Category: 3 pm Workshops

Bonus! 3 pm workshop, 2/20/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

At 3 pm, there was a workshop on the future city hall.  We’ve discussed this before, back in 2022.

Basically, we can’t afford a new city hall, and Texas has a law that you can’t take out a bond to pay for a city hall. [Edit! I got that wrong. The law is that you have to get voter approval for a bond. City staff and city council don’t think that San Marcos voters would approve a bond for a city hall. Correction based on the 2022 presentation here.]

So they’re left with public-private partnerships, where some private entity goes in halvsies with you. You end up building something with both government and commercial appeal.  Bleagh, but here we are.

The first decision is location. 

This is the leading contender on location:

ie, across the street from the current city hall.

This is supposed to be a mock-up of what City Hall would look like if it were in that spot:

You’re looking at Hopkins. The old location is the lower right, and that would be converted to commercial and residential. Across Hopkins is the new City Hall, next to the retention pond. You can see the Bobcat baseball stadium in the background.

So that’s possible location #1.

Possible location #2 is where the current city hall is located, on the south side of Hopkins.

Nobody says what’s wrong with the southern side of Hopkins. What they say is, “If City Hall is on the northern side of Hopkins, it will welcome everybody coming from I-35! It will form a Civic Road of City Hall, the library, and the Activity Center.”

I guess the southern side is less welcoming because of how Hopkins bends? You’d think a big, snazzy, new building would feel big and snazzy on either side of the road, but I guess it’ll feel extra big and snazzy on the northern side.

Possible location #3 is somewhere downtown. The appeal of this is to bring back some daytime workers back to downtown. When Hays County Courthouse moved out to Wonderworld, the downtown lost a ton of people who would eat lunch at the restaurants and keep the downtown bustling during the day. It would be hard to pull off, though – we only own a tiny bit of land, and it would be pricey to acquire more.

….

Laurie Moyer is one of the assistant city managers, and she gave an extremely charming presentation about her Christmas vacation, which was spent driving all over Texas, observing the City Halls in comparable cities.

For example:

and then, her personal photo:

I was delighted by the whole thing. You should watch it here, if this is also your brand of nerdiness.

Bottom line: All these cities had city halls built in the past 20 years, and ours is 50 years old. The whole process will move extremely slowly, but we’re going to hire a consultant and get the ball rolling.

Bonus! 3 pm Workshop, 1/30/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

All about short term rentals!  (STRs)

We are updating our rules about AirBnB type places. We used to require that they be:

  • Permitted in some places, but not others.
  • Owner-occupied (where a permit was required)
  • Parties were prohibited

Somehow in Executive Session, they decided that “owner-occupied” was no longer okay, so we’re trying to find workarounds.  Also, a court ruled that you can’t prohibit parties. 

So now:

  • All STRs would need a permit. 
  • Owners can only have one STR.
  • Only one STR on a block, or at least 600 ft apart.
  • Short-term tenants can have parties, but not excessively noisy ones, just like any other resident.
  • Everyone who lives within 400’ gets a postcard with a hotline number to call if you’re having any trouble.

So on that last point, we’re paying Granicus to be a hotline for us.  They’ll do a bunch of things:

  • Watch the websites for any unregistered STRs.
  • Staff the hotline, 24/7.  
  • If you call the hotline, they’ll track down the contact person for the STR and tell them there’s a problem. If they can’t get ahold of the contact person, they’ll reach out to SMPD. 
  • They’ll keep a running list of which properties are having recurring problems. 

If an owner keeps renting to people that cause problems, the owner can have their license suspended or revoked.

This hotline will get paid for out of STR permit fees. 

So there you have it. Staff will write all this up, and it will come before council in a regular meeting at some point.

Bonus! 3 pm Workshops, 1/16/24

by The San Marxist, posted in 3 pm Workshops

The Can Ban: let’s hammer out some of the details.

First, Texas State has agreed to put can-ban rules in Sewell Park that match whatever the city comes up with for the River Parks. So that’s good!

Next, there was a long bit on enforcement, by the City Marshal’s office. The City Marshal’s office has two sergeants, eight marshals, and two part-time park rangers. It was basically a big pitch on why we need to hire more marshals.

Here’s the main differences between marshals and park rangers:

  • Marshals can arrest people, park rangers can just give minor citations.
  • Marshals are hired fulltime, park rangers are just hired for the summer.  During the off-peak months (ie during the school year), marshals help out SMPD.
  • Marshals wear blue uniforms and look like cops, park rangers wear green uniforms and look like nerds.  (Kidding! Sorry!)

That last point is the most important one: Marshals wear blue, rangers wear green. 

So when it comes to the can ban, why do we need more Blue, instead of more Green? Here’s what it says on the slide:

Park rangers writing citations isn’t enough? We need law enforcement officers who can arrest people? This is ludicrous.

Alyssa asks if we could hire more park rangers, instead of marshals. She points out that we’re not planning on enforcing the can ban via arrests.

The answer given is that it’s very hard to hire park rangers, because they’re part time. 

Surely the city can invent some sort of, idk, FULL TIME park ranger? If we are interested in finding ways not to over-police this town, we’d reach for Green Uniforms over Blue Uniforms when they’re equally qualified to do the job at hand.

Here’s the plain truth: the City Marshal’s office already wanted more marshals hired. (They said this explicitly.) They are using the can ban as an opportunity to lobby for the marshals they already wanted. It just rings a little phony to pretend that a can ban is a dangerous crisis that can only be solved with more cops.

Mark Gleason feels very strongly in favor of hiring more marshals, regardless of whether or not we pass the can ban. The whole presentation pulled at his heartstrings.

….

A few decision points for Council:

  1.  Should it be a ban on single-use beverages, or all single-use containers?

The consensus is just beverages.  I’m okay with this.  

  1. Should it be on the river alone, or only in the parks, or should it be both river and parks?

Everyone thinks it must include the river.

One possibility is “go zones and no zones” – little carved out areas where you may have single-use beverages, like inside the playground at the children’s park, or inside the fence of the baseball fields, at the pool, or at picnic tables set back from the river.  Everyone is open to the idea of go-zones/no-zones.

Coolers: should we limit cooler size?

No, we shouldn’t. Next question!!

Why would you even? New Braunfels limits cooler size, because they’ve got a tight exit on the river, and giant coolers cause tubing traffic jams. But that’s not our situation. We’ve got large multi-generational families holding large picnics. Are we really going to make Mom/Dad/Aunt/Uncle/Grandma each bring their individual cooler? That seems dumb as shit.

What does council think?

Jane Hughson: This is just another thing to enforce. But why does anyone need a giant cooler?

(See, she’s missing the bit about large groups bringing one big cooler.)

Mark Gleason: Yes on limiting cooler size. 30 quart limit for both river and the parks.

He means this:

So you are not going to be able to bring your big tray of shredded pork for sandwiches, or your tub of potato salad, or much of anything. 

Seriously: this is more about shutting down big family gatherings than about controlling litter. Maybe Council doesn’t intend that, but that’s the effect. It’s kinda racist and classist because the river parks are a free way to have large, inter-generational family gatherings.

Matthew Mendoza: 30 quarts on the river, no restrictions for coolers in the parks.

(I’d be okay with that.)

Alyssa Garza: No restrictions anywhere.

(and this.)

Saul Gonzales: 30 quarts in both the river and the parks.

Jane Hughson: If we say 1 cooler per person, can two people bring a 60 quart cooler?

No one answers.

Jane: Okay, I’ll say 30 quarts in both river and parks, too.

So there you have it: 3-2 for banning big coolers, both in the river and in the parks. (Shane Scott and Jude Prather are both absent.)

Note: the amendment that Alyssa or Matt should offer is to tag coolers to the “go zones”. In go-zones, you can have your big cooler. In no-zones, you can’t.

What about jello shots?

The way New Braunfels banned jello shots was by banning containers that hold less than 5 oz.

Everyone likes this, besides Alyssa, who says she needs to go talk to her constituents.

My two cents: sure, ban the jello shots and mini-liquor bottles. These seem like single use beverage containers to me, anyway. 

When should this go into effect?

Everyone wants to aim for this summer, instead of waiting for 2025. 

The next step is for staff to write up a proposed policy, and bring it to city council for a vote.

WE’RE DOING THIS! STAY TUNED!