Short little meeting this week! A little bit of zoning, a lot of HSAB grants, and a little bit of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 2:04: Blanco Gardens is getting some new houses, we unpack the HSAB grants to nonprofits, and we talk about the guy behind the Dunbar name.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Historical preservation grants and more Dunbar.
There’s one more city council meeting before the run-off election, so I’ll save my election thoughts for then.
Citizen Comment:
There were five people who showed up to talk.
Tonight’s the night that Council determines their HSAB grants, and so almost everyone speaking was representing nonprofits – one speaker from School Fuel, and three from Southside. I’ll save it for that item.
One last speaker talked about Meet and Confer, and whether or not it was okay for Council to make recommendations to the negotiators who represent the Council in the negotiations.
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Item 13: Rezoning a little street in Blanco Gardens
Here’s Blanco Gardens:
It’s a very cute old neighborhood with gorgeous trees.
Here’s a close-up:
Blanco Gardens has come up a lot over the years in the blog. They were ground zero for the 2015 floods, and they’ve gotten some some flood mitigation projects since then. They got some speed bumps and parking permits. Most recently, they were the first neighborhood to get its neighborhood character study. It’s also the closest neighborhood to Cape’s Dam.
For an old neighborhood, there’s a surprising amount of undeveloped land in the middle of it:
(I wondered briefly if that was because homes had been torn down after the floods. But nope, you can see on the 2014 satellite image that there’s just always been space there for years.)
Over the years, developers have occasionally tried to put something in part of it, but so far it’s always gotten nixed.
Today’s proposal is about this bit:
A developer wants to build houses on it.
They would look and feel like duplexes, but they’re technically different, because of how they can be bought and sold. The property line runs through the two halves of the house, so you can purchase one half of it, while someone else owns the other half. (It’s called a “zero lot-line house”.)
Basically it’s a good way to fit more, smaller homes onto a street, and they tend to be a little cheaper, too.
What does Council say?
Question: will fit the character of the rest of the neighborhood?
Developer answer: We have good intentions!
(One block over, there are some extremely modern houses. The neighborhood is salty about this.)
Question: Will the alley still exist?
Answer: nope.
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Nobody really asked about flooding. The 2015 floods are starting to fade from memory for the rest of San Marcos. But not in Blanco Gardens – they were the epicenter of the floods.
I would have liked to know what the 2015 flood water line was for nearby houses – I bet it was about 3-4 feet of water deep. How elevated will these houses be? Will they be above the 2015 water line?
My memory is that, in a 100-year flood plain, you have to build 1-2 feet above the Base Flood Elevation, based on FEMA flood maps. Does that get you to 3-4 feet off the ground? I just don’t know.
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The vote on this cute row of sorta-duplexes:
Yes: Everyone
No: nobody
The good news is that Council is enthusiastic about infill housing. (When I first started blogging in 2022, Council wouldn’t let a home owner build two small houses on a subdivided lot, on Lockhart street. That was crazy.) They’ve definitely gotten the message that San Marcos needs more housing.
As long as the homes are safely elevated, I’m okay with this project. But the flooding risk makes me very uneasy.
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Item 14: HSAB Funding
HSAB stands for Human Services Advisory Board.
These are city grants to nonprofits, for things like food assistance, eviction prevention, domestic violence help, mental health services, etc. For the past few years, we’ve given out $500K in grants. This year, Council bumped it up to $750K. (Of course, federal funding has gotten slashed, so the need has also grown. THANKS OBAMA.)
It’s always a grueling process. All the nonprofits all do incredibly important work.
In the past, we kinda made non-profits cagefight against each other. [Read all the gory details for the past few years.] The process was murky. The recommendations would come to council, and council members would start horse-trading around.
It was a bad look! It always seemed very fickle – “Oh, we’ll take $20,000 from those guys and give it to these guys!” It felt like the main criteria was being friendly with council members.
We’ve been working on tightening the process. It’s a super time-intensive:
Here’s the criteria:
After all the ranking and discussion, they bring it to Council.
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Just for funsies, let’s add up how much other non-HSAB money is getting allocated in this meeting!
All this was approved in one single vote, on Tuesday:
It comes to about $2.95 million. I’m not saying any of those were a mistake! I trust the city officials. Most likely, those are all totally reasonable.
I’m just pointing out who gets scrutinized, in society, and who doesn’t. We approved almost $3 million without blinking, when it goes to those contracts above. But if it’s hungry kids, homelessness, mental health emergencies, etc, we rigorously grind these applications into pulp.
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Back to the grant grind!
There were 32 applications, and the total amounts requested added up to $1.2 million.
Here’s the full list of scores and funding:
In the presentation, they went through all of them, and why the committee might not have fully funded the request.
For example:
The rest of their thoughts are on pp 435-437, here.
They were very thorough.
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Back to Citizen Comment
Three speakers from Southside show up to talk. Here’s what they say:
Southside is in a funny position. In 2024, the city gave Southside $800K of Covid money to implement a Homeless Action Plan.
They came up with a plan and put in all the work to get it up and running. Now they’re trying to sustain it over time. They asked for $100K from HSAB, but were only granted $50K.
The $100K is for their homeless prevention program – giving families $1000-2000 to get through a one-time financial crisis, so that they don’t get evicted.
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Let the horse-trading begin!
Matthew kicks it off. He wants to try to get Southside back up to the full $100K that they asked for, for homelessness prevention.
Matthew proposes:
Give that $19,500 to Southside.
Ok, what are these things?
Rough Draft:
Their funding would go to $0.
Lifelong Learning:
Ok. Their funding would go from $9000 to $4500.
Hill Country MHMR
Their funding would go from $60,000 to $50,000.
….
What does Council think?
Question: How many people would Southside be able to help, with this $19K?
Answer: About ten families. Average cost to stabilize someone after a financial emergency is $2k.
It’s actually a huge bargain. If they’d been evicted, it would cost $15-30K+ to stabilize a family once they become homeless. (Plus, y’know, becoming homeless is awful. This is way more humane for the families.)
Question: Are you all applying for other grants?
Answer: SO MANY. Funding is scarce, and federal funds have been slashed.
Alyssa: The entire premise of horse-trading these dollars is problematic. Most agencies didn’t send someone here tonight to answer questions. We don’t have context and expertise. This is haphazard. I am not on board with any of this.
Amanda: Matthew, what about moving some money from the School Age Parents Program? They said they’d be able to keep the program open on $7,500, but they’re being awarded $15K.
Matthew: How dare you. Abso-fucking-lutely not!
[I’m paraphrasing. Matthew just said something like, “They do great work!”.]
Amanda: I’m trying to throw you a bone here!
Matthew: Hard no.
Amanda: Well, I’m a no on Hill Country MHMR especially. Their work is desperately needed. We are in a mental health services desert, and this program will fund teenagers without insurance.
Alyssa: I’m a NO on all of this, but especially NO on Hill Country MHMR. Homelessness and mental health are completely intertwined. There’s so much need here.
The votes are each held individually:
Yes: Matthew, Jane, Amanda, Lorenzo, Saul
No: Alyssa, Shane
2. Move $5000 from Lifelong Learning over to Southside?
This motion dies without getting a second. So it never comes to a vote. That kinda surprised me.
3. Move $10K from Hill Country MHMR over to Southside?
Yes: Matthew
No: Everyone but Matthew
4. Amanda throws in a vote on the SMCISD School Age Parents Program:
They get $15K.
Should we take $5K from them, and give it to Southside?
Yes: Amanda, Saul
No: Matthew, Lorenzo, Alyssa, Jane, Shane
So that fails.
..
Me, personally: It’s an awful decision to make. I probably would have taken money from Rough Draft, Lifelong Learning, and maybe SMCISD School Age parents. But not Hill Country MHMR.
….
So that’s where it lands. Southside picked up $4500 more, and Rough Draft went to $0.
The final official vote on HSAB funding passes 7-0.
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One more note!
We just spent $750K on the poor and vulnerable.
But we also spend $1.1 million on tax breaks to home owners every year:
About 30% of San Marcos owns their own home. That $1.1 million is just for them.
Also, remember that Kissing Tree is keeping $46 million of San Marcos tax dollars, for nice streets and trees that are then gated off from the rest of San Marcos! You can’t go visit the tax dollars. Sorry.
This is why I get cranky about this:
People who want to slash property taxes never seem to appreciate how much of their own lifestyle is being subsidized.
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Item 19: Dunbar Recreation Center
Dunbar was named for Paul Laurence Dunbar. He was the first black poet to get widespread recognition. (He was not from San Marcos in any way. He’s from Ohio.)
Here’s one of his poems, from 1895:
Originally, the Dunbar neighborhood did not have a specific name, besides being called “the colored neighborhood”. The school was called The Negro School. In 1961, that was renamed after Paul Laurence Dunbar, and then gradually the whole neighborhood came to be known as Dunbar. So the Dunbar Rec Center just got the name “Dunbar”.
Would we like to include the poet’s full name here? Everyone says yes.
Great!
Lots of interesting history on the Dunbar neighborhood here and here!
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Item 20-21: Jorge’s Mexican Restaurant.
Jorge’s is on Hunter Road:
Separately, Miller Middle School is on Foxtail Road:
Their front doors are far apart:
…but they share a back fence.
This causes all kinds of problems for Jorge’s, because there are extra-strict rules for selling alcohol within 300 feet of a school.
This means that Jorge’s has to do a lot more:
The main problem is the fees – both of those cost $750, so Jorge’s is paying $1500 every year.
Why is it so expensive?!
Mostly because of postage. The city has to notify everyone within 400 ft. The rest of the cost is to cover staff time, to process the paperwork.
Everyone wants to at least refund half of Jorge’s fees, since the city can save costs by processing both the alcohol permit and distance variance at the same time.
They’re going to try to come up with a long term solution, too.
Workshop: Heritage Tourism and Preservation Grants
“HOT” stands for Hotel Occupancy Taxes. How shall we spend our HOT money?
The city is proposing offering some grants to nonprofits who have some kind of historical preservation project.
City staff goes through a long list of slides. Who would be eligible? What kinds of projects are okay? How much are the grants for? What’s the rubric for evaluation? What’s the timeline? It’s very detailed.
What does Council say?
“Let’s kill this whole thing and just use the money for repairing the Dunbar School Home Education Building.”
It’s not a bad idea! I felt a little bad for the presenter, though.
What’s the Dunbar School Home Education Center?
It’s this little building in Dunbar Park:
right behind the main Dunbar Recreation Building:
It’s the only building left from the original campus of the Dunbar School.
We just talked about the Dunbar School a moment ago – it’s the original school for black children during segregation, named for the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
The Dunbar School was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
But then in 1986, someone deliberately burned down most of the school, leaving just this little building. (Not the only time that major buildings of the African-American community in San Marcos have been destroyed by arson.)
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The plan is to put this HOT money into the Dunbar Home Economics Building each year. Once it’s restored, Council will revisit this whole grant idea.
This week: contracts for SMPD and SM Fire Fighters, with a win for transparency. Also a Dunbar Historic Walk, some election talk, and a call to support our school librarians.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 2:29: Basically all about contracts for SMPD and SMFD. How transparent should the process be?
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: One quick little workshop on a new Dunbar History Walk
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But first! Two quick bits on the election and school libraries.
1. Well, we had an election.
I’m still grossed out by that PAC dumping $50K to sway a local election towards their preferred candidates.
Here’s the problem: we actually have some local limits on campaign donations:
Now look at the donor amounts to the Brighter Future for San Marcos PAC. Almost all are over $300, and most are between $600-$10,000. (And that list is not up to date.)
That PAC spent $35,000* supporting Matthew Mendoza and Josh Paselk. But they don’t donate it to campaigns, so the local laws don’t apply. The PAC just directly buys mailers and newspaper ads. So Matthew and Josh benefit, but would not be required to recuse themselves from votes that benefit the donors.
This is legal, but it’s deliberately sabotaging the intent of our local laws. What bullshit, right?
*also out of date. My understanding is it’s more like $50K+.
2. Our school libraries
At the past two school board meetings, around 10 or so people from New Braunfels, Seguin, Corpus, etc have shown up to harass our district. They find the spiciest parts of any book at any school library, and berate our school board for it. (They also post the spiciest parts to social media! Everyone gets titillated at the thought of saying such naughty words in public.) Then there’s a whole procedure where they flag books, we have to pull the books, review them, and bring the recommendations to the school board.
It might be nice to have some local voices supporting our librarians, our libraries, and our school district at these meetings?
Obviously say whatever you want, but if you’re stuck, I think the major points are things like:
Want to speak in person?
The next meeting is at 6 pm on Monday, November 17th, at the Felipe Reyna District Offices located at 1331 Hwy 123. (Right by Goodnight Middle School.)
You are supposed to sign up ahead of time. Swing by the Superintendent’s office (same address) or call (512) 393-6700 ext. 6767.
Want to email your thoughts?
There’s no single group email address, sadly. Use Anne.Halsey@smcisd.net, jessica.cain@smcisd.net, sandra.lopez@smcisd.net, Margie.Villalpando@smcisd.net, John.McGlothlin@smcisd.net, clem.cantu@smcisd.net, and miguel.arredondo@smcisd.net.
Or you can find them all here.
I am sure the school board and SMCISD librarians would appreciate your kind words!
Citizen Comment:
Three people show up, plus one more at the 3 pm workshop. The basic themes are:
That last point is exactly the problem with the PAC!
There’s also a short note from the city manager about the shootings downtown. Condolences to those grieving, thank yous to first responders, that sort of thing.
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Items 4-5: Contract Extensions and Raises for SMPD and Fire fighters
Let’s start with some backstory!
Backstory
Unions are massively constrained in Texas. This is because:
Public sector unions are especially helpless in Texas. In addition to the constraints above, there are explicit laws:
That all is a massive bummer. It means that public employees can’t speak in a coordinated, unified voice. (For a state that claims to worship freedom, it seems a bit off to outlaw employees from coordinating their actions, yes?)
Anyway, there are two exceptions: Fire fighters and police departments are allowed full strength unions! They get a special carve out! How nice for them, and no one else.
You’ll need some vocabulary:
SMPOA: San Marcos Police Officers Association, which is their union.
SMPFFA: San Marcos Professional Fire Fighters Association, the fire fighter union.
“Meet and Confer” – the collective bargaining process. This is the negotiation process to come up with new SMPD and SMFD contracts.
More backstory
In 2021, SMPD officer Ryan Hartman blew through a stop sign and killed a woman, Jennifer Miller, in Lockhart. He was treated with kid gloves. He had an open container in his car, but wasn’t given a breathalyzer test. Etc. This all happened right when Chief Standridge was first arriving at SMPD. Hartman wasn’t indicted, and got right back on the force. (Hartman was later fired for excessive force in a separate incident.)
[Updated to add correction: Hartman was later fired because he “failed to turn in incident reports under the required time limit for SMPD Officers“. That followed an incident where Hartman tased a compliant man, was lightly disciplined, and the city ended up settling with the victim for $125K. -TSM]
Mano Amiga was FURIOUS at how poorly the Hartman investigation was run. In response, they came up with five Hartman Reforms that they wanted the city to adopt:
In 2022, the SMPD contract was up, and it was time for Meet and Confer. The city ignored the Hartman Reforms and just passed a standard contract.
So Mano Amiga fired up a petition to get the Meet and Confer agreement repealed. They were successful! Council agreed to renegotiate the contract. (It was either that, or they’d have to put Repeal Meet and Confer on a ballot for voters.)
Spring 2023: Negotiations re-open. Some mild concessions are made towards the Hartman Reforms, and the contract is passed.
That’s a breezy summary, but trust me – this was a huge production. Probably hundreds of hours of citizen engagement, all told.
The 2023 contracts expire next October 2026. That means we should start Meet and Confer this spring.
Which brings us to today!
Should we sign a one year extension until October 2027? It includes a 4.5% raise for fire fighters, and a 5% raise for SMPD, effective in October 2026.
City staff needs this extension, because they need to deal with the whole EMS mess, and also to deal with the fallout of how we sabotaged our own budget.
Amanda proposes this amendment:
Discussion ensues! Let’s break down the basics.
Key points:
Question: How is this different from the current situation?
Answer: Really, only the citizen comment would be new. We started recording and broadcasting meetings in 2023, and documents are always available under the Texas Open Records policy.
Why do this?
There are lots of good reasons!
First off, legally there is a clause in Meet & Confer laws that requires transparency and openness to the public. So this is consistent with how these things are supposed to go.
Second, this is public money! Here’s the General Fund breakdown for 2026:
Those big blue and orange slices above are SMPD and SMFD. They make up about 36.7% of the General Fund, and combined, they are about $45 million. Citizens should get to speak up, just as they do for the rest of the budget.
Third, this one-year extension is occurring with virtually no community discussion. It’s a good faith gesture by council to acknowledge the outcry in 2023, and make a move towards transparency.
Finally, Austin has a similar resolution that applies to PD, Fire, and also their labor unions. It seems to work fine.
How would this work?
This is where conversation stalls out for about an hour. I’m going to give your the super abbreviated version.
Should each person who wants to speak get 1 minute? Should it be capped at 30 minutes? Should it be at the beginning and at the end of each meeting? Should it be on another night altogether, and recorded as a forum? Should there be an email address?
Amanda’s pitch: Let’s leave these details to the negotiating team. Council does not need to micromanage.
Jane is extremely uncomfortable leaving it vague. She wants to know how it will play out. She’s worried if the ground rules aren’t quite right, it will sabotage the collaborative spirit of the negotiations.
2. How exactly does the timeline work?
Does SMPOA and SMPFFA have to agree now, before the extension is approved? Or can this just be where our negotiators start, when Meet & Confer starts, in the spring of 2027?
They settle on the latter. This is the starting point for the future discussion, where they lay the ground rules for the 2027 Meet & Confer contract. It got discussed a LOT, though.
Here are the basic Council member reactions:
Jane: I’m all for transparency but I’m allergic to leaving unspecified details like this.
Saul: I’m all for it. Sounds great.
Shane: This is government overreach. I’m tired.
Alyssa: This shows the community that we are responding to the activism of 2023. This is a good-faith gesture that makes progress towards transparency and community trust.
Lorenzo: I have a lot of detailed technical questions about the legality and timeline, but I’m not exactly opposed to the premise.
Matthew: <crickets>
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Time to vote!
Here’s the official language they settle on:
And here’s the vote on the amendment:
Should City Representatives start negotiations with a request for transparency and citizen comment?
It sails through.
Hey look – there’s that Matthew guy! The one who was literally just re-elected the day before, with 57% of the vote. He absolutely does NOT want your input on SMPD and SMFD.
(SMPFFA and SMPOA were two separate votes, but everyone voted the same way on both.)
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And then, the actual vote:
Yes on a one year contract extension and pay increases?
Great.
(Again, there were separate votes for SMPOA and SMPFFA, but they went the same way.)
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That’s basically the whole meeting! There are some appointments to committees and things, but nothing big.
Workshop: The Dunbar Neighborhood History Walk
Dunbar park is going to get a history walk!
So the Dunbar Sistas are a group of women who played softball together as teens, decades ago, and are now some of the community anchors in San Marcos. They are the ones who originally came up with this idea. Two of them – Mittie Miller and Deborah Giles Webster – both spoke at the meeting about their process.
Here’s the plan:
This sounds great! So all those little plaques would commemorate important people, businesses, churches etc.
One thing that the Dunbar Sistas stress is the process for determining who will be featured on the walk. There’s a large network of Dunbar alumni, people who grew up in Dunbar over the past century, who may now be scattered across the country. They want decision-making to go to Dunbar alumni, as opposed to people who may be recent transplants to Dunbar. This seems reasonable.
The plan is to roll it out next fall:
Anyway, there weren’t any other neat pictures in the presentation for me to clip for you, but there is a ton of history at the Calaboose Museum and Dunbar Heritage Association.
Enjoy!
This is an off-year election. Local elections can get decided by twelve votes, or fifteen votes, or even five votes.
Your vote will never make a bigger difference! Go vote!
Full list of polling places and hours here. (Via the League of Women Voters.)
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Here’s the outline:
Let’s dive in!
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The Super Quick Version:
My endorsements for Council:
Place 1: Chase Norris
Place 2: Um. Argh. I have reservations about every candidate.
I will probably vote for Saul Gonzales, because of Cape’s Dam.
Charter amendments: there are 12.
All of them besides Prop C: minor and straightforward. Vote in favor.
Proposition C: Should the Mayor’s term be four years long, instead of two?
I don’t have a strong opinion. I will probably vote against this. Do whatever you want.
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Summary Table of Survey Questions
I emailed all the candidates with these six questions:
And here is the summary table of their answers!
If the chart is hard to read, click here.
Full-length questions and everyone’s full answers, below. Keep scrolling.
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My Opinions of Candidates
Place 1
Matthew Mendoza: First elected in 2022. He mostly focuses on home-owners in old, established neighborhoods. Kissing Tree – ie wealthy senior citizens – has endorsed him. He voted against a responsible budget in September. Also he likes SMPD a lot. We tend to disagree.
Chase Norris: He is running as a progressive challenger to Matthew Mendoza. He has a lot of experience in city planning and municipal government. Seems to give answers that I mostly agree with.
Place 2
Saul Gonzales: First elected to Council in 2016. Voted against a responsible budget in September. Generally quiet, but sometimes speaks up to ask how much something will cost. Generally votes in a cautious manner.
Barbara Montana-Escobar: I’m going off vibes here, but here’s my take on Barbara – I think she gets stuff done. I think she works with everybody, talks to everybody, and is very practical about solving problems. That said, I think she’s much more centrist than I am. Possibly center-right.
Brandon Oles: Very, very conservative. He has ideas like “dissolve SMCISD and absorb into Hays or New Braunfels.” Does not seem to know San Marcos well.
Josh Paselk: He is the darling of the business community. Kissing Tree has endorsed him. Lots of talk about “balancing the budget”. I am not convinced that he would vote to protect vulnerable community members or the environment and river.
Chris Polanco: Honestly, probably aligns with me better than any other candidate, politically. But he is very new to politics. He is running as a working class representative who can be a voice for the poor and disabled communities. He seems like a bright guy, and I encourage him to join a board or commission and keep going.
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Full Survey Questionnaire and Candidate Responses
Here is the full text that I emailed to all candidates:
And here’s everyone’s full answers
Place 1:
Matthew Mendoza
Chase Norris
Place 2
Saul Gonzales
Barbara Montana-Escobar
Brandon Oles
Josh Paselk – Josh did confirm that he received the survey, but he did not submit answers at time of publication
Chris Polanco
If any of those are hard to read, you can find their answers at these links:
Place 1: Matthew Mendoza, Chase Norris
Place 2: Saul Gonzales, Barbara Montana-Escobar, Brandon Oles, Chris Polanco
Charter Amendments
Official language here.
| Prop | Topic | My recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| A | Fix pronouns in Charter | Yes |
| B | Public notices online | Yes |
| C | Two year vs Four year terms for Mayor | No strong opinion. I’ll probably go with two. (ie, I’ll vote against it.) |
| D | Minimum number of council meetings should be at least 20 per year. | Yes |
| E | Timely posting of council meeting minutes | Yes |
| F | Printed copies of ordinances for a modest fee. | Yes |
| G | Extend petition windows to 90 days | Yes |
| H | Extend verification window for a petition to 60 days | Yes |
| I | Review Comprehensive Plan at least every ten years (up from five years). | Yes. (Takes 3 years just to write the plan. They can still review it earlier if someone wants to.) |
| J | Move things around to more fitting sections in Charter | Yes |
| K | Use plain language when reasonable | Yes |
| L | Rename and relocate some policies in the Charter | Yes |
Additional Resources
Let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll add it in!
The San Marxist 