Month: February 2022

February 15th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Ooof, a six+ hour meeting. Those poor shmucks – no one is at their finest when it becomes an endurance session.

Citizen Comment: several people spoke on Item 23, about changing the supermajority required by Council to overturn P&Z. I have opinions on this, unsurprisingly.

Hours 1-3

So much discussion on the Lobbyist ordinance. I found this incredibly difficult to write up, so I coped by making it absurdly long.

Hour 4

Nothing too in-depth.

  • The proposed Sportsplex site, by the railroad tracks on Centerpoint, will be apartments instead.
  • Speed cushions (but not speed humps!) are coming to Franklin Street.
  • San Marcos has a lawyer to argue against Ryan Hartmann, who got fired from the PD after a long campaign by the surviving spouse of the person he killed while driving, along with Mano Amiga.

Hour 5

In which council debates whether it regrets letting P&Z run on a longer leash.

And that’s a wrap! Find city council video here, agenda packet and minutes here.

Hour Five

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 23:  Whether to remove the supermajority override of P&Z.

Currently, P&Z hears zoning cases and other cases and makes a decision. If the applicant is unhappy, they can appeal to city council. It takes a ¾ supermajority for council to reverse a p&z decision.  In practice, this means it has to be a 6-1 vote.  This issue on the table is whether council should be able to override P&Z with a simple majority.  If it only takes a normal majority vote to override P&Z, then P&Z is strictly advisory and has no real power. 

Shane Scott brought this issue to the table.  His position was that there is a lack of diversity in the P&Z candidates – socioeconomic, as well as their beliefs.   Given that Shane Scott doesn’t actually care about diversity, he just means that P&Z is too NIMBY for the developer community.

 Alyssa Garza seconded it.  She cares a lot about diversity, and feels that since the application process is deeply flawed and only brings in candidates who perpetuate the status quo, something needs to be done, and maybe this is it.

Here is my stance: Reducing the override from a supermajority to a majority is similar to the issue of states’ rights.  No one actually ever has a principled stand on states’ rights – it’s just a stand-in for whether you agree with the current federal government. Here, if you agree with P&Z more than council, you want to make it hard to overturn their votes. If you don’t, you don’t.

Now here is the thing: just 10 short years ago, P&Z was super developer-friendly.  They approved The Woods, The Retreat, and The Cottages in quick succession. The town got very pissed and threw the bums one, including Shane Scott and Jude Prather.  (I really, really loathe The Woods so much.)

Because of the process to get on P&Z, the lean of P&Z lags a few years behind the lean of Council.  The city threw out the developer-happy council, and then a few years later, P&Z became super NIMBY. Now P&Z is still very NIMBY, but council has reverted a bit.  My point is that it is not a foregone conclusion that P&Z is always heavily NIMBY.  However, it is always a privileged group of wealthier-than-average, whiter-than-average, and older-than-average residents.  Broadening the applicant pool is a good idea.

Briefly, the idea of single-member P&Z districts came up. This is also a good idea.

So where do I stand on changing the supermajority to a majority?  A supermajority requirement builds in a lag and sometimes pits a newer council against an older P&Z.  Sometimes elections tilt council a good direction and sometimes in a worse direction.  So there is a legitimate argument that the supermajority requirement keeps the whiplash in check and does actually provide a check-and-balance function.

But more importantly: beware of a legislative body that is clawing back power that it once gave away.  In general, they’re not going to give it away a second time.  

In the end, Council did not want to pursue this issue. Alyssa Garza is going to take the lead on measures to broaden the applicant pool, however.  Single-member districts, clear rubrics for evaluation of candidates, and a stipend are good ideas.

Hour 1-3.5

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

The Lobbying Ordinance

Guys. Guys. This was such a shitshow. I’m going to do my best to tease apart the good faith arguments and discussion from the bad faith spaghetti-slinging.

Background:

The Ethics Review Commission first submitted a draft of this in 2017. That means it’s spanned many different compositions of councils, and many different election cycles. It has been postponed more times than …some clever San Marcos reference that I can’t put my finger on. (More times than trains are stopped on tracks? Than sights & sounds has sights, and sounds? nope and nope.)

Since I’ve been blogging, it came up on June 1st and July 6th (back when I was a wee baby blogger, still getting my sea legs. Take those entries with a grain of salt.)

Then tonight:

This meeting’s discussion had two main parts:

Part 1: A motion to deny, which failed after about an hour. This is the shouty part.

Part 2: A motion to approve, which was postponed after another two hours. This was shouting mixed with policy discussion.

That’s right: this was a 3 hour discussion. Eeek.

Part 1: The motion to deny.

Shane Scott moved to deny, and Mark Gleason seconded it.

Shane Scott says very little in the entire three hour meeting. When he does talk, it’s in broad platitudes about government overreach and how he won’t be kept from listening to his constituents.

Mark Gleason, on the other hand, gives fervent monologues throughout the whole three hours. Often what he says is word soup. This is what makes it so hard to blog – do I dive into word soup and try to string it together into a coherent garland, and point out the inconsistencies? Or do I just let it wash over me and then cautiously back away, so that I don’t inadvertently unleash more soup? Max Baker dives in, and hard.

Which brings us to our third problem: Max Baker diving in. He swings erratically between making excellent points and ad hominem attacks.

Occasionally it is important to attack someone’s character. Shane Scott and Mark Gleason are fundamentally arguing in bad faith. One tell of bad faith is the motion to deny: you can’t discuss amendments and fixes to improve the quality of a policy under parliamentary rules. You can only discuss denial. They want this whole topic to die, full stop.

But in practice, you should only attack someone’s character judiciously and sparingly. It’s a bomb, and if you toss bombs continuously, then you’re just leaving carnage everywhere. Which Max does.

At his worst, Max Baker is arguing back and forth with Mayor Hughson. She is cutting in to tell him to stop with the ad hominem attacks, and he is saying that her constant interruptions are what makes the meetings last so long, and that she is being hypocritical, and then he goes back to the ad hominem attacks.

Mayor Hughson was operating in good faith on this topic. She came prepared with amendments that would lead to an ordinance that she could support. When Max turned his anger on Mayor Hughson, it felt frankly like the most obnoxious kid from high school who is going to “well, actually…” their underpaid, harried teacher to death. Once or twice, it veered awfully close to gendered bullying, which makes my skin prickle.

Max Baker can string together eloquent sentences. Mayor Hughson is not necessarily as eloquent, but her words are chosen to convey a real meaning. If you nitpick her word choice instead of listening for her meaning, then you are being a jerk. And you can provoke Jane into being a jerk right back. This is part of why the evening was a mess.

Back to Mark. Here is the most generous reading of Mark Gleason’s word soup:

  • Average citizens will be caught up in this lobbying ordinance because it’s too broad. I believe this is what he means by “unintended consequences”.
  • People operating in bad faith will lob flimsy accusations under this ordinance, in order to score points during election season. He uses the term “weaponization” a lot.

Here is Mark Gleason’s most asinine argument: Suppose a nonprofit lobbies for a policy and the policy passes. Later, the nonprofit fundraises by touting their success to private donors. They successfully raise money. Wouldn’t that count as “economic benefit” and make them lobbyists?

He makes this point many, many times, and it’s dumb every single time. He seems to be making two opposite points:

  • Non-profits will be getting off scott-free, and it’s not fair that their economic benefit of fundraising doesn’t obligate them to report as lobbyists under the ordinance.
  • Non-profits won’t get off scott-free, and their noble desire to improve the world will be stamped out as collateral damage, because they’ll have to register as lobbyists under this lobbying ordinance.

This is what I mean by word soup. He is very often making two contradictory points, and then invoking emotional touchstones about the Supreme Court, and constitutionality, and PACs, Big Government, and the IRS. It’s a total and complete mess.

Let’s spend a moment on Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, and Mayor Hughson. In my opinion, these councilmembers operated in good faith for the evening.

Alyssa Garza: She has a substantially larger breadth of knowledge on this topic than the rest of the council. Several times she says some version of, “Would you mind if I introduced some vocabulary and organizational concepts to help you through the rough patch you’re bumbling around in?”

During the first hour, her main point is that many, many cities have had well-designed anti-lobbyist policies for many years. We are not inventing the wheel. In fact, we can cherry-pick the most well-written policies, since these other cities have had 15-20 years to iron out all the wrinkles.

This is exactly right! San Marcos is always about 15-20 years behind the curve. We are never breaking new territory, and other cities have already worked out all the kinks. We just have to read what they’ve done.

Alyssa’s other point: Has anyone else on this council actually read the literature? Have you all looked up lobbying ordinances in other cities and states? (And I quote, “Y’all are acting like this is brand new.”)

(Nope. No one else has read outside of what they’ve been given in their packet and from the Ethics Review Committee.)

Saul Gonzalez is 100% consistent the entire evening: we need this legislation in order to know who is getting bribed by out-of-town developers who want to wreck downtown by filling it with student apartment complexes. While I think his focus is a little narrow, I appreciate his honesty and directness.

Jude Prather: He keeps invoking Lady Justice and Scales of Justice. What he means is that he feels weird about having different entities mentioned by name. (SMPOA and the Fire-fighters Union both get special shout-outs.) He generally seems unfamiliar with the ordinance and it’s history. However, this was specifically postponed until February to allow a new council to vote on it, and to give the new council time to get up to speed. And it’s already a second reading. Sometimes you just have to catch up.

The answer to the carve-outs is that this is considered best-practices, many cities do it, and it was the result of hours and hours of deliberation and discussion.

Finally, as I mentioned above, Mayor Hughson came to the table in good faith, and stayed there. She brought 13 amendments to discuss and was ready to have specific conversations about policy content.

At the end of Part 1, they voted on the denial:

Yes, deny: Shane Scott and Mark Gleason
No, do not deny: Mayor Hughson, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Max Baker

Part 2: The motion to approve

Mayor Hughson came equipped with something like 18 different amendments, which had been consolidated down to 13. The first amendment was the most substantial:

  1. The ordinance should only apply to councilmembers, not to government officials or members of other boards and commissions.

Max Baker asserted that government officials can certainly be prejudiced in certain directions by lobbyists, and ought to report. Jane Hughson asserted that we can trust government officials to be professional, and that we should start small.

The fighting came here: Max Baker wanted to know if Mayor Hughson’s consideration of the entire bill hinged on the outcome of this amendment. She said “It’s quite probable”. Then he was like a dog with a bone – he just kept hammering her on this point. I got annoyed with Max.

Alyssa Garza made the point that there is a generational memory throughout the Hispanic community of city officials being quite prejudiced against them. Even if the current employees behave professionally, there is a lack of trust due to the historical context. Saul Gonzalez spoke up to agree with this. Now, Saul is the quietest council member. If he speaks up to support Alyssa on this point, we should act as though he’s sounding bugles and banging on cymbals to get our attention.

In the end, this passes.

In favor: Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, Jude Prather
Against: Saul Gonzalez, Max Baker, Alyssa Garza

(I briefly wondered if Shane Scott and Mark Gleason would vote against this, in order to undermine Mayor Hughson’s support of the entire ordinance. But they did not play 11-dimensional chess.)

There is some discussion of methodology by the Ethics Review Commission, and which comparison cities have policies most closely resembling this proposal. There is discussion of direct campaign contributions versus indirect campaign contributions. The council seems mystified on how to quantify indirect campaign contributions until Alyssa Garza reminds everyone that organizations have to report these to the IRS, and there are clear categories with useful examples on the IRS website.

There are several technical amendments. Listen: this post is ridiculously long.

Finally we have the constellation of issues that leads to the postponement. The definition of lobbyist in this proposal requires either compensation or economic benefit. For example, if you argue that city council should rezone an area, and your business will benefit from the rezoning, then you’ve received an economic benefit.

Mark Gleason is in a fever pitch at this point, bringing in the Oxford English Dictionary and constitutionality and PACs. Alyssa Garza helps him out by suggesting that he’s trying to distinguish between grassroots lobbying and direct lobbying?

Mark Gleason says that lobbying is lobbying, and Alyssa redirects him that these are different things. It’s an incredibly patient display of self-control. Gleason does appear to hear what she said. (I am not saying that he retained it.)

Finally Alyssa concedes that if these distinctions are this difficult for the committee, the public probably doesn’t have that good a grasp on them, and it’s worth taking the time to write the policy correctly.

This opens the door for Shane Scott to immediately move to postpone.

Max is furious, of course, as are Alyssa and Saul. Shane Scott has absolutely no interest in discussing the ordinance in three months. He just loves postponing things.

Jude, Scott, Jane, Mark, vote to postpone until April.

Saul, Max, Alyssa vote against.

So there you have it. Postponed for two more months.

I feel uneasy about this write-up – so many parts were omitted.

Up and Coming

by The San Marxist, posted in Blog notes

Tomorrow is another city council meeting!

I finally broke out of Facebook Jail following the last meeting, and got a bit of traction and a pleasing number of click-throughs. However, piquing someone’s curiosity is a totally different thing from sustaining someone’s curiosity, especially when the topic really is nothing more than the humdrum of the municipal machine. Surely my actual audience will subside, and stabilize at a smaller number. I’m enjoying the prospect of having a small group of readers, though.

I briefly scanned the agenda, and the lobbying ordinance may be interesting. Or it may be postponed for another six months. Who can say.

February 1st City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

Watch it yourself here! Agenda here. The whole packet is here. Minutes will eventually be posted here.

Afternoon Workshop

I don’t know if I’ll actually listen to the whole thing. As far as P&Z appointments go:,

– Travis Kelsey kept his seat. Kelsey is one of the most development-averse members of P&Z.
– Gabi Moore did not. She is both progressive plus a realtor, meaning she is development-happier than even your friendly local marxist blogger.
– Two new appointees are David Case and Matthew Mendoza. I don’t know anything about either one of them, but I assume they’re more on the Kelsey side of things than the Moore side.

The upshot is that Council is trending NIMBY, unfortunately.

Council Meeting:

Hour 1

In which we have many citizens who speak about how much they love their pets.

Hours 2-3

In which we have a bunch of zoning cases. Let’s talk about the peculiar case of the extra little house proposed for Lockhart street, shall we?

Hour 4

The anticlimactic non-resolution to the Pick-a-Pet Problem.

Hour 5

Edwards Acquifer agreement sails through. There’s some problem with proposed fences, to be discussed at a future meeting.

One final note: Mayor Hughson declared it to be Bert Lumbreras day, in honor of his retirement. Holy hell, does LMC not like that guy. She did not mince words.

Hour 4, 2/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Here was the big puppy mill conversation. Spoiler: it was anti-climactic.

First, Shane Scott moved to deny, right out of the gate. If I were making Council Bingo, one square would be “Shane Scott moves to postpone or deny a good ordinance.” He did not get a second, so that died.

Once they were discussing the issue: it was very frustrating to listen to.

  • “We could be sued by Pick-a-pet!” (Shane Scott)
  • “Pick-a-pet creates jobs!” (Also Shane Scott)
  • “Pick-a-pet tried to collaborate with our animal shelter, who refused to talk to them. AND many people say our animal shelter is the Gestapo!” (Also Shane Scott, and yes he literally said “Gestapo”.)

Rebuttals:

  • “Our animal shelter was very nice to me when I adopted my cat.” (Mayor Hughson)
  • On the topic of partnering with the animal shelter, city staffer Greg Carr kind of made a mess of this answer. First he said that Pick-a-Pet would cherry-pick the best, most adoptable animals, and leave the shelter with the difficult pets.

    Jane Hughson basically said, “Huh? Come again?” and Carr backpedaled and conceded that the shelter would be happy to collaborate with Pick-a-Pet.

Then there was Mark Gleason. Oh Mark. In the Council Bingo, your square is “Mark Says ‘Verbiage’.”

  • Why don’t we add in that pet stores can source from any licensed breeder? Just that one word – licensed – would solve all my concerns!
  • What about the mom & pop breeders? This bill would mean that they could get in trouble!

The problem with Gleason is that both of these arguments are manifestly terrible. I believe he believes them. Fortunately, the rebuttals are made:

  • Puppy mills are all licensed. The USDA criterion for licensing allows for operations with thousands of dogs in cages. Stop it with your license fetish, Mark. (Both Greg Carr and Alyssa Garza make this point.)
  • Mom & pop breeders are breeders, not pet stores. Different legal definitions. (Chase Stapp sort of explains this point. It’s muddled.)

Max Baker was mostly right, but also frustrating. He made the correct points about puppy mills and rescue animals, but can’t resist saying, “There is nothing more bougie that owning a pure bred dog. Put your ego to the side and get a rescue dog. The whole industry should not exist.”

This lets Mark Gleason focus on that, the bourgieness of owning a pure bred. He can then talk about hunting dogs, and why you might want a specific breed for hunting water fowl, or what have you.

Max. You are just throwing red meat to people like Shane Scott and Mark Gleason, who can then clutch their pearls over their fear that you want to outlaw water fowl hunting dogs. (And for the record: it’s okay for pure bred dogs to exist and it’s not unethical to own one. Government should promote adoption of rescues and make it as easy and widespread as possible, but there’s not a strict need to eliminate pure bred dogs, provided they’re raised humanely. )

Finally: Alyssa Garza is the big winner in this discussion. She focused on the underlying issue: puppy mills are atrociously inhumane, and existing licensing allows them to operate. She is clear spoken and focuses on the most-correct argument.

Jane Hughson never did state her position, but suggests that the issue be referred to the newly form Animal Rights Commission, consisting of herself, Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott, and city staff. In the end, that’s what happens. I told you it was anticlimactic.

Hours 2-3, 2/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

A bunch of zoning cases.

  • One near the outlet malls, on the other side of 35, got postponed.
  • One near the high school got approved. Not sure what it is. Light industrial?
  • A low income housing complex for seniors in the Whisper tract PDD. Everyone hates the location, but it will bring in a ton of money to the San Marcos Housing Authority.

And then…we have the curious case of the narrow house on Lockhart St. This is inconsequential but symbolic. And so weird.

A year ago, the owner asked to build a little house on the lot and split it into two lots. P&Z approved, Council denied. (I did not see that meeting.) From what I gather, Saul Gonzalez rallied against it, saying he used to live in that neighborhood and could speak on behalf of the residents, who did not want it. Fine.

So now it comes back. It was a super feisty P&Z meeting, with Zach Sambrano speaking particularly forcefully in favor of the little house, squeezed onto a tiny plot. Namely, what exactly is the problem with this? But they voted it down 6-3.

To overturn P&Z, Council would need a supermajority of 6 votes. And Shane Scott recused himself, because he lives near there. So there was no way this was ever going to pass. But the discussion was bizarre.

Saul moved to deny. There were the usual points about changing the character of a neighborhood, and traffic.

After a couple comments, Alyssa Garza spoke up and said, “You all are speaking to different residents than I speak to. The neighborhood residents that I spoke to all said that they didn’t mind the house being built.”

This is where the conversation got so very weird. I’m looking at Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason, and Jane Hughson.

Saul basically said, “I know a lot of the residents. Unfortunately, they’ve passed away, and their children now live there. Their children said they don’t mind. But still, it’s a slippery slope.”

Mark Gleason and Jane Hughson both said some version of this: “I talked to some residents! They said they don’t care if it’s built. But they said it with cynicism and resignation in their voice. Therefore I’m discounting their words.”

This is just an amazing bit of NIMBY-projection where it doesn’t even exist! “There’s no way they meant what they said, so instead I’ll have to trust the deep longing I imagined in their voice, for heavy-handed NIMBY protectionist measures.” I was genuinely dumb-founded to hear this verbal fancy hot-stepping.

In the end, “Preserving the Uniformity of the Neighborhood” ended up being the holy grail to which we sacrificed this little house. Does one house really affect affordable housing? Not in the grand scheme of things, but it’s symbolic AF.

Voting to deny: Saul Gonzalez, Mayor Hughson, Mark Gleason, and Max Baker.
Voting to approve: Alyssa Garza and Jude Prather.

Hour 1, 2/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

There was a full hour of citizen comments, mostly on two topics:

  1. The proposed puppy mill ban. A lot of speakers both against and for the ban.

This is Item 17: Pet stores may only sell animals sourced from shelters and rescue operations.

Here are some basic implications of the ban:

  • If residents want a pure bred animal, they are supposed to buy directly from in-state breeders.
  • Pet stores can coordinate with shelters to have adoptable animals on site, but pet stores have to run their business model off of pet supplies.

It quickly turned into a referendum on Pick-a-Pet, a new pet store in the outlet mall. It sounds like their animals come straight from 1000+ puppy mill operations. Also: neither side – those in favor nor those opposed – was making the strongest arguments.

Speakers who want the ban mostly argued that these laws are widespread. All the major cities in Texas either have them, or are on their way to adopting them. There are state-wide laws in California and other states regulating the sourcing of pets in pet stores.

Pick-A-Pet was under existential threat. So they trotted out speaker after speaker, talking about their darling new pet. They love animals so much! They love their darling new purebred who has no health problems. (Actually, this is the strongest argument they could have made – an appeal to emotions and snuggles.)

The other argument the pro-Pick-a-Pet People made was that this ban would create a black market for pets. Listen: this argument applies to every single law. You’ll create a black market for stealing VCRs unless you legalize stealing VCRs! If the thing is bad, then the black market is a law enforcement problem. If the thing is good, keep it legal. (Nevertheless, the argument might have been persuasive to Council.)

The best arguments in favor of the ban are:

  • why puppy mills are awful. This is the best argument, and they should have dwelled here.
  • that people can buy pure bred animals directly from Texas breeders. All the animal lovers can still have happy households.

I did like the part where the Pick-a-Pet guy said that they follow all Texas laws and regulations, and then a non-profit person said “There are no Texas laws and regulations. There was one being considered, but it died in session.”

One other thought: all the organizations have sympathetic names, regardless of which side they were on. Kennel Club? Humane Society? It made the debate sound much more balanced than it is.

Stay tuned for the anticlimactic non-resolution in Hour 3.

2. There were maybe five speakers in favor of the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, and why we should continue our partnership. This is really important for the health of the river. The speakers focused on bank erosion down river from the falls at Cheatham Street, and how bad that is for species and the river. Hopefully this is a slam dunk.