Okay, thanks everybody for coming tonight. It's great to have so many people in a council meeting. So I want to welcome everybody to the January 27th, 2026 county council regular session. So tonight's meeting is going to be an hybrid format. We'll have counselors, presenters, and public in person are on Zoom.
Tennis Creatures page, excuse me, so you can use computers or other
devices, particularly virtually. So we'll have public comment at the beginning of
the meeting on items that are not on the agenda. We'll also have public comment
for each item. Generally, we'll allow three minutes or comments, less otherwise
directed, and we'll be pulling people on one item to see if people will have
commenting a little bit later. So virtual commenters should have their name on Zoom so they can be
properly addressed. And the goal is to complete the meeting by 10 o'clock and we'll be checking to see
where we are at 9 o'clock to see if we can get that goal in mind. So with that run to item number one
which is the opening and roll call. So I believe we have one counselor on wine so we'll have to do a
roll call tonight.
Councillor Hand.
Councillor Ridey. Councillor Col, your Councillor
Neil Clinton. Here. Councillor Rickard. Here. Councillor
Haviman. Here. Councillor Haviman. Here. All present with Councillor Haviman online.
It looks like the workers show up. Councillors are attending with one online. So with that,
We're on to number two, which if you're willing and able, please join us in the pleasure of leaving.
I would like to lead you to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God in the visible with liberty and justice for all.
So the next item is the statement regarding the closed session. Is there a counselor that's able to make that statement?
Councilor Cobb.
Following statement should be included in the minutes.
The matters discussed in the closed sessions of county council held on January 27th, 2026
that began at 4 o'clock PM was limited only to the topic specified in the notice of the
closed session and no action was taken on any matter in the closed session.
We request that this statement be included in the meeting minutes.
Thank you, Councillor Cobb.
So no, our item number four, which is public comment.
This is for items that are not on the agenda.
I know we have a lot of people in the room
imagining most of you have comments
for things that are on the agenda later.
So there's anybody that has comment for something
not on the agenda, please come up
and state your name and please let me cheer comments
for three minutes.
Good evening, council chair and the steam counselors.
I sent you all a letter over the weekend and I'm just reading it tonight to make it part
of the record and I'm changing it a little bit because I did get some responses so bear
with me.
I am for Los Alamos County to install street lights on diamond drive along the golf course.
It is a very dangerous stretch of road.
Instead of spending millions of dollars to reconfigure our children's baseball and soccer
fields and install astral turf, which is I think is a bad idea.
but at exorbitant cost this money would be much better spent on making our
community safer. About 6.40 pm on January 15th I hit a deer. I'm the most
careful driver I know and I always go through that stretch of road slowly
watching for the deer. He was not there then he was two inches from my front
left bumper. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I am lucky as it could have
been so much worse. My airbags did not deploy I think I would have probably lost
control of my vehicle had that happened. And I kept control, complete control of my vehicle.
According to Officer Wise of the Los Alamos Police Department, someone had already pulled
him off the road a couple minutes after I hit him and he was deceased. On Friday, I received an
estimate from a shop in Santa Fe of over $4,800 for the repairs to my car and was told to expect
that number to significantly increase. I will be without a car for two to four weeks once they
start the repairs. Now I'm going to take a little break. Chairman Wright, you sent me a response
to my email and I just want to comment on that. Thank you so much for doing that. And Council,
County Manager also sent me a response to give me some additional information.
I had asked in my email about data how many deer have been hit and you sent me some data about that
From August of 2024 through November of 2025, there were 68 deer accidents in town.
Now that's all over the county and it was kind of hard to tell on the data of how many were on each road.
But on, I think that there is something we could do on Diamond Drive.
Maybe there's other things we could do on the other places as well.
But Diamond Drive was the one that I was most concerned about.
So I
guess that's up, and then I said, please let me know if you'd like to discuss this topic further.
It does sound like you all have already talked about this in the past several times.
I'm just hoping that it's still on your radar a little bit
because this was just a really traumatic experience for me.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ms. Linky.
And we can't address items that aren't on the agenda directly.
So can she can she to state her name is like you need to come back up. I was wondering if you'd state your name, but
No, I don't think I did. I'm Leslie Linky and I live at 35 San Juan Street up on Bronco, Mason. Okay. Thanks for being here making that comment. Okay. Um, do we have anybody else?
I have something not on the agenda. So Ms. Messing, can you check on line to see it?
I can chair if you'd like to make public comment, please use the raise hand feature.
Chair, I'm not seeing any hands raised.
Okay, so I think we're on item number five, which is the approval of the agenda. Is there a councillor?
Can make a motion regarding the agenda?
Councillor Colle. I mean, we approve the agenda is presented. Second. Okay, so we have motion by
Councillor Colle, seconded by Councillor Neill Clinton. Any discussion? Not seeing any? We'll have to do roll call.
Yes.
Councillor Harman.
Yes. Councillor Rady. Yes. Councillor Neill Clinton. Yes.
Councillor Hand. Yes. Motion passes, 7-0. Okay. Thank you. Let the record show the motion
passes unanimously. Okay. So item number six is public comment for items on the consent agenda
So there's a number of items, a consent agenda typically we don't get a lot
coming on those items. So I'm not seeing anyone in the chambers. Check online to
make sure we have any comment there.
Chair, I'm not seeing any hands raised online.
Okay, now entertain a motion if there's a councillor interested in making a motion on
I move the council approve the items on the consent agenda as presented, and that the
motions and the staff reports being included for the record.
Second.
Okay, so we have motion by councilor Nielklin, and second by Ms. Nerman, and the discussion
cannot see any.
Can you please call the roll?
Councilor Harman.
Councilor Harman. Councilor Harman.
Councilor Harman. Councilor Neal
Clinton. Yes. Motion passes, 70. Okay. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously.
So now we're on to public hearings, so we have one public hearing tonight, so item 8A, item
SRE 0669-26, Incorporated County of Los Alamos Resolution No. 26-03, Resolution
Authorized in the county submit an application to the Department of Finance and
registration, just paid in a local DVI grants and distribution program.
Chair Reidy, Councillors, my name is Lauren Tomco.
I am the new program coordinator for Los Alamos County.
As part of this role, I also serve as a DWI program coordinator.
We are requesting $40,531 from the Department of Finance and Administration through the LDI grant.
This funding is primarily used for treatment for DWI offenders as well as prevention and outreach programs.
This annual resolution has played a critical role in supporting law enforcement efforts by enabling DWI checkpoints,
saturation patrols, and shoulder taps. These preventative measures help keep our roadways safe.
Through DWI funding, we have also been able to offer free sober community events, present educational programs and driver's-ed classes,
and bring the arrive alive toward Los Alamos County,
which simulates the dangers of destructive driving,
driving while under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
Additionally, we help fund senior appreciation night,
providing our graduating seniors with safe, sober activities,
keeping kids away from drugs and showing them
that sober fun is possible.
Our program maintains community presence
by sharing information and resources at local events,
such as our Summer Concert Series,
science vest, and the JJB anniversary celebrations. All activities funded through DWI are required
to be evidence-based or include data collected through surveys. We utilize electronic survey
tools at our events and within our programs to help evaluate effectiveness and outcomes.
This year we're also participating in the New Mexico Community Survey, an anonymous survey
conducted from February to April. This survey collects data on substance abuse patterns
and substance use patterns, allowing us to track trends statewide and more importantly, at the
county level, to better assess the impact of our prevention efforts. Thank you so much for your
time. I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, so thank you, Ms. Namco. This council have any
The technical or clarifying questions on the resolution.
Councilor Kohl.
I'm just curious, thank you for your presentation, by the way.
How much did we receive last year?
Chair, righty Councillor Hull, are you just as clarifying, asking for it through the grant
or through the grant and distribution?
Grant.
The grant, I believe, was close to $32,000, just under $32,000.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, council. Go. Any other?
Not seeing any hands raised.
So now we'll see if there's any public comment on this item.
Not seeing anyone in the chambers. Is there anyone online?
Is this.
I'll check.
If you'd like to know about comment, please use the raising infection.
Chair, I'm not seeing any hands raised.
Okay. I guess we'll see if there's a council or interested in making motion.
I mean that Council adopt Incorporated County of Los Alamos Resolution No. 26-03 resolution
authorizing the county to submit an application to the Department of Finance and Administration
local government division to participate in the local DWI grant and distribution program.
As part of the LWDI application, I further move that Council approve the Council Chair
to sign the MOU and statement of assurances.
Okay, thank you. Is there a second?
Second.
Okay, so the motion by Councillor Cole,
second by Councillor Herman.
Do we have any discussion?
Okay, I'll just thank you for all the efforts
and appreciate all the information we got.
It's great that we had a bunch of people here tonight
to hear what you said to say about the local
review of my program.
Thank you.
So in particular, please call it wrong.
Councilor Herrmann? Yes. Councillor Neill Clinton? Yes. Councillor Ridey? Yes. Motion passes
7-0. Okay, let the record show the motion passes unanimously. So now we're on to, I believe
the item the lot people are here tonight for in person. Let's get to that item. So now we're on to
9 which is business and 9a is item 20593-26 presentation and possible acceptance of the North
Mesa Recreation Master Plan.
Good evening Chair Roddy Council. So we're back again to talk about
North Mesa Recreation Master Plan. We came to Council back on January the 13th and the plan was
introduced to you all. And during that meeting, South-South-South West consultants provided a
comprehensive presentation covering the master plan, the processes that we went through, community
engagement and pretty much outlined that the community seems to be very supportive of the plan
And I think if you look out behind me tonight, you'll see some of that support sitting behind us. So we're really glad to see them in here tonight. I just want to talk quickly about just the plan itself. So although we're bringing this to you, the plan is formally asking for the acceptance tonight. As we all know, there is no formal funding that is tied to this project at this time. The implementation of the plan will occur over time. And during the time and based on the priorities, we will see what event
available funding is there as we go through our budgetary process each year.
So that will really, all of that will hinge on what we have available as we go through
our process to see what we can do in those phased areas as we talked about at the meeting
a couple of weeks ago.
So tonight we have back with us again.
It's the same two that we're here.
It's a Corinne Rogers and Bob Overdorfer, and they're going to chat with you a little
bit about the plan and hope that we can get your acceptance on it.
Thank you.
All right. Good evening, counselors. Thank you for having us here again. Once again,
we're really honored to be here in front of you all and in front of the community to present
a culmination of nearly a year of planning, design, working with the community in the county
to create the North Mesa Recreation Area Master Plan. Next.
And so just a quick outline of tonight's
presentation. We'll go through introduction, community engagement, how we got to the final
concept design, cost and phasing, and questions.
And so the North Mesa Recreation Area is an important recreational hub that sits at
the intersection of schools, neighborhoods, and trail networks, and the North Mesa Master
Plan works to build upon these community assets by improving these connections while also listening
to community residents gaining hearing their feedback and building an area that serves
a diverse diverse set of users as well as serves all ages next. And so I know we've done this
multiple times but briefly going through community engagement we had over 250 people participate
the pay in these sessions.
We had two listening sessions last March,
a community workshop in April
in an open house and survey.
These beginning listening sessions were to hear
the goals and the needs of the community,
what they envision in this space
and also what they value in this space
and taking those values forward in this process.
We took those goals and needs,
went into the community workshop
where the community got together and designed
their version of what they would like to see in the recreation area, and they
worked together among different user groups and community groups to build
something that represented all of them. And from there we came up with two
designs that went into the open house and survey where residents could view the
designs, vote on them, give us their feedback. And in this process we received
over 190 responses that led to our final concept design.
And I would also just like to note really quickly that this process has been going at the
same time as three other plans that we have also been heading, the trails and open space
management plan, the turf study, and then of course the picnic grounds master plan.
And we have all been involved in these plans.
We have been talking together.
So this has really been a cohesive effort, and there's been communication.
And next.
All right, so we're going to go ahead into the final concept design,
and I'm going to invite Bob up here to talk about what was culminated in these sessions.
Good evening.
My intent was that since we just presented this a couple weeks ago,
that I wouldn't go through a point by point on this,
but rather just kind of talk about the overall concept behind it.
We did try and incorporate as many of the elements that people wanted to see in this area.
So it covers the diverse batch of uses, and we also tried to balance between keeping
open space that was out there that people are used to and providing the services that
they would like to see in addition to that.
And so, as Karen mentioned, one of the comments that came up after we presented last time was
is the fact that there didn't seem
to be any communication or tie together
between the various plans that we're going on
that have been presented recently.
And so as Corinne mentioned,
that we actually have been taking a lead
on all three of those projects in addition to this one.
And so as the same team we've been talking internally
and so we are aware of what needs to happen
between the spaces in as far as we can
given that they are disparate spaces.
But so yeah, that one and then also, I think there was a comment last week that someone thought this was a designated harbor safe harbor shelter in place area and we did check subsequently with the police or the fire department and we're told that there's not any kind of official designation like that that it's not a safety gathering area or anything.
And even if it were, I mean, there's nothing out there now that would preclude people from gathering there.
It's still mostly open space. It's just developed open space. And so at that point, that no one, the other last
point was that we are aware that there have been subsequent comments coming in even after we presented last
time for the working session. And as I mentioned earlier, we've tried to accommodate as many positions as we can
that we were aware of on that, but there's nothing in this. This is a master plan. It's not,
as Wendy said, there's not funding in place for it, and it's not set in stone literally. So,
there's opportunity to change down the road if priorities or desires of the community change,
and it would be implemented in phases.
So, next slide.
So on this one, the phasing priorities that we came up with based on, again, public feedback
for the most part, the bike park and pump track skills area seemed to be the highest priority.
And then in some combination of that because that is in an area where that's currently open space
and that has a permanent walking path, we would also improve that walking path
because it's been deteriorated, it's a small four-foot asphalt that's kind of crumbling in
places and getting overgrown. So as part of the development of that, we would intend
that the path get rehabilitated in the meantime, the whole west half of the park would remain
as open space. Then in the second phase, we'd actually do improvements to that west side.
To improve the habitats there, I know there have been a lot of comments about this being
in a valuable open space and animal habitat and stuff,
but frankly, it's all been bladed at some point
from when it was female male.
It's been re-vegetated a little bit,
but it's basically still a flat open space,
open land, not much new trees or cover,
which are all things that most animal habitats
are beneficial for that.
So we're trying to improve that on the west side
of the main loop road that goes through there
by creating some water harvesting areas that would provide for pollinator gardens, things like that, and then some enhanced trees, a little bit of terrain to give us something other than just a flat that's out there now.
Third phase would be the San volleyball and dog park improvements along the north side of the park and related pathways and driveways.
The fourth phase would be dealing with the community gardens, expanding or improving what's
out there.
Fifth phase would be a multi-use pillion which covers, I think as we talked about last
time, it gives a possibility for a wide range of uses and they're including cover basketball
or rollerblading or actually events that it could be rented out for private events.
And associated with that, there's also proposed a food trap plaza which could serve for events that are going on either there at their bike, at the pavilion or in the bike park.
And then the last thing we listed there that we gave a cost estimate for was just ongoing elements that could be fit in whenever there's time it doesn't have didn't have necessarily a priority, including playgrounds and related amenities, overflow parking and things like that.
Next. So, this is the phasing map that shows those in order. So, yellow is the highest priority
at this point. Phase two, the orange on the west side. Phase three would be the dog park.
It's kind of broken up a little bit, but the dog park in the north central and the overflow parking
in volleyball and northeast. Phase four would be the community gardens existing in then possible
expansion and then phase five would be the upper
billion and the more built aspects of the plan as it's
proposed. Next. So costs related to those as I mentioned
last time we were looking at about 3.5 million for phase
one which includes not just the bike park but all of the
associated infrastructure improvements. A bike shed new
parking, asphalt paving, pathways and things like that.
So phase two would be the, the west side landscaping improvements, habitat improvements
and then additional paths, and I think that concludes the rest room over there too.
Phase three would be the sand volleyball at 1.3 million, I haven't been giving numbers
but they're right there.
So, sand volleyball and dog park improvements, phase four of the gardens is one of the better
deals of it, not only 800,000, and then for the Pavilion and the Food Track Plaza, that's
the big one at 4 million, and then another 1.3 million of miscellaneous improvements
that could be done, grand total, which would be phased out over many years, I'm sure, would
be 12.9 million based on current dollars and a 15% contingency for future increases.
and I believe that is it. Yes. So at this point, we're open to questions or.
Okay, does council have any technical or clarifying questions?
Not seeing any questions from council looking online.
I didn't want to ask one thing that I didn't
last time, which is about the, so the CSD master plan also had done a survey of, you know,
amenities. And so you didn't directly cite that. You did your own outreach, correct. But that
even included the BMX track, which is no longer a project. So I was just curious about that you look
look at the results of that and at all with regard to the humanities.
I mean, we had reviewed it, but again, yeah, we did not rely on that because of the extensive public involvement part of this.
Okay, so I think then we're ready for public comment.
So before we have public comment, I think we have a lot of people in the room.
So it's perfectly fine if everyone wants to make comment.
If people want to raise their hand, let me know how many people want to make a public comment,
because we've already gotten several emails, but please, if you want to make a public comment tonight,
let us know. Just a few people want to comment, or just maybe 10, or so, looks like maybe,
okay, 12 or so, maybe 12. Okay, well, yeah, please, well, let everyone have up to three minutes.
If you've somebody's made a point that you agree with, you can just let us know that.
But yeah, let's go with up to three minutes and just come up here and then we'll have time for people online too.
So we have hands raised.
Okay, so let's go ahead and do that and appreciate you coming.
And just have to state your name and we'll get the timer going and thanks.
Good evening, Greg Weiss, 186 P.A. Drilloup.
Councillors, thank you for considering the North Mesa plant tonight.
On behalf of the Los Alamos Tough Riders Mountain Biking Club, we have a lot of people in attendance
tonight and we're very much in support of the plan for a bike park on North Mesa.
So we hope for your support.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Louise.
Okay.
Anyone just maybe if you can come up and be lined up so we don't have a long time in between people it's out to
So whoever wants to go next
Hi there. I'm Warren Hurley
967 sank. We caught up on North Mesa and
Just wanted to let council to know I
Right around the corner from where I live. I use that open space on a daily basis and I just wanted to voice my support for the plan and
and especially the bike park, I'm very much in support of it, so thank you.
My counselor's name is Grant Fox, I live at 70 Turquoise Street.
I guess I want to say I was born and raised in Los Alamos and like most townies
I left with the intention of never coming back to New Mexico and by the time it was time to have kids,
my wife and I thought what is a better place to raise kids in Los Alamos so we came back in about
2016. One of the great things about this place is access, access to the outdoors.
All the access to all the sports outdoors, mountain biking is kind of our family's choice of sport out here. And so it's, it's just been very encouraging to see the way the county is building access to things for young kids, including mountain biking, the bike park and this development. So I just want to voice that my, you know, support for this effort. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fox.
Hello. My name is Daniel Jackson and I live at 20 28 45th Street. I'm voicing my support for this plan, especially as regard to the
the pavilion structure.
Currently, when we play indoor volleyball,
we routinely have between 30 and 40 people there.
You imagine one court with six people per side
that takes a long time to actually get your chance to play.
So having a larger indoor space,
that's not requiring the schools for us to be able
to participate in would be very, very beneficial to us
to be able to not only have our support,
but have more people play.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Hello, Council.
My name is Ashley Cannell.
I live at Forest 7 Bryce in White Rock.
And I just wanted to add my appreciation of this project of creating outdoor spaces for families in our community.
And I also want to raise maybe, again, I play volleyball, I really appreciate it.
It is difficult working through the school.
And so we've had some conflict there, and I would like to raise like we would appreciate if we could have a county space to run county volleyball.
and so part of that is I read the disposition of the Los Alamos School of
Genastics article today and if we could possibly look into acquiring that
building that sits on county land for an indoor space for a basketball roller
derby volleyball other indoor sports that we could use during the winter so
thank you. Hello,
I'm Lauren Cooper.
I'm at 28th
for the pavilion, and I'm with Los Alamos Derby.
Derby's not family, both the one you're born into
and the one that you choose,
and I'm gonna pass along this great inclusive sport
for generations to enjoy and to share.
Okay, thank you, Ms. Cooper.
Hi, I'm Jordan Dugan.
I actually live in Estinola, but I have been the head
of training for Los Alamos Derby for a long time.
I've been with the team for about nine years,
And I'm really in support of this pavilion.
We struggle with practice space, especially in the winter when we don't have the ice
rink.
We do not have a space large enough through schools that we can practice our sport.
So this pavilion would be a great space, especially when we don't have the ice rink since that
space is going to be, is primarily for hockey and with the shade structure, we're probably
going to lose a couple of months in our season there at the ice rink. Los Alamos has been a part
of this community for a long time and it would be really great for us to have a place to call our home
and to be able to bring Derby to town, have things for people to do on Friday and Saturday nights and
just bring this community, Derby community to Los Alamos so if we could really really get this
civilian going. That'd be great. Okay thank you Mr. Good.
I'm Michelle Carlson. I live
at 2257 36th Street and I am a captain of Los Alamos Derby League and I also grew up here and
we didn't have something like this and I grew up but we actually have a junior's league as well
and we have people that drive up from Albuquerque and House for that junior's league because of how
great this group really is and they want to play for our league. So not only the adult
league with the juniors would be using this facility as well. So it would just be very important
for them to have a space and if I had had something like that when I was growing up here it would have
been truly wonderful. We have quite a few leagues in the state that we used to host when we were at
that would also benefit from us having this space.
And I just wanted to put on my support for the pavilion
and how important it would be to have a space not just for the adult lead, but for the junior's leg as well.
Thank you.
My name is Christa Sartreck.
I am a law owner at the North Mesa Stables.
And I compete with my horse in the sport of endurance riding.
a competitive sport where we travel trails anywhere between 25 and 100 miles in a day,
so I use the trails a lot. As a trail user and an equestrian, I'd like to bring to your attention
some concerns about the North Mesa Recreation Master Plan and how I'd like to see the county address
those issues. The addition of a bike park on North Mesa will likely increase horse bike interactions
on the Coagay and surrounding trail systems.
These interactions can be a source of fear and danger
to horses and their riders.
Well, most of the people that I've come across
on the trails have been very courteous.
I've also been placed in situations with bikes
that have put myself and others in danger.
And these have even led to falls and injuries.
I believe these incidents are unintentional and preventable.
These resulted from bikes going too fast around blind turns, not slowing down to pass and being
unaware of their surroundings because of wearing earbuds or just focusing on the trail ahead of
them. Unfortunately for us equestrians, we don't have many options for trails to ride in elsewhere
in Los Alamos County. The county says that 70% of trails allow for equestrian use. But in practice,
this would require us to load a horse into a trailer, drive to another trail head where we'd have to park on the side of a road, or in a parking lot that isn't meant for trucks and trailers.
We would then have to unload our horse into the street, or into a parking lot, and then saddle them up again in the street, or in a parking lot, which is a dangerous situation for us to be in, and probably isn't even legal.
So, if the county decides to proceed with this plan, given the lack of other trails that
are horse accessible, and an increase in bikes on the trails that we are allowed to ride
on, I'd like to see the county take steps to increase awareness, education, and therefore
safety for all groups.
This can come in the form of signage, reminding users of the mixed use nature of the trails,
and proper trail etiquette.
It can also come through education.
So I've been talking with some really lovely people in the TUF Riders Club about coordinating
a dual purpose clinic to teach bikers about how horses react to certain situations so
they can be better informed when they come across horses on the trail, and also to help
horses become more comfortable around bikes.
This has given me a lot of hope because I will admit I am scared to ride on the trails.
But I do, anyway, because like the bikers, I really love to ride on our beautiful trails.
So please, if you decide to move forward with this plan, please pick steps.
Even sure everyone can enjoy the trails safely.
Thank you.
Lisa Reader, 3217 Woodland, and I am now in your time zone.
I was not the last time I made comment for you guys.
The process, I will say again, was really great.
The charats, the county meetings where everybody was there really did a lot to help people,
you know, the bikers and the equestrians in particular get together and come to some reasonably
good understandings. I have two personal issues with this and then one big one. I still would like
to see the bike park part on the west side and not disturb the area that the Girl Scouts put back
together after the Cerro Grande Fire, and then my really big concern is about the phasing,
and I did mention this the last time. We all feel there should be a bike park,
a bike skills park. There's no question in that it should be a high priority,
but I still believe that the first priority should be to relocate and mitigate the negative impacts
on the existing uses. So if you are going to put the bike park on the east side there,
before that a shovel is put in there, the trails and natural areas the walking paths should go
first, things that are already there should be mitigated and moved before a new amenity
goes in. Also, on the phase two, what was listed on phase two on page 60, those costs
don't mention any non-paved pathways. They just mention paved sidewalks. So I wasn't
sure exactly where the non-paved pathways are there. The bigger picture for me is managing
expectations. The projected cost for this entire project is 13 million and that's of course
If it gets done quickly, otherwise, we know how costs skyrocket.
The projected cost for the North Mesa Artificial Turf Study in field realignment was $16 million,
and that was just the North Mesa not adding white rock onto that.
The North Mesa picnic area plan has yet to be determined.
The cost for the Bio Canyon Trailhead redevelopment has not been determined.
The Brewer Arena upgrade project is estimated at $3 million, and that's a task order, so
we know that's going to be an up or down vote, I believe, at your next meeting.
So that's likely to go through and there's no master plan as yet for the equestrian park as a whole
So most members of the public would reasonably assume that should this plan pass tonight the shovels would be in the ground as soon as possible
so who decides and how will the money be allocated for all of these projects and how are they prioritized?
So thank you. This was a heavy lift. You guys are marvelous.
Hello, all. I live in White Rock and my name is Stacey Buck, but on the track I go by Rainbow
Rex and I am one of their captains. I have been a part of the Rilliter Bee for almost three years,
and I have found a family within that community. And while I love that family fiercely, I think as a whole,
we feel a little displaced, overlooked, and without a space to call our home. We are grateful for
the spaces that we've been able to skate, but they are not reliable or big enough for our needs.
The rank is too unreliable to host games, and we have it for less than half of the year.
The school gyms are significantly too small for even basic scrimmages, and we are consistently
canceling practices due to weather, holidays, and many other factors.
Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of the schools, and that hasn't always been the easiest.
I'm hoping some of you have had the chance to see us play Roller Derby, and if you have
you've seen, our strength, our passion, and the love that we have for the game.
Los Almos is known for its sportsmanship and care of every person that is on that track,
leading us to being asked to bow with teams regularly every single year.
Unfortunately, this year there isn't a chance to see us in our hometown because we don't have a
venue to host any games. There is something to be said about playing for the home advantage,
Not only do we know our space well, but we have our community and our loved ones to cheer us on.
Something that's going to be sorely missed this year. But not only does that home
game help our team, it helps the town. A single game can easily bring in more folks into the town,
but tournaments can bring in droves of people. That can help the economy of our tiny mountain town.
And as a small business owner in this town myself, I know how much that can mean.
restaurants, hotels, and shops will surely flourish with the amount of people that we
bring with tournaments.
There are two successful tournaments currently that are reoccurring every single year that
could eventually become home to Los Alamos with this new plan.
So please help Los Alamos Derby, as well as so many other great organizations that have come
here tonight to find a home where we can actually grow our teams, our friends, and our chosen families
and see all of them flourish.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
My name is Brian Bonzer 1926 commuter is Nia
Moved to Los Alamos in 2012 take a job with the lab from Moab, Utah where my young daughter my older daughter had just been born six months prior
Believe it or not. I hadn't been on a mountain bike the whole time that I lived in Moab
It wasn't until I came to Los Alamos today. I bought a bike and started out on the trails
And if you know Moab, Utah, you know that it's closely associated with non-miking
among other things.
So I was not the best biker when I started out down here.
I just kind of hit the trails with my knowledge from the 70s and 80s growing up
with scrap wood ramps and things I learned in the mean streets of Iowa growing up.
But anyway, so I wasn't the safest biker on these trails when I first got out there.
I've gotten better sense, but it's been from just hitting the trails and trying to learn as I go.
I am here tonight with my younger daughter. Her name is Alicia. If you spend any time up at the
ski hill, you might know her by her other helmet. The little girl with the pink helmet and the
fluffy ears. So a lot of people, you wouldn't be alone. A lot of people have both at work out in
town have said, oh, I know your daughter. I know who she is. I've seen her from the lift. She's amazing.
So not here to talk about snowboarding tonight, but that's what she loves to do in the winter
time in most of the year and that's our big family activity. It wasn't until maybe September
October that she joined the team, started mountain biking with us and that was due
to her classmate and his parents, Kyle and Tyran who help out with the tough types. I've
been amazed by the progression that she's made over just the past few months having other
kids around and good coaches and a safe place to go and learn this stuff and she's already
progressing just like with snowboarding to the point where I can't teach you.
No, hold out anymore. Snowboarding, we've been going over to Red River where they have a really good terrain park and the progress she's shown there by having a similar type of facility where she can just learn through a progression of jumps and obstacles, learning how to navigate through them, get over them, and gaining confidence and strength and ability. I think it would be amazing to have a similar facility right here in town that writers could learn, not only at a young age, but at an advanced age like myself.
Maybe just get some practice before we approach the trails and learn those skills, especially
in a supportive environment, a controlled environment, and then we don't end up running into
westerns and other traffic without the ability to keep ourselves and it was around us safe.
So appreciate your time and please request whatever support we can get in getting a bike
park included in this plan.
Thank you.
My name is Bridger Dickman and I just wanted to say that I support the bike park.
My name is Sally Dickman and I support the bike.
The
name is only Ashley and I'm just here to say that I'm here for the bike park.
Thanks, Holly.
And I'm Ashley Pryor.
I'm Omelie's mom and I also am here for the bike park.
And I'd like to say that I think it's just such a great amenity for the community.
all ages can use it and you don't need to be part of a team, although it'll
accommodate teams. You could just go on your own, you could be part of a team,
you could go at any time. It's just fabulous that it accommodates all
abilities. Another thing that I was curious about the question is if the North
Mesa Recreation Master Plan includes consideration of the gymnasium that's
there, that facility is fabulous, not currently being utilized, and certainly ripe to be part
of a North Mesa Recreation Master Plan. And so I recommend that it be integrated into some of these
planning activities, and then also soliciting the community for what they would like to do,
because it is a community asset existing that is certainly under utilized, and was very valuable when
and it was in operation.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Hi,
my name's Phoebe Sanderbeck, Los Alamos resident.
I am the president of the board of directors
for Los Alamos Derby.
As a league, our main problem has been
finding space to practice and play.
So a space for us to do that on North Face
that would be monumental for our team
and for our community.
Thank you.
My name is Drew Hall.
I am a Santa Fe resident.
and a transplant from New South Carolina.
Four years ago, I traveled over 1700 miles by myself for a job
and I had no one. I had no family.
I had no friends. I had the support of thankfully the Internet.
But Los Alamos Derribes become my chosen family and my chosen community.
as such, I'd like to address the topic of community.
We have talked about the significant economic impact of the existing relatively community
in New Mexico and the community in the southwest at large.
We've talked about, we could talk about the generational effects of recreational facilities
for Los Alamos residents present and future,
but I want to talk about our sports teams,
our clubs, having safe space in Los Alamos to play. For organizations and
families to share and meet and share in space to meet and enjoy each other's
company. For birthday parties, roller derby bouts, bike riding collectives,
sports, food truck vendors, to happen all year around for the Los Alamos
community.
Hello my name is Michelle and I live in White Rock. I've been skating
with a Los Alamos Derby for 11 years and now I am a mom of a junior skater, a cherry-bomb mom,
and I am here to support the pavilion. I just want to stress that roller derby is a full-year
sport. I know we've talked a lot about the ice rink and how important it is to us during the spring
summer and fall, but it is a full-year sport. The junior roller derby's competitive season follows
the school year. They start in August and they wrap up around late May early June. So that means
Right now our incredible juniors are practicing and training for three separate tournaments before the end of the school year
They've got a lot of work to do and unfortunately we're in a very very small gym where they are unable to play at full capacity
And we can't really practice full roller derby play in the small space
um, so
Having a full-size practice space in the months that we are not able to use the ice rink is very important to both the adults and juniors
Thank you
Thank you.
Well, people, I'm Felipe, I'm a North Mesa resident and I'm in support of the whole process
that you guys, the whole thing.
The bike park, the trails, the gardens, the pavilion for the roller derby team.
My wife is a roller derby player and this place is just getting her extremely hyped up today.
She couldn't be here, so she's online right now.
So, I just want to make sure you guys understand, I know everybody's worried about, you know,
safety of pedestrian safety, of the equestrian space for the garden, space for the bike.
This is the last place that we have for open space, that we can do something good for the
community.
I personally want to raise my kids in a place like that, that we can go outside, explore,
but I don't feel comfortable taking a young child to all our trails in town.
As most of you guys have been there, you understand that it's not as safe as a place
that is catered by the county that we can bring and it can support.
We can show our friends or family that don't live here in Los Alamos or New Mexico
for that matter. What we can achieve. So with that being said, I'm in completely
full support of the whole North Mesa master plan. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Not seeing anyone in the room, but we'll go to the room and see we have a couple people there, I think.
Yes, Stuart, we have about six, seven.
Okay, it's growing.
Let me just start at the top.
Miss Stacy Myers, you should be allowed to unmute.
Please sit your full name and limit your comments to three minutes.
Hi. Good evening. Are my being heard? Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Good evening. I'm Stacey Meyers,
and I'm also a Los Alamos resident. I am currently one of the coaches for the Los Alamos Derby team,
and I am the former Tournament Manager for the Rumble on the Rio Tournament that was held in 2023 and 2024,
and I tend to specialize in working with most of our roller derby teams throughout the state to put on large cooperative events.
And my comment is in support of the whole complex, especially the pavilion.
Los Alamos County has the opportunity to capitalize on this amazing community we have not just in our county, but in the whole state.
When we initiated the Rumble on the Rio Tournament in 2023, it was housed in
Touse. Now it's down in Albuquerque and our first two years each year we brought
seven teams plus all of their support staff, all of their parents to the town of
Touse. Every single person had to get a hotel room or an Airbnb, eat out at all
restaurants because we were all traveling. The same is going to be for Albuquerque. Our
team will be playing in Albuquerque in June at that tournament and we will be staying overnight.
So just imagine the economic impact this one pavilion can have, not just by bringing in roller
derby as we've been talking about all evening, volleyball can have its clinics, basketball can have
clinics and then in addition Los Alamos is the one county in the state for roller derby that has
the potential for year round winter sports or winter exercises. A couple of years ago we lost
the use of the Pueblo Complex and we also lost or our county lost the what we call the fallen
love with roller derby event that event brought 50 people from outside the county to Pueblo Complex
for an entire weekend's worth of Royal Derby clinics, learning how to practice and scrimmage
games. So by affording this very small community in Los Alamos, our little team, and our cherry
bombs who are way awesome and so amazing, the opportunity for a year-round facility
we're actually going to capitalize on the fact that our state has four adult teams and
one junior's team. And we love as a state. We love coming to Los Alamos for this. So again,
I express my support and gratitude for the consideration of this pavilion. And I thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Eli Kael, you should be able to unmute please state your full name and limit your comments
to three minutes. Okay, I'm unmuted. My name is Eli Kael. I'm out of Albuquerque. I wanted to
express my support for the master plans specifically for the multi-use pavilion and making it a priority.
I am a part of the roller derby community. I have been a roller derby official for 13 years. I
am the officiating and safety head of elevated roller derby in Albuquerque and I have traveled as far
east as Daytona Beach and as far west as Shanghai, China to officiate roller derby. And currently I
I am leadership for San Diaz Spring Roll Junior Roller Derby Tournament, which some people
have mentioned.
And I am co-head for Rumble on the Rio Roller Derby Tournament, the adult Roller Derby
Tournament, which will be held in June.
That's Stacy just mentioned.
And it is being held in Albuquerque this year after being in Tows for two years.
However, unfortunately, the venue in Tows caught on fire, so we had to find a new place.
and finding an accessible place that allows roller skating inside, has bathrooms, has locker rooms, has electricity, has a roof that is 108 feet by 75 feet, has been a challenge in New Mexico.
So having a space like this would be amazing. We could move both of these tournaments to Los Alamos if this pavilion happens.
And based on previous years, they've mentioned that, you know, we've seen large groups.
Based on previous years, we're expecting 500 to 800 people coming to Albuquerque for each
of these tournaments between our participants, our volunteers, our spectators from around
the U.S., including potentially Hawaii if they accept our invite.
And I looked online real quick, found out that Los Alamos's population is about 13 and a half thousand.
So that means that we're increasing for the weekend, the town's population by about four to six percent.
And so we're talking about people staying in hotels for two to three nights, eating out, general tourism if they're making a weekend of it.
That's a significant financial benefit. And with this facility, we could also then start to take on a
the tournament format that's been successful in Colorado where we have mini one day tournaments,
which would then bring 200 to 400 people in for a day, meaning that they're staying
for at least one to two nights.
So yeah, I see this being amazing.
We love coming up to Los Alamos through the year to play and officiate.
and I mean, as you can see through my level of travel, we're also pulling in
people from all over the US and yeah. So thank you so much for listening to me
and that's it. Thank you. Thank you.
Whitney, you should be able to unmute these
state-of-the-full name and limit your comments to three minutes. Hi, Council. My name
is Brittany St. Jacques and I am a resident of Los Alamos. My daughter and I both
participate in roller derby here in Los Alamos. You've heard a lot about all the activities we do,
all the tournaments, we host the events we host, and I would like to reiterate those comments.
Los Alamos Derby and Cherry Bombs host games with teams from across the southwest. These are
beyond just the state of New Mexico. Our biggest event is the Rumble on the Rio roller derby tournament.
New Mexico's first ever roller derby tournament bringing hundreds of skaters, officials, and fans to the multi-day event.
It was created by members of Los Alamos.
We're almost Derby and Los Alamos cherry bombs. But we couldn't host it here at home. We currently lack the infrastructure to host these matches and tournaments in Los Alamos, and this facility will offer the roller derby community, community, a reliable and appropriately sized venue to resume hosting these events, giving an economic benefit to the county and boosting tourism. We appreciate your support of the North Mesa development. Thank you.
Elizabeth, you should be able to unmute. Please get your full name and
limit your comments to three minutes. Hello, my name is Elizabeth Jomek. My
Derby name is Mama Wolfe. I'm the board chair and parent of a skater for the
Cherry Bomb's Junior Roller Derby League, and I'm here in support of creating a
covered practice space. Our program serves used in elementary from elementary
entry through high school in the full contact sport or the Derby's full contact and requires
adequate space for safety. So our current indoor facilities are too small and the weather
limits outdoor practice space. So in April we have the spring roll which has been mentioned
we're hosting national junior teams from Philadelphia, California, Texas, and Washington state.
but the tournament is going to take place in Albuquerque to space limitations.
Our team is also planning on traveling to Regionals in June,
so we will be playing in Denver in June.
And we would love to see more tournaments return to Los Alamos.
So a covered space would support safe year round training
and allow Los Alamos to grow as a hub for youth sports and competition.
So thank you for your consideration.
Thank you.
Nate, you should be able to unmute.
state your full name in the
mirror comments to three minutes.
Hello, my name is Nathan Mayer.
I'm a proud top fighter.
I work at the Pareto on the trail
crew, and I got to work with the
lovely Los Alamos Bike Park Working Group.
I just want to voice my support for
the North of Mesa Recreation Plan.
And especially the Bike Park.
It's been a wonderful process going
through this and one of the things
that we really learned is
how much we need this infrastructure
to support our growing bike and community.
We did a community engagement survey results,
and we showed that really 87% of people surveyed,
which over a wide demographic.
So, you know, a question is bikers,
golfers, other trail users,
support having some sort of bike park infrastructure,
and most of those people wanted on North Mesa.
So I think this is just a really wonderful
an amazing opportunity to deliver for this large part of a community that doesn't have
any dedicated resources. So, thanks again and please vote yes in support of North Mesa Plan.
And that's all. Thank you.
You should be able to unmute. Please state your full name and
limit your comments to three minutes. Thank you. My name is Anna Alves and I'm the Secretary
of the Board of Directors of Los Alamos Derby. I just want to voice my support for the Pavilion
as well. I'd like to just make a couple of points that I don't think anybody has made yet.
We know this is a big ask looking at the budget for this space but Los Alamos Derby really needs
a permanent home where we're not trying to squeeze in between primary users and where we have enough
space to fully play our sport. I would like to ask that the building not be left until last. We were
one of the main user groups from the beginning of this project having representation that I believe
every meeting. We play a full contact sport as adults so some of us may not be
playing in 10 to 20 years if this building takes that long we may not get to
use it. And just I'd also like to emphasize that we're asking for a space that
has a skating floor of at least 75 feet by 108 feet and we need a permanent
indoor structure not sort of an indoor outdoor space as the name Pavilion might
Thank you so much for considering this and please keep us in mind.
Thank you.
You should be able to unmute.
Please state your full name and I leave your comments to three minutes.
Hi, my name is Carol Bronis.
I'm on 1618, Camino Uva.
I have a horse over at the state.
Well, two horses at the stables and I really appreciate Southwest efforts to make sure that this new plan does not impact the stables.
So thank you for that.
That couple of concerns, one is I wish that the bike park was on the west side.
That east area is used extensively by people that live in the area.
And walking in nature is not the same as walking around the bike park.
So the bike park is going to change the nature of that property for all of the people that
currently walk there.
And then my second comment is about the the phasing of the whole project.
First of all, I agree with Lisa Reader that existing facilities need to be taken care of first.
Throughout the county, we have a lot of facilities that are in need of various things.
And then secondly, I think we need to look at this in light, especially all of the people that are would like to have something suitable for this.
the roller derby people.
Maybe that needs to be a pire on the priority list.
Thank you.
Hannah, you should be able to unmute.
Please say your full name and let your comments
to three minutes.
Hello, everybody.
My name is Hannah Wilcox.
I live in Polake, but I was in Y-Rock
and Los Alamos for years before I moved to Polake.
I've been in New Mexico for about 10 years,
and about five years ago I joined the Roller Derby team and I know I can speak
for a lot of people on my team when I say that I didn't find my community until
I joined Roller Derby and since I joined five years ago we've been bounced
around to multiple places and we haven't had a stable practice space and I believe
this impacts our team's stability because it's hard to plan your life around when you're
going to go to practice when you don't know if there's going to be a practice.
So I would just like to say that I'm in support of having a space for our roller derby team
to practice more permanently and to host games and such as well.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, I think we have no other comments, so we didn't get a couple questions and I think
it's good to try to get answers to these.
So one had to do with operational or just the conflicts between frustrations and likeers.
So that's not directly addressed in the plan, but that's something that is currently, I know
And we have ongoing efforts and so can you maybe want us to come up and talk to that
a little bit since there was a came up a couple of times.
Sure, Chair Radi Council.
So I know there's definitely been conversations there in the community engagement meetings
that we had and trying to create, I think we heard one of the speakers tonight talk about
coming together to create programs and just understanding of what the question needs are
As you're biking on the trails, we have also talked about putting signage up and different
things that we can do in the county.
But as we all know, signage is not always the best answer because a lot of people don't
read the signs.
And I can give you an example of North Mesa, which I think I've spoke about before, the signs
that we put up on the athletic fields to please pick up after your dogs.
They continue to be removed.
So much so that we finally stopped repurchasing and putting those signs up.
we find we don't know who's doing it but they're removing them and throwing them in the dumpster
and sometimes they would set them by the dumpster so we could put them back up. So I don't know
that signage is always the best answer. I think education which many people talked about tonight
probably would benefit us much more to be able to educate how the bike riders and also our
questions can work together to have safe experiences on the trail system. I also believe the bike park
as we've heard tonight from many of our residents and even non-residents, having that bike park will
afford them an opportunity to be in a safe place to teach their children to ride as well as
older adults to learn how to ride and do things in a safe environment that they can't do on the
trails. So I think that's a great opportunity for them to be able to do those things in a safe
environment and Bob, do you have anything to add on that?
I was just going to say I think that actually we were gratified to learn that during the
course of the workshops that we did and stuff like that, we heard from a lot of people
that that was really the first opportunity that they had to sit down with the opposing
quote unquote user groups or the conflicting user groups and actually try and develop a
a way to accommodate both of those and so I think that's a good first step in trying
to reach the issues that are there and as Wendy said, I think it's an educational program
which can start with the county but there are also a lot of the mountain biking groups
and whatnot have programs already in place that can be used and brought into play for that.
So I agree that it is an issue and I think that it's not something that's insolved for both.
Okay. And then another thing that came up was phasing. So a lot of comments about that.
So the plan doesn't, there's no funding for any phase, but any phase could be done in
any order. I mean, there, even if it's whatever number phase it is, is that correct? Just
clear for that for the public. Chair Ridey, council, I guess. So just to touch on the budget
again. So these funds being requested, whether it be fiscal year 27, 28, 29, or whenever,
Those funds would be requested through our regular budgetary process, and those funds
would be allocated by council and capital funding and or through some small cap programs.
But certainly the phasing is something that can be adjusted.
So I think Bob hit on a little bit earlier as our community changes and our needs are brought
up during this process.
We can make those adjustments.
The master plan is something that can be adjusted throughout to make sure that we're hitting
what is most important to residents if we need to move something up and council agrees
on our community engagement meetings agree then I think it's certainly something we can
look at and then come back to council with what those funding needs would be and how we
hit those facing areas.
Okay and then I think this question I think I can answer was who decides I think it's
the people up here wherever sitting up here at the time decides so right now it's these
these people will be deciding coming in April.
So I think we've got all the questions answered and so I think at this point, see if there's
a Councillor interested in making a motion.
Councillor Hanne.
Thank you, Chair.
I move that Council accept the North Mesa Recreation Master Plan is presented.
Second.
Okay.
motion by Councillor Hanna, seconded by Councillor Hanna, I believe. Okay, any discussion?
It's called.
I just want to thank everybody for showing up tonight. This is probably the biggest audience
I've seen in a while. We really appreciate your comments and your interest in this, and
I also do appreciate the amount of work that went into trying to come up with one plan
for a bunch of different types of uses. I think you guys did a good job trying to
accommodate all of the comments and the desires of a pretty diverse community, so I appreciate it.
I think it's cool. Any other comments? No, I'll send one in one night. So yeah, thank you for coming.
I hope that you'll think about coming when we talk about budget because that's where
this actually gets funded.
I know I'm asking for maybe everyone to show up, but I really appreciate it if people
would think about sending us comments when it comes down to the budget.
What you see, the budget gets published like the 30th of March online, and you can see what's
on there.
There's a long document, but the capital projects is a subset of that, and this might be one
of things that's highlighted in the summary. So I think with that we're ready for a vote.
Councillor Hermann. Yes. Councillor Hathiman. Yes.
Councillor Cole. Councillor Gregorne. Yes.
Councillor Neill Clinton. Yes. Councillor Rady. Yes. And Councillor Hand. Yes. Motion passes.
is 70.
Thank you.
Okay.
But the records show the motion passes namously and again, thank you for being here.
There's no need today for the rest of the items unless you're actually going, but you're
welcome to.
So while people are filing out, I think we can get ready for the next item, I think people
will be able to hear me online.
So 9B, item 20737-26, presentation and possible approval of high-intensity, activated crosswalk,
POC, POC, signal on NM4.
May I raise the podium up while you're waiting?
Okay, I think you're probably okay now.
Okay, good evening, Councillors. My name is Keith Wilson. I'm the deputy candidate, no
candidate. I promote myself there. You go public work director. So if you're just to
I'll give you a quick overview of the NM4 crossing, multi-use trail improvement project
and the Peanham School trail project, and then just with the ultimate action requesting
the approval of the hawk signal that we're proposing across NM4 next slide, Linda.
So this project dates back a few years when I was a project manager within the engineering
department.
Since my promotion, I've handed the bulk of the project off to John Strickland, who's
Something that's back there who's the engineering project manager and also here in the engineering
division is Eric Ullibari.
Next slide.
So quick overview of what I'm going to rush through in a timely manner but in an understandable
manner, hopefully.
I'll give you a quick overview of the project history, then the project overview, the public
outreach that we've done over the last couple of years related to this project.
I'll get into some more detail about the whole signal and why we're placing it, where we're placing it,
and then part of the project is looking at doing a lane reduction and placing the trail in the roadways.
I'll discuss that. Finally, related to the project is just a couple of highlights of the project design.
Then go to the recommendations and then the requested action next steps.
And then questions and feedback at the end. Next slide, please.
So as I said, this project kind of days back, kind of what instigated us getting to this
project was first the Middardor subdivision was approved in April of 2018. This is the
parcel on the north side and M4 basically between the Sherwood and Parahito road into Lano.
That project at the time is 161 lots, about now, around about 80% of those lots are now
constructed. Subsequent to that in 2020, the mixed use development was approved at the
corner, basically down by the Sherwood intersection, and then also going on, around about that time
was the downtown, or town center, White Rock, a massive planning process.
Throughout all of those processes, there was a continuous theme about how we could integrate
the metadata or subdivision and mixed use developments into the town site, meaning into
the White Rock downtown area, and with NM4 scene as kind of a barrier to easily doing that.
So, in 2020-2021, when you mess with DOT, put out a call for projects for federal alternative
transportation program funding, and so we thought this was an opportunity to see if we
could scope out a project if we could obtain that federal funding to try and help resolve
the situation about trying to pull the Minardor subdivision into the White Rock community.
So,
we basically scoped out a project, we did, so basically the main focus of the project
was how do we cross NM4?
Initially, we did look at the feasibility of doing a grade separative crossing either through
a tunnel or a bridge structure on the south side of NM4 in that area.
It looks like a bridge structure would be an ideal fit because you've got a pretty high
embankment on one side but on the other side you don't so that relatively quickly fell out
one because there's a lot of basalt in that area there's a lot of significant utilities on
the south side placing a bridge would mean we'd have three or four hundred feet ramps required
on the on the north side of N4 creating a big individual impact for those residents there
a tunnel wouldn't it be feasible one the grades didn't work two of the utilities three again
the basalt, you'll hear a continuing theme about the basalt, and guess that's why white rocks
called white rock. So the ultimate scoping was looking at a great and that grade crossing
of NM4, and typically a midblock crossing is much safer location than a intersection crossing
for these types of facilities. In consultation with DOT staff, we identified potential
enhanced crossing in that location, which could be what we are talking about tonight,
the hawk or pedestrian hybrid beacon or the rectangular rapid flashing beacon type
things that you see over on the NM502 as you come into town. So, those were kind of hanging
out there for to be worked out if we got the grant and also part of the project was looking at
the section of NM4 through there which currently has two lanes in the westbound direction. So
through some data collection we found that that section of the road wasn't being fully utilized
who are proposing trading the trail within the road section. So that was kind of the scope
we initially went off if you look at the diagram on the right kind of shows the in yellow the trail
section. We also looked at adding some new trail within Pinyon Park and then reconstructing
existing trails within the park to make that connectivity into the downtown Y-Rock to the
amenities within Pinyon Park and then connecting some of the existing
neighborhoods in Sierra Vista and then also kind of the main crux of the project was and this is,
you know trying to both of your projects so you make it attractive for DOT to
slight was creating that connection to pinion school. There's about 40 student
pinion students who live in the mid-a-dore subdivision right now and they're
bust to pinion because there's currently isn't a safe way to get get to the
school. I will add pinion has a really strong bike and pad culture there we
and I think in May, over a hundred students
might then walk to school on bike and roll today's school.
So it's got a really strong culture,
so we're confident if we build this project,
they will be utilized.
So in September of 2021,
we came to council and asked for a resolution
of directing staff to apply for the grant.
May of 2022, we were awarded the funding
for the design and construction of the NM4 project, and there was a delay and when that funding
became available, but the design process started in 2024. We hired BHI engineers to do the design
work for us.
Subsequent to that, in the time frame, the Penions Elementary School,
started construction, they had finalized the designs, and they had, there was an existing tell
along the western boundary of the school and the school department were willing to make that
available for public access. So we were looking to add that section to the project. In 2025,
we did start the design process. We had a subsequent call for projects. We were able to get
construction funding for that project. And then we worked with the schools through coordinator with
CSD who will ultimately maintain this trail system to get an amusement for that trail along the
western side of the Opinion School. Next slide. Project overview. So I mentioned we got
federal funding for both the Opinion and then four projects.
And the elements of the project
reconstruct the multi-use trail along the eastbound side, which is the southside
Anem 4, which is existing, and then enhancement block crossing, lane reduction,
and place in the trail on the north side of Anem 4, reconstruction of trails
within the Pinyon Park, and constructing a new trail along the western side of
on Park basically by the Baptist Church to make that direct connection over to Peanham
School. We did coordinate with the CSD on the Rocket Park renovation, so our project
will tie in with theirs seamlessly and will have drainage improvements. And then, as
I mentioned, reconstructing the trail that connects along the western side of Peanham
Trail to provide a connection to Grand Canyon further expanding the connectivity of this
project. Next slide. So this is just a quick picture of some of the existing trail within
Pignon Park. I think they're about 30 years old. They're in pretty poor condition and
we'll be upgrading these either with that. The initial project will be bidding a lot of this
for asphalt, but we will be doing a bit all. So if we can afford it, we'd like to do them concrete.
We are that bridge structure, that wooden bridge structures just to the south of the splash pad will be putting in a better crossing of that Royal and that location is part of the project.
Next slide.
So public outreach, our initial outreach began in December of 2024, whereas part of a keyboard transportation board meeting.
meeting. We have a public input meeting and presented our initial thoughts on the project.
Meeting was well attended. It was down in White Rock at Fire Station 3. We received some
really great engagement from the public who showed up in both support and expressing concerns
about the project. Maybe, through the keyboard, gave us some homework to go away and look
look at things again and come back, which I'll get into more in future slides.
We did go to the parks and recreation board and do a presentation there because we're
obviously impacting Pinyom Park.
We came back in February 2025 and presented an update on the elements that were asked to
reevaluate and I'll get into that in the future slide.
We did this part and back in March in 2025, the county had some open houses.
The open to the public just highlighting all the projects.
We had a booth there for that project.
We did present to the arts and public places advisory board because part of the project,
we have to move one of the prehistoric tribal plots which ultimately came to you guys for approval.
We did meet with some of the residents of Cedar Vista neighborhood who wanted to discuss some of their concerns about the trail along the school in various things.
That was a very productive meeting and then more recently we came back in November of 2025 to get an updated presentation to the keyboard.
Next slide.
So, focusing in on what were the bulk of the project and what we were talking about tonight.
So, the initial piece I'm going to talk about is the section of New Mexico 4 between Sherwood,
Boulevard and La Vista Drive. This is about a 1600-section roadway current speed limits,
45 mile an hour in this segment and what we were there's two lanes in the westbound direction
which is going from right to left on the screen and then one lane going in the eastbound
direction which goes up that direction. So this is kind of the area we're focusing in that the
proposed midlock crossing location for the hawk is about 550 feet east of La Vista just to the east
of the Baptist Church, and then on the north side of NM4U are looking to
reallocate the road space feed up by doing the lane reduction for the trail. Next slide.
So if you're unfamiliar with what the Hawk signal is, I'll just give you a brief overview.
Hawk signals are also referred to as pedestrian hybrid beacons, but basically it's a pedestrian signal.
it's why we're not doing a full traffic signal with location. They have much higher thresholds
for pedestrian volumes, pedestrian hybrid beacons or the hawk signal have much lower thresholds
and this is also a federal highway proven safety kind of measure for this type of application.
So basically it's a three-headed signal, two red balls signals and one amber. The signal remains dark
when it's not a news, when a pedestrian comes and pushes the button, the amber light or yellow light
starts flashing and then goes to a solid yellow and then to two solid reds. During these times
then don't walk is shown to the pedestrians and then once they get to the red signal then the
pedestrian walk signal goes. When they get to the flashing don't walk then the two red lights can
it Wigwag. What's called Wigwag? Kind of like a railroad crossing but not a railroad crossing.
We're at a traffic signal. Drivers are supposed to stop and then can proceed if there's no
pedestrians at that point. And then it goes back to dark after the pedestrian phase is completed.
Next slide. So at the original transportation board,
And excuse me, public input meeting, there was a lot of requests for placing the crossing
at La Vista Drive.
I'll take a step back.
As part of the mixed use development for the Minerador, a traffic signal was required
at the Sherwood Boulevard intersection, but it can be installed until the mixed use development
and generates the traffic that's needed to allow it to be.
To be, to be, to be installed when we sculpt out the, this project, we sculpted it out assuming that traffic signal was going to be installed. So this project is complimentary to not in, in case of or instead of so just so you know, that's why we're, we're not focusing on that intersection. And so they asked us to look at could we put the pedestrian hybrid beacon at La Vista. And so if you want to jump to the next slide.
So part of our evaluation of this, so this diagram basically is showing you a typical
four-legged intersection with stop controls in the north and south, like La Vista is,
and it shows you all the potential conflict points for motor vehicles and for pedestrians.
So from a more vehicle standpoint, you've got a total of 36 potential conflict points,
some crossing, some merging, some diverging. But kind of what this illustrates is as a driver,
all the different things you have to be looking at when you're making that turn from the side
streets or even going through the intersection. And then, added to that, you've got to be looking
for pedestrians. So there's a, if all four legs of the intersection are crossed by pedestrians,
potential 24 conflict points with those pedestrians, and then as a pedestrian you've got
potential 24. So that's what this kind of just showing what what drivers and pedestrians
have to deal with that in the intersection. Next slide. So this is, excuse me, just if we were to put
the hawk signal at this inner section. The hawk does not cover the whole inner section,
it just covers the lag that you're placing the crossing. So in this instance, drivers at
the inner section would still have the 36 potential conflicts because they're still having to deal
with all the conflicts, so they've got their brains and attention going everywhere.
but across in one lag and then we've got six potential pedestrian vehicle conflict
points in the hawk crossing. At this particular location we don't have
the ability to create a median in the middle of the road where we can split up
the pedestrian crossing so for during when the lights are activated you'd have
to account for a full crossing of the full length of the roadway which would
increased potential, the less the drivers, but it also increases the exposure time for pedestrians
across the road, the amount of time that they could be in potential conflict with the turning
vehicle. The other disadvantage of putting a hawk signal in the intersection is the side streets.
La Vista wouldn't necessarily be able to see those signal heads and know when they're activated
and to red, so a vehicle making a left turn from La Vista on the north or a right turn from La Vista
on the south could be making those turns because they see traffic stop for the signal but not
anticipating that pedestrians may be crossing at that time. In this location, the crossing distance
would be about 67 feet. For my 88-stown point, we typically think about 3.5 feet per second
for a pedestrian walking across the street, so that's about 19 seconds that would take a pedestrian
to get from one side to the other, walking at its speed. Next slide. So then when we look at the
crossing at the midblock location, it's a much more simplified location. Basically, there's no
conflict points for vehicles. All they are looking at is the roadway in front of them and the crosswalk
in the signal. The pedestrians, they only have that one conflict. They're dealing with one vehicle
coming from one direction or multiple vehicles come from one direction because
there's one lane, you know, if a vehicle stops, everyone else stops behind
them. Also in this location we have a median and so we can split up the
crossing so a pedestrian pushing the button is only crossing that 20 feet, minimal
six-second exposure out in the roadway before they get to a median then they
push the button again, making a two phase crossing allows us to minimize the delays to vehicles
as well. So when people are crossing the westbound direction, we don't have to stop traffic until
they get to the median and push the button and when they're crossing the eastbound direction,
we can let the westbound traffic go. So it makes our far more efficient location
Not only for pedestrians and safer, but from a delays standpoint.
And when the signal eventually goes in at Sherwood, we can actually work on coordinate,
and I will signal so that we don't necessarily get to find where someone gets the green light at Sherwood,
and then they're stopped at this crossing, if that's going to be an issue.
So we can coordinate those things.
Next slide.
So, in evaluating these two locations, one of the things that we kind of also looked
at was about two-thirds of the Midrador subdivision, the housing in there, has relatively easy
access to the La Vista Drive intersection.
And then the major destinations are Pinyon Park, Downtown White Rock, and Pinyon School.
So the general flows and most flows are going to go to that kind of southeast direction
or northwest direction back and forward.
When looking at the NM4 La Vista intersection, the pro is, if we put the crossing at La
Vista, then it makes it convenient for all destinations.
So if someone wants to go to La Vista or north and south or to the west on the trail, then
it's convenient location.
But then that comes a potential cons of increased pedestrian exposure to potential conflicts with vehicles.
It's a complex decision-making location for not just the drivers but also the pedestrians.
More conflicts make it less safe and then longer delays for more vehicles.
At the midlock crossing, the pros are, you know, we minimise the pedestrian exposure.
The conflicts with vehicles is simplified decision-making for all users.
Less conflict means safer, shorter delays, and then it is a convenient route for the majority
of destinations.
It's gone as it's less convenient for all destinations.
So our recommendation was to continue forward with the mid-block location.
Next slide.
The other piece we were asked to evaluate or re-evaluate was,
do we really need to do the lane reduction?
Can we not put the trail in the big area off the site of NM4?
So basically what this diagram is trying to show is,
what does NM4 look not just in this area, but to the wider, so starting on the, on the right
this screen, you know, from the truck route to downtown, basically to Sherwood Boulevard.
It's one lane in each direction NM4 is. It then widens in the westbound lane, westbound
side only to two lanes at Sherwood to Parahito, and then it goes back to two lanes in each other direction.
Essentially, from what I've been told, the two lanes basically N and 4 used to be four lanes
all through town. 20 years ago or less, it was reconstructed. The two lanes was just kind of left
from Sherwood to the west and so there was real no. Necessarily, a reason for why it was maintained as
two lanes. Next slide. So this is just a quick diagram showing that the existing
configuration, as I say, on the right side of the screen you've got a driving lane,
then the bike lane, then there's a buffer, and then the existing trail. On the left
hand side you've got the two westbound lanes, and then a bike lane, and then
basically the white swath. Next slide.
So what we did was on a couple of occasions
So prior to doing the initial grind submittal and then as part of this project, once we got into the design phase,
we placed traffic counters one in each lane, so one in the right, lane one in the left.
And essentially what it confirmed was that the roadways have essentially been driven as a single lane.
During the morning peak period, which is predominantly when the bulk of the traffic travels on NM4 in this location
between 95% or 98% of that traffic is traveling in that rightmost lane. As you go through the
rest of the day, it's kind of like a 50-50, but the traffic volumes are minimal and it's probably
more driven by are they making a left turn, a levista, or continuing through towards Bandalier.
there. So that's essentially what this has shown. The light blue line is the left lane
westbound, dark blue line is the right lane and then the dotted red is the kind of the
total volume. Next slide. I think this is a video one Linda.
So it's part of a re-evaluation.
One of the suggestions that keyboard was could we do an experimentation? I block off one
and lanes and see what happened. Happens and we said, well, based on the traffic and data,
we don't really need to do that because we know what happens because it happens every day
without blocking off one of the lanes. So, we've set up a video camera for the day
and this is just a real quick representation of what happens during that morning peak time.
In this instance, we've got a slow moving bus, you know, if people were in a rush or
nearly two, they could overtake it, but we don't see that.
We just see the traffic all staying in that right most lane.
And why is this because the bulk of that traffic is taking a right into the lab property.
So that's basically, you know, a quick representation just so you can see what the traffic and data
we collected was basically showing here, I think that's enough in the
next slide, can we get back
to it?
So our piece of looking at the lane reduction was could we put the trail in the buffer area
off the north side of NM4? And technically we could. There's a lot of utilities and some very
significant utilities in that area, but there is kind of a corridor where there's minimal utility
complex. We couldn't place the trail right next to the curb because that's where the bulk of the
drainage from NM4 runs down. So to change that would take some significant infrastructure.
What we would, if we did put it there, we would have to do a bunch of grading, some cuts,
what's term cuts and fill, so where we have to cut into the ground and where we have to fill
areas to make that section of trail 88 compliant, and particularly where if we were tying into that
mid-blocked location we'd have to do some additional cut and fill. As I mentioned back in the
beginning, Basalt rears its head quite a few times through this, and so if all those in White Rock are
up here who have seen what's going on at the Middardor parcel,
Pinoan school, when we did drainage work, put in a new drain in Sherwood,
we encounter a basalt, we've also done cores in these areas
and we find out the basalt and a lot of this area is very shallow,
it's very close to the surface. So we don't, we really want to try and avoid
and that can come at an unknown and it's very hard and very expensive
to excavate.
And then we also did a quick cost calculation and creating that new trail
on that location was about five times more expensive than re-utilising the existing roadway.
So we did look at it in some detail, and that was the conclusion next slide.
So, looking at the summary of what I just talked about, so, doing the westbound lane reduction
allows the trail to utilize the roadway, reducing constructions costs.
As I mentioned, the speed limit right now is 45.
The speed data we got, depending on the time of day is mid-40 mile an hour, pretty good.
compliance of peak times when traffic volume is low, we see some spike into that.
With this lane reduction, DOT is support of us reducing the speed limit and that segment
to 35 mile an hour and improves the safety at the mid-block location, because instead of
having two lanes, we're only be having one lane.
and one of the big questions was, you know, are our public safety folks on board with this?
We did reach out to the police department and also the fire marshal in two separate
occasions and they expressed no concerns with their proposed lane reduction and the cross
section that we're putting in with that.
The only one real con with the lane reduction is potentially if there's a slow moving truck
climbing up that hill, you may get stuck behind it.
There really isn't a lot of truck traffic, all the truck traffic going into the lab has to go up the truck route because they have to go through the security.
Being out there, occasionally there's concrete trucks, there's really nothing west of Patraheeta Road for this going to generate a lot of truck traffic.
So, that's not a major concern and then we're
We looked at a northside trail in the buffer area. The pro is, you know, you create a nice trail that's buffered from the roadway, but it is five times more cost and then there's some cost construction unknowns related to the basalt. So recommendation was to continue with the Westbound lane reduction and placing the trail within the NNM4 roadway. Next slide. So this is kind of the proposed cross-section.
focusing on that westbound lane. So basically it would match what's on the on the opposite side
with the exception of will be placing you want to do the next slide. We're in that red circle
placing a small curb to separate the trail from the roadway. But and we do create some
off a buffer from vehicle traffic there'll be about 11-foot distance between the travel lane and
that trail and so that's kind of what's shown there next slide and this is so we'll be placing
an 18-inch by 18-inch curb in that kind of buffer area to separate the the vehicle lanes from the
trail. This has been used quite extensively in a lot of bike lanes, separate bike lanes
for the nation, so it's got a pretty good track track. Next slide. And then just quickly
discuss in some of the design elements. So on the bottom left kind of shows you the cross
section with the hawk signal. We will replace in the mast arms for the hawk signal within
the median and then we have push button on either side of the road so as I mentioned before it's kind
of a two stage crossing and then on the right. One of the things that we tried to work through but
the existing trail alignment with that big mound and then a steep grade down. There was no way
for us to make that ADA compliant. Current grades are about 11% on that section without blasting out
that that hill there was no way to make it but we were able to find a pathway so
basically the diagram and the bottom right there's a retaining wall around
that section based on the bottom of the hill we were able to put the trail
through that section. There'll be a railing on top of that wall and this is what
necessity is requesting to move the pier historic pot which we find a nice
location at the intersection of the trail by the hawk signal and then next slide just a quick slide
on the opinion on school trail. So there is an existing asphalt trails in a worst condition in
the opinion park trails. Schools already implemented a fence along that side so it designates the area
and right now it doesn't connect to Grand Canyon but we will be making that connection to Grand Canyon.
Next slide.
So the recommendations that we made were supported by the Transportation Board of February
6, 2020, the five meeting, they made a recommendation to proceed with the plans as the design as
presented and also supported moving forward on the auxiliary trail, what was called the
in the trail to Pinion Park along Pinion School.
They also further recommended that staff
continues to re-ovaluate the traffic signal
with Sherwood and NM4, which we did more recently
after the November meeting.
We went out and collected some updated traffic and data
at La Vista and Sherwood Boulevard.
We ran those numbers through the traffic signal warrants
and found that they still did not meet warrants
based on existing conditions. We also looked at pedestrian volumes because one resident had raised
the issue about potentially school kids crossing Sherwood to get to the Atomic Transit service to
get to school. That data was not supported by the video counts that we conducted and also review
of the Atomic Transit ridership numbers plus the schools provide bussing from Middard to the middle
school and high school through school busing. So we couldn't make that argument to make it warranted
from a school crossing standpoint. So our request tonight is within section 38-191 of the
the county code any installation of a new traffic signal needs a county council approval. So that's
what the primary reason we're here tonight is to ask for your approval to place the hawk signal
at the mid-block crossing across the NM4, next slide.
Because we're working within the DOT's right-of-way, whenever with these types of projects,
they want to enter into a maintenance agreement with the county, which basically clarifies
who's going to maintain what pieces of infrastructure traffic signals.
There's always an agreement for the county to take over maintenance of the traffic signals
or street lighting, and in this case, we will probably be asked to maintain that curbing
that we are putting in and anything of the trails on either side. We have not yet seen
the final language of that. Maintenance and disagreement, we are waiting for DOT to give it, so we will
be coming back to council at a future date once we have had an opportunity to review that.
Maintenance and agreement, asking for your approval, that that means agreement, so if that
That's going to occur in February.
We've got one more step with DOT for them to review the final design plans.
Make sure everything's in order to get our bunch of certifications, environmental and things
like that.
So we should be taking care of that next two to three weeks following that.
The funding for construction gets obligated and then we can advertise.
We're hoping to get both projects.
We're going to combine them into one and advertise them March, so we should be back here a
promade time frame, hopefully to ask Council to award a contract. If that all goes to plan,
run it by June, we expect construction to start, depending on who the contractor is, how they want
to phase it. It could go relatively quickly or it could take about a year. So probably next spring,
summer time frame 2027 would be when the project would be completed. Next slide. Yes, there's a
question. Sure. So hopefully I didn't take too long or overwhelm you with information, but I'm
here to take any questions you may have. Okay, thank you, Mr. Wilson, for the detail presentation,
and we have the Council on Equalment.
I actually have a comment.
Thank you, Deputy Martinez and Deputy,
I'm sorry, Director Martinez and Deputy Wilson.
I appreciate the thoroughness.
I also appreciate your looking at the myriad of variables
so that we can say that this was a comprehensive report.
So, thank you for that.
Thank you, Council Newglin. Any,
Councilor?
Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the very detailed report.
Question about the Maridor mixed use and that light. Do you have any idea when they're going to start building that mixed use area there?
And then the subsequent light after that?
So we did reach out to the developer this week to get an update.
They are working on a new finance package, I guess, the way the economy went, their
financing didn't work out, and then construction costs kind of went through the roof.
So what they indicated to us is working on a new finance package, and if all goes well,
they're expecting potentially, and then next year, they could be starting construction.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you, Councillor Armin.
That's cool.
Well, a couple of questions and maybe I maybe mentioned this but is the hop temporary when the Sherwood light is installed?
No, it's permanent. Yes.
Okay. There was also a concern I believe that was raised previously by someone in the public about the backup of traffic if we install one or two lights and blocking the fire station entrance potentially.
Was that looked at at all?
I think the concern was if women reduced from two lanes to one in the westbound direction,
it could impact fire response from that fire station.
As I said, we reached out to the fire marshal, who is the person in the fire department
who reviews all these things to ensure that they are not going to impede their access and
responses and their vehicles, and they had no concerns about this.
Generally, the backups occur in the eastbound direction in the mornings.
The traffic's pretty refloy, unless something happens at the entrance to the labs, something
at the back that happens that causes the backup.
In the evenings, I think it's like 4.15 to 5 o'clock, I think it's just everyone wants to leave
once, and then actually it's the truth caused by a traffic signal at Rover and NM4. We did do counts
when we did the Sherwood and Penon counts in November. We've been working with our traffic manager.
We did make some adjustments to the signal trying and to try and alleviate some of those backups,
providing some more time for that eastbound direction. But there's kind of like a limit to what we can do
because there's quite a lot of traffic coming back into a white rock at that time.
So those were the main concerns about, I think, the response times if there is a backup.
Unfortunately, relies on drivers getting out of the way and there is sufficient space for them
to move over. It's just people are not generally paying attention, unfortunately, in the stage.
No comment on that.
So I just have, I'm trying to picture the median.
So this is the first I heard that it was going to be two different signals and a median
in the middle.
If you have 10 kids that went across at one time, can all 10 of them fit in the median?
Yeah, so we're actually making what I call as the exact as so I know Linda can go back
to one of the slides but basically it's going to go like this so there'll be more insufficient space.
I can't remember what the offset between the two crossings is but it'll be 10 foot wide within that
that swath.
I know it's hard to see there. I didn't make my dotted lines overly bold but it's kind of
that. So yeah, it's fine. I trust you. Really? Well, too. I see how many kids pile up on the
median all at once and we'll see what happens. No, I doubt if they're all there at one time, but
it's just a concern that that I thought about when I heard about the two different signals. So
that's all my questions. Okay, thank you, council. Any other
questions. Let's see. I did have, could be slightly
belaboring the point on the signal because I believe that it was 2022 when it was
site plan was approved. So I think it was 2020. 2020 for the site plan for
the mixed use. Okay, so it's been a long time. So you mentioned the additional
study so we can do that every so often when there's another whatever
or poems built, but in terms of the signal being approved for a warrant, when that development
occurs, it's a condition of the development to have the signal.
So the signal goes in first, so the right or is that, what's the sequencing of that?
It'll be coordinate when they get the certificate occupancy, so as they're built into that,
then the signal will get installed.
So once they're at the point where they can get a certificate occupancy, then so they could
build the signal before, but we can't turn it on until they get it CEO. Okay, that makes some sense.
Maybe this has to do with the fact that you know you have emergency vehicles there too, but
I love the fact that you have a little barrier between the path, I'll call it multi-use path,
and then the bike lane. But between the bike lane and the road, they're just paint, right?
Yes.
Right, and so we've talked about this a lot of times before, but you know, the complications
if you have some sort of barrier there.
So I guess it was a rollover barrier than it limits
its utility, right? But then you could drive over it, somebody could pull over, get out of
the way they emergency vehicles. I'm just kind of concerned about understanding if there's
lot less expensive to have paint. But I'm concerned about the lack of safety between the vehicles
and the roadway and the bicycles with just having paint. And I know, I know and technically we're
not approving that, but there's part of your discussion. That's why I've read it. We're just approving
the hot crossing, but I just wanted to ask about that since you brought up and it came up with the
basically the safety issues or the fire station people getting around if they need to pull over.
So, was there any discussion about any kind of separation?
Yes, I agree.
So, sir, the initial concept which it validly raised some of the concerns about emergency access was that 18-inch curb.
We had placed it between the bike.
So, the plan is to be able to explain in the travel lane to create that kind of separated by clean. When looking at when I've been out there, there are some cyclists using NM4, but they're the highly experienced looking cyclists, they're not the five-year-olds falling along their mother. And, you know, we always try and develop facilities for everyone, but they'll have access to the
trail system, you know, the NM4 trail. On the south side goes all the way around to, I think,
to the Parahito. Is that the right name of that subdivision to the west? And there goes
in. So they have alternatives. So it's kind of one of those balancing things. In that location,
the bike lanes are wider, they're not just five feet to curb. They're, I think, seven feet if we
paint a one-foot kind of paint-peave median if you want to call it that. So you know how it was
a thought in my mind how could we make this like that but then as you get into downtown
right then there's really no way to continue that separation. So it would kind of be like just more
for show rather than. Right it would. It's not like protected by paths anywhere. Yeah okay I'll
At least for that segment that we have that trail will be able to use that trail through there
If you mean so if you're in town cycling westbound, you could then access the separating trail. Right, right, okay
so
I think that makes some sense
We'll also send you Brad up
You brought up the part between you know, the truck route and white rock
So right now that is just the two lanes and I think that is part of the
study right to look at following redoing that road.
I believe DOT is looking at that.
Correct.
But they're not looking at.
So you're not going to be asking us.
I'm asking about bike lanes there.
There's no bike lane discussion there, right?
I'll take that one, Chair Eddie.
So there has been a project that DOT has been working on for some time.
It's been really slow going.
They've had a change of a lot of the project engineers over time.
They had a change of engineering consultants, you know, from then to now.
At a recent conference, you know, I had some discussions with DOT about that and they do have a new project engineer on board.
They had been having plans to have a public meeting to talk about this because they're at their very early stages of planning for this project.
So, they're in that study phase, if you will, looking at different alternatives and looking
at the needs of the corridor, something that the county has been advocating for some
time is adding shoulders for safety and refuge, but for also bicycle use as well.
Because there's a lot of on-road bicycles that utilize that corridor for biking purposes.
could there be a multi-use trail aspect to that potentially?
So those are conversations that still need to be had,
and hopefully we hear more soon as far as the project schedule
and the rollout as time goes on.
Okay, thank you.
Oh, I did have a question because it's come up with the,
so there's the so-called Idaho stop.
So I know that it applies to the stop signs.
It also applies to the supply.
The question was, since we have cyclists in the area,
they're going to be paying attention to the same lights.
Because you mentioned vehicles.
You mean bicycles also are supposed to do exactly the same thing
when they come to, or is this the law about the Idaho stuff change some of that?
So the Idaho stopper which is because it was first implemented in Idaho that was
I think July 1 that came into effect in New Mexico. So basically that allows a bicyclist
to yield a stop sign so they don't have to come to a full stop sign. But as traffic signal
they have to first come to a stop but then can proceed on red if it's clear to do so.
So, in this instance, a cyclist on that roadway would have to first come to a stop because
of the red signal.
Yeah.
And if the pedestrian had cleared in front of them, and now it was still red, then they
could legally continue.
Okay.
I think that's all the questions I had.
So let's see.
I think we're ready for public comment.
Does anyone in the room want to make a public comment?
I'm Richard Gattis, 102 Confianza Street in Mirador.
I don't want to shoot this down.
The hawk signal really is not going to affect me one way or the other.
But
let's see, page eight of the presentation, I think it was.
It kind of excludes the part of the Mirador Subdivision from LaVista down to Sherwood.
The only way that we would be able to utilize the hot crossing is to hike uphill to LaVista,
come back around and go down to the hot crossing.
This is not part of this project, but I would appreciate the Council looking into
the provisions of the approval of the mixed use development.
There were some provisions in there, the letter of approval had provisions in there that
have now been put off for what, three years, maybe four.
One of those is ADA compliance.
At the time, we had no way of getting from the confions of cul-de-sac over to Sherwood.
This opens up the possibility that instead of an ADA zigzag ramp down to Mirador and
and then on around to Sherwood possibly building
some kind of connection from the cul-de-sac
over to the north side path.
I'd like to look into that.
I also wanted to part of the reason
that we do not have a lot of volume of children crossing
the street taking buses and so forth.
It's just too damn dangerous to get over there.
So they're probably not doing that.
And as far as bus service,
there is not bus service to the middle school
or high school from Mirador itself.
Yes, they do have school buses picking up elementary students
and taking them to Pinyon.
But otherwise, it's up to the parents
to figure out how to get their children up to Los Alamos.
Thank you.
Okay, do we have any other?
My name is Jessica Alvin, I'm at 61 Comfianza.
Oh, it's all right, I'm quick.
I have a couple of kiddos.
I make them call me on their watch every time we cross Highway 4
and I run out and help them cross.
So I think there's a handful of us in the neighborhood
that would like a stoplight, but I know that's an on-option.
I'm really appreciative to your team for all the work you've done.
I thank you for all the input you've taken.
I saw something out on the street light counting traffic the last couple of weeks or maybe it was
the video camera. We just need a safe crossing for the kids. So I'm grateful for everyone looking
into this. I'm grateful for the years of planning all the engineers. I just thank you all for your
part. Okay, thank you. Oh, we have one more person.
Greg Wies, 186 P.A. Dr. Loop. I drive this
section of New Mexico for frequently and I will say that for the residents of Mirador having a
safe crossing that is in a location that is likely to be used is imperative for the children there
and it should be done before there's a tragedy. So I'm in favor of doing this program. I guess
My only disagreement is that I think the speed limit could be reduced only to 40 versus 35,
which is 40 is the speed of New Mexico for south of White Rock.
For example, that's the speed along the diamond along the golf course, and that's
sort of like this, and there's a crossing on that road where it is there.
So that's my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you.
I'll check. If you'd like to make public comment, please use the raise hand feature.
Chair, I'm not seeing any hands raised.
Okay. So is there Councillor, and should I make a motion? Councillor, him.
Thank you, Chair. I move that Councillor approve the installation of a high intensity activated
cross-box called OCC, signal on New Mexico for approximately 550 feet east of La Vista Drive.
Second. Okay, so we have a motion by Councillor Hianne, second by Councillor Herman.
Is there any discussion?
I'm not seeing any. I'll just say, I mean, we've been talking about this
for a really long time and also about the light. So I think this is a good step forward
and I do appreciate the issues associated with it the one third that's got much different distance
but these are meant to work together so without having the ability to put in the light on
our own which I think I'd asked about before I think this is where we are. So can the clerk please
call the roll.
Councillor Neill Clinton. Yes. Councillor Hand. Yes. Councillor Herman. Yes.
Councillor Wrighty. Yes.
Councillor Heaveman. Yes.
Councillor Cull. Yes. Motion passes 7-0.
Okay, let the record show the motion passes unanimously.
I guess it's after 8 o'clock, so maybe given we still have some more items left,
That's just we take about a 10 minute break.
We're back in session and as soon as technology cooperates, we'll get back to the item.
Next item here, so we're on item 9c.
It's 211-30-26, it's presentation and possible acceptance of the FY 2025 annual comprehensive
of financial report with Auditor's opinion and FY 2025 single audit report with Auditor's
opinion.
Ready to go ahead, please.
Yes.
Good evening, Chair, I.D. and members of Council.
Tonight, I am here to present the FY25 Act for and single audit report and you'll notice
that we did issue two separate reports.
Typically, the single audit report is included in the Act for.
However, during the federal government shutdown back in October, we were informed that the final 2025 OMB compliance supplement had not yet been issued.
This supplement is required before we can finalize the single audit.
When it was still not issued in mid November, we made a decision to go ahead and issue two separate reports in order to meet our financial reporting deadline for the SEC by December 31.
First, that reporting does not have to include the single audit, so we decided to move forward
with that.
Next, I'd like to highlight a few key points of our aquifer.
The government-wide financial statements section starts on page 28 of the aquifer and
presents the county as a whole.
We are a local government entity, and our primary business is providing citizen services.
So we present different types of activities on more than one measurement focus or accounting basis.
Our readers should look to the notes to the financial statements as well as the MD&A or
management discussion and analysis to gain a better understanding of the measurement focuses.
Next slide.
So governmental activities are, they do include all the county's basic services
and governmental functions that are supported by general county revenues, which is primarily taxes.
Business type activities include the joint utility system and environmental services, fire, transit,
and airport. And these are generally supported by charges paid by users. Next slide.
the
government-wide financial statements first.
Present the county as a whole like a business. The county's total ending that position for 2025 was $666.3 million, which is a $26.8 million increase from prior year. The explanations of key differences are described in our MD&A section of the aquifer. Next slide. This chart shows revenues by type and expenditures by function over the last five years in our governmental funds.
It also shows how well our sources or revenues cover our uses or expenditures.
Our surplus or deficit primarily corresponds with how much capital outlay we spent over
the last year.
And as you can see in FY23 and 24, there is a $35.3 million surplus and a $36.4 million
surplus respectively.
This surplus significantly decreased in FY25 to 855,000, mainly due to an 18 million
dollar decrease in total revenues, which is primarily our GRT, and a 17 million dollar
increase in expenditures, which is primarily capital assets.
Next slide.
This chart is intended to show the changes in revenues and expenditures, and as you can see
There is an $855,000 surplus, again, as of June 30.
This means that we have essentially banked reserves in that amount in our governmental
funds intended to provide services to the community.
Next slide.
A figure three compares program revenues to expenses for business type activities for
fiscal year 25.
And this chart demonstrates to what degree the revenues covered expenses for each program
by type of activity.
Overall, total business type program revenues are less than total program expenses by approximately
$5.1 million in FY25.
Next slide.
Our GRT makes up our primary source of revenues in our general fund and a few earmarked for
special purposes.
And here's a snapshot of our GRT over the past 10 years.
and you can see an 18.3 million dollar decrease in our GRT over the prior year.
GRT is significantly impacted by Lannel's funding and activity each year,
and it makes it for approximately 80% of our GRT revenue.
Next slide.
What makes an act very unique?
The act for is governmental entity financial statements that must contain an
introductory financial section and statistical section.
Our statistical section does contain 26 tables of useful data about our organization
and compares 10 years of data where applicant will.
It does take specialized knowledge and governmental accounting to be able to perform all the
adjustments, calculations, and reporting under gas view requirements.
Los Alamos County has received awards of excellence in financial reporting from the Government Finance
Officers Association, which is GFOA for the past 34 consecutive years.
Next slide.
And finally, I want to just a huge thank you to the finance staff for all that they do
to pull this together and on the extra hours that are worked from July to essentially December.
They all do a great job and also to all the county departments for doing such a great job,
all year long to aid us in positive results of our audit is truly a team effort.
and we are very fortunate to have such an amazing team.
I will now turn it over to Farley Venier with Hinkle and Lander.
Lander's to discuss the results of our annual audit.
Good evening, county councillors.
I'm making sure you can hear me okay.
Yes.
Okay, great.
All right.
Well, we'll go ahead and be brief with this.
We're just going to present the results of the audit
a part from what you've already heard.
So just moving to the next page, this will be our agenda,
and we'll take about five minutes or less.
So we'll move past this.
Just to introduce the team that worked on the audit,
I was a partner in charge.
Caitlin did what we called a heavy lifting
with managing the audit, and she had support
support staff, Karina, was her main person supporting the audit.
And next page, just to outline the scope of work, what our job is, as auditors as we
give, an opinion on the financial statements, and then we also give another opinion on
the major federal programs under the, and this is what's called the single audit.
So those two opinions and then apart from those two opinions, this year we
performed some non-test services so we prepared the financial statements.
It was usually you do that internally. I think this year was an exception to
that. And then the last thing to note there is that there are some state audit
row compliance testing areas that we are also required to test and move on to the
next slide. Just just gives a summary of some key communications that we should communicate
to those charged with governance. We did this at the what we call the exit conference before
we send it into the State Archers Office for their review, but to summarize, just to explain
the accounting practices, one of our jobs is to ensure that the practices, policies, estimates
and disclosures in the report are consistent with the standards, which in this case are generally accepted county principals, gap, and gas be the government accounting standards.
Then those key lines, you see their proposed adjustments, we had none.
No other adjustments. All those lines say none. That means we had no issues there. Everything was very clean.
and no disagreements with management, no difficulties performing the audit and
then the highlight was there was the the introduction of a new standard called
GASB 101 that's related to the measurement of compensated absences, the
liability at year end. So just a new way of measuring it and so that was
implement this year. Moving on, results of the audit, the two opinions are
unmodified and that means clean opinions. So in other words, for the financial
statements we believe the numbers being presented are materially correct and for
the federal awards, we believe as our tears that you are in compliance with the
rules of those grants that were considered major federal programs this year.
Finding wise you can see that table there, no findings to report and then moving on.
If you wrote brief on this there are new standards coming out every year.
One on one was introduced this year as I mentioned and one on two was also introduced and implemented,
but there was no impact for the county.
next year will be new standards called financial reporting model so the report
will have some changes in it and also a new standard next year and it's called
capital assets just clarification on how to present the categories and in
certain areas that maybe have not been previously addressed are going to be
introduced next year as well. Next slide. I'll move real quick past these. So these are just
background on 101 next page, 102 next page. Continue on please. This will be the do standards next year,
the reporting model, just some summaries, but I don't think we need to go into it today. Let's
someone would have some questions on that, so move past that, continue on please, continue,
continue. And then this page just explains that there are new standards that have not been
implemented yet, they're just in the pipeline. Actually, in subsequent advance, you can see that
one that was listed for December, that one has been issued. There was one you see July
implementation guide every year, they put out an implementation guide which has answered
questions on how to apply standards. And anyway, next slide, please. And that's it. So
thank you for working with us. And I can stop for any questions or discussion.
Okay. Thank you, Ms. Dotsi and Mr. Beneer. Do we have any technical or clarifying questions
from council.
You're not seeing any.
So let's say we have any public comment on this item.
That's can check online. Next, my public comment, please use the raise hand function.
Chair,
not seeing any hands raised. Okay, so I have a councilor.
I move the council accept the annual
comprehensive financial report and single audit report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025.
Second. Okay, so we have a motion, Councillor Nyclinton, a second by Councillor Cull. Do we have
any discussion?
Councillor Cull? No, just a great work. Thank you.
Okay, so it was great to be,
We had to recognize last week in Mexico counties, so it was a medium county, I think, award.
You received that award almost every year.
It's been available since 2011, so that's a great acknowledgment.
And yeah, it's a very comprehensive report.
I love the statistical information on the other back, and so I think my favorite table this
year was the 10-year difference in the number of jobs, and you could see the number of the,
basically 8,000 more jobs over on the other side of the bridge. So that's in there. So there's
a lot of good stuff in there. If you didn't get that far, there's stuff at the back that you can
I want that. Okay. So, um, please call the roll.
Councillor Rattie. Yes.
Councillor Rieckord. Yes.
Councillor Hand. Yes.
Councillor Colp. Yes.
Councillor Haviman. Yes.
Councillor Neill Clinton. Yes.
Councillor Herman. Yes. Motion passes, 7-0.
Okay. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously.
So thank you again.
Okay, now we're on to item 90, 212, 226-26 discussion and possible action on
establishment of a metropolitan redevelopment area commission. So I asked to have
this because we had a discussion of this two weeks ago at the work session and
and there was no opportunity for action,
so I just wanted to make sure,
since we heard some different opinions,
and that's kind of catalogued in the staff report,
plus we had one counselor absent,
whether counsel was interested in pursuing this or not,
and just so we could have public aware
what direction we're going.
So I guess I could start with a few comments
of just what I've heard.
And we certainly heard there's a concern about transparency
of the process as it's implemented now.
People have commented about notice of that the AMRA existed
and there was a possibility something maybe happening
in the building.
There were occupants who were not sure about owners.
I didn't get that level of detail, but I was kind of curious about, I didn't look
at the general statute, and I guess with our home rule, we would have some latitude.
But the statute does indicate that there would be five members of the commission, and it
It's initial terms, but they're intended to be five years eventually.
The commissioners for this MR commission could be replaced by the, in our case, the county manager, I think, or the chair of the council at their discretion, which I'm not sure, you know, maybe we could set up something differently, but that's what's in the general law.
I'm not sure if that's what people are thinking we would be doing.
And then I did have questions about what would happen to projects if we were to go down
this path, what happens to projects in the meantime we did get an email from one party
that's working on an MRA application.
So I guess maybe you just start with that.
So,
I guess, how do people, I guess, any response to the comments I made about the issues
that people have raised, plus the logistics of doing this, what would be the plan for
right now, projects, if we were to establish commission with everything stopped, or would
and we continue under the current process.
So, I guess, I'll just cancel hand, Jeff. Thank you, Chair. So, I'll just provide my input regarding the existing process and things that are in the works.
I think they should just follow what we currently are current process. But for the long term, I think that it should not be
council that makes the decisions on this. I think we should have a new commission and set
up something similar to what we do for all the other topics, you know, and decision-making
that we have, you know, we have boards and commissions that and advisory boards, et cetera,
that all report to counsel with their recommendations.
People have to interview for this, they have to have qualifications
that are relevant to the work that is going to be done.
And I would like to see something like that.
And I think that it would help with transparency, or at least
I think a lot of people in the community would like to see something like that
because there's a feeling of, you know, having, you know, more citizen input than a situation
where we have counsel making the decisions on that.
So, you know, this may take a while to set up and, you know, because it may take a while,
I think that we have to continue on with the current process
for any things that are in the works right now.
You think you can plan any other look over here, okay. Councillor Rieger?
Well, I kind of concur with Councillor Hanna saying, but I also would like to talk about this in a more general sense,
and that we need an advisory committee, which I would, you know, an economic incentives board,
that advises us not just on MRA projects but also on lead-to-projects and they
would have to be people that are from a business background and familiar with
things like banking and construction and retail and maybe restaurants, things
like that that can give us a very sensible business advice that could go with
our work and I have an example that is not recent, but it did fall apart a few years ago,
which was the Marriott project at 20th Street, where this town can't support a full size
Marriott, but it could have been a Marriott courtyard.
But it got saddled with other things, included a convention center, which then it's somehow
other in the business world that turned into the end of it. I don't know how that could not go
ahead because we're so short of hotel rooms that we're so short of lodging and that project
had 20th Street. There's no way it couldn't have been modeled as a successful thing by any business
person and then they just had to go get funding before interest rates went up. This was like five
years ago, six years ago was all happening, and that process got way laid by things that
were added that I never understood how it happened. I didn't make any business sense
to me. In the end, there's no way you could not build a merry-out courtyard on 20th Street
in Los Alamos and not get the funding and all of the support put together, and that hotel
was unable to pull it off and then I think we have to have people advising us on that stuff
rather than tying up that property for years saying you know this can go ahead or this is not
going to go ahead and it turned into something that got tangled up in in other needs of the county
but then didn't turn into a viable initiative that would actually go all the way through and so now
Nobody was here that except Randy was probably around for beginning of that time when that project
was put together, but I think it's the kind of the disease we're not getting good
business advice from the public except people complaining later on when they don't like the
results. And we get lots of business people talking to us, but we don't get people talking to us.
We need to type them talking to us earlier. So I don't know if this commission would be
empowered to review things like the 20th Street Project, but I think going forward, as we have new
leaders and new MRA initiatives, that we need a group of business people who are like a
economic incentives board or an economic incentives commission whatever we want to call it.
I don't know the exact legal structure, but we need people giving us advice on all of these kinds
a project from including like banking judgments and what's construction and everything else.
So I think we need exactly this kind of thing and we should start moving in that direction
in terms of putting together a legal structure that would take on all those responsibilities
of the put taking together a committee that an ordinance that lays out that structure
to get all of these things reviewed as we move forward.
Okay, thank you, Councillor Riger. We have any other thoughts, a couple?
We currently have an L tab that can't keep people or can't hold meetings because they
can't get a quorum, mainly because the folks that run businesses that are on the L tab
are very busy and can't make the meetings. So what makes us think that we can find a group
of business people that are willing to review and frankly do our job for us with regard to
MRA projects and and lead a projects. This is, you know, there's other ways to have transparency.
We've been adjusting how we do business by bringing things to council more than once.
For example, the North Mesa Plan that we reviewed tonight.
Again, we had a presentation on that.
We were able to get a lot of public input and a lot of public comments.
And, you know, it's not typical that we get that kind of volume of comments that we got.
But we gave it time and we allowed people to make those comments.
I don't see anything really different if we have an MRA proposal or a lead-of-project,
which we've already started, one of those, where we would have a presentation, potentially
we could add some requirements to those presentations where we would require the business leader,
whoever's making the proposal that they have to give a presentation to council and answer
questions from us that a lot of times would come from the public through us.
So I just see so many delays with creating another commission that I don't think is really
going to be necessary in a community like ours.
Most of the MRA area is owned by a few businesses.
And those businesses aren't going to want to, I mean, they can make proposals, but they're
not going to want to be told by other businesses how to do business.
I just, I don't really see the benefit to this.
All I heard was transparency.
Otherwise, I don't understand what the real benefit is.
Thank you, Councillor Gough.
Councillor Hankham.
I want to speak from this, from two perspectives.
One is as a neophyte being on council.
I understand the need for transparency.
I get it.
And at the same time, we invest so much in communication,
in having conversations, and having outreach,
and having forums and having surveys that if we're not being transparent I want
to know what it looks like to someone else because we're back here now five
years later just in the example that we had tonight five years later to finally
do something that we started five years ago. That's one thing. The second thing is
as a business person who is working because you guys are cool, you've all retired. I'm not very yet.
Having said that, you all know that I will tell you I live and die by my calendar. When I hear
a five-year commitment as a small business person, you want me to take even more time that I don't have
to commit to something where I may or may not it may or may not be well received.
That's a lot and I agree we have boards commissions now that we can't get people
to serve their civic duty. So now you want to ask a small business to invest
that time as well. So the two things that I see again I think we I think we've
actually gotten to the point or at least for the year that I've been here people
tend to know that's one of the questions I'm going to ask is what are we doing to
inform the community. That's what I'm like what does that look like between the
emails, the outreach, the billboards, the postings, I don't know what else we can
do. And again, I speak as a neophyte. So, that's my take. So, oh, to be clear, no.
Okay. Thank you, Councillor Neill. Councillor Herman.
Thank you, Chair. I'm very excited about the MRA. And I want to just think Los Almas Main Street for making this possible.
Jacqueline Connelly, the director worked just tirelessly to make this happen, and I think
Lois almost and White Rock are going to be great because of this.
If it's about the transparency, then let's figure out how to improve that.
We did, in the past, have an economic vitality group that people, business people could engage
with during COVID, I think just kind of went away and a lot of those people are now on
an economic development board. But, you know, we can figure out how to improve that.
I just can't see adding in another layer to make this take more time. It's just adding
in more complication, especially when the decision ultimately comes down to the people
sitting here right now. So, you know, I think we can come up with some improvements, but
no, I don't think we need to add in another commission to the decision making process on this.
Okay, thank you, Councilor Newman.
Oh, Councilor, have a great,
thank you, Chair Reidy.
You know, part of good governance is transparency and public engagement.
Part of good governance is also efficiency and effectiveness.
And as I thought about this, and thought about what other communities have done, and thought
about the scope of work. We have hopefully ahead of us with some MRA applications to fulfill
the purpose of revitalizing these areas that need better public-private partnership.
I just don't see how adding a layer of what some might characterize as bureaucracy to the process
as enough value.
And I couldn't agree more with Councillor Herman that, and other
Councillors alluded to it, that what we're hearing is maybe a lack of trust in leadership
or a lack of confidence that we will be open and transparent about the applications we receive
and how funds are allocated to applicants.
Well, we can work on that.
We can do two things at once.
And I think part of the goal is to include business people
and hear what they have to say about certain applications.
But the goal also has to be to help the business applicants succeed
in this process.
That's really the whole point of this in the first place.
And I think we want to be putting at fewer barriers,
not more barriers. So I will also be supporting the Council acting as the advisory body for this process. Thank you.
I have one more statement. I'm sorry.
Thank you, Councilor.
The other thing is when we think about other counties, they're much larger than we are.
I can see that in a larger county, but we see these people as this or at NAMBE.
So it's not like we're inaccessible and it's not like anybody in Los Alamos is afraid to
talk to you when you're trying to run the UPS. You know, they'll stop you and have conversations.
Well, again, we're really small and one of the things I've said to people I'm with on occasion. I can't do anything about it. And here in this town, they are not afraid to tell you anything about anything.
I just had one more comment in response to some of the other things that I heard.
And you know, one of the things that I think we should keep in mind is that we're already
trying to define what the members of this commission would be.
And like other boards that we have, you know, we have a lot of different boards and we have a lot of people with a lot of expertise.
And I don't think that, you know, by us determining that it has to be small business owners on this commission is necessarily, you know, a fair.
You know, it's not a fair assessment of what this commission could be.
I think we need to define just the criteria, people can have experience and not be a small
business owner, you know, but they can still have relevant experience and maybe they're retired
as well, you know. And they have another way to contribute. Yes, we've had some challenges
with LTAB right now with attendance, but I don't think that we should just base it on some
of the challenges that a current board is having. I think that the amount of workload and the
level of detail that's needed isn't necessarily a councillor's job.
Then there's the argument,
And, well, if we're going to do this, why don't we take away other words too and just
do those jobs too, you know?
We make the final decisions on all those things, you know, instead of having people make
recommendations and bring them to us, why aren't we making the final decisions on everything?
We'll just start reviewing everything, you know?
We just don't have that time.
And so, you know, I know there's always a concern about, you know, developing something new,
but I think this is a certain kind of expertise that we need.
And I don't know that, you know, our counselors have the time to devote to this either, you know,
when we're talking about individual guidance to people who want to fill out an application
and go through the process and vet everything, you know,
loot all the competition for, you know, all the applicants, you know,
I just don't know that that's something that we should be doing at a council level.
So I would still recommend that we consider how we're operating
with all our different boards and commissions and try to do something similar.
I do realize it takes more time and, you know, yes, we could make the same
argument for every other board and commission that we have. It takes more time.
But, you know, what's the justification for all those boards and commissions? There
is there is a reason why they're there and do we use them or do we not and we should be consistent.
Thank you. Thank you council hand. So I'll just say a couple more things.
Yeah I it's been it's come up I think for years now with a question about you know
we would have an independent, like a commission,
economic board, but I guess the another kind of question
I've been mulling about is when other communities
have these kind of boards, do they,
and I know when I can close, they have like a whole process
it's laid out, like a pre-application and application.
So they have forms that are filled out,
and I don't believe that the economic incentive board
is like they're not holding like a public meeting and it's not like an office hours and people come in,
I got a project I want to do. They approach somebody in the county government that understands
the requirements and that's the people that that would be vetting. That's been one of the concerns
is like that, but that's no, that's just the person that has a project has to understand
like my feeling is out correctly. Can you recommend this or not? And we had the discussion about even
leader projects that, you know, maybe there's a leader project and it goes for the process
and it gets no recommendation from the county manager. But we still can see it, right?
I mean, it doesn't have very strong support then because it has no recommendation.
And I look at that the same way with the MRA is I think that, you know, if there was the MRAs and
the other thing I think is the throughput. I think it's the size of the county or we've had the MRA
and White Rock since 2022,
it's now 2026, I think, so it's been like four years, and
there were questions like, oh, it is, there's not like a form you can fill out on the web,
but it's been around for a while, and we haven't had, you know, an ink has been cementraced
in having, you know, MRE applications, just like we have leaders, we just had a leader last
meeting, right?
That worked, I think, and then they had the previous
lead-in, and then they asked for some more money, and nobody here was
negotiating. Well, here's what they'd come with what they want, and then they
basically say, is that fit into the framework we have or not? It's not like staff
are looking around and saying, well, I think you should go develop that.
Nobody's doing that. The people that own the properties are coming to other
people and saying, I want to do this project, and here's what the money I need is, and
how much of that is legitimately a public function.
And so that's not happening at an economic incentive board.
That's already filled out.
I mean, they know what that is.
So I don't understand, I'm just trying to wrap my head on around that comment.
I think that there's still going to be meetings of staff with people that want to apply for
funds.
whether or not we add another board or commission or not, right?
So I just don't know, so as I'm getting into what is the marginal benefit.
I understand, yeah, there could be some benefit if we had enough applications
to having a bigger group of people and it could be whoever we decide.
But if we look at like the city of Santa Fe they had really pretty specific qualifications
and of course they have a lot more people to choose from.
So they had a number of basically positions identified, which like our planning and zoning
commission, we've had the same, you know, should there be like general pop general citizen
members and then members that understand development code like their developers or contractors, we
don't do that.
It's just like anybody that's available and some people have experience and some people don't.
And we weigh that when we have applications and sometimes, you know, there aren't a lot
people that have a huge number of qualifications that apply for the boards. So if we're going
to be having a commission and we're not really sure, I mean, that's the concern I have,
like who's going to apply what qualifications they have.
And if we're going to keep doing
what we're doing, that's what I ask that question. Because I think we have at least one application
and one applicant they can talk to us instead. I'm just really concerned about you doing this.
So those are my concerns, I understand, but I think that people still need to meet
with county staff to discuss their projects.
So that has to happen, and frankly, those aren't public meetings.
Those are meetings, it's like, well, then every conversation everyone has is a public meeting.
That isn't what a public meeting is, public meeting is like right now, we're sitting
here.
And it's like you have it. If you have an economic and
Senate board or you have an metropolitan redevelopment commission, those
meetings are public, just like the transportation board, planning and zoning
and LTAB. But if they're just doing an advisory, then I have another
issues like then it has to come back to us. So I go back to the suggestions I've
heard about. Well, maybe the process can be... I think it's maybe okay that it
could be only things that will process these can always be improved, right?
I think the county management board has a list of lead-to-projects, right, that are
ongoing. So there is really no list of MRI projects, I think. I think that there's
like one that hasn't started yet as a project. They want to get it going. But yeah, that could
be added. We can be tracking those. And then we can ask, but if somebody has a project,
they can't be required to come and like, you know, to a council meeting and present their project,
but we can encourage them. So, this will really be a lot better, like, as you alluded to, people
want to know what's going on. So, and if we had a night when there was a bike park, there might be a
lot of people listening, right? Most of the time we don't have a lot of people listening to council
meetings. I'm sure there's a lot of people online and listening to the recording, but
You know, we can do, we can say that, you know, we were expecting like public meetings.
If you're going to be asking for MRA funding, we're expecting public meetings.
We're expecting you to be telling, you know, having news articles and writing press releases about your project, updating the community and what's going on.
And certainly communicating with wherever is within your project.
I can't control that at all but they can control what communication they provide to the people within their project and they should be working with them already.
So I've, I guess I was asked this question at the first like workshop we had about the MRA and downtown LA about, you know, I think we need a commission and I said I didn't, I didn't think so.
And I mean, we still don't have the number of projects where we couldn't do the work, and if we're going to have to ultimately approve it anyway, I'm just wondering, I'm still wondering what the benefit is of having some additional, if it's not going to happen right away, when would it happen?
You know, we're going to go to the work of doing an ordinance, having commission, and then requiring, I mean, it's interesting.
there's one of the positions that starts over one year,
and then they have two and three years.
But ultimately, that person on the one year position
is then expected to apply for a five-year appointment,
which we have difficulty getting people to apply for boards,
like the BPU, where they have to do a five-year commitment.
There are some people, but they're retired people.
And I think we want to have like some other people
and engaged in helping us make these decisions.
So, I apologize for being a bit long-winded there,
but I mean, this has been, I'm concerned about, you know,
that people sense that there's lack of transparency
and accountability, but I don't think
that the commission solves that problem.
So, okay, I've talked enough.
So, that's really a relevant thing. I'm thinking about a board that's actually where you can get people to get enthusiastic about that service because they have a tiny little corner and very little authority and they make, you know, the recommendations would be very small in any case.
So, I don't know about that. That's not really a relevant thing. I think about a board
that's actually where you can get people that are enthusiastic about making a difference
in the community, and they could come out and try to participate in helping projects
get developed that are really important economically. And especially the part where you're interfacing
to private capital. And I guess I don't have enough experience to count all of this, but
But I think the new 20th Street Project is another one of these things that maybe if we
had good advisors who were business people, they would say it's a little bit complicated
and capital intensive for our community and it's probably not going to happen.
Just as the previous Marriott Project, the 20th Street Project, the last generation of it,
just was sitting there, it never really failed in a true sense.
It just sat there until we bought out their options and went on to new people.
and these new guys, I don't know if they're going to be successful either, they're very
elaborate projects that look to me as though if I had a good business guy advising me,
I would maybe we would look at it differently. If we had good business people advising as people
that knew finance and stuff, we might pick a different kind of picture to how to do that.
And so I think we have in the past and of course nobody was here but that except probably Randy.
But it happened even before I was on the council on the first time that that came through.
And so I'm thinking with all of this MRA and lead a capabilities we can really make
a change and we can recruit people who are really interested in it because we are giving
this new authorities to pick projects that they want to push ahead and help get the applications
into conditions so they can get satisfied the state law.
And that's the kind of thing that we should, we need that kind of advice to the council.
So I certainly hope all of our current housing projects go through.
I think that some of them are simpler and more structured to be successful.
But then our business development projects, I don't know when that's going to happen.
And I think we need to
We have people advising us on what is really practical, and I think ignoring this for the MRA is the same as ignoring it for LIDA, that I don't know how we really end up in a good spot. I don't think it'll happen. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Riger. Okay, any other good, not seeing anyone else, so I think we're at the point for public comment.
Well,
I'm Lisa Shin, I'm at 6747th Street, I guess the concern that I have is if we don't
do this commission, right, then it would be a review committee and that review committee
is internal and it's only county staff and that's on page 10 of the MRA handbook and so
the committee would evaluate an application within 30 days and then the project meeting criteria
recommended a council. Council would consider the MRA ordinance over two
public beings first for the introduction and second for the approval and
adoption. That just seems rather vast to me. I just want the assurance that the
public does have adequate time to review the application and provide meaningful
input that matters. I just kind of feel like the way it's set up now, it's very fast. You have
an application, you have the county-led review committee, and I know Councillor Colle had mentioned
that business owners don't want other businesses telling them what to do. It's not about business
telling each other what to do. It's more about having that small business experience and having
input and understanding how the economy works here in Los Alamos and so you
can provide advice that can be very effective. You know when as far as are
being a small town you know like Clovis is only about 10,000 people more than us
and they have a steering committee where I think there's like seven business
owners that are part of the MRA process and they work closely with the
the county staff and the county manager or I'm sorry the mayor to really discuss these
projects and the steering committee is invited to all the meetings and so you know moving
forward I just kind of feel like as far as the review committee it would be great to have
public invited to all the meetings of the review committee that's one thing that you could
do right away to improve the transparency. Also, the other thing you could do is make sure
that all the Zoom meetings between county staff and potential applicants are recorded
and accessible to the public. That's one thing that hasn't been done. And I do believe
that all residents and property owners within the MRA should be invited to all future meetings
of the review committee. I just feel like many of us feel like we've been left in the dark.
We didn't understand that Columbus Capital was asking for $30 million, $50 million in public funds.
I know that in 800 Trinity, Christian Science and top nails, the owner of top nails and myself,
we feel like we've all been left in the dark. So I would just like to see more openness and
transparency with whatever happens with the MRA. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Dr. Shen. Do we have anyone else?
Is everyone else on line?
There is, Chair.
Jeffrey, you should be able to unmute.
Please state your full name and limit your comments to three minutes.
Yeah, I am Jeffrey Branch with Columbus Capital,
over the owners of the Mary Mack Shopping Center
and the adjacent Olson properties as well.
Please.
Right. Well Councilmembers thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. Obviously
we're probably the largest property owner within the MRA. We were invited by the county
to come in 2000, roughly 2021 or 22 by Joni Adler, who was just a great ambassador for
the county back then with a request that some development come to the community in terms
the housing and retail, hotel, hospitality, these type of things, and it was something that
we were quite excited about trying to help, and it's been a haul, and for those of you that
have followed through the transparency with the number of meetings we've had in the business
community with residents, and yes, we have been meeting with staff, and those meetings generally aren't
public meetings, but we're trying to understand the MRA process.
The MRA process did take a long time.
It's taken a few years, and we've been very patient in trying to get that done.
We've committed over $16 million into the community already between Mary Mack and the
adjacent properties, and we're already underway with our schematic designs.
Interest rates have doubled during this period.
Construction costs are very difficult and was all almost, and that's probably why you all
don't see the kind of development you'd like to see because the trades are
coming from Albuquerque. So it's been a haul but we had done our best to really
be transparent to the community of what we're doing. There is an article in the
LA report reporter today that kind of really lays out where we're at, where we've
been for those of you that don't know. And so we've we're at that stage where
we're ready to submit an application. We have been visiting with staff, staff
does have legal counsel. We have legal counsel so that we can craft something that can come before
your body that hopefully works for the community. We have not put a formal ask in place obviously
because there's no application. So Ms. Shins comment with regards to what we're doing about that is
false. We're at a critical stage here so you know changing the direction of where we're going with
this thing could really risk our project. We are right at the doorsteps of submitting
an application and hopefully fairly soon come in before this body to discuss what our
ask is and how we intend in achieving that. But it's a critical step in our process, otherwise
we wouldn't be here. So I just want to respectfully urge that you not put this step in place because
is it could be a real problem?
And we just thank you for your time
and your consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Branch.
Greg, you should be able to unmute, please,
state your full name and limit your comments
to three minutes.
Thank you.
My name is Greg Gonzales.
I'm also with Columbus Capital and owner of part owner
of the property at 3,500 Central.
Incorporating a project into the MRA is a very complicated process.
I mean, it's going to address issues of economic development.
It's going to include land use, public infrastructure, traffic, and definitely have financial and legal implications.
The challenge with establishing a board, an independent board commission for that,
that is trying to find somebody with expertise in all those areas.
The benefit that council has as oversight is they have direct access to the experts
that we all all trust and that is staff.
I mean, there's a public infrastructure division, there's a land use division, there's economic
development.
So an independent commission will also introduce delays and the implements of projects that the MRA was created for in the first place.
With respect to transparency and protecting the interests of the county in relation to the MRA, I think it goes without saying that there's no entity that's going to protect the transparency of the county.
and the county's interest as vehemently as this county council.
Therefore, I also request the council not vote to create a separate commission or introduce another layer of bureaucracy to implement this MRA,
which is a complicated process to begin with
and it would be better not to implement
any more complications.
I thank you for your time.
Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez.
A user identified as iPad,
you should be able to unmute,
please state your full name
and limit your comments to three minutes.
Hi, this is Phil Gersky.
We will note that I am representative for an infiliated with the development project at
Longview in White Rock, and we too will be making an MRA request with respect to one of
the phases of operation.
And I share a lot of the same concerns that that Jeff and Greg have on the complication
of the process.
And I think for purposes of elucidation, we still must go through every land use, development code,
building permit and other requirements that are necessary for development.
The requirements that are in the MRA and the tools at the MRA are largely financial tools
and specific kinds of development tools that are useful
and maybe helpful in making a project more feasible, but they are really almost
exclusively financial or financially tied. If you look at the state statute,
there are quite a few things that even if you adopted a commission that cannot be
decided by a commission, they must be decided by the council, including funding,
taxation, assessments, various kinds of bonding and other kinds of things that are
necessary for a large request under the MRA. I think that the staff that you have are the
people that we work with, and I do have a suggestion. If you have the suggestion, I think that
that Commissioner Call has put out and I think was put before is the practice that you've now had
of having an additional public meeting ahead of the introduction of the ordinances is a very useful
tool for public application. And I would suggest that as you have the application for an MRA,
that you make use of your public portal, the same one you use for all applications for planning and zoning approvals, building permits.
Have those applications be part of that portal, and that means all that information is public at the time.
Everything that's relevant to the application will be available all the time to the public.
I think if you take those two steps, there's never going to be a time when you won't be able to track publicly as a citizen or somebody who's interested, those kinds of things, and we certainly feel like from our perspective that this would be a much more, this is a more productive transparency and presentation, and it will label us to work with the technical and legal and accounting and public engineering questions that would come up in the MRA.
more effectively and to present those in a completed form ahead of the approval for your ordinance and with the ordinance as well.
So we would respectfully request that they not that you not adopt a separate MRI commission for this county at this point.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Persky.
There's no other.
Chair, they seem more hands-guised.
Thank you.
So, I guess, is there a Councillor and she are making a motion?
Councillor Kerman?
I move that Council take no further action and maintain Council
as the governing decision-making body for MRA funding requests.
Second.
Okay, so we have a motion by Councillor Kerman,
second by Councillor Neill Clinton. Do we have any further discussion?
It's cool.
Yeah, I'd just like to, if we can ask county manager to inform the potential applicants
that they will be encouraged, maybe, to present proposals to council and an open meeting to
allow public comment, I think that would be good.
Good.
I think it's a call.
I think that's great suggestion, and so we probably can't technically write that in,
but I guess if it's possible to, unless they opt not to, for some reason, there's more
urgency.
Chair, ready, Councillor Cove?
We'll take that forward and put an inch practice.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
So, I appreciate that.
So, I see no other comments.
So, can we have the other roll call?
Councillor Rieger. No. Councillor Cole. Yes. Councillor Habiman. Yes. Councillor
Herman. Yes. Councillor Riding. Yes. Councillor Neil Clinton. Yes. Councillor
Hand. No. Motion passes. Five, two, with Councillor Rieger and hand voting against.
Let the record show with motion passes with counselors handing rigor opposed.
Okay, so
We'll also check the time at 9 o'clock, it's 9.25. I believe. So I think we can get through the rest of what we need to do. There's only a couple more items. So 9.E is AGR 1196-26, discussion and possible approval of agreement number AGR 26-858 for the purchase of public safety.
50-50 systems and related services from ACES on Enterprise Incorporated.
For an amount not to exceed $6 million, $26,000, $39.59 for a 10-year period.
We have the Chiefs come along here.
Thank you, Chair.
Council.
Quickly, I'd like to just recognize and thank a few people, Desiree Miranda, who helps me
and my office put this together with Darryl and procurement.
Commander Ross has been with me since the beginning in evaluating this platform.
Deputy County Manager, Madison, who helped us put this together in the 11th hour to make sure we met our deadlines.
And of course, the County Manager's guidance.
This is a 10-year fixed-cost public safety technology program that bundles body camera
in-car videos, interview room recording, LPRs, digital evidence management, AI tools,
training, warranties, and ongoing support into a predictable single agreement.
As you indicated, Chair, the cost is over 6 million over 10 years, however, let me back
up.
What that gets us, it locks in the pricing, it includes scheduled equipment refreshes
and replacements, it eliminates surprise capital requests, and shares continue to support
upgrades and warranties.
The total savings buying it in a bundle is just under 1.5 million.
The savings are driven by bundle pricing, the term itself, and included lifestyle management.
What the department receives for this is officer body cameras and docking stations,
In-car video systems and LPRs, interview room recording systems, digital evidence management,
AI tools, which include search, reduction, automation, transcription, and translation,
all of which are anticipated to enhance our efficiency significantly.
Training implementation and ongoing support, and again, guaranteed technology refreshes,
For example, at five years we would get all new body one cameras as part of this amount.
Again, the budget impact is fixed and predictable.
There's no large spikes or emergency replacement purchases and aligns with long-term budgeting and planning best practices.
We estimate that if you approve this platform, we could save up to 1.8 million in offsetting
costs of current platforms that we're currently paying for and harder to quantify, but no
less important are the efficiencies that we anticipate just in the even the red action
and transcription itself.
But we also feel that this will significantly enhance officer
and community safety. And with
the translation, for example, you could speak, I think
it's there up to over 100 different languages now that automatic translation as you're speaking
with the individual.
It has a signal sensor in your holster. So if you want holster your weapon,
your camera automatically turns on and anybody's camera within a 30 foot radius turns on.
So I'm just utilizing the time to show a couple of the features of this which are well
beyond what we currently have.
The digital evidence platform allows us to maintain our records
in a secure cloud-based environment for not only for our criminal cases, but our
IEPRA requests. It has performance auditing tools. It has community and staff survey tools.
It has virtual reality training system, it has autotagging CAD-based metadata, which
syncs with the digital evidence platform.
There's a way to its voluntary, of course, but if we have an incident in a certain neighborhood
for example, we can publicize a link, people can upload their ring cameras, help us to
self-crime. They can do that in multiple platforms and this system will take that
regardless of the extension and put it into a viewable format for us. So for investigative purposes,
it's huge.
This
agreement modernizes the department's technology. It does improve safety,
efficiency and transparency provides cost certainty for the next decade and saves over
a million dollars compared to purchasing these systems individually to high level overview
but with that I'll stand for questions.
Okay.
Thank you, Chief.
Do we have any technical or clarifying questions from?
Okay.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Chair, thank you, apologies.
Just one thing I wanted to clarify is the money that we have to spend out over 10 years
or we're obligated to unless we cancel the contract is about about a million something
less than what the contract maximum is.
That's because that contract maximum builds in some penalties because we're given some
discounts for their long term contract, but if we cancel it, we have some penalties.
So we actually don't, if we don't cancel the contract, we don't anticipate having to spend
out all of it. It's about a million plus less than the contract max, but we have to build it in
our adjusting case. So I just want to clarify that. Okay, thanks for the clarification. Okay, I'm not
I'm not seeing any questions.
Oh, yeah.
I did not.
Okay.
Councillor Newcombe.
No worries.
I love the chief.
I look.
Well, a couple of questions.
Regarding the body cams, do they run continuously because I notice that you said that
when they unholster, they auto-engage.
So does a body cam run continuously or not?
Chair, right.
Councillor Newcombe.
And it does not, it can automate, can be automated to turn on and to activate, but it would
not be running continuously.
And one thing about these cameras, the ones we use now, have batteries that you remove,
these don't, the batteries internal.
So the estimated shift time or usage time on a shift from the company is about 13 to 13 and a half hours, but I wouldn't anticipate that that's a full run and we don't fully run them for the whole shift anyway.
So we're confident that from a battery perspective and plus while they're in the vehicle it charges while they're on shift.
So we're confident from a battery perspective that we're going to run in any issues there.
I'm going to ask a question in another way. So let's say I'm in a car. I get stopped by the police.
That camera is in running. It should be at that point. Absolutely. It should be. So there's
possibly there's won't.
So the camera is running. It's just not actively recording. Once the officer
hits the button, then it goes back to, I believe it's a 32nd previous before the button activation,
then it starts recording. And the anchor cameras are the same way, once the lights get activated,
then it starts recording. So it's constantly running, it's just not recording because of the data
restrictions. But once that button is activated or the lights are activated, it goes back about 30 seconds,
holds that video then it plays on. So instead of it automatically engaging the
officer has the ability to record at their discretion. Yeah and that's our
policy and that's the state law is anytime we have an interaction with the
citizen we have to record that interaction. Exactly. Yes. So when we get out of our
car we're walking up to a house the officers are hitting the button and they
come on. The feature that chief was talking about is if let's say it's a back
a officer that comes out and there's already a gun drawn it automatically does
it sometimes not everybody gets that button or something like that it's just
a redundancy to ensure that all the cameras are on okay thank you and then so
that was the other that was the other side of the question what happens if the
record button isn't pushed and that does happen I mean we're human like
anybody else but if it's not an automated system and it's not on it's not a
car stop because we would have it on the in-car camera at that point so it's
probably just a failure at that point for the officer to engage the camera in a
citizen encounter. We do have those and we address those.
We tend to focus on coaching
efforts first but we will progress that if needed. But in the beginning that was a
challenge because it was new but anymore we rarely run into a situation where it's more
often with our current system, it's more often a battery issue where it just runs out.
Okay. And then I had one more, and
I can't find, so you're good. Okay.
So I was interested
in the, so I think came up about license plate readers. So all the data that you're collecting
is internal for your department use, but ultimately it's
favorable, right? So it is not like real time. So I think that was one of the concerns about sharing
information license plates and who was driving around with external agencies, but that
could happen anyway regardless of the system. So if you had a license plate or some data,
that's not restricted from emperor. That's all something that somebody could say,
I want to know all the plates that were stopped in the last month.
Is that something that somebody can request?
If they request the chair, right?
If they request, if the request was, I want to know all of the license plates that were
stopped, yeah, we could fill that.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's something that you could get anyway.
Because I think there were some concerns about more real time sharing of data, but that's
not something that you would be doing anyway.
because you'd have to get the request, some day ask a look at it.
So
let's see.
I guess so.
So you talked about the AI.
So the AI tool is really to help with, like you mentioned,
the redactions and going through the video.
That's again for mainly for Opera.
That is it for other purposes too.
Is there some reason you're using AI tools?
is like what you said about ring cameras that you get external data and you're trying to identify
somebody and all this data can make a composite and identify the person of interest. Is that what you're
talking about with AI tools? I'm just trying to get my head around what you're talking with the AI tools.
Well, there's a cheer right either several. So with
search, for example, we upload our policy into
the system and although the employees have access to it anyway, this is just, again, it's
a one-stop shop and it's an easier platform, but if they have a policy issue, they would
just type that word into the system and it brings up the relevant policy.
I suppose you could, again, have the same functionality with even word but with 800 pages of policy
see, I think this will help streamline that a little bit.
With automation, that can help with report writing, can help the officers actually write
the report, which is the IA gets from the video, it's really pretty neat.
Of course, that's not a 100% thing, the officers still have to go through it and ensure that
what the AI road is accurate and so we're
And some officers may not choose to use that, but depending on the type of case or how long the video was, I could see some definite value in terms of that. Transcription, if we interview somebody, for example, and want that interview, transcribe for court purposes, currently we pay a vendor for that. The system, the AI system would purify.
produced transcription for us, in-house, and again, you'd have to go through to make sure
it was accurate, but that would be a cost savings for us.
Again, the translation issue is AI-based, if you speak a different language, we can communicate.
The camera will translate what I'm saying to you and what you're saying to me back.
Again, it recognizes over 100 different languages that us is huge from a safety perspective.
And then probably the biggest cost savings is going to be in the redaction area.
And on video, you simply tell it what you want redacted and it'll redact it for you and produce
it.
Again, you still have to go through and make sure an example I would use in that, let's say
we have a scene that has both adults and juveniles and I hit face so I want all the faces
blacked out it'll go through and do that but the adults there is no restriction for that
so but I can easily go through each one of those it'll produce the entire volume and I just go
through in checkmark. It's just a huge savings from what we're doing right now. These IPRAS are
just extremely intensive
in terms of the staff time it takes.
So we anticipate, again, it's hard to quantify like some of the dollar amounts that I was able to
quantify in the staff report, but we anticipate significant savings in terms of
efficiency and staff time. Okay. Great. Okay. I remember my question. Okay. Go ahead and
cancel anyone. Thank you. Two more questions. So one is we know that if the equipment we know
that we've got to cost savings because of the bulk or the bundle. Yes.
However, if we do decide to
break this tenure contract, then we're that one point eight is going to be rolled back in correct.
So the cost, let's say, is about $550,000 a year,
but out of that we can reduce the cost
that we're currently paying for redaction transcription,
our current watch guard contracts with body-worn camera
and LPR.
And then we also can, Councillor or Chair
Ryder, you had a question last time
about reimbursement for the hardware.
where yes, we can do that.
So that's another 45,000 that will be reduced.
So it's not a complete wash in terms of dollars,
but you add the dollars in with the efficiencies
and the safety and the transparency
and the ability to communicate with the citizens
and the safety part of it, it's a win.
So I understand that it's a win
and when we look at them separately and collectively
once we put them together, it makes sense.
So we know that for the company,
if we break the contract,
they're gonna get, I don't know what is it, 1.8.
But what do we get if the equipment does not perform
as advertised?
I mean, what if, I don't know, instead of speaking Spanish,
it translates to tie.
And it's a known glitch on their side.
Or if there's something about this software
here as well as hardware that does not perform to the standard that we expect.
What do we get?
Darrell, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the contract is pretty solid
in that regard, in that if the functionality does not present as advertised that they'll
make it right, it's always hard when you transition to a new and larger
your platform, because you don't know everything and how much time are we actually going to
save on Redaction.
We know we're going to save it, because Common Sense tells us that.
But how do you quantify that?
But one of the key indicators for us on this was the amount of departments that are transitioning
to this company, just because it's what they're doing in law enforcement is amazing.
And here in New Mexico, there's quite a few and just off top of my head, Artigia, Bernalya County, Santa Fe PD.
I mean, they're several, but I've never heard anything like that, that something broke and they wouldn't fix it.
I've never even heard that it broke to begin with, but we're very confident in this company and their customer service.
Okay. Final question. Regarding the redaction. I noticed that the example you gave involved
images. Quick question. Is the redaction also applicable to language and particularly
specific words or is it just images?
You, Chair Ridey, Councilor Nielklin, is the redaction
just words or images? Is that the question? Yes. Because you stated that in the scenario
there are adults and children, you're able to remove the children. The question then is it
just applicable to images or words can language be removed as well? And if it is removed,
is there a way to have the before and the after? It can be removed and how you do that is you just
type in the text that you want to remove. So for example, if it's birth dates, you tell it that.
now again you still have to go through it when it's done to make sure that it did what it said it was
supposed to.
We would always, just like we do now, we always have the original copy and then we
have the redacted copy. And then the redaction, if redactions are required, we're required to say
why that was redacted. So that's not going to change. It's just how we get that product is going to be
much more efficient. And just by way of example, as well, on the transcripts, on the translations
often, it'll, if we have that transcribed, it'll, you know, let's say I'm speaking to
somebody that's speaking Russian, it'll transcribe what they said in Russian, and then it'll translate
that in English. And then it'll say what I said in English and then what I said in Russian.
So you'll get that transcript so that you know that what they said, you could show that what
they said was transcribed appropriately. So I would assume that the redaction piece is the same.
And one more thing on customer service. We've already have contract with this company on Taser and
never had an issue with their customer service so we're confident moving forward
that that wouldn't be a problem with this company. Okay thank you for your time.
Okay thank you Councilor England thank you Chief I think I'm saying other
questions so let's see if there's any public comment
online there is. Okay so let's
Please.
Whitney, you should be able to unmute, please say your full name and limit your comments
to three minutes.
Hi.
This is Brittany Saint-Jacques again.
I was just wondering, what are the user restrictions on redacting the videos and transcriptions
and can those abilities be restricted so that it's not broadly usable?
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you for the question.
So, Chief, can you just go ahead and answer the question, please?
How that is determined is by the statute.
So, the statute governs what type of information is
releasable and what type of information is not.
And then, again, any redaction requires an explanation
by the governing agency as to why that particular item was redacted
under what? Under what authority? Anything else to add to that, Alvin?
Chair and council, yeah, I would... I believe the caller is asking, why are the...
why are these things being redacted? It's only for hip repurposes.
The original recording needs to stay intact, because if they ever have to use that,
introduce this in court as evidence or something, they have to bring the original.
So the original law is, or should all these, at least apartment, however when the public
asks for, these videos may contain protected health information that needs to be redacted,
that may contain identities of children that need to be redacted in crimes that may have
people who are having been charged with crimes and things like that, and all of this is controlled
about the state law that dictates what we can and cannot or
was supposed to release to the public and third actions
generally get privacy concerns of individuals like health
information or the protections juveniles and sensitive
situations or certain home addresses and things like that.
So we are following the IEPRA law when we make our
Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I think we're ready to. Is there have a counselor in should to make a motion?
Councilor. I move that council approve the agreement number ADR 26-858 between the
Incorporated County of Los Alamos and Axon Enterprise. Incorporated for the purchase of public safety
video systems related devices, software and services in an amount not to exceed $6,826,839.59
cents for a 10-year term.
Second.
I'll second.
Okay.
So I heard Councillor Riger.
So I'm motion by Councillor Cole.
Second by Councillor Riger.
Is there any discussion?
Not seeing any.
Can you please call the roll?
Councilor Hand. Yes. Councilor Brady. Yes. Councilor Cole. Yes. Councilor Neil Clinton. Yes.
Councilor Rieger. Yes. Councilor Habiman. Yes. Councilor Woodman. Yes.
Mission passes, 7-0. Okay, let the record show the motion passed unanimously. So thank
Thank you for that last item.
So now we're onto item 10 council business.
Thank you.
10A is general council business.
One, two, oh, nine, nine, oh, dash two, six.
Oregon commissioner liaison and council
working group assignments.
So there's no, I think presentation on this.
And so councilors should be all aware
since I gave you a preview copy.
Any issues or questions?
Yeah, there's a little thing in there that I, under working groups, I did not
unvolunteer for S, line S, which is New Mexico Counties.
I just couldn't go to the meeting last week.
I did in Mexico Counties last year, I'll do it again.
Okay, I think that was just the, we just elect one person to the board.
But yeah, you can still go.
So that's the, we still have other counselors attend the meetings.
So we can either amend that or not, I guess.
So that's the board member, too.
That's the board member.
That's the intention of that role.
But yeah, there's still, I don't know if there's a separate row or just attending.
I don't think there is.
Councillor, were you or wasn't that NACO that you attended last year?
That's separate line.
There's absolutely no row.
Okay.
So you did both last year?
That's Q on the chart.
Right.
And I did both last year.
Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Start on the board of the Mexico.
So we'll look into amending the road so that it allows for
counselors to go.
So we'll just I'll work with staff to get that revised.
So I guess we'll have to attach that to the minutes.
Or something.
Or we'll just send it back out terribly.
Okay. Any other questions, comments?
Okay.
Okay. Let's see, 10B is appointments, which we did under consent. We don't have 10C,
the vacancy report. This meeting, do we have, so we're almost at 10 o'clock. So we
We can certainly have any board and commission report.
So, I think there's a little bit more time on that one, maybe. Let's see. Then we can go to County
report. So I guess I have to announce it formally. E is kind of managed
report 1 is 2 0 0 3 9-26 kind of managed report for December 2025. So Ms.
Lawrence did you want to highlight some items? Yes, thank you Chair and
Council. December we only had two meetings so it went quickly. There is continued
conversation about the hexavalate chroma and plume and the fact that the
The extraction efforts have been stopped again, and so there's increased interest in
conversations with both the Pueblo de San El Defonso, DOEM, NMED, and there's definitely
a group interest to want to figure out a way to restart the interim measure.
The North Mesa housing project on the middle school, the infrastructure impact analysis
his completed housing manager Dan Osborne is going to be presenting that to the public schools.
And then we're going to get some feedback from the school board meeting in November as to how they'd like to proceed potentially on that development.
We are actively working on at least two leader retail applications.
We're getting close to a third being submitted.
submitted. So those are, we're actively working on those and we did receive one fully
to application for another project. And we are working to schedule that with our advisory
council advisory. How do you say your contracted council, outside council? Maybe that's the word
outside council that advises on a big leadal like that. We're also have been meeting with
our new contract for the comprehensive plan and so we plan on being back in front of council
in February to kind of highlight what that process is going to be in that outreach but there
there have been some meetings with individuals and groups that we know have interest in being part
of that process. And we are in a couple days from now on Thursday there's going to be a tourism
debrief from the tourism season last year with everyone from the museum leadership to the visitor
center, LACDC to the national parks to do a debrief on on kind of how last year went and what we
are looking for going into this season.
City's work has reached out to our economic development
director Eli Isaacson and requested a meeting on January 30th on Friday assuming that happens
and we do get a report, we will quickly put that on the Council agenda in February to share it with you all.
Also starting next month, we've opened up in our training software that tracks all of our training.
Our training manager has opened up our customer service module.
And so everyone can sign up for that for starting in February and the goal is to have every county staff through it by the end of June.
Just a few weeks ago, the MRA applications were put online.
We will modify our handbook to reflect the request of the public meeting prior to the
introduction of ordinance.
And I just want to remind everyone that February 22nd, our aquatic center, our Olympic pool
and therapy pool are going to be closing for that big maintenance project.
And so we are working on an alternative for the warmer months, but we will go a few
months without that kind of facility, but the leisure of the goon will remain open.
So that is that you'll see some more press releasing on that.
But with that, I'll stand for any questions.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Lant.
Do we have any questions?
Okay.
Just a minute.
This is kind of a request.
Can we get an overview of the tourism working group at a future council work session?
Ms. Madison's nodding yes, thank you.
Okay, let's see, there's a very long list of things that have been happening.
So I'm appreciate, I was rent giving already the excellent chromium workshop.
I think that was one of the things I wanted to highlight.
I actually attended, so I think it's mainly been staff meeting with the Pueblo de San
Odefanzo monthly, and so I went in December, and then I went this month, and that's been
a subjective conversation with the Pueblo as well.
So, I have, you know, asked about when we'll have maybe more information for Council and
I think we've tentatively decided on maybe May.
We'll have some more information to share and that helps also get information out to the
public.
Let's see.
Another thing was actually turned out pretty well.
So with the Mexico County's meetings last week, I had asked for time to have a workshop on nuclear energy and it actually turned out to be fairly well attended, although after tonight's meeting it probably beat that by a few people here, but it was 54 people I think at the workshop.
So so that was good. So there's a lot of interest in that.
So, that's something that we're still working on through ECA.
We also had a Zoom meeting with the secretary, an NVD secretary, Kenny, who was served as
staff regarding WIP.
We had the legislative dinner, Representative Chen, who was there, and the staff for Representative
becomes all us we're present to and then the public schools presented their requests and we gave
a really brief overview of ours and so I think that was a productive discussion.
Yeah, there's a number of other things. So it's kind of regular monthly or weekly meetings.
Let's see. Oh, it was, I had actually been to the public assembly funds a few
stay, but went there and went with Ms. Massen and that was a really excellent experience
and a very interesting to see that in action after all these years.
Oh, and then I guess the last thing I wonder remember was one of the things I learned
I guess was that the chair of the county council can request that a planning and zoning case
get remanded back to the planning and zoning commission if the applicant and county staff
agree that it would be worthwhile doing that. So we had a case where I think there were two cases,
Is that correct?
There are two cases that fail in my argument because of weren't sufficient people present.
They had a positive vote, but it was like three to two, so that was a new one.
I didn't realize that they could do that.
So we'll see what happens.
It may still fail or come back to Council for Appeal, but it may save us having an official
hearing, of course, a quasi-judicial hearing at council as opposed to letting
planning and zoning take care of that. So that was something I just learned today.
So it was learned something every day. So I'm going to plan to, I'll give some
oral reports when they're on the agenda, but I'm also going to write some
mini ones along the year. So I like your approach of like what we do, so I'll try to
give little updates like every couple of months written in that way.
The state of the county messes you'll have written a self by the end of the year.
That's my plan anyway. We'll see what happens.
Okay. So item G is approval of counselor expenses.
Do we have any counselor expenses or travel the need be approved?
Not saying any.
Okay. Preview of upcoming agenda items.
So we have the tickler attached.
and we're going to put in the tourism onto the work session, so we'll make a note of that and follow up with that at the agenda sitting meeting.
Is there anything else anyone must highlight coming up? No,
I think we're almost to the end.
I believe the next item is Councillor Comments. Yes, it is. Do we have any Councillor Comments?
Not seeing any comments?
So, unless anyone is opposed, we are adjourned.