Some quick items:
Items 16-18: Various CDBG funding. Moving money around to fund rental and utility assistance, a project where they buy flood-prone land to keep it from being developed, and working on some ongoing flood projects for the Blanco Riverine and around Blanco Gardens.
Item 17: The Planning Department has a lot of fees for various services and permits. How do they set these prices?
It’s been a while since they updated what fees they charge. So they had a consultant come in and analyze how much it costs the city to carry out all these services. Then they compared fees to seven comparison cities. Then they shared all this at the December 14th workshop, and proposed new fees.
The city wants to balance covering at least 50% of their costs, without charging homeowners and small businesses too much or being too out of line with the other cities. I did not dive deep into the fees, but the methodology sounds fine. Council said it was all fine.
Item 20: The result of the HSAB drama from December. At the 3 pm workshop, city council worked on this with city staff. Here’s the outcome:
(Note: It says “The Board should not fund all programs” but they intended “The board should not feel compelled to fund all programs.”)
All seems fine. I think they’re going to go back and re-allocate the December money according to these principles.
Item 21: Mano Amiga circulated a petition to repeal the SMPD contract. Now, I obviously live here in San Marcos. If Mano Amiga were to approach me, I would sign their petition, because I generally support their mission.
But as your local friendly blogger, I’m going to call shenanigans – the actual petition is confusing. As far as I can tell, this is the entire thing:
What’s the actual, specific gripe with the meet-and-confer contract? And what’s the specific, desired outcome? Maybe there’s another page somewhere spelling it out? (Update: It’s the Hartman Reforms. But I still don’t see anything about it on the Mano Amiga website.)
Anyway, this petition got started this fall. And then on December 12th, Joshua Wright was killed by a correctional officer at the hospital in Kyle.
Now this incident is extremely clear-cut abuse by the correctional officer. You’ve got an unarmed inmate in a hospital, wearing ankle shackles for god’s sake. He tries to escape. The officer shoots him six times. That officer had some fantasy that the only way to handle a person running away was to be judge, jury, and executioner. Joshua Wright has to die because this correctional officer can’t properly evaluate and handle the danger of an unarmed guy wearing ankle shackles. What the utter fuck.
Mano Amiga is clearly livid, and sprang into action, demanding bodycam footage and holding events and raising awareness. Of course, I wholly support their efforts for justice for Joshua Wright. This is the most just and deserving of causes to fight for.
The San Marxist 