Hours 0:36-3:00, 8/16/22

Items 15-18: This little development, the blue rectangle in the lower left, is up for debate:

The developers want to zone it in three parts:
– the dark gray part along the railroad tracks would be heavy industrial,
– the tan middle part would be light industrial,
– the front pink part along I-35, heavy commercial:

I don’t know how to evaluate the merit of a project like this. To be honest, I’m not even sure what kind of information I’d want to know, in order to evaluate it.

Mark Gleason had a dumb rant about how everyone keeps shitting on the working man, and he knows dozens of people at Amazon and the HEB warehouses, and they like their jobs and deserve your respect.

Alyssa Garza responded correctly that no one is disrespecting the worker. You can support the worker and also fight for better working conditions. (In fact, some – like me – might say that’s how you support the workers! And I might also say that until he fights for specific labor reforms, Mark’s support is empty lip service.)

We have no way of ascertaining the labor conditions in these hypothetical future industrial complexes, so this is all made-up anyway.

The vote:
Yes: Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason
No: Max & Alyssa

Item 4: City Council pay raises

This was discussed last time.  City councilmembers need to be paid a living wage.  Otherwise the job is not available to all community members.  Currently councilmembers earn $17,400, and this would bump them up to $22,200.

Mayor Hughson suggested compensating the mayor position based on additional duties.  She was trying to be diplomatic about how much extra she works, but the general consensus was not to itemize the duties. Currently, Mayor Hughson earns $20,400/year.

Shane Scott suggests just bringing her up to $25,800/year. She probably puts in 40-50 hours a week.

The vote:
Yes: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott.
No: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather

So it fails.

Mark Gleason is really worked up about the word privilege, because Max and Alyssa use it to talk about who has disposable time and money to run for city council. Mark runs on and on about how it’s a privilege to serve, and it doesn’t mean you’re privileged. 

He’s both right and wrong.  It is a privilege to serve.  Not everyone gets to do it.  But it’s also an opportunity for power, and as an opportunity, it’s not equally available to everybody. 

Here’s the problem: Gleason does not come from generational wealth, and he highly aware that he has not benefited from economic privilege. But simultaneously, he is a white male and has an extremely simplistic understanding of race and gender.  So he is very outspoken about his working class status, while being ignorant about how he has benefited from race and gender privilege. (Also, he understands economic privilege but still believes that we live in a meritocracy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Gleason makes a motion that no one should get any raises, and they should only adjust for travel-expenses.  

The vote:
Yes: Jane Hughson, Jude Prather, Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason
No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott

So that’s that. No raises for any of them.

Jude Prather makes one point: if you earn money from the state or the county, you have to forgo your salary.  He is employed by the county, so I guess he wants brownie points? For denying other people a raise that he’s ineligible for?

Here’s the central hypocrisy: Jude Prather, Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, and Mark Gleason all adopt this noble stance that they’re too principled to vote themselves a raise. 

You know what would be more noble? If you voted for a raise, and then say you’ll forgo it and save it for future councilmembers.  That would be more principled than their entrenchment of the status quo.

I think they all deserve a raise! But if they want, they can be self-denying and still vote to facilitate more citizens running for office.