Month: August 2021

August 17th City Council meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Third most interesting item:

Item 20: Project Robot! Great name, right? Project Robot is a three year property tax break that we’re giving to a giant laundry service that will go in next to the new Amazon facility, on the north side of town. It sounds like it’s mass laundering of hotel sheets and towels.

A lot of attention was paid to requiring the facility to maintain its Clean Green standing for ten years. This is good, but I am not an environmental engineer and can’t really weigh in on what’s greenwashing and what’s substantial.

Supposedly the facility will create 100 jobs at average salary of $44k, with full benefits from day 1. This sound suspect. To me, that sounds like 90 jobs at $25K and ten jobs at $500K. “Average” is not necessarily what you want to know about that situation.

What else was discussed?

  • Universal utility forgiveness passed unanimously, although Commissioner Derrick allowed herself a small “SURE I GUESS” through gritted teeth. Total price tag comes in at $581K.

(There was a hilariously petty exchange between Commissioner Scott and Mayor Hughson that basically descended into “am not” “are too”, like my kids do, over whether or not it is a sure thing that this won’t affect our budget score. Technically the bickering when “We’ll be fine” “We don’t know that” “I know that” “We’ll see” ad nauseum. I enjoyed it immensely.)

  • 390 acres of Whisper South were annexed, with only Commissioner Baker dissenting. There was no discussion and I have no opinion.
  • Electric Cab Bus Proposal was postponed for a month. I grokked that the entire council is mad about an extremely shitty proposal that was put forward, although I don’t know what went wrong. The proposers have a month to fix it, or they will go back to the pool of proposals to reassess.
  • Max tax rate was set, although the actual tax rate will come under that.
  • Some vacancies were filled. Amy Meeks will join P&Z.
  • Spear guns will come back around as an ordinance
  • P&Z and Council will be required to undergo CodeSMTX trainings

And while there were some other fiddly details, I’m declaring that to be a wrap! Thanks, folks, and see you in September!

August 17th City Council meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Miracle of miracles, this week’s meeting was over by 10 pm! I watched the whole thing in one setting! (I was remiss and failed to post a Previewing the Agenda post.) Let’s dive in!

I’ll say that the most significant items are Item 1 and Item 30, taken together.

Both of these are focused on Covid. Item 1 was a local Covid update, given by the newly hired Emergency Response Coordinator, Rob Finch. It was good to see him up and running in that capacity. He did a great job painting a dire picture of our current Delta surge.

Item 30 was a plea from the Christus Hospital (ie formerly CTMC) for $500K to help them hire nurses during this surge. We currently have exceeded our ICU beds and have ICU patients in the PICU, but so does everyone else regionally (although it fluctuates constantly.) The nursing burnout and shortstaffing sounded dreadful, and in addition nurses can now command significant salaries nationwide, and it all combined with the current surge to put the hospital in this desperate position. The $500K is a stopgap while the hospital pursues other funding from the state and county and wherever else.

The whole thing was very compelling and all the commissioners were very compassionate.  The $500K comes from other line items on the American Rescue Funds, and those projects will see part of their funding deferred (but not eliminated) until the next $9 million.

Highlights include Commissioner Scott asking two questions: does the hospital require its staff to be vaccinated? and does the hospital provide alternative medicines, like this Ivermectin stuff his friend got from his doctor? It healed him very quickly.

The representative from the hospital neatly disposed of both of these questions. For the first, he basically said, “We are strongly pro-vaccine but also in a staffing shortage, and we can’t afford to pit these ideals against each other. We’re working with a combination of incentives and encouragements and education campaigns.” For the latter, he said, “I am not a doctor, but we’re totally happy to use all scientifically supported therapies.” (Again, I paraphrase.)

Note: the Ivermectin stuff is the voodoo horse pills, I believe. So maybe his friend is a horse.

Christus guy: 2, Commissioner Scott: 0.

Item 2 gets my vote for next-most-significant:  TxDOT presentation on I-35 and SH 123.

Oh god, this will be a nightmare. TxDOT will be destroying and rebuilding various parts of I-35 from now until 2025. As my grandmother advised, multiply all time estimates by 3, and so we should be in a sorry state all the way until 2033.

The first chunk is focused on the access roads. Those will be closed down (allegedly) for up to 18 months, in various reconfigurations. And I’ll be damned if the Southbound access road wasn’t partially closed this morning! Fast work, TxDOT.

During this time, the northbound access bridge over the river will be raised to the same level as I-35, so that it won’t flood when the river floods. As a consequence, the underpass at River Road will be eliminated. (More on that in a moment.)

They’re also switching the on-ramps and exit-ramps. The idea is that if you have an on-ramp closely followed by an off-ramp, then the merging and lane-changing happens on the highway. Whereas if you have an off-ramp closely followed by an on-ramp, then the merging and jockeying for position happens on the access road.

In my opinion, this is lame. Or at least this location is not a great use of that principle. The problem is that the intersections under I-35 are in very close proximity, and each light gets an on-ramp and an off-ramp. So the ramps are all spaced evenly and there’s no clear “close pairing” of on-ramps and off-ramps. It just alternates. Merging and jockeying happens in both the highway and access road, in an alternating pattern. And so if you switch the ramps, you’re spending a whole lot of money just to shift the alternating pattern along by one unit.

The next chunk will be widening the I-35 main lanes themselves, including the bridge over SH123. And then at the end, they’re going to tinker with SH123 itself. The whole thing sounds like a 4-12 year headache. I feel sorry for myself.

The most controversial part is the closure of the underpass at River Road, and how that disconnects Blanco Gardens from the other half of the city. Commissioner Gleason lives in that neighborhood and is furious that TxDOT has decided to do this.

The underpass itself will be converted to bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, which actually sounds very lovely, but Gleason is 100% right about the negative impact on the neighborhood.

I understand that the access road will be lifted up, and therefore can’t connect with the underpass anymore. What I don’t understand is why the underpass can’t just go under the access road and connect with River Road? It can be a thoroughfare without involving I-35.

(I assume the answer is because TxDOT doesn’t actually care, and that would be more expensive.)

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 4)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Anything else of note?

  • Some housing developments are moving forward:
    • a block of condominiums buried back by the Hays County Government Center. Good location – infill without threatening any neighborhoods. Close to schools, parks, and businesses. The drawback is that it’s near Purgatory Creek, and it’s not great to develop that close to it, but the entire plat is already mostly developed. There was some conversation about making sure that they do an archeological survey first, which is also good.
    • More on that Whisper Tract, northeast of town. That whole area is a little bit sprawl-y for my tastes, but at least it’s not environmentally sensitive.
  • The funding opportunities that were discussed in July were finalized. Important but not controversial
  • Mr. Exotic’s Steakhouse. Oh lord, these guys. Here is my best speculation: a couple dudes said, “We want to open a nightclub on the square! But we’ll never get permits. Let’s open as a restaurant and then run it like a bar!”
    “Yes, yes, this will be great!” they all congratulated themselves.
    “We need a name that straddles both a plausible restaurant and a plausible nightclub. How about Mr. Exotic’s?”
    “yes, yes, great! It can masquerade as an exotic game steakhouse.”

    So they trotted off for an alcohol CUP to P&Z, where they got swatted down HARD. The kitchen was way too small to be a restaurant, the menu was laughable, they’d gotten in trouble for starting renovations on a historical building without work permits, and then they’d violated the stop work orders and gotten busted doing so.

    Now they were appealing the decision to Council. They came, quite contrite, apologetic and asked for more time to get their act together. Commissioner Derrick pointed out that the one dude who now claimed to live in San Marcos was staying at a short-term rental with a long history of disturbing the peace. It seems he owns the rental, but has been a crappy landlord?

    In my opinion, this was all the flimsiest of facades. “Oh, we have to play hangdog to get the alcohol permit? Look at our sad, sad faces!”

    A guy from Code Enforcement basically said these guys were truly unusual in how many violations they’d racked up in short order.

    Commissioner Scott went on the dumbest of rants, first accusing the Code Enforcement guy of having an axe to grind, and then about how the people need restaurant choices! A steakhouse would be great on the square! (Yes, but if you think this will actually result in a steakhouse, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.)

    It was pointed out that you can run a steakhouse without a CUP. Have it be BYOB for a year, and then they can re-apply.

    In the end, the vote to postpone passed.
    In favor: Scott, Gleason, Garza, and Hughson
    Opposed: Baker, Gonzalez, and Derrick

    Garza did her extreme naivete thing, where she appeared to genuinely feel that both Derrick and Scott were equally sincere in their rants.

    So this item will come back around in another month or so. Amusing but ultimately doomed and not important, in my opinion.
  • A discussion on raises for four city employees, who were individually named. I guess these four are hired directly by council. Commissioner Baker sparked a long discussion by asking for reports on their SMART outcomes from the year before.

    Hughson was literally like, “I’ve never heard this acronym before and I’m confused and suspicious.”

    The discussion was very unclear to me: did they set these goals only in May 2021, or did they set goals both in May 2020 and in May 2021? Baker’s request to see outcomes only makes sense if there were SMART goals set in May 2020, which could then be measured, etc, a year later. But Hughson et al were clearly acting like they were brand new to this topic and hadn’t heard these terms before, and were acting like it Baker was proposing to evaluate the employees on their brand new goals. The whole thing was a mess.

    Finally they settled on having a workshop to explain what SMART goals are. Hughson seriously needs this – she was saying things like, “It’s not fair to make them accountable for measurable goals that they don’t have control over! If they say they’re going to process 20 applications and then 10 come in, that’s not THEIR fault!” (To be explicit, that would never be a SMART goal. You’d make it something like, “If there are fewer than 10 applications in a week, they will be processed within 7 days.” Or whatever.)
  • A discussion on reducing the number of false alarms for residents before fines kicked in. To be clear, this has nothing to do with 911 calls, which was my concern. This is home alarm systems that automatically call the police when they go off. Furthermore, it was just aligning a discrepancy between two ordinances. Truly nbd.
  • Mexican-American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District was postponed.
  • The Dunbar School Building. This is the small, currently shuttered building behind the Dunbar building. It is very old, and served as the African-American school historically. Clearly it should be renovated and given its proper historical accolades.

    At some point, a city form implied that it might be converted into bathrooms. The city maintains that this was a straight up clerical error. It could be, or it could have been someone who was ignorant, or racist, or both, and sincerely thought it was a great location for bathrooms for the playground.

    There was a heartfelt letter from a citizen whose name I recognized but couldn’t quite make out, who was deeply offended by the implication of converting the building to bathrooms. She is a long-standing member of the African-American community, I believe, and likely either attended or knew people who attended the school.

    City council members, for their part, are falling all over themselves trying to really, really make sure that NOWHERE is the suggestion that it should be bathrooms. The error has been long since corrected, and they are GRAVELY sorry for the mix-up.

    LMC, for her part, is fanning the flames on this, and citing the issue in nearly every comment she gives, which is generally ~3-5 per meeting.

    Anyway: There was actually an agenda item on the Dunbar School Building. Everyone enthusiastically voted to support the restoration of the building.

And that’s a wrap! The August 3rd meeting is on the books!

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 41, the SMRF application on the Elsik tract, ranks as my next-most-interesting item, primarily because of the absurd about-face by the mayor and four councilmembers since the July meeting.

The issue at hand is that SMRF is applying for county funding and benefits from having the city endorse its application. Council endorsed the application at the July meeting, but in a fit of persnickety pique, struck the sentence, “City supports the possible transfer of the land to the city, including development, management, and maintenance.” (Struck by Mayor Hughson, supported by Gleason, Garza, Scott, and Gonzalez.)

The idea has always been that SMRF would get county money to buy the Elsik tract, thus completing the ring of parks encircling the city. SMRF would give it to the city. The problem is that it is expensive to develop and maintain trails and parklands, and Hughson et al did not want to be on the hook for those costs. However, the motion to strike that sentence was exasperating because it weakened the application and changed nothing. The city was not committing to accept the land, nor to develop it into trails and maintain it. It was merely supporting the possible transfer.

Now in August, somehow it is back on the agenda, just adding that one clause back in. This suggests to me that Council got an earful from the community about not being idiotic dipshits on this one clause.

During the conversation:

  • Derrick begins by reminding everyone that there is no obligation to develop parkland on any predetermined time schedule, and in fact the Bouie tract has sat undeveloped for 10 years with no outcry. You can’t make more land and we should acquire it when we have the chance.
  • Gleason has a long ramble about the lack of parkland on the East side, and seems to imply that it’s a zero-sum game where the Elsik tract will compete with hypothetical applications for parks on the east. City Manager Bert Lumbreras clarifies that there are also applications for parks on the east side and that there is funding available for them.
  • Shane Scott has the most absurd about-face, claiming he thought that the city would have to BUY the Elsik tract, not BE GIVEN it. Now that he understands, everything is rainbows! The problem is that after the vote at the last meeting, he went off on an unhinged rant about SMRF being a bunch of untrustworthy jerks.
  • Nevertheless, Derrick proposes a face-saving amendment for the benefit of Hughson, Gleason, and Scott, which clarifies that the “transfer” will be free.

The whole thing passes 7-0 and it’s all fine.

I will say that Commissioner Garza has issues she understands well and those she doesn’t. When she doesn’t understand, her instincts are terrible. Or rather, naive. She is easily swayed by dumb, superficial arguments or believes people to be sincere when there is a profit motive.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The second most notable aspect of the night? Mayor Hughson arguing with everyone. Mayor Hughson is coming off like a petty elementary school teacher who believes she must shepherd wayward students. When your wayward students are grown-ass adults who are not being disruptive, it makes you look like a petty tyrant. (She has a tendency to be a bit snippy and impatient, and usually she balances it by thanking people often and acknowledging her own flaws. But tonight she came off very poorly.)

Jane Hughson snipped at:
– the city lawyer, Mr. Consentino
– Melissa Derrick
– Max Baker (always.)
– possibly others, and she was also having technical sound issues and missed several items

The Derrick one was particularly egregious. Councilmember Derrick started to ask a question. Hughson interrupted her to scold, “You do not start asking a question before I’ve called on you. But since your hand was raised, I will now call on you. Begin your question.” Her tone was very sharp!

Derrick responded, “Actually, I did have the floor, and you all got off track during my question. So I still have the floor and was not done asking questions.”

They papered over it and continued – they’ve been colleagues for a decade, and Derrick is very easy-going. But it was bizarre!

…

A big part of this is the six hour meetings. Tuesday’s meeting went from 6 pm to 2 am. Mayor Hughson is constantly admonishing everyone to keep their comments brief. It’s understandable, but it would be better to solve the underlying problem of 6-8 hour meetings.

The thing that gets me is that this is VERY SOLVABLE: just meet weekly. I don’t understand this loyalty to bi-weekly meetings.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 42

Top billing of the night goes to Item 42, the update on the emergency utility assistance. At this point, the city has paid out almost half of the million dollars available for utility assistance. In addition, city staff seems to have stepped up its outreach, from last month when this program was stumbling along ineptly.

Shane Scott says, “Can’t we just forgive all debt?” He said this last time, as well.

The city staff, in their neutral way, is timidly-yet-STRONGLY opposed.
– This isn’t what the consultants recommend.
– This may affect rate hikes.
– This could involve cases where the tenant just plain moved without disconnecting the electricity.
– This could affect San Marcos’s rating with S&P which we need in order to levy bonds.

Scott points out, quite rightly, that the city owns the utility company and can move its money around.

Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are strongly in favor.

Jane Hughson and Mark Gleason are both convinced that people will not bother to apply for assistance until they get the shut-off notice. So they are opposed. Mark even calls it “a tax on everyone else”.

Melissa Derrick wants to know the consequences more thoroughly – how will this affect rates on everyone else? How will this affect S&P ratings?

Alyssa gives the speech of the night, about how detached City Council is from the actual experience of poverty and being buried in bills. That our “simple application” for relief may be simple, but when you’re getting multiple disconnect notices you stop opening envelopes. That no one is secretly sitting on cash, waiting to get a disconnect notice to sigh and finally pay. They aren’t paying because they don’t have the money, full stop.

(Max does say that he originally proposed this but everyone overrode him. He also notes that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the city budget.)

The vote: Shall we just wipe out all utility balances >30 days past due?

In favor: Saul Gonzalez, Shane Scott, Max Baker, Alyssa Garza, and Mark Gleason

Opposed: Melissa Derrick and Jane Hughson

Motion passes, 5-2!

Mark Gleason gets a prize for the weaselliest comment of the night: after being the most impassioned person against this motion, he abruptly says, “Well, since this is obviously going to pass, I guess I’ll vote yes.” Oh, do you like being on the right side of history once the writing is on the wall?

My own hot take:
This is clearly the right move. It’s relatively cheap and helps a lot of people in a way that aligns with our values.

One side point: the city has done a tremendous amount of outreach on the utility assistance program, and it is not reaching people. The number of outreach labor-hours saved by just wiping the slate clean is significant, and should be taken into account in the budgeting of this.

More Candidates Announced

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

Zach Sam/brano is running for Place 5, currently held by Glea/son. Sam/brano is currently on P&Z. He’s generally progressive and lefty.

Jude Pra/ther is running for Place 6. Melissa Der/rick has announced that she’s stepping down. Markey/moore is also going for this same seat.

Pra/ther was part of the conservative development-happy bunch that gave us the Woods and other turds-in-the-punchbowl, along with Shane Sc/ott. I believe he was voted out circa 2015. So the pendulum is trying to swing back again.

Previewing the Agenda, August 3rd, 2021

by The San Marxist, posted in Previewing the Agenda

Well, it’s been a month since our last meeting and dear lord, there are 47 agenda items. It’s going to be a long one. Let’s see what’s up!

Consent Agenda:
1. Six different meeting minutes approval
2. LDC edits and updates (second reading)
3. Cemeteries details (second reading)
4. Appoint Daniel Bu/rns as Municipal Court Judge for two year-s
5-6. Mandatory ethics trainings for City Council and committees and extra ethics complaint procedures.. (Already in place, just making it official.) (second reading)
7. Purchase .1 acres on River Road for 24K (second reading)
8. Altering Household Hazardous Waste Program contract with Clean Earth of Alabama, Inc. $140K, 3 years.
9. Buying 4 buses, $423K
10. Contract to relocate Utilities and Public Works Dept, $181K
11. Approve 2019 revised Water Conservation and Drought Response Plan (to submit to Texas Water
Board.)
12. Change in service to agreement with Wood/bury Financial Services, Inc, $66K. (No content)
13. Change order for construction on South Guadalupe Street, infrastructure of MLK Drive – $130K
14-15. Purchasing ~5K square feet on Academy St, part of Ses/som/Academy drainage project. ~$147K.
16. TIRZ agreement for Paso Robles
17. Appointing Tyler Hj/orth to vacancy on Board of Directors of the Alliance Regional Water Authority.
18. DoJ funding application for $18K for forensic lab equipment
19. Change in service to water treatment stuff, $25K
20-23. Pay raises for the Judge, City Attorney, City Clerk, and City Manager. All in the $1K-4K range. Seems reasonable.

Public Hearings
24. Rezoning an acre over by the County Courthouse, off Wonder/World, from General Comercial to CD-4.
25. Development agreement to annex 379 acres in the ETJ, way out northwest – on the east side, roughly even with where Blanco Vista is.
26. Proposed application and funding process for human services funding. (Not sure what this means)
27. Appeal of CUP for Mr. Exotics Steak/house, denied by P&Z.

Non-Consent Agenda
28. False Alarm cap set at four instead of six per year. (1st of two readings)
29. Allocation of American Rescue Plan Funds. (2nd of two readings)
30-31. This is confusing. Issuance and sale of up to $38 million and $35 million of Combination Tax and Revenue Certificates of Obligation? Money goes to a bunch of public improvements – water/wastewater, Utilities, streat scapes, HVAC, building repairs, technology, fiberoptic and network equipment, parks and sportfields, etc. Maybe a bond proposal? (one reading)
32. Bond for $4 million – police and fire departments (one reading)
33. Bond for $17 million – electric utility (one reading)
34. TIRZ – Downtown Electric Cab Microtransit Project, 4 buses, $18K (1st of two readings)
35. November Election plans (one reading)
36. $9 million allocation under American Rescue Plan
37. Electric contracts, $2-3 million
38-39. CDBG Action plan for $800K, for 21-22
40. Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District
41. SM/RF needs city support to apply for County funding to buy El/sik tract
42. Update on Utility Assistance Program
43. Spearguns in the parks
44. Champions Crossing, letter of support to Tex Dept of Housing and Urban Affairs
45. Restoration and Preseration of Dunbar School Building

Executive Session
46-47. Wastewater discharge permit applications