I'm hands-free. Thank you both for the opportunity to speak. I also like to thank Councilor Casset for responding to my email I sent earlier today, yesterday. And I guess after hearing everything, I have a lot of concerns of what's going on at Peace Place, a lot of concerns about the city of Santa Fe's drop in quality of life with the issues of homelessness, unsheltered, overall crime, drug use. But I do not believe the answer is to terminate the lease with Interfaith Services at this time. They do have a service that's needed. If you do terminate the lease, you still have a ramp-up time with Urban Alchemy, and within that time frame, before they can appear up, there's going to be a period of time when people will not have services. Things could happen to the individuals. Things could happen to our community, and that's probably not the best thing for anybody.

You have done things in the past where you've come to the 11th hour. You've heard the community outreach on different subjects, and you have postponed action on an item. You have other items on the agenda today, particularly the almost $8 million contract with Urban Alchemy. Figure that's a go-through theme that's too big to spot near the weather tower. But if you would listen to our comments from the community, think about those who would be displaced as the transition occurs, and how everybody, not just the individuals who are unsheltered and use Peace Place, but the communities around Peace Place, the entire city, we would all be affected by this hasty taken step. So, I would back off on the lease termination, give them the rest of the year to get their stuff together to move forward, to get services ramped up somewhere else. Have Urban Alchemy with your $8 million contract observe what's going on in that time. So, thank you again, and have a good rest of the evening.

Thank you. Thanks for zooming in. I appreciate it. Is there anyone who has not raised their hand and would like to speak? Please raise it now. I'm seeing no one else raise their hand in the Zoom room.

Okay. That's very thorough. I think it is 9 o'clock. We'll take a 15-minute break and come back and resume at 9:15. Thanks, everybody. Could we please put the presentation up on the screens from the USBC? Thank you. Appreciate it. You're calling, and I think they're totally unbiased, although that's not incredibly honest. Hey, I'm great. How are you tonight? Yeah, you too. Very healthy conversation. I think I keep saying to Henry, there's so much. All right, Madam Clerk. They don't have. Hey, Sig, you ready? Where? What happened to Pard? Have you seen Per? We'll give her one more.

I'd like to call the meeting back to order, please. Thank you, everybody. If you could take your seats, please settle down and take your seats. If you're sticking around, we need you to quiet down and take your seats. Thank you, everybody.

We're still streaming, Madame Clerk.

Mayor, we are still live on YouTube.

All right. Very good. If everybody's ready to resume, thank you for taking a break. I appreciate it. I think we all got to stretch. Director Hammond Paul, I am going to turn to you for a... I believe you have a presentation you want to make, and there are others. It's not all just you. You've got some other folks who are going to pitch in and be part of the presentation. So take your time and bring us your material.

Mr. Mayor, I think the item needs to be read into the record first, right? Because we are just finishing petitions from the floor.

I hear you, Counselor. Okay. With that said then, good, good. I appreciate that. Thank you. If you, Madam Clerk, could... We're going to... I think the presentation will cover all of the items broadly, but we will take them up individually. So, if you want to put onto the record the first item that is on the calendar, which is 8A, but I don't believe that the presentation only addresses 8A. So, go ahead, Madam Clerk.

Item 8A, request for approval of lease termination with Interfaith Community Shelter Group to end month-to-month tenancy at 2801 Cerrillos Road, Pete's Place, effective July 31st, 2025. And here to speak is Director of Department Community Health and Safety, Henry Hammond Paul.

Motion to deny the approval of lease termination with Interfaith Community Shelter Group to end month-to-month tenancy at 2001 Cerrillos Road, Pete's Place, effective July 31st, 2025.

There's a motion to deny this proposal. Is there a second?

So I'm just going to take a moment. I'm going to recuse myself from this vote, and if I could make a small statement about why...

Well, first, we don't have a second. But secondly, I think before you do any recusal, I think you don't want to leave the room while you listen to the presentation because it covers the entire gamut of issues in front of us. I think when we get to the point where we're actively discussing a specific item that you feel you need to recuse yourself from, that would be the time to make that an item. Just to be clear, there is no motion on the floor then at this moment.

Okay. That's right. Is... Does anyone want to make a motion, or do you want to wait until after we've had the presentation? What's the... What's the... I'm confused. So, we had a... Councilor Garcia made a motion. And there was no second. Did you rule that there was no second?

I didn't hear a second. Okay. I just... I missed a step. Uh-huh.

I think we can do it one of two ways. We can either put a motion on the floor and then go to the presentation, or we can just hear a presentation, after which we can take them up individually and have a motion. I'm sensing that the preference right now is to broadly engage with Director Hammond Paul to get an overview, and then we'll go to the item before us for specific debate. So, Director Hammond Paul, why don't you take the microphone and begin your presentation? And as I said, it's... I think you've got a lot of ground to cover, and you've got our attention.

Mr. Mayor, Councilors, thank you for having me here. I think before I jump into the prepared presentation, there's a few... Make sure your mic is front. Better. Yes, sir. Better. All right. Apologies. Before I jump into the presentation, I think we can put it back up on the screen, please. There's just a few reflections I wanted to make based on some of the comments.

First, I want to say thank you to Urban Alchemy for being here and hearing from our community. And I think it'll be a nice opportunity to hear them speak after I'm done so that they can speak to the model that they work on and the successes and other aspects of it, and how those might be brought here.

Second, I want to also quickly give a thanks to city staff. I represent a department that has five divisions in it that is constantly working in the public service. In addition, you're going to see statistics tonight from the fire department, the police department, Department of Public Works, as well as constituent services. And there are many, many civil servants who are working to serve this city every day, and I'm thankful for their partnership.

Third, it's a fascinating moment to be up here because traditionally when I'm coming and speaking to you about homelessness issues, it's a much different tone of people behind me not supporting policies and programs that are designed to engage and support the populations in need. So if there's a silver lining to many of these discussions, it's seeing this group come out. And I'm hopeful that when other tough issues come to the front or decisions, that your advocacy is equally present.

Lastly, I will just put a plug. We have a lot of people who have really great ideas that have been expressed. As part of the new fiscal year's budget, there are three newly approved program manager positions to specifically build out a dedicated homelessness services team in the city. We currently have one full-time employee working on that, and now we have a team of four starting July 1st. So, those positions will be posted, and I encourage people to bring their good ideas to the city so we can get some good work done together.

With that, I'm going to jump into my presentation. I will try and keep it to 20 minutes because I know there's many questions. And I also want to give a chance to the people we've invited from Urban Alchemy who've traveled here to have a chance to address the council. Straight off the bat, I'll tell us what we're talking about and what staff recommendations are. There are four distinct interventions that we're recommending for City Council votes.

First, to approve a four-year street outreach contract. Second, to terminate the month-to-month lease at 2801 Cerrillos Road. Third, to approve a 12-month emergency contract for shelter operations guaranteeing no lapse in service for those in need. And fourth, which is not to be acted upon tonight, but on June 11th, is to adopt a resolution allowing the city manager to pursue all necessary steps to implement a micro-community next to Fire Station 7 and to provide and to proceed with a July 1st town hall to identify a second city-owned plot for micro-community development.

So, that's what I'm going to be overviewing. But what is this all about? I think there are many things. It's a little bit of a zeitgeist what we've been talking about: equality, affordable housing, healthcare, public health, public safety, community, nonprofits, budget, crime, NIMBYism, incarceration, unemployment, volunteering, accountability, families, retail sector, tourism, justice.

But at the end of the day, this is homelessness. It is not a simple conversation, and many of these ideas tie into each other and make it a complex discussion where there are not simple solutions or interventions that we can use to address it.

So from the city's perspective, this conversation is focused on achieving two goals. First, improving the lives of residents and businesses in our city by addressing neighborhood health and safety. And the second is improving the lives of our unhoused neighbors by adding beds to our city and strengthening the services they have access to.

So why now? Why is this coming to a front? To be completely blunt, I believe many people think that there isn't a change in the status quo and that what has been said five years ago is the same thing that's being said now. I believe the data that I'm going to present counters that. The city is facing an untenable moment that affects a wide range of stakeholders, including residents, unhoused residents, local businesses, neighborhood service providers, and many volunteers. And we are grappling with many challenges, including public health and public safety concerns and mounting strain on an already overburdened homelessness response system. So, shortly put, the status quo is not sustainable for anyone.

And I know that there's been a lot of discussion about what the term emergency means, but this is truly a public health and public safety emergency. The conditions at and around 2801 Cerrillos Road have escalated to a public health and public safety emergency that is marked by an epidemic of overdoses, untreated mental health and behavioral health issues, and an unfettered demand on the emergency services of the city. The data that I'm going to present, I think, is quite stark and clear.

So when it comes to street conditions, citywide illegal dumping and encampments are of massive concern. This year alone, in 2024, the city, and we have park rangers here to speak to this, as well as folks from the Public Works Department, 862 encampments were cleaned across the city. 260 tons of waste were removed. 105 24-hour legal notices were issued. $641,000 was invested in this work to clean up these, in cleanup efforts. And this accounts for 45% of work orders in the city. So that's about 4,083 out of 9,070 total. That's a very large number and a large body of work that the city undertakes to address this.

The area surrounding 2801 Cerrillos Road bears a disproportionate share of the impacts in our city. This is a 2,000-foot diameter circle around 2801 Cerrillos Road, and these are police statistics from that area. There have been, to date in 2025, 1,93 calls for service near 2801 Cerrillos Road. So simply put, it's patently false that the police are not showing up or present in this neighborhood. And I personally cannot say that more police is an answer, given that on average there are 12.7 total calls per service per day, and then 6.3 of those calls are proactive. So in total, only through May 30th, there have been 940 proactive calls to this area, to this very small geographic area, and then there have been 963 reactive calls. And just to put this into context, this is not normal.

So from January to May 2025, the area around 2801 Cerrillos accounted for 5% of all city-wide calls for service. In 2024, it was 3.7%, and in 2023, it was 2.8%. The Plaza, which is the city's most heavily trafficked area in the city, the same exact geography, remains steady at 3% to 3.6% of the city's call volume. And so I apologize, the graphic isn't loading, but what you can see is that the calls for service in the Plaza include everything from fiestas, the Indian Market, the Summer Concert Series, the myriad tourists that we have in that area. All of that accounts for fewer calls for service than a small geography on Cerrillos Road. This information will be put into the record so folks can check it out and investigate it if they're interested.

I won't read through this table. These are not just random and non-specific engagements with law enforcement. These are really tangible and serious incidents. So on May 2nd, there was a joint operation with the City of New Mexico State Police, and sorry, New Mexico State Police in the city, involving undercover officers conducting surveillance at 2801 Cerrillos. And during that period, they observed multiple individuals engaging in drug use and drug dealing in the parking lot and on Harrison Road, and six arrests were made. So this police data represents an area around the 2801.

For the Fire Department data, which I'm about to show, these are actual calls that responded to that exact address. So in 2023, there were 474 calls to 2801. In 2024, there were 583. And in 2025, through May, there have been 243. As you can see, already only one-third of the way through 2025, we are at about 41% of the call volume from the previous year. Importantly, we have already surpassed last year's overdose responses from the Fire Department at 76 overdoses this year that have been responded to by the Fire Department.

Constituent complaints around this area. This is the most pressing problem area that is reported to constituent services. Since mid-2021, they have logged hundreds of work orders and received a disproportionately high volume of calls tied to conditions in this area. Again, this will be in the record for people to read through, but I want to point to a couple anecdotes because again, these are residents in our city who are submitting these statements. "A tent surrounded by filth and trash, used needles, and shopping carts. The tent is located behind the Santa Fe Trails bus stop across the street from Pete's Place. It has been there for at least a month. Along with being victims of violent crime, we have also, we also have to worry about disease from feces. People are discharging their feces in our parking lot. They're taking off their clothes and creating an unhygienic habitat. Last week, a woman took off her clothes and peed between two of our cars. Today, May 8th, there were two separate incidents. The second situation involved a man taking off his clothes, peeing first, and then taking a dump, wiping with his hand, and then touching all of the car handles in our lot along with the garbage bins. This is exactly how disease spreads." And that was on May 8th, 2025.

So that is the data that the city has when it comes to what is the current situation and why do we need interventions. That said, I think, and I hope many of the folks who've heard me up here previously understand that the city is invested in and committed to positive solutions. This is, and I've said this both in written statements this week, as well as up here again, while much of the country is turning their head away from these issues and searching for more punitive, more law enforcement-based interventions, less generous interventions, the city is committed to more resources, more shelter beds, and more quality services.

I have said many, many times that we don't have enough beds in our city. The low-end estimates, which have just been blown out of the water by the recent report by the New Mexico Department of Health, our low-end estimate for the number of unhoused individuals is around 400. We have about 280 shelter beds. I think the new Department of Health study says you can four times the number of unhoused individuals based on the pit count. But regardless, at the low-end estimate, we're 120 beds short. So there is zero world in which any recommendation coming from staff removes shelter beds from our shelter system.

So what this body of work does is outline a handful of interventions that can help address some of these challenges. The first is to improve public health, safety, and street conditions by deploying a community-based public safety and outreach team. The boogeyman here is Urban Alchemy, and they will be speaking to their model. And I'm hopeful that we give them respect to hear them out when they speak. And this was a competitively awarded four-year contract that we are recommending for City Council approval. And Santa Fe's current system, to be frank, relies too heavily on 911 for street-level crisis. That is my professional public health opinion. This new street outreach program will deploy trained teams daily to engage people where they are, offering first aid, de-escalation, harm reduction, and connections to shelter or treatment. This both relieves pressure on our first responders, but it also leads to potentially better outcomes.

I will say that in addition, many folks here have spoken to the issue of it's not just enough to go and engage people. You have to be able to bring them somewhere. We clearly don't have enough places to bring folks. So part of this contract is establishing two, what Urban Alchemy calls oases, but for lack of a better word, they're day service centers where people can be brought to and receive light care, shelter from the elements, water, food, etc. So it's not just enough to say, "Okay, we're going to go and engage you." You have to have somewhere to bring people to be treated and served. This contract will have 18 trained field staff working to keep affected, keep the city clean, safe, and healing. I'll allow Urban Outreach to, Urban Alchemy to speak to their model in more depth.

Step two, we need to strengthen our homeless response system by addressing the deteriorating conditions at and around the city-owned shelter. And I want to be very clear about this. This is a unique case because this is a city-owned facility. It is not, many, many operators here operate out of non-city-owned facilities. The factor that changes the city's investment and perspective on this has to do with the fact that we are ultimately the landlords and responsible for the model that comes out of that building. It has not been for want of trying and working with the Interfaith Community Shelter on how we can work together to improve that model. I will say that, and I hope that that organization will confirm the good faith efforts that have happened to engage with them. I understand that there are some differences in how effective those engagements have been. I will say that it is clear from the number of people here who have showed up, the Interfaith Community Shelter has provided critical services in the city for many years. And their work has clearly made a meaningful difference not only in the lives of the unhoused, but also clearly in the lives of their volunteers.

Again, my recommendations are based on what I'm trying to address, which is better outcomes for the unhoused and better outcomes for residents and businesses. I have a deep allegiance to the service providers in the city, but at the end of the day, the city is invested in outcomes. And we are also, we want to see a thriving sector of nonprofits serving the community, but our position is to maximize returns on outcomes. As I said at the beginning of this, the city cannot afford to lose a single shelter bed at this moment. We're already too, we already have too few. So, and I hope the data points to the fact that this is not just something that has been the same for the past five years. As you saw, the number and frequency of incidents is increasing annually, and it is in many, many senses an emergency situation.

So that is why the recommendation of staff is to pursue a one-year contract to stabilize the shelter operations and ensure that there's no loss of shelter capacity. It also, I believe, creates a space for thoughtful evaluation of the long-term future of the site and to find a way to ultimately work towards what many folks have identified as necessary, which is a more appropriate location and facility for a congregate low-barrier shelter. I will also say that this contract that is proposed maintains the shelter as being low barrier. And the reality is that the need has outgrown the ability of the city, of the facility. It's no longer a sufficient location, and it is beyond the capacity, I believe, of the current operator to address that accountability and data.

So homelessness, and I think this is a critical component to many of these proposals, is many people have said that the city needs to be more accountable. Clearly, the city is invested in data, as hopefully the data that I've put up shows. That said, we want to improve that, and we want to hold ourselves accountable to making sure that the investments we make deliver real outcomes. So what I have put forth paints a very clear pathway for evaluating success. First, these interventions must yield public safety improvements for the city. We'll stop. We can look at our police data and our fire data, our constituent services data, and our public works data to understand, are these investments actually yielding positive results and reducing the number of calls, reducing the number of overdoses, reducing the interventions that our first responders are engaging in?

The second is very clear sets of outcomes related to housing and service connections. Many service providers in this city do participate and report data, but we have to have very high expectations for the quality and frequency of data that is being reported on the type of work that operators are doing. So the last piece of this set of recommendations is that it's not sufficient to simply fix a part of our system that is struggling. We have to improve and grow our system, and this has to do with adding additional types of beds into our shelter system. And that is why step three is to add beds by initiating work towards a new micro community next to Fire Station 7. There's a resolution that is going through committee that will be brought forward for approval on June 11th. And I'm happy to point to this because I think the more we say it, the more people will understand it. Micro communities work. Full stop. We know they work nationally, and we know they work in Santa Fe.

After one year, excuse me, you're not allowed to interrupt. You're not allowed. It's okay. I mean, we live in a world of alternative facts, but these are the data that I have. So after one year, 72% of the residents at the Arroyo Chamiso micro community have either moved into permanent housing or are actively on the path with vouchers in hand or on housing waitlists. That is an astounding statistic. There have been 36 total residents in one year at this facility, and that is something that the city should be doubling down on. These are really meaningful outcomes, especially when you take into account the fact that on average, those 36 people each have 68 months of homelessness. So it is not someone who's been homeless for only a week or two and then is able to re-stabilize. These are people who have been chronically homeless and are able to stabilize and move into positive pathways towards housing. So we need to scale models that work.

The resolution directs the city manager and city staff, including myself, to pursue a micro community next to Fire Station 7 at the G triple in the GC. Very specifically in that resolution, it empowers the city manager and staff to engage in community notification engagement as well as development of a facility. Pending community input, the site is expected to serve families and children and will have 30 to 40 units. These are family units, 120 square feet per unit. So it's actually not one bed per unit. We can expect 60 to 70 beds to come out of this intervention. That nearly cuts the 120 beds in half that we are currently short. And again, that 120 is an underestimate.

So the step forward, there's clearly issues of trust in the community on many, many sides. I think you pick your night. You'll either have a group of people who are saying we're doing too much or a group of people who are saying we're not doing enough. But regardless, there's a lot of constituents here in the city who want to have their voice engaged in the process. So on, and this should say July 1st, I apologize for the typo. On July 1st, there will be a community town hall to provide transparency, invite dialogue, and engage residents in a path forward. And it's a path forward to identifying additional micro community sites. These are only a piece of the puzzle, but we need to, the city has committed to having at least two additional sites to the one pilot site. That's the Arroyo Chamiso location. So we still need beds, and this is a way we can get there.

In addition, I'd like to just say that when it comes to accountability and transparency, yes, these are decisive, significant, and disruptive and system-changing actions with considerable budgets. I think that we have heard part of the community tonight. I think there is a large part of the community that many city staff hear from constantly that was not present tonight. But that said, to ensure transparency and accountability, I recommend that city staff, myself, or a deputy report monthly, providing public updates on this work to either the governing body or the Quality of Life Committee as implementation moves forward if these decisions are indeed approved or adopted. And I will note that this is similar to what the finance department did while the city worked to catch up with the backlog of audits.

So again, just to recap, the city staff's recommendations to the governing body as you consider votes on these issues is to approve a four-year street outreach contract, to terminate the month-to-month lease at 2801 Cerrillos with Interfaith Community Shelter, approve a 12-month emergency contract with Urban Alchemy for shelter stabilization and operations, and then adopt the resolution on June 11th allowing the city manager to pursue all steps necessary to implement a micro community. With that, I think I would like to either yield for questions or invite colleagues, our out-of-town guests, to come and speak.

Mayor: Yeah, I think at this time, if there are some spokespersons from Urban Alchemy who'd like to come up and take a turn at the microphone, introduce yourselves. I know that a number of questions have been asked in the period of time when you were sitting there taking notes about who you are, where you come from, what your model is, about lawsuits and other controversial issues that have arisen in the life of Urban Alchemy. We welcome you to Santa Fe and appreciate you being here tonight to both give us an overview and then subsequently, I'm sure, have an opportunity to ask questions. But whoever wants to go first, please introduce yourselves and give us a presentation.

Beyron Wilson: Can you hear me now? All right. My name is Beyron Wilson. First off, thank you, Mayor Weber and all you council members. Appreciate you having us. My name is Beyron Wilson. I am the Chief Operating Officer for Urban Alchemy. But I got a, that's a fancy title. More importantly, I'm a practitioner. That means someone who can still do the work at a high level. I'm also the co-founder alongside the legendary Dr. Lena Miller, who's not here today. Urban Alchemy was formed in 2018. We are actual social enterprise nonprofit. We have really one objective: employing men and women who are formerly incarcerated and/or those who are suffering from mental health, substance abuse, and addiction, or just as impacted. Two objectives: we're trying to address those slipping through the safety net and those street conditions. We have three lines of business: safe communities, housed communities, and clean communities. Now I'll get my team here in a second, and they're going to talk about some of the other things, and you allowed us to ask questions. But let me just say this: I am formerly incarcerated. I'm also formerly homeless. I am not an ex-con. I am a father. I am a husband. I'm a pretty good boss. I'm a good man. And this is how we see every practitioner that comes through our door. We redefine what names have been given to us or provided to us. So, of course, I'm going to speak on a lot of things. Obviously, you guys have some questions, but I just want to stay there and say I am more than an ex-con. Much, much more. And sometimes when we say these things, it hits a different way, but Urban Alchemy was not formed by ex-cons. It was formed for and by people who are formerly incarcerated, formerly homeless, and formerly suffering from mental health, substance abuse, and addiction. Trauma, as Dr. Miller says it, we're equipped with emotional intelligence, which is the reverse, the passion behind that trauma. Dr. Miller has a doctorate in psychology. She gave us the language, and giving us the language allowed us to now be able to own what we do and be proud about it, feel good about it. So, it feels good to stand up here today and say I am more than an ex-con, formally. Of course, I am the co-founder, which gives me that much more pride, but I've also built a team who've been through very similar challenges I have.

Louis Hammonds: To follow, I'm just going to speak from the heart. My name is Louis Hammonds. I'm the Director of Community-Based Public Safety. We take very serious the trauma, the trials, and the tribulations that we see in the world. My father was addicted, chose to be homeless. He had a home, but he knew he couldn't bring that to our house. And he died on the streets. I spent 21 years in prison for a crime I did commit. And I had an opportunity when I was released to find a job that allowed me to serve my community. And that was in line with Urban Alchemy. My son is a police officer, and sometimes your children have to teach parents how to be better people. When I went into this church across the way in the plaza as an outsider, I broke out in tears because the human condition has no race, has no creed, has no religion. Urban Alchemy, through the help of Dr. Lena Miller, who is an expert in trauma, and with Dr. Lisa Delarue, who is also an expert in trauma, who creates our curriculum, really gives us the foundation to stand strong and support our community by utilizing that special power that we call emotional intelligence. We're not security. We're not guards. We're safety in service. We need the police, but I'll dare say that the police need us as well. And when I say us, I mean the community. It's not us versus them. It's just us. And I was very struck by the passion that everyone had in this space times 10. And I also saw that people that were in opposition respected each other when they were finished talking, and they congratulated each other, and they said, "Great job." And I was thinking, that person said the opposite of what the other person just said. But that's what community is: is allowing everyone to have a voice, but also, as the young man earlier spoke, let's look at the results in the fiscal budget and the crisis of this world. We have to look at the results, and the results should choose what works and what doesn't. Urban Alchemy has a long history of results through that curriculum, trauma-informed lens. Trauma is really what we're seeing at the heart of all that we're looking at, and that's really what needs to be addressed with trauma-informed lens, de-escalation, conflict resolution.

I'm past cultural competence. We're moving towards cultural humility. The true experts are the unhoused neighbors that got up here and started to speak about what they needed. The young lady said, "I needed this. I needed that." That was lost on me until I heard her say it because that is the true expert. But they cannot find their way unless we help them navigate through their trauma and help them as a community work together and be together. We are here, this small few, but we're hiring from this community because we know that that's where the answer is. And I hope that those who are formerly incarcerated, formerly addicted, formerly unhoused that said, "How do I give back?" will find that opportunity. I'm sorry that we don't have volunteers. Volunteers on occasion, but when I'm getting paid, I get held accountable. And the only thing we're asking for is an opportunity to show you that we are a community, a community that will stand with you, for you, and at the end, by you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Ian Clark Johnson. I'm a practitioner with Urban Alchemy, currently supporting as our Chief of Talent and Development. The core of our work is our workforce, is the people we hire, the men and women that we hire, formerly incarcerated, formerly addicted, formerly homeless. Urban Alchemy was my first job. And so we've already started some outreach, provided this opportunity gets passed this evening. We've done some outreach to parole, probation already here in Santa Fe. We've done some outreach to community-based organizations. And we know that there are a lot of men and women who are coming home here in Santa Fe, who are home. They can't find work. And so we're going to provide, our hope is to provide that opportunity for them.

What that looks like is we're here now. We'll be back. We'll have a team come out. We'll have a hiring event. We'll have folks come in. We'll do some interviews. I want to be crystal clear. Our plan is to hire Santa Fe residents. It's not to bring a bunch of people from locations that we're at to come out here and work. It is to hire Santa Fe residents. In our most recent expansion in Birmingham, 19 of the 19 folks, men and women who serve directly in the program that we operate, are from that region or residents of that region. And so, we're here to illuminate community. And so, I feel the passion this evening and I'm appreciative to be here and receive that. I'm grateful the individuals got a chance to speak their emotions because we're here to support and transform and transcend.

And so when we bring folks on, folks will be hired. We'll have a training team come out. We'll have HR come out, support with the onboard. We know a lot of men and women coming home have a hard time with technology. Walk them through, kind of hold their hand, walk them through that onboarding process, stay trauma-informed to the individuals that we're hiring as well. There's a training. It'll be two weeks of training. Louie talked a little bit about our curriculum. We'll have trainers actually come out and train classroom training, which is de-escalation 101, 102, effective communication, trauma-informed practices, trauma-informed care, amongst other things, and really get ready for this LOVE team. And that's what we call our outreach team. That's Leading Outreach through Valued Engagement, because we believe that men and women with lived experience could build that genuine relationship. As we know, there's some genuine relationship here, but enhance that so that those relationships can be leaned on to have some serious conversations and be available to do transport for folks. The LOVE team will be doing transports to and from the Oasis, to and from available shelter beds. We're excited to potentially be a part of that plan. And so we're here and we're also open to answer any questions. So I thank you for your time this evening. I'll stop there.

I think it's important, I'm sorry, I should have said this earlier. I think it's important that we be held accountable by not only those on the bench, Mayor, but by the community as well. And so what we do is we do collect a lot of data that we will turn over. Any de-escalation will be counted, any positive engagement, any drug overdose, any kind of engagement or action, we will count and we will turn over. We believe in accountability. We believe accountability comes through numbers and we want to make sure that we provide that. There was a couple of people that spoke about our ill will or bad will or lawsuits. Let me be very clear. Early on when we were growing as a company, we had people who would file lawsuits and we thought that, "Okay, well, just deal with it. It's all right." Then we found that that was actually a hustle, lack of a better term. And we've had people who have filed lawsuits and we've made a choice to address those lawsuits and fight those lawsuits. And they are now, just to be clear to you all, frivolous lawsuits that have been unfounded and we have never lost a case relative to what was said. I think that's important. I just wanted to address that part because I thought a lot of people shared that and, you know, anyone can file what you need to prove and that hasn't been the case. Thank you.

Mayor: Is that complete what you wanted us to hear, sir? Sorry. Thank you.

No, you're fine. Henry, is there anything you wanted to say before we go to the item in front of us? We'll take perhaps a motion, but then allow everyone to ask questions about the entire presentation, not just the one item in front of us.

No, sir. I'm happy to stand for questions from the council. And I think, hang on one sec if you wouldn't mind. And I believe I know we have fire personnel here. Police, I think Chief Joy is here. Do we have somebody here or folks from the Public Works?

Yes, sir. We have Mayor, Mr. Mayor, City Council. We have the Fire Department here, including Fire Chief Moya. We have Chief Joy from the Police Department. We have Javier Martinez from Constituent Services. And then we have Melissa McDonald and Jason Sharp from, respectively, Parks and the Park Rangers. Park Rangers too.

Okay. Thank you. So I think we've, we'll proceed with everybody having an opportunity to ask questions, but I wanted to make sure folks knew who was in the room that could be called upon.

Mayor: Sorry, just an inquiry. Are we able to ask questions of Interfaith Shelter at this point?

No.

Mayor: I'd like to call for the 10-minute rule, Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, we will use this and we'll just go around. I'm sure it's, we'll be pressed to go deep into the matter, but I believe breaking it up into everybody having an opportunity to speak for 10 minutes, make sure everybody gets an equal shot. So, the first item has been read. Is there a motion regarding that item, 8A?

Move to approve.

Second.

Mayor: There's a motion to approve, but at the same time, I want to assure my colleagues that questions regarding all of the material you just heard are germane. And with that, I think Council, Mayor Weber, counselors, I, we have a counselor who's trying to recuse herself from two of the items. So, it would be somewhat problematic if she can't hear the answers to the other items. I think can we go through and at least do maybe either the one she's not recusing herself from or something like that.

Which ones are you asking to be recused from?

Sure. So I can, can I take a few moments to make a statement about why I'm recusing myself?

Mayor: Well, awesome. Thank you so very much.

So, I just want to let everyone know that under action items, I will be recusing myself from item A and item C as there is and has been some testimony regarding businesses that family members of mine are involved in and there needs to be a very clear concern regarding fiduciary impact. And so there is no opportunity for it to be unclear. If there is any doubt that there is a fiduciary impact, I am going to recuse myself. I also have a lot of personal information regarding why I personally have lost a lot of faith in the Interfaith Shelter and I don't think that this is the time to present it. But I am more than happy to answer questions regarding what my personal experience has been with the shelter. So, thank you for sharing that.

Mayor: I, I think unless I'm, that we have a bit of a problem because we're going to, the questions may not only be with regard to A and C, but if you need to walk out the room now, I think we'll begin the questions and then you'll have to come back after we've either voted or gone on to other items and at that time questions you have that are germane to the item in front of us will give you first opportunity.

Understood. Thank you.

Mayor: So, thank you. May you could go with just item B first if someone wanted to make that, you wanted to rearrange and then only ask questions relevant to that. What's the, what's the council's pleasure on that? I think we'll just plunge forward. It's a little messy, but we'll get our way through it. Councilor Lee Garcia, I, I'm going to, we're going to walk through the governing body and I'm going to give you the opportunity to start and then we'll just work it one person at a time. And I'm asking Councilor Faulkner, who has historically been our timekeeper, to give us a kind of a high sign when we approach or hit the 10-minute mark if you don't mind.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you all. I do want to, I do appreciate all the input from the community. Thank you, Director Hammond Paul, for bringing forth something that we can actually discuss, not just, it's a plan forward. I, I, I want to ask a question of you in regards to how long have you, can you tell me how long you've been working on issues such as this in your previous work experience?

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Lee Garcia, I've been working on a broad spectrum of public health and public safety issues for around 15 years, including international emergencies. I, I was the key member who stood up the Governor's Task Force on the COVID response for the state of New Jersey. So I'm very intimately familiar with what a public health emergency looks like.

Thank you. How long have you been employed with the city?

About seven months.

Seven months you've been here working on a plan forward, I'm assuming, and collecting data through all that time. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. In October, I believe the 19th, or somewhere thereabout, the city released an emergency action plan to address key issues related to homelessness. Pretty crucially, and I failed to say this in my earlier presentation, any meaningful conversation about addressing homelessness needs to start with affordable housing. That is not what I have put forward today. These are a set of interventions that address critical issues in the emergency response system that we have currently. If we want to see real meaningful change in the city, we need to have much more types of affordable housing and housing of all different shapes and colors on the housing spectrum, whether it's permanent supportive housing, rental units, deeply affordable units, or owner-occupied units.

Thank you. Some of the, the answers to my questions were actually answered just by the few comments that members from Urban Alchemy stated at the podium there. And so, you know, I think that as we're talking about the lease, because that's the item that we're discussing now, what, to terminate the lease and and bring in Urban.

How many other, I guess this would be for Urban, if you have somebody that can answer this question. How many other shelters such as this do you guys operate across the country?

Yeah. So right now, across the country, we have 11 shelters of various models: some congregate, semi-congregate, as well as tiny home sites that house over about, what is it, 2,000 guests nightly.

And how do your best practices for those sites, what makes them successful?

Definitely, low-barrier model, right? We practice that low-barrier model, which means obviously it's easy to get in. It's very hard to get kicked out or discharged from services. Again, we believe in the peer-based model, men and women, lived experience, on-site 24/7, engaging with folks, cleaning the site. We do full services. So we don't have security at our sites. We actually, by observing, by communicating, by being present fully, we service the site kind of 360 for lack of better terms. And so we found that that's a way to really build a relationship, really observe, be available when folks are ready. So a lot of times, care coordinators, some shelters we have to have them around the clock because some folks are nocturnal. And so if they want to have a conversation or talk about rehousing or next steps, it's important for our staff to be available around the clock. So that's a little bit about our model. I hope that answers your question a little bit.

Yeah. Thank you. What, I don't know, this is for you all, for Director Ham and Paul, but what has been your discussions in regards to a transition plan? Because this is something, if it is the will of this governing body to terminate their lease, we really need to have a solid transition plan and steps and dates of how that's going to happen, who's going to be involved, and I'd like to hear more about that.

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Lee Garcia, as it currently stands in the recommendation, we would terminate the lease with Interfaith ending on July 31st. Urban Alchemy would then take over the facility on August 1st. The city would manage the facility and the lag time between those two turnovers. In terms of specifics around what it would look like to actually transition that shelter to new owner management, we have a couple different conversations happening as part of planning. One, it would involve bringing in support from other community nonprofits, including local philanthropies who have worked with organizations nationally to have trauma-informed support systems in place for guests who are in need of support during a transition like this. Similarly, there would need to be a deep set of conversations in partnership with both Urban Alchemy and Interfaith Community Shelter about what are the physical assets that remain on site, what are the facility improvements that need to happen. So all of those conversations would be basically happening as soon as a decision is made by the governing body. But what I can commit to, and which is a non-negotiable, is that there's zero lapse in service in this city or capacity in this city. Zero beds, we will not lose a single bed during this, if this transition happens.

Thank you. So, I'm hearing that city staff will, what city staff is going to take over, or will we have staff from Urban Alchemy and their transition team?

So, city staff, we have deep expertise in many areas when it comes to both security, patient care, and other types of services. City staff is prepared in theory to manage a facility for 24 hours or so, but Urban Alchemy, I'll welcome to include them in the conversation about how they have done this in other cities.

Yeah. I mean, how have the, I mean, have you taken over, have you had this same transitional opportunity in other cities where you came in and there was a transition from one leadership to another?

Yes, that's happened with us most recently in Austin when we took over the Arch, which is a men's shelter in downtown Austin, and then they awarded us a women's shelter after about six months of our service.

Thank you. I think I will yield the floor for now and allow my colleagues to ask more questions.

Thanks, Councilor, and I know we'll be coming back around again, and I appreciate the start. Councilor Casset, you want to take the floor for 10 minutes?

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Councilor Garcia, you were right on the time dot, so good job. I'll try to learn from you. First and foremost, I do want to thank and recognize how many individuals have reached out to me. I have done my best to respond to emails and calls and texts, and I have missed most of them, as I thought it'd be more important to take the time to actually read what people are writing to me as opposed to trying to respond as you all get to hear me now. So, thank you because there was a lot of communication coming, a lot of different insights and opinions and viewpoints. So, really do appreciate this. This is a really important topic and a challenging issue in our community. I do have some more questions about the transition, but at this time, actually, what I'd really like to focus on is the differences in your model that is employed. Just to give you a little bit of background, I represent, my district is across the street from Interfaith Shelter. I have part of the Cerrillos Road corridor, which is, as you know, is one of our hot spots, is the hot spot in the city. My constituents, as you start to get into their neighborhood, they are experiencing a lot of negative impacts from homelessness, substance abuse, different crime. Councilor Travis, my co-councilor in District 4, is also sharing these sentiments with me. And that is, that is something that I'm very concerned about when I look at the Cerrillos Road corridor, when I look at this area as a whole. How does Urban Alchemy's model actually create that impact on our community that my constituents will feel a difference in their quality of life, in their feelings of safety, and what evidence can you give us from previous cities that will give us reason to believe that that can be replicated here in Santa Fe?

Yeah. So a big part of what we do, we take responsibility not only for inside the shelter, that's very important, but we also know that outside the shelter is important. So for us, that's having a presence, that's taking ownership of cleanliness. So if we get the privilege to operate a shelter, you should see a practitioner, what we call ourselves, cleaning outside of a shelter pretty much around the clock. You should see them engaging outside, also what we call negotiate negative behaviors. So if we see things that are detrimental to guests or detrimental to community, we will jump in, engage, and address those things. We've entered good neighbor policies to where, in Portland, Oregon, where we're, we take responsibility for a thousand feet from the perimeter of our shelters. But we're also, we do host community meetings and like to really engage stakeholders to kind of hear what they're experiencing in real time, because we know that shifts, right? There could be a hot spot one day. We work to address that hot spot, and when I say we, I mean the community along with police, fire, and Urban Alchemy and what we could do, and other key stakeholders. When things get displaced, we stay responsive to that, and how we have that feedback loop is by having those community agreements and building those real relationships with our neighbors and all shelters that we operate. I don't have numbers on what's been done. I would say Louie talked a little bit about the Arch in downtown Austin on Seventh Street, just off of the Sixth Street corridor. We completely transformed the outside of that shelter. Before, it was 100 to 150 people outside of the shelter daily. You no longer see that activity, and we've done that through engagement. We also have put up an oasis, which I think when you look at these two models, I think they kind of coincide, and we're able to leverage kind of resources, which give us leverage to negotiate some of those negative behaviors and give someone somewhere to go to engage in pro-social activities and just be. So, I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, that definitely helps, and I think it's important to note, we're talking about two different programs right now that we're discussing. They're not contingent on each other. Correct?

Oh, ma'am.

Okay. So, we have the street outreach program, which actually probably when it comes to my constituency, that's, that might be where we're seeing, actually they are within 1,000 feet of the shelter as well when we looked at that map. But, and that was the one that, that was a, Henry, this is probably for you. This was a competitive bid. This was an RFP, followed our standard procurement process. Correct?

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Casset, that's correct. These are two separate contracts. The first, the street outreach contract, which includes the Oasis, so it's both outreach teams as well as these physical locations that individuals can be encouraged to be in. That is the four-year contract, $1.9 million per year, and that is was awarded through a competitive process. We had two applicants.

Okay. Thank you. And so, can you speak more to that model as well? It sounds like we've covered a bit of the shelter. And then what is that street outreach model look like? And again, what should the community see when we're talking about success? I know we've talked about data, but what, what should we be seeing that we're saying, "Hey, this is working," and what can our residents expect to get from this type of investment?

Thank you for that question. Absolutely. Well, like our love team, which we call love, leading out, leading outreach through valued engagement, is all of the trainings that we're talking about from de-escalation, conflict resolution, trauma-informed care, cultural humility. Every practitioner is expected to act on and move in accordance to those trainings. And so, we don't, unless it's something serious and violent, we will call 911. But we're not going to call 911 for quality of life issues, for issues of homelessness, of people who just need some help and helping them navigate through their trauma. And really, it's about not only the peer relationships, but somebody who has been through that experience and on the other side of it and kind of serving as hope, like beacons of hope, spaces of hope. And that is a difference. I think it's a new model. I believe that, but it's been effective for us. And you know, you talk about going backwards and don't want to get to the George Floyd and all that. They're talking about reimagining community-based public safety. We are not alternatives to police. Let's be clear about that. We know that that is most important and needed. But what we do see and what we do improve upon is the community-based aspect of it. You can't have community-based public safety without community. You can't have community-based public safety without the public. That's why we will rely on Santa Feans to be a part of this program and a part of the solution. The difference is is you see something, you say something. I was talking to someone earlier about neighborhood watch.

I don't know if you guys remember the neighborhood watch. This is community watch on another level. These are people who care, who want to give back. And that's the difference. And you'll see it in real time. We've turned over many spaces. We've actually reduced crime by 55% in the spaces that we've been in. Okay, there's the fun data that I'm looking for in terms of what that experience should be felt both for our community.

As I always say, we're looking for best options to keep our housed and our unhoused residents safe. I know that I think we've talked a lot about some of the ways in which you're bringing people in, which are providing those services. And then when I'm thinking about some of my concerns of my constituency, should we hope that they're going to see less people camping on their sidewalks or trying to break into their homes at 2:00 AM or leaving needles in their bushes? I mean, I'm curious to hear what can we expect from this type of investment?

Data tells a story, right? So, you're going to obviously see what you're going to see first is you're going to see an uptick in calls. I'm calling that out because normally what happens is the people who we have to negotiate with, they're the ones calling the police first. And then, of course, you're going to see an immediate decrease in calls to the police. You're going to see less men and women hanging out on the street. You're going to see a lot of those car breaks disappear. I can guarantee you this, you're going to see a cleaner community because the needles, you're going to see those things picked up. You're going to see less trash. Something I'm also, you're going to see more people walking about in areas because once people see the areas that are clean and safe, they tend to come about wondering what's going on. You'll see an increase in that. But you'll see a decrease obviously in police calls. You'll see an increase in calls to us because we'll build those relationships with the community stakeholders. So, they'll contact us if it's something that's related to either non-violent, and they'll have our information on call.

We call it LOVE. Every community needs a little LOVE, right? That's Leading Outreach with Value Engagement. The goal is to build those relationships with the community stakeholders. So, in front of the car dealerships, in front of the places, they have someone they can call in real time and get that immediate response. And of course, from that, because if we did our job and we're doing our job and we're being held accountable, which I'm going to say we will be held accountable, then our goal is to get there with a sense of urgency, get them back to their oasis, get them back to their place of residence, and more importantly, build them so they can get on that, continue to be back on that journey. So, a lot of the things you'll see in the community is going to decrease, but again, this is all through, you'll see, you have the data to show it as well. So, nine minutes.

Okay. Thank you. I'm coming up on my 10. One last question. Both of these programs you mentioned, we will, you would be employing Santa Fe. And I apologize, I believe these numbers are somewhere within our giant packets. Between the street outreach, so how many individuals would you be expecting to employ for street outreach and how many if you take over the shelter? What does that employment impact look like for our community?

Yeah, employment impact is about 35 FTEs.

Okay.

Of local folks.

Wonderful. And again, you're focusing on individuals that are men and women with lived experience, preferably former long-term offenders.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Counselor. I appreciate it. Council Meworth, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

Thank you. I'm a little bit confused. So, we've heard a lot about the current provider on Serios talking about how the outside area of the shelter is not their responsibility. And I just heard Urban Alchemy say, "We take responsibility for the inside and the outside." But now I'm confused. Is that under which contract? Under the running of the shelter contract or under the street outreach?

Running of the shelter would be controlling the outside facilities of the 2801 Serios. The street outreach contract, it would, if they are not working on the shelter contract, it is still a hotspot area, so there would be engagement, but it is not the expectation that the street outreach team cleans up another operator's shelter.

Okay, so I think that's helpful because I think we did hear tonight, "How are you all going to be different?" How, and right there, that's a pretty big difference is that you're saying, "We're responsible for what happens outside of the shelter when we are running the shelter." That's what I'm hearing, correct?

Under the shelter contract.

All right. I think that's really important to get clear.

I don't mean to interrupt, but if when you're giving an answer, if you can get in front of the microphone, we've got people watching and listening. That'd be a yes through technology. Thank you.

Thank you. I know that we're a part of, we would own that space.

Okay. Thank you. It's a little bit of a back and forth, but please get it on the microphone so it's on the record. Okay. And then there was, I've been making a list of some things to chat with folks about. Who's, and this is for you, Director Hammond. Paul, who's going to liaison with these folks at the shelter under this contract? Is that you? Is that one of your new program managers? Who, who's going to make sure that, who, what's the link?

Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Mayor, sorry, Mr. Mayor, Counselor Romeworth. At the end of the day, the buck will stop with me on these contracts. Full stop. That said, there is expected to be deep engagement from across other city departments in this work. Conversations with the park rangers, constituent services. There's incredible tranches of information that these different departments and divisions have that should flow into the way that these other contracts work in that, and we've worked to do similar processes already with our existing city staff, whether it's the alternate response unit or the park rangers. We've worked to try and liaison with local service providers so that we are working in collaboration with them, whether it is the park rangers sharing or being willing to share encampment data so that outreach teams existing already here can go engage with those teams. The long and the short of it is that these city departments and divisions and teams have critical information that can inform and improve the quality of organizations' work in the community, and we want to make sure that that is in concert with the work that is going on under these contracts. But again, recapping the main point, which is that it would be my responsibility, the oversight of these contracts.

Okay. And I think this question may be for Urban Alchemy. And you talked about hiring men and women. You don't have any women here tonight. So, just that was important for me to hear that you say that at least. We had testimony about having an elderly demographic in the shelter. Can you speak to your experience with dealing with that population? And your familiarity and your approach and your comfort level, I guess, knowing that that is an aspect that we heard about tonight that's present in our community.

Yes, definitely. And thank you for that question, Councilwoman. I would say also, I just want to, our executive director and co-founder CEO is a woman, Dr. Lena Miller. So, definitely without a doubt, she's felt here this evening, I know, even though she's not here. As it relates to kind of the vast populations, we have an experience of supporting men and women who are older in age. A lot of our returning citizens who tend to work for us, who have done long-term, tend to be older, and they're able to connect and work with folks. And so, there's some intricacies and different spaces where if we are able to get an in-home care worker and leverage those kind of resources as well to come in, that's fine. But also, we're comfortable kind of going in, and there's some, there's some extra kind of training that goes on with that, like hazmat and the different things that have to go on with special cleanup of bunks and rooms and different things. And so, we're experienced with that and completely comfortable with that.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm not sure who this question is for, but under this contract, under the shelter contract, I think it is, Urban Alchemy would be responsible for developing these oases, these places where people can be taken so they're not on the street. Can you help me understand how they, how they can do that? Or that's street. Okay, I'm being told that's street outreach. So, how does that work? I mean, we have had a lot of testimony about people not wanting these kinds of things near them. How, what's the experience? How do you do, how do you get this done?

I will definitely, Mr. Mayor, Counselor Romero, sorry. CRW works. CRW, thank you. I'll allow Urban Alchemy to speak to some of the specifics. I will say in the process of the due diligence that my team and I did in identifying this organization, I believe some city staff, including the Mayor, has seen operations in San Francisco. My team flew out to Austin, two groups of us along with other community nonprofits to visit these operations. And as I understand it, and I've had conversations already with state and county partners about the potential for this, it seems that in many locations, city-owned property is turned into one of these sites. At the shelter in Austin, that's what they did. They took the parking lot and turned it into an oasis. The expectation would probably be pretty similar at the current site here. We've also had conversations with the state about potentially using sites that they have parking lots in the downtown area, which is the second kind of hotspot area that this street outreach contract would be focused on. But in terms of the specifics, I'm happy to turn that over to the gentleman from Urban Alchemy.

So, what we call an oasis is, thank you, what we call an oasis is a place for people to be with no judgment. We will take obviously a parking lot or any kind of area and create a place where it has, it has a dog park, it has a, it can have a place for people to store their belongings. It also to have, it has tables and chairs. It had a canopy. It has canopy. It'll have, and we'll create a way, it also have restrooms. So, men can use restrooms outside. And more importantly, it, everything is about sitting and engagement. So, obviously you have a full staff there cleaning and keeping the area engaged, but also what I do is, I can't tell you my secret sauce, but I'm going to give it to you. I have a care coordinator on site to connect people directly to services. So, the whole entire time someone from our staff, we call a care coordinator, engaging completely with the guest if he or she is not in the actual HMIS system. So, that's one of the, one of the key things that we've been able to do. So, we can, we completely can convert any area, of course, from the elements, and of course, build it to make it beautiful, make it wellness, and of course, fully staff it with us. And of course, like I said, there's other things all based on what the community wants, all based on what the guest. If a guest tells me he wants a bigger shaker table, then we're going to try to get him a bigger table.

Obviously, it's always coffee and tea, as well as water, throughout the whole process. Okay, thank you. My time's almost up. I want quickly to touch on this funding question that came up repeatedly. This contract for the shelter is $1.5 million, correct? Yes, one-year contract. That's correct. Okay. And the Interfaith Shelter, their entire budget is in the same ballpark, $1.6 million. I would have to, yes. Okay, we're hearing from the back of the room, that's correct. So, similar budgets. The city, so I think it's really important that the community understand that the city's portion of that budget has been, I think it was referenced, $158,000. And then we also have, we've leased the property at nominal rent, and I think, I don't know if we have any finance staff on board tonight, I don't think so, but it's like a dollar a year, I think we lease that property to. So they get the value, an in-kind contribution from the city of the property and the building, and then the direct payment as part of their budget. The rest of their budget comes from donations and grants. Am I correct about that? I'm not, you're not equipped to be able to speak to that. Okay. I will say that there are additional programs that the city does support in partnership with local philanthropies, including the motel program that Interfaith runs. So the money that was from the Human Services Commission, which was recently reduced, and it was not reduced specifically only to Interfaith, it was reduced across the board because they fund 19 organizations out of that pot of money. That is separate from the funds that are being used to support the moteling program. Okay. But I think just my overall point is that this contract is roughly the same as the budget that the Interfaith Shelter has access to at this point. I believe the $1.6 million is close to $1.5 million, but okay. All right, I'm sure I'm out of time. Thank you.

Very good. Councilor Faulkner, you have the floor for 10 minutes. I think we'll ask your colleague to keep the clock so you can focus on your questions.

So, if we terminate the lease with the Interfaith group for this property, does it have an impact on any of the other partnerships we have with the organization?

If I understand correctly, you're asking if we terminate the lease with Interfaith at the shelter, will it affect, for instance, the mobile hygiene program or the moteling program? Those contracts should not be affected specifically, but again, I can't speak on behalf of how Interfaith chooses to continue their work.

So, as you're one of the decision-makers in this, do you see that, the way I view this is, we're not terminating our relationship with Interfaith, we are just trying to find a solution for a singular problem around homelessness. Is that, Councilor Faulkner, my perspective on this is that this is a very specific instance where an operator is working out of a city-owned facility, and the city and my team and city staff want to see a new model out of our city-owned facility for which we are accountable. That has zero, it has clearly impacts on how Interfaith can remain and choose to operate in the city as a whole. But we would not, we welcome more opportunity for any organization to continue to serve our city. The question at hand is, is it in a city facility or is it not in a city facility? That's the question at hand. If, you know, we need more of everything here. That has been something that I've said ad nauseam. I think the ultimate question is, is there other locations that Interfaith is able to identify through their volunteer groups, their board, the Interfaith Leadership Alliance, to help support additional shelter operations elsewhere, like we did during the pop-up shelters at various churches? But again, the question at hand from the city's perspective is, this is a city-owned facility, and ultimately we should be accountable for the type of services and models that are provided out of it.

Okay. And then I have a question for Urban Alchemy.

Yeah. So I guess that's true. I think that there's a lot of really incredible people who work with Interfaith. I know one of the concerns that I've had is that some of the volunteers or some of the people who work at the current location that's a shelter would be displaced somehow. Is there opportunity available if some of the members who are now working there, is there an openness to providing opportunity for them to continue on with your organization?

Without a doubt. We encourage all volunteers, employees to apply. We can't make any promises at this time. In the past, when we've done a transition similar to what we talked about in Austin, we did allow other, you know, employees from the previous provider to apply. Some were brought on, and so there is opportunity there.

Great. And then my next question is for the public safety folks, or like the first responders. If the chiefs can come down, and then I could get Parks, and I think we need Melissa McDonald. Are you available for us? And Ranger, park rangers, please.

I don't know what the questions are, but I know that Councilor Faulkner has questions for probably each of you, but go ahead.

Oh, so I'll start with the, I'll start with police and fire, and you guys can, whoever wants to answer first. How many, how much of your resources are spent in taking care of the area around the shelter currently, including the people who kind of hang out?

Chief Joy, I think that's for you initially.

All right, sure. So, Mayor, Councilor Bulner. So, I did pull the data and I did comparisons this year and then 2024 and 2023. So far for 2025, from January 1st to May, that's the most recent completed month that we've had. I did a roughly 2,000-foot radius area search with the epicenter being the shelter itself. It amounted to, so so far in 2025, we've had 35,350 calls for service. Of that large total there, 1,900, 1,903 has been in this 2,000-foot radius area. So that amounts to about 5%. In 2024, it was 1,271 out of 34,064 that came out to, I want to make very clear, at no time have I ever announced myself as a mathematician. So you can run these numbers yourself and verify, but based on myself and my calculator, this is what I've come out to. So, 2024, it was about 3.7% of our overall call volume. In 2023, the volume was 35,249. At that area, it was 991, and 2.8% of that overall volume was there. And I can go more into proactive.

That's good. Other, so yeah, that's good enough. But like, what's the financial impact to your department? Do you have like a rough?

That's hard to say because it varies on a couple of things. One, it would be like the rank of the officers that responded, the number of officers that responded, which is going to vary depending on the type of call that they're responding to, whether or not an arrest is made, because that's going to dedicate more time to any type of call. So, for us, that's a kind of a weird, not weird, but difficult question to answer. I think Fire can answer that more accurately because I think they have a kind of built-in mechanism for billing for insurance and whatnot.

Okay. And one of the other concerns, and I'm going to ask the other chief this as well, is the burnout in the police force and the fire department for having to respond so frequently to sometimes unsolvable situations. And so I'm, that's one of my concerns is that I'm hoping that this group can come in and take a little bit of the lift off you guys, because I do worry about our police officers and firefighters burning out on the situation, which wouldn't be good for the fire department, police department, for the community, or for the unhoused people who we're trying to serve. So Chief Moya, can you kind of answer that same line of questions for me?

Mr. Mayor, Council Rockner, on roughly just an average call, it just depends. We, over our three-year data that Chief Outkerk pulled, you know, we ran 5, and I think 24 calls the first year, you know, 574 the second year, and to date we ran 264 calls at that address. Some of those calls were MVAs, and that wouldn't go against 2801 because that could be, you know, a car accident on the street. But on average, a medical call that we run, if we transport them, is about $2,600. That's the average. You know, we're not in it to make money. You know that we're all public people, so we don't play that game. But we're there. You know, I'll make a perfect example. Sunday, we went twice to 2801 on Sunday. It's just a constant. My guys and the fire department, my, the people that work for the fire department, I was in the field, and we were, you know, it was 2801. Everybody knew about it. It was just part of what we do. We're professionals. We keep going. We keep putting up with it. It's a team. We're a team. We were a team with Interfaith Homeless Shelter. We're, we, we try to do the best we can. You know, eventually it gets tiring, but we keep doing it. It's, it's, it's our job, and that's what we do the best we can. But overall, we're just here to serve the public. And at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to accomplish is just serve the public and make sure that they know that we're there to help them and keep doing our job all the time.

Thank you.

And that includes, just to add to that, you know, we all have the ultimate response unit that's out there responding to those calls as well, and picking those calls off on both ends, on the PD side and on the fire side. That is helping, you know, helping those low acuity calls, and it will continue to do that if we do go with this contract, and it will continue to help improve.

Yeah. And so, thank you, Chiefs. Could I get rangers and the parks? Is it time? Okay. I'll let other colleagues ask this if they want to ask these questions.

Council Lindell, you want to take it up for 10 minutes?

Sure. Thanks, Mayor. I want to thank everyone for being here tonight. It's a long night. It's emotional and it's hard. And I heard from lots of people this week, typically. I'm very good about getting back to people. I apologize. Didn't get back to people well this week. Had a medical emergency in my home. But I apologize. I typically do get back to people. I want to start out by saying that one of the situations with this and problems of all of this for me is the location. This location doesn't work. It's not going to work over time. And we can't continue to. This is one step of trying to move all of this forward. The next big step is a different location. I represent District 1, which happens to encompass where we sit right now, in addition to where Pete sits. And I may have had a lot of calls and emails in the last 10 days about this, but you just can't imagine the number of calls and emails I've had over the last 10 years about this. This neighborhood is suffering. I mean, people have trespassing in their front yard every day with someone defecating in their front yard. I go ballistic if someone lets their dog defecate in my yard. This neighborhood's suffering. Seen great compassion tonight. I talked to Chief Moya earlier today, asked him about one specific type of call for service, and that was overdoses. We've had calls for service for overdose 76 times so far this year. That's just not winning. That, that each, each overdose is a long, complicated story, and each overdose is also $20 to $25,000.

If we stay at the same rate we're at right now, we'll be at over $3.5 million this year on overdose costs from that one address. And it's complicated. Each one of those overdoses is a long story. I wanted to ask the gentleman from Urban Alchemy, if part of the program that you folks bring to us, what other kinds of resources do you direct people to? Do you direct people to 12-step programs? I don't know one person can answer.

It's okay. Thank you for that question. So, yeah, definitely 12-step programs, peer support programs. So, at our shelter in Austin, we run some sort of peer support program or 12-step program or facilitated program daily. Also in that same shelter, if we could build the partnership, we have a medical partner that has a clinic inside the shelter. In San Francisco, we also were able to build a relationship with the Department of Public Health and we have them inside the shelter. I think that when you create these safe spaces inside, you have service providers of various kinds that are willing to come in, even if it's mental health, DMV resources that are able to come in and support folks and kind of do workshops. In Austin, we just had our first class graduate through HVAC. So, we do do that outreach to local resources to try to bring resources inside the shelter to make it easier for guests to access.

I'm glad to hear that because very, very close to that location on Cerillos, just a few very short blocks away, there is a club called The Friendship Club, which runs many, many 12-step program meetings throughout the day, every day, and into the evening. And those programs are free and they've helped millions, not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, millions of people for free. And I would say that I know what I'm talking about here. Through the grace of God and the help of that program, I just celebrated 30 years of sobriety Sunday. So, it's free and it's close. So, those are some concerns I have.

Another concern I have is I want to know about how people are going to be fed because each place has an exceptional reputation of feeding people. We heard people talk about that tonight. So, tell me, tell me how that works. I mean, we don't want to have a break of services. You kind of heard that.

So, food will be served. We will use staff at our current shelters. We have, I'll go back to our shelters of Arch where we have a full kitchen. We have staff on deck to do that, to cook it, to serve it. We believe in five-star customer service and so that is something we look to maintain.

So, your staff prepares food?

Yes.

Yeah. Just get a food handler's certification and we're able to do it.

Okay. Thank you.

You know, I want to say one more thing in case, and I know other counselors have questions, which I think everybody's asking questions that other people thought about, and I appreciate that. I just want to say to everyone here, every one of us up here has experienced some painful, painful losses on this day, on things that we held dear to us that didn't work out. And we kept talking to each other. We weren't thrilled, but it was incumbent upon us to stay engaged and to work to the very, very best of our abilities to make sure whatever it was, even though we were on the losing side, to make sure whatever it was was successful. And I would surely hope that everyone here would stay engaged and do everything they possibly can to make every bit of this all the time successful. It's really incumbent upon us to do that. We all want the same thing. How we get there sometimes is circuitous and sometimes it's extremely painful, but we all want the same thing. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilor Lindell, Councilor Garcia, you, sir, have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you to the staff in Urban Alchemy and to the public. Only over 100 folks provided testimony with hundreds in attendance. So, thank you, everybody, for the attention to this very critical issue. And so, the issue in front of us right now is, should we or should we not terminate the lease with Interfaith? And we've heard from staff why there is a recommendation to terminate it, and there's been justification that there is, whether it's police response, fire response, etc. But from my understanding and my interpretation and my opinion, the emergency is outside of the fence of Interfaith Shelter. And so, with that, I do have some questions with the lease, given we are proposing to terminate this contract with the lease. Do we have any Interfaith Shelter staff present so I can ask questions, please?

I'm looking over to our city attorney and our parliamentarian. This isn't a public hearing per se. Are we asking questions of experts because they are relevant to the issue, or how widely can we explore questions for people in the audience?

Well, this deals with an issue with the lease, just like we had Urban Alchemy providing testimony on an item that is not even technically addressing them, but we've allowed them to speak. I feel it's relevant to allow for the lease to speak to the allegations made against them.

I would concur with Councilor Garcia. If we're not going to do that, then hang on. Hang on a sec.

I don't think we have a rule on that. Okay. Topic. Go ahead.

Okay. I know we have representatives from the shelter. We have both the executive director and the deputy, and spoke to us during the petitions from the floor, and I know they're still here, and we have previously had, and probably still have, board members here.

Okay. Well, thank you. And so, as I've mentioned publicly and in meetings with staff, I strongly feel that the city of Santa Fe's partnership with Interfaith has not been as strong as it has been in the past. And there's some evidence that I just want to clear up that might help to either inform or deny. And so, one thing is that yesterday, during a social media post that the city of Santa Fe posted on Facebook, there was one comment that stated that the city informed Interfaith of intent to transition operations weeks in advance. So, Interfaith staff, were you notified weeks in advance of any transition in operation?

Okay. So, can you check and make sure the mic is on just so everybody at home can reiterate for everyone?

No, we were never informed. And just to further that fact, on May 22nd, two of my board members met with Henry, him and Paul, and asked him point blank, "What's the plan?" To which he said, "You can't share."

Okay. Thank you for that. And so, that's strike one for me in regards to not acting in good faith. So, I want to clear up any potential hearsay that I heard, and I'm going to go straight to the source, which Karina, I had heard from a secondhand story that you were told by city staff if your facility can allow for folks to use illicit drugs on site, illegal drugs on site. Is that true or false?

Yes, we did have that conversation with Henry Ham and Paul.

Okay. And so, with that being said, in the lease agreement that we have with you all currently, that would be a violation of the lease. Correct?

Absolutely.

Okay. So, that's strike two for me. Now, it's my understanding that, and this was public record, I have heard it also from the Interfaith board chair, but this has been in the public domain regarding Interfaith's offer to hire a police officer for the city of Santa Fe. So, Mr. Mayor, why did you deny Interfaith their request to not hire a police officer?

That's not my authority to do, counselor. I don't know where you got that information.

So, it was my understanding from a conversation that I had with Len Rand, who is the chair of Interfaith, that there was a meeting conducted that in which you were present, in which Councilor Romero Worth was present, in which Councilor Cassett was present, and this request was made on behalf of Interfaith to hire a police officer, and that request was denied in that meeting. Then in a follow-up meeting or in a follow-up, there was a letter sent reiterating that request. So, I'm a bit surprised that I'm hearing from the board chair that the request was not made, and I don't know if staff, were you involved in that meeting? Can you help me clarify?

Yes, I was present, as was Beverly Kellum.

And was that request denied in the meeting?

Yes, I believe somebody stated that it would set a precedent and other communities would want the same.

Understandable. So, precedent is interesting because the city of Santa Fe currently allows for police officers to take on such duties that it is a practice that is currently undertaken to this day, to this moment. And so, Police Chief Joy, can you please come up and help me clarify and understand when these type of requests are made, is it or is it not allowable?

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, can you ask the question again for me?

Sure. So, if a request, whether it be from Interfaith or a retail store or an organized community event that wants extra police support to support their event, can, is that a request that can be accommodated by your department?

It depends. And it would be as an overtime assignment only. It would not be on-duty officers that are assigned normally to patrol. So, which is also voluntary. So, the officers, we would put it out as a list and officers would sign up for it. It's billable hours. It's billed at $102 per hour per officer. So, depending on the nature of the ask, it would, it would be a conversation. It wouldn't necessarily be a no, right? We'd have to have a conversation about it.

Understandable there. But there, but is it, it is a practice that has been honored and services have been rendered in the past and potentially currently?

That's correct.

Okay. So, again, strike three. I don't believe we've been a good partner to Interfaith there. There is a very dangerous precedent being set here where, from my understanding and from the community that provided critical testimony tonight, that requests for support have been, had been asked for, and those requests have not been accommodated by the city of Santa Fe. It's also been validated that the majority of these challenges that are happening within this area, and I'm not denying that that area is problematic. I think it, it's been problematic for quite some time. And for us to say this is an emergency at this moment in time, it, it is, it's actually undermining the whole challenge of that situation because it, it, it, in respects, we as a city government have a responsibility to provide public safety measures not only for that area, but for the entire community. And when we have such problems that are constant and that are evident, and you, you, I mean, there was a point in time where you couldn't be on social media where people were filming on stuff of people doing illicit activities, and we didn't respond the way we are responding right now, which is quite surprising to me because I'm glad we're finally looking at taking action. But even with this proposal and the many proposals beyond tonight, I still don't see the response that the public has been asking for, which is public safety efforts. You heard from Christ Lutheran tonight. I'm not Christ Lutheran. Urban Alchemy tonight. They're not police. They're not security guards. And so, what happens in the instance where there is a situation where we need police, an immediate response? And I think when we look at the implications and ramifications of canceling this contract, which means the city's investment from $80,000 to operate that facility jumps up to $1.5 million. That is not a, there's not a cost-benefit analysis to that because I didn't hear anything, and I again, I will ask Urban Alchemy questions.

That's not the matter at hand right now. I didn't hear anything that's going to lessen the investment on behalf of the city in regards to the challenges that are leading to the so-called emergency that is leading to the cancellation of this lease. Because if this was an emergency situation, there should have been a mayoral declaration of emergency stating such that would have allowed for the emergency procurement and any other services that are critically needed for this community. It's not just safety, security, or emergency services. It's broader. And so with that, my time is up. I still have more questions, but I wanted to reiterate the fact that this is not a solely Interfaith issue. This is, we've got to point the finger at ourselves, at this city, and show that we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing either.

I'm going to ask you to not applaud, please.

Mayor: Mr. Mayor, may I respond because I believe I was referenced in this speech, and I think I'd like to correct some inaccuracies as I understand them. First and foremost, it's patently false and documented false that the city has not engaged in good faith with Interfaith. I've been on the team since September 23rd. In that period alone, to say that we haven't had conversations with Interfaith about improving operations is not correct. On October 11th, we met to discuss.

But Mr. Mayor, he's...

Let him...

I am, but he's... you're making an inaccurate statement. I'm not going to let it go because I need a corrective record. It's a point of order. That's an indirect record.

Take the temperature down a little. Speak, and then you can have a chance to speak too. It doesn't work when you speak over each other.

I'm responding to the comment that the city hasn't worked in partnership with Interfaith. And so, not only do I hold a bi-weekly meeting with providers in the city where we have had 13 provider meetings, of which Interfaith sometimes shows up, often it's Director Lopez, Executive Director Lopez. Occasionally, Deputy Director Kellum will join via Zoom. That's 13 meetings where we talk about broad system improvements in the city. There have been separate individual meetings, whether it's with Interfaith or with a board or some combination thereof, including October 11th, 2024, when we met to discuss the lease rolling over month-to-month. October 23rd, 2024, when I visited the shelter with Director Lopez. November 13th, 2024, when Karina actually came and met with Urban Alchemy. January 8th, when I met with Karina as well as a handful of other people about safe parking initiatives, how do we expand services in the city? February 20th, when I attended and observed staff case staffing at the Lifelink, where I got to see how both Interfaith and Consuelo's work on, actually, let's not lose the picture, the goal is to get people out of unsheltered homelessness into a shelter and then ultimately into housing. February 26th, another on-site visit to the shelter where I met with, actually, sorry, February 20th, when I met with Karina and Beverly to discuss facility improvements that the city was willing to support, including storage solutions, improvements to fencing, and ways to address security challenges at the facility. That was followed by a meeting on February 26th, 2025, where I actually went to the facility and walked around and asked how we could work together on this. And then, a handful of meetings in May leading up to this recommendation from my team. So, I just, I understand that there is a narrative out there that the city has not been a good partner. In addition, we've also worked with Interfaith to move 25 individuals out of the shelter who had been living there for multiple years into a motel program where Interfaith provides wraparound services for these individuals. Again, with the ultimate goal, and I think I need to hammer this in, which is the ultimate goal is not to just have better shelters. The ultimate goal is to get people out of shelters into housing. So, the idea that the city has not showed up in good faith to support community providers is, I don't believe that is a fair or accurate statement.

Thank you, Councilor. Please take the floor.

Thank you, Mayor. I thought all the questions would have been asked, but I just have more questions now. I was going to start with a statement and I will end with that instead, but I do want to give you an opportunity. So, it was stated just now that there was a social media post and there was a comment made. Was the comment made by city staff, and if it was, was it made by you, Director?

I'm not familiar with the social media post or the comment. I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with it either. I also wanted to ask about policing. So, having a police officer, this has been brought up at public comment, and what we see at special events and what we see when a request for a police officer to be present is temporary. I literally heard in public comment numerous times a permanent police officer at Pete's Place. So, has that occurred so far in the city?

If I could get Chief Joy to answer that question because those are two very different things. Chief, I think you might want to stay down front for a little bit. Did you hear the question because you were in the back?

Could you repeat the question, Councilor?

Yeah. So, there's a big difference than a request for police presence right at a special event. What I've heard from staff, Interfaith staff, in the public comment was that they made efforts to request for a permanent police officer. Do we have a permanent police officer with any other organization in Santa Fe?

Mayor Weber, Councilor Chavez, no, we do not. And I have been very public in my conversations in the fact that I would not support something like that. I believe police efforts are for the entire community and they should respond based on priority. Taking a police officer from the force, which is not fully staffed, to be housed in one place, I don't think would serve the entire city. So, I just want to make that clear. There's a big difference than requesting a permanent police officer and compared to close patrol, compared to a special event. Those are all very different things.

Correct. That is correct. Thank you. And then I think, I think that's it. Okay. So now I have questions. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate it. My first question is actually from staff from Urban Alchemy. There was a question about whether Interfaith employees or volunteers would be willing to participate in your efforts. And I just want to be clear, does your program welcome volunteers or is it employees only? Because I hear there's a big emphasis on accountability, and I know that typically accountability is easier implemented when someone is employed with an organization.

Thank you, Councilwoman. It is employees only, and so we encourage folks to apply, but it's employees only is our model.

Thank you. So, I just wanted to clarify that. I also wanted to get information from you on, so I have a lot of experience with trauma. I, but with youth, so I've worked with students with high-need behavior, exceptional needs, and high trauma. And what's been frustrating in my work is the fact that we have a broken behavioral health system nationwide. And I like your model because what I found in my little elementary school where we had high traumas, we didn't have enough services. So, staff was trained to provide the services themselves, and it fills the gap, right? So, instead of having people waiting months for a warm handoff, the warm handoff is present within the organization itself. And that's why my school had success was because we were all trained. We knew how to have those conversations. We knew how to love students in a way that reversed the impact of trauma. And so, I imagine the reason why you train the way you do is due to the fact that there is a huge gap in behavioral health services nationwide. So, if you could just speak to that.

Yeah. And great. So, I'll say our career, I'll start with our curriculum. So, Dr. Lisa Dearo, who creates our curriculum, she's a trauma specialist, she's a professor in psychology and trauma specialist at San Francisco University. It's centered around some of the cutting-edge material in the sense of what you're saying, some of the mental health first aid and how we can meet folks where they're at and stabilize conditions and talk things through folks and give folks that space to have that cathartic moment to get to process emotions and get things out and stabilize. While we're not clinicians to heal, we have mental health, you know, in other models we have had mental health workers that are supervised by clinicians. So, we have some experience in that. And then Dr. Lena Miller, who's done this work over 25 years working with youth and trauma-based through a lot of tragedies and working through that. Our model is based on that. And so, I hope that answers your question.

No, it does. You know, I'm really, I wish any organization that serves every single person was truly trauma-informed, because that is, it's just the only thing we can do right now with the way our behavioral system is. Our health system is just unfortunately failing communities across the nation. And I don't see improvement in sight, unfortunately. So, I like that that model's present, and I always talk about warm handoffs. I feel like when we talk about people falling through the cracks, it's because services are without, and when we hand off, no one's there to actually catch them. So, thank you for that. I really, I really like that. I also wanted to clarify, I hear the word displacement a lot. We are all in the business of serving human beings. We want to, we want to help. We want to make this world a better place. I am a mother. I am an educator. I love kids. Like, I, I love, that's my passion is youth and just creating a world that they deserve, which unfortunately it's not right now. So, I'm in the business of serving human beings. But that is meaning that I know that others may be able to step in when I can't meet the need that has outgrown me and be willing to work beside them. The need in Santa Fe is going to require all of us to come together and do the work. So, there isn't going to be displacement. The reason why there's not going to be displacement is because this issue is bigger than Urban Alchemy. It just is. So, everyone is going to have to contribute if you are in the service of serving human beings. This is an invitation to move forward in the direction to make a difference. Work along one another, work alongside one another and contribute how we can. It's not about who's doing more or who has more or any of those. It's just about doing your part in the best way possible to serve human beings. And I want to say this because it's my sappy kindness empathy thing that I always do. I know that we gave credit to a lot of the individuals in this room for being really kind and respectful, and I will say thank you because there's a lot of passion here and many of you were very kind and respectful. Unfortunately, I will say that it was sad to see those who lead by example for certain organizations laughing when people are speaking and me knowing that vulgarities have been spoken to my colleagues on here because of this thing. It's hard to respect leadership that serves human beings that react in that way, because you should be an example of the beauty of this service, which is love, which is kindness, and which is not ugliness.

And I have seen ugliness by those who should be examples of the complete opposite in this room. And I will call that out because it's completely inappropriate, and it's hard to have trust in statements being made from those individuals when I witness with my own eyes what leaders do not do. So, I just had to say that.

I hope that the passion, and I had an individual come up to me and was like, "I just hope we can collaborate to make a difference." And I hope we can, Santa Fe. I hope we can collaborate to make a difference. It's exciting. We're bringing an additional resource in to help the people you want to help, to help the people that you show up for every single day, who you're passionate for, who you're angry about not being able to serve in the capacity that you did before. So now we have an additional resource to move forward and to make a bigger difference. In the end, no matter what happens, as long as we're all showing up to do our part, there really should be nothing to be angry about. And so, I just want to make that point very, very clear. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Before we go any further, I need to entertain a motion to suspend our rules and go past 11:30.

Councilor: So moved.

Councilor: Second.

Mayor: There's a motion and a second to suspend our rules and extend our meeting past 11:30. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll on that?

Clerk: Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia? Yes. Councilor Michael Garcia? Yes. Councilor Lindell? Councilor Maestas? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. Mayor Weber? Yes.

Mayor: Motion is approved. Thank you, Council. I don't know if you were completed. I don't know if your 10 minutes, you were done. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to be brief, and then we'll go back around. I know some of my colleagues have lots of different questions. If we could, I would like to ask our guests from Urban Alchemy. I'm sorry to see you go back and forth all the time, but can I get you to come up and answer a couple questions for me, please?

Before you reach the podium, I do want to echo what my colleagues have said about the comments we heard tonight, the testimony, the witness, the speeches, the heartfelt and passionate emotions in this room, I think, are absolutely phenomenal and a great testimony to the heart and soul of Santa Fe, not on a contract, but on an issue and how we treat people who are unhoused and how we treat the people who try to serve them and how we treat each other. Whatever happens tonight with votes or no votes, what I take away from this is that the issue of homelessness is of paramount importance to people in Santa Fe, which isn't true in every city in America.

I started my own investigation into homelessness when George W. Bush was president, and I had the great honor of accompanying Rosanne Hagerty from Community Solutions to a series of city-by-city forums on how to address homelessness in America. And since then, the issue has gotten worse, not better, and the need to take dramatic action has gotten more important, not less. And here in Santa Fe, the things that we've done in the last seven, eight years are to our credit, but they're not enough. We joined Built for Zero early on and moved from just a pit count to a by-name list. You can't, once you start a by-name list, you can't talk about "the homeless." You talk about each individual who has their own story and their own need. We know right now there are about a dozen, 15 veterans in Santa Fe who are unhoused. We are still not able to get anyone, the county, the state, a nonprofit, a religious organization, or even our own city to find a space for a micro-community for those 15 veterans. And we know their names. It's not "the homeless."

As has been said, we stood up when COVID hit. We stood up immediately at the campus at Midtown Consuelo's Place. It was our equivalent of trying to find a way to make sure that there wasn't an outbreak of COVID among the homeless people in Santa Fe. And there was an article written in a national newspaper saying at that time we had lost zero homeless people to COVID because we took direct and immediate action to say they deserve to be as safe as anybody. Other people were told, "Go home and stay home." They didn't have a home to go to. We provided a home. The list goes on, and tonight is simply our ongoing commitment as the city to recognize that people who are unhoused and the people who serve those who are unhoused deserve enormous credit and a great deal of support.

So that said, I appreciate you coming down. I did have a couple quick questions, and then I'll turn over the microphone. A lot has been made about the difference between being inside the fence of a shelter and being outside the fence of a shelter. You have said that in your model you are equally responsible for the look of outside the shelter because it indicates the respect you have for the people who are inside the shelter, that the facility looks good and is clean and is safe. So that in your mind, there is no difference between what happens on the sidewalk or the grassy area outside the shelter and the grounds within the shelter. You are equally responsible because that's how your model works. It's about respect for people who are homeless. They don't live in a place or stay at a place that looks untidy, unkempt.

I'd appreciate it because there has been this distinction made if you could talk about your experience, whether it's what you're doing now in Austin or what you would do here. I don't know if you've been over to the Interfaith Shelter and taken a look at it, but any observations you have about the distinction that you do or do not make on the interior and exterior of a shelter for people who are unhoused.

Speaker: So, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, we take pride in the inside as well as the outside. One of the biggest things is, and I'll let Louis talk about it, because he built it in a sense. He built a system that we actually, it's not extra, it's ethical, right? So, we feel equally important for what's going on inside, but also we went as far as going 1,000 feet and also with the good neighbor agreement. But the biggest piece about, one of the biggest things, every clean space is normally safe. And we got a really big part of this when we would take, I'm going to speak on Austin, where on that street that we were on, I refused as a leader in the organization to allow the guests to continue to be victims out there. So I took pride in and I took ownership in getting all of us, that means leaders, myself included, out there to engage with all necessary parties, and that's negatively breaking up that culture. So we had some what we call interactive conversations, and I really, we really work really close with our law enforcement to identify to break up that negative behavior, but also to negotiate the negative behavior because it was something that was missing. So we took the pride in cleaning the inside and outside and asked the community to help us. Those same men, and particular men in this case, were who were engaging in that negative activity. And that was something that we took pride in. And because of that, we went as far as also talking about across the street, which we recently in Austin worked out a partnership and collaboration with our partner across the street. So they now can feed the guests inside of our oasis because that community was actually suffering because there was a shelter across the street directly from our shelter, and they had men and women lining up, which we don't use that model any longer. We bring the food to the guests. We don't want them to line up any longer. So again, the neighbor worked with us. It took us about six months to build a good partnership, and because of that, now the block itself is completely clean and clear.

Mayor: Can I follow up a sec?

Speaker: All right. You want to elaborate more?

Mayor: I do have a follow-up question. I'm going to run out of time. Go ahead.

Speaker: Do the follow-up, and I'll add what I was.

Mayor: But you mentioned Austin. If I were to, I have not been to your facility in Austin. I know Henry and folks from Anorum and perhaps others visited. If I go down there to the facility that you took over, which apparently was not well run before you were asked to come in, which is why you were asked to come in, would I find people outside the shelter on the sidewalk with camping gear, with sleeping bags, with other things that indicate that that's not your problem to keep it clean?

Speaker: Absolutely not. That's a part, that's a part of the process and the program, and we're going to find a way. And that's, I'm a big testament to our co-founder, Bayon Wilson. You know, it's really when we're talking about, I've heard, not here necessarily today, but them, those, it's about our people. It's our people. And what Bayon does, and it's part of the philosophy in the program, is put our people first. We talked about a simple oasis, and they said, "Where's that come from?" Comes from staff parking. Staff can park somewhere else. Our people need somewhere they could be safe, somewhere they can congregate and not be told, "Move along." Because all what we've always heard from our people is, "Where do I go? Move here, move there, move there, move." "Where can I go?" Let's take that parking space and let's turn it into an oasis where someone can be safe.

I talk about the cleanliness really fast. Every safe space, as he said, is generally clean. Trash tells a story. And if we're talking about trauma, we understand that trash tells a story. And so we don't want the child that's a block away to see a, see an orange cap, to see a needle, to see tinfoil, because that story is being told that this place is not so safe. And so we want to change the narrative and say, just like the broken window theory, we're in a battle for our neighborhood. We're going to clean it up. We're going to pick it up. That trash tells a story that I don't want to be told. I don't want the mother to grab her child and put her up under her like a mother hen. So what we will do is create safe passages. We'll create spaces through negotiations that says, "Hey, we need this area. This, this is not okay. This is for the women, the children, and the elderly." And generally, everybody has a heart. No matter what your addiction is, yes, there may not be a conscience and compassion in the cycle of addiction, but there is always conscience and compassion in that human being. And with the conversation and consistency, everybody gets on board.

Mayor: Thank you. I'm out of time. I yield the floor to Councilor Lee Garcia.

Councilor Lee Garcia: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't have any more questions. I think many of the concerns I've had have been answered. Again, I really just want to give a shout-out to those that have provided services to the community in the past. And I believe that removing, reimagining this whole ideology of just continuing the same, same thing is not necessarily in our best interests as a community. That's where I'll leave it.

Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. We're going to, everybody's going to get another bite at the apple. If you think of something, please raise your hand. Councilor Cassutt.

Councilor Cassutt: So much, Mr. Mayor. Okay, I'll try to be rapid fire. So, a couple things to note. I do want to refer back to that meeting that was referenced in regards to whether or not a, you know, the conversation whether or not a police officer could be hired specifically for Interfaith and stationed there essentially. At that time, and still now, it's similar to Councilor Chavez, that's not something I would support simply because of the need for the flexibility in our police department. But also, I hear a lot of comments of this much money could hire a lot more police.

officers. The problem isn't money. Actually, we have a number of funded positions in the police department that we cannot fill. This is a hard profession to fill right now, similar to mental health. We have a really hard time filling these positions, and actually, we've been pretty aggressive in a number of ways with our officers in terms of raises, in terms of cars, in terms of, we try to pilot for down payment assistance. Unfortunately, Santa Fe's housing market, another conversation, is really tough. That's not to say we will continue to look at what we can do to completely fill our police department, but that is a challenge right now. Public safety in general is a challenge. So, it is not simply a matter of precedent or a matter of flexibility for me. The fact of the matter is we can't even fully staff right now with the positions that we do have open and funded at this time.

I do also want to say that, speaking back to that meeting, I think one of the challenges that I experienced there was there was a lot of conversation around the fact that the current model has not been able to adapt as fast as the issue has. I think that it's really important to note that, and we've said it before, the establishment of Interfaith happened during a very different time. It was a cold weather emergency shelter, and Interfaith has done incredible work to try to meet this moment. We've talked about the fact that this is not a good location. I'm going to get to that question actually in a moment, but that we were starting to find models that we found to be more effective in addressing the issue. There did not feel to me the sense that there was as much willingness to look at how the adaptation would occur. I understand that it is really challenging. These are really tough issues, but I just, that was, I left that meeting with that feeling that the flexibility was not coming from the leadership that I would have liked to have seen. Now, there have been plenty of other meetings since then. Director Hammond Paul has been involved in them. I have not, this is my only perception from that meeting, but I do think it's important to share, and again, this does not mean that the work is not good work. It is. And unfortunately, the problem is so much more complex than it was even a few years ago.

Back to the conversation around location, we're talking about a one-year emergency contract with the idea that we would be decommissioning the site and utilizing it for something else, that this would no longer be serving as a shelter. We have talked about this for a long time about moving this shelter. We have been unsuccessful in finding a location. What is the difference now?

Mayor: Councilor Cassid, I think that's a great question. I think there are certain things that I would recommend to the governing body as a means of actually doing this in earnest. First, I would say is hold ourselves to account in a way that is concrete, maybe for lack of a better word. For instance, potentially put the property up for sale or make a verbal commitment that it will be a daycare center. That's what you do with the current property. Something along those lines. Make a firm commitment that we stand behind.

I would say another big piece of this is, and I've been hesitant to say this as of yet, but the city of Santa Fe is a center of gravity for the region. The city is bearing the responsibility for a regional crisis. And to meaningfully address the scale of the challenges that we have, we need to really ensure that there's deep partnership with the county and the state. I've been working, everybody is playing a role to some extent, but can we be better aligned? Absolutely. The state has $110 million that they need to expend in the next, I believe, 18 months on these issues. There's money to support organizations who want to do this kind of work and pursue physical structures. But finding an alternate location or building a new alternate location needs a combination of stakeholders at the table, either to identify a proper facility to purchase and be renovated or to actually build something from the ground up.

Contrary to what many people probably think, that nobody's taking action on any of these things, these are conversations that counterparts to me in the city and the county, and philanthropy, have constantly. Where can we find the right buildings? And I think there have been opportunities where I've made pleas to faith-based organizations, nonprofits, private landowners about where can we get space to put a micro-community, for example. This is not a challenge that the city can solve alone. We need the partnership of our regional partners and the civil society in this.

I don't know if that answered your question. I apologize for the lengthy response. I mean, I think that it still points to the fact that this is extremely complex, and we don't have a good answer there yet. My request would be that regardless of what happens, and it sounds like this is already happening, but we just can't keep doing this. So, we do need to figure out another option. And it is so hard because I don't, you know, you're already working on it. I can't say start tomorrow. You're already doing this. But I think that as, when we do have these updates, whether they be at Quality of Life or at governing body, I would like to hear about these efforts and where we are in them, because I think that it is important. Part of holding ourselves to account is there's a lot of things that we're like, "Hey, we're going to do this in a year." And then we get to eight months, we're like, "A year's coming up," and four months is not enough time to do some of this really complex work. So, I would just put that request in because this neighborhood, this community, this building, everybody knows this is not a site that this location is working. And so, I do feel that what we are currently doing, we cannot continue to do. My constituents, I know, they can't continue with this. So, I think regardless of what happens tonight, I do want to continue to get updates in that arena because I want to make sure that we stay focused on it and that we continue to have those conversations. I am glad that some of our colleagues from the county are here. I know that we have had conversations about needing to work on this topic together and continuing to move that forward. But getting some real updates, I think, on a regular basis is going to be incredibly important for us focusing on this because at this point, we don't have a great path forward. It's just something that we know that we need to do, and that's rough. I don't expect you to have that at this very moment, but I think continuing to keep that on the forefront is going to be important, and I've already used all my time. That was not rapid fire. So, I will yield the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Mayor: Worth, thank you, Mayor. I too will just reference that meeting since it was brought up. I believe it was in October. I can look back at my calendar. It was a meeting with Councilor Cassid, myself, leadership from the city, leadership from the Interfaith Shelter. It was to talk about the issues there and for us as councilors really to hear firsthand what was happening or not happening. And I don't know that I feel like I could have said, "Yes, give them police presence." That's not really my, that's not my role. So, I guess I take issue with that characterization, but I, like Councilor Cassid and Councilor Chavez, don't support that. I think Councilor Chavez explained it well. Our police are not for hire. They are to serve the entire community based on priority of the call. And I don't want us having them patrol to the highest bidder. I just don't think that's a, that's just not a, that's not their role. That's not how we ensure the safety of the entire community. So, I think, Director, you have said that, I mean, the data demonstrates police are there just based on the call volume, so, and the priority of, I mean, they're getting a response because they do fall in the priority of calls at a level where we have to respond. And can you just, I guess, confirm that? I, that's what I hear you telling us. They are there. The problem is not a law enforcement one.

Mr. Mayor, Council Romero, apologies, my brain is beginning to, it's almost midnight. I will definitely defer to my law enforcement colleagues to talk about what constitutes a law enforcement problem. I can say empirically and without a doubt, the police are there, showing up on average 12 times a day in that area. I think the bigger question is, as we've heard tonight, there are other opportunities for a positive set of outcomes than having more law enforcement. There are ways to solve certain aspects of a very complex challenge that don't just mean throw more law enforcement at the problem and hope it goes away. I believe we should be looking at all the tools in our toolkit, whether they're public health tools, law enforcement tools, community-based public safety tools, to understand how these things complement each other to lead to optimal results in the community. We don't want to live in a police state. We want to be able to use these different tools well. So, thank you. And the chief is right behind you. That effect on people, Councilor.

Yeah. So, again, just kind of going by the 2025 numbers, 5% of our resources dedicated to any 2,000-foot radius of the city is significant. And that was why I just, out of curiosity, I wanted to compare. I did the same size as a one-width plaza, which is an internationally renowned travel city. The plaza is the destination in the heart of the city and includes hotels, businesses, all the fun stuff. And our resource allocation is greater in that area than what we do on the plaza. So, yeah, in my opinion, this is not a law enforcement solution. We just need more enforcement. We're there. We're there 5% of our overall call volume for the whole rest of the city.

Thank you. And again, I think, you know, I remember when Interfaith Shelter came about. I remember how different churches were housing people at different church locations. I remember what hasn't been spoken about today, or tonight, is how Pete's got its name. I also remember when Pete's was a pet store, and we used to go in there with, I went in there with my kids. And then Pete decided, I think, to sell or something, and the city bought it, and it kept its name. And then the Interfaith community could all come together in one location rather than moving all these people around to different churches around the community, but they had one location. And this, this was an important thing at that time. Again, it's been spoken about for what the community was experiencing, which is people dying in the cold. And it, you know, I think when that was the problem the community was trying to solve, it was, you know, the Interfaith community, the board, the staff, the volunteers. I've been a volunteer there. My kids have volunteered there. I think I, I, you know, anyway, that's another story.

But they've done good work. They've been good partners with the city, and I want to support them as they shift and work on this ROC solution because I think this is an important facility. We do need it, and as you've pointed out, Director, we do need more beds. There's room for everybody to be working here, and I think I want to see that continue. But the nature of this problem has changed. It's grown bigger. The types of reasons why people are homeless are different, and the model can't be anymore that you just house people at night to keep them out of the cold. They need their problems are more complex. And I think that's part of the reason why the city, under the mayor's leadership, joined Built for Zero, so that we could get a by-name list and begin to understand who in our community is unhoused and why, and know them personally, and begin to figure out ways to build a spectrum of housing and do what we need to do to address very individualized problems.

So I think again, I thank the Interfaith community for the work that they have done, and I hope that they will pivot and continue to do work and build. We need that facility that they're working on, and I'd like to see the city support them. And it sounds, I'm very encouraged about this state money, $110 million. There's money out there. We should work together and go get it. So again, I think it's been said by others, I don't think we get anywhere by being disparaging. I think what we need to be focusing on is working together and helping the people that are unhoused in our community and experiencing trauma and desperately need our help for a different kind of problem. And I'm sure my time is up. Thank you for your questions.

Councilor Faulkner: I would just like to reiterate my colleagues. I do think Interfaith has done an incredible job, and I know several of the people at Interfaith personally and have considered them my friends, and this decision from my part wasn't made easily. It was a very difficult decision for me. But just so Interfaith knows, I am still looking for a piece of property where you can have your ROC project. I had a phone call, a conversation today with someone who's a property owner, has a piece of property that might be a good idea, and Commissioner Green and I have talked about it briefly. And so even though I'm voting for the termination of the lease, that does not mean I'm going to stop working to help you guys get to where you want to get and to provide the services that I know you can provide if you get in the right place. Thank you.

Councilor Lindell: Did you have other questions?

Councilor Garcia: I know you have some more questions. Yes, I do. Chief Joy, I've got a quick question for you. Karina, I got a question for you. Director Ham and Paul, got two questions for you if we can be kind of concise on them. You had mentioned that the plan is for this, at least potentially with Urban Alchemy, to be only for a year, and then we cease operations there. There's nothing in writing anywhere. That's actually the first time I've heard it tonight. And then if we look into the lease agreement, the contract with Urban Alchemy, there's a stipulation that we could continue the lease or the contract with them should we want to. So where is this information around this site is only going to operate for one more year? Where is that documented on record somewhere? Because it's the first time I've heard it.

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, I might actually defer to the city attorney. I believe the emergency determination is for a period of 12 months, and also I believe the contract stipulates a 12-month contract, but I'm not a contracting expert on those items.

So for the record, it says on page four, under "Term," you go into the second sentence, it says, "The city reserves the right to renew this contract on an annual basis by the mutual agreement not to exceed a total of four years in accordance with NMSA 1978 sections 13-1-150 through 152." So I've got concerns there. So, second question for you, Director Hammond Paul, how is this cancellation of this lease agreement going to lead to lower overdose deaths?

Mayor Weber, Councilor Michael Garcia, I think that's an excellent question. And I think that this is incumbent. One of the potential benefits of having shown the public that we have this important data available is now we can be held accountable for showing that the types of interventions that the city is making is actually making measurable differences on those statistics when it comes to calls for service and calls from the fire department. So I would expect the public to want to see that if we're saying that these types of interventions are going to improve community health and safety, public health and safety, that we are able to show decreases on calls for service and decreases in calls from the fire department to these this location.

Okay. Thank you, Director Hammond Paul. Chief Joy, since you're next in line, just a quick question for you. It's my understanding that when somebody procures the services of a police officer, that officer on duty is not being pulled away from an active duty. So for the public, in just a pure example, if you've got 10 officers on duty, you're not going to procure the services of one of those 10 officers. It's going to be an off-duty officer. Am I understanding that correctly?

Mayor, Councilor Garcia, that is correct.

So it's not less police force actually in the community. It's actually one more police officer in the community. Am I understanding that correctly?

That is correct.

Okay. Thank you for that, Chief Joy, for helping me. It was there was a misconception. I felt that it was going to lead, if we procured services, it was going to lead to less police officers. It actually leads to more. Last question for Karina. Sorry, I'm trying to go quick. 10 minutes goes by quick. We've had a lot of talk about volunteers. It sounded what I heard that Urban Alchemy does not use a volunteer base. How many volunteers does your organization utilize on an annual basis? Do you say thousands?

2,000. Our sign is accurate when we say how many volunteers we have. We're very proud of that. So to give an even number, 2,000, but it varies year to year.

Okay. 2,000 volunteers that faithfully support this organization, faithfully support the unhoused. It's devastating to hear that these volunteers aren't going to be able to volunteer with that site. Last question. We've heard a lot about success. How does your organization define success? Because I heard Director Hammond Paul in some of his comments say, "It's been a successful partnership. We've been able to transition a certain number of individuals by providing them support services." Can you help me understand how your organization at the end of the day uses data to demonstrate success?

We collect data on everything. We report out to most, if not all, our grants, including to the Human Services Commission, the Community Development Law Grant. How many bed nights we provide, how many meals, how many articles of clothing we provide. We count those successes. We count showers. We count meals. We count how many people get navigation services, who's referred over to our partner providers, whether they're in-house or not in-house. So absolutely, we do intensive case management. We do all the things that Urban Alchemy does.

Okay. And so last question for you, Karina. Are you held accountable, are you and your organization currently held accountable for any of the data metrics? Does funding rely upon the data and success that your organization provides to the most vulnerable in our community?

Yes. I don't think our funders would continue funding us if we weren't producing outcomes and positive out...

And was some of that funding coming from the city of Santa Fe?

Yes, report the Human Services and the Community Development Block.

Okay, thank you so much for that. And so with that, it's to me, the evidence is there that this organization is providing a critical service in our community. And so it's my recommendation that we work with Karina and her team. And when I say "we," the royal "we," the city of Santa Fe, we work to develop a 90-day plan where within those 90 days, we will huddle up with Interfaith and we will develop a transition plan away from that site. I think I heard that there was no documentation, nothing of the sorts that says in one year we're going to transition away from here. It's my recommendation that we do not move forward with the cancellation of the lease agreement. We work in coordination and collaboration with Interfaith, and within 90 days, a transition plan has to be submitted to the governing body that says Interfaith will be leaving the Pete's Place location by whatever date it is determined, and we be, that's the accountability that I think the public is actually looking for.

Secondly, we have to hold ourselves responsible and accountable to work collaboratively with Interfaith to ensure that as services are continue to operate at that site, that there is more accountability because I thank you, Director Hammond Paul, you lifted off the meetings that you held with Interfaith, but I think there needs to be more stakeholders at the table. I would like to see councilors at the table at those meetings. I would like to see the city manager at the table at those meetings. I would like to see the police chief at the table for those meetings. That way, during these bi-weekly meetings, any instances that the city is recommending or Interfaith is recommending can be documented. That's the one thing I have not really seen here is a lot of conversations were had, but no documentations for corrective actions. And I look at it from the perspective of, I'm going to take you back way in time to when I was in undergrad in college. And I was celebrating my college graduation. I had, I'll admit, I had a huge house party. Huge. My neighbors were pissed off at me. It ultimately led my landlord to in documentation saying, "You were in violation of this lease. You do this again, you're out." I don't believe that there's any such documentation that exists where we've even given such warnings to Interfaith in regards to, "You are in violation of X, Y, and Z. Here is your corrective action." Am I understanding that correctly, Director Heal? There's been no documentation. It might be verbal, but there is no written documentation giving warning that if corrective action is not taken, then the lease is going to be canceled.

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, I believe on August 12th or August 13th of 2024, the Deputy City Manager, Leila Archeletta Maestro, sent a letter to Interfaith leadership with required improvements.

Okay. And were those improvements acted upon?

Two of them, I believe.

Okay. So, that's the documentation that I'm looking for. So, it's improvements that ultimately were acted upon because I think at the end of the day, we wouldn't have hundreds of people show up for support if there wasn't a will. And I think that's one thing that is so special about our community is that when people ask for support, people are going to come out in droves and support. And I think this is where if we as the city government put our full muscle behind ensuring that the ROC was established, it will happen. I guarantee it will happen because not only will the city government come around and collaborate, I know other entities, whether it's state government, state legislators, county commissioners, volunteers in the community, we will work together to make it happen.

And I think that's what ultimately we need to be striving for in collaboration. So with that being said, I cannot stand in support of requesting for the termination of this lease. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Chavez.

Councilor Chavez: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say that just basically what I said before is I hope we can all move forward in supporting those in need. And I want to also say out loud, we have to do major work as a city to show results with this change. And so I do want to provide, give you some appreciation. We can't talk anymore at this point, so I apologize. Give some appreciation to you, Director, and presenting the idea of the check-ins, like we did when we were in our audit situation. I think being well-informed of progress or lack thereof allowed for us to collaborate in taking the steps to just continue to be better. And I think as a city, we have to take ownership of that being our responsibility, our responsibility of showing the community results. And I think that we will have that data in front of us frequent enough that we will know whether we're doing something that's working or not. And I think that's important.

So, I say, you all are very, very valuable. There's just beauty in individuals who care about human beings in general. And it doesn't always come to everybody. Not all of us have that heart or connection, and we all care, but the intentional care that you guys all do and putting yourselves out there and giving is just so special, and it is something to be cherished. And I hope that we continue to have it be part of our efforts in addressing the many issues that we have in our city. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you. And I just wanted to say, no, go ahead. I think Councilor Castro did want to speak to item B, which we will get to. I promise you she'll, after we've disposed or voted one way or the other on the first item and also disposed of that, she'll, we'll come up with B, and she'll be absolutely back in the room.

I have a few questions. I'm going to copy Councilor Garcia and name the people I'd like to have come forward so you can start moving before I ask the questions. I'm going to need our guests from Urban Alchemy for another couple questions. And Chief Joy, if you're available, sir, and also Karina, if I could call on you for a second to answer a couple questions. And whoever arrives first gets the first question. Chief, I'm sorry to tell you that. I know you should have slow-walked. I think slow-walking is a bureaucratic technique, but I think you may use it tonight. One time I walked slower.

I'm going to try to be direct and to the point. I know that I want to come back to the question about to what extent policing in and of itself is going to solve this problem. If I remember correctly, you were asked by the governor to cooperate with state police on a very, very high-profile effort to bring more resources to bear in that area. I believe they talked about a temporary station or a vehicle that was almost like a mobile station. Quickly, can you recount what the results of that operation were and then subsequently did it make any lasting impact?

Chief: Mr. Mayor, so I don't have that information from the operation, and I would only be able to provide our side of the data, not state police. But to answer the second question, no, it did not.

Mayor: No lasting change?

Chief: No lasting change. No.

Mayor: Okay. Thank you, Chief. I do know that the governor was very adamant that there needed to be immediate intervention. She called it an emergency as well, but that unfortunately, it looked like there were arrests made. There were perhaps even successful prosecutions. The situation reverted because you can't really station a person there permanently.

Urban Alchemy, quick question. One of the things I think we've all been deeply impressed by and profoundly moved by are the number of people who came here tonight because they care deeply about homelessness, and they care deeply about this shelter, and they want to be able to make a difference. You've said you don't do literally volunteers, but there were other groups that made it clear that they have a stake at the current shelter. They either provide medical care, they provide counseling, they provide mental or behavioral health services. And you mentioned in answer, I believe, to Councilor Lindell's question that in other facilities, you've brought those organizations into the shelter itself to be partners with you. So, if you don't actually use individual volunteers, do you come to agreements with these other nonprofits or social service agencies so they can contribute to making things better at the shelter and for homeless individuals?

Urban Alchemy: Yes, without a doubt. Usually, that's done through a memorandum of understanding outlining what each role is. And we want to be crystal clear, it's about being part of the continuum of care. In order for us to be successful on our part, we need support from stakeholders, other organizations, and likewise, we support other organizations in their work. So, without a doubt, that's big in our model.

Mayor: Thank you. Karina, can I ask you a quick question? Thanks. I know it's late, but I appreciate your hanging out.

Karina: Absolutely.

Mayor: There are a couple areas where we have been very, very collaborative that you were asked about or Henry was asked about earlier. One being the mobile hygiene unit. The other being the, I believe, 25 individuals who had been your guests for a substantial period of time and now are at a motel courtesy of both the city and, I believe, an agreement with Interfaith acting as the service provider. On both of those two fronts, mobile hygiene and the motel project, and there may be another that I'm forgetting, is there any reason not to continue those activities working with the city as partners?

Karina: Not that I'm aware of. Although the hotel, senior hotel program is only funded for nine months.

Mayor: Yeah. But it's ongoing at the moment.

Karina: Yes.

Mayor: And you guys are working as the partners in that.

Karina: We are providing the navigation services.

Mayor: And with the hygiene unit, that's still operational.

Karina: Yes.

Mayor: So in terms of ongoing collaboration, if there's good reason to continue that relationship, would there be anything from your side of the equation to say you didn't want to continue to do that?

Karina: No. So I think for us, and we were very grateful that when we reached out that we were going to apply for the grant through the state, the Department of Human Services, that yes, the city was open to allowing us to use that mobile hygiene because we had known it sat at Midtown for four years, and nobody applied for that grant when the RFP went out.

Mayor: Right. So now that's out there, and it actually is productive in a number of different ways, including when folks come to use it, we can actually do direct interpersonal efforts to serve their needs.

Karina: Absolutely. I think the only thing that would change that is that we don't have any more funding for it.

Mayor: Okay. About the other, the larger project, the Rock Project. We heard from, I guess, one of your board members that that work is underway, and from the architect or one of the two consultants. I think we're all interested in that, and we want it to succeed. Can you quickly give us an overview? I guess you're looking for sites according to the consultant. Have you found potential sites? Is there a search underway? And is there any progress you could report to us on the opportunity for that to move forward rapidly?

Karina: Absolutely. So we are, we've been actively looking. We've been very open and honest that we're being very mindful and thoughtful about this location that we're hoping to get soon. I appreciate that some of you participated in the survey with ShopWorks and gave your feedback, including me. Absolutely. Because I did all the intros for everyone with ShopWorks. So I was grateful for that. We are actively looking soon. My hope is that our local architects will have renderings to demonstrate what we are looking to do with that location or with the building that we're going to build from the ground up.

Mayor: Once you have a property, have you identified options, sites, two or three that could potentially be locations?

Karina: Well, we've looked at several locations. Nothing has been to the point where we're like, this is the most viable, but we're actively looking.

Mayor: Well, to the point that was made by others about collaborating on not only your Rock Project, but also potential for a new location for the Interfaith shelter now. If you have sites that you're exploring and there are options that you want to share, I think it'd be a great partnership there as well because I'm hearing from my colleagues on the governing body that expediting that if you're already in the site selection or search process. Sounds like we are too, and we could work together on that.

Karina: Absolutely. And we've welcomed that collaboration because, yeah, the goal is to get it going sooner than later. So, yeah, and then I do have to note that I think in the meeting with Henry and Mark, City Manager Mark Scott, we asked, you know, would the city support our efforts with that project financially? And Henry was very open and honest and said yes. So, we were excited about that.

Mayor: Good, good, good, good. I thank you. I appreciate that. I just wanted to summarize what I've learned, and then I'll yield the floor. I think Councilor Chavez said it. I think this isn't a zero-sum game. This isn't about how do we do less, it's how do we do more? How do we get more resources? How do we get more partnerships? How do we do a better job of collaborating to solve one of the most complex, difficult, challenging, and sometimes just out-and-out frustrating social problems in America today, which is the homeless individuals who may also have other co-occurring issues. And I think we continue as a government to be absolutely committed to searching for the best solutions we can come up with regardless of who can provide them and not to limit it to anybody. There's room for everybody to be a partner in this effort. And for everybody to play a role. We need more, as Henry said, more beds. We need more outreach. We need more resources. We need more counseling. We need more street presence. We need more cooperation from faith-based organizations, from the county, from the state, from other counties in the region. And I think the message that I got tonight from our residents who came out with such passion is that they want to participate too, and they want to be part of the solution. And I think that's the only way we're going to continue to make progress because this is a very hard problem. I think it is the hardest problem in America today when it comes to cities across the country. So, thank you for everybody who came and spoke and for giving us your passion and your commitment to continue to make Santa Fe a better place when it comes to addressing these really hard issues. And staff, I continue to be incredibly grateful for all the work you do that is never acknowledged because it's going on every single day in meetings with groups across the city and across the state and trying your best to come up with solutions that work for problems that are very hard. Thank you.

Mayor: I'd like to call for the question. Mayor, remind me what that's non-debatable, but it has to be voted on. Let's have a second. Two-thirds vote.

Is there a second? Second. All right, we have a second. Non-debatable and requires a two-thirds vote. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll on calling?

Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes.
Councilor Michael Garcia: Yes.
Councilor Lindell:
Councilor Marworth: Yes.
Councilor Cassett: Yes.
Councilor C: Oops.
Councilor Chavez:
Councilor Faulkner: Yes.
Mayor Weber: Yes.

Motion is approved. With that vote, would you please call the roll on the motion as made?

Councilor Chavez: Yes.
Councilor Faulkner: Yes.
Councilor Lee Garcia: Yes.
Councilor Michael Garcia: No. And I'd like to explain my vote.
Councilor Lindell:
Councilor Romero: Yes.
Councilor Cassid: Yes. And I'd like to explain my vote.
Mayor Weber: Yes. And I would like to explain my vote.

Motion is approved.

Councilor Garcia, you have the floor, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want the interfaith community and volunteers to know that the work that you conducted the past 15 years is felt. It will continue to be felt. I'll continue to support you in your missions as you move forward. I think this sends the wrong message to our community-based organizations that an emergency can be declared and we don't even have the appropriate outreach to see if any other local community-based organization can provide such critical services to our most vulnerable in our community.

I just want to say something real fast, Mayor. I see city staff leaving and we're doing the outreach with Councilor Castro when we get when we bring her back in. I don't know who are probably, yeah, we had park staff, I think, that has left, which would probably may be relevant to her questions. I don't know.

I wonder if we could go quickly find a way to maybe Councilor Lindell may be able to do a little wrangling. And Councilor Cassid, you asked to explain your vote.

Yes, I did. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to state that this was quite the hard decision, especially since I heard from such a large number of individuals in the community that I know either personally or professionally or both, and who I very much respect and know that this has been really incredible work. A lot of my perspective comes from my representation of my constituents who are along that Cerrillos Road corridor, and it's not a tenable situation. And at this point, I find it very necessary in my responsibility to represent them to see what differences we can make. And I know we'll be able to have a bit further discussions around my expectations around how we evaluate that and make sure that we are either spending our money very well or stop spending it in that manner. But that is to come. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. I want to again applaud everyone who came out tonight and all of the comments and the deep commitment that exists in Santa Fe. It's a testimony to our community, and it's a remarkable counterpoint to what, as Director Hammond Paul said, other cities around this country are doing, which is to do everything they can to stick their heads in the sand and hope this problem goes away. The only way we're going to make life better for our homeless residents and for the neighbors and the businesses affected by homelessness is by adding more resources and by adding more possible solutions, more options, and more models, and to continue to work with everyone who wants to be a partner with us.

I'm reminded that President Obama used to have a sign on his desk that said, "Hard things are hard." This is a hard thing, and the decisions are hard, and the work is hard, and we're going to keep at it. We're going to keep working to make it better for everybody. Whether you're suffering from being unsheltered or you're feeling the impact of that, we want to make, we want to, we want to solve both those problems simultaneously, and we want to maintain a consistent and bold effort and a compassionate effort every step of the way. So, thank you everybody for coming tonight and thank you for continuing the work going forward. That said, Madame Clerk, can we go to item B and we'll bring all of our councilors back in.

Mr. Mayor, while we're waiting for the councilors to come back, can we discuss just how we're going to move forward with items C and D given the late hour? It's 12:30. We've got three items left. I don't know about you, but I've been up since 5:00 a.m. and continuing to work like this, it's not fair to councilors, it's not fair to the public, it's not fair to staff. So, I'd like to recommend we hear item B and then postpone items C and D to a future meeting.

Well, let's get all of our councilors back in here so everybody can have a chance to be a partner in this. My sense is that the level of the dialogue we had about item A may or may not be as deep with the other items since there was so much in-depth discussion overall about the larger issues here. But, I don't know if Councilor, did anybody spot Councilor Lindell? Okay. You're back and we're on item B. Thank you. Just a quick question. Did Interfaith address any of its current operations regarding complaints against them?

No.

Okay. We weren't, nor were they asked, by the way. Can we read, maybe we need to read the next item. We need to get a motion. Then we need to, to Councilor Garcia's point, we need to see whether this is a, what, what the length of this dialogue is.

8B. Request for approval of a service contract in the amount of $7,948,133.59 with Urban Alchemy for street outreach and community-based public safety services for a term of four years.

Motion to approve.

Second.

There's a motion and a second. Councilor Castro, I appreciate you had to step out for the first item, but I'd defer to you. I think the proposal is familiar to you. If you have specific questions you'd like to address, I'd give you the floor.

I think that, in particular, my concern with any service provider in the city has to do with accountability and how we deal with complaints once those arise. Inevitably, when we're dealing with this kind of population, we have bad actors and folks who probably shouldn't be dealing with at-risk folks. So, how would Alchemy deal with folks who potentially could be committing harm to this community?

If our Urban Alchemy folks from out of town could step up to the microphone, I suspect you may be asked a number of questions, not just this one.

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Castro, if I could just answer briefly on behalf of the city. Hello. There we go. Sorry, if I, if I can just prior to Urban Alchemy answering on, on the city's behalf, there are, and I'm not a contracting expert, so I may defer to city attorney about the grounds for termination. But there, there is clear stipulations in our contracts that allow for termination for cause, and what you articulate as the type of cause, it seems to me well within what the city would terminate a contract for.

Thank you, Director. We'll have an internal process. Yeah, the internal process just for my information. Thank you. Could you please, I, from, could you just give us a quick repeat of the question?

Definitely. So, my question to Urban Alchemy is, if there is a problem that were to arise, someone in our community feels that they have been wronged by one of your staff members, what is the process by which you would correct that?

So, there are multiple channels first to get that message to us, and thank you for the question. So, someone could reach out directly if there's a, if there's a guest, so we have a guest engagement policy that outlines staff and client guest. If it's a shelter, we're talking about outreach here. So, I'm going to talk more so for, for a client outreach client. If they have any complaint, they could formally put in a grievance. We have a grievance process that gets received, and we create a ticket. It was an EV system. Our HR department, if it's, depending on the level, it'll go to either our HR, well, it goes to HR. It'll be done either by HR operations. We have employee resolution. Then we also have a GC that'll look at different things. We have to give a formal response within 14 days. Okay. To the, to the complainant. And then we always try to solve it at the lowest level. There's those complaints can be given directly to a supervisor, director of operations, who is on the ground, or folks can sit, you know, on our, on our website, there's an email address, this kind of general information that, that comes through daily for various other things.

Perfect. I appreciate that, and it seems like a pretty, I mean, 14 days is a quick turnover, so we'll keep our eye on that, and I would request from Director Heman Paul if those numbers could be a part of that report back that we were suggesting.

No further question. Did you hear the comment?

Yes, and I believe it actually is articulated in, well, I, I'll, I'll double check, but I believe that is, yes, is the short answer.

Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

No, sir. Thank you. I have a follow-up to that just based on information received from some of those that have been served in the shelter who may have been vocal about some concerns, and there seemed to be some, I want to say consequences, but that's probably not accurate, but maybe just a change in how they were approached after a report. So, how are those individuals protected so that there's not any, what's the word? Retaliation. Because we're talking about a vulnerable population that often feels silenced enough. And when, so, two things. How do you create safety so that they feel safe enough to advocate for themselves and post a report? How does the privacy or the situation be dealt with in a way that they still feel welcomed and not judged in any way for reporting, right?

And thank you for that question. So, confidentiality is a must, right? So, when we see that complaint, there's a chain of custody on that. So, it should only go to leadership. With that, leadership is trained on how to handle those sensitive situations. You know, in certain events, and I didn't touch this, folks will be, if we find that we have a bad actor, I mean, we hold people accountable and will be terminated. We have folks that have been terminated. That being said, just from other staff that might look at a whistleblower, right, for lack of better terms, we have a policy around that as well, and folks will be held accountable if we receive any of that information that that is happening, and we'll make the appropriate changes necessary.

And how easily accessible is that grievance process? Is it just verbal, written?

And it's written. Usually it's written. So, like at a shelter, we have it written and posted. At any office we have, we have it posted everywhere. So, it's like they're well informed, all of the guests or clients. There's a policy, there's a form there, you know, there's a policy, there's an actual form, and then there's actual guidelines for leadership to receive it.

Great. Thank you, Council Garcia.

I'm sorry. Can I add something to that?

Absolutely.

Or as Director of Community-Based Public Safety, we encourage any neighbor, any guest, any individual who has a serious complaint, do you want an ambulance and do you want the police? And we would encourage you to call the police so that they can make a thorough investigation. That's first and foremost. I wanted to make sure that I added that to that.

Thank you, Councilor Garcia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I'm going to get down to brass tacks. Where's the money coming from this? The reason I ask is just recently we went through a very in-depth budgeting process, and many in this, and even the public can remember that it was very tough for us to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find $600,000 for an extra parks workers park workers team.

And now we're coming forward with a contract with the value of $8 million, roughly $1.9 million per year. We gave an initial one-time funding allotment. That's not going to cover all of this. So, where is the additional funds going to come from?

Mayor: Councilor Garcia, thank you for the question. I think the ticket price for all of these items is of critical importance and one that many people have brought up. So, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. So, $1.35 million was appropriated for this during one-time funding. And the city, given the critical nature, city staff, given the critical nature of the situation that we're dealing with, has, in conversation with counselors, where the city manager and I briefed, notified counselors that the intention is to reprioritize previously allocated funds for homelessness services towards this contract. So, for instance, at this moment, we have funds that are to purchase up to 100 pallet units. We are looking to reprioritize partial bits of that money to fund this year's this contract in part. Also, I want to be very clear. I have submitted with city manager and copy formal proposals to the Department of Workforce Solutions at the state requesting support for these initiatives, and there's funding requests in there as well.

Okay. So, from what I just heard, through some moving of funds, we were able to cover the first year, but there's not any identified source for years two, three, or four. Is that correct?

Mayor: Councilor Garcia, the first year is covered in full, and we are working to identify and make sure that we can cover additional years.

Okay. So, to me, that's problematic, especially when we don't have money. So, that means, in essence, we enter into this contract, we're going to have to find $1.9 million from somewhere. Very, very, very concerning to me. That's bad fiscal management. Now, this went through the typical procurement process, correct? Okay, thank you for that.

Urban Alchemy, questions for you all. So, I've had many, many, many concerns from constituents regarding some of the litigation that your organization is engaged in. And the question arises, what makes us different where there's not going to be any litigation? There's not going to be any instances where people might be put in a situation where they are harmed, injured under the oversight of your teams or employees. So, how can we guarantee that that's not going to happen, what's happened in either California, Oregon, or some of the other locations? So, the question, the synopsis is, what makes us different? You guys are facing litigation in other states. The last thing my constituents want is to bring in an organization where it could compromise the most vulnerable members of our community. So, how can you guarantee that that is not going to happen here?

Well, thank you for the question. I think it's an important question. As we talked about a little bit of our process, if there's a complaint that's made and the process that we would follow relative to, as I said earlier, the frivolous complaints and lawsuits that I refer to that were mentioned earlier, they were just that. If you're asking me how do I respond to more frivolous complaints, I'd say we respond the same way by continuing to challenge what was said, take it to court, and prove that we were innocent.

Okay. So, you stated they're frivolous. Have those cases been closed?

No.

Okay. So, the judge has not ruled.

We have closed some. Yes. And then some are currently we're fighting.

Okay. So, I do find exception to say that they're frivolous if a judge has not ruled on certain matters. So, fair enough. And because it's our responsibility as counselors to ensure we're entering into a contract that is intended to provide support and services, that we're not entering into a contract that is ultimately going to hurt folks that are the most vulnerable. So, with that being said, thank you for that.

City attorney, question for you. How do I propose an amendment to this contract?

Counselors, you would make a motion to amend. But there is always, so what's in front of you is a signed contract by Urban Alchemy that was a product of a competitive procurement subject to an RFP. So, any amendments would have to be consistent with the city's RFP and consistent with the response to that RFP. So, they would be somewhat limited what would be possible.

Okay. So, I guess I'll make the motion, and if my motion is out of order with the RFP, we'll have that discussion. So, I would like to make the motion that we lower this contract year to have it be a two-year contract versus a four-year contract. And we require that the city manager and Urban Alchemy come before the governing body on a six-month basis to report the actions of this project. So, I'll make that motion.

I'm going to second that for discussion.

Yeah, Council. But hang on a second. We haven't actually moved to discussion yet. There's a motion, there's a second. I think there was Councilor Garcia quite appropriately said we need to do a check to make sure that it falls within the bounds, is permitted within the RFP. Right. It would be useful since we don't have it in writing in front of us. Could you just say it one more time?

Sure. So, right now the contract is a four-year service contract. My proposal is to make that a two-year service contract with an additional requirement of having the city manager and Urban Alchemy staff provide an update to the governing body every six months upon the signing of this contract. So, contract gets signed, for example, today, six months from now, city manager and Urban Alchemy come provide us an update on a year from now, provide us an update. That way, we can, as a governing body, be able to track and see any potential progress. And when we start to get closer to that two-year timeframe, we have a clear indicator if this is working. And if it's not, I think given the high value of this contract, the way our budget is, we are stretched thin on the budget, it's incumbent of us to be fiscally responsible and say, "Hey, if this is not working, this $4 million that we had committed can go elsewhere, whether it's affordable housing, mental health support services." I mean, there's a whole list of items that where this money can be invested. And I believe it's incumbent and fiscally responsible of us to ensure that. And by no means am I saying you're not going to do what you're doing. I just want to ensure that there's accountability in place. And if there's not, we have that clear off-road. And I know there's going to, staff's going to say, "Well, it's in the language already." Well, folks know how hard it is to terminate a contract. It's not as easy as saying we want to terminate it. There's formal bureaucratic red tape, litigated processes that can ultimately continue to draw this out. And I think having that clear delineation of two years, if this is not working in two years, we would say, "Thank you, Urban Alchemy, for your service. We are going to part ways." If it's working, "Thank you, Urban Alchemy, for your service. We would like you to continue." So, I think it's responsible for us to take that route. Thank you.

I think that gave the city attorney a chance to look at the RFP.

Counselors, I did start to look through it. It does call for a four-year contract on page 18 of the packet.

Right. So, with that question, in my line of work where I work with contracts all the time and RFPs, even if it's in the RFP, that's the parameters. We cannot do anything above four years. There's nothing that would restrict us from doing anything less than because the entities have to be able to protect themselves where, you know, if there was a pandemic, for example, we put out RFPs, entities are have the ability to maneuver and say, "Yes, we, at the time, we thought we had the money to do four years. We actually only have the money to do two years. We still need the services." There's that allowability to enter into those type of contracts.

So, and Mayor, counselors, we have in all of our contracts an appropriations clause, which is required for multi-year contracts, which allows the city to cancel contracts if there's insufficient appropriations. And that's on page five of the contract.

Correct. But we're talking about the procurement award process, not the already post-award.

Mayor: Councilor, I thought you were mentioning not having enough funding on the initial pre-award.

So, the example I gave is we put out an RFP to say we had $10 million available for an up to four-year contract. If we put out the award pre-approval for a two-year contract, $2 million, there's, from my understanding of procurement, there's nothing that prohibits us from doing that. We couldn't go beyond what we said we were going to do.

Mayor: Councilor, it doesn't say up to four. It says a four-year contract.

Still, I mean, it's that's what people bid on is the point. Is there any other discussion of the motion or Councilor, actually, Councilor Mayworth, you had raised your hand for discussion.

Was I, I recall, and does this, it's a four-year contract, does it renew every year or do we have to approve it to renew or we just have to fund it?

Counselors, this particular one says four years.

Okay. And so, the only way we would get out of it is if money wasn't appropriated to.

Mayor: Counselors, no, there's a termination clause that allows for other types of termination, including breach and convenience or so breach would be cause, but it allows for convenience or cause. And that was the same language that was included, I believe, in the sample contract, but I don't have a copy of the sample contract here, but that is our standard language. It's not attached in the packet, but it was attached in the original RFP.

Okay. But if we didn't fund it in, say, the third year, we could get out of it.

Counselors, if there's insufficient appropriations, there is a termination clause for that reason. Yes.

That's all I have.

Mayor: Thank you. I think Councilor Cassidy's hand is up.

Thank you, Mayor. I that that was my question as well around if we find it to, I mean, if in six months we're saying, "Hey, this isn't looking like it's working," can we just yank the funding and there goes the contract?

Mayor: Counselors, I think we'd have to look at the specific circumstances there. There's been some new case law about contract termination under certain circumstances. So, I think it would really depend on what you mean by it's not working. But if it's a breach, absolutely.

Okay. So, but we do fund annually. So, it looks like in a year, even, we would have that opportunity to take a look at our contract funding, and it is determined based on appropriations by the governing body, which we do on an annual basis.

Counselor, that's correct.

Okay, thank you. And I believe Councilor Faulkner had her hand up.

Now, just briefly, I know that earlier in the presentation, Director Hammond Paul, we had talked about, well, you had mentioned that there'd be reporting that you would meet with UA bi-weekly. And then I think Councilor Chavez had made a request that you would report to the governing body monthly in the beginning. I think it's important that we do have reporting to the full governing body in that we all, we don't all serve on all the committees, basically. And so, if we go to a singular committee, some members can show up, option to show up, but I do think as a total governing body, it'd be good to get those reports. And I'm, I feel confident that those reports will allow us the opportunity to track how the contract is running and if they're providing the services they said they were going to and if it's being effective and all the questions we've had tonight.

And so I just wanted to note that we've already talked about reporting and how to make sure that we hold the contractor accountable. Thank you, Council. Yeah, that's what I wanted to emphasize. I know Councilor Michael Garcia requested every six-month reporting, but Director opened up with saying that we would get reports monthly, similar to how we've received reports when we were resolving the audit situation with Emily Oster. So the reporting is going to be more frequent than what was requested.

Yes, Councilor Garcia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just to stay in that kind of lane, if we're going to get monthly reports, then I'd ask Urban Alchemy to come to the table every month. So, no problem. Okay. So, because of what I just heard around lack of availability of funding is a way for us not to fund this. That is very, I want to fully understand how we could, in a situation, not fund this. So, and so what I want to explore is how would we do that? Because if we're going through the budget process and we see that this is not working, we can't just say we're not going to fund this contract, but we're going to put, could we bring in another contract to supplement those services where there is funding available? I mean, that to say lack of funding is, I find it very easy for Urban Alchemy to say, "You all got lots of money. You're spending money in every which way." How are we going to justify lack of funding as a means to not fund them every year? How would we do that? However, if the contract is not working according to the terms of the contract, then you should find a breach of the contract. Okay? And breach is based on the performance measures. But if it's not a breach, then and we just don't want to move forward with it, how do we justify a lack of funding?

Mayor: Councilor, it talks about sufficient appropriations being made by the governing body.

Again, how would the governing body justify that?

Mayor: Councilor, this clause doesn't call for justification.

So, we just say, "Urban Alchemy, we're not funding you this year. There's not enough money." And that would legally stand.

Mayor: That is what this term calls for.

Okay. Just want to ensure we're getting that guidance should that happen in the future because my, again, my concern is that this is a multi-million dollar contract. This is not $25,000 per year. This is $2 million per year in a day and age where those $2 million can buy five parks teams. And again, I've got the concern where the money is going to come from from the onset. That's not chump change. That's $2 million. Where are we going to pull this out of next year? This is my concern is that we are committing to a major investment and we are busting at the seams in a quote-unquote flat budget process. I'm very concerned with this and that's why I want us to take the approach, be fiscally responsible to say, "We'll try this out for two years at the cost of $4 million. If it's not working, we have an easy off-ramp versus having to go through the, 'Well, is it a breach of contract? Is there a lack of funding?'" It's clear-cut that it's a two-year process. It's a two-year pilot program.

Pass 10 minutes. Mr. Councilor Lee Garcia.

Thank you. I second it for discussion and I think that I have those concerns about spending money that we don't necessarily have, but appropriated. And yet, I do feel confident that if things are working, we'll find the resources to get this done. And if it's not working, then I think we come together as a governing body to discuss why it's not working and we come and make another hard decision and pivot. And so, with that, I don't know if there's any other discussion, but I'll call the question on that second.

There's calling of the question. Could you call the roll?

Okay. Councilor Maroworth. Yes. Councilor Casset. Yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Chavez, yes. Councilor Faulkner, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Mr. Cwell. Yes. Mayor Weber. Yes. Motion is approved.

Very good. Now we have a motion, a proposal in front of us, to amend the contract and you should call the vote, call the roll on that motion. A yes vote means it's amended and no vote means it's not. Councilor Casset, no. Councilor Castro, no. Councilor Chavez, no. Councilor Faulkner, no. Councilor Lee Garcia, no. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Maroworth. No. Mayor Weber. No. Motion does not pass.

Very good. Now we have to go back to the proposal in front of us, which is the contract, and for which we have a motion and a second. If you could call the roll.

One last question, Mr. Mayor. Director Ham and Paul, we have a similar program within the city called the Alternative Response Unit. $7.9 million invested in that program can go a great distance and it would build capacity within city government. We have the ability, when you bring in an outside entity, you heard firsthand, they're going to call PD, right? They're going to, just like you or I or anybody else, they're going to pick up their phone and call PD, call fire, whatever it is. When you have an in-house operation like ARU, there's internal communications that can be done. So, why are we not investing this $7.9 million in the ARU?

Mayor Weber, Councilor Michael Garcia, I believe the fire department can speak to that. I will just say, as I said during the budget hearings, I fully, as neither the park rangers nor the ARU nor fire department nor police report to my department, but that said, I fully, full-throated endorsement of funding them to the fullest capacity because these are essential partners in all of this work. With regard to the specific question though, Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, it's a good question. I don't, you don't have an answer. I don't have a, so, right.

So, was, I guess, was it ever proposed? Could your department use roughly $8 million to expand the ARU? Could, if you, if you had the decision, could your department use that money to expand the ARU?

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, it would be possible. It would probably take us two or three years to get that off the ground. It wouldn't be overnight, so it would take a long time. But anything's possible. I mean, that's a lot of money, but it wouldn't be a flip of a switch, you know?

Right. Understandable. But it's possible, right? Is it an investment worth, I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I believe it's an investment worth making.

Mayor Weber, Councilor Micah Garcia, I think one thing that's an important consideration here is that, and this has come up multiple times when departments have tried to increase staff, the difference between recurring funds and contracting funds makes it difficult. So, to establish full-time staff positions in any department would require that in perpetuity, as opposed to a contract which is for a set period of time. I think there's a lot of worlds in which we would love to have full capacity in staff positions, but just that difference, and I know because I've been asking for staff for a lot of things. So, that's just adding that in there.

Understandable, but that only holds true if we're bringing them on permanent staff. We've gotten very cozy with the term pilot. And if we said we're going to do a four-year pilot program to expand the ARU unit, it's only four years. We're going to throw $8 million at this. There's no reoccurring funds. So, just want to put that out there.

Can I, I'm sorry. Can I?

Sure. Sure. I'm done. I'll yield the floor.

Mr. Mayor: I just, I think it's, first of all, as Director Hammond Paul said, I think the ARU, which has been created under my watch, is a great part of our community service repertoire. That said, there's a basic, I disagree with the basic proposition that the ARU and the contract work called for in this item are identical. They're very different and we need them both. The presence of a trauma-informed group doing outreach and community-based intervention on an ongoing basis, physical presence on the street, not letting situations escalate, but in fact interrupting them before they get serious, before there is a man-down situation, which is what sometimes the ARU is called upon to respond to, is a different part of the continuum of care. We need them both. I think your question is well-intended in terms of pointing out just how many different circumstances our sidewalks, our streets, our medians are called upon to be patrolled for. But I don't, I don't think they're identical, Councilor. I think we need them both. And I think as we prioritize in the future increasingly social services as a key part of our city's mission, you and your colleagues will be in a position to make these priority judgments, but not just on a contract basis, but an ongoing basis. But from the get-go, I think the benefit of having this particular contract working in tandem with the ARU, with park rangers, with police, with fire, EMTs and others, is a complimentary service that we need. All of the above.

Personal call the question.

Second.

Okay. Another vote on calling the question, Madame Clerk, before we get to the vote on the motion. Councilor Casset, yes. Councilor Castro, no. Councilor Chavez, Councilor Faulkner, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia, no. And I'd like to explain my vote. Councilor Linda, oh, sorry, she has stepped. Councilor Romero, yes. Sorry. Mayor Weber, yes. Motion passes. Sorry, I thought it was a final vote. It's one o'clock in the morning. I forgot, was it a, I thought I had already voted on the call to question. You just did. Yes. Call to question. We did in fact pass that motion. So now we're ready to vote on the main motion. You could call the roll on that main motion.

Councilor Michael Garcia. No. And I would like to explain my vote. Councilor Romeroorth. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. I'd also like to explain my vote. Councilor Castro. Yes. And I would also like to explain my vote. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Mayor Weber. Yes. Motion is approved.

And we have several folks who would like to explain their votes. Councilor Garcia, you voted first, so why don't you go?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just think it's fiscally inappropriate of us to enter such a lengthy contract at a high dollar value when we've been directed by not only our economic advisor, but even city staff that we got to start tightening our belt, but we enter into a multi-year, nearly $9 million contract. And I think if we were going to begin to expend such resources, it needs to be invested in expanding the capacity of city government.

And Councilor Cassid, you asked to explain your vote.

Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. I know that this is a high-dollar contract. Again, given I've been talking about the Cerrillos Road corridor for a while. I was the only councilor that voted against the security contract downtown because I wanted it on the Cerrillos Road corridor, given that I think that that is where the real need is in this community. So if this does in fact work, I think it is a very worthwhile investment. I think it is a very good use of our dollars, given what the experiences have been for residents and businesses along the Cerrillos Road corridor. However, because we will be getting that reporting, I do think that we will need to be very honest with ourselves if it is not, and simply because we have started it, it does not mean we need to continue it.

And so that is going to be something that I want to make sure that we are very cautious of, that it works great investment. And if it doesn't, we need to be ready to adjust, as Councilor Lee Garcia said, but I think in a better word. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Counselor. Thank you so much.

I do want to thank staff and everyone who spent these last six hours with us in this room discussing some very important topics. In particular, I want to invite Councilor Garcia, Michael Garcia, to join some of the work that I've been doing with Chief Moya around the ARU. We recently made a connection with the Santo Domingo ARU, which started its second team. There's a lot of work to be done, and there's a lot of resources that we need to provide to that team. And we should not by any means look away from the work that paramedics are doing. They are doing amazing work and need support.

That being said, one of the reasons that I am sitting here at this day is the inaction of the Interfaith Shelter. For many, many years, I and other people in this community have put themselves at risk because we were not able to figure out what was happening in that corridor. I don't know if Urban Alchemy is going to be the solution, and I look to Urban Alchemy to tell you that I will be part of the conversation regularly. You will see my face in that area as much as humanly possible, and I hope that there isn't a place for folks who are being abusive towards our community on your staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor. I believe that did I miss anybody who wanted to explain their vote? Okay, we're up to Item C. I think we're moving pretty quickly. Councilor Castro, you wanted to step out. Could you read this item, please? And we're not going to be voting on Item D tonight. If you could take us through Item C, please.

Item 8C: Request for approval of emergency services contract with Urban Alchemy for the operation of a low-barrier 24-hour shelter at 2801 Cerrillos Road in the total amount of $1,500,000 through July 31st, 2026.

Second.

Thank you. Is there, I don't even know how to do this at this hour. Councilor Garcia, did you want to ask any questions about this item? We'll just go down the line quickly.

Just going to make a comment. I know there's been questions around emergency procurement. I know there's been questions about a lot of things in regards to this. And I talk a little bit about setting the fence post and getting started building the fence. That doesn't say that sometimes you have to readjust the fence or take it down and rebuild it, or there's different analogies that I can use. But this is part of, I don't see how we cannot go forward with something like this, given the fact that now we have also voted to terminate the lease. And so it's something that I believe that it's part of the whole package and it's been thought out by staff. And those are my thoughts on that at this point. And so, thank you, Counselor. I think your point's well taken that the first action almost requires the next action, although people can still vote against it if they don't want to.

Councilor Cassidy, any comments? Councilor Marworth? Councilor Faulkner? Councilor Garcia? Yes, go ahead.

So Urban Alchemy, I got a question for you all. But Director Paul Hammond, I got a question for you. As the Urban Alchemy team is making their way down, the item we just went over, the four-year contract or the safe public safety services, went through a typical non-emergency procurement process. Now this contract is coming before us under an emergency procurement process. Why? What differs? It's the same situation. Why an emergency procurement process for one and not for the other?

Mr. Mayor, Council Michael Garcia, thank you for the question. I will note that there are two distinct scopes of work, even though that they feel related. I believe in the presentation that I gave, the data and the trends of the data show that the acuteness of what is happening on the Cerrillos corridor right now at that specific location warranted the recommendations from staff about the need for certain types of action. This contract then is part of that articulation of those trends coming out of the data that we're seeing, which is showing the public health and public safety emergency. So I'm not sure if that answers your question in part, or if I can clarify anything, please let me know. My words are a little fading these moments.

Understandable. It's a very early in the morning hour. And I appreciate the response, but the data shows there has been an uptick, but it's not been an extreme swing, so to speak. And I think the same conditions that we're seeing around the area of each place were the same conditions that were seen six months ago, one year ago, 18 months ago. And so that is concerning to me that we did undergo an emergency procurement process, which as we heard from folks tonight during their testimony, there were probably providers that would have been willing to apply for this RFP if given the opportunity. And to me, that sets a very bad precedent, saying we don't want any local providers. And again, this is my opinion, and I don't want us to have our local community-based organizations say, "The city doesn't have faith or trust in us. They're just going to do an emergency procurement process and bring in an out-of-state entity," when we heard loud and clear from folks that are service providers, they would have been interested in applying. So that to me is concerning.

Now, question for Urban Alchemy teams. Under your, so this is for the Urban Alchemy team director. Under your oversight, will the guests or residents of the facility be allowed to use illegal drugs on site?

Good question, Council Member Garcia. No, they will not be allowed to use drugs on site.

Okay, thank you. Just wanted to get that. Bigger question, and I'll pose this to all four of you all. One can answer or all four, based off of what you heard from the nearly 100 folks providing testimony, with the many, many others providing public comment through the online process. What makes you a better operator than Interfaith? And you don't have to answer the question, but the one thing I don't want to, so thank you for the question. I don't want to degrade any to say better or worse. I think that we could bring a different approach, a fresh approach, and look forward to partnering with them in other spaces or maybe similar spaces. But I don't want to sit here and degrade another organization.

And by no means is my question meant to degrade an operator, because, and I by no means do I want to put words in your mouth, but there could be different types of models. There can be different strategies. Again, what makes you all, maybe it's, maybe instead of better, what makes you different?

I think from what we heard tonight, I think if we look at something simple as taking responsibility for the outside and the inside, that shows a difference. We have some experience, we talked about our experience in Austin, Texas, with taking over where there was a struggle, community struggle with the shelter, and coming in with a fresh approach, fresh voice, and taking that ownership and engagement on the outside as much as the inside, it made a world of difference. So I think that experience means a lot.

Thank you. I appreciate that. If I was to have answered that question, I would have said that Urban Alchemy is proven to reduce crime by 55% in the areas that we are located, and it is not simply displaced, but it is resolved through community-based efforts.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, you're good. I think that was the only questions. No, one last question. We talked about in the area, right? That whole area. What is your typical geographic area that you clean up? Because you talked, you just spoke to having the support to keep the inside clean or the outside clean just as good as the inside. What is the geographic area that you commit to on that?

Well, we want to, well, that's a great question, Council Member Garcia. Appreciate that. We want to start with the neighbor agreement and then agree upon there. So, I would say probably start with a thousand feet, and then if it needs to expand based on what we're starting to see, we'll go from there.

Okay. Because just, just a heads up, I'm, you all have been to the area, right? You all been to the site? Yeah. You know, a thousand feet is, it's a centimeter compared to a foot, and that we, there's a great, great need for improvement in that community. So I appreciate you with the thousand foot, but I think you know that good neighbor agreement, others might have a difference of opinion. So just a, just a forewarning on that.

Mr. Mayor, Councilor Garcia, I do want to say that the street outreach contract will complement those thousand feet by being directed to have outreach workers doing similar work on the entire length of, you know, of the geographic area that constitutes the corridor. That, you know, it's not geographically constrained necessarily, but from Airport Road through to Osage or somewhere thereabout. So that's a conversation that we develop with the operator. But those two contracts do complement in that it does, it's not like a thousand feet ends up being the end of the work, because there is this other separate, I believe that's the way they operate in other cities.

Okay. Thank you, Director. I appreciate that clarification. You have the floor, Mr. Burn.

Thank you, Counselor. Counselor, any other comments or questions? Madam Clerk, would you like to call the roll on the motion?

Councilor Chavez, yes. Councilor Faulkner, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia. Councilor Marth, yes. Councilor Cassett, yes. Mayor Weber, yes.

Motion is approved. Councilor Garcia, explain your vote, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I voted no solely on the fact that I believe there are local providers that could have provided the same support services for this shelter. With that being said, I do wish Urban Alchemy all the best because they are going to be providing critical services to the most vulnerable in our community. Thank you, sir.

Now, I note that the last item is not really an item for voting. Is there any reason we could not simply declare the meeting or agenda completed for the night? However, Counselor, I think if no one wants to speak to the matter, then I don't think there's any reason. Anyone want to speak to the matter? No, I think we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.