Meeting: City Council Meeting

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	December 17th, 2024 Roll call please. Mayor Bhaskar, Councillor Tavis Lopez, Councillor Dean, Councillor Fleming, Councillor	00:00:00
	Campo, Councillor Oguin, Councillor Partridge, Councillor Romero.	00:00:08
	Councillor Salome, we do have a quorum, all right.	00:00:17
	Of the United States of America, which he stands and Nathan.	00:00:26
	With liberty and justice for all.	00:00:34
	Make a motion. We approve the consent agenda.	00:00:42
	But I'll move the second discussion all in favor. Aye, public forum.	00:00:47
	Anybody.	00:00:54
	Well, one with the ordinance for what does that stand for CWSRF?	00:00:57
	Water State revolving, Sun City, Water State Revolving Fund, Water State Revolving Fund. This is the extra funding that we	00:01:05
	acquired to keep going all the way out on Evergreen.	00:01:10
	When we're short.	00:01:17
	About 800. Yes, Sir.	00:01:19
	And so.	00:01:22
	Most of it is Grant except for 250,000, so we got the extra money to make sure we finish ever again.	00:01:25
	And this is for advertisement only, Mr. Mayor.	00:01:35
	Oh, it says action now for publication, huh. Yes, for publication only. And I kind of messed up on the ordinance itself and put a	00:01:39
	wrong date or actually in the advertising. I said we would have the public hearing on January 7th, but that's too short of a time	00:01:45
	frame to meet the advertising requirements. So we'll have the public trading on the 7th and then the actual approval of the	00:01:52
	ordinance on the 21st.	00:01:58
	Well, I don't say publication.	00:02:05
	Anyway, yes man, let's go again. I'll make a motion with you. Approve ordinance #24-12-17 for publication only.	00:02:07
	Now, do I have to do a roll call on this or no, Yes. It's not really an ordinance, no, Sir. No, it's just publication as it does	00:02:19
	say publication. All in favor, aye. And now Christmas present longevity stipend, we have figured out a way with the budget	00:02:26
	committee and Ruby, you want to give us the specifics of what the.	00:02:33
	Administration recommends for a longevity stipend. Hopefully the council will agree. Hey mayor, council, so.	00:02:41
	We looked at it and it's going we're looking at $500 per full time employee and 250 temporary. What did cost the city about 76,000	00:02:50
	and the city does have the money to be able to pay it. I went over salaries and there is some money because we are having a hard	00:02:58
	time keeping employees. So this would be a rain for us to be able to just give them like a longevity step in like they do.	00:03:06
	Like the police officers, they get a longevity stipend, so the mayor had requested. I looked at the budget in.	00:03:15
	OK, Mr. Murthy, it's it's the maybe I misunderstand, is it a one time deal or is it one time, one time? OK, thank you.	00:03:22
	I'll make a motion. I second moved and seconded. It's kind of like the space race, the.	00:03:34
	County continues to try to outpace us as to what they bring their employees, police officers and so forth. We're trying to keep up	00:03:41
	good for the employees, but we're trying to keep our employees. So this is this is our and then I think we're going to also talk	00:03:47
	about a raise in January. So all in favor, aye, Mr. Mayor.	00:03:54
	I'd like to bring the attention to Ruby's hard work, yours and Donald for finding this money available to give our wonderful	00:04:03
	employees who work very hard.	00:04:10
	The benefit. Thank you, Ruby. Thank you for coming under your salary.	00:04:18
	OK, well, yeah, no, you know, we, we have a great finance department, we have a great budget committee, and I think we are very	00:04:25
	judicious and hopefully we'll find out here pretty soon. This is the resolution to accept the audit. Mr. Rogan. Motion we pass	00:04:32
	resolution #24-12-17. I second.	00:04:39
	So Morgan segment, we've got a little presentation. My name is Robert Shoto on the management of Southwest County Solutions. You	00:04:48
	have a audit in front of you. I'm going to go kind of fast. Just go through this. First off, this audit reflects well on your	00:04:53
	city. You have wonderful employees. You gave them a raise you Yeah, they they're doing a wonderful job. One thing way you can see	00:04:59
	that is on page 12, the date of your audit, October 2nd, 2024. These audits are due December 15th, just a few days ago. You are so	00:05:04
	far.	00:05:09
	Before the due date.	00:05:16
	That's because your folks and records are in very, very good shape. You have people that are manning the ship that know what	00:05:17
	they're doing. So yeah, I'm happy you're paying your people. Well. It's good to see another thing. On page 17, you can see towards	00:05:23
	the bottom it says net change and change in that position. That's your full accrual basis accounting. It's telling you whether the	00:05:29
	city is doing well or it's getting better or deteriorating over time. On the full accrual basis, overall it went up by 4.33	00:05:35
	million.	00:05:41
	That's that is a good sign to show you what the city is doing. 18 This is just your funds fund financials. You have 6.1 million in	00:05:47
	the general fund. Looking at comparing that to your expenses on page 20 of 8.6 million when you see around 2-3 months of cash in	00:05:54
	there, that's a concern. There's no concern here. You have a approximately 1010 eleven months of cash. That's there's nothing I'm	00:06:01
	worried about.	00:06:08
	Next thing 2425 your utilities.	00:06:16
	Looking at your net change in operating income loss of 111,000, this looks like you need upward pressure on utility rates or	00:06:19
	downward pressure on expenses. I'm not extremely concerned here, that's just what these numbers say.	00:06:26
	If you look at them, I'm going to push forward next thing pages 26, you're saving the cash flows, you're bringing in 1.43 million	00:06:33
	net cash right about operating activities. That's what nest and services your debt that number right there and the number on the	00:06:40
	full accrual basis, the 111,000 over the long term horizon of we want to see that number a little bit higher. Just on your do your	00:06:48
	debt covenants again, nothing of huge concern. I'm going to push forward on the nose to your financial stages.	00:06:55
	Out a few important notes, I believe it seats in note 7 or note 8. It is note 8 long term debt. These long term debts, there they	00:07:03
	are broken down by each of your revenue sources so you can see when these debts come due, how much more debt you can borrow and	00:07:10
	secure on each and every revenue source if you read through No 8.	00:07:16
	It could be of use to when you want to issue more debt, secure more debt when you want, whether it's for the FIRE, for your GRT,	00:07:23
	for your rodeo facility, which I believe is secured through your lodgers taxes and so forth. This is a very helpful no disclosure.	00:07:31
	Again, that's no eight-year financial statements. One other area to point out here on your financials is.	00:07:38
	Your statement of cash is on page 94. You have 6.2 million in LDIP. If you can move as more money in there as possible, every	00:07:47
	million dollars, you're going to get another 50 to $55,000 in interest income a year. And that's how you're going to maximize the	00:07:54
	use of your cash when it's sitting there and move it out when you need it for liquidity purposes. Other than that, you have no	00:08:02
	findings. You have no findings because you have very good people at the helm.	00:08:09
	Question, LGIP, what does it mean? That's local growth investment pool, it's the, it's the state Treasurer's office. Thank you.	00:08:17
	Yes, absolutely.	00:08:21
	11 more thing you're you're 104. This is your schedule expenditure federal awards. This is how much money you have brought in and	00:08:29
	you spent from the federal government. The more money we can bring in and spend of federal monies. It's good for the city of that	00:08:36
	you had 947,000 was federal loans, 1.3 million was federal grants.	00:08:43
	I know I went through a big state. I went through all this as 108 pages. I don't know in a couple minutes, but I know you don't	00:08:54
	want to hear hear me talk about finance all night. Any questions? Mr. Fleming, our budget chairman. Thank you. Mr. First of all, I	00:09:01
	didn't catch your name. Robert Pescio. Thank you, Robert. All these notifications that you just pointed out to us.	00:09:09
	Did you highlight those for Ruby? Ruby, No. Yeah, we, Ruby, we talked many times about this. She is very, very knowledgeable.	00:09:17
	And, and she is very aware of all these things. She knows of the notes, she knows where to look at these things. And you can go to	00:09:27
	her and she and you can always call me directly and I can talk to this. We could talk for hours about this if you like.	00:09:34
	Let me just.	00:09:43
	All these wonderful counselors up here, we were trying to frantically turn to the pages that you were talking about. Next year,	00:09:46
	may I suggest the points that you want to highlight? Perhaps you highlight them on a separate sheet and give them to us so we can	00:09:54
	get mark our pages ahead of time. I can do that. And what else we can do is I won't go as fast. I was told to go fast because	00:10:01
	people don't want to hear me talk about finance.	00:10:08
	You don't want me to go? So I could see I could stand up here for 45 minutes and talk about this total already. Yeah, OK, sorry.	00:10:16
	Were there any findings? That's important. No findings. You have no findings. That's always important.	00:10:24
	To do the audit, we look at recommendations and we get recommendations. You all do all those things. You're doing what we would	00:10:33
	expect the city to do. And all of this is important because any monies that we go for if there's findings or there's an audit	00:10:37
	thing.	00:10:42
	They won't get to give us the money SI think it's important to point in a lot of money off this report. What would the threshold	00:10:48
	be to be considered a finding? I would imagine there's some it's a matter of auditor judgment and what we want to see is if you	00:10:55
	will, you have the ability to detect and correct misstatements and your employees normal course performing their assigned	00:11:03
	functions, whether that due to mistakes or fraud. And a big thing is that is fraud.	00:11:10
	You have a segregation of duties and adequate internal controls and how money moves in and out of the organization.	00:11:18
	Thank you.	00:11:25
	Yeah, Thank you, Mayor. Thank you again. How long is the contract now? I don't know. Ruby, what's the deal? I could one more year.	00:11:26
	OK. One more year of no findings. That would be great.	00:11:32
	You know, what I recommend is read 9899, read that. That's the auditors report and that's kind of what we're doing when it comes	00:11:40
	to a governmental audit. And I, I don't want to read to you, but read that. That's very helpful information. And read the other	00:11:46
	auditor's report that's on 102 and 1:03.	00:11:52
	It's pretty handy. I mean, I think it's light reading for people to go through page by page just to see where our finances are	00:12:01
	that where you get a feeling for, you know, it's and even even if you had two hours to explain it to us, I think it's important	00:12:08
	for the council to just kind of go through it and see, just see how it flows and what the deal is in there. Go through it. And if	00:12:15
	you want to talk to me individually, I'll spend as much time with you as possible. I know you all are on.	00:12:22
	Straight and I don't want to take up too many people's time, but we can spend a lot of time at length. But it's it's important	00:12:30
	because of future loans. We're talking about the electric grid money, about borrowing money. That's important to know what our	00:12:37
	cash flow has been, how our balances are to making sure that we have reserves. I think you get a better idea of kind of going	00:12:43
	through that your own pace just kind of figuring out those numbers.	00:12:49
	Mr. Salome last year was recommended by the auditors to.	00:12:57
	Our utility rates.	00:13:03
	And continue to. So if you look at 25, you'll see your operating income loss is 111,000. What we needed, what you want to do is	00:13:06
	admissions is going to service your debt service over time, your principal payments, your interest payments and you want to with	00:13:13
	$111,000 operating income. It it's showing that on the long term horizon, you're almost staying very steady 111,000 over almost	00:13:20
	9.5 million.	00:13:27
	Now every year your expenses are going to have upward pressure and with inflation and you want to keep above inflation and you're	00:13:36
	doing much better as you have over the past few years. But you need to continue to keep that upward pressure on revenues as	00:13:41
	expenses have that upward pressure.	00:13:46
	To speak about Mr. Solomon's point, we did advertise some, no, we did, We did advertise that we are going to have some rate	00:13:56
	increases for some of the utilities, right. And we did follow through with that, correct.	00:14:01
	Cost, this cost has been upgrading the sewer system and upgrading some of the other stuff that we've had to increase certain	00:14:07
	revenue Mr. and we were doing this on a year to year basis. We're going to we're going to raise the rates for the first year and	00:14:14
	then we're going to revisit off of the second year based on the fact that we know that inflation was taking hold of everybody. And	00:14:22
	so we know that maybe there will be some.	00:14:29
	Some relief and maybe in the future we'll have a, a budget balanced enough to maybe not raise the rates or maybe reduce the rates	00:14:38
	because we, we look at ways to make it easy on our residents and, and raising the rates. That's easy for a governmental entity to	00:14:46
	say. You know what we're going to, we're going 2% across the board for the next 10 years.	00:14:53
	Oh, hi, yes, yes, yes, done. But but it takes more and what what I'm really proud of this administration was.	00:15:02
	Looking at ways to.	00:15:11
	Buffer those rate increases, find other ways that are not a burdensome on our residents. But at, at some point in time you do have	00:15:15
	to, you do have to raise rates, but we're going to revisit them every year. It's not a, it's not a blanket five year thing going	00:15:21
	2% for five years. Actually it'll be 10%. Yeah, I, I get you. And, and what a lot of people do is they'll, they'll attach you to a	00:15:28
	consumer price index versus attached to inflation.	00:15:34
	For one thing to realize is if you're not bringing enough the money and it's not, you're not charging current customers enough	00:15:41
	money, it comes at the cost of future users of the utility systems. So there is no free lunch, there is no free ride. And to best	00:15:47
	serve your customers is charged a fair market rate any given point in time. So you're not front loading or not pushing off	00:15:54
	liabilities to future users and it's looking at the long term horizon and the long term use of the utility.	00:16:00
	So we, you know, in essence, people who are using it today are paying for their charges. They're not pushing it on the future	00:16:07
	generation.	00:16:11
	Will continue to rise. They have arise and we don't see deflation is kind of something coming in the future. It's inflation is	00:16:45
	expected for no matter what and if I'm wrong, I would be blown away, but I would be willing to bet my name on it. You're going to	00:16:54
	have inflation for the for going for the future years. Realistically, you got wage pressure, you've got material pressure.	00:17:02
	And you've got professional services pressure.	00:17:12
	And I just don't see rolling back. I can see where we're trying to hold the prices and try to get, if you notice what he was	00:17:15
	mentioning, money that we get from the federal government as opposed to the loans. That's one way of decreasing pressure on on	00:17:22
	rates is that we get that stuff financed.	00:17:29
	Things and like I said, wage pressure, utility costs, Rd. pressure, like this is what we just passed a resolution on. We were	00:18:07
	short 800,000 on a sewer project. And so in order to finish that sewer project, instead of raising rates for 800,000, we only	00:18:16
	raised rates for 2:50 because that's all we had to put in. So that's the only way we can.	00:18:25
	Cut down on how much.	00:18:34
	The consumers having to pay.	00:18:36
	But eventually the federal government will charge you taxes for the money they give us. So the mayors point is when he was talking	00:18:40
	about grants, If you charge a realistic rate today and able to increase your cash reserves, you'll be able to leverage that money	00:18:47
	on your utility system for grants. Grants that often have 1020% match.	00:18:53
	If you don't have those monies that that money's gonna be matched out of the general fund, it's gonna come out of your basic	00:19:00
	services and then your police, your fire, your your basic public safety administration's gonna suffer. So there, there's just no	00:19:05
	free lunch. And if you charge an adequate rate over the long term horizon, you're gonna charge you utility customers a lot less	00:19:10
	money than trying to save them money in the short term.	00:19:16
	So it, it, it's hard to, you know, I know it's hard to increase rates on people, especially when you see them struggling, but it	00:19:22
	is the best thing for the long term users of the utility system and to charge them the less amount of money over the long term	00:19:26
	horizon.	00:19:31
	I know what you're saying, but I I know, I know.	00:19:38
	Thank you. Mr. Smith. First of all, again, I want to thank you. You've been very thorough, as you have been over the years, so we	00:19:42
	appreciate one more year of your.	00:19:47
	Advice.	00:19:54
	Imagine this, my son at home in upstate New York. My garbage bill is $26 a week.	00:19:56
	Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot that I've seen those. Now there's a lot of ways to subsidize that and there those	00:20:08
	things can be subsidized, but everything comes at a cost.	00:20:12
	But you guys stop and I think the point is that, you know, when you when you have a figure in front of you, it's just a math	00:20:18
	problem. You can add a percentage over a certain time frame and you come out with a with a resolution, with a with a equal sign at	00:20:26
	the end. You say, well, let's do that, put it down. Everybody says that I and we're done.	00:20:33
	But, but I think that this council and the administration has to do their due diligence to not do that, to look at ways to ease	00:20:40
	the burden on our residents because they expect us to do that. It's easy to stay here and raise the rates, easy to do that.	00:20:49
	I think with your help in that last increase, you said we would reevaluate it. And that was in the resolution itself. Yeah, that's	00:20:59
	why we that that's why the council got resolution. And I understand that we need to have a good little bank account in order for	00:21:05
	us to apply for the loans and get grants for the future.	00:21:11
	But but we also need to these people, our folks, they're paying everybody's paying though what we said the federal government	00:21:18
	through $7 trillion into the economy, everything went sky high and that leaves us here holding the bag. And so I think that we	00:21:25
	need the door and they have been and I'm I'm real proud to be a part of that process that they do this administration and Ruby and	00:21:33
	her team looks for ways to well if we can do this and.	00:21:40
	Do that, it will alleviate some of the, some of the pressure on our residents for that sewer bill or for that landfill bill a	00:21:48
	little bit, you know, and that that's your job to discuss that amongst you. And I just come and tell you what the numbers say. And	00:21:54
	then if you want to lower the, if you want to lower the rates, you can. I don't care either way you go.	00:22:01
	Yeah. Thank you for the explanations, team. Thank you again for the presentation. Thank you all. Thank you. Give me a call. We	00:22:11
	can. I'll talk forever about these things again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll talk to you, Holland. All in favor of the	00:22:16
	resolution, aye.	00:22:21
	OK. We're asking the council to approve a reauthorization of a capital outlay that we got. We did get it through a $700,000	00:22:28
	capital outlay. I thought that we were going to be able to get the Eagle Pitcher site before too long.	00:22:38
	But.	00:22:48
	Take the before out. It's too long. I mean, I can't, I can't build out there because I have not been able to get them to clear it.	00:22:50
	And God knows when the EPA and Ed are going to let us have it. So I am asking the council to please approve my asking of the	00:22:57
	legislator. And I think Senator Diamond is going to carry that bill, but we would like to reauthorize it so I can take that money	00:23:04
	and put it out there at the industrial park.	00:23:12
	Build a building out there. That's what this capital authorization is.	00:23:20
	So if I could get a motion to do that, I can put it in my.	00:23:25
	Notes.	00:23:29
	So moved and seconded discussion. This will be a spec building for economic development and hopefully the VLA or somebody that's	00:23:31
	starting to build out there can maybe use it as a warehouse or something that we can get them to do some business in town. That's	00:23:36
	what I was hoping.	00:23:42
	All in favor.	00:23:50
	New business.	00:23:53
	I just wanted to inform the council that we have a settlement from a case that happened at the Convention Center before it was	00:23:56
	finished. Lions Club was also involved. We just want to say that. And the city lost that case. So I just want to tell people that	00:24:05
	when we get a big make a big fuss out of people using the Plaza or using the.	00:24:14
	The youth center or using Finley gym that is an outside non public.	00:24:23
	People, we make a big fuss on Insurance Co, insurance indemnification of any liability and we have to look at it very closely. So	00:24:31
	I just want to tell you that in this case, what happened that we probably should have allowed them to use their facility, but we	00:24:39
	went ahead and it was a gun show I think or something like that and it wasn't done.	00:24:46
	Person tripped and fell. Probably shouldn't have done that. We probably need to be.	00:24:55
	More careful than anybody using our public facilities, we're the deep pocket.	00:25:01
	We end up getting sued even though it's not our event. So in the future, just the public should know that that we're going to be	00:25:08
	pretty sticky about how and sure how what your insurance is. We're in coinsured. We're going to be indemnified that there's no	00:25:15
	problem. And so that's just to let you know that's that's the thing that happened on new business Chan, you want to give us a	00:25:22
	little report on your.	00:25:29
	Deal.	00:25:38
	Fantastic light parade and Lloyd's not here and his groups not here, but the fantastic light show throughout the town. Yeah,	00:25:39
	definitely. And of course the the Friends of the Boskie having the the.	00:25:45
	Everything went really well.	00:26:53
	But the fire department, they had raised $8100.00 at the Matanza and they're going to take 100 kids.	00:26:55
	To go shopping.	00:27:02
	And was it 81 kids in $100? No, it's 81 kids in $100 each. And so and the list they got from the schools, they didn't make that	00:27:04
	list of themselves. So that's how they they got all that. And then, of course, Chief, you want to tell us a little bit about your	00:27:11
	projects with the Marines and the the Tots Toys for Tots or what do you guys, what do you call that?	00:27:18
	It's the City of the Coral that helps them do it. I've done it for the last 26 years. This is my 6th year with the Marines. Toys	00:27:28
	for cots. They supply us with a lot of those toys that we give out during the parades and for every for all the money we spend, we	00:27:35
	have different vendors that will help us. We spend 5000, they give us $5000 in toys and so it's been really good. I think last	00:27:42
	year we served.	00:27:48
	Almost 800 families.	00:27:56
	And over 4600 toys were handed out.	00:27:57
	Congratulations. Good job doing that again. And this year we have the Defenders Star Wars here for the toys for the parade, along	00:28:02
	with Coca-Cola that came from Albuquerque. They've done it with us for the last four years. We also had a.	00:28:10
	United States Marine Corps, first time ever coming. They walked the parade and handed out kids gifts that is their Marines Toys	00:28:18
	for Tots. So I was glad to see them here to help us and everything went good. Great. Thank you for doing that. And I wanted to	00:28:26
	Councillor Ocampo about your Turkey. How did that go? I noticed that after Thanksgiving, but how did that? It's this weekend, this	00:28:33
	weekend. Yes, this weekend it's first come first serve drive through behind San Miguel Parish.	00:28:40
	Starting at 11:00 AM and until we run out and angels always helpful with us on that deal too. Given anything he's got leftover so	00:28:48
	we can give the kids this year we got one of my sisters is a professor at Arizona State and she got her whole all of her classes	00:28:54
	to make the.	00:29:01
	The stockings for the kids. So I have many families. When the family comes up, how many kids they have, they all get a stocking	00:29:08
	filled with all kinds of goodies and they're all ready to go. We'd like to thank the city for always supporting us. I mean, I know	00:29:15
	you guys did it for God, 50 some years with Toby. So thank you for always being there And John, John Brooks, the storehouse.	00:29:23
	Individual help too. We have tons of help. I mean, we, that's a, that's a great thing about this place. There's never any shortage	00:29:32
	of help, I mean.	00:29:36
	We have like a waiting list of people that are like, hey, I'd like to deliver for you or whatever. So well, you know, just that	00:29:40
	added thing about Toby, you may have already heard his daughter is the chief operating officer at Lovelace and she works with it	00:29:47
	too. They they still come down and help us. Yeah. Well, then that's a good job. That's that's a fantastic for somebody from	00:29:53
	soccer. They're like, you know, that's a superstar. So it's fantastic. And thank you for doing that.	00:30:00
	You can get up where Toby left off. And I don't know how old are you? It'll be 50 years. These things do it for 50 years. So much	00:30:07
	like to. That's like my favorite and that honestly, it's like my favorite part of Christmas now. It really is. Mr. Padilla, you	00:30:12
	want to tell us a little bit about your programs going on?	00:30:17
	Come on up here. Don't be doing it from back there. But yeah, your basketball and you had your bingo too. This is this is a.	00:30:23
	Little nervous but I got yelled at by some ladies.	00:30:33
	But it was good, we had a good turn out, but it's quite a bit of money for the food driving.	00:30:39
	And what's, what's your program to go on right now? Right now we start basketball that's been going on. We've been using Parkview	00:30:45
	as long and the youth Senate and the family gym Monday through Thursday for practices. Have you got any numbers that you can tell	00:30:49
	us? We have 212 kids.	00:30:54
	Of total and you know you've got all kinds of equipment over there and I guess it's getting built up with people that are coming.	00:31:00
	Hopefully they're more than welcome 20 to 30 right now. We have throughout the day that come and use the weight room and more and	00:31:05
	more are coming. So we've been going pretty good on that.	00:31:11
	Thank you.	00:31:19
	Chris, anything you want to say?	00:31:21
	I know you're hiding your head a while ago.	00:31:23
	I just wanted to check in and everything is going well with the schools and all that. Finishing that out for the year and still	00:31:29
	working on yards, trying to put out some fires with that and also working on that Main St. ordinance as well. Still still doing	00:31:35
	that. I want to see that one through so.	00:31:42
	Yeah, try not to **** a lot of people. I know it's my job, though, so I'm the bear of bad news. You got to do that. I mean, that's	00:31:49
	just what you got to do. And then you got to work around it and flip, right? Be flexible. I think that's what our little town is	00:31:55
	about, right? Right. So finish the year out strong and start it off strong.	00:32:02
	All righty. All right, Chief.	00:32:09
	Oh, sorry, Mr.	00:32:13
	The RISE program.	00:32:17
	And we want to, we want to have a little party for them or whatever you want to do. We want to. Let's do that, yeah.	00:32:24
	It is.	00:32:32
	Crystal Brown.	00:32:35
	Currently recognize them for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.	00:32:38
	Mr. Salami, did you have a question, Chris? Chris was kind enough to document that that kind of guided the first ordinance that we	00:32:42
	looked at and and we're starting that process. So our committee is going to be meeting. And I think what we need to do is kind of	00:32:49
	look at the definition of what we're, we're really trying to do here. You know, there's dilapidated Billings and you'd be knocked	00:32:56
	down. There's vacant buildings that need to be.	00:33:03
	Have folks and businesses put inside them and working. And so I was just looking and noticing this document that comes from the	00:33:11
	state and you know, they're they're they're paragraphs start like vacant commercial buildings, one's house, vibrant store front	00:33:16
	commercial business.	00:33:21
	That at one point generated a profit.	00:33:27
	Now they can now vacant many of the these commercial buildings are either historical, architecturally significant, located within	00:33:30
	the designated historic districts. These build commercial buildings stay vacant. They're declining status leads to blight,	00:33:37
	discourages economic development and diminishes property values. So they go from these buildings that are being occupied to these	00:33:43
	buildings that are now vacant and.	00:33:50
	Dilapidated. So I, I, I'm thinking personally that we need to attack this committee and attack this issue.	00:33:58
	In the middle, something happened in the middle, they were, they were vibrant and now they're vacant. So what can we do as a as a	00:34:06
	council, as an administration that would help to put a business back in that building? There's dilapidated buildings, they need to	00:34:13
	be knocked down, but there's vacant buildings that I think we should be using some of the, I think it should be like an economic	00:34:20
	development.	00:34:27
	A revitalization committee.	00:34:34
	Because I think the city can do a lot of good by using some funds to support.	00:34:37
	Putting businesses just like you mentioned Doctor Bhaskar up on at the industrial park, there's going to be a building up there to	00:34:45
	for, for a business to bring people in so we can employ our kids. We're doing the Co-op that cooperates with too high. For 12	00:34:51
	years we've been trying to get those rates down so we can say hey, look, yeah, come to Socorro, start your little five man	00:34:56
	business and.	00:35:02
	Maybe it'll grow, maybe maybe our young people don't have to leave town to go get a job. Maybe there was there's going to be more	00:35:08
	opportunities. So I'm looking at it from that, from that area that it's not, you know, tear it down, penalize them, charge them on	00:35:16
	a year to year basis more and more because you know what those people that have those vacant buildings, they want those things	00:35:23
	occupied probably more than than the council does because.	00:35:30
	You know, so I'm, I'm looking at it from there. I think we should meet Chris and I. We can of course start this whole process.	00:35:38
	Yeah, no problem. Very helpful and very diligent in in in his in his job. Thank you, Mr. Marcus. Did I get that same document?	00:35:46
	Yeah. No problem. Yeah, I can fill one out. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Kirsty. Anything.	00:35:55
	How's the insurance for the for the workers, employees insurance? Is it going to get renewed in January? Are we going to raise	00:36:08
	increase in price or have they said anything about?	00:36:13
	Good. Yeah, Yeah. So far I've not heard anything about an increase for the premiums.	00:36:20
	I know the one in July came later June and so I was kind of like right away an increase, but we haven't received anything.	00:36:27
	Any update planning and zoning like a new committee, Who's on it? Who's not on it So far we I received what Donald?	00:36:36
	Sent in the e-mail. I don't remember exactly, I think it was Deborah myself.	00:36:48
	John, not the committee, I'm sorry, the the planning and zoning for the board.	00:36:53
	Mr. Did Mr. Anaya resign? He resigned via text. OK, so how many people do you need to be on there, do you know? I could use three	00:37:02
	more. Yeah, that would be ideal. I was running it with five, but I think ideal would be. So if the council has somebody that would	00:37:11
	like to nominate, more than happy to place them on the committee. Yeah, that would be great.	00:37:19
	Any dialogue with the new Co-op manager? Anything? Have a meeting with him on Thursday at 11.	00:37:28
	So if you want to come and join the screaming and shouting, you're welcome. You're not going to be any. They were very Mr. Anaya	00:37:36
	called me today and offered the invitation to meet him. So he was very nice that they called.	00:37:43
	The Christmas decorations are beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that, it looks great.	00:37:56
	Really nice, I thought is one of the best. I don't think I've seen a town that you can go in and you're coming into town and saw.	00:38:03
	It's really nice, really.	00:38:07
	Welcome. No, I think that was Lloyd's crew. I was not out there putting no place. But they are very beautiful. Everybody,	00:38:14
	everybody helped Mr. Parker. I wasn't here for the I never make that light parade. I bummed out because I'm always at a wrestling	00:38:19
	tournament. But when I came back, I mean, I talked to a lot of people around the that were on the Plaza. The trash cans around the	00:38:24
	Plaza were looked like there's tons of people.	00:38:30
	And so we're cleaning up trash around that area by a resting room and everybody had really good things to say about it. My wife	00:38:36
	was able to go, my father-in-law, they were watching and they were like really impressed with it. They liked Ruben was running	00:38:40
	around.	00:38:44
	You're welcome. They really like the first big organization without Desiree and she did a fabulous job. They were really proud of	00:38:50
	22/22/24 people that were, I mean, 40.	00:38:57
	You know, they're real happy with this. Yeah. No, I and I, it's Christmas. It's fantastic.	00:39:05
	Thank you for doing that. You're good.	00:39:12
	OK, old news. Any old news under new business? I'd just like to inform the council that the tri-county day but the legislature is	00:39:17
	February 25th at La Fonda from 6 to 9 it's Socorro Katzen in Sierra County and municipal day is February 28th. So if the cat.	00:39:27
	Is there a reception at the La Fonda? Yes, Sir, from 6 to 9. And if the counselors will let me know who's going to attend, I'll	00:39:39
	advertise it if we need to.	00:39:43
	Oh yeah, I missed that. Donald, could you tell me again?	00:39:49
	OK, thank you. With three counties and it'll be in La Fonda from 6 to 9, another hotel there, it's Tuesday, February 25th.	00:39:54
	Mr. O'Connor just announcement we have the this week this Saturday we have the food drive. Anybody that's in need of a meal come	00:40:05
	on by drive through behind St. San Miguel like I mentioned earlier, also from 6:00 to 8:00 PM to San Miguel youth group is putting	00:40:11
	on a Christmas festival. It's called Operation Saint Nick. It's a pretty cool deal. It's and it's all put on by the kids and if	00:40:17
	you want to hear some great singing.	00:40:23
	There's the youth choir, my wife along with Kenny Hart.	00:40:30
	They put on the youth choir if you want to hear it, starts at 6:00 PM behind San Miguel Church, and they've got a whole Christmas	00:40:36
	lineup of songs. And if you want to be in the Christmas period, I show up. And we just had a phone call that we lost to Santa. So	00:40:44
	we're looking for another Santa to make sure he can show up. So anybody here wants to dress up and don't see it in your eyes?	00:40:52
	But that's from 6:00 to 8:00 on Saturday evening, 6 to 8, Operation Saint Nick.	00:41:02
	It's going to be a pretty good deal. They're going to have a choir and A and a youth choir there and they're pretty unbelievable	00:41:07
	if you ask me. So not necessarily no business, but I remember I talked to the city's been going to misuse Emily coach and you know	00:41:13
	chief then we've been in the facility. We'll be moving out. You're pretty quick. Our maps are in are almost finished with	00:41:20
	installing. So we hope to do that over the Christmas break.	00:41:27
	Thank the council before me, you know, they let us move in there over here.	00:41:35
	Friends at the library also be moving into that modular pretty soon, so that'll be another thing, and then we are going to be	00:42:08
	asking a representative. Representative Dow went and saw the place.	00:42:13
	And hopefully she'll help us with some funding. So it's coming together, Chief, hopefully. I know you guys have been persevering	00:42:19
	for a year and a half with a lot of trouble, but hopefully we'll get this thing. What exactly is that near the the librarian, the	00:42:25
	friends at library, they have a huge amount of books that they sell and they have them in the in the other side of that Zimmer	00:42:31
	League.	00:42:37
	And they're going to be moving all of that so that we can have a secure police station.	00:42:44
	And probably we'll put the Municipal Court there too, but that will be our judicial complex, police and judicial complex. It's	00:42:48
	going to take 5-6 years to develop it, but it'll be a dedicated judicial complex and it'll take a building off the market. We're	00:42:55
	not going to have an empty building sitter there instead of building a new building. So that's that's what's going on.	00:43:02
	Yeah.	00:43:10
	We know. I mean, yeah, I mean the modular that we got from Midway, No, but no, we got this from the high school. Yes, Sir. That	00:43:17
	would be the one that we have two of them at the rodeo and then we have two more at the.	00:43:24
	RV park area. This one was totally remodeled. It's it's not just basically empty shell with a storage room, bathroom and janitors	00:43:33
	closet. HVAC about 2200 square feet.	00:43:40
	And so they'll be able to move their books and have a dedicated place that they can use that looks really nice to see it every day	00:43:48
	there. Looks really nice. Of course, they are an independent group, so probably going to have to have a good contract with them.	00:43:54
	Christy, we don't have any injuries, people.	00:43:59
	Well, they're getting a book. They fall down the steps and always thinking of the bad stuff. Donald, I'm sorry, no good deed goes	00:44:05
	unpunished. I'm sorry. Always thinking of something better. What's this Debbie Downer?	00:44:13
	Rabbi Downer Anyway, any old business? All right, Well, the year is almost over. Executive session. Well, we tell everybody what	00:44:22
	happens. We don't go to executive session. Right, Marianne? No, we don't. And then as the mayor's report, personality changes.	00:44:28
	Christopher Vega. A job amendment. That's it.	00:44:34
	Personality past personal changes.	00:44:42
	We've been secondary discussion all in favor and then we have.	00:44:46
	It's called Intra works out of town, Albuquerque, Kevin Mayor, low voltage security.	00:44:52
	Mr. Motion, we pass the business registration. Second, I don't know what low voltage security is like ADT type stuff that would	00:45:00
	imagine like ADT, I would imagine, I would imagine something like installation and the next is happy new Year, January, Mr.	00:45:06
	Fleming.	00:45:12
	Oh, Wanda, you want to stand up and give us a speech? Come on. A goodbye speech. And you're going to. You're going to.	00:45:19
	No, this works well, none better than ours.	00:45:34
	Well, you had a wonderful Chieftain, you've won all kinds of prizes, and now you're going to be moving up to the Journal.	00:45:40
	You're moving to where?	00:45:53
	Bado.	00:45:57
	Wow.	00:46:03
	Well, so you still have to drive through here to go to Taos?	00:46:07
	Well, we certainly do. You have a replacement. We certainly enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you, your editorship and hopefully	00:46:15
	they'll keep it together well. So I think we've educated about 20 editors.	00:46:22
	Well, I hope not.	00:46:40
	Pentagon 1/3.	00:46:42
	If they shut it down then we'll have to have this.	00:46:47
	Newsletter that everybody used to pass around with the nasty stuff in it so.	00:46:50
	And Trump's not suing you, are you not? Trump is not suing your newspaper for any.	00:46:59
	And he came to interview at the paper and he says there anything else I can do for you? And said, yeah, how about advertising in	00:47:13
	their local papers that we own? He goes, you know, Mohammed Shanique, I said, how about $25,000? And Donnie, writer, check.	00:47:20
	What? And that's great.	00:47:31
	He's suing the he's suing the Des Moines Register. So we'll see, We'll see, we'll see what happens. But.	00:47:38
	ABC.	00:47:47
	Right.	00:47:49
	No.	00:47:51
	Well, yeah, my and the Quad Cities. My folks lived in the Quad Cities for 50 years.	00:47:57
	Well, great. Well, thank you for your service here. Thank you, Wanda. Thank you.	00:48:02
	Next meeting is January 7, 2025.	00:48:10
	Be here, B Square. I'll try to be here this time. Thanks. 7. I will be here. Not on February though. Try to leave as much as I	00:48:15
	can. No, no, that's on the air. Everybody have a wonderful Christmas.	00:48:22

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Event transcript
	December 17th, 2024 Roll call please. Mayor Bhaskar, Councillor Tavis Lopez, Councillor Dean, Councillor Fleming, Councillor	00:00:00
	Campo, Councillor Oguin, Councillor Partridge, Councillor Romero.	00:00:08
	Councillor Salome, we do have a quorum, all right.	00:00:17
	Of the United States of America, which he stands and Nathan.	00:00:26
	With liberty and justice for all.	00:00:34
	Make a motion. We approve the consent agenda.	00:00:42
	But I'll move the second discussion all in favor. Aye, public forum.	00:00:47
	Anybody.	00:00:54
	Well, one with the ordinance for what does that stand for CWSRF?	00:00:57
	Water State revolving, Sun City, Water State Revolving Fund, Water State Revolving Fund. This is the extra funding that we	00:01:05
	acquired to keep going all the way out on Evergreen.	00:01:10
	When we're short.	00:01:17
	About 800. Yes, Sir.	00:01:19
	And so.	00:01:22
	Most of it is Grant except for 250,000, so we got the extra money to make sure we finish ever again.	00:01:25
	And this is for advertisement only, Mr. Mayor.	00:01:35
	Oh, it says action now for publication, huh. Yes, for publication only. And I kind of messed up on the ordinance itself and put a	00:01:39
	wrong date or actually in the advertising. I said we would have the public hearing on January 7th, but that's too short of a time	00:01:45
	frame to meet the advertising requirements. So we'll have the public trading on the 7th and then the actual approval of the	00:01:52
	ordinance on the 21st.	00:01:58
	Well, I don't say publication.	00:02:05
	Anyway, yes man, let's go again. I'll make a motion with you. Approve ordinance #24-12-17 for publication only.	00:02:07
	Now, do I have to do a roll call on this or no, Yes. It's not really an ordinance, no, Sir. No, it's just publication as it does	00:02:19
	say publication. All in favor, aye. And now Christmas present longevity stipend, we have figured out a way with the budget	00:02:26
	committee and Ruby, you want to give us the specifics of what the.	00:02:33
	Administration recommends for a longevity stipend. Hopefully the council will agree. Hey mayor, council, so.	00:02:41
	We looked at it and it's going we're looking at $500 per full time employee and 250 temporary. What did cost the city about 76,000	00:02:50
	and the city does have the money to be able to pay it. I went over salaries and there is some money because we are having a hard	00:02:58
	time keeping employees. So this would be a rain for us to be able to just give them like a longevity step in like they do.	00:03:06
	Like the police officers, they get a longevity stipend, so the mayor had requested. I looked at the budget in.	00:03:15
	OK, Mr. Murthy, it's it's the maybe I misunderstand, is it a one time deal or is it one time, one time? OK, thank you.	00:03:22
	I'll make a motion. I second moved and seconded. It's kind of like the space race, the.	00:03:34
	County continues to try to outpace us as to what they bring their employees, police officers and so forth. We're trying to keep up	00:03:41
	good for the employees, but we're trying to keep our employees. So this is this is our and then I think we're going to also talk	00:03:47
	about a raise in January. So all in favor, aye, Mr. Mayor.	00:03:54
	I'd like to bring the attention to Ruby's hard work, yours and Donald for finding this money available to give our wonderful	00:04:03
	employees who work very hard.	00:04:10
	The benefit. Thank you, Ruby. Thank you for coming under your salary.	00:04:18
	OK, well, yeah, no, you know, we, we have a great finance department, we have a great budget committee, and I think we are very	00:04:25
	judicious and hopefully we'll find out here pretty soon. This is the resolution to accept the audit. Mr. Rogan. Motion we pass	00:04:32
	resolution #24-12-17. I second.	00:04:39
	So Morgan segment, we've got a little presentation. My name is Robert Shoto on the management of Southwest County Solutions. You	00:04:48
	have a audit in front of you. I'm going to go kind of fast. Just go through this. First off, this audit reflects well on your	00:04:53
	city. You have wonderful employees. You gave them a raise you Yeah, they they're doing a wonderful job. One thing way you can see	00:04:59
	that is on page 12, the date of your audit, October 2nd, 2024. These audits are due December 15th, just a few days ago. You are so	00:05:04
	far.	00:05:09
	Before the due date.	00:05:16
	That's because your folks and records are in very, very good shape. You have people that are manning the ship that know what	00:05:17
	they're doing. So yeah, I'm happy you're paying your people. Well. It's good to see another thing. On page 17, you can see towards	00:05:23
	the bottom it says net change and change in that position. That's your full accrual basis accounting. It's telling you whether the	00:05:29
	city is doing well or it's getting better or deteriorating over time. On the full accrual basis, overall it went up by 4.33	00:05:35
	million.	00:05:41
	That's that is a good sign to show you what the city is doing. 18 This is just your funds fund financials. You have 6.1 million in	00:05:47
	the general fund. Looking at comparing that to your expenses on page 20 of 8.6 million when you see around 2-3 months of cash in	00:05:54
	there, that's a concern. There's no concern here. You have a approximately 1010 eleven months of cash. That's there's nothing I'm	00:06:01
	worried about.	00:06:08
	Next thing 2425 your utilities.	00:06:16
	Looking at your net change in operating income loss of 111,000, this looks like you need upward pressure on utility rates or	00:06:19
	downward pressure on expenses. I'm not extremely concerned here, that's just what these numbers say.	00:06:26
	If you look at them, I'm going to push forward next thing pages 26, you're saving the cash flows, you're bringing in 1.43 million	00:06:33
	net cash right about operating activities. That's what nest and services your debt that number right there and the number on the	00:06:40
	full accrual basis, the 111,000 over the long term horizon of we want to see that number a little bit higher. Just on your do your	00:06:48
	debt covenants again, nothing of huge concern. I'm going to push forward on the nose to your financial stages.	00:06:55
	Out a few important notes, I believe it seats in note 7 or note 8. It is note 8 long term debt. These long term debts, there they	00:07:03
	are broken down by each of your revenue sources so you can see when these debts come due, how much more debt you can borrow and	00:07:10
	secure on each and every revenue source if you read through No 8.	00:07:16
	It could be of use to when you want to issue more debt, secure more debt when you want, whether it's for the FIRE, for your GRT,	00:07:23
	for your rodeo facility, which I believe is secured through your lodgers taxes and so forth. This is a very helpful no disclosure.	00:07:31
	Again, that's no eight-year financial statements. One other area to point out here on your financials is.	00:07:38
	Your statement of cash is on page 94. You have 6.2 million in LDIP. If you can move as more money in there as possible, every	00:07:47
	million dollars, you're going to get another 50 to $55,000 in interest income a year. And that's how you're going to maximize the	00:07:54
	use of your cash when it's sitting there and move it out when you need it for liquidity purposes. Other than that, you have no	00:08:02
	findings. You have no findings because you have very good people at the helm.	00:08:09
	Question, LGIP, what does it mean? That's local growth investment pool, it's the, it's the state Treasurer's office. Thank you.	00:08:17
	Yes, absolutely.	00:08:21
	11 more thing you're you're 104. This is your schedule expenditure federal awards. This is how much money you have brought in and	00:08:29
	you spent from the federal government. The more money we can bring in and spend of federal monies. It's good for the city of that	00:08:36
	you had 947,000 was federal loans, 1.3 million was federal grants.	00:08:43
	I know I went through a big state. I went through all this as 108 pages. I don't know in a couple minutes, but I know you don't	00:08:54
	want to hear hear me talk about finance all night. Any questions? Mr. Fleming, our budget chairman. Thank you. Mr. First of all, I	00:09:01
	didn't catch your name. Robert Pescio. Thank you, Robert. All these notifications that you just pointed out to us.	00:09:09
	Did you highlight those for Ruby? Ruby, No. Yeah, we, Ruby, we talked many times about this. She is very, very knowledgeable.	00:09:17
	And, and she is very aware of all these things. She knows of the notes, she knows where to look at these things. And you can go to	00:09:27
	her and she and you can always call me directly and I can talk to this. We could talk for hours about this if you like.	00:09:34
	Let me just.	00:09:43
	All these wonderful counselors up here, we were trying to frantically turn to the pages that you were talking about. Next year,	00:09:46
	may I suggest the points that you want to highlight? Perhaps you highlight them on a separate sheet and give them to us so we can	00:09:54
	get mark our pages ahead of time. I can do that. And what else we can do is I won't go as fast. I was told to go fast because	00:10:01
	people don't want to hear me talk about finance.	00:10:08
	You don't want me to go? So I could see I could stand up here for 45 minutes and talk about this total already. Yeah, OK, sorry.	00:10:16
	Were there any findings? That's important. No findings. You have no findings. That's always important.	00:10:24
	To do the audit, we look at recommendations and we get recommendations. You all do all those things. You're doing what we would	00:10:33
	expect the city to do. And all of this is important because any monies that we go for if there's findings or there's an audit	00:10:37
	thing.	00:10:42
	They won't get to give us the money SI think it's important to point in a lot of money off this report. What would the threshold	00:10:48
	be to be considered a finding? I would imagine there's some it's a matter of auditor judgment and what we want to see is if you	00:10:55
	will, you have the ability to detect and correct misstatements and your employees normal course performing their assigned	00:11:03
	functions, whether that due to mistakes or fraud. And a big thing is that is fraud.	00:11:10
	You have a segregation of duties and adequate internal controls and how money moves in and out of the organization.	00:11:18
	Thank you.	00:11:25
	Yeah, Thank you, Mayor. Thank you again. How long is the contract now? I don't know. Ruby, what's the deal? I could one more year.	00:11:26
	OK. One more year of no findings. That would be great.	00:11:32
	You know, what I recommend is read 9899, read that. That's the auditors report and that's kind of what we're doing when it comes	00:11:40
	to a governmental audit. And I, I don't want to read to you, but read that. That's very helpful information. And read the other	00:11:46
	auditor's report that's on 102 and 1:03.	00:11:52
	It's pretty handy. I mean, I think it's light reading for people to go through page by page just to see where our finances are	00:12:01
	that where you get a feeling for, you know, it's and even even if you had two hours to explain it to us, I think it's important	00:12:08
	for the council to just kind of go through it and see, just see how it flows and what the deal is in there. Go through it. And if	00:12:15
	you want to talk to me individually, I'll spend as much time with you as possible. I know you all are on.	00:12:22
	Straight and I don't want to take up too many people's time, but we can spend a lot of time at length. But it's it's important	00:12:30
	because of future loans. We're talking about the electric grid money, about borrowing money. That's important to know what our	00:12:37
	cash flow has been, how our balances are to making sure that we have reserves. I think you get a better idea of kind of going	00:12:43
	through that your own pace just kind of figuring out those numbers.	00:12:49
	Mr. Salome last year was recommended by the auditors to.	00:12:57
	Our utility rates.	00:13:03
	And continue to. So if you look at 25, you'll see your operating income loss is 111,000. What we needed, what you want to do is	00:13:06
	admissions is going to service your debt service over time, your principal payments, your interest payments and you want to with	00:13:13
	$111,000 operating income. It it's showing that on the long term horizon, you're almost staying very steady 111,000 over almost	00:13:20
	9.5 million.	00:13:27
	Now every year your expenses are going to have upward pressure and with inflation and you want to keep above inflation and you're	00:13:36
	doing much better as you have over the past few years. But you need to continue to keep that upward pressure on revenues as	00:13:41
	expenses have that upward pressure.	00:13:46
	To speak about Mr. Solomon's point, we did advertise some, no, we did, We did advertise that we are going to have some rate	00:13:56
	increases for some of the utilities, right. And we did follow through with that, correct.	00:14:01
	Cost, this cost has been upgrading the sewer system and upgrading some of the other stuff that we've had to increase certain	00:14:07
	revenue Mr. and we were doing this on a year to year basis. We're going to we're going to raise the rates for the first year and	00:14:14
	then we're going to revisit off of the second year based on the fact that we know that inflation was taking hold of everybody. And	00:14:22
	so we know that maybe there will be some.	00:14:29
	Some relief and maybe in the future we'll have a, a budget balanced enough to maybe not raise the rates or maybe reduce the rates	00:14:38
	because we, we look at ways to make it easy on our residents and, and raising the rates. That's easy for a governmental entity to	00:14:46
	say. You know what we're going to, we're going 2% across the board for the next 10 years.	00:14:53
	Oh, hi, yes, yes, yes, done. But but it takes more and what what I'm really proud of this administration was.	00:15:02
	Looking at ways to.	00:15:11
	Buffer those rate increases, find other ways that are not a burdensome on our residents. But at, at some point in time you do have	00:15:15
	to, you do have to raise rates, but we're going to revisit them every year. It's not a, it's not a blanket five year thing going	00:15:21
	2% for five years. Actually it'll be 10%. Yeah, I, I get you. And, and what a lot of people do is they'll, they'll attach you to a	00:15:28
	consumer price index versus attached to inflation.	00:15:34
	For one thing to realize is if you're not bringing enough the money and it's not, you're not charging current customers enough	00:15:41
	money, it comes at the cost of future users of the utility systems. So there is no free lunch, there is no free ride. And to best	00:15:47
	serve your customers is charged a fair market rate any given point in time. So you're not front loading or not pushing off	00:15:54
	liabilities to future users and it's looking at the long term horizon and the long term use of the utility.	00:16:00
	So we, you know, in essence, people who are using it today are paying for their charges. They're not pushing it on the future	00:16:07
	generation.	00:16:11
	Will continue to rise. They have arise and we don't see deflation is kind of something coming in the future. It's inflation is	00:16:45
	expected for no matter what and if I'm wrong, I would be blown away, but I would be willing to bet my name on it. You're going to	00:16:54
	have inflation for the for going for the future years. Realistically, you got wage pressure, you've got material pressure.	00:17:02
	And you've got professional services pressure.	00:17:12
	And I just don't see rolling back. I can see where we're trying to hold the prices and try to get, if you notice what he was	00:17:15
	mentioning, money that we get from the federal government as opposed to the loans. That's one way of decreasing pressure on on	00:17:22
	rates is that we get that stuff financed.	00:17:29
	Things and like I said, wage pressure, utility costs, Rd. pressure, like this is what we just passed a resolution on. We were	00:18:07
	short 800,000 on a sewer project. And so in order to finish that sewer project, instead of raising rates for 800,000, we only	00:18:16
	raised rates for 2:50 because that's all we had to put in. So that's the only way we can.	00:18:25
	Cut down on how much.	00:18:34
	The consumers having to pay.	00:18:36
	But eventually the federal government will charge you taxes for the money they give us. So the mayors point is when he was talking	00:18:40
	about grants, If you charge a realistic rate today and able to increase your cash reserves, you'll be able to leverage that money	00:18:47
	on your utility system for grants. Grants that often have 1020% match.	00:18:53
	If you don't have those monies that that money's gonna be matched out of the general fund, it's gonna come out of your basic	00:19:00
	services and then your police, your fire, your your basic public safety administration's gonna suffer. So there, there's just no	00:19:05
	free lunch. And if you charge an adequate rate over the long term horizon, you're gonna charge you utility customers a lot less	00:19:10
	money than trying to save them money in the short term.	00:19:16
	So it, it, it's hard to, you know, I know it's hard to increase rates on people, especially when you see them struggling, but it	00:19:22
	is the best thing for the long term users of the utility system and to charge them the less amount of money over the long term	00:19:26
	horizon.	00:19:31
	I know what you're saying, but I I know, I know.	00:19:38
	Thank you. Mr. Smith. First of all, again, I want to thank you. You've been very thorough, as you have been over the years, so we	00:19:42
	appreciate one more year of your.	00:19:47
	Advice.	00:19:54
	Imagine this, my son at home in upstate New York. My garbage bill is $26 a week.	00:19:56
	Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot that I've seen those. Now there's a lot of ways to subsidize that and there those	00:20:08
	things can be subsidized, but everything comes at a cost.	00:20:12
	But you guys stop and I think the point is that, you know, when you when you have a figure in front of you, it's just a math	00:20:18
	problem. You can add a percentage over a certain time frame and you come out with a with a resolution, with a with a equal sign at	00:20:26
	the end. You say, well, let's do that, put it down. Everybody says that I and we're done.	00:20:33
	But, but I think that this council and the administration has to do their due diligence to not do that, to look at ways to ease	00:20:40
	the burden on our residents because they expect us to do that. It's easy to stay here and raise the rates, easy to do that.	00:20:49
	I think with your help in that last increase, you said we would reevaluate it. And that was in the resolution itself. Yeah, that's	00:20:59
	why we that that's why the council got resolution. And I understand that we need to have a good little bank account in order for	00:21:05
	us to apply for the loans and get grants for the future.	00:21:11
	But but we also need to these people, our folks, they're paying everybody's paying though what we said the federal government	00:21:18
	through $7 trillion into the economy, everything went sky high and that leaves us here holding the bag. And so I think that we	00:21:25
	need the door and they have been and I'm I'm real proud to be a part of that process that they do this administration and Ruby and	00:21:33
	her team looks for ways to well if we can do this and.	00:21:40
	Do that, it will alleviate some of the, some of the pressure on our residents for that sewer bill or for that landfill bill a	00:21:48
	little bit, you know, and that that's your job to discuss that amongst you. And I just come and tell you what the numbers say. And	00:21:54
	then if you want to lower the, if you want to lower the rates, you can. I don't care either way you go.	00:22:01
	Yeah. Thank you for the explanations, team. Thank you again for the presentation. Thank you all. Thank you. Give me a call. We	00:22:11
	can. I'll talk forever about these things again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll talk to you, Holland. All in favor of the	00:22:16
	resolution, aye.	00:22:21
	OK. We're asking the council to approve a reauthorization of a capital outlay that we got. We did get it through a $700,000	00:22:28
	capital outlay. I thought that we were going to be able to get the Eagle Pitcher site before too long.	00:22:38
	But.	00:22:48
	Take the before out. It's too long. I mean, I can't, I can't build out there because I have not been able to get them to clear it.	00:22:50
	And God knows when the EPA and Ed are going to let us have it. So I am asking the council to please approve my asking of the	00:22:57
	legislator. And I think Senator Diamond is going to carry that bill, but we would like to reauthorize it so I can take that money	00:23:04
	and put it out there at the industrial park.	00:23:12
	Build a building out there. That's what this capital authorization is.	00:23:20
	So if I could get a motion to do that, I can put it in my.	00:23:25
	Notes.	00:23:29
	So moved and seconded discussion. This will be a spec building for economic development and hopefully the VLA or somebody that's	00:23:31
	starting to build out there can maybe use it as a warehouse or something that we can get them to do some business in town. That's	00:23:36
	what I was hoping.	00:23:42
	All in favor.	00:23:50
	New business.	00:23:53
	I just wanted to inform the council that we have a settlement from a case that happened at the Convention Center before it was	00:23:56
	finished. Lions Club was also involved. We just want to say that. And the city lost that case. So I just want to tell people that	00:24:05
	when we get a big make a big fuss out of people using the Plaza or using the.	00:24:14
	The youth center or using Finley gym that is an outside non public.	00:24:23
	People, we make a big fuss on Insurance Co, insurance indemnification of any liability and we have to look at it very closely. So	00:24:31
	I just want to tell you that in this case, what happened that we probably should have allowed them to use their facility, but we	00:24:39
	went ahead and it was a gun show I think or something like that and it wasn't done.	00:24:46
	Person tripped and fell. Probably shouldn't have done that. We probably need to be.	00:24:55
	More careful than anybody using our public facilities, we're the deep pocket.	00:25:01
	We end up getting sued even though it's not our event. So in the future, just the public should know that that we're going to be	00:25:08
	pretty sticky about how and sure how what your insurance is. We're in coinsured. We're going to be indemnified that there's no	00:25:15
	problem. And so that's just to let you know that's that's the thing that happened on new business Chan, you want to give us a	00:25:22
	little report on your.	00:25:29
	Deal.	00:25:38
	Fantastic light parade and Lloyd's not here and his groups not here, but the fantastic light show throughout the town. Yeah,	00:25:39
	definitely. And of course the the Friends of the Boskie having the the.	00:25:45
	Everything went really well.	00:26:53
	But the fire department, they had raised $8100.00 at the Matanza and they're going to take 100 kids.	00:26:55
	To go shopping.	00:27:02
	And was it 81 kids in $100? No, it's 81 kids in $100 each. And so and the list they got from the schools, they didn't make that	00:27:04
	list of themselves. So that's how they they got all that. And then, of course, Chief, you want to tell us a little bit about your	00:27:11
	projects with the Marines and the the Tots Toys for Tots or what do you guys, what do you call that?	00:27:18
	It's the City of the Coral that helps them do it. I've done it for the last 26 years. This is my 6th year with the Marines. Toys	00:27:28
	for cots. They supply us with a lot of those toys that we give out during the parades and for every for all the money we spend, we	00:27:35
	have different vendors that will help us. We spend 5000, they give us $5000 in toys and so it's been really good. I think last	00:27:42
	year we served.	00:27:48
	Almost 800 families.	00:27:56
	And over 4600 toys were handed out.	00:27:57
	Congratulations. Good job doing that again. And this year we have the Defenders Star Wars here for the toys for the parade, along	00:28:02
	with Coca-Cola that came from Albuquerque. They've done it with us for the last four years. We also had a.	00:28:10
	United States Marine Corps, first time ever coming. They walked the parade and handed out kids gifts that is their Marines Toys	00:28:18
	for Tots. So I was glad to see them here to help us and everything went good. Great. Thank you for doing that. And I wanted to	00:28:26
	Councillor Ocampo about your Turkey. How did that go? I noticed that after Thanksgiving, but how did that? It's this weekend, this	00:28:33
	weekend. Yes, this weekend it's first come first serve drive through behind San Miguel Parish.	00:28:40
	Starting at 11:00 AM and until we run out and angels always helpful with us on that deal too. Given anything he's got leftover so	00:28:48
	we can give the kids this year we got one of my sisters is a professor at Arizona State and she got her whole all of her classes	00:28:54
	to make the.	00:29:01
	The stockings for the kids. So I have many families. When the family comes up, how many kids they have, they all get a stocking	00:29:08
	filled with all kinds of goodies and they're all ready to go. We'd like to thank the city for always supporting us. I mean, I know	00:29:15
	you guys did it for God, 50 some years with Toby. So thank you for always being there And John, John Brooks, the storehouse.	00:29:23
	Individual help too. We have tons of help. I mean, we, that's a, that's a great thing about this place. There's never any shortage	00:29:32
	of help, I mean.	00:29:36
	We have like a waiting list of people that are like, hey, I'd like to deliver for you or whatever. So well, you know, just that	00:29:40
	added thing about Toby, you may have already heard his daughter is the chief operating officer at Lovelace and she works with it	00:29:47
	too. They they still come down and help us. Yeah. Well, then that's a good job. That's that's a fantastic for somebody from	00:29:53
	soccer. They're like, you know, that's a superstar. So it's fantastic. And thank you for doing that.	00:30:00
	You can get up where Toby left off. And I don't know how old are you? It'll be 50 years. These things do it for 50 years. So much	00:30:07
	like to. That's like my favorite and that honestly, it's like my favorite part of Christmas now. It really is. Mr. Padilla, you	00:30:12
	want to tell us a little bit about your programs going on?	00:30:17
	Come on up here. Don't be doing it from back there. But yeah, your basketball and you had your bingo too. This is this is a.	00:30:23
	Little nervous but I got yelled at by some ladies.	00:30:33
	But it was good, we had a good turn out, but it's quite a bit of money for the food driving.	00:30:39
	And what's, what's your program to go on right now? Right now we start basketball that's been going on. We've been using Parkview	00:30:45
	as long and the youth Senate and the family gym Monday through Thursday for practices. Have you got any numbers that you can tell	00:30:49
	us? We have 212 kids.	00:30:54
	Of total and you know you've got all kinds of equipment over there and I guess it's getting built up with people that are coming.	00:31:00
	Hopefully they're more than welcome 20 to 30 right now. We have throughout the day that come and use the weight room and more and	00:31:05
	more are coming. So we've been going pretty good on that.	00:31:11
	Thank you.	00:31:19
	Chris, anything you want to say?	00:31:21
	I know you're hiding your head a while ago.	00:31:23
	I just wanted to check in and everything is going well with the schools and all that. Finishing that out for the year and still	00:31:29
	working on yards, trying to put out some fires with that and also working on that Main St. ordinance as well. Still still doing	00:31:35
	that. I want to see that one through so.	00:31:42
	Yeah, try not to **** a lot of people. I know it's my job, though, so I'm the bear of bad news. You got to do that. I mean, that's	00:31:49
	just what you got to do. And then you got to work around it and flip, right? Be flexible. I think that's what our little town is	00:31:55
	about, right? Right. So finish the year out strong and start it off strong.	00:32:02
	All righty. All right, Chief.	00:32:09
	Oh, sorry, Mr.	00:32:13
	The RISE program.	00:32:17
	And we want to, we want to have a little party for them or whatever you want to do. We want to. Let's do that, yeah.	00:32:24
	It is.	00:32:32
	Crystal Brown.	00:32:35
	Currently recognize them for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.	00:32:38
	Mr. Salami, did you have a question, Chris? Chris was kind enough to document that that kind of guided the first ordinance that we	00:32:42
	looked at and and we're starting that process. So our committee is going to be meeting. And I think what we need to do is kind of	00:32:49
	look at the definition of what we're, we're really trying to do here. You know, there's dilapidated Billings and you'd be knocked	00:32:56
	down. There's vacant buildings that need to be.	00:33:03
	Have folks and businesses put inside them and working. And so I was just looking and noticing this document that comes from the	00:33:11
	state and you know, they're they're they're paragraphs start like vacant commercial buildings, one's house, vibrant store front	00:33:16
	commercial business.	00:33:21
	That at one point generated a profit.	00:33:27
	Now they can now vacant many of the these commercial buildings are either historical, architecturally significant, located within	00:33:30
	the designated historic districts. These build commercial buildings stay vacant. They're declining status leads to blight,	00:33:37
	discourages economic development and diminishes property values. So they go from these buildings that are being occupied to these	00:33:43
	buildings that are now vacant and.	00:33:50
	Dilapidated. So I, I, I'm thinking personally that we need to attack this committee and attack this issue.	00:33:58
	In the middle, something happened in the middle, they were, they were vibrant and now they're vacant. So what can we do as a as a	00:34:06
	council, as an administration that would help to put a business back in that building? There's dilapidated buildings, they need to	00:34:13
	be knocked down, but there's vacant buildings that I think we should be using some of the, I think it should be like an economic	00:34:20
	development.	00:34:27
	A revitalization committee.	00:34:34
	Because I think the city can do a lot of good by using some funds to support.	00:34:37
	Putting businesses just like you mentioned Doctor Bhaskar up on at the industrial park, there's going to be a building up there to	00:34:45
	for, for a business to bring people in so we can employ our kids. We're doing the Co-op that cooperates with too high. For 12	00:34:51
	years we've been trying to get those rates down so we can say hey, look, yeah, come to Socorro, start your little five man	00:34:56
	business and.	00:35:02
	Maybe it'll grow, maybe maybe our young people don't have to leave town to go get a job. Maybe there was there's going to be more	00:35:08
	opportunities. So I'm looking at it from that, from that area that it's not, you know, tear it down, penalize them, charge them on	00:35:16
	a year to year basis more and more because you know what those people that have those vacant buildings, they want those things	00:35:23
	occupied probably more than than the council does because.	00:35:30
	You know, so I'm, I'm looking at it from there. I think we should meet Chris and I. We can of course start this whole process.	00:35:38
	Yeah, no problem. Very helpful and very diligent in in in his in his job. Thank you, Mr. Marcus. Did I get that same document?	00:35:46
	Yeah. No problem. Yeah, I can fill one out. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Kirsty. Anything.	00:35:55
	How's the insurance for the for the workers, employees insurance? Is it going to get renewed in January? Are we going to raise	00:36:08
	increase in price or have they said anything about?	00:36:13
	Good. Yeah, Yeah. So far I've not heard anything about an increase for the premiums.	00:36:20
	I know the one in July came later June and so I was kind of like right away an increase, but we haven't received anything.	00:36:27
	Any update planning and zoning like a new committee, Who's on it? Who's not on it So far we I received what Donald?	00:36:36
	Sent in the e-mail. I don't remember exactly, I think it was Deborah myself.	00:36:48
	John, not the committee, I'm sorry, the the planning and zoning for the board.	00:36:53
	Mr. Did Mr. Anaya resign? He resigned via text. OK, so how many people do you need to be on there, do you know? I could use three	00:37:02
	more. Yeah, that would be ideal. I was running it with five, but I think ideal would be. So if the council has somebody that would	00:37:11
	like to nominate, more than happy to place them on the committee. Yeah, that would be great.	00:37:19
	Any dialogue with the new Co-op manager? Anything? Have a meeting with him on Thursday at 11.	00:37:28
	So if you want to come and join the screaming and shouting, you're welcome. You're not going to be any. They were very Mr. Anaya	00:37:36
	called me today and offered the invitation to meet him. So he was very nice that they called.	00:37:43
	The Christmas decorations are beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that, it looks great.	00:37:56
	Really nice, I thought is one of the best. I don't think I've seen a town that you can go in and you're coming into town and saw.	00:38:03
	It's really nice, really.	00:38:07
	Welcome. No, I think that was Lloyd's crew. I was not out there putting no place. But they are very beautiful. Everybody,	00:38:14
	everybody helped Mr. Parker. I wasn't here for the I never make that light parade. I bummed out because I'm always at a wrestling	00:38:19
	tournament. But when I came back, I mean, I talked to a lot of people around the that were on the Plaza. The trash cans around the	00:38:24
	Plaza were looked like there's tons of people.	00:38:30
	And so we're cleaning up trash around that area by a resting room and everybody had really good things to say about it. My wife	00:38:36
	was able to go, my father-in-law, they were watching and they were like really impressed with it. They liked Ruben was running	00:38:40
	around.	00:38:44
	You're welcome. They really like the first big organization without Desiree and she did a fabulous job. They were really proud of	00:38:50
	22/22/24 people that were, I mean, 40.	00:38:57
	You know, they're real happy with this. Yeah. No, I and I, it's Christmas. It's fantastic.	00:39:05
	Thank you for doing that. You're good.	00:39:12
	OK, old news. Any old news under new business? I'd just like to inform the council that the tri-county day but the legislature is	00:39:17
	February 25th at La Fonda from 6 to 9 it's Socorro Katzen in Sierra County and municipal day is February 28th. So if the cat.	00:39:27
	Is there a reception at the La Fonda? Yes, Sir, from 6 to 9. And if the counselors will let me know who's going to attend, I'll	00:39:39
	advertise it if we need to.	00:39:43
	Oh yeah, I missed that. Donald, could you tell me again?	00:39:49
	OK, thank you. With three counties and it'll be in La Fonda from 6 to 9, another hotel there, it's Tuesday, February 25th.	00:39:54
	Mr. O'Connor just announcement we have the this week this Saturday we have the food drive. Anybody that's in need of a meal come	00:40:05
	on by drive through behind St. San Miguel like I mentioned earlier, also from 6:00 to 8:00 PM to San Miguel youth group is putting	00:40:11
	on a Christmas festival. It's called Operation Saint Nick. It's a pretty cool deal. It's and it's all put on by the kids and if	00:40:17
	you want to hear some great singing.	00:40:23
	There's the youth choir, my wife along with Kenny Hart.	00:40:30
	They put on the youth choir if you want to hear it, starts at 6:00 PM behind San Miguel Church, and they've got a whole Christmas	00:40:36
	lineup of songs. And if you want to be in the Christmas period, I show up. And we just had a phone call that we lost to Santa. So	00:40:44
	we're looking for another Santa to make sure he can show up. So anybody here wants to dress up and don't see it in your eyes?	00:40:52
	But that's from 6:00 to 8:00 on Saturday evening, 6 to 8, Operation Saint Nick.	00:41:02
	It's going to be a pretty good deal. They're going to have a choir and A and a youth choir there and they're pretty unbelievable	00:41:07
	if you ask me. So not necessarily no business, but I remember I talked to the city's been going to misuse Emily coach and you know	00:41:13
	chief then we've been in the facility. We'll be moving out. You're pretty quick. Our maps are in are almost finished with	00:41:20
	installing. So we hope to do that over the Christmas break.	00:41:27
	Thank the council before me, you know, they let us move in there over here.	00:41:35
	Friends at the library also be moving into that modular pretty soon, so that'll be another thing, and then we are going to be	00:42:08
	asking a representative. Representative Dow went and saw the place.	00:42:13
	And hopefully she'll help us with some funding. So it's coming together, Chief, hopefully. I know you guys have been persevering	00:42:19
	for a year and a half with a lot of trouble, but hopefully we'll get this thing. What exactly is that near the the librarian, the	00:42:25
	friends at library, they have a huge amount of books that they sell and they have them in the in the other side of that Zimmer	00:42:31
	League.	00:42:37
	And they're going to be moving all of that so that we can have a secure police station.	00:42:44
	And probably we'll put the Municipal Court there too, but that will be our judicial complex, police and judicial complex. It's	00:42:48
	going to take 5-6 years to develop it, but it'll be a dedicated judicial complex and it'll take a building off the market. We're	00:42:55
	not going to have an empty building sitter there instead of building a new building. So that's that's what's going on.	00:43:02
	Yeah.	00:43:10
	We know. I mean, yeah, I mean the modular that we got from Midway, No, but no, we got this from the high school. Yes, Sir. That	00:43:17
	would be the one that we have two of them at the rodeo and then we have two more at the.	00:43:24
	RV park area. This one was totally remodeled. It's it's not just basically empty shell with a storage room, bathroom and janitors	00:43:33
	closet. HVAC about 2200 square feet.	00:43:40
	And so they'll be able to move their books and have a dedicated place that they can use that looks really nice to see it every day	00:43:48
	there. Looks really nice. Of course, they are an independent group, so probably going to have to have a good contract with them.	00:43:54
	Christy, we don't have any injuries, people.	00:43:59
	Well, they're getting a book. They fall down the steps and always thinking of the bad stuff. Donald, I'm sorry, no good deed goes	00:44:05
	unpunished. I'm sorry. Always thinking of something better. What's this Debbie Downer?	00:44:13
	Rabbi Downer Anyway, any old business? All right, Well, the year is almost over. Executive session. Well, we tell everybody what	00:44:22
	happens. We don't go to executive session. Right, Marianne? No, we don't. And then as the mayor's report, personality changes.	00:44:28
	Christopher Vega. A job amendment. That's it.	00:44:34
	Personality past personal changes.	00:44:42
	We've been secondary discussion all in favor and then we have.	00:44:46
	It's called Intra works out of town, Albuquerque, Kevin Mayor, low voltage security.	00:44:52
	Mr. Motion, we pass the business registration. Second, I don't know what low voltage security is like ADT type stuff that would	00:45:00
	imagine like ADT, I would imagine, I would imagine something like installation and the next is happy new Year, January, Mr.	00:45:06
	Fleming.	00:45:12
	Oh, Wanda, you want to stand up and give us a speech? Come on. A goodbye speech. And you're going to. You're going to.	00:45:19
	No, this works well, none better than ours.	00:45:34
	Well, you had a wonderful Chieftain, you've won all kinds of prizes, and now you're going to be moving up to the Journal.	00:45:40
	You're moving to where?	00:45:53
	Bado.	00:45:57
	Wow.	00:46:03
	Well, so you still have to drive through here to go to Taos?	00:46:07
	Well, we certainly do. You have a replacement. We certainly enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you, your editorship and hopefully	00:46:15
	they'll keep it together well. So I think we've educated about 20 editors.	00:46:22
	Well, I hope not.	00:46:40
	Pentagon 1/3.	00:46:42
	If they shut it down then we'll have to have this.	00:46:47
	Newsletter that everybody used to pass around with the nasty stuff in it so.	00:46:50
	And Trump's not suing you, are you not? Trump is not suing your newspaper for any.	00:46:59
	And he came to interview at the paper and he says there anything else I can do for you? And said, yeah, how about advertising in	00:47:13
	their local papers that we own? He goes, you know, Mohammed Shanique, I said, how about $25,000? And Donnie, writer, check.	00:47:20
	What? And that's great.	00:47:31
	He's suing the he's suing the Des Moines Register. So we'll see, We'll see, we'll see what happens. But.	00:47:38
	ABC.	00:47:47
	Right.	00:47:49
	No.	00:47:51
	Well, yeah, my and the Quad Cities. My folks lived in the Quad Cities for 50 years.	00:47:57
	Well, great. Well, thank you for your service here. Thank you, Wanda. Thank you.	00:48:02
	Next meeting is January 7, 2025.	00:48:10
	Be here, B Square. I'll try to be here this time. Thanks. 7. I will be here. Not on February though. Try to leave as much as I	00:48:15
	can. No, no, that's on the air. Everybody have a wonderful Christmas.	00:48:22