Author: The San Marxist

Hours 2:50 – 3:56, 3/18/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 23: Cape’s Dam 

Hooboy, CAPE’S DAM. As you know, this is a whole epic story!   Let’s see if we can wade through everything.

Background:

Here’s the part of the river that we’re talking about:

(source)

Cape’s Dam is here:

Damn Dams, and the Damn Dammers who Dam them.

In general, old dams are bad for rivers.

US Fish & Wildlife generally recommends removing them, so does this other American Rivers group, and pretty much any other environmental group.

Back in the 2000s, some folks at the Meadows Center began looking at Cape’s Dam. Would removing it be good for the endangered species?

Eventually they wrote up this report for the city: Effects of changing height of Cape’s Dam on recreation, Texas wild rice and fountain darter habitat in the San Marcos River, Texas.

It is insanely thorough! I can tell that much. They look at three things: fountain darters, Texas wild rice, and recreation. They conclude that removing the dam is good for the fishies, good for the endangered wild rice, and not bad for recreation.

This is their graph on recreation:

The 45 means drought, 100 is normal river, and 173 is after a lot of rain. The bars represent how much of the river is deep enough for you to paddle on. Removing the dam doesn’t really change how much of the river you can paddle down.

In 2014, they reported all this to the Park’s Department. But before they talk to Council, we have…

The 2015 Floods

The 2015 Memorial Day floods come along.  A 40 foot wall of water barreled down the Blanco River, 11 people are killed, and tons of homes are flooded.

In the course of all this, Cape’s Dam is destroyed.  

Here’s what it looks like afterwards:

(From this video) and from another angle:

(source)

I hunted for awhile, but I can’t find any photos of the dam from before it was destroyed.

…

2016: Council hears all of this for the first time

Now the city is trying to cope with post-disaster San Marcos. They’re assessing damage, applying for disaster funding, and so on. For Cape’s Dam, they’ve now got a liability mess on their hands.

The issue is presented: Should Council remove the dam and fill the Mill Race?

Wait, what’s the Mill Race?

I think it’s this:

It’s this little channel that was built back when this was an actual mill. It’s very calm and smooth because it’s got dams on both sides. I think you get this nice little loop around Thompson’s Island. So there are groups, like the scouts and disabled veterans, who have used this stretch for learning to kayak and rehab and growth.

It’s great for those groups!

But as far as I can tell, this is an amazing stretch that’s been kept hidden from public use. That part irritates me. People living east of I-35 have not been able to enjoy the Mill Race or the rest of the parks on that map very easily.

Back to 2016

As far as I can tell, this is the source of all our problems:

I actually went back and listened – you’re welcome – and here’s the problem: if you remove the dam, the Mill Race won’t have enough water 85%-90% of the time. Mostly it will have stagnant mosquito water, or dry up altogether.

So removing the dam wrecks the Mill Race. You could still canoe and paddle on the real river! Just not the Mill Race part.

…

So it’s 2016, the dam is now dangerous, and Council is given this choice:

  1. Use free money from the Army Corp of Engineers to remove the dam.
    • Good for the health of the river!
    • Good for the endangered species!
    • Can still paddle on the regular half.
  2. Use free money from the Army Corp of Engineers to remove the dam, and then use imaginary millions of dollars that we don’t have to rebuild the dam.
    • Imaginary money is not real. We don’t have it.

In March, 2016, Council votes to remove Cape’s dam.

So now the shit hits the fan. Massive controversy.

This organization springs up to save the Mill Race. They have some sympathetic points, but they also make some crappy arguments.

It was in the news a LOT. Like, a whole lot. Like, it’s one of the biggest San Marcos controversies of the decade.

The Argument about Historical Significance:

This is the part I have the least patience for. The argument that takes hold is that Cape’s Dam is so historically significant that we’ve got to save it. For the children! For the historians!

Look: if Cape’s Dam is so sacred, how come I cannot find one single photo of it anywhere, before it was destroyed? Didn’t we love it then?

I do even think there’s interesting history here! What was engineering like a hundred years ago? That’s worth studying.

The part that makes this bullshit is when you use it to say the dam must be preserved, in the river. Want to haul the broken pieces on the bank somewhere? Put up a nice plaque commemorating the dam? Knock yourself out! But don’t pretend that the historical significance means we need a functional dam in 2025.

But this gains traction. Preservation Texas has this blurb about the dam, Hays Historical Commission weighs in, and City Council holds a workshop with the Texas Historical Commision.

Thus begins the next phase of the controversy, 2017-2024:

We begin kicking the can down the road. For the next eight years, everyone just punts. You can read a nice summary of all the dithering here!

Kick, kick, kick. We’re kicking the can. kick, kick, kick.

Two extra details from this part of the timeline:

  1. The free disaster money to remove the dam expires. Now we’d have to apply for grant money. But like I mentioned, lots of organizations want old dams removed, so there’s money around.
  2. In 2017, San Marcos River Foundation acquires the land on one side of the bank.  They are a hard NO on rebuilding the dam.

They have always been very clear on their position: it is best for the health of the river to remove the dam.  You can’t rebuild the dam unless you can access their side of the river.  They will not agree to rebuilding the dam on their land.  Therefore there is no dam.

So now, in 2025:

I’m no engineer, but I’m pretty sure this is the choice before us:

  1. Find grant money to remove the dam.
    • Good for the health of the river!
    • Good for the endangered species!
    • Can still paddle on the regular half.
    • Current dam is dangerous and needs to be removed. (A recent tragedy.)
  2. Find grant money to remove the dam.
    • Then find imaginary millions of dollars more to rebuild the dam
    • Find an imaginary way to get SMRF to consent to let us rebuild a dam that they are strongly opposed to.

Look, it’s not actually a choice. No matter what, it starts with removing the dam.

This brings us to Tuesday’s meeting!

The issue at hand is spending $340K on a feasibility study. The study would do this:

So this study is going to answer all our questions:
– What’s the current conditions of the dam and the whole area?
– What would it take to rebuild it? Or partially re-build it? Or just remove it?
– What’s the environmental situation? What’s the permitting process?
– Do a bunch of public outreach and get public feedback.

….

What does Council say?

There are a few things to keep in mind during the Council discussion.

  1. We need the feasibility study, no matter what.  Every outcome requires permits. You need this study to get those permits.
  2. The east side of San Marcos has been majorly neglected for river recreation. We need to develop this.  Not necessarily the Mill Race – the public couldn’t access this anyway. They definitely deserve good river access and recreation.
  1. Most likely, you have to remove the dam, no matter what. (I’m no engineer, but look, it’s a pile of rubble.)

Council has a lot of confusion.  This is understandable – it’s a big, complicated topic.  But you’ve already read 1000 words on this, and trust me, you don’t want to read about them going in circles.  There are a LOT of circles, and they go round and round.

Some highlights:

Q: Can we skip the study and just put the money towards re-building?  (Shane)
A: No. You need it to get permits and apply for grant funding. Plus the re-building would be way more than $340K.

Saul Gonzales is quite clear-headed about keeping safety front-and-center in the conversation. Everyone is focused on this, but Saul is the one who repeatedly mentions it.

Q: What about liability, should someone get injured?
A: Yes, we are exposed.  This is a man-made thing in a public space, and we’re supposed to be in charge of it, even though the state owns the river.  SMRF would maybe have some liability in court, and parks get a little immunity for being outdoors, but this is not a natural outdoorsy thing. It’s a big risk.

Q: Aren’t we partnering with the county on all this?
A: Sort of, yes.  They’re interested in rebuilding. Or they were, in 2021, when we last talked with them about this.

Several councilmembers point out: The east side needs some good river access!

I agree with that!

Shane, Jane, Matthew, Lorenzo, and Alyssa are all open to rebuilding the dam.  They seem to be thinking that this is the way to support river access on the east side. They’re wrong about this, but it’s sympathetic.

Saul’s position: “I’d like us to make this safe, as quickly as possible. Let’s start with taking it out, and see if everyone likes it.  After that, if everyone wants a dam, we can rebuild the dam.”

Amanda’s position: “Rip it out and let the river flow. Then create recreation on the East Side.”

This aligns most closely with my beliefs.

…

Jane and Amanda go off on a tangent about getting public input first.  Now, the folks doing the feasibility study are already supposed to get a bunch of public input. And it’s a LOT:

But Jane and Amanda are proposing that the city get a bunch of public input, before the folks in the study get a bunch of input.

Look: No. That is just more kicking-the-can down the road.

Alyssa makes the exact right point here: “We have engaged with the public for YEARS.  EVERYONE has an opinion.  I know what the results will be.”

That is correct.

….

There’s discussion of partial rebuilds. Can the proposal consider that?
Answer: Yes. It’s in there.

Jane says: The main problem is that the Mill Race needs more water. Can we fill it with reclaimed water?
Answer: Uhhhhhhh…. you’re freaking us out. You want to release sewage into the Mill Race?

Jane: it’s treated, not raw sewage, and it gets released to the river downstream. So why not release it upstream?
Answer: We’re feeling woozy just trying to imagine the permitting process involved in releasing reclaimed water into a recreation area. Oh god.

I admire Jane’s problem-solving ambitions!

…

Bottom line: The study should take about 10 months. Then we will have a lot more information!

My belief is that the dam should go, and we should focus on creating recreation access for the public on the East Side. The mill race has always been treated as a fancy, restricted portion of the river, and the exclusiveness is bullshit.

…

If you’re curious:

Here’s a great read from 2000, from an old-timer named Tom Goynes, who has been paddling the river since the 1970s.

And here’s someone’s video, showing what it looks like to kayak through all this stuff we’re talking about:

It’s pretty amazing and beautiful.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops, 3/18/25

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

Two workshops this week!

Workshop #1: Update on Downtown plan
Workshop #2: Privacy policy on SMPD License Plate Scanners

….

Workshop #1: Listen, this was great. I just ran out of time to write it up properly, so it’s a little short.

We approved the Downtown plan in 2023.

So now we’re implementing it:

So far, we’ve done a bunch of great stuff!

Here’s what we’re in the middle of doing:

And here’s what we’re going to do next:

And here’s what we need, to do it:

Like I said, I’m shortchanging a really enjoyable presentation. Go listen!

…

Workshop #2: License Plate Readers

In February, SMPD asked Council to approve a bunch of license plate readers.

We had literally just talked about privacy with respect to technology, and these definitely require privacy protections. So we postponed the purchase until we had an updated privacy policy.

Here we are! Policy time.

…

What is FLOCK?

So in other words, there are seventeen intersections in San Marcos that are recording your license plate every time you drive by. (And soon there will be thirty locations.)

Is that reassuring? There’s still a lot of ways that this can go wrong.

How it works:

So basically, SMPD owns the data, but it’s located on the FLOCK system. If you have a crime in mind, you log in and run a query, and then it tells you which license plates were at that location, or it tells you all places a specific car went, or whatever.

Council had three big concerns:

We’ll take these one at a time.

Retention periods: how long do they keep the data?

We’re currently 30 days, and Chief Standridge makes the case that we need to stay at 30 days.

There’s no slide for this part, but he’s basically saying, “People don’t report crimes right away. Sometimes the crime isn’t even discovered for a week or two. If you don’t have the crime reported for two weeks, that eats up a lot of your time to query the data base for the license plate.”

He had his crime analyst go back into the system and pull the average length of time people waited to report various crimes, in 2024 in San Marcos. He says:

  • Criminal sexual contact: average 513 days delay
  • Forcible rape: average 640 days delay
  • Credit card ATM fraud (ie, steal your wallet or purse from your car and go to the nearest ATM): delay of 103 days
  • Shoplifting: average 21 days delay.
    (This is because stores submit the theft to corporate, and corporate decides whether or not it meets the threshhold to bring in the local SMPD.)

I mean, ok. This makes the case that the cameras aren’t actually helping you solve most of these crimes, but point taken on the delay in reporting.

…

Onto 2: Privacy Concerns:

They’re proposing a bunch of amendments to current policy.

Great.

The “TBP” bit stands for “Texas Best Practices”, which is an accreditation thing.

Amanda asks if we can include “economic status” to the list of protected statuses? In other words, no targeting an intersection because it’s known that homeless people are camping near there.

Sounds great to me! Everyone is on board with this.

Next:

What the hell – until now, you didn’t need reasonable suspicion or probable cause to run a query?!

Anway, now you do.

There’s a bunch of details here!

  • You get regular training.
  • You have to supply a case number when you run a query.
  • Later on, someone else in SMPD will be double-checking all the queries to make sure they make sense.
  • SMPD will not give the data to any private entity.

These are definitely huge improvements.

…

We’re sticking with 30 days, but we’re no longer going to grant exceptions:

3. Data sharing with other organizations:

There’s going to be an MOU, or Memorandum of Understanding. Any other law agency that wants San Marcos data has to sign this MOU.

The MOU isn’t written yet. But it’s going to require that officers in other jurisdictions follow all the same rules as us. Specifically, there must be a case number. You can’t just be looking people up.

And there will be a portal with general information available to the community.

Finally, misusing the system is a crime:

and you can get punished for it:

…

One weird thing about Flock Cameras is that anyone can buy them and join in. The outlet malls probably have them, your apartment complex or HOA could have them. Anyone who cares enough about who is coming and going can buy one.

Will we share our data with any old HOA or shopping mall?

Not anymore!! (But JFC, we sure used to play fast and loose with this data. The deleted part in red is wild.)

There’s some discussion of ICE in all this. We’ve opted out of immigration tracking. But there are some laws (SB4) which may or may not make this more complicated.

…

My opinion: These are really big amendments that make the system safer. I am still wary about license plate readers and Flock Safety, but this is at least much better.

March 4th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Lots going on this week! Flooding fears in Redwood/Rancho Vista, the SMCISD budget crisis, council compensation, and a massive presentation from SMPD. There is a LOT. Enjoy?

The meeting was super long, and the workshop was also a full three hours. So I’ll do my best to be zippy, so that I don’t wear out my welcome.

Hours 0:00 – 2:16: The flooding problems of Redwood/Rancho Vista, grant money plans, Summer Fun, and maybe some speed bumps in Trace?

Hours 2:16 – 4:28: In which SMCISD is pitted against the flooding problems in town.  And also council compensation gets hammered out.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops:  One short, on Evoke Wellness.  One extremely long, on what SMPD has been up to over the past four years.

Hours 0:00 – 2:16, 3/6/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

Three topics came up:

  1. Malachi Williams:
  2. Redwood and Riverbend Ranch
  3. Speedbumps in Trace Development

Let’s take these one at a time.

  1. Malachi Williams: his mother and sister both spoke about their loss.  They will continue to fight for justice.

It’s always particularly heartbreaking to hear from the family, and it’s worth being grateful that they have not shied away from speaking on his behalf.

2. Redwood/Rancho Vista and Riverbend Ranch:

Basically, Riverbend Ranch will be a gigantic development that is immediately uphill from Redwood.  The development agreement was approved in 2021.

Now, Redwood has huge problems with septic and flooding.  Today the developers want to change up the agreement, in ways that might increase the flooding.

The two speakers are Veronica Reyes Ibarra and Monica Reyes Ibarra. Veronica is the president of both the Redwood/Rancho Vista Neighborhood Association and Water Supply Corporation, and Monica is a former resident and advisor to the organizations.  They are both advocating on behalf of their community. They both explained about the flooding and challenges to Redwood/Rancho Vista, and the consequences on the people who live there.

We’ll unpack all of the details in Item 17!

  1. Speedbumps in Trace:  

Rodriguez Elementary is here:

in the middle of Trace subdivision.

The speaker wants speedbumps on Van Horn and Esplanade, due to people tearing through the main road at unsafe speeds:

I can imagine that – it feels like a nice, big wide expressway:

Ok, that is a terrible photo. In reality, it has trees and houses and people living there.

(I got that photo is from Bing maps and it is obviously very outdated, but Google maps is even worse:

But I didn’t have a chance to go photograph it in person. Oh well.)

Anyway: yes. Speed bumps are probably a good idea.

…

Item 1: HUD grant money

We get federal grant money from HUD , (the department of Housing and Urban Development). Some of these grants we get regularly, and others we’d apply for if we have another flood or natural disaster.

HUD grants require a few things:

  1. A citizen participation plan 
  2. A five year consolidated plan

So we’re updating these.

The Citizen Participation Plan:  

HUD requires you to have a plan on how citizens will be able to participate in the decision-making process for how the grant will be used.  You have to update it every five years.  

Here’s ours:

No one has any questions or concerns about this.

…

The Five Year Consolidated Plan:

This is a little more in-depth.  Basically we need to pick some broad categories to prioritize.

Background

We generally get about $700K each year in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money.

HUD puts some rules on it:

During the past 5 years, these were our priority categories:

And here’s what we accomplished over the past five years with the CDBG money:

…

So what do we want to prioritize for the next five years?

Here’s what HUD directs us to do:

Staff held surveys and open houses to get public opinion.  

Survey results:

Feedback ranked along themes:

Based on all that, here’s what staff recommends that our priorities should be:

…

So what does Council think?

Amanda: What about sidewalks? Can we include sidewalk projects?
Answer: They’re generally too expensive, but the gap sidewalk program has smaller, cheaper projects that are a good fit.

Alyssa: What kind of survey response numbers did we get?
Answer: 86 online, and then in the 7 dream sessions we got another 50 responses.

Alyssa: Transit is clearly a big response. Can we include that as a priority?
Answer: It is included under Public Services.

The city also gives out grants to nonprofits, under the Human Services Advisory Board, or HSAB.

Jane: Can we merge the application process of CDBG and HSAB?
Answer: We’re going to align the applications in 2026, but we still have separate committees looking at the applications. 

There’s some discussion of workforce skills and economic development.  ACC offers HVAC courses at the library, for example, and Community Action picks up the tab using CDBG money.  

Everyone is on board with these two plans.

…

Item 15: Summer Fun!  And other fun.

We’re updating our Youth Programs Standards of Care for 2025.  This means Summer Fun and Discovery Camp and any other kid-things that the city runs.

What is Summer Fun?

It’s a weeklong summer camp held for 8 sessions during the summer. The biggest point is that it is extremely affordable – $40 per week for city residents, including breakfast and lunch – and so it’s a real service to families who need affordable childcare. It’s hosted at different SMCISD campuses each year.

Before Covid, Summer Fun had 300 kids per week, across two different campuses.  It dropped dramatically during Covid, and now we’re somewhat back, up to 120 kids per week.  There’s usually a waitlist of about 50-60 kids each week, but we’re short on staffing. 

There are a few questions about scholarships and residency and growing the program.

  • scholarships are available for anyone in SMCISD, even if you’re out of the city
  • City residents get priority registration, so it’s been filled with just city residents for the past few years.
  • They would like to grow the program and serve more families, yes.

The city also runs a discovery camp, and a spring break camp, and other helpful camps.

(The vote for the Standards of Care is 7-0.)

… 

Item 17:  Rancho Vista/Redwood, and Riverbend Ranch

This one is big and tricky.  

Backstory:

Riverbend Ranch is an enormous piece of land that kind of wants to be its own town. It is just north of Redwood:

It’s not built yet, though.

We approved a development agreement with them back in December 2021. (This was when I was practice-blogging, and had not yet gone public.  I did write up the meeting, but did not notice the importance of this item.)

…

Keep in mind: Back in 2021, development agreements did not trigger any notifications.  So no one in Redwood would have been notified about this development.

This changed after SMART/Axis blew up in 2023. Now they notify people within 400 feet about an upcoming development agreement.

That’s better, but still not much. The notification radius should be proportional to the size of the development.

…

So as far as I know, no one noticed this massive tract of land was being discussed.

Just for funsies, here’s how the original vote went, back in 2021:

Yes, this looks AWESOME: Jane, Shane, Saul, and Mark Gleason and Jude Prather
No, this seems terrible: Alyssa, Max Baker 

Mm-hmm.

Redwood/Rancho Vista

Just south – and downhill! – of Riverbend Ranch is the Redwood/Rancho Vista community. They’re part of SMCISD and the greater San Marcos community, but they’re also kinda their own community. The Guadalupe-Hays county line runs right between Riverbend Ranch and Redwood.

Back in 2017, a study by UT-Austin uncovered widespread parasitic infections in the residents. This is due to septic problems and flooding. The soil is terrible for septic systems, so they break down and leak almost immediately. Anything that increases flooding risks will expose this vulnerable community to more adverse health effects. 

Since then, the two speakers – Veronica Reyes Ibarra and Monica Reyes Ibarra – have mobilized the community around solving the septic, flooding, and parasite issues. The three issues are all intertwined, and all expensive to fix. (Veronica is the president of both the neighborhood association and Redwood/Rancho Vista water supply corporation.)

…

In August 2022, the development agreement came back for amendments. This time I noticed. They wanted a variance for a 30 foot cut-and-fill.  

What’s cut-and-fill?  I drew you some pictures!

Suppose you’re trying to develop along a hill:

Now, you can’t put a foundation on a slope – you have to level it out:  

(I’m sorry. I wasted a lot of time doing this.)

So this is cut-and-fill:

Developers love this because now you can fit a lot of houses, or one big industrial building:

But now you’ve destroyed the natural drainage patterns, and this is going to make flooding much worse.

So the city code requires you to take little steps, like this:

You can’t fit as many houses though:

and you definitely can’t put a giant industrial warehouse on it anymore.

Back in 2022 at least, that was exactly what the developer wanted to do:

This went to P&Z.

There was a huge outcry from the residents of Rancho Vista/Redwood. About 30 residents wrote letters, and more showed up in person, to talk about the flooding and drainage issues and health consequences.

P&Z turned the cut-and-fill down.

Then it went to Council. Council did not vote on it, but instead formed a subcommittee in January 2023. Matthew, Saul, and Alyssa are all on it.

Then two years passed?  I’m not sure why? 

Which brings us to the present moment

They want a bunch of amendments, but specifically they want the cut and fill. No one mentions if this is for an industrial portion anymore. (Sure do hope it’s not another AI Data Center!)

Here’s the deal they hammered out with staff:

So this is the question that’s before Council:  Can they have their cut-and-fill if they agree to do all these other nice things?

….

What does Council say?

Matthew: It is shameful that Guadalupe County isn’t helping our neighbors!  I dream of annexation! I am a simple man, and I like retention ponds.  They’re a visual indicator that storm water is being detained.  Can we have more of those?

(I’m really not trying to mock Matthew here – these are quotes! He literally said “I am a simple man!” Council members are just endearing goofballs sometimes.)

Answer: They’re going to have retention ponds. Those were already in the development agreement.

Matthew: But can we have more?

Answer: No? They’ll be there? Look at this map, there’s a lot of them:

It’s hard to see, but I believe it’s the two red hatchmark regions, on the left and lower right parts of the pond?

….

Jane is arguing hard for the deal.  She keeps hammering the angle that if there were no development agreement, there’d be no protections at all.  Therefore this is better than the alternative.  

I am not so sure.  Big cut-and-fill is generally banned for a reason.  Jane doesn’t seem to be taking that into account – she’s only arguing that the mitigation strategies are great.

Shane comes out against the deal.  “It’s like the Woods all over again. 15% increased retention is barely anything.”

Staff: They’ll divert the water and release it downstream of Redwood/Rancho Vista

Shane: Doesn’t matter. 15% is barely anything.

(I’m inclined to agree.)

Saul is worried about the parasites and the flooding.  It floods really badly there.

Staff explains a bit:  the soil is really bad for septic systems.  They basically break very quickly and release sewage into the soil. The parasite lives in the sewage in the soil.  

Several council members ask: Can Redwood be annexed and brought onto city sewage?

Answer: Redwood/Rancho Vista might not want this? Every home owner would have to individually request annexation. Annexation comes with lots of taxes and fees.  Just the sewer would require connection fees and stormwater fees and other things.  It’s not likely that Redwood would reach consensus on this. 

Staff: The advantage of this development is that it will at least bring a sewer line much closer to Redwood.

Q: What’s all this about a M.U.D.?

Answer:  M.U.D. stands for Municipal Utility District.  This is like a city-lite.  They charge taxes and have a board.  They run utilities for people that live in the M.U.D, but they don’t do all the rest of the city government stuff.

(If you are curious about the insanity of the Cedar Park M.U.D, enjoy this blog which is their version of The San Marxist.  Things are pretty bonkers.) 

City Manager Stephanie Reyes weighs in with the following, which is worth quoting:

“That’s the hard part with a lot of decisions Council is faced with. Because, sometimes, it will look like you’re supporting a certain development, and a lot of times, it’s not about supporting the development  – it’s about supporting the regulations on the development, that you would not otherwise have if you did not vote a certain way. 

So that is something to contemplate, and it’s not lost on us that that is a very heavy decision… Some of the things can be developed by right, so even if you don’t vote for it, it’s still going to happen, but you lose the negotiating power to make some of these concessions and negotiations happen.”

So basically, no one likes this development any more, but we can’t stop it.  (Well, I think Jane still likes it.)  

…

Here’s my read: City staff and Jane Hughson are absolutely convinced of two things:

  1. The benefits of the improvements outweigh the risks of cut-and-fill.
  2. They will definitely develop the property anyway, if the cut-and-fill is denied.

The rest of council has to decide if they agree on those two things.  Everyone feels very uneasy voting yes but also uneasy about voting no.   

I will say this:  Council seemed genuinely concerned about the residents of Redwood.  

Jane makes one last point:  This is a big environmental win, because they wanted to build a package plant, and we got them to agree to a lift station instead.

What this means is that the developer wanted to install a cheap little sewage treatment station that would then release to the river.  This means it would have higher levels of phosphorous and lead to more algae blooms and other bad river outcomes.  Also, package plants are not staffed, so it takes longer to notice when something malfunctions and it starts dumping untreated waste into the river.  

Instead, we’ve gotten them to agree to a lift station, which brings the sewage back to San Marcos, to a higher quality treatment plant. So this is good!

(This win is independent of the welfare of the people in Redwood, though.)

The final point is that the Redwood parasite is already a problem that needs dire attention.  And ultimately, Redwood is not in either San Marcos or in Hays County – it’s in Guadalupe County, which we have no jurisdiction over.

What Council decides is that they’ll to bring the issue of Redwood septics and flooding back, at a future meeting. They will discuss a resolution to send to Guadalupe County, to try to somehow get them to take action on the issue. 

The vote: 

Yes: Jane, Matthew, Alyssa, Saul, Amanda, Lorenzo

No: Shane Scott

My take:  This is a really hard one. 

  • I’m not convinced that the mitigation strategies will outweigh the cut-and-fill risks, but I’m also not convinced that they won’t?
  • The package plant thing seems like a win
  • Passing a resolution to get Guadalupe County to help Redwood seems likely to be empty, but maybe Council will be more persistent than that.   

I felt like the current Council is sincere in their desire to help the residents of Redwood, but it’s not obvious how they should do that. It will require sustained attention and energy to help the residents out.

Hours 2:16 – 4:28, 3/4/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 19:  SMCISD is broke.

Backstory:

For the past few years, the state has been strangling the school districts out of funds, in order to get legislatures to approve Abbott’s vouchers plan.  In other words, back in 2019, we received $6,160 per student. It has not been raised since. With inflation alone, it should be $7,774.18 per student now. (And since Uvalde, there’s been a massive increase in unfunded, mandatory safety measures.)

SMCISD is looking at a $4-5 million budget shortfall.  

I’m sorry. I need to stop and shout for a second.

This is a huge, wealthy state with budget surpluses! We had a $32 billion surplus in 2023 and a $24 billion surplus in 2025.  There is plenty of money.

The reason that funding has been frozen is that Abbott is holding the public schools hostage. He wants a school voucher program. He didn’t get it in 2023, and so public schools were punished.

Furthermore! (My god, I’m going to hyperventilate.) FURTHERMORE!

Here’s Abbott’s voucher proposal: Increase per student funding from $6160 to $6380 at public schools, while private schools get $10,000 per kid from the state, plus whatever additional tuition above that. Everybody got that? Private schools – schools that can turn away kids with disabilities, kids with trauma, kids with behavior problems, and any other kid requiring extra TLC – get a lot more money per student than public schools.

How much money will SMCISD lose if this passes? There’s a handy website here!

And what does it say?

Let’s be super clear: the villains in this whole story are Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and the state legislature.

…

Okay, so even before the vouchers scam passes, SMCISD is looking at a $4-5 million shortfall.

This is already going to make San Marcos kids lives harder. Teachers who love them to bits are going to lose their jobs. It’s very real and it’s very awful.

In this context, SMCISD spends $372K on stormwater drainage fees to the city every year.  They’re asking for a waiver from the city.

What’s the city side of the equation? 

The stormwater fund is $9 million.  Stormwater money gets used on two things: big drainage projects and yearly maintenance. But the big projects are covered by debts, and so we’re obligated to keep making payments.

Giving SMCISD this waiver would cut yearly maintenance by 40%.  Drains wouldn’t be inspected for clogs, ditches wouldn’t have debris removed, etc.  Flooding would get worse.

Do other cities exempt ISDs from stormwater money?  

Some do: Austin, San Antonio, and Round Rock all do.
Some don’t: Seguin, New Braunfels, and Kyle all do not.

Remember how I said the state is the villain in this?  They strike again! State buildings, federal buildings, schools, nonprofits: everyone pays stormwater fees, and your rate is based on how big your footprint is. More impervious cover means a higher stormwater fee.

But! There’s a specific state law that carves out public universities, and only public universities. So Texas State University has paved the top of San Marcos, and yet does not contribute towards the cost of the flooding, caused when it inevitably all rolls downhill.  

(Sometimes I marvel at what this state could be like, if we weren’t constantly suffering from self-inflicted wounds.  Stop voting for pricks, everyone.)(I am aware that readers of this site probably didn’t vote for Abbott.)

What does Council say? 

First off, there’s no decision tonight.  This is just testing the waters – would Council like to have a formal discussion next time?  

Lorenzo: Can we look at a 2 year waiver instead of an indefinite waiver?
And can we look at a middle option – some kind of discounted rate tier for SMCISD that’s outside of residential and commercial?

Alyssa:  SMCISD fills big gaps in our service.  They’re the ones that take care of Redwood, for example. Let’s consider this.

Matthew Mendoza:  I’m angry on behalf of Sunset Acres.  We’re trying to fix the drainage there, and SMCISD is holding it hostage.

Note: here’s my understanding of what Matthew means:

In November 2022, we took a big look at the flooding in Sunset Acres.  It’s really, really bad.

We came up with a semi-fast track solution to get it fixed.  The fastest part of the solution hinges on enlarging a detention pond at Mendez Elementary.

The city made two offers SMCISD, in exchange for the easement – about $350K for the land, or a credit for stormwater fees. (Pretty similar to what they’re asking us for, now!)

SMCISD was interested and started to work with us.  But then they realized they needed to renovate Mendez.  Currently, they’re waiting on permits. Once they can see how big the footprint of the new Mendez will be, then they’ll come back and talk with us about the drainage pond.  

So the “quick” solution to fix the flooding has now become yet another holding pattern, going on three years now. The neighborhood was already pessimistic about the city fixing anything, and this kind of thing makes it worse.

Amanda makes a few different points:
– I would entertain two years, but definitely not in perpetuity.
– The Texas Legislature is going to suck just as much in two years as they do now.  I need to see what other cuts the school district is making, in order to balance its books on the other $4 million. 
– Lots of neighborhoods have lost faith in the city to fix their flooding problems.  This money is for those projects.
– If our rationale is that SMCISD covers gaps in our services, then this opens the door for every nonprofit to ask for a waiver as well. We need to be really careful with our precedents.  

Jane:  I don’t think we should even bring it back for discussion. But enough of you have said yes already. Definitely not just 2 years, because we’ll forget to enforce it. 

So this will come back.

The most important thing to understand is that the state of Texas is the only villain here.

…

Item 22: Councilmember compensation:  

(Discussed last time.) Councilmembers get three kinds of funding:

  1. Regular (measly) paycheck
  2. Travel and expenses (you have to submit receipts)
  3. Flex money (you choose whether to take it as income or use it for expenses) 

Right now, here’s what everyone gets:

So this is Shane Scott’s proposal, and he wants to double the travel and flex spending amounts.  

Jane’s got amendments!  “First,” she says, “We don’t need this.  We’re not running out of travel funds.  Some of us go over, some of us go under. We just need to lend each other our un-used amounts.”

Here’s what she means:

So $13,500 is the mayor last year, and $7,500 is each of the council members. (Jude is the $15K, because it includes his flex spending. He worked for the county, so he couldn’t accept a city paycheck.)

So you can see: some went over, some went under, but the total was $51,810, which was under budget.

Great! There’s no problem!

Here come the amendments

Jane Amendment 1:  Keep the Flex money at $7,500, instead of doubling it to $15K.

The vote:

Keep at $7,500: Jane, Matthew, Saul
Double to $15K: Alyssa, Shane, Lorenzo, Amanda

So this fails. 

…

Jane Amendment 2: Keep the Travel money at $7,500, instead of doubling it to $15K.

The vote:

Keep at $7,500: Jane, Matthew, Saul, Amanda
Double to $15K: Alyssa, Shane, Lorenzo

So this passes.  

…

So now we’re looking at doubling the flex spending and leaving travel alone.

At this point, Alyssa balks at this piece-meal approach.  She wants to go back and retract her yes vote for the Flex money, and instead double the Travel money.  

There’s a lot of confusion around this.  Flex money can be used for Travel, so why does it matter? There’s a lot of arguing about what’s easier, and whether the flexibility of Flex Money is too complicated. Ultimately there are not enough votes to reconsider the motion, so it stands.

…

Next: Shane amendment: Okay, just increase Travel money by $2K, then.

Keep at $7,500: Jane, Matthew, Saul
Increase to $9,500: Alyssa, Shane, Lorenzo, Amanda

So this passes.

…

Jane amendment 3:  If you want to borrow travel money from another councilmember, you have to get council approval at a meeting:

Yes: Amanda, Jane, Matthew
No: Saul, Alyssa, Shane, Lorenzo

So this fails.  Councilmembers can just lend each other money, and notify the finance committee accordingly.

…

Next: it turns out there’s a special travel fund that everyone’s forgotten about. It used to have $25K in it, for council members who went over budget.  We let it drop during Covid, when no one was traveling, so now it has $5K in it.

Jane amendment 4: Increase the special travel fund to $15K, but you have to get council approval at a meeting.

Everyone is fine with this. The vote is 7-0.

…

The final vote on the whole thing:

Yes: Everyone but Matthew Mendoza
No: Matthew Mendoza

So Council members will now get:

  • $17,400 paycheck
  • $15,000 flex spending
  • $9,500 travel and exspenses

I am fine with this. You want your council to be able to learn about governance and write good policy. They need time and resources to be good at their jobs.

(No one brought up an amendment about waiting for the next budget cycle. So it goes into effect mid-budget, immediately.)

…

Item 23:  Delinquent Apartment Complexses

This is actually great governance in action.

Generally speaking, if you don’t pay your utility bill, your water/electric/etc gets disconnected.  But what if you live in an apartment complex, and you pay a flat rate to your landlord, and the landlord doesn’t pay the utility bill? Do we really want to disconnect the electricity on a bunch of renters who didn’t cause the problem?

No, we don’t! So let’s not do that.

Instead we’ll put a municipal utility lien on the property. So only the owner gets affected, and not the tenants.

Everyone likes this. 7-0.

…

Finally there are some various appointments to various boards, and futzing with small rules to some boards and commissions. 

This was a very, very long meeting, and there’s still a 3 hour workshop to go, so maybe let’s stop here.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops, 3/4/25

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

There are two workshops: one very short and one very long.

  1. Evoke Wellness.

Back in December, Council had a lot of questions for these guys.  They offer mental health and addiction treatment for people referred over by the police.  We’ve allocated 150K of Covid money for this. This is a follow up discussion with the director at Evoke.

Amanda: What’s it look like if you’re receiving services?

The director gives an extremely detailed answer!

  • Prescreen for eligibility. Detox? Residential? Intensive Outpatient?
  • Say we’re starting with detox. Then there’s an evaluation and intake process.
  • Then you’re seen by nursing staff to get orders from the medical director on the detox protocol, medication regimen
  • Detox lasts 5-7 days. Completely voluntary. You’re free to leave at any point.
  • Residential: 21-28 days. Could be detox and then residential.
  • In the residential part: first there’s a biopsych-social assessment: trauma history, drug use history, family relationships, everything. You need a full picture to treat the whole person.
  • Clinical team and medical team working together to monitor the patient 24/7.
  • During the day: like school, 6 hours a day. Learn about substance abuse and mental health conditions, tools, coping skills to hopefully achieve longterm sobriety.
  • Breakfast, meds, 9:30-5:30 programming, community involvement with 12-step panels holding meetings with clients.
  • You also get a therapist and case manager. The case manager will help with the discharge process.
  • Therapist meets weekly and as needed.
  • 6 hours/day of group therapy.
  • Longer lengths of stay produce better outcomes. Typically 28-35 days.
  • Discharge plans: typically clients take the clinical recommendation for a sit down placement in a PHP (partial hospital hospitalization) – lower level of care, higher level of freedom, and so own down the levels of care.

Amanda: How often is the intake the first time the person’s ever run through their trauma?
Answer: Depends if they’ve ever had treatment before. Could be first time, could have relapsed.

Amanda: Typical client to staff ratio?
Answer: 8:1 ratio, plus nursing staff and on-call medical director and leadership team.

Amanda: On the discharge plan: If you don’t want to go through everything, can you still get a discharge plan?
Answer: Yes. And if they won’t accept the discharge plan, our case managers will help connect them with resources that work for them.

Amanda: What about people that are indigent? How does medication work upon discharge?
Answer: For all clients, detox meds are covered for free, for 5-7 days. They are responsible for their medications, but if they have no resources, we will keep providing it. The discharge coordinator will work with them to find the community resources to stay on their medications.

Alyssa: Last year, I asked for info about Evoke. They were in the process of getting a mental health license – did that happen?
Answer: We are licensed for co-occuring disorders. There must be substance disorder with a mental health disorder. Actually pretty rare to have a substance issue without a mental health issue, so this is pretty much all our patients. We do not currently serve clients that only have a mental health issue and no substance abuse.

Alyssa: This helps San Marcos?
Chief Standridge: The goal is jail diversion. We’re using funds from both San Marcos and Hays money. If they have insurance, we use that first. If they’re indigent, we try to use our funds. But only if they’re residents of San Marcos.

Everyone is really pleased by the high quality of the answers given by the director.

Alyssa: I’m very hopeful? There’s a lot of structural root causes and obstacles that have to be overcome, and we have to think about those when it’s time to budget. And the public defenders office has been really helpful in locating resources. But I am anxious about the rise in need for support services. We’re setting people up for failure if we don’t supply resources.

Shane: I’m tickled to death! How it all came together, as a team.

(This is Covid money, so we’ll have to figure out how to fund it going forward.)

…

Workshop 2:  SMPD. This is a 2 hour presentation!

This is SMPD’s opportunity to put their best foot forward.  This is a description of all the trainings and guard rails in place at SMPD.  Everything is couched in really positive terms – “Do we make mistakes? Sure! But we then unpack it and learn from it.”  

This isn’t bad! It’s totally fine. It’s what any other department would do. However, a police department requires an extra level of skepticism, because of the sordid history leading up to this moment in time.  

Usually I’d use Council questions to look for cracks in the presentation. But they ran out of time, because the council meeting starts at 6 pm.

So this is a very glowing presentation, without any opportunity to give a counter-narrative. Anyway, I’m just the messenger. Don’t shoot me.

…

Chief Standridge came here four years ago. We’re kind of summarizing the internal protocols that he’s implemented over this time.

There are five different speakers.

Speaker #1: Internal changes

“ABLE” stands for Active Bystander for Law Enforcement. This is basically like “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.” How do you create an environment where cops will tattle on each other?

The goal is for the consequences of not intervening to be bigger than the consequences of intervening. They do some training around interventions as well.

Here’s how many internal cases they’ve dealt with:

I mean, it’s absolutely impossible to interpret this. Is this a lot, or a little? How often are incidents going unreported? Would I agree with the outcomes if I knew all the details of the incidents?

There’s no way that PD could answer these questions! But it also means that we can’t really makes sense of this data.

It’s like if five people go to the doctor for measles, and the doctor treats three of them, and diagnoses one with allergies and one with mumps.

  • That doesn’t tell you much about the number of measles cases in the rest of the town
  • It also doesn’t tell you if the doctor is making correct diagnoses

Both those things would be much harder to figure out.

Here are the investigations that were found to be substantiated:

In 2021, we had one IA investigator. Now we have four. So that definitely helps have more eyes looking out for bad behavior.

…

The Event Review Board

The Event Review Board reviews every incident, use of force, pursuit, and preventable accident. They try to see what the department could change to reduce these events.

It’s a broad group of people and they’re supposed to look at any potential event, no matter how minor.

Some data:

Again, I just don’t have enough context to make sense of these numbers.

The speaker might have said given good context! But this was a three hour presentation, and if she did, I didn’t jot it down in my notes.

Also:

None of these were available last April, when Malachi Williams was killed. Alyssa brings this up.

Amanda asks about the costs of these?

Taser 10: $343K for 123 officers, or about $2789 per officer, per year. (Includes the Taser 10, body cameras, unlimited video storage, training, and software licensing.)
BolaWrap: $1,299.99 each, and $38.99 each for cartridgets
40 mm foam bullet launcher thing: $1,273.50 each

I don’t know if each officer gets each thing, but that would come to $5362 per officer. With 123 officers, it’s about $660K.

Look, I want the officers to use less lethal force. I’m just pointing out that SMPD spends bigger sums of money, and they do it much more quickly and easily than any other department.

…

This next thing is actually really great.

Suppose you stop someone and they don’t speak English. You open up this Voyce app, and there’s a live translator. You pay by the minute.

Notice they can provide sign language as well. (But it only works if officers remember that people can be deaf. This would not have helped John Kelley, the deaf man that was tased in 2019 for not responding when SMPD told him to stop.)

The speaker says that there was one time that they needed a Mandarin translater at 3 am. This is pretty invaluable for that. (It was originally designed for the medical community. Seems invaluable there, too.)

This app doesn’t help you figure out what language the other person is speaking though. You have to use google or something.

That was all the first speaker!

…

Next speaker: Accreditation

So I guess not all the PDs are accredited, but now we are?

We’re not there yet, but we’re working towards it.

Basically you have to come up with policies that satisfy the agency in these areas:

You have to show compliance with 173 best practices.

(This meeting was the day when it was super windy and there was all the spooky smoke and dust hanging over the city. Everyone’s alarms kept going off for the evacuations up in Kyle.)

Anyway, it sounds like it’s a ton of work:

And then you have to stay accredited:

…

Onto the next speaker!

This one is super interesting – it’s on our 911 call center.

Basically, there’s a nationwide shortage of 911 dispatchers. We used to have 9 vacancies. We filled over half of them, and we’ve got a current batch of highers to fill the rest.

What happened is that we started paying a reasonable salary, and got a reputation as a good place to work. So we’re in a much healthier spot now.

911 callers also have language barriers. Instead of the VOYCE app, they use something called CyraCom:

Alyssa points out that this happened in the original 911 call involving Malachi Williams. The caller only spoke Spanish. While they were connecting with CyraCom, there was just this awful dead silence, where the caller had no idea whether or not they were going to get any help.

Alyssa suggests having a few pre-scripted lines like, “One moment while we connect with a translator” or something. This is a great idea.

We’re also trying a new program:

This is a program where they transfer mental health calls out to trained mental health providers, who will connect the person with local resources, or stay on the line and talk the person through whatever’s going on.

They can also transfer the call back to 911, if they think we need to send out an emergency response, after all. The responder then goes right out, because the call is already in the system.

They’ve been doing it since November. It turns out that most of the calls do come back to us, after all? And we end up sending someone out. It’s a work in progress!

…

Next speaker! The SMPD Mental Health Unit.

I don’t know what the training to be a Mental Health Officer really means. Is it a course? Is it multiple courses? Is it like a Master’s degree? Are you supervised by a mental health professional?

(I’m sure I could look it up, but I’m just trying to first get this whole entry out on time.)

It sounds like they do good things: they sit with people who are scared and nervous before testifying or going to court. They get food boxes from Hays County Food Bank if someone needs it. They’re generally problem-solving and checking in on people’s well-being. They will sometimes stay with someone for months, making regular follow ups to help manage someone’s care.

Here, have some data:

An “emergency detainment” is if someone is an immediate danger to themselves of others. They try to avoid doing that, though. It may mean taking them to an ER or a substance abuse facility. (But not jail.)

…

Next speaker! What comes next with Mental Health Officers?

Here’s what the state is doing:

It used to be that officers had two options:

  • Take someone to an emergency room
  • Take someone to jail and go through courts.

Now we’ve got more options. The state created a big Mental Health Officer framework in 2015.

Here’s what we’ve got so far:

Here’s what we’re aiming for:

…

Next speaker! Context of Crime.

We report crime in two ways:

We are transitioned in 2018/2019 from UCR to NIBRS, which is better data. But any longterm comparison requires UCR data.

Longterm violent crime:

Short term crime rates:

Note from me: On the motor vehicle theft, this is happening everywhere:

But it’s always worth remembering that crime is way down, overall:

…

Back to the presentation.

More crime trends:

and specifically violent crimes:

Saul asks a great question – does this include Texas State data?
Answer: No. They have their own police and their data is not included.

Again, this is mostly just following national trend lines, as the nation returns to baseline after Covid:

It’s still a good thing!

And it’s still way, way lower than 30 years ago:

This recent data also corresponds time-wise with Chief Standridge arriving in 2021. So we are simultaneously implementing new strategies:

There’s a special victims unit:

They partner with Hays-Caldwell Women’s Shelter.

…

Next up is Chief Standridge! He is very apologetic.

There is a specific Chief’s Advisory Panel. In order to get community feedback, they drew up some questions about the public’s crime-related fears.

The plan was for everyone on the panel to chat up their neighbor and get some informal feedback. Max Baker offered to digitize the survey and share it with the San Marcos Civics Club.

When staff got the responses, they threw out anything that didn’t seem relevant to the question at hand. Chief Standridge is extremely apologetic to this. He apologizes profusely and specifically to Max and the public.

Here are the remaining answers:

He promises to get the full data, including the extra answers, out as quickly as possible.

(My personal answer is car crashes on I-35. That terrifies me.)

…

By this point, it is 5:30, and the looming 6 pm meeting starts to take over the presentation.

Councilmembers have lots of questions, but there’s not really time for them.

…

Next presentation! School Resource Officers.

SROs are supposed to be three things: Counselor, educator, and law enforcement:

But not these things:

We have five total:

We’ve been doing this since Columbine, and most of the community is pretty happy with it:

…

Back to Chief Standridge:

He sums up with this program for the next year:

At this point, they are almost out of time. There are slides on the Marijuana Decriminalization Dashboard, but he doesn’t get to them. But it’s all publicly available here.

The full slide show is also available here.

…

There’s a very quick Q&A, but it’s rushed and haphazard. Hopefully there will be a real Q&A scheduled in the future.

Holy moly, that was long.

February 18th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

This is a big week! Malachi Williams, that weird Data Center thing you’ve heard about, and Council outlines their hopes and dreams for the next year. Like, how about a Crime Prevention office that is outside of SMPD and the incarceration system? And lots more! It’s very exciting.

Let’s do this!

Hours 0:00 – 2:03:  Citizen comments on Malachi Williams, lots of details on the new Data Center proposal, and a little on Council compensation and travel budgets.

Hours 2:03 – 2:33: Council gets to outline the coming year’s priorities, and they’re dreaming big: A tenant’s bill of rights! A non-police office of crime prevention!  And so much more. 

Bonus! 3 pm Workshops:  Fixing the city utility assistance program, and the last little bit of Covid money.

That’s all I got! Enjoy.

Hours 0:00 – 2:03, 2/18/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment

Two topics today:

  1. Nine people spoke about Malachi Williams. 
  2. Three people talked about the Data Center that might come to town.

I’ll save the Data Center comments for when we get to that item, and just focus on the Malachi Williams speakers here.

Backstory: Malachi Williams was a 22 year old who was killed by an SMPD officer last April. It was reported that he was carrying knives. Two officers started to detain him at the convenience store on Cheatham and Hopkins. (He was not holding the knives at that point.) He took off running. They chased him over to HEB, and then shot and killed him in pursuit.

Since last April, a number of activists and family members have been pursuing justice for Malachi, and fighting for a fair process for the family and some kind of consequence for the cops.

Last August, a grand jury decided not to press charges against the officer. That basically brings us up to the present day.

Why now?  There was an event recently hosted by Malachi’s family. From what I gather, attendees were able to view some bystander footage for the first time. 

The focus today is on inconsistencies between what Chief Standridge and SMPD have claimed, and what actually happened last April.  

The biggest problem:

Chief Standridge has been asserting that a fire marshall was there and able to administer first aid in under a minute. Officers are trained in first aid, but they didn’t need to jump in, because the fire marshal is a certified paramedic.

The speakers say that is definitely not what the videos show.

Here’s what the speakers describe: Malachi doesn’t get first aid for about three minutes. During that time, SMPD got mad at him for not putting his hands behind his back. They rolled him around, so they could handcuff him. They checked his pockets. In fact, when first responders did arrive, they had to ask the cops to take the handcuffs off the guy they’d shot, who was bleeding out.

Malachi’s grandfather  

I’ve mentioned before what a compelling speaker he is. In his measured way, he asks council, “Think. If what we’re hearing today is true, are you disgusted? Can I get a show of hands, please?” – and he puts his own hand up – “If we’re telling the truth, if we’re telling the truth, are you disgusted?”

Here’s who raises their hands:

That would be Amanda Rodriguez on the left, with both hands up, Alyssa Garza in pink, and Lorenzo Gonzalez on the right. (I will say that so far, Lorenzo Gonzalez is proving to be a good council member.  I don’t have any complaints.)

Jane, Saul, Matthew, and Shane refuse to go along with the requested show of sympathy. (Is it performative? Sure, but I also think they genuinely just might not care.)

….

Now for an abrupt change in tone:

5.  Fireworks!  We put on a fireworks show every 4th of July.  

The amount we spend fluctuates from year to year:

This is because some years we get donations, and other years we don’t:

For the record, it’s always a 20 minute show.  As they put it, “The more donations we get, the bigger the booms.” 

Jane Hughson wants to know why we have to keep making the shows bigger.  If donations come in, can’t it just free up some city money that we could send over to the parks department?

Answer: People complain when it’s big one year and smaller the next.

Me personally: I’m with Jane here. I’m having a hard time caring about the size of the fireworks.  I’d rather use the donations for fireworks, and free up some money for the parks department.

But then again, I’m a grouchy old tree stump. If other people care, who am I to harsh their mellow?

…

Item 10:  Data Centers!

You may have seen this KXAN article, “A new AI data center is coming to San Marcos“?

This isn’t that.  In fact, there’s a lot of confusion about what that article exactly is about! We’ll try to unpack it all here.

So if this isn’t that, what is this?

First off, it’s way down here:

(We’ve actually seen this property before, back in August 2nd, 2022.  They wanted to put houses out there.  I thought it sounded like a super terrible idea!)

Here’s a close-up of that property:

See that funny little yellow square?  That’s an old cemetery.  Access to the cemetery will be preserved.

Listen: I have some extremely boring confusion regarding this cemetery. I’m sticking it at the end of this page, because it’s truly too weedy to bore you with. This way you can opt out from the dumbest of my dumb shit.

What’s a data center? 

Basically a giant computer that takes up an entire building, where AI can perform its massive amount of computations.  So there are very few people working here, besides security and some technicians to monitor it.

What are the pros and cons?

The pros:

  • This is in the middle of nowhere, next to a giant power station.
  • The city is not going to have to spend much on infrastructure or maintenance.
  • The city should see some revenue from property taxes.

The cons:

  • Data centers take a massive amount of water.
  • Data centers use a massive amount of electricity.

This particular project would not be on city water or electric. They’d use Crystal Clear Water and Pedernales Electric for power.  (They’d be on San Marcos wastewater, though.)

Here’s the thing:  Crystal Clear Water draws from ARWA, just like we do.  It might not be city water, but it’s the same underlying water table, either way.

Can this be done responsibly?  Maybe!

Water is the biggest problem. The water is needed to cool the data center, because computers generate a lot of heat, which would then make them overheat and shut down otherwise.

The land-owner says that this will be a closed-loop water cooling system, which means less will be lost to evaporation. Matthew Mendoza says Google developed this technology 8 years ago. (I don’t know if this is the same as this technology, which only rolled out last year, but maybe.)

It’s great to implement the latest water-saving technology! But if quantities are still way too big, it doesn’t help you much.

Bottom line:  We can’t make an informed decision unless we have a concrete gallon amount of potable water usage.    

How much water does a data center use? This says an average estimate is 550K gallons per day for a hyperscale data center. (I’m pretty sure AI means a hyperscale data center). This closed-loop Microsoft system coming next year is claiming to only use 99.5K gallons per day. So we’ll probably be somewhere between those two estimates.

How much water do we have? According to the presentation in January, our current capacity is 4.8 million gallons per day.

NOTE: They would be using 550K gallons of Crystal Clear Water, not San Marcos water! But I couldn’t find a total capacity for CCW, so I just used San Marcos as a reference point. Both draw on the same underlying water table, so it’s best to still think about water conservation.

Can data centers use reclaimed water?  Maybe!

This link says yes, they can, but if the water quality is bad enough, it causes corrosion and microbial growth and other problems.

We do actually have a reclaimed water line that goes very close to there.  What’s the quality of the reclaimed water in that pipe? Could they use it?

I think this is the most essential question to answer.

Energy usage:  Honestly, this is probably less of a concern than the water.  Texas may have a shitty grid system, but we have a fairly healthy renewable energy supply, mostly because of all those windfarms out west.  This is a great state for both wind and solar energy, if we’d only stop electing such counterproductive leaders.

On energy, there is something called ASHRAE guidelines for data centers:

So maybe we could ask them to achieve that.

Do we have any leverage? 

Sort of! This is a tricky thing to answer.

First, they’re not asking for tax cuts. If they were, we could come back with all kinds of environmental restrictions. But they aren’t.

Second, they’re asking for a Preferred Scenario Amendment and a rezoning. There are rules around how cities make these decisions. You’re not allowed to base it on one specific project. You have to approve or deny based on all the allowed uses, and whether you like the location or not. And specifically, you can’t attach any requirements to these.

You might be able to require a Planned Development District, but I don’t know if water usage is an allowable reason to trigger one.

My opinion: If we can get them to agree to reclaimed water, then we should do this. Otherwise they’ll find another location that still uses the same water source, but isn’t within San Marcos jurisdiction.

I think many data centers will get built in Central Texas, no matter what.  I would like them to be as tightly regulated as possible. 

Note to Council: An ordinance requiring future data centers to be on reclaimed water might be handy to have!

…

What do citizen comments say?

Let’s go back to the beginning of the meeting. During citizen comment, one speaker had a list of extremely great questions:

  • What is the current noise ordinance for Light Industrial, within the city of San Marcos?
  • Will Dark Sky Lighting be considered for all outdoor buildings?
  • What will the setbacks be for both Francis Harris Road and the private Grant Harris Road?
  • Do we have a general idea of the size of the buildings?
  • What will be the estimated daily water usage?
  • Will it be public drinking water?
  • Will any measures be taken to lessen the impact of the large amount of impervious cover?
  • Cloudburst has stated on their website that this site will be part of their flagship data center in central Texas, and plans to aggressively grow its data center network. With a large amount of open farmland around the proposed site, should we expect further development from this company?
  • Since Cloudburst has already signed a longterm contract with Energy Transfer, the power plant already located on Francis Harris Lane, and KXAN reported on February 13th an AI data center is coming to San Marcos, should we assume decisions to change zoning and city limit boundaries are already confirmed?
  • Will Cloudburst be responsible for answering any of these questions or have to provide plans for the development, prior to the zoning change and incorporation into the city?

The very next speaker happened to be the land owner. His major points:

  • I’m working with the Data Center company to answer those questions above. The previous speaker submitted the questions to us in writing, after the P&Z meeting.
  • We have confirmed that the Data Center uses a closed loop water system. We are still working to quantify the amount of water lost to evaporation.
  • Hey look, we’re not going to put much wear and tear on the roads, at least!
  • And the biggie: We have no affiliation with Cloudburst or Energy Transfer. That is not us. The first time I ever heard of them is when that KXAN article came out.

What does Council say?

What the hell is going on with the KXAN article about Cloudburst?!

No one knows.  The owner swears up and down that he’s never heard of Cloudburst until that article came out, and has no idea what’s going on.

Amanda Rodriguez has headed over to the Cloudburst website, and they have the same exact timeline posted as this project:

Are there two projects? 

City staff says that it’s extremely unlikely a project of this size would operate on stealth-mode like this.  Companies tend to reach out to either the city for permits, or to the Economic Development Partnership to find out more about working in the area, or whatever.

The city manager Stephanie Reyes does also say that the city has gotten approached by multiple companies about data centers.  But no one else has an active application in progress.

Basically: no one knows what’s up with Cloud Center and they’re going to follow up.

….

What next?  Tonight was just informational. This is going to drag out all the way to April:

So there was no vote today. Stay tuned.

…

Item 11: Council members don’t get paid much.

Shane Scott wants to double the travel budget and increase the stipend that council members get.

First off: yes, we should pay our council more.  If you don’t pay your council enough, then you only get council members who are either independently wealthy, or who are willing to live in poverty in order to serve in council.  That’s not a recipe for healthy representation. 

Second: yes, we should increase their travel budget.  Inflation has made expenses go up.  We want council members to attend conferences and gain expertise, and make connections.  That’s how you get stronger representation. 

However, this is Shane Scott’s proposal, so it comes with a whiff of ridiculousness. 

Like at 1:18:30:

Shane: “At these conferences that I go to, I even get AWARDS for doing all the classes and stuff.”

Alyssa in the background: “he does, it’s so good.”

Jane: “I don’t really care about the awards. What value have you brought back to this council?”

Shane: “If I were to pass all the writing and stuff that I’ve learned before, I’d have a whoooole book of stuff that I’ve provided to council about doing stuff.”

I am dying to know more about these awards he’s winning for participation.

That’s my blogger dream, that Shane has a whole trophy case of these things.

Back to the proposal

The total increase of his proposal is $90K.

One ridiculous thing he’s doing is saying that he wants to increase amounts halfway through this year, instead of just waiting and budgeting the increases into next year’s budget.  So city staff had to scramble to figure out where to cut $45K from, in case Council approves Shane’s proposal.  

The city manager was not enthusiastic at all about this, back in December, but she managed to find $45K by raiding two budgets, one called “Council- related” and the other is a Contingency fund, for when projects go over their budget.

…

Here’s how much more money Council members would get, under this proposal:

“Expenses Elected” means your travel budget. This is anything where you have to provide receipts for what you did. So Shane wants to double everyone’s travel budget.

“Compensation” isn’t changing, but “Additional Expenses” is being doubled. “Additional Expenses” is basically extra compensation.  Councilmembers take it as a monthly lump sum for expenses where they don’t have to provide receipts. 

Why not combine “Compensation” and “Additional Expenses”?  Just call it all compensation? 

There’s actually a good reason: you can’t collect two paychecks from the government.  So if you work for the university, or the county, or the state, you can’t collect “Compensation”.  You can still collect “Additional Expenses” though – this is what Jude Prather did, since he works for the county.

Amanda is horrified to learn this – “You mean I could have kept my job?!  I took a huge paycut to accept this position.  I’m struggling.  I live with my mom, y’all.”  

I’m kind of infuriated on her behalf:  there was a better path available and she wasn’t informed?? 

Other council comments:

Alyssa:  Our community members treat us as though we’re fulltime and have staff.  Other cities pay their councilmembers to be fulltime, with staff, and they also slice their cities into districts so that you’re not answering to as many people.

Jane: Austin and Dallas pay their councilmembers fulltime and give them staff.  Not Kyle, Buda, or New Braunfels.  They pay zero.

Note: remember, paying $0 is strategic.  If you require someone to work for free, only wealthy people can do the work.  That’s not aspirational.

In the end, they move to postpone this.  Everyone’s going to come back with amendments and chop it up. 

…

Ok, back to the cemetery: The owner of the larger land does not own the cemetery. By state law, he will preserve access to that cemetery. At P&Z, Michele Burleson said she appreciates that – she was just there last weekend.

The owner also says, “Last time, there was some concern about the placement of the fence along the cemetery. So we did a fancy x-ray type survey. No folks beyond the perimeter of the cemetery!”

That’s reassuring! Also I remember that exact conversation. It’s here. But that’s not the same property!!

Here’s the property from the cemetery conversation:

That’s a different cemetery altogether:

Everyone is remembering a conversation about the San Pedro Cemetery, not this one! So what cemetery is in the middle of this current patch of land? I think I found it, in this list of all the cemeteries in Hays County.

I think it must be the one called York Creek Cemetery. From that link:

Those directions put it squarely in the middle of today’s project, but they also don’t make it sound like a very active cemetery that people are visiting often.

[Updated to add: I’ve been corrected by a reader – thank you! – and the graveyard in the middle of this property is the Nichols-Berry Cemetery.

So that settles one question!]

(Which one did the land owner do the x-ray survey on? Is he confused about his own property? Or did he do surveys on both cemeteries? More unimportant questions I have lingering!)

Thank you all for accompanying me on this edition of Untangling Old Cemeteries of San Marcos.

Hours 2:03 – 2:33, 2/18/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 14: the Strategic Plan

GUYS. Guys. This one is exciting. 

Background

The budget process for 2026 has already started. Back in January, Council had a two day Visioning workshop.  First they listen to about five hours of presentations.  Then they spend about five hours updating the Strategic Plan from last year.  

Usually it’s extremely dull, and filled with mundane wordsmithing.  But this year, it was exciting! Really!

Let’s dive in.

The Strategic Goals

Here are the five goals: 

Each one gets about 3-4 pages of outcomes. So we’ll take them one at a time.

Goal #1: Quality of Life & Sense of Place

    Here are the most exciting changes in this category:

    Part iii: The Tenant’s Bill of Rights!  This is courtesy of the San Marcos Civics Club, who has been meeting monthly for the past year to focus on different issues.  This is great work by them. They are promoting the National Tenant’s Bill of Rights as a model for what Council should adopt.

    (I think this was Lorenzo’s contribution, but everyone was on board with it.)

    …

    Also from that photo, note Part i, “Update housing Data and Adopt the Strategic Housing Action Plan”.

    Back in 2018-2019, we carried out a huge Housing Needs Assessment, and created a Strategic Housing Action Plan. And Council just deep-sixed it. Absolutely nothing came of it. For over five years!

    In 2023, City Staff held a workshop on it and said, “Hey, you should really be thinking about housing! It’s super unaffordable here!”

    Council:

    *Except Alyssa.

    It got put on last year’s Strategic Action Plan last year, and then ignored for all of 2024.

    Until election season came around! Then all the candidates realized that everyone is super broke in San Marcos and can’t afford housing. Every single candidate for every council seat said housing was our biggest issue.

    It seems like it really is going to happen this year, hopefully.

    ….

    Also from this same section:

    Alyssa has been promoting this for years, and Max promoted it back when he was on Council.  So this is great to officially get it in the strategic plan.

    From this link:

    So it’s about giving the community more input on what we prioritize in the budget.

    Goal #2: Economic Vitality:

    Prioritizing the needs and well-being of workers in our economic development?!? This is catnip to my marxist heart.

    (I think this came from Amanda.)

    Goal #3: Public Safety, Core Services, and Fiscal Excellence.

      GUYS. Guys.  Literally squirming in my seat over here, I’m so excited.  Look at this:

      That one in the middle is huge.  This will be an office that is aimed at crime prevention from a non-incarceration perspective.  Dallas has a version of this called the Office of Integrated Public Safety Solutions, and Austin has a version called the Office of Violence Prevention.

      Importantly, this will be housed outside of SMPD.   What are the actual, evidence-based strategies that reduce crime? Here’s a big list. Things like access to jobs that pay a living wage, access to mental health and addiction treatment services, programs for kids and teens, connecting people with opportunities, etc.  

      (You know what doesn’t reduce crime? Locking people up. And it’s super expensive!)

      This definitely came from Amanda.

      (To be fair, Alyssa has brought this up before, but the council then was not interested in giving her ideas any oxygen.)

      ….

      Also, on that same slide:

      Also amazing! This is exactly what we discussed last time, when Council voted to postpone the vote on SMPD license plate readers until we could clearly state how we plan on protecting the privacy of the public.

      (Also from Amanda.)

      …

      And further down:

      Part B, iv:  Making all the websites easy to use. This is very hard to do well. But at least we’re trying to get better.

      Part C, iv. This is mostly about HSAB funding.  We outsource most of our social services to local nonprofits, and we should probably double the amount that we’re giving out in grants.

      (I can’t remember who contributed these. Everyone supports them.)

      Hey Council: The budget for HSAB should grow automatically with inflation! You should consider an ordinance to make this happen! Please and thank you.

      Goal #4: Mobility and Connectivity

      Okay, several thoughts on this:

      Section A, ii:  What’s this Western Loop business?  

      Shane Scott wants to bring it back. This is an old topic.

      There is a lot of traffic going out west towards Wimberley on RR 12. Right now it all feeds straight through town, on Wonderworld, to get to I-35. Should there be a northern loop that goes around San Marcos?

      This was a big point of contention when the Transportation Master Plan was adopted in 2018. My memory is that the San Marcos River Foundation came out hard against it, because it will inevitably lead to development over the aquifer.  If you put a road somewhere, it drives development along that road.  If you drive development over the recharge zone, you’re going to get a filthy brown river eventually, instead of a sparkly clean river.  

      I thought it got voted down. But you can see it here, on the thoroughfare plan:

      I believe it’s that yellow loop around town.

      Jane Hughson also seems to think it got nixed back then.

      Shane Scott wants to resurrect the issue, and he pictures it being an overhead highway, kind of like the Wonderworld overpass.

      I have a lot of questions!   

      • Do the environmentalists still approve of the deal cut on the wonderworld overpass? Or do they have reservations about reproducing another deal like that?
      • How much would it cost to make a zooming overhead line like that, on a much longer stretch?
      • Who stands to profit from this? What are the various interests?

      Anyway, the Transportation Master Plan is coming back around, so we’ll see this again.

      …

      Section A, iii: Alyssa Garza is interested in on-demand services until we get a better bus system.  What’s this?

      So, Kyle has a 3.14 program. Any uber ride in the city costs $3.14, and the city pays for the rest. Is this something we should do, at least until we get a better bus system?

      I’m a little uneasy about a program like this! I found this, which seems sensible:

      So it’s more expensive, and we don’t want to sabotage progress on developing a functional bus system. At the same time, maybe we can use it for high-needs community members as a temporary stop-gap.

      ( Also, Uber is super-shitty on worker rights, and lobbies aggressively against laws providing benefits and minimum wage to workers in the gig economy, so I kinda hate them.)

      …

      Goal #5: Environmental Protection

      Two additions:

      No issues with either of those!

      …

      There isn’t a bullet point about fencing off the rivers. But they did talk about it in the presentations:

      Basically we’ve hired someone to do a feasibility study on fencing the parks.  There’s no way it will be fenced off by this summer, though.

      …

      Which brings us to last Tuesday!

      Amanda offers up one amendment:  Remember the Transportation Equity Cabinet presentation last time? Let’s include their recommendations into Transportation and Traffic Operations.

      Her amendment: “Implement Recommendations from the San Marcos Transportation Equity Cabinet.”

      Jane:  Weren’t we going to workshop the recommendations?  

      City Manager Stephanie Reyes diplomatically says that Council supported putting the suggestions in both the Transit and Transportation Master Plans.

      Jane: Without further inspection?

      Stephanie: Council seemed pretty amenable, yeah.

      Amanda: In fact, one of the questions I posed when it was under discussion was what the next steps were to be taken, if all of us agreed. We all said we agreed.

      The vote on Amanda’s amendment:

      Everyone likes it!

      Finally, the vote on the entire strategic plan:

      Everyone likes it. INCLUDING ME!!

      (Read the whole draft here, if you’re so inclined.)

      …

      There are a few other items:

      • Council appointed a Comp Plan Oversight Committee
      • There’s a bond process for various construction projects around town
      • There are more committee and board appointments

      but this meeting is super long, and we still have the workshops to go. So I’m skipping these.

      Bonus! 3 pm workshops

      by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

      Workshop #1: Utility Payment Assistance

      Here’s the situation: We’ve got city-owned water, electric, and wastewater. (Most of the people here are on city utilities, although some people are on Pedernales or Bluebonnet electric.)

      When people can’t pay their utility bills, we offer them a two week delay. But we also give $120K to Community Action, to help pay people’s utility bills when they fall behind and can’t afford to catch up.

      This has been an ongoing topic of conversation:

      The problem is that most of the $120K we set aside for utility assistance isn’t getting used.  There’s a ton of need out there in the community, and we’re not getting the money to the people that need it.

      Why??

      Community Action gets money from us.  They also get grant money from the state and feds.  So they use that state and federal money first, and then only use the city money if that money’s not available.  That is good!

      The problem is that their application process is long and a giant pain in the butt, because they’re trying to give out federal money.  So people are being asked to provide all kinds of crazy paperwork documenting their employment or residence or whatever, and it takes weeks, and the person just needs their water turned back on so that they can cook dinner. This part is bad.

      …

      So the city is working on how to get the funds out faster.  Would any other organizations like to also hand out utility assistance?  (RFP means “Request for proposals”)

      No one wanted to apply!  They kept advertising and reaching out and extending the deadline. 

      Eventually they got three more applicants. Here’s what’s being recommended:

      The “donated funds” bit means that San Marcos residents have an option to donate when they pay their bill. There’s about $45K in accumulated donations right now.

      (Community Action spoke up on Tuesday and said their capacity is actually $30K, so that extra $10K will get re-distributed.)

      Discussion points:

      Question: How long will the turnaround time be for people needing assistance?

      Answer: Different agencies have estimated 3-5 days. Some a little longer. We’ll nail it down for sure in the contract with each agency.

      City Manager Stephanie Reyes proposes having a universal application that all the agencies could use for city funds. Everyone likes that.

      …

      There’s a lot of discussion about how customers can find out about utility assistance.

      • If your bill is overdue, you get an automatic robo-call on the 16th day.
      • On the 18th day, your bill is delinquent.
      • After that, the delinquency notice goes out.

      Right now, we don’t mention the utility assistance on the phone call or on the delinquency letter. The person has to call into the city first.

      Everyone wants to know, “Why don’t we tell people about the funds earlier?!”

      City Manager Stephanie Reyes says tactfully, “It hasn’t always been the philosophy of Council to make this information available at this stage.”

      What she means is this: Previous councils have been more obsessed with the random person who might cheat the system than they were with actually connecting people in need with assistance.

      This council – thank god – is more obsessed with connecting people to assistance. They want to have the utility assistance mentioned in the robo-call, and put in the delinquency letter.

      …

      Late Penalties and Reconnection Fees

      Suppose you can’t pay your utility bill. This would make it even harder:

      In other words, if you’re $140 behind on your utilities, it will cost almost $200 to get everything turned back on. This is pretty typical.

      Council looks at each of these individually.

      Penalty Fees: on average, people pay about $14 in penalties – a little higher for houses, a little lower for apartments.

      They debate capping it at different amounts – $10? $15? $20? – so that you’d pay either 10% or the cap, whichever is less. (This is Lorenzo’s suggestion.)

      (This is for residential, not commercial.)

      Reconnection Fees: This cost is based on a 2013 estimate of fuel plus labor to go to the house and turn it back on.

      Staff is planning on recalculating these fees and see if they can bring it down.

      …

      Question: If we did away with all fees altogether, how much would rates go up?

      Answer: about 0.5 %. Now, we always have rate increases, because costs go up. But if you want to do away with fees, we’ll need to tack on 0.5% on top of that.

      …

      Q: Can we change how many times they can get assistance per year?

      Answer: Right now it’s twice per year. It might be hard to track among different agencies.

      Most councilmembers want to change it to four.

      Bottom line: This will come up at a future council meeting, along with some of the answers to questions that Council asked tonight.

      …

      Workshop #2

      Update on American Rescue Plan dollars:

      A few programs have a little money leftover:

      Here’s where we want to re-allocate it:

      Alyssa fought long and hard for us to provide rental service, and to use an agency that doesn’t take weeks and weeks in turnaround time. (Same issue as with the utility assistance – federal money comes with a wild amount of paperwork.) It’s nice that this is now becoming the norm.

      Any further money that becomes available will also go to Rental Assistance.