Foreboding week at Council! You get a sneak peek of Cape’s Dam and the Data Center, both which will blow up in 2026.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 3:21: Pretty much just Cape’s Dam and the data center!
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Results from the community survey, updates on the Office of Community Support and Resource Navigation, Participatory Budgeting, and the airport.
That’s a wrap for 2025! See you in January.
Citizen Comment:
Two big topics! (I’m combining comments from 3 pm and 6 pm.)
Cape’s Dam nomination to be on the historic registry:
The Data Center
Details on what people actually said when we get to these!
Other comments:
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Item 8: Cape’s Dam
This item was pretty infuriating!
It’s also not the most important thing ever? I’m trying to keep perspective? I was irritated, but this is small potatoes.
Backstory:
From 1867-1942, Cape’s Dam was a functioning dam. The dam creates a calm little side channel to the river, called the Mill Race:
Since the dam closed, the Mill Race has basically been treated as quasi-private property for kayak and paddling retreats.
The Army Corps of Engineers often likes to remove old dams. In the 2000s, the folks at the Meadow’s Center started working on this study saying Cape’s Dam is bad for endangered species.
Around 2015, Council is looking at whether they should remove the dam. But before they decide, Cape’s Dam is destroyed by the 2015 floods. It’s now dangerous. The Mill Race is also not usable anymore.
2016: Council approves removing the dam and filling the Mill Race. The federal government will pay for it.
This turns into a huge controversy. There’s a campaign launched – Save the SMTX River! – challenging the Meadow’s Center report and saying they’ve got different scientists who say different things. They basically want the Mill Race to be preserved for recreation, but they’re making an environmental argument? and a historical argument?
(Incidentally, the Save the SMTX River guy is also one of the Brighter Future for San Marcos PAC guys.)
Council backtracks on their decision. The federal funding expires.
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Everything grinds to a halt for a decade. Council keeps passing the hot potato.
Ten years go by. In the meantime:
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This past March, Council finally dusted this whole issue off.
They authorized a feasibility study, to answer these questions:
I can already tell you some answers!
This will all come to a boil in the next few months! Exciting times. (Full backstory here.)
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Which brings us to tonight! Cape’s Dam has been nominated for placement on the national historical registry.
Is there a legitimate historical claim?
Kind of yes! The area was has a historical plaque with the Texas Historical Commission from 1979, in 1985 it was declared eligible for the National Register, and in 2017, it was included with a broader number of dams declared eligible for inclusion in the National Register. In addition, there’s credible evidence by a Texas State prof about the role of slave labor in building the dam.
So what’s new tonight?
Preservation Texas is nominating the Thompson-Cape Dam and Millrace to actually be on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Lots of things about this are irritating!
*Aren’t I the biggest hypocrite! I also love hiding out in shady anonymity. I’m a jerk.
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How does that long, tiring backstory affect Council’s thinking on this issue?
Council: LALALALALALA WE CAN’T HEAR YOU!
Basically, Council members all pretend to be brand new babies born yesterday, who have never heard of the 10 year fight I just told you about.
The most generous interpretation: council members are willing to nobly set aside long-standing feuds, and consider this on its merits.
The least generous interpretation: council members are gleefully taking part in a craven attempt to sway the larger outcome by miring it in bureaucracy.
You be the judge!
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What did people say at Citizen Comment?
And most importantly, the San Marcos River Foundation: Look, we own the land on one side of the bank, and we were not notified. The rules require that all owners give consent. We didn’t.
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Council discussion!
Jane: What exactly do they need from us?
Answer: The Texas Historical Commission (THC) wants two letters – one from Council and one from the San Marcos Historical Preservation Committee (HPC) – saying they support the nomination.
Jane: Can we postpone this? It seems very rushed. The State Board reviews these every three months. Can we just wait till March?
Answer: The applicant specifically said they are not willing to postpone until March.
Amanda: Yes, this seems very rushed. What about just waiting until after the San Marcos HPC meets, and hear what they recommend?
Answer: Usually yes. We prefer to have committees present their recommendations to Council. But the timing doesn’t work out. SM-HPC will meet on Jan. 8th, and then you all don’t meet until Jan 20th. But the letter is due Jan 16.
Saul: The dam is not even close to the original structure. It’s got cement sandbags. I’m a no.
Lorenzo: I’m a yes! Wouldn’t that be great for people to see SAN MARCOS on the national historic register, when tourists come to town?
Jane: Why didn’t the people who nominated this reach out to the city? Where are they? We have a priority list of historical places. This leap-frogged over a bunch of other places on our list.
Saul: Would this prevent us from making a decision about whether to rebuild or remove the dam?
Answer: It carries political weight, but not legal weight.
In other words: this vote sends a message to the public about which side your bread is buttered on. But it’s not legally binding. You’re allowed to tear down the dam.
Amanda: This nomination provides a specific historical narrative. It was white-washed to make white people look like noble saviors of enslaved people. If we send a letter of support, then that’s the version that will end up in the national registry.
Alyssa: Yes, they’ve romanticized it.
Jane: That’s why I want to send a very minimal letter. We won’t address the historical narrative part of the application. We’ll just say, “Yes, there is a historical element!”
Alyssa: Omissions are just as bad! That’s how status quos continue to flourish! Whatever is in this application will be the skeleton of the final narrative. That’s how these things work.
Jane: Then let’s just be vague!
Alyssa: That doesn’t make sense as a response to what I’m saying. We’re writing a letter in support of a nomination.
Jane: I’m trying to be minimal!
Alyssa: …which will be interpreted as support, unless we’re explicit about what we don’t agree with.
Matthew: None of this matters!
Shane: What’s the harm?
Lorenzo: Surely the Historic Registry will do their due diligence. Let’s just pass this and let them do the heavy lifting.
Amanda: I want the narrative to acknowledge the role of enslaved people.
Matthew: The Cape family did not own slaves!
Jane: The whole slavery thing is very contentious. Different people think different things.
Amanda: Slavery is actually in the nomination already. Didn’t you guys read it? I just don’t like how they handled the topic.
Amanda is correct:
and
Alyssa: Clearly this is going to pass, so I’m going to suggest some language for the letter.
Proposed language, after some tinkering:
They also include a note about how SMRF wasn’t notified.
The vote: Should we support the super urgent nomination that absolutely cannot wait until March?
So there you have it.
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Finally, let’s have a little reality check!
The national registry is a big deal. Currently there are four historic landmarks for central Texas on the national register:
Will Cape’s Dam be the 5th most historic thing in the entire greater Austin-San Antonio corridor?!?
Seems unlikely. Like I said, this is small potatoes.
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Item 9: The Data Center
Backstory: This developer, Mayberry, bought some land down here, a few years ago:
Right next to the Hays County Power Plant:
He wanted to build some homes. It turns out this was a terrible investment. Now he’d rather build a data center, instead. Could he please have a rezoning?
The town responded HARD against this. People who live on nearby farms say it will ruin their way of life. People are worried about extreme water use during a drought and heavy electrical use from the shaky ERCOT grid. Tons of people have put in a lot of effort into fighting this data center.
Last spring, P&Z turned him down. It went to Council in August, and Council didn’t have enough votes to overturn P&Z. So it failed.
However, Council did not put the final nail in the coffin. They left a trail of breadcrumbs for Mayberry to come back.
He dutifully followed the trail, and here we are. (Full version of the backstory here.)
Tonight is just a presentation.
Mayberry is back. Here’s the timeline:
His pitch is going to be that he will sweeten the deal via a restrictive covenant.
Here’s what he’s proposing:
We don’t have the formal contract yet, though.
The two big issues are water and electricity.
Water: Texas has a big water shortfall. The 2022 State Water Plan projected big shortfalls, and everyone is working with those numbers. But ChatGPT didn’t come out until November 2022. There are now already over 400 data centers in Texas. The water use from these data centers is not included in the 2022 projections, but it’s all we’ve got.
This data center would get their water from Crystal Clear. Crystal Clear gets their water from:
By 2040, Crystal Clear is projected to be -40 acre-feet of of water. As in, they don’t have enough water rights to cover projected demand. And that’s using the 2022 pre-data center usage projections! Crystal Clear cannot deny service either. (This info was from an expert at citizen comment.)
The proposal here is not the worst possible proposal. Evaporative cooling systems are the worst. This is a closed-loop cooling system. (I have no idea how many of the 400 data centers are evaporative.)
Mayberry is estimating that they’ll use 25K-30K gallons of water per day, and they’ll put a hard cap at 75K gallons per day in the contract. That’s equivalent to the water used by about 235 homes. (Evaporative cooling centers are probably in the 100K-500K gallons per day range.)
Electricity
There’s a tradeoff between water and electricity. If you use less water, you’ll use more electricity. In addition, the Texas ERCOT grid uses water to cool the electrical generation plants.
There is a longterm solution here – the more ERCOT switches to solar and wind-based energy, the less water needed to generate the electricity. (This is already cheap and available, if we want it.)
Will utility rates rise? It depends on who you get your electricity from. This plant will be on Pedernales electric, so if you are too, then yes, it’s likely your rates will rise, too. But if you’re on San Marcos city utilities, your rates will not go up (yet).
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My $0.02: I’m conflicted, but I’m still basically in favor of this data center.
Argument in favor: the data center industry is an absolute goddamn disaster for Texas. There are almost 100 between San Antonio and Austin. There are already four in the Hays-Caldwell area. This is catastrophic for the water shortage.
But it is not a city fight. The heart of the problem is that Texas counties cannot regulate water and electricity usage. If we care about the water shortage and strain on the electrical grid, we have to fight that fight. Fight for county regulations of water and electricity use, and statewide data center regulation.
In the meantime, we might as well take the tax revenue.
Argument against: Maybe denying this one data center contributes momentum to a bigger movement against the other 400+ statewide?
Listen, all you activists: You are on the right side of the issue, but you absolutely must join forces on a larger scale. The only meaningful answer is regional and statewide regulation.
If I had to guess, good places to start might be:
City Councils are much closer to everyday people than regional and state organizations are, but Council cannot move the needle on the problem. Any progress has got to deal with county land, outside of cities.
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Just for kicks, how much money are we talking?
I don’t really believe those numbers. It takes years to build these things, markets can crash, etc etc. But still, a fraction of that tax revenue would be helpful.
Workshop #1: San Marcos Community Survey
Every three years, we run a community survey. The first one was in 2022, and so 2025 is the second.
Methods:
They try to get a random sample of people by sending mailers out to households. They also open the survey up to anyone, online.
The responses are overwhelmingly older white homeowners in Kissing Tree.
I’m really not kidding:
where “Charlie” is the blue #3 area below:
and yes, they are mostly white home-owners:
This is a well-understood phenomenon by people who run surveys – different groups of people respond to surveys with different participation rates.
So they correct for it. What you do is you take the actual composition of San Marcos, based on census data. Then you weight your survey responses until they match the actual proportions.
For example:
Loosely speaking, if you’re 18-34 and you filled out the survey, your answers will get multiplied by 3. If you’re 35-54, your answers will get multiplied by 1/2, and if you’re 55+, your answers will get multiplied by 1/3.
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So how’d we do?
Oh, fine! It’s all fine.
and
I don’t have any big, glorious conclusions.
Full data here.
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Workshop #2: Office of Community Support and Resource Navigation, and Participatory Budgeting.
We’ve got things in progress! Here’s two new things that Council put into this year’s budget:
Office of Community Support and Resource Navigation
That name is a mouthful and doesn’t really capture the gist of it? To me, it sounds like a helpline.
This is actually about safety from a non-policing framework:
This is basically catnip for me. Yes, please, all of that.
Here’s the basics:
It’s still in the baby stages.
Keep an eye out for Town Hall meetings as this ramps up!
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Participatory Budgeting
We’ve got $200,000 with YOUR name on it!
Here are some sample ideas:
So, y’know, look around and see what annoys you!
Some details:
So, sadly we cannot submit “Open the Activity Center on Sundays!” because that would be a recurring cost. But that’s one of my fondest wishes.
Anyway, start brainstorming! Ideas are due in February.
You don’t have to know all the details. They’ll help build your spark into a flame. You just dream big, kiddo. (Well, dream medium. It’s only $200K.)
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Workshop #3: Airport updates
Our little airport is growing?
First off, we have a cute old air tower. Would Council mind if we move it?
Here’s the journey it will go on:
Second, there’s a new road that needs named:
We’re going to name it after this guy:
He was a POW in WWII, among other things. Sounds good to me!
This week at council: You’ll come for the death of Flock Cameras, but you’ll stay for the deliciously petty Price Center mural discussion! Exciting meeting this week.
First, though: VOTE FOR SAUL in the council run-off. Details below.
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Onto the meeting!
Hours 0:00 – 1:17: Everything but Flock Cameras! Some zoning, and some TIRZ stuff. But mostly, please let me tell you a very funny story about the Price Center mural.
Hours 1:17 – 3:50: FLOCK CAMERAS go down in flames! Plus a new speed limit on FM 110, and some suburban sprawl.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Should we be sister cities with Inverness, Scotland? What about Monclova, Mexico?
And that’s a wrap.
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It’s Council run-off time! Please do go vote!
Details
Early Voting:
Monday and Tuesday, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Location: Hays County Election Office (the old Car Museum, on Stagecoach and Hunter.)
Election day:
Saturday, December 13th, 7 am – 7 pm
Locations: Broadway Polling Location (401 Broadway Street #A)
Hays County Election Office (the old Car Museum, on Stagecoach and Hunter.)
Go here for full details on when and where to vote.
My Opinion
Saul Gonzales: I’m endorsing Saul. He’s willing to state his positions. He promised to vote no on the data center, to remove Cape’s Dam, to remove Flock cameras. Has shown his cards about how he’s going to vote.
And he’s kept his word! This past Tuesday, he voted against renewing the Flock Cameras contract.
Josh Paselk: No. First off, he never sent answers in. He won’t say how he’ll vote on anything.
Literally all we know is that he’s backed by a very sleazy PAC representing wealthy donors. They have outspent other candidates by a factor of 10. [Update: The first link may not work. It goes to a FB post about this mailer. Here’s a different link about the sleaziness.]
All they seem to care about is that wealthy donors should be able to hoard their wealth:
LISTEN YOU NUMBSKULLS. It is better for business when poor people have a little extra money to spend! A rising tide lifts all boats. You can pay your fair share and grow your wealth!
And then they’ve gotten deeply gross with the mailers this past week.
I can’t stand this mentality. Vote for Saul.
Citizen comment:
There were 12 speakers, and only one topic: Flock Cameras
Lots and lots of details when we get to that item.
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Item 10: The Downtown TIRZ
TIRZ stands for “Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone”. What this means is that we’re going to put more resources into a fixed area. TIRZ #5 is the Downtown TIRZ.
Here is the boundary of it:
Here’s how a TIRZ works: First, you fix a baseline year. For the downtown, it’s 2011. Back then, the whole region had a taxable value of $103 million.
San Marcos always gets to keep the taxes on $103 million. But the value of the land keeps growing. San Marcos agrees to split the taxes 70-30 on all the value added above $103 million, until the TIRZ runs out. (Hays County is also part of the deal.)
So in 2025, the land is now worth about $550 million. San Marcos keeps the taxes on the $103 million base, and then splits the taxes on the other $447 million. All told, the TIRZ gets about $1.2 million from San Marcos, and another $600K from the county, in 2025.
What does the TIRZ do with the money? The rules are that they have to spend it all on enhancing the downtown, which is supposed to increase its tax value all over again.
Today they’re adding a little bit extra to their plan. Here’s what they want to do:
The TIRZ expires in 2027. After that, the city keeps all the tax revenue on that district.
Fine! Everyone likes it.
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Item 12: Rezoning 24 acres on Wonderworld and 123.
Here’s a little patch of land:
Here’s what it looks like if you’re going south on 123, on the Wonderworld overpass:
The developers want to make it CD-5.
What is CD-5?
In theory, CD-5 is supposed to feel like a cozy, dense downtown area where you have shops and apartments and all kinds of nifty things, kinda like on Sesame Street:
But inevitably, it always ends up looking like this:
Relentlessly giant apartment complexes.
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What about some stores and restaurants?
I’m not actually opposed to giant complexes! Housing is great. But this intersection is a great spot for some stores and commerce, no? It’s a constant drumbeat that the east side needs more commerce.
Jane brings this up: “Will you all put in some commerce?”
Developer: “Who can say? We’re so mysterious!”
Jane: “It would be really great.”
But then no one on Council actually does anything.
COUNCIL!! You have powers! There are zoning overlays and Planned Development Districts, where developers agree to make some portion of a development into commerce.
But here’s Council:
So Council just tells the developer, “Fingers crossed! Thoughts and prayers for commerce!” and leaves it at that.
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Is this re-zoning a good idea? Let’s be a little systematic about it:
Five Questions For New Developments
Price Tag to the City: Will it bring in taxes that pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure and future repair? How much will it cost to extend roads, utilities, on fire and police coverage, on water and wastewater?
There’s a lot of development around this already, and this will be dense. This is a good financially for the city. A+
Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?
We’re still in a housing deficit, and more housing is good. So I’m fine with this.
Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run off into the river?Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?
Not environmentally sensitive, not a flood zone. And it won’t be sprawl, because CD-5 has to be dense. So doing well here, too.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
I doubt it will be meaningfully mixed income. Developers don’t care. It drives me crazy though – wealth segregation is a societal problem.
It is very close to two elementary schools, Goodnight middle school, and SMHS, and also Bonham pre-K. There are some restaurants near those schools.
The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout? Is it walkable?
This is literally what CD-5 should be. A Marxist blogger can dream.
My $0.02: If I were on Council, I’d push hard for a zoning overlay that guaranteed some commerce. But if that was impossible, I’d vote yes, anyway.
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The vote on rezoning:
Everyone: YES!
No one: no.
So there you have it.
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Item 6: Mural at the Price Center. (Cousin to Panic! at the Disco.)
This item is peak ridiculous, in all the best ways. This is why I love local politics: everyone’s a regular person, and regular people are totally absurd.
This is the Price Center:
It’s right behind Tantra, facing San Antonio St:
It’s mostly a public event space – there are concerts and shows inside, people rent it out for parties, there are market days where you can buy stuff from vendors, etc.
Here’s the front steps:
No one ever uses this entrance. You walk around through the garden to go in.
Today’s item is about a mosaic mural to go on the front steps. In other words, it’s a single picture that will be cut into strips, and go on the risers, like this:
Maybe you’ve seen a photo of the proposed mosaic! If you haven’t yet seen it, I’m going to withhold it until the end of this item, for maximum comedic value.
Because this is what Jane Hughson posted to the message boards ahead of time:
This mosaic definitely involves cacti, and Jane is NOT a fan.
During the meeting, Jane brings up more points:
Lorenzo agrees: it does hurt to fall in a cactus.
City Staff: Some artists like cacti! It’s subjective.
Amanda: Cacti stand for our cultural heritage in Mexico!
Alyssa: I love ’em. Also they’re delicious.
Shane: If we asked the artist to take out the cactus and re-do it, and they said no, what are the sunk costs?
Answer: $1000.
Saul: I guess I’m a yes, because I don’t want to waste $1000.
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ARE YOU READY TO SEE SOME CACTI?
Pause for a second.
Before you see it, I want you to picture an unwelcoming, prickly mayor cactus. Get a good visual image in your head, before you scroll down. What kind of cactus would be too hostile for the front steps?
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Ready??
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READY??
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Here’s the proposed artwork:
Guys. GUYS. It’s so beautiful. It’s mostly prickly pear flowers, more than anything else. There’s nothing remotely hostile here.
This is the mural that we almost killed for being too prickly! What a world.
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The vote on the beautiful mural:
Yes, we love it!! : Amanda, Alyssa, Saul, Shane, and Matthew
Ow, thorns: Lorenzo, Jane
So there you have it. Small town politics, eh?
Item 19: Flock Cameras
This is the biggie!
What are Flock Cameras?
Flock cameras are Licence Plate Readers, or LPR. They sit at intersections like so:
We have 14 of them in San Marcos, and they’re located here:
(We also have 8 downtown cameras that are not Flock cameras. The city owns these cameras.)
What makes everyone so mad about Flock cameras?
Every single time you drive by a Flock camera, your license plate gets tagged and recorded. Then Flock takes all this data, and pools it all together across the nation, into one big, sloppy data fest.
When your police department agrees to share all their data , they are given access to all the data about everyone who drives anywhere in all of the US.
And the network is HUGE:
Here’s just the I-35 corridor:
..
Privacy and Data
Privacy rights are a tricky thing to talk about, because of a few things:
1. Our private lives started getting tracked extensively about 20 years ago. Now it’s like being mid-avalanche – we’ve all gotten used to things that are extremely abnormal.
This is the frog in boiling water scenario – as a society, how do we claw our private data back? (Europe has passed laws.)
2. The consequences are fuzzy and abstract for a long time…. until suddenly they’re really, really bad.
Your data is out there. Corporations sell it. It spreads like smoke. Nothing happens until it gets into the wrong person’s hands. Right now, because Trump has weaponized ICE and the FBI, people who want to abuse Flock data know they probably won’t be punished for it.
And ICE is constantly using Flock data to find people to snatch.
3. Freedom and safety are always in tension with each other. If you want to end all crime, you could put every single young man between ages 14 and 35 in jail. Your crime rate will drop to <1%.
But one of our core American ideals is freedom. Freedom is so important that we’re willing to accept some loss of safety. (“Innocent until proven guilty” literally means that we think it is wiser to let some guilty people go free than to risk locking up someone innocent.)
Where do you draw the line between freedom and safety? That is the heart of this discussion.
How did we get here?
April, 2022: Original Council agreement with Flock.
It was actually never discussed at that council meeting. It was put on the Consent Agenda with 15 other items. That means all sixteen items get one single vote, unless a council member pulls an item for discussion.
December 29, 2023: The first contract ends, and city staff signs a second contract with Flock Cameras.
This contract never went to Council for approval. Alyssa is pretty salty about this!
But honestly: in 2023, council was very very pro-cop. Jude Prather and Mark Gleason were still on Council, plus Matthew Mendoza.
Furthermore, there was a post-covid crime bump:
There was a lot of nervous energy around that.
All taken together, Council was extremely deferential to expanding SMPD in 2023. Hypothetically, if they’d voted on Flock Cameras, it would have been 6-1. I promise you, that’s what would have happened. (Alyssa would have been the only No vote.)
February, 2025: The winds change! This was the first time I ever heard “Flock Cameras” uttered in a City Council meeting. SMPD wanted 19 more cameras. Council postponed the decision until June, and then voted no. No additional Flock Cameras.
What changed since 2023?!
Well, Trump, obviously. Biden certainly deported a huge number of undocumented people! But he did not weaponize ICE with the kind of cruelty that we see from Trump.
This is what I meant above, about consequences. During the Biden administration, the loss of privacy didn’t feel as real to many people. Now we hear how Flock shares their data with ICE. We hear how Flock data tracks women who are leaving the state. The abuses are systemic.
Which brings us to today
The 2023 contract is up at the end of this year. Renewal was due by December 1st.
But city staff needs Council direction before they can renew, for two reasons:
For unclear reasons, it did not get on the agenda in November. That means that we missed our deadline to renew.
Tonight’s topic: What is Council direction to staff? Do we want to renew after all, or modify, or just shut down Flock in San Marcos all together?
What does the public have to say?
Two speakers were pro-Flock cameras. Their main points:
Ten speakers were anti-Flock. Their main points:
Do Flock cameras help prevent crime?
Basically, no. Cameras work when they are visible and aimed at the location of the crime. In other words, if you put a big, obvious camera aimed at a parking lot, you can reduce the number of car break-ins.
But Flock cameras are aimed at intersections. They just record license plates. They don’t prevent the victim from being shot on the square – they just help find the shooter afterwards.
However, it does appear that Flock Cameras help solve crimes. Or as Chief Standridge puts it, we can solve the crime much faster, at least. It saves detective time.
What does Council have to say?
First off, Lorenzo recuses himself due to employment conflict of interest.
Next, Alyssa and the city manager go back and forth on the timeline for a while. (About the 2023 contract, discussed above.)
Amanda goes next. Her main points:
Saul: Are the city-owned downtown cameras LPRs? Are they License Plate Readers?
Answer: No, they aren’t. You have to go and watch them to get information out.
Saul: If the National Guard or martial law comes to San Marcos, can they access the data?
Answer: Legally, it would require a subpoena. Illegally, yes, systems can always be hacked or accessed. No guarantees against that.
Jane: Data is stored for 30 days, and we don’t share data with the rest of the Flock network?
Answer: Right, we stopped sharing after June. Now other agencies have to fill out a specific request and send it to us.
Jane: How often do we get requests from out-of-town PD?
Answer: We’ve gotten 20 since July. We denied two of them.
Alyssa: Hays County tried really hard to create some safeguards, and Flock is not interested. The Flock representative laughed when Hays requested some mild modifications to their system. They won’t do anything and won’t disclose anything.
Jane: I love Law & Order, but this one company makes me nervous.
Jane’s main points:
Matthew: Samesies! No longterm Flock, but I’m okay with short-term Flock. No gap in surveillance, please and thank you!
Amanda: If we’re so focused on avoiding gaps, what about our major gaps in crime prevention? How about the gap on mental health care? How about the gap in homelessness prevention? Those would actually prevent crimes from occurring. Reacting does not make us safe.
Question: How much does Flock cost?
Answer: About $43K for a year.
They get into the nuts-and-bolts of transitioning to a different company. How long does it take to solicit proposals? Could we piggyback on an existing contract? Could we get a pro-rated or month-to-month contract with Flock in the meantime? (Answers: 12 months, maybe, and maybe.)
Extra details:
Question: Could we create our own, internal system?
Answer: Maybe! Seems plausible.
Jane: The story about Evanston, Illinois is creepy. If we’re signing a new contract, put in a clause to avoid that.
What she’s referring to is this: Evanston took down their Flock cameras due to privacy violations. Then Flock put them back up again. It took a court cease-and-desist order to get Flock to stop putting the cameras back up, on their own.
Question: How do you measure the effectiveness of Flock?
Answer: It’s mostly anecdotal, because Flock won’t share the information that you’d need to know this.
Saul specifically says that he supports SMPD and his own son is an officer, but he’s a no because of the risk of lawsuits.
THE VOTE:
Let’s sign a whole new contract!: nobody.
We want a short term contract with Flock, while we hunt for new options: Jane, Shane, Matthew
Absolutely no contract with Flock at all: Amanda, Alyssa, Saul
So it’s a 3-3 tie.
What does that mean??
It takes a little bit of time to untangle this. Basically, it takes 4 votes for Council to take action. Neither side got 4 votes. So nothing happens.
But what’s the outcome then?
We have to go back to the timeline. December 1st was the deadline to renew, and we couldn’t renew without Council approval. So that deadline came and went. We did not renew.
And now… nothing happens. Which means we’re done with Flock!
….
Look, I loathe authoritarian microsurveillance and I think the threat from tech billionaires and ICE is far greater than the danger of unsolved crimes. So I’m good with this!
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Item 15: Speed limits
Here’s the new FM 110, going east of San Marcos:
On that red stretch, should we increase the speed limit from 60 mph to 65 mph?
This is pretty nutty:
Here’s what I think that means: TxDOT came to us and said, “We think your speed limit is too low. If too many people are speeding, you have to raise the speed limit.”
So we had to do a study, and the study did show that too many people were speeding! So now we have to raise the speed limit, so that they’re not speeding anymore.
How ass-backwards is that?
(Also: when national speed limits went from 55 mph to 65 mph, fatalities rose by 20%. It’s the whole freedom vs safety trade-off, again!)
Council votes:
Stay at 60 mph: no one.
Go up to 65 mph: everyone.
I mean, I wouldn’t want to take on TxDOT either. 😦
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Item 16: River Bridge Ranch PDD
River Bridge Ranch is always hopelessly confusing to me, because it is right next to Riverbend Ranch, and they both have had a hundred different names over the years. (Riley’s Point, The Mayan Tract, Baugh Ranch, etc etc)
This is mostly for my benefit:
For years I didn’t even realize these were separate properties.
Anyway, I hate them all.
Today is about #4, River Bridge Ranch.
It’s getting a little bit smaller, I think:
Good.
Do we want to be sister cities with Inverness, Scotland?
No, we don’t!
…
(I’m dying to leave the post like that, full stop, but I also am physically unable to stop telling you tiny municipal details.)
Basically, Texas State approached us about forming a sister city relationship with Inverness:
We also have a dormant sister city arrangement with Monclova, Coahuila in Mexico:
Starting the one and reviving the other would cost time and money.
We’re short on both, so no.]
Short little meeting this week! A little bit of zoning, a lot of HSAB grants, and a little bit of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 2:04: Blanco Gardens is getting some new houses, we unpack the HSAB grants to nonprofits, and we talk about the guy behind the Dunbar name.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Historical preservation grants and more Dunbar.
There’s one more city council meeting before the run-off election, so I’ll save my election thoughts for then.
Citizen Comment:
There were five people who showed up to talk.
Tonight’s the night that Council determines their HSAB grants, and so almost everyone speaking was representing nonprofits – one speaker from School Fuel, and three from Southside. I’ll save it for that item.
One last speaker talked about Meet and Confer, and whether or not it was okay for Council to make recommendations to the negotiators who represent the Council in the negotiations.
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Item 13: Rezoning a little street in Blanco Gardens
Here’s Blanco Gardens:
It’s a very cute old neighborhood with gorgeous trees.
Here’s a close-up:
Blanco Gardens has come up a lot over the years in the blog. They were ground zero for the 2015 floods, and they’ve gotten some some flood mitigation projects since then. They got some speed bumps and parking permits. Most recently, they were the first neighborhood to get its neighborhood character study. It’s also the closest neighborhood to Cape’s Dam.
For an old neighborhood, there’s a surprising amount of undeveloped land in the middle of it:
(I wondered briefly if that was because homes had been torn down after the floods. But nope, you can see on the 2014 satellite image that there’s just always been space there for years.)
Over the years, developers have occasionally tried to put something in part of it, but so far it’s always gotten nixed.
Today’s proposal is about this bit:
A developer wants to build houses on it.
They would look and feel like duplexes, but they’re technically different, because of how they can be bought and sold. The property line runs through the two halves of the house, so you can purchase one half of it, while someone else owns the other half. (It’s called a “zero lot-line house”.)
Basically it’s a good way to fit more, smaller homes onto a street, and they tend to be a little cheaper, too.
What does Council say?
Question: will fit the character of the rest of the neighborhood?
Developer answer: We have good intentions!
(One block over, there are some extremely modern houses. The neighborhood is salty about this.)
Question: Will the alley still exist?
Answer: nope.
…
Nobody really asked about flooding. The 2015 floods are starting to fade from memory for the rest of San Marcos. But not in Blanco Gardens – they were the epicenter of the floods.
I would have liked to know what the 2015 flood water line was for nearby houses – I bet it was about 3-4 feet of water deep. How elevated will these houses be? Will they be above the 2015 water line?
My memory is that, in a 100-year flood plain, you have to build 1-2 feet above the Base Flood Elevation, based on FEMA flood maps. Does that get you to 3-4 feet off the ground? I just don’t know.
…
The vote on this cute row of sorta-duplexes:
Yes: Everyone
No: nobody
The good news is that Council is enthusiastic about infill housing. (When I first started blogging in 2022, Council wouldn’t let a home owner build two small houses on a subdivided lot, on Lockhart street. That was crazy.) They’ve definitely gotten the message that San Marcos needs more housing.
As long as the homes are safely elevated, I’m okay with this project. But the flooding risk makes me very uneasy.
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Item 14: HSAB Funding
HSAB stands for Human Services Advisory Board.
These are city grants to nonprofits, for things like food assistance, eviction prevention, domestic violence help, mental health services, etc. For the past few years, we’ve given out $500K in grants. This year, Council bumped it up to $750K. (Of course, federal funding has gotten slashed, so the need has also grown. THANKS OBAMA.)
It’s always a grueling process. All the nonprofits all do incredibly important work.
In the past, we kinda made non-profits cagefight against each other. [Read all the gory details for the past few years.] The process was murky. The recommendations would come to council, and council members would start horse-trading around.
It was a bad look! It always seemed very fickle – “Oh, we’ll take $20,000 from those guys and give it to these guys!” It felt like the main criteria was being friendly with council members.
We’ve been working on tightening the process. It’s a super time-intensive:
Here’s the criteria:
After all the ranking and discussion, they bring it to Council.
…
Just for funsies, let’s add up how much other non-HSAB money is getting allocated in this meeting!
All this was approved in one single vote, on Tuesday:
It comes to about $2.95 million. I’m not saying any of those were a mistake! I trust the city officials. Most likely, those are all totally reasonable.
I’m just pointing out who gets scrutinized, in society, and who doesn’t. We approved almost $3 million without blinking, when it goes to those contracts above. But if it’s hungry kids, homelessness, mental health emergencies, etc, we rigorously grind these applications into pulp.
…
Back to the grant grind!
There were 32 applications, and the total amounts requested added up to $1.2 million.
Here’s the full list of scores and funding:
In the presentation, they went through all of them, and why the committee might not have fully funded the request.
For example:
The rest of their thoughts are on pp 435-437, here.
They were very thorough.
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Back to Citizen Comment
Three speakers from Southside show up to talk. Here’s what they say:
Southside is in a funny position. In 2024, the city gave Southside $800K of Covid money to implement a Homeless Action Plan.
They came up with a plan and put in all the work to get it up and running. Now they’re trying to sustain it over time. They asked for $100K from HSAB, but were only granted $50K.
The $100K is for their homeless prevention program – giving families $1000-2000 to get through a one-time financial crisis, so that they don’t get evicted.
…
Let the horse-trading begin!
Matthew kicks it off. He wants to try to get Southside back up to the full $100K that they asked for, for homelessness prevention.
Matthew proposes:
Give that $19,500 to Southside.
Ok, what are these things?
Rough Draft:
Their funding would go to $0.
Lifelong Learning:
Ok. Their funding would go from $9000 to $4500.
Hill Country MHMR
Their funding would go from $60,000 to $50,000.
….
What does Council think?
Question: How many people would Southside be able to help, with this $19K?
Answer: About ten families. Average cost to stabilize someone after a financial emergency is $2k.
It’s actually a huge bargain. If they’d been evicted, it would cost $15-30K+ to stabilize a family once they become homeless. (Plus, y’know, becoming homeless is awful. This is way more humane for the families.)
Question: Are you all applying for other grants?
Answer: SO MANY. Funding is scarce, and federal funds have been slashed.
Alyssa: The entire premise of horse-trading these dollars is problematic. Most agencies didn’t send someone here tonight to answer questions. We don’t have context and expertise. This is haphazard. I am not on board with any of this.
Amanda: Matthew, what about moving some money from the School Age Parents Program? They said they’d be able to keep the program open on $7,500, but they’re being awarded $15K.
Matthew: How dare you. Abso-fucking-lutely not!
[I’m paraphrasing. Matthew just said something like, “They do great work!”.]
Amanda: I’m trying to throw you a bone here!
Matthew: Hard no.
Amanda: Well, I’m a no on Hill Country MHMR especially. Their work is desperately needed. We are in a mental health services desert, and this program will fund teenagers without insurance.
Alyssa: I’m a NO on all of this, but especially NO on Hill Country MHMR. Homelessness and mental health are completely intertwined. There’s so much need here.
The votes are each held individually:
Yes: Matthew, Jane, Amanda, Lorenzo, Saul
No: Alyssa, Shane
2. Move $5000 from Lifelong Learning over to Southside?
This motion dies without getting a second. So it never comes to a vote. That kinda surprised me.
3. Move $10K from Hill Country MHMR over to Southside?
Yes: Matthew
No: Everyone but Matthew
4. Amanda throws in a vote on the SMCISD School Age Parents Program:
They get $15K.
Should we take $5K from them, and give it to Southside?
Yes: Amanda, Saul
No: Matthew, Lorenzo, Alyssa, Jane, Shane
So that fails.
..
Me, personally: It’s an awful decision to make. I probably would have taken money from Rough Draft, Lifelong Learning, and maybe SMCISD School Age parents. But not Hill Country MHMR.
….
So that’s where it lands. Southside picked up $4500 more, and Rough Draft went to $0.
The final official vote on HSAB funding passes 7-0.
…
One more note!
We just spent $750K on the poor and vulnerable.
But we also spend $1.1 million on tax breaks to home owners every year:
About 30% of San Marcos owns their own home. That $1.1 million is just for them.
Also, remember that Kissing Tree is keeping $46 million of San Marcos tax dollars, for nice streets and trees that are then gated off from the rest of San Marcos! You can’t go visit the tax dollars. Sorry.
This is why I get cranky about this:
People who want to slash property taxes never seem to appreciate how much of their own lifestyle is being subsidized.
….
Item 19: Dunbar Recreation Center
Dunbar was named for Paul Laurence Dunbar. He was the first black poet to get widespread recognition. (He was not from San Marcos in any way. He’s from Ohio.)
Here’s one of his poems, from 1895:
Originally, the Dunbar neighborhood did not have a specific name, besides being called “the colored neighborhood”. The school was called The Negro School. In 1961, that was renamed after Paul Laurence Dunbar, and then gradually the whole neighborhood came to be known as Dunbar. So the Dunbar Rec Center just got the name “Dunbar”.
Would we like to include the poet’s full name here? Everyone says yes.
Great!
Lots of interesting history on the Dunbar neighborhood here and here!
….
Item 20-21: Jorge’s Mexican Restaurant.
Jorge’s is on Hunter Road:
Separately, Miller Middle School is on Foxtail Road:
Their front doors are far apart:
…but they share a back fence.
This causes all kinds of problems for Jorge’s, because there are extra-strict rules for selling alcohol within 300 feet of a school.
This means that Jorge’s has to do a lot more:
The main problem is the fees – both of those cost $750, so Jorge’s is paying $1500 every year.
Why is it so expensive?!
Mostly because of postage. The city has to notify everyone within 400 ft. The rest of the cost is to cover staff time, to process the paperwork.
Everyone wants to at least refund half of Jorge’s fees, since the city can save costs by processing both the alcohol permit and distance variance at the same time.
They’re going to try to come up with a long term solution, too.
Workshop: Heritage Tourism and Preservation Grants
“HOT” stands for Hotel Occupancy Taxes. How shall we spend our HOT money?
The city is proposing offering some grants to nonprofits who have some kind of historical preservation project.
City staff goes through a long list of slides. Who would be eligible? What kinds of projects are okay? How much are the grants for? What’s the rubric for evaluation? What’s the timeline? It’s very detailed.
What does Council say?
“Let’s kill this whole thing and just use the money for repairing the Dunbar School Home Education Building.”
It’s not a bad idea! I felt a little bad for the presenter, though.
What’s the Dunbar School Home Education Center?
It’s this little building in Dunbar Park:
right behind the main Dunbar Recreation Building:
It’s the only building left from the original campus of the Dunbar School.
We just talked about the Dunbar School a moment ago – it’s the original school for black children during segregation, named for the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
The Dunbar School was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
But then in 1986, someone deliberately burned down most of the school, leaving just this little building. (Not the only time that major buildings of the African-American community in San Marcos have been destroyed by arson.)
…
The plan is to put this HOT money into the Dunbar Home Economics Building each year. Once it’s restored, Council will revisit this whole grant idea.
The San Marxist 