August 16th City Council Meeting

Election season is coming up! Here are the candidates so far:

Mayor: Jane Hughson is facing John Thomaides, the former mayor.

City Council Place 1: Max Baker vs Matt Mendoza

City Council Place 2: Saul Gonzalez vs Adam Arndt

Last day to file is Monday. I will be posting on the specifics of these candidates, but not right now.  Stay tuned!

However: San Marcos City Council elections are really problematic.  I decided this deserved its own post. Enjoy.

Onto the City Council meeting!

Hours 0:00 – 0:30ish: Citizen Comment Period. Let’s spend some time talking about the community in Redwood/Rancho Vista.

Hours 0:30-3:00: A small rezoning case that I was not very interested in, and city council pay raises.

Hours 3:00-3:50: Cops in schools, and what on earth is Shane Scott waving around?!

Hours 3:50-6:00: The Lobbying Ordinance dies a frustrating, fishy death. Also Boyhood Alley, and some smaller odds & ends.

Two final thoughts:

1. Almost every single vote taken this evening was Max Baker & Alyssa Garza against the other five councilmembers. This is why we need a progressive coalition. They can’t go it alone.

   Last year, Jude Prather was elected over Zach Sambrano, and Mark Gleason was elected over Markeymoore. [Update: Jude v. Markeymoore, Zach v. Gleason. Correction from Mark Rockeymore in the comments.] If Zach and Markeymoore were on the council, we’d have a lobbying ordinance right now. We need to build a progressive coalition. It doesn’t work to consistently have two voices losing to five voices every night.

   2. Mark Gleason’s conservative grandstanding is sucking the life force out of me. Every single item, he rambles on, in his particular brand of Aw Shucks Humble Everyman, Who Just Loves Cops and Capitalism.  I just get weary of it.

   (To be fair, Max Baker has equally many rants, but I more often agree with him.)