Author: The San Marxist

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 4)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Anything else of note?

  • Some housing developments are moving forward:
    • a block of condominiums buried back by the Hays County Government Center. Good location – infill without threatening any neighborhoods. Close to schools, parks, and businesses. The drawback is that it’s near Purgatory Creek, and it’s not great to develop that close to it, but the entire plat is already mostly developed. There was some conversation about making sure that they do an archeological survey first, which is also good.
    • More on that Whisper Tract, northeast of town. That whole area is a little bit sprawl-y for my tastes, but at least it’s not environmentally sensitive.
  • The funding opportunities that were discussed in July were finalized. Important but not controversial
  • Mr. Exotic’s Steakhouse. Oh lord, these guys. Here is my best speculation: a couple dudes said, “We want to open a nightclub on the square! But we’ll never get permits. Let’s open as a restaurant and then run it like a bar!”
    “Yes, yes, this will be great!” they all congratulated themselves.
    “We need a name that straddles both a plausible restaurant and a plausible nightclub. How about Mr. Exotic’s?”
    “yes, yes, great! It can masquerade as an exotic game steakhouse.”

    So they trotted off for an alcohol CUP to P&Z, where they got swatted down HARD. The kitchen was way too small to be a restaurant, the menu was laughable, they’d gotten in trouble for starting renovations on a historical building without work permits, and then they’d violated the stop work orders and gotten busted doing so.

    Now they were appealing the decision to Council. They came, quite contrite, apologetic and asked for more time to get their act together. Commissioner Derrick pointed out that the one dude who now claimed to live in San Marcos was staying at a short-term rental with a long history of disturbing the peace. It seems he owns the rental, but has been a crappy landlord?

    In my opinion, this was all the flimsiest of facades. “Oh, we have to play hangdog to get the alcohol permit? Look at our sad, sad faces!”

    A guy from Code Enforcement basically said these guys were truly unusual in how many violations they’d racked up in short order.

    Commissioner Scott went on the dumbest of rants, first accusing the Code Enforcement guy of having an axe to grind, and then about how the people need restaurant choices! A steakhouse would be great on the square! (Yes, but if you think this will actually result in a steakhouse, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.)

    It was pointed out that you can run a steakhouse without a CUP. Have it be BYOB for a year, and then they can re-apply.

    In the end, the vote to postpone passed.
    In favor: Scott, Gleason, Garza, and Hughson
    Opposed: Baker, Gonzalez, and Derrick

    Garza did her extreme naivete thing, where she appeared to genuinely feel that both Derrick and Scott were equally sincere in their rants.

    So this item will come back around in another month or so. Amusing but ultimately doomed and not important, in my opinion.
  • A discussion on raises for four city employees, who were individually named. I guess these four are hired directly by council. Commissioner Baker sparked a long discussion by asking for reports on their SMART outcomes from the year before.

    Hughson was literally like, “I’ve never heard this acronym before and I’m confused and suspicious.”

    The discussion was very unclear to me: did they set these goals only in May 2021, or did they set goals both in May 2020 and in May 2021? Baker’s request to see outcomes only makes sense if there were SMART goals set in May 2020, which could then be measured, etc, a year later. But Hughson et al were clearly acting like they were brand new to this topic and hadn’t heard these terms before, and were acting like it Baker was proposing to evaluate the employees on their brand new goals. The whole thing was a mess.

    Finally they settled on having a workshop to explain what SMART goals are. Hughson seriously needs this – she was saying things like, “It’s not fair to make them accountable for measurable goals that they don’t have control over! If they say they’re going to process 20 applications and then 10 come in, that’s not THEIR fault!” (To be explicit, that would never be a SMART goal. You’d make it something like, “If there are fewer than 10 applications in a week, they will be processed within 7 days.” Or whatever.)
  • A discussion on reducing the number of false alarms for residents before fines kicked in. To be clear, this has nothing to do with 911 calls, which was my concern. This is home alarm systems that automatically call the police when they go off. Furthermore, it was just aligning a discrepancy between two ordinances. Truly nbd.
  • Mexican-American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District was postponed.
  • The Dunbar School Building. This is the small, currently shuttered building behind the Dunbar building. It is very old, and served as the African-American school historically. Clearly it should be renovated and given its proper historical accolades.

    At some point, a city form implied that it might be converted into bathrooms. The city maintains that this was a straight up clerical error. It could be, or it could have been someone who was ignorant, or racist, or both, and sincerely thought it was a great location for bathrooms for the playground.

    There was a heartfelt letter from a citizen whose name I recognized but couldn’t quite make out, who was deeply offended by the implication of converting the building to bathrooms. She is a long-standing member of the African-American community, I believe, and likely either attended or knew people who attended the school.

    City council members, for their part, are falling all over themselves trying to really, really make sure that NOWHERE is the suggestion that it should be bathrooms. The error has been long since corrected, and they are GRAVELY sorry for the mix-up.

    LMC, for her part, is fanning the flames on this, and citing the issue in nearly every comment she gives, which is generally ~3-5 per meeting.

    Anyway: There was actually an agenda item on the Dunbar School Building. Everyone enthusiastically voted to support the restoration of the building.

And that’s a wrap! The August 3rd meeting is on the books!

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 41, the SMRF application on the Elsik tract, ranks as my next-most-interesting item, primarily because of the absurd about-face by the mayor and four councilmembers since the July meeting.

The issue at hand is that SMRF is applying for county funding and benefits from having the city endorse its application. Council endorsed the application at the July meeting, but in a fit of persnickety pique, struck the sentence, “City supports the possible transfer of the land to the city, including development, management, and maintenance.” (Struck by Mayor Hughson, supported by Gleason, Garza, Scott, and Gonzalez.)

The idea has always been that SMRF would get county money to buy the Elsik tract, thus completing the ring of parks encircling the city. SMRF would give it to the city. The problem is that it is expensive to develop and maintain trails and parklands, and Hughson et al did not want to be on the hook for those costs. However, the motion to strike that sentence was exasperating because it weakened the application and changed nothing. The city was not committing to accept the land, nor to develop it into trails and maintain it. It was merely supporting the possible transfer.

Now in August, somehow it is back on the agenda, just adding that one clause back in. This suggests to me that Council got an earful from the community about not being idiotic dipshits on this one clause.

During the conversation:

  • Derrick begins by reminding everyone that there is no obligation to develop parkland on any predetermined time schedule, and in fact the Bouie tract has sat undeveloped for 10 years with no outcry. You can’t make more land and we should acquire it when we have the chance.
  • Gleason has a long ramble about the lack of parkland on the East side, and seems to imply that it’s a zero-sum game where the Elsik tract will compete with hypothetical applications for parks on the east. City Manager Bert Lumbreras clarifies that there are also applications for parks on the east side and that there is funding available for them.
  • Shane Scott has the most absurd about-face, claiming he thought that the city would have to BUY the Elsik tract, not BE GIVEN it. Now that he understands, everything is rainbows! The problem is that after the vote at the last meeting, he went off on an unhinged rant about SMRF being a bunch of untrustworthy jerks.
  • Nevertheless, Derrick proposes a face-saving amendment for the benefit of Hughson, Gleason, and Scott, which clarifies that the “transfer” will be free.

The whole thing passes 7-0 and it’s all fine.

I will say that Commissioner Garza has issues she understands well and those she doesn’t. When she doesn’t understand, her instincts are terrible. Or rather, naive. She is easily swayed by dumb, superficial arguments or believes people to be sincere when there is a profit motive.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The second most notable aspect of the night? Mayor Hughson arguing with everyone. Mayor Hughson is coming off like a petty elementary school teacher who believes she must shepherd wayward students. When your wayward students are grown-ass adults who are not being disruptive, it makes you look like a petty tyrant. (She has a tendency to be a bit snippy and impatient, and usually she balances it by thanking people often and acknowledging her own flaws. But tonight she came off very poorly.)

Jane Hughson snipped at:
– the city lawyer, Mr. Consentino
– Melissa Derrick
– Max Baker (always.)
– possibly others, and she was also having technical sound issues and missed several items

The Derrick one was particularly egregious. Councilmember Derrick started to ask a question. Hughson interrupted her to scold, “You do not start asking a question before I’ve called on you. But since your hand was raised, I will now call on you. Begin your question.” Her tone was very sharp!

Derrick responded, “Actually, I did have the floor, and you all got off track during my question. So I still have the floor and was not done asking questions.”

They papered over it and continued – they’ve been colleagues for a decade, and Derrick is very easy-going. But it was bizarre!

…

A big part of this is the six hour meetings. Tuesday’s meeting went from 6 pm to 2 am. Mayor Hughson is constantly admonishing everyone to keep their comments brief. It’s understandable, but it would be better to solve the underlying problem of 6-8 hour meetings.

The thing that gets me is that this is VERY SOLVABLE: just meet weekly. I don’t understand this loyalty to bi-weekly meetings.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 42

Top billing of the night goes to Item 42, the update on the emergency utility assistance. At this point, the city has paid out almost half of the million dollars available for utility assistance. In addition, city staff seems to have stepped up its outreach, from last month when this program was stumbling along ineptly.

Shane Scott says, “Can’t we just forgive all debt?” He said this last time, as well.

The city staff, in their neutral way, is timidly-yet-STRONGLY opposed.
– This isn’t what the consultants recommend.
– This may affect rate hikes.
– This could involve cases where the tenant just plain moved without disconnecting the electricity.
– This could affect San Marcos’s rating with S&P which we need in order to levy bonds.

Scott points out, quite rightly, that the city owns the utility company and can move its money around.

Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are strongly in favor.

Jane Hughson and Mark Gleason are both convinced that people will not bother to apply for assistance until they get the shut-off notice. So they are opposed. Mark even calls it “a tax on everyone else”.

Melissa Derrick wants to know the consequences more thoroughly – how will this affect rates on everyone else? How will this affect S&P ratings?

Alyssa gives the speech of the night, about how detached City Council is from the actual experience of poverty and being buried in bills. That our “simple application” for relief may be simple, but when you’re getting multiple disconnect notices you stop opening envelopes. That no one is secretly sitting on cash, waiting to get a disconnect notice to sigh and finally pay. They aren’t paying because they don’t have the money, full stop.

(Max does say that he originally proposed this but everyone overrode him. He also notes that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the city budget.)

The vote: Shall we just wipe out all utility balances >30 days past due?

In favor: Saul Gonzalez, Shane Scott, Max Baker, Alyssa Garza, and Mark Gleason

Opposed: Melissa Derrick and Jane Hughson

Motion passes, 5-2!

Mark Gleason gets a prize for the weaselliest comment of the night: after being the most impassioned person against this motion, he abruptly says, “Well, since this is obviously going to pass, I guess I’ll vote yes.” Oh, do you like being on the right side of history once the writing is on the wall?

My own hot take:
This is clearly the right move. It’s relatively cheap and helps a lot of people in a way that aligns with our values.

One side point: the city has done a tremendous amount of outreach on the utility assistance program, and it is not reaching people. The number of outreach labor-hours saved by just wiping the slate clean is significant, and should be taken into account in the budgeting of this.

More Candidates Announced

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

Zach Sam/brano is running for Place 5, currently held by Glea/son. Sam/brano is currently on P&Z. He’s generally progressive and lefty.

Jude Pra/ther is running for Place 6. Melissa Der/rick has announced that she’s stepping down. Markey/moore is also going for this same seat.

Pra/ther was part of the conservative development-happy bunch that gave us the Woods and other turds-in-the-punchbowl, along with Shane Sc/ott. I believe he was voted out circa 2015. So the pendulum is trying to swing back again.

Previewing the Agenda, August 3rd, 2021

by The San Marxist, posted in Previewing the Agenda

Well, it’s been a month since our last meeting and dear lord, there are 47 agenda items. It’s going to be a long one. Let’s see what’s up!

Consent Agenda:
1. Six different meeting minutes approval
2. LDC edits and updates (second reading)
3. Cemeteries details (second reading)
4. Appoint Daniel Bu/rns as Municipal Court Judge for two year-s
5-6. Mandatory ethics trainings for City Council and committees and extra ethics complaint procedures.. (Already in place, just making it official.) (second reading)
7. Purchase .1 acres on River Road for 24K (second reading)
8. Altering Household Hazardous Waste Program contract with Clean Earth of Alabama, Inc. $140K, 3 years.
9. Buying 4 buses, $423K
10. Contract to relocate Utilities and Public Works Dept, $181K
11. Approve 2019 revised Water Conservation and Drought Response Plan (to submit to Texas Water
Board.)
12. Change in service to agreement with Wood/bury Financial Services, Inc, $66K. (No content)
13. Change order for construction on South Guadalupe Street, infrastructure of MLK Drive – $130K
14-15. Purchasing ~5K square feet on Academy St, part of Ses/som/Academy drainage project. ~$147K.
16. TIRZ agreement for Paso Robles
17. Appointing Tyler Hj/orth to vacancy on Board of Directors of the Alliance Regional Water Authority.
18. DoJ funding application for $18K for forensic lab equipment
19. Change in service to water treatment stuff, $25K
20-23. Pay raises for the Judge, City Attorney, City Clerk, and City Manager. All in the $1K-4K range. Seems reasonable.

Public Hearings
24. Rezoning an acre over by the County Courthouse, off Wonder/World, from General Comercial to CD-4.
25. Development agreement to annex 379 acres in the ETJ, way out northwest – on the east side, roughly even with where Blanco Vista is.
26. Proposed application and funding process for human services funding. (Not sure what this means)
27. Appeal of CUP for Mr. Exotics Steak/house, denied by P&Z.

Non-Consent Agenda
28. False Alarm cap set at four instead of six per year. (1st of two readings)
29. Allocation of American Rescue Plan Funds. (2nd of two readings)
30-31. This is confusing. Issuance and sale of up to $38 million and $35 million of Combination Tax and Revenue Certificates of Obligation? Money goes to a bunch of public improvements – water/wastewater, Utilities, streat scapes, HVAC, building repairs, technology, fiberoptic and network equipment, parks and sportfields, etc. Maybe a bond proposal? (one reading)
32. Bond for $4 million – police and fire departments (one reading)
33. Bond for $17 million – electric utility (one reading)
34. TIRZ – Downtown Electric Cab Microtransit Project, 4 buses, $18K (1st of two readings)
35. November Election plans (one reading)
36. $9 million allocation under American Rescue Plan
37. Electric contracts, $2-3 million
38-39. CDBG Action plan for $800K, for 21-22
40. Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District
41. SM/RF needs city support to apply for County funding to buy El/sik tract
42. Update on Utility Assistance Program
43. Spearguns in the parks
44. Champions Crossing, letter of support to Tex Dept of Housing and Urban Affairs
45. Restoration and Preseration of Dunbar School Building

Executive Session
46-47. Wastewater discharge permit applications

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Anything else of note?

Citizen Comment

Several citizens showed up to talk about Jennifer Miller again. This issue is gaining momentum, but I’m not exactly clear what the end game is. Mano Amiga has taken it up as a political issue, as evidence of police corruption. Recently there was an attempt to connect the resignation of a city clerk, Kristy Stark, with this case, and it seemed far-fetched to me and possibly slanderous.

If the larger activist goal is to have the police officer Ryan Hartman removed from his position, then I’m comfortable with that. But right now the goal seems to be to drum up as much smoke and obfuscation as possible, and I’m a little worried that Miller’s loved ones are being used as pawns.

Consent Agenda

Item 20, the Elsik tract: SMRF needs the endorsement of City Council to apply for funds from the county to purchase the tract in the name of conservation. SMRF, the San Marcos River Foundation, is an amazing organization that is largely responsible for us having a clear, blue river instead of a murky brown river. One of their major functions is to identify sensitive areas and buy them up, then donate them as parkland. The Elsik tract is located adjacent to Purgatory Creek, and would help create a continuous greenbelt from Purgatory Creek up to Spring Lake, which is part of the Parks Master Plan.

This Purgatory-Elsik area is particularly sensitive because it’s all porous limestone. It’s just a straight sieve down to the water recharge zone for the river. This is how your river turns brown – you dump pollution in the recharge zone. Ok, fine.

There was a sentence in the application to City Council: ““City supports the possible transfer of the land to the city, including development, management, and maintenance.”

Mayor Hughson took issue with this sentence in a way that I found contrary and ornery. She doesn’t want the city to be on the hook for the development of the park without further discussion. Fine – she thinks it merits discussion. That’s reasonable. But it says possible transfer – doesn’t that only imply that there will be a discussion?

Hughson moves that that sentence be struck.

In favor: Hughson, Gleason, Scott, and Garza.
Opposed: Derrick, Gonzalez, Baker

So that amendment passes, which consequently weakens the SMRF application to the county for the money. Way to go, Mayor.

Once that passes, Commissioner Scott talks a bit of shit about SMRF and how he just doesn’t trust them. This is why he’s an ass.

(The basic resolution passes 6-1.)

Observation: Garza is hard to pigeon-hole. Mostly presents herself as extremely progressive, but then votes to strike this line, and to delay the ethics vote. But any time she advocates for an issue, she is thoughtful and thinking about vulnerable community members with the fewest resources.

Maybe that’s the common thread: she’s progressive about seeing the world through the lens of vulnerable community members and overly heavy policing. But she’s less progressive about the environment?

Public Hearings:

Item 26: Land Development Code updates: a bit of discussion on storing inoperable vehicles. If they’re vintage, why not have all the fluids drained so that they can be stored without risk of pollution? This is Councilmember Scott’s amendment, and it passes.

Non-Consent Agenda:

Item 30: Spearguns Surprise! State law pre-empts us from requiring a permit for any hand-powered device! What an obnoxious twist. We can’t even make a clause about portions of the river which are heavily used for swimming. You can spearfish any goddamn place you want, at any time you want, as long as your spear is not motor-propelled.

There’s a short discussion about whether to repeal the current ordinance today, or wait to revise it into compliance with State Law.

Repeal fails, 4-3.

Pro-repeal: Scott, Gleason, Garza
Anti-repeal: Hughson, Baker, Derrick, Gonzalez

(See! Another – albeit mild – example of Garza siding unpredictably!)

Item 43: Council will be back in person starting in August. (Surprise twist! Texas recently ended the suspension of TOMA to allow for zoom meetings, and so everyone would have to return in September anyway.)

Some councilmembers are very freaked out by the Delta variant, in ways that are highly sympathetic but probably out of proportion to the science.

Staff will continue to zoom in for presentations. Two reasons: First, to reduce crowdedness in the chambers and allow for more community members to show up instead. Second, so that the poor city staff and presenters don’t have to hang out at City Hall until 11 pm or 1 am in order to deliver a 20 minute presentation. Seems eminently reasonable.

Community members will be allowed to zoom in for Citizen Comment.

Note: During these meetings, they use the word “citizen” interchangeably with “the public”. I’m trying to avoid using the word “citizen”, in favor of “community member”, because I DGAF whether you’re documented or not.

Sometimes I slip up. “Citizens” rolls off the tongue. But I’m always intending to say “community members”.

Item 44: Authorize a study on the actual occupancy rates of student housing – both purpose-built and older complexes that are marketed to students.

YES YES YES! This would be incredibly helpful information to have.

There is a widespread belief that we’re incredibly overbuilt on student housing. The idea is that developers are motivated to build the latest, newest, shiny apartment complex. Students move in because it’s new. Developers sell it off after three years to some chump who then can’t rent it out very well.

Here’s where it gets very murky: The story goes that this drives rents up across the city. Apartment complexes that market to students employ rent-by-the-bedroom, so a four bedroom unit goes for $3k, allegedly. This allows other landlords to peg rents to that, even in regular family apartments and rental housing. We have insufficient stock of family housing and it’s overpriced.

In other words we are simultaneously claiming:

  1. Student apartment complexes charge $3k/month for a 4 bedroom rent-by-the-room apartment
  2. Student apartment complexes are wildly underfilled and run huge promotional campaigns for multiple months of free rent, free food, and all sorts of perks because we’re so overbuilt.
  3. Non-student housing piggybacks on the inflated rents, but lacks the glut of extra supply. Thus families can’t find affordable housing.

I am highly skeptical that (3) is piggybacking on (1) and (2). If we lack family housing stock, then landlords will charge as much as they can get away with. Period.

The murkiness continues: If we get developers to stop building student housing, then everyone will win. Somehow this will affect rents coming down.

The only way rents will come down is if we build a lot more family housing stock. And in fact, massive tracts to the east have recently been zoned for multi-family and workforce housing sorts of plans. But it will take a long time for these things to be built.

Here is the proper way to understand the council’s reasoning:

  1. This study will reveal that we’re massively overbuilt on student housing.
  2. Therefore we will be justified in finding new ways to prevent more student housing from being built.
  3. Then developers will preferentially choose to build family housing instead.
  4. Then rents for families will come down.

I am hugely in favor of conducting this study, but skeptical that this is an efficient route to build up family housing. My opinion is that this is what’s actually going on:

  1. We hate student housing because it’s obnoxious.
  2. Rents on families are too high.
  3. We also hate it when students live outside of student housing, in regular neighborhoods.
  4. We really just don’t like students!

The problem of partying students is half-real and half-imaginary bugaboo. The solution is to:

  • fully fund code enforcement,
  • hold landlords accountable, and
  • regulate the scale of apartment complexes so that families don’t have to live next to sprawling acreage of apartments. A 4-plex or 8-plex is very different from a 5000-plex.

Unfortunately, no one listens to me. I should start a blog!

And that’s a wrap for the July 6th meeting!

City Council Elections – Place 6

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

Tis the season of declarations. I recently got a mailer for Mark Rockey/moore, running for Place 6, which is Melissa Der/rick’s seat.

Markey/moore was on council until last November, when he lost to Shane Sc/ott. I wasn’t watching council regularly, so I don’t have as firm an impression of him as I would like to. But he presents himself as a very progressive guy.

Der/rick is one of our strongest councilmembers, though, and ideologically in the same boat. Does this mean she’s not running? That would make me really sad, although I could understand if she’s getting burnt out on the job.

Anyway, stay tuned for more announcements of who is running…

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The next recurring theme was a large amount of money to be allocated, across different items.

  • Items 35-36, $9 million from American Rescue Plan Fund (and it sounds like there will be 9 million more, next summer.)
  • Item 40, $800K in CBDG proposals for the 21-22 fiscal year
  • Item 41, $1 million in utility assistance

So these were quite a lot of fun – feeling flush with cash and able to grant all the wishes to all these nonprofits. Down with austerity and belt-tightening!

  1. On the first, the American Rescue Plan Fund:

– they argued about whether tourism and marketing should get quite such a big cut. It seems that this sector is limited in where they can seek funds, and they did take quite a hit during COVID. But maybe not quite as much as was proposed. ($282K)

– they argued a bit about Briarwood, a neighborhood outside of city limits that suffers severe flooding, in part because of how San Marcos has been developing. There’s a 2.5 million stormwater mitigation project there. They managed to thread the needle on that one – postpone it by three months and fund it from several spots.

– A lot of small projects got some money: Southside Community Center, bilingual outreach and communications, KZSM, vaccination outreach, Nosotros la Gente, which provides shoes for local kids. Good feelings all around.

2. On the CBDG funds, nearly everything got funded besides Roland Saucedo’s proposal, which is seeemingly why they chipped in for him in the previous funds.

3. The Utility Assistance fund is interesting. They’ve paid out about 20% of what’s available, and they’re all concerned that people aren’t applying. City staff was put on the defensive about their outreach efforts.

– Everyone who is past due gets a letter with info on how to apply. If the city has an email address, they send an email too.
– The city has reached out to the Food Bank and SMCISD.
– The application was made fairly short – just one page.
– Disconnections have been suspended during the pandemic, but there will be a date set to resume disconnections.

Criticisms:

– how about going through the churches? Commissioner Gonzalez says that he has to KEEP directing city to this and they never do.
– Commissioner Gleason, Commissioner Derrick, and Mayor Hughson all feel like until you send them notice of disconnection, no one will be very motivated to apply.
– Commissioner Garza talks about how people (meaning the Hispanic community) are more likely to just tighten their belts, out of not wanting to take more than their fair share, and that they’ll want to save the funds for someone who REALLY needs it.

Commissioner Scott, actually, was strongest on this: “Can’t we just see who is past due and pay off their balance without them having to apply?”

Hughson concern-trolled about undeserving people who have the money and could pay. Nothing Texas hates more than someone receiving some crumbs when they could have scraped by without them. Garza is enthusiastic about this proposal.

Scott’s proposal – just pay off the deliquent accounts – has to be put on the agenda and brought back as an item, because it didn’t fit onto the existing agenda. So it still could happen.

…

As an aside: there’s an ongoing dynamic where City Council and Lumbreras are perpetually exasperated with each other. It goes like this:

  1. Council frequently acts like he has done something incompetent.
  2. He then defensively retorts that they tied his hands in the way they made the request.

I am not sure yet who is being a jerk, or if there’s blame to spread to both. Mayor Hughson herself is a generally prickly person, and it often doesn’t mean anything.

…

All three topics will be finalized at some point in August.

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The most confounding item – and ultimately anticlimactic – was the Lobbyist Registration measure. Where to begin.

This is Commissioner Baker’s ordinance. It came out of a committee that spent six months or so researching and writing it. The key provisions are:

  • You are a lobbyist if you are paid to make contact with a city official or city staff, or if you stand to profit from an issue
  • If you want to make contact and try to persuade an official on an issue, you must register as a lobbyist, and then report all contacts every two months.
  • There are some exclusions – private citizens are allowed to speak up about zoning issues, for example, without registering.

In Citizen Comment, about 18 people spoke up against the ordinance. They were mad that it’s onerous, would stifle speech and business, etc etc.

The item comes up, and instantly both Commissioner Scott and Commissioner Baker mumble motions into their microphones, but Mayor Hughson sides with Scott and gives him the floor. He moves to postpone the agenda item until November 3rd, which is after the election, and so there will be new councilmembers.

Recall that at the June 1st meeting, they debated postponing this endlessly. It was tiresome! And it failed! And yet we’re right back there.

Commissioner Baker is furious and lights into Commissioner Scott, who has openly mocked the Ethics Review Commission on other occasions. Mayor Hughson reprimands Baker to stay on topic, and Baker argues that this is entirely relevant, and the two of them get entertainingly snippy with each other around the 1:40 mark, (should you feel like listening to grown ups act like cranky children for yourself. It goes on and on! Hughson comes off looking like an overly controlling parent who wants to micromanage her sprog.)

Commissioner Scott can’t really explain why he wants to postpone. First he says, “So it can be re-written”, but he is reminded that it can’t be re-written on postponement. Then he says that he can review it with other people, which is unsatisfying.

Commissioner Derrick points out that it seems like this is an attempt to get a new city council in place first. (Who is up for election? I’m not sure. Garza, Scott, Gleason and Mayor Hughson were all elected last year. So some portion of Baker, Derrick, and Gonzalez could be up.)

Apparently CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas) wrote a letter to the paper which had enough errors that the City Manager, Bert Lumbreras, felt compelled to write a response to the paper to clarify the errors. The key refutations were:

  • This does not prohibit free speech. It just requires registration
  • SMPOA and the Firefighters Org were specifically mentioned in order to clarify their status, but if their names are removed, they’re still included as meeting the definition of “lobbyist”.

This detail is so bizarre that we should dwell on it for a moment. In the original proposed ordinance, SMPOA and the Firefighters Org are explicitly named as lobbyists, and no other organization is named. It’s such an inflammatory way to write the ordinance that it borders on self-sabotage. Who actually chose to explicitly name those two groups? Was it someone who wants the ordinance to pass, or was it someone on staff who actually does not want the ordinance to pass?

I truly have no guesses. It’s just such a lightning rod. Such an unforced error if you actually were fighting for this ordinance to pass. (This may have been removed in the latest draft? it’s hard to tell.)

Mayor Hughson wants to massively pare down the ordinance, and make it so that only councilmembers must report. But that’s not up for discussion, since they can only discuss whether to postpone or not.

Councilmember Baker is clawing out of his skin in frustration, and rightly so. The thing that’s most clearly in his favor is that the proposed legislation uses the language of existing lobbyist policies in surrounding cities. It’s nothing special or onerous. The outsized backlash is more damning than anything else, in the sense of raising my eyebrows and making me wonder what exactly people are trying to hide.

A persistent exchange is one where the someone yelps, “but why? why do we need this when there’s no problem?!” and Baker patiently explains, “We don’t actually know if there’s a problem because it’s all shrouded in secrecy and hidden right now. That’s why we need this.”

Finally it’s time to vote.

Postpone: Scott, Gonzalez, Gleason, Hughson, and Garza all vote to postpone.

Against: Only Derrick and Baker.

Garza gave a very naive speech about how she favors the ordinance, but maybe we can use the next four months to educate people and bring them around.

There is a real point, buried in the flotsam: that paperwork – or the specter of paperwork – will inhibit participation from a largely uninvolved batch of citizens. Behavior is shaped by gentle nudges, and if you’ve vaguely heard that there’s red tape surrounding making contact with council, it could easily dissuade a mostly-checked-out community member from speaking up when there’s an issue that actually does affect them. That would be a worthwhile discussion to hold.

However, postponing discussion is how you drown legislation in the bathtub, and this move is not happening in good faith. But that’s what it is. I told you it was anticlimactic.