Quality of Life Committee Wed, Apr 1, 2026 · Quality of Life Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/985 == Executive Summary == The city council meeting focused heavily on the successful operations and future of Consuelo's Place, a non-congregate shelter for homeless individuals and families. Councilors praised its effective model, high housing placement rates, and cost-efficiency, expressing strong commitment to finding a permanent solution as its current facility faces demolition. Discussions also covered the upcoming Fourth of July celebrations, with concerns raised about the new fireworks location and a lack of communication from the city to council members and the public. Additionally, the council reviewed a contract for mortgage reduction assistance and received updates on various city services and development projects. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda as amended (removing Item D, a lease agreement with Hotel Flora LLC for Railyard Municipal Garage parking spaces). - Approved the amended agenda after pulling Items C (professional services contract with Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe for Fourth of July celebrations) and E (professional services agreement with Santa Fe Community Housing Trust for mortgage reduction assistance). - Approved an unspecified item related to the Fourth of July celebrations contract (Passed 3-1). - Approved an unspecified item related to fund deployment (Passed by Counselor Fagali, Counselor Casset, and the Madam Chair). == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda as amended (removing Item D) — Passed by voice vote. - Motion to approve the amended agenda (after pulling Items C and E) — Passed by voice vote. - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely related to the fireworks event) — Passed 3-1 (Councilor Fagali, Councilor Chavez, Councilor Casset voted 'Yes'; Madam Chair voted 'No'). - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely related to fund deployment) — Passed (Councilor Fagali, Councilor Casset, and the Madam Chair voted 'Yes'). == Public Comment == While no formal public comment period was explicitly noted, the meeting included detailed presentations and discussions from Consuelo's Place representatives (Kristen Woods and Michelle Williams) and Sierra Logan from Christa St. Vincent program, who highlighted the critical role of Consuelo's Place in providing medical respite. Councilors also voiced constituent concerns regarding fireworks (fire risk, impact on animals and sensitive individuals) and the lack of communication regarding event locations. Councilor Cassutt praised Consuelo's Place as "the best model that we have seen in the city," and Councilor Chavez emphasized assessing the current facility's viability. Councilor Castro noted a preliminary city evaluation suggested the current Consuelo's Place building was not ideal for long-term residential use. == Topics == - Consuelo's Place Operations - Fourth of July Celebrations Contract - Mortgage Reduction Assistance - Agenda Changes and Consent Items - City-Owned Parking Lease - Land Development Code Update - Development Manual Review - Recreation and Library Programs - Communication with Governing Body - Area 1B Update - Travis Center and Ice Rink == Full Transcript == Madame Chair, Councilor Castro, we are live. Thank you so much. And at 5:01, I would like to call this Quality of Life meeting to order. If I could get a roll call, please. Councilor Fagaley? Here. Councilor Chavis? Here. Councilor Cassutt? Here. Madam Chair, Vento. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you so very much. And I think we do have some changes to the agenda. Staff, do we? Yes. Item D. Do I need to read it? Yes. Okay. Item D, which is a request for approval of a lease agreement with Hotel Flora LLC to lease 14 parking spaces located at the bottom floor of the city-owned parking structure, Railyard Municipal Garage, located at 503 Camino de la Familia, in the amount of $1,837.50 per month for the first year, with an initial term of five years and two option terms of five years each, has been requested to be removed from the Quality of Life agenda. Move as amended. Second. Motion passes. We need to take a voice vote, please. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Go ahead. Okay. Councilor Fagaley. Oh, no. We already did a voice vote because we're all in the room. It's been a long week. Motion passes. It's only Wednesday, but I feel you. I feel you. We're good. So, I think that motion passes. Is that correct, Marcela? Thank you. We did have some items pulled off the consent agenda. If we could read those, please. We don't. Yes. Item C, request for approval of a professional services contract with Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe to produce the city's Fourth of July celebrations in the total amount of $85,557 through April 15th, 2030. Do I need to say who pulled it? We had Ben, please. Okay. The item was pulled by Councilor Cassutt and Councilor Fagaley. Thank you. The next item that has been pulled is Item E, request for approval of a professional services agreement with Santa Fe Community Housing Trust for mortgage reduction assistance in the total amount of $28,072.18 through September 30th, 2026. This item was also pulled by Councilor Cassutt. Move as amended. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Motion passes. With that, we have a very exciting presentation. If I could invite Kristen Woods for the City of Santa Fe and also Michelle Williams for Consuelo's Place, please. Thank you so very much. And we also have Director Vendetti in the audience if we have questions. Good evening, Chair Castro and the Quality of Life Committee. We're here today to talk to you about Consuelo's Place. So here's what we'll be talking to you about today: an introduction, the history, the mission, some of our successes and challenges, and then the needs of Consuelo's Place. I'm Kristen Woods. I'm a program manager in the Youth and Family Services Division. And I have today with me Michelle Williams. Do you want to introduce yourself? Okay. Consuelo's Place was originally opened during the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. The New Mexico Department of Health collaborated with the City of Santa Fe to create a shelter for those who were unhoused and needing social distancing. At the time, there was not a social distancing appropriate option for many unsheltered people. At the time, it was called the Midtown Emergency Shelter. And it was only supposed to keep its doors open during the pandemic. But as the pandemic went on for many years, and also as we saw homelessness increasing, which it's continuing to do in our community, we realized that this program was more important than just that moment. It evolved from the Midtown Shelter to become Consuelo's Place. It was named after the relative of a city employee. And that person's favorite color was yellow. So that's why you can see some of the yellow in our presentation today. And it is currently the city's largest non-congregate shelter. The other non-congregate shelter that we are taking into account is the Christ Lutheran Church micro-community, which has 10 non-congregate pallet shelters. So Consuelo's Place is filling a huge need in our community, and I'm really excited to tell you more about that today. We have been funding Consuelo's Place every year since its creation. Our contract for fiscal year 2026 with Consuelo's Place was for $780,000. That is contract number 3250019. They're operating at Midtown currently, and they receive some additional funds from Santa Fe County. I am currently working on continuing that contract for next year. And the only thing that will change about that contract is that now Consuelo's Place, which we'll tell you more about in a minute, is their own 501(c)(3). So they've currently been under fiscal sponsorship from another provider in the community called Interfaith Community Shelters, and they will now be able to be their own fiscal agent. So we're really excited for that change and excited to tell you more about that. With that, I will pass it off to the director, Michelle. Thank you, Chair Castro, and members of the committee. I appreciate you having us today. Just give a little bit of a breakdown about Consuelo's. I think most of you have visited Consuelo's Place, so you have a little bit of familiarity about what we are and what we do over there. Our mission here, I always like to say, if you had to describe a mission statement to a five-year-old or have a five-year-old explain it to you, what is it that you really do? It's like, we take people who are homeless and we put them into housing. That's our, that's our more of our punchline out of it than what this fancy description here says. For the last year, and I will say on some of this, this is our 2025 calendar year data is what we're going to present to you today. We have 60 rooms there at Consuelo's Place. We usually average between 70 and 90 clients in-house. I say that because we have half of the building is set up for individuals and adult couples, and we have half the building set up as family suites. So our ability to have a higher population than what we have as rooms depends on how many children that we have in the families that are in the shelter. Our average length of stay is 276 days, so just shy of 10 months, a little over nine months for most of our clients there. And everybody gets a wraparound case management service. So it is a requirement for them to be assigned a case manager and to engage in a service plan. And we'll talk in a minute a little bit about some of the aspects of what the service plan is. So we're not just a shelter where people can entirely come as they are. They are required to work on a housing plan and make progress on their goals. They can establish what those goals may be, but that's what we're there to help them with. We also, as a side note, we have a little bit of funding that we work with Christa St. Vincent Hospital, and we usually average about 40 clients a year that are there just for medical respite. But that usually includes somebody who maybe is not interested in being inside or has some kind of temporary medical situation. Let's say somebody's living in a tent and they need to have their knee replaced. They might come to Consuelo's for two to six weeks on average here to recover, take antibiotics, get physical therapy, that kind of service with us. Again, primarily we serve families with children, adults with disabilities, and older adults, and older adults who are considered over 55 for the unhoused population. Our private rooms really make us uniquely suited to provide a lot of services here for specialized populations. Some of those may be medical respite, so HIPAA compliant if anybody needs at-home care temporarily, folks with disabilities who might need, you know, oxygen and extra support, and also people experiencing a lot of trauma, which is most of our population who have become unhoused. So again, 2025, we served 218 individuals. 147 of them were adults. 70 children were, 70 folks were children. And our age range during that year was we had newborn babies born in-house up to 86 years old. 27% of the clients were over the age of 55. And interestingly enough, of the households that we had that were single-parent households primarily, we had almost as many single fathers as we did single mothers, so 29% versus 26%. 63% of our clients on average are disabled. And that includes again, many of the medical respite are included in the unhoused count, even if it's temporarily there. So we do, we'll talk about this in a minute. We rarely call the police department to assist us, but we do often have to require EMS services to support our high-needs medical clients that we have. So again, 2025, 64% of our clients went into long-term housing. I'd like to talk about that number because many shelters are really elusive about what their housing rate is. Nationally, what is suspected within a range there is that clients who, or folks who go from street homelessness, traditional street homelessness, into an emergency shelter, which we are still considered an emergency shelter, into permanent supportive housing of some sort. Mostly that number is a single-digit percentage. So 64%, we're somewhere in the, you know, maybe number one in the state or top five in the state. We're also probably in that top five to 10% in the country with this rate. And I would like to say that that's really significant as we talk into some of, you know, the restrictions that we do have based on the space that we have as well. So, I know there's been some contention about what does it mean when somebody goes into housing? What does it mean when somebody does not go into housing? So this is the several types of discharge that we have in-house by type. If a client leaves by their choice, or perhaps by ours because they have declined case management, of the clients again, 100%, minus 64%, the remaining part of this, these top four groups, 3% of those people have declined case management. So if they do not participate in case management, establish goals for themselves, and make progress on those goals, then we will discharge them for that. Okay. Self-discharge. Sometimes people just abandon the room for no reason. I don't necessarily have an exact reason why somebody would self-discharge. Sometimes I do, sometimes they just disappear. And 18% of the people that do not achieve housing self-discharge. 3% of our clients have become deceased, either in the building or they've been gone to the hospital, technically under our care, and gone to the hospital and died at the hospital. And then behavior discharge is 17% of the clients again who did not achieve housing. Behavior discharge, we always say that Consuelo's Place is a safe place. So if somebody is threatening staff, using bullying language, racist language, homophobic language, we ask them to leave. We want the staff and the other clients there to feel safe. Again, there's a lot of people with traumatic situations in their life history. So we don't want to create that by other residents in the building. 17% of the people are usually asked to leave for behavior reasons on that. And then the remaining is the 64% on a housing placement. I'm not going to go through every part of this chart, but we have, with an intern from Highlands actually, we kind of graphed this chart out about what does it look like to achieve housing in Santa Fe. This is why case management is really helpful in the process because you can imagine that, you know, for anybody who's working and is able to afford a place, fair market value, we're able to just pick where we want to live for the most part. You sign a lease, you pay a check, it's all good. If you have different options on that in terms of affordable housing, there's an application process for that. There's a waitlist. You need your ID, you need your birth certificate, you need to have proof of income, three months of income. If you're going to go to a nursing home, maybe you need to provide more proof of income on that or longer periods of proof of what that income is. And so this is just a real simple flowchart about what that process is. We visualize this with the clients. We sit down with them and talk to them about what a roadmap is to a path to housing, and we go over these things just to say this is what your options are. This is just one sheet we use because if you notice, there are clients who are 18 to 24 who have a different set of options. Clients who are over 62 have a different set. So this is the largest by population bulk of people and some of the options that they have, including voucher systems. Of the people, again, the 64% group that did achieve housing, this is some of the breakdown about where people actually ended up. So we keep track of if they had a voucher, if they did a self-pay, where did people actually go when they said that they left and we helped them navigate to housing. So, I'll go through these a little bit one at a time and give some random examples on this, and there are a couple categories you might have questions on, and I'd like to explain probably a little bit further. We had, I'll probably start at the bottom here. If any of you are on our newsletter list, you know we had our first ever client from Consuelos achieve home ownership recently from assistance with Homewise. One homeowner. She was there almost a year to the day. And so that was possible, from unhoused to home ownership in a year. For 5% of our population that went to college, we had two young folks that went, one to New Mexico Tech on a full scholarship and one to UNM. And I say some of these numbers, I'm giving percentages of this to say what it is, but college is a good example because that really, in terms of 60 rooms, how many are discharging, how many go to housing, and what's really available in the community, we're talking two people, right? So, that's a fantastic number, but it's two people. Nursing home, same thing. We're talking single-digit percentages here. This is a little bit reluctant. These are folks, if you notice on here, nobody went to senior housing. Not a single client since I've been at Consuelos, this is for 2025 still, I will say, but in 2025, not a single client was selected from the senior housing list and went to senior housing. Our average lifespan for clients at Consuelos, or for people who are unhoused, I should say, is 49 years old. So when I say that we provide a preferential service for people getting a referral into the facility as seniors over 55, most of those folks are not eligible to apply for senior housing until they actually become 62 years old. Most of them will not live to have an open unit come available in senior housing. So unfortunately, we do have some clients skip that process about what's available and they go to a nursing home before they get into senior housing. Santa Fe County Housing Authority, 8%. I will also say, you see that the Santa Fe City or the Civic Housing Authority, a quasi agency here, we had no people during this calendar year go into that system. And I will say the county, the Housing Choice Voucher system in terms of city and county right now, both of those application processes are closed, and they both, and Civic has been for three years, has been closed. So it feels unlikely unless we get a client that is on, that has already been on their list for several years, a waitlist that is likely to go out into a housing option like that, but no new people will become on that list. So, just so we have a realistic view of where people are going and what our options are on that. Linkages voucher, that was something from the chart before. Linkages is a State of New Mexico program that the Behavioral Health Services Department funds. The qualification for that is anybody with a severe mental illness. So they need to be willing to and participate in a diagnostic process to be able to qualify for a linkages voucher. But a significant number of our people, again, 11%, went to linkages. Permanent supportive housing, that is usually HUD-funded programming, 17% of our folks went there. I think it remains to be seen what kind of funding will be continued to be supported or what options might exist in permanent supportive housing. That is also a system that the case managers are trained to do a vulnerability index, a VI-SPDAT is the slang phrase for that. What it turns out to be is that everybody is vulnerable, but there are not necessarily enough units for everybody. So, it's relative to the next person in line. And the next person that may become unhoused might become more vulnerable than somebody who's been assessed and been on the list for a year or two perhaps. So, they remain on a list and they remain vulnerable, but relative to somebody else that's new, again, that may change where their placement is. Affordable units, again, 30 to 60% AMI, 17% of our people. Again, that's just a waitlist that they're waiting for units that are available here in Santa Fe for that. The other one I'd like to talk about here, self-pay, is our largest and most significant group. I will say everybody on this list, and primarily the self-pay, if you're wondering this, nobody has ever gone from Consuelos, other than a homeowner, I should say, nobody has ever gone from being unhoused to paying a fair market rate rent somewhere. So, self-pay, there's a handful of people in that category that are renting a room. So that's a relative market rate availability for a room in a residence somewhere. There's also a handful of people in that self-pay category who came to Consuelos and became stabilized in terms of substance use or mental health support, and they were able to reunite with family. And that might have been a violence situation victim or suspect. It might be to take care of an elderly family member that maybe they were not welcome to interact with until they became stable. So, still a successful point, but it's kind of unrelated to housing stock, for example, in Santa Fe. It might be an existing house that they were able to be reunited with. And I want to just talk about real general, you all got from the beginning, and we'll talk a little bit about our budget here as well. Our staffing model, we have a pretty bare-bones staff. It's me as the director. I have a supervisor at the front desk. We have eight front desk staff that cover the facility 24 hours a day. And then we have four full-time case managers and one that's part-time that does domestic violence assessment. That's lethality assessments and safety planning for clients. 36% of all clients, female clients who are unhoused, have experienced a domestic violence situation. So, that's why that position is pretty crucial for support. Again, I bring this up because we have usually between, around 15 people or a little bit less than 15 people that are able to support 70, 80 to 90 people and establish that housing rate. So, for the cost that you all support us, help us support the services that we do here for wraparound case management. Again, we do a service model. Social determinants of health primarily is what the clients are asked to contribute to in terms of goal setting and SMART goals. Everybody has to select a housing plan. In terms of the rest of this, it is client-specific. What do they need? Some clients come in with income already. Maybe they are working. Maybe they already have a disability income, and that's not significantly going to change. We have many people though who do want to acquire employment or make other changes on that. So these are the aspects of that service plan that is covered. Again, maybe not all these bullet points are hit with every single client. It is client-specific on that, but everybody does have to hit a housing goal. Additional services here I want to highlight as well. Santa Fe County helps fund Youth Works to provide dinners for all the clients. So, it's a pre-made homemade dinner that they send over, and then we basically do everything off the free offerings list with Food Depot. So, we have no food costs within the agency for that. And some of that is the structure of the building that we do not have a fully functioning kitchen where we are, but we have, we've made a mean Thanksgiving meal from Crockpots and Food Depot. So, we do make sure that everybody has food in the building, that food insecurity is covered, but also with low-cost contributions on that. We also are a diaper distribution site with support from Food Depot on that as well, and we work with City Transit, and we do make sure the clients have transportation to where they need to go. We've also started a new pilot program where we have done daily group classes now. This partially came from a survey of the clients and the staff about what we were doing and what we were missing about what we were doing. Seems like common sense, but not many shelters actually are funded to do something like this. We got one-time support funding otherwise to be able to have a licensed social worker to come in and do some group classes for us. So again, if we're not doing something that, again, even the clients identified mental health support, substance use support, those are what a lot of the classes are focused on in life skills. Director: I just want to make sure that we have enough time for questions. We have a few more slides. So I want to be mindful of time. Thank you though. Speaker: Yeah, thank you. Speaker: Here's a breakdown a little bit of our budget. This last year it's about a million dollars. We project 1.1. The increase on that is probably just going to be workers' comp insurance, building facility insurance, costs like that that are, you know, insurance, administrative costs are a little bit out of our control. We have mathematically figured out that it means that it's $5,000 per year per client. Again, the shelter with the $780,000 that you all give us, 71% funded by the city, and the rest of it is, you know, donations, grants, other things that we're scrapping together to make that happen. I wanted to highlight this. I'm not really sure if I know what Santa Fe is these days, but I imagine it's probably in the same ballpark here. City of Albuquerque, this article came out here not that long ago. They pay $1609 a night for incarceration, and they have compared that $44 a night is what it costs for them to shelter folks in Albuquerque. Consuelos Place, the number of clients that we serve, 218 clients with this amount of money, and again, 780 of it coming from the city, costs $132 a day. I want to highlight a little non-congregate shelters in some of that national data there. There are a few aspects of it here that really make it more effective, that is effective in the sense of stabilizing and getting people into housing, which I think is what most people in the community are really looking for in a service of providing a service for people who are unhoused and getting them stabilized and into permanent supportive housing and not in a loop in that. So again, the privacy that we offer, they get their own private room. They are inclined to be more engaged with services. Otherwise, again, stabilization factor, and it's a lower stress environment. We are able to do that. A couple things here, I won't go through all these, but I will say I really want to be direct for brevity and time on this. In comparison to something like a pallet shelter, the population that we serve specifically at Consuelo's Place, it's really challenging for people with young children to be able to leave a pallet shelter and go use a restroom outside, for example. We have a lot of seniors and people who have walkers, wheelchairs, and other disabilities, that having access to an ADA bathroom inside is also something that provides a lot of support. Who knew that an old college dormitory was built perfect for this kind of ideal? So, all those services work across the spectrum for our population. This is why one of the reasons why we think we're as successful as we are, and it really does mirror what realistically is being built and will be built in the community in terms of apartment complexes. People are largely not going to be in a shed in somebody's backyard, solar housing, or single-family housing. So it's good to stabilize certain populations in a pallet shelter type setting. Other populations, like who we serve, this is a perfect model that helps get people into housing and stabilize them long-term. Again, as Kristen mentioned, we did receive our IRS award letter here in the last few months, and we will be planning on hopefully financially here come July 1st to be able to be fiscally independent as our own nonprofit. We've been trying to do a lot of community awareness here. Again, we do a newsletter now. We have a Facebook account, Instagram, YouTube. I'd like to play a short video here at the end of one of the things that we try and post out a lot, just so people have an idea from our clients and our staff about who we are, what it looks like, what we offer. And again, some of our future funding goals and other things have to do with development and coming up with that funding gap otherwise to be able to operationally run the shelter and then to come up with a facility long-term. So there's our QR code. But I always say if anybody has a rich aunt or uncle in the room, they can please donate. And then we said that I think what makes a good neighbor for those of us in social services who are serving the unhoused is that we're trying to support our clients to integrate into society in a healthy way. People are really afraid of one another, and if not afraid, then mistrusting. Teaching this good neighborliness is showing up first and foremost as a good neighbor that we come to the table. No worries. We would love to have that link. I imagine it's on your website. Is that correct? So I will open it up for questions from the committee. We'll start with Councilor Cassutt. Councilor Cassutt: Thank you so much, and thank you, Michelle, for being here and for all of your work. What I love about Consuelo's is, I mean, it's almost a happy accident. This was stood up so quickly in the wake of COVID, and we stumbled upon what we should have realized is actually what I think is the best. This is the best model that we have seen in the city. I think that our micro-communities are doing incredible things. But to your point, when I think of an ideal model, this really is it. And your work has been amazing. As one of the councilors representing the district in which Consuelo's sits, I often point to it when constituents are concerned about anything coming in, and I'm like, "You guys don't even know Consuelo's is there, by the way." And so some of them do, but a lot of them are like, "What's Consuelo's?" And that, I think, really speaks to the work that you do. I think that a really wonderful balance of support and meeting people where they are, but also there are rules. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are expectations. So I really appreciate that. A couple questions, and I think it is the big elephant in the room. And Carly's here, so hooray, we'll have this conversation. Right now, my understanding is that the building that it's in is slated for demolition. This is not a building that has, it has some issues. So I know that there's been conversations, could we renovate it? Do we need to rebuild it? We need to, there is no way that we can let Consuelo's stop operating, whether it's rebuilt on Midtown, whether we find another location. But what is happening with the relocation, rebuilding, whatever the case may be, efforts at this moment in time? And Carly, if you have anything to add to it, please feel free. Deputy City Manager: So, Deputy City Manager, if anybody has anything to add to the story, please feel free. Yeah, I'll just start. Thank you for that question, Councilor Cassutt, Chair Castro. So I'll just start with saying that, you know, there's an unwavering commitment to supporting Consuelo's Place. So that's not up for debate. We are committed to continuing to support this project and this facility and to supporting Consuelo's Place. As far as the facility and the building itself, obviously we're all in conversation about what that looks like and working together to find the best solution for Consuelo's Place. Consuelo's Place is, you know, we'll be in that building until we find the appropriate alternative for them. And we're in conversation with, you know, with leaders of all the different areas about kind of when that will happen, what our timelines and deadlines are, what's happening at Midtown, and just trying to work in coordination and in tandem with them and looking at all the options on the table. We don't have any options to propose to you this evening, but there are, you know, lots of lots of good, strong brains putting their work together to try to find a solution. And I don't know if anybody wants to add anything to Chair. And that's one of the things on the last slide there. We're, you know, Consuelo's Place receiving our IRS award letter this year, you know, we're not in a financial position to be able to just mortgage and purchase something independently. We're also not trying to be unrealistic and think that we could bake-sell our way into a probably multi-million dollar brand new location somewhere. But again, if anybody has a rich aunt or uncle, just kidding, rich aunt or uncle is always my phrase. We're committed to working with the city to help figure this out for ourselves. We're not just going to, you know, sit back and just go, "Well, whatever you guys want to do, whatever is going to happen." One of the things that we have asked for funding, have not yet received a clear answer on that, but I've made a request to work with a contractor to help come up with a development plan for us. Then it would be a budget, it would be a location. And to your point, it, you know, could it be a Midtown, could it be a remodel of the building? I don't know if any of that financially makes sense for anybody. But just to explore all the options so that at some point maybe we can collaborate here together and do a presentation about, "Here's the top one or three options that makes the most sense, and how can we collaborate financially to make something like that happen?" So, we're committed to being part of the process to figure out a long-term plan for us. Councilor Cassutt: Yeah, that's wonderful, and I would love to see a presentation of that nature sooner rather than later. And so I understand that that's a budgeting piece and something for us to continue to talk about. I have, you know, I know that we've gone around the horn around whether or not it stays at Midtown. I think that there is something really compelling about the shelter being there first because we know that when we try to move into other neighborhoods, we, you know, there's a lot of concern, and understandably, as I've said, you know, there, especially around this area, individuals have had some very negative experiences. But I think that there is something to be said of watching a community build up around Consuelo's and showing, you know, there's this ability to show that this can be an integral part of a new neighborhood, of a new district, that it can be integrated in, that it can work. I mean, this has been such a success story. And of course, it's imperfect, and it's going to be hard, and there's going to be challenges and problems. And if anybody thinks that this is going to be all, you know, butterflies and rainbows, I mean, you're working with the most vulnerable, challenging population. So, yeah, there's going to be hard times. I'll get people who are like, "Oh my gosh, I heard that there were drugs." Yeah. There were some drugs. Yes. Or there was arguments, or there was, you know, there were these concerns. But I, so that is something that I'm interested in. There's a lot of considerations there, but I do think that there's something to be thought about. Real fast, with you mentioned no food costs, and that you've been working with primarily Food Depot and Youthworks. I know that a number of the faith-based organizations do continue to cook, where, you know, a lot of them will have larger kitchens and then deliver out to Agape to SE. Is that something that you all have looked into? Are you interested in that? Would that be beneficial, or are you feeling like you're pretty set with the system you have going right now? We have actually rarely gotten donations of that sort. And maybe that is the best part of Consuelo's and the worst part of Consuelo's is that many people still don't know that we exist. So they don't know that we exist to even sometimes bring donations like that. We would be happy to accept that kind of work. Again, the other thing that was on the slide is that we were hoping to raise some money to get a development person that can help me. I have a few too many hats. And so, that's one that we accept donations, but to be able to just go out and hustle and get that kind of stuff has been a challenge in the beginning stages of our essentially startup organization. So, we would love to have more of that. We've done a shout-out for this weekend for anybody who wants to come do an Easter barbecue lunch Sunday. Councilor Cassutt: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I would say, you know, please, please do reach out. You know, we all have different networks that we're able to tap into. So, please do not, I can speak for myself, but please do not hesitate to reach out if there are things that you're looking for and happy to see how I can support in cobbling those things together. So, thank you, Chair. Chair: Thank you, Councilor Chavez. Councilor Chavez: Thank you for everything you do, and I applaud you for the successes. And I think that based on the successes, I think what needs to come in front of governing body is the presentation on the facility itself because if the successes are being found in the facility as it is, then I think that what needs to be truly shared with governing body is how, what is the possibility of it existing where it's at? What improvements would need to be made? What would be the needed funding to make that a thing if it is feasible? And so that is something that I think would be absolutely necessary to come in front of the governing body prior to budget is a true assessment of where that facility is because in reality, if we're finding successes in the system that has been created, I don't know how we justify disrupting that if there is a possibility. So I think that's just a comment. I would love to see that in front of us more so than the possibility of something else. What is the possibility of just existing where we're at, where we have a foundation, where we have the roots, where we have the success? To me, that's a more beneficial conversation to the individuals that you serve. A question I do have, though, because I know a lot of nonprofits right now in regards to case management are really finding a hiccup in case management. There's inconsistency, there's turnover, there is, unfortunately, a lot of our community members that are falling through the cracks because of this very real, and I imagine if you are experiencing this, you're not the only one, right? Because it's a real thing with case management. We've created a very competitive field right now in regards to social services because there's such a significant need. And so we've created a great opportunity for case management, but it has created a very unstable workforce because of that. Can you just describe how that's impacting you? Because I've heard from many nonprofits that rely heavily on case management that their services are being greatly disrupted by the turnover in that field. Chavez: Chair, thanks for that question. You know, I worked for the city for 20 years. Then I decided to go back to grad school for industrial organizational psychology, and one of the reasons behind that was I couldn't understand why the city often operated the way that it did. And so I was determined in an environment like nonprofits that can be very, very emotionally taxing on the staff to not make it harder for them. So I was dedicated to that a little bit from an academic perspective and my past work history perspective on that. I'm really fortunate right now. I have four solid case managers. Two of them are here tonight. Hopefully, I don't call them on the carpet that they never leave. But the best I can do is just make a really good work environment for them so that they don't want to do that. The other part of that really is that social services is a really emotionally taxing field, and whatever level of success that they have, I hope, is the other reason why they come back every day the next day. So, as long as we're setting up a little bit of a system and encouraging staff to support their clients in the best way, that is, you know, I always said I don't want to run, I don't want to be a jail warden. I don't want to run a jail. We know that institutionalizing people is not what's going to make it successful. So, finding that balance of, here's a structure, here's the options that you have afforded to you, where are we meeting people in terms of their level of motivation? So, if we're meeting the right people, a level of motivation with very little knowledge base, but we have a case management staff that does have that knowledge base, somewhere in the middle is where we've been able to meet in that success level. And I think that's why I've been pretty successful also in staff retention. I have been fully staffed for quite some time, and I don't want to jinx that because to your point, that is a challenge in social services just because it's a highly taxing profession. So, It's highly taxing. It is. And since you have case managers in the room, I want to say you're the reason for the success of this work. I can't stress enough, and I don't understand quite the misunderstanding behind it, but without warm handoffs, we're talking about a population that in some cases has lost self-awareness, self-worth, and we have to re-engage them and celebrate them and give them reasons to celebrate themselves. And that takes a level of support that is necessary for any type of success. So building a structure around case management where that is occurring is why we have success because those are the individuals that need the help. They need the hand-holding, which is not a way to make it sound negative. We all need hand-holding to get through difficult things in our lives and to get through challenges, and case managers, you are the gateway to getting these individuals to the services they need. It's just such essential work. So, I'm really happy that you've had some longevity with some of those employees because I think that's necessary. Because case management is important, I would also like to know eventually at some point what your ideal number of case managers would be and serving the individuals that you serve to, you know, take the success you have and grow it. Because to me, that truly is how success will come. It's only those individuals that connect people to the services that they need. So, we could talk about that sometime offline. I would be very curious as to what that number would be, but again, thank you for your work and those in the room doing the work. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Chavis. Councilor Fgali. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and for the work that you're doing. I'm glad it is still going well. I would be very curious once you have this development plan for that to come before us, either in this committee or the governing body, just as ideas that we can work with. And yeah, as Councilor Chavis said, I would also be interested in a presentation to the governing body about what would be helpful and what we could do going forward. I've been in the building. I've seen the master plan. I am not thinking it's going to be a permanent solution where it is, but it would be great to have a permanent solution somewhere in the works. Thank you. Go ahead, Councilor Kesset. Thank you, Madam Chair. I forgot to mention something which Councilor Forgi reminded me about being in the building. One of the favorite things you showed me on the tour was that there's this room for when individuals are moving into housing and that they're able to come and get things, and not just practical things, but decor or something that is, you know, can make that home theirs. And I think those pieces are part of what makes Consuelo so successful is that there is this human component. To your point, you know, we don't just want to house people or put them in, or not house people, we do want to house people, but we want to home people rather. And it's not just about incarcerating individuals. And I just, I want to highlight that because I know so much of the passion and the caring that you have brought, that your team has brought, has really made a big difference, and I just, that has stuck with me constantly ever since that tour, gosh, I don't know, a year and a half ago or so, maybe two. It was summer, I just remember that it was hot. So, I wanted to bring that up because I think that that is such a beautiful touch, and I know one of the many that you and your team bring to that and bring to your residents, and that's really beautiful. So, thank you for that. I just to acknowledge that a little bit. You know, if you all get a chance to go back and look at the video, one of the things that's our unofficial motto, and in line with what you're saying and acknowledging that we really are dedicated to being good neighbors to Midtown or to whatever community that we end up in, we're really dedicated to teaching our clients how to be a good neighbor. That's been one of the struggles, I think, nationally right now, right, is just everybody to get along. So, you know, we have a lot of clients that donate some of the things that you saw in that room back there. So, whatever they don't need when they leave, they will leave that behind for the next person. We get a lot of people in this community that will donate items like that. People come in the front door without a spoon and a fork and a mattress, and they go out the door and go, "Great, I got a place to live. I don't have anywhere to sleep." We make sure they have a mattress, too. So, I invite anybody, if any of your constituents reach out, anybody's welcome to come get a tour and see what Canuelas is all about if they're unfamiliar with it. So, thanks for that. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Ms. Woods. I will try to be brief. The other members of the committee really hit a lot of the high points. And you don't have to have answers for me today. I know that we're still working on a lot of this stuff, but potentially supporting if we are going to stay in that space for long term, how we can use the space fully. I know that there are permitting issues in particular with the kitchen, so we can try to help with that if it's helpful. I know that we're working on some raised beds and making the environment beautiful for the community, and we would love to support that in any way. I am interested in this idea that a college dorm or potentially an old hotel could be the perfect place for a non-congregate shelter. Can you speak to the specific needs and the amount of space that you would need for a permanent location? Oh, thank you very much for that question. We have actually done a little bit of a wish list behind the scenes about what our current building capacity is, what our current waitlist is, which usually toggles between two and five months long for people to get in shelter. And then what might be anticipated based on HUD funding cuts and other things that are just kind of unknown or unknown real community need out there. So, you know, I think if you gave me 120 beds, I could fill 120 beds. Can we all fund 120 beds to be able to have enough case managers and other support on it? That would be a later question, but what is real community need and what is bed space? Certainly, we have, you know, housing folks in the room here. I would encourage a lot more affordable housing units to happen too because we can do this in conjunction. There's no sense in, you know, bulking up one part of the continuum and not funding other parts of it. So, the need is certainly great across all aspects of it. So, you've been in the building. It's quite rather large. I would, there is a significant amount of the space there that could be rooms, and I can justify based on waitlist to have more bed space. So, 120 is my magical number if you called me on the spot with it. Wonderful. And I don't know if this information is accurate or if it's still available, but I know that we had a preliminary evaluation of the building that the city had contracted. Is that information helpful? Thank you, Chair Castro. There was a preliminary study done on the building, and it's an interesting read. Yeah. And I hate to put stuff on the spot, but I think part of what we need to do as governing body members when we ask for these evaluations and get these contracts is be very specific. It's not the only time that we have not necessarily gotten exactly what we wanted back from that report. Director Videtti, Chair Castro. Yes, that's correct. Chair Castro: Thank you so much. It was not necessarily the exact report we were looking for. It was done by quite a few engineers with our colleagues at Wilson & Company, and they told us what we already know in a certain sense, that that building was constructed to withstand college students, and so it is quite difficult to bring down, and it's constructed of CMU brick, and it's not meant to be a home, right? It's meant to house those students for a certain period of time, and they go home for breaks, and they go home over the summertime, right? So operating from a scarcity mindset in an emergency situation, it was optimal. It doesn't have everything from the MRA's position that this organization needs to succeed, and we are supportive of their mission. They are fantastic neighbors, whether that be getting to greet the pups or see the kids play soccer after school. It's a fantastic organization, so we really appreciate what they've done for our community. Is that building long-term safe and occupiable? No matter what we do on Midtown, we will need to upgrade the infrastructure and the right of ways, meaning that we will see some intermediate, intermittent rather, delays, changes, ultimately disconnections of infrastructure, gas, utilities. So long-term, we need to look at that as part of the solution and our roadmap. Thank you so much. And the last thing that I will say, thank you everyone for your time, for your dedication to this organization and the continuum of care. This is a really important piece. We know how important it is to have emergency shelter, and we currently do not in the city of Santa Fe, and this program cannot be successful if we don't have an entire continuum of care. So, we want to continue to do that. One thing that Councilor Cassid said recently that really reminded me how important it is that we give these presentations and reach out to the public is we get to open most of the doors in this city, right? We have a lot of connections. We are able to bring resources to you. Things like, and I know you know this, Rise Up, right, that gives furniture and offers other home amenities to some folks. There is some issue around the vouchers. Some vouchers allow for this type of expenditures and some do not. And so I think we would like to move forward on programs that do allow for a full menu of options and not just specifically housing and not just specifically rent. And I don't know if you want to speak to that, but it's sort of what we're talking about here is creating a home. I can't really say that I'd elaborate too much other than that we've discussed that in other settings and I agree with that 100%. So there's lots of gaps and there's lots of ways that sometimes we scrap together and fill those gaps. But is that a programmatic way long term, or should we, now that we know that those gaps exist, look for other solutions or more efficient solutions? Thank you so much. We appreciate you. So next item, I believe, is public comment. Do we have anyone in the room that would like to address the committee? Seeing none, feel free to come up to the podium. Hello. Thank you. Just your name for the record, if you'd like to say what district you live in. County. My name is Sierra Logan. Per Castro speed council, I am the supervisor of Christa St. Vinc program. That stands for High Utilizer Group Services. Most of our clients are, oh, that's so loud. Most of our clients are unhoused. We partner very, very closely with Consuelos. And I just wanted to highlight something that maybe hasn't been touched on that's so deeply important to us at the hospital. Consuelos is able to provide medical respite for our unhoused clients who are medically vulnerable. And because they're a non-congregate shelter, we're able to order services for those patients that we can't order for folks that go to congregate shelters. So, that can include things that are extremely integral to their recovery like in-home health, in-home physical therapy, in-home occupational therapy. It is absolutely imperative that we continue to have a non-congregate model that is able to work with the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, the folks that are unwell and also unhoused. And proximity to the hospital. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. And with that, I think we are moving on to the two items pulled off the consent agenda. First item pulled is item C, request for approval of a professional services contract with Club of Santa Fe to produce the city's Fourth of July celebrations in the total amount of $885,57 through April 15, 2030. This item was pulled by Councilor Fagali. I don't know. Director, would you like to give us a preliminary introduction or go straight to questions? Madame Chair, I think we should just go straight to questions. Wonderful. Councilor Fagali. Thank you. I think Councilor Cassid also pulled this. I'm not sure if we have the same questions or not, but yeah, we spoke about this a little bit before the meeting, Director McDonald, but I have heard a lot from constituents who are very opposed to having fireworks, especially in the city limits. This is close to, close to my district and will certainly be heard in District One. So reading this contract, it looks to me like we could in future years of this contract, since it is a four-year contract, move to the drone-only display. Is that correct? Yes, Madame Chair, Councilor Fagali. We can do many options over the next four years. So this contract has three options: fireworks, fireworks and a hybrid with drones, which we're proposing happens this year, and then a drone only. So, yes, we could do drone only in future years, every year if we'd like. And is that something that the Parks Department decided? Is it something that the contractor decided? I assume we could amend the contract and just say we only want this option, but this year, where was that decided? Madame Chair, Councilor Faggali, so we did decide with the Kiwanis Club and Tourism that we would propose that we do a hybrid show this year. This is a new contract. We used to have a kind of clunkier contract which would cross a fiscal year. So we streamlined that where we now have it all in one fiscal year. So this contract is coming a little late. Normally, I think we would have maybe put out a little more outreach, but just the terms and the timing of this contract kind of needed us to make a decision more quickly. As you know, the Kiwanis Club does a lot of outreach before and after these events. So, they're wonderful that way. They get a lot of feedback. Like you, we have heard tremendous concerns about fireworks, mainly because of fire and animals and sensitive people. So we thought this would be a good way to test this out this year, doing that hybrid. But we certainly would have that same outreach and get feedback what people thought of the hybrid and then come back with a proposal for next year. Great. Thank you. I think those are all my questions. Chair, thank you, Councilor Gully. Councilor K. Thank you, Madame Chair. Thank you, Dr. McDonald, for being here. I'm not sure that you are the person that I am directing comments at or questions, but one thing that did happen this year that was really challenging was the process by which the site was selected and the information that was provided to the district for counselors. Now, from my understanding, you were not a part of this. But neither Councilor Chavez nor I were made aware that Franklin Miles was top of the list until the day that it was released in the New Mexican. Found out via the paper, which is never a fun thing for us to do. Fortunately, we were given, or at least I, I don't know about, I can't speak for Councilor Chavez. I did have a meeting with the city manager once the final decision had been made, but was told I would get more information and then it showed up in the paper and that's where I got more information. I found out from my constituents when the community meeting was, which happened to be scheduled on a Quality of Life Committee night on April 22nd. So, needless to say, I'm not, I'm not pleased about this process. And of course, as we know with any group that they're experiencing fireworks, we have this with Zozobra, with New Year's, with Fourth of July has been in District 4, just a separate part of District 4. So we are familiar with the concerns from our constituency. And I felt woefully unprepared for the emails and phone calls I started getting as soon as this hit the paper. So, I have spoken with the mayor. I've spoken with Ray. So, I have spoken with individuals, but I think that this speaks very highly to this issue with these big events and making sure that at least the counselors who are involved in the district, one, understanding the site selection and maybe, maybe you are able to speak a little bit to Franklin Miles and why Franklin Miles was selected over other areas, which I am just today finally getting some information on and able to speak to that. So if you do have that information, I think that that would be helpful to start to have that conversation the public because when I am having those conversations, it does make sense. It's not my favorite idea ever, but it seems like this might be the least bad idea for where to have the fireworks and it is, it does get really complex and what we look at for making sure that there's multiple ways that people can get in and out of the site is really important. Some of the other areas that I was like, "Oh, it'd be brilliant. Why don't we have it at MRC?" And when I was speaking with Ray, he's like, "First of all, there's an animal shelter there. So, when we talk about traumatizing animals, bad idea." So, this is why we have multiple brains on things, because my brain was not in the right place. But also, there's only one place in and out. Same with Swamp Park. There's only one way in and out. So, Franklin, there are some more, it's a bit more porous. Did it? At which MRC? At MRC. Oh gosh. Yeah. So, apparently that has already been tried. Downs are no longer owned by, or are not owned by the city of Santa Fe. For individuals who think that the Downs is something that we have control over, it's owned by Pueblo Pake. I believe it's coming down too or is down. So this has been really challenging as a District 4 counselor. One of the District 4 counselors, and I know Councilor Chavez has had some similar experiences here where we were not informed, not consulted, not ready to answer the questions of our constituents. I am grateful that Chair Castro will make sure that we have a light Quality of Life agenda on the 22nd so that we can actually attend the meeting with and speak with our constituency. So again, none of this is really directed towards you, but if you do have information around around the pros and cons that went into considering Franklin Miles, that would be helpful to share. And if you don't, I understand that that will also be discussed at that April 22nd meeting and maybe some of the plans around how the neighborhood is going to experience this. Again, that April 22nd meeting, there will be a lot more details from Kiwanis and Fire and the entire team that have been doing this at various events for years, but always good to get this conversation started wherever we can. Madame Chair, Councilor Casset, I don't have a lot of information. I do know, I apologize that you didn't get the information you needed, and I do know that part of this was that it was kind of a last-minute shift because there was construction happening at the mall, and while they had kind of gone through this as a backup, they didn't really anticipate that they were going to have to move, and then it all of a sudden happened. So, See, I didn't even know that context. So, thank you. You did just provide more information. I appreciate that. And so, you know, I might defer to another meeting. We're going to be on other agendas and maybe ask Ray Sandaval to come and talk about it. But I think that part of the reason that Franklin Miles was chosen is there's a lot of parking. It's central. It can be viewed from many parks where people can park. There are other locations. So there was a lot of thought put into viewability, traffic, that type of thing. But I probably would defer to Rey to give a little bit more thorough comparison. He did go through a number of parks and areas to look at, and obviously the Downs always is something they consider. It's very similar concerns to Zozobra, quite frankly, because when we have large groups of people, we have to find places for them. So, I believe that Franklin Miles will be able to accommodate the event, and we're going to be able to see the impact on the community and hopefully it'll be positive. Yeah, and understandable. And again, that April 22nd meeting, a lot of this will be covered. So I appreciate it and understand that this is not your wheelhouse that you have to be concerned about. You have plenty of other things to be concerned about, but in advance, thank you for it to your team because I know it will be a lot of work for both the setup and the cleanup, and that falls on Parks. So really grateful to everything that the Parks Department does for all of these events. I think sometimes it is the invisible workers, but really, really a crucial, crucial team for any of these things to go off without a hitch. And as well as I know Fire Department, PD, I mean, it is all hands on deck, but we're coming onto your home turf and you guys do a great job of taking care of us all the time. So, thank you. Yeah, and I also wouldn't mind giving a special shout out to Barbara Lopez, who really pivoted to try to see if this is going to work, and she'll be working that night at that event, and she always does a fantastic job. Well, we know if Barbara's there that things will be successful. She has proven that time and again. So, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, thank you, Councilor Cass, Councilor Travis. Thank you. And I just have comments. Actually, it was insinuated that this might be a location by a staff member to me prior to it coming out in the newspaper, which was surprising. But then it was actually, I think, the next day or two, it came out in the newspaper. So there was a lack of communication. I think that that's really hard, and more so for our community members because they want transparency. And again, this is not even a conversation for you, so I'm sorry that you're standing right there. But I also want to take off the responsibility of Kiwanis because, yes, they are putting this together, but if they're collaborating with the city, it's the city's responsibility to communicate to their constituents and to their representatives, and that did not occur. I know Rey Sandoval did reach out, and I was in many meetings today, so I couldn't have a conversation with him, but in reality, if the city is collaborating with individuals and has key information that constituents should have and that city officials should have, it falls on them and not Kiwanis. It's just the reality. It's our responsibility to do that communication. So I know there's been a lot. I know Rey has felt very responsible for a lack of communications. I just want to put it out there. It should not be any partner's responsibility to communicate to us. That is an extension of the work that they're doing with us. If we have agreed upon a partnership and we know details to an event, it is our responsibility as a city to communicate those details to key parties, which didn't occur for this, but we are in the process of having those conversations, which I appreciate. But I did just want to stress that this is the city's hiccup and not Kiwanis. And I think it's important to just emphasize that fact. And I did want to shout out your staff since you are here. We did do a ride along, and they're amazing. And I just imagine the hours they're putting into making this a possibility. And it is a lot of work, and there has been a lot of concern, but there's also a lot of positivity. There's a lot of families in that neighborhood that are going to be able to walk to the event and be able to participate in the event, and they're really excited about the opportunity it brings. They feel like it's going to be like a neighborhood event. That is an exciting opportunity for them. So, yes, there is concern, but I think there's also this buzz and excitement about that aspect and there being a community gathering, right? Because it's going to be in the heart of a neighborhood. And yes, there are individuals that are very upset about it, but there are that are like, "Hey, we're all going to walk to it. We're going to walk together and our kids are..." There is a positive buzz as well, and I'm not going to ignore that just because the negative can be louder, but there is a positive buzz, just so you know. I think it was just really how there was a lack of communication, especially when our motto this year is transparency. We're early on in the year, and we've had this hiccup so far, so we just have to get better, which we can. But yes, thank you to you and your staff, and I look forward to the conversation we'll have later this month. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Chavez. Director, do you have any-- I'm sorry, what? No, just I didn't want to step on your toes if you had a response. Go team. Okay. No, you're good. Perfect. So thank you, Councilor Chavez. And I want to follow up with that. I think that one thing that Councilor Fagali and I have been trying to do is more community events and more things for young people. We're actually really excited because, as you know, Portal Fest is happening at the same time. We're going to have some really amazing things happening around the city. Capacity is always an issue for us. Staffing is always going to be an issue, and we're doing the best that we can. I was the only no vote on passing the resolution to not have to get a permit for the fireworks every year because I do have some concern with fireworks in particular. I'm a dog owner. I'm fairly close to this space. It's going to be interesting. We're going to figure out how that works. But I have no reservations on having the event in the center of town necessarily. I do think that it's going to be interesting to see how it interacts with neighborhoods. But we are going to do a great job in the future of communicating these things to our governing body members. I think that this was a learning lesson, and we can look at this as a learning opportunity because there's a lot happening really quickly. I was just mentioning to Councilor Cassid that I had a conversation about this in passing, not really about this, a little while ago, right? And there was the conversation, I think about six months ago, about us potentially losing the space at the mall, but nobody thought that this was going to happen as quickly as it did. And so, I'm trying to give us grace that we are in this interim period, but also saying that we need to do a better job with communicating with our governing body members 100%. I also have some concern around fireworks because we had such an issue with Zozobra last year. This is the same organization that we're working with. Just to be clear, they are an event planning organization. It is not their job to inform us of what's happening. We are contracting them. And so I do understand that this is a significant amount of money that is going forward four years, and that we have with the three alternatives some room to discuss. Do you have concern with this amount of money covering the cost if we choose to do a drone-only display? Madam Chair, I think that for this year or in future years for the full contract. Madam Chair, prices always do change. At the time that this was submitted, it was very targeted, and I think that this contract is going to cover it. However, I do want to say drones are new technologies, and prices can change. A lot of those parts are made in China. There could be different costs associated with it. So, I believe it's going to be okay, but we've had a couple conversations, and we are going to be coming back with the actual contract. So each year we have a contract per year, right? So, yes, I think that there will be some changes coming forward. Perfect. And I just don't want to give the perception to the community that this will be the last time we will be seeing this amount of money. We will see this every year, and potentially we'll see some changes. Absolutely. Yes, you will. Well, if we have no more discussion, are we ready to vote on this item? Move to approve. Madam Chair, I did, well, I do want to say that I appreciate you all sharing your concerns about not being told, and I think we can do a better job to help with that, and I will follow up with the City Manager and others to see what our part could be because we do manage this contract, and it happened very quickly, and I will definitely take that back and see what I can do. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We need a second. Second. First off, if I could have a roll call vote, please. Councilor Fagali? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. Councilor Casset? Yes. Madam Chair? No. Motion passes. Thank you so much. Next item, please. Next item that is pulled is item E, request for approval of a professional services agreement with Santa Fe Community Housing Trust for mortgage reduction assistance in the total amount of $28,7218 through December, I'm sorry, through September 30th, 2026. This item was pulled by Councilor Casset. Then Councilor Casset, are you comfortable starting with questions? Yeah, I'm good to start with questions. Let's go. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. I believe that these are the dollars that we had a delay in getting, and we need to expend them by when? September. Okay. My question is that with these in particular, when we're looking at the down payment assistance, and in the past with such a low cap for down payment assistance, we have not been able to expend our down payment assistance dollars because we, even with that amount of money, people still have a hard time finding homes they can afford. Right now, this has a $25,000 per person cap. Is there a potential if we are finding that we can't get these dollars out the door that we can increase that cap? I understand that means serving fewer individuals, but I would rather serve fewer individuals than no individuals because we lost the money. Madam Chair, Councilor Casset, I want to let you know that this went out for procurement, and so when it's a competitive procurement process, we're not able to change the scope of work. What would happen ultimately is that the funding would go to the following year, and we would have reappropriations for the following year. So let's say we get in 2027, we get $600-some-odd thousand, we would just have whatever the balance remaining from the down payment assistance left to inject into other projects. Okay. So with this money, HUD won't yank it back if we don't spend it by a spend? No. In fact, we are reappropriating, thank you, Councilor Casset, for your question. We are reappropriating dollars from 2023 and also 2024. Okay. So, we have the ability to increase our awards this year. Okay. So when you say increase our awards, you mean the total dollars given to organizations. That's correct. Okay. That's it. And so then glad to hear that it's not a use it or lose it scenario right now. I'm happy to hear that. If I can just add something else, HUD allows us to have a five-year spend down on these awards. So, first in, first out, last in, first out. I mean, so we have a total of five years to employ the dollars. Okay. Okay. That's wonderful. Because when I read the article in the New Mexico, it made it sound like, well, guess what? Money's going to go away. So glad to hear that that is not the case and happy that my mistake is now going on the record as corrected because I really do appreciate that. That said, the $25,000 per person, we've had that challenge in the past. I know we, I remember we had this conversation with the affordable housing trust fund dollars and those contracts not being fully expended and there was this moment of people being like, "Oh gosh, our partners aren't doing their jobs." But really, a lot of it had to do with our housing market is just so incredibly unhealthy that even with the supports, people still can't find housing. With this being a competitive bid, is there, if $25,000, do we see success with people getting those down payment assistance dollars and actually being able to turn those into home purchase even with that amount? Because I know in the past we increased, I think it was Home Wise's down payment assistance. We had given them $40,000 per person and we eventually upped it to 80 because people couldn't find homes. So curious about how successful this amount has been with assisting people and if it has not been as successful as we would like it to be, do we have options to eventually go back and renegotiate even though it's been an RFP process? Madam Castro, Counselor Cassid, thank you for your question. We do not have the ability to reauthorize more dollars. Again, it was just because of the procurement process. This is an open procurement that anybody can apply for. However, with that being said, Housing Trust has been able to deploy their dollars. They've used all of their dollars last year. I can't speak for prior years because I wasn't here, but last year I know that they were able to use all of their dollars. Okay. All right. Well, that's wonderful to hear and I'm sure that they also have other processes that they're doing that probably they can stack it. So, well, those were all my questions and thank you for clearing up my misunderstanding that we were in a very tight timeline to be able to actually spend out and that we will continue to be able to use these monies. So, thank you. Counselor Casset, we are definitely in a tight timeline for September 30th deployment. However, we can recapture those funds and recirculate them in the following year. So, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that and that's very clear. Thank you, Counselor. Thank you, Director. Counselor Faga. Oh, I apologize. I don't think there's any questions from the committee. I just want to thank you. I know that you've been on an extremely tight timeline doing a lot on your own. So with that, I would entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. We could get a roll call, please. Counselor Fagali. Yes. Counselor Chavis. Counselor Casset. Yes. Madam Chair. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you so much. And with that, we are moving on to the next item on our agenda. I believe it's matters from staff. I'm pulling it. I was going to say there's nothing else. Matters from staff. No. Director Lamboy, go right ahead. Thank you, Chair Castro. The only thing I would like to announce is now that we have all of the contract issues resolved with the land development code update, we will be launching into the assessment report with the consultant and we will be reporting back to Quality of Life as well as the governing body and help to define those priorities. The development manual, we've been doing stakeholder interviews regarding our development process, what are the pinch points, the pain points, and what can be improved. And so we'll be getting an assessment report on that as well, which we'll present to the governing body as a whole so that we can, as part of our self-evaluation process moving into modernizing our department, that will be really helpful information. Wonderful. I love it. We're getting into the real meat and potatoes here because the pinch points sound intense. Director, good afternoon, Chair Castro. One thing, the new Senior Scene for April is out this month. So we take a look at that and, you know, we have a lot of my favorite publication. Yeah, it's neat. We also have, I also want to announce that we have hired a new recreation director. Tom Miller is the new recreation director for Community Services. I also want to tell you that we have 60 kids enrolled in our spring break camp over at Recreation and the Summer Youth Program link goes active on the 18th for people to register for, to get a time slot to register their children for the summer program. The libraries has a senior theater every Thursday 12:00 p.m. at the Southside Library. There is a caregiver and tot creative movement Saturday, April 4th, 18th, and May 2nd and 16th at 10:15 at the main library. And poetry imagination, the language of place, Thursday, April 16th at 6:00 p.m. La Farge and something queer at the library. Safe Harbor explore LGBTQ literature Tuesday, April 14th 6:00 p.m. at Southside. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Marcel, anything from you? All right, matters from the committee. Counselor Fergalia. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director, for mentioning the new recreation director. Tom Miller used to be our ice rink manager. He was a great ice rink manager before our ice rink went under for a while. But I was at the Travis Center earlier this week. Saw some of the kids on spring break doing their skating camp. It was very cute. Ran into Tom. Everyone seems very happy for him to be there. I am very happy that he's there and I'm just really excited that we're getting that facility back on track. Thank you. Travis, Counselor Cassid. Right. Matters from Chair. I do just want to report back that we did have a meeting on Area 1B today. So that is moving forward nicely. We haven't forgotten about anyone. Thank you to everyone who went to the affordable housing meeting. I know we had some technical difficulties, so we appreciate you. And we will be adjourned until the 22nd, which will be a very short meeting. Take care.