Before Citizen Comment
City Manager Reyes gives a little disclaimer about one part of Item 34, possibly purchasing the land next to El Centro.
Background:
This is El Centro:
El Centro’s full name is Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos and they put on a lot of great Hispanic arts and cultural programming.
It’s located here:
The building is the old Bonham Elementary building, and SMCISD still owns the land and leases it to El Centro. correction: and SMCISD donated that part of the property to El Centro in 2022.
I think what’s going on is that the school board wants to sell off the rest of the property:
This block sits within the Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District. (This district was created in 2021, and then never mentioned again. Literally, I searched.)
I don’t think there’s a map of the district anywhere. This is the closest thing I found:
Professor Ana Juarez started up a petition a few weeks ago to get the city to buy the land, so that it doesn’t become developer-bait. It’s got a lot of historical significance:
Over 900 people signed the petition so far! And a bunch of people signed up for citizen comment.
This brings us to Tuesday!
Purchasing this property got put on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. But the city put it in Top Secret Executive Session, so it wasn’t discussed publicly. It sounds like this choice riled up a lot of people? and city staff got an earful of complaints about this?
So Ms. Reyes issued this disclaimer: “Hey, we love this property too! But we have to put real estate discussions in Executive session. It’s not some weird scheming thing. Also if we want to move on this, we have to move fast, because it’s time-sensitive.” (I’m paraphrasing.)
So the city is trying to get on board! This is great news. But the school district and the county also have to buy in. If you’re so inclined, you can:
- sign this petition
- submit a written comment or sign up to speak at Hays County Court this week
- same for the SMCISD Board meeting the week after that.
Now you have homework! sorry!
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On to Citizen Comment:
Big topics:
- The Lions Club: ten people from a bunch of nonprofits spoke in favor of renewing their lease.
- Tenant’s Right to Organize: seven people spoke in favor.
- Buying the land next to El Centro: three people in favor
We’ll discuss the Lions Club and the Tenants’ rights items at length.
A few smaller topics:
- three people speak against the AI data center proposal. This is supposed to be decided at the August 19th meeting
- One candidate for council introduces himself: Brandon Oles. (Another candidate – Chase Norris – also spoke, but not about the election. He spoke on tenants rights, Lions Club, and El Centro.) They’re not running for the same place, though, so they’re not opponents.
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Item 5: The Texas State Boutique Hotel
We saw this back in July. Almost everything is the same, but Amanda mentions a few important wins:
- Wages will rise automatically with inflation
- If you work 25 hours per week, you’re eligible for medical/dental/vision benefits.
Those are both really great for workers.
The vote:
My two cents: there’s not much downside for the city, but it’s hard to imagine this hotel turning a profit.
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Item 7: Lions Club
You know these guys:
They rent all the yellow tubes on the river:
Here’s how it works: The city leases the building to the Lions Club, and they’re the only group that can run shuttles and rent tubes for this stretch of the river.
The Lions Club then donates all their profits to organizations around town, and also fundraises for additional money for donations. (Lions Clubs have chapters all over the world, where they fundraise and give money to nonprofits. Ours just happens to run a tubing operation.)
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Tuesday’s question: Should we extend the Lions Club lease at the tube rental for another five years?
Alyssa has a number of questions. Basically, she appreciates the Lions Club’s good work, but her constituents want to better understand the charitable funding decisions. How does the grant selection process work?
Answer: The Lions Club accepts grants all year long. There’s no fixed due date.
They fund grants that fit any of the eight pillars of Lions Clubs:
Sort of a hodge-podge, but all good things.
Here’s how much our local chapter has given out, over the past five years:
Here’s a list of everyone they’ve funded over the past few years:
Question: What kind of outreach do you do? How do nonprofits find out about your grants?
Answer: We reach out to any organization that we’ve worked with in the past, but we don’t have contact information beyond that.
My read on the conversation: I’m guessing that Alyssa hears complaints that grants keep going to the same agencies over and over again. And also: some of those organizations are politically touchy. Why these organizations, and not others?
Answer: these aren’t city grants. This is a city lease of a building to a private organization. City grants require transparency and oversight, but a private organization can give out grants however they want.
My two cents: Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. The Lions Club donates to lots of great nonprofits around town, they partner with river clean-up, and they employ lots of young people. They work hard to make San Marcos better, even if they do things slightly differently than I might.
The vote to renew the Lions Club lease:
great!
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Item 18: $25,000 from the Department of Justice to SMPD
Ok, this is fascinating.
Last year, SMPD teamed up with Hays County, and applied for a grant from the Department of Justice. Together we were awarded $37,516. The plan is to split off $25,500.00 for San Marcos, and then Hays gets the other $12,000.
So that’s why it’s on the agenda tonight – are we okay sorting out this split with Hays County?
Everyone seems okay with this!
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Say, what are we spending this money on, anyway?
Ok, fine. Technology, and yet another camera. (Not a flock camera, though.)
What’s a JAG grant, anyway? Is it specifically about technology? It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about that, but Amanda went and looked them up:
Indigent defense! Crime prevention and education! Drug treatment, mental health programs, behavioral programs, crisis intervention teams! Out of all those possibilities, we landed on… some new software and a pole camera?
Amanda would like to know if we could change the scope of our funding towards something a little more aligned with council priorities? and Alyssa asks how this happened?
No one has a good answer! So let me help: this grant was written last year, and this would have been totally fine with last year’s council. They liked technology and cameras! Alyssa was the only one on council last year who would have rejected this. Everyone else would have given this a big thumb’s up.
This is a new year, with two new councilmembers, and now we have a coalition of progressive voices up there! It is making a huge difference.
Jane is fine in principle with changing the scope of the grant, but she’s worried that if we have to go back to the federal government, they’ll cancel the grant altogether and we won’t get any money. (That’s a valid concern.)
It goes in circles for a long time. But eventually, they land here: staff is going to see if we can change the scope of the grant. This will come back in September.
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Side note: What about the other half of the grant? How is Hays County spending their $12K? Are they going to fund mental health initiatives and indigent defense? Will they crusade to a more just society?
Answer: They’re buying vests!
okay then. I hope they look dapper.
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Item 22: 100 acres south of McCarty
We’ve seen this property here before, just in July:
Nothing important happened on Tuesday. It’s going to be discussed on September 2nd. I’m really only bringing this up because I saw this news article and this other news article pop up.
I did thumb through the draft proposal, though. Supposedly it will have:
- Two big apartment complexes (800 and 400 apartments)
- A much smaller number of townhomes (44 townhomes)
- 84 houses for sale
- 120 houses for rent
- A hotel
- “Live Work Play” mystery item
- Office/retail/grocery space
Everyone keeps mentioning that there will be an indoor/outdoor recreation portion, so I assume the mystery item will be some sort of Trampoline Roller Skating Splash Pad. Let’s all spread that rumor, anyway.
The San Marxist 