Item 22 Next up: a little light industrial area by the airport:
169 acres, to be exact. They want to zone it to be Light Industrial.
Reminds me of the new park land we bought a few weeks ago:
Eh, I guess it’s not that close. There’s a lot of space out there.
(Also, did you notice that google maps has renamed I-35 “Monarch Highway”? That’s so cute! much better than “Smushed Monarch Highway”.)
Shane Scott asks about flight paths, and the developer concedes that the property is right in the line of Runway 3. But also says that the FAA and the airport both gave this development a thumbs up. I have no idea about such things.
The vote: Yes: Mayor Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Alyssa Garza, Mark Gleason No: Shane Scott, Max Baker
So it will come to pass.
…..
Item 23: Alternative Compliance for Cut-and-Fill
Cut-and-fill means that you are trying to build on a rocky, uneven slope. But your building needs a flat foundation. So you decide, “What is the average elevation of this portion?”
Once you know your average elevation, you have some bumpy parts that stick up, and some sunken parts that are too low. So you shave down your bumpy parts and fill in your sunken parts. Ta-da, cut and fill!
The problem is that if you’re on a hillside, you may have to cut out a lot of dirt and move a lot of dirt, and this is going to affect how water runs down the hill. What’s worse is if you’re on a hill in a flood zone. You may have heard, but San Marcos has a flooding problem.
So these folks are trying to develop here, in that blue region:
on the corner of Rattler Road and East McCarty.
They’re allowed to cut-and-fill up to 8 feet, but they want to cut and fill up to 13 feet. And it’s in a flood zone.
But the real reason that I’m interested in this case is because I’m invested in this case, where the water will run downhill to Redwood – also a cut-and-fill ordinance that is coming up soon. I was intently watching this case, to read the tea leaves on the next one.
Max Baker suggests that the developer could offer up some environmentally friendly perks to take the sting out of this flood risk? The developer responds that he’s under the gun to get this approved tonight, and he’d love to try.
So the motion gets tabled for a few hours. The developer goes off with the engineer. They come back with a compromise:
They’ll put a 20,000 gallon rain barrel on each 150,000 square foot building, and use it towards irrigation.
They’ll reduce impervious cover from 80% to 60%
They’ll do some water quality treatment thing that I didn’t follow.
It gets approved unanimously now.
These are good, environmentally, but as a harbinger for the Redwood case, I didn’t like it. For the Redwood case, I want them to deny it altogether.
….
Item 15: Art purchases
The Arts commission is purchasing four sculptures for our San Marcos sculpture garden. I didn’t realize we had a sculpture garden!
Then I looked it up, and realized I did realize it after all!
It’s in between the library and the Activity Center, on Hopkins. (Photo yoinked from the city page.)
Item 16: Back to Boyhood Alley! Shall we name the alley after the film, Boyhood?
Jane Hughson still thinks Boyhood Alley sounds dirty, which still cracks me up. She offers up an amendment. “How about Boyhood Film Alley”? she offers.
Saul Gonzalez likes it.
Max points out that “Boyhood Film Alley” sounds even dirtier than whatever someone is misconstruing Boyhood Alley to be.
Jane concedes this point, and backpedals from “Boyhood Film Alley” to “Boyhood, the Movie Alley”, which is hilariously clunky. We’re almost in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series territory for winky-awkward names. How about “Boyhood, the Movie, Not the Porno, the Alley”? I’m here for it!
The vote on “Boyhood, the Movie, the Alley”: Yes: Jane Hughson and Saul Gonzalez No: All the councilmembers under 60 years old
So it fails.
Should we call it Boyhood Alley?
The vote on just plain “Boyhood Alley” Yes: Everyone except Jane. No: Jane
I will say this for Jane: she takes defeat in good humor. She merrily says, “It’s not the first time I’ve lost a vote in public!” and shrugs it off.
…..
Item 27: Library fines will go away! This was fast and unanimous.
Item 36: Eco-friendly burials are now going to be allowed at San Marcos cemeteries.
People are just dying to have them!
(Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.)
…
Items 28-29: We’re going to trade some land with Texas State, right at Sessom and Loquat. Trying to get a map of what’s going on is a disaster, because they didn’t include it in the packet, but here’s where we’re talking about:
So if you’re driving west on Sessom, then Loquat Street is on your right while campus is on your left.
I am not sure I’ve ever been on Loquat before, but I’d better check it out soon, because they’re closing it, as part of this deal. Jane Hughson was kind of bummed out about closing it, since it makes a useful shortcut.
Google streetview tells me it looks like this:
which is probably why I’ve never ended up on it.
So, we’re giving Loquat street to Texas State, and they’re closing it down. In exchange, they’re giving us some land along Canyon Road, which we’re using to stabilize Sessom Creek without polluting it.
Would you like to see a good map of what’s going on? So would I. Unfortunately, the presentation was not included in the packet, so I only have a screenshot of it:
City council videos are the WORST quality. I mean, seriously. Sessom is running along the bottom of the diagram here.
The thick red line is Loquat Street, which we’re giving to Texas State.
Green is the land along Canyon, which Texas State is giving to the city.
Blue is staying as the city property
Yellow is fragile environmentally
So, what is Texas State planning on doing in that big red area? NOBODY ASKED.
Here’s the problem: Texas State University does not have to follow city flood mitigation rules. In our land development code, we have a million rules about floods: limits on impervious cover, catching run-off water, water quality treatment zones, flood zones, recharge zones, and on and on. Texas State follows exactly ZERO of it. By state law, Texas State University does not have to give one whit about city ordinances.
This is insanely sensitive land, and it drains directly into Sessom Creek. It’s uphill from most of the entire city. It should not be paved and it should not be developed. In fact, this is more-or-less where there was a huge fight circa 2013, when a developer wanted to build apartment complexes around there. It’s a TERRIBLE SPOT to build.
Some more googling tells me that the blue part below is owned by the city, called the Sessom Creek Natural Area:
I assume that blue part is staying put. But what about the other side of Loquat?
I am extremely worried that Texas State is going to put dorms or something high intensity on it. There is nothing in the council packet, and no one asked. We just gave them the final piece they needed.
Maybe I’m wrong! But maybe this is a big fucking disaster and we just waltzed into it.
Items 21, 24, and 25: If you want to understand the budget, it’s probably worth going back and listening to the August 18th budget workshop. But I’ll do my best.
First off: it all comes down to property taxes. Property taxes are steep. But let’s zoom out for a second:
Most of San Marcos rents. Indirectly, property taxes get passed on to renters, but that’s not the main reason rent goes up. Rents have gone up because landlords realized they could get away with it. When we talk about property taxes, we’re mostly ignoring renters.
Texas taxes are regressive. Poor people pay 10.9% of their income in taxes, whereas the wealthiest people pay 3.1% of their income in taxes. Details here.
Texas could do a lot to alleviate poverty. For example:
The United States can easily afford for every person to have a safe home, free healthcare, and access to healthy food and education. This country is extremely wealthy. Collectively, we can afford to lift everyone out of basic poverty. But we don’t choose to do so.
So: do property taxes force people from their homes? In one sense, yes. A $5000 tax bill is huge, and it can be the final straw, for a financially precarious person or family.
So should we be mad about property taxes? No. Poverty forces people from their homes. Be mad at the state and national elected officials who are complacent about poverty. Do not misplace your anger about poverty onto property taxes.
We should work hard to keep property taxes from being the final straw that forces anyone out of their home. But the actual problem is not the local property taxes themselves.
Let’s break down property taxes:
Last year, the city had a property tax rate of 60.3¢ per $100. Let’s say you have a house, you lucky home-owner. Now, city taxes aren’t the only property taxes you pay. Total, you would have paid $2.0492 per $100 of value. (Source.) Then that gets divvied up between the city, SMCISD, the county, and the special roads district.
Say your house was worth $250,000. Then you paid $5123 in taxes. It breaks down like so:
$ 2868.88 to SMCISD (56%)
$ 1485.67 to the city of San Marcos (29%)
$ 717.22 to Hays County (14%)
$ 51.23 to Special Roads District (1%)
So far, so good.
The problem is that home prices went through the roof last year, right?
Suppose your $250K house is now appraised at $400K. You should not freak out! First of all, the state of Texas caps the increase for property taxes at 10%. So you aren’t going to be taxed on $400K. The most you could get taxed on is $250,000 x 1.1 = $275,000.
Second, the city has a homestead exemption. If you live in your house (as opposed to renting it out), then you can file the paperwork and get a deduction for $15,000. So instead of getting taxed on $275,000, you’re now getting taxed on $260,000. Fine. (If you’re a senior citizen or have a disability, you can get another $35,000 taken off.)
The city has boiled it down to two scenarios:
They could charge you the same rate, 60.3¢ per $100, and this time you’d pay them $1567.80, based on your house being worth $260,000.
They could charge you one penny less, 59.3¢ per $100, and you’d pay $1541.80.
The city has drawn up a budget based on 59.3¢ per $100. The big issues are:
What’s in the 59.3¢ budget?
What would be done with the extra penny, if we went for the 60.3¢ rate?
What’s in the 59.3¢ budget?
Obviously, everything is in it. It’s a budget. That said, they emphasized a few things in the presentation:
Personnel challenges: We’re terribly understaffed, across the board, and it leads to burn out and people taking jobs elsewhere, which perpetuates the problem. So, personnel challenges. The budget includes a 5% raise for all non-civil service employees. (Ie, the less highly paid public employees.) Everyone gets a one-time retention incentive. Funding for an additional 47 positions (2 funded from elsewhere).
Additional funding for CASA, GSMP/Splash co-working, art center
Squirrel some money away for future City Hall. (There’s a state law that you can’t borrow money to fund you city hall, and the voters will never approve a bond for a new city hall building. So you have to squirrel money away for it.) (Which is actually financially not great, but there you have it.)
All the regular business as usual, of course: CIP projects, parks, planning department, utilities, police, fire department, municipal courts, etc.
What would be done with the extra penny?
If rates are 60.3¢ per $100, then the city will bring in an extra $700,000 with this. According to the city presentation, the average house is worth $245,197, after all the deductions and everything.
– At 59.3¢ , city taxes would be $1,454.02 – At 60.3¢, city taxes would be $1,478.54
So, a difference of $24 per household, on average.
The $700K would be used for six new positions, which could be either fire fighters or police officers.
Mayor Hughson suggests going for the 60.3¢ rate and letting staff decide how the six positions should be split between SMPD and fire fighters.
Alyssa Garza says she’ll vote against the 60.3¢ rate until she’s consulted with more community members.
Shane Scott says he wants the 60.3¢ rate, and he specifically wants 3 firefighters and 3 cops.
Saul Gonzalez is in favor of the 60.3¢ rate.
Jude Prather is in favor of the 60.3¢ rate.
Max Baker is opposed. Largely, he argues that having more cops does not make us safer. Instead, it increases petty citations. He criticizes the outreach efforts of “playing basketball” and instead wants to see more town halls and more data driven discussions.
Max is way off on that last point. “Playing basketball” is shorthand for taking time to build trust and relationships with teenagers in neighborhoods. This is how you begin to counteract the cop mindset that young men are all potential criminals. Cops and young adults need to have healthy, non-punitive interactions and build relationships.
Max Baker says two other things: we should be reviewing officer duties and seeing what can be removed. (I like this!) And he praises the presentations that Chief Standridge has given at the Criminal Justice Reform committee meetings.
Mark Gleason’s take is interesting. He feels tortured over the decision, but comes out against the 60.3¢ rate, at this point. His neighbors are getting forced out of their homes due to property taxes. (Later, he’ll change his mind. But his angst is real.)
Mayor Hughson says she’s also worried, but this is a $24 difference. That’s $2 a month.
Chief Stephens and Chief Standridge both get a chance to plea their cases.
Fire Chief Les Stephens talks:
In 2009, 46% of the city was outside of the effective coverage area of all the fire stations
He’s relocated firestations and done his best, but with the growth, etc, it’s still just slightly lower than 46%
Worst part: far northern part.
Firestation 5 is the northern most station. Blanco Vista plus Whisper Tract.
Currently, it takes 15 minutes and 10 seconds to get from Firestation #5 to the deepest part of Blanco Vista. That’s the best case scenario.
If Firestation #5 out on any other call, Station #1 downtown is the next best. It will take them 21-22 minutes, in a best case scenario.
I know you know where Blanco Vista is, but look: it’s not close.
Sprawl is a really big problem! It takes 15 minutes to get to someone having a heart attack in the upper corner of that blue region!
And in this VERY SAME MEETING, we approve the little development by the Hays Power Plant, discussed here:
Equally far away, but in the opposite direction. WHY?!? The Chief just said he needs 27 firefighters to cover the existing city, and we’re funding three of them. The problem is the sprawl!
A few other points from Chief Stephens:
Insurance rates are tied to ratings. If our PPC safety rating goes down, everyone’s insurance goes up. So saving $24/year in taxes could cost you more in insurance, later on.
We want to buy a run down beater firetruck to use as a blocker, on I-35 or any time traffic is blocked, so that they can use their expensive trucks for calls. Takes 1 person to staff instead of 3. Seems like a good idea!
Next, Chief Standridge talks about SMPD:
Philosophically, can a police chief be progressive? Or are they doomed because they’re trapped in a toxic culture? I don’t know. But if it’s possible, Chief Standridge is making an appealing case.
He validates everything that Max says. He agrees that more cops don’t equal less crime, and he builds a case that we are already implementing the crime-reduction things that don’t require extra officers:
Since he got here:
Implementing intelligence-led policing (I love names like this that insult the alternative. What exactly had we been doing before?)
Build an intranet database of everything a cop might need to know
Twice-monthly collaborative crime meets to work on highest repeat offenders and highest repeat call locations (This is really important.)
Stopped sending officers to minor crashes that do not result in injury
Stopped sending officers to child custody calls. The idea is to keep custody disputes in family court, and out of criminal court.
So, to Max’s point about looking to see what duties can be removed, Chief Standridge is saying we are doing that.
Doing some kind of big legwork thing to keep high-repeat violent offenders locked up
Redid the downtown unit. During the afternoon and evening, they serve as a Crime Reduction Unit – preventative violent crime measures. Then they head downtown as the town square heats up.
Re-imagining mental health. Next week someone from some state org will come in to help re-invent how we respond to mental health and our behavioral advisory team
Homeless outreach team. We have 5 members focused on homeless help. Not issuing citations.
Used to have 1 internal affairs manager. Now we have 4 internal affairs investigators, all with state training. (I do NOT approve! Misconduct should be reviewed by external, independent investigators. But still, 4 is better than 1.)
Extra officers needed for in-progress violent 911 calls. Right now, it takes 8.5 minutes to get there, on average. Takes 3 minutes just to find an available officer. We need 10 officers.
Civilian liaisons: this is a new program where SMPD will hire regular civillians to take incident reports and direct traffic, and free up cops to do cop-things. (I am worried about George Zimmerman types being attracted to this job.)
Chief Standridge’s bottom line is that he’d like four more officers to respond in-progress violent 911 calls, and three to work on community outreach. If the $700K goes through, he’d probably get three new hires towards 911 calls.
Council discussion:
Shane Scott asks the cutting questions: SHOULD POLICE OFFICERS BE REQUIRED TO HAVE COLLEGE DEGREES???
Standridge cries, “no! We can incentivize it, but please don’t reduce our applicant pool!”
Saul asks if annexation cause problems?
Standridge answers: “We’re doing a cost study to answer that.” (But seriously. How could it not?!)
Mark Gleason says he’s now in favor of the 60.3¢ rate, after all.
Saul Gonzales says he’s in favor of the 6 new positions, at the 59.3 tax rate.
Jane Hughson tells him he can’t do that. The six new positions come from the 60.3¢ rate. It’s a package deal.
Saul says he’s doing it anyway! He’s in favor of cops, firefighters, and lower taxes, and opposed to staking out unpopular positions. Gotta love Saul-on-the-campaign-trail.
The vote on the budget: Yes: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Jude Prather, Shane Scott No: Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, Max Baker
Alyssa reiterates that her intent is to find out more from the community, and then base her decision on that. So here’s my two cents:
At the moment, I have a fairly high degree of trust in Stephanie Reyes, Chief Standridge, and Chief Stephens. So I’m mildly in favor of the 60.3¢ rate, although I won’t be heartbroken if we decide against it.
…….
Item 22: Stormwater Rates
We have $25 million of flood projects to be done. We have about $6 million so far. They are proposing raising stormwater rates to help pay for a little more of it. If you have a small house (less than 2000 sq feet), your rates would go up $10/year.
Increase stormwater rates?
Yes: Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott, Max Baker, Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason No: Saul Gonzalez Absent: Jude Prather
It feels like Saul is being weaselly for re-election. What is this.
Item 23: Trash and recycling
Here they will probably not raise rates. There’s some 3% surcharge that we’re contractually obligated for, but the recommended rate hike above that will get voted down.
If you turn that orange square so that it lays flat, it breaks down like this:
The light blue section is “Light Industrial”. Council is voting on a giant package of tax breaks for a developer to build a bunch of light-but-industrial buildings there.
There’s so much that happens in top-secret Executive Session. As far as we plebes know, this land was just zoned during this very meeting, and now there’s a near-instantaneous agreement with someone calling themselves Majestic Reality Co. The project was code-named “Project Thin Mint,” in case you like code names, and thin mints.
Basically, they’ll get a bunch of tax breaks for a while, and then we’ll start to collect taxes on the buildings and businesses that eventually move in. That’s the plan.
Is this good for San Marcos? I have no idea! It depends what gets built and what businesses move in. Ultimately, we lose a ton of control when we approve things like this, and we have very little information about how it will go. (And this is standard, for Texas at least. Texas is set up to let private developers shape cities, instead of elected officials, all the time, because we value their profit so much.)
Max Baker does grill the developer a bit, and comments on how secretive the Chapter 380 process is.
The vote: Yes: Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, Alyssa Garza, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez No: Max Baker Absent: Jude Prather
….
Item 28: Blanco Riverine Flood Mitigation Project
Today they’re awarding some contract to some builder, and it is given all of 15 seconds during the meeting. However, I wanted to give some background to this, because it’s interesting.
In 2015, we had the deadly Memorial Day floods, of course. (More detail here, if you’re new to town.) The Blanco Riverine Flood Mitigation project is supposed to create some extra channels for flood waters to go, instead of running into Blanco Gardens.
Here’s where it will be:
I don’t really know what’s involved, but this picture comes up a lot:
So I picture a massive drainage ditch through that periwinkle-colored rectangle, designed to catch the flood water, and then also, a long earthen hill that makes a wall between the ditch and the neighborhood. So that’s coming.
Presumably when it’s not flooding, this should have trails and green space on it.
It’s not big enough and there are problems with that street. So we’re moving it.
The new one will someday be here, in this building:
That is the old Diaz Martial Arts center, right across from Toma Taco. Industry is to the left of that photo, and in the background is the old Golden Chick. You’re on LBJ, heading west towards the town square.
The SMPD has a union, SMPOA, which negotiates contracts for cops with the city.
No one else gets to do this, because unions have been undermined in Texas. First, it’s a right-to-work state, which means you can’t be forced to join a union, even though you may benefit from the outcomes. (This is bad, in my book.) Second, unions aren’t allowed collective bargaining powers. If you’re not allowed to bargain for contracts and legal matters, then you’re basically an advocacy group. Underfunded advocacy groups don’t generally have much power.
The exceptions is police and fire fighters (and Houston municipal employees?) Meet and Confer is how the city of San Marcos negotiates contracts with the police and fire fighter unions.
The Ryan Hartman issue: Ryan Hartman was a police officer with SMPD. In 2020, he was in off-duty in Lockhart. He was speeding, ran a stop sign, probably under the influence, and crashed into Pamela Watts and Jennifer Miller, and Miller was killed in the crash. He had an open container in his car, but refused a breathalyzer for a few hours.
He wasn’t indicted in Lockhart, and Chief Standridge was brand new, and dithered on the issue until the 180 day time frame expired, and Hartman was put back on the force. Somewhere in here, Mano Amiga takes up the cause on behalf of Miller’s partner, Pam Watts. Mano Amiga begins a full press assault on Hartman. Back on the force, Ryan Hartman tazes someone under sketchy circumstances, and is suspended again this past January. Finally he’s terminated, this past June.
Mano Amiga has a list of five “Hartman Reforms” that they want implemented (and that are incredibly hard to find online.) Based on this article, I’m pretty sure they are:
End the 180-Day Rule
repeal of the statute of limitations on investigating wrongdoing by officers
“End Delay of Interviews for Misconduct,” due to officers being allowed 48 hours to prepare answers and review materials before giving an official statement.
Public Transparency for Personnel Files
End Third-Party Arbitration.
(I’m not really sure how 1 and 2 are different from each other.) In the Meet and Confer agreement, they are proposing to extend the 180 day rule to a 360 day rule. The other reforms are all ignored.
Max Baker asks about the rest of the Hartman Reforms.
City staff says that the Hartman Reforms were announced on June 15th, but the negotiation meetings had already run from April-May 27th. Max Baker says that the Hartman Reforms overlap with reforms he’s brought up in the past, but he hadn’t gotten the support of council on those.
In Citizen Comment, Mano Amiga made it clear that they do not think this contract holds officers accountable. They’re going to collect signatures to get a repeal of this agreement on a future ballot. Stay tuned!
What do I think? Here are some reforms that I think are important:
Reviews of police misconduct need to be done by independent, external investigators
End qualified immunity for police officers (Currently, officers can’t be sued for violating someone’s civil liberties. San Marcos can’t just unilaterally change this, but it’s important)
Ongoing de-escalation training (this may already be happening, I don’t know) and cops need to be immersed in neighborhoods and build positive relationships with young adults.
Prioritizing mental health of police officers, keeping ongoing relationships with therapists or counselors
Redirect mental illness emergencies to first responders with social work or mental health backgrounds
On one slide in the presentation of the Meet and Confer contract, it says, “Applicants with degree in social work, sociology, psychology, human services, or human relations will receive additional points.” This is good! You want officers with backgrounds in areas that humanize people.
By all appearances, Chief Standridge is implementing progressive principles into SMPD. This seems like an opportunity to collaborate and make progress.
….
Item 32: Chris Cardoza is voted onto the Arts Commission.
Item 33: Should renters get notified when there’s a proposed zoning change? This is sent to a committee.
A few people speak on renaming an alley as Boyhood Alley, in homage to the movie Boyhood, which was filmed in San Marcos.
However, the comment I want to focus in on is from a person from Rancho Vista/Redwood. She also spoke at P&Z last week, along with probably ~30 residents who wrote letters in. This deserves some extra attention. She raised two separate issues:
The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood
The intractable health problems facing Redwood
As best I can tell, these only somewhat connected, insofar as Redwood gets generally neglected and ignored.
The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood
Last week at P&Z, probably 30 residents from Redwood wrote letters against a developer who’s trying to put an industrial development in the bottom half of this:
It was an astonishing turnout. (Quick note: City council doesn’t read letters outloud at meetings. P&Z does. This is annoying – the public should know who took the time to communicate.)
The Development Agreement had been approved last December, which put an industrial zoning right here:
But no one noticed. (I even blogged it, and didn’t notice.)
So why didn’t anyone turn out from Redwood, last December? Because Development Agreements don’t trigger notifications the way that zoning changes do. This is insane. The community in Redwood had no way of knowing that they were now downhill of a massive industrial complex, until just before the P&Z meeting.
(I went back and watched the December meeting again. There was barely any public discussion about it, although clearly a lot had happened in Double Secret Executive Session. Max Baker and Alyssa Garza voted against it.)
So the Development Agreement is already in effect. Two weeks ago, at P&Z, the developer came forth asking for two exemptions – a block perimeter exemption and a cut-and-fill exemption. Basically, this would allow them to build a gigantic thing instead of a normal-sized thing.
But like I said, there was a giant turnout by the Redwood/Rancho Vista residents, describing the current flooding and sewage problems, and how this would exacerbate them. P&Z voted both down. This is great!
Either the developer will appeal to council, or they’ll go back and reconfigure their plans. Either way, this needs to stay on the radar of San Marcos residents who live inside city limits, because we can hold council accountable more easily than Redwood residents can.
Although it can be symptomless, Strongyloides is the deadliest of soil-transmitted parasites. If an infected person takes immune-suppressing drugs such as steroids or chemotherapeutics, or has a lowered immune system because of a disease like leukemia, the worm can rapidly multiply throughout the body and cause death.
In Rancho Vista, the 16 positive blood tests from a group of 97 residents is the highest percentage of positive blood samples found in a non-refugee population in the US, according to Singer, though the sample is relatively small. (A positive blood test can also occur in someone who was previously infected but no longer is.)
Apparently the problem is that we just should never have put septic tanks in this location – they leak and are impossible to maintain. However, the residents can’t really afford to deal with and fix the raw sewage.
There’s two things that need to happen: 1. funding needs to be acquired ( but from where? federal, state, local?), and 2. the neighborhood needs to tie in to San Marcos city sewage.
I don’t know exactly how this all will unfold, but this would be a good issue to ask about during the debates and the campaign season. It’s not okay for vulnerable community members to lack basic health and sanitation provisions.
The Riverbend Development should be structured with an eye to getting San Marcos city sewage access to Redwood. That’s not profitable, and so it won’t happen without some activism.
Items 15-18: This little development, the blue rectangle in the lower left, is up for debate:
The developers want to zone it in three parts: – the dark gray part along the railroad tracks would be heavy industrial, – the tan middle part would be light industrial, – the front pink part along I-35, heavy commercial:
I don’t know how to evaluate the merit of a project like this. To be honest, I’m not even sure what kind of information I’d want to know, in order to evaluate it.
Mark Gleason had a dumb rant about how everyone keeps shitting on the working man, and he knows dozens of people at Amazon and the HEB warehouses, and they like their jobs and deserve your respect.
Alyssa Garza responded correctly that no one is disrespecting the worker. You can support the worker and also fight for better working conditions. (In fact, some – like me – might say that’s how you support the workers! And I might also say that until he fights for specific labor reforms, Mark’s support is empty lip service.)
We have no way of ascertaining the labor conditions in these hypothetical future industrial complexes, so this is all made-up anyway.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason No: Max & Alyssa
Item 4: City Council pay raises
This was discussed last time. City councilmembers need to be paid a living wage. Otherwise the job is not available to all community members. Currently councilmembers earn $17,400, and this would bump them up to $22,200.
Mayor Hughson suggested compensating the mayor position based on additional duties. She was trying to be diplomatic about how much extra she works, but the general consensus was not to itemize the duties. Currently, Mayor Hughson earns $20,400/year.
Shane Scott suggests just bringing her up to $25,800/year. She probably puts in 40-50 hours a week.
The vote: Yes: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott. No: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather
So it fails.
Mark Gleason is really worked up about the word privilege, because Max and Alyssa use it to talk about who has disposable time and money to run for city council. Mark runs on and on about how it’s a privilege to serve, and it doesn’t mean you’re privileged.
He’s both right and wrong. It is a privilege to serve. Not everyone gets to do it. But it’s also an opportunity for power, and as an opportunity, it’s not equally available to everybody.
Here’s the problem: Gleason does not come from generational wealth, and he highly aware that he has not benefited from economic privilege. But simultaneously, he is a white male and has an extremely simplistic understanding of race and gender. So he is very outspoken about his working class status, while being ignorant about how he has benefited from race and gender privilege. (Also, he understands economic privilege but still believes that we live in a meritocracy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Gleason makes a motion that no one should get any raises, and they should only adjust for travel-expenses.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Jude Prather, Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott
So that’s that. No raises for any of them.
Jude Prather makes one point: if you earn money from the state or the county, you have to forgo your salary. He is employed by the county, so I guess he wants brownie points? For denying other people a raise that he’s ineligible for?
Here’s the central hypocrisy: Jude Prather, Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, and Mark Gleason all adopt this noble stance that they’re too principled to vote themselves a raise.
You know what would be more noble? If you voted for a raise, and then say you’ll forgo it and save it for future councilmembers. That would be more principled than their entrenchment of the status quo.
I think they all deserve a raise! But if they want, they can be self-denying and still vote to facilitate more citizens running for office.
School Resource Officers are not a great concept. On the other hand, Uvalde happened three months ago, and it’s gutting to consider leaving kids unprotected. It’s time for city council to renew their contract with SMCISD for the cops in schools.
Last year, Council asked the SRO program to conduct a survey on the efficacy of the program. Does anyone feel safer? How well is it working to have cops in schools? They specifically wanted the survey to include caregivers and students, along with teachers and admin.
It just …didn’t happen. It was about to happen, back in May, and then it got sidelined due to Uvalde. But that means there was a solid six months of thumb-twiddling before May where nothing happened. Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are both furious. “That’s a really big ball to drop,” says Alyssa coldly.
Angry Alyssa is my favorite Alyssa. In general, Alyssa is preternaturally calm and patient, diplomatically providing context and backstory that her colleagues lack. That makes her icy anger during this item all the more compelling. Angry Alyssa is deployed rarely, judiciously, and with heat-seeking laser precision. It’s a special occasion when it happens.
Here are some other choice moments:
Jane: Wouldn’t we want the school board to address this? Did they? Alyssa: I don’t know. But this council has a habit of playing hot potato with responsibilities, and so I do not care what the school board did.
2. Mark Gleason being mark-gleasony:
Mark: Would this leave anyone open to lawsuits if something terrible happens, if we haven’t signed this yet? The city lawyer: No. Neither party is waiving immunity. School districts have more protection against negligence than districts. The city is responsible – whether or not there’s an agreement – to train, supervise, and control these officers. Mark: I still think it could. I really truly do. It leaves us weaker if litigation were to arise. This sets a bad precedent! A very dangerous precedent! Someone could read this and say “they have no school resource officers!” Alyssa: But they would be there. Mark: It sets a bad narrative!
(Please just remember how worried Mark is about lawsuits, because we’re about to talk about the lobbying ordinance.)
3. And Alyssa, at her most eviscerating:
Jane Hughson: Do you have any amendments? Do you have any changes? Alyssa: My hesitancy is because we didn’t engage parents. We did not consult them. Jane: So there’s not anything in this document that you would change? Alyssa: I would change the whole thing. So don’t be asking me that, Mayor. Jane: I want this closed. There’s a survey in it. Alyssa: I don’t have any changes. And I didn’t want “a survey”. I wanted the PD or the ISD to get creative and figure out some way to get perspectives given everything that went on, and it’s disappointing that they didn’t. Jane: If that was a request, we should have put that in the contract. Alyssa: It’s not a request. It’s common sense. That’s bad leadership. We didn’t have to hold their hand through it. Districts all over the state are doing it, and the nation. We don’t have to hold leadership’s hand for everything. Read the room!
(These snippets are pared down, because it’s so blisteringly dull to read actual transcribed dialogue. But I think I preserved the gist of it.)
At this point, Max has an amendment, but Shane Scott moves to call the question, and gets council to agree, 5-1, to end debate. (Jude Prather is abstaining.) So we didn’t hear Max’s amendment.
Should we renew the SRO contract?
The vote on renewing the SRO contract: Yes: Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez No: Max & Alyssa
Alyssa Garza is primarily angry at the failure to consult parents and caregivers in designing the current contract for School Resource Officers. Max Baker is angry at twelve different things, probably all valid, but spread too thin.
Here’s my take: I’m most concerned with finding out how SROs are involved when students break rules. At one point, Alyssa asks for a breakdown of police interactions with students, by race and special needs. Chief Standridge says that we have that information in our records, but it’s not pulled out in a standalone spreadsheet.
I want to know: – what are the races and special needs of students in incidents where the SROs are involved – what are the severity of the offenses – what are the severity of the consequences
Then I want that data compared to incidents where the SROs are not involved. Here, I want to ignore minor offenses and just focus on the offenses that are matched up with the ones that do involve SROs.
Matching up by severity of offense, I want to know: – what are the races and special needs of the students in these no-SRO incidents – what are the severity of the consequences.
(I am also worried about school shootings. All my solutions are magical, and involve hearty funding of mental health initiatives and eradication of automatic weapons.)
….
Item 21: Approving the ballot for November.
We are going to take a moment to relish Shane Scott being a colossal twat:
Shane, what on god’s green earth are you holding?!
“I uh, kinda scored this, this is 3 oz of marijuana. I couldn’t put 4 in here. And this is going to be considered a low-level offense? My question is, what is considered high-level – like a pillow case? What’s the next step up, just out of curiosity?”
Here are the reasons this is idiotic:
This exact issue was discussed last time. Shane is a day late and a dollar short.
Council is not here to discuss decriminalizing marijuana today. This is a routine ballot approval for November. There’s no issue at hand.
Consider his actual question: Q: If four oz is considered low-level, then what is considered high-level? A: Anything above four oz, you dingbat.
4. So why is he actually hauling in 3 oz of pot into a city council meeting? Two opposite reasons:
To show off that he’s got access to the dank stuff, I guess
To show off that he’s so against this decriminalization measure
I would bet you four ounces of marijuana that Shane likes his weed, and that he still listens to Cypress Hill when he lights up. And I think he should be legally allowed to do so.
But as a city council stunt? Equal parts weird and inconsequential. Whatever, dillweed. (He approved the ballot, along with everyone else.)
This is literally the sixth time this has come up since I started blogging last year: here, here, here, here, and then they finally held a workshop on it here. At the workshop, the ordinance got scaled way back. Instead of catching anyone with a financial interest in city council decisions, it was pared down to only include real estate developers. There was a consensus that a majority of council would support this.
For a while, Max Baker and the city manager, Stephanie Reyes, discuss some of the finer points of implementation.
Mark Gleason makes the same points that he always makes:
Overreach
Too complicated for citizens, to hard to implement, too hard to enforce
There’s no evidence of any corruption that would necessitate this.
Unintended consequences. This will be weaponized.
The guy from the Ethics Review Commission takes these one at a time:
Overreach? We pared it down to just developers, like you all agreed you wanted during the workshop.
Weaponized? we have a specific item that states that this ordinance cannot be used as a political weapon or for personal reasons. [Note: I personally understand why this is not convincing.]
Too complicated for citizens? this is why we have a clear trigger process with so many exemptions.
No evidence of need? We have ethics complaints all the time. Someone was fired for this right before we started this process in 2020. So far this year we’ve dealt with a bunch of ethics complaints. Think of Lindsey Hill, La Cinema, etc.
You personally said you were worried about protecting the city from lawsuits. [Note: remember Mark’s School Resource Officer plea for legal protection?] This itself will protect the city, by documenting behavior along the way. This is lawsuit protection.
We’re not defining who is a “lobbyist”. We’re defining what kinds of behavior triggers need to register and disclose. It’s been disingenuous for you to persistently focus on the confusion around who is a lobbyist.
Mark is very offended at being called disingenuous, and yelps disingenuously about it.
Listen: I’m very done with Mark Gleason’s self-righteous rants. Shane Scott and Mark Gleason vote equally badly, but Mark Gleason subjects me to long, infuriating soapboxes on every single issue. Wheras at least Shane Scott occasionally waves around baggies of schwag weed for my personal entertainment.
Then the big bomb drops: Saul Gonzalez says that he will not be supporting this bill.
Everybody understands the following:
Max & Alyssa will always support this bill.
Shane & Mark will never support this bill.
Saul is probably in, and Jude is probably not in.
Jane is gettable, if she can put in some amendments.
So when Saul switches sides, he has doomed the bill. Why?
What Saul says is that he wants out-of-town developers to count as lobbyists, but not in-town developers. Since this bill catches in-town developers, he’s out.
Everything about this smells super fishy. There was a whole workshop! They built a consensus that if the lobbying ordinance were restricted to developers, it would be okay. Saul was on board. In fact, from the very beginning, Saul has been hungry to go after developers.
At this point, the mood flips. Jane Hughson drops her amendments, since there’s no longer a coalition of councilmembers who might pass the bill. And without the amendments, she’s not going to support it.
So abruptly, they vote:
The vote: Yes: Max & Alyssa No: Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, and Jude Prather
The whole lobbying ordinance is dead, and the whole thing is fishy as hell.
…
Item 25: There’s some federal money that was supposed to go to reimburse housing repair costs after the 2015 floods. The rules were so onerous, and the program was adopted so far after the fact, that it had exactly one recipient. It’s being shut down, and everyone is frustrated.
Still, the money must be spent by 2024, and so the money is being re-allocated towards flood-mitigation projects in midtown and Blanco Gardens.
Probably no one to blame here, but still frustrating.
…
Item 27: There will be a council workshop on protecting the Edwards Aquifer. Max opens pointing out that the river is extremely low and praising GSMP for their forward-thinking planning, which is really unexpected. He’s got a couple ideas that should be considered – partnerships with the county to look at the value of conservation easements, looking at whether setbacks around natural things like caves should count as dedicated parkland, I forget what else.
Jude Prather has several good ideas which make him sound well-informed: aquifer storage where the ecology allows it, very large rain-water recovery cisterns, one-water concept for buildings, water re-use, purple lines, etc. That we should be preparing for droughts that last decades.
I don’t know what any of those things are, but I whole-heartedly approve of preparing for droughts that could last decades!
…
Item 29: Shall we name one of the downtown alleys “Boyhood Alley” due to its use in Richard Linklater’s movie, Boyhood?
There it is! You can see the courthouse in the background:
Shane Scott and Max Baker bring the proposal forward. The idea is to celebrate our movie industry. After all, La Cinema is coming.
Apparently the Main Street Board was opposed, thinking that the public wouldn’t know what Boyhood means and might be weirded out. I find it funny that in the absence of context, “boyhood” sounds off-color and sleazy. You know boys, with their creepy childhoods. How suspect.
Jane Hughson is right there with those Main Street Boomers, asserting that “Boyhood Alley” sounds creepy. She prefers Linklater Alley. Mark Gleason, our Forever Hedger, kinda agrees with her but kinda agrees with everyone else.
Everyone else likes Boyhood Alley. After all, Linklater isn’t especially tied to San Marcos. The movie Boyhood is especially tied to San Marcos.
It passes 6-1, with Mark Gleason openly deciding to cast his vote with the majority since it was already going to pass.
…
Item 32: Should people on boards and commissions earn a small stipend? Max & Alyssa make the case that this is an equity issue: we have a very skewed pool of volunteers for boards and commissions. Maybe younger people who are juggling three jobs would see a way to contribute if they were able to offset some of the cost of missing a shift at work.
Stephanie Reyes, the interim city manager, suggests that this would be a good issue to raise with the new DEI person.
It’s funny how this plays out. First, Mayor Hughson asks everyone if they’d like to pursue this as a possible policy. Everyone (besides Max and Alyssa) skewers the idea – too expensive! Too complicated! Too un-service-minded! (Well, not Shane Scott. He already skedaddled home for the evening, with his three oz baggie of the wacky tobacky.)
Second, Mayor Hughson asks everyone how they feel about talking to the DEI person about the idea. This time, they all pause and stroke their chins in contemplation, and agree that that would be fine.
It’s like they had to be heavy-handed NOs on the topic itself, but they don’t want to sound unwilling to work with a qualified expert. So they all had to backpedal rapidly.
What’s my take? Our boards and commissions are disproportionately older, whiter, and male-r than San Marcos as a whole. Finding volunteers that match the population of San Marcos is a big problem. It’s possible that compensating board members would enable broader participation. Talking to the DEI person is a very good idea.
(I wasn’t entirely clear if they were talking about the future DEI hire or the host of the upcoming DEI council workshop. Either one will be better informed than the collective wisdom of Jane, Shane, Jude, Mark, and Saul.)
Three big topics: 1. Last time, we discussed a bunch of potential houses in the middle of nowhere, down south, past Trace, next to a power plant. At this meeting, the owner of the Hays Power Plant shows up to further explain how miserable it would be to live next to the Hays Power Plant.
2. Lots of people show up to support the ballot measure decriminalizing pot (or maybe just passing the ordinance outright). Mano Amiga pounded the pavement and gathered 10K+ signatures for this.
3. People express support for the discussion item on abortion, called The GRACE Act, which stands for Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone. Originated in Austin, and then more recently passed in San Antonio.
Go watch this one comment, starting at 43:20. This testimony is too moving and compelling to get buried and lost in the shuffle of City Council minutes. It’s a moment of vulnerability from a woman who had an abortion last week, and you can viscerally feel how terrifying it is to get one in a post-Roe world. It’s super brave and heartbreaking.
Go listen – it deserves to be heard by a broader (supportive) audience.
The San Marxist 