Author: The San Marxist

May 4th, 2021 City Council meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The most interesting item of the night was clearly #29: Consider a Revised purpose statement for the Council Criminal Justice Reform Committee.

The CJR Committee was formed to address Cite and Release issues. Cite and Release has been adopted. Max Baker and Alyssa Garza are the two Councilmembers on the CJR Committee.

The CJR has been pursuing other topics that would fall under Criminal Justice Reform, and city staff has gotten prickly because the topics aren’t within the purview of the mission statement.

Tonight’s issue: to revise the purpose statement so that City Staff can carry out the supporting work. That is the text. As always, there’s a lot of subtext!

So how did the discussion go? Bert Lumbreras was arguing for procedure to be followed. It’s a committee that operates at the discretion of the council. City Staff serves the council. Therefore, the council needs to bless the new direction of the committee before City Staff can do its bidding.

Max Baker comes with a new proposed purpose statement. City Council tweaks it and seems on board with it. Hughson, Derrick, and Garza kick the wordsmithing around a bit.

Then Scott says, basically, why isn’t this committee over?

Baker and Garza explain that there are a lot more simmering issues still. Here’s where the subtext arises. Their take is that they’re being stonewalled by City Staff because these are controversial issues, and made to dot their i’s and cross their t’s with far more precision and wasted time than other committees.

The charitable take on City Staff is that they’re being CYA precisely because these are hot-button issues. They do not want to be perceived as acting without direction on controversies. Whereas when issues are boring, they can take more liberties without Council direction, because they’re not going to be on the hot seat defending their choices.

The uncharitable take is that yes, they’re stone-walling because they’re unsympathetic to the cause. 20 minutes later, on the next item, they ask for council members to come directly to them with Covid ideas because it’s simpler.

Scott asks the new Police Chief Dandridge what his thoughts are. He does not stay neutral. He explicitly tips his hand against the committee, saying this will take time away from the top items on his to-do list, a lot of which have to do with the recently killed and injured police officers, and the department trauma and repair. He also took issue with the merging of national conversations with local issues.

IMO, his failure to stay neutral when delivering his answer undermines his credibility on this topic. A bit of acknowledgement of issues of police racism and brutality would have really given him a lot more credibility when he listed the competing issues. Are the other issues real? Absolutely! Does he believe in them? For sure. But for his opening bid to be so dismissive of this committee is a giant red flag. He does not seem to buy into the idea that good reform is safer for officers as well as the community.

In the end:

  1. they approve the new mission statement for the CJR committee. I don’t have the exact wording, but it involved Cite & Divert, working with the county, and increased police transparency where allowed by law.
  2. Hughson lectured the committee about taking their priority list to the police chief and seeing where there are goals in common, and working with them instead of against them.
  3. Hughson lectured Lumbreras about needing to inform councilmembers on which items are quick to retrieve and research, and which items are time-consuming. Councilmembers don’t know how the databases and systems are set up, and can’t necessarily predict the workload involved.

Side note: To google-proof or not? Do people have alerts set up for their name? Do I want people to read this while I’m still getting the kinks out? I don’t know!! (I decided to play it safe for now and google-proof names.)

[Updated 8/8/22: removed google-proofing]

Let’s have some organizational thoughts:

by The San Marxist, posted in Blog notes

That is my first time sitting through an entire city council meeting. Yowch.

  • tonight’s meeting was 6 hours long. I spent maybe 2 hours working on the agenda ahead of time, and I didn’t even get through it.
  • I still need to condense it into a post.
  • What kind of detail is helpful? Do people want a dialogue blow by blow? Should there be expandable links with all that detail?
  • I didn’t watch the afternoon session yet. So this is total, maybe a 10 hour commitment? That’s a lot.
  • Will I get more efficient at it? Look and know which items need to be watched?
  • Do I need to worry about staying anonymous? I should probably keep it polite-ish. Even if my rude version is funnier.

New plan:

  • Watch from 6-10 pm. The next 2-4 hours can be gotten during commutes.
  • It’s not ideal – it would be better to single out the hot-button issues to watch live, and save the less important ones for the commute. But I don’t think I’m willing to carve out more time than that. That can at least be my summer plan.

Still Previewing Agendas for May 4th, 2021

by The San Marxist, posted in Previewing the Agenda

Continuing on from Agenda Item #8:

8. Buy some Athletic gear for G/ary Sports Complexes. (I’m google-proofing just because I don’t have my sea-legs yet on this blogging thing, and wouldn’t like it to be found prematurely. It is still being posted publicly. I just don’t think anyone is paying attention.)

9. A grant for 45K to the PD’s victim services unit.

10. Buying a small tract (.7 acres) for 210K in Blanco Vista, for wastewater.

11. 80K for electrical.

12. Bike lane stuff, 174K.

13. An “Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract” for demolition, for 125k, through a CDBG grant. That’s quite a phrase for a contract!

Finally, we’re on to public hearings! I’m definitely going to need to find some efficiencies in this bloggy process. This is taking forever and I’m not even yet listening to them drone on.

14. 72 acres to be zoned for mobile homes. East of 35 and just north of the airport.

15/16: Annex a bit into the city to hopefully be a retirement home, on the corner of Redwood and Old Bastrop.

17/18/19: La Cima fire station stuff. Annex it. Rezone it.

20: Downtown TIRZ presentation. This is economic development stuff involving tax breaks. Should I find out more? Or just keep plugging away for the sake of establishing a habit? I have a fear that if I expect myself to dip down every rabbit hole, this thing will balloon in size and get out of control.

21: More of 17/18/19: Make the Senior home qualify as low income housing.

22. Whis/per So/outh PID. Where is this thing? It looks like maybe it’s the same area as item 14? But much larger?

Done with public hearing. On to the non-consent agenda!

23: Pollution policy. Just wonky text, no presentation slides to thumb through.

Note: The actual packet that City Council gets is 1000 pages. Being on city council is a ton of work.

Maybe it is not feasible to do this pre-reading AND watch the damn meeting. Maybe it should be one or the other.

24. Motor-assisted scooters. Do we hate these? Are we talking about electric bikes here? Stand-up Vespas?

Interesting: my memory is that we banned these, because we didn’t want companies coming in and leaving rentable ones all over the place. Now it looks like we’re quietly walking that back, probably because it was a dumb ban and now some company is dangling some financial incentive. (I’m just speculating.)

Ah, I see. We banned them in May 2020. By June 2020, the university’s buses had to run under capacity and they wanted to use scooters.

JEEZ THIS TAKES SO LONG TO DO. Only 10 more items to preview, but alas, I’m out of time for now.

Previewing Agendas for May 4th, 2021

by The San Marxist, posted in Previewing the Agenda

This week there are two agendas to preview:

  • Work Session on May 4th, mid-afternoon
  • Council meeting on May 4th, that evening

Work Session:

  1. First a Staff Presentation on Cape’s Dam. Interesting. What’s up?

Proposed Interlocal Local Agreement/MOU with Hays County regarding Cape’s Dam

  • Looks like this is since August 18th of last year
  • Essential items for inclusion: Environment, history, recreation, hydrology, endangered species impact. Maybe: financial, operations, maintenance, project planning, design, permitting, construction.
  • Cape’s Dam, Mill Race, water to the waterfall at Stoke’s Park. Owned by TP&W, managed by City.
  • Funding on a case-by-case basis, everyone try to get outside funding if you can.
  • Timeline: Both should have it approved by mid-June? and then it ends in September 2025 or earlier?
  • The last slide is “Questions”, and mine is “what are we talking about?!” I guess the presentation is entirely the logistics. Zero content of the ILA/MOU.

Executive Session: This seems to have two parts:

2. Legal Counsel about an application to discharge wastewater into…? The San Marcos River, I assume?

The company is “Fleming Farms Wastewater Treatment Facility” and it’s not yet built. Proposed to be down 123, on the corner of FM 1978 and 123, in Guadalupe County. This is super rural – old saloon, junkyard. This may have been where the plane was at in this photo! And then 1.2 miles east of this?

Why does San Marcos CC have any say in this whatsoever? Not that I want an unsupervised company, either.

3. And I quote: “deliberations regarding the possible acquisition of property for parks purposes and the possible lease of existing park property to a third party”

HMM. Maybe good! Maybe neoliberal infatuation with doling out contract work! who knows.

City Council Session

Bleagh, so long.

Consent Agenda:

  • Two items on a 62 acre tract, at the intersection of Gregson’s Bend and Commercial Loop. (Gregson as in the recent councilmember Gregson?) I think Commercial Loop is across 35 from the Outlet Mall.
    • Annex it
    • Rezone as Planning Area District
  • Contract with Utility company for some renovations
  • 5 year extension of the Holt Tract PDD
  • Cares act money details
  • Oooh, #7 is interesting:

“[T]emporarily changing the method for calculating residential Wastewater Rates established by Ordinance No. 2007-54 by excluding the month of February 2021 from the months used to calculate average water consumption upon which Wastewater Rates are based due to the higher than average water consumption resulting from Winter Storm Uri during the week of February 15; including procedural provisions; and providing an effective date.”

First, it was called Winter Storm Uri? Who knew?

Second, this is good! Burst pipes will not be considered typical for water usage. But I have a lot of questions. What about electric? And does this affect what people were actually charged this past February, or is it just a formula for the future? And who is then picking up the tab, if it’s for this past February?

…

Holy shitballs, there’s 34 agenda items and I’m on #7. Good lord.

Plan for Summer 2021

by The San Marxist, posted in Blog notes

Well, it’s been a year. Let’s fire this thing up again, shall we?

My goals are:

  • Build up some archives before promoting this site.
  • Establish a habit of blogging City Council
  • Figure out where the time efficiencies are – do the long slog while I’ve got time, and then pare it down.
  • Figure out some less ugly fonts, etc.

City Council Meeting, April 21, 2020

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

I’m going back a few weeks, and just listening to item 3: Cite and release.

The timing is really terrible, because a police officer was just killed – Justin Putnam – and two others were injured, and yet this is on the menu for this week. So they start with a moment of silence to acknowledge that.

Citizen comment period: probably worth tuning in for. Now, these do show up in the minutes. Also I guess today they’re just allowed written comments. SIXTY COMMENTS JFC.

These do get written out, so I can go back and read them later whenever the minutes get approved. Approval of minutes isn’t very fast. There’s a bunch of old comments on this topic from the April 7th meeting, already posted here.

So I’ll skip these for now. On to discussion.

Max moves approval. Markeymoore seconds.

No additional presentation – I guess I should go back and watch the first presentation.

Mayor Jane: Was there a postponement discussion?

Presenter: The officers don’t want to postpone. They must press on.

Mayor Jane: She supports it, but seems tepid. She’s worried about unforeseen consequences. She’d like to consult with the county. She’s got some amendments. She doesn’t like the fact that staff doesn’t like it.

THAT’S REVOLUTION! STAFF IS THE CONVENTIONS OF TYRANNY! SHAKE IT OFF!

Joca votes against a motion to let staff clean up the ordinance after the motion, and make it sound legally smooth. I guess. Everyone else passes that.

Max: Amendment to Section 1. I don’t know, it looks like it’s digging up specific penal code references. Ie driving without a license?

Some nitty gritty without unintentionally catching some class 3 stuff where a guy is driving without a license and things went haywire and someone got killed.

Max: Class B is all I meant. Not Class A.

Mayor Jane wants to switch it from 4 oz of pot to 2 oz of pot.

Max: um why?

Mayor Jane: I don’t know much about this. I found out that that’s a lot! Sounds like the difference between personal use and commercial use.

Max: As it is outlined in Texas Law, if they’re believed to be a distributor, there’s a bunch of other factors to distinguish these situation. There are other cues that an officer can use.

Saul agrees with Mayor Jane: these things get people killed or robbed.

Max: I don’t think that’s actually true. I think he’s conflating this with other issues.

Markeymoore: I’m on Team Max. State provision says 4 oz.

Max: This allows officer discretion in the 2-4 oz. This is going to be implemented unequally by race. We’ve seen how these things get implemented super problematically.

[The San Marxist: Max is knocking this out of the park. Wow.]

Mayor Jane: Well, if it doesn’t make any difference, I’ll withdraw my motion. Fine.

[Wow. Go, Max.]

Max: There’s a reference that’s wrong.

Mayor Jane: Ok, a bunch of stuff about verifying that you live/work/go to school here. Online or physical. “Here’s my class schedule,” for example.

[Seems reasonable.]

Joca: What if it’s international ID?

Identity verification is different from establishing that you’re a subject in the county, I think.

Markeymoore: (missed it)

Max: What if the person is homeless?

Mayor Jane: I was just trying to help.

Max: San Antonio skips this enumeration and they seem fine.

Mayor Jane: Let’s just add some “or anything else” language?

Joca: What about the library? Do they have library cards?

[Um, what.]

Constantino: “Or anything else” is already there.

[I don’t know, now they’re talking with the officer and it sounds like it will all get scrapped.]

Markeymoore: Where are we going with this?

Mayor Jane: I said this already. This is not about id, it’s about local address verification.

[1:42 into meeting. Going to partial-post.]

City Council Meeting, May 5th, 2020

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

Well, it’s already 6:50, so I missed the first chunk. What’s on the menu today?

Currently:

  1. ID#20-231 Receive status reports and updates on response to COVID-19 pandemic; hold council discussion, and provide direction to Staff.

CDBG grants, I think.

2-6: Consent agenda meh. Ed abstained from something to do with getting his salary from Texas State.

A speed limit thing: 30 mph to 25 mph. Harvey street between North Street and Blanco Street. A tow away zone. Another speed limit thing. An agreement between Texas State and the city. Tax stuff. Anti-computer-virus stuff.

11. 50K from the Asset forfeiture program to an employee wellness program.

Max: civil forfeiture: can we explain this to the public? It’s like 150K. Can you explain for people where this comes from?

Presenter: Proceeds of felonious activity. Drug seizure. Money that’s along

I love that Max is asking him to explain this.

Passes quickly.

12. Revising and updates some public records. Meh. Passes unanimously.

13. Prohibiting motor-assistend scooters owned by commercial scooter companies.

Backstory: this is the compromise version. I was personally opposed to the first version. I even wrote a letter. Originally it was really extreme and banned all motorized scooters. This seems fine. I don’t totally know the motivation.

Presentation: This has been going on for 6 months, with vagueness.

None of those motorized rental scooters, like our motorized bikes. Users and companies will both get in trouble. Private scooters okay. City can carve out exceptions in the future. End of presentation.

Melissa: Do we really need to penalize the users? We get new students to town constantly.

Answer: These are big and require credit cards.

Melissa: yeah but that’s not my question. Is it legally required?

Answer: I’m not answering. I’m wandering around it and talking about intent.

Melissa, tightlipped: thank you.

Mayor Jane: I agree with Melissa. How would a kid know about city ordinances? But it’s pretty piddling. Only up to $100. They could give warnings.

Bert: The companies try this! They have dumped a bunch of scooters or bikes without permission, before! We end up finding out really quickly and wouldn’t fine the individual. We’d just confiscate them.

[The San Marxist: Civil forfeiture!]

Mayor Jane: Do we want to deal with sidewalk width?

There’s a back and forth. Who gets to ride ad walk where, etc. I’m just asking. You guys can take care of that.

Bert will look into it.

Max: I also had the width question! Got another. When they dump a bunch of scooters on us, can we raise the max fine?

Answer: We can’t go higher than 2K on any safety thing. That’s a city ordinance that $2K is the max.

Max: Is that per instance?

Answer: It’s per dump, not per vehicle. Also the vehicles can be impounded and there’s a per-scooter $50 impoundment fee.

Ed: I just like to agree with what other people said.

Constantino: There is already a city ordinance about lots of other things with wheels in the Central Business Area, ie downtown. Like roller skates and skateboards and bikes. Anywhere else, things with wheels have to give right of way to elsewhere. Been the way ’round these ordinances since the 1970s.

Mayor Jane: Is that a real hand, Ed?

Ed: I forgot to lower my hand. [In all fairness, these are zoom-hands.]

They lowered the fine to $250? Not sure, I missed stuff to chat with our little neighbor.

Anyway, it’s unanimously passed.

14. The delay for fees associated with food permits, etc. They discussed this last week. A covid relief thing for small businesses. Skip a payment and divide the rest into thirds, and spread fees over 6 months. By request.

15. Some covid stuff. Parklets for downtown? Savings clause?

Temporary licenses for parklets. To reactivate downtown.

Oh, this is nice: businesses can use little parking spaces as extra outdoor seating. Sidewalk cafes, etc. They already can, but they have to get approval, etc. from city council. This is going to expedite it and make it more pro-forma, waive application fee, and it would all be temporary and end when the students get back, mid-August. Food, retail, etc. Use the space.

[The San Marxist: This is a very good idea! More things need to be outside during Covid. Use the natural outdoor ventilation! Avoid congregating indoors!]

Should there be alcohol allowed? Council could explore that.

Mayor Jane: TABC wouldn’t hold outside their business perimeter, would it?

Shannon: Not normally, no. In Covid-times? With the take out, etc? Maybe.

Mayor Jane: I’m not staking any side. I’m just saying it may be moot.

Shannon: Yes ma’am.

More presentation: For this, we streamlined the parklet manual. Delete delete delete. Kept ADA. Durable plates, etc. Gotta keep it clean. Insurance, liscense. Max of 2 parklets per block, and a parklet is two parking spaces.

Per block? or per block face? Council, you get to pick! I mean, you still want to have parking spaces. You know how testy everyone gets about parking.

[The San Marxist: Parklet is just the cutest word. Sparkly parklets.]

Mainstreet is into this, as well. Wants to promote it and make more of these.

Melissa: With social distancing, two spaces seems small. And can they do this with the private parking in the back? If it’s not in a public right of way?

Shannon: if they’re serving food…thinks it through…should be okay?

[Back parking lot parklets seem really hot and parking-lot-ish. I’m picturing the pavement just exuding massive amounts of heat, and the soles of my shoes getting sticky, and feeling immensely uncomfortable. No breeze. Etc.]

Blocks vs. block faces? “Yer a block face,” quips my spouse. “Specially that guy.”

Mayor Jane is counting angled parking spots out on Google Maps: Angled spaces don’t seem like they’d be as useful as parallel.

Melissa: Something about coffee to go. And what about courthouse lawn? Grab and go food?

[I missed some stuff. Some darling friends cookie-bombed us and ran.]

Melissa: I want to make an amendment – two per block face.

Max: Abbott requires everything disposable, to go. What’s up here?

Shannon: If it’s an extension of your restaurant, I’m not sure you’d have to do Abbot’s thing.

Max: what’s this about ADA?

Shannon: we usually don’t remove ADA details.

No smoking in the parklets.

Max: What if there’s competition for these? First come, first serve?

Shannon: yes. So far, no one’s ever wanted one.

Ed: Shouldn’t it say something about emergencies?

Constantino: yeah, maybe!

Ed: Yeah well can you put that in there?

Melissa: This parking space bit about two spaces isn’t in here anywhere.

Shannon: It’s on page 4 of the manual.

Mayor Jane: but we’re not approving the manual.

Shannon: yes you are.

Melissa: Two per block face, please. I’m making an amendment.

Saul: I don’t like the alcohol. I don’t like the courthouse lawn.

Mayor Jane: Alcohol wouldn’t be allowed. The courthouse part isn’t in this ordinance.

Saul: ty.

Max: Is there a distance-to-door thing? Can parklets be adjacent? That seems bad for social distancing.

Shannon: already on it.

Bert: we’d stop it.

Amendment passes unanimously.

Jane: Ok, social distancing. Remember how Abbott tied our hands on keeping people 6 feet apart? Let’s interject somewhere here and make it tie parklets to a 6 feet distancing. Make the restaurant uphold it. Just tie it to the parklet permit.

Ed: I only want it to apply in the parklet.

[The San Marxist: Make it everywhere! Mayor Jane is right.]

Melissa: I just don’t want police officers sticking their heads in restaurants to check.

Mayor Jane: It’d be complaint-driven. But if you all just want in the parklet…

Saul: Inside and outside.

Max: Inside and outside.

Joca: Samesies.

Markeymoore: Samesies.

Melissa: I mean, I’m not going to die on this hill. Inside and out is fine.

What about using the parking hub? Doesn’t require extra language. It’s city property. Just let people wander over with their to-go food.

Max: I think they should have to notify their neighbors. I think we should require hand sanitizer.

Both sort of loosely agreed on. Emergency measure stuff to account for it being approved on a first reading.

Saul: What if a neighbor is opposed?

Shannon: Since these are temporary, a neighbor does not have veto power.

Unanimous!

——————————————————————

16. There’s going to be an Executive Session after this, and then they come back and talk about their Executive Secrets. The topic is “acquisition of property in Downtown San Marcos for public use”. My guess is…parking garage??

I don’t know how much stamina I have for this sort of thing – it’s 8:40. If they don’t return soon, I might just post this and watch the last bit later this week.

Accessibility

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

The city does not offer closed captions of the videos, nor does it offer a transcript. And our meeting minutes are laughably sparse – basically who made a motion, second, and how the vote went.

This seems like a clear cut violation of ADA, but the kind that is not going to be fixed any time soon. From some quick googling, it appears that disability rights groups are currently struggling to fight this on the state level, and the state of Texas, among others, is refusing to provide subtitles or transcripts.

Selfishly, I want transcripts because I can skim a transcript far faster than I can sit here and watch a video. That’s the thing about accommodations – we should do them because it’s the right thing to do, but they also benefit all of us. Sometimes when we’re healthy, and all of us will be ailing at some point.

The other thing I’d like is the ability to watch the videos at 1.5x speed. It kills me to sit through every sigh and languid pause. City council members are not entertainers, nor should they be, but it means that the timing is, um, about 1/3 the rpm that I wish it were.

City Council meeting, April 30th, 2020

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

Looks like a short meeting? Hopefully I will go back and blog some previous meetings, so that the cite-and-release discussion gets in here. I think that’s important.

Anyway:

  1. Something about Food establishment permits and fees during the Covid-19 pandemic response.

Emergency ordinance for payment plan for food establishments for permits and fees. Seems eminently reasonable. Quarterly payments. Available for the next six months. Sure, why not.

Max: What’ll we do in 6 months?

Staff: We can extend it.

Max: Do they have to be open? Or can they be still closed or something else?

Staff: Any. Partial. Whatever.

Max: What about forgiving these fees altogether?

Staff: About $35K.

Mayor Jane: (I’m not sure. Something about shuffling payments)

Then they talked about the fees. $300-700ish. Depends about the number of employees. Makes sense.

Melissa: 35K isn’t that much. Why not just waive it? These are our town square businesses.

Mayor Jane: Some of them are doing really well. How would we know who needs a waiver? Maybe just waive the first payment and divide by three payments? Waiving them all seems like a bad idea.

Melissa: There are estimated 45% – 29 of them – identified that are in dire straits. Let’s do something for those.

Saul: slicing fee schedule is fine, not a fan of waiving fees starting here. Bad precedent.

Max: Skipping first quarter and making in thirdly sounds good. Federal/state dollars, etc.

Mayor Jane: Maybe we can shuffle things down the line. Aren’t we stoked for places to reopen?

[The San Marxist: hmmm]

Anyway, everyone likes a flexible payment plan. I’m sure that will work out.

[This was awfully transcription of me. Let’s see if I don’t get the hang of summarizing things a bit better.]

  1. More covid updates

Numbers, Abbot’s thing, etc.

An Abbot thing, too.

Basically we’re not allowed to do or enforce much. Occupancy restrictions, yes.

Park closures will continue, Abbot’s thing doesn’t matter.

[The San Marxist wishes they would relax the trails along the river park.]

Testing capacity: at least 7 facilities.

The state is going to put two drive up testing clinics in Hays, starting on May 10th. One in Wimberley and one in Dripping Springs. LAME WHY NOT US.

“hey, this is all on the dashboard. Are you even looking at this thing?” he says diplomatically.

We’re all good. We’re capable of looking at the dashboard. No wait! Max and Saul prefer the documents. Markeymoore says dashboard is okay.

Jane: have you two stubborn holdouts even looked at the dashboard?

Simultaneous: Yes! No!

The guy explains that an extra feature of the dashboard is that it’s accessible 24/7, through the most modern space-age technology. They all agree to give it a whirl.

[How is there still an hour left in this meeting? yikes.]

What about masks?

Max: about these tests,

[I guess I’ll pause this draft. I’m about 40 minutes in. I’m definitely going to have to figure out my rhythm of posting so that it’s not a giant burden. Lots to learn!]

  1. A campo thing.