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CIAC Minutes for May 20, 2021 - Draft Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Minutes for the Meeting on May 20, 2021 1:30 p.m. Utilities Center Conference Room 218 via Zoom Video Transmission Committee Members Present: City Staff Present: Steve Newby, Committee Member Justin Allen, Battalion Chief Mark O'Neill, Committee Member Liam Beasley, Accountant Adam Roberts, Committee Member Ronald Borunda, Interim Deputy Director Water Committee Members Absent: Paul Brock, Police Deputy Chief Jason Lorenz, Chairman Robert Cabello, Sr. Assistant City Attorney Eugene Suttmiller, Vice-Chairman Carl Clark, Deputy Director Environmental/Technical Support Sonya Delgado, Parks and Recreation Director Rhonda Diaz, Water Conservation Program Coordinator Catherine Mathews, Landscape Architect Larry Nichols, Community Development Director Jose Provencio, Deputy Director Business Services Alma Ruiz, Senior Officer Manager Jason Smith, Fire Chief Lisa Valleroy-Djang, Office Assistant Sr Temp Monica Vega, Office Assistant Sr. Temp Delilah Walsh, Utilities Director Others: Adrienne Widmer, Assistant Utilities Greg Shervanick, Constituent Director Vice-Chair O'Neill called the regular meeting to order at approximately 1:30 p.m. Vice-Chair O'Neill: First item I would like to relay to everyone that Mr. Suttmiller, one of our Committee Members - Ruiz: Sorry to interrupt. Can you please read the attorney general statement in regards to our video conference meeting? Vice-Chair O'Neill: Yes. Ruiz: Thank you. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 2 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Vice-Chair O'Neill: About speaking, if they speak and so forth? Ruiz: Yes sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I want to remind everyone that if you speak today, please announce your name at the beginning so we can clearly hear you. Members of the public should be afforded remote access via live stream or other technology or call in number for listening by phone. If there is any interruption in the audio or video, I will suspend discussion until it is reinstated. All votes will be by roll call vote. We will produce and maintain a recording of the open session of the meeting. Please do announce your name as you come on so we can keep it on the record. 1. Conflict of Interest: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Moving forward, I would like to read Mr. Suttmiller's resignation letter. It was sent on May 3rd and it states: "It is with great regret that I must submit my resignation from the UCA and the CIAC. Health issues make it necessary for me to focus my energies on my recovery and I do not believe that I will be able to give the complete attention to my duties on the Boards that they deserve. It has been a great pleasure to work with both the great professionals of the Utilities and the dedicated members of both Boards. My resignation is effective on this date May 3rd [202,1]. I know our Board, we the CIAC Board want to, and I am sure I speak on behalf of the staff and the City, want to express our sincere gratitude for Mr. Suttmiller's time, knowledge, and experience he brought to this Board. He has served since October 3rd; he was the longest serving member of this Board. He will be greatly missed. I know the Utilities staff is in the process of advertising for his vacated seat on the Board, and so hopefully soon we will have our fifth member back. We want to thank Mr. Suttmiller. He really brought some good information and knowledge to this Board. We thank him and hope he recovers quickly and gets his health issues worked out. Ruiz: If I may Vice-Chair and Chairman, I just wanted to also put on the record that we are working on a recognition plaque for Mr. Suttmiller because like you mentioned October 3, 2011, is when he started serving on this Board. Once that plaque is finalized, we will invite him back to a meeting and see if he is able to join us to be presented personally, if not then we will do it at a meeting for the record and then we will have the plaque delivered to him. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Outstanding. Thank you, Alma. Beginning with the Agenda first I would like to read a Conflict of Interest statement. Has any member on this committee or any member of City staff have any known Conflict of Interest with any item on our Agenda today? Mr. Newby. He still cannot hear me, I guess. Ruiz: Mr. Newby said he does not. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Mr. Roberts. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 3 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Roberts: I do not have any conflict. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. I do not. How about any member of the staff? Not hearing any. I will approve there is no Conflict of Interest. There were none. 2. Acceptance of the Agenda: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Looking for a motion to Accept our Agenda. Roberts: So moved. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Who is that? Please announce your name first. Roberts: So moved. Vice-Chair O'Neill: A motion from Mr. Roberts to Accept,the Agenda. Do I have a second? I will second it. A vote on Acceptance of the Agenda. I vote Aye. Mr. Newby. Mr. Roberts. Roberts: Aye. Newby: Mr. Newby is an Aye. The Agenda was Accepted Unanimously 3-0. 3. Acceptance of the Minutes: 3.1. Regular Meeting on April 1, 2021. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay, I would like to entertain a motion to accept the minutes of our last meeting.,It really was not a regular meeting but it was on April 1st. Do I have a motion to accept the minutes from that meeting? Roberts: So made. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Mr. Roberts has made a motion to accept the minutes for the April 1st meeting. Do I have.a second? I will second it. All in favor. Mr. Newby. Newby: Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Mr. Roberts. Roberts: Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill: And myself Aye. The Minutes were Approved Unanimously 3-0. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 4 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 4. Old Business: 4.1. Utilities Department Impact Fee Update: Vice-Chair O'Neill: We will have five presentations today; two under Old Business and three under New Business. Then we have a few things at the end that we need to discuss. If anyone from the public wants to make comments, there is an item seven on our Agenda. All right I would like to turn it over to Utilities Department about the Utilities Department Impact Fees and it will be made by Mr. Jose Provencio. Provencio: Good afternoon Chairman and Commissioners. Jose Provencio, Deputy Director for the Utilities Department. I want to provide an update as to the activity in regard to the allocation of the Development Impact Fees for new utility connections. On April 12th Council convened a work session and discussed the current makeup of the existing allocation that allocates the Development Impact Fee to the builder, the customer, and to rate base. The discussion in the work session progressed and discussed possible alternatives. Now the current allocation stands at 50% builder, 28% customer, 22% for rate base and that is for the Water. The Wastewater current allocation is 50% to the builder, 20% to the customer, and 30% to rate base. The discussion at the work session concluded with direction provided or given to the Utilities Director to revise current allocation that is in effect and has been in effect since June 1995, to a 50/50 allocation: 50% to the builder, 50% to the customer or property owner. With this timing there is a resolution seeking their adoption of their recommended allocation would be put before them at their June 7th meeting and we will rescind the existing Resolution 95- 368 in adopting the new revised allocations scheme or allocations process. With the approval from City Council, LCU staff will progress in revising the current Development Impact Fees to reflect the change in the allocation and removing the rate-based portion at the July board meeting and making the changes effective August 1st. With that, I stand by for any questions you may have. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Any members have questions? Newby: I am good. Roberts: I do not have any questions. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I do not either. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Provencio. Provencio: You are welcome sir. 4.2. Public Safety Impact Fee Update: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Item B under Old Business: Public Safety Impact Fee Update by Jason Smith. I see that he is here and unmuted. Smith: Yes, thank you sir. Jason Smith, Fire Chief of the Las Cruces Fire Department. Today I am just going to give you a brief update on our Public Safety Impact Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 5 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Fee. I believe it was last month we presented the update that we were going to Council for a resolution to accept the current fees and rates and continue collections for the next year so that we could have an RFP [Request for Proposal] for study and update our land use assumptions and also our capital needs for public safety. That was passed by Council. We have been preparing the RFP. The revisions from the selection advisory committee were made and now purchasing is doing the final revision with the edits of the dates and times. I am hopeful that that is going to go out to the street in June to be filled so that sometime in July we will be making the selection on the company to do that study. In the resolution we did lay out a time period we are looking for. Hopefully by the end of January that study will be complete. We will be holding our public engagement meetings as well as a couple of meetings for the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee to let them know where we are at with the process as part of that RFP, so that in May or June the final changes to the Public Safety Impact Fee are presented to Council and hopefully adopted at that time so we will be on track for July,2022 `change of those impact fees. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you Mr. Smith. Anything else? Smith: That is it Mr. Chair. Thank you. Unless I think in New Business we will be giving you an update on the Fire Department. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Right. Before you leave us now does any of the Board have any questions for Mr. Smith regarding the impact fee? Newby: I am good. Roberts: I have no questions. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. The only thing, so everything was approved and that should make you whole once everything gets through and approved Mr. Smith? Smith: Mr. Chair. In your term by "make us whole" I assume you mean that the impact fee will be meeting the ordinance and the state regulation on the updates and when it needs to be implemented. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Yes. Smith: Yes sir.'` Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Smith: We will be on track to; we are currently complying with the ordinance and state law on the impact fee. With these revisions and new adoption, whatever that comes out to be, we will still be on track and that will help our other impact Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 6 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 fees as well. We will have a recent land use assumption that other departments could use or refer to. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you. Smith: You are welcome sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you for your presentation. S. New Business: 5.1. Utilities Current Proiects Update: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Moving on to item five under New Business. A Utilities current projects update by Mr. Carl Clark. Clark: Thank you Chairman and Committee Members. I am Carl Clark, Deputy Director Environmental and Technical Support. I am going to give you kind of a, it is a little larger presentation because we did not get to provide you the Capital Improvements Infrastructure Program last year due to COVID, and then we have the new budget coming out here July 1st so I incorporated everything I could have. The majority of it was carryovers anyway from last year so I will also show you what we have completed in that time even though COVID was going on we got projects done still and we continue moving forward over here in Utilities. With this presentation too you are going to see a large use of bonds that we have gotten a couple years ago and we are utilizing. There is going to be rate projects in there as well. You will see some of the state legislative funding got used and projects that we have completed with the Department of Transportation utilizing rates in the majority of those cases and rates. This project here, the Talavera Low Pressure Gas Distribution Network Phase 3B. Currently we are in Phase 3A which is the low-pressure gas line installation, and it is mostly over, you can see it off of Dripping Springs Road where the yellow line is not more or less east and west, and north and south it is kind of lays in like a centipede looking thing. That is where we are currently at work right now installing low pressure gas line. We already completed the gas line that is in red on Dripping Springs, that is a high-pressure gas line. The square that you see in the middle of the screen, that is the reg station. Then the Phase 3B is actually the majority of networks starting where the majority of the streets go north and south in this map here. That would be Phase 3B section. We are planning on actually splitting 3B into two pieces: 3B, 3C just so that way we can take care of a couple right-of-way issues and then move forward on the 3C part. The 3B we wanted to move on because we have all the right- of-way. I did not define it out because we have not quite laid it out just yet but that is under design and we hope to have it out here in the next couple of months. Phase 3A is under construction right now and ongoing. Del Rey Boulevard High Pressure Gas Line Extension. Basically, this gas line extension is so that way we can shore up some gas lines over here in the, I Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 7 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 believe it is the Westmoreland area. We want to extend the high-pressure gas line so we can build another reg station and back up the existing low-pressure gas that is out there. When we had really low temperatures a couple years ago we showed a pressure drop in that area. We were able to sustain the customers, but we want to extend that high pressure gas line so that way we can ensure that they receive the full pressure of gas that they need in order to stay warm and do their cooking and heating of their homes. That is paid with the Gas Development Funds; approximate cost about $1.8 million. The New Booster Station/Well Building Repairs and Pump Station Rehabs. This is kind of a carryover project. We have completed the roof repairs; you can see the upper left photo there. We showed you what one of our roofs looks like after it is completed. We do anticipate doing more roof repairs the new fiscal year coming up starting July 1st, so we finished all those for FY2021 and then going FY2021-2022 we will be moving on some more projects. Also pump station rehabs; we do have budget set aside for that. A new "Spruce booster tank station that we will be completing. We already have a preliminary report completed and we are working on getting the design moving forward. The same consultant that did the report is also doing the construction and design and we will be moving ;on that as quickly as possible. The well building and equipment upgrades is ongoing as it says in there. Then like I stated earlier the well building roof repairs for FY2021 are completed. FY2022 is pending the new budget and then we are going to move forward and do the same thing. It is just the extra effort we do to maintain our facilities so that they are in tip top shape all the time. Water Tank rehabs: basically this is all bonds money. We are under design right now on the Missouri tank which is the left photo, and then we want to get in and do an inspection in the elevated airport tank. The reason the airport tank has not been completed just yet is because we are running a new booster station that we completed. We are testing out the booster station so it will mimic the tank height and once we feel confident that the booster station is going to stay up to par with what we already provide via the standby tank then we will move over and run the booster station full time and get inside that elevated tank and have it inspected by one of our consultants. Water Well Improvements. I have quite a few of those or a couple of those at least, they are very expensive projects. We already completed Well 40; we re- drilled that well. That is completed. It is pending substantial completion and then we can accept it and get it in service the way we feel it needs to be in service. The photo on the left is another extension project. I believe that is Well 64 improvements and pipeline extension. The contract is in process right now with I believe it is DB Stephens and Associates. They are going to be doing that design both the well and the pipeline for that. Then the photo on the right is our improvements at Well 72. That well is already drilled and so we need to extend the pipeline and equip that well with the pumps and electrical and SCADA items that are needed to start utilizing Well 72. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 8 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 The next project once again is bonds monies. Water Street Utility Rehab Transite Pipe Projects. Right now, we are partnering with Public Works on the East Madrid Avenue and North Walnut Avenue. Those are both AC pipe, we call transite pipe. They will be doing roadway improvements in there and so we are going to be upgrading our pipe from AC to PVC. This is part of the $2 million in bonds that we borrowed and we also have West Mountain and Fir Ave., these are smaller projects as compared to the two large ones; East Madrid and Walnut Avenue. Then we also have Solar Range. Once again we are working with Public Works and they are doing a road rehab and we will be replacing our existing AC pipe out there with the new PVC water line. Here is the one impact fee project and it is a proposed 24 inch ductile iron water transmission line. As you see the red proportion that is what is in design right now; it is the current project. The orange line there is the future projects necessary to get all the way to Highway 70, and then down below that in blue is what we have already completed with impact fees back to the Jornada tank. We have approximately $742,000.00 budgeted for that project. It is at the tail end of the design and then we hope to get out to bid; we are still nailing down a few things out there. That would be the whole gist of that project; the Zone 1 Interconnect Phase B. Project 2. The Wastewater Treatment Facility:,Rehab project. There is approximately $2.6 million in bonds that we will be doing all this work with. The left photo there is the East Primary Clarifier that is already under construction. We put that out to bid at the beginning of the.year, we have a contractor on board, and we are moving forward with the construction on that project. The photo on the right is the Ultraviolet Light Disinfection Upgrades. As you can see those are the large chlorine gas cylinders that are at the treatment plant. With this project we will be eliminating a large portion of that chlorine gas; maybe even all of it depending on how that system works. We like to have redundancy just in case but more than likely we are going to be eliminating the entire thing. Here is another impact fees project: the Sandhill Wastewater Interceptor. We have already completed the Phase 1 portion in green there and now we are actually in construction on the Phase 2 portion with the cost of that project $1.5 million. The contractor's Morrow Construction. I was just out there today and the contractor's already at Rinconada, you can see in the red section. He is already at Rinconada, has started down at the green and about three quarters of the way done with the installation. He still has a bit more to go but that project's moving forward pretty quickly. That is an impact fees project. This project here utilizes 2019 Legislative Grant monies: the two streets Calle de`Ranchero and Avenida del Sol. That is under construction right now. The estimated costs on that project is $373,000.00; that's all grant monies. We do have a portion of grant monies remaining and that will be moved over to the next slide anyways but this is all grant monies and it's under construction right now up on the East Mesa. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 9 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 The remaining portion of the 2009 grant monies are going to be utilized over here in Brittany Estates, Estados Serenos. The proposed project Phase 1 is in gold there. We did receive some additional grant money for 2020 and with that, in addition to the 2019 and the 2020 put together we will be moving more into the subdivision, that same subdivision there to complete more sewer line installation. It is a very densely populated subdivision. There are some multi- use homes in there and so we want to go ahead and get this sewer line in there. I know we have had a few calls in regards to septic tank issues and leech line issues in that area so we want to focus on that area now to try and complete that Estados Serenos and Brittany Estates with the remaining funds that the state has provided to us. We hopefully can make it all the way through there but the way material prices are going I am not sure we can quite do that. We always do a lot of projects with Public Works. They do a lot of street utility, street roadway rehabs and so we jump in and we call those our street utility rehab projects. You know about the busy one on Tashiro Drive; that is a combination of both Utilities and Public Works where we are replacing or installing additional water line and gas lines and then Public Works is updating the roadway and putting curb and gutter and sidewalk. Then we also have another project that we are doing over in the alley north of Picacho; that is a water main rehab with Public Works. We will be doing the University Avenue water line rehab and Public Works will be repaving the entire roadway. That is in it is very preliminary stages right now with Public Works so we are working on getting that design moving forward. Then we also over with same monies we had the Los Venados sewer separation. We want to split the system up in that area so it clearly demarcates the customers for Dona Ana Mutual Domestic and our customers as well. Then we also have an ongoing project right now, Carreon Place water line. That water line is being replaced as we speak. Public Works is the project managers on that project and so we continue to move forward. This next project is basically paid for by rates by all of the Utilities: Gas, Water, Wastewater, and Solid Waste. It is a proposed fiber optic line to the building here on Motel Boulevard where my office is. We need to complete a new fiber optic line near Valley Drive and then up to the Jacob Hands Wastewater Treatment Facility and then also to the Las Cruces Utilities building. Right now, we are on an old fiber optic line that is down to its last pairs and without that we will lose the fiber optic speed that we have now and communications. We would be able to switch over to microwave but it is simply not as good as the fiber optic. We do have a very large budget slated for that. I need to get that project designed and then under construction as soon as possible. I wanted to show this project because it was an NMDOT [New Mexico Department of Transportation] project that we were working with NMDOT last year. We actually got this project completed. We had to upgrade the water line in that location and then we also had to do some gas line lowering as well. That is for the new roundabouts they have out there along with the bridge Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 10 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 crossings. We have completed these projects. We did these with our own contractor. The Department of Transportation gave us a window to go in and install the lines and we did just that and got out of their way and they continued with their service work and all their other landscaping work that they need to do in the area. I just wanted to let you know that that project is completed and the utilities are all upgraded in that location. Basically, in summary this CIP (Capital Improvements Project) provides for the necessary level of funding for completion of our Talavera Gas System Installation; that is a big one for us. The capacity improvements in the gas system south of Westmoreland area, which I showed you. Rehabilitation (Rehab) of water facilities, water reservoirs, equipment,,and water wells and then also reinvestment back in the Jacob Hands with the clarifier upgrades that we are doing and the UV (Ultraviolet) system upgrades that are going on out there. Then applications of the impact fees with the Wastewater Interceptor that we are doing on Sandhill and 'then also the utilization of state legislative funding that we love getting to do the Septic Tank Replacement Projects. Also, the work we do in combination with Public Works on their infrastructure improvements. Then finally the fiber optic communications which is essential for us to do business here at Las Cruces Utilities Building. Extensive use of existing bonds and legislative monies and then there is also a large use of rates that we charge our customers so we can keep up with our materials and our equipment out there. That is all I have. If any of you all have a question I can answer any questions you may have. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Any Committee Members have any comments or questions? Mr. Newby. Newby: Mr. Chair, Mr. Clark. Thank you very much for the usual very thorough description from the Utility Department. How you guys keep track of all these projects you do is amazing to me. Just one dumb question: on the transite replacement are the old transite lines replaced because of wear and tear and weakness or does it have anything to do with the asbestos in them? Clark: It is more of the age:of the infrastructure. Most of that transite pipe materials that are out there have reached their useful age. We are attacking some of the problem areas first; they are the ones with the highest risk. We are also whenever Public Works is doing a big, huge roadway project such as East Madrid which we knew we had problems in that water line anyways and it was AC, we had bond monies to take care of that. It is a combination of things Mr. Newby. It could be the age of the pipe itself and in some cases such as Walnut Avenue the entire roadway's going to be replaced and we anticipate replacing that AC pipe however we want to see that savings and benefit from teaming with Public Works, and also to limit the impact to the residents in that neighborhood. I do not want to come back at a later date and have to cut that new asphalt, so we team with them and move forward on those projects. It's a combination really, Mr. Newby. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 11 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Newby: I presume we still have many, many miles of transite in the ground? Clark: We have many, many miles of transite in the ground that we continue to, will have to continue to bond and start replacing those higher risk areas. I have been on many, many street projects where we have transite pipe in the ground and you open the ground and it looks as good as the day they produced the pipe. You can have it both ways. It may be age but there are certain soil conditions that the pipe is just fine. That is lower in our priority list versus the high risk items that we have identified in our transite pipe report that we have. Newby: Thank you very much. Clark: You are welcome. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you Mr. Newby. Mr. Roberts do you have any comments or questions? Roberts: No, I do not. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I do have a couple questions, Mr. Clark, and comment first. Can you hear me? Clark: Yes sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: First thank you for the great presentation. I like the fact that I can read the page numbers and also, I like the fact that you have put exactly where the money comes from on each project; whether it was grant, or fees, or however the money was:spent for the; projects, or bond money. I think that is a good thing for us to know exactly how it is divided up. At some point, and not necessarily now, I would like to know the percentage of bond monies compared to grant money compared to fees used for projects. Maybe a breakdown, just for the Board I think it would be good for the Board to know what the breakdown is as far as percentages; at least approximate maybe at the next meeting or at some point. Clark: Yes, Mr. Chair, I believe I can do that. You are going to see that there is really very little to no combination fees and grant money out there. More than likely there will not be any grant money tied to bonds either but we can break it apart. It will be a combination mostly of bonds and fees. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. You are saying the grant money is pretty miniscule in that picture, maybe. Clark: Chairman. Yes that is correct. The grant money is very miniscule comparatively. We typically only get grant money for septic replacement projects. We have in the past seen grant money for well improvements but that was kind of an anomaly I would say. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 12 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Vice-Chair O'Neill: I see. I think that is good for the Board to know just to have an idea of how this stuff is being paid for. Also, all these projects that you have given us today, these are all budgeted and paid for, is that correct? Clark: Yes the budget has been set aside for all of these projects. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. As far as new projects that you are going to need in the future that you are probably, like what is in the queue? You probably have a listing of things in the queue and how much it might cost. Are you already working on that? Clark: Chairman, Commissioners. Yes. We have a five year plan that we put together; a CIP plan. You will see the majority of it is probably based on transite pipe, reservoir rehabs, and well improvements. That is where you can see a lot of our cost. There is a lot of wastewater treatment facility upgrades in that five year plan, but that's pushed way out there five years and I try to give everybody, here is the projects that we have identified that we are moving on and we are going to get done. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Great. Well thank you for the complete presentation, appreciate it Mr. Clark. Clark: You are very welcome. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Board, do you have any ether questions Board Members, Committee Members? Newby: I am good. Roberts: I do not have anything else. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Clark: Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you. 5.2. 'Parks and Recreation Current Proiects Updates Vice-Chair O'Neill: We will move on to the next item of New Business under item 5B: Parks and Recreation Current Projects Updates by Cathy Matthews. Hi Cathy. Mathews: Hi Mr. Chair. How are you? Vice-Chair O'Neill: Good. How are you doing? Mathews: Good, thank you. Thank you very much. Alma, can I share my screen and give my presentation? Ruiz: Actually, it should be on now. Mathews: I made some changes. Would it be possible to share my screen instead? Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 13 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Ruiz: Yes ma'am. Mathews: Thank you. Ruiz: Hold on please. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Alma knows all the tricks. Mathews: She does. Very good. Here we go. Are you all seeing my screen at this point and time? Vice-Chair O'Neill: Yes. Roberts: Yes. Mathews: Very good. Thank you. Let me see if I can make that into presentation. We are good. Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members of the Board. I appreciate your time this afternoon. My name is Cathy Mathews, I am the landscape architect with Parks and Recreation Department. I wanted to give you a presentation regarding our Park Impact Fee projects that we have got going currently and what we are planning in the future. Currently this is similar to what I presented earlier in the year. We have Apodaca Park Aquatic Playground for $750,000.00 in District 1, East Mesa Public Safety Complex Park in District 6, Highland Park in District 5, Metro Verde Neighborhood Parks in District 5 as well, the National Fitness Campaign Outdoor Gym II in Council District 6 here at Hadley Avenue Recreation Complex, Pueblos at Alameda we are finishing that up with installing some playground equipment in District 6, and a land acquisition project which is budgeted at $500000.00. Currently the current projects we are working on and some of which have been completed or one of which has been completed are utilizing Park Impact Fees to the tune of almost $3 million. I wanted to also then just talk about the future and the near future. In fiscal year 2022 we have an additional project noted on the CIP that includes neighborhood parks; just general neighborhood parks for a million dollars because those are being constructed at a fairly rapid rate especially in the Metro Verde neighborhoods where we have developed a partnership, working relationship with the developer to get those neighborhood parks developed fairly quickly. In addition, in future years we have additional land acquisition, Albert Johnson Park Electrical Improvements slated to utilize Park Impact Fees, Benavidez Community Center Park Improvements, we have a master plan for that park, and in the future we have designated Park Impact Fees as the source of funding. Multi-use recreation center, we are in desperate need of another recreation center and so we have that identified in the Capital Improvement Plan for future use of Park Impact Fees. 4-Field Baseball or Softball Complex also is a need that has been identified and Park Impact Fees can be a part of paying for that. Laabs Pool Shade Structures; we need some shade structures Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 14 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 in that facility. New Sand volleyball Courts: volleyball is very popular and growing more popular and we do not have very many outdoor facilities for volleyball and so we are looking to build some more of those. Also, Waterfalls Park; that is a storm water management facility south of US 70 that needs to have something done with it. Those FY2022 and future we have slated or budgeted or cost estimated at almost $10 million for those kinds of projects in the future. We have got about $3 million current and we are looking at almost $10 million for the future. Just rather quickly, hopefully some of the current projects we have got going is Apodaca Park Aquatic Playground. We are in the process of receiving a $750,000.00 grant from the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Program for $750,000.00; they require a one to one match and so we have designated Park Impact Fees of $750,000.00 to match that. We have completed the cultural resource study and sent that off to the State Historic Preservation Office. They had issues with some of the conclusions that our consultant reached with regard to the value of some of the existing cultural resources and so we are in discussion with them about how to manage that situation. That project is taking longer than we hoped to get underway. East Mesa Public Safety Area. As you can see on the screen the area outlined in yellow, the yellow dots is what we call the East Mesa Public Safety Area. It is 350 acres, where down in the lower left hand" corner you see the Public Safety Complex. Fire and police have a building there. This is also going to be the location of the GO Bond recreation complex, so there will be baseball fields, softball fields, a park, and the associated infrastructure with those, parking lots, streets, restrooms, and the like. In addition to that Park Impact Fees we have designated 100,000.00; likely those will go to improving trailheads. Have not made much progress on this particular project because wanted to make sure that whatever work we did coordinate with the GO Bond project so that we were not duplicating any kind of efforts and that the Park Impact Fees would supplement and help to further the goals of the GO Bond projects. There is the master plan for the recreation complex on those 350 acres. Phase 1 is a portion;of that and then second phase is going to be required to complete that project. Highland Park also this is a park that is proposed for the parcel of land that we have leased from the BLM just north of Highland Elementary School. The design is complete. We are in the process of preparing and figuring out how we are going to fit it into the schedule to get the construction going on this. The idea is to build turf areas, open place turf areas that can be used as soccer practice fields or baseball practice fields so that that explains the shape of those turf areas. Additionally, there will be recreational trail and landscape improvements and picnic facilities completed in conjunction with this project as well. Metro Verde neighborhood parks. As I mentioned here we work in partnership with the developer at Metro Verde to really get a lot of neighborhood parks Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 15 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 going in this fast building part of town in District 5. Recently we completed Metro Park Village Phase 3 and really we call it Tower Park because it is, the play equipment there is representative of sort of a space age kind of tower; it is really fun, that is all I can say. We also have under construction right now what we call the Ninja Park. It is sort of one of these American Ninja style parkour's kind of park. Anyways we just completed some inspection on some of the equipment that was installed and we have some issues with the installation process and so we are working through the punch list on those items. Red Hawk Villas Park is in this vicinity which will be a nice passive recreation park with open play turf area as well as a 'large plaza,. some lighting that hopefully will make it pleasant in the evening, and some seating and planter areas. Just sort of a passive recreation place park to serve the neighbors in the vicinity. Under design and we are nearing completion of construction documents on a park that will have a skate spot in it. Our skate community is very active within our City. We have a number of projects going that relate to skate parks including this one which is a neighborhood park and it will have what we call a skate spot in it. That is a few small features for skaters to practice or for beginner skaters to start to learn their sport. All of those of course are in District 5. The National Fitness Campaign in the Outdoor Gym is complete. It was built near the East Mesa recreation center. This is the street facing side of it and I do not have a picture of the other side of it. I apologize about that. It has got a shade structure, so it is very comfortable. It can be comfortable even in the hot sun until about 2:00 p.m. on a hot summer day when it does get hot. Pueblos at Alameda Neighborhood Park. The construction of the park itself is complete; it is there on the center right hand side outlined in yellow dots. It is about a one-acre park that will serve the neighborhood and the folks there, once it was complete they were not satisfied with the play equipment that had been installed. We devoted some additional budget to that project to get some simple play equipment and a little bit of trailhead amenities into the park. As you can see in this picture also the City Art Board installed a sculpture in the park as well; it is called the Tree of Life. So far it is doing very well out there. Land acquisition and planning also in District 5. We have been tasked with purchasing some property to develop a park for the folks near Mesa Grande Drive and the area that is outlined in yellow actually is an old park or parcel that was under consideration. Since this slide was put here we have now moved our focus to the east of that yellow outlined area in the upper right hand corner, just to the east of that yellow outlined area is a parcel along Central, between Central and Skylark Lane and that property belongs to Tierra Del Sol. They are developing that community, the small neighborhood, and they will be selling to the City two acres of land for a neighborhood park. We are in the process of working with them to make that purchase happen, to master plan the subdivision, and to work out an agreement on how to build the infrastructure for that subdivision so that it makes it feasible for them to Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 16 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 sell those two acres to us and still meet their goals of providing additional affordable housing in our community. That moves me onto Fiscal Year 2022 projects. Of course, some of these are carryover and will have the additional project of neighborhood parks added to this as well. Then other projects, not Park Impact Fee projects, are listed here as well and so these are funded by different kinds of sources of funding as similar to how some of Carl's projects, Utilities projects are funded. A number of our projects are slated to be funded by bonds and grants as well. I mentioned skate park improvements for instance. We do have lighting projects, some indoor projects namely wood fluor improvements at Meerscheidt Recreation Center, Chandler Tank is on the list as well, that is the storm water facility on the East Mesa which we will be turning into a multi-use facility so we will have park improvements there as well, and other kinds of improvements as well. Ball field, soccer field renovations is one that is happening at the High Noon Soccer Complex although that one has been delayed over some issues of leasing that property from the schools. We have trail improvements as well that are supported by grants and also private grants. The Tortugas Trail and the Dona Ana Move Trail we are proposing those to be designed and constructed along laterals that .will help to complete the trail system surrounding the City. We did complete the PVD soccer field lighting project and it is pretty outstanding`. You go from bright light on the field to very dark outside the field and so I think this new light fixtures that we are using are going to be very useful in preventing overspill of the light and yet providing a minimum of 30 foot candle per square feet on the fields which is pretty bright. We have general park equipment renovations; that one also is completed with some improvements that were done at Benavidez. That new playground equipment has been inspected and approved and accepted. The I-10/I-25 interchange erosion control project was supported by legislative grant. This most recent legislative session the legislature agreed to reprogram that funding so that it will no longer be used at that interchange which is outside of the City limits and was going to be very difficult for Parks and Rec to maintain. Instead, they have reprogrammed it to support median landscape development on Lohman Avenue and on Roadrunner Parkway. We will be starting on design on that project soon and we will have this additional $400,O00.00 to support construction. That funding will not fund the entire construction but it should go a fairly long way to completing many of the medians either on Lohman or on Roadrunner Parkway but either way we will have full design for all of those landscape medians. The item number 13 Median Landscape, that is in two phases: Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 is under construction right now. Phase 2 is planning for design. That funding is from bonds without supplemented grants, loans, or taxes but at this time those are bond funded. Nevada Avenue corridor is also completed. It is in close out right now. The contractor just finished replacing Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 17 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 some of the plants that had perished. That project is nearing completion. Public Works has been managing that project for us and they should be closing it out fairly soon. It is a demonstration project on utilizing storm water to support native plants that then grow to shade pedestrian corridors and to help to reduce the heat island effect in areas of town that are experiencing the ill effects of that kind of result of climate change. A few additional projects then, park security and lighting. Of course, we installed cameras at Veteran's Memorial Park and we are now seeking proposals for design and installation of lighting along the pathways at Veteran's Memorial Park and hopefully there will be enough funding available also to complete some lighting at Gomez Park in Council District 4 as well. Parks smart controllers and pumps. This was a project that was supported by a federal grant through the Water Smart Program designed to improve water conservation efforts. We have installed smart controllers and a central control system for our irrigation systems at Hadley Avenue Recreation Complex. We are seeing the results of those improvements already in water savings and the like. Now we just need to finish up that project by installing some booster pumps where we have insufficient pressure at Soldados and also at Apodaca Park. Those two parks will have pumps installed at them and that will allow our system to function much more efficiently and get us the high quality turf that our users expect without using excessive amounts of water. Pioneer Women's Park improvements also has received some legislative funding mostly to improve the gazebo within that park and so we are following the master plan that we developed a couple years ago with the neighbors. The first project that will be completed is to bring that gazebo up to speed and into modern times while respecting the historic nature of the style and the purpose of that gazebo. Again, another trail project, RTP Trail along the Las Cruces Lateral. We are finalizing the contract for design for that project. The grant is for $108,000.00 or I should say the grant plus the match is $108,000.00 and we are working to include another $27,000.00 from operational funds to make that design contract possible. Then the final project, Veteran's Park parking lot, Public Works is managing that project. The master plan for the whole park including the parking lot was developed actually two years ago now and approved by the Veteran's Advisory Board. Of course, the Veteran's Advisory Board and the City desire to have a much larger parking lot for that park because when events are held there of course they are always very popular and it can be difficult to accommodate all of the people who want to attend those events on the side streets adjacent to Veteran's Memorial Park and the like. A parking lot really is required to help people to safely access the park especially for events and the like. All of those projects are additional about $9 million in project. Then of course our GO Bond projects we have got trails coming up and as I mentioned the recreation complex, other kinds of improvements as well; dog parks, recreation complex, improvements and the like. Those two bond questions Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 18 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 were at a total of $19.6 million. All told our existing projects are about $31 million; 19 of those of course being GO Bond projects. Other non-CIP projects, we have got a number of projects that have just sort of come our way. They don't necessarily have funding but we find funding to make them happen. I have got to highlight one of those that the third line item down is AARP Fit Lot Outdoor Fitness Area. AARP recently has been really active in providing funding for the City to bring new kinds of facilities to our residents and the Fit Lot is one of those. We constructed it at Benavidez Community Park. It fit in with the master plan to provide outdoor exercise equipment there and again we just inspected that one last week. We found a few difficulties, a few things that need to be completed but we will be talking very soon about having a grand opening, a ribbon cutting kind of event for that facility. It has made quite a difference there at Benavidez and I think that whole area is just going to continue to improve as we go along. With that, thank you. I appreciate your attention and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you for that very informative presentation with some very nice graphics. We appreciate that Cathy. It is great our community has so much going on as far as Parks and Rec. That is my background so I really appreciate that. You have a lot of things. You have got your hands full; you and Sonya and the whole gang. Thank you for all you do. Mathews: Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Our community is blessed to have all these types of facilities. I am going to check with the other Committee Members, see if they have any questions or comments and then I do have a few. Mr. Newby do you have any questions or comments? Newby: Just a couple Mr. Chairman. Cathy thank you very much for a very thorough presentation. You are list just keeps getting longer and longer. Sounds like you get volunteered to do a lot of things. Mathews: Parks and Rec handles a lot. Thank you. Newby: Yes, along with keeping track of all the maintenance etc. so I feel your pain. Just a couple quick questions on the East Mesa Public Safety GO Bond. Do you know what year that the GO Bond is planned for or is that still just out there? Mathews: Yes Mr. Newby, thank you for the question. Mr. Chair. The GO Bond was, the election was in 2018 I believe it was approved, and so we are on track to complete the spending of that initial bond by 2024 I believe. This particular project, the East Mesa Public Rec Complex is going to push that. It will be the last project completed. It is the largest project. It will be pushing that 2024 completion date. It is my understanding that the City will be seeking renewal of that bond and I am not sure when that will occur but I believe it may be Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 19 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 next year, 2022 that the second renewal of that bond will be coming up for election, for vote. Newby: What is the total amount budgeted for the East Mesa Public Safety Complex? Vice-Chair O'Neill: I cannot hear you. Newby: I am sorry. Do you know, Cathy, what the total allocation is for the East Mesa Public Safety Complex? Mathews: Mr. Newby, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question. I believe the total is something along the lines of $6 million. I am not certain at this point in time but I can get that to you and maybe I can e-mail that to Alma and she can send it out to the Board. Ruiz: Sonya Delgado has her hand up. Mathews: Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Ms. Delgado. Hello. Delgado: Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members of the beard. Sonya Delgado, Director Parks and Recreation. I,just wanted to add that we just met yesterday to talk about the next round of GO Bond projects and what that process is going to be. We will start that process here pretty soon and we will start as we did with the others with some community input; probably looking at getting a consultant to help us with that just like we did with the first round. A lot will be happening here really soon but we just met yesterday. We will keep you apprised as that moves along. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Ms. Delgado. Delgado: Yes sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Does that next GO Bond have anything to do with the Country Club area or is that still dormant or that is still in flux with the TIDD (Tax Increment Development District) and so forth? Delgado: Mr. Chair, Members of the Board. I do not know. We will see what projects the community would like to bring forward. I guess certainly that could be one but I do not know at this point in time. It is way too early. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Yes, I understand. Thank you. Delgado: You are welcome. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Anything else Ms. Delgado? Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 20 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Delgado: No. Thanks. Vice-Chair O'Neill: All right. Mr. Roberts do you have any comments or questions? Roberts: No, nothing at this time. Vice-Chair O'Neill: All right. Ms. Mathews I have a few questions having to do more in specifics on the parks from your presentation. On slide four you talk about Apodaca Park. Mathews: Yes. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I see where there is aquatic playground. The pool is going to be eliminated, there will be no actual swimming pool there, is that correct? Mathews: Mr. Chair. That is the plan. As I mentioned State Historic Preservation Office had some comments about our cultural resources study and among the cultural resources that they think do have some value are the: pool complex, the pool house, and the bath house. Our plan is to demolish those and replace the pool with a splash pad, an aquatic playground. Plans may change. We will try to talk with those folks at State Historic Preservation office and find some way to achieve our project goals and to keep the facilities that they feel are of value. I really have to say I hope that it is not the swimming pool. Maybe the bath house has some value but.I do not know that the swimming pool does. The plan is to put in a splash pad and demolish the swimming pool. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Yes, it is pretty old and decrepit. Thank you. You are saying that still has not really been completely decided yet. Mathews: That is correct, Mr. Chair. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Another question I have is racquet ball still the big thing now going on or are they still going to have racquet ball courts at all these different parks or has it kind of died down? Mathews: Mr. Chair..That is a good question. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Pickleball. Mathews: Pickleball. Racquet ball, I have not heard racquet ball in ages. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I know how popular it has gotten, that is what I meant. Mathews: Just for racquet ball we do have racquet ball courts. The City does have racquet ball courts at Lions Park on Picacho and they are popular. They do get used quite a bit. Pickleball is as popular as ever. The GO Bond project does include some renovations of the tennis court at Apodaca that has been restriped and resurfaced for pickleball. There will be four courts at Apodaca, there are Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 21 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 temporary courts at Lion's Park right now for pickleball, and as part of the East Mesa Public Recreation Complex there will be eight pickleball courts constructed as part of that project. We will be more than doubling, two and a half times-ing our existing number of pickleball courts that the City owns and operates. Vice-Chair O'Neill: It is still very popular. Mathews: It is. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Hopefully, the tennis players are not up in arms. There is still enough room for them hopefully. Mathews: Mr. Chair. Yes. Part of the GO Bond project also of course the courts at Lion's Park, the tennis courts at Lions Park have been resurfaced. There is improvements being made at that park as well for tennis. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you. Two other questions. One: has there been any other talk about a possible disc course, Frisbee golf course or is that a ways away or is that even in discussion anymore? Mathews: Mr. Chair. That is definitely in discussion. In fact, Sonya and I a while ago, less than a year ago had discussion with a business owner in town who was very supportive of disc golf course. We are keeping our eyes out for a location for that kind of facility because there definitely is still desire for that. We have not identified any place in particular and as you can see from our CIP currently we do not have anything on the CIP that specifically calls for disc golf but it is definitely on our mind and we know that the desire for that kind of facility exists in our community. Vice-Chair O'Neill: All right well maybe that would be, a good place might be that Country Club ground once we are able to move on to it. Another question: has there been, you talked about the Veteran's Park and has there been any, a while back I know when I was on the Park Board there were different instances of vandalism. Has there been any? Has it been a problem or not so much anymore? Mathews: Mr. Chair. °Yes vandalism is something Franco and his crews, Franco Granillo, our Parks Administrator, and his crews deal with all the time. I have to say I have not noted that vandalism at Veteran's Memorial Park is a particular problem. I think they do experience some minor vandalism but nothing to the extent in the recent past. It is pretty good. People behave pretty well there. Vice-Chair O'Neill: That is all I have. Thank you. Mathews: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 22 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 5.3. Public Safety Current Proiects Updates: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Moving on. Item C, I think Chief Smith is still with us to do a Public Safety Current Projects Update. Interim Chief Smith are you still with us? Smith: Yes sir, Chairperson. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Phone went off. Smith: Not a problem. I am going to cover the Fire Department side. I believe that Deputy Chief Paul Brock may be on the call to cover police. Good afternoon and I am going to provide some information on our current Capital Projects, some of our future expected needs, and just basically how the Department is doing overall. We do not have the number of projects that Utilities or Parks have going on luckily; that would be a lot of projects for us to manage. Our largest ongoing project is probably the $6.2 million GO Band project to replace Fire Station 3 and I am just going to share my screen real quick. This is just the public facing site that Public Works manages and it gives you an update of all the GO Bond projects as well as other Public Works projects and I did send this over to our Capital Improvement Advisory e-mail so that it could be available to members. You can see right now we are at 40% of construction with Fire Station 3, the replacement there. We are pretty happy with the progress of that station is making. I have got a couple of pictures I snapped just the other day when I went out to visit the site. This picture here shows the apparatus bay or what will be the apparatus bay. It is long enough for a quince; basically, that is a small fire engine with a truck or a truck ladder on top. It does not have a basket. It is usually about 75 to 100 feet in length, the ladder is. I can have one of those fit in it as well as a regular fire engine. Station 3 does house engine number 3 and squad 3; that is one of our ambulances. This picture here, I hope that the screen is changing for you all. This is a look down in the opposite direction so this is from the apparatus bay going down the main hall of the station. The pipes we see coming up through the concrete that is the main restroom area. There is four individual full bathrooms; shower, toilet, and sink there for the crew. The two windows that you can see on the left are two of the 10 dorm rooms. Past there where the worker is with the orange shirt, that gets into where the kitchen will be and on the far side is where the fitness area is followed by the offices for the station. Here is a view looking;at it from Valley and what will be the driveway to it. Sorry it is a pretty grainy picture but this side that faces to the west and the south is our offices and our public interface area. I think I have got one more here. This is from the edge of the driveway of the existing fire station, Station 3 so this is where the apparatus from the new station will be exiting onto Valley. You can see there we are going to have a large basically three-story tower on the northwest part of the apparatus bay. This will be used for training for the crews. It also provides access to the Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 23 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 mezzanine and the roof and we are working with the Arts Advisory Council to actually select an artist to perform or install some sort of artwork here at the top of the tower so it can be highly visible. That's the update on Fire Station 3 and the GO Bond project. One other project that we plan on starting here at the beginning of the fiscal year will be Station 1 remodel. This is a small remodel of one of our existing classrooms here. We are going to be turning it into two office spaces to support our mobile integrated health care program. That; project will be just over $60,000.00. Those are the main projects that we have going on right now as far as Capital Improvement. Our future needs include a Fire Station 1, our front lobby to be remodeled. Right now, it is not what I would consider a secure location for our employees. It is just a straight access to the public so we are looking at trying to address some of those needs of increasing our security here at Station 1. We are also asking for Fire Station 5, the south parking lot and the station driveway to be redone. That is an unfunded request. We are also looking at redoing the stucco at Fire Station 6. We are looking at ways to replace Fire Station 2 and that is a 1967 building: the same age as Fire Station 3. It is one of our busiest fire stations and it houses an engine and a squad just like Station 3 does. As far as brand-new fire stations we would like to pursue Fire Station 9 which would be somewhere toward the Red Hawk area on North Sonoma Ranch. This area right now experiences probably our longest response times within the City. Similar to the area south Sonoma Ranch did before Station 8 was constructed at the East Mesa Safety Building. We also have ongoing rolling equipment needs which I know are a little bit out of the purview of this committee but when we talk about a $1.3 million aerial apparatus that need to be replaced it kind of warrants being mentioned. Then we have our ongoing station maintenance and repair needs that we try to take care of either through our state fire protection fund that we get from the state or through general fund and some other capital projects that we bring to the CIP. As far as being a "department, how we are doing, we are staying very busy. COVID did impact our response numbers. It kept us pretty flat as compared to 2019 but when we look at 2020 compared to 2018 or 2019 to the same year, we are ialmost 9% higher in our call volume. We respond to over 100 structure fires every year. About 300 to 400 fires overall and those include vehicle fires, grass fires, dumpster fires, so all of that is a small fraction of our call volume. We do over 13,000 EMS (Emergency Medical Services) calls which is why it is critical that our personnel are trained as EMT's (Emergency Medical Technician), advanced EMT's and paramedics. We do about 500 to 600 false calls every year. That number has been greatly improved since we passed the false alarm ordinance or the alarm ordinance for the City. Then we respond to about 5,000 to 6,000 calls every year for public service and that is for just every other type of call other than fire and EMS. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 24 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Our MIH (Mobile Integrated Health) program is still going strong. They are just one individual there that manages that program, but he is also overseeing a large state grant for opioid addiction and intervention; it is called the CARA (Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act) grant. That is basically taken a lot of that employee's time and we are looking at hiring a couple more personnel through that grant to help him out. Prevention has been pretty swamped and overwhelmed this past year with all the COVID changes. Working with all of our business owners and helping guide them through the changes in social distancing, occupancy loads, so they have been very, very busy. For operations we have also been supporting all the vaccination efforts which include the pod sites here in town at Dona Ana Community College, the Convention Center, and other locations, as well as we have been running an in-home vaccination program for home bound individuals and we have been very successful in that. One thing that is very exciting for the department is just this past week we were awarded our PRC (Public Regulation Commission) certificate for ambulance transport. This is a state certificate that will actually allow us to look at billing but more importantly this has put us in a position where with the county we can now move to managing that ambulance contract for our citizens. Before it was exclusively ran and monitored by the county and through an Ambulance Review Committee and now, we are going to have more equal standing and more influence in those services and that contract. With that Mr. Chair, if you would like me to answer any questions I can or I can defer until after PD (Police Department). Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you Mr. Smith. Thank you for all the information that you have given. You have come very well prepared. Does the committee have any questions? Mr. Newby. None. Mr. Roberts. Roberts: No. Great presentation. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you for joining us today. Smith: Thank you sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Next item is public participation. Do we have any Alma? Ruiz: Chair. We should give the police as part of this public safety item that Chief Smith just covered, an opportunity to share anything that the PD may have. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Great. Please. Go right ahead Mr. Brock. Brock: Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Council Members. Deputy Chief Paul Brock with the Police Department. Most of the Public Safety Impact Fees from my understanding is still being used for the payment of the construction of the East Mesa Public Safety Complex. I will give you guys an update on the building as far as our use. Currently the Police Department does not have any new Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 25 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 projects. However, the East Mesa Public Safety Complex that was built is fully staffed and being used by the Police Department as well as the Fire Department. Currently the Police Department houses our graveyard shift at that location so there is law enforcement personnel at the building 24 hours, seven days a week. We also house our training staff and our police academy at the building along with our internal affairs section. Codes officers and animal control are also housed at the East Mesa Public Safety Center. We also have a station office up front that will be open once again now that the COVID restrictions are lifting, beginning next Monday. We will have civilian personnel there Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 500 p.m. We will also have an additional officer in the station office until 12:00 a.m. to assist anyone that may need police assistance that arrives at the location. Our K-9 unit with the Police Department has dog kennels, all of their equipment, and offices also at the East Mesa Public Safety Center. Future projects here at the Police Department, I know that our current building's a little bit dated, and we are looking at expanding our evidence building that is connected to the Police Department. It is getting a little tight, so we are looking into expanding that. That is all the updates that I have as far as the Police Department goes. If there is any questions, I will stand for them at this time. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you Mr. Brock and I am sorry I did not mean to leave you out in the cold right there. Brock: That is all right. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I do have a question. .Are you guys or the Fire Department or you guys coordinating at all with the new facility that is going to be opening soon? Brock: Which facility? Vice-Chair O'Neill: The new facility that is with the county. I do not know what they are calling it. It's like a rehab or medical, mental health facility. Brock: Yes sir. I think you are referring to the Crisis Triage Center. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Yes exactly. Brock: Off of Copper Loop. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Right. Brock: Yes sir. CIT units as well as myself and Lieutenant Terry have been working closely with them. We just had a tour there last week and spoke with their staff. We have been meeting with their administration. They have not set an Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 26 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 opening date yet, but they are scheduled to have a ribbon cutting ceremony next week. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I see they have hired most all their staff now. I just wanted to make sure there is going to be communication and cooperation between all three of you because I think it is very important and for Mr. Ford too to operate his mobile unit might be very helpful. Brock: Yes sir. We look forward to the opening though. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Do any other Committee Members have any questions or comments for Mr. Brock? Ruiz: Chief Smith has his hand up or had his hand up. Vice-Chair O'Neill: I did not see it. Chief Smith go ahead. Smith: Thank you. To touch on the Crisis Triage Center, we have our medical director Dr. Diven working with their staff and their directors on when and how we can transport to that facility. We are attempting to get integrated with them and make sure that we follow our applicable rules and our medical director and his direction. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Outstanding. That will be a great benefit I think for the community. Mr. Newby do you have any other comments or questions for either Mr. Brock or Chief Smith? Newby: Mr. Chair. I am good. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Mr. Roberts. Roberts: None from me. Vice-Chair O'Neill: All right, I am good too. 6. Rublic Participation: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Now we can move on to public participation. Ruiz: Thank you Chair O'Neill. I just rechecked and there is no public comment in the e-mails that we gave. However, we do have one public participant with us: Mr. Gregory Shervanick who has his hand up. At this point I'm going to allow him to speak if you want him to at this time. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Certainly. Welcome Mr. Shervanick. Shervanick: Yes, good afternoon Mr. Chair and Committee Members. I have to disagree with the information that you were given by Cathy Mathews concerning item number 14 on page 18, concerning the Nevada cool corridor. She gave a figure Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 27 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 of $389,040.00 and of course she also mentioned that the plants had been replaced. I spoke to this committee in February of 2021 concerning this matter. The actual project, yes Mr. Newby, the project is $2,200,000.00 and what Mr. O'Neill as you know we were sitting on the Parks and Recreation Board when this first came to the board. What they told the board is never going to happen with the Nevada cool corridor. It will never give shade. It will never be a walkable place. As far as storm water drainage goes the plants are being watered by either the Park system or water that comes up from the park and runs into the chicanes. This particular situation with Public Works and streets departments being given this project because first it was Sustainability's, then it was Parks and Recreation's, and now it's Public Works and basically for 0.95 miles from Walnut to Solano there are 14 no parking signs. That makes this the most dangerous street in Las Cruces. Even though the project engineers have done five revisions of the design plan for this project they have now included and will not state the information as far as what the share of the cost was by actual City employees. Which means when they did the chicanes the Utilities Department had to come out and actually uncover the major infrastructure of gas, water, and sewer to protect them from putting the plant life in. The amount of $389,000.00 is extremely low and then because the streets did not drain down Nevada the streets department had to repave all of the streets that bisected Nevada on the south side of Lee's Drive. At this; particular time 60% of the plant life has been replanted in these planters. When I gave my public input in February you were told by Public Works that they would come back and defend the amount of money in which I told you it cost, $2.2 million and you still have not heard from them. I have to tell you that I totally disagree and that you have been misled from the beginning of this project by the City of Las Cruces concerning what is or is not being done and what will be done. This project itself in conclusion, and I will not take any more of your time because I had hoped that there would be more transparency concerning this and there has not been. I have spoken twice to the City Council concerning transparency and the amount of money and each time it has been basically covered up and shifted to another department. I would hopefully advise the Board that in the future you look very carefully at what the money is that you are told as Capital Improvements for projects; especially when they shift from Sustainability's quid pro quo for the lighting at a park, then to Parks and Recreations who is going to maintain the green space but during the contract negotiations the plant life was to be watered for six months by the contractor. That was extended for another six months and we are now into a third extension of watering what was a demonstration of what street water would be doing to help green space. The more concrete that was poured there, the higher the radiant value of urban heat. They created more heat based on square footage Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 28 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 of concrete than what the trees, there are no trees, what the plant life will actually take in in opposition. Thank you very much. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you for your input Mr. Shervanick. I remember when you brought this up as far as the money part of it and I thought that we got an answer to that explaining about the cost and so forth and I do not remember who it was by but I thought they did give us an answer to that. Is there any staff that want to respond to this that is here? If not we can get some answers and. Delgado: Mr. Chair. This project was, as Mr. Shervanick stated, there was multiple departments that were involved with it, so what I will do is I will get with all of the departments and I will have them the dollar amount for you and then I will tell you the portion that Parks and Rec is going to be responsible for. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you very much. Delgado: I will do that and I will send it over to Alma to send out. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Then maybe we can if we need to bring it at the next meeting too. Thank you. Thank you for that. Anybody else? Ruiz: I believe it looks like Mr. Shervanick still has his hand up, so I will unmute just in case he has a follow up,. If not, he can lower his hand. Shervanick: Thank you Ms. Ruiz. Yes, I have a follow up. Thank you, Ms. Delgado. I will be speaking at the Parks and Recreation meeting evening also about similar items. Yes, and the problem is there is no transparency. I mean if you are going to be a volunteer committee and you are going to protect the interest of the City of Las Cruces as well as the citizens, then you should know the complete facts. I know Ms. Delgado is going to give you a breakdown of what Parks and Recreations is responsible for, but this is a CIP project which means it is there for a long, long time and it does not matter what departments are involved about it, the money is still the same. It is coming not from grants like it was listed on that program, it is coming from taxes. It is coming from the GRT. When the City of Las Cruces uses its own staff to do work whether it is public work or the projects work then it should be accountable for the amount of money that it uses in the project and you should be aware of that. You should not be given only half truths or halves amount of money or this department did this because originally Mr. O'Neill and you allowed me to speak at Parks and Recreations, you allowed this team of people from the City to come in and hear the design about this project and they all did not want it but the City did not care because it is a storm water demonstration project that they thought was going to work in the desert. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak again. Thank you Ms. Delgado for your input. Mr. Newby, I do have a question for you. When you were with the cheese factory were you in charge of when they put in the solar array out there? Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 29 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Newby: I am sorry, did you say the cheese factory? Shervanick: Yes. Newby: I am sorry that was not one of my projects. Shervanick: Thank you. Newby: No problem. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you Mr. Shervanick for your input. Appreciate it and hopefully we can get some answers for you. Any other public participation? Any other a-mails Alma? Ruiz: At this time there is no other public participation. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: All right. Thank you. 7. Board Comments: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Move on to Board Comments. First of all, I,would like to thank Community Development and Elevate Las Cruces for our nice coffee mugs. I hope everyone got one on the committee, and also the calendars that we got a couple meetings ago. Much appreciated 'thank you. I think that was Mr. Nichols promise and he came through like a champ. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. As far as, is there anyone else on the committee have any comments? Newby: Mr. Chair. I have one question for Alma. Since I am sitting now in the conference room 250 because I did not read past the first paragraph on your multiple e-mails, sorry about that. I really enjoy it though it is a very nice room. Just wondering if there is been any discussion on when we might start back on in person meetings. Ruiz: Chairman, Members of CIAC. Thank you for the question Mr. Newby. The Las Cruces Utility Board has decided to start meeting in person starting in the July meeting and so I know Mr. O'Neill was possibly going to bring that up during this portion of the meeting or possibly at the next topic which is the next meeting. The City Council I believe is also planning on starting in person meetings and so the Las Cruces Utility Board is following suit. Therefore we would also like to know if the CIAC would like to start meeting in person starting in July. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Do the Committee Members have any objection to start in July back meeting in person? Newby: Sounds like a good idea to me. Roberts: I have no objection. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 30 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Vice-Chair O'Neill: Is that good with you Mr. Roberts? Roberts: Yes sir. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Then we will check with our Chairman Mr. Lorenz. We also have an opening on the Board so from what I understand Alma has already advertised and hopefully we will have a new member as soon as possible to fill out our five-member Board. Any other news on that Alma? Ruiz: Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity. The first advertisement will be run this Friday in the Bulletin and then it will be running three times a week in the Las Cruces Sun News and subsequent Friday's in the Bulletin until we get some applications in. We are hoping that we will be able to fill the vacant seat as soon as possible and once we receive applications, we will then submit them to the Mayor and Council and they are the ones who assign the member to the Board. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Isn't it mandated for so many of the Committee Members to be builders or in the construction industry and so many to be from the community? How was that balanced now? Ruiz: Sure. Thank you for the question. It is. The split is a three at large members sit on the CIAC and two development, financial, real estate representatives. It is a three-two split. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Don't we have two from the real estate now so we are trying to fill an at large position? Am I correct in that? Ruiz: Yes. You are correct Chair O'Neill. Right now, the vacancy that Mr. Eugene Suttmil'ler vacated is an at large seat. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you. Anything else Alma? We have to discuss the next meeting on item eight. If there are no other Board comments. Newby: Mr. Chair. I do have one more comment. When I walked in the conference room here two of the staff were very surprised, but I have to thank them profusely for jumping through hoops trying to set up a computer for me, and then we finally kicked one of them out and I am using her computer. Alma your staff is exemplary. Is all I can tell you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Thank you staff. You are always so accommodating and we... Newby: Shoot me, they should have probably just hit me in the head and put us all out of our misery but they just jumped right in and here I am. Plus I got bottled water, so there you go. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Wow, we did not get any bottled water. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 31 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Ruiz: You will get some in the July meeting. S. Next Meeting Date - June 17, 2021: Vice-Chair O'Neill: Moving forward we only show one item for the Agenda for the June meeting which is scheduled for June 17th. I do not know if we will need to meet in June unless there is someone on staff there that or if we have any action items or anything important that needs to come up before the July meeting. Maybe you could let us know. Ruiz: Thank you Chair O'Neill. At this time there is only the one update to the Utilities Impact Fee. We will be sending a proposed Agenda ;topic request like we normally do. If we get any additional topics, we will definitely add it to the Agenda. If not then Chair Lorenz will be able to make the decision whether the June meeting is necessary or not and then we will let everybody know. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay so that will be determined at a later time. Is Mr. Provencio still here, still with us? Provencio: Yes I am Mr. Chair. Vice-Chair O'Neill: There he is. Thank you. Is this impact fee update necessarily have to come in June or can that be pushed to July?„ Provencio: Chairman, Commissioners. This is an item that can certainly be deferred to the July meeting. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay. Thank you. I did not know if we have any action coming up, I do not think we did but I wanted to check with you. All right and we show no New Business so I do not have a problem with that. We will check with our Chairman Lorenz and let the Committee Members know what the status is for June but do plan on meeting in July. I may not be able; I may be out of town in July but we will see. Committee Members are you okay for July meeting? Newby: Mr. Chairman. I am good with that. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Okay and maybe we will have our new person by that time. Not sure. 10. Adiournment: Vice-Chair O'Neill: If there is no other business and no other comments may I hear a motion to adjourn? Newby: So made. Roberts: I will second. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Motion made and seconded; made by Mr. Newby, seconded by Mr. Roberts. All in favor? Aye. Capital Improvements Advisory Committee Page 32 of 32 Regular Meeting Minutes May 20, 2021 Newby: Aye. Roberts: Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill: Unanimous on that. I declare the meeting closed at 3:15 p.m. Thank you all for being here. Jason Lorenz, Chairperson Date