Quality of Life Committee
Wed, Sep 23, 2026 · Quality of Life Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/996-quality-of-life-sep-23-2026

== Executive Summary ==
The Quality of Life Committee met on 09/23/2026, covering a range of topics from library services to community safety and administrative procedures. The Santa Fe Public Library Director presented an update highlighting significant program growth, increased accessibility, and future initiatives including renovations and expanded Sunday hours. This led to a discussion about the broader need for free Wi-Fi across the city.

A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to discussions around a resolution affirming the city's commitment to immigrant communities and addressing misinformation, particularly concerning the Santa Fe Police Department's interaction with immigration authorities. Councilors expressed concerns about the spread of false information and the need for clear communication from the city. Another resolution to amend the Immigration Committee's rules and procedures was also discussed, focusing on the role of a City Councilor as a liaison. Due to ongoing discussions and potential amendments, the committee voted to hold the resolution on bias-free policing until its next meeting on 10/07/2026.

Departmental updates included progress on cost recovery for city services, planning and development initiatives, and community services updates such as the successful handling of a bed bug infestation at Agape House and efforts to repair the GCCC Natatorium. The committee ultimately voted to postpone the remaining agenda items to the 10/07/2026 meeting.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda unanimously.
- Approved the consent agenda (as amended) unanimously, after items F and G were pulled.
- Voted to hold the resolution regarding bias-free policing and standards until the 10/07/2026 Quality of Life Committee meeting to allow for further discussion and amendment consideration.
- Voted to postpone the current agenda to the 10/07/2026 meeting.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed unanimously (Councilors Fagali, Barrett, Cassutt, and Madam Chair voted yes).
- Motion to approve the consent agenda (as amended) — Passed unanimously (Councilors Fagali, Barrett, Cassutt, and Madam Chair voted yes).
- Motion to hold the resolution regarding bias-free policing and standards until the 10/07/2026 Quality of Life Committee meeting — Passed unanimously (Councilor Faulkner: Yes, Councilor Barrett: Yes, Councilor Chavez: Yes, Councilor Cassutt: Yes, Madam Chair: Yes).
- Motion to postpone the current agenda to the 10/07/2026 meeting — Passed.

== Public Comment ==
One public commenter, Mr. Fox, spoke about recent hearings in Canada regarding vaccine injuries, mentioning US Senator Ron Johnson's testimony and advocating for international legal action against pharmaceutical companies. Councilors also referenced community concerns and social media posts as drivers for discussions on misinformation.

== Topics ==
- Library Services & Programs
- GCCC Pool Closure
- Land Use & Development
- Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)
- Fogelson Library Renovation
- Southside Library Sunday Hours
- Department Cost Recovery
- Agape House Bed Bugs
- Immigration Committee Support
- Senior Services & Events

== Full Transcript ==
Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, we are live. Wonderful. Thank you so very much. And so we do have a quorum with one councilor online. So at 5:00 PM on the dot, I'm going to call to order the Quality of Life Committee. If I could get a roll call, please. Councilor Magali? Here. Councilor Cassutt? Here. Madam Chair? You have a quorum. Wonderful. Thank you so much. So if we've had a chance to look at the agenda, I would entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Wonderful. In just a couple seconds, we can add Councilor Barrett to that roll call. Oh, and I'm noticing we have new window coverings. How beautiful. All right. Councilor Barrett, we are about to take a vote on approving the agenda. I don't know if you had any changes, but we did have a motion to approve on the floor. So, Marcella, could we please get a roll call? Councilor Fagali? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Madam Chair? Yes. Motion passes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And with that, we are going to move on to presentations. Very excited. We do have Margaret M. Neill, who is the Director of the Library, to give us an update. Thank you so much. Madam Chair, we need to do consent agenda. Oh, I apologize. You're right. Thank you, Councilor Cassutt. I was too excited for these presentations. We do have two items pulled off the consent agenda as far as I know. Anything else, Marcella? Nothing else. So those are items F and G. Is that correct? F and G. Yes. Pulled by myself. I would entertain a motion. Move to approve as amended. Second. If we could get a roll call, please. Councilor Fagali? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Madam Chair? Yes. Motion passes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And with that, Margaret. Well, I can always wing it. And we're just going to know that Councilor Chavez is here as well. Yeah. That's it. It's because it's me. Perfect. Margaret M. Neill, Library Division Director for the record. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to thank you for having me here to provide some information on the Santa Fe Public Library. I wanted to start with our website. So, we just redid it earlier this year, and it is now fully ADA compliant, with upcoming changes that will impact local and state government websites in 2027. But more importantly, it is the first stop for people looking for information on the library, including events calendar, digital collections, curated book lists, and library news. And the address is SantaFeLibrary.org. It has a fun slider. And if you want to find the events calendar, you click on the events tab, and then it will take you to our calendar. Next slide. There might be a lag. Well, I can tell you about the events calendar. The events calendar can be filtered by age, program type, branch location, date, and more. It's a great way to see what's going on in your neighborhood library, and we plan several months in advance. So you can see what's coming up and register for programs in the future. And when you click on the event name, it will give you all the information on the program, who's hosting it, the age range, if you need to register. It is a great way to just keep up with everything that we're doing because we have a lot of programs. I tried to print out one, and it was like 40 pages. So never mind. Okay. I've got my little slide notes, but, oh, yeah. So it does look great. So, I just want to encourage people to check out our events calendar to see what's going on and register for events. Okay. And then another thing that I wanted to give some information on is an upcoming community program at Lafarge. Beginning, I think it was last week, but until October 6, the library will be accepting donations at Lafarge of clean, gently used children's ages 0 to 12 approximately costumes. And then on October 6, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, families can browse the available costumes and find something fun for everybody. You don't have to donate a costume to get a costume, and it is open to all children in the community. This is a great example, by the way, of library staff seeing a need in the community and then coming up with a creative way to meet that need. Last year's costume swap had around 250 donated costumes, and 181 kids and their families found costumes for Halloween. We're very proud of that. Again, that was my amazing staff. So, I will narrate this for you. The slide provides a high-level overview of some key metrics from fiscal 2026, which is 07/01/2025 to 06/30/2026. So in that time period, we checked out 754,992 physical and digital items. We answered 29,026 reference questions. We had 1,470 programs attended by 32,678 people, 3,042 public study and meeting room reservations, public computer session. Oh, 78,061 public computer sessions, and 1,476,370 public Wi-Fi sessions. We really like the Wi-Fi. If you go to Maine at any time, you will see people in the mezzanine working, and it's okay. Okay. In community services, we always, and I just want to give a shout-out to the Palace of the Governors photo archives who allowed us to use some of these photos. This is, of course, the iconic entrance that was painted by Olive Rush. It was a WPA project in 1932, and you can still see it today if you look across the street. So to give kind of some more breakdown of some of these numbers, the physical circulation, which is books, media, such as DVDs, music CDs, and audiobooks, which are making a comeback, interestingly, was 489,614 items. Digital materials, which is ebooks, e-audiobooks, digital magazines, streaming movies, streaming music, and e-audio, or I said e-audiobooks. That was 265,378 items that were streamed or downloaded by our patrons. When we talk about what reference questions are, it can run from everything from who had the first bathtub in the White House to where can I find this book? I read it once. It's blue. And we can answer those questions. It's actually kind of a fun skill to have. As for our meeting and study rooms, these numbers are just for reservations made by outside organizations. This is not including library programs. So as you can see, our meeting room and study spaces are very busy all the time. And I know that it's something that the community has asked for more of, more space, more places. And the last two are the number of sessions that people logged into our public computers. That's 78,000 and change, and number of people who logged into the city, into our Wi-Fi across all three branches. And because the Wi-Fi is, we never reduced it after COVID. People can log in from, like, the parking lot when we're not open, so we end up getting a lot of, that's why it's over a million. And that brings me to another area that I want to talk a little bit about, which is programs. Often when the community talks about the library, they will be bringing up the quality and variety of programs that we offer. And as I mentioned with the Halloween costume swap, library staff are constantly thinking of new and interesting programs, and we also accept program proposals from the public, which is a great way to catch things we might have missed. This slide is children's and teen programs over time. So I started in 2018 all the way to 2026. And as you can see, I mean, obviously, you see the COVID drop, but we had 443 programs in 2018 for children. And then this year, in 2026, we had 877. And we went from about 11,000 people who showed up for programs to 17,354, and that is across multiple age groups. This is not just children's and teens. We also are working with tweens, which is that sort of little awkward age between, not that they're awkward, but that age between 10 to 12 where they're not quite kids anymore, but they're not quite teens. So we have been working on, obviously, you can see we've been working on what we offer. We've added programs like Pajama Storytime, which is every Thursday night at Southside. We had a very, very cool kid wrote a program proposal for a tween book club, and it was so well written that we were so impressed that we said, absolutely. Let's do this. And it is a club where the kids swap books. They talk about things that they're reading. They read together. They call, they call themselves the Book Bandits, and they meet at Maine once a month, and it is very cute. And we give them snacks, so they're very happy about that. So we've also added ASL story times, sensory-friendly story times, and after-school drop-in programs on early release days. For teens, we have teen lounges at Southside and Lafarge, creative writing, chess, author talks. We're always working on more. We're going to continue to try and grow teen and tween programs because that's often the age group where we kind of lose the kids, and we want them to keep coming back all ages. Now this is adult and general interest programs. So, general interest is anything that could be teen, adult, multigenerational. The number of adult and general interest programs held in the library in fiscal 2019 was 67. Obviously, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the library pivoted to doing more programs online, which, and because we weren't doing direct public service, we were able to pivot and have a lot of programs online. And, when we reopened after the pandemic closures ended, people still really wanted more of these programs. So we met that demand. So the number of programs grew by 785%. Attendance peaked in 2024 due to the Big Read, but it's remained fairly steady since then with a few drops as we tweak programs and things happen. Some of our fun program highlights are things like Stumbling Through Shakespeare at Lafarge where 25 people are currently reading Richard III. Senior Theater at Southside is a program that invites seniors to participate in community theater and improv as a way to stay active and be in community. At Maine, we have adult gentle yoga on Fridays. It's extremely popular. And I can't talk about programs without bringing up two of our very popular presenters, Anna Pacheco in her historic history presentations and Daryl Lorenzo Wellington who does amazing poetry and creative writing as well as programs. And we also have other programs for creative writing, philosophy, crafts, multiple book clubs, and we host artists in our gallery spaces and partner with other city departments for programs and resources, like economic development, where we have the book, the Business Bookie Boroughs. Now what's next? Obviously, Fogelson's on everybody's mind, including mine. Phase one of the project with this, and I had Cal go over this to make sure I had everything correct. Phase one of the project with the design-build team is going to be led by James Corp with architects from Autotroph and Ricard Kennedy. And MRA has designated $2,500,000 to assist with renovations that will bring the facility up to current fire code, ADA, and IBC standards. Our kickoff meeting just for the internal stakeholders is on Friday, so we're pretty excited about that. But it's not the only thing that's coming. As part of our commitment to meeting the needs of our community, we will be, and with the support of Council and the city, we will be opening Southside on Sundays, beginning in January 2027. We are also updating all of our public computers, growing the collection to include more Spanish language materials for all ages, adding more accessibility options to programs and services. We've already added Spanish language translation and ASL, and we're open to doing more. And we're doing more outreach in our community with our partners to bring library resources to underserved communities in Santa Fe. A good example of that is our children's, one of our children's program people does story time at, I think Many Mothers.

And we've done story time in the past at laundromats and at various places where the community is because we want to meet them where they are. So we are going to continue to do this so that we can meet the needs of our community because there are a lot of needs, and we're very excited about the potential of Fogelson. And that is the end of my presentation. I happily stand for questions. Thank you so much, Director. We appreciate you. Any questions from the committee? Councilor Chavez. I just want to say, go libraries. The fact that you guys have such a, just to think in a municipality, right? Where is a huge source of positivity and support for your community to be able to see our libraries is amazing and makes, I think, Santa Fe stand out. So I think just kudos to you all for making a library so much more than what someone pictures it to be, but truly just a resource in so many ways to so many individuals, literally of all ages. Now you don't have to, you have Spanish resources, so accessibility is becoming less of an issue. You are just taking down those barriers over and over again to make those hubs truly community spaces. So I just think you deserve a lot of credit for the work you guys do with libraries. You all deserve a lot of credit, so thank you. Staff is amazing, and they do so much. Couldn't do it without them. I would cry if I tried to do all of that. Thank you so much. Councilor Figalli? I just want to say those numbers are amazing. You don't need to say anything, but, I mean, the fact that there's 750,000 physical and digital items checked out in a city our size, and yeah. It's the number of programming and the number of people served is, it's great. And you're not even open on Sundays right now. So, just get better. Yes. Thank you again so much, Director, for all the hard work and listening to all the need for those third spaces and really paying attention to community on programming. Clearly, we're doing something right with our numbers. One thing it does tell me is the need for free Wi-Fi potentially around the city. So maybe in some other public spaces, I'm looking at our Quality of Life Directors. What can we do to potentially provide this service? So thank you so much, and I'm hoping that we will see you again soon. Wonderful. Next on our agenda, I believe, is public comment. Is there anyone in the room or online that would like to speak to the Quality of Life Committee? It doesn't seem like anyone is coming up to the podium to speak, so I will tentatively move on to action items of the consent agenda. Yeah. Right now. Sorry. At committees, we don't have a set time. I apologize. And if we could get two minutes up on the clock, please, Michael. I hope you start the final. And, unfortunately, Mr. Fox, thank you so much for your comments. We can't ask questions at public comment, but we can definitely discuss with you offline. Oh, this is better. Oh, man. So the main news has actually been the last few days in Canada. They've been a conservative member of Parliament has been conducting, I sent you all emails about this, the conservative member of the House of Commons. Prime Minister comes from the House of Commons. Senate is largely appointed, and then they're reelected. But they've had hearings for vaccine injuries. They went on and on and on for four days. Nothing unprecedented happened. They invited the chairman of the Senate US Senate Investigations Committee, Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, to come up and testify. They lend his insights, and his name is. And he did a terrific job, and all this online and YouTube. And so I'm thinking upon myself, how much time do I have? One minute. Okay. I've been communicating with Senator Gagne, G-A-G-N-E. She is the Speaker of the Senate. And I said, look. You must assemble this body of evidence. Why are you just going to, why would you just rob it right there? Why would you get the Justice Minister, Governor General, Senator Jonathan, maybe Mommy Kennedy and Ron Rand Paul and whichever members of Parliament want to go over to The Hague and have joint conversations on the International Court of Justice, West Nation's Mission, and then the International Criminal Court where many of these pharmaceutical genocidal, and I've been talking in this forum for about five years. They are invited by, and people forget about it. You won't read about it in New Mexican. You can't read it. You can't find it. It's, it's pretty well. I'm, I'm, I'm promised it widely, and I'm not, thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mr. Funk. Anyone else in chambers? All right. I apologize. So now we are going to move on to our action items. I think we have two pulled off consent unless there's more, Marcella. Two items, Item F and Item G. Would you like for me to read those? Please. We would need to read them into the. Item F, consideration of Resolution Number 2026 to be decided. A resolution affirming the City of Santa Fe's commitment to pass resolution supporting immigrant communities in Santa Fe and recognizing City's Police and Fire Department's roles, encouraging all residents regardless of immigration status to rely on law enforcement and emergency services, encouraging all community members and community leaders to fact-check public safety information. Is there any discussion on this item? We do have Chief Ouderkirk, I believe, online for this. I had pulled this because I am working on an amendment, but that amendment is not quite ready. So if anybody has any comments, feel free. Councilor Chavez. One moment. Chief is not online. Okay. I just have comments. I will say, I think it's unfortunate that it's needed, that we're needing to be reminded about as leaders of a community to not make statements that are false or put people in danger, but it's necessary. But, you know, I wanted to take time. There's been a lot of things that I think have surfaced publicly about statements that were being made. I'm learning about more statements, and it's very upsetting that we can make false claims given the audience that we have. We have a huge net of individuals that look up to us, and to push out false information that puts them in danger, but also puts in danger the people that we should advocate for as city officials, which is our city staff, is amazing to me. The fact that we have individuals that risk their lives to serve our city, and we are using our platform to knock them down, is actually quite disgusting to me. It's a huge concern I have, and I'm, I'm going to be looking into how to address it because I don't know if this will be enough. But I, I think that, like I said, it's unfortunate that this is necessary for us to correctly and accurately use our platforms to serve the community. We have to have something in place to remind us to fact-check our information and not cause false hysteria amongst our community, but it's necessary. And I, I find it unfortunate that we have to be in this place. Thank you. Anyone else? Councilor Figueroa. I, I also have a couple issues with this amendment or with this resolution. I find it strange that we would encourage residents to rely on law enforcement emergency services. I, I think they exist. I have faith in them. I don't feel like it is necessarily my place to tell other people who to trust. I certainly don't want to spread false information, and I, I think that our agencies, I, I think the policies that we have in place and that we set forward again in this resolution are great, but I personally find it a little odd that we would be encouraging residents to rely on law enforcement and emergency services. I, I, I think they should probably trust their own judgment on that, but that, that is something I am considering putting a resolution or amendment in for. Councilor Barrett? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I fully understand where it's coming forward from, also. I mean, I know there's, there was a lot of back and forth when we had this ICE activity in our community. And I understand that tensions were running high, and there was information coming from all different places. Again, I can't speak for others either. I feel like everybody has their own identity and has to make their own judgment on these types of things. I mean, I would call police. I mean, I think everybody calls fire and emergency services. I mean, I would feel comfortable calling police too, but I feel like I can never tell anybody else what to do with this, especially because I have a white woman's perspective in America. I would never dare to tell a person of color what to say or do in these situations. I would let them use their best judgment. And I know a lot of people, like the history. If we want to take a deep dive on the history of criminal justice in America, I mean, I think if anybody has ever seen that movie, The Thirteenth, or is it called Thirteenth by, yep. Thirteenth? Fourteenth? Thirteenth. Ava, Dave, Renee. Like, I, I could never, you know, a lot of people of color have had negative experiences in America, you know, in the criminal justice system and, you know, just the amount of books I've read as a social worker, like, you know, Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kennedy. Like, there's everybody has their own personal experience with criminal justice in America. I mean, I can't. I'm not talking about Santa Fe either. I'm talking about your experience in America. So, you know, a lot of folks have had negative interactions, so I feel like I could never speak for another person, especially a person of color with the criminal justice system. I mean, I think in Santa Fe, we're doing a great job with this. I'm just thinking of people's experiences in this country. So that's my own personal opinion. Thanks. Thank you. Councilor Cassutt. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, and thank you all. And, and, I do think that, that what I really take from this, and maybe the language does need to be adjusted, is no. Of course, we can't tell individuals what to do. And, you know, and, and that, that is their own judgment call. What I do really take from this is a conversation about the values and the policies that have been put into place with our police department. And, and I think I was the only one sitting in this room here that was around in 2020 when, you know, there was a really large defund the police movement. And it was an opportunity, and, and I apologize because it was six and a half years ago, to really take a look at what those recommendations were. Because the defund the police movement was not very aptly named. It really should have been, how do we adjust social justice? But I guess that doesn't have as much of a ring. But it talked about, you know, the various policies that were recommended. And when we took a look at the City of Santa Fe, we already met the vast majority of them. And I think that we very quickly were able to put those no-knock warrants, banning no-knock warrants, and we put that in place. And I think that we hit every single recommendation that had already come out through, through this movement, which is really important to talk about. There's always going to be room for improvement in all of our city services. That's what I'm looking for. But I, I, I do want to recognize the amount of work that has gone into how our emergency management departments, fire, police, and, and EMS, actually, in terms of making sure that, that it, they do reflect the values that are held by the vast majority of Santa Feans. And so what I really take from this resolution is, is that conversation about, as Councilor Chavez mentioned, we do have very large platforms, and that does come with a lot of responsibility.

And I would say this is something that has come up around law enforcement. I've seen it multiple times on a variety of different things where people are saying things to get political gain, or they are providing information on Facebook that is without context and creates this whole concern from the public about something that's not actually happening. And it's unfortunate because what we've seen is individuals who take their time and their energy to come down to City Hall, which is wonderful, but it's time out of their day. We know that's not an easy thing for them to do, to discuss something that's not even occurring because somebody with a very large platform misspoke. And I think it is something we really need to be very cautious about.

So I know it's hard because when people ask us questions or they want information or there's things popping around on Facebook for us to feel a responsibility to speak very quickly about things. What I do think is, and this is just my own personal way of doing things, is I always have that moment of, "Let me find that out for you," and being okay with not knowing, which I know can be really hard because you get that piece. So I understand if maybe there's some maneuvering with the language that individuals want to do. What I really take from this is two things. One, we are reaffirming our past resolutions when it comes to our stance on individuals who are in our community, who maybe were not born here, our residents, our immigrants, and what Santa Fe believes and what we do protect. But then also making sure that we are in a time where there is a lot of fear. There is, and that fear is very justified. And so how we are extremely careful with what we are presenting to the public to make sure that it is accurate and to make sure that it allows them to put their energy where it needs to go and understand, if this is somebody you want to reach out to, here are our policies and here are our values that are reflected. So if you are in a situation, this is something that you can take advantage of as a resident of Santa Fe, and that this governing body, we want to make sure that everybody is protected, regardless of immigration status. And that is the values that we uphold in this community, and we want to make sure that that is very clear. So I understand people want to make changes, but that is what I feel is really for me is the heart of this that I am really in support of why I signed on to this because I do think that both those pieces are crucial to make sure that we're clear about. So thank you.

Councilor Chavez. Yeah. I agree with Councilor Castro. I think what drew me into this was the fact-checking. And it's interesting because since I've been a City Councilor, I've found it fascinating, with a lack of acknowledgment of what our words can do in causing chaos in our community. And the fact that people want to hold that responsibility of putting people in danger by jumping to conclusions and sharing false information is shocking to me, because that's what it does. When you're causing false hysteria, when you're causing chaos and there's no ground or no truth, truly, you're putting a massive amount of people in danger. And that is why I find this very important. I think it's so crucial that we're all reminded that we need to fact-check. We need to realize our influence. We need to realize our platform, and we need to realize that what we say aren't just words, but they actually cause harm when they're not thought through. And so that is why I jumped onto the resolution, and support it, along with what Councilor Cassutt said. But I think that's just huge, and it's something that really has to change because it's existed, unfortunately, on this governing body too often. People making false statements that really does a disservice to our community, and that's not what we're here to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. I do have some brief comments. Sorry. I'm sending some language to folks real quick so they can review. Agreed. And it's interesting, Councilor Castro, that you bring up other sort of situations. This, in particular, is around immigration and law enforcement, but I can think of a situation in particular around the youth detention facility where folks gave false information and got hundreds of people in this room thinking that we were going to open a service location for unhoused residents at that facility, which is owned by the county, not owned by the city. And so I find it really interesting at that time. We didn't feel the need to pass a resolution. We individually spoke to our constituents. We made sure people had the right information. Similarly, there was a lot of confusion around the land use case, around the hotel, and we had to individually speak to our constituents about the things that they didn't understand. And so I agree. I don't feel that this is necessary. And, actually, I feel that this is in particular a front to community members because it's asking for folks to get information that they don't have access to. Sorry. I was eating my pastelito. I have a little bit of so I want to sort of address some of the issues that I've been getting as recently as this weekend, around Santa Fe Police Department working with ICE directly. Whether or not it's true, there was a viral post on Facebook this weekend about Santa Fe Police Department potentially being in a space with ICE agents. We didn't give a statement. We didn't give any correct information about what was happening, but there was thousands of likes on this post. There has been questions about if PD was staging. ICE was allowing PD to stage on their property. We haven't gotten we got answers potentially from some folks, but there was also never a communication to the general public. I've been getting requests, and, actually, there were some recommendations on Monday from the Immigration Committee around communication with PD around the U visas because they don't feel that they have enough information from the department because they don't really know who to go to other than the Mayor or City Manager. Or, in this case, Ben Valdez, our Interim Chief, who has not really been able to get them the information they need similar to the situation where I asked for some information that we were not able to get. So they have asked for clarity on any communication from our Police Department to ICE directly to go to the Immigration Committee. We have not done anything on these recommendations, which is one of the reasons that I'm requesting a councilor on this committee. Because these are publicly announced in their minutes complaints about things that are happening that they're getting no resolution to. And I can specifically speak to the false information that was given at given at governing body about a personal friend of mine choosing to self-deport, which is not a thing when you are attacked by federal agents and surrounded and you never get to see part of your family again, that is not voluntary in any way. So, yes, there's a lot of false information going around in the community, and a lot of people need to be held accountable. But one thing that does need to happen is that Santa Fe Police Department can actively, and we are asking for that in some of these resolutions, communicate with this community through the Immigration Committee, have an official liaison that is able to communicate with these folks. And so you're right. All of us have a platform, and we need to think about it not only with the immigrant community, but with folks who are looking for housing, for folks who are at risk, for folks who are holding signs and medians. We are representative of everyone in this community whether they vote for us or not. And with that, I, in this form, cannot support this resolution, but am working on an amendment and I want to actively talk about the things that this could do. So this is really aspirational and wonderful, but it's lacking a little bit of direct action. And so things that not only the immigrant community, although it was part of this group that was talking about law enforcement and how we could better serve our community, we all read that report in 2023. They're asking for an independent civilian oversight committee that is not law enforcement that can interact with folks. They're asking for us to identify policies that can decrease the number of folks that are left in parking lots like what happened at La Familia. Right? I'm not saying it has to be PD. Fire is part of this too. ARU could be the first folks that are in that space when folks are removed from our community. Remember that all of those were unlawful arrests, by the way. I think we knew of one of those 15 people that there was a warrant for. And so there were civil rights that were being violated there. There were laws that were being broken. And I understand that we have fear of potentially having lawsuits and potentially having people, from what I read, arrested, though I don't think that any law enforcement officer has ever been arrested by ICE that I know of. But we do know that civilians are being killed in situations where they do not have the right training or equipment to be dealing with these officers. So with that, I will I see Councilor Chavez has some comments. I will say that police and the city have actively been working with the Immigration Committee. I've sat in multiple meetings that have been pretty recent. So nothing's been done yet probably because everything in the city takes a while. I will say there's a difference than about talking about a detention center and getting people riled up to saying that our police continue brutalizing and murdering community members and that the community has to act. Those are very different. Those are very different false informations. One puts people's lives in danger. The other, not so much. And would that put people's lives in danger that are serving our community and our community members themselves? So we're talking about two different things. Like, there's two extremes here about fact-checking. And I'm very passionate about this because there's a pretty significant proof out there. There's a platform being used inappropriately. We absolutely need to advocate. I have been approached by the Immigrant Committee as well and have been actively working with them, but I don't go send messages out creating sending out false information and panic because that's not solving anything. I'm trying to connect them to people that can create change. I'm bringing people to conversations. "Hey. Can we meet?" I want to give them a voice. I want to give them a platform so there's a solution, and I'm not just saying information that is not real, because that's not that's not problem-solving. So I do want to emphasize the difference between what's occurred with the examples that have been given. I think they're very different extremes, and they have very different consequences. And I am super concerned about the consequences for the latter that I mentioned because I think that that could have huge impact on individuals' safety, puts people in such dangerous situations. It's super concerning to me. It's been very heavy on my mind and heart right now that that is a message that's been distributed and heard, and I think it's just very different. And I just want to clarify that. Thank you, Councilor. And to sort of underscore that point, thank you, Councilor Castro. I see your hand, and I see Councilor Fragale also has some comments.

Violence against anyone is unacceptable, and calling for violence against anyone is completely unacceptable. This resolution specifically speaking to trust. And so I do understand why there could be hesitation in certain situations. In particular, I use the example of the video this weekend. When we don't have enough information about what that relationship is, it's easy to jump to conclusions. And so, again, not being able to tell folks how to feel is very important to me, but being able to take some action steps that are actually going to build a better relationship and better communication is super important. So both adding that PD officer, which I understand has been going to the committee, but formalizing it so that will continue in perpetuity, hopefully. And some of the changes I'm making to this one to really create bias-free policing and create some standards within these departments is going to be really important. Councilor Cassutt, sorry. I was looking at a different screen. What I was just looking at is two things. One, this went to the Immigration Committee. So I don't know if anybody was able to, if they had a discussion about this resolution, if we have any feedback. This is one of our problems with our resident advisory committees as we send things to them and then never get any feedback on what they have to say. So is Chief Ouderkirk here? He is not, Councilor Cassutt, but I was at that meeting as was the Mayor. They did discuss it, and that's where those recommendations came from. So one of them, of course, is the liaison, but they are asking for numbers on how many U visas are being asked for and certified, as well as any communication between Santa Fe Police Department and immigration. Okay, got it. And then the other thing is that this is the only council committee that this is going to. So given that there are still conversations around amendments, I know Councilor Castro, you're working on one. Councilor Faulkner, you mentioned you may want to have one. I would recommend at this point, because we are the only council committee seeing this, that we hold it, because I would like to be able to discuss those amendments in committee. I like having the opportunity to discuss them in committee, to see them on the committee, because that also then provides opportunity for different amendments to come forward before Governing Body or, kind of some of these conversations. So that would be my recommendation. I'm happy to make a motion when we are ready for such a motion, if we are now. Councilor, and I just want to note that both my amendments would change the caption. Okay. So for Faulkner, I was mostly pointing at Councilor Cassutt, but my, the amendment I was thinking about would also change the caption if that, I think, probably would change the caption. So I would like to make a motion that we hold this item at Quality of Life and that we hear it again on the date of our next meeting, which is sometime in the next, wait. Well, I'm sorry. When is the date? We actually do need that on the record. So our next meeting is October 7. So I would like to postpone this item until our Wednesday, October 7, Quality of Life Committee meeting. Second. We have a motion and a second. Could we get a roll call, please? Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. Councilor Cassutt? Yes. Madam Chair? Yes. Motion passes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And we are on to the next one, which is a similar situation. I have an amendment, but based on some of the conversations that we're having, I'm still working on it, so I was not going to move it. It would change the caption, but there are two more amendments if anyone would like to move. And we are looking, I'm so sorry. We need to read that into the record. So that's Item G. Item G, Consideration of Resolution No. 2026-__. A Resolution Amending Resolution No. 2015-31 to Update the Immigration Committee's Rules and Procedures. Councilor Faulkner. There are three amendments on the, are you not, I am not yours? I'm not going to move mine, and Mayor and Councilor Faulkner are not on this committee. So if anyone would like to move them, we can, or we could do something similar. I need to double-check. I don't believe any of these change the caption. The A does change the caption. Mine would, but and I'm not going to move that tonight. Okay. The other two, I don't think do. So, Councilor Cassutt, I see your hand up. Councilor Faulkner, were you ready to cede the floor? I'm, I'm done. Thank you. Councilor Cassutt. Thank you so much. Sorry. I was just trying to get to the screen where I can see. Did this also go to Immigration Committee? All three went to Immigration Committee. Okay. And any, were there any, was there feedback on this one from them? Yes, and I believe that is reflected in Amendment C by Mayor Garcia. Okay. I, I will be frank. I've, I've worked on this piece of legislation for over a year at this point. This is the second iteration of some changes that we did. So, initially, the Immigration Committee was an ad hoc task force. It is now a regular committee with a little bit more clear directives. And this second update, my intention for working on this was to add the liaison for the Police Department and add some consistency through a City Councilor because we have been requested more communication. There is some debate on whether or not that Councilor should be chair or not and whether or not there should be Governing Body versus City Council. Those are the two main changes. Yeah. Yeah. So and I saw that those were really the big, the big differences in conversation there. I don't know if, if Marci happens to be here or Indira. Indira is here, and we can ask her to come up to the podium. That would be wonderful. And you may not have this information now, but I think that it would be helpful in terms of the language because I see, kind of the Governing Body versus City Councilor. How this looks in our other advisory committees that do have a Councilor sitting on them. So, I know my app is a, that's a liaison. But we have BPAC. We have EDAC. I know, I'm chair of EDAC. I believe the Councilor is chair of BPAC. But I'm curious if the language actually calls for a City Councilor or a member of the Governing Body. Do we know how many of these resident advisory, CDC is another one, and I, I, so I'd just be curious, when we take a look at that resolution, those establishing, oh my God, excuse me. I never do well when I'm sick. You guys know this. Those piece, those establishing pieces of legislation that establish these committees is what I'm basically trying to say. What that, what that language looks like in terms of the choice of membership from the Governing Body. Feel free. Yeah. Go ahead and do it. Councilor Cassutt, thank you for the question. I'm not totally sure about that right now, but I can get an answer for you for Governing Body. Yeah. I think actually your next, yeah. Go ahead, sir. Yeah. No. I, I think that that will never, we hear this again because, again, we, the for the only committee, we may be hanging out here again. But I would love that information. I think that consistency is important. And if I'm understanding correctly, the idea would be that there would be a proposal to appoint somebody. We have to consent, as we do, that it would be that same process. Correct? Yeah. That's my understanding. Okay. All right. Wonderful. Thank you. I, I appreciate that. That was my only question. And Councilor Cassutt, I was doing a tiny bit of research when doing this legislation. My understanding, so it's inconsistent, would be my answer that I have seen. It looks like EDAC has Governing Body and the rest have City Council. Okay. And that's interesting because EDAC is also, we are, EDAC is a state-required committee, so I'm curious if that's part of the difference there. But it'd be interesting to get a little bit more data. Thank you so much. Councilor, are you ceding the floor? Councilor Cassutt. Yes. Councilor Barrett. In my understanding and talks with folks on the Immigration Committee, they, what I understood from their point of view was they'd be open to having a City Councilor, not Governing Body. That's what I understand. As a non-voting member and non-chair, that they would like to have a community member remain as the chair, but the liaison because I think a lot of our concerns was the lack of communication between the Immigration Committee and the Governing Body. Right? We did not know that there was legislation in. We did not know there was legislation being contemplated. There were all these things going on in the community. It just seemed like there was a lack of communication. So if there was a Governing Body member attending the meetings to kind of facilitate that transfer of information, especially with all of the activity that was going on in the community, it would have been nice if there was, right, a City Councilor on that committee to relay the information and get the legislation moving forward. Thanks. Thank you, Councilor. Any other comments? Agreed. And the reason I sort of preface this with saying this is a sort of an old legislation that we're moving forward is I really don't have a preference either way, and I will be open that I'm going to request to not be the Councilor on this committee if this passes. This seems to be very different than the way that we are going to deal with Councilors on other committees. The language about being able to remove people for whatever reason is not in other committees. It just seems very interesting. And one of my concerns is administrative. So it was always going to be a non-voting member based on the number of votes. We needed an odd number so that there wouldn't be ties. That always, from the very beginning, non-voting member. There has been some issue, and we know for a fact that we are overloading staff. So I'm going to preface with that. We know there has been an issue with submitting agendas and getting things on the books, and so, therefore, meetings have been canceled. So either way, I'm not particularly drawn to whether it's a chair or not, but I do think that we need to think about, because this was my concern with my app. I was not able to work on agendas and upload things. That was not my role, and often it didn't happen. And so if we want consistency and to make sure that these are happening, we potentially would want to be able to work with staff on those things. And in this case, we are asking a community member to do that because they are chair. It's complex. I was on the phone with the chair on the way here talking about what is the best strategy for doing this and how much responsibility we want to put on community members. It's a difficult conversation to have because we're also at capacity. Councilor Chavez. I want to just say I never had a meeting canceled because staff didn't put an agenda on when I was on my app or any of my other committees. What tends to happen is, like, if the chair doesn't respond to a staff's request about items on the agenda, then they can't post it. So you have to approve the agenda. But I don't think the administrative issue is an issue. I know, like, we have the leader sitting care of one of them. But, like, if there is a want for a meeting to occur that's standing and it's on the schedule, staff will issue the agenda. You have to respond and confirm as a Councilor if you're a liaison or a chair, and then that agenda will get posted. So I think, like, it's not at a minute. I think the true purpose is just to connect the Immigrant Committee to the Governing Body and to other standing committees more consistently so that we, it can result in more action and change a lot quicker.

And I think a liaison will do that, and I think it leaves the power with the committee itself, which is where the committee wants it. They want that voice to, they want it to be driven by their voice, or that's what my conversation seems to have suggested. They just want someone there to capture that voice consistently who has access to other councilors and this platform in order to move legislation faster. And that, to me, was the sole purpose and ask of that committee really with this, with this moving forward. That's what my understanding was. Agreed. Thank you, Councilor. And, yeah, I do believe that that's the purpose. In specific situations, I understand that certain staff members are overloaded. There had been two specific Immigration Committee meetings where, potentially, maybe Chair didn't see the email, but I have gotten the sense that they didn't get the communication that they wanted from staff. And so there is a clear miscommunication and need for some more support, which is why we're doing this. Again, I'm not married to whether it's Chair or not. I just think that whoever is assigned to this committee, we really need to make sure that these things are a priority. With that, is there a motion on this? I would want to get moved to postpone this to the October 7 meeting so that we can. Thank you. Can we get a roll call, please? Councilor Fagali? Yes. Councilor Barrett? Yes. Councilor Chaffetz? Yes. Councilor Cassette? Yes. Madam Chair? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you so very much. Let me just take a look. I think we are. That matters some stuff. Directors, do we have any pressing matters? It's okay. We can start with Director Lamboe if you'd like. Sorry. I was looking at you. Oh, sure. So, currently, the Language Department is working on a lot of initiatives, which includes a peace study, which we'll be bringing to Quality of Life as well as the full governing body in the coming months, probably the beginning of the year, thinking about there's only one meeting in January. And I, I'm sorry. November, December. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. But, so we will be, we have been reviewing this. And when it comes to the overall cost recovery, so we've looked at person hours and the overall recovery for processing applications, which includes building permits, inspections, business licenses, all of the things. We only recover about 50% of our costs. And so that's why we have fewer staff is because we are only recovering that amount of money. And, of course, it's hard for the city to have that in their budget to provide for additional staff. So the last time the fees were increased was in 2021. At that time, there wasn't very much analysis that was done, and I really wanted to make sure we did a deep dive on it to be fair to the community and understanding exactly what they ask is. It's something that we probably would do in a phased approach. In other jurisdictions, we've had annual increases based on, you know, increases in the cost of doing things. And so that would probably also be a recommendation in terms of a percentage annual increase similar to what we do with our impact fees. So that there's going to be more on that, and we'll be presenting and also making requests for changes to the fees in the coming year. We will also be rolling out our, our character frameworks as well as the future land use map, which I think everybody's been really wanting to see, to staff. We're going to have a staff workshop, which includes other departments first. And then November 10, when we have the study session, you all have a crack at it. So look forward to getting your feedback on that. In the land development code update, we have an interdepartmental meeting working group, which includes the sponsors as well as our City Attorney's Office and Legislative Services to go over our approach. And so we're still working on that, but also with reference to historic preservation amendments. We're going to have a study session with the councilors to see what items we can do on a separate track and what items, you know, can just be covered in the overall process. So we have some recommendations on that and wildland urban interface. That is a different separate track that we are working with the Fire Department to help draft some standards relative to hardening of structures and making it easier for wildland fires to be fought. In addition, the insurance industry has really put a lot of pressure on homeowners to do some things to help with that. So we anticipate that those amendments would be coming forward with the Fire Department. And, of course, this all depends upon the priorities set by Legislative Services and the City Manager. Coming forward soon, it's something that we need to really respond to to help our community be prepared for wildfire, especially in the eastern and northern portions of our community. And there is an accompanying map, draft map, of what the hazard areas are. Obviously, Tierra Contenta has less hazard than Monte Sereno. So we are also working with property owners. Porfirio Chavarria, with the Fire Department, has been going out and doing fire audits for property owners. And so if anybody's interested in getting a fire audit, certainly, I can connect you, connect that property owner with Porfirio Chavarria to do that process. I think that's it for now. Got going. So much, Director. And I think if I'm not mistaken, and Councilor Travis might know this better, they can call the police, the Fire Department directly if they want to do fire preparedness. Yes. So, you know, and we know you have a lot on your plate. So, but thank you so much for making sure that folks are ready because it's a big deal. It's important. Director Emery. Thank you, Chair Castro. Always, there are a lot of things happening in Community Services. So I want to, first off, thank all of the departments who last week worked together and responded very quickly to what we were calling code bug. There was a, there was some confirmed cases of bed bugs at Agape House. Urban Alchemy let us know right away, like, within, within hours of finding and confirming an infestation, and we were able to work together across departments to collaborate and move, move our shelter residents to a different location for a few days. Everyone is back at Agape now. That facility has been 100% treated. The Urban Alchemy staff is continuing to treat belongings of, of residents and all, and or, sorry, residents, guests, and continue, and there will be a follow-up appointment. So, really just huge thank you to Emergency Management, Facilities, Transit. It was really a full operation to make sure that we were taking care of people, especially because this rain was happening last week at the time that that, we were doing this move too. So just huge thank you across department to everyone who worked together on that and, you know, letting community know that those, those guests are back Urban Alchemy, and, and those guests are back at Agape House. So, you know, also in the vein of many things happening in Community Services, we are working to repair an air transfer failure of the GCCC Natatorium. Obviously, the pools and the pools in the GCCC, there are four of them, have been closed for a couple of weeks. We're working on two, two parallel processes. There was an email that went out from the city today with a little bit more information for people who are looking. But we are working to, there are some parts that need to be fabricated, which will take a little bit longer. But while those parts are being fabricated, we're sourcing everything we can locally to make sure that we can get the, the, the pools open as, as quickly as we can. I hope to have a firmer date in the next couple of days, but this is, you know, this is the situation we're in. Following getting, getting everything up and running, we will be on a service plan with the provider who we have found to do the service and can do it well. So, looking up toward the future, but I just, the, the, you know, the GCCC is such a gift to the community, and our pools are so important. We're going to high school swim season. There are so many seniors who rely on using the therapy pool every day, so it is, it is a top, top priority for Community Services. We are working closely with Facilities. We have a project manager assigned to the project, so we're working cross department. Again, we have to do everything together at the city, and we choose to as well. But huge thank you to Facilities and Public Works for even while they're preparing for these rains, also assigning a project manager to support us. And also huge shout out to our Aquatics Manager, Abby Smith. I don't know how she does what she does, but she, she incredibly schedules and moves lifeguards where they need to do, hires all of them, trains all of them, manages, you know, big and small things that happen in our aquatics program. So, you know, while it's incredibly disappointing to the community that this service is closed right now, it's disappointing to us too, and we are working really hard to get that facility back open as soon as possible. There's no replacement for what we can do at the GCCC, and I understand that deeply, and I know Council and, and, and Mayor do as well. And, you know, while we're working to get up to speed on all of our deferred maintenance, it's going to take time. So we have what we need right now, which is support of our governing body, which is too critical, and it's just going to take some time to get our facilities where they need to be. That was long, so I'm going to scooch through the rest of them pretty quickly. The pool hours are posted on the website. Please check them out. We're doing everything we can to keep Bicentennial Pool as open, open for as long as possible, but, you know, we don't have control over the atmosphere, though I've tried. We did receive a, a, a final report on the rapid, out, sorry. Rapid analysis for the opioid abatement funds. So I'll be working, there will be a leadership group convened, and we'll be working towards that. So Council and the community can expect to hear more about that in the coming weeks and months. Our, in our seniors, with our seniors, the Ballet Ballet del Oro dance had about 400 attendees, double last year. Every year gets bigger. That's also a partnership with the county. So, you know, Community Services always, always works with the county. We have a very strong relationship with the county, and this is just one indicator of some things that we are doing really well in partnership. So thank you to the county, and also thank you to our Senior Services staff who just do an amazing job taking care of our seniors. And then last, oh, and also on seniors, October 22, we're having a health fair at the MEG. So the Mary Esther Gonzales Senior Center, you know, the, it, we only have 11 tables. It fills up quick, but October 22, councilors mark your calendars, show up, and see our awesome seniors. And then in closing, we had a wonderful presentation from our, our Libraries Director, Margaret M. Neill. But just a reminder, you know, we have how many hundreds of programs at our libraries every year. So, you know, while sometimes we are looking for things to do with our families and with our elders, we have those available at the library. So do check out the website. Thank you so much, Director. Marcella A. Apodaca, anything from you? Alright. I'm going to start. Anybody have anything from the committee? Councilor Barrett. Well, we do have a MYAB meetup on September 28 at the Teen Center at 5:30. We have confirmed three new members of MYAB, and I think we're going to have 11 students, fingers crossed, show up on Monday, the 28th. We're going to do some interviews, some getting to know you.

We're going to get to know about their passion projects and what they're into. So, hopefully, getting ready to have a robust group of students and then move forward on planning a symposium. So that's next Monday at 5:30 at the Teen Center. Thanks. Wonderful. Anyone else? Comments? Matters from the chair. I just want to thank everyone so much for the outpouring of support this week. I had a lot of calls and emails yesterday. Thank you so much. And with that, we are adjourned until October 7.