Welcome back! It’s been awhile! We’ve got new gateway signs and parking ticket fines. Plus VisionSMTX, and we hammer out the details of the coming Can Ban.
It was a short meeting! Jude Prather and Shane Scott were both absent, and no one else was feeling particularly talkative.
Hours 0:00 – 0:52: In which we talk about gateway signs, a bit of re-zoning, and your new parking ticket fines.
Council hemmed and hawed, and asked staff to bring two more final choices back.
So these are the two finalists:
I like these rocks better! These look like river rocks, not suburban masonry. But the new heron is worse. It was better off-center with the blue outline, I think.
The one on the left reads: “State Park, but make it Business-Professional.” I’m okay with that vibe.
They will be located at these two locations:
I always enjoy it when staff draws the city sideways. Look at that wonky compass in the corner:
What’s reality anyway, man? Time is a construct! North is an illusion! You’re not the boss of me!
What does Council think?
Mayor Hughson, with a pained expression: So these are our only two choices?
Staff: You literally told us to only bring back two.
Mayor, deep sigh, clearly repressing the urge to say, “But I didn’t mean this crap.”
Matthew Mendoza: Maybe it’s because I live in Rio Vista, but I love the heron! It symbolizes conservation and the environment. Option B for Bird.
Alyssa Garza: I like the bird. Ever since I first visited San Marcos, I’ve seen those beautiful white birds. Option B.
Jane Hughson: The bird does not represent the whole city. It could be a neighborhood sign, but I don’t like it here. Option A.
Mark Gleason: The bird is not the mascot of San Marcos. It’s distracting. Option A.
Saul Gonzalez is also for Option A. (Jude and Shane are absent.)
So it’s 3-2. Council argues about whether to wait until Jude and Shane are back, so that one option can get a full four votes. Alyssa weighs in: “I truly don’t care. We are spending way too much time on this. I’ll switch my vote.”
So the State-Park-But-Business sign wins with a clean four votes. And City Council gave the bird to the bird. (Ba dum ching.)
….
Matthew: Can we cycle through different colors for the lighting? Purple on Rattler nights, Maroon on Bobcat nights, holiday colors around the holidays?
Answer: Yes! As long as it’s static. TxDOT just says no moving parts.
So there you have it. At some point this year, these harmless little welcome signs will appear on I-35.
…
Item 9: Rezoning 18 acres behind the outlet malls.
This has come up before. It’s part of a larger chunk of land:
Mostly light industrial, but with this one little piece for apartments. These were never built, either!
The current owners want to change the yellow square to Light Industrial, to go along with the rest.
Saul is the only one who asks questions:
What is the expected tax revenue for this?
Staff says, “We can’t give an estimate.”
What is the impact on the neighbors?
Answer: They’re all doing the same thing.
It passes 5-0.
…
Item 11: We are fiddling with little parking details, as discussed here.
Among other things, we are raising the parking ticket fees, for the first time in 50 years:
I didn’t really know what to make of this. Are the little cities price gouging? Or are the big cities subsidizing bad behavior? So I emailed the chair of the parking committee (Rosalie Ray), who tells me:
– By state law, your fine for illegally parking in a handicap spot must be at least $500. So those cities with cheaper fines in that category just haven’t updated their fees since 2009, when that law was passed. (We hadn’t updated ours since 1974!)
– To avoid price-gouging, the committee has a couple things in place:
you can opt for community service instead of a fine,
you can get a payment plan, and
you can get your fine cut in half by responding within 14 days. (Council could extend the 50% discount to double-parking and blocking alleys, if they want.)
– The main targets are things like FedEx and delivery trucks. They’re the ones blocking alleys and bike lanes or double-parking. So we want them to pay their fair share.
We’re now three years deep in writing the Comprehensive Plan, or VisionSMTX. (Discussed here, here, here, here, and here.) – Years 1-2: a 30 person citizen group meets and a draft is written. – Year 3: A subcommittee from P&Z guts a lot of the important details meant to address suburban sprawl and unaffordable housing. P&Z passed the gutted version.
So how will council go about getting community input?
Basically, a massive outreach campaign. City staff is going to carpet bomb the city with fliers and emails. They’re going to put a little insert in with your utility bills. They’re going to wash social media in links. They’re going all out.
You’ll be able to:
Fill out a survey on paper, or
Fill it out online, or
Leave comments directly on the Summary of Changes table, for other people to read.
The survey opens February 2nd and closes February 23rd.
The problem is that the actual document is long and boring, and the details are fiddly. The summary table is 22 pages long! So it’s going to be hard to get people to wade into it.
Here is my plan: I’m going to try to provide a cheat sheet. If you care about the same things I care about, I’ll have some language that anyone can borrow, to make it easier to fill out the survey.
What did Council think?
Jane Hughson starts, “A common complaint is that this is all about protecting rich neighborhoods. But this is about protecting all neighborhoods! Not just the wealthy ones!”
That is not my complaint. Sure, yes: the changes apply to all the neighborhoods. My complaint is that “protecting all neighborhoods” means locking in sprawl and preventing renters from living in quiet neighborhoods.
There is some bickering over the third survey option, where you’ll be able to write comments directly on the Summary Table. Should comments have a “reply” feature, so that people can go back and forth in a single thread?
Jane and Mark say no. It will disintegrate into fighting, and intimidate people who might not comment out of fear of having their comments shredded. Plus, anyone can leave a new comment and respond to another comment – it just wouldn’t be a “reply” feature on a comment.
Alyssa feels strongly that we should be able to. Adults aren’t kids and you don’t need to be coddling them. Classrooms use this kind of thing all the time. If people can’t handle this level of discourse, they should go to therapy.
Matthew Mendoza says that he’s okay with a little back and forth.
So it’s tied 2-2. Jane says, “Saul, you’re the tie-breaker. What do you want to do?”
Saul says, “I’ll go with the majority.”
Jane: [Eyes bug out.]
Saul: Ok, just comments. No back and forth.
In Saul’s defense, he seems to be feeling really under the weather. Later, when asked for his opinion, he just weakly says, “I took some Advil…”
I’m with Jane, Mark and Saul here: classrooms are heavily moderated by the instructor. Unmoderated spaces deteriorate fast. I personally would not wade into a situation if it felt like a cesspool to me.
…
Q&A with the Press and Public:
LMC asks about the Gateway signs. How much did we pay the consultants? How much staff time? How much will the signs cost?
Answer: The consultants were $63K. The signs will cost $200-250K. It takes staff about 1-2 hours per week.
…
That was the whole meeting! It was short and sweet.
The Can Ban: let’s hammer out some of the details.
First, Texas State has agreed to put can-ban rules in Sewell Park that match whatever the city comes up with for the River Parks. So that’s good!
Next, there was a long bit on enforcement, by the City Marshal’s office. The City Marshal’s office has two sergeants, eight marshals, and two part-time park rangers. It was basically a big pitch on why we need to hire more marshals.
Here’s the main differences between marshals and park rangers:
Marshals can arrest people, park rangers can just give minor citations.
Marshals are hired fulltime, park rangers are just hired for the summer. During the off-peak months (ie during the school year), marshals help out SMPD.
Marshals wear blue uniforms and look like cops, park rangers wear green uniforms and look like nerds. (Kidding! Sorry!)
That last point is the most important one: Marshals wear blue, rangers wear green.
So when it comes to the can ban, why do we need more Blue, instead of more Green? Here’s what it says on the slide:
Park rangers writing citations isn’t enough? We need law enforcement officers who can arrest people? This is ludicrous.
Alyssa asks if we could hire more park rangers, instead of marshals. She points out that we’re not planning on enforcing the can ban via arrests.
The answer given is that it’s very hard to hire park rangers, because they’re part time.
Surely the city can invent some sort of, idk, FULL TIME park ranger? If we are interested in finding ways not to over-police this town, we’d reach for Green Uniforms over Blue Uniforms when they’re equally qualified to do the job at hand.
Here’s the plain truth: the City Marshal’s office already wanted more marshals hired. (They said this explicitly.) They are using the can ban as an opportunity to lobby for the marshals they already wanted. It just rings a little phony to pretend that a can ban is a dangerous crisis that can only be solved with more cops.
Mark Gleason feels very strongly in favor of hiring more marshals, regardless of whether or not we pass the can ban. The whole presentation pulled at his heartstrings.
….
A few decision points for Council:
Should it be a ban on single-use beverages, or all single-use containers?
The consensus is just beverages. I’m okay with this.
Should it be on the river alone, or only in the parks, or should it be both river and parks?
Everyone thinks it must include the river.
One possibility is “go zones and no zones” – little carved out areas where you may have single-use beverages, like inside the playground at the children’s park, or inside the fence of the baseball fields, at the pool, or at picnic tables set back from the river. Everyone is open to the idea of go-zones/no-zones.
Coolers: should we limit cooler size?
No, we shouldn’t. Next question!!
Why would you even? New Braunfels limits cooler size, because they’ve got a tight exit on the river, and giant coolers cause tubing traffic jams. But that’s not our situation. We’ve got large multi-generational families holding large picnics. Are we really going to make Mom/Dad/Aunt/Uncle/Grandma each bring their individual cooler? That seems dumb as shit.
What does council think?
Jane Hughson: This is just another thing to enforce. But why does anyone need a giant cooler?
(See, she’s missing the bit about large groups bringing one big cooler.)
Mark Gleason: Yes on limiting cooler size. 30 quart limit for both river and the parks.
He means this:
So you are not going to be able to bring your big tray of shredded pork for sandwiches, or your tub of potato salad, or much of anything.
Seriously: this is more about shutting down big family gatherings than about controlling litter. Maybe Council doesn’t intend that, but that’s the effect. It’s kinda racist and classist because the river parks are a free way to have large, inter-generational family gatherings.
Matthew Mendoza: 30 quarts on the river, no restrictions for coolers in the parks.
(I’d be okay with that.)
Alyssa Garza: No restrictions anywhere.
(and this.)
Saul Gonzales: 30 quarts in both the river and the parks.
Jane Hughson: If we say 1 cooler per person, can two people bring a 60 quart cooler?
No one answers.
Jane: Okay, I’ll say 30 quarts in both river and parks, too.
So there you have it: 3-2 for banning big coolers, both in the river and in the parks. (Shane Scott and Jude Prather are both absent.)
Note: the amendment that Alyssa or Matt should offer is to tag coolers to the “go zones”. In go-zones, you can have your big cooler. In no-zones, you can’t.
What about jello shots?
The way New Braunfels banned jello shots was by banning containers that hold less than 5 oz.
Everyone likes this, besides Alyssa, who says she needs to go talk to her constituents.
My two cents: sure, ban the jello shots and mini-liquor bottles. These seem like single use beverage containers to me, anyway.
When should this go into effect?
Everyone wants to aim for this summer, instead of waiting for 2025.
The next step is for staff to write up a proposed policy, and bring it to city council for a vote.
The San Marxist 