Quality of Life Committee Wed, Sep 3, 2025 · Quality of Life Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/813 == Executive Summary == The Santa Fe Quality of Life Committee held a wide-ranging meeting covering housing affordability, police community engagement tools, and budget process reforms. On housing, the committee heard from Housing New Mexico (MFA) about the severity of Santa Fe's affordability crisis—only 8.6% of renters can afford the median home price of around $600,000, and 60% of renters earning under $50,000 are cost-burdened. Over 1,000 affordable housing units worth $424 million are in the development pipeline. Councilors raised concerns about whether county-level projects are being counted toward city goals, the accuracy of project timelines, and the need for better communication between the city and MFA. The Santa Fe Police Department presented its new Axon my90 community feedback tool, which collects post-contact surveys from residents following police interactions. Between June and August, the top community concerns were homelessness, drug use, and theft, with increased police visibility being the most requested improvement. Councilors debated how to share the data publicly while protecting an internal culture of improvement rather than punishment, and noted that the current survey pool is limited to people who called police—raising selection bias concerns. The committee also advanced a significant budget process reform through Resolution 2025-TBD, which moves the city toward performance-based budgeting with clearer departmental accountability and community engagement. An amendment sponsored by Councilors Romero Worth and Michael Garcia was approved unanimously, and the full resolution passed 5-0. The committee also postponed one consent agenda item to September 17th to allow more time for amendment drafting. A new Human Services Director will begin September 15th, bringing experience in homelessness services and community engagement. == Key Decisions == - Agenda approved unanimously (5-0) - Consent agenda approved as amended (5-0); Item E postponed to the September 17th Quality of Life Committee meeting, with cascading schedule changes to Finance Committee (September 22nd) and Governing Body (September 24th) - Clarified that shelters (youth, family, and St. Elizabeth) are included in MFA program analysis based on funding involvement - Confirmed single-family homes and properties up to 4 units are eligible for down payment assistance programs - Agreed to improve communication between the city and MFA on development pipeline data to better support land use planning - Deputy Chief Valdez will send updated SFPD Axon my90 PowerPoint to Marcella for upload to Civic Clerk - Aggregate data will be prioritized over individual feedback for any public sharing of SFPD survey results - Amendment A to the 2026-27 budget proposal (sponsored by Councilors Romero Worth and Michael Garcia) approved - Budget process reform resolution passed unanimously (5-0) as amended, adopting performance-based budgeting with community engagement requirements - Governing body to adopt the 2026-27 budget in May, with state submission to follow - Equipment ordered and work scheduling timelines established with emergency on-call contractor BND == Motions & Votes == - Approve meeting agenda — Passed 5-0 - Approve consent agenda as amended (Item E postponed to September 17th Quality of Life Committee meeting) — Passed 5-0 - Postpone Item E to September 17th Quality of Life Committee meeting — Passed unanimously - Approve Amendment A to the 2026-27 budget proposal (sponsored by Councilors Romero Worth and Michael Garcia) — Passed (vote count not specified) - Approve budget process reform resolution (performance-based budgeting with community engagement) as amended — Passed 5-0 == Public Comment == Public comment was largely provided by councilors rather than members of the general public. Councilor Castro raised concerns about timeline accuracy for housing projects and the need for greater community transparency, and emphasized a collaborative approach to budget decisions. Councilor Garcia advocated for stronger workforce housing support and questioned whether county projects should count toward city housing goals. Councilor Chavez supported using roundtable discussions for community budget engagement based on past success, and cautioned against using SFPD feedback data punitively rather than for internal improvement. Councilor Falner advocated for quarterly reporting and treating the public as a 'fourth branch of government' with access to council-level budget information. Director Hman flagged selection bias in the SFPD survey tool, noting respondents are limited to people who called police. Councilor Gastra requested best practices from larger cities and noted the small sample size of 137-199 survey respondents. Finance Director Rod Gold noted flexibility in budget engagement design and suggested multiple methods including commissions, surveys, and interactive budget tools. Community members submitted positive feedback about specific SFPD officers, including Officer Martinez, Officer Still, and Officer Miller, praising compassionate and trauma-informed service. == Topics == - Housing New Mexico Programs - Santa Fe Housing Needs - Affordable Housing Pipeline - Lamplighter Project Timeline - Budget Process Reform - Community Engagement Strategy - Landlord Incentive Programs - Homelessness Support Services - Home Rehabilitation Programs - Public Participation in Governance - Ice Rink Repairs - Community Events Announcements - Consent Agenda Approval - New Human Services Director - EOC Emergency Training == Full Transcript == Committee meeting to order. May I please get a roll call? Councilor Garcia: Present. Councilor Chavez: Here. Councilor Bachner: Here. Madam Chair: I am here and Councilor Castro is excused until she enters the room and she should be here soon. Moving on to approval of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda tonight? And if not, can I get a motion? Councilor: Motion to approve. Motion and a second. Can I please roll call, please? Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Garcia: Yes. Councilor Faulner: Yes. Madam Chair: Yes. And Councilor Castro has entered the room. We are approving the agenda. Councilor Castro: Yes. Perfect. Motion passes. All right, moving on to consent. There were no items pulled ahead of time, but we are going to go ahead and pull item E to postpone it until the next quality of life committee meeting. So let's approve the consent agenda as amended and then we'll get there when we get there. Item E is now pulled. Councilor: Second. Motion and a second. Roll call, please. Councilor Castro: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Garcia: Yes. Councilor Faulner: Yes. Madam Chair: Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. All right, let's move to our presentations. Our first is a Housing New Mexico presentation. I do not see Izzy Hernandez here, but we do have Robin Pal here, the senior director of policy and planning at Housing New Mexico. I am very excited to have you all here. I had an opportunity to meet with both Robin and Izzy to discuss what some of the programs are that are impacting housing across the state as well as where there are opportunities as a municipality that we maybe should be thinking about. So thank you so much for being here and I will hand it over to you. Robin Pal: Thank you for the invitation and thank you for allowing us to come and speak to this committee. We just prepared a brief presentation and then I'd be happy to answer any questions. On our first slide, we just did a little summary of some housing needs in Santa Fe. This data mostly comes from our housing needs assessment, which we update every year. It's a statewide report that we put out so that local jurisdictions can do a deep dive on the things that are pertaining to their local needs. Some of the things that we pulled out were that during the five-year period from 2017 to 2022, Santa Fe's population grew by about 4.2%, which is faster than the state as a whole with a rate of 1.1% for New Mexico. Also in Santa Fe, 40% of unit vacancy is attributed to seasonal, recreational, or occasional use, which is higher than the state's overall vacancy rate of 30.1%. In Santa Fe, almost 60% of renters who earn less than $50,000 are cost-burdened, which means that they pay more than 30% of their income towards their housing. This is also higher than the state, which is 47.7%. So no surprise that housing is super expensive in Santa Fe. And only 8.6% of renters in Santa Fe can afford to purchase a median-priced home, which here is nearly $600,000. The rest of the state has a median-priced home much lower at $345,000 and about 13.5% of renters can afford to make that purchase. This really shows how difficult it is to enter into home ownership. There are lots of reasons for that which we can certainly talk about, but that's just a summary of where we are based on the data. On the next slide, I was really happy to see this because this is the rental development pipeline for Santa Fe. This is new affordable housing that's coming online. Affordable housing means that people who live in something that has subsidies that go along with it so that their rent does not exceed 30% of their income. So it means that it's truly affordable. You can see by this chart that more than 1,000 units are in development within Santa Fe, which equals about $424 million in investment. In the chart on the very far right, you can see when we say "placed in service," that's when we anticipate that these developments will be fully constructed and ready for people to move into them. So it looks great for Santa Fe from the perspective of new housing inventory that's coming online in this area. On slide four, we just wanted to give an overview of some of the programs that Housing New Mexico offers. Some of our flagship programs are homeownership programs. Our first mortgage programs work in conjunction with our down payment assistance programs. We know that saving for a down payment is one of the toughest barriers for people to enter into the home buyer market, especially when they're cost-burdened and they're not able to save a lot of money for a down payment. With our first home mortgage, this is offered for people who have not previously owned a home or there are some other caveats to that. These are usually around 100 basis points or one point below what the market interest rates are. So we have a little bit more competitive interest rate which brings payments down. And then we also provide the down payment assistance so that people don't have to come up with several thousand dollars in cash. Rather, they can borrow that from us and pay it back over a 15, 20, or 30-year period. We have first home and then we have Home Now and Home Forward, which are for borrowers who may not be first-time home buyers but can still qualify for our programs. The Home Now DPA is also an additional amount of down payment assistance that can also be used to help with closing costs. On the next slide, we review our housing preservation program. We know that there is a lot of housing stock in New Mexico and in Santa Fe as a whole that is aging and can become unsafe for people to live in. So we offer weatherization programs as well as homeowner rehabilitation and then a program called Restoring Our Communities in which we provide funding for providers to acquire, rehabilitate, and then resell single-family properties. This program is kind of targeted to infill projects and things like that. Our weatherization program provides energy-saving measures and home repairs. This is a grants program that is no cost to the occupants and can really extend the use of a home and also keep that home energy efficient, warm, cool, and all of those things. Our homeowner rehabilitation is for low to moderate income households who own their home and who need rehabilitation. These are all statewide programs. On the next slide, we just provided a little before and after of a home that was rehabilitated. This family was living in a house that didn't have a functioning bathroom. They had to go next door to use the shower. Through one of our programs, they were able to complete a full rehabilitation. They also learned that there was a gas leak that was causing health issues in this home. They just knew they were having problems. This program also provided the funding to bring the house fully up to code and helped the family's long-term safety and health outcomes. We're lucky enough to see the impact of these on a daily basis and what it means for people to be able to have investment in their home so that it is safe and inhabitable for their families. On the next slide, when we have residents in New Mexico and Santa Fe who are facing the most severe challenges, there are resources out there for them as well. We know that job loss creates housing insecurity. There are a lot of unforeseen circumstances that can lead families and individuals to face homelessness. Our programs offer support for homeless shelter operations and emergency assistance, including emergency rental assistance. We have state-funded housing voucher programs as well as federally-funded housing vouchers through Section 8. We have programs that support recovery housing for people that are in recovery. And then we also offer programs that provide landlord incentives to try to bring more units online. If there's a landlord who may not be able to invest in their property to get it up to a healthy living standard, then we can provide some of that equity for them. That will definitely create one more affordable housing unit in our state. On the next slide, which is our last slide, we listed here some of the providers in Santa Fe that we work with who serve vulnerable populations. You're probably familiar with a few of these, but they're great partners and are really doing the work to help our neighbors here find the resources that they need to be able to come out of homelessness. That's the end of our slides. We offer about 40 different programs across the housing continuum from helping with homelessness all the way through homeownership and then homeowner preservation. I'd be happy to answer any questions the committee might have. Madam Chair: Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here and for giving us more information about everything that you guys have to offer. Questions, comments from the committee. Councilor Castro. Councilor Castro: Sure. I have quite a few questions, so if I take too long we can always come back around. Madam Chair: I'll pop the timer on you. Councilor Castro: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I had a few questions and let's start with the slide about the timeline in particular. If we look at the Belloose and the Lamplighter, we're saying October of this year. Is that correct for that to go online? Robin Pal: Madam Chair and Councilor Castro, that is the timeline that we have. Our expected timeline. I know that's been a long project and we're still on that timeline. Councilor Castro: Will you give us an update on the project? Robin Pal: Councilor Castro, I don't know that I can give you a lot of details on it other than to say that it's still a project that is viable and coming online. I don't know that I can answer too many more specifics, but I can definitely provide a more detailed update in writing. Councilor Castro: That would be excellent. And so is it fair to say that these are aspirational timelines and not all of these might be 100% accurate? Just because I know that there has been some concern about transparency in the community and us updating the community. Maybe Director Paul, is this a question for you? Director Paul: Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, can you repeat the question, please? Councilor Castro: Are these aspirational timelines something we can count on? Director Paul: Yeah. Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, I think with regard to the Lamplighter project, there are MFA stakeholders clearly involved at the table. I think it's important that there are multiple stakeholders. It's a pretty complex funding mechanism where we have the county, the city, the state as well as philanthropies contributing to the capital stack. And at least in terms of the city's perspective on how our funds are being used and contributed to the project, I believe it's through June 2026 that we're expecting them to be expended. So that timeline doesn't initially align with what we're saying, but again that might be something that MFA and the city and the county can work out and provide an update on. # Housing Committee Meeting Transcript **Chair:** Wonderful. So I would definitely like an update on that if possible. I think the community members would as well. And so I do have a few questions around these at-risk populations. Landlord incentives. Can you address a little bit what those incentives might look like and has that changed at all now that we are requiring folks to take vouchers or it is illegal to discriminate because of source of income? Does that play into this at all? **MFA Representative:** Thank you, Madam Chair and Councilor Castro. The landlord incentive programs that we offer, the statewide landlord incentive program, does require that the landlord rent to a voucher holder. Source of income discrimination wouldn't necessarily apply there in that context. This program is funded with state funding and so we have some discretion around how the program has been developed. It has initially been a pilot program, and so we're working with DFA to determine we're reaching the right people and also how much funding we'll have to continue this into the future. **Councilor Castro:** Well, one of the concerns that we had heard when implementing this new program around source of income was that there would be landlords that couldn't afford to come up to the standards. If there are landlords in that situation, could they use this program to potentially come up to standard? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair and Councilor, yes, that is exactly the purpose. **Councilor Castro:** Perfect. Thank you so much. Just wanted to make that crystal clear in case there are any landlords that need a little bit of support. The other question I have is that we're looking at shelters—youth and family shelters and St. Elizabeth shelter. Are we not considering shelters as places that are congregate? So tell me why Consuelos is not part of this analysis. **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair and Councilor Castro, we listed the shelters that we work with. It could be that they're not receiving any funding through Housing New Mexico and so we didn't list them. They're not excluded for any other reason. **Councilor Castro:** Perfect. So it's not that there's a certain kind of shelter that you can fund or they're excluded in any way. Awesome. Thank you so much. Those are all the questions I had. Madam Chair, if I could just mention on the timelines because you had mentioned that when they have these tax credit subsidies included as part of the capital stack, there are deadlines and thresholds that do have to be met. And so these timelines are not merely aspirational. There's something that we have to achieve. **Chair:** That answered my question perfectly. Thank you so much. That makes me feel a lot better. **Chair:** Thank you so much. Any other questions, comments from members of the committee? Councilor Garcia. **Councilor Garcia:** Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation. I do hope that the city and MFA form a stronger partnership in the future, and I'd look forward to that. Same question around the development pipeline. I do see that Midtown's not on this list. That's a significant number of units that's coming online for the city. I know we don't have an anticipated deadline or placed in service timeline. I wish we did, but I just don't want to miss that you and your team are not counting on that because that's a major project for the city. There are some on this list that are in the county, which I'm okay with having them on the list, but I don't want the city to say, well, for example, Turquoise Trail—30 more units coming online—I don't want the city to feel like we're doing our work to fill the gap when that's actually in the county. The city has to work to bring affordable housing within the city limits. So I just want to bring that up. And then what I didn't see in this presentation, which I'm deeply interested in and probably maybe have a follow-up conversation with your team on, is workforce housing. That's a huge need for our community right now. What is MFA doing in regards to workforce housing? **MFA Representative:** Yes, thank you Madam Chair and Councilor Garcia. The majority of the people that we serve at MFA are in the workforce. They are home buyers, they are renters who may have a voucher but who work and have an income. In order to qualify for a housing voucher, you need to have some sort of income. With federal funding, we're more restricted as to who we can serve. Typically, federal funding allows you to go up to maybe 80% of area median income. We consider the workforce or missing middle probably between 80 and maybe 150% of area median income. We administer the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund, which is funded with state dollars, and with that funding we can go up to 115% of area median income. That's how we fund, and also with our own down payment assistance funds. I think we're restricted on the tax exempt bonds to go to about 115 to 120% of AMI. So that's who we are serving with that funding. Above 150% AMI is not something that we're necessarily considering. We do feel like those programs where we have the flexibility are meeting the needs of working families. They're not necessarily being denied because they're above that 80%. But I would also like to reiterate that most of the people who we serve are working families. **Councilor Garcia:** Gotcha. And by no means did I mean to imply that folks receiving support are not working. It's just more so based off the AMI level. And I think that's where, when we take into context, especially with the 80% AMI rate, you have critical professionals in our community, whether it's teachers, firefighters, police officers that just do not qualify because they make too much. When we push up the AMI to 150%, that still might not meet that catch-all, but it's still helpful with ensuring training opportunities for broader reach of the workforce. And so I would like to continue the conversation with you because I think that's where I feel the city can be doing a lot more work in regards to building support mechanisms for folks to push up the AMI all the way up to 150%. I mean, I'd like to push it higher, but I think that's the number right now where we can really see some good impact. So I'll be in touch. Thank you for the presentation. I really appreciate it. No other questions, Madam Chair. **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair, Councilor, if I could, I can speak specifically to numbers in the city of Santa Fe. I don't have a breakdown by projects, but I'd be glad to pull that together for you. But right now under construction we have nearly 270 affordable homes—that's single family and multifamily homes under construction in the city. And in the pipeline we have about 1,000 affordable homes. So in total in the pipeline we have over 4,000 homes. But if we're speaking specifically to affordable homes, we're at about 1,000. **Councilor Garcia:** And the vast majority of that is Terontenta and Midtown. **MFA Representative:** Yes, yes. **Councilor Garcia:** Thank you for the follow-up. I really appreciate it. **Councilor:** And then, I'm sorry if I missed this. For that pipeline that's total, does that differentiate between rental and for purchase, or is that— **MFA Representative:** Yeah, actually I need to get clarification for you. That's a really good question. Thank you, Councilor. I'll follow up. **Chair:** Wonderful. Thank you so much. **Councilor Castro:** And Chair, yes, I just had a follow-up question. In the vein of the multifamily homes, can you explain to me—you mentioned single family homes as being eligible. If somebody wanted to buy a duplex, a condo, would they be eligible for this funding as well? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair and Councilor, are you talking about for the landlord program or which program? **Councilor Castro:** Sorry, I was thinking more of like the down payment assistance and some of the programs for buying a home as we do sort of try to do these infill projects and more multifamily units. Will they be eligible as well? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair and Councilor Castro, I believe that single family is defined as one to four units and so that I think that would be the maximum that we could do. We do have other funding for rental development and preservation that would probably cover anything over four. **Councilor Castro:** Perfect. Thank you. That answers my question. **Chair:** Thank you so much. I only have one additional question. Well, actually two. So sorry, because we're talking about this rental development pipeline and some discrepancies between what we have and what you all have. Where is this information for you at Housing New Mexico? Is it based on what's happening in the city or projects that you're involved in, or both? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair, yeah, and I apologize because we kind of just did a spread of Santa Fe. We didn't think city versus county, and so it's both of those. **Chair:** Okay, got it. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. And I think that is an area that we can do some more communication around what is in our pipeline. And when you look at the development pipeline, are you only interested in rentals or are you also interested in for-purchase homes so that Director Monontoya can bring that back to land use? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair, this is specifically for rental, but we're definitely interested in single family and for-sale as well, and we definitely work with Home Wise and other developers to help fund those projects and bring them to fruition. **Chair:** Okay. All of the above. **MFA Representative:** Wonderful. Good to know, just as we work on increasing our communication and making that better. The other question I have, and you may not have the answer to this—it's a little bit of an interesting question. There's the data point: 8.6% of renters can afford to purchase the median price home in Santa Fe, 13.5% statewide, and 13.5% still feels exceptionally low. Obviously, in an ideal utopia, 100% can, but that's often not reality. When we're benchmarking this and we're comparing the progress of the city, the progress of the state based on what would be considered a quote-unquote healthy housing market, is there a place where we would say, hey, this percentage of renters should be able to purchase a median-price home in a community? **MFA Representative:** Madam Chair, you're correct. I don't know what that magic number is. We did a statewide housing study a few years ago now and found that a lot of people were sort of renting down—like they could have afforded more, but there was not an available home for them to purchase. And so now it seems almost like it's flipped a little bit where there's just so many people who can't even afford to access housing. The housing market has changed over the past several years where the bigger issue is now affordability versus availability. So I think I'll look and see if there's a metric by which we could sort of gauge our progress, and I will say that we are also updating our housing strategy and that'll be available hopefully by the end of the calendar year. And that's something that we can definitely try to give a better gauge to so that we can measure that. **Chair:** Yeah, that would be really interesting. It would also be interesting to see what states, what cities have been able to improve that metric, by how much, and start to take a look at the strategies. Obviously, everywhere is different, but I'd be really curious about what if we were to set a goal, quote-unquote, what that might look like, what that range would be where we feel like, okay, we are on the right track. Obviously, any upward movement is great, but I would be really interested in what those kind of indicators may be that we feel like we're in a good place. I don't believe there are any other questions or comments from the committee. Thank you again so much for being here and providing this information. I know that housing is a really hot topic everywhere, but of course here in the city, and so I did want to make sure that all the committee members were aware of some of the programs, the resources, and these opportunities for partnership as we continue to work on policies and programs here in the community. So I am sure you will hear from some of my colleagues and from me as well as things come up. So thank you again so much for being here. Thank you all, and thank you, Madam Chair, for the invitation to come. We are happy to keep working with Santa Fe and staff to make these resources available. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, rolling on to our next agenda item. It's another presentation. We have the Santa Fe Police Department's Axon my90 community engagement tool. We have Ben Valdez, our deputy chief of police here to present. So welcome, DC Valdez. Good evening, Madam Chair. Let me just get plugged in. Thank you, Madam Chair. So first I want to thank everyone for allowing us to share this program that we've initiated with the police department. It's part of our Axon suite, which is our ecosystem that we utilize for body worn cameras, car cameras, our records management system, and our electronic evidence system as well. It manages quite a bit of what we do with our work. It's a very good program for us. The first thing that we have with this tool is a way for us to get feedback and good customer service from folks that we actually provide services to. The solution has three key offerings. One of them is automated messaging. The next one is post-contact feedback. Then the last one is community feedback. First, I'm going to talk about automated messaging. This allows an agency to provide a high level of customer service for those that are calling us for assistance. It's not just a random survey. It actually goes to folks that are requesting assistance from the police department. The agency can customize messages through templates, and it'll help us manage expectations, arrival instructions, and information. So if we're providing service, we can provide information like, "An officer is going to be arriving. Have your identification, car insurance, and registration ready." We can also provide updates. This is helpful for us, and something we're working to get implemented is that if there's a certain time span and we have officers that are experienced delays, they can send an update saying, "Your call is very important. We have officers that are en route," with a link so that they don't have to wait for the report and can go about the rest of their day. We also collect feedback from this, and that's been very helpful. Sorry, DC Valdez, can you speak more into the mic? I'm getting feedback from our Zoom participant that you're not quite loud enough. My apologies. The feedback has been very informative for us to see how our folks are doing in the field and how they're providing services to the community. The post-contact feedback portion of it allows an agency to connect to any of their preferred systems. For us, it's our records management system. One thing we are going to look at is to see if we can provide it also for our citations. So if someone does want to provide feedback on a traffic stop, they can also provide that information through my90. That's our primary thing—through our CAD. Someone calls into the dispatch center, and that's what gets them service sent out. The way it works is when people provide their phone number, if it's a smart device, it'll be able to send it to their device via text message. They'll get a link that allows them to provide their feedback. It's web-based, so no matter what system they're using, as long as they have a smart device, they can go online and provide that survey. Once feedback is collected, it's aggregated and visualized for our agency. The good thing about that is it isn't tied to a caller saying, "Mr. Smith said this." It's going to be aggregated data where one person called in, here's the information they provided, and here's what we can look at to measure how we did on that call. So if someone does have a concern that they want to share, they do have an option to provide additional information in the notes, and we can call them back and follow up if they do share a concern that we need to address. For employee feedback, this is something where maybe we don't have a suggestion box or we say, "Hey, fill out this form and put your name on it." We put it out to all of our staff. It can be sent out via text message to their city email or a number of ways they can receive it. And again, the information they provide is aggregated. It doesn't come back to a certain employee. What this allows us to do is get a hand on the pulse of our agency. Usually, this will be something that the chief of police can issue out. He can provide information on a new initiative that they may be looking at, or if they're looking at a different work schedule, or if they're looking for candidate information from our staff. "Hey, we implemented this. How's it working? Let us know your feedback." That way, employees feel empowered and confident that they can be honest and forthcoming with their concerns. They can say, "Hey, this is working out pretty good for us, and let's keep moving in this direction." It could be sent to anyone in our organization, whether it's a police officer or our professional staff. A lot of people may ask why we're doing this. Again, it's for us to collect information without any extra steps in our workflow. We don't have to send out anything in the mail. We don't have to send someone by to knock and survey and say, "Hey, how'd your call for service go?" Once the call is completed within a short time span, that customer gets the text message information and they're asked if they want to participate in the voluntary survey. With us being able to partner with Axon, that's what's allowed us to eliminate any additional workflow. The information that we're gathering for the call itself goes into the system, gets digested, and then once the call is done, it sends it out to our folks. But with the pre-arrival information and also the updates, we don't need a dispatcher having to go through the call log and call every person back to check in. But if somebody needs to update that information, it'll notify our dispatch center. If they say, "Hey, here's what has changed with the situation," it'll send that information back to the dispatch center. We were very specific in what group of folks would be receiving the survey. Some surveys are not appropriate. Following an arrest, that's not included. If someone's been a victim of a violent act or violent crime, we're not going to send a survey for those situations. Or if it's a medical emergency, if someone experienced a fall, injury, or overdose incident, we're not going to send them a survey to say, "How did this situation go?" We think that would be very inappropriate. Here's an example of what the message looks like when a community member receives it. It lets them know, "Thank you for calling the police department. Please share your confidential feedback." We also have it in Spanish as well because that is another predominantly spoken language here in our community. And then it gives them the link, and if they want to opt out of receiving any of these surveys in the future, they can always opt out. They won't receive any in the future. Once they hit that hyperlink, it'll send them off to the web page. Then they can start building the survey and giving us their honest feedback. I'm going to go through a couple of slides with some of the feedback we received back from our community members. In the packet provided to this committee, we went from June when we first started the initiative to the middle of August. What I've done is I've also updated to include the entire month of August and July and then a portion of June as well so we can see what those numbers look like. This will be a partial portion, but I'm going to move forward to the end of August. What it shows is that the biggest concern that people have in our community is homelessness. It's increased as it's going. The reason we've seen increases by month is we're getting more participation from our community in these surveys as well. The next big one up there is drug use and sales. And then number three is going to be theft. So that lets us know where should we be looking at priorities and what are people feeling that we need to address. Furthermore, it also asked people, "What is your biggest concern?" And again, we have it lined out for us. This is from the time that we started to today. This is what they're looking at and the number of participants that provided that type of response. We also have community requests, and the big one that really stands out to us is increased police presence by patrols. That is something we've heard throughout the time, whether it be through word of mouth or people sending us messages via email or on social media. But right here it is plain as day. This is something that we've shared with our patrol section and our traffic units to say, "Hey, look, we know you guys are out there doing patrols. We know you're doing close patrols. That's one of our highest call volumes that we have. But let's make sure we're more visible in doing so." A couple of ways we could do that is either they can put on their cruise lights when they're going through an area, or they could get out and have some interactions with folks as well. That's also very helpful so they can let people know that we're here and give an opportunity to engage with the community for them to share additional concerns. But that is the number one that we have right there. The next one is going to be increased community engagement. I know we do a lot of work, but again there's always room for improvement, and those are things that we really take to heart. But for me what's really interesting is that from July to August we saw that increased community engagement come into a strong second place versus being tied for second with our other increased staffing. So that is something again that we're looking at with our folks, not only for our community relations unit to do but also for our officers in the field that do the day-to-day services. The next question posed was, "What would you like Santa Fe PD to do to improve safety in our community?" Again, that increased visibility is huge, and that's going to come as one a deterrent, but also for people to feel that they're being heard and that they're safe to go about their business. One good thing on this is employee call-outs. This is something that we saw was a feature, but it really took us by surprise when we saw what people shared. With these call-outs, this is an actual comment that someone shared. They said, "For the first time I had a positive experience with Santa Fe PD." For us, this really helps us with letting people know like you don't know what kind of day that person's having. Do your very best to treat them with the utmost respect and passion and put yourself in their shoes. One thing that I've always asked my staff is think of your favorite relative and how would you like them to be treated if they were in that person's shoes. That is something that we just really try to make sure people know: this isn't the best day someone is having an interaction with us. So have some compassion and work with the next one. They actually called out the officer by name and I'm going to read this very quickly. Officer Robert Still was trauma informed and conscientious. You helped us support our minor juvenile offender in a thoughtful and caring way to set appropriate boundaries with our troubled team. Thank you, Officer Still. You're helping us trust the police department and feel safe as civilians. Officer Still may have never heard about this, but when we saw this, we made sure that we shared it with his captain and said, "Hey, look, he did a fabulous job on the call and keep up the great work." It's actually called out by name. Same thing for Officer Miller. He was very reassuring and set my mind at ease after I learned that my car had been stolen. He answered all my questions and provided me with the applicable facts, which lessened my anxiety. He was quick and very courteous with both me and my daughter. I was very impressed with the SFPD. Thank you. And lastly, Officer Martinez went above and beyond to answer my questions. I was empathetic. I appreciate her efforts. These are just a snapshot of some of the kudos that we received. There are also sometimes on occasion we receive feedback that maybe is not so favorable. Those comments we get back to their shift lieutenant and kind of see, "Hey, how can we improve and how can we get a better outcome in this situation?" This is not something that's going to replace our reporting efforts for internal affairs, but again if someone does leave their contact information and they have complaints at that point, we would connect them with internal affairs, get the complaint information, and look into it. This is all about improvement—about us trying to do the best job that we can but also making sure that our community has a voice. They can share with us how that encounter went. I'll give the floor for anything. **Wonderful. Thank you so much. And then I would request that you, if you could send just the updated PowerPoint. Thank you for getting it up to date till today. If you could send that over to Marcella so that she can upload it into Civic Clerk, that would be wonderful. Questions, comments from the committee?** **Council Garcia:** Quick comment. Thank you for putting together this tool slash dashboard. The question is, who will have access to this? Will counselors have access to this? Will this be published online? What's the plan for anybody outside of PD being able to just quickly go in and get a glimpse into all this data? **Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia:** So as of right now, this is for executive leadership within the department. They'll have access to be able to look at what the feedback is and what the metrics are. Because this is a work product, it is subject to IPRA. So if it is IPRA, then we would provide that. I know with Chief Joy, this is one thing that he is trying to see—where would be the best place for us to share some of this information. There are certain items that I think will be helpful for people to see. I think the metrics on what the community concerns are very helpful. I think that's not only helpful for us but frankly for anyone in the city that is involved in public safety. Secondly, seeing what the concerns are—like, how can we improve—that may be something where we can share it at public safety or as part of something that's published monthly like our crime stats. So I know that's something that's being discussed with Chief Joy and also with the public safety committee chair to see what would be helpful. One thing we don't want to do is make it a shaming panel. If someone does have a comment where they can make improvements, we would like for them to take that criticism constructively, make the improvements that may be warranted, and then go from there. That's where these tools can be very helpful. But I think there are certain tables that are in here that would be helpful for us to share in a public forum, whether it be through the public safety committee, through the monthly stats, or also if it's something that is requested, I'm sure that we can share. **Okay. And I think your comments are right in alignment with my thought process. I would advocate that the governing body have access just because we can see the need and we can immediately reflect and help to support the need through public policy. I'm somewhat inclined towards wanting the public safety committee also having access. But I understand your sentiment around some comments might feel shameful. Again, it's all public information, and I think that's a great tool for that committee to be able to figure out how they can be of best support to the city as well. Because ultimately, what I don't want this tool to do is just sit within PD. I think this is a very powerful tool that provides some critical data that allows for the city to determine how to move forward. When you're looking at things such as the shout-outs, that's great. But when you look at the responses based on the questions—what would you like most like Santa Fe PD to do to improve safety in our community?—that's a direct reflection on how we as a governing body can work to make sure that residents' concerns are met. So I think this is a great tool for us to be able to best support your team.** **Absolutely agree. I think the aggregate data—like the tables—are probably the most appropriate things for us to share. I'm going to take all this feedback to Chief Joy and just say, "Hey, look, it may be helpful for us to put these tables up where it's the aggregate data that shows here's this information, concerns, what we can do to improve in those items where it's not really tied to a name or that kind of thing." But the numbers are there so you can see what the changes are or what have the changes been over the course of time, or is it something that changes by season or by month because those may vary from time to time. But I think it's again helpful for anyone that's involved in public safety. And this body and the governing body also play a big part. It would be really helpful for you guys to have it.** **Okay. Thank you, DC Valdez, and thank you for working to put this tool together. I definitely see some powerful data in here that can help us improve public safety efforts. So thank you. No other questions, Madam Chair.** **Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Chavez.** **Sorry. Hello. Thank you, DC Valdez. Yeah, so I just wanted to emphasize the comment that you already made. I think data is very powerful, but I think where it's going to have the most power is within the department. We had a conversation in public safety about it being really unfortunate that sometimes organizations make data public facing and then that opportunity to promote growth turns into something punitive where growth doesn't happen. So it is a delicate process—what should be public facing and what shouldn't be so that growth can occur. Those conversations are being held in public safety. I know a lot of committee members felt that way as well. If we get data that tells us we can improve internally, how do we use that to promote growth and trust and the relational foundation needed for change within the agency? And of course, for policy, there is overall community data which was shared tonight that can be shared for some policy change and policy movement. But because it's so valuable and this is exciting that we're getting this information in, we don't want to lose an opportunity for progress. So that's been the big topic in public safety, and DC Valdez and Chief Joy have been great in carrying us out and coming with that mindset as well as how do we make this so that we are creating positive change and we don't make a wrong decision that kind of interferes with that progress. So I just wanted to give you an update on that discussion with public safety and how great DC Valdez and Chief Joy have been in listening and really being incredibly thoughtful about the power of this data that we now have in our hands and will continue to have. Thank you.** **Thank you, Councilor Chavez. Councilor Gastra.** **I just wanted to give Director Hman and Paul the floor. I think you wanted to say something.** **Madam Chair, Councilors, I just wanted to point out—and this isn't necessarily a comment about the data being public or not—but the potential selection bias of this type of data and taking it as too big a picture. As I understand it, these data are coming from people who have made calls. What's the exact wording? Their surveys are sent to people who make specific types of service calls. So it's a wonderful set of data when it comes to figuring out how people are experiencing who are victims of crime and things like that. But maybe when we're thinking about whole of community concerns around certain types of issues, this would be a very specific subset of folks who have been victims of crime or otherwise interacted with the police department or emergency services. So just to kind of couch that: if we do publish these data or however we report on them, then we kind of make it really clear what the data source is and who these 137 people are versus it being a truly representative sample.** **Thank you, Director. And I sort of had some of the same concerns. Thank you, DC, for the presentation and for also being aware that if somebody just had a traumatic incident or dealt with some sort of health concern, it might not be the appropriate time. So I just wanted to draw attention to this being a very select group of folks. We aren't a large population, and so that data can be a little bit selective, as was mentioned by the Director. Are there larger cities like San Diego or Fairfax that use this? Are there best practices that maybe we can learn from those cities? So yeah, offline, I'm sure we'll talk about this more. But I just want to commend you for at least putting your best foot forward and being able to really try to—and this sometimes sounds bad—but be reactionary to what our community is asking for. Reactionary in a good way. Thank you so much.** **Thank you, Councilor. On that note, I was curious about this conversation around who is receiving these surveys. Some of these questions are of course going to be very specific to interactions at the police department, but some are these broader general perceptions. Is there a way? Is there desire to get this out to the wider community around things like, "Hey, what do you think the police department could be doing to make you feel more safe?" or "What is your biggest concern when it comes to issues?" Has that been discussed at all?** **Yes, Madam Chair. So I believe one feature this also allows us to do is we could send out a community-wide survey. So that could be something that we could do—a link with it on a social media platform, whether it be from the city's public-facing page. And again, we can have a couple of questions that the city leadership has.** The only thing that I would probably request is it has some type of tie into public safety. I don't think it should be something outside that scope. But at that point we could send it to a broader audience and that information would be a separate data set than what was just presented on the presentation. **Got it. Thank you.** Yeah, I thought that would be interesting for some of these questions. Obviously, they apply to many individuals and our own community in fact. And then Director Heal, you mentioned 137. Is that the total unique respondents we've had thus far with this tool or was that just a number? **Sorry, Madam Chair,** that was just looking at the presentation. I think one of the bar charts showed that 137 individuals reported homelessness as a top concern. So that was just anecdotal. I really defer to Deputy Chief Valdez on this tool. Yeah, I'm curious about the unique respondents if we're able to track that and then the total number of responses you've received and obviously it's growing. So as this continues, that number is going to grow and that'll be really interesting to see how the data shifts. So on this table, the folks that responded is 199, which was 26% of the respondents that noted that homelessness was their primary concern and the total number are again if you add up all those bars, that'll be the total amount of respondents and I don't have the information here on this dashboard but we can look it up to say hey, here's the total number of respondents that participated and of them 199 responded with this. **Okay.** And the date and the numbers we have are not fully up to date. So the numbers will have to come through that next one. And is that unique responses or do you know if somebody calls the police department in July and then again in September? Are they getting counted twice or are you tracking that somebody has already received it? **So on the total one, that'll be the total from the time that we started the surveys until present day.** **Okay.** **And it also breaks it down by month.** **Okay. All right.** **They would be separate. So if someone responded in June, it wouldn't be counted in July.** **Okay. All right. That makes sense. Wonderful.** Well, I don't think that I have any additional questions. Really appreciate first of all coming forward and saying, "Hey, I need to present quality of life." So thank you for that and making us aware that this was something that you want to present on now because I really do appreciate it and think that this is very useful and I really look forward to how this is going to be utilized and look forward to updates on that. So please let us know when you have more updates and then of course, we'll be looking to Chair Chavez for the public safety committee and how that's going to be utilized as well. **Absolutely.** And again, this is made possible by the support that you guys gave us with the Axon contract and that entire ecosystem. So we're really excited about not only what is offered right now, but also what they are continually developing and again their values and ours align really well. Again, it's to save lives. That's what— **Wonderful. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.** The next item we did have item E pulled off the consent agenda. This was to postpone this to a date certain. I know that there are a number of amendments that are still being worked through. My understanding from some of the sponsors of those amendments is that our drafting team essentially said if you really want these to be well thought out and ready to go, we're going to need some more time. So I would be looking for a motion at this time to postpone this item until the September 17th quality of life committee meeting, which would also then change the total schedule or the complete schedule that we would go to the 17th for quality of life, 22nd for finance and the 24th for governing body. **So moved.** **Second.** **There is a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? And if not, can I please have a roll call?** **Councilor Castro?** **Yes.** **Councilor Chavez?** **Yes.** **Councilor Garcia?** **Yes.** **Madam Chair?** **Yes.** **Motion passes.** **Thank you.** And then moving on to our last item on our action and discussion agenda, consideration of Resolution Number 2025-TBD sponsored by Councilor Carol Romero Worth, Councilor Jamie Casset, Councilor Par Faulner, and Mayor Alan Weber. It's a resolution adopting improvements to the budget process for the fiscal year 2026/2027 annual operating budget. We have Rod Gould, senior adviser and public engagement coordinator, as well as Emily Oster, our finance director. I understand that there have been some amendments and Rod, you did have a presentation that you wanted to give at this time to give us some updates on what's going on. So I will hand it over to you and then hand it over to the committee. Can you get a little closer to that mic? I'm going to make sure Councilor Travis can hear you. Councilor Travis, can you hear him loud and clear? Is it off? **Councilor Chavez, can you hear me now?** **There we go.** **All right.** **Yes, I can. Thank you.** **Thank you.** We had hoped to present to this committee a week ago, but there were two very long presentations. So I thank the several of you for meeting with me one-on-one to brief on this subject. And I regret that Councilor Faulner had to leave the chambers tonight indicating that there's a background buzz that is bothering her terribly and forces her to have to leave the chamber. So we will be meeting with her to identify the source of this noise and correct it. **Yeah, just for the note, if you're looking at that, it was present at governing body. It is absolutely louder today. I didn't really notice it at governing body, but I am hearing it. So thank you for addressing that because I know it is really impacting her ability to be here.** **We need to correct it.** So thank you for the opportunity to again discuss various budget reforms for the city of Santa Fe. The governing body had a discussion last week and postponed actual action. There were several suggestions for improvements to process and I'm grateful for them because I also noticed that there was an error in the resolution that I've had the opportunity to correct. So I would like to give you a presentation on the amendment to the original resolution and walk through the process and the thinking and see whether or not you members of the quality of life committee are comfortable with where we're taking this or whether this requires further discussion. As you're well aware, one of the main focuses here is to change the type of budget that we adopt—one that would clearly identify for any reader what level of service each department is providing each year for its budget allocation. What can the residents, businesses, and visitors to Santa Fe expect from the budget that has been adopted? And further, to make it an accountability policy document to allow the council and mayor to provide more oversight to the way we provide the services, projects, programs, and activities to Santa Fe. And this is not cutting edge. We've talked about this before. This is really nothing new. It's practiced in most public agencies at the local level across the country. But it will be a big change for us. And I want to emphasize that it's going to take some work to get there. We have an internal leadership team that is working on improving our management systems as an organization to improve the accuracy of our focuses and better results for everyone involved. And we've been having these discussions. One of the things that came out of it was the request by managers to know what all of you as members of the city council and mayor think is most important for us to be focusing on. So that request has been made and we've talked about the need for every department to have very clear goals, objectives and key performance indicators so that we could be clear about what we can do as well as what we cannot and we could be held accountable throughout the year on our performance against the same. And we're making progress there. City Manager Mark Scott has asked all the departments to provide their drafts by the end of this month and we're working toward that and we're having some very good discussions. Step one was the last couple of months we've met with the finance committee to discuss some of these reforms. We wanted to meet with you and then we had some one-on-one meetings. Again, thank you for your personal time. And we introduced the matter to the governing body, which postponed action as we go through your committee, finance committee on Monday and then going back to the governing body next Wednesday. The department directors are busy developing their goals, objectives and key KPIs and we'll present them to the city manager by the end of this month. In October, we'd like to hold a study session with the council to bring these goals, objectives, and KPIs to you for this current fiscal year. So you can see given the monies that have been allocated to each of the departments, what each department thinks it can accomplish in this current fiscal year, fiscal year 2025-26. And we would have a broad discussion and hopefully we get your thoughts and feedback and then those would be our goals, objectives and KPIs for the current year. Then in December, we thought that the directors would come back to present to this council as well as the newly elected mayor and newly elected councilors on where we are halfway through the budget year. How are we? What progress have we made toward these goals, objectives, and indicators halfway through the budget year? And we feel that we would invite newly elected folks to join you and everyone would have a clear understanding of where the city was against all of these indicators and where we were making progress and where we needed to do better. In January, the suggestion was at the council meeting and I believe it was Councilor Michael Garcia that suggested that we should start with some type of effort to inquire of the general public what the public would like to see in the next budget period. And our thinking there is that rather than hold a typical public hearing, which in other cities generally generates a long list of wishes and a fair amount of gripes but doesn't really help the elected leaders make decisions, we would like to use some civic engagement techniques and try to get some real life discussions by the attendees. It would do two things. One, it would help educate those that would attend about the city's finances. Where does the money come from? How is it used? What monies can be used for what? Where are we in the budget process? What are some of the tradeoffs that the next council and mayor are likely to face in the coming year? And then have some discussion back and forth so that the mayor and council would have a better idea of where informed residents were about how you are to make the decisions. Essentially, we'd like to figure out a way to put those that attend in your shoes for a few hours to try to wrestle with some of the tradeoffs that you're going to have to wrestle with. After we gathered that input, we would like to have a serious workshop with the new council and mayor and it would do several things. One is it would really delve into what the new mayor and council wish to lead the city in the next few years—general overarching goals. But equally important, what priorities do you have for the coming year and the budget that you're about to adopt? Where do you want to see additional emphasis, activity, money, staffing, and the like to give us some sense of what's most important to you, the elected representatives of the people? We'd also like to spend half of that time with you discussing governance. What do high-performance councils look like? How do they behave with one another, the staff, the communities they serve? What are the norms for how they operate? And get really clear on everybody's role. What's the mayor's role? What are the councilor's roles? Senior staff, commissions, advisors, and the like. That would begin the budget process for 2026-27. In late January, the finance department would give the mayor and city manager best estimates on what revenues look like for the coming year and what expenditures would be in order to keep services at the current level. That will reveal what type of budget you're going to have to address. Maybe there's some excess there and you're able to step up in certain areas. Maybe it's a flat budget and you're going to make incremental changes around the norm. Maybe we're in a deficit position and we're going to have to make hard decisions about what we do less of. But those estimates will be very key to giving information to the mayor, the city manager, and the department heads on how to create their budget submittals. The budget submittals would be important not just to maintain what the current level of services are, but to indicate how those services would advance the priorities that the council had already set in January and how we could help advance the priorities that the council has indicated. In February, the department heads would be expected to come back to the mayor and city manager with their proposals. Not only what they need in terms of funding, but also to say what again would be their goals, objectives, and KPIs for the next fiscal year 2026-27. Any augmentations, any requests for something more. They would begin the discussions with the mayor and city manager about those options. Then in March, there'd be another check back on this current fiscal year. At the three-quarter point, the department heads would stand before the council and indicate where they are three-quarters of the way through this fiscal year. Again, this gives the council a chance to provide some oversight and some feedback to their key senior managers about how we're doing. In late March, the mayor, city manager, and finance department would be working very closely with all the departments, going through their proposals and shaping a proposed budget for 2026-27. In April and May, finance would update their estimates on revenues and expenditures to fine-tune this proposal. Then we're suggesting joint hearings between the finance committee and the governing body to receive all the information at the same time. All the members of the body, whether they're on the finance committee or not, would receive the same information from finance and the operating and administrative departments, be able to ask questions, be part of the discussion. At the end of those hearings, whether at the end of the hearing itself or in a separate meeting, the finance committee would make a recommendation to the whole body about the budget for the coming year. This meets the charter requirement that calls out that the mayor will develop a budget proposal and that the finance committee will provide its recommendation to the full governing body before the governing body acts and adopts a budget. In May, we'd expect the governing body to adopt the budget for 2026-27. Then, as you're all quite aware, we would in the next month present that budget to the State of New Mexico for its review and oversight. Then the departments would begin to think about how they would provide their year-end reports to you, which would come in July. There the departments would be able to say, after a 12-month fiscal year, how each department has done against its goals, objectives, and key performance indicators. That's in essence what we're suggesting as the process and the schedule for this coming year, and I'm very happy to take all your comments, questions, and suggestions. **Chair:** Wonderful. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that, and especially looking at the updates on the proposed amendment. We've talked pretty much in detail about this general proposal. There is Amendment A in your packet, sponsored by Councilor Romero Worth and Councilor Michael Garcia. Councilor Garcia, do you want to give us some more information on this proposed amendment? **Councilor Garcia:** Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. This amendment takes into context some of the recommendations that Mr. Gold had as well as some of the requested amendments that I had proposed during the governing body meeting last week. I think he covered it pretty well in his presentation. I'll make a motion to approve Amendment A. **Chair:** Wait, hold on. We have to play a nesting doll of a motion to approve the item. **Second.** **Chair:** Okay. We have a motion and a second, and then a motion to approve Amendment A and a second. Questions or comments at this time on the amendment? Councilor Faulkner should be on the Zoom as well, same with Councilor Chavez. Can you take this down so I can see the members? Any questions or comments on this amendment at this time? Councilor Castro. **Councilor Castro:** Yeah, thank you so much, Mr. Gold, for the presentation. Thank you, Director, for being here with us. I know you've been an integral part of all of this. I just want to really express how important it is that we've taken into consideration things that we've said on the day, things that we've mentioned in these one-on-one meetings. We often sometimes sitting at this dais don't feel like we have all of the information we need or all the power we would like. So it's really important that we're doing this in a collaborative way and that we're taking into consideration our constituents and our community as well. Thanks all around. **Chair:** Thank you, Councilor. Any other questions or comments from the committee? **Councilor:** I have a couple, just based on the language that I'm seeing in the amendment versus the presentation. Yeah, just a couple things. One: "town hall meeting" right here doesn't have a definition. So, given that this is moving into January to a new administration, we don't know what the future holds. I am curious about how we might find a way to provide information because what you're describing sounds much more beneficial than what we have seen at some of our town halls, which is: here's a presentation, then here's people commenting. It's not actually an interaction. It's just kind of two groups communicating at each other as opposed to with each other. So I don't know if it's like an interactive town hall meeting or maybe a town hall meeting to obtain feedback and walk the community through the budget process. I'm struggling with that. I don't know if anybody has any ideas or if there's something else that we might be able to do, because I really like the process that you are describing in the sense that I think it is more beneficial for us in how we get that communication going and having the public understand what that looks like. I don't have a solution at this moment in time. **Councilor Garcia:** Thank you, Madam Chair. We used the word "town hall" because it's wide-ranging and it could encompass everything. But you're looking for specific language, something like "facilitated community conversation." That might be a good one. **Councilor:** The intention is to provide flexibility to staff to be able to organize such a meeting, to be able to solicit information, but also be able to take that information, roll it up, and present that information to the governing body. So I don't know if we can make that change now, but either way, yeah, it still has another stop, so we can. **Councilor Kel:** Got that one. **Councilor Chavez:** I think if we would reference "roundtable discussions"—because we have had a model of town halls where we've had these roundtable discussions, and I think that's really what we want, where we're all facing each other, we all have a voice, and it's a discussion. It's a collaborative effort so that we come to a solution. I think our community, because we've had some conversations that way, they know that format. If we would reference that model—so whether it's like "roundtable discussions" or "staff-facilitated discussions"—it may sound formal, and we really want this conversation to be comfortable and welcoming. So I really think that if we would include something like what we've found success with before, it would be a good way to phrase it. **Chair:** Thank you. **Councilor:** Yeah, I appreciate it. And normally I wouldn't be so nitpicky about this, but again, this is going to be straddling. We don't know what the future holds for us. So something to maybe chew on, because again, I think that, as was mentioned, this idea of a community conversation or the roundtable discussions is very—and you're right, Councilor Garcia—a town hall means a lot of different things. So I think dialing in on what kind of town hall we are referring to is something to potentially think about. The other thing I'm curious about here is the order of setting priorities and getting feedback. I go both ways on this. On the one hand, it's great to get that initial piece. I also am curious: so we have these town halls, then there's going to be this set of goals and priorities. Where is it built in for the community to respond to how that comes out before a budget starts to be formulated around it? Because there very well may be things that the community didn't think about that they really like or really hate, and we're not really giving them the opportunity to respond to that or how that works. So I'm struggling with the order a little bit and playing devil's advocate on both sides of that. But is there somewhere else in the process where, if we were to gather that information—obviously it's going to be a roundtable discussion and we will do as much as we can—but there's no way that it's going to give us all the information? And there's also that concern that I'm going to guess there will be other ways that people will communicate their priorities to us that will not be able to participate in these. So how do we get that broader view and pull it in and then get feedback? So I don't know if you have an idea about that, Rod, or just experience of what you've seen in other cities of both how to incorporate and be driven by community feedback, but also give them the opportunity to adequately respond and us to assess the proposals that come forward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, there are a number of ways to do this and it varies community to community across this country. In some cases, it'll start with a lot of public engagement and then the council begins to talk about its priority and give direction to the staff. In other cases, the council will talk about its broad goals and priorities and then go to the community and ask the community for feedback, including on whether or not the priorities that have been set are the ones that the community wants. So you can do it either way. As regards a means for your residents and businesses to communicate with you throughout the budget process, we can come up with some other ways for people to communicate their thoughts as the budget unfolds. It's just a matter of preference. Do you start with the community and then go to priorities, or do you start with your own thinking because you're all well-versed in what the community wants and seeks, and then get community confirmation or validation? You can do it either way. What I believe that Councilor Michael Garcia had suggested last week was that we go the former method and start with the community, and then that would inform your discussion when you have the half-day workshop to set your goals and discuss governance. But you can do it either way. Some cities hold commission and committee hearings throughout the process while the staff is working on its budget proposal to provide more opportunities. Some open surveys and create websites and other interactive means for people to figure out how to balance the budget, particularly in cities that are facing deficits. They essentially use a Chinese menu to say here are our services and here are different ways to augment or reduce services. Work through this until you get to this number, which is what we think we have in revenues, and force residents to work through the same kind of difficulties that you and your new colleagues will be going through. So there's a variety of ways to do it. We haven't designed it, and as you've pointed out in your introductory remarks, we're going to have new players in just a few months. They may see this very differently, but I wanted to create some type of playbook that we could begin to implement at staff level and move toward understanding that a new mayor and council may want to make changes. **Chair:** Yeah. And I actually think the—and I'm curious about maybe, and we may not be able to do this this time around, it's maybe coming up too fast—but almost a hybrid method. You know, as we talked about with the last presentation, this selection bias of like who's responding, and I know that that has been something that we've had some challenges with. We don't always get the response and feedback that we would like and need until a decision is made. Sometimes we put it out, we have these conversations, and then a decision is made or a proposal is put out, and then suddenly we're getting a lot of comment. And so I'm really trying to see, and I'll chew on this a little bit more because I do think these conversations are valuable, and I like the idea of actually having the community have to go through these challenges. But how do we both cast a wide net and not just get our usual players and people who can easily do this? And again, this is where I always go back to that Midtown engagement partner model, where we did such a wonderful way that we were able to dip further into the community using trusted partners. And again, this is our first go-round. Maybe next year or we'll, I'm sure, tweak it and continue to look at it. So that's where I'm just playing with this one a little bit. Councilor Falner, you have your hand up, so I will go to you. And Laura's yours. Thank you. **Councilor Falner:** Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the most important thing is that right now we're going to be getting quarterly reporting, which I think other members of the council know is something that has always been very important to me. It's one of the things I ran for office on—making sure that the council had some reporting on how the major departments are doing, what their goals are, so that then we can as a council figure out how we want to address this. And I do think that the community being involved is important. I always have. I think a lot of times in governance, as leaders, we forget that we represent the people and that we do not always know what the best path forward is for the people because we sit as a party of nine on the governing body, and we have more information than the general public has. That should change. I feel like it's important for that to change. But I do think that I agree with the chair in that this is the first major step—let's do quarterly reporting so that at least the council knows what we're doing. We're going to have to steal from Peter to pay Paul. And I feel like one of the things, a nuance in budgeting that's forgotten about, is that there is never anything that hits government that isn't a good cause. So the place where the public is not on the same page as people who have to govern is that everything that is asked for of government is good. It's all things that people need. And the hard part about governance is that you have to choose between multiple good things that need support, but we never have enough revenue to be able to fund everything fully. And so I think it would be good at some point to engage the public in what is actually happening—like, these are all the projects that need to be funded, these are all the programs that need to be funded—so that the public is an active participant in our decision-making. Because I do feel like we have kind of forgotten that the social contract is at the core of what makes democracy work. And for the social contract to work, we need the public to be engaged. We need the public to know what we know so that they can be actively engaged and so that we can do the will of the people. And so this is a place where I struggle because I want to give the public as much information as possible, but then we also have to be mindful of how we cross that bridge where we represent the public and the public has as much information as possible so that they understand the challenges around governance. And so that we empower the general population and our constituents to be a part of governance and not feel like they're separate from governance, but that they're a part of governing. And I think that's something that we've kind of moved away from in our current political system—that we are elected officials, but we serve at the will of the people. And so if the people don't know what we know and the people don't have the advantages that we have by way of information, then they cannot do their job, which is to vote and to participate and to help us make decisions. It's my long-winded version of saying the fourth branch of government is the people, and we need to get back to that kind of governance. **Chair:** Yeah, thank you, Councilor. That is such an interesting conversation as well because I appreciate this idea of putting them through these moral dilemmas, as to steal a quote from City Manager Scott, and also the practice that the public's not going to agree on things. I mean, this is always—there might be trends in one direction, but we definitely have issues where we have seen a very split public. And how do you deal with that? What are the compromise pieces? So that's a piece of this that I really appreciate. And how do we make this both efficient and streamlined because we have to get this done, we have to get it to the state, but also an iterative process with ourselves and the community. So yeah, that's just the part that I'm chewing on a little bit. And then one other thing I wanted to think about and maybe spell out in more information—looking at the budget proposal schedule, will the finance committee obviously have to make a proposal? Is that going to be part of those budget hearings? Where will the finance committee inevitably want to debate because that's what we do? And so whether or not that would be a separate finance committee meeting, if it would be put time in the budget hearing schedule—just things to think about. And again, we're going to keep refining this. I'm sure that we will do something this year that we'll be like, "Nope, that did not work. Let's try it again." Councilor Castro. **Councilor Castro:** Exactly to your point. Thank you, Chair. I think that we've been getting better at communication as an entity, but the City of Santa Fe is not known for its quick communication. And so one thing that I'm able to look at in the more recent practices that we're doing is larger comment periods, building those websites that you mentioned. I'm thinking about in particular our general plan update and how well we're doing with some of those outreach strategies so we can learn from ourselves and how well we're doing indeed. I don't think that it's an either-or. I think that we can have long comment periods where we do really great outreach when we talk to different communities that we're not seeing enough information from, and we can do some outreach in those specific communities. My question really is around process. So we had a fruitful discussion. This was very interesting, and we have a lot more that we would like to see, more that we want to talk about. How do we as governing body members walk with you through this process before it's finished? **Staff:** Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilor Castro. Very good question. Several of you have pointed out that this is new territory for us. We are learning our way in Santa Fe, and we're going to try some things that will work beautifully and some things that will not, and we will make adjustments as we go. To answer your question more directly, what I was hoping for is that we could get the imprint of this council and mayor on a process and schedule going forward and then begin to work it as staff. We have some really good staff people who know civic engagement quite well. They know the community quite well. They're as interested in getting the authentic voice of the community as much as you are—not just hearing from the loudest voices. And we're as interested as you are in getting everybody into the act and still getting action, and that's essential in a budget process that cannot go on interminably. So if you were to adopt this resolution or make some adjustments to it, we have our marching orders. What I would like to suggest is that we know where you would like to go and you give us some time in the coming months to refine the plans here. Come back to you either through reports by the city manager or in study session to show you what our thinking is. Recognizing again that there are going to be new players on the field in just a few months and that they may have very strong views about how this dance should be done. Does that help at all? >> 100%. And just to clarify, if there was any amendment or any new suggestion that we wanted to see before final passage, there is one more committee—Finance—that this will be seen at or heard at. Is that correct? >> Yes, indeed. Thank you. >> Wonderful. No further questions. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other further questions? Councilor Faulner, is that an old hand or a new hand? >> It's an old hand. Sorry, Chair. >> No problem. If there are no further questions or comments, a vote—roll call, please—on the amendment. >> Councilor Castro. >> Yes. >> Councilor Chavez. >> Yes. >> Councilor Garcia. >> Yes. >> Councilor Faulner. >> Yes. >> Madame Chair. >> Yes. And I'd like to explain my vote to caveat my vote. Motion carries. I think this is really moving in the right direction and I really appreciate this conversation tonight and the conversations we have. Councilor Castro, to your point, there is another committee to maybe make some tweaks or additional suggestions. I think having some conversations about the community engagement piece is something I will definitely be doing offline because I'd love to hear more from your experience and some of the ways that we can both get direction and reflection from the community—I guess that's the best way to put it. But I do think this is moving in the right direction and I want to thank the sponsors for moving this forward. Um, and now moving on to the main motion as amended. Any questions or comments? Roll call, please. >> Councilor Castro. >> Yes. >> Councilor Chavez. >> Yes. >> Councilor Garcia. >> Yes. >> Councilor Faulner. >> Yes. >> Madame Chair. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. Appreciate you being here. All right, moving along, we are on to matters from staff. I will send it over to you, directors. Madame Chair and Councilors, we have a big weekend. It is the weekend that the city commemorates the 313th Fiesta de Santa Fe. Among the many events that will occur over the weekend, we'll have music, crafts, and food on the plaza. As always, please check the weather before heading out and plan accordingly. On Tuesday, September 9th, we have a Native business roundtable at the Santa Fe Business Incubator. This will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. These monthly gatherings provide space for Native American entrepreneurs, artists, and business owners to connect and share resources and build pathways to success. Coming up at our community art gallery, we will be opening on September 11th "Queer Magnetism." It's a group exhibit featuring new work by Santa Fe, New Mexico queer and trans artists. The opening reception on September 11th will run from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and the show will run through October. On September 18th of this month, we have two institutions of higher education open houses at both the Santa Fe Community College and also IAIA. At Santa Fe Community College between 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and IAIA between 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. These joint open houses will feature free art demonstrations, campus tours, and other fun activities. It's an easy six-minute drive between the campuses for folks to check it out. That's all I have for you. Thank you, Madame Chair and Councilors. From the Community Health and Safety Department: This is from the libraries. September is National Library Card Signup Month. Members of the council have been invited to show your library cards and post photos and stories alongside our patrons about what the library means to you. We've already gotten over 100 submissions and are excited to really help drive up some of the numbers. We have a very loved and well-used library system with nearly a combined million circulations a year between digital and paper books and resources. With regard to the recreation centers, I believe all of you were copied on an update regarding the ice rink. That is moving forward. We have purchase orders for engineering completed and timelines in place. We are still working with our emergency on-call contractor BND to lock in a few other items, but we have been able to order all the equipment and put some timelines in place for scheduling the work once equipment is delivered. Then with regard to the Human Services Division, which is the Youth and Family Services, we are really excited to announce that we have a new director who will be starting on September 15th. She's coming to us with pretty robust experience working in homelessness services as well as community engagement and youth and violence prevention work. She was previously a district director for the City Council President in Oakland and lives in Albuquerque now. We're very excited to introduce her to you in future meetings. And then lastly, for the Emergency Management side of the house, just so you're all aware, we'll be doing a two-hour senior leadership group—which is department directors and senior leadership in the city—intensive on EOC training next Tuesday. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Marcel. Anything from you today? Matters from the committee, anything from anyone today? Matters from the Chair, I have none. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, September 17th. At 6:41 p.m., we are adjourned. Thank you everybody.