Workshop #1: San Marcos Community Survey
Every three years, we run a community survey. The first one was in 2022, and so 2025 is the second.
Methods:
They try to get a random sample of people by sending mailers out to households. They also open the survey up to anyone, online.
The responses are overwhelmingly older white homeowners in Kissing Tree.
I’m really not kidding:
where “Charlie” is the blue #3 area below:
and yes, they are mostly white home-owners:
This is a well-understood phenomenon by people who run surveys – different groups of people respond to surveys with different participation rates.
So they correct for it. What you do is you take the actual composition of San Marcos, based on census data. Then you weight your survey responses until they match the actual proportions.
For example:
Loosely speaking, if you’re 18-34 and you filled out the survey, your answers will get multiplied by 3. If you’re 35-54, your answers will get multiplied by 1/2, and if you’re 55+, your answers will get multiplied by 1/3.
…
So how’d we do?
Oh, fine! It’s all fine.
and
I don’t have any big, glorious conclusions.
Full data here.
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Workshop #2: Office of Community Support and Resource Navigation, and Participatory Budgeting.
We’ve got things in progress! Here’s two new things that Council put into this year’s budget:
- Office of Community Support and
Resource Navigation - Participatory Budgeting.
Office of Community Support and Resource Navigation
That name is a mouthful and doesn’t really capture the gist of it? To me, it sounds like a helpline.
This is actually about safety from a non-policing framework:
This is basically catnip for me. Yes, please, all of that.
Here’s the basics:
It’s still in the baby stages.
Keep an eye out for Town Hall meetings as this ramps up!
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Participatory Budgeting
We’ve got $200,000 with YOUR name on it!
Here are some sample ideas:
So, y’know, look around and see what annoys you!
Some details:
So, sadly we cannot submit “Open the Activity Center on Sundays!” because that would be a recurring cost. But that’s one of my fondest wishes.
Anyway, start brainstorming! Ideas are due in February.
You don’t have to know all the details. They’ll help build your spark into a flame. You just dream big, kiddo. (Well, dream medium. It’s only $200K.)
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Workshop #3: Airport updates
Our little airport is growing?
First off, we have a cute old air tower. Would Council mind if we move it?
Here’s the journey it will go on:
Second, there’s a new road that needs named:
We’re going to name it after this guy:
He was a POW in WWII, among other things. Sounds good to me!
The San Marxist 