Regular Governing Body Meeting - Last Wednesday Wed, Apr 29, 2026 · Governing Body https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/930 == Executive Summary == The Governing Body held its Regular Meeting, addressing a wide range of city operations from water management to urban development and public safety. Key discussions included an in-depth annual update on the city's water resources, highlighting successful conservation efforts and future plans for potable reuse. The body also initiated a significant project to modernize the city's development review processes, aiming for greater transparency and efficiency. Public safety was a prominent theme, with the approval of a new automated speed and noise enforcement program and amendments to the Uniform Traffic Ordinance to address reckless and aggressive driving. The meeting also saw the approval of an exclusive negotiation agreement for a mixed-use development at the Midtown campus and funding for critical infrastructure projects like the McClure Dam and Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant. The meeting concluded with a public comment period where residents voiced concerns on topics ranging from city management and homelessness to urban agriculture and the preservation of the Historic Preservation Board. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda and consent agenda as amended. - Approved an exclusive negotiation agreement with Homewise Inc. for the Midtown Tract R 2-1B for a mixed-use development. - Approved a $4 million, 5-year general services agreement with Jenoptik Smart Mobility Solutions LLC for automated speed and noise enforcement services. - Approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the New Mexico General Services Department for a land swap. - Approved a scrivener's error correction for ordinance number 2026-4. - Passed Bill Number 2026-8 to streamline the approval process for alcohol sales and consumption at public events on city property. - Approved a $2.5 million loan/grant agreement with the New Mexico Finance Authority for the design phase of the McClure Dam repair project. - Approved the appointment of Johanna Nelson to the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District (alternate). - Approved the appointment of Robert Gonzales to the Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission. == Motions & Votes == - Approval of the agenda — Passed unanimously - Approval of the consent agenda as amended — Passed unanimously - Motion to invoke the 10-minute rule for presentations — Withdrawn - Motion to approve the request for an exclusive negotiation agreement with Homewise Inc. for Midtown Tract R 2-1B — Passed - Motion to approve the general services agreement with Jenoptik Smart Mobility Solutions LLC for automated speed and noise enforcement services — Passed - Motion related to the traffic enforcement program — Passed - Motion to approve the Memorandum of Understanding with the New Mexico GSD for the land swap — Passed - Motion to approve the request for the scrivener's error correction for ordinance number 2026-4 — Passed - Motion to enter Executive Session — Passed via roll call vote - Motion to reconvene in Open Session — Passed via roll call vote - Motion to move directly to petitions from the floor — Passed unanimously (7-0) - Motion to waive procedure rules for the assignment of Bill Number 2026-6 (Midtown Visual Arts Center ground lease and development agreement) — Passed - Motion to send Midtown item to EDAC and suspend procedural rules — Passed unanimously (7-0) - Bill 2026-8 (Alcohol Sales at Public Events) — Passed unanimously (7-0) - Approval of McClure Dam repairs and upgrades — Passed unanimously (7-0) - Motion to approve a previous item (not fully detailed in the provided text but resulted in a roll call vote) — Passed (7 Yes, 1 No - Councilor Cassutt voted No) - Motion to approve an amendment to Bill Number 2026-4 (Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant loan) — Passed unanimously - Appointment of Johanna Nelson to the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District — Approved unanimously - Appointment of Robert Gonzales to the Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission — Approved unanimously == Public Comment == The public comment period featured a range of concerns. One commenter criticized city management for misallocating funds and neglecting public health/safety. A former fire department employee expressed concern over the potential departure of the clinical supervisor for Mobile Integrated Health (MIHO) and Alternative Response Units (ARU). Residents urged support for nuclear waste removal from Santa Fe County, protested a proposed hotel development, and advocated for updates to the urban agriculture ordinance. There was also appreciation for the new speed and noise cameras, calls for stronger penalties for aggressive driving, and strong opposition to eliminating the Historic Preservation Board. Concerns were also raised about delays in public records requests and city legal processes. == Topics == - Water Utility Operations - Water Conservation Efforts - Water Rate Increases - Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant Improvements - City Organizational Restructuring - Community Health and Safety Director - Budget and Fiscal Planning - Gun Violence Awareness - Board and Commission Appointments == Full Transcript == Good evening, everybody. I would like to call tonight's April 29th, 2026 governing body meeting to order. We will start off with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilor Cassutt, the Lieutenant of Mexico flag led by Councilor Fogalli, and an invocation remembrances led by Councilor Barrett. Please stand as you're able. Good evening, everyone. If you would like to close your eyes for a moment, if that's comfortable for you, go ahead and do that. I just wanted to remember all of our community members and nationwide that we have lost to gun deaths this year. Thinking about recent events nationally and of course locally, it's been on my mind. Every day nearly 130 people in the United States are killed with guns. Twice as many are shot and wounded, and countless others are impacted by acts of gun violence. So, maybe we could just reflect on that for a moment. Thanks. Are there any other remembrances from governing body members? Councilor Cassutt: Thank you so much, Mayor, and thank you for the invocation, Councilor Barrett. This week, I was fortunate enough to be part of a memorial for Mara Talbott, who was a great leader in our community and offered so much of herself. And so, in her spirit, let's take a moment and remember how important it is to care for each other. Okay, let's just take a moment in general to think of those in our community who need our help and support, those who have lost a loved one recently. Thank you, everybody. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call, please? Of course, Mayor. Councilor Barrett. Here. Councilor Bustamante. Here. Councilor Cassutt. Here. Councilor Castro. Present. Councilor Faulkner. Here. Councilor Fogalli. Here. Councilor Garcia. Here. Mayor Garcia. Present. Mayor, you have a quorum. That being said, let's go on and move on to tonight's approval of the agenda. Any changes from staff? No changes to the agenda, Mayor. Okay. Any changes from committee member or governing body members? We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Opposed. Motion passes. Next up is approval of the consent agenda. Are there any changes from staff or any items pulled? Madam City Clerk. Yes, Mayor. Item 9G and item 9I have been removed for discussion by Councilor Castro. Okay. And would any governing body members like to remove any other items? Motion to approve. Second. Okay, so we've got— Sorry, motion to approve as amended. As amended, correct. Second. We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Sure, Mayor. Councilor Barrett. Yes. Councilor Bustamante. Yes. Councilor Cassutt. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Fogalli. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Motion passed. Great. Will you please take us to the next item on the agenda, please? Yes, Mayor. The next item on the agenda is eight, presentations. 8A is City of Santa Fe water annual update, and Interim Public Utilities Department Director Jesse Roach is here to present. Mayor, for the remainder of the agenda, can we please invoke the 10-minute rule? Make a motion to invoke the 10-minute rule. Second. Okay. Mr. City Clerk, does that require a vote or can we—is it tradition? I think the 10-minute rule is built in procedural rules, so I think just taking notice of the request is sufficient. Okay. Thank you. I withdraw my motion. Okay. Director Roach, Interim Director Roach, the floor is yours. Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body, thank you for the time tonight. IT, can you bring my presentation up on the screens? In the interest of time, as that's coming up, I'll go ahead and start into my comments. I'm going to discuss—uh-oh, my presentation crashed, so let me start this over. Tonight, I'm going to discuss the sort of the system, the water system that we have. I'll talk a little bit about previous years, sort of our water system past. I will talk about last year in particular. And our—there we go. Great, thank you. I will talk about sort of 2025 highlights, and then I'm going to finish out talking about the next big thing for us, which is a potable return flow, a potable reuse project. So, our system, we are fortunate to have four different sources of water, which are the Santa Fe River, wells within our city limits, wells between us and the Rio Grande to the north, and the Buckman Direct Diversion from the Rio Grande. The Buckman Direct Diversion is jointly owned at the diversion with the city, the county, and Las Campanas, and then at the water treatment plant between the city and the county. And the water that the city diverts at the BDD is Colorado River water, brought in with the San Juan Chama project and diverted from the Rio Grande. We also have a non-potable resource, which is our effluent from our wastewater treatment plant, which is used for turf irrigation. The my thousand words slide showing where the water has come from for the past 101 years since 1925, we can see that from 1925 through 1995, there was steady, almost exponential growth in demand. And we initially served that just with the Santa Fe River water, which is the low blue color. Then we added the city well fields, which is the gold color. And then in the '70s, we added the Buckman well fields, which is the orange color. In 1995, the city purchased what had previously been a private utility, and we can see two remarkable changes that occurred. From 1995 to the present, the amount of water we were producing each year decreased by about 33% through that period. And in addition to that, in 2011, we brought the Buckman Direct Diversion online, and you can see that we went from a period of mining our groundwater resources to a period of what we're calling preferential surface water use. The conservation piece of that, not only did we reduce the total water that we had were producing by about 33% in that 30 years. In that period of time, the population served also increased by about 33%. So, overall, the efficiency with which we use water has—we've doubled how efficiently we use water. This graph is showing a metric that we call gallons per capita per day, which is essentially the total water production divided by the total population served. And in 1995, that number was 168 gallons per person per day. And in 2025, it was below 90. So, nearly a halving of that number. So, one of the ways we're thinking about this now is in terms of water management paradigms. And so, in the 1900s, we were following what was the sort of water utility management paradigm of that era, which was supply expansion. As demand grows, you look for new supplies. Then in 1995, in the late 1900s, we started with our conservation. And then in 2011, we brought on the Buckman Direct Diversion and began the second sort of paradigm for us, which was preferential surface water use. So, these two sort of paradigm shifts that the city utility has made, starting in 1995 conservation, and then preferential surface use water use in 2011, have led us to a situation where over the past 15 years since Buckman Direct Diversion came online, we've used about 9,000 acre feet of water per year, and we estimate that we have had about 12,000 acre feet available. So, we're using about 75% of the sustainably available supply. So, that's kind of how we got here. And then I'm going to touch a little bit on 2025 highlights, and then talk about our return flow project. So, our annual report and for the first time ever, a year in review newsletter are now out and available on our website, santafenm.gov/water. This is the first year we're trying a newsletter format. It's eight pages, and it's really focused on things that happened in 2025, intended to be sort of very accessible. And then the annual report is longer, it's at 16 pages, and it meets several code requirements that we have. It has a whole lot of really good background information, but it doesn't change. That information won't change a lot from year to year. So, I hope that you have a chance to look at least at the newsletter, and possibly at the annual report. You really are the target audience for this. If there's something missing that you would like to see, please let us know, and we'll include it next year. So, looking back at last year, where the water came from. This is a diagram showing the four sources of water, and sort of the wheel shows the relative supply, the amount from each of those supplies. We got 45% of our water from BDD. We got almost 30% from the Santa Fe River, and a little more than a quarter from groundwater. In terms of how that stacked up month to month, we—you can see that really with the exception of August, it was mostly surface water with wells as needed. And then in August, we leaned on the wells, and that's because we were doing work up at Canyon Road, and so there wasn't a huge amount of ability to treat there. And then July and August tend to be the time with the monsoons that the Rio Grande will become turbid in storm events, and so we don't—we're not always able to treat as much at BDD. So, that's where we're able to turn and utilize our wells. The reservoir storage for the last 3 years is shown on these plots. So, the left one shows Santa Fe River reservoir storage, and the line in gray is 2025. And I mostly look at where we ended. So, last year on the Santa Fe River, we ended up with more storage at the end of the year than we had the previous 2 years. Part of that again was an inability to really access it because we're working on Nichols Reservoir. And then the chart on the right shows our storage on the San Juan Chama, along the Chama, and we ended up with less storage than we had the previous 2 years. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in upcoming slides. So, where does that leave us in terms of conservation efforts this year? The tool that we use to determine whether we need restrictions or what sort of conservation policy we implement is we call the water resources indicator. It's based on three different scores. So, our groundwater health, which is shown in the orange on the bottom, our surface water availability, which is shown in blue in the middle, and the regional drought monitor score for Santa Fe County, which is shown in gray on the top. And this graph shows all the way back to 2010 before the Buckman Direct Diversion came online. And you can see that we were in a much more tenuous supply situation then, but the resting of our well fields and the creation of BDD has left us in a position, a more resilient position. We're currently at 7.1, which means we are messaging about the dry winter, but we don't need to implement any shortages—any restrictions, excuse me. Another thing that happened this year is our first of five water rate increases went into effect in February. And as a reminder, the reason for that was we had experienced general cost inflation of over 40% since the last time we raised rates in 2013. And we have several capital projects which are critical to continued resilient utility operations that we're working on. The average—the increase to the average residential bill is about $2 per month, and that will bump up every year for 4 more after this. Another piece to be aware of though is that the rate structure also, the residential rate structure was also updated. This hasn't taken effect yet. This will take effect in January of 2027. Just to point out here, we currently have a two-tier structure. Starting in January, we will have a three-tier structure. So, just looking at the chart here on the right, starting in January, everybody is going to pay less for the first 4,000 gallons per month than they pay now. This is sending a reward to folks who really use a small amount of water. They're going to see their bills go down. Everybody's going to pay more than they currently pay from 4,000 to 7,000 gallons per month. The final tier is unaffected, but I will say that it starts at 7,000 gallons per month year-round, whereas currently it varies from summer to winter. That creates some confusion amongst ratepayers, and every year we're answering questions as to why people's bills jumped up in September. So, that'll go away. We're happy to see that. So, coming in January, a three-tiered rate structure. All right. So, then finally, I want to end talking about the next thing for us, which is really the third piece now of, I would say, our modern water management paradigm. We started with conservation. We always go back to conservation. Then we were able to shift to preferential surface water use in 2011. Now we're shifting towards potable reuse, and hoping that we can bring that online as early as 2029. Another way of looking at those paradigms again is on this graph, fairly similar. So, how did we get to potable reuse? Well, we did a study in 2015, which to my knowledge was the first study in the Southwest to use climate change in long-range planning, certainly the first in New Mexico. That identified some potential shortages in the future depending on the severity of climate change, and also the assumptions on growth. From that, we evaluated adaptation strategies, and reuse of effluent became the clear winner in terms of the magnitude of water available. So, we did a feasibility study in 2017 that looked at the best way, the most resource-efficient way to start reusing some of our effluent in a way that would allow water to end up back in our potable system. The project we ended up with is called the San Juan Chama Return Flow Project. Before I talk about the specifics of that, I just quickly want to remind you all of the San Juan Chama Project, which is where we get a portion of our water. It's a gravity diversion and tunnel system that brings water under the Continental Divide from the San Juan tributaries on the Colorado River side of the Continental Divide to the Chama, which is a major tributary of the Rio Grande on the Rio Grande side of the Continental Divide. Hence the name San Juan Chama Project. The San Juan Chama Return Flow Project, this map on the right shows the city in the lower right, and the smaller lines are the existing Buckman Direct Diversion bringing water up from the river to the Buckman Direct Diversion water treatment plant, treating it to potable standards, delivering it into the city. Then some portion of that water, typically on a yearly average about two-thirds of that water, is used indoors, moves through the system, and ends up at our wastewater treatment plant. That portion, the San Juan Chama water, the proposed project puts that into a pipe and pumps it back to the Rio Grande where we discharge it into the river at a point just below the diversion for a return flow credit. So, how does that help us? Right now, any water that we want to divert at BDD is water that we've released from upstream reservoirs, typically Abiquiu. With the San Juan Chama Return Flow Project in place, we will have on average about two-thirds of the diversion returning to the river for a return flow credit. These two diagrams, the size of the arrows represents the magnitude of the flow. The key piece here is that in both the left, the current situation, and on the right with return flow in place, the diversion is the same. But whereas we're keeping the river whole with only reservoir releases currently, in the future we will keep the river whole with return flow credits and the releases from upstream, but the releases from upstream drop by about a third, drop to about a third of what they are currently. So, said in another way, on average this is a way to stretch our San Juan Chama water by three times. In either case, there's no change downstream of the diversion and return location. So, what would that have meant to us? We all are aware of shortages that we're taking in the San Juan Chama Project. The Colorado River is not as reliable as we once thought. So, we have seen shortages, and the upper right graph there shows our allocations. 100% allocations for the life of the project all the way through 2013. Then starting in 2014, we started seeing shortages, and since 2020, we've seen significant shortages. So, the question we asked was what would it have meant if we'd had this return flow project in place starting in 2020? The graph on the left shows the lower lines show our San Juan Chama allocation, and the dotted line would be a full allocation. You can see the allocation dips in 2018 and then 2020, 2021, 2022, and dips significantly last year in 2025. The upper line in blue shows the actual storage in Abiquiu that we've experienced. So, it started at 15,000 in 2017, it's kind of gone up and down, and now this year, we ended the year in 2025 at 10,000 acre-feet. Had we had the return flow project in place, we would have ended the year with 20,000 acre-feet of storage instead of 10,000 acre-feet of storage. So, that's really where the rubber meets the road on this project. In terms of looking at our last 15 years of demand at about 9,000, of which we think we'd have about 12,000 sustainable, once the return flow project's in place, we estimate that we'll be using less than half of our sustainably available water. So, that's our response to the aridification and reduced flows that we're seeing. That is all I have. Tomorrow we're doing a much more in-depth presentation, "What's Up With Water?" Hopefully you can join for some or all of that, and we'll get into long-range planning on that one. I didn't have time to talk about long-range planning tonight. With that, I will stand for questions. Mayor: Thank you, Director Roach. Any questions from governing body members? Counselor Forgalli: Yes, Counselor Forgalli. Thank you, Director Roach. I just have a question about how the return flow credits work. I know you just explained it, but so it's sort of a hypothetical. How does that help the reservoir in Abiquiu? Is what I'm asking if it's something we're returning further downstream. Director Roach: Yeah, and I apologize to IT, I accidentally closed out. If you wouldn't mind putting the presentation back up, I'll Oh, it just crashed again. Okay. Well, I will try to explain it without the pictures. Currently, if we want 1,000 gallons at BDD, we have to release actually a little bit more than 1,000 gallons from Abiquiu because we have to cover losses. Then we divert it all. Catch up to the pictures. So, that's the current situation. Everything we divert comes from Abiquiu. This drawing, the little oval at the top is meant to represent our storage in Abiquiu. Now, going forward, we say, "Okay, we're diverting 1,000 gallons at Buckman, but there's 666 available that we're returning to the river right below that diversion location. So, now we only have to release 333 from upstream because by the time that gets down to the diversion location, we've essentially put 1,000 gallons of water into the river, and so we can divert that 1,000 gallons." We already have the permit from the state engineer for the return flow credits that allow us to say, "We put it in the river, now we can divert it." Again, and so, in that process, we've now diverted 1,000 gallons, but we only released 333 from upstream. Counselor Forgalli: Thank you. That explained it. Mayor: Yes, Counselor Castro. Counselor Castro: Thank you so much. I will be brief. I don't want to take us too far in the weeds, but you did say something that I was a little concerned about, which was the state engineer and how many water credits we have. So, I'm glad to hear that we already have those permits. If I could get a little bit more understanding of what our relationship is with the state engineer and what we need to get approved before we do these projects. I know that there was some concern around how we were allocating some of our water credits. So, I don't know if we want to get into that right now, but if I could get a report back on how that relationship is working. Director Roach: Sure. Counselor Castro and Mayor Garcia, that is in the weeds a little bit, and I think what you're getting at is when we pump the Buckman well field, it has impacts on the flow in the Rio Grande, which means we need to make sure we have the water rights because along the Rio Grande, there are senior water users. So, there's an administrative process by which we acquire rights, move them into the Buckman well field so that we can offset our impacts. One of the things that has become difficult is the transfer of those rights. The transfer of those rights is being protested right now, and we're hearing from developers that it's getting harder and harder to find those rights to move into the Buckman well field. It's a good opportunity for me to say, "Although we're two or three years away from this pipeline being in place, once we have all the permits and we sort of break ground, once it's a done deal, we will move to update code so that a developer can continue to bring water rights if they would like, but there'll be a wider margin of ability to instead of bringing us water rights to help pay the debt associated with this large project." Counselor Castro: Yes, thank you so much for the clarity, and it is concerning, but I'm glad that we have a plan, and thank you so much for the presentation. Mayor: Yes, Counselor Castro. Counselor Castro: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Roach. I've received, you touched on it briefly, but I've received a lot of questions about us potentially implementing water restrictions due to how dry the winter was and concerns around a hot summer. Can you talk a little bit more about, you know, you mentioned that you were looking at the different health of, I think it was the well field surface, and then what the drought rating was and what it was at 7.1. I wasn't sure where the 7.1 came from. At what point do we start getting into restrictions? And yeah, just what does that look like for curious minds? Director Roach: Counselor Castro and Mayor Garcia, that's a great question. The water resources indicator, which I mentioned that has sort of these three weights, goes from zero to 10. Zero would be a water emergency. We don't have enough water. We're in huge restrictions. Interestingly, when we take this data all the way back to 2002, according to this metric, we were in a water emergency, and that's the year we lost our parks. That's the year that people were being told they couldn't water outside. So, that really was for us a water emergency. Since then, we've sort of emerged from that through these paradigm shifts that I mentioned. The way this supply indicator works is 40% of the weight goes to groundwater health, and because we've been resting our wells for the last 15 years and those levels are coming up, we feel really good about our ability to respond to, to lean on those wells as needed. The second piece is how much surface water is available at the treatment plants or in our reservoirs, and then how much of it could we actually treat. And that's 30% of the weight. Then the other 30% of the weight is the drought monitor, the regional drought monitor score for Santa Fe County. Adding all those up meant that in April we were at 7.1. The large policy responses are set up to be eight to ten. We're really like, "Wow, it's amazing. We're not really even saying anything." Six to eight, we're starting to message about, "We can't forget about the importance of conserving water." If we get down below six, then we would start to look at some restrictions. We've tried to crystal ball it a little bit. There's a decent chance we could end up below six. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that next year at this time we'll be talking about being below six, or if we have a great monsoon, then maybe we'll stay out of it. Got it. Thank you. And then in terms of, you were talking about when we utilize different sources of water, you mentioned in August we don't get to pull as much from BDD because of turbidity issues. Is that potentially going to shift as we move forward with the BDD rebuild? My understanding is that we're hoping to address some of those challenges. Counselor Cassutt, Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body, that's a great question, very insightful. I think it actually brings up another interesting shift that we may see with the return flow project. In the winter, we see 90% of the water that we deliver to people returned to the wastewater treatment plant. So it's almost all indoor use, which means that in the winter the return flow project is even more efficient. We only have to release 100 gallons for every 1,000 gallons we divert, that's not quite true because of the permit conditions we have, but it's much more efficient in the winter than in the summer. So we may move to a paradigm where we're really, and finishing Nichols, we're now able to actually turn off Canyon Road in the winter. So we may move to a paradigm where we really lean on BDD throughout the winter when the river is clear and the operations are easy, and then we're ready in the summer to really lean on Canyon Road when the water is still clear because no matter what we do, it's going to be more difficult to divert at the Rio Grande when it's super laden with silt, and we'll probably shut down once it goes above certain thresholds. But yes, this 60 to 80 million dollar rebuild at the BDD is also focused on reducing the amount of sediment that we're diverting. So there's two upcoming things that'll help that. Wonderful. And I just, I think that we all hear about water all the time, and I guess tomorrow during the "What's Up With Water" and looking at long-range planning, you'll be able to speak in more detail around what those projections are looking like, and what we have done to put ourselves in a remarkably good position with water. As I always like to say with water, we've worried so much about water that we don't have to worry about water as long as we keep worrying about water. We have done a great job of worrying about water, and really just, thank you to your team for everything that you've done. I think just that conversation around our water resiliency is one of those common phrases and building that into the system in various ways. One little technical thing, you frequently say "amount of water produced." It took me a couple years to understand what that meant for potentially new people who haven't heard that as much, or just for the general public. When you say "water produced," what does that mean? Thank you for mentioning that. That means the water that we produced at either one of our treatment plants or that came out of our wells and went into the system. Generally for us, we produce that water at a potable standard and then we pump it or allow it to flow by gravity to the storage tanks that are throughout town. So in this plot that showed last year, the water produced is the total sum of all the four colors. The water that we actually sold and went through the meters is shown in the dotted line there. So you can see that there was some difference between that. That's known as unaccounted water, and for us it's less than 10%, which is very good for a water utility. Wonderful. Thank you. And then my just last comment is, late 1900s feels a little bit aggressive for those of us born in the 1900s. So 1995 is fine, the 1980s, that works just fine. So just a little bit of feedback there. I thought the same thing as soon as I said it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Counselor. Any other questions for Director Roach? Yep. Counselor Garcia. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for all the information, Jesse and Director Roach. So what do we tell people when they say, "Where is the water? When do we stop building? Why all these apartments? Extra housing?" We hear it all the time. And how do you address that? Because we can say, "Well, go to the city's website and take a look at that beautiful PowerPoint presentation that Director Roach put through." Because at the end of the day, people see the difference between what's being built, and they don't want to see the day when they go to their faucet and turn it on, nothing comes out. Or we're on very, very strict guidelines of water usage where we're rationing. So what do we tell the people? Counselor Garcia, Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body, that's a great question. As much as we tell this story and as much as it makes somebody feel comfortable about this story, another person moves or hasn't heard the message, and they, we all understand that we live in a dry place. You look around and you see development, and the immediate obvious connection is, "Where's the water coming from?" Hopefully we've given some tools here in this presentation to say, "Well, for a city of our size to have four separate water supplies is amazing." The fact that we really just rely on the rivers, which is the water we can see, and we're letting the wells recover, and I've referred to that as checking account versus bank account. One other thing I'd throw into there is when you see apartments going up, what percentage of water, and again, now this is getting into the weeds, but just for you, the amount of water that we're using in apartments is almost, it's not all, but it's not two-thirds indoors, one-third outdoors. It's 90% indoors. There's a very small outdoor water use footprint. One of the things that folks who come to "What's Up With Water" will see is that as we start looking at our future, the questions that we're going to balance, and actually I'll tease "What's Up With Water" a little bit here, is we want reliability, we want sustainability, we want green space, and we want flows in the river. Those are the values that we need to balance. An apartment using water indoors and return flow reuse, potable reuse, their impact is way smaller than a house with a big lawn because the water that's used on the lawn is gone. We don't get to try to use it again. So those are some of the answers you can give them. We will have, there is a video on the website that talks exactly about that: "Where will the water come from to support this growth?" It does refer to the same slides. So it's a nuanced answer, but hopefully we're giving you some tools to help start to answer it, and we just need to get out there and keep telling the story. I appreciate that, Director Roach, and I wholeheartedly, I've just been looking into all the cities in New Mexico and where does their water come from? Whether it's Albuquerque or Las Cruces, Alamogordo. It's like, "Wow, where does it come from in a desert that we have a river that looks like it's drying up?" So that's what people see. Anyway, I appreciate all the information, and I think we are doing a great job in conservancy and accessing as many resources as we can to diversify. So thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Counselor Castro. Just a quick comment. Director Roach, we will be getting a presentation in June at Quality of Life about green infrastructure because I think we might be leaving a lot of rainwater on the table from runoff. If you're at all interested, let's coordinate. Thank you. Last call. Seeing none, thank you, Director Roach. Next presentation, please, Madam City Clerk. Next presentation is the Planning and Land Use Development Manual Stakeholder Engagement and Recommendations Report, and Director of Planning and Land Use Department Heather Lamboy is here to present. Good afternoon, Mayor Garcia and members of the council. As part of being a department that is responsible and has good service to the public, it's important to evaluate our performance and evaluate where we need to go. So we've embarked on the development manual project. It was a project that was funded by the one-time funding that was done during the Weber administration. We used those funds to request for proposals, and part of that whole process was to really take a critical look at how we perform now and what we can do better. The people that use land use for different processes, like inspections, licensing, as well as building permitting and planning, we need that feedback so we can modernize and better serve. And of course, who's the best to say so than those stakeholders. So I have with me here Ciaran Lithgow. They work with Bohannan Houston, and they are our consultants for this project. They will be presenting the presentation right now, and then I'll, we'll both be available for questions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Heather. My name is Ciaran Lithgow. I'm a senior planner with Bohannan Houston. So we have been working with Heather's department to take stock of what the existing processes are, the city's existing development review process. Our scope of work generally, we started out by looking at a peer city analysis. So we looked at a couple of different cities across the United States, especially thinking towards the Southwest, to understand what they are doing and how they are analyzing and processing their development applications from not only major development projects like apartments, but also single-family home building additions and things like that. So we identified some best practices from peer cities around the nation, and we'll use that information to help us move forward with recommendations for what we will ultimately recommend into a guide. Is my IT okay? Do I need to change something? Okay. All right. Sorry about that. Thank you. All right. Well, I'll just talk through it. I can see it on my screen. I'm really sorry about that. So what we've done, we started with the peer city analysis. And then this next step of our assessment process, we're not done. We're kind of in the middle of our assessment process. But at this point, we have interviewed stakeholders, which included developers, builders, planners, architects, and city staff, and they helped us to identify some of the major pain points in the current process and gave us some good ideas for how to adjust that moving forward. Part of our next process, and what we've already launched so far, is a stakeholder and online survey. So, that's active now, and I'll include a link to that at the end of this presentation, where we are asking the general public, along with other members of the... You want us to try to switch? Oh, wait. If I hold it, maybe that works. I'm going to hold the cord. [laughter] No. And Mike, can we stop the timer because I don't want to get... Yeah. Apologies for the tech issues. All right, we'll do that. Thank you so much. All right. So, as a part of our process, we have launched an online survey to solicit feedback from folks who are both from the public and from the wider architect, developer, planning community, and building community as well, to understand more in-depth about the process and to reach more voices than we had heard initially in the stakeholder engagement. So, that launched on Friday, and we already have 90 responses, which is really incredible. And I'm really impressed with the passion of the folks who are responding. So, following that process, once we kind of hear and collect all of the feedback that we've gotten, we'll analyze and document the existing processes. We've kind of already started doing that partially, understanding from our side what they are, but then also understanding from the city side how they document it internally, and then comparing that to the new land use code update as well. And from there, we'll recommend some process improvements that are available within existing code. It's not within our scope to change the code right now. We're just trying to help understand how the process can work a little bit better within the parameters of your existing policy. And then from that, when we get input and collaboration and feedback from our folks in the land use and planning department, we'll actually develop the new development review guide. And that's intended to really be kind of a plain language document that anybody can access, from homeowners to builders, to people who are very familiar with the process, to those who have never used the process before. It's intended to help create transparency and improve efficiency for all users of the process. So, today we'll tell you a little bit about the key takeaways that we heard from the stakeholders. I'll preface it by saying that we hear recommendations from them, and I'm going to share what those recommendations are kind of honestly with you all. But that is not necessarily to say that we will include every recommendation that we got from stakeholders as a part of our final document. We want to, of course, do our best due diligence and put forward recommendations and policies that make sense for the city of Santa Fe and that are grounded in reality and good policy. So, first we heard some encouragement from stakeholders. They are all excited by the process of a development review guide. They do appreciate the move towards transparency, and they hope that it'll help create shared understanding among all stakeholders in the process. The city is also currently moving towards digital building permit submission, which everybody was pretty excited about. Some developers knew that that was coming, some did not, and so they were encouraged by that process. So, that transition to OpenGov is recognized as a really key moment, and they think that that alone will help improve a lot of the process issues that they've had already. And they also wanted to praise that current leadership, especially Heather, is very responsive, and they help to advance projects and problem-solve whenever there are concerns that are raised. Some concerns that were identified by stakeholders, some are individual concerns, some we heard across all stakeholder groups. They noted that independent review by departments, so there's the development review team, so individuals within across the departments kind of have to all make sure that it meets their codes for streets and water and infrastructure, but they find that sometimes that creates conflicting comments that are really difficult to resolve because one department is asking for more landscaping, and another department is saying, "You don't have enough water budget." So, creating a better understanding among the DRT and including some maybe guidance from staff might help address those issues. Paper-based submittals are challenging, especially expensive. Some of the architects that we talked to highlighted that that is a particular cost burden for a lot of their clients who are really just trying to build a fence or do an addition to their home. Having to print those out is a challenge, and especially when you have to resubmit frequently when you have updates that are requested. But the digital permit process should help address that. They also wanted to highlight and advocate for more budget for the planning and land use department. They noted that they see that the staff are kind of overworked and overwhelmed with the volume that is presented at the current moment. And they think that that is a part of why sometimes reviews are not timely. They also noted that sometimes code is interpreted differently by certain staff members, or sometimes there are unwritten rules that seem to be a little bit opaque, and so they would appreciate a little bit more transparency around that, perhaps written issuances of interpretations of policies so that all staff and also other developers can benefit from understanding the land use department's perspective on that issue. They noted that currently in your code, you do have some pieces that can be reviewed and approved administratively, but sometimes that is routed towards a public hearing process for various reasons. And so they would encourage any way to keep some things administrative that would help improve time and work effort as well, especially for those who attend hearings and govern them too. And then they also noted that sometimes hearing bodies and boards can introduce eleventh-hour changes that seem to be, in their words, subjective rather than objective, and introduce costly changes that can really change a lot and have a lot of trickle-down effects in the rest of their plans and their engineering sets that they've already designed to that point. So from them, we heard some suggestions. They are excited about the guidance, so they want to make sure that it is very usable. They want it to be searchable in a PDF format so you could control F and find whatever you need, visually and visual tool and digital that city staff can also update over time as things change. They encouraged the city to complete the digital transition, and then I mentioned earlier to document those code interpretations and set precedence as well pretty transparently. They also wanted to define clear triggers for things like traffic studies or utility upgrades that they may not know and understand what they're required to do up front in the process, especially those who are not familiar with the process in Santa Fe. People who've worked here for decades, they kind of know what to expect and they can advise their clients, but if you're just a single homeowner, you're like, "I don't know what I need to do and I don't know what I don't know at the beginning of the process." It's hard to budget your both your time and your money. They encouraged fee calculations and general review timelines to be a little bit more transparent and up front. And then I think one that was particularly helpful or encouraging was that they wanted to see a culture of collaboration among everybody who's a part of the process, whether you're somebody who's a member of the public making a comment at an E&N meeting, or you are part of the land use department giving feedback to the developer. So they wanted to encourage everybody in the process to take more responsibility and accountability for their role. So I mentioned before that the public and stakeholder survey is open through May 11th. There is a Bitly code up there and as well as a QR code for anybody in the audience who wants to join. And then we'll be launching a website here soon as well where you can keep up to date on that process in the future. So thank you so much. I'll hand it back to Heather. It's to be a lot shorter. What I would like to say is that this process is really a dynamic process. So what we're hearing right now is what we're trying to think about as we implement them immediately. So as an example, in terms of administrative reviews and reviews that have to go to a board, for instance, the Historic Districts Review Board, really trying to be critical about how we make those decisions and also see how we can be more efficient. There are currently about 535 administrative reviews that were done by the Historic Districts Historic Preservation staff last year and 120 cases that went to the H board. And so instead of, and we analyzed, so a lot of those are re-roofing permits and solar permits. So how can we do it so that there's not an administrative approval required, but it can go straight to building permit? So these are the things that we've been benefiting from already is the hearing from the stakeholders and then also hearing recommendations. So we're not waiting for the publication of the manual to make improvements. And very grateful for Bohannan Houston. Deni Satin is also online and she is with Bohannan as well and can answer any questions in addition to us. Okay, thank you team. Any questions from governing body members? Yes, Council Faulkner. Councilor Faulkner: Mine are more comments. With my experience on the Planning Commission and then also now as a City Councilor, I would say that... [clears throat] I don't think everyone registers how critical land use is to the quality of life in a community. And I'm excited to see the changes that you're making and the efforts you're trying to make. And I would encourage us to, funding is how we support departments, and I think if land use is as critical as I believe it is, then we need to make sure land use has everything it needs to move forward because our system is antiquated by comparison to other cities and that's unfair to staff and it's also unfair to the community. So I just want to thank you, Director, for all the work you're doing and all the effort you're putting in. And I think you're making a difference, but I also think we need to support you a little bit more. Councilor Cassutt: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you both so much for being here. Heather, I want to echo the praise of Council Faulkner of how much effort you're putting into this. And I know that from my conversations with community members in the development sector, various phases of it and stages of it, that they really feel heard and listened to and collaborated with. And so I really, really appreciate that because I know that hasn't always been the case. One question I have, I'm glad we're doing stakeholder interviews with the people that are very familiar with the process. I'm curious if you've spoken with people who are not as familiar with the process and have had to go through it because they are trying to restucco or do an addition, but it's not something that they do, which is your average homeowner who's trying to do something with their house, and what that has been like for them, because I can imagine our developers, they do it all the time, but for other individuals, not as much. Yeah, so we have heard from a variety of stakeholders. I will also mention that we did hear from some developers who are newer to Santa Fe. This is their first project, and they might have vast experience in other cities, and they say it's very different here. So we did hear from them and their pain points, but we did not hear directly from—I did not have direct conversations with folks who are individual homeowners. But I will say that when I looked at, just before I got up here, I looked at our survey responses, and only 28 out of the 90 respondents identified themselves to be in the professional community. So everybody else, and then they also noted that most of the people who have responded have at least submitted one permit. So we're getting to those voices for sure. People who are homeowners, I think 58% of the respondents identified themselves as homeowners in Santa Fe, so we're hearing from them too. That's wonderful. I'm really glad to hear that because obviously, they're not paying as close attention all the time. I think it might be interesting if they're—I'm sure that the land use staff can help you find some of the really challenging cases or people that reached out and were very upset because they had to go back and forth and back and forth and had a hard time with permitting. And then I would say that when these drafts are available, beta testing them not just with people in the professional building world, but also a random sample of individuals. Like, "Hey, if you were about to do something with your home, do you feel like this would, you know, you'd be able to get there?" So I think that that would be really, really helpful just to make sure that we really hit the mark for anybody that's trying to deal with the system and then understand it and just try to get done as soon as possible. I guess the only thing I just have is a comment, and I think it's part of some of these larger conversations we're having around code updates and general plan updates and the importance of making sure that we're really code-driven in a lot of these decisions. And I know that it is hard, a body that does have to make decisions around land use cases. And I think it was the last meeting that I basically kind of threw a tantrum on the things, but basically said, "You know, I have to vote for things sometimes that I really dislike, and it's because the code is really important in terms of making sure that we are being fair and equitable for everyone that's building." So it's not just, "Hey, we really like you, so we're going to let this slide," or "We don't like you at all, so we're just going to deny no matter how much you fit the code." And so I think how we still have those conversations as well, and maybe since this might be a document that is going to be pretty accessible, just some information around the code really drives, needs to, should be driving these decisions. If you are in a scenario where you feel like the code is not driving this decision, please do let us know because I know I've heard that from people where they feel like they're getting the runaround. My guess is it probably has to do with some of these inconsistencies that we're talking about, and sometimes there are places that the code contradicts itself or contradicts other parts of our code. And so how we smooth those out and have those conversations, I think, is important both in helping people through the system as well as having people understand what land use processes look like, and especially when we're getting to the public hearings. I know that that can be a bit of a challenge. And I would be remiss if I didn't use this as another opportunity to plug that if you don't like our code and if you don't like what's happening, that we are in the process of huge updates to the code, to the general plan, really having these discussions around what should be permissible in Santa Fe, what should not, what do we want to encourage, what are we not so happy with. And those decisions are being made now outside of the context of a specific development so that we can apply them. All that said, our code can't predict everything, and so I am a little bit curious about, and Heather, this may be for you. I don't know if this is a choice that happens within the department. But sometimes we have people that have to go to Board of Adjustment because there's a variance, but there are also these just kind of weird things that happen, especially with such an old city, with such an old and right now kind of we do have a little bit of patchwork code going on. How are those addressed? You know, how do we deal with these scenarios that don't fit anything that we have predicted? And is that something that then goes to the director? Do we specifically have to say, you know, director then gets to make a final decision if this is something that's not contemplated anywhere? Because I have heard of that happening a couple of times, and it's been handled different ways depending on who's in charge. Mayor Garcia, Councilor Cassutt: Thank you for that question. The importance of what Bahani Houston found and Ms. Litvak as well is that we really need to be consistent in how we apply the code. And part of that, I'll use the example of the pallet shelters. So, we worked together with the City Attorney's Office. Pallet shelters aren't in the code, right? And that's something that's relatively new, and we developed some performance standards for those and then issued an actual policy which is going to be posted on the website. We had to get consensus from all the different departments, and then that policy would be the interpretation, and we need to follow in those, in that method, because you're right, it's not one size fits all. It truly is, there's all those shades of gray that can drive planners crazy over time, but we also are taking, we're making a list of things that actually don't work in the current code or need to be addressed that hasn't been addressed previously, and we're really trying to be laser-focused on that in phase two. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm really happy to hear that. Not surprised because again, you and your team have just been really incredible in trying to find ways to solve problems instead of just being like, "No, no, it's fine." Which doesn't always happen. So, really, thank you so much, and thank you for all your work. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Bustamante. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Sarah, for the presentation and Director Lamboy. So, this is just more something that I would like to see come out of this. If you haven't already heard it, because since it is open to the public, I'm hoping you have, but two of the things we get questions a lot about are things relating to appeals and to the quasi-judicial process, and there's a lot of misunderstanding and or confusion about these two things, how to see them through, what they are. So, whether it's as part of this review or something further down the line, if we could do something to just get some better information guidelines out there for people for what these two things are and how an average citizen can follow through with it. Yes, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Bustamante, we will definitely highlight that, and it would be included in the development manual. But, you know, one is more procedural, Robert's Rules of Order, quasi-judicial proceedings, which we can use another avenue to communicate, maybe provide better information on our website or just speaking notes for the public. I know that some of our boards and commissions review that you have the right to appeal any decision at the beginning of the meeting. So, those are the sort of procedural side of things, but definitely we will deal with appeals in the development manual itself. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor Barrett, then Councilor Castro. Where are we in the digital transition? Because I know how you talked about the paper process being so laborious and things going missing and it becoming digitized. Where are we in that process? Mayor Garcia, Councilor Barrett, that is a great question. So, we have been doing a lot of configuration working with our ITT department, examining our existing processes from a technical standpoint, IT standpoint. And we've been working with OpenGov, and in fact, Assistant Director Moore is in Chicago right now getting trained to be more of a specialist and administrator as well. So, we are also collaborating on a number of issues relative to how do we collect money. You know, how that's one of the big issues that we need to address in a very intentional way for auditing purposes and all of that. So, it's just a process, but we're going to get there, that's for sure. Great, because that just seems like it's the process is going to be streamlined, go so much faster and easier. Do you foresee that also? Mayor and Councilor Barrett, yes, absolutely. It's just as an example, it's very linear right now where a set of plans goes from one station to the next. In fact, I have a set of plans on my desk. And instead, this will be something that can be reviewed concurrently, and it does not have to be reviewed in a line. So, we'd be able to cut off two weeks off the top just for that reason. Councilor Castro: Thank you again. Wonderful presentation, very exciting projects. I just want to double down on the accessibility conversation. I think the digitizing is going to help. Are we looking at potentially translating some of these documents and making sure they're available in other languages? Mayor, Councilor Castro, that is a major value in our community, and absolutely we will have this available in Spanish like we've done with the general plan, will be doing with the general plan, we've done with the assessment report. And the land development code is a heavier lift, but it will be on Municode and can be. I believe there's an opportunity for a translation on that website. I believe so as well, and I think that's another reason why the digitizing is going to be so important for us in this process. Thank you so much. Now for the questions, Mayor. Okay. Councilor, anybody else? Seeing none. Yes, Director Lamboy. One more thing. We are embarking on a fiscal, well, yeah, an actual study of our fee schedules. We have engaged with a consultant and will be doing an analysis on our fees when it comes to revenues, determining how we can better support our community through fee structures that are up to date. The last time we changed them was in 2021. So, that will also help us to provide better service to the community as well with those resources. Thank you, Director. Well, not seeing any other questions. I think thank you for the presentation. Truly appreciate it. Madam City Clerk, next item on the agenda, please. Next item on the agenda is 9G. Request for approval of an exclusive negotiation agreement to negotiate the sale of Midtown Tracts R 2-1B to Homewise Inc. for development as a mixed-use development. And here to answer questions is Asset Development Manager Carlie Venditti. Can we get a motion on the item? Motion to approve. Okay. Second. Got a motion and a second. Councilor Castro, you pulled this item. Did you need a presentation or what did— I will leave it up to our Manager Venditti. I did mention some of the questions I had, and they might be able to speak to those in their presentation. Yes, of course, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Castro. I'm happy to make a brief presentation, going well below the 10-minute rule. I can even get through the first several slides expeditiously since we've done the foundation before. Sure. Excellent. If ITT, thank you so much, folks. So, Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body, really quickly going through the master plan, the community development plan are the governing documents of the Midtown site. Any development proposal are measured against those. All of them that we accept are measured against those, rather, and those are guided by four principles. Moving forward, an exclusive negotiation agreement is similar to an LOI, has a couple different components, including a timeline up to 18 months, a refundable deposit, preliminary development points, and insurance requirements. As you may know, we went out from April to June of 2025 for a direct disposition window with 14 of those parcels on the site already in pre-development, 18 available, and then of course we had the one state parcel, Tract O, at the time. We received six different development proposals. This development proposal this evening is directly adjacent to the Fogelson Library, as you can see here. It's a sketch that's similar to that proposed site plan within your packet this evening, as well as adjacent, showing those lovely Fogelson Library windows. The mandatory criteria set by the master plan include residential development compliance with green code. All development must be LEED certified, inclusionary housing compliance, not allowing housing discrimination, nor short-term rentals, and then creating jobs as well as job access and communicating with the public. Priority evaluation criteria from the community development plan include affordable housing, inclusionary housing, long-term affordability, local business support, job training, community programs, and public art commitment. So, Item 9G, as was stated, is a hopeful approval as recommended by staff for an exclusive negotiation agreement to negotiate the sale of Midtown Tract R21B to Homewise. An ENA is allowing us to negotiate. This is not allowing any straight-off development. I want to make sure that is clear and highlight that specifically first. R21B is a parcel, as I said, adjacent to the Fogelson Library as well as the Greer Garson Theater. You can see here on the plat. We will likely pursue a lot line adjustment. That gray area here, also denoted by the red hatch line, will be a surface-level parking lot that supports the Fogelson Library. So, it'll likely come down to about 2.2 acres. Homewise, as the entity we will negotiate with, has a lot of success here and in Albuquerque. They have helped over 2,000 people purchase homes, 1,400 people with their financial and technical assistance programs. They've counseled more than 7,000 folks when it comes to financial literacy, and then they've built more than 400 affordable, energy-efficient homes. Most recently, I wanted to highlight their El Camino Crossing success. It was built on a previous mobile home park off of Agua Fria with 40 affordable single-family homes and 13 condos using new market tax credits. So, their proposal for the site R21B includes 3,500 square feet of commercial development, 93,300 square feet of residential, and how that breaks down is 74 units, 31% of those being affordable, surpassing the Santa Fe Homes program threshold. So, not only will they do 20% inclusionary across AMI, they will also include 21% low-priced dwelling units, and of course all of these numbers are still negotiable, right? Getting your approval this evening allows us to come to the table with them in good faith and negotiate community benefit points as well. So, they do comply in their original proposal with the master plan criteria reviewed as well as the community development plan criteria. So, as I said, we are requesting for the approval of this ENA, and I now stand for questions. Thank you so much, Manager Madetti. The questions I had were around the process and if this was an approved development and how much affordable. I think a lot of those were addressed. I am a little bit, I have a little bit of heartburn in selling city property. I would rather that we lease it so that we retain any type of long-term strategy, but I do understand that we want to move this project forward as quickly as possible, so I thank you very much, and no further questions, Mayor. Mayor: Thank you, Councilor. Any other comments? Councilor Vigil: Yeah, Councilor Vigil. Thank you. So, my questions are a little bit, where are these details? Well, you just gave them to us, like how many units, and I'm not seeing them in this ENA. So, where do they live? My apologies, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Vigil. They are part of the larger proposal that was previously presented in executive session to this governing body. However, it was not included as an exhibit at this time. It is in this way included in the presentation that I had prepared for tonight, as well as the two committees prior to this. Councilor Vigil: Okay. So, it is somewhere written down that we can refer to it when the DDA comes to us. That is correct. Councilor Vigil: And is there anything in there about what kinds of housing it will be? There's a picture, but are they townhomes or are they apartments? Do we know? Do we not know? Yes, so Mayor Garcia, Councilor Vigil, thank you so much. They are townhomes for sale. Right. Not the for sale part. So, they're attached four-story attached townhomes. They come in about, this is as proposed, right? So, it can be negotiated, and we have Weston Glass from Homewise online as well in case we have additional questions, but as they have proposed it, it's four units connected to maximize the amount of windows, right? We want to make sure that we have a lot of natural light for future residents, and they would be able to phase them in a way that they can build them out four at a time, which is fantastic for both their model and the progress of Midtown. Mayor: Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, just one for myself, much more of a comment than a question. I stand in the same kind of vein of hope as Councilor Castro that we maintain as much ownership of this property as possible. And it could be done in regards to past projects like the Santa Fe Railyard where we own the land, developers own the facilities, and everybody wins. And I'd like for us to explore that as we enter into this negotiation process with Homewise. You know, I won't buy the argument that leasing the land doesn't allow entities to qualify for financing. That's not true. Entities can qualify for financing. So, as we enter into this process, I would encourage us to explore how we can entertain leasing the property for a dollar. That could be done. Now, selling it for a dollar, that is a vote I probably would not be in favor of unless it was 100% affordable housing that they were developing. So, just as we enter into this process. So, thank you, Councilor. Any other questions or comments from governing body members? Okay, hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? City Clerk: Certainly, Mayor. Councilor Bustamante. Councilor Bustamante: Yes. City Clerk: Councilor Cassutt. Councilor Cassutt: Yes. City Clerk: Councilor Castro. Councilor Faulkner. Councilor Faulkner: Yes. City Clerk: Councilor Vigil. Councilor Vigil: Yes. City Clerk: Councilor Garcia. Councilor Barrett. Councilor Barrett: Yes. City Clerk: Motion passed. Mayor: Okay, thank you, Madam City Clerk. Next item on the agenda, please. City Clerk: Next item is 9I. It's a request for approval of a general services agreement with Jenoptik Smart Mobility Solutions LLC for automated speed and noise enforcement services in the total amount of $4 million for a 5-year term, and here to answer your questions is Deputy Chief of Police Ben Valdez. Mayor: Okay. Can we get a motion on this? Councilor: Motion to approve. Mayor: Okay, we got a motion and a second. Councilor Castro, you pulled this? Councilor Castro: Thank you so much, and thank you, DC Valdez, for being here. In a similar fashion, I sort of spoke a little bit about my concerns, and if you would give us a little presentation about the program in general and about the data in particular. Thank you. Deputy Chief Valdez: Mr. Mayor and Councilor Castro, thank you. So, like I mentioned in the Finance Committee a few days ago, our community has been sharing concerns that they want to see behavior on our roads improve around safety, vehicle noise pollution, and just really improving the experience here in our community. This is something that was funded this last fiscal year by the governing body to put some money forward so we can get this project off the ground. And one thing that we did is we looked into a lot of the inputs and recommendations we received from leadership in the past. So, one of the items that was a big concern is related to data ownership. In the contract, we made sure and also in the request for proposals that we let the folks know a lot and clear that we have ownership over that data. It's not to be sold to any third parties. I know there were concerns that were brought up during the Finance Committee if that data will be shared with immigration officials, and the answer to that is no. It's going to be data that belongs to the City of Santa Fe. The only thing that the company can do concerning the program is let people know that the City of Santa Fe is one of their customers and just let them know that we are receiving services from them. But as for the data that's collected from the devices or through the program, that is the property of the City of Santa Fe, in addition to our marks. So, any logos we have, we provide them to the company, but they still belong to us. The data's going to be utilized for the purpose of validating any, of confirming or seeing if there were any violations that were maybe not violations. And once that process is done, then it's going to go through the process of being disposed of when we no longer need it. Councilor Castro: Thank you so much, and I think there were some concerns in that meeting and also by community about misreading a license plate because these are license plate readers that we're going to be using. Is there any best practices that will be used? Deputy Chief Valdez: Yes, Councilor. So, with the device, it's not just going to capture the violation and maybe a plate and say, "Here's what it is." We're going to have our staff that will be trained on the process, so they will also have to verify that what they're seeing on the license plate reader data matches what they're seeing on the capture of the event. So there's going to be checks and balances and to make sure that the equipment is working properly. In addition, whenever we do deploy the devices, they have to be properly calibrated to ensure that the cameras are working properly. And also to make sure that the surveying device, whether it be for sound or for speed, that is also properly calibrated. And that's going to benefit both the City of Santa Fe and Jenoptik because we want to make sure that those captures are credible, that people know that if it is saying there's a violation then a violation does exist. But in the event that there is something that is not correct or if it is not a valid violation, then it's not going to be captured and sent out as a notice. They're going to flag it, let Jenoptik know, and then we can work on the back end to get it resolved. Councilor Castro: Perfect. Thank you so much. And I appreciate you giving us this presentation twice, DC. So, the last thing I'll ask about is the rollout program because I think it's really interesting that we're going to sort of roll this out over time and have signs and alert folks. Yes, counselor. Part of the rollout, what we're going to do is, if this is approved tonight, we already have a meeting that is queued up for Friday morning. We're going to have our project manager, he's sitting in the back. It's Lieutenant Jesus Rodriguez. He's going to be leading the effort to get this program off the ground once more. It's been dormant since 2013. Luckily for us, we still have a few folks that were part of that initial program. What we're going to do is we want to get this rolling and out into our community as quickly as possible. The first part is going to be setting up the business end of things. We're going to get the equipment that we need. So we may need to purchase some signage. And with these devices, there'll be signage that's going to be placed on approach of the device. So if it's enforcing from both directions of travel, then on both sides of that device, it'll say automated speed enforcement ahead or automated sound enforcement ahead. In addition, we are going to let members of our community know on our social media pages where they are located. So if that's not a good way for people to follow us on Facebook or our social media platforms, that's something to help get the information out. One thing we would appreciate from our local newspapers and media is if they can also put that information out. Again, for us, we're looking to change driver behavior. If someone is not paying attention to all those warning signs and they finally exceed the posted speed limit, or they have a modification to their vehicle that makes it excessively loud, that makes it where it is going to be a noise violation, there's plenty of steps they have to go through for that violation to actually occur. So we're going to do a lot of education on the front end as well. Part of the 30 months rollout, when it first hits our streets, we're going to be issuing warning violations. So we'll let people know, had this been live, you would have been getting a violation for this. Let's change your driving behavior before that day comes. And then once we go live, we'll let folks know, as of this date, every violation that goes out that is validated will be a live violation and you will be subject to civil penalties at that point. The big part is going to be education. But one thing as well is we're also going to continue our efforts with our uniform personnel in the field. It's going to let them identify other areas of concern, including folks not wearing their seatbelt or impaired driving, things that these cameras may not be able to capture. But if they do see a speeding violation or noise violation is observed, they can still take enforcement action on that. The difference in the two is with this device, that's a civil penalty. If an officer stops you, that's going to be a criminal penalty. So there's a bit difference in what the cost is and also the penalties if you don't pay the fine. Thank you so much, DC. I appreciate all the work. Again, I'm going to plug that we work on those weight limits and those big trucks in Las Acequias as we get a little bit more help with some of our technology. And with that, no further questions. All right. Counselor Faulkner. All I can do is request Jaguar Road and Airport Road. So many complaints about those two roads in our district. And so if you could just prioritize those if you're looking at District 3, those are the number one complaints. Drag racing, loud noise, mufflers, speeding, aggressive, all kinds of stuff happens. And now that we've paved Airport Road, it's increasing. So if we can just focus on those two roads in District 3, that would be amazing. Thank you, counselor. And as of right now, we have been receiving complaints from the community about, they're saying, "Hey, the road is great, but now there's an increase in speed and noise." So we are going to give that area some attention. But that's what's going to drive the deployment of these devices. It's going to be the concerns that are shared from community members or neighborhoods, crash data, and also if we do traffic surveys in those areas and see that it's a high enforcement area, then we'll put those devices out there or uniform personnel to do those enforcement operations. Thank you so much and thank you for everything you do. I know how hard you work. Thank you, counselor. Counselor Cassutt. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, DC. No questions. I asked plenty at finance, but wanted to take the opportunity here to express my gratitude because this had come forward to us 2021 or so. And there were a lot of questions that the proposal at the time couldn't answer or things that we were not comfortable with, which I brought all forward at finance, and it was just really wonderful to hear how that feedback had been taken, had been addressed. The program design is very elegant and thoughtful, and I just really appreciate all that work because this was one of those challenging issues where there is a balance of, this is very needed in our community. We know that there are a lot of issues with the way that people are driving. And yet there were all these other things that we needed to think about that don't necessarily come to the surface right away. So I really just want to express my gratitude to you and your team for putting this together and listening to all of those concerns and making sure that you had plans in place, that there were ways to address them, that our residents' data is well protected, which was very, very important for me and I know for others on this dais right now. So just kudos a thousand times. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, counselor. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Any other comments, questions? Just one quick clarification. Did you say the warnings were going to be given out for three months? For 30 days? 30 days. Good. Good. Good, because three months had me worried. I was... It'll take us about, we're hoping, three months or less to get it off the ground and 30 days for warning notices once it is live. Right. Right. Well, thank you. This has been a project, what, two years in the making? I mean, it's taken us a while, and I just want to thank you and your team for allowing us to house this within PD because I know that was a big question. Where can it live? And so thank you and your team for taking this on, grabbing the bull by the horns, and really bringing this project forward because this equipment can't be deployed quick enough. I mean, I'm not surprised we have not heard a person speed by here with a loud muffler. I mean, it's constant, and it's not one part of the city that is solely being impacted. It's our entire city. And I think it comes down to enforcement will change behavior. And I think with this tool, increasing fines, it's going to also require your team to do the physical enforcement as well. But I think with that myriad of tools now in the tool belt, hopefully we start to change behavior and quality of life improves for everybody in our community. So thank you, DC Valdez, and thank you to the team back there that helped make this happen. Thank you, Mayor. Sure. Counselor Barrett. Sorry, one last question. When this begins to generate revenue, what will we do, where will that revenue go? What will we do with that revenue? Counselor, that's a great question. One thing I will say is since this is in the PD's budget, I want to see it go towards PD efforts. What we want to look at is, first of all, education. That's going to be the biggest thing we want to use it for is get the word out there about safe driving behavior. On the community service side of things, if someone that gets a violation requests to do community service in lieu of a fine, those penalties that we have that are paid that generates revenue will offset the cost because if they are going to do community service, we still have to pay for the service that's provided for the processing of that violation. But the benefit of that is we're going to work with nonprofits and organizations within our community to see where can folks help out and pitch in, to take a situation that was probably not their best day and make it into something good that's going to be beneficial to our community. It is still yet to be seen how much revenue is going to come in from this. But for us, we want to see it go towards traffic safety operations and things to help with education around that. Engaging things with our youth as well. So if there's things that we could do, again, more upstream to provide that message when our youth are in high school or middle school before they start driving to build those good behavior traits, that's what we want to try to use that funding towards. But ultimately, it's going to go back to where its intention is, and that's for the program to improve safety in our streets. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. Anything else? Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Counselor Cassutt. Yes. Counselor Castro. Counselor Faulkner. Counselor Fogalli. Yes. Counselor Garcia. Yes. Counselor Barrett. Yes. Counselor Bustamante. Yes. Motion passed. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, please. Next item on the agenda is item 10A. This is on the action items discussion agenda. 10A is a request for approval of a memorandum of understanding with the New Mexico General Services Department Facilities Management Division to provide a specific description of the respective duties, powers, and rights of the parties with regard to the land swap to establish a mutual understanding between all parties where terms affiliated with New Mexico Senate Joint Resolution 7. And here to answer questions is the MRA Deputy Director, Carly Vande Ditty. Floor is yours. Thank you, Mayor. Might I pull up my brief presentation, please? So, this evening I request for the approval of the MOU as previously stated between the New Mexico GSD and City of Santa Fe. This MOU describes the two-part conveyance through the land swap for parcels ABD3 tract O for the parcel at 4491 Cerrillos Road, also known as New Mexico DPS campus. This is split into two conveyance processes because tract O will be under remediation. So, if this is approved this evening, the initial swap will include these four parcels for the one on Cerrillos Road, followed by the later conveyance of tract O1 once the state GSD remediates tract O with statewide funds. Other terms for this agreement include that GSD may continue to use parcel D for up to 2 years for the safe and secure storage of vehicles, as well as they may have the continued opportunity to access the garage to maintain the garage that is maintained on site for up to 1 year with the opportunity for us to demolish that garage sooner with a minimum of 60 days notice. That is it. I'd like to entertain your questions. Go ahead. Okay. Yes, Councilor Vigil. Thank you. Deputy Director, do we have an approximate idea of how long the remediation might take? Mayor Garcia, Councilor Vigil, at this moment, no. What I do have from GSD is that they will give us quarterly updates and they have assigned a project manager. So, they would like to convey this parcel as soon as possible, but I have not received an estimate of time. Okay. So, we don't think it's going to be 20 years before we can get it. No. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? What's the will of the body? So approved. Second. Okay. So, we got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? If none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Mayor: Councilor Castellano? Yes. Councilor Faulkner? Councilor Vigil? Yes. Councilor Garcia? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Bustamante? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. And motion passes. Okay. Next item on the agenda, please. Next item on the agenda is 10B. This is a request for scrivener's error correction for ordinance number 2026-4, an ordinance rezoning approximately 4.12 acre tract of land located at 276A Agua Fria from MU mixed use to C2 general commercial, case number 2025-8902. And City Attorney, Marcos Martinez, can answer questions. Okay. Mr. Martinez, floor is yours. Thank you, Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body. This is our first scrivener's error correction. And in this case, we're recommending the correction to a bill ordinance was adopted. In this case, the attachment A was in the memo. It was included in the memo, but it was not attached to the bill. So, the very minimal correction that we're recommending, which is a cross-referencing error, is to attach the attachment A. The corrected version of the ordinance is in your packet, and that is the only change, merely to attach the attachment A referenced in the ordinance. Okay. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Any comments or questions from the governing body? What's the will of the body? So approved. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? If none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Mayor. Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Councilor Vigil? Yes. Councilor Garcia? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Bustamante? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Councilor Castellano? Yes. Motion passed. Okay. Next item, please. Next item is matters from the City Manager. Mr. Mayor, councilors, I just want to do a few updates. First, I want to thank the budget team and the Deputy City Manager. We have the budget book coming next Wednesday. So, a little bit of guidance for all of you, if you have questions, please get them to me and the Deputy City Manager as fast as possible. Our plan is to gather them and send them back to all of you. So, if either you have any questions, that will really help us push the finance meetings the following week a little faster. So, that's just some guidance, and they will be with to you by next Wednesday. And also, we have put it on your calendars for the 14th and 15th from 10:00 to 5:00 to do those hearings. I just wanted to be you have to be aware of that as well. I also want to thank Public Works for the great job on Agua Fria and South Meadows. The lights are working. I drove by again this morning to make sure. So, that is a great thing. So, I want to thank the team for getting that up and running. We still have a pole issue there that PNM and I are working on to get that removed, but we're getting there, and we'll get the orange barrels down as fast as possible. The last thing I just want to congratulate the new Community Services Director. Her first week was this week. It was Sandy Emery. It was kind of my first big hire. So, I want to thank her very much. And I think she's going to do a great job. And that's all I have tonight, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Next item, please, Madam City. Is matters from the City Attorney. Yes. Thank you, Mayor, members of the governing body. I recommend that the governing body go into executive session for the matters identified in the agenda. I move that we enter into executive session pursuant to the Open Meetings Act Section 10-15-1H subpart 8 for the discussion of the purchase, acquisition, or disposal of real property or water rights by the governing body. Second. Okay. So, we got a motion and a second. Any discussion? If none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Councilor Vigil? Yes. Councilor Garcia? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Bustamante? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Councilor Castellano? Yes. Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Motion passed. We need to stop it. Okay. All right, I'd like to reconvene us. Pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, Section 10-15-1J, I move that the governing body reconvene in open session and state for the record that the matters discussed in the closed session were limited to those specified in the motion for closure. Second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Council Garcia? Yes. Council Barrett? Yes. Council Bustamante? Yes. Council Cassett? Yes. Council Castro? Yes. Council Faulkner? Yes. Motion passed. Okay, next item on the agenda, please, Madam City Clerk. Sorry, next item on the agenda is matters from the City Clerk and I have nothing to report today, so we can move on to communications from the governing body. Okay. Sure. What was the recommendation? Happy to follow it. Starting the Here we go. Council Faulkner. Just the middle. I was kidding. [laughter] Feel free, Council. Come on. A couple of things. I want to thank the city manager for all the work that he did to get South Pedos fixed. I know we had a lot of issues that we weren't aware of until we were and it pushed the timeline out, but I think we did a good job of expediting with what resources we had, so that that was a huge issue in District 3, so thank you and staff who helped with that. I also, and Council Barrett will speak to this as well. I would like to invite any members of the council where we won't violate a quorum, Council Barrett and I would like to start a homeless task force. And that's on the council side to work in collaboration with the administration with what the mayor's doing. I think there's a lot of good work to be done and so I think it'd be good if the council kind of had a group that was working through this as well. And then during the budget hearings, the finance committee will be any member of the council and the governing body that wants to attend the finance hearing and wants to have an opportunity to speak to the budget. I will make that open to the entire governing body when it hits the finance committee. Councilor Castro. All right, I will try to be brief and then I might make a motion that we move to petitions from the floor, but I want to and would be remiss to not say happy birthday to my mom who turns 70-something on April 28th and also thank Council Faulkner for the idea of task forces. I think this is super important and I don't know if I'm allowed to say this publicly yet, City Manager, but we have a task force that we are working on specifically around the ARU, so please reach out if you have any concerns. Thank you so much. Councilor Cassett. Thank you, Mayor. I also have a birthday. I want to wish my wonderful bonus daughter a happy birthday. She's turning five. So happy birthday, Iliana. Thank you for being so incredibly fierce and fun and keeping up with all the crazy boys in your life and having a kid that's idea of playtime is for me to sit down while she does my hair as opposed to the boys, which is not their idea of fun, is just absolutely incredible. So really, really want to wish her a very, very happy birthday coming up. I also really wanted to thank Deputy City Manager Phillips and Sam Burnett and Sean Moody for meeting with me as I know one of my frequent refrains from the dais has been talking about capital budgeting and so I had the opportunity to sit down with the three of them to really have this discussion around how do we go about capital budgeting and the fact that the city doesn't have this, you know, broader capital plan where we can funnel down into the ICIP and understanding some of the requirements of what has to be on the ICIP was really just very informative for me and also I think gave me some really good direction on, okay, so how do we start to be more organized and focused and efficient and understand what we have in terms of money to spend on capital and really how we think about acquiring new facilities or new parcels of land or, you know, taking on new projects. We don't really have kind of the nuts and bolts in front of us, I think for us to make those decisions really well. So I really want to thank them for that because it was it was very informative. I think that there are some, you know, very important directions and steps that we can take so that we're better informed, the community is better informed and we're actually able to make decisions where we are matching our resources to what those outputs could potentially be. So I said it in the meeting, I'll say it again. Deputy City Manager, any way that I can support us moving in that direction, please do let me know and I would encourage any of you to also take the opportunity to meet with them because it was a very a very helpful meeting for me and both understanding what we're doing now and what we could be doing much, much, much, much better. So, thank you. You can sit. Councilor Bustamante. I don't have anything to add, Mayor. Thank you. All right, let's do Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Nothing, well, I do want to reiterate the thanks for, you know, expediting all the projects on the south end of town. Airport Road and South Meadows there's a nice trail that's being constructed as well which had some issues at some point which got through. So thanks city staff, the attorney office for helping us with that. I may propose in the future once this done that we have a Friday night or Saturday night cruise night. We'll have a business party and on Airport Road no drag no drag racing. But cruise, right? And we'll have PD out there and everybody bring out their old cars and we'll just have a good time. Just putting a plug. Thank you. Yeah, whatever whatever it takes, whatever your hoopty looks like. Garcia is the king of cruising. Thank you, Counselor. Councilor Barrett. Yeah, I have a couple shout-outs. One is for the EcoTone event that took place at the Railyard Park. And Councilor Fogali and I got to lead a really fun family-friendly bike ride down the Acequia Trail. So that was awesome. And just like big shout-out to our conservation and sustainability division. I feel like we are like a model for the country on how we should be running these programs. It's just so impressive to me as our population has gone up that our water consumption has gone down drastically. Like who else can say that? I don't know. I haven't studied other cities, but I think it's really impressive to me. And then to Sandy Emery in her new position as you mentioned. I'm just really excited to work with her in this capacity and we're going to get amazing things done. Also Mayor's Youth Advisory Board. We are looking for 13 to 21-year-olds to join our Mayor's Youth Advisory Board. We have a group of really impressive students. They're going off to impressive universities, going out there into the world and so we need a whole new crop of young people to guide us with the issues that are important to them. So thanks. Thank you, Counselor. Councilor Fogali. Thank you. I have a few things as well. One is BPAC is looking for members. We have openings in basically everywhere in the city due to people terming out. So we have one opening in District 1, two in District 2 and one in District 3 as well as one in the county at large. So if you live anywhere that's not District 4, sorry District 4. And you want to be on BPAC, you can send a letter of interest to Romella Glorioso Amoss. That information is on the website. Speaking of bikes, we did have a great bike ride last weekend. The MPO is working on installing bike racks on city properties around town, and soon we will have some downtown as well. So that's very exciting. Tomorrow there's the YNN on the Henry Lynch reconstruction. So that's tomorrow at 4:30 to 7:30 at the Nancy Rodriguez Community Center. And then Friday is May Day. So shout-out to all of our staff, all of our union members, all of the people who keep the city running every day. And yeah, there's a picnic on Saturday for AFSCME members. And I suppose the rest of us can attend as well if we want. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor. I just want to take a quick moment to wish Miss Stella Vigil Abeyta a happy 105th birthday. Today it's a remarkable opportunity to just have somebody turn 100, turn 105, and somebody who is full of spirit, full of energy, full of humor. It's quite amazing to see. And so I had the opportunity today to visit with her and issue a proclamation in her honor. And I just want to share this with y'all just because it covers kind of the amazing things she's accomplished in her life. And so if you would just indulge me for a couple moments, I want to read the proclamation I issued for her. And so it says, "Whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta was born on April 29th, 1921, in Taos, New Mexico, to Abel and Antonio Gran Vigil. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta pursued her passion for education by earning her teaching certification from Highlands University and went on to teach elementary in La Joya, New Mexico. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta honorably served her country in the United States Women's Army Corps during World War II from 1944 to 1946. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta married Sam Labadie on February 9th, 1946, and after being widowed in 1954, religiously raised her three children, Elaine, Martin, and Larry, with strength and dedication. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta devoted 32 years of service to the federal government, retiring from the Bureau of Land Management in 1984, and continued contributing through private sector work until the age of 85 while maintaining her independence by driving until the age of 95. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta has been recognized as an honorary life member of the Santa Fe Fiesta Council. And whereas Stella Vigil Abeyta has been a devoted and active member of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas for 55 years, serving with distinction as the secretary, state secretary, and court regent for two terms. And whereas Stella Labadie was selected as a veteran participant in the second honor flight of Northern New Mexico to Washington, D.C., in June 2015, honoring her military service. And whereas on this day, Stella Vigil Abeyta celebrates her 105th birthday surrounded by a loving family, good health, and cherished friends. Now therefore, I, Michael J. Garcia, Mayor of the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, do hereby proclaim April 29th, 2026, as Stella Labadie Day." So happy birthday, Miss Vigil Abeyta. I hope to accomplish only half as much as you accomplished in your life. So here's to many more. With that, Madam City Clerk, can we move on to the next agenda item? Or I think Counselor Castro has a motion to make. Or Counselor Castro, we'll motion it together. I would like to move that we move directly to petitions from the floor at this time. Second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Mayor. Counselor Barrett. Yes. Counselor Bustamante. Yes. Counselor Cassutt. Yes. Counselor Castro. Yes. Counselor Faulkner. Yes. Counselor Fogali. Yes. Counselor Garcia. Yes. Motion passed. Okay, so now we are at petitions from the floor. If anybody would like to provide public comment for the governing body, your time is now. Please do so by just stepping up, acknowledging your name, any council district you live in if you so wish, and the timer will start. Each individual will be allotted two minutes. All right, so I come up here every chance I get. You guys are failing our city. You do not understand what you guys are doing. Sir, can you please state your name? No, I don't. Well, I just wanted to acknowledge that you're in violation of our procedure rules. You're welcome to speak, but... I have a right not to do my name, and I have a right to speak openly in the Open Meetings Act. I do not have to release my name. Is that right? No, he wants me to release my name, and I want my time back. Restart the clock, please. That's two minutes because you took time from me. You have one minute and 24 seconds left, sir. Okay, I'm going to put it this way. You're failing us, all of you. You want to spend money on that shouldn't be spent on. That new sound ordinance thing, traffic. I'm sorry. I have a right to be as loud as I want from 7:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night. That is the ordinance. I work construction. Our machines are louder than any decibel meter you are going to put out there. Two, you guys are worthless. Worthless. You're spending money on stuff that does not need money spent on. We don't even have health inspectors because you guys don't want to fund it. Public health, right? Public safety. Fund them. Two, you're all about climate control, but yet you won't pay someone to clean your solar panels on your buildings. Oh, wait, I'm the only one in the state that has that certification come from California, and I'm the only one that has that machine. Did you know that? No. Because you guys don't keep your own panels clean. That's disgusting. You're losing 30% of your energy. But yet you want to talk about climate control? You're wasting money. You're wasting time. You're wasting energy on stuff that does not need to be wasted on. Okay, your time has expired, sir. I will be back next week. And I will be back at every meeting. Next member of the public, please. Hello. Is that working? Yes, we can hear you. My name's Ramos. Mayor, governing body, Chief, City Manager Moya. So, I'm coming here because I have a concern that's kind of a long-term concern about the ARU, but in particular today is a concern that's a little more pressing. The last nine years that I worked in the fire department was in the Mobile Integrated Health Office. And my primary responsibility was around direct client services. And I just wanted to speak to the acuity of clients that the Mobile Integrated Health Office and the ARU serve. It's these are the people who've come through all the other services and, you know, the ER may not have been able to help. Adult Protective Services might not have helped. Lifelink, the jail, police, they've been through all of these systems and they haven't quite found what they've needed. And these are the people that are served by the Mobile Integrated Health Office and the ARU. And the reason that's important is because we, I think today might be the last day that Nicole Alt, our clinical supervisor, who was part of building the program, I think it's her last day. And the other structural pieces are not in place around the way we designed the ARU. So, I just wanted to advocate to support the case managers that are out there. It is extremely difficult work. You guys obviously experience some challenges, and these are the kind of things that we walk right into. Experiences, people that no one knows are there. You know, maybe an elderly person that's living alone, doesn't have utilities, and APS isn't able to help them. It sometimes it takes a lot of time and a lot of careful consideration. And the clinical supervision is the really critical piece, so I'd encourage you to address that if possible. Good evening to all assembled. I'm cutting my three-minute talk to ensure removal of nuclear waste from Santa Wilks. I'm John Wilks, project manager of the Plutonium Trail Caravan. To ensure removal of nuclear waste from Santa Fe County, the first, last, and only opportunity rests with supporting before June 8th the New Mexico Environmental Department's proposed WIPP permit modification provisions. The state secretary of the environment has claimed, quote, "DOE is walking away from nuclear waste cleanup," unquote. On April 26th, Secretary Kenny proposed revisions to the state permit of the WIPP. The state deadline to the federal government to remediate Lovelace sites, radioactive since 1943. All of the 2,555-gallon drums under a canvas tent must be removed no later than July 1st, 2028. The estimated one million cubic feet of waste remaining underground in unlined pits, shafts, and trenches, plus at which had been there since 1957, plus 200,000 cubic feet of effluent waste must be removed. The WIPP permit issued in 2023, which was negotiated by members of my organization and others, specifies that the DOE must prioritize the removal of legacy waste. They have not. I urge the City Council to strongly support the modifications to the proposed WIPP permit by commenting in writing to the Environmental Department before June 8th, 2026. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next member of the public, please. Hi, my name is Marsha Emmerton. I'm District 4. I have a couple things I'm going to go through quickly. The first is to protest the hotel at Cerrillos and St. Francis. I know that, you know, it was voted through by the Planning Commission. I was there, and I ended up calling it a debacle, which ended up in the paper. But it's a bad idea. There's already 22 lanes there, and the addition of two more lanes is insane. Their plan isn't maybe bad, but it's in the wrong place. The second thing I wanted to talk about is the pallet homes. And I'm it's interesting to hear there's going to be some kind of new committee, and I would like to suggest maybe there's an organization called Santa Fe Housing for All Collaborative. It meets every first Tuesday of the month at where the pallet homes are now, and it's kind of like an umbrella thing where different there's so many people in this town working on homelessness, and they come there and they give maybe a 30-second update on what their group is doing. Lots and lots of good people. Oh, I did that fast. I'm already out of things. Anyway, yeah, please do reconsider the hotel. And if you when you go online, there are so many people talking about this, but I'm always disappointed they're not here in the chairs. So, I'm hoping some hands come up. But please revisit. Thank you. Hello, Mayor and Counselors. My name is Brian Bird. I'm in District 2. And I want to first thank you all for approving the agreement for the noise and speed cameras that you all did earlier tonight. There's a lot of support for that in our city, and I really thank you for that. And I'm here just to give my support to Counselor Faulkner, Garcia, and Chavez on Bill Number 20269, which would eliminate the minimum penalties for reckless driving and criminalize aggressive driving. So, I hope you all will support that. I just want to tell a quick story. About a year ago, my wife and I rode our bicycles down, and we were to Cerrillos Boulevard, and we were at Cerrillos and Baca. And we had a car coming eastbound on Cerrillos tried to run the red light there, and it was hit by another car turning left opposing it, and the car flipped in the air. And it landed against the utility pole between my wife and I and the car on its top. And my wife had a tank top on, and she her arms were covered in little scratches from the glass from the car that had flipped. And it scared the living daylights out of both of us, obviously, and we're glad to be alive thanks to that utility pole. But yeah, so we've just been from that time on really concerned about driving in the city and how it seems we've gotten so bad after COVID-19. So, thank you very much for supporting Bill Number 20269. Thank you. Hi, my name is Maggie Knapp. I live in District 2. I'd like to bring to the attention of City Council that I, as currently the only outdoor urban farmer within city limits in Santa Fe, am actively prohibited from farming in at least three different ways by the very urban ag ordinance that was written to permit and protect farming in the city. I have poured all of my energy, my resources, and my 20 years of expertise into farming on my 2.4 acres this year, and as the growing season rapidly approaches, I am begging you to quickly update the urban ag ordinance to reflect the realities of trying to provide food security to my community in a time of radical uncertainty in a state where food security is tenuous at the best of times. The Farmers Market Institute, from whom I've received a farmer innovation grant that I currently cannot accept because of the legal obstacles that I face, also has an interest in rewriting the urban ag ordinance. And I would like to propose that City Council allow us to submit the updates that we would like to see in writing for your expeditious review and approval, but I'll state them here tonight if I have time. My asks are first to permit animal agriculture. I'm currently raising heritage chickens, hens, not roosters, for organic egg production, and I'm curious why this has to be legal. And I would also like to raise meat chickens and be permitted to slaughter them on site. Fortunately, the state of New Mexico allows for producers to sell meat animals direct to consumer, and I would gladly follow those rules to ensure consumer safety. My second ask is to permit medium and large-scale agriculture in residential areas without a permit. In the urban ag code, medium is considered less than 1 acre, and large is considered more than 1 acre. I'm trying to farm on two of my 2.5 acres in the city, and the permitting process to be allowed to farm on more than 10,000 square feet, which is less than a quarter acre, is onerous and prohibitive. The permit-seeking process would also allow my neighbors to object to my farm on any grounds, which is what the urban ag ordinance was designed to protect farmers from, neighbors calling farming a nuisance, but because I'm in a residential zone, I'm not protected from that. I'd like to point out that it's completely obvious that I'm trying to farm in a residential zone because I'm trying to farm at my house. That's what farmers do. My third— If the third is your last one, feel free to wrap it up. Well, I do have two more, so. Name and district quickly. Okay. This is more of a state issue. I'm trying to understand the legality, but I'd like to be permitted to use my well water for small-scale agriculture in this urban area because farmers need to be able to access groundwater resources, particularly during times of historic drought like right now. The Rio Grande Basin is at 8% of normal snowpack. And water-conscious organic small-scale diversified production should be produced—I mean, farmers should be priority water users in this state, I think. It's very onerous to get my well permitted for ag use, and I'm aware that it's a state issue, but I wonder whether the city has any jurisdiction over groundwater use. Megan, I'm going to have to ask for you to wrap it up, please, because we're a minute past the allowable time. Okay. Can I submit my requests in writing to you? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you very much. My name is Andres Nicalo, retired Battalion Chief from Mobile Integrated Health for the City of Santa Fe Fire Department. Mayor, councilors, city staff, and members of the public, I created the Mobile Integrated Health Office and the Alternative Response Unit. I know very well Felina, Matt, Ray, Missy, and Jessica, who are the five case managers that are left in the program. And I know that they've been doing their best and will do their best throughout this reduction in services and support. Mobile Integrated Health and ARU work is very complex work. At its best, it's the most complex issues in public safety. As such, when I was in my position, I coordinated with the patrol captain for PD, the behavioral health director within the fire department. That was a keystone position, and our medical director as needed, and community partners at the state, local, and regional level. Today is the behavioral health director's last day. She has resigned, and I think her clinical supervision is a critical component of this program. Her departure creates an imminent and a serious issue. I really urge you guys to consider all the options that are available, and this is to protect the providers, the services, and ultimately the patients that this program serves. I want to make myself available, and I don't want to speak for Thomas Sosi, but I want to echo and amplify his comments and his concerns, and I think that he would also make himself available, but I want to just bring attention to this issue. It's imminent, and it's fairly serious. So, thank you for your time. Is my name, or do you need my district? Name and district is good enough. Polly Langley, District 2. I want to thank you for your service. I was reflecting as I was waiting in line to speak. There's no such thing as change without conflict, which we all witnessed today. I remember learning that 40 years ago in college. No change without conflict, so we saw it. I want to thank you for voting for the noise and speed cameras. It's been a long time coming. I think it will help. I would also like to remark on the fact that I just put these pins on your desk. I hope that feels okay. But the individual, the marketing professional that designed these pins, about 4 months after he designed the pins, he was killed by a car driver on Airport Road before they fixed it, going, I believe, close to 100 miles an hour. And so, I'm standing here before you on behalf of his brokenhearted widow, retired here, 75 years old, and it was cut short by a massive driver. So, we all have personal stories. Brian told his. We have to cut this off. I support enhanced penalties for individuals who are using their cars as weapons. And I think that's the way criminalized rather than just penalized civilly. This is different from somebody with a lead foot on Zia. What some of these individuals are doing is just no. So, I want to thank you very much for considering this, and we support it. My name is Shane Brown. I live in Taos, actually. I'm here on behalf of the Los Alamos Study Group to say that there is a draft resolution being written up to present to the governing body that opposes plutonium pit production, similar to past resolutions that have been signed and passed by previous governing bodies. It's momentum that we hope to work with you on. And for my part, the way that I want to put it is that it's going to take some bravery to do something like this. Being complicit with the lab's PR narratives might seem safe and seem like you're not troubling the waters, but it does not keep the world safe. Telling the truth keeps the world safe, and opposing plutonium pit production keeps the world safe. You are a wonderful resource. This sends a loud message to Washington, as it has in the past, so we hope to work with you. Thank you. Hi there. My name's Jennifer Reed. I'm living in District 2, and as I've said before and will probably say again, I really applaud the criminalization law you did for the aggressive driving because that is extremely dangerous, and the noise attached to that activity at night, very disturbing. And I actually agreed. It just doesn't a minor problem. I understand someone being pissed off that, I did that as a generalization, but I know how that can seem like a minor detail, but it's not. It's sort of the thin edge of the wedge on law defiance of the law and other things. But my point is passing laws is great, and they are not worth any more than the resources allocated to the enforcement. And I know that's an ongoing problem here, funding adequate numbers and distribution of police, and that many of them can't afford to live in the city. And I'm sure you guys have tossed around a lot of things, and probably this, too. It occurs to me that the police on all levels would have more skin in the game if they could live in the community that they're serving. They would just be more aware of what things are going on, and experience some of this themselves. And I'm not saying that they're the weak link in the chain at all, but I hope you will consider as a supplement to their pay, if you ever have the money to allocate, housing vouchers, so they can live here, not as out of their pocket, but help them live in the community they serve. That's it. If there's any other members of the audience who would like to address the governing body, now is the time to do so. Madam City Clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, Mayor. There is one person online with their hand up. Stephanie Beninato. Stephanie Beninato, can you hear me? Yes. District 2. I put in petitions, I've put in the public record the comments that I'm going to summarize now, and I hope that you read them because they're more detailed than I can do in 2 minutes. I am totally opposed to doing away with the H board. I think it would be a disaster. Talk about cultural, historical, and economic wipeout. You know, the obelisk would is an anthill compared to doing away with the historic board, which is the history of our town is what draws people here. I know that as a tour guide. And the White House as an example is a poor example because those owners threw $5 million away with the original contractor who did substandard work and made the building vulnerable to destruction. And they also came in several times to do changes. So I don't think it's a good example. The City Ethics Board asked the clerk and code enforcement to tell them when they had issued warnings or notices to David Montoya and Leroy Trujillo about sign violations during the past election, and when code enforcement went out, they were originally told they needed to do an EPER request. That got backed off on, but it's still been over a month, and code enforcement has not given them the information they need to go to hearing. Also, I appreciate that the city has finally decided to go to mediation on my case concerning the weight room injury. But I have to say that the lawyer, the hired lawyer, seems unaware or perhaps untruthful in that he keeps saying that you don't really need any certificate to teach anything, weight training, aerobics, etc. That is not true. Everybody I know who's an instructor there has a certificate. And I'm also wondering why the city representative can't go to Albuquerque so we can have an in-person mediation, which I think is much more helpful, or at least agree to appear by Zoom and let Mr. Hatcher and I go to Albuquerque. And then the other thing I wanted to talk about was Tierra Contenta, the Zoro Ranch, one that you considered last time. And this shows the—it illustrates the problem with the appeals ordinance where somebody, the land use director and the city attorney, determine somebody doesn't have standing, they're not notified, they're not able to come in front of you and present their point of view. And I have given both you, Mayor, when you were City Councilor, as well as Councilor Berett and Bustamante, suggestions, a proposal to change that ordinance so there's a limited public hearing, and I really wish that you would consider that. I apologize, the timer did not go off, and at this moment, you're a minute over the two minutes. Then I could just say one more thing. There are EPER problems, and it is in my written statement, but again, I keep wondering why I can't get any copies of notices of violation in the 1100. If you please would wrap up. This is the last thing. Why is it that EPER takes five months to give me notice of violation for the 1100 block of Don Cubero? Thank you, Ms. Beninato. to be so difficult to get that changed. Thank you, Ms. Beninato. Madam City Clerk, is there any other members of the public online? No, Mayor. No other members in the Zoom room. Okay. With that, let's go then resume to our normal order of business, please. Next item is 16, introduction of legislation. 16A is consideration of a resolution. This is sponsored by Councilor Jamie Cassutt and Councilor Amanda Chavez. A resolution authorizing the installation of 50 banners from June 1st, 2026, to June 1st, 2027, on City of Santa Fe-owned light poles on the Midtown campus to promote the opening of new businesses and draw attention to the Midtown campus. Okay, Councilor Cassutt. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Thank you. Okay. Next item is 16B. This is consideration of Bill Number 2026-6 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Mayor Michael Garcia, Councilor Pilár Faulkner, and Councilor Jamie Cassutt. It's a bill approving the ground lease and development agreement of a city-owned building, the Midtown Visual Arts Center, with Midtown Arts and Design Alliance LLC. Okay. I'll first defer to Councilor Faulkner, then Councilor Cassutt. I think the caption captured it. Okay. Councilor Cassutt. I would agree with that statement. Okay. And I'll third that sentiment. So next item, please. There's a pending waiver of a governing body procedure rule to change the dates of the committee review. Correct. Correct. So we would like to waive the rules, the procedure rules, to allow for this to move forward without an initial public hearing. And so we would like to adopt the review schedule as follows: May 13th, there would be a public comment. Then it would be assigned to the Public Works and Utilities Committee, where there would be still public comments there, May 18th. And then on May 20th, the Quality of Life Committee meeting, where there is public comment as well. And then should it pass the committees, it would be scheduled for a final approval at a public hearing on June 6th. So I'll go ahead and make that motion to waive the procedure rules. Second. Okay. There is a... Yes, Mayor. Wait, no. Do the... I have another motion to add on to this one. So, or... Okay, we'll get there. Okay. So, okay. So there is a motion and a second on waiving the procedure rules for the assignment to this. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Councilor Bustamante. Yes. Councilor Cassutt. Yes. Councilor Castellano. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Forgalli. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Councilor Berett. Yes. Motion passed. Okay. So that motion passes. Councilor... Councilor Cassutt. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to request that this also goes to... Oh wait, I'm sorry. Yes, no. I would like to request that this also goes to EDAC, which I failed to have it request to go there. But we typically look at most things Midtown. So that would also be, I believe, on May 6th, which is actually very timely as we will be meeting on the Midtown campus that day for a tour. So if I could make the request that it would also go to the Economic Development Advisory Committee, or make a motion, which would also require a waiver of the rules because it would be going to EDAC prior to the public comment period at Governing Body. I don't know if I can make that all at once. Okay. So I make a motion to send this to the Economic Development Advisory Committee on May 6th. Second. And to suspend the procedure rules to do so. Okay. Did you get it? Okay. So there is a motion to suspend the procedure rules. In essence, what it would require is for us to have this item heard before any committees, and so that would be heard on May 6th at the Economic Development Advisory Committee. And there's a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote? Yes, Mayor. Can I just confirm who made the second? Okay, thank you. Okay. Councilor Cassutt. Yes. Councilor Castellano. Yes. Councilor Faulkner. Yes. Councilor Forgalli. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Councilor Berett. Yes. Councilor Bustamante. Yes. Motion passed. Okay. So just so we're clear on my motion, because it was similar to Councilor Cassutt's, is that... Is it the same process? Because it'll go to the MRC on the 6th as well. So it's going to be busy that day. Okay. Fortunately, it'll all be at the same place together. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Any other discussion on this item? Okay. Next item, please. Next item is 16C. This is consideration of Bill Number 2026-9 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Councilor Pilár Faulkner, Councilor Lee Garcia, and Councilor Amanda Chavez. It's a bill amending Subsection 12-6-12.3 of Article 54 of the Uniform Traffic Ordinance to eliminate minimum penalties for reckless driving and raising maximum penalties from $25 to $250 for first convictions, from $300 to $500 for second or subsequent convictions, creating a new Section 12-6-12.4A of Article for second... I'm sorry, for Article of War of the UTO Exhibit A to Chapter 24 SFCC 1987 to define, criminalize, and penalize aggressive driving, amending the UTO's Schedule A Traffic Violation Penalty Assessment Schedule to increase certain penalties, to specify that all reckless driving fines, aggressive driving fines, as well as all Schedule A penalties, except for those dedicated to traffic calming, shall be split equally between the Law Enforcement Fund and the Fire Support Services Fund, and to require mandatory court appearances for violations related to aggressive driving, creating a new Section 12-6-12.25 of Article for engaging in prolonged, deliberate, and/or excessive tailing of another vehicle and establishing a penalty in Santa Fe's UTO Schedule A Traffic Violation Penalty Assessment Schedule for the same, creating a new subsection, sorry, 12-6-12.26 of Article 4, unsafe sudden stops, and establishing a penalty in Santa Fe's UTO Schedule A Traffic Violation Penalty Assessment Schedule for the same, creating a new Subsection 12-6.27 of Article 4, throwing items outside of vehicles at another vehicle or at a pedestrian, and establishing a penalty in the Santa Fe's UTO Schedule A Traffic Violation Penalty Assessment Schedule for the same. Okay, so we'll go in order of listed: Councilor Faulkner, then Councilor Garcia, then Councilor Chavez. After hearing that, I'm confused about what we... Just kidding. Just kidding. I think the intent here is that our penalties and fees around traffic violations are horribly low. They're like $25 right now. I don't think it's effective. I also think we had concerns that the police and fire departments are heavily dependent, if not fully dependent, on the general fund and the GRTs. So we're hoping that any money generated, any revenue generated from this, will go into two funds that are only for police and fire that they can use for one-time needs. They can use it for education. They can use it for training. A whole bunch of things that they need, and it will not be impacted by any kind of changes in the GRT. And so I will yield to my fellow sponsors. That is all I'm here. Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Councilor Faulkner, for that. Summed it up greatly. I would like to just also mention that this initially started off from our traffic officers coming to us saying, "Hey, we need some tools in our toolbox that will allow us to address some of these issues that are severely affecting our community and the safety of our citizens of Santa Fe." So thank you to the staff. This one was quite a... Attorney's office and my colleagues that worked on this. It was definitely a long time coming. Thank you. Sure, Councilor Faulkner. The other thing I'll add is anyone who does not want to pay the penalties and fees, they can do community service. We have that already in the municipal court. And be warned, if this passes, there is jail time attached to some of these things. So the community is being warned, if this passes, these are much higher penalties and fees, and there will be jail time in some cases. Thank you, Councilor. Next item on the agenda, please, Madam City Clerk. The next item is 19. This is final action on legislation. This is a public hearing. 19A is consideration of Bill Number 2026-8 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Councilor Anna Castro. It's a bill amending Section 23-6 SFCC 1987 to remove the resolution requirements for the purpose of approving sales and consumption of alcohol at public events on city property and requiring that the governing body approval be recorded in regular governing body minutes upon the City Clerk's recommendation for approval. So this is a public hearing. Did we want to give a presentation? If not, we can get into the public hearing portion of the item. Sure. Yours is yours. Okay. Mayor, councilors, I think one of the main purposes of this bill is to increase efficiencies in our office. My staff last year spent so many hours drafting alcohol approval resolutions, and so we've come up with a new process, and there still is a process, and you all would still approve the events. It would just be a one-time thing where the City Clerk would recommend and you all would, but with the vote. So... Okay. Any of the sponsors want to speak to it? If not, if... No, I will just say that this actually came about last year because there were so many requests for alcohol permits in District 1 that I just didn't want to have to necessarily put staff through all this process. So thank you again for all your work. Thank you. We'll go ahead and move to the public hearing portion of this item. Are there any members of the public here in the chambers that would like to speak to this item? I do not see any. Madam City Clerk, are there any online? Yes, Mayor, there is a hand raised in the Zoom room, Stephanie Beninato. Ms. Beninato, the floor is yours. Thank you. Stephanie Beninato. I am not in favor of having alcohol at public events. I don't understand why people can't enjoy events without having to have alcohol, but I realize that this is a societal need, and I put that in quotes, or want. And I do believe that it will increase the efficiency of City Council and of the staff not to have individual resolutions. However, I wonder if you all ever not approve something, and I wonder what kind of control there will be in terms of the amount of alcohol that is served at these events. Like, are there tickets? Are you have so many tickets? Is there an area that you only can drink in and not outside that should there be children present? And if the sponsors could speak to that, that would be, I think, just helpful for public information. Thank you. I think that might... Wait, hold on one second, Councilor. We're still on public comment, and then feel free to respond after. Any other members of the public online? No. Okay. Now we'll go ahead and move to any comments or feedback from the governing body. Next part of our process, and I think that was more of a question for staff and the new process, how we will be deciding on the recommendations by the City Clerk. So when a liquor license or a special dispenser permit or public celebration permit is submitted to the Clerk's office, we ensure that there is security and they do have servers that are certified and their license is on the line when they do these special dispenser permits. Any other questions or comments, Councilor? There was also a question as to the amount, and that is based on the occupancy, is my understanding. That is correct. That's all. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Any other questions or comments from the governing body? If not, what's the will? Second. Okay. So we got a motion and a second to approve. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Mayor. Councilor Costero? Yes. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Falgout? Yes. Councillor Garcia? Yes. Councillor Barrett? Yes. Councillor Bustamante? Yes. Councillor Cassutt? Yes. Motion passed. Okay. Next item, please. The next item is 19B, consideration of Bill Number 2026-5 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Councilor Amanda Chavez and Councilor Pilar Faulkner. It's a bill authorizing the execution and delivery of a water project fund loan/grant agreement by and between the New Mexico Finance Authority, NMFA, and the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the borrower/grantee, in the total amount of $2,500,000, including a loan in the amount of $1,000,000, evidencing an obligation of the borrower/grantee to utilize the loan/grant amount solely for the purpose of financing the costs of designing McClure Dam to the outlet conduit and spillway, including related work and revisions, and solely in the manner described in the loan/grant agreement, providing for the pledge and payment of the loan amount and administrative fee solely from the net revenues of the water utility system, and the borrower/grantee certifying that the loan/grant amount, together with other funds available in the borrower/grantee, is sufficient to complete the project, approving the form of and other details concerning the loan/grant agreement, ratifying actions heretofore taken, repealing all actions inconsistent with this ordinance, and authorizing the taking of other actions in connection with the execution and delivery of the loan/grant agreement. And Water Resources Coordinator Alan Hook is here for questions. Okay. Mr. Hook, if you want to give an overview of the proposal. Yes. Thank you. Good evening, honorable Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body. Can you hear me? There you go. And thank you to the amazing City Clerk for that introduction. So, this project is specifically for only the design of the McClure Dam repair project, which includes the dam itself, also the spillway. And our project is probably going to be anywhere from 3 to about $4,000 just on the design portion. The project itself is going to be anywhere from 40 to 50 million, estimated. We are not even at 30% on the design of the project. That should happen in about a month or two. But again, this is 2 and a half million towards that 3 to 4 million dollars on the design. And we expect, like I said, soon 30%. 1.5 million is a one-time grant towards this design. The other million is a 25-year, or sorry, 20-year loan at a quarter of 1%. So, it's a good rate for us. And I will say for McClure, it's 100 years old this year. So, that's notable for us to do the repairs and upgrade the spillway and the outlet conduit. And also, I will also mention, we had similar funding from the Water Trust Board and also through the EPA for Nichols Reservoir construction, and that came in under budget and on time. So, we have a pretty good track record so far. We hope to do the same for McClure, and I stand for any questions. Okay. Would any of the sponsors like to speak to this item? Okay. If not, we can move on to the public hearing portion. Any members of the public? Not seeing anybody in the chamber. How about online, Adam City Clerk? One hand is raised, Stephanie Beninato. Of course, I think Stephanie Beninato, of course, I think that this is a necessary expense, and I'm impressed that it came in under budget and on time, and I hope that this part of the project or this dam improvement will do the same. So, thank you. Are there any other members of the public online? Mayor, no other hands are raised in the Zoom room. Okay. I will now turn to the governing body. Are there any questions or comments from the governing body? On behalf of the sponsors, I just want to thank staff for all the work that they put on on this, and again, great job. Hearing none, what's the will of the body? Motion to approve. Second. So, we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can I get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Fogali? Yes. Councillor Garcia? Yes. Councillor Barrett? Yes. Councillor Bustamante? Yes. Councillor Cassutt? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Motion passed. Okay. Thank you. The next item on the agenda, please. Next item on the agenda is 19C. This is consideration of Bill Number 2026-3 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Mayor Michael Garcia. It's a bill relating to city administration, amending Section 2-8 SFCC 1987 to reorganize certain city departments, creating new sections of code to include 2-8.10, 2-8.11, 2-8.12, 2-8.13, 2-8.14, and 2-8.15, amending Section 2-8.1 SFCC 1987 to include a general provisions section and Exhibit A, amending Section 2-8.2 to rename Community Health and Safety Department to Community Services Department and to include Youth and Family Services and Recreation, and to remove the Office of Emergency Management, amending Section 2-8.3 SFCC 1987 to eliminate the Community Development Department, amending 2-8.4 to establish the Office of Emergency Management and changing the name from the Office of Emergency Management to Emergency Management Department, amending 2-8.5 creating a new department, the Economic Development Department, and to include the Arts and Culture Division and Film Division, amending 2-8.6 creating a department, the Land Use Department, and to include the Affordable Housing Division, amending Section 2-8.7, creating Tourism Santa Fe Department, creating Section 2-8.14 to include a new Regional Airport Department, creating Section 2-8.15 to include the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency and renaming it Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency MRA Department, repealing Sections 2-14, 2-15, and 2-20 SFCC 1987, repealing Exhibit C of SFCC 1987 City Organization. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. And so, just I want to get some quick clarification from our City Attorney because last meeting we did approve a change in the title of the caption of this proposal, which was to go from Economic Development Department to Economic Development and Creative Industries Department. That amendment did pass, and just want to confirm with the City Attorney that we are okay to move forward with considering this proposal for adoption. Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the governing body. I think because the governing body did take formal action to amend this title, that we should, that noting it now is appropriate, but I think that we can proceed forward with that given the formal action that the governing body has already taken. Okay. Thank you. Mr. City Manager, any overview of this? Mr. Mayor, counselors, I will just say I'm kind of getting my feet underneath me a little bit. It's taken me a while. I think by me hiring more people, I'm starting to figure that out. I have more people in the pipeline. I think it's just a matter of the future person that sits in this office just has to be on top of it. It's a lot of direct reports. And me and the Deputy City Manager have realized that we got to tag team this. We have to work together. And I think that's the biggest takeaway from this. I think it's possible. It's just a matter of you got to be 100% on your game all the time, and you have to answer to them. So, that's what I'm working towards. I think we're getting there, and I think as more and more directors come online, and I stop replacing interim roles, I think we'll get a better rhythm. I'll get a better rhythm moving forward. Okay. And I don't have any comments. I think we spoke about this at length last meeting. And with that, we'll go ahead and go to public comment for this item. Any members of the public like to speak to this? Okay. It's a similar process. Just state your name. Okay, counselor. Here we go. How's that? Again, my name's Ramos, and I wasn't actually planning to speak to this specific issue, but when I saw it on the agenda, I thought it is part of my larger agenda to talk about the ARU. When I was in the fire department, I worked under Greg Clyburn, who was Assistant Chief of EMS. It was a third Assistant Chief in the fire department structure. And as you all know, EMS is a huge part of what we do in the fire department. It was my second passion after firefighting. I came in and fell in love with EMS, and then the MIH office was my third, but I really want to advocate getting this position back. From what I understand, when this original reorganization happened in 2020 or so, we gave up the Assistant Chief position to fund the Community Health and Safety Director position. And so, if that position is going away, I would advocate to replace that structural piece that supports the ARU and MIH, but also, you would have a hard time finding anybody who would advocate more for the paramedics and the EMS services that we provide. I'm so glad that we have the EMS captains. And providing support to the medical officer is really important, and then this would also contribute to the sustainability of the ARU. Thank you. Andres Mercado, Mayor, Councilors, City Staff, and members of the public. So, I think most of you know, 75% of the fire department's calls are for health care services. I think the public, though, is often times pretty surprised by those numbers. And the fire department's promotional reading list and their organizational chart just really has not kept up with, and it doesn't reflect our health care operations. It just hasn't kept up with the changes in the call volume that in the call types that we're responding to. And as Shramana Sossey mentioned, in around 2019, 2020, when Community Health and Safety Department was created and they needed funding for the director, they pulled the recently created Assistant Chief Three of Emergency Medical Services, who was over health care operations for the fire department, to fill that position. Mobile integrated health and alternative response is not a couple programs. It's a paradigm shift. And I think that the changes to the city's department structure is totally within the administration's purview, and I think that, you know, all these, all these, how that's organized really is up to the administration. But I would like to suggest that AC3 be returned to the fire department to lead and support meaningful resourcing. And also to correct some of the structural issues that have been alluded to around mobile integrated health, emergency medical services, and everything that we consider health care services being provided directly through our city. I hope you take that into consideration as you prepare the budget. I think that would be a key position to really help the Fire Department achieve its mission. Thank you. Are there any members of the public online, Madam City Clerk? One hand is raised. Stephanie Benenato. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Benenato, you have the floor. Thank you. Stephanie Benenato. I just hope that this change in organization is more effective, more efficient, and more apparent, because I found the other structure to be quite opaque and was very difficult, given the names of the departments, to find what was supposed to be under them. So, I hope that this is just more easily accessible to the public who aren't as well acquainted with the divisions and departments that are in the city. I do think it's a good idea that the more report directly to the City Manager's Office, whether it's the Assistant City Manager or the City Manager getting these reports, as long as they're shared between the two officials, because I do think the City Manager is ultimately the person who should be responsible for the operation of the city, and that if they only get three reports, it's being filtered too many times. This way, there's less filtering and hopefully more direct communication with that office, and that there can be more immediate response to problems within the city. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments online, Madam City Clerk? No, Mayor. Okay. With that, I'll go ahead and turn to the governing body for any comments or questions. Councilor Cassell. Thank you, Mayor. As I spoke last week, I don't have to go back into this. My challenge was I'd like to wait for a permanent City Manager before really diving into this reorg. But I did, it's, I'm glad you all were here to speak to this, because I think the conversations that have been coming in about ARU and the reorg did actually trigger that thought for me as well, around where the Community Health and Safety Director position came from. And if I am correct, it's still based on all the organizational and funding, it still resides in Fire. Am I correct in that? Mr. Mayor, Councilor, yes, it is still in Fire. Okay. And so, at this point, would it be seen as a vacant position in Fire? Is that how it's basically going to be coded within our employment coding system? Currently, in this current POL, the Fire Department has it as it is a vacant Community Services Director. Okay. And so, has that been contemplated at this time? I know maybe we're getting a little preview of budget hearings, but has this been contemplated that, you know, this was originally an Assistant Chief within Fire overseeing, I mean, has this discussion already occurred? I will say, me sitting in my previous role, I advocated for it last year. I didn't get it. I'm continuing to advocate for it this year. I agree with both of them up there. We lost it in 2019 due to COVID, and we never got it back. And I've been advocating for it not to leave this whole time. Okay. We'll say that is a, makes me like this more. You know, I again, I still, I still would like to see a giant reorg with a permanent City Manager in place. I understand all those conversations, but I really would like to see this position reassigned back to an Assistant Chief. I think that there is a lot of conversation around, you know, how, what are the best practices around a MIHO ARU unit, but we do know leadership is key, and having somebody to really advocate for that within the department is key and head that up. So, I know more discussions to come. We have a budget book coming to us next week. I'll get my highlighter out. I'm already excited for it, but this will be definitely one area that I would like to see it and will be advocating for come budget hearings. The other thing I really would like to advocate for is more support for your office, for you at the moment, and Deputy City Manager Phillips. You guys are really incredible, but I know that this is a heavy lift. I understand that it is a lot more direct reports to the City Manager's Office, and you do see a lot of communities with multiple Deputy CMs to account for that. And so, as we start to adjust to this, as we start to get more people in permanent positions, I really hope that we can work to get more support so that there is the oversight and management capability to really make sure that everything is functioning as we would like it to. So, that'll be it. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Councilor Faulkner. One of the reasons I ran for City Council was because of the way this city was organized under the past administration, and I am thrilled with this reorg. I think it's going to change a lot of things for the community. It's also going to change anyone who wants to try to get anything through the city process. I think it's going to enhance that and make it more efficient. Thank you, Councilor. Anybody else? Just to, I guess, address some of the comments or questions that were earlier, and this gets into some insight into our fiscal year 27 budget, regarding support for the City Manager and Deputy City Manager, that is coming. We've had a long talk in regards to how we can give more support for that team. So, just know that that is coming. In regards to how things transpired with the previous reorg, and the Assistant Chief position was taken to create a new position, with this proposal, it does take away that position that was created that former Director Ochoa and former Director Paul Hammond had. And so, with that, it did create the availability of resources, and so, it's my job to lean on my city team, i.e., the City Manager and Interim Fire Chief and Fire leadership to determine how we allocate those funds. And so, I've moved forward based off of their experience, and that will also be reflected in the budget as well. So, more to come in regards to how that is going to weigh, but I do want to reiterate, just because there has been conversation, whether it's tonight or in general, around the ARU, ARU is not going away. I'll plain and simple say that it is not going away. I don't want people to try to utilize scare tactics. What we have to do is we have to develop a process based on the limited resources we have and the amount of need we have in our community. So, I just want to address that because I do think that there is some conversation going around that the ARU is going away and it's less effective. That is not the case. Any other comments or questions? Councilor Faulkner. Okay. Madam City Clerk, can I get a roll call vote, please? Motion to approve. Second. Okay, so we got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Now, can we get a roll call vote, please, Madam City Clerk? Yes, Mayor. Councilor Fogalli? Yes. Councilor Garcia? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Bustamante? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? No. Councilor Castro? Yes. Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Motion passed. Okay, next item on the agenda, please. Next item on the agenda is consideration of Bill Number 2026-4 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Councilor Amanda Chavez and Councilor Alma Castro. Be it ordained by the governing body of the City of Santa Fe authorizing the execution and delivery of a loan and subsidy agreement, loan agreement, by and between the New Mexico Finance Authority, NMFA, and City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the borrower, in the total amount of $17 million, evidencing an obligation of the borrower to utilize the loan amount solely for the purpose of financing the costs of construction, constructing a new flocculation and sedimentation process and making improvements to the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant as a component of the system owned and operated by the borrower and solely in the manner described in the loan agreement, providing for the pledge and payment of the loan solely from the net revenues of the water utility system of the borrower, certifying that the loan amount together with the other funds available to the borrower is sufficient to complete the project, approving the form of and other details concerning the loan agreement, ratifying actions heretofore taken, repealing all actions inconsistent with this ordinance, and authorizing the taking of other actions in connection with the execution and delivery of the loan agreement. And Public Utilities Engineer Clinton Peterson is here to answer questions. Okay, Mr. Peterson, did you want to give an overview of the proposal? Yes. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Councilors. My name is Clinton Peterson. I'm an engineer for the Water Division. I'm also the project manager for the flocculation and sedimentation construction projects, which is what this bill is about. So, we would be accepting $17 million in funding. This originates from federal money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and it originates from the EPA. It's managed, administered by the NMFA. And the project itself is essentially renovations to one of our water treatment plants, the Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant. It's a pretty critical source of infrastructure. It provides roughly half of the potable surface drinking water to the City of Santa Fe. The flocculation and sedimentation process, I know that's a bit of a mouthful, but it's essentially the first half of our water treatment process. It was identified in 2020 through a comprehensive performance evaluation as needing some efficiency improvements, equipment replacement. And so, this is essentially a renovation construction project. We're currently under contract with Bradbury Stamm Construction to complete the project. It's scheduled completion in spring of 2028. The total cost of the project is roughly $22 million. So, it's a really large construction project for us. And this would be an excellent funding source. So, we have two sources of funding. This source, $17 million loan at a rate of 0.25% is, I believe, the interest rate with up to $8.5 million of principal forgiveness. So, it's a really good funding opportunity for us. The other one being the Water Trust Board funding for $7.75 million, and the public hearing for that was, I believe, last month. So, happy to take any questions at this time. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And then any of the sponsors want to speak? Councilor Castro? No, just grateful for all of the work that's gone into this. Excited for a low interest loan. Thank you so much. Thank you. Members of the public to speak to this. Open up to public hearing. Okay, seeing none. Anybody online? No hands are raised in the Zoom room, Mayor. We'll go to move to comments or questions from the governing body. Hearing none. What's the will of the body? Move to approve. Second. And there is an amendment in the packet that needs to be moved. So, I'm going to go ahead and move that now. So, we've got a motion to approve the amendment and a second. I will defer to staff to explain that amendment really quickly. Mayor, Councilors, there is an amendment in the packet, and one of the critical issues here is that the bill as it is drafted now had some differences that our state partners thought, and then we had a chance to work together collaboratively to cure the draft of those inconsistencies. So, one of the critical inconsistencies was the 8.5, the loan piece. So, the amendment is going to swap out the bill that's in the packet now for the one that's attached to the packet, I mean, to the amendment sheet that you see. So, they're technical corrections. So, any discussion on the proposed amendment? Yes, just one quick question. Does it change the caption? Does it? Yes. So, then that will delay the final approval until? That's correct, Mayor. So, you all will vote on the amendment. If you adopt the amendment, then we will have final action on this bill on the 13th of May. Yeah. Okay. So, we will also have to amend the schedule. Is that correct? Any other questions? The amendment? Hearing none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote on the amendment, please? Yes, Mayor. Counselor Garcia? Yes. Counselor Barrett? Counselor Bustamante? Yes. Counselor Cassutt? Yes. Counselor Castro? Yes. Counselor Faulkner? Counselor Fogalli? Yes. Motion passed. Okay. Any other discussion? If not, this item, Mr. City Attorney, do we need to make a motion to postpone it till the 13th? Or are we just, it's delayed action? Mr. Mayor, I believe it's just delayed action. I don't believe you need to do a formal motion. Okay. Thank you. With that being said, Madam City Clerk, can we go into the next item, please? Yes, Mayor. Next item is item 21. These are appointments. 21A is the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District. Johanna Nelson, appointment as alternate. Term ending December 2027. Move to approve. Second. Yes, so we got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes. Counselor Barrett? Yes. Counselor Bustamante? Yes. Counselor Cassutt? Yes. Counselor Castro? Yes. Counselor Faulkner? Yes. Counselor Fogalli? Yes. Counselor Garcia? Yes. Motion passed. Okay, next. Next item is 21B. This is for the Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission. Robert Gonzales with the appointment to term ending January 2031. Move to approve. Second. Yes, so we got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes, Mayor. Counselor Bustamante? Yes. Counselor Cassutt? Yes. Counselor Castro? Yes. Counselor Faulkner? Yes. Counselor Fogalli? Yes. Counselor Garcia? Yes. Counselor Barrett? Yes. Motion passed. Okay, with that, I believe we've completed our agenda, so we stand adjourned.