Bonus! 3 pm workshops

Workshop 1: Riverfront Parks and Quail Creek Parks

We’re coming up with our longterm dream plan for the Riverfront parks and Quail Creek Park, out east. None of this will happen any time soon, but you might as well have a vision, right? (Seen before in July and in September.)

This time they focused on fine-tuning Rio Vista and Ramon Lucio:

Rio Vista is the one with the falls, Ramon Lucio is the one with the baseball fields.

To be honest, I had trouble listening, because I kept thinking about Rio Vista Pool. The issue is whether or not to keep Rio Vista pool in its current location.

Pros:

• If you want a pool that nobody can use, this is a great spot.

Cons:

• Families barely use the pool, because you have to venture into Peak River Craziness.

It is not a packed, rambunctious pool, like every other public pool in the country. It is a calm, still pool with 1-2 families with a few toddlers in the corner.

Originally, staff suggested that the pool be moved out to Quail Creek. City Council said no, keep the pool central.

I do agree that the pool should stay central! Just not at Rio Vista. There are so many more good places for it!

Where else could we put it?

Remember how we’re considering these three city hall sites?

Well, two of them are on park land:

So after they pick a spot for City Hall, one or both of these would be left over. These would be GREAT places for a pool!

…

Back to the River Parks Plan:

Most of the meeting was them debating how to squeeze features in, since they were trying to work around the pool.

Here are the features they want to add in:

• Sand Volleyball Courts
• Chess/checkers tables
• More pickleball
• Full court basketball
• More parking spaces
• More pavilions
• More and better bathrooms and water fountains
• Better EMS access

Honestly, it sounds really amazing. The goal is to bring residents to the park during the fall, winter, and spring. All these amenities would do that! (Except the pool.)

They mentioned pick up soccer fields, but it doesn’t sound like those will happen. (I wasn’t clear on why pick-up soccer fields couldn’t be included. Space?)

They were kind of playing Jenga and trying to shoehorn all those features into these two options:

Some of the pavilions had to be let go, and they’re only gaining 7 parking spaces.

I didn’t listen too closely, because clearly they just need to relocate the pool, and then it all sorts itself out.

….

Ramon Lucio:

They’re keeping all the baseball fields and the softball fields. In addition, they’re going to put in sand volleyball courts!

It’s a little hard to see, but it’s on the far left:

You can also see it here, to the right of Cheatham:

Sand volleyball courts are a lot of maintenance. City staff suggested putting them in Ramon Lucio park because they will use similar equipment as the baseball fields use.

Josh: I love sand volleyball!

Matthew: These will be giant litterboxes for the cats and wildlife.

Both things can be true!

…

They talked a little about noise buffers and shade for bleachers, and trail connectivity at Quail Creek, but nothing significantly different from what is already planned:

I couldn’t get this to display in landscape orientation. Sorry!

Again, all of these plans cost millions of dollars that we don’t have. The city will have to put together a bond package eventually.

…

Workshop 2: How did the summer go at the river?

We have been trying to get the river under control for years. The problem is that it gets packed with too many people. The river gets destroyed and it’s not safe for the people, either.

Here’s what we’ve tried:

• In 2024, we instituted a can ban.
• In 2025, they fenced off Rio Vista, and checked everyone’s coolers for banned items and reviewed the rules.
• In 2026, we started also charging admission to out-of-towners.

How did it go?

First off, it takes a TON of staff:

They only staff it on the weekends. On holiday weekends, they shut down Cheatham.

One problem:

San Antonio schools had a big Senior Skip Day last April, before the fences were up. It got a little nuts. (At that link, they estimate 1500-2000 kids were there.)

So park staff would like to put the fencing up earlier next year?

Council says yes. It will go up after Easter weekend.

…

Onto litter.

A lot of people work hard to clean up the river every week:

And also the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Program:

Let’s pause here for a sec.

Last year, the yellow bar above, it looked like the fences were really helping to get litter under control. This year, in blue, the litter spiked back up again.

What they say is: TikTok and social media has made Rio Vista into a destination. More people than ever are coming. Even with the fencing and charging admission, crowds are surging. And it’s pretty much all from out of town.

It’s kind of depressing!

Here’s some more data:

Kind of mixed, but not exactly good news.

….

There’s a whole fleet of Marshals who work in the parks over the summer. They are mostly trying to keep drunk people from getting heatstroke.

This is a partial list of violations, but a lot of things don’t get logged, because the next crisis is happening. So this is an underestimate:

They didn’t put a slide like this in the presentation last year, but here’s the one from 2024:

So it does look like the scene at the river has calmed down a little bit? But there’s still a lot more to do.

The marshal said, basically, it’s the alcohol. Drunk people in the heat, getting rowdy and getting heat stroke.

Also a lot of out-of-towners seem to think that it’s a lazy river.

This is literally on the FAQ of our city webpage:

Lots of people thinking that it’s a theme park, lots of people getting lost, lots of people not clear on the rules, etc.

It’s kind of discouraging. But it’s also just the hand we’re dealt: we’ve got this amazing river, and it gets widely promoted on social media. You have to keep people safe, you have to protect your river, and none of this has much to do with actual residents of San Marcos.

…

Onto managed access: this is the first year we’ve charged $5 entry for out-of-towners:

We’ve never had good numbers on how many people are visiting the river. So at least now we know. It’s definitely mostly out-of-towners.

That said, $61K is not much money towards off-setting the costs.

We also had our second summer of paid parking at the Lion’s Club:

Both of these things – river access and Lion’s Club parking – are supposed to be free if you live in metro San Marcos, but you do have to register with the city.

They said that the profits here paid for 10 staff positions at the river. So that’s significant.

I guess I just have mixed feelings about all of this.