Author: The San Marxist

Hours 3:21 – 5:07, 11/19/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 10:  LIHTC Housing (LIHTC = Low Income Housing Tax Credits)

Back in May, we approved this LIHTC Complex:

It’s for senior citizens. Right around the corner from Target.

How affordable will these units be? The developer agreed to set aside a certain number of affordable units:

AMI means the Austin Area Median Income. So 30% AMI means your family’s yearly income is 30% of the median Austin income. But the Austin median income is $86K, whereas the San Marcos median household income is $47K.

So the categories are a little weird. Those 188 units at 51-60% AMI? That’s low income for Austin, but pretty normal for San Marcos.

….

The developer is back, and wants permission to change some things.  First, they want to loosen the ranges of incomes:

So he wants to take the 188 units for families earning $63-$75K, and spread them out for incomes earning $63K-$100K.

Side note: You can live in an apartment intended for a higher income than yours. However, you would not get a fully reduced rent:

The guy also changed his mind on BBQ grills and picnic tables, due to space concerns.  He wants to swap them out for two horseshoe pits.

Jane, Alyssa, and Amanda are all not happy about this. 

The developer says he’s got a market study. There’s just not demand for the under 60% AMI group! If he can extend to the 80% range, he’ll be able to find more residents. 

Jane is open to this, but she doesn’t like the unspecified numbers.  She proposes this:

0-30% AMI: 34 units
51-60% AMI: 86 units
61-80 % AMI: 102 units

Her reasoning goes like this: Seniors get a yearly 3% cost of living increase on Social Security. If you were earning 60% AMI and you get that bump, you could get priced out. Suddenly you’re making 61% of the AMI.  You don’t qualify for your apartment anymore. If there’s not a tier above you, you have to pay market rate, or move.

Alyssa and Amanda call bullshit on the whole market study.  (ME TOO.)  It just doesn’t pass the sniff test that San Marcos has run out of families earning less than $75K, and you have to subsidize families earning up to $100K.  Our median household income is $47K, for pete’s sake! 

The developer does not have the actual market study on hand, to show council.

Amanda calls him out on this: Does this market study even reflect the people we’re trying to help? We don’t know, because we haven’t seen it.

The vote on Jane’s amendment: (86 units under 60%, 102 units under 80%)

Yes:  Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzales, Mark Gleason
No:  Alyssa Garza, Amanda Rodriguez

But!! It takes four votes to pass.  Since Matthew and Shane are absent, this fails. 

The developer pleads that it’s not a complete blank check! The subsidized apartments still have to average out to 60%! 

The final vote:

Should the developer get to split up the Under 60% category however he wants?

Sorry, dude! 

…

Item 7:  We’re down to the final dregs of Covid money.

Last time, we discussed this funding:

Alyssa Garza basically chewed everyone out for never, ever prioritizing rental assistance. I mean, she was nice about it. But she has said this one million times.

And lo! They made it work! New funding plan:

Staff thinks we can give this rental assistance out with fewer strings attached than CDBG money.   This is very good, too.

…

Item 12:  Getting ticketed at the Lion’s Club.

Paid Parking is coming next summer to the City Park parking lot.  (Ie the Lions Club parking lot.)  Instead of paying someone to write tickets, they want to use cameras and mail the tickets out.  

Some extra details:

  • The lot will free for San Marcos residents, but you have to go online and sign up somehow.
  • If you pay within 14 days, you get a discount.

Council asks good questions:

Amanda: How does the 14 days work? From the day of the ticket? What if they’ve got some situation and their mail isn’t coming promptly?
Answer: We could change that. What about if it’s 14 days from when the ticket arrives at the house?
Amanda: ?? How would you know?  Let’s just make it 30 days.

Saul: Is there a warrant if this isn’t paid?
Answer: San Marcos parking tickets are a civil offense, so no.  Hays County, though: those are criminal offenses. They’ll getcha.

Amanda: What happens if someone’s car breaks down?
Answer: There is an appeals process.

Amanda: What’s the resident registry process like?
Answer: It’s online.  We are also going to do some library outreach to help people sign up. 

Alyssa: I can’t actually find the appeals process online. 
Answer: Yep.  We’re going to put the link on the actual citation that you get in the mail.

The vote: 5-0

…

Item 13: NEW FIRE TRUCK!

We’re getting an ERV010 Star Side Mount Pumper Truck with a 500-gallon tank and 1500 GPM pump.

I’m guessing that it looks something like this: 

…

Item 14:  Five Mile Dam

If you know the youth soccer league, you know that it all happens at Five Mile Dam:

image source

Which is located here:

The soccer fields opened in 2010.  They’re owned by the county, but maintained by the city.  So the city pays for the lighting, playground, sprinklers, etc.

This photo makes it look like maybe the sprinklers aren’t working? Idk.

Surge Soccer uses the fields for free.  (Surge used to be called SMAYSO, changed their name, missed their opportunity to call themselves Smoccer.)  This helps keep prices cheap for San Marcos families. Surge is good about this.

…

Hays County is selling us the Five Mile Dam parks. But Hays County doesn’t actually care about the soccer fields.

What Hays County cares about are these two other parks:

  1. Dudley Johnson Park:

2. Randall Wade Vetter Park:

Let’s zoom in on that sign:

Yep! That’s the right place!

Those are here:

At least, that’s my best guess.

So these three properties are a package deal. You want the soccer fields? You have to take Dudley Johnson and Randall Wade Vetter.

How much is Hays charging us? 

Zero! It’s free!   Wow, they must really want to get rid of those parks. 

The last dam report was in 2016, and at that point, the dam was in good condition.   And the county will help with maintenance on the parks for the next year.

Is this good for us? 

Yes. We want those soccer fields, or else Surge Soccer won’t stay cheap for local kids.

The danger is that Kyle or some private company would buy the fields.  They can make a lot of money renting them out.  But it would end Surge soccer.  Or at least, the affordable, community-focused version of Surge. 

Soccer is the biggest youth sport in San Marcos, by far. It’s important to secure these fields. 

Council votes unanimously for this deal.

….

Item 16: Blanco Vista Water Tower

Same neighborhood as Five Mile Dam! They’re getting a water tower, as part of all this ARWA stuff.  There is $50K in the ARWA budget set aside to paint the water towers. 

How would we like to paint it?

Here’s what our other towers look like:

Here’s what some neighbors do:

Here’s what some fancier cities do:

We could either keep it simple, or pay $100K+ to go all out. 

Council: keep it simple. 

…

Item 17:  The Deer

Deer are a big problem.  Mostly they cause a lot of car crashes, but they can also get impaled on your fences. (Ewwwwww.)  

A speaker came from Texas Parks & Wildlife, and talked to the neighborhood commission.  Basically, the first step is to get people to stop feeding the deer.  

Should we ban feeding the deer?

  • Pros: deer are a big problem.  
  • Cons: have you seen how cute they are, with their big eyes and fluffy tails???

The Neighborhood Commission decides on an education campaign, instead of an outright ban, because of all those people who love the big-eyed-fluffy-tailed-deer.

What does Council think?

MARK GLEASON HAS VERY STRONG FEELINGS! 

  • First, even if you ban feeding, it won’t help.  Too much available food.
  • Deer have no natural predators.
  • You must hunt! Open up the parks to hunting!
  • We could make a whole weekend of it! Have drawn hunts! 

This is a thing – see here and here.  And Texas does allow hunting at its state parks.

The problem is that Mark is bringing a huge energy here – It must be discussed! It works! Cutting people off. It’s the only thing that works! – and everyone is a little taken aback. 

Jane: They’ve been hunting on my land for 20 years, and it doesn’t keep the deer away.

Mark: IT WORKS! You just need to hunt a few. After a few generations, the mothers keep their babies away!

Alyssa: I dunno, doesn’t work on my dad’s ranch either.

Eventually Jane shushes him, and everyone goes back to talking about corn. 

 Don’t feed the deer, everyone, but really don’t feed them corn.

…

Item 18: Animal Shelter Vacancy

We finally got it filled.  The new person talks about how much they love animals, and how they’ve fostered and volunteered before. 

(I still have a lingering weird feeling about the other person who was jerked around by Council for months, but this person seems fine.)

Bonus! 3 pm workshops, 11/19/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

Two fantastic workshops. For real. It’s my favorite thing in the world, to be spoonfed these amazing presentations.

First up: Rent by the Bedroom

Backstory: this became a flashpoint last spring, when a developer wanted to tear down some small complexes here:

and put in a big rent-by-the-bedroom student housing complex.

There was a pretty big community outcry.

Council approved it, but vowed to look at the predatory leasing practices and see what could be done. So here we are!

For what it’s worth, I think Council handled this correctly.
– We need physical housing to be built.
– We need landlord reform.

You shouldn’t hold the former hostage in order to accomplish the second, but the second is also urgently needed.

…

So let’s dive in! The speaker was Shannon Fitzpatrick (and these are her slides). She’s been a lawyer for Texas State, working with students, for the past 25 years or so. (Go listen here! I’m not doing it justice. It’s so interesting.)

Here’s what we’re basically comparing:

This part isn’t that bad. A student might not want to be on the hook for their roommates’ share of the rent.

Installment Contracts

This is where things start to get sleazy:

First, this “installments” contract.

The point is that it’s a different legal concept than a regular lease. This lets landlords skip out on the state laws that protect renters. And listen: Texas barely has any renter protections, so if you’re finding ways to cheat those, you are seriously trying to slumlord your way to profit.

Okay, so this installments contract. The basic idea is that you could sign a contract for $11,400, and then they break it into 12 monthly payments.

They show up on campus in October, and sell students hard on these apartments:

  • They’re going fast! You’re not going to have a place to live next year!
  • Your mom will be so proud that you’re making a grown up decision by yourself!
  • No security deposit if you sign right now! (We’ll come back to this.)

So the kid flips through some pages (OF A 60 PAGE LEASE!) and signs.

Already, things are rotten and different than normal:

In general, you have to qualify to lease an apartment. If your income is too low to qualify, or your guarantor’s (parent, aunt, etc) income is too low to qualify, then you can’t rent the apartment.

BUT HERE, YOU’VE ALREADY SIGNED! So you can’t live there and you still owe $11K!

Next: regular leases have a “mitigation” clause. If you break your lease, you have to cover the rent until they re-rent the apartment. The landlord has to attempt to rent out the apartment.

Installment contracts do not have this clause. You break your lease, the company still gets their $11k. They can re-rent the apartment, and now they’re getting another $11K for the same room.

Also: They don’t pro-rate partial months. So you would owe rent on August 1st, even if you can’t move in until August 20th.

Next: “As-Is” Clauses

So the kid signed the lease in October.

Usually when you sign a lease, you look at the apartment. You say things like, “Are there any apartments on the second or third floor?” The leaser says, “Sure” and shows you one. You say something like, “Nah, I don’t want to be this close to the dumpster, I’ll go with the first floor apartment, after all.”

The point is that you’ve seen the actual apartment, and you know if it has mushrooms sprouting in the closets.

“As-is” clauses mean “You get the apartment in its current state, not in a pristine state.” But those are only valid if the tenant can inspect the premises. Since these kids are signing in October without seeing the actual apartment, they’ve signed all kinds of rights away.

They show up in August, see the mold, mushrooms, broken furniture, broken locks, etc, and they have no recourse. They’re not able to request a different apartment, because of the “as-is” clause.

Security Deposits

“Sign now and we’ll waive your Security Deposit! You’d be a fool not to sign!” – me, pretending to be a sleazy landlord.

So this is another scam. They waive the security deposit, and tenants lose some rights. Texas has specific laws that state that if you put down a security deposit, you’re entitled to some protections.

For example, you lose your right to a 30-day move out inspection. So they can come after you for up to four years for damages to your apartment. And they sometimes do! The speaker said that what happens is these complexes get sold every three or four years. Sometimes the new owners look at the past few years of tenants and shake them down for damages.

Also: #notallcollegekids but some college kids are little shits. Since they didn’t pay a security deposit, they don’t think they’re on the hook for damages. Chairs in the pool, trash the place, etc.

Roommate matching

In theory, this is fine. This is what happens in a conventional dorm.

But here, it’s done… maliciously? it’s pretty surreal. Here’s the understated tone from the speaker:

In practice it means that they don’t give a shit if you have allergies and the roommate has a cat, or if you are a quiet person and the roommate throws keggers.

But then it gets worse!

  • You can’t move to a different apartment if you need to. She told a story of a kid who found his roommate, killed, gory, awful, in the living room. They made him stay in that unit.
  • You can be moved even if you don’t want to! You dared to complain? Fine, you’re being moved. Pack up.

The companies are generally retaliatory and vindictive. You called us in for having cockroaches? We’re going to try to charge you for fumigating the building. Etc.

Just straight up being illegal:

For example:

Legally, they have to tell tenants who the owner is. But they don’t.

The very few protections that Texas law does offer, they can just skip out on doing them. Nobody holds them accountable. (Of course, this applies to all of San Marcos rentals! Not just students!)

What about the rest of San Marcos?

It is really important that we don’t limit this to college students! All renters need protections. San Marcos is mostly renters!

Many, many landlords are vindictive and retaliatory, or don’t provide a safe, clean environment. There’s a huge power imbalance between landlords and tenants. Tenants get exploited.

So what can be done?

Here’s what the speaker suggests:

and

The city lawyer is quick to mention that these are all uncharted territory. Most cities are not in this situation. We can research and explore these ideas further, but there’s not much in the way of precedents.

Council also discusses:

  • Capping security deposits so they don’t get exploitative
  • Publishing a list of complexes and grade them, based on complaints to Code Compliance
  • Making a central complaint spot, where tenants can then get directed to one of the legal aid resources or code compliance, or whatever
  • Requiring three months notice before forcing someone to move, or forcing companies to give choices (break your lease, stay, or move to this other unit)

Finally, Texas State is trying to do some stuff too.

Council decides that they want to look into all these ideas. This will come back around!

Bonus! Even more 3 pm workshops! 11/19/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

Workshop #2: LIHTC projects: This stands for Low Income Housing Tax Credits.

There are two kinds:

  • Developers can get tax credits from the state
  • Sometimes they get tax credits from both the city and the state.

Both kinds have to get approved by Council.

Backstory:

Blue are the developments that get just state tax breaks. Green gets both state and local:

This past spring we approved five developments (2 blue, 3 green) and Mark Gleason panicked that we were being too generous. We can’t help this many people! It’s fiscally irresponsible!

Hence this workshop! Let’s find out if we can afford to help vulnerable residents. (Spoiler: we can.)

More Background:

San Marcos is booming!

So we’ll end up somewhere between the purple and the orange, most likely.

You can look at it this way:

The blue parts are our new sprawl.

San Marcos has a good employment rate, but high poverty rate:

This means that our jobs are not good jobs. The cure for this is raising the minimum wage. (Raising the minimum wage does not cause inflation. Paying a living wage turns a bad job into a good one!)

Anyway!

Here’s where the jobs are:

This is fascinating:

In other words:

  • Only 6700 of us actually live and work in San Marcos
  • 18K of us live in San Marcos, but we work outside of town.
  • 28K people commute into San Marcos, but live elsewhere.

In my humble opinion, this is two things:

  • people who live here can’t find good jobs here, and
  • the University has good jobs, but parents who work for Tx state are scared of SMCISD for problematic reasons. (I have lots of opinions on that. Support SMCISD!)

Anyway, those are my own conclusions. City staff did not lob those accusations.

…

So are LIHTC projects breaking our budget?

The city gets both sales tax and property tax.

When it comes to property tax, there’s a lot of tax-exempt property:

So some LIHTC projects don’t pay city taxes, but neither does city land, Texas State land, SMCISD, County land, Churches, Housing Authority, and others.

(One difference is that most of those are nonprofits. LIHTC developments aren’t necessarily nonprofits.)

So how bad is the dent in our budget??

Not very bad!

You are allowed to ask for a lump sum payout. (Payment In Lieu of Taxes = PILOT). So we do this sometimes:

LIHTC apartments are still full of people, so you still have some fire and SMPD costs. But not particularly different than any other apartment complex.

In general, apartments are much cheaper infrastructure for the city than single family housing.

This is a great illustration of why:

I want to love this graphic, but I can’t. The scale is all off.

  • A 3-4 story apartment building is about 20-30 units per acre. The diagram on the left should be 7-10 acres.
  • Single Family (ND-3/CD-3) are things like town homes and smaller lots – at most 10 units per acre. So that middle diagram is 20 acres big.
  • Single Family (SF-6/SF-4.5) are big traditional lots – at most 7 houses per acre. So that right hand diagram is over 28 acres big. That’s three times as big as the one on the left!

Fixed it:

(I am so smug and insufferable. It’s a miracle you all put up with me.)

Anyway: there are also some city costs for things like libraries and transit. Same as for any residents.

…

How much need is there in San Marcos?

More than elsewhere:

…

Onto the state requirements for their tax credits.

The state organization is TDHCA. (Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.)

They care about:

  • Location. You can’t put your low income housing in a crappy location.
  • Clustering – you can’t put them too close together
  • Flood plain – nope
  • They must have at least 15 hours each week of an after-school learning center
  • They must supply a shuttle if they’re not on a bus route
  • Free support services, a mix of amenities
  • ADA apartments

How cheap are these apartments?

First off, “AMI” is Area Median Income. We’re in the Austin Metropolitan area, so we use Austin incomes, even though San Marcos incomes are roughly half of Austin’s. (San Marcos median household income is $47K, whereas Austin median household income is $86K.)

Here’s the key feature:

The state also monitors the complexes:

San Marcos does not get those reports, currently. It would be nice if we did.

…

If you’ll recall, we did a big Housing Needs Assessment back in 2019, and came up with a housing plan to work on housing affordability. This is great! And…. council then buried it six feet underground.

Housing affordability has not been a major priority of this council for the past five years. (Except Alyssa Garza.) In the budget we passed in October – two months ago! – our Strategic Plan Goals were:

None of those are affordable housing.

Council did not care until this election cycle, when it became clear that you could lose your election if you didn’t hear the clamor for affordable housing. It was suddenly the #1 issue.

Anyway: We’re finally doing it, five years late. The first step is updating the data for the Housing Needs Assessment, which is almost ten years out of date.

Listen: this workshop was fascinating, and councilmembers asked good questions. I’m not doing it justice. But it was a 5 hour meeting and a 2 hour workshop, and your poor little marxist is tired.

November 6th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Hoo-boy. We’ve had a big election and a little council meeting.  Let’s dig in.

The Little Meeting: It was only 50 minutes long.

Hours 0:00 – 0:50: Parking bans by the river, the new HEB, and more.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: We’ve got $250K of Covid money left, and time is running out.

The Big Election:

Nationally: I’ve got the same grim despair as you do.  There are a lot of people whose lives will be harder, sicker, poorer, and more abused because of this shit-for-brains president-elect. 

I feel hopeless, but not helpless.  American voters have revealed what they are, but there’s still work to be done. So as shitty as it is out there, we can compartmentalize and work on San Marcos. 

Onto the local scene: 

  • Mayor: As you’ve probably heard, Jane Hughson won re-election.  This will be her 4th term – she’s won in 2018, 2020, 2022, and now in 2024.  This means she’s term-limited, and the mayor will be an open seat in 2026.
  • Place 6: Amanda Rodriguez won Place 6!  I’m so glad.  We’re starting to get a progressive bloc up there that can actually win votes.
  • Place 5: Lorenzo Gonzalez and Roland Saucedo are headed to a run-off. Here’s how it shook out: 

That is extremely close. All you can conclude is:
– Lorenzo did a little better than the rest, and Atom did a little worse.
– Roland got a little lucky. and Griffin got a little unlucky.

The run-off: Saturday, December 14th.

I’m backing Lorenzo Gonzalez in the run-off election! His main message has been to be available and responsive to people, redirect more money towards mental health, and focus on housing.

Listen: After I posted my candidate write-up, people came out of the woodwork to warn me that Roland Saucedo is super problematic.  The formal documentation is limited – mostly this and this – but sufficiently many people are telling me a consistent story about his disregard for others. It’s troubling.

If you ever wanted your vote to count extra, a local runoff election is your sweet spot. Barely anyone will show up, and it can easily be decided by 50 votes. Or 15 votes. Or even 5!

Hours 0:00 – 0:50, 11/6/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Onto the little meeting!   

Just one citizen comment, from a community member about the Dunbar Heritage buildings that are under renovation.

…

Item 12: The good people of Riverside Drive want to ban parking on their street.

The issue is that the street fills up with river-goers in the summer. Since there is not enough proper parking around the falls, people park on Riverside Drive during the summer, and walk over. 

Look, I’m not in a great mood.  I didn’t like it last month on Sturgeon, and I don’t like it now.

  1. This is exclusionary.  The street does not belong to you.  

  2. It’s counter-productive! Street parking is a traffic-calming measure. It makes drivers go more slowly, instead of tearing through your neighborhood at 40 mph.

  3. I might be sympathetic if local residents did not have driveways, and were forced to park away from their houses and walk to get home.  But that is not what is happening. The residents of this street put out orange traffic cones to block river-users from parking in front of their houses.  They’re not putting their own cars out on the street. 

  4. The parking ban is year round. (Holidays and weekends.) There is no reason for the ban to exist during the winter.  Does it matter? No, but it’s overreach.  

Living near the river is a privilege.  The streets belong to the public, and that includes those who want to visit the river.  I’m just not in the mood for territoriality and exclusion at the moment. 

The Vote:

Yes, parking bans are great: everybody
No, parking bans are the worst: nobody

Oh well. At least I can rant on the blog.

…

Item 4:  The new HEB.

Everyone cheered and quickly voted on this, in about 30 seconds.

Here were my concerns last time:

  • Would all HEB employees get the $15/hour as required by local ordinance, even at the existing stores?
  • Can we include something about wage and benefits, to make sure our workers are given good jobs?
  • Is it in writing that Little HEB will stay open for a certain number of years? 
  • Can we ask HEB about purchasing that little triangle of land next to Purgatory Creek from them?

Here’s what council said about these questions:

[Nothing.] 

I know, we were all consumed with the election. But I still wish we’d fought on behalf of employees.

The vote:

YAY HEB 4-EVAH: Everybody, unanimous, etc. 
I hate everyone’s favorite grocery store:  nobody.

…

Item 10: The Mitchell Center

We mentioned this last time at the workshop: it’s being handed over to the Calaboose African American History Museum. 

It’s located here, tucked in the back corner of Dunbar park:

Apparently there is a covenant that runs with the land that requires the land be used for a public, non-profit purpose.   This seems like a good choice.

…

Item 13:  Naming the alleys

This also came up last time:

Those seven alleys with names in white are getting officially named. 

The remaining alleys are driving Jane crazy.  She wants to pair them up with movies or anything, and get them named.  No one else seems to be in that big a hurry.

…

Item 14:  Municipal Court

I guess we’re getting a new spot for our municipal court?

I don’t know if this is where the public will go for court, or if it’s administrative type stuff.

Here’s the building, according to Google Maps:

We signed a 20 year lease.

…

Item 17: River Bridge Ranch is this giant future subdivision:

It’s located here:

(That bit above is actually two closely related developments: River Bend Ranch and River Bridge Ranch. But the details are murky to me.)

This development makes me cranky:

  1.  In 2022, they wanted to put an industrial plant on the southern corner, which would have required an insane cut-and-fill.   This would have increased flooding in Redwood. Huge numbers of residents from Redwood turned out to argue against it, given the flooding and infrastructure.  The permit was denied.

  2. Originally, River Bridge Ranch was approved to be both housing and commerce. After all, it’s huge! And we have this long-standing issue where there isn’t any commerce on the east.  They waited for a polite amount of time to pass. Then they came back and asked if Council would just forget about the pesky commerce bit. 

    Council said “You betcha!  This way you’ll make more money!” And lo, no more commerce.

This meeting, Council forms a subcommittee on it: Saul Gonzales, Matthew Mendoza, and Jane Hughson.

So this means it’s going to be coming back around again. Fingers crossed!

…

Items 16 and 18: The New City Hall

We’re designing a new city hall.

Council has this grand idea that the new city hall should replace the dog park and skate park, and the current location should be housing:

I am not convinced! Why should we develop our parks? Why not re-build where you are?

Anyway, Council appointed a 23-person steering committee:
– The mayor and two councilmembers
– These groups all get to pick a member: P&Z, Library, Downtown Association, River Foundation, University representative, Chamber of Commerce
– Each councilmember picked two community members.
In total there are 23 people.

SO! After multiple meetings and lots of discussion, what did the DEI Coordinator say about the end result? Did we achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion? Moment of truth!

…Nothing. The DEI coordinator wasn’t there. Status quo was upheld.

This would have been the moment to verify that “business as usual” had produced a diverse committee that matches San Marcos.  We did not verify this!

Bonus! 3 pm workshops, 11/6/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

We got $18 million dollars from the federal government during Covid. This is called ARPA money. It all has to be obligated by December 31st, 2024.  Not spent, but under contract.

Here’s how we spent our ARPA money:

Some of the projects have come in under budget:

The can ban came in $89K under budget?! But… but we didn’t get rid of the cans…

Anyway, we’ve rounded up all the scraps and put them back in the pot to hand out.  

(True story: my mom would collect all the slivers of bar soaps, and put them in a mesh bag to use as one big bag of bar soap.  It’s gross! You should try it some time! The connection being that we are putting all the last little ARPA slivers into a mesh bag to use as one final ARPA slushfund.)

So what should we do with this last $246K?

Here’s what City staff recommends:

Every time this comes up, over the past four years, Alyssa Garza argues for direct aid to neighbors. We should use covid money on things like rental assistance, utility assistance, emergency grants for car repairs, etc. But somehow these things never materialize.

The conversation gets bogged down.
– Is it because council doesn’t agree on the direction they give staff?
– Is it because it’s very hard to implement these direct aid measures?
– Is it because the federal restrictions make it really hard for residents to find all the correct paperwork and documentation?

It goes in circles for awhile.

Eventually Alyssa convinces everyone to try to redirect the Dunbar bathroom money towards emergency rental assistance. If staff can’t make that work, Plan B is still the Dunbar bathrooms. B is for Bathrooms.

TSM Official Take on City Council Candidates, Fall ’24

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

We’ve got three big races this year! Voting starts tomorrow! (Never forget: San Marcos Elections are Problematic.)

Voting details: Early Voting Hours and Locations.
More voting info: League of Women Voters and Vote411.

Extremely short take: 

  • Amanda Rodriguez is the best candidate of any race.  Vote for her, Place 6.
  • Mayor: I’ll be voting for Juan Miguel Arredondo.
  • Place 5: It’s complicated! Details below.

Longer take:

Quick background: There have been a lot of different forums:

So what are the major issues?

#1 issue: Housing affordability. Every candidate said that housing affordability is the most important issue facing San Marcos. Everyone got that same memo, loud and clear. This makes it a little hard to distinguish the candidates.

Other issues: the river, the business community, bringing in good jobs, public safety, renter protection, Cape’s Dam.

Mayoral Race:  Juan Miguel Arredondo is the progressive candidate. I’ll be voting for him.

  • Jane Hughson is the current mayor. She is the status quo candidate. Her strengths are her attention to detail and general conscientiousness. She always seems to read documents thoroughly. She is a strong centrist and generally beholden to NIMBY types.
  • Juan Miguel Arredondo is the change candidate.  He’s an odd mix of progressive and conservative policies, but he does want to shake things up.  More progressive than not!

Housing Affordability: Miguel wins on this issue. Jane was mayor when the SMTX Housing 4 All plan came up for a vote in 2019. Instead of working to address the issue, Council deep-sixed it, and never actually implemented the plan. Staff even gave a workshop on reviving the plan, and nothing came of it. (Instead, Council prioritized using extra money to hire extra police officers and firefighters. That wasn’t my favorite. If they’d been more mindful about sprawl, we wouldn’t have needed as many extra PD and firefighters.)

Jane will probably prioritize affordable housing now that it’s become everyone’s favorite buzzword. But she will be more NIMBY about it than Miguel.

(Miguel makes me squirm when he starts talking about how property taxes are too high and bringing good jobs to San Marcos. Why not raise the minimum wage? All jobs would be good jobs if they paid a living wage! But there’s no difference between him and Jane on this issue.)

Place 6: I’m doing this one before Place 5, because it’s easier.

  • Amanda Rodriguez:  Just exactly what we need. She has a strong vision, a strong sense of justice, and she answered questions with a depth of knowledge.  She’s here to fight for the most vulnerable people in San Marcos, and she is straight-forwardly honest about this mission. It’s electric.

    Look, Amanda is basically the Johnny Cash of San Marcos. She’s intense, she’ll speak straight to your soul, and you can practically hear her sing: 

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner, who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the times

How can you not vote for Johnny Cash?!  We need her on Council.

🎵 Till things are brighter, she’s the candidate in black.   🎶

  • Maraya Dunn:  She’s been on P&Z for about 5 months, but she has not said much during the meetings.  During the debates, she is Team Business, and says things like, “If you make it easier on businesses, that will help solve the other problems, like housing.” She loves businesses of all sizes, and wants to reduce red tape.

There’s a kernel of truth to that – we do need to revisit our Land Development Code and see where we’re impeding the kind of growth we want. But her language is problematic – she is prioritizing making life easier for businesses, not prioritizing how to get the best results for San Marcos. It’s very conservative, business-friendly, and Texan.

(At the same time, she clearly has a soft spot for animals! She owns the Stinky Dawg Dog Spa downtown, and put Animal Welfare as one of her top three priorities. But I’m sure Amanda is pro-puppy as well, like any good person.)

Place 5: Ugh, this is the hardest one to write about. I would not be upset about any of them being in office.

  • Roland Saucedo: Seems to have a good heart.  His answers are mushy and low on detail, but his heart is generally in the right place.   [Updated to add: “Bad with details” is an understatement. More here, and it’s not good.]
  • Griffin Spell:  He has been on P&Z for years, and so there is a lot of data to go on here. He has been great on P&Z.  Thinks for himself, explains his reasoning, open to arguments from others.  Politically, he is a centrist, but his process is high quality.  He easily has the most experience of anyone here. He’ll govern as a thoughtful centrist.
  • Atom Von Arndt: He is fighting for the tenants. He uses the phrase, “Let’s make it hard in San Marcos for bad landlords.” This is a great fight for Council to take on!

    His thinking is a bit muddled when it comes to the University and opposing Rent-by-the-Bedroom, in that he thinks there are simple answers to complex problems.

    But overall, he seems smart, and a bit of a live wire. If you want to make life interesting on this blog, he’s your guy.
  • Lorenzo Garza: He’s the one candidate that I’d never heard of before he filed, so he’s at a disadvantage. That said, he gave reasonably good answers to the questions.

    He wants to be responsive to the people, and he also wants to redirect some of the police department budget towards things like mental health. He comes across as a progressive who is pretty new to San Marcos.

Bottom line: I think you’ve gotta look in your own heart for Place 5. Are you a Roland, a Griffin, an Atom, or a Lorenzo? Someone write a Buzzfeed quiz for me!

October 15th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

I’ve got your Council election candidate recs, fresh off the presses! Plus: VisionSMTX, the exciting new 3rd HEB, TDS, ARWA and some old timey photos of San Marcos. So many acronyms. What a week.

TSM Official Take on City Council Candidates, Fall ’24: Let’s dish about your favorite candidates, and I’ll spill who I’m voting for.

Hours 0:00 – 1:24:  VisionSMTX is done, and we discuss contracts with the Chamber of Commerce and Texas Disposal Systems.

Hours 1:24 – 2:07:  All the exciting details on the new HEB!  Plus ARWA water and naming the downtown alleys.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: The Mitchell Center gets a new family. 

This is the last post before the election! (A wave of anxiety crashes over me.)

For the love of god, please go vote. And tell your friends and family: you can vote with an expired license. You know how backed up the DMV is right now.

Hours 0:00 – 1:24, 10/15/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

  • Texas Disposal Systems is the trash/recycling company. They’re up for a five year contract renewal tonight. This topic had the most speakers.
    – There were people saying what an amazing job TDS has done, and how we must renew with them.
    – There were people from other waste systems saying that they can also do a great job, and if we’d just open up bids, they could show us.
  • One speaker made an interesting point about HEB: as long as we’re getting a new HEB, why don’t we revisit the almost-HEB, and see if we can acquire that land?

Here’s what he means:

There was almost an HEB here, back in 2016:

That is when HEB was the controversy of the day. HEB applied for a rezoning to put a grocery store on that corner.

The community was furious. Purgatory Creek had flooded just one year earlier, and it’s very environmentally sensitive. Traffic is already mess at that intersection. The WonderWorld extension was new, and part of the deal struck was that no new curb cuts would occur on WonderWorld. People were worried that HEB would close Little HEB.

But Council approved the rezoning anyway. (Jane Hughson and Jude Prather were two of the yeses.)

Zipping along to 2024: clearly HEB never built the grocery store there. This week’s big announcement is the new HEB on McCarty and I35 instead.  (See item 10.)

So… can we buy this old land from them?  Can we at least approach them for this land? It’s right there, where we’re putting all these trails down. Why don’t we at least ask?  

Great question! 

….

Onto the meeting!

Item 12:  Rezoning a little over an acre, out on Hunter Road:

in other words, just to the right of this Shell station:

as you’re headed south on Hunter.

It got zoned Neighborhood Commercial, so it will definitely not be apartments. Some kind of office or store.

…

Item 2: After four years, we have a new Comprehensive Plan! VisionSMTX is now officially approved.

Backstory here. There are lots of big thank yous, and no major changes.

So how exactly did the committee thread the needle?  If I had to summarize, they:

  • Added back in the language about walking, biking, and transit. How close are you to parks, schools, and stores, without needing to drive?
  • Added ADUs, duplexes, and triplexes back into low intensity areas.
  • But kept one of the major P&Z changes, which was to split “Neighborhood Low” place types into two sub-types: Neighborhood Low-Existing and Neighborhood Low-New.

They did a great job of carving out a compromise position.

…

Item 4: We lease land to the Chamber of Commerce for $1/year:

On CM Allen, on the edge of the river parks.

They’ve been there since 1977. They are raising money to build an extension, but for the time being, they want to extend this contract until 2031.

Here’s what Jane says at 58:00 minutes in:

“Whenever the Chamber got ready to expand, the city discovered that there were a lot of back lease payments that we had never advised the Chamber to pay.  And the Chamber didn’t know they needed to pay, and the Chamber president came to me and said, ‘If you add all this up, and the penalties and interest, the money that we just raised for the expansion kinda goes up in smoke.’ So I brought it to the council and we forgave all of that, so that the Chamber could use the dollars they’d raised for the expansion.”

I can’t find any Council discussion of this, so I assume it happened in top secret executive session?

This bit was boxed red in the packet, so I assume this is the Forgotten Lease Payments:

Look how cute that 1978 typewriter font is.

Here’s the thing: Sure, forgive Chamber’s debt – it got lost to the sands of time. Just be sure that we are equally charitable to other nonprofit organizations that may need a bit of grace.

(We did cover a bunch of debt from Together for a Cause a few years ago. One of the Place 5 candidates is involved, at that link.)

…

Just for funsies: Remember the time that we rented that land to Chamber of Commerce for $1/year, and they turned around and rented office space back to us for $28,760/year? And everyone – besides Alyssa Garza and Max Baker – voted to approve this!

…

Item 5: We finalized the gateway signs business.  It’s going to look like this:

And go here:

and

This was not discussed. I just wanted to wrap up the topic.

….

Item 10: Texas Disposal Systems

Staff did a pretty good job writing up the backstory, so I’m just going to cut-and-paste from the packet:

Council is kind of split. Everyone definitely loves TDS.

  • Jane, Shane, Jude and Alyssa are all fine with going with TDS now, and opening up bids for the 2030 contract.
  • Matthew, Saul, and Mark are all a little more uneasy about not going through the process of soliciting bids, and seeing what other companies can put out there. 

The vote:

TDS it is!

.

Hours 1:24 – 2:05, 10/15/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

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.

…

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?

…

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.

…

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. 

…

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:

  1. Getaway Alley, because some scenes from The Getaway were filmed near there:
Clockwise from top left: Sewell Park (upstream of Aquarena Drive), Texaco at 205 West Hopkins Street, intersection at West Hopkins Street & Moore Street, tire shop at 141 West Hopkins Street. Via this now-defunct website.

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.

… 

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.