September 19th City Council Meeting

Good lord, you all, this week is DENSE and MEATY.  We’ve got your budget. We’ve got your property taxes. We’re selling water to Kyle. We’re updating the development code. We’re banning cans, goddamnit!  There is just so much to cover. 

Also, I spent a lot of this week’s write up yelling about everything. Sorry about that.

One over-arching observation:

• The first half of the meeting is spent wringing our hands over the high taxes.

• The second half of the meeting is spent preventing measures that might reduce the tax burden.

The cognitive dissonance hurts my brain!

Anyway, here we go:

Hours 0:00 – 3:19: The budget, the tax rate, the utility rate hikes, and lord, the fighting.

Hours 3:19 – 4:07: How to actually reduce the tax burden, plus VisionSMTX, and selling water to the city of Kyle.

Hours 4:07 – 5:45: Updating the Land Development Code, and revisiting occupancy restrictions. Also SMPD body cams, and a future ban on single use containers in the river.

One final note:

This council – except Alyssa Garza – loves the status quo. The new budget cements the status quo, because fundamentally that’s what council wants. Very little legislation ever gets introduced that transforms any problem in a significant way. They see presentations on homelessness, housing costs, sustainability, and other big problems, and then a year or two later, they see another one.

There are some exceptions – Mark Gleason initiating the can ban, for example, getting the transit agreement completed, banning puppy mills – but those are rare. Mostly, this council likes to keep it business as usual.