Just one council meeting this month, but it’s a good one! Lots of subdivisions going in around Redwood, a new San Marcos logo, and concept plans for the river parks and Quail Creek park.
Here we go:
Hours 0:00 – 3:44: Lots of discussion on developments going in near Redwood, and grants for social services. Also some smaller items – SMPD, Berry Aviation, the Hays CAD building, etc.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: we unveil the San Marcos logo, discuss some water/wastewater fees, and look at concept plans for the river parks and the new Quail Creek park on the east side of town.
I’ll be back later this month for the yearly wrap-up post (yawn), and then we’ll dive into election season! Exciting times.
1. Human Service Advisory Board funding: speakers from three nonprofits – Hays Helping Hands, Southside, and BR3T. (I’ll save their comments for Items 31-32.)
2. Accessibility and San Marcos: one speaker, he’s available to support the city as they start to implement accessibility measures.
3. Subdivision coming on 123 and FM 1978: three speakers. Two neighbors who are concerned about changes coming, and one representative from Redwood who is interested in the wastewater treatment plant. (I’ll save their comments for Item 22.)
4. Thank you for the ban on data centers. Don’t let developers build student housing and flip it to university. Hold the university accountable for supporting the city. (1 speaker)
5. We need to bring more businesses to San Marcos, to grow the budget. We need Texas State to help staff police downtown. They should be responsible for their students. (1 speaker)
On to the meeting!
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Consent Agenda
The consent agenda is about 10-20 items that get voted on as a group, without discussion.
One item of note – SMPD officers in schools:
This is not new, of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
There was no discussion, but Alyssa and Amanda both voted “no” on this item.
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Item 21: HOT and STR fees
“HOT” stands for Hotel Occupancy Tax, and “STR” stands for Short Term Rentals. We charge a tax on hotels, and use the money to promote tourism.
Sometimes the hotels and short term rentals pay the city using a credit card. Credit cards come with a 3% surcharge. So the city has been paying 3% to the credit card companies every time the hotels pay by credit card.
This adds up to about $40K/year.
Today: Should we make the hotels and short term rentals pay the credit card fees?
The vote: Yes, we should. It’s unanimous – pass the cost on.
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Item 22: Sedona South
There is a huge tract of land southeast of San Marcos which has gotten kicked around for years:
Someday, this is mostly going to be a massive amount of single family housing sprawl. (Why not include 4-plexes and townhomes and stores throughout these developments?)
Now we’re adding in this one:
And if I’m reading things correctly, this one is also coming soon:
But for right now, we’re talking about Sedona South.
We’re going to talk about the reasons I don’t like it, and the reasons I do like it.
Here’s the main reason I don’t like it:
All that pink is going to be single family housing. The brown on the left is going to be half apartments, and half commercial.
Why not put corner stores and commercial in that pink? Developers don’t like to set aside land for corner stores, because stores don’t get built until the people have all moved in.
This is not walkable at all. This is not a 15-minute neighborhood. This would not fly under the Comprehensive Plan. But it doesn’t have to, because they’re not asking to be annexed into the city.
This new wastewater treatment plant is very important, because of this:
That wastewater treatment plant is crucial for the people living in Redwood.
Some backstory
Back in 2019, a researcher from UT Austin came to Redwood, and started testing people, and found that a lot of people there had the parasite strongyloides. This was living in the soil because the septic systems were failing, mostly because the soil there is incompatible with septic systems and causes them to break and leak. So even if there was money for everyone to fix their septic systems, they would break and leak all over again.
The only solution is to get on a wastewater system.
So Redwood and Rancho Vista organized. They connected with a group called Water Finance Exchange. They formed a nonprofit, the Redwood-Rancho Vista Water Supply Corporation, and they applied for the Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap grant. They were selected to receive assistance, and they’re now working with some engineers to find a solution.
The solution: connect to a wastewater treatment plant.
OMG look!
IT’S RIGHT THERE. How could we not?
Confidential to Council: You hold the power! From your lips to God’s ears!
….
What else?
Two neighbors spoke – they’re not exactly thrilled that this massive development is going in across the street, but they said the city staff has been super helpful in talking with them. (The third speaker talked about the water treatment tie-in stuff with Redwood, from above.)
Council mildly made comments fiddling with the details:
Can we ban car washes, to conserve water?
Can we ban waste services?
Answer: Maybe! Sure!
The vote: unanimous. Everyone is in favor.
Note: I couldn’t find anything on how much money the city gets from this agreement. Seems like an important detail, though.
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Items 23-24: Riverstone Apartments
Riverstone Apartments are located here:
It opened in 2024.
Riverstone Apartments is a LIHTC complex, which stands for “Low Income Housing Tax Credit”.
Their LIHTC project works like this:
They get a tax break from the state.
They still pay full taxes to San Marcos.
They had to make all 336 units “affordable”.
“Affordable” means it’s priced for families earning $67K – $80K, or individuals earning $47K – $56K. These rates are based on what people earn in Austin, because San Marcos is in the Austin metro area.
That might be poor for Austin, but that’s pretty mid for San Marcos. It excludes a lot of poor San Marcos residents who need affordable housing.
Here’s the problem: the LIHTC deal was made in 2019. Then Covid and inflation happened.
They thought they’d be paying about $100K in property taxes, but their project ended up getting appraised three times higher than they estimated. So their property taxes are actually closer to $300K. Now they can’t afford their local taxes.
Today’s question: Are we willing to cut a deal with them and waive their local taxes?
They’re offering to set aside 51 of the 336 units for extremely poor families with income under $40K, or individuals earning less than $28K. In exchange, they wouldn’t pay county taxes or SMCISD taxes, and only $100K/year to the city.
The argument against it:
The city really can’t afford this – this would eat almost 1/3 of the entire Social Services grant budget.
This would cost SMCISD about $400K in taxes. And they don’t have a say in this deal.
The county would also lose money. (I don’t know how much)
The argument in favor:
We really do need more affordable housing, and this is at least a little bit.
There are also residents living there currently. If this complex gets sold, their rent will go up.
What does Council say?
Everyone is pretty grim. It’s just too much money, compared to how other nonprofits could stretch that money.
The vote
Yes, give them the tax break: nobody
No, sorry: all seven council members
So the apartment complex will probably get foreclosed and they will have to sell it off.
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Items 25-27: Back down by Redwood again:
This time we’re focused on region 4, River Bridge Ranch:
River Bridge Ranch is a different kind of development than Sedona South. First, it’s inside the city limits. Second, it’s a PID, which stands for “Public Improvement District”.
What’s a PID?
If you buy a home in River Bridge Ranch, you’re going to pay an extra $1300-$2800 on your tax bill. This extra money will just go to pay for streets and infrastructure in River Bridge Branch.
The developer gets to artificially lower the price of the homes, and hides the extra cost in yearly taxes. Residents feel extra burdened by taxes. They blame the city, and pressure the city to lower taxes. If the city lowers property taxes, it hurts vulnerable people. So we’re helping the developer out, at the expense of people who depend on city services.
Is it the worst crime in the world? No, of course not. But it still makes me cranky.
Back to River Bridge Ranch
It will be all single family sprawl:
SIGH. Can’t we put some 4-plexes and townhomes throughout this? Can’t we ever have some stores?
So what brings us here today?
Before, the PID was for $10 million.
The developer gets to knock about $7K off the price of each house,
Instead, each resident would pay a yearly PID fee of ~ $250 every year, rolled into the tax bill.
Now the developer now wants to make the PID worth $60 million:
Now the developer gets to knock $40K off the sale price of every house.
Each resident will pay a yearly PID fee of ~$1480 every year, rolled into the tax bill.
The reason is because construction costs have gone up so much since 2020. Sure, that’s understandable. But I still resent the PID.
The vote: unanimous and in favor. Oh well.
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Item 9: Berry Aviation
We lease part of the airport to a company called Berry Aviation.
If you’ll recall, Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis got into a little pissing match back in 2022 and 2023. They were both trying to be the most ostentatiously cruel to immigrants, for shits and giggles.
Abbott promised jobs to immigrants, and then bussed them off to various northern cities where there were no jobs, no connections, nothing waiting for them. Just for the sheer sport of making their lives harder. He has done this to roughly 100,000 immigrants.
In the past, we allocated these two pots out separately, which was tricky for the nonprofits. Should they apply to both? Is one a better fit than the other? If they apply to the lesser, does it make it harder for them to get awarded the better fit one? etc.
This year, we’re discussing both pots together at the same time.
Here is what staff is recommending for the CDBG money:
Here is what staff is recommending for the HSAB money:
(If you want to read why things did not get funded, I could only find it in the gigantic meeting packet. Go here and read pages 1380-1382.)
Between the two pots of money, the total amount requested is $3.3 million. We only have $1.5 million to give out. So that’s a bummer.
This is a rich state! There is plenty of money to solve a lot of humanitarian problems.
Bad news!
Our elected officials are ruthless asshats who will not spend money to solve humanitarian problems.
The problem with San Marcos is Texas, as always.
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Citizen Comment
At the beginning of the meeting, people from several nonprofits spoke to Council:
Hays Helping Hands (formerly Nosotros Los Gente): why $0 for the one program? Can you combine our applications and let us shift money around?
Southside: We knew we would not receive our full amounts, but the ask was real. The need is beyond our current capacity.
In the past 6 months, we could only provide 20% of eviction prevention aid
We provided 16K meals in 2025, but we’re projected to provide 20K meals in 2026, on same budget
The waitlist for shelter 250 people long.
All our partners are also underfunded. Feeding programs have gotten full funding but other parts of funding children and elderly have not. City leadership needs to put together an action plan to find more funding for nonprofits. Less than $1 million could fund every request.
BR3T: BR3T started off using a lot of covid money to provide emergency shelter.
Currently in Hays county, 59% of renters are rent-burdened, which means spending >30% of their income on housing.
Eviction rates have doubled since pre-covid.
Our partners are equally underfunded. The need has outgrown HSAB funding. HSAB needs more funding.
…..
What does Council say?
Lorenzo: HOME Center applied to both pots of money for the same project. Can we consolidate them to one application?
This does not go anywhere, since he didn’t consult HOME center ahead of time.
Amanda: I’d like to move $5K from Hays Mental Health Court to HOME Center.
The vote on Amanda’s motion:
Yes, give HOME Center the extra $5K: Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh
No, don’t: Lorenzo
Jane abstains because she is on the Mental Health Court board. Matthew is absent.
Then the overall vote on CDBG funding:
The vote on all staff CDBG recommendations:
Yes: Jane Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh
No: Lorenzo
I have no idea why Lorenzo is being ornery.
Note: HSAB funding will be rolled into the budget in September, so we don’t vote on that now.
….
Since Texas is not going to step up…
Could San Marcos afford to spend more money on social services?
Sort of! We do not have much extra money laying around. But we could have made different decisions in the past.
Faig? Facks? Hamily? What in the AI slop is this garbage.
The City Budget Is a Jar
Our city budget works like this, too:
Big rocks: things that tie up millions of dollars for 30 years
Bonds for construction projects. (Like the $44 million for the wastewater treatment plant that we approved a few minutes ago.)
Development agreements for things like Embassy Suites/Conference Center, or Amazon, or Buccee’s
Developments like Kissing Tree, which gets $1.8 million per year. (They have a deal known as a TIRZ, Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.)
These guys are all set for 30 years! No yearly proposals. No justifying their pennies. No unexpected cuts when budgets are lean. Once they get approved, they’re golden.
Medium rocks: Departmental funding
Salaries and benefits for city employees
Basic maintenance and supplies
These departments do have to grovel every year, but there’s an expectation that budgets won’t be drastically slashed without warning. It gets incrementally squeezed, little by little.
Sand in the crevices:
All the social services.
Anyone’s pet project
Imagine if social services was a big rock! Imagine if they were guaranteed $1.8 million a year, for the next 30 years, like Kissing Tree. Imagine if we took out a bond to fund social services.
Note: I am not recommending this. Funding should come from Texas and the US federal government. We are not a rich town!
My point is how choices have been automatically baked into the budget, for decades. No one has to consciously choose an unfair thing for it to perpetuate itself. (This is called an accountability sink.)
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Item 33: Hays Central Appraisal District
If you’re a home owner, your home gets appraised every year, and then you get taxed on that value.
The magic happens up in Kyle:
Apparently they’ve outgrown their building.
The main problem is that they need to be able to handle protests. To quote the packet:
Since 2019, the number of protests filed has increased from 22,000 to more than 55,000. To address this growth, the Board of Directors expanded the number of members of the ARB, but the District office does not have the capacity to house more than three panels per day. Even with these efforts, the increasing volume of protests continues to place significant demands on District facilities and resources.
The current District office does not adequately support our public visitors, staffing levels, operational needs, or future growth. Parking shortages create ongoing logistical and safety concerns for staff and visitors alike. We must be better positioned to serve the public, support the ARB process, and produce timely appraisal rolls for all taxing units.
Here’s what it looks like:
In order for the new building to get going, the county has to get permission from all the cities. Council was fine with this.
This means that our payments will go up in the future. But not today.
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Item 37: Homelessness Committee and Criminal Justice Reform Committee
These two committees are getting merged to one Safety Committee.
Seems fine. There are a lot of solutions that affect both of these.
What are we going to do with the river parks and Quail Creek Park?
Let’s go.
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Workshop 1: Time for branding!
In this economy, with the price of a tank of gas pushing $4, you know what I could really go for?
A NEW CITY LOGO!
Now, San Marcos has already had a logo for the past decade or so:
I think it’s called “The Waterfall Logo”. But it’s stale, yes?
So we hired some consultants. They’ve been working on this for about a year. It cost $80K. (But it did not come out of taxpayer money. It came from the hotel taxes on visitors.)
First the consultants got to know us:
I guess. Then they summarized us:
Ok, that’s pretty on-the-nose.
Apparently everyone said the same thing: we’re surrounded by cookie-cutter suburbs and San Marcos is kinda allergic to that vibe. We’re like authentic, man.
So […drumroll…] here’s what the new logo looks like:
I don’t hate it? It’s kind of a cross between Willy Wonka and Splash Mountain:
Sure, why not.
….
Honestly: this is a completely normal, standard thing that cities do. The goal is to drum up tourism and visitors.
So what can we put our logo on?
Brochures, definitely.
What else?
How about those new signs on I-35?
Day AND night, yessir.
What about a flashy cut out fountain sign?
We got you!
MORE SIGNS! Signs everywhere!
Your garbage can will get branded!
It’ll be on your new safety vest!
Your whole wardrobe is going to be on theme!
Now we’re cooking with gas! Let’s go!
What else can AI hallucinate?
Giant murals!
And your fine new necklace:
Or some pins, perhaps?
This will be perfect for when you go off-roading with your bros:
And this will be perfect for off-roading with your grandma:
Savor the round, gold hardness of commemorative San Marcos coins:
So circular.
And finally, drink some romantic San Marcos river water with your sweetie, in your very own San Marcos champagne flutes:
You’re going to be so popular, just you wait.
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What does council say?
Question: How quickly will all this schwag show up? Answer: Don’t hold your breath!
The free parts – meaning the digital images – will start immediately. None of that other stuff is getting ordered today, though.
For everything else, they’ll keep using the old stuff. Over the next five years, when a sign needs to be replaced, or a commemorative coin loses its sparkle, they’ll replace it with the new version.
Impact fees are fees paid by developers when they build something new. These fees would go to help fund water and wastewater projects.
We haven’t updated these fees in a while, so they’ve fallen behind:
Orange is where our fees were set in 2018. Red is the new, proposed fees in 2026.
Council all basically fine with it. Maybe some rebates for green infrastructure?
This will come back in September.
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Workshop 3: The River Parks and Quail Creek Park
First, the River Parks:
The river parks are a little confusing, because there are15 different names for this long stretch of land.
Let me help!
Dog Park is by Walgreen’s
Skate Park is by the library
Memorial Park is by the Activity Center
City Park is the Lion’s Club
Plaza Park is the stage for Movies in the Park, Music at the Park, Sights & Sounds, etc
Children’s Park is the big playground
Rio Vista is where the falls are.
Ramon Lucio is the baseball fields
Today we’re talking about just this part:
Within that, they’re really focused on the down river parks: Children’s Park, Rio Vista, and Ramon Lucio.
Here’s some issues:
Parking. There’s not enough parking by the Children’s Park and Rio Vista. But you also don’t want people to park too close to the river, because that’s bad for your river.
2. The outdoor pool at Rio Vista
No one really uses it, mostly because of all the traffic to the river. We need a big city pool that residents can get to more easily.
This is where Quail Creek park comes in. Can we put the pool out there?
3. The baseball fields
Should these be relocated somewhere else, where they wouldn’t compete with the river traffic?
Can we put these out at Quail Creek?
…
City staff floated like eight different versions of what it could look like, but here is staff’s main proposal:
I know, super tiny.
Council mostly focused on the children’s park, the pool, and the baseball fields:
Here are the main changes:
Parking lot by Children’s Park is moved closer to the street, has way more spots, and has a roundabout.
Street parking is angled and head-in, instead of parallel parking like it is now. This makes a lot more street parking.
No more pool, but yes to splash pad.
Tennis courts stay.
Only one baseball field.
What does Council say?
Right now there are four baseball fields and one softball field. Everyone HATES the idea of getting rid of these.
(Apparently some people felt the baseball fields were unaesthetic? Like if you’re driving by on I-35, you might see them and shudder? And then go kick a puppy?)
Anyway, the baseball fields are staying.
…
Amanda: It’s a problem that we don’t have any drop-in soccer fields. The ones at Five Mile are off-limits, unless you are part of a league. Lots of people just want to play pick up games.
Josh: In El Paso, there were little soccer fields all over the place.
Staff: We can consider that!
Amanda: – Soccer fields could be small. Just some area for people to play. – How about some tables with built in chess/checkerboards? – We need some community theater space. – Is there going to be plenty of shade?
Answer: We’re planting lots of trees, and there will be little shade structures. Chess boards can work. The theater part will take some thinking.
Only one June meeting! You’ve probably heard that we banned data centers – get the (few, meager) details here! Plus new apartments by little HEB, a lot of City Hall debate, and wrapping up the land development code updates.
Dive in here:
Hours 0:00 – 4:21: New apartments by little HEB, gray water, we ban data centers in the land development code, a fire station, and El Camino Way.
The biggest topic was the arrest and ICE imprisonment of Gerardo Reyes and SMPD treatment of his son. Five people spoke on this topic (including Gerardo himself, his wife, and his daughter).
Since the last meeting, Gerardo was released from ICE, but there’s still a lot of issues left:
Legal fees have piled up, the family has been traumatized, and they have lost 77 days of income
There was never any crime committed in the first place. The son was a minor and was treated inhumanely as well, and is still facing charges.
The officer has not faced meaningful consequences, despite evidence that he violated SMPD protocol
SMPD and San Marcos have stonewalled the family. Release the bodycam footage.
The family deserves apology, remedy, and transparency
Still a lot of concerns with data centers. The constraints on water and noise are insufficient, and you need a decommissioning process for when they fold and walk away.
Restrict electric and gas offsite generators to Heavy Industrial zones.
Regulate the sale of water to other communities
Form an environmental commission
Other topics:
The two El Camino Ways are very confusing. Please rename one of them until they are connected in the future.
Apartment complexes should not give the location of the complex on parking permits, for safety reasons.
Good job on the budget town hall. But the public did not show up. You should update the downtown cameras for safety.
….
Item 1: FM 1978 Water Treatment Plant
Let’s talk about indoor plumbing. You flush your toilet or wash your clothes, and the water goes down the drain. If you’re on city water, it flows down city pipes until it gets to a water treatment plant. The water treatment plant cleans up the dirty water, and then releases it into nature.
We’re getting a lot of development east of 35, so we need a new water treatment plant.
Here’s where it will be:
From what I understand, there are a few different kinds of water treatment plants. From worst to best:
Multiple small package plants. These are bad because they cause algae blooms in the river.
Regular water treatment plant.
Reclamation water treatment plant.
We’re doing option 3! This means that we get gray water back out. You can use it to water a golf course or flush toilets or irrigate crops. It’s not clean enough to drink, but it replaces drinking water.
Eventually it will produce 2-8 million gallons per day. This is great! (It’s 100% bonkers that we use pure drinking water to water our lawns and flush our toilets. Or to cool a data center.)
…
This will be our second water reclamation facility. We already have one that’s been up and running for years.
Here’s some of the places that we already run gray water out to:
The Kissing Tree golf course, the Hays Energy power plant, and a lot of the irrigation downtown and at Texas State are all on gray water. This is great!
…
How much will this second water reclamation plant cost?
It’s not cheap. This is why City Hall will cost $80-100 million. It’s just expensive to build things.
Everyone thinks this is great.
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Item 13-14: Student Housing
The neighborhood around Little HEB is kinda getting bulldozed.
Here are the student apartment complexes that Council has approved recently:
You can’t lower housing costs without an abundance of housing. But at the same time, it is a bummer to see a cool part of town lose its soul.
One other irritating thing: this is all the same developer. They hired Shannon Mattingly, who was the San Marcos Planning Director, and now they’re running the same playbook over and over again. It feels like we’re a buffet table for them.
Today they’re back for this piece:
I admit that it is a very good spot for apartments!
What’s there right now?
That main building is the Pennington Funeral Home:
Or rather, was the Pennington Funeral Home. (We’ve discussed how it has already been demolished.)
You see that little house to the right? The back half of it is white.
If you walk around the corner, this is the back half of it:
So this corner house and the yellow house behind it will be demolished, too. Or they already are!
…
Okay, fine. What’s going to get built?
They can already build apartments here. They can already sell them as rent-by-the-bedroom, as well. They do not need council approval for that.
However, they would like two perks:
They would like to have up to 5 bedrooms per units. Right now they’re capped at 3.
They would like to have 7 stories instead of 5 stories, so that they can fit in a lot more apartments. The height wouldn’t change.
Both of these mean that they can fit more students into one building.
In exchange, Council could ask for different things:
Make the building LEED-certified, which means more environmentally friendly
Make up to 10% of the units affordable housing
Make up to 20% of their units “workforce housing”, which means slightly less affordable but still below market rate.
Include a childcare facility, or retail space on the ground floor, or extra public park space.
Council could get creative! They have some cards to play here!
….
There is one extra important thing that Council cares a lot about:
In 2023, both Sanctuary Lofts and Vistas Apartments were sold to Texas State and converted to student housing. But Texas State doesn’t pay city taxes. So the city lost about $750K in yearly taxes, with this sale. Everyone was pretty salty about this.
Consequently, there is a condition that these new apartments can’t be sold to Texas State for 12 years.
….
For funsies, the developer made some drawings of what it might look like:
That’s nice!
…
What does Council say?
Amanda: I’m a no.
This doesn’t benefit local residents.
It doesn’t provide any affordable housing
A 12 year delay on selling to Texas State is not long enough.
We don’t have enough protections for tenants in place yet.
Matthew: I’m a yes!
Keep students next to campus, and away from our neighborhoods.
Nobody: Why don’t we ask for more concessions, like affordability, Leed-certified, or extra green space?
The vote:
(There were two separate votes – one for extra stories and one for 5 bedroom units. They both went the same way.)
…
My $0.02: I probably would have voted yes, but I think we should have asked for more concessions. We gave away too much in 2025, as well.
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Item 10: back to Operation Triage
[Note: I got this story garbled when I first published it. I think the current version below is correct, now.]
Today, this item took about 30 seconds. Everyone just said, “We got everything squared away! We’re giving the money to Operation Triage. The home owner is getting help.”
The vote:
Lorenzo wasn’t convinced, I guess.
….
Item 17: Land Development Code amendments
Background: The Land Development Code is where all the detailed rules live that govern how things get built. Every few years, it’s time to make updates. Previously discussed here , here, and here.
Last time they passed 5 amendments, but they weren’t done with everything yet.
Today’s topics are:
Banning Data Centers
Alcohol permits downtown for bars and restaurants
Signs posted to announce upcoming hearings
Council overturning P&Z decisions on alcohol permits
Regulating large scale electric and on-site gas generators
Strike a weird bit about businesses being limited to corners
Let’s dive in! I’ll keep this brief-ish.
…
Banning Data Centers
Backstory: Back in April, Amanda made a motion: all data centers should be banned in city limits.
The April vote went like this:
So it failed.
Council then spent two more meetings wheeling and dealing about how to regulate data centers. Do they get permitted from P&Z or Council? Which zonings are they allowed in? What regulations do we put on sound and water and electricity? Etc. Many hours were spent.
This meeting
So I was not expecting it, on Tuesday, when Lorenzo said, “I’d like to re-open the vote on whether to ban data centers.”
Clearly there have been off-screen discussions!
They spend barely 30 seconds debating it. Jane and Josh both say: “I’m a no. I’m hoping the technology gets better and so we can allow them without destroying the environment.”
Lorenzo: “I actually feel that way, too. But we can always go back and un-ban them.”
The new vote:
So there you have it: no data centers in the city limits.
All the wheeling and dealing clearly occurred outside of Council meetings. It was weird and mysterious.
…
Is this good? Some thoughts:
This is democracy! Residents of San Marcos do not want data centers! It is healthy for city council to reflect the will of the people.
The technology for sustainable data centers already exists. They can use reclaimed water for cooling and solar for electricity. Texas just isn’t willing to regulate businesses.
The data center problem isn’t a city problem. It’s a county problem. Counties can’t regulate data centers. The overwhelming majority of data centers are outside city limits. Until Texas law changes, the data centers are going to cannibalize central Texas.
except it says “San Marcos” instead of “Temecula”.
Up till now, the city has put them up. Should we have the applicant put them up, instead?
Council decides no. Double-checking the applicant’s work is more work than just doing it ourselves.
…
4. P&Z decisions for alcohol permits
P&Z grants permits to restaurants to serve alcohol. If someone doesn’t like the decision, they can appeal to Council. It takes a 6-1 vote to overturn P&Z.
This played out with Tantra in 2024. P&Z put a severe noise restriction on their CUP. (It was ridiculous.) Tantra went to Council, and there was a huge community outcry. Council overturned the decision.
Amanda wants to kill the supermajority requirement to overturn P&Z on alcohol permits, so that the Tantra situation can’t happen again.
The vote:
So it passes.
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Note: I strongly disagree. This is bad governance. The Tantra situation was a very unusual edge case, and edge cases make bad policy.
Much more often, it goes like this: a business wants to renew their alcohol permit. They’ve been extremely negligent about paperwork. For example, they let their permit expire 8 years ago. P&Z puts some constraints on their permit to get them back on track.
The business says, “Wah! But I’m just a baby!” and calls up every member of Council to complain and piss and moan. Then Council reverses the P&Z decision, and lets them get away with negligence.
Listen – two things can be true:
Sometimes P&Z makes crazy decisions that need to be overturned. (Tantra)
Sometimes businesses are trying to use their connections to get out of consequences.
The second scenario happens WAY MORE OFTEN than the first scenario. But Amanda has now tilted the playing field towards those businesses. Boo.
(Also, it’s generally bad when a government body weakens a check-and-balance mechanism.)
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4. Cleaning up weird code
There’s an odd clause all over the Land Development Code:
No one knows why it’s there and no one enforces it. So we’ve removed it.
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5. Regulating gas and electric generators
Originally, this was part of all the data center discussions. Data centers all have large scale back up generators, which can cause a ton of pollution and noise and mess.
But now, we’ve banned data centers. Do we still want to regulate generators?
Answer: Yes. Someday data centers might be un-banned, or there could be another reason someone is using large scale power generation.
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And with that, the Land Development Code updates are complete! Good work, team.
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Item 18: Fire Station No. 3
This is Fire Station No. 3:
It’s down on Hunter Road, near Miller middle school and across from the HEB distribution center.
They’re getting an apparatus bay, workout/fitness room, storage areas, new driveways, and interior renovation. It’s costing about $5.6 million.
Someday soon, kids, it will look like this:
Great!
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Item 21: City Hall Steering Committee
The whole 3 pm workshop was about City Hall. At that workshop, they decided to grow the steering committee.
The steering committee was originally chosen back in November 2024. Every councilmember picked two steering committee representatives.
It was the last meeting of Mark Gleason and Jude Prather. In a jerk move, council voted to let the outgoing council pick the members, rather than the incoming council. So Amanda and Lorenzo have never had representation, and new councilmember Josh does not either.
Now we’re fixing this. Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh will each pick a steering two new committee members. The committee will get six new members.
Would YOU like to be on the committee? If so, you can apply here. Or you can just email Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh directly, at arodriguez7@sanmarcostx.gov, lgonzalez@sanmarcostx.gov, and jpaselk@sanmarcostx.gov.
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Item 22: El Camino Way
We’re going down just past the high school for this next one:
In that area, there’s a road called “El Camino Way”, which is partially built:
The problem is that the two halves of the road don’t connect. This causes all sorts of problems for delivery trucks and people using google maps.
Eventually they will connect! Some day. Just not today.
In the meantime, we’re going to pick a new name for the new one.
Some ideas:
Crested Cara Cara Way
Wild Wind Way
Old Johnson’s Farm Road
Heritage Road
Someone named Carla spoke at Citizen Comment, because she lives over there, and explained the whole situation to Council. She joked that Carlita’s Way would be a good name.
Everyone on council agreed! You can’t say this town doesn’t have a sense of humor.
P&Z gets to recommend a name. They can pick whatever they want, but Council’s gonna overturn them in favor of Carlita’s Way.
It was built in the early 1970s, when San Marcos had 18K people. So cute! Little baby San Marcos. Now we have about 80K people.
There are some problems with it:
It’s way too small. Whenever there’s a hot topic, the seats fill up immediately, and everyone crowds into the lobby and out onto the lawn.
It’s falling apart.
Apparently they have to evacuate for water and gas leaks. There’s a window that just shatters whenever it gets cold. The foundation is a mess. The roof leaks.
Spontaneous window combustion! They said that it’s because the frame has warped over time.
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So we definitely need something new.
We’d like to make it bigger and better:
….
The main debate right now is where to put the new city hall.
There are three options:
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Option A: the current location.
Pros: We already own the land.
Cons: In a floodplain. – Not a big splashy location. – Council would need temporary space during reconstruction.
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Option B:
Pros: I hate this location and refuse to list any pros.
Cons: In a floodplain – It’s park land! Don’t use up your park land! – Do you really want your skate park to be pressed up against your new city hall, like Big Brother looming over you? – Lots of people showed up to protest against this option.
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Option C:
Pros: It’s a really great location! Probably the best of the three. – Revitalizes a stagnant part of downtown and supports downtown businesses. – San Marcos River Foundation prefers it, because it’s not in a floodplain
Cons: Not owned by San Marcos. – Would have to work with a private developer – We might get hosed.
This is the developer:
We could get hosed, or maybe we’re able to make a good deal. It’s hard to know.
The problem is that we fund big projects by taking out bonds. Texas has a law that cities can’t fund their own city halls by taking out a bond. You have to get voter approval for city hall bond money.
(The problem with San Marcos is Texas. Always.)
Here’s what they’re projecting for the city hall:
That’s really expensive!
We’ve saved about $13 million. We have a few ways that we could fund the rest of this:
I kind of hate all of these! We do not have good options here.
But still:
Red, orange, purple, and blue are all about equal. They’re different ways of shifting taxpayer money around.
Teal is a wildcard. It could be okay, or it could be terrible.
Green is two options. Leasing our land is another wildcard, but selling it is the worst option.
Don’t sell off public land. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. You don’t get land back.
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My $0.02: We need to have a cheaper version in mind as a back-up option, on par with renovating the library.
Either convince San Marcos that the downtown location is worth the price tag, or walk away from the price tag.
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For what it’s worth, we haven’t spent that much money yet:
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A LOT of people showed up at Citizen Comment!
We love the Downtown option! (5 people)
Downtown business association supports it, but don’t raise taxes
San Marcos River Foundation supports it, but has some extra recommendations to protect the water table.
Yes, but I’m nervous about the developer
Steering Committee recommends downtown location.
We have concerns: (8 speakers)
This whole thing is really expensive, and we can’t afford it.
We want more public engagement and town halls
Stick with options A and B.
Miscellaneous:
Please consider a dedicated performing arts space. Groups like Broke Thespians contribute to the richness of San Marcos, but there are very few venues for them to perform in. (I agree!)
Encourage the community that there are low cost rain guages, which can be life saving in a flood.
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What does Council say?
First they discuss the steering committee. Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh never got to appoint anybody to it. (In fact, they were intentionally excluded.) This got dealt with at the 6 pm meeting – they’re each going to pick two members and the committee will get six new people.
Everyone wants lots of town halls for the community. Everyone wants all three locations – A, B, and C – to be presented at these town halls, too. Town halls should be held all over town.
Bottom line: Town Halls will be coming to a neighborhood near you. Hopefully.
Side note: There was actually a lot more covered during the presentation – details of funding, what the different possibilities for Option C might look like, etc. But that is all getting kicked down the road, while the town halls play out. If you’re curious, go here.
The run-off for County Judge, between Ruben Becerra and Michelle Gutierrez Cohen, has blown up. It’s gotten real ugly.
Full disclosure: I switched my vote from Becerra to Cohen. This is not my wheelhouse! I do not watch county commission meetings! Basically, I trusted what other people are telling me.
Two speakers: Mission Able fixed our leaking roofs, and we’re very grateful. Great organization. (That is in lieu of this, last month.)
One speaker: The Land Development Code conversation took two hours last time. Maybe some of those comments could have been submitted ahead of time? Many of the comments were about data centers. People hate them! On a different topic, Flock Cameras helped Austin PD catch the shooter recently.
One speaker: the downtown proposal for the new City Hall is terrible! They want to purchase the land and lease it back to the city? Are we just going to rent from them for 40 years?
San Marcos Civics Club has been asking and filing requests for council minutes going back to May 2022. Legally, the city is required to provide them, but they’ve filed for an extension.
Finally, five speakers talk about Gerardo Reyes Gonzalez.
Who is Gerardo Reyes Gonzalez? On March 14th, SMPD stopped a son and father for a traffic stop, and ended up arresting them for “interference with public duties”. The son was later released, but the father (Gerardo) was handed over to ICE.
The investigation found that Cortina violated the following department protocols:
an inaccurate statement on the probable cause affidavit, a failure to articulate the basis for detention, and failure to verify the juvenile subject’s location prior to making the arrest.
Of course, none of this ever comes to light unless there is video footage. (The officer got a light consequence.)
Anyway: this is a crisis because the dad is still in ICE custody, two months later, up in Hutto. The mom is disabled and the dad is the breadwinner, and a judge denied his release, so he could be facing deportation.
The speakers on Tuesday are calling on Council to release a public statement calling for the release of the dad and meaningful consequences for the officer.
La Cima was first approved in 2013. It was about 1400 acres big, originally. (For the life of me, I can’t find a map of it.)
In 2014, it grows to 22,029 acres, and it looks like this:
In 2018, it grows again:
In 2020, it grows again:
Next up, in 2022:
It jumped clear across Ranch Roach 12! They also got approved for a movie studio along the way, La Cinema. (Unofficial name, sadly.)
La Cima has sometimes been controversial, because it’s a massive build over the aquifer. Everything there will go directly into the underground water that feeds the river. If you want your river to stay clear, you don’t want to develop the land that feeds into it.
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So what now?
On Tuesday, there was some minor tinkering with how La Cima pays for roads and sidewalks and things like that. It’s not a big deal.
Mostly a lot of acronyms:
Everyone on Council says yes: 7-0.
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Sidebar: In my heart-of-hearts, I disapprove of PIDs. It’s like 500th in the list of things I don’t like, but it’s there.
Here’s the problem: a PID is an extra tax on the residents of La Cima. But it only helps the residents of La Cima.
Residents there are paying more in taxes! They pay an extra $1600-$2700 per year. If they think taxes are too high, they’re going to support candidates who want to cut taxes. When you cut taxes, you cut services. But the services that get slashed are for the most vulnerable, not for La Cima. La Cima funding (about $86 million) is locked down safely for 30 years, via the PID.
If there was no such thing as PIDs, the extra tax would be rolled into the cost of the house. It wouldn’t actually change costs for the buyer, but it would make the houses look more expensive up front. Developers prefer to keep housing prices looking low.
End of rant!
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Item 16: The New HEB sign
If you’ve driven by I35 and McCarty recently, you’ve probably seen the construction on our exciting new south HEB.
Trusted sources tell me it’s going to be nicknamed “HEBeast”, to distinguish it from Little HEB and Big HEB. (I report, you decide.)
The HEBeast is part of a larger development called McCarty Commons. In the development agreement, the developer agreed to specific rules about sign heights:
But what if, instead, their sign was AWESOME?
Like this?
You know, a real HEBeast of a sign. Way bigger than those other measly signs:
The new design would be 60 feet tall, instead of 42 ft like we were expecting.
So how tall is 60 ft exactly?
Taller than Wendy’s or Taco Bell. But slightly shorter than the Premium Outlets sign.
Much taller than all of these.
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What does Council say?
Here’s everyone’s reaction:
They’re pretty stoked.
Lorenzo: Can they design our next gateway sign?
Josh: For the record, I like our new gateway signs.
Jane: Since I-35 is elevated there, this really just lifts their sign up to regular height.
The vote: 7-0. Everyone’s all in.
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The actual meeting rang in at under an hour! The workshops were meatier.
Max Baker, organizer of the San Marcos Civics Club: We’ve been trying to put people on boards and commissions. But the city website has a lot of problems, like: – HSAB still says they meet Thursdays, 2 months out of the year. They actually meet Wednesdays for longer than 2 months. – the online calendar is out of date on library meetings – etc SMCC told the city about these details back in 2023, and they’re all still problems.
(Max is definitely a details guy.)
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Workshop 1: Budget Update
Next year’s budget it chugging along! It takes 9 months to birth a budget:
Our little budget fetus is about 15 weeks old. It’s the size of an avocado.
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So how does it look?
First off, San Marcos is growing:
Our budget has not been keeping up.
This is city spending, per resident:
So we’ve had a balanced budget, but we’re stretched more thin than we were a few years ago.
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What’s the revenue look like next year?
We get two kinds of revenue:
Sales tax
Property tax
First, sales tax:
We’re up from last year.
Last year, we pulled in $ 22,567,986 by this point in the year.
This year, we’re at $23,442,368 so far.
That’s great! It’s also good because we had about 1.5 years of declining sales tax, so it’s good that we’ve finally turned that around.
I am just including this slide because I was entertained by how incomprehensible it is.
It’s labeled as though it’s giving you the revenue from sales tax, smoothed out using a 12-month average. But that’s not at all what the graph is showing! The graph is showing the rate of change of the rolling average.
[Confidential to staff: Yes, yes, you’re very smart. But listen: no one wants to wrestle with the graph of the first derivative! Put the calculus away, and just show the actual rolling 12-month average sales tax graph.]
On to property tax:
Property tax value also went up! But in an uneven way.
First, home values went down a little:
But there were new builds, as well:
About 2/3 of the new value comes from residential, and the other 1/3 comes from commercial.
So the total of all property value in San Marcos went up a little bit. Not a ton, but a bit.
So we’re also expecting a little more in property taxes.
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Overall, we think we’ll have a little more breathing room than we thought we would.
Here’s where we thought we were at, back in February:
And here’s how the revenues and expenses have changed since then:
and here are the main budget cuts that we have made:
And there are still a lot of unfunded needs:
As they say, nothing is more expensive than deferred maintenance.
But nevertheless, all of that taken together probably gets us to a balanced budget this year:
This is great!
Now, there’s still a looming $7.5 million budget hole in 2028. But we’d be okay in 2027.
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Amanda: Our fees increase incrementally every year, so that no one ever gets walloped with a giant increase. Have we applied that philosophy to property taxes? A very small, regular increase, to prevent a giant shock? Answer: No one answers this.
Although no one said so at the meeting, the answer is definitely “yes, we should”.
Tax hikes are unpopular! People are broke. Better not to shock everyone’s budget, but still show fiscal responsibility.
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Also in the first workshop, two small unrelated items:
Announcement #1: Community Benefit Charge:
If you’re getting a city utility bill, there’s going to be a new line, called the “Community Benefit” fee:
You’re not paying any extra money, though. It used to be rolled into the other charges, and now they’re itemizing it.
Then when you go to look at the details, you can see exactly what’s getting covered in the Community Benefit charge:
Council is worried about how to explain this on a large scale so that no one freaks out. How about a mailer inside of all the envelopes?
Josh: How about a QR code right on the bill? Answer: Maybe!
Announcement #2: Destination services:
The Convention and Visitor Bureau wants to rebrand itself as “Visit San Marcos!”
Great. Done.
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Workshop 2: Utility assistance program
This has been going on a LONG time:
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Basically, we had a pretty big utility assistance program, but people kept getting disconnected anyway. And we had $45K in customer donations, but it never got spent helping people.
This is mostly because we were giving the money to Community Action. Community Action is a great organization! But not a good fit for utility assistance.
The problem is that Community Action gets federal money, which means they require a massive amount of paperwork from anyone who needs assistance. They can get you help in six weeks, but by then, your power might have gotten shut off a month ago.
Alyssa was really the driving force in reforming this. She kept drilling down into the details over and over again, until the program finally started to work.
So here are some of the changes:
In 2025, council decided to give money to three more groups for utility assistance:
This is great! Those other three organizations can hand out money on a quick turnaround.
A bunch more improvements:
Great.
Here’s some nitty-gritty on how it gets administered:
Basically everyone who needs help gets sent somewhere.
When they do have to disconnect utilities, they avoid certain situations:
So they’re not going to disconnect you in extreme heat, cold, or right before a weekend.
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How many people are we helping?
So people are still getting disconnected, even with utility assistance.
and here’s how many people are getting assistance:
Here’s a snapshot of the demographics of who gets assistance:
Seniors are struggling more, recently.
Communities in Schools connects directly with students. One problem is that some SMCISD students live outside of city boundaries, and so their families aren’t eligible for this money.
(Community Action and Salvation Army have other sources of funding to help these families, but it may come with more paperwork.)
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Here’s the biggest problem:
They’re blowing through their money.
At the start of FY2026:
BCL gave out all their money, $21K, in 28 days. They got an extra $11K in March, and gave it out in 18 days.
Salvation Army gave out $45K in 4 months.
Communities in Schools can only assist students that are enrolled in their program, and can’t help in the summer.
Community Action is SUPER slow, because of the whole Federal paperwork deal.
On the one hand, you WANT agencies to give out the money. You don’t want agencies to hoard funds like a dragon. But there’s also nowhere to go for help right now, and it’s about to be summer.
Fundamentally, we probably need to quadruple the funding in this program.
Listen: La Cima has an $86.7 million bond. Their city services are locked down and guaranteed for 30 years. Kissing Tree gets $1.8 million every year, and they are entirely gated off! They could be spending that money on Day-Glo lights for golf carts, and we wouldn’t know.
If it takes $400K to keep the lights on for all residents, doesn’t that seem do-able?
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Since that’s not on the table, Staff had a few suggestions to try to stretch the money a little further.
Discussion item 1: How often can people get assistance?
Right now, they help you with back payments and the current bill, so you can get help on 3 months worth of bills. You can also come back four times a year.
Council settles on saying that if you get help with back payments on your, it uses up two of your instances. Soevery year, you can come in four times if you just need help with 1 month payment, or you can come in twice a year with a big backlog.
Discussion item 2: What counts as hardship?
They’re looking at this slide:
Jane doesn’t like the “children under 5” category. Specifically, if you’re not low income, why should you get assistance just because you have small children?
Everyone explains that it’s about childcare costs. You may have a pretty good job, but if you’re paying for daycare on two kids, you still can’t make ends meet.
Jane says she understands, but what about actually wealthy people with babies cashing in on this?
Everyone: That’s not a thing. That just never happens. Wealthy people with small children do not spend half a day at the Salvation Army to get help with their electric bill.
Jane wants more time to think about this one.
Discussion item 3: Reconnection fees and late fees
Right now, the utility assistance covers reconnection fees and late fees. However, this money is going in a circle: the city is giving money to the utility assistance program, to pay for the city reconnection fees and late fees.
Can the city just waive these fees altogether, in these cases? It would help the utility assistance dollars stretch further.
Everyone likes this.
Discussion item 4: Do we want to split the pot of money into four chunks for each season?
That way the agencies would have a little money available at the start of each season, instead of running out for the whole year.
I think council was interested, but wanted more info.
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Basically, this will all come around for an official vote in a future meeting.
Lots of stuff this week: selling water to Kyle, food trucks, community gardens, parking lots, lawsuits, the Edward’s Aquifer, the murals around town, and so much more.
Much to discuss!
Hours 0:00 – 5:15: Some small rezonings, selling water to Kyle, a trail to New Braunfels, and an enormous amount of Land Development Code details.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, some impact fees, and the public art policy.
The San Marxist 