Quality of Life Committee
Wed, Jun 3, 2026 · Quality of Life Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/989

== Executive Summary ==
The Quality of Life Committee meeting primarily focused on the city's stormwater management initiatives, particularly green infrastructure projects, and the ongoing efforts to address homelessness. The committee received detailed presentations on various rain garden programs, large-scale infiltration projects, and public education campaigns aimed at improving water quality and mitigating the effects of urbanization. There was significant discussion about the "Runoff to Roots" program, which encourages community participation in implementing green stormwater solutions.

A substantial portion of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing and approving funding for critical city services. The committee approved a budget adjustment of $150,000 for the downtown security contract, though this decision sparked debate about the effectiveness of private security versus increased police presence. Additionally, the committee discussed a significant amendment to the Urban Alchemy contract, increasing its compensation by $522,000 for homelessness services, particularly for the Agape House shelter. This amendment, driven by the transition to 24/7 services and emergency procurement challenges, highlighted the city's commitment to addressing the needs of its unhoused population, despite the high costs involved. Public comments raised concerns about the transparency of the Children and Youth Commission's funding process, specifically impacting Girls Inc. of Santa Fe.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda.
- Approved the consent agenda, which included a budget amendment request of $150,000 from the General Fund to the Tourism Lodging Tax Fund for the Fiscal Year 2026 downtown security contract, and an amendment to the professional services contract with Urban Alchemy to increase compensation by $522,000 for homelessness services.
- Approved a $150,000 budget adjustment for the downtown security contract.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed.
- Motion to approve the consent agenda (as amended) — Passed.
- Motion to approve the $150,000 budget adjustment for the downtown security contract — Passed 3-1 (Councilor Castro voted no).
- Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely meeting minutes or agenda) — Passed (Councilor Barrett: Yes, Councilor Castro Cassette: Yes, Madam Chair: Yes).

== Public Comment ==
Public comments primarily focused on the Children and Youth Commission's (CYC) funding process. Representatives from Girls Inc. of Santa Fe expressed confusion and concern over not receiving notification about funding from the CYC, which they have historically received for over 50 years. They highlighted the critical importance of these funds for their school-based programs, especially on the south side, and the potential need to cut services to 10 schools if funding is not secured. They questioned the transparency of the RFP process, the commission's understanding of human services budgets, and the criteria for funding decisions. Another public commenter inquired about the future location and funding duration for Consuelo's Place and the status of Agopy House's contract.

== Topics ==
- Stormwater Management
- Homelessness Solutions
- Economic Development Grants
- Community Services & Recreation
- Domestic Violence Training
- Children and Youth Commission
- Southside Development
- Community Events
- Henry Lynch Roundabout

== Full Transcript ==
And Mike, are we live?

We are live.

Thank you so much. I'm going to let our team get situated. And wow, I'm so excited. There are folks in the audience today for the first time in a while. Hi, everybody. I'm going to call this meeting of the Quality of Life meeting to order at 5:04. If I could please get a roll call.

Councilor Fagali?

Here.

Councilor Barrett?

Here.

Councilor Cassett?

Here.

Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, you have a quorum.

And it's a pretty good quorum as well. Yeah. Thank you so much. Is anyone want to approve the agenda?

Move to approve.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

All opposed. Motion passes. And we did have a couple things pulled off the consent agenda. Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am. Two items. Item B, request for approval of a budget amendment request adjustment request, sorry, BAR, in the amount of $150,000 from General Fund to Tourism Lodging Tax Fund for Fiscal Year 2026 downtown security contract. And item D, request for approval of amendment number two to professional services contract item number 25-0217 with Urban Alchemy to increase the amount of compensation by $522,000 for a total for a new total compensation of $2,20,33 for shelter operations of homelessness services.

I would entertain a motion.

Move to approve.

Second as amended.

As amended. Yes.

All in favor?

Aye. All opposed. That passes. So we are going to have a presentation today. Is that correct?

Yes. The presentation is Building Watershed Resiliency: Parks and Open Space Green Infrastructure Initiatives and Community Partnerships. Zoe Isacson and Reese Baker.

Wonderful. Thank you so very much. I'm so excited to have both of these human beings presenting to us today. Very, very knowledgeable, having some amazing work in our community. So, I'm going to hand it over to Miss Isacson. How about now? Okay. So, just tuck into it.

All right. Thank you, Councilors. We really appreciate the opportunity to join you tonight to talk about what we're doing as far as our green infrastructure and stormwater management throughout the city. As Councilor Castro mentioned, I'm Zoe Isacson, the River and Watershed Manager for the city. And we have Reese Baker, owner of The Rain Catcher and a PhD candidate. So, we're really excited to have him also speak about our collaborations and some of the work that he has going on outside of our city partnerships. So, we'll talk about stormwater management in Santa Fe, kind of just setting the stage of how we approach that and why. Reconnecting stormwater to the landscape, our city initiatives, and then Reese will kind of talk about some of his projects.

So, just to provide some context, all water in our watershed, you can see on the screen, this is kind of a graphic of the Santa Fe River watershed and all of the sub-basins. All the water in our watershed drains to the Santa Fe River either above or below ground. And so that surface water is channeled through arroyos and the Santa Fe River in particular, and also below ground in our aquifers. It connects, the Santa Fe River connects to the Rio Grande just south of Cochiti Reservoir. The city has an MS4 permit. The MS4 permit is our regulatory mechanism to discharge surface water to the Santa Fe River. MS4 stands for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System. So, essentially what this says is that we have a separate system that manages our stormwater from our municipal wastewater. And so, as we all know, wastewater gets treated, stormwater does not. And so, in order to stay in compliance of this permit, we are required to show that we are giving our best kind of faith efforts to improve stormwater quality before it enters our surface waters, specifically the Santa Fe River.

So, we're in an urban environment. The City of Santa Fe, you know, has 400 plus years of a history of building and hardscaping the environment. Pre-development, so before all of that hardscape, our native landscapes were able to handle or manage between a half an inch and an inch of rainfall every time it rained. So, through three primary mechanisms like canopy and surface storage, just having uncompacted native soils and actually the root zones of our vegetation being able to kind of soak up and infiltrate that water. And why that matters is because we've kind of completely shifted how our environment interacts with stormwater and how stormwater flows over our landscapes. So, this is just a quick kind of graphic that shows you that as percent impervious areas, impervious surfaces expand, our land loses its ability to absorb water, which I think we're all very familiar with the degrees of erosion and channel degradation and just the lack of capacity for our natural system to handle these more intense, although less frequent, storm events that we're having with climate change. So, when you have a hardscape, you're driving these erosive forces. You're accelerating infrastructure failures and you're also degrading water quality.

So, what we're trying to do in the River and Watershed Section and Parks and Open Space as a whole is really look to nature-based solutions to kind of provide some of this, the solutions to these problems. Nature-based solutions use natural materials to mimic our natural processes. So, you can see in the schematic how at every point in the watershed we're trying to basically slow and sink water. And what I tell my staff, my team, is that a large percent of our, a large percentage of our work is really just about dissipating energy and allowing water to kind of work for us and to infiltrate and to soak into the landscape. And so, nature-based solutions are often adaptable and self-healing, so they do kind of change and shift over time. They provide multiple benefits. Oftentimes they're cheaper and they're definitely more resilient over time. And this, this kind of shows, this schematic shows the importance of kind of this idea of having leaky systems so that water can move through. We're really trying to stay away from concrete and or hardened systems. So, we use nature-based solutions to kind of solve some of these problems.

So, this is the Arroyo Mascaras at St. Francis and West Alameda. So, you can see it's coming into the Santa Fe River. That water has a huge kind of erosive force. There's a lot of velocity. There's a lot of energy. It's full of sediment. All of that sediment has a lot of hydrocarbons and pollutants absorbed to it. So, we have lots of heavy metals that are entering our waterway. We have large volumes and to build stuff like this and then repair stuff like this is incredibly expensive and energy intensive because it takes years of study, of modeling, money to build the infrastructure and then to repair it. It's no cheap task either. So, here's another picture of the Santa Fe River and this is an area that we've actually used these nature-based solutions to help kind of provide channel stabilization and manage those those peak pulses.

So, that brings me to green stormwater infrastructure. So, green stormwater infrastructure is often a nature-based solution that manages stormwater as close to the source as possible. And why we do this is because going back to that kind of schematic of trying to catch water and infiltrate it higher up into the watershed, we're really trying to deal with it before it gets to the Santa Fe River. And with the not only like the amazing and altruistic goal of improving our watershed from a water quality perspective and a habitat perspective and heat island, you know, cooling perspective. We're also just at the very basic trying to attenuate these floods and reduce the pressure on our existing system.

Yes.

And so, I'm just going to say for the folks listening online, make sure we're in the mic.

Okay. Sorry. And so, yeah, we're really trying to attenuate floods, improve water quality and and make a better kind of living situation for all of us and improve quality of life. So, we also have a program that was started before my time, which is the Alameda Rain Garden Program. And so, this was a project that identified sites along the Santa Fe River corridor along East and West Alameda that were conducive or suitable for this green stormwater infrastructure implementation. And so, we have several sites that have been built. We have several more to go. The red dots are sites that have been built. The blue dots are sites that are still suitable but for whatever reason haven't been built out yet. And some of them actually have been maybe altered. This is, this graphic is several years old. So, we're in the process of re-evaluating these locations and trying to get a more updated map of where we could build these types of facilities in a more impactful way.

So, some examples of those rain gardens are the Sycamore Rain Garden at Alto Park. This was built in collaboration with both The Rain Catcher, the Santa Fe Watershed Association, and Southwest Urban Hydrology. This rain garden, I need a more recent picture because that cottonwood in the middle is now a good 25 feet high. And it's completely overgrown in a good way. And it manages up to 100,000 gallons of water a year. The Santa Fe River is just off the picture. So, all of that kind of pollutant laden sediment gets kept in the rain garden and then you have a polished kind of cleaner water entering the Santa Fe River.

And another program that we're kind of building off of the Alameda Rain Gardens program is called our Runoff to Roots program, which I'm really excited about. We've kind of done some soft launching of this program. And basically what we're trying to do is work with neighborhoods and individuals who see an opportunity to implement these types of facilities within their neighborhood or an open space or, you know, within different right-of-way configurations to really implement curb cuts and rain gardens to again attenuate these peak pulses but also beautify their neighborhoods. And so, it's a real public and private partnership where they identify locations and then we will build the rain gardens and and do the curb cut and design them if they agree with a maintenance agreement to to maintain these facilities so that we kind of get out of having maintenance being a limiting factor, which I think we all know maintenance is a huge hurdle that we all have to overcome, especially, you know, we are part of the Parks and Open Space and oftentimes, you know, Parks and Open Space are are just perfect complements to this type of facility. And so, but, you know, we're we're stretched thin. So, having this pairing is is a really good way to kind of solve that that constraint.

And so, this is the Valley Drive Rain Garden, which is one of these collaborations that I spoke of. So, the community came to us, they wanted to get their chicanes redone. They were full of weeds. We designed it and constructed them. They're maintaining them. It improves water quality. You can see kind of the blue line where I highlighted the flow path. And you can see that big tree there now and all of these native grasses growing. And this is one year after construction. We have the Mary Esther Gonzalez Senior Center that is getting constructed right now. We're very close to being completed with this project, but this is another one where this used to be just kind of a gravel, just unlandscaped, just kind of gravel area with with no interest or habitat or vegetation. And so, we came in and built a rain garden and it will be maintained privately by volunteers.

We also had the seniors who visit the senior center decorate birdhouses for us. And so we have birdhouses that will be going in there. And this was a great, again, public-private partnership where we have increased the usefulness of the stormwater and really kind of shifted that paradigm to recognizing that it's a true benefit and not just a nuisance.

Then we also have larger-scale stormwater infiltration projects. And so this is a project that we have at the top one is Ashba Park, the lower one is Mark Brandt. And so these are kind of large-scale infiltration galleries to really, again, at these parks we have this perfect complement of needing large areas to be able to work with. And so the smaller rain gardens are amazing, and in aggregate, they have huge potential and are very effective. We have these larger open spaces that we can really kind of sink a lot of water and help attenuate flooding downstream and impacts to both the Arroyo de los Pinos and then the Arroyo San Antonio, where we know we have a history of flooding.

Then we also have residential campaigns where we are trying to educate homeowners on what they can do to manage stormwater on site because, and Reese will speak to this as well, the public-private partnership is amazing, and all of this counts towards a city being more resilient. And so what we really are trying to do is teach homeowners what they can do on their property. These are low-lift, low-effort implementation strategies that they can do to manage stormwater on site. And this was really targeted to the West Alameda Road corridor because every time it rains, it dumps a ton of sediment onto West Alameda, and then that requires our streets maintenance folks to come in and do a lot of plowing, and that is time and money that's a recurring problem. And so we're really trying to get folks to understand how they can kind of help figure this out for their properties.

Then, I'll just zoom through this, but we know that green stormwater infrastructure provides habitat and urban environments. So, another key component to all of this is really increasing biodiversity. So, to build a more resilient system to be able to combat climate change, it really comes down to biodiversity. And so we really try to use a bunch of different species to provide the redundancy that our system needs to be able to kind of be more resilient in the face of an unknown future.

And then we also do a lot of public education and outreach. So we do a series of river talks. We do trainings for internal staff on proper ways to plant trees, maintenance, and we also have stormwater story maps. And then we also do door hangers and tagging of properties when people do illegal dumping or have illicit discharges. And with that, I'll leave it to Reese to kind of talk about some project specifics throughout the city, and then we'll be available for questions. So, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Welcome. Thank you guys so much, Madam Chair, counselors, for being here tonight to, in participation with all these ideas that we're coming up with, and thank the audience for being here. I think Zoe covered pretty much everything that we wanted to talk about, and I just wanted to add a couple little ideas, things to think about. The city of Santa Fe city limits is 26 square miles. We get 12 inches of rain a year; that is 5.4 billion gallons. So, we have water. We just need a paradigm shift that the things that Zoe's working on to transform the way we use rainwater.

And so, these rain garden concepts, you see this diagram here. As we were talking about, we have completely destroyed the hydrological component of our ecosystem by paving the earth: parking lots, roofs, streets. Streets are now the lifeblood of our city because that's where all the water ends up. And so if we can take that water, which is of course filled with a slew of incredibly dangerous pollutants, we just did a year ago, we did a project with Sandia Labs where we did some soil sampling, 15 different locations around Santa Fe and different retention basins. We found 660 carcinogenic molecules. So this is a real problem, and I think it's important for us to tackle.

So the concept of a rain garden, by taking the water off of the street, you can kind of follow the numbers here. We're coming up with ways to ensure that we can maintain these rain gardens by trapping sediment. One of the things that we're dealing with a lot is the sediment is clogging up the entrances to the rain gardens that we have currently built, and it's not allowing the rainwater to get into the rain gardens, and it's just continuing to run down the street. So the whole design of these systems is really important.

And then, of course, we're recharging aquifers. And if you note there, sort of in step number five, we're now running all of the rain gardens that we are building through biology. And by doing that, all the different microbes, the plant roots, they're infiltrating water faster into the deeper depths. And then, of course, the fungal component of these, which we are now growing, the decomposer fungi all over Santa Fe County without any supplemental water. These organisms have these roots called mycelium, and they grow out into the soil, and they have these unique enzymes that can break down almost all of the toxins that we have that are coming off of the streets. You guys want to do a one-and-a-half-hour lecture on enzymes and how they evolved? Okay.

So anyway, now we are recharging aquifers with clean water. It's a shame that we have our freshwater ecosystems are the things that are completely being degraded by our current paradigm. And so with these rain gardens, we're going to be able to switch that. And Zoe talked about it, but the benefits of just putting the water into the ground is going to allow us to grow ecosystems that do all these extracurricular activities for our environment, and quality of life is at the very top of all that.

So, I talked to Zoe. We really wanted to get a basis of what is the reality of actually putting street water back into the ground. So, we are now doing a pilot project on Siringo Road, and we've created five smallish rain gardens that are all capturing the exact same amount of square footage of space from the street. And what is so cool about this is we're not going to do any planting. We're not going to do any soil enhancements, no adding of organic matter. We're going to just see exactly what is the difference between the water that's going into the roadside from our streets compared to right next to it, which is the standard roadside verge, which is just usually gravel or some other dirt and weeds and stuff. How is that going to change? And can we support all of the trees and all the ecosystems that we want to grow without using any supplemental water from potable systems?

And so it's very exciting. That's all underway. I just did a little bit of data today, and at six inches in the rain garden in comparison to the standard roadside verge, we are keeping the soil moisture at above 20% soil moisture, whereas the regular verge is at 7%, and it gets all the way up to almost 40% during rainstorms. So we're going to have some very interesting data within the next year.

And this is just a classic example here. The before photo is a detention basin that the city started to incorporate in 1996. It's a great idea, but without biology, the water just sits there, and it collects and attenuates all the different pollutants, especially the petroleum. And petroleum tends to make the soil even less capable of water infiltration and toxifies the environment. And so here at a commercial residence, a commercial office complex, we have a before and after photo of what we can do with this whole concept, which is absolutely amazing. I would love to give you guys tours of this property anytime you want.

And at the same location on the street side, the roadside verge, if you see that before photo, last August, I went with my little temperature gauge, my laser temperature gauge, and we had a temperature of 153 degrees on that gravel surface, and we went underneath where that tree is planted, and we had a temperature of 77 degrees. We have a massive capacity to cool and keep our city so much more resilient than the way it is now.

And then the last part is I just want you guys to see that little photo at the very bottom. We have these different species of fungi growing all through the city. And so this is something that has not been done in the Southwest. And the fact that Santa Fe is doing this, I'm just so honored to be in this city and to have the support of everybody and the support of Zoe. And I think we're ready for questions. We sure could talk a lot tonight, but I'm going to stop it there. Thank you so much.

Thank you so very much to both of you. I'm going to hand it over to many for questions. Counselor Cassid, you know me. I'll ask questions.

Well, thank you. This is really exciting. A couple of questions that I have around the, what's it called, the Runoff to Roots program. I am sitting there thinking about, okay, where in my district could I put this? I have no idea, to be perfectly honest. I don't feel like I have the knowledge to be like, "Hey, here's the place for the rain garden." Is that something that we could work with you? Because I know that, at least, across the city, there's a number of HOAs that I imagine that if we camped a rain garden close enough to them, that we could probably get buy-in. Or I know there's a number of people in my district, in a variety of neighborhoods, that they want to do placemaking and beautification. How might we start to figure out where this is really a possibility to be successful?

That's a really great question, Counselor Casset. So a couple of things. We have not yet launched our website for this, but we will have a website for this program. And part of that is twofold. It's to not only have the public come to us and say, "Hey, we have a public land area that we notice there's, every time it rains, there's standing water, and we could do something with the standing water, and we feel like it could be beautified or shifted to be a resource rather than a nuisance." And then we also have a whole another kind of program where we're trying to make it easier for private property homeowners to implement this on their own property. And so we have worked with Ree and Aaron Kaufman of Southwest Urban Hydrology to come up with standard specifications so that people can implement this on their own roadside verge, on their own properties, and how to make that as easy and as burden-free or barrier-free as possible for them to do this on their own property, and with some checks and balances, obviously. So, right now we're trying to, like I said, we haven't really pushed it, but once we do, I hope that we can thread that needle of figuring out where these ideal locations are, where people are interested. We have some ideas. We know where some of our public infrastructure or parks and facilities aren't working. Like, we know where there's a lot of ponding and maybe some drainage improvements that could be implemented. So, I guess to answer that, I think it's twofold. Like, we could do better at educating and inviting people to come to us, and then also working, like you're saying, with HOAs or any individual who's interested in this. And that's one of the underlying themes: if you're interested, please reach out because we want to talk to you.

Yeah, wonderful. And just an invite, if there are places, obviously in District 4, you guys are—I wrote down Mark Brandt and then you immediately were like, "in Mark Brandt Park." So, thank you. And then I know there's another one on Escondido Court that there's this giant area that's just a pile of weeds and water. But if you guys identify some within District 4, please let me know because I would be happy to work with you to start making connections to constituents there to see if we can drum up some interest and support because that would be a lot of fun, and I would love to have that happen.

The study that you're doing on Suringo, I keep trying to figure out, and maybe you know, maybe not, what is going on with Trees Smart Santa Fe? Is it still there? And you know, that was that whole concept, the right tree in the right place, and we had talked about how we want to increase the canopy, especially on the south side. But a lot of this is we were going to look at what is going to grow where, given that on the east side and the north side, we actually, it's a bit of a cooler environment the closer you get to the mountains. And then as you get more to the south side, further from the mountain, slightly lower elevation, but probably the bigger issue is a lot more concrete and asphalt. And this sounds like something that would work really well in conjunction with that project. Has that connection been made at all? Is that something that would be like the next phase of this, is how we can start to get a better canopy, especially on the south side?

Yes, thank you for bringing that up. Absolutely. So, what we're hoping is that the data that Reese is collecting will do exactly that: help us figure out the right tree in the right place and expand that knowledge of what suitable means and expand that breadth of what a suitable location is. Because I think if we can harness the water and passively harvest the water, then that potentially expands what suitable means. But we also need to have the right tree in the right place because not every tree can handle this level of inundation or being saturated for as long, you know, go through wet and dry cycles. So the next step is absolutely using this data and then applying it to real-world applications, and that is directly tied to Trees Smart Santa Fe, the municipal tree board. So, the municipal tree board will be reviewing our standard specifications to make sure that we're all aligned on where we're encouraging folks to plant trees because we want consistent messaging and to absolutely set us up for success. And so, yeah, that's the next step. So, I appreciate you bringing that up. Thank you.

Good. Good. Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited about that. I've been excited about Trees Smart Santa Fe for a while, but we haven't heard about it for a few years. So, happy to hear that it is still in conversation and still in the mix and part of this process. Some other places that we have talked about the utilization of green infrastructure, one is Midtown, and that is heavily built into the Midtown plans, is that we will be hopefully using rainwater in a very productive manner. And it's obviously, as everything with Midtown, it's a bit of a unique opportunity given that we are redeveloping the entire piece. Can you speak to that and what that's looking like with planning? I know that we have a lot of, we have a long way to go when it comes to the infrastructure in Midtown, but what does this green infrastructure piece look like with that?

Yes, thank you, Counselor. So, Midtown is an amazing opportunity to really highlight what this type of stormwater management practice can do for not only managing stormwater and improving water quality, but also improving quality of life. And so we managed to design Midtown Campus so that every drop of water that falls during a 100-year, 24-hour storm event stays on site and does not travel offsite. And so the way that we did that is not only using some of these GSI, kind of natural depression systems, but also using permeable pavement and suspended pavement, which essentially means creating a lot of void space under the surface of the earth to be able to accept all of that water. And my understanding is that that is all still happening. And we are at 90% design. The two parks that are being designed now, the plaza and the arroyo park, are also going to be utilizing green stormwater infrastructure and will have an arroyo feature through the park and highlighting a lot of different benefits of stormwater, everything from pollinator gardens to bird habitat to bat habitat to different varieties of native species that really will highlight what a native functioning system is supposed to look like in the context of a park. And so this is again, I think all of the design team. I'm kind of the stormwater part's been designed, so I'm not as intimately involved now, but my understanding is that all of that is a go and that the whole team is really looking for Midtown to be kind of a showcase of what we can do and what the right practice is.

Yeah, good, good, glad to hear. That's exciting. Everything by metallic and sagging. And then the other place we've talked about this is medians. And what I've always run into is this concept. We've talked about xeriscaping our medians, but we've also talked about green infrastructure with the medians. Maybe, or maybe I'm thinking of the side of the road and not the middle, and how we can create these native landscapes. And we've talked about pollinator gardens within the medians and how that balances out with both, you know, if we capture rainwater, we're going to get more growth, but we also already have the challenge of our medians being overgrown and keeping up with that. This might be a Melissa level question because she sees all of it, but if you have any insight into this conversation and this balance, I'd be curious.

I think the balance is definitely attainable, and it's really about thoughtful design and understanding where the balance, not to be redundant, but where the balance is between hardscaping and green areas and how to design medians that are beautiful but also don't require as much maintenance. And so I do think that that's possible. It's also again, goes back to this idea of the right tool in the right place. Not all medians are conducive for curb cuts. The way that our roads are traditionally designed, the middle is the high point and the water sheds to the gutter, to the curb. And so, the middle doesn't usually get a lot of water. And so, that's where, you know, improving the design and the hardscaping, because recognizing that it usually doesn't receive water, will help also with that maintenance factor. And so, you know, we, I do know that we're working on somewhat depressed, but not adding or using them as water harvesting from off-site flows, but how do we utilize the water that actually falls on the median in a better way, in a more thoughtful way, and then balancing that design with the hardscape to improve maintenance.

Okay, got it. Thank you. And then last question, then I'll yield the floor. Kind of going back to the well, and even in our parks, we have this trend of moving towards astroturf, and a big part of moving towards astroturf has to do with water scarcity. And I think at home, we've created these tiered water usage systems that we encourage conservation. And as a result, a lot of people are like, "You know, I can't pay for a lawn. I can't pay to water a lawn." But, "I'll go ahead and put in astroturf and then I don't have to deal with that." So, I mean, through the lens of this conversation, one thing that concerns me is that, again, these impermeable, I would imagine there, well, maybe there's some permeability there, but more impermeable surfaces with astroturf, but also it probably adds to the heat island effect. And I'm, when you're talking about some of these home resources and people who want these green spaces, are there options there that make lawns not such a, I mean, because there's an issue there with water conservation and that's a problem, but astroturf's not necessarily fabulous either. So I don't know if that's been part of these discussions with some of the home components or even some of our parks.

Yeah. So when it comes to lawns, I think that's a whole another story. Lawns really take continued care. And so when we're talking about green stormwater infrastructure, we're talking about infiltrating and natural or what we call passive harvesting.

I think you could, one could, and I'm not advocating for this one way or the other, but utilize stormwater to offset some of that potable water use if you were to maybe have a more what we call active stormwater system where you were to catch things in cisterns over time. And Reese could definitely, that's kind of his wheelhouse, and he could speak to that much more articulately than I can. When we're talking about park systems, I don't think that that's necessarily a direction that we would necessarily advocate to go in because there's a lot of pumping and mechanics and mechanical situations that need to happen to get that water to then enter the irrigation system. And so I think it's definitely a balance in the parks department, and I will let Melissa speak to that. But I do think that it is kind of this balance because we need suitable areas for kids to recreate and have fields to play on. Having two young boys myself, I recognize the city's need for that. And I think even the synthetic fields can be, they can infiltrate and they can kind of help, you know, they don't shed the water like they used to. I think they've gotten a lot better, but yeah, I think I will leave it there and let Melissa speak to it.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and thank you for the presentation. Really, really exciting work that's happening.

Thank you, Counselor. Answer Barrett.

Hi, guys. Thanks for being here. So glad you're here. Great presentation. And I think I can't remember because I know we met before, Ree. And I forgot if we talked about schools, if you, I know you're out of UNM, right? And then I didn't know if you were working in any of the public schools as far as like projects with students and any of Santa Fe public schools as far as maybe they could start up some rain gardens around town and help maintain them. How's that? Oh, much better. Okay. Yeah. So, Southwest Urban Hydrology has been pioneering this for about 10 years. And, you know, Aaron is sort of a one-man show. And so, he uses our company for a huge amount of the labor. So, we've done, I think, 36 parking space retrofits at Santa Fe High School student parking lot. We are infiltrating 1.1 million gallons of water a year. We're shading areas. It's really dynamic. We've worked with at Eco. We just finished some big rain gardens over at Kearny where we actually were able to plant an American elm, which was one of the biggest trees we've ever been able to put into one of these spaces. So, that's exciting.

And then as much as we can, we try to bring in the students to help facilitate the planting, to do tours. Santa Fe Community College, we're hoping to get some pilot projects going out there and get some of the higher education, or at least the bachelor level education set up so that people are just aware of this and can participate in it. So, I might need to leave some of the detailed questions up to Aaron, but I'm sure he would love to come give you guys a presentation on what he's doing with public schools because it's fascinating.

I'll add, Counselor Barret, that we also work with the public schools. We do a lot of, I believe, sixth, maybe in third grade, and then again in sixth grade, they do a curriculum on improving the ecosystems and the environment. And so we have been interviewed and work with a lot of schools on different ideas that kids have and different proposals that they have and help guide them through that process. We also have schools like Santa Fe Prep and other charter schools that have adopted certain areas and do a lot of cleanups and routine maintenance, or I guess routine trash collection. And we use Santa Fe Watershed Association as a conduit for some of that work because they'll act as stewards and then plan different cleanup events around that with the schools. Getting schools involved is definitely something that my group has talked about and how we can be more proactive in that because again, I think we need to be better about educating our youth so that they can again be the stewards that we want to see as they grow up.

Great. Thanks. Sounds like you guys are already on top of it. You're already doing it. Let me know if I can ever help. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Counselor Falgali. I don't have any other questions, but thank you for the work that you're doing, and I'm really excited to see the Midtown plan happen and to see all this cool permeable pavers and the bioswales and all the other fun things that we put in there. So, thank you.

And I will say, Falgali, it was fun to work on that with you.

And I just want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues. Most of the time, especially when folks are newer to the governing body, we have great ideas, and then you're already doing them. So, that's always exciting. I have a couple of questions, and I don't want to belabor the West Alamita Rain Garden program, but if we could just get an update on if those change and what priorities might be and what some of the sticking points could have been.

Yeah. So, we went out. We had five people, five residents, or property owners respond to our survey and took us up on our offer to run property audits. And what we did there is we assessed their property and gave them a menu of different strategies they could implement on their property and where. So, we took a topographic image and highlighted areas that water was collecting and how they could improve their properties. It ended up not following through because we wanted to provide rebates, and it was hard for us to get over the rebate mechanism or figure out a proper rebate mechanism. And so we're going back to the drawing board and trying to figure that out. As you know, when it comes to water conservation rebates, it is a credit to your water bill. And that works when you're paying $100 a month on water or public utility service. It doesn't work that well when you only pay $5 a month for your stormwater utility. And so it takes a really long time to obviously earn that credit back. It could be 10 years before you. And so it's hard to convince people to put money upfront if that's the kind of credit that they're going to receive. And so I have been talking to other municipalities throughout the US that do a rebate program and do a cost share and figuring out if we can apply some of that to our program. It's, and not to get into the weeds too much, but our anti-donation clauses have kind of put a, and that, you know, that's, we can maybe figure it out, and we're trying.

Thank you. So we appreciate you and being creative because I know funding is difficult. The other questions I had, I think, have been asked in terms of how do we use this research? So we're going into this research. How are we going to execute it? Sounds great. Santa Fe Tree Program, I'm sorry, Tree Smart Santa Fe is a program that I wasn't aware of. So, thank you so much, Counselor Cassid. I'm going to research that. The website sounds really exciting. Help us help you by rolling that out whenever you have the opportunity. And I know we spoke at length about Ashro Park, so I'm also not going to belabor that, but thank you for the work there. And I hope the community input session went well. Is there anything else that we could offer to you in terms of assistance on moving this forward?

Thank you, Counselor Castro. I think just giving us an opportunity to speak with you all and especially some of the new counselors and help educate what we're doing, I think is a great opportunity. And just again, giving us the time to communicate some of the importance of this work and how really it's a good time to be doing this work in city government because we do have the support of Director McDonald and Director Berdinette. And so we're just really excited to be able to come here and speak with you all and work with our private counterparts like Ree. So, thank you.

Thank you so much. And thank you, Mr. Baker, for being with us and give us an update on your programs when you are finished.

Wonderful. Thank you guys so much. It's been an honor to be here. I did want to point out something really quick. If you guys are curious, we just finished the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Manual for Santa Fe County, and that was through Jacqueline Beam and the sustainability program. So, it's now up on their website. It's in PDF form. It's like a 140-page document, and we covered all the stuff Zoe and I talked about today. It's all the rural areas as well as the urban areas. And it's a really, really cool document. I hope you guys like it. It's kind of a living document, too. So, as we continue to get this research, it's all going to be uploaded onto that. So, I hope you get to enjoy it. If you're a nerd like me, you'll...

Thank you so much. We do get in the weeds here, so we appreciate it. Thank you.

Right. And we do have a couple orders of business, so I'm going to try to move us along as quickly as possible. What's next on our agenda, Marcel?

Next is public comment. So, if anybody would like to address the committee, please feel free to line up at the podium. And we normally have two minutes. I wonder if we could get that timer up, please.

Mike, can you set a timer?

Let's go. Yeah. Hi.

If you would like, you could give us your name and the district you live in so we know who you're addressing in particular.

Great. Well, good afternoon, distinguished counselors. I am Virginia Williams, and I live in District 1, and I am a mother of two young children, a business owner, and an employee of Girls Inc. of Santa Fe. We are celebrating our 71st year inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. And at Girls Inc., we teach the girls critical thinking skills. And so, I come with curiosity and questions this afternoon. This year's RFP process with the CYC has felt different than years past. There are apparently stricter guidelines around the RFP than the application process of years before. And what it has felt like at the outset of the process, especially for the one month, one week, and three days since funders were apparently supposed to be notified, is evasive and abashed. And where does that guilt in the system come from? Is it because we haven't been selected by a commission that has consistently funded our organization for over 50 years of our 71-year existence? Is it because there is a perception that we are well-funded because we are raising money to build a new center? Our research and third-party evidence-based programs cost money, and safe places with reliable, trusted adults cost money. And we have come to be partners with the city over our tenure, not reliant, but in partnership. And I'm asking the governing body this afternoon out of curiosity about your understanding of the budget of the human services and the function of the Children and Youth Commission. And if you need to seek understanding yourselves of who on the commission and who on the staff are recommending for the $1.2 million of funding and how that assessment of the distribution of funds was made and what clarity needs to be made to the people who haven't been informed yet. I have questions, and I await transparency. I have questions about the new strategic direction and eliminating early childhood. Why they feel that Girls Inc. does not fit their definition of a partner, a reliable partner who's been a consistent community person nonprofit program that promotes the healthy development of local children and youth.

Is that my time?

It's your time. Thank you so much.

Yes. Feel free if you have anything in writing, you can hand it over to Marcel or you can email us.

Hi, my name is Connie Burke, and I am in District 1, and I am the board chair of Girls Inc. of Santa Fe. As Ginger said, we have received funding for the last 50 of our 71 years from the city. And this funding is very important to us because what these dollars do, it's a three-year grant. And what these dollars do is they help us fund the programs in the schools, especially on the south side. Our headquarters, as you know, is up on Hillside. And so that serves one kind of girl, and it serves one neighborhood, and that's on the north side of town where girls can go to the after-school program. But what a lot of people don't know is that we serve over a thousand girls out in the schools. And so it's these funds that have been able to allow us to serve these girls. We are building a new facility, and we are raising money, but that's under a capital campaign. That's not operations. And so it was just very confusing to us when we didn't get notification as to whether or not we received these funds. In the past, we've received them. We've gotten notification early in the spring. And because of the fiscal year with the city, those funds are usually available to us on July 1st. Thinking we were going to get these funds, we have already made promises to the schools. We are in 18 schools here in Santa Fe, and we provide resources and programming to 32 different groups in those 18 schools. That's a lot of kids that we support. So, as a board member, as the chair of the board, I have a fiduciary responsibility. I worry about the dollars, and we can't borrow from Peter to pay Paul. We have to have these dollars. And so, what we want to know is where did we fall down if, in fact, we did in not being able to get these funds?

Thank you much.

Appreciate you. Thank you.

Hello, counselors. I am Adonna Hernandez, and I am the chief program officer for Girls Incorporated, and I'm from District 3. And I have been working for Girls Incorporated for 26 years. Throughout that time, I have been working directly with the youth. It is my responsibility to train our staff and to support our staff to go out into the community and provide impactful programs.

We are providing wraparound services for these young people. We are not only just providing programs for the kids in the schools, but we're also providing supports for their families. We're coming into the schools and we're providing them with the supports that they need when their young people are experiencing difficulties with their relationships. This is a really difficult thing that we didn't receive the funding that we received because as Connie mentioned, with us working with 1300 youth currently, I am exploring which classes, which groups I'm going to be cutting so that way we can make sure that we can continue to do the work that we're doing.

So how do I make that decision? How do I say this school doesn't deserve this and this school doesn't deserve that? I have intentionally made sure that our staff are paid well so that way they are able to continue to have the ability to work for Girls Inc. and for them to go out and continuously work with those kids year after year. Now, we're not able to provide that programming for those kids who have been with us for that many years. Some of them are coming to us from third grade all the way up until 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. So if you all can help us understand where we did come and how we fell and what it is that we can do so that way we can make preventive work as well as intervention work both a priority, because if we only focus on intervention, we are going to continue to spin our wheels and we're going to end up spending even more money. We need to make sure that we are taking care of these young people before they need us to step in and provide those intervention services. We want to be partnered with you all as best as we can. We just want to make sure that we can continue to work with these kids and we don't have to tell them no because as of right now, I'm going to have to cut probably 10 different schools. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, counselors. Nice to see you all. I'm Linda Dwolf. I'm on the board of Girls Inc. of Santa Fe and also the chair of the Fund Development Committee. There are a couple things we haven't had a chance to say, so I just want to say them under the two minutes here. First, you've shown us considerable and very incredible support, and we appreciate you so much. Just recently, you voted on our rezoning of a new center, and we appreciate that. We're so excited. I'm concerned that if we're not funded appropriately, however, that looking down a $225,000 cut in government support, it sends a message that the city of Santa Fe is not investing in youth. They're not investing in programs we know with time and evidence work. I'm concerned that if we lose this funding, which represents 10% of our budget, that's a lot, that we will have to cut services as Madonna mentioned, and it will be a much longer-term effect on our city. So, we thank you very much for hearing our concerns, and I think we're complete. Thank you.

Thank you so very much. Hi, I'm Marcia Emerton, District 4. And I feel like this is a little bit backwards because I see Kristen and Leah here and they're going to be talking about the things I'm asking about, but there's no question time after. So, I'm going for it. Consuelo's Place. I saw that it's going to be funded through next year, you know, 2027. My question is, will it be in the same place? I'm very much for the funding. When I heard they get by on their budget of $17 a day per person, I think this is a really, really good deal. The next thing is Agopy House. I believe their contract is up on July 31st. I saw there's a plan to give them $522,000 more in money over their original budget, I believe. When does this go? What's happening with the money there? And how far in the future is this paid out? I mean, when does that end? You can see I have lots of questions. I know it's kind of between a little bit of a rock and a hard place, maybe, no pun intended, that there's people there. You can't just cut off the funding. So that's all I have to say, but those are my questions and maybe they'll be answered in a minute. And the watershed thing was beautiful and I'm all for Girls Inc.

Thank you so very much. Is there anyone online, Marcel, that would like to give public comment? No, I thought there was going to be, but nobody joined.

Well, thank you so much. If anyone has any other comments that they would like to email to the committee, they're more than welcome. What is our next order of business? Our next order of business is the pulled item. Item B, request for approval of budget adjustment request bar in the amount of $150,000 from the general fund to tourism lodging tax fund for fiscal year 2026 downtown security contract. Andrea Phillips and Randy Randall are here.

I'm the problem here, but I will defer to my committee to see if Okay. Counselor Cassid also pulled some of these, so I will defer. Go ahead, counselor.

Thank you so much. So I did just want to follow up on the funding sources because my understanding of the downtown security contracts is that it had been strictly lodgers tax. Has that not been the case this entire time?

Yeah. So the majority of this contract is funded through tourism and utilizing lodgers tax, but there is a tie-in with downtown security for not just visitors, right? So this is to supplement some of our police staffing in the downtown area. And so there is some funding from general fund that we are proposing to help supplement this contract. So, this would bring $150,000 from general fund to help supplement the lodging tax.

And is this a new supplementation from the general fund? So, historically, it's all been lodgers.

Yeah, I believe so. And I'm kind of new to this contract for the downtown security, but I believe the general fund assistance is to help in covering the additional staffing. So, I don't know, Randy, if you have any background.

Thank you, Madam Chair, counselor. The original contract was funded from both general fund and lodgers tax. And it was general fund that was excess revenue, if you remember those days, that we would allocate out on one time.

Mhm.

And Lodgers tax continued to carry this as far as it could. And but this extra $150,000 is needed to support the existing purchase order with for the contract security through June 30th.

Okay. So this is just through the end of this fiscal year or through the end of

Madam Chair, that's correct.

Okay. And this is for extra police staffing or extra security staffing?

Madam Chair, counselor, it is for extra contract security.

Contract security. Okay. My challenge with this contract, if you recall, was the concern around the focus of downtown and really needing, as I've, you know, stated numerous times, a lot of support on the Serrios Road corridor. Now, what's interesting is the next conversation we're about to have has actually really helped improve the Serrios Road corridor. But I know the challenge that I've always had with this one is just the focus on the downtown area, which is important. And I know that there's been a lot of need and this obviously because it is the tourist area can be an attraction for some more potential petty crime and things of that nature. But I still do struggle with the fact that there is not this additional support being given especially to Serrios Road. I don't think we have, we don't have PD here right now and I apologize that I didn't send this out, but I'm curious about some of the Oh yes

Actually, counselor Ben is on.

Interim Police Chief Valdez, if you would like to.

Of course you are.

Thanks.

Thanks, counselor. Madam Chair. Hey, Chief. Glad you're here. And I am curious about crime stats for both the downtown area and for Serrios Road. And what those have looked like for the implementation of this contract as well as, you know, the implementation of the next contract we're about to talk about for Urban Alchemy and how things are looking across the board throughout the city. Well, really those two areas are what I'm focusing on. Let's be honest. Downtown Serrios Road Corridor.

Madame Chair, Counselor Cassid. So, I can get that information for you on the impact that Serrios Road and downtown has had with both these contracts. What I do know for the downtown security contract, it has been really helpful for our downtown vendors and guests to have that presence and when issues do arise, they do contact the police department and we send folks down there. We're also doing a shift in staffing with our bike unit, our traffic unit, and our DWI unit, which are proactive units. And we're looking to have more of a presence now in the downtown area with our bike officers, but also in our business districts on the south side, our riding trails, our parks and open spaces. And we did have a brief discussion today on what additional funding would look like if I'm able to put more officers in our ranks and grow our bike team. And I think that'd be a great discussion to have, but for the time being, I know this contract that Mr. Randall has is just to cover us through June. The shift in schedule with our bike team is going to go into effect this Saturday. So, we will see more of a visible presence of our bike team downtown. And we're doubling their staff from 2 to 4. So, two will be dedicated to the downtown area. And a sergeant and two bike officers will be covering our bike trails, open space, parks, and business districts throughout our entire city, including on the south side of this road corridor.

Got it. Thanks, Chief. Appreciate that update, and I'm actually really excited to hear about the bike teams on the trails. I think you and I had this conversation like 2021. And it wasn't very doable then. So, to hear that that's being expanded now is really exciting. I guess the other question and again this will be relevant for the next conversation too is how, and I think we started to get there, but from my understanding these contracts, or I'm hoping, well, you tell me, are these contracts really providing the ability for police to be focusing on some of the more concerning crimes? I mean, how does how does this really help our capacity as, you know, the public safety departments in understanding how these dollars are being spent and how that investment really impacts public safety across the city?

Yes, counselor. So, I know when this contract was first discussed some time ago, it was during a time that we were experiencing a staffing crisis. We had about 40 vacancies and Mr. Randall did offer at that time to see if we could fund additional police officer positions, but we were struggling just to fill our allocated budgeted amount of police officers. Now we're kind of in a different realm and I think it'd be a great discussion to have to see if we can pivot to see if that's still an option to have some of this lodgers tax go towards staffing the downtown area with bike officers, because that allowed me to pull our budgeted staff that's going to be allocated to the downtown area and they could be reallocated to other areas of the city to help with showing a visible presence, engaging in proactive policing, community policing and making overall improvements to quality of life for folks. But when this discussion came up initially several years ago, I think it was somewhere around 2020, 2021, we started looking at how can we get more folks downtown to help with reducing crime and making sure that business districts are going to be safe, but for us, we didn't have the staffing to make that happen.

Today, we stand in a different position, and if given funding, that's something I think we can achieve.

Wonderful. Thank you. That's really good to think about, especially as this contract is coming to an end. I think this would be an area that, moving away from these really expensive security contracts, to how we can fund more police positions and doing more of the community policing and doing more of the bike teams downtown, as well as throughout the city, would be interesting. I know I caught you a little bit on the spot with these questions, so if you don't mind sending me any hard stats and hard numbers that you would have at a later time, that would be much appreciated.

Absolutely, Councilor. I'll follow up with that and I'll send it to the committee. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Chief. Thanks, ma'am.

Thank you, Councilor Casset. I will defer to committee members. Councilor Berardi.

I just had a question out of curiosity. I didn't know if it's because tourism ramps up in the summer and we have more events outside and we have more visitors in town if that was also a reason why we needed more security.

Madam Chair, Councilor, no, it's actually the same amount of security on a regular basis, and it's not as much crime prevention as misbehavior prevention, and that's the real issue. The downtown area is no more important to the city, in my opinion, than any other area, but it is the visitor focus. And even when visitors stay in short-term rentals in other locations or in some of the hotels on Cerrillos Road, and 50% of our hotel rooms are on Cerrillos Road, the focus still comes to the downtown area. People come to that area, and that's the experience that they get when they come to Santa Fe. If we don't manage that experience, we can't continue to be the best destination in the United States. So, that's the purpose of this contract. It was a band-aid. It was a band-aid to start with to try to deal with the unfilled positions that the police had, but those who are misbehaving have really figured out by now that contract security does not have the authority and the enforcement capability that police do. So again, it was a band-aid. We need to, we have a contract to get it through the end of June. We need to fund that to get it to that point. But hopefully, within the next few days, we're able to come up with a plan on how we address fiscal '27 and eliminate the band-aid.

Got it. Thanks. Thank you, Council Barrett. Councilor.

Thank you. So this $150,000 is for the next four weeks. Is that right? Or is that?

That would be for May and June. Okay.

So we're running anywhere from about $60,000 to $80,000 a month. So,

About $82,000 a month is on average.

And that's for police officers for the security team?

The security team in the downtown.

Yeah. Yeah. Contracted. Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Okay. I also have some concerns about moving GRT and the dollars in particular, but I think my questions today are going to revolve more about the level of service of the security team and what we're paying those $80,000 for. I think there's been a few instances where they've had trouble staffing, and we've had to choose between locations. Do you want to address the level of service and sort of what we're getting for these dollars?

Madam Chair, I don't feel we're getting enough for our dollars. And I think again, if these dollars could be used for trained police that are properly managed, we'd get a lot more. My experience on managing a private security police force in the downtown area is pretty limited, but it had to be done, and it was again a band-aid that was put on that the cost has grown as Condor has been able to more fully staff what the original request was. The actual dollars that we've used for the service were designed for a year, and they've lasted almost two, and that was because of understaffing in the first part of it. But we've now come to a point where we've run out. But again, I don't think it's the answer. There's no long-term solution in private security trying to manage the misbehavior downtown. And I just want to double down on your response that this is not preventing crime, that they do not have the authority to arrest anyone, that there is still the need to be calling officers, which is why, interestingly enough, with my ideologies, I've been asking for more police officers on bicycles in the plaza because there are businesses. We had a meeting recently with our constituents asking for more police presence. And so, though I understand that this is a band-aid and it's something we're getting pushed through, I don't feel we are getting the bang for our buck with these dollars. And with that, I think anyone has any comments? Well, we can, Councilor Cassen. Thank you, Madam Chair. So on that note, that this has lasted almost two years. Last says the money's gone, been able to extend almost two years. I'm sorry, it's been a long day. I'm getting to the end. Because they were understaffed. So we weren't actually getting security to the greatest extent as we had initially planned in terms of the impact of when they were understaffed and we had fewer security officers that we were paying for versus this conversation now, which is essentially funding two months of the full capacity. Is it that much of a difference? And given the increase in our police department, I mean, is the juice worth the squeeze at this point? If we saw what it looked, we were able to see what it looked like with a lower amount of security guards, and now we're able to see the full staffing, is it actually that much of an improvement that it's worth $150,000 for the rest of the fiscal year?

Madam Chair and Councilor, let me just clarify. We, in addition to that original funding, tourism put in another $350,000, and it's asking for this extra $150,000 to get the contract completed. With the increased staffing, we've been able to expand the area that was covered. But is it any better where it was before? No. But we are able to, it has been able to cover a much larger area and deal with issues, and frankly, I think the issues are continuing to grow because once again, the folks who are misbehaving have figured out that contract security is not the same as police.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The problem's gotten worse. But we've had, and but we've now had more people available to cover a larger area. We added, as soon as, at one point, we added a mobile patrol. This $82,000 per month includes a mobile patrol, which allowed it to expand quite a bit, but that mobile patrol represented about a $15,000 a month cost. So that was a big part of the addition. And what is the geographic area that it's covering at this time?

I'm sorry.

What is the geographic area that's being covered at this time?

Right now, it's basically the entire historic area, using the PO loop and St. Francis, but it moves into Baca, and it also has, goes on the other side of PO in situations like up to La Posada and where tourism reaches out a little bit beyond the Sage Inn and some of those areas.

How about the Railyard and Railyard Park?

They have a separate contract.

Okay. Okay.

That is not quite adequate.

Yeah. I mean, and again, I think, yeah. This isn't my favorite thing, and I also recognize the challenges that I hear from a lot of the businesses. I hear from, not just, I don't actually hear from tourists very often, but I do hear from individuals who work and live down here that there are some issues with the downtown area. So, I think I will begrudgingly support this for now. However, I would really like to see a more permanent solution with the growth with PD and seeing what we can do there and what are some other, I mean, and this is the constant challenge that we are dealing with increased crime, and it's related to everything that we will talk about in just a moment. But yeah, I mean, I would love to, maybe in the next couple of months, I would love to hear a kind of a joint conversation proposal from tourism, from PD around, you know, how are we going to maintain the downtown area while still making sure the rest of the city is well covered. Because I don't, I don't really want to keep going with this contract after this. So,

Madam Chair, Councilor, it needs to happen really in the next couple of days or weeks. It can't wait for the next couple of months. So,

The plan, right? Yeah. So, I appreciate Randy's enthusiasm, but this is going to be something that we're going to have to look at, potentially augmenting staff within the police department. There will be a budgetary impact. And I think I appreciate Interim Chief, you know, thinking about bike patrols, and Randy being part of the solution, but we might need more than a couple days to hash out a plan for how we can wean off of this contract and what that looks like. So, even though we have reduced our vacancies on the police department, there's still a question as to whether we're even properly staffed across the board. So I just want to say that yes, we will be looking into this. We will bring it forward, but I don't know if it's going to be in a couple days.

Thank you so much. And Deputy City Manager had one follow-up question. Just to be clear on what we're voting on today, this is a budget adjustment request to move money from the general fund into tourism. If we were to vote this down today, would we terminate the contract? Essentially, we would, we would have to go back with them and essentially bring down, maybe we would not provide services for the remainder of the two months, or, you know, we would have to potentially, yeah, we'd have to probably stop it, and then, or tourism would need to come up with additional funds somehow.

I guess that's the question. Do we have additional tourism funds that could cover that gap? Director Randle.

Madam Chair, not currently available.

It's just such an expensive balloon. Okay. I will entertain a motion.

I will move to approve for now. Second. I get a roll call vote, please. Madison.

Councilor Fagali.

Yes.

Councilor Barrett.

Yes.

Councilor Cassett.

Yes. Madam Chair.

No.

Motion passes.

Thank you so much. I appreciate both of you. Next item, I believe, is also off the consent agenda. Item D, as I slowly allow for staff to make their way down here.

Yes, Madam Chair. Item D, once again, is a request for approval of amendment number two to professional contract item number 25-0217 with Urban Alchemy to increase the amount of compensation by $522,000 for a new total amount of $2,20,33 for shelter operations of homelessness services.

All right. I will allow statute. Would you like to give us a presentation or go right into questions?

Chair Castro, I'd like to get us started.

Wonderful. Please go ahead, Director.

For the audience, my name is Sandy Emory. I am the Community Services Director for the City of Santa Fe. Just to set the stage a little bit tonight, the contract that we're discussing this evening with Urban Alchemy, it was a response to an emergency RFP where the city discovered that the basic needs for our most vulnerable populations were not being met through current service provision and entered into this contract to really ensure that we are meeting a level of care for our populations that is, that really respects their basic human needs.

This year, we're coming up on a year, has been a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning. The city staff has been working very closely with this provider to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our population served and ensuring that we are really doing the best that we can. So I understand that this is a high price tag, and I just want to set the stage in that we are learning. I don't think that we knew going into the emergency contract the total cost of services, and a lot of changes have been made in real time to ensure that we are keeping people safe. So Kristen and Director Salivi will have a lot more answers regarding the details and the finer components of the program, but I want to just give a little bit of background context for that.

Thank you so much, Ms. Woods. Do you have a presentation? Director Salvary, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I don't think we have too much to add to that. Chair, thank you so much. Maybe just to say and kind of underscore that we recognize that this is a learning process, that there's a very high level of need, particularly for the clients being served at this location. Many of the individuals are co-occurring with significant mental health and/or substance use challenges. We also know that there has been a history of public safety challenges, not just at that location, but surrounding the Serios corridor. So clearly there is a lot of need and a lot of progress that has been made to try to address some of those challenges. We're happy to answer any questions about the ongoing work, as well as some of the structural modifications and improvements that we're looking to make as a team, not just related to this project and this site, but really for our homelessness work at large. So I just wanted to underscore that as well.

Thank you so much, Director. Ms. W.

Thank you, Chair Castro. Council, I just wanted to share some really great statistics that we have. We get a lot of data and reporting from Urban Alchemy, and looking at our Quarter 3 reporting, we have some really great statistics to share. We're really grateful to be getting so much data from them, and it's really informative. So they served 179 unique clients from February to April. There were 30 unique clients served for over nine months, over a nine-month period, sorry. So there were 30 unique clients served over a nine-month period. There were 149 clients receiving service connections to service. 93% bed utilization rate with an 85% benchmark, and 13% of the exits were to permanent housing, 17 out of 126. So some really great work being done over there. We're really proud of the data and the information that we're getting from them. We're really proud of some of the things that we've been able to bring to the table with this model, particularly the 24-hour model. It's a really excellent model for service. I think with that, we stand for questions. Thank you, Councilor Faggali.

Thank you, Chair. I'm just a little confused about the scope of this amendment. When does this, did it change the end date of the contract? When is the end date of the contract?

The end date of the contract has not been changed. The contract is amended to add an amount to the contract. So the contract ends very soon.

Okay, because it looks like it says 12 months after signing, which was May 30th. So it...

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, that is a little confusing. It's a 14-month contract.

14 months.

It's, yeah, there is, there's different language in the emergency versus the...

Okay, got it. And it's actually, it's June 17th is the last signature. So...

Councilor Faggali, that is correct. Okay. So it would expire August 17th in theory. 14 months. August.

I believe it expires June 17th.

Okay. So, sorry. Are we asking for $500,000 for two weeks?

We are asking to amend the amount on the contract to make the amount whole. So the total budget of the contract needs an increase of $522,000 to make the entire contract whole before completion.

Okay. And right, what happens if we don't approve this, if we've already spent this money?

That's a great question, Councilor Faggali. Thank you so much. I'm not sure I have a great answer for you.

So, part of what has been challenging with this contract is, as mentioned, this has been an emergency effort, right? So I think current staff are really inheriting some of the agreements and historical information regarding how the contract was set up, where we're trying to head to. And obviously, once the contract ends, we are issuing an RFP for continued service, while also understanding that this model, particularly for the 24/7 shelter, will require more staffing, more wraparound services, with the goal of getting folks onto permanent housing, back on their feet, and in a much more sustainable fashion. So we recognize that there have been some challenges regarding the funding amounts, the contract period. I think, in the intention of the emergency contract, it was really to stabilize services and get a provider in there right away so that we could, at the end of the day, make sure that we had continuity of care for those really at-risk clients being served. The direction that we're headed, and we're happy to speak to kind of the RFP, we're definitely incorporating a lot of the community feedback, a lot of the improvements, and making sure that we have a much more robust and sustainable service model moving forward.

And one last question, what is the plan once this expires in two, like this contract expires, not this amendment, but what happens once that expires?

Thank you, Councilor Faggali. We are currently procuring that contract right now and expect to have it finalized by then.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Councilor Barrett. So, is it essentially that this money has already been spent because we just did not anticipate the high need of the clientele that was living there? So this money had to be spent in services for them because Urban Alchemy or we together just were not anticipating the level of need occurring there at that facility.

Yeah. So what makes this contract a bit unique is that it's really not, in some ways, it's not an isolated contract, right? I mean, we have the contract for Agape for the shelter provision, and then we also have contracts for Love and Oasis. And in actuality, the work on the ground is happening all in one place and often has a lot of overlap, which again, from a service model perspective, is actually ideal because we have then folks that, about 100 clients being served on site, and individuals who may be on the waiting list or may not need a bed, but do want to have some level of case management or support, they're able to walk up to the site, get connected to referrals and supports right away. However, when again, each of these contracts was initially taking place, there were, again, under the pretense of an emergency, urgent framework. So there were conversations that had, with a shift towards making sure that there was a 24/7 operation. So part of it is that we have more robust service provision and staffing for the shelter. However, the other factor in all of this is that we've had some cost savings from the Love program, and at the original Love and Oasis contract, we've had additional cost savings with only standing up one Oasis rather than two. So part of, I guess, the complexity of all of this is there have been operational improvements and more robust staffing in specifically the Agape contract, while there have been changes as well and cost savings from Love and Oasis. So hopefully that answers your question because I know, because there were... Oh, go ahead.

Councilor Barrett, I think just in addition to what Leah shared so well, is that the emergency procurement was for a 16-hour a day contract, and staff, in learning and becoming more involved in the process, found that actually the 24/7, 365 model is best practice and is going to best serve our community. So that is where that big change came in. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Like going in, we only needed to have five staff members for this many hours, realizing later when it was probably full, oh, we might need like eight staff members overnight to be doing these different things at all times. Because I was wondering too, because I know it started off with two Oasis, and there is only one Oasis, and it was like, where's the second site for the Oasis? And so some of that money has also been moved into some of that direct service provision into Agape House. Got it. Okay, makes more sense now. Thanks. Oh, one more thing was, and was there, just for like future planning purposes, when we think that some needs were not being met, is there some key bullet points there of like, moving forward with all these services, like these needs were not being met, so here's what we need to do moving forward to meet those needs appropriately as we're expanding services?

Yes, Chair Castro, Councilor Barrett, yes is the answer. The currently released RFP really has gone a long way in addressing our learnings over the years. So that's reflected in the RFP process and also through the evolution of data and reporting from Urban Alchemy. Is that correct?

Yeah. Thank you, Sandy, or Director Emory. Councilor Barrett, I just wanted to add to those amazing points with, we have actually worked with procurement, the procurement team, to write our own department RFP that I think really helps us get good applicants that meet kind of the more human services need. We've also grown our team and have, as we mentioned at the last Quality of Life meeting, we've hired a full-time data person on our team. So that these are all issues that we're responding to in real time. And then some of the things that we've seen come out throughout the last year with this RFP, we've also incorporated with this contract, we've incorporated into the RFP to try to address.

Awesome. Great. Yeah, because I was wondering, was there some, was there just an awareness as it grew and as, you know, I know they took over that, like we needed to do more about public safety, like in all areas there, like that we were not meeting the needs of like what we would consider high public safety requirements going on there, that we felt like, oh, okay, we need to address this in a more appropriate manner.

Yeah, Chair Castro, Councilor Barrett, yes. The long answer short of it is really the street outreach program and also that shift from 16 to 24-hour care. A lot, if correct me if my data is incorrect because I don't know it like the back of my hand, but a lot of the complaints, neighborhood challenges really do happen during the daytime and had historically happened when guests were removed from the overnight facility. So...

Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's part of why the Oasis in particular is a really great asset for the community. It allows for even residents who aren't staying in the overnight shelter to have a place to go to congregate, to get a hot meal, to get water, to get their needs met, and be resourced.

Okay, that makes sense though. So now there's not necessarily an outpouring more into the neighborhood. It's contained within the Oasis, and they're receiving more of those services there on site.

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you, sir.

Councilor Cassett: Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Okay, I've gone on a little bit of a journey with my understanding, so I want to make sure that I have arrived at the correct place. This $522,000 that we are adding to the Agape House contract, these are not new funds that we're taking from the general fund. These are previously allocated dollars that were already allocated towards Urban Alchemy, but were allocated for the Second Oasis/The Love program. And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure the differences of those programs, but this was already money that we had said, "This is going to Urban Alchemy." We just had a different, yeah, we had a different use already assigned. Am I understanding that correctly?

Chair Castro: Councilor Cassett, this will be paid out of a mix of Department of Workforce Solutions IGA money and local funds.

Councilor Cassett: Okay. But they were funds that we had already planned to put towards this company.

Chair Castro: That is correct.

Councilor Cassett: Okay. Thank you. Good. Just to clarify, the Oasis and the Love contract are the same.

Chair Castro: Oh, great.

Councilor Cassett: Thank you. Now I know. I was like, it's a lot of things happening. The other piece that I want to make sure is included in here. So, we have the 24-hour shelter and the Oasis there, which has been extremely helpful. This also includes the street outreach team along Cerrillos, correct?

Chair Castro: So again, to clarify, Councilor, so the Agape contract is a standalone contract, and then we have a sort of combined separate contract that includes the Love Street Outreach and the Oasis.

Councilor Cassett: Okay. But that street outreach on Cerrillos and that surrounding neighborhood is still intact and occurring. It was just the second Oasis that we were looking at for the downtown area that is now being moved back over to the more, to the Cerrillos Road location.

Chair Castro: Yes, correct, at this moment.

Councilor Cassett: Yep. Okay. All right. I feel better. I had a moment where I was not feeling so great about this. I feel a lot better, and one of the reasons that I feel, this is a lot of money. I mean, and I think that everybody has really come to this conclusion. I know this has been a big part of the conversation. And to be perfectly honest, it takes a lot of money to address homelessness. I mean, this is why we talk about, you know, prevention is where we have to go if we actually want to save money. Once you have somebody on the street, the cost to actually address this is astronomical, which is where we are now.

I will say, as somebody who represents an area that, that, you know, is on the other side of Cerrillos, but who was deeply impacted before Urban Alchemy, I said it before, and as long as it keeps being true, I will, I will continue to look for money for this type of services because of what I have heard from my constituents who are close to the Cerrillos Road corridor. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the improvements that I have heard, both from people reaching out to me to tell me that it has improved, but also by the decrease in calls and complaints that I am getting about this area in regards to this specific issue, has been impressive.

Chief, I don't know if you're still with us. I don't know if you have these numbers, but I know the reduction in calls for service, both directly to the site as well as the surrounding area. I think we do have that in here. And were they, those were year-to-date? Do we have them compared to since, since the year before Urban Alchemy took over to after Urban Alchemy took over? Because we're, we're coming up on a year, or maybe looking at that same amount of time.

Chair Castro: Councilor Cassett, yes, Chief Valdez is not.

Councilor Cassett: Oh, bye, Chief. I will talk to him later about that. So, but you know, I know that the, the initial data was pretty impressive, and that reduction in calls for services. So, this is expensive, and I think that this is a really, again, one of these really important and tough conversations that we have to have. And I frequently say about public health that the best way to make it fail is to underfund it. And we tend to underfund public health. So I feel better that this is already money that had been allocated towards, towards Urban Alchemy services. I know that I have heard just from the perception from, from my constituency around the impact of Urban Alchemy has been noticeable in a positive manner. Driving on Cerrillos Road has been important.

What, what I think we're going to need to look at, that, you know, as we're going through this RFP process, and what I would ask of, of you all is, I, I think having an understanding of what it really does cost to tackle this issue is something that we kind of dance around because it's a scary number. I mean, it's, it's a big number if we're actually going to address this in an effective manner, knowing that that effective manner, FYI, everybody, is going to be imperfect. And so, I know that we'll hear this like, "Oh my gosh, there were drug overdoses." Yeah, we're dealing with a really complicated population. There's going to be violence. There's going to be drug utilization. I mean, we, we are talking about a completely failed system that we are sitting at the bottom of trying to address. This is, this is going to be a hard issue. So, as we move forward with that RFP, I think that that kind of brutal honesty of looking at what this really does look like to address homelessness in a comprehensive manner. What that price tag is as we're looking at other communities that have been successful. And as we talk about this homelessness summit coming up, I think that that's going to be a good number for us to reference because this feels really, this feels kind of, you know, this, these are rough contracts to pass. They're, they're high. There's a lot of money. And there's a lot of things that we'd like to use them for. But this is kind of where we are in a reality with the world. So, thank you for helping me understand where, where this money is coming from. That, that makes me feel better that this is not new money, but rather shifted money. But I, I think that this is going to continue to be this conversation around what the real cost of this is, and right now we are the ones footing the bill because no one else has been able to do it. So thank you.

Chair Castro: Thank you, Councilor. And yes, duly noted that this is a very complicated issue and that we're doing the best we can, but it's going to be very, very expensive. If we had the presentation from Penalo's Place, and we've heard, you know, $17 a day is really good for this type of service. One of the reasons I pulled this item is there's been a lot of discussion about emergency and what emergency means and what an emergency contract is. RFP, did this go out to RFP? Can we just get some clarity a little bit on the process and what the service that Alchemy is providing really is?

Chair Castro: Thank you, Chair Castro. So this contract was procured through an emergency procurement because there, homelessness is an emergency. There was emergency conditions happening at the time of this procurement, and it was an, it was an emergency to get this contract in place. So, and, and what we're looking at is an, is an emergency shelter, right? It's an emergency overnight shelter where people can get access to services, get 24/7 case management services, and be, get access to whatever needs they might need at the time, right? So, one big change that's happened at this shelter is 24-hour operations. People are also being assigned beds. So that means that they're able to stay, stabilize, get access to services, heal, and they're not being left, put back out on the street every single day. So we think that that's a really important addition to the model, and we, we really think that that has increased the quality of services that our unsheltered residents are receiving. I think that my other team members have a few things to add.

Director: Thank you, Chair Castro. Just a little point of clarification because to a reader, I understand the confusion. So we have two emergencies, right? The first is that the original contract that we're discussing today was an emergency procurement. The second definition is that this contract is a contract for emergency shelter. So just a little point of clarification because it does get confusing to a reader of emergency, emergency, emergency, and anytime you read emergency, you're, you take a deep breath. So just a little point of clarification. Thank you, Chair.

Chair Castro: No, of course. And yes, Director.

Director: Yeah, and Chair Castro, I did want to address the other part of your question, which was kind of the more forward-thinking aspect, really looking towards this RFP that will be a much more robust, transparent, and obviously proactive endeavor that the city is taking on and the homelessness team is taking on. So, we're, we're actually quite excited because within that RFP, we've been able to incorporate much more robust and streamlined conditions around data collection, around service provision in general. You know, really making sure that we get very tactical, everything from getting the job descriptions of the staff at the site to making sure that from our perspective, we also have clear and consistent evaluation. A lot of the work, because we have such a close-knit community, a very compassionate community, and really some outstanding service providers, we do on an ongoing basis. So even with the emergency contract, we are dialoguing with Urban Alchemy on a daily and weekly basis. We have weekly reporting metrics already. So very high threshold. But really the work that this team is doing moving forward is how do we formalize that? And some of that is right-sizing our team capacity. So, with the addition of our data manager, but also just making sure that not only for this contract, but for all of the contracts that we take on and for all of the work that we're doing, that there's consistency and that we're adhering to some of the national best practices and making sure that we are sharing that information out to the community and ensuring that at every step of the process, we can be sustainable, fiscally responsible, and making sure that we're driving outcomes, most notably for the clients that we serve.

Chair Castro: Wonderful. Thank you so much for that clarity, Director. And remind me, how many beds are at Alchemy?

Director: Yeah, we have about a hundred beds on any given night.

Chair Castro: So, I've misspoken before and I have said that we don't have emergency shelter in the city of Santa Fe. We have a hundred beds in the emergency shelter in the city of Santa Fe, meaning that we can only house 500 of the potentially over 500 unhoused folks, right? We do not have enough emergency shelter in the city of Santa Fe. Would you agree?

Director: I would absolutely agree. Yeah. And actually, since January, from January to April, we saw about a 15% increase in our by-names list. So that number is rapidly growing. And I think, you know, that, that honestly mirrors a lot of the national and statewide trends that we're seeing as well. But just something to think about, right? We have sort of the current picture and trying to sustain and stabilize our existing homelessness response network, and then there's also the projection and really, you know, again, that future planning and visioning for what we need in the coming months and years. I want to address a little bit of that network discussion, right? Because we are dealing with a location which had had some difficulty, and we have this outreach piece, which is difficult when we don't have other partners, and I don't know if you, we want to address a little bit. I think we're all fully aware that we don't have enough providers in the city of Santa Fe, and we want to attract more.

One thing you said was also really important to me, which was clear descriptions and accountability. It's difficult for us to be able to work with a program that is designed both for re-entry and also for service provision. How are we navigating that?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, one of the assets of specifically Urban Alche's model is that they are able to hire local staff and local folks to take these living wage positions and hopefully from there really move up the pipeline and create some of that workforce capacity for the homelessness response network that we're trying to really build out. That being said, there isn't one right or wrong way or model. Some of the best practices that we see in terms of making sure that we are, again, really at the end of the day, driving results and outcomes for the clients that we serve is having a multimodal model. So, having strong outreach providers, strong shelter providers, permanent supportive housing, having those planning efforts so that we're coordinating as a city and as a region. So again, there isn't necessarily a right or wrong way. I think there's just different strengths that different organizations bring into the fold. But we do know that there is a tremendous amount of need not only for, again, the clients and the growing demands around homelessness, but for the staff capacity and the organizational support to make sure that these nonprofits and these providers that we want to build deep collaboration and partnership with, that their model and that their work is also sustainable.

Thank you so much. And so I would request, I know that we're in the process of looking at other contracts in the future, that maybe if they are work programs, that we also look at some of the metrics around how those folks are being integrated into other programs in the city and becoming providers long term. Councilor Barrett, go right ahead. Just one more thing, and I know you were just touching on this point, but moving forward, our overall having a more robust plan for long-term what it's going to look like in Santa Fe, right? And I know you guys are already working on these things, but all of us working together on our end with the community providers, with you guys, this long, whatever we want to call it, a five-year or ten-year down the road, knowing that this is an increasing issue, we have more and more folks out on the street every year, right? Just coming together for a long-term plan of we need this many shelter beds, right? We need 600, 700 in the next, maybe, three years. And I know Lifelink also, we have all these awesome community partners that also do outreach and case management and doing all the things. How many faith-based organizations do we need to work with? We were last night attending, or maybe, yeah, that was last night. I'm like, "Huh, what day is it? Where am I?" No, about the parking lots, right? The safe for folks who live in their car, the safe parking lot idea, right? We have to be doing all the things like you were just saying, Leah, it's not just one thing. We have to be working with all these agencies, right, to come up with this robust plan. So, I look forward to working on a robust plan for our unhoused residents, and working with all our community members. I know we have that's on June 29th, right? And then on our end on the DIS, what we can do. But again, thank you for all you do. This is thankless work. People do not get paid enough to do these jobs, and it's very stressful. So, just thank you for all that you guys are doing, and I know we'll come up with a great plan.

Do you have a motion, Councilor?

Do I have a motion? Move to approve.

Second. All in favor?

I have, oh, we have to do a roll call. Yeah, because it's an action item. I'm so sorry. Thank you, Council.

Yes.

Councilor Barrett.

Yes.

Councilor Castro Cassette.

Yes.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you so much. We appreciate you. The next order of business, I believe, is matters from staff. So, I will go down the row. Director Nelson, would you like to start? Oh, Councilor. Okay.

I'm all warmed up. Thank you.

Director Emory, thank you. Thank you. Quite a few things coming from Community Services this meeting. First and foremost, the top pool at Bicentennial Pool, the boiler has been repaired. It is currently coming up to temp, so we will get information out to the public on when it's actually open, but we don't want any little toes to freeze. But with that repair, we also have ordered additional parts for that particular boiler. So we have, should something happen with that particular boiler again, we have backup parts, everything we need to ensure that that doesn't go down for, doesn't go offline for a long time. A few other things from recreation. The GLEC, the Genoveva Chavez Community Center, just completed a stucco project. It was long deferred maintenance. It looks beautiful over there. We've also done some restriping in the parking lot. Please don't park on the curbs. One moment for that. Please don't park on the curbs. Yes. So, it's looking great over there, but what's really exciting is that in the back of the Genoveva Chavez Community Center, there's a free mural space. It is a, yeah, it is a graffiti mural space, and that will be open up to the public soon in the next couple of weeks. We ask that you stay within the designated spaces. It's not the entire back of the building, but please head over there. I know most of the community spends many days a week over there. Finally, or moving on, we have our, we, the city funded a series of domestic violence and intimate partner violence trainings through the last six months. We are coming up on our last three dates, June 9th, June 11th, and June 12th. There are two sessions each on June 11th and June 12th. Council will get that in their Friday report, but they are free and open to the community. They've been very well attended by community members, providers, counselors, policymakers. I'm super, super proud of this work and very grateful to our provider for doing this. If the public has questions, dspecialistnexicogmail.com is how you can get in touch with the provider who is doing those trainings. So, super proud of those. As we spoke about very briefly, the Mayor's Homelessness Summit is happening June 29th. There will be two sessions on that day. Unfortunately, the evening session conflicts with the Los Lobos concert, so we're hoping that we still get strong attendance. But the day session is geared primarily towards service providers, so we can look at the continuum of care that is currently being provided in the community and really addressing capacity. And that evening session is for our community members to come in and share their thoughts, their ideas, their feelings, and really have it be a forum. So, more information is coming on that, but I want to just continue to plug, plug that the homelessness team and Youth and Family Services has been working really hard and convening stakeholders from across the continuum of providers. So, we expect that to be really, really lovely. June 25th, we have Seniors Prom. I'm not going to stop plugging that because I'm dusting off a dress. Formal wear is encouraged. It's at the Eagles Club on Early Street from 1 to 4. That's my list. I feel like I missed something, but that was quite a lot. Thank you guys.

Thank you so much, Director Nelson.

Good evening, Councilors. I've got a list, too. It's a busy, oh. Oh, I'm going to turn it back.

Sorry. I'm going to say Nelson because I always say it wrong. Director Nelson.

Sorry. Just, just one last piece. The Children and Youth Commission's RFP response, oh my gosh, it is 7 o'clock. The evaluation committee report will be released very soon. It will answer some of the questions that were brought up here tonight. And as Council knows, and community probably doesn't know quite as well, our RFP processes are sealed. Unfortunately, we cannot talk about them until the RFP process has been completely completed, at which time we do release an evaluation committee report, and that will be available as soon as it is done. Staff is working around the clock on this particular RFP. It was very, very competitive.

Thank you so much, Director.

All right, I have some funding opportunities to mention as well. And one of the biggest news items that's coming out of the Office of Economic Development, I want to make sure that you and your constituents are aware of, is our SPUR Grant, and that launched Monday. And this is a small business grant that's available for our community Santa Fe-based businesses. We are looking for projects that are very catalytic, that are going to create economic return, creating jobs, utilizing storefronts that are vacant currently, areas that are underinvested, business owners that are in marginalized populations. We really want this money to be impactful, and the application is open for 30 days. So that's why we could really use the help, everyone in the audience and in your communities, to please spread the word. We do have a webinar on Monday that will be in Spanish and English, and the comms team has printed, I think, 300 flyers. We've got information on social, so near and far, because inevitably we will hear the story that a business doesn't hear about it or they weren't aware of it. So could really use your help. Also mentioning that SAFE is our business security grant, and that is still live and active. As an update, we've spent about 35% of that funding, and this is a rolling application. And Kristen was just left from the CSD team, but has been a pleasure to work with Sandy's team at with Kristen on that. And please encourage folks to apply. I want to really hone in on the fact that the grant is available for dealing with crime that has already happened in the past, but also preventative and proactive. And we continue to get questions about it. Can you use it for proactive and new projects? And I'm confirming, yes, indeed it can be. And both of those grants, the applications and all information, is available in English and Spanish. And I do want to note the Mayor's Town Hall on the 9th, focused on Southside activity. Really excited to be there. We have, we have been invited to give updates on economic development, so we're really excited to share a lot of the activity taking place there. One being a hire that was made for our Southside Business Development Coordinator. Could not be more thrilled. That person will start mid-ish, late June, and not on board yet for this town hall, but really excited to welcome her to the team, fully bilingual, and they will be located in the Santa Fe Business Incubator space. And the final things that I'll use to wrap up are, it is a really busy time, so this list could be a lot longer. Councilor Cassid knows this from our EDAC meeting earlier. I'll try to keep the events short, but the key ones that I'd like to make sure that you're aware of, we are a small sponsor of the Santa Fe Magazine Festival. We're really excited to see a lot of locals being featured in a variety of different topics at St. John's. And so that's happening next week. I know many city staff are participating in that. We're really eager to see this, this partnership with many different organizations.

The other one I want to mention is the Social Venture Network Conference is coming to Santa Fe, and that's also next week. It is the 17th through the 19th, so it's actually a little bit further, but I want that to be on your radar. This is actually a really good opportunity for Santa Fe, bringing entrepreneurs, investments, investors that are interested in socially aligned businesses. The Rain Catcher that was just here presenting a perfect example of a sustainable-focused business, and this is really where that world converges, and Santa Fe is really excited. We're really excited to be a part of that. In fact, they had a meetup this evening.

Happy Pride as well. We're excited to highlight some of our Pride-aligned businesses this week, this month, as well as Juneteenth and our Black Business Alliance. The last thing I'll mention is the Current New Media Festival is also happening June 17th. I am completely cutting my big long list, but I think that gives you the highlights and the most relevant information for you all. Please help spread the word on those two grants.

Yes, and thank you, Director. If anyone wants to and has not yet signed up for the Economic Development newsletter, all that goes out in the newsletter. We have several throughout the city, so please sign up. Marcela, do you have anything for us today? I'm going to go ahead. Matters from me. I will be very brief. If you are still a little... Oh, I skipped everyone. My goodness. Councilor Cass has nothing. Councilor Fogali, Councilor Barrett.

Yeah, so we're going to have a coffee with District 2 councilors. Come on out, everybody. We have a latte with us on June 12th at 10:00 a.m. at Iconic Lena in District 2. Also, there's the World Cup watch, right? You guys are also a sponsor of that economic development. Is that June 13th?

12th.

12th. Just kidding. I want to say the wrong date. Also, council would be amazing.

Plug that. Yes, June 12th, Friday evening next week at the Railyard Plaza, not the Railyard Park, there will be a viewing party for the first US game of the World Cup. The first actual game is before that, but it will be very fun. Also, this Saturday there's a bike to baseball. All my events are about sports. All my announcements are about sports. So, this Saturday the 6th, 5:30 p.m., Railyard Water Tower, we will bike to Fort Marcy Park to watch the Fuego. We are open to all unless you are very scared of being on the road, but it will be very chill. It's about a mile and a half.

Go ahead, Councilor. Sorry. Can I just give a shout-out to the city summer program, which my daughter is lucky enough to participate in, and she's already having a grand old time? I would love, I know I think Councilor Casset has mentioned this before too, to be able to expand that program. I know it fills up in like a hot minute because it's so amazing, and everybody wants to be part of it and sign their kid up for it. So maybe we can talk about that down the line, expanding that. But just a shout-out to Melissa Butos and Director Emory and everybody and all the staff members who are making it an awesome experience for the kids. So yay. Wonderful.

Okay. Now, I will just very quickly say that if anyone has questions or more concerns about the Henry Lynch roundabout, we are going to have a county-hosted discussion at the Nancy Roy Ball Center Monday the 8th at 4:00 p.m. We will have city staff and county electeds there to listen. There are still a few questions, so please, Monday the 8th, 4:00 p.m. at the Nancy Royal Center. And with that, we are adjourned.