Quality of Life Committee
Wed, Oct 22, 2025 · Quality of Life Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/816

== Executive Summary ==
The Quality of Life Committee discussed the successful Santa Fe Community College Appren program, which trains early childhood educators and significantly impacts the local childcare workforce. The program has engaged over 100 apprentices, with many transitioning into registered apprenticeships and new employment, supported by crucial financial and wraparound services. The committee acknowledged the program's vital role in addressing Santa Fe's severe childcare shortage and explored options for continued funding and support.

A significant portion of the meeting focused on proposed amendments to the city's living wage ordinance. After extensive discussion and review of survey results, the committee passed amendments to raise the minimum wage to $20.00 per hour and expedite its implementation for city workers. However, a contentious amendment allowing employers to factor in health benefits and other perks when calculating the minimum wage, potentially impacting take-home pay, also passed. Concerns were raised about the impact on small businesses and the effectiveness of the wage increase in addressing broader issues like housing affordability.

The committee also reviewed the annual Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) report, detailing the use of federal funds for community development programs. Discussions included the potential use of CDBG funds for sidewalk repairs and upcoming community events and health and safety updates.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda.
- Approved the consent agenda as amended, with item N pulled off.
- Passed Amendment A to the minimum wage ordinance, expediting the timeline for implementation of the wage increase for City of Santa Fe workers to January 1, 2026, for all full-time and part-time employees.
- Passed Amendment B to the minimum wage ordinance, raising the proposed minimum wage from $17.50 to $20.00 and addressing issues with regulating sub-minimum wages and the impact of the current ordinance on workplace learning programs.
- Passed Amendment C to the minimum wage ordinance, defining what 'health benefits' include (medical, vision, dental) and adding employer-provided childcare and housing benefits as elements that can be considered in computing the wage for compliance purposes.
- Passed Amendment ABCDE to the minimum wage ordinance, which included reintroducing language regarding interns (those working for academic credit, attending the institution they work for, or in 501c3 apprenticeship programs) not being counted as workers for minimum wage purposes.
- Passed the main motion for the minimum wage ordinance as amended.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed.
- Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended, with item N pulled off — Passed.
- Motion to approve Amendment C (Incentives at $20/hour) — Passed (Councilor Castro: Yes, Councilor Chavis: Yes, Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Faulkner: Yes, Madame Chair: Yes).
- Motion to deny Amendment D (likely related to a higher wage proposal) — Failed (2 Yes, 3 No, 1 Abstain).
- Motion to approve Amendment D — Failed (2 Yes, 3 No).
- Motion to approve Amendment ABCDE to the minimum wage ordinance — Passed (3 Yes, 2 No).
- Motion to approve the main motion (minimum wage ordinance as amended) — Passed (5 Yes).

== Public Comment ==
Public comments highlighted the Appren program's success in enabling access to higher education and career paths for students, with financial stipends and wraparound support being critical for participation. During discussions on the living wage, a city survey indicated strong community support (over 85%) for raising the living wage, with perceived benefits including improved quality of life and local economic circulation. Concerns were also raised about potential negative impacts on small businesses and the need for a holistic approach to economic well-being. No public comments were received during the public hearing for the Community Development Block Grant report.

== Topics ==
- Early Childhood Workforce Development
- CDBG Funding & Programs
- Homelessness & Shelter Services
- Sidewalk Repair & Funding
- Community Events & Activities
- Emergency Management & Public Safety
- Neighborhood Stabilization
- Local Business Support
- Youth Programs & Murals

== Full Transcript ==
We are live.

Thank you so much. All right. It is 5:05 p.m. I'm going to call the Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 Quality of Life Committee meeting to order. May I please get a roll call?

Councilor Cente: Here.

Present.

Councilor Faulkner: Here.

Madam Chair, I am here. You have a quorum, Madam.

Thank you so much. Approval of the agenda. Any changes today?

No changes.

Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to approval of the consent agenda. So far, we just have item N pulled off. Is there anything else that anyone would like to pull off at this moment in time?

Move to approve as amended.

Second motion and a second. Roll call, please.

Councilor Castro: Yes.

Councilor Chavez: Yes.

Councilor Garcia.

Councilor Faulkner: Yes.

Madam Chair: Yes.

Motion passes.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. All right, rolling along. We have a presentation today. It is the Santa Fe Community College Appren evaluation report. We have Sandra Emory, our Youth and Families Program Manager, Katherine Olred, the Executive Director of the Children's Program at the Community College, and then we have Crystal Sanchez, who's the Appren Manager. I'm not on the waitlist anymore, and I'm so I don't remember the name anymore. But if you all would like to come on up, we're so happy to have you here. Sure that mic is on. And if it is, you're maybe just not close enough now.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm Sandra Emory. I am a Program Manager for Youth and Family Services. The Appren program was funded with $900,000 of ARPA funding in 2022. They have been operational since then and are approaching their final year of the contract. Their contract is set to be expended by December 31st, 2026. And they're here to present their most recent evaluation findings.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Katherine Olred, and I am the Executive Director of the Early Childhood Center of Excellence that we call ECHKO because that's a mouthful. So the Early Childhood Center of Excellence is located at Santa Fe Community College, and our mission is really focused on a two-generation approach to supporting the early childhood ecosystem. So we hold the model office for the First Born and More Home Visiting Program, which is the model that Growing Up New Mexico uses here in Santa Fe. We do workforce training. We have the Bilingual Early Learning Center. We also support student parents in higher education, and one of our signature workforce programs is the Appren. It is the state's first education-related apprenticeship program, and that makes Santa Fe very unique in its approach to thinking about the early childhood workforce. And so with that, we have had an evaluation for the past three years looking at this program. And by having an external evaluation, it was really important because the employers, the students, the faculty, anyone involved could tell somebody else how they thought the program was going. So what we're presenting today, you all should have an executive summary. We also have the full report if you are interested. We can get that to you, and we'd like to share the findings so that you're aware of what's been going on with the early childhood workforce here in Santa Fe. And so I will turn things over to Crystal.

Wonderful. Thank you. And are there slides that we would like to be getting up on the screen at this time?

They're not. It gets complex. Oh, there they are. Beautiful. Amazing. Good job.

Madam Chair, thank you, Councilors. I'm Crystal Sanchez. I'm the Appren Program Manager. And when people think of apprenticeship, they think of plumbers and electricians and hours and hours of doing specific skills. Our apprenticeship model is a workforce pipeline program. So we have an in-house pre-apprenticeship that is for students that are just starting out in higher education, and we place them in employer settings for an extended practicum up to 150 hours a semester for up to two semesters so that they're able to understand the link between theory and on-the-ground practice. They're able to build relationships with other educators. They're able to build relationships with center admin, and the center admin hopefully are able to vet people and get a better feel for the goodness of fit for future employees rather than relying on a 45-minute, hour-long interview. So the pre-apprenticeship is intended to be an on-ramp to registered apprenticeship, but we have found out that we have students who may not be able to directly transition into employment. So we've worked with Growing Up New Mexico's Escalonus program to support students in potentially opening their own family childcare homes. And then the registered apprenticeship is three-pronged, but it's considered a competency-based program. So we have a skills rubric that takes the NMAC code and the skills that early childhood educators are expected to learn during their higher education journey. When we split that into what is completely theoretical for the faculty and what can be demonstrated on the job at work. So the registered apprentices work with a mentor to be assessed as competent in 147 skills on a rubric. They also need to complete 2,000 hours on the job and complete their associate degree. And during our first three years, we realized that there are some students who have unrelated bachelor's degrees. So they may finish the base courses and then transition into something like alternate licensure. So we do have some apprentices that aren't necessarily going to finish with their AA. They're finishing with a different degree outcome. And then I think one of the things that's super important to point out is that we have not only the first education-based apprenticeship, but we are currently the only apprenticeship in the state for educators of children birth to five years old. And our goals really are to both recruit new people to the field because we tend to, especially in Santa Fe, where our centers are such high quality that it, we can't get people from retail or food service to be able to come in and work in classrooms. We need to have prior experience. So this is a way to get new people into the field and then to help people that are already employed get the supports they need to support retention and fight turnover.

So our external evaluation was done by the Cradle to Career Policy Institute at UNM, and they really looked at both outcomes for the pre-apprentices and outcomes for the registered apprentices. And this infographic has a lot of information in it, but I think it's noteworthy to point out that we've had 63 pre-apprentices come through our program since the fall 2022 semester. And we've had 38 apprentices apply since the spring 2023 semester. And of the 63 apprentices, more than half of them have finished their academic certificate, which puts them as eligible for employment in centers, and we also had 64% of our pre-apprentices transition into registered apprentices. So it shows that our model is functioning. And then of the 38 apprentices, we've had two people complete. Very exciting. We think of the apprenticeship as a two to three-year time commitment, and both of our completers finished in a year and a half. And then we also looked at degree attainment and career advancement. So we support our students both in getting the ECECD Child Development Certificate and the one-year certificate at SFCC. So looking at pre-apprenticeship, the external evaluators were able to interview everybody that wanted to come to panels. They talked to people individually, and they did a deep dive into our data, and it showed that roughly half of the pre-apprentices were able to gain employment once their pre-apprenticeship was done. So that turned into 31 new educators here in Santa Fe, and 64% converted into apprentices. So we had 23 people that went from pre-apprenticeship into registered apprenticeship. The rest of our apprentices were direct entry. So they were already employed at employer partners, and they're like, "Hey, this is great." And then they decided to apply to be apprentices. I think the quote from this pre-apprentice is super powerful. "I would never have tried college without the Apprenate program." So we really want to support people who may not have the time, the support network, resources in place to go to school and pick a career to be able to manage work and life and try something new to support the children and families in our area. It's also worth noting, we did have on the previous slide, there were a couple of people who did not complete either the pre-apprenticeship or the apprenticeship, and in speaking with our external evaluators, they all noted that their stopping out had more to do with life circumstances than it did with the Appren. And we also found that as we've been functioning for longer periods of time, we had pre-apprentices from that fall 2022 first semester who stepped away from the program and then reached out to us last semester, and they were like, "Hey, I got a job. Can I be an apprentice now?" So being able to have more of that longitudinal information has been great to circle back with students who are like, "Oh, I had this thing going on, but now I'm ready. Can I still work with you?"

Love this picture. So, as I said, we did have two people complete. And this is a picture of Pearla. She works at SFCC's Kids Campus. She is the first person in the state of New Mexico to receive her apprenticeship completion in early childhood. And we have about nine people that are somewhere in the mix but getting close to finishing their apprenticeship. So we're hoping that by the end of this academic year, we'll have even more completers to report. The tricky thing with our apprenticeship is that three-pronged model. So we may have people that start the apprenticeship, their very first courses at SFCC, so they have the entirety of the associate degree to go. We might have people that come in and they're taking their 200-level courses, so they're about halfway done. And then we might have people that have finished their 2,000 hours and they've completed the degree, but they're really working on some last straggler competencies. So we're also looking at our competency rubric and what it might look like if we adapted it now that HD is thinking about changing the educator competencies, and we want to look at other apprenticeships in the nation to see maybe there's wiggle room for us to change that and support speeding people through. We also currently have three apprentices that are in alternative licensure right now, and we have four apprentices that finished their AA and are working on their BAS right now. So being able to support that next piece of transferring out into four-year institutions, encouraging our completers or our apprentices to then mentor once they've exited out of Appreny. We have a couple of mentors who also work with the early childhood networks. So they've been able to talk to the students in their classroom about the spectrum of the academic and professional journey that they've been on and kind of cheer them on to be like, "Look, I did it. You can do it, too." I'll give it back to Ketchron.

Thank you so much. So, I guess the big thing is what was the point of this evaluation and did it work? And I hope from some of what Crystal shared that you're seeing that this is making a really big impact here in Santa Fe as far as our early education workforce. We heard from students that having those stipends and having that wraparound support is what made them able to come to school.

And that's something you don't see in other programs. We've heard that again and again in the evaluation, but that financial support, they were able to quit their job at McDonald's and be able to do the apprenticeship, get that in-classroom experience, and also that networking, that social capital that comes from being in centers, meeting people so that you end up getting employed. We've seen that pipeline to employment really working.

The employers are thrilled because they have people in their centers with extra hands, so to speak, but they're also getting to grow their own. They're not hiring someone and finding out it's a bad fit. They have almost six months for some of these pre-apprentices to see if it's going to work out. Some of our pre-apprentices start in one center and move to another. So, it's really kind of encompassing the full workforce.

The other thing our employers are telling us is that that experience in the classroom matters. Great, you got your degree, but do you know what to do when somebody is biting? This program is really getting that practical, on-the-ground experience that's changing what it looks like to be an entry-level professional. We're also hearing from faculty, which is really interesting, that these students are really understanding that theory-to-practice connection. They are more advanced than the other students in the class because they actually know what's happening in real classrooms.

The benefit to children is really smaller ratios, more adults in the classroom. Children who have special needs are getting more one-on-one attention. One of our employers said that it was only because of Appren that she was able to keep classrooms open during, and that's real because our centers do not have substitutes. So Appren is filling a lot of gaps in this sector that is sort of hanging on by their fingernails.

I think for the city of Santa Fe, is it worth it to fund this program? When we see that the numbers of 800 children have been in classrooms with apprentices and with pre-apprentices, we've actually brought more men to the field, which is something that we're really seeing at Kids Campus. I think we have five or six male teachers, and more than half of them have come from the Appren program. That's huge.

We're also able to, because at Santa Fe Community College we offer coursework in English and in Spanish, we're able to build a bilingual workforce, which supports our families' needs for culturally responsive care. The big thing for me, I've been in the field of higher ed and education for close to 20 years, an associate degree in early childhood is a 10-year degree for a lot of, and that's what we're working, and we need to get that to a two or three-year degree. That's what this program does. By allowing people to demonstrate competency in the field, they can take more credits, they're getting support, and we're taking a 10-year degree down to the three-year degree, considering that these are working adults with families. We're really hopeful about how we can continue to accelerate that.

Just to share some of our partners, I think what's really important about the people you see up here is that we have the Santa Fe School District. We've got Turquoise Trail Charter School. We have private childcare. We have home-based. The Village Academy is a home-based. We have the school. We have religious childcare. So it really spans the full ecosystem of supporting Santa Fe early childhood. We also partner with CNM because they may be offering a class our students need, and we're not trying to hold anyone back. We really want them moving forward, so building more relationships. We also have a great relationship with New Mexico Pilots, and many of our students choose to transfer their bachelor's degree.

I think as we're thinking about next steps and what does it mean for Appren, we have been so grateful to the city of Santa Fe for funding this pilot, very innovative for a city to decide that as an economic development program that childcare is essential, and that's what we need. Unfortunately, we did a little poll of all of our employer partners, and those that got back to us have anywhere from 50 families on their waitlist to 300 to 600. So, here in Santa Fe, we do not have enough childcare for the need. If we want families working, we need to be able to support that on the other side. With universal childcare coming, we only see that sort of impacting even more. The only way for us to expand more slots in childcare is to have that workforce behind it. That's where I think Appren has done a really amazing job of stabilizing the workforce.

One of our favorite quotes is from Presbyterian First Presbyterian Ann Ly, and she actually said she had some teachers who had been wanting to retire for years but just felt that they couldn't because there was no one behind them, and then with the support of bringing in more people to her center through Appren. So it's almost like that we know that there's a pipeline coming, and so employers are really counting on that as we move forward. I think that we are ready to stand for questions.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here, and thank you for all your work. It's really exciting to see this evaluation here. Questions, comments from the committee at this time? Councilor Faulkner and Councilor Castro.

I just want to commend you because I do think that when we're talking about trades and trade skills, we often look to electricians, plumbers, some other things. The fact that you're looking at childcare for working parents is fantastic. There are so many parents, and I'm empathetic to this in that my nieces all have little ones at home, and they have careers, and childcare is sometimes more expensive than paying your rent or mortgage, especially if you have more than one child. So I just really appreciate this program, and I'm thankful that you guys are vested in it. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Thank you, Councilor Castro. I agree. I also just want to thank you, Councilor Faggner, for that. I want to commend you for the program, for the ecosystem. I think it's really exciting that we have the alternative licensure. It's helping at all levels, and knowing that we potentially have more need now that we're going to have free childcare at the state level. We just really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Garcia.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation. What barriers do you see for participants that want to enter the program? Because it's great to have the program, but there are also barriers that prohibit folks from just being an initial entry into the program. So, what are you seeing that are having folks say, "Well, I'd love to participate, but what does that 'but' lead to?"

It's a variety of factors. I think the sort of exchange of, "I have this job now, and even though I want something different, I can't give up that salary," and while we are paying stipends, that is not the equivalent of full-time salary. So I think there's some of that, there's some trepidation there. I will just honestly say recruitment is probably our biggest challenge. We're here, we're ready, and do things flexibly, but we're really trying to identify who wants this career. That's one of the big things that I think the state needs to think about. There's some, I don't know if you've seen the wage and career scale that the state has put forward, but that is really important. People need to know that there's a thriving wage at the end of this, and so supporting those thriving wages in early childhood, I think, and getting the word out that you can make the equivalent of a public school teacher salary. Those are things that I think are really important. Then for some of our students, it's citizenship, being able to get that documented work.

I don't know other barriers. Thank you, Councilor Garcia. With the pre-apprentices specifically, I think there's some concern about making the leap from attending training to being in higher education. To respond to that, we've done some events where we get together either with employers and we talk to their staff, walk them through the application and the registration and the scholarship steps, or we'll do online events that are open to anyone who's interested in courses in early childhood. We'll again online, so they can be at home with their kids if they need to, but we walk them through the SFCC application. We walk them through how to register for classes and make sure that they're registered for the classes they want to be in. That's been fairly successful. We have a handful of students every semester that end up attending those sessions and then converting into registered students.

Okay, that's helpful because I think as you noted with healthcare becoming universal here soon, we want to ensure that we're providing all opportunities for the young folks in our community. We're at the point now where parents, basically once they know that they're expecting, they've got to sign folks up to be on waitlists, and there's nobody that doesn't have to wait on a waitlist. If they did, they hit the golden ticket. I mean, I had to wait two years before we got out here for our little guy. It's to the point where we need to ensure that any barriers, whether it's the training, certification, etc., we begin to reduce those barriers because the need is not going away by any means. People are not stopping having children. We need to ensure that we're providing the opportunities because to Councilor Faulkner's points, folks sometimes have to decide between being at work and taking care of your kid. It should not come down to that. I think that's where, just thinking back to when I was a youngster, we had opportunities where you had a lot of folks that did at-home daycare, and we're seeing less and less of that. If we can offer up those opportunities because a lot of the providers you mentioned were facilities, we can kind of have a hybrid of both opportunities because you didn't really talk too much about at-home daycare because these are more structured programs. Is there a plan to help folks with kind of just at-home daycare services out of their home and not necessarily meeting a criteria like Growing Up New Mexico because theirs is a very focused curriculum that they have?

I think about the access to childcare in the workforce is also very important that we do see a lot of our apprentices say until they can get childcare, they can't get the classroom. So we're really in a stuck place. We do support home-based care, and that is true since Santa Fe has really struggled, lost quite a few home-based providers. We have one of our graduates who has opened a home childcare. We now are partnering with the home childcare so that we can send our pre-apprentices to that environment so they can be trained in a home-based environment and hopefully to open their own. We partner very closely with Growing Up New Mexico and Escalonus to push those students who want that pathway into that support.

So we're absolutely about waste childcare, and I think it's perfect for pre-apprenticeship. It's hard to have registered apprenticeship because of the Department of Labor requirements for home-based care, but we are sort of informally doing a pre-apprenticeship. Good to hear. Just wish you the best of luck. Looks like it's been successful thus far, and I look forward to a successful collaboration in the future. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Anything else from the committee at this time? Well, thank you again both for being here. I truly appreciate everything you've done. I know this has been a really long conversation, and the number of brains that have been involved, including Kate Noble and Julie Sanchez and the Early Childhood Steering Committee, I mean, just the heavy hitters in early childhood that have been involved in this program and the way that you all have just taken it and run with it and grown it to this three-pronged approach and being able to get all the different tentacles in. So, I know part of the reason that I wanted to make sure you came was because we are running out of those ARPA dollars. Has the city been the only funder, or are there other funding sources that you guys have been utilizing to this point?

Madam Chair, we had a private foundation grant that we are currently in a no-cost extension. So, as of now, it is only city funds. We have been talking to the county and are hopeful that after this meeting, there might be a county-city collaboration for funding, and I know that they are open to that. We are still continuing to look for funds with the foundations, with ECECD, and we did apply for congressional funding through Heinrich's office, got all the way through all of the committees and was approved, but with the federal shutdown. This happened last year as well. We got all the way through, and then there aren't the appropriations when the government shuts down. So, we're in year two of everyone being really excited but not being able to move forward. So, we are really trying to figure out how to build the financial sustainability of this program with local support, private money, and potentially state. So, we are turning over rocks in every way.

Yeah. Wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. And I know that that's been a challenge. I think one thing that people don't fully understand the impact is when you talk about, "Oh, 31 new educators in the community," that in terms of slots for kids, that is a lot. Can you actually, I forget the ratios right now, but I think for under two, it's 5 to 1, over two, it's what, 10 to 1?

It's actually broken down anywhere from 1 to 20 in a pre-K classroom to 1 to 4 in an infant classroom at a five-star center. The ratios change depending on your star level, which is more complicated, but yes, so if you think about 31 new educators in a 1 to 20 situation, you know, we're seeing some really...

That's, and I mean, even with a 1 to 4 situation, we're still talking about, you know, 120 additional spaces for infants, which is an area that we really struggle with. So, I just always want to, you know, so people understand the impact, you know, when we're looking at this and as Councilor Garcia was painting and Councilor Faulkner around what economic development means here and what workforce development means here and how there is this duplicative effect basically for childcare because it's not just workforce development for childcare, it's workforce development for literally everything else. So, you know, I wanted to make sure we brought this here. I know we're about to start having budget conversations as we start to look at the FY27 budget. As you mentioned, you know, $300,000 a year to support the level that you're currently at, or does that allow for some growth?

It would allow for some growth as well.

Okay. Wonderful. So, thank you for coming here. I appreciate you taking the time. You know, I think that this has been an incredible success, and I am just so, so incredibly thrilled with all the work that you have done. And please reach out to us as you continue to move this forward and continue to look for any other funding sources. And I'll be reaching out to the county because you're right, that is a partnership that is incredibly necessary that we really need to tap into. So, thank you again so much.

Chairwoman.

Oh yeah, Councilor Faulkner.

I will help with whatever I can on this issue. We can, anyone, any of us who can partner with this, we should be doing this. It really is a critical component to how successful families can be.

Thank you.

Thank you both for all. All right, let us move along to the only item that has been pulled off the consent agenda this evening. Let me get there so I can properly read the caption. We are on item N, consideration of Bill Number 2025-21. It's adoption of Ordinance Number 2025, to be numbered later, sponsored by Mayor Alan Weber. It's a bill amending SFCC 1987 Section 28-1.5, Living Wage Ordinance, to increase the city's base minimum wage and update the formula for calculating the minimum wage annually. We do not have, I'm not seeing Rod Gold here today, but we have Alisa Montoya here. And I pulled this, but I understand that there are a lot of amendments here from multiple people, but Director Montoya does have some of the updated results from the survey. So, I will turn it over to you, Director, for that, and then we'll go to the committee. Thank you, Madam Chair. Connecting my, oh, there we go. Check that. Okay. Whoops. Okay. Well, this is an update. We actually have final results on the Santa Fe, City of Santa Fe Living Wage Survey and also the Chamber of Commerce Survey. My apologies in advance to some counselors who have already seen this presentation, but knowledge is power, right? So, let's move it along. This is really exciting. We had over 1,400 people respond to the City of Santa Fe Living Wage Survey. The last update I provided to you, Madam Chair, there were over 600 people that had replied. We ended it with over 1,400 responses. Thank you, Councilor Chavez, for recommending that we utilize the Santa Fe Public Schools to get the word out. It worked. Within 24 hours, these numbers more than doubled. So, awesome. We had over 88% of respondents identify as city residents. And then you see here the breakdown. It's a pretty diverse from different zip codes across the city and also the breakdown of whether they're a worker, whether they're a business owner, whether they're retired, or just however they self-identified. We also have much, a much wider spread now in how many people live in your household. It's a really, this, this survey represents a range, wide range of folks from, you know, single individual households to families. You know, we have over 130 people respond where they have five or more people living in their household. That is really, really, really good, good feedback. We also have a wider spread here than the earlier update you received on the approximate annual household income. So, you can look at that data there. We asked how much of their monthly household budget goes to rent and mortgage. And you see it's, you know, close to 50% told us that between 25 and 50% of their household income goes to rent or mortgage, which is that's fairly significant. That's over 500 people. We asked how much of the household budget goes to childcare, and as you see, there were over 50%, easily over 70% of people who replied either said none or it was not applicable to them. But we did get more data on families. And nearly 80% of respondents pay over $8,000 in childcare monthly. So, we asked folks in general, how well does the current living wage meet the cost of living in Santa Fe? You see here over 85% of respondents said that the current living wage at $15 an hour is not enough. We asked the respondents if they support or oppose raising the living wage in Santa Fe, and 70%, that's over 1,000 respondents, told us that they strongly support raising the living wage to $17.50 an hour. So, key takeaways from this survey, we found very strong community support among the respondents to the city survey. A clear majority believe the current $15 an hour does not meet the cost of living in Santa Fe. Over 1,200 people, or about 85% of the respondents, told us that $15 an hour is not enough. 70% told us they strongly support raising the living wage to $17.50 an hour. There was a perceived worker impact. About 72% of worker respondents expect the wage increase to improve their ability to live and work in Santa Fe with a relatively few amount anticipating harm. Business views were mixed in this survey, and we can make available to you counselors the Excel spreadsheet so you can have the hard data if you don't have it already. I actually think Johanna Nelson, Director Nelson, shared it with you. You could analyze the data and break it down how you want, but this is what we pulled that business views are mixed. But one thing that's really exciting, well, several things we pulled from the survey that's exciting, but one I want to emphasize is that respondents overwhelmingly view economic diversity and local housing access as core community values that are tied to wage policies. So, many of the respondents, they used open-ended comments to express their concern that long-term residents, teachers, and service workers are being priced out of Santa Fe. We asked, we asked the participants a couple questions. One is, what do they see as the main benefits of potentially raising the living wage? And you see here the responses: improve quality of life, nearly 300 responses. Local economic circulation. So, that means that they often noted that increased wages translates into more local spending benefiting small businesses and the local economy overall. We had over 150 respondents communicate that sentiment. Over 100 respondents told us that the wage issues directly tied to housing affordability and can help prevent the out-migration of local families. And then also equity and community well-being also came in pretty strong in the comments. Many commented that wage increases, they connected them to broader values of justice, fairness, and community cohesion. So, it was very interesting. We also asked individuals to communicate to us what they saw as the main challenges or risks with potentially raising the living wage. Inflation and price increases came in at the top with over 200 responses. Many expressed concern that higher wages could drive up the costs of goods and services from their vantage point, potentially canceling out intended benefits. There was nearly 100 respondents expressed a concern about the impact on small businesses. Over 80 respondents talked about the need for a holistic, a holistic approach. They felt that raising the living wage should be part of a larger strategy that we've talked about before as well. This is one tool, one, one thing we can do to help make Santa Fe more livable. And then they some also flagged, nearly 60 individuals flagged concern about pressure on nonprofits and public services. So, this is from respondents who work in the nonprofit government sectors. They felt that they can't often rely on, well, they need to rely on fixed budgets and grant funding. They can't raise their prices like small businesses, private small businesses could. We also received the final results from the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce Business Survey.

They had over 70 local business responses, and you see here the range of the size of the businesses that responded. And here's also a sample of some of the different kinds of businesses in Santa Fe that responded to this survey. So you see Kakawa Chocolates, Boxcar Santa Fe, Iconic Coffee Roasters, The Kitchen Table. And we asked that, or the Chamber asked their membership, "Do you hire interns or entry-level employees and provide training for them?" You see here over 70% responded yes. "Would you support a temporary training wage below the minimum wage for new hires during an onboarding period if allowed by law?" About 45% responded yes, and nearly close to 20% indicated they were unsure and would be open to learning more. "Are you currently using the tip wage credit for any of your employees?" You see only less than 10% responded yes. So it gives you an idea of the sample of the kinds of businesses that responded to the Chamber survey.

"And then what is the current pay range of your employees?" This is really interesting. About 50% of these businesses pay their employees at least $21 an hour. And it's also another about 15% of these businesses pay their employees between $19 and $20.99 an hour. So this is a significant statistic for us to consider. So, they asked, "How many of your employees currently make under $20 an hour?" And look at this. Over 50% of the business respondents told us that none of their employees are making under $20 an hour. They're making more than that. So, that's impressive.

The Chamber also asked, "What employee benefits does your business currently offer?" And this is a really, really interesting statistic. It's a wide range, very impressive. Over 50% of business respondents provide healthcare insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, paid vacation or sick leave, and even a very small sliver provides housing assistance, which is something that the city doesn't track right now, but this is the first data we've received on this topic. It's very, very interesting.

"What's your biggest concern impacting your employees?" And we see, excuse me, leading the issues, we have affordable housing and cost of living is at the top. And then crime, public safety, access to childcare, and retention and turnover come in next. "Would an increase in minimum wage cause your company to consider job cuts?" Over 50% said no. Under 40% said yes. And then about 10% are unsure. "Would an increase in the minimum wage lead to higher costs for the price of goods?" About 50% said yes. From their vantage point, it would. And a little under 40%, I guess that's like 46%, said no. And then some, of course, were unsure. They just don't know yet.

So, in conclusion, over 1,400 residents participated in these surveys. More than 80% shared written feedback. This reflects a deep care for Santa Fe's future. This was really, we're really, really happy that we had so many people respond, not just respond, but also leave written feedback. Nearly 80% of respondents in the city survey support increasing the wage to $17.50 an hour, citing fairness, stability, and the need to keep pace with the cost of living. Residents see the living wage as one tool, one tool in addition to the other issues that we've discussed before, that are important to consider to make Santa Fe more livable. In the Chamber survey, it clearly shows that Santa Fe's business community recognizes both the opportunity and responsibility of ensuring a living wage for its workforce. While there's optimism about the benefits—stronger morale, lower turnover, and a more stable economy—moving forward, success will depend on pairing wage policies with practical tools, collaboration, and investment so our workers can thrive and businesses remain competitive. Thank you. I am available to answer any questions you may have.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Montoya. And we, you'll make sure that the, I mean, basically the raw data results, whatever we have, I know from the city. I don't know if the Chamber has sent them, but if we could get those probably sent to the entire council, I'm sure everybody would appreciate that.

Dr. Montoya: Yes. I think Director Nelson sent them shortly after the survey closed, but we will send them with the PDF of this presentation just to have it at the top of your boxes.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for sending that, Director Nelson. I apologize that I had missed that one. So, a couple things. There were a couple amendments that were passed and are now attached for public works. I would love it if the sponsors of those amendments, I know Councilor Garcia was Amendment A, Councilor Castro's Amendment B, if you guys just don't mind giving us a brief synopsis of what those are, just so we know as this bill continues to move forward, as we have a patchwork quilt of amendments to discuss tonight.

Councilor Garcia: Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Amendment A, in essence, what it did was it expedited the timeline for implementation for City of Santa Fe workers should this pass. So, in essence, if this ordinance does pass, any wage increase would take effect January 1, 2026, for all City of Santa Fe employees, whether they are full-time or part-time employees. And that did pass.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you. And just out of curiosity, is that wage just the hourly wage? Or does it consider the conversation around benefits? Was that contemplated?

Councilor Garcia: It was hourly wage.

Mayor: Okay. Thank you. Councilor Castro.

Councilor Castro: And my amendment, which also passed, based on the research information that we just heard, as well as serving businesses in my district, we were able to talk about what a stable wage could look like. There is also some research that I think will still be released by an economist, Director Ramani, Bob, I don't remember his last name, but Professor Riley White.

Mayor: Exactly.

Councilor Castro: That was here to speak a little towards the difficulty in regulating and enforcing a sub-minimum wage. There are also some issues with the way that our current ordinance addresses wages versus stipends. That does limit the amount of folks that can participate in some of our workplace learning programs. So, I've worked with Councilor Garcia on a different language that could potentially help with some of that, as well as raising the wage from $17.50 to $20.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you. And with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to the committee. We could either start taking, want to just take amendments up in order? Okay. Wonderful. So, let's start then with Amendment C. Well, actually, I'm sorry. Are there any questions or comments on the general bill, or do you want to jump into amendments? Amendments sound good. All right. Wonderful. So, looking at Amendment C, I don't remember which one this is. So, this is sponsored by myself and Councilor Faulkner. And it, so this discusses the ways that a wage is calculated. So, I'm looking at line or page seven, line 20, and it says, "In computing the wage paid for purposes of determining compliance with the minimum wage." The original reads, "The value of health benefits and childcare shall be considered as an element of wages." This defines what health benefits mean because that was a little vague. So, this means medical, vision, and dental. And then as well as employer-provided childcare and housing benefits. The thought behind this was a couple. One, we understand what's happening at the federal level and concern around people losing their benefits and making sure that there is continued incentive for employers to add those in, as and understanding that, you know, especially dental, but vision as well, is incredibly crucial for families to have access to. And then with the housing benefit, you know, obviously childcare was added in in the prior development of this ordinance because it was one of the highest costs, which as we have seen, remains to be true, and also remains to be a challenge. But we know how hard housing is. And as mentioned, there are some organizations that are starting to look at how they support their employees with housing. And so wanting to recognize that that potentially could be an opportunity for compliance that one provides an incredible benefit of housing for employees, and also encouraging employers to look at how they may support those housing benefits. Councilor Faulkner, do you have anything to add to this?

Councilor Faulkner: Other than I think you described it fairly well. I think there's some other benefits that employers can provide that may offset the cost of increasing the living wage while also providing some of our employees in the city with some benefits that they desperately need. And then I know part of this conversation is, and honestly, I'm still, I still need to get a better understanding of this, is that we know with an increase of wage, there also is an increase to employers around certain taxes. With benefits, I'm still trying to figure out how the benefits impact those. So, I don't know if anybody has that answer yet at this time. If not, I would, I would love to get it. You know, if they are including a housing benefit, are those going to be included towards the various taxes that have to be included?

Mayor: Director Montoya, did you have something to, or just we'll look it up?

Dr. Montoya: Chair, I wanted to flag for you that the FAQs that Rod had sent around, they do speak directly to this issue, and they list out, they speak directly to benefits and also list out the federal and state taxes and the cost for employers. So, it gives a pretty clear estimate of what an employer would need to absorb.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you. I am apparently awful at my email these days. So, I appreciate you all telling me what I've missed. So, thank you for that. With that, I will take a look at this and turn it over for questions or comments. Move to approve. Second. Or a motion and a second. I'm sorry. We need a motion and a second. We need an original. We need a motion on the entire thing first. Move to approve.

Councilor: Second.

Mayor: All right. So, this is the main motion to approve the current bill. And then a motion and a second on the amendment. And then any questions or comments for if we vote? Councilor Garcia.

Councilor Garcia: So, in Rod's comments, he spoke to losing benefits. So, let me pose this question here. And I'm going to look at it from the perspective of a City of Santa Fe employee. Did this pass? And a City of Santa Fe employee is now making $17.50 an hour. They're full-time. They're receiving medical benefits. The way this currently reads is that the city can begin to factor in the cost of benefits and reduce the pay of the individual under $17.50 based off of whatever benefits they sign up for. Sometimes folks just want to get medical, sometimes folks just want to get optical. Whatever it is, whatever package they apply for, at the end of the day, that is taken into consideration by the city, and the city can ultimately then say, "Well, it's costing your, your, your salary is," and I'm going to use round numbers for example's sake, "salary is $100,000, and the benefits package we're paying you is $20,000. So, we're ultimately going to lessen your take-home pay $80,000 to whatever it is." So, ultimately, the wage, the hourly wage, the whole package meets that $17.50 criteria. That's the way this currently reads. And, and so I want to make sure this is one of the concerns I have because I'm going at this kind of piecemeal, and I don't want that to be a factor because then what's going to happen is you might have a lot of folks opting out of health insurance because they're going to say, "I'd rather have the take-home pay than the benefits." And I think, can we get clarification on that? Would if somebody were to opt into city healthcare package.

Does that reduce the $17.50 that then they would be making?

Mayor: Counselor Garcia, it's my understanding, and I would want the City Attorney's office to clarify, that the way this amendment is written, we're setting the living wage at $17.50 an hour. We're right now in the city, as you know, the city employs over 1,400 employees. We have 12 probationary employees that are earning $17.47. And then we have 16 temp employees that are earning between $15 an hour and $17.47 an hour. So it is my understanding that the intention for the City of Santa Fe is to elevate all of these salaries or temp salaries to $17.50 in addition to benefits. And if that's not clarified,

Is anyone from the City Attorney's office here this evening?

So the way it reads here, it says, "In computing the wage for purposes of determining compliance with the minimum wage, the value of health benefits, childcare, shall be considered as an element of wages." And so the way that reads is that any benefits are taken into consideration as part of that $17.50 value. And so an employer, whether it be the city or anybody else, can say, if the employer is paying $5 a paycheck for an individual's, or $5 an hour, I mean, this is where it gets tricky because it's hourly wage. It then gets down to how much it actually costs. But whatever that value is, that $17.50 can be reduced based off of the benefits package provided to the individual. So I think it's, in essence, for those folks who are, as you mentioned, making $17.47 an hour right now, it's actually a loss for them because now their benefits package that they're already qualified for is going to reduce their take-home pay.

Mayor: Counselor Garcia, if we're talking about entities, let's, if we could for a moment, move the example away from the city because again, I would want the City Attorney's office to clarify the amendment that you proposed, whether the $17.50 creates a risk that that could decrease. But you are accurate in talking about other businesses, and that's how the current living wage ordinance reads today, that an employer can use healthcare benefits that they provide to their employees to offset the $15 an hour requirement.

So the way, and I don't have the existing. I'm going based off of what's in front of us. So this is

The existing would be what's there minus the part that's written in the amendment. So yeah.

Right, right. And I, that's what I read off. I referenced the actual, this is actually an amendment that is part of the package as it's underlined. So it's, I didn't read what was in green. I read what is being proposed to be amended. And even if it's part of the package, what I don't want to happen, and I completely understand, whether it be city government or private business, nonprofit business, etc., is that on face value it looks like we're raising the minimum wage to a certain level, but then there is an option for employers to take into consideration a benefits package that would ultimately lower the dollar amount that an individual was taking home. And I think that sometimes defeats the purpose of what's going on because that might not be taking place. And there might be that exception right now. But should this pass, I don't want folks to then say, "Well, we're going to just now can take into consideration your benefits and not raise your wage, and there might be the potential to even lower somebody's wage." It's that unintended consequence. And so I think that's where if we need to get the clarification because I think this, what we're doing here with this proposed amendment in front of us, it's adding additional clarifications in regards to what are the benefits that could ultimately reduce. I'm looking at the underlying intention around this in general. So,

Mayor: Counselor Garcia, under the current living wage ordinance, when computing the value, businesses can take into consideration the value of health benefits and childcare. The cost of that can be considered an element of wages in meeting the living wage. And what this amendment does is it actually defines the

I understand it, and I think that's, I think maybe the point I'm trying to make is being missed, is that we should, we should be working to not allow this in the essence because the unintended consequence is that whether it be the city or any other employer essentially could be reducing somebody's take-home pay because of the benefits that they might want to sign up for or are already getting. And because, I mean, this is, we have to understand, this is a, this is a proposal that is raising wages by, I would say, a significant amount, $2.50. And I'm not saying the city would do this, but I'm not, it now allows any other entity to say, "Well, you were making $15 an hour, you're supposed to be making $16. The benefits we're giving you now equal up to an hourly rate of $3. So we're taking you from $15 to $14.50. You still get to get your benefits, but you're getting a reduction in pay." And I think that's, I'm a little worried about. So

Point of clarification, I just want to make sure we understand at this point, this legislation is set at $20, not at $17.50.

That is correct. And so part of the calculation that I had made is that these are exceptions that are already in the law. These are not things that are being added, and it does say "could," not "must." Is that correct?

Correct. And just to clarify, so some of the logic, I, well, I can't speak to the people who originally wrote this, but why I was looking at this as support and wanting to expand and define is what has been found is that when other communities have raised the living wage, how businesses have adjusted is actually by decreasing benefits. And so they take away those benefits since those are not required. What this amendment or what this provision currently now does is provide that incentive given where we are with healthcare and given what it looks like is going to happen on the market. Healthcare access is about to become extremely challenging, and yes, it'll be an individual's ability to make that decision. But I would imagine based on what's about to happen with the exchange and everything that's happening at the federal government, and even where the exchange is now, that potentially a reduction in actual wages with the employee benefit program probably means more money in somebody's pocket when it comes to healthcare access. Unfortunately, that is the world that we live in with the American healthcare system, which is that we don't have broad support other than employer-based care. And employer-based care tends to be more robust and more affordable for individuals. That does become a conversation that somebody would have to have. And also, one of the things that I was concerned about too was this conversation around the benefits cliff. Is what happens if people get pushed to the point where they're no longer able to access those federal benefits? And one, how do we help employers to provide those really important benefits? And two, what does this start to look like? And potentially if somebody's take-home pay gets reduced, but they're getting benefits, they may still be able to qualify for other things. It's going to vary so much by person and by household. And yes, this is a "can" and not a "should," essentially. So, one final question, Ms. Montoya, you said this provision is already in the ordinance, but I can't find it. It's because again, the amendments to the ordinance are underlined. That's this whole section is underlined. So it's meaning it's a new section. I'm trying to find where in the other part of the ordinance where this language is currently because this seems like this is a new allowability. It wasn't a part of the previous ordinance that was passed. And I think that is where I'd like to get that clarification because it seems like being able to have an employer compute these benefits into the hourly rate, I don't see it. And if you can help me point to where it is in the existing language.

If I can go to my bag, I think I have the ordinance.

Okay. And yeah, and we can go to round.

Can I

Go ahead, Council Garcia. I think "underlined" also can mean "changed" and not "new" necessarily, which means that you could have a section existing in the legislation that you change slightly, and that whole section would be underlined. So it doesn't mean new, like the whole thing is new. It could also mean there's a portion of that was changed. Just for clarification.

And I don't think this was in the previous legislation. That's why I think this is a new carve-out for clarification. I think it's inspiring to the mic so it's on the record. Thank you.

It's going to be on page three of the original ordinance from 2004. It says, "Beginning January 1st, 2004, the minimum wage shall be an hourly rate of $8.50. In computing the wage paid for purposes of determining compliance with the minimum wage, the value of health benefits and childcare shall be considered as an element of wages."

Thank you, Counselor. That's what I was looking for. No other questions. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Counselor Falner,

I would just like to offer that whereas we are definitely trying to figure out a way to make things more affordable for the people of Santa Fe, we have to also remember, and this is the tricky part about the living wage, is that if you do not support the businesses who employ the people, then you will create the reverse effect. And it's fascinating to me this topic because for every economist that says this is a good idea, it's great, we got to do this, there are economists who are like, "No, this is not a good idea. This will have this impact." And both sides can present a lot of evidence and fact-based evidence as to why it will or will not work. And one of the complications for me as a leader is this isn't even a living wage. Like that's what I'm struggling with is like we might tax some small businesses who are employing the very people who need the living wage in a way that then cuts back on how much that group of people are earning because we're literally not doing a living wage. And so this feels kind of like a, I don't know, I struggle with what word to use. It doesn't seem like it's actually going to help as much as it's being projected to help because number one, it's not actually a living wage. A real living wage would be like $34. We can't do that because it would definitely impact the private sector in a way that would get a lot of people unemployed. But then it's also like, how do you, how do we calculate this? Like how do we know? I mean, just in the presentation that you made, the Chamber of Commerce report indicated like almost 300 small businesses were saying this isn't, we think this is going to have a negative impact, and only a hundred said that we think it's going to be great. And in your presentation, which was awesome by the way, and I know how much work you've put into it, and I, in no way am I coming at you as a staff member, it's just how information is being presented to us is in a way that's interesting to me in that like what we talked about this at our last Quality of Life for City Council meeting, like the number of people who responded in favor of this were making $100,000 or more, and who were, and then you broke it down by income, and the lower the income got, the less supportive people were for the living wage.

And it's interesting to me in that it shows that the very people we are trying to help are the ones who are least trusting of the living wage, outside of a handful of activist groups. I know that in District 3, it's very complicated because Airport Road—well, District 4 as well—Airport Road is our only major economic driver. And the businesses along Airport Road that are smaller businesses are saying they cannot handle this, that they will have to cut back hours. They will have to do things to minimize the impact for them. And so this is more complicated, and the number of amendments that are coming forward regarding this living wage tells you exactly how complicated and how unvetted this living wage might be. And so those are just some of my concerns moving forward, is that it's being presented like, "Oh, this is the best thing. This is the great thing to do, and everybody's happy about it." Except for when you look at the data, the data is reflecting that that's not exactly the case. That it's based on how you perceive the data and how you apply the data as to whether or not it's a good idea. And one of the most frustrating parts to me is that this isn't even actually a living wage. And housing is the problem we're trying to solve, and yet we're not really doing anything. The excise tax passed, but it's in court, and it's likely we will not benefit from the excise tax. We're building tons and tons of housing, and I say this at every meeting, we're saying, "Oh, this is going to help lower the cost of housing in Santa Fe." It is not lowering the cost of housing in Santa Fe because people from Los Alamos are having to come to Santa Fe because they can't afford to live in Los Alamos. And that's shoving Santa Feans into Rio Rancho. And there are two parts of this formula, two major parts that help develop this formula that are not happening. And so that's my fear about the situation, is we built a living wage formula based on three things happening, two of which are not happening in the manner that we think they were going to. And then, again, the people who are mostly in support of this are not going to be impacted by the living wage.

**Madame Chair:** Councilor Cassid, if I may. Thank you. That's—I really appreciate your comments. I mean that, it means a lot.

**Councilor:** And you're doing an awesome job, by the way.

**Madame Chair:** Thank you.

**Councilor:** I know it's a tricky situation, and I am grateful that you're here to help us.

**Madame Chair:** So, a couple of things I want to point out. Your comment about the 300 voices that expressed concern, that was from the City of Santa Fe survey where we had over 1,400 respondents. The Chamber survey, we had about 72, but those are all—all of those, all of the feedback that we're receiving from the community, we're taking to heart. And I'm really—I personally am happy to see that reflected in some of the amendments that you're offering. And I also want to flag for you, just because you brought up housing, that a decade ago, we were permitting—the city was permitting fewer than 200 new units per year. And in the past eight years, the landscape has begun to change dramatically. We're now permitting between 400 and 900 new units per year. And as you know, in one of my earlier presentations, we talked about the cost of rent going up, the cost of housing going up, and income isn't keeping up with that. One thing on the rent, the statistic on rent, we've seen in the past two years, it's not increasing as quickly as it had been. Last year, it only increased by 0.5%. I mean, it still increased, but it's increased by a much lower amount. We think it's because of the increased development and housing that we're starting to get out there. But you're absolutely right, we need to continue prioritizing that as we move forward.

**Councilor:** And my point is that we are looking at the living wage in the context of just the City of Santa Fe where housing is concerned. The reality is our housing affordability is a regional and national problem. And so creating formulas around the living wage that are only in the context of the City of Santa Fe, and that our houses and our apartments are only going to go to people who live in Santa Fe, that is a falsehood. We are taking on a lot of Los Alamos, a lot. And so the concern is that part of what we're calculating to bring together this formula for the living wage is not something we can trust to be a real data point that we can apply to this formula.

**Councilor Castro:** Yes. Sorry. I feel that we're very fortunate for this to be sort of the second round of this debate. We had a lot of these same concerns in 2004, and we were able to see what actually happened after that living wage was implemented. Thank you so much, Director, for speaking to the percentages of the increases, because truly when I do go out and talk to folks, I think that, and based on the survey numbers, it is a vast majority of the people, and we had over 1,400 surveys filled out, that support an increase. So I don't think that anyone in this city feels that $15 an hour is enough, truly. And in particular, I think that we're doing a great job in these discussions talking to small businesses about what their options are. I know that most small businesses aren't aware that they can use these credits towards those wages to understand what types of other incentives we could be working on. And thank you so much for the position that we're going to be able to have at Economic Development to support these small businesses, because in particular, I think we are investing a ton of city resources in helping some of these entrepreneurs. As we heard in the presentation earlier, not everybody can be an employee. And so there are options for folks who are potentially going to be owners of these small businesses later in our community. But as we talk about what a living wage is and what the intent of that living wage ordinance was in 2004, it wasn't for poverty wages. It was really to set the standard in the City of Santa Fe. And that was able to push the county and the state to step up and to really, we could be leaders in our community and to really support workers in this city. So, thank you so much, and I yield the floor.

**Councilor:** Thank you so much. A lot of things here, but maybe if we're ready to vote on the amendment, maybe we can vote on the amendment and we'll keep having these conversations. No, we don't have to vote. We have a motion, but then of course the final vote on the total bill will come after we play with our patchwork of amendments and figure out what we're actually voting on as amended tonight. So, any other questions or comments around this specific amendment?

**Councilor:** Just to clarify, as we vote right now, it is an amendment to offer more incentives at $20 an hour. Is that correct?

**Councilor:** That is what the bill sits at, or that is what the—yes, what it sits at right now.

**Councilor:** Correct.

**Councilor:** Roll call, please, on amendment.

**Councilor:** Councilor Castro.

**Councilor Castro:** Yes.

**Councilor:** Councilor Chavis.

**Councilor Chavis:** Yes.

**Councilor:** Councilor Garcia. Yes.

**Councilor:** Councilor Faulkner.

**Councilor Faulkner:** Yes.

**Madame Chair:** Yes.

**Councilor:** Motion passes.

**Councilor:** Wonderful. Okay, I'm going to make a note. Amendment C passed.

**Councilor:** Amendment C passed. Okay, moving on to Amendment D. So, Amendment D. This is Councilor Faulkner. Councilor Faulkner, to you. Do you want me to read it for you? Okay. So, this is Amendment D from Councilor Faulkner. I am scrolling down. Chavis, I think, and Councilor Lear Garcia. And Councilor Chavez, are you on this one as well? Okay, Councilor Chavez, do you want to go ahead and take it?

**Councilor Chavez:** I mean, I can take it. It's about the business that's under—

**Councilor:** Yes, it's on page 7, line 18 on this redline. So, it is on—yeah, it starts on line 18. So it will read now, "Beginning January 1st, 2027, the minimum wage shall be an hourly rate of $17.50, other than for employees of entities with 15 or fewer employees, which shall continue to have the minimum wage described in paragraph B and computing the wage paid for purposes of determining compliance with the minimum wage, the value of healthcare," and we've already discussed all of that. So that the change there is, "other than for employees of entities with 15 or fewer employees, which shall continue to have the minimum wage described in paragraph B." So this is in direct response to the feedback we have been receiving in our district as well, and other districts in the city, and folks that I've spoken to. And I recognize that anecdotal data gathering is not exactly the most effective way of gathering data, but it is community feedback. Businesses are not doing the living wage mostly because they can't or they don't want to. And so my concern is trying to hit that spot where we can protect the small businesses who would if they could, but cannot. And those are mostly the businesses along Airport Road, which again is a primary economic corridor for our district. And we have heard from the businesses in our district that they are—they know definitely that they cannot manage the $2 increase to $17.50 an hour. They absolutely cannot. Most of them that we're hearing from cannot manage that. And so, I mean, one of the things we used to calculate whether or not a small business can manage this, so that we could then take anecdotal and then apply some facts around it. If you take, say you have a business of 25 people, and 10 of them are earning $15 an hour, and you're expected to increase that to $17 an hour, because we're already doing the 50 cents in 2026. So, we're really only actually increasing it with this new legislation by $2 an hour, because it's automatically going to go to $15.50. So, that means it's only $2 an hour. And if you said on average payroll tax is between 1 and 5%. Some businesses are paying 5%, some are paying 1%. We kind of said, "Oh, well, let's say it's 3%," because that's kind of an average. For 10 employees, it would be $50,000 a year to do the living wage if you didn't apply benefits and whatnot. But the companies that I'm concerned about are businesses that cannot do benefits because they cannot pay. They can't afford them. They're expensive. And so my concern is trying to catch the businesses in my district that are truly businesses that cannot afford this. They cannot. They're good business owners. They care about the community. They do a lot of community service in our district. They care about their employees, but this threshold is beyond their capacity. And so that's really what this piece of legislation was about. This amendment was to kind of protect those smaller businesses that truly cannot afford this. And that's—I yield the floor.

**Councilor Castro:** Thank you so much, Councilors, for this amendment. I truly appreciate the intent of protecting small businesses. The only hesitation I have is that unfortunately when we had the 25 and under exception, we saw some businesses splitting their LLCs to get—become, you know, under that threshold. And there are certain businesses that could be using this in nefarious ways. So, I'm always a little cautious with carve-outs and loopholes because people are always looking to save a buck. So, I'll yield the floor.

**Councilor:** In response, Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, I agree that it was one of—Castro, sorry. I agree with your concerns, and that's why I picked 15 or less, because to 25 or less, you can take a 50-person company and split it into two. If you go to 15, now you're looking at trying to manage three companies with your taxes, with your filings, with—it becomes cumbersome and not worth it at the end of the day. So that's why, like 15, I thought about 10, but then I got feedback from the businesses in my district, and they were like, "No, 15 is actually the number that is the threshold," because they said, you know, like you have weekend—you have people who work during the week—

and then you have weekend workers, and you have daytime and nighttime workers. And it looks like you only have 10, but you actually have 15, 25. I could see, I could see a company of 50 people being like, "Let's just split the company in half." And so that my consideration did include the possibility of nefarious company splitting.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilor.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments on this one at this time?

Madam Chair?

Yes, Director Montoya.

Councilors, if I could just, just to flag some potential unintended outcomes of a carve-out. I think whether it's, I understand it may affect the risk, whether it's 15 or whether it's 25, but you know, it can be perceived to discourage business growth. If there's opportunity for a business to grow, they may not want to choose not to. It, as Councilor Castro pointed out, it does incentivize companies to form other LLCs or to divide to maintain that 15, 15 threshold. It can create challenges with enforcement as we're, as we're implementing this. It does put those smaller businesses at a slightly competitive disadvantage with larger businesses. It could impact employee retention if an employee just will go to apply and start working in a business where the living wage is higher doing, doing the same work. And it won't protect the smaller businesses. It won't insulate them from pressure to raise pay. Councilor Faulkner.

So I think all the things you mentioned are valid, but they're already happening. A living wage will always threaten business growth for businesses of a certain size. That is happening no matter what. Always happens. I don't think our market, most of the people who work in the City of Santa Fe are already making more than $20 an hour. And so what we're not, what we don't have our eyes on is we're not trying to protect the majority of people employed in the City of Santa Fe. We're trying to protect a very specific minority of people employed in Santa Fe. And the things that you list as unintended consequences are factors that are already occurring in the natural market. And so I, I appreciate the feedback, but these things are already existing. I, I work for a restaurant as a, as a long-term strategist. I'm a lobbyist, which I say all the time. But I will tell you in those two roles, I track all of these things already for my clients. And these things are happening already in the current market. And so this does not increase the possibility of these outcomes and these threats. These threats are already out there. And so that's kind of the, that's also what led to this decision-making was like, there, there were proposed threats that are possible, but in the reality, they're already happening. Restaurants are losing their line crews because a line crew will come up and say to the restaurant owner on a given day, "I can get paid $30 at the compound, and you're only paying me 28. You either pay me 28, pay our crew 28, or we go to the compound today." And if you can't pay that, they go. People who are in, in small businesses are competing constantly for skilled workforce and for, and for wages because there's a lack of, of skilled workers in the City of Santa Fe and actually probably throughout most of the region. Skilled workers are the ones that can bounce from company to company and, and increase pay along the way. So those, those cautionary tale, unintended consequences you're speaking to are already happening. It's, this is, this amendment is not going to increase that possibility. It's already happening.

Madam Chair, Councilor, if I, if I could just quickly, Councilor Faulkner, I, I agree that we are very concerned about small businesses that may be just barely on the line, which is why we are strengthening our Office of Economic Development offerings of support to small businesses in Santa Fe. Director Nelson is here and she can speak to our partnership with New Mexico State University and also at Santa Fe Community College. And it is, we are working one-on-one with small businesses to refer them to resources, to look, help them look under the hood of their businesses, to help them frame out what they want to achieve, what their goals are, where their challenges are, so that we can work with them to help get there.

And just to add on to that real fast, so there will be an amendment coming forward, it was not ready today, that will specifically direct OED to really target and campaign towards these small businesses that potentially are, we are concerned about. The other good news about this is that there will be some data reporting, both at the budget hearings, if this amendment passes, as well as at the end of the calendar year, which, which will allow us to get some more information at this time before this does go into effect, if there, you know, and will give us the opportunity to make some shifts if we feel that that becomes necessary at this time. The one caveat I will provide is that this program is currently funded through the end of the calendar year 2026. And so for things for us to think about as we move into the budget season is looking at this program, looking at the supports that it provides and the impact it has on the community, which again is why this amendment would include presentations at some key moments throughout our year, both fiscally and calendarly, which I'm not sure if that's the word, to, to really draw some attention specifically around this issue with those businesses. So, preview of things to come, but unfortunately we're not ready today. Councilor Castro and then back to Councilor Faulkner.

I just have a finish up. Okay, go ahead. All I can say about all the programs we're considering doing, we don't have them in the budget yet. We, like my concern is who's going to feed the families of the small businesses and their employees? Who's going to, who's going to take care of those human beings while we try to fight for it in the budget, while we, the list of things that bureaucracy moves, moves at the speed of a snail. People's lives are going to be impacted in a very real way for some of these small businesses and some of the employees who work for the businesses who can't afford to pay $15, more than $15.50 an hour. And so my concern is that there's the very group of people we are trying to protect are going to be the people, at least a portion of that population that is going to be very negatively impacted. And again, my concern is I feel like in my district, in Lee Garcia and I's district, there is a higher level of that group of people than there is perhaps in other districts in the city.

So to correct real fast, this money actually, this program is currently funded and operating. It's, but it's not fun, exactly. So it's not funded till after 20. So this is kind of that conversation around that transitional period. And that's why those data points are there. Did want to, to make it that it is funded just not past 2026.

Just not when the living wage would go into effect, right?

Which is why the campaign would do like the preparation piece. Sorry, just want to make sure that, and, and we've heard testimony in this chamber actually on Monday that some of these effects are already going in. People's rent is already going up and so these things are already happening. We know that the market, and we've talked a lot about the market here, is what's pushing this for workforce and these wages in a particular way. Now, when we talk about skilled labor, I think we all know, and the reason that we tied this to housing is that people can't afford to live in this city. And so, if we want more skilled labor, we want more service workers, we need to pay more. That is ultimately the goal of this legislation. And why are we looking at the calculations of, you know, Penn policy or UNM study or the MIT calculator? All of these things are saying what all of us know, which is much closer to 34, although it's saying that 24 is a living wage, but ultimately I don't want to invest time, energy, and this discussion and resources of the city in a poverty wage. If we're going to do something to actually impact workers, let's do something real.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other questions or comments on this one? I'll just say at this moment, I am, I'm not in support of this amendment for a couple of the reasons that Director Montoya mentioned. And again, as I've done my own, and again, it's a handful. It's a straw poll. It's conversations that I'm having with small businesses in my district throughout the city. A lot of them are already paying this. And a lot of them have said, you know, now there have been some that's like, this, this is going to be a stretch. This is going to be hard. Which is why I think that those, that information coming out of OED towards the end of the calendar year before this actually goes into effect is going to be important because if we are seeing this is going to be a tsunami of small business closures, we will have a moment to adjust. So I think that that'll be a good conversation on timing and what that information needs to look like. I know there's a lot more conversation to still have and I, I would just say at this moment in time I am not in support of this amendment for those reasons. With that, any other questions or comments? Is there a motion on amendment D?

Move to deny.

I would second.

We have a motion and a second to deny. Can I please get a roll call? Councilor Castro.

Yes.

Councilor Chavez.

No.

Councilor Garcia.

Abstain.

Councilor Faulkner.

No.

Councilor Cassett.

Yes.

The motion fails. Is there another motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. May I have a roll call? Councilor Castro.

No.

Councilor Chavez.

Yes.

Councilor Garcia.

No.

Councilor Faulkner.

Yes.

Councilor Cassett.

No.

Motion, yes. Okay, so no. Okay. All right. Moving on. Sorry, my computer again. So we are now moving on to amendment E. And this would be amendment from myself, Councilor Chavez, and Councilor Faulkner. This does in essence undoes amendment B. So it would bring, bring the proposal back to a $17.50 an hour proposal. And I could say the reason that I am in support of this is exactly this conversation that we're having right now. What does this balance start to look like between a higher wage? I, I think we all agree this is not a living wage as I have said in previous meetings. There is absolutely not a single program that we can do that's going to fix our issues. We really have to put a patch, you know, patchwork quilt together. I think I like that word today. I don't quilt. I'm not sure why this is coming to me. You know, we're going to have to put together a number of policies to really address these challenges that we deal with with economic inequity and people being able to live in this community. I wouldn't say that we're not doing anything with affordable housing. We have done things with affordable housing. Do we need to do better and more? Absolutely. We don't know what's going to happen with the excise tax. It could pass. Your could, you know, be deemed legal by the appellate court. Could not be. And at that point, we will have to readjust. Even if it is passed, it's still not going to be enough money most likely to meet all the various needs. The, the piece of this for me is that, you know, how do we find this, you know, thread this needle? I think looking at a higher wage is important. I think, you know, to Councilor Castro, I know some of the points you made is that a lot of people are already paying this. It will be really interesting to see how this impacts the community.

And there is an escalator also in this, so it will continue to rise and we will get to see how these things are being impacted. That is why at this time I am in support of staying with the 1750, understanding that does it fully meet the needs? Absolutely not. Do I think it helps? Yes, I think it absolutely will. And I think both of those things can be true at this time. And to a lot of Councilor Falconer's points around how do we make sure that we're taking care of our small businesses and the fear of what happens if we get too high and they can't meet the need, that is also really important to look at. Again, we'll have some data hopefully and maybe have a better picture come one year from now where we can discuss adjustments. I would say that three months would probably be too short of a time for people to really adjust, but this is where it's going to be really crucial for us to continue to get that information. Would either of the other sponsors like to speak to this? Councilor Chavez, then Councilor Fogner.

I'll just say I was not in support of the amendment on Monday. And it was for those reasons. I feel like 1750 is a good start, especially with our plan and monitoring the impact to our community. I think that's what needs to occur. We could throw big numbers out there, but we had Dr. White that described on Monday that this is where they felt was a good starting point to have minimal impact on businesses in a negative way. And so I think this is where we start and we monitor and we use data to progress that amount if it shows that we can safely do that without there being any harm to our businesses.

Councilor Faulkner: I would just echo what the two other sponsors have stated. I again, if I'm already hearing in my district that 1750 is going to possibly put some of our smaller businesses out of work, out of business, and then the 10 to 15 employees that they employ will be out of a job, or they'll have to cut back on hours. I genuinely believe that if we are going to enforce a living wage, then we need to find that balance between what if we're not going to do an actual living wage, which is theoretically impossible at this point. I do think that if we're going to push this forward, we have to be mindful of our small businesses. I think I really appreciate the conversation from my colleagues. I think this is a really tough issue and I want to thank staff so much because I know when you're at that podium, it's kind of the hot seat and a lot's coming at you and you're handling it like a champ. And so I just, just know we're all trying to make the best decision based on what we know and what we're hearing from our constituents in our districts.

The other thing that it does also put back in is this conversation around interns. So what was removed is the, however, interns working for a business for academic credit in connection with a course of study at an accredited school, college, or university, or persons working for an accredited school, college, or university while also attending that school, college, or university, or workers who are an apprenticeship program in 501c3 organization such as the Santa Fe Opera, shall not be counted as a worker for such purposes. Those pieces were removed. This is now putting it back in. I will say this is something that I internally struggled with and I understand that we'll get an opportunity to discuss this again when we move on to the next amendment, but did want to make sure that that is noted that this amendment would then re-those individuals to the exclusion of individuals who are counted as a worker. So, now Councilor Castro to you.

Yes, and that's a perfect transition. I sort of wanted to speak a little bit more about the impetus around some of that. I think it's really important that we think about the specificity around a stipend versus an employee and who that might exclude in terms of being part of the program. And so there will be language in another amendment that sort of addresses that. I do also want to be very transparent in that all of my colleagues have been amazing in this conversation and very helpful in trying to support both small businesses and workers and trying to figure this out. It is important that we're looking at all of the different pieces. And I will reiterate that this discussion is going to help both small businesses and employees of those businesses understand what the parameters are, what they could expect. I'm really excited for the conversation tomorrow, which I can't be at because we have a Fort Marcy meeting at the same time. But I think that this has actually elevated all of our understanding of what the minimum wage is, what a living wage is, and what the cost of living is in the city.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other questions or comments on this amendment?

Just close out with one other thing. Again, if housing is the problem, we need to address housing. We need to look towards reasonable rent control. We need to look towards readjusting the fee in lieu of. We need to look towards incentivizing developers to build affordable housing. We will never hit a living wage. Actually, we can't make that adjustment. But if we actually and thoroughly addressed affordability and housing, that would solve the problem. And then second, I would say child care. If we could solve those two problems, $2 an hour isn't going to solve those problems thoroughly for many, many of our families that need those problems solved. But addressing housing and requiring affordability and then also providing support for child care, those two things will have a greater impact than $2 an hour is going to have.

Yeah. One of my favorite things to say is if you solve housing and child care in this community, it'll solve 70% of problems. Don't quote me on that because I didn't actually do the math. But exactly. Why not throw out some numbers? Kidding. All right. Councilor Castro, I just wanted to make a small point to Councilor Faulkner's point that that rent control ban is at a state level and we are going to put it on our ICIP list and our legislative priorities because we do need rent control in the city. Thank you.

All right. I don't believe we have a motion. Do we have a motion on this amendment?

Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on amendment ABCDE. And if there are no other questions or comments at this time, a roll call, please. Councilor Castro?

No.

Councilor Travis?

Yes.

Councilor Garcia?

No. And I'd like to explain my vote.

Councilor Faulkner?

Yes.

Councilor Casset?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you so much, Council Garcia, to you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wouldn't support this because I'm in support of raising the wage to $20, but I actually had an amendment to bringing forward the incorporating of the intern language. So,

Wonderful. Thank you. And that is a great segue into that amendment. And so into amendment F. Councilor Garcia to you.

It's moved at this point because you just incorporated it into your previous amendment. Okay. Then and did it, did that previous amendment incorporate everything that was needed there?

No. What we were trying to do, what I, the intention was to put back the internship language and then Councilor Castro and I are going to be working on a separate amendment addressing stipends.

Okay. So the next piece will come. Okay.

So potentially we will still be working, tweaking the language around the work-based learning so that we could incorporate more folks.

Okay. Got it. Okay. So, we will not be considering Amendment E at this time. Okay. All right. So, just so everybody knows where things stand at this moment in time based on everything in the packet, amendments A, A, and C are currently attached to the original bill. AC and well E because E takes it back. So it's A, C, and E of the amendments are currently attached. Amendment B has essentially been replaced by amendment E, essentially removed. Amendment D did not pass this committee and amendment F is not being considered and will we will get to have a discussion around that at a later committee date. Move to approve as amended.

We do have, we already have a motion as amended.

Yeah. So it's, it's however thing, anything falls. And I'll just state for, for both counselors, Castro and Garcia, I know that the next committee stop is finance. I'm happy to bring that forward to discussion at finance if that is what you would like at that time. So, please just let me know and I'm, I'm happy, regardless of my opinion on it, happy to bring it forward to that committee. As I know that that's the last stop before governing body if you guys would like a committee review. And with that, if there's no other questions or comments, I'd like to get a vote on the main motion. Roll call, please.

Councilor Castro?

Yes.

Councilor Chavez?

Yes.

Councilor Garcia?

Yes.

Councilor Faulkner?

Yes, as amended.

Councilor Cassid?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thanks everybody. That was a, that was a fun gauntlet. I really, I appreciate everybody's conversation there and look forward to discussing it again. And now we actually get to have a unique public hearing today. So this is a public hearing about the City of Santa Fe's 2024-2025 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, CAPER, or Capper, I hear it both ways. CAPER in advance of city that is submitted annually to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. The CAPER is an annual report required by HUD to assessing the progress made in carrying out HUD funded community development programs. It does require a public hearing. We brought it here to Quality of Life. And we have Fabiola Chavez, Director of Affordable Housing here to present.

You, Madam Chair, members of the council. I'm so glad to be here today. Thank you for allowing me. Today I'm going to be presenting on the 2024 Consolidated Annual Performance Plan and this is the CAPER. This performance plan covers 2024, which is the program year according to HUD, July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. So just keep that in mind as we go through this. So what is the CAPER? The City of Santa Fe did a consolidated plan. This consolidated plan was through 2023 up until 2027. We take all of the citizens' comments and participations. We ask citizens, what do you want to see in the next three to four years for the City of Santa Fe? We took those comments into consideration and we generated an annual action plan. So our annual action plan consists of a summary of activities that we project will happen throughout that year. So in 2024 we released that. So right now we're discussing the CAPER. The CAPER is all of the objectives that were made and then any impacts that were delivered through the annual action plan. So the CAPER requires, is required by HUD and we are responsible for the resources and the investments of the CDBG funds, Community Development Block Grants. They also, HUD also requires that we indicate any goals and objectives through CDBG funding. It also requires that we document our progress through affordable housing and document any demographics of those families and individuals being helped through CDBG20. It also includes citizen participation. So we have to document clear citizen participation on how we got to where we are right now. So, the source of funding again, it's Community Development Block Grant that we're reporting on today.

The resources made available were $897,535. This included an allocation for 2024 that was entitled through HUD of $623,117. We also encumbered $200,000 that was generated for program income, and then $74,418 that was from 2023 that we rolled over into 2024. So the goals and objectives that we had planned on through the annual action plan were increasing the availability of supportive services, and we had indicated that our goal in the annual action plan was about 800 recipients. What we actually did through our subrecipients of the CDBG funding source was we assisted 343,453 people. We exceeded that goal.

So another goal that was indicated in our annual action plan is expanding options for overnight shelter beds. Again, this was all done by citizen participation. Our goal was 400. We exceeded that with 841 people being assisted through CDBG funding. Another resource that was requested was to provide owner-occupied housing rehabilitation. That's kind of worded weird, but sorry about that. So the goal was 20. We actually served only a little bit less; 17 households were assisted. So, we almost made that goal, but we fell short. And then another final goal is to expand public facilities and infrastructure. Our goal in the annual action plan was 500. We actually exceeded that by 54. We helped 554 households.

So, now to the next slide, the demographics with the people that responded. There were about 4,947 individuals that responded to the demographics. You'll see the major population were Hispanics at 80%, with 20% non-Hispanics receiving CDBG funding. Next slide.

So, the households that were assisted with affordable housing, the city leverages CDBG funds with other funding sources to make a capital stack. And so what we did was we provided rehabilitation of existing units. 17 low to moderate-income family households received a benefit from CDBG, and then also production of new units, two new units for low to moderate-income levels. The income levels from the CDBG program that were reported were extremely low-income households. We served four households, and that's about 50% of the area median income. And then low-income clients, we funded eight households through CDBG, and that's about 80% of the area median income levels. And then moderate-income levels, we helped around seven households, and this includes AMIs of 80 to 120%.

So, the CAPER was made available to the public for a period of 15 days as required by HUD. And this was on October 7th through October 22nd. Anyone that had any public comment was able to respond to our online service. We did not receive any comments. And then now we're here at the public hearing. So the way it works is that every year you're going to see this happen. We're going to do an annual action plan first. We're going to tell you this is our projection, and then we're going to come back to you and say, "Okay, these are our accomplishments through the CAPER." And with that, I'll end my presentation and open it up for questions.

Mayor: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Travis, and welcome. I think this is your first appearance at the Quality of Life Committee, so welcome to your new home. We love having you. This is a public hearing. I do not see any members of the public in the chambers. Anybody in the Zoom room that potentially is interested in speaking to this?

None.

Okay. Director Montoya, correct me. We had this discussion. We are not voting on this this evening, are we? Or are we voting tonight?

Madame Chair, no, you are not voting. This was just informational.

Okay. All right. Wonderful. And so we will have the opportunity. Does it come through? No, it does not come through to us. Just a public. Okay. All right. Well, we do not have any votes on that. I do not believe that that would prohibit us from questions or discussion. So, if you have any questions or discussion, please feel free. Councilor Castro.

Thank you, Director Travis. And just really quickly, I've said this before, but I want to reiterate, we do have a great expense with sidewalks, and we do require that homeowners repair their own sidewalks. So, if we could include that in the home repair program, that would be really great. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you, Councilor Faulkner. I actually would reiterate what Councilor Castro said. We require our community members to take care of sidewalks. It's very expensive. And so I would concur. Let's add that to it.

Yeah. And I think that that is a great question around what CDBG funds could be used for if that is something that we could utilize those funds for for something along those lines. I know that we would have to change, I believe, our code probably in whatever chapter deals with public works issues, and then the affordable housing trust fund is also the other question as to whether those funds would be available for such resources. So I know that that's been a thing that many of us have discussed. So, if you don't have those answers, if you are able to look those up, that'd be wonderful.

Madame Chair, I don't have the answers to those questions, but I will definitely get back to you on it.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Any other questions or comments at this time?

Thank you so much for being here.

For having me.

And welcome. We're very happy to have you here at the city. Director Nelson is extremely happy to have you here at the city. She could take off one of her 10 hats that she wears. And with that, we have nothing else on our agenda. Move to matters from staff. Director Montoya, I'll let you go ahead and start.

Director Hammond Paul, you could go, whoever wants to. You know what? You guys have it.

All right. I will be swift. Madame Chair, counselors, I want to flag for you that this Friday, October 24th, we are thrilled to welcome a delegation from Tamba Sasayama, Japan. They are here for four days conducting workshops, art workshops. Their ceramicists across the city, and this Friday at the Convention Center courtyard from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., we're going to have a reception welcoming them. So it would be wonderful if you and the members of the public just come on down to the Convention Center.

I also want to flag that on Saturday, October 25th, from 3:00 to 6:00, we will be collecting community input at Vital Spaces for the Hopewell Mann neighborhood stabilization plan. This will be the first of many that we have planned. So again, that's October 25th at Vital Spaces from 3:00 to 6:00. We have Día de los Muertos approaching. So, Sunday, October 26th, at the Museum of International Folk Art, there will be activities all day for children: face painting, sugar skull decorating, and pan de muerto. October 31st, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the Guadalupe Street Halloween Crawl is going to happen. That will be a lot of fun along Guadalupe Street businesses. Costumes are encouraged. There's going to be altars and food and music and shop local. Please get out there and support our local businesses on Friday, October 31st, and Saturday, November 1st, down on the Plaza. We will be celebrating Día de los Muertos and Halloween all weekend. So live entertainment and food trucks on the Plaza. And then I do want to flag that our Office of Economic Development has one-on-one office hours scheduled on Monday, October 27th, at Del Norte Credit Union, and also Monday, November 3rd, at the Santa Fe Business Incubator. This is intended to support our local businesses and entrepreneurs. Thank you.

Wonderful. And when was that Guadalupe Street Crawl?

The Guadalupe Street Crawl, Friday, October 31st, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Thank you, Director Hem.

Madame Chair, counselors, first off, I'd like to thank Director Montoya for the notebook. A few updates from the Community Health and Safety Department. So the Senior Services Division recently participated in a library cleanup at La Farge Library. It was a great event where we had seniors really giving back to their community more than they already do. I also want to invite you all to the Youth Mural Dedication and Celebration this Saturday at the Teen Center at 1:00. There's a new mural that's being dedicated, and it'll be great to have you all there.

On the safety front, we have some really exciting stuff coming out of the Office of Emergency Management. First, really excited to let you all know that Director Morgan has achieved his New Mexico Certified Emergency Manager certification. And he was recognized yesterday in the annual New Mexico Association for Emergency Management Professionals in Ruidoso. So that's really exciting, and Kyle's been doing an incredible job in his role. One of the things that he's been doing is actually leading a training series for police and fire department command staff on using a GIS-based alert system. So, we're going to be kind of really building out the Alert Santa Fe capabilities. They'll have some cool mapping features that will be pushed to folks' phones so they can see where incidents are happening and when they've been cleared.

Lastly, I just want to kind of give a short update on some Code Blue planning that the city's been doing. The city has a handful of efforts that it coordinates, and a very robust set of programs and initiatives that we really lead. So our public safety entities, police and fire departments, during Code Blue events, do extensive outreach, including delivering warming kits, offering transport for folks, and we also put a moratorium on encampment evictions. Additionally, the Transit Department waives joyriding policies and also really expands hours to accommodate folks' needs. Our libraries act as de facto warming centers. And the city this year, continuing on last year's precedent, will be opening pop-up shelters to expand capacity for folks in need of warm places to shelter. In addition to those kind of city-led initiatives, we coordinate planning meetings with over 30 community providers. So we've been ramping up those activities. So, those are the updates from Community Health and Safety.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Marcel. Anything on your end? Thank you for all your work as always. Matters from the committee. Anything from the committee? Councilor Faulkner?

Should have applied the 10-minute rule to myself this evening. I just want to thank staff and my colleagues. The issues we sometimes have to navigate are very challenging. But I do appreciate all the thoughtfulness and the passion that we have for the decisions we're making, whether we agree or disagree. I always learn a lot from my colleagues and a lot from staff, and I think we need to appreciate staff because this has been some issues are more controversial than others, and it takes a lot out of staff. And so I want to recognize the legislative staff who have been throwing a million amendments that need to be done within 48 hours. So, I want to recognize that hard work and then also all the other departments that have been kind of helping to navigate us through the living wage and again my colleagues. I always take what you say to heart, and you definitely challenge me to make the best decisions I can make.

Thank you, Councilor. I really appreciate that. Councilor Castro.

And similarly, thank you everyone on the committee. And thank you, staff.

I know that we know the difference between Día de los Muertos and Halloween, so thank you for honoring all traditions at this time. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Any other matters from staff? Matters from the Chair. I would just reiterate, thank you again to this committee. I think that this is another instance of where we've had really complex discussions around really important issues, and I truly, truly appreciate this committee, especially as we come to our last couple meetings. We know that this is the makeup of this committee, so I really just want to thank you all so much for all of your work and focus.

With that, our next meeting will be Wednesday, November 5th, and at 7:12 p.m. we are adjourned. Thank you.