Item 13: Remember that time we didn’t have any commerce on the east side?
Will anybody save us from this food desert??
OH YEAH! It’s all very exciting.
Back in May, Council approved a call for bids, saying “hey Grocery stores! We’ll work with you on tax breaks if you hit up the east side!” HEB was listening loud and clear, and reached out to us in August.
Here’s where it will be:
So right next to Embassy Suites, on NB I-35.
They’ve owned this land for a long time, but HEB likes to do that: purchase potential land and then just chill with it for awhile.
It’s a pretty ideal location: Between McCarty and I-35, you can zip pretty much all over the place.
(This would be a great time to connect the two Leah Drives! Which are disconnected for reasons that are still murky to me:
Idk!)
So what are the terms?
Those rebates are pretty much exactly what Council proposed last May.
What kind of dollar amounts are we talking about?
I’m mildly skeptical about these sales tax numbers. Or rather, it’s not all new tax revenue to the city. Some of that money would have been spent at the existing Big and Little HEBs, and is just being diverted to the 3rd HEB. Now, a lot of folks on the east side currently drive down to HEB in New Braunfels, and so that will bring in new tax dollars if they switch to this new store. But not everyone!
What about jobs and such?
Ok, but what kind of pay and benefits? When we negotiated with Buccee’s, the company specified that they will pay $18/hour and get full benefits.
As far as I can tell, we entirely skipped this part of the negotiation. HEB will have to abide by the 2016 San Marcos law requiring companies to pay $15/hour, in exchange for tax breaks. Does this mean that all HEB stores have to pay at least $15 an hour?
I believe HEB is pretty good to their employees, but this is poor work by Council and staff. We should always be negotiating on behalf of employees.
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Sidebar: When we passed the 2016 (partial) minimum wage law, we did not include automatic inflation adjustments, the way we do for other contracts. If we had, $15/hour in 2016 would have automatically risen to $19.96 in 2024.
Hey council: Let’s update the 2016 ordinance and include automatic inflation adjustments! Like we do for so many things?
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Back to HEB. What did Council say? Mostly everyone gave a victory lap of thank yous.
Mark Gleason added: “To other grocery stores, our economic incentive offer still stands! The east side can have more than just one grocery store!” That’s great to hear.
Also: Mark is hearing from the community that lots of people are worried that Little HEB will close. During the meeting, councilmembers say “It’s great that they’ll keep Little HEB open” but I can’t find this actually written down anywhere. It would be good to have that in writing.
So here are my questions:
- Would all HEB employees get the $15/hour as required by local ordinance, even at the existing stores?
- Language about elevated minimum wage and benefits should always automatically be in these agreements.
- Is it in writing that Little HEB will stay open for a certain number of years?
- Will Council please update the 2016 ordinance to peg the minimum wage to inflation???
- Can we ask HEB about purchasing that little triangle of land next to Purgatory Creek?
The vote: 6-0. Everyone hams it up in really cheesy ways: “Absolutely yes!” “Finally…yes!” Fist pump. Etc.
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Item 14: Alliance Regional Water Authority (ARWA)
ARWA is our big plan to shore up our water supply for the next 50 years. We originally signed onto it in 2008. Instead of getting our water from Canyon Lake and the Edwards Aquifer, we’re piping it in from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer.
(image via)
It’s just about time to start drinking that sweet, sweet Carrizo-Wilcox water!
These are slides from the packet, but no one actually gave a presentation on it.
so I’m just winging it here.
Tonight is about extending a bond for the next part of the project. Everyone celebrated it, but I’m not sure what the special significance was.
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Item 16: Renaming downtown alleys
A couple years ago, Council dipped its toe in the exciting world of naming downtown alleys. First up was Kissing Alley, in 2017. It came with a whole revitalization effort – Kissing Alley concerts, etc. It’s been great!
Next up came Boyhood Alley, to commemorate the movie Boyhood, which has an iconic scene shot there. This council conversation was kinda hilarious, because some councilmembers thought it sounded like Pervert Alley.
In order to dilute the pervy-sounding Boyhood Alley, Jane proposed that the rest of the unnamed alleys to be named after other movies.
So the Convention and Visitor Bureau Advisory Board and the Main Street Advisory Board took up the charge. Tonight they’re back with their recommendations:
Four of the alleys have names already used:
That’s kinda cute about the dog.
A few others have informal names:
- Music Alley
- Imagine Alley
- Railroad Alley
The committee is proposing two new ones:
- Getaway Alley, because some scenes from The Getaway were filmed near there:
Steve McQueen! Ali McGraw! Haven’t seen it, but it seems like a fun romp.
2. Telephone Alley, after the old Telephone building that got torn down in 2019:
Isn’t that a very cute building? I was bummed that it got torn down. (Photo from here.) It was demolished to make room for The Parlor apartments.
That’s on San Antonio. Here’s a before and after, according to Google Maps:
I’m not actually opposed to the apartments, but I wish we could have spared the cute Telephone building.
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There are still more alleys without names. Jane wants to pair up the rest of the unnamed alleys with old movies, but other councilmembers want to roll it out more slowly – maybe Main Street can pick one or two per year, and figure out a good name for it. Sounds like that’s how it will go.
The San Marxist 