And welcome back to Speak Up Las Cruces with Walt Rubel and Peter Goodman. I think that's who I am. And two city councilors. We're happy to welcome Johanna Bencomo and Becky Koron. And how are you guys doing? Good. How are you? Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having us. I should probably disclose a conflict of interest. Becky's dog and my dog are pals. So take that advice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we should have him on the show. No, that's a bad idea. My new ambition is to get Bad Bunny to come in for an interview now that you and Maria both are saying we ought to have him on. I only know him from the halftime show. You're missing out, Peter. Well, the occasion for asking you on, you had an interesting joint op ed in the Sun News. Of course, I was puzzled because our our great leader has generously offered to give vast amounts of money to our police department to bring back law and order. And what's wrong with that? What could go wrong? Well, I think thinking about what model cities is, it's three hundred million dollars promise to two to four cities in the US. And it's established. It's sort of a grant, but it's actually described more of a cooperative agreement. So this would allow the Department of Justice to work cooperatively with the local police departments that receive this grant to enforce the laws that they see as making America safe again. Were we selected for this or no. OK. So we would have to apply. Yes. How we how Councilor Cornyn and I came to know about it was actually through an Instagram or social media post from the local U.S.A. attorney's office here in Las Cruces. And they posted about it and said, we really encourage Las Cruces in Albuquerque to apply. And for us, you know, given the like enormity of it, you might think, well, what's the likelihood that Las Cruces would even be considered? Right. But the reality is, you know, that our chief has established a relationship with this attorney, the U.S.A. attorney's office. I know. I could see a lot of reasons why we're a border community. New Mexico and the county is currently being sued by the DOJ. There's already, you know, like this massive border patrol presence here. There's actually, I think, a lot of reasons why they would want to select some someone like us. And at the end of the day, we are not eligible for many of the reasons that we, you know, talked about in the op ed. But obviously to us, it felt particularly concerning that this was being pushed out on like social media and that we were being encouraged to apply. Gotcha. And it, of course, I read the news and I think the DOJ is about the biggest law breaker in the nation. Yeah. And a lot of Republican senators are saying the same thing lately. And what other than the fact that we'd have to cooperate with ICE who've been, you know, murdering people, particularly people of color who don't speak English without an accent, even if they're citizens. What else is wrong with it? Well, first, the National League of Cities, which is an overarching organization that a lot of municipalities pay close attention to. Non-partisan. Non-partisan. Generally, I consider it a pretty conservative organization that, you know, sort of sets policy or provides guidance for cities. It's identified a number of other things in addition to cooperation with immigration enforcement. First of all, the cooperative agreement idea, that is that this will mean that the Department of Justice is directly involved in decision making within the Las Cruces police department. It also points to sustainability, that is, whatever things you purchase with the, say, say we got a hundred million dollars, whatever things you purchase with that, how do you fulfill that in the future, right? So if it's an infusion of technology, how do you maintain the technology? If it's staffing, what are you going to do after this grant is over, which we assume might be just 18 months, you know, by the time they make this grant. If administration changes, who knows? So then how does a city sustain those things in the future without an enormous, we don't have room in our budget for a hundred million dollars of backfill for a grant. So there are a few logistical reasons that it also doesn't fit. But NLC said not to. Use caution because of the long-term sustainability and cooperative agreement elements. It comes in a context, if I recall, where there's been an effort by our great leader to basically federalize local law enforcement, whether in D.C., which, of course, is owned by the U.S., or in other cities where they're sending in the National Guard on the slimmest of excuses and then claiming, look what we did when nothing changes. You know, part of our op-ed, there was some language in it that I went back and forth on, should we add it or not, like the weapons of war line, which we've gone, of course, push back on. But honestly, I think we keep underestimating this. Reiterate that for us. Yeah. Because nobody, you know, I didn't even memorize the... Honestly, I didn't remember that either. I had to go back and look at it. And part of what we wrote about was the reality of this grant and what it would mean under Department of Justice that has already, in a DHS, that has already deputized many local law enforcement and has sent out the National Guard. And I don't know if you've been to D.C. lately, but there's, like, just people, like, soldiers walking around with guns I've never even seen up close before in my life, right? And so we talked about, like, the idea that this would be potentially what would come with this money, right? These weapons of war. And I think we, frankly, keep underestimating what this administration is capable of and their potential. And we don't have to look that far to see that this has happened in cities, that these kinds of tactics have been used in cities. In addition, and to add to your question, Peter, about what else, you know, besides the very obvious, like, anti-immigrant rhetoric in this application, we've seen a DOJ, really, this administration has gone after election officials. They are now created a list of far-left terrorists. So what's to say that the strings attached to this money wouldn't eventually call on police departments to help enforce their, you know, fascist ideology? I just think the whole thing is so Trumpian and so Orwellian. The idea, the model community and the way you achieve a model community is through overwhelming law enforcement. That whole concept, I mean, and the idea that we're going to take this huge pot of money, and instead of spreading it around and helping communities all over the nation, we're going to pick two, and we're going to have two utopias in our image, in the image of Donald Trump. And I just can't imagine what that would look like taken to its natural conclusion. It just seems, like I said, very Orwellian to me, the whole thing. It's super Orwellian, and I think anyone who advocates for it is envisioning what their version of that utopia would look like, and that's not what we see as Las Cruces. We know that Las Cruces is a place where we don't, where we respect our neighbors and build community rather than tearing it down through policing and immigration enforcement. But we also know that the Trump administration can't achieve its immigration enforcement goals without deputizing local law enforcement. And so this is also a big risk for us. The state has made a clear path that we are not doing 287-G agreements. We also have that explicitly outlined. This is 287-G glow up, even more with a different name, right? Tell folks, listeners may not know what 287-G is. 287-G agreements have been around since, I think, about 1996. They are a federal infusion of money for local law enforcement, in particular to do overtime, to do transfers to ICE, to invite ICE on operations with them, to use their regularized enforcement to do immigration enforcement. Historically, what this has resulted in is a large amount of racial profiling in communities that have 287-G agreements. Joe Arpaio was one of the pioneers and most famous folks we know who did this in Arizona. And so we know this path. But I would also say that there's a long history of the DOJ trying to make model communities. There are two things from the past. One is called stress, which was put into Detroit in the late 70s. It was to clean up the streets. I think the language is almost verbatim from what is in the Model City's Utopia description. And as a result of that activity in Detroit, 24 men were killed by police. 22 of them were black. And then a second infusion of money that lasted in L.A. for something like 20 years, called the CRASH program, it resulted in the Rampart sort of hearings. And 58 officers were ultimately convicted of corruption. So we know all of the tricks that the DOJ is trying to do, immigration enforcement disproportionately harming black and brown communities. And we know that that doesn't fit here. Is there a divide on the council on this issue? Are there people trying to push it through? Well, we can't. So only Councilor Cornyn and I have talked about this, right? I haven't really talked to anybody else about it. Briefly discussed it with Councilor Munoz yesterday. And yes, it was confirmed to me that there was at least one colleague of ours that was shopping this around. I don't know to how many other people. And I don't know if, you know, when I spoke to the city manager about it last week, he was like, I've heard about it. I haven't really paid a lot of attention to it. So I don't know that it ever got to his office. Well, conservatives who were reaming you out on Facebook today were saying that Bill Matisse is favorable to it. And I think, you know, when we voted on the welcoming city ordinance, there were two votes against that, right? And we re-upped that on purpose because we knew that the federal government was going to be coming for us with money, basically bribes in this kind of context. And one of our colleagues, you know, had, Councilor Matisse had pretty anti-immigrant sentiments during that council meeting that he called in to vote against that. It wasn't just like, no, I don't think we need this. It was like pretty anti-immigrant rhetoric. And so, you know, I think this is why, I mean, you could be a conservative and say, oh, we need this. And you could be swept up in the whole make America safe again thing or not. And you could still have a little bit of a critical eye when thinking about what this money could look like. Like you said, I can't even imagine. The problem is that I can imagine. And I don't like it at all, right? I mean, we don't even have to go back to the 70s to think about what this kind of federal intervention has done to cities. When we think about Minnesota and Operation Metro Surge, when we think about Chicago and Operation Midway Blast, that really took this massive amount of immigration enforcement and weapons of war and put them in communities that absolutely brutalized and killed people. And ICE operations that, frankly, have had zero accountability, zero oversight, right? We have the borders are out there talking about how if you guys are just nicer to ICE officers, then maybe we would stop, right? And so I think, frankly, there's a reason I'm not on Facebook anymore. But I think because I think all good ideas go to die in the comments of Facebook. But I think people can be upset about it because they have their allegiance to this administration. My allegiance and my loyalty and my commitment is to this community. And in this community, we have an incredibly diverse and beautiful community that deserves to be invested in in ways that aren't to terrorize them. I think I was going to say to me the last couple of weeks have been incredibly demoralizing. I think all of us saw what happened in Minnesota and they did take some actions. They did get rid of Bovino. They did make some changes. Holman is better than Bovino. He's not great. And I felt like, OK, we had kind of gotten past that. And then to see two deaths, one in Texas and one in Maine, complete opposite parts of the country, neither on TV, neither with these huge sweeps where everybody's, yeah, two fathers. Neither were the target of their actual operation. And Holman, to his credit, does the right thing and says, OK, we're going to stop crashing into cars. That seems like an obvious solution. And the next day the president vetoes that and says, no, we're going to keep crashing into cars. Well, they also have the FBI has been told to back off on investigating ICE. I'm not going to do that anymore. No, because they're too busy raiding the offices of organizations that have done voter registration. I guess that's where I was going with this. It seemed like in the past they came in with this huge show of force. Everybody knew it was coming. For better or for worse, you could at least prepare for it. Now it seems like they're coming in in the dead of night and who knows where it's going to be next. You're right. And it's not the dead of night. It's in the middle of the day. But it's still not a I think they realize the massive backlash that was that came from Minnesota and Chicago. They haven't changed their behavior. Oh, you don't have to convince me. I know. Literally Holman was on TV the other day, right? Literally saying, like, you just need to be nice. Like, why are you guys so mean to ICE agents? Like, if maybe just be nicer and stop criticizing them and we would stop doing these things, which is just such a wild statement to make. And so I just wanted to go back to this application. If you read it, it very explicitly says things like American citizens, safety for American children, safety for American whatever. Right. We already know that this administration doesn't consider a large number of American citizens who were born here of undocumented parents. American. So, you know, it's like, well, read between the lines. Right. And you know who they're talking about. American embraces, I think, twenty five or twenty seven different nation sovereign nation. They don't mean that. They do not mean that. I think and I think US citizens is one thing. Americans means a rather large group of people. And I think fundamentally we know that safety comes from trust. Right. Like trust is fundamental to to our police department's ability to to solve crimes, respond to things in ways that are most productive. And so this fundamentally would undermine that trust. It's also getting to, you know, we are struggling through a technology revolution that is building up a kind of surveillance that, you know, we're trying to balance safety with with observation and surveillance, which I mean, this is more Brave New World. It is. But it's something you have to wrestle with. All right. We have to wrestle with it. This would infuse so much money into that infrastructure that it would be, you know, we don't even know for sure. We hope that our flock cameras aren't being shared with ICE. Right. But but the more technology you build, the more contracts you have, the less secure it is. On the flock cameras issue, I got a call yesterday from somebody who's very concerned about those. And we had the chief of police on here not too long ago. And one of the points that was made was that the cameras don't actually track people. And now they have a new model that does. Are you aware of that? Yeah, I saw the video of the guy being tracked in California or wherever he was. And we have we have one of those somewhere on Boccaccio. And I don't know if she showed you he once sent us a screenshot of what it looks like on the back end on like how to not know ICE reporting. It's literally like a little toggle button like you used to turn on your Wi-Fi, you know, on your computer. That's literally what it looked like for ICE and for reporting to immigration enforcement. And for reporting on people seeking abortion care. Yeah, it's very good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. I have I have a concern about trust and safety in the Las Cruces police, especially after noticing we have flock condor cameras installed at places such as public pools here in town. The flock condor cameras record people's movements and the track and and database people. These people that are going to these public pools are little children in swimwear. And if you don't know for sure if ICE is accessing the flock camera database, I know that we need a real serious discussion because that is not appropriate for not doesn't support your discussion or your passion or your Trojan horse conversation. None of that. What do you have to say about fought condor cameras? No, that's right. Yeah, I mean, I think we've this discussion with flock deserves way more conversation. I think I've been I've personally been tracking what this has looked like in other municipalities and I've seen, you know, cities replace flock with Axios, which frankly, it's the same thing. So I think the community should keep organizing around this issue at the end of the day, even if it was a discussion to come to council, it would not I don't believe it would have the support to try to remove the flock contract. And again, I think I don't I don't believe that there are flock cameras at the pools, but I'm happy to follow up and check on on that. I think that's a problem because I already emailed you over a month ago with evidence of this. And so you are very aware of what's going on. And the police chief called her block rep. Sorry, she didn't have her earphones on the collar headphones. The caller said that he actually had emailed you. Okay. Well, I, you know, I know who this is. And I don't know that this person knows for sure that there are those lock cameras at the pools. I know, I know, I know, I know for a fact that we have a lot of Condor cameras and I made you and council crayon and everyone on the dais aware of this problem over one month ago. Okay. And there's been just recently in the past week and expose on flock Condor type cameras. And the problem I have is the police chief and the flock rep sitting in that studio where you're sitting now lying to the public saying that the flock cameras here in Las Cruces do not track people. Well, it may have been true at that time. No, at that time, the flock Condor cameras were installed. Like I said, I've made this public notice over a month ago. Well, thank you. Okay, thanks for the call. Another caller we got to take. So keep your headphones on. Good morning. Hello. You're gone. Okay. Good morning. Good morning. I have some questions for your two guests. Okay, well, ask. Well, my first question is, go ahead. Sorry, but you're disappeared. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, my first question is, does, was the award to chief story from the federal law enforcement an award or bribe to help get Las Cruces into this program you're talking about? Oh, I wouldn't, you know, make any assumptions about that award. But I do think it is further, perhaps evidence as to why Las Cruces would it is not that far fetched. And I would just observe the chief story wouldn't need to be bribed to support this. This is something he would support without any kind of inducement, I would assume. I haven't talked to hit chief story about it. But I think so. We didn't hear your question, please. The question was, did either did either of you go to that ceremony in DC? It was no, it was. Well, I think there was something here, but we were at a conference at the time. They were a council meeting. A conference. No, we did not go. Well, also, I'd like to ask if the counselors know that our two universities are training people from the police department along with the federal people on how to use the new AI that's being used at the real time crime center. I think, you know, it's a really interesting question. The use of AI in law enforcement, generally, the use of AI, we just received two story contracted with a company to do an AI scan of thousands of hours of body cams. So we know that AI is being used. And in fact, the use of AI is something that I think chief story also agrees needs some guardrails and in its context within policing, but I'm not surprised. I know NMSU has an AI Institute. I know DACC where I works is grappling with the use of AI in every profession, right? Helping people be professionally prepared for the world that exists that includes AI and helping people be critical thinkers in the face of what all that AI means, even I'm struggling through that, but I think, yeah. Yeah, but so you're saying you condone our state institutions for training police enforcement with AI without any oversight? I don't think she condoned it or disagreed with it. She said she's aware that it's the U.S., that NMSU is training people on that kind of thing. And, you know, you're a city counselor. You can tell NMSU what to do and what not to do. But I mean, I think even in relating to city functions, I think we're grappling with this as is everyone else. And to me, the best solution that I've seen is people thinking about it all the time and responding to new technology as it arises and seeing what the guardrails are. And I think our state has been doing this with legislation. I think the police department and other departments within the city have been doing this as well. I think that's it. Anyway, thank you for your call. Well, wait, wait, I have one more question with Peter. Because your caller before this talked about the cameras, does the counselors know that installed in Yonge Park on the light poles are cameras that are of six that are aimed at the middle school and children and people who drive on Nevada and park there? Do they know this? Yeah, I mean, I think it's also, yes, I think it's hard to have this conversation when, one, people sort of extrapolate something you said and turn it into something else. Two, it's also hard to have this conversation, particularly in the context of Yonge Park, when not just a year ago, there was a mass shooting at the park, right? And where the school, Lynn Middle School is often- Okay, so thank you for interrupting my answer. Thank you for your call. We're running out of time. You can respond to that if you want, or we can do that. No, I won't be allowed to. Okay, so we just, I think we have a very short time left. What else should we be- I've got a tough question. Okay, good. Why don't we have a working drinking fountain to adopt Dr. Park? That is a good question. Okay, that's- Great question. And you know what? Those legacy park improvements are a huge priority for the GRT funding, and I know that. But I will say that I didn't realize how incredibly complicated and difficult- I should have realized that pool maintenance, plumbing, and those things are, especially when we built things in an era that, you know, we didn't have the most up-to-date design, now we have a better understanding of how we should be designing park fountains. But I know that Apodaca and Legacy Park things are really high priority. Yeah, I'm just saying, when you build pickleball ports in the desert, you gotta have full water. But any park- This is why I know that I got pushed back because of the new GRT funds and that we ensured, like, the maintenance fund was bigger than the public safety complex fund or, you know, the racetrack fund. Because there are so many things in our community that just- they're little, right? Like a water fountain is little, but it's not, right? It is actually pretty major. And those improvements deserve to be funded. Well, since you are here, let me urge you to help me with a problem with the city. We have a guest who has criticized the city on the kinds of things, what was just asking about. And we had been talking with your Parks and Rec person, Mr. Bingham, about possibly appearing on the show. And he had been willing to do it, but not sure when. He kept delaying. And now, most recently, when I asked him- I didn't get to ask him. I didn't get to talk to him. His assistant said, well, you have to send an email to some email address. And I said, okay, tell me what it is. And she told me. And not after her for this, but she was wrong, and, you know, it didn't work. And I sent him an email basically saying, hey, we're moving backwards here. And I copied it to- or I guess I asked her, you know, she told me there's some other email that doesn't even tell you whom it's to. Send this email to so-and-so. I said, please forward it to them. Here's Mike. I've asked this guy on, and can we get an answer? Yeah, we'll encourage- We can't even get them to say, no, we don't want to talk to you. Which I could understand, because we're obnoxious, and our guest, when he comes on, is even more obnoxious. No, I mean, we'll encourage the city manager to talk to directors about the importance of communicating with community. I will also say, I do think it's important for them to come talk to you, just as Chief Story, the head of his department, comes and talks to you. And, you know, directors like Public Works or Parks or whatever, they're operating under the environment that is provided to them by council and city manager, right? It's not like they have ultimate decision power over some of these things, but I do think it's important. They can answer questions about, have you put in this? When will you put in this? I would encourage you to reach out to our PIO with that request, but we're happy to help.