Category: Hour summaries

Hours 0:00 – 3:25, 9/16/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment

Just three speakers!  Topics:

Nobody spoke about the budget.  Nobody complained about the tax increases being too high.  Can we just put a pin in this for later? Let’s remember this.

…

Item 22:  Hazmat Routes

You know these guys. You love these guys:

via

They live in our lovely river, but nowhere else.  It could be catastrophic if there was a crash on I-35 over the river, and a bunch of hazardous chemical were spilled into their habitat.

What cities do in this situation is design a Hazmat route.  Here’s what we’re proposing:

That’s along FM 150.  So you’d cross the San Marcos river well east of the habitats of those critters, if you were driving a truck full of something nasty.  

A few notes: 

  • This is only for thru-traffic.  If you’re delivering somewhere in San Marcos, you can head there.
  • This is going to be a long process – it’s gotta go back and forth with TxDOT a few times.

Kind of related: remember when the train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, with all those toxic chemicals?

(and they tried to get away with paying each person something like $5 for wrecking their lives?)

We also have a lot of trains crossing our river! I doubt you can re-route trains quite so easily, but I wonder how environmentalists think about and plan for these risks.

…

Items 23-25: The budget and the tax rate

I’m sorry, this item gave me whiplash. This went off the rails. Not the good kind of roller coaster.

We need a fair amount of backstory. The drama on Tuesday unfolded so fast that it will be incoherent, unless I bring you up to speed, first.

I’ll try to keep it zippy!

Background

First thing to know: we have not raised our property tax rate since 2022.

Politicians genuinely hate raising taxes. Politicians like being liked! They like being elected. I don’t know where we got this idea* that they rub their palms together and cackle about bilking tax-payers, but they don’t do this.

Polititians love short-term easy decisions that make tax-payers happy! Raising taxes is the opposite of that.

*It was Reagan.

….

The budget process

1. January-February-March-etc: they hold some giant two day workshops. Councilmembers develop their priorities for the next year. More workshops. Very slow grind.

2. May-June: The first tax estimates come in: we’re in a budget crisis. We can squeak by this year, but we’re facing a budget cliff.

Roughly speaking, this is the problem::

  1.  Our sales tax is down.
  2. Our property taxes are down (because home prices are declining)
  3. Inflation is up.
  4. We are as lean as we can go. We have already cut $100K from departments.
  5. We’ve got some big expenses looming. (Covid money ending.)
  6. The state government is trying to strangle cities.

Here’s the graphic that they showed:

It was a big Come to Jesus Moment. Council went to Jesus. They gave direction that they wanted to go with the Structurally Balanced side of that road.

Bottom line: “Structurally Balanced” means raising the tax rate modestly over multiple years (instead of one big crazy future hike.) All of council agrees with it.

…

June: In June, staff comes back with some Structurally Balanced tax estimates:

Here’s what everyone said they wanted:

Ok, great! We’re getting somewhere.

….

August: Real numbers come in. (June was just an estimate.)

By law, council has to set their own upper bound, in August. It’s a weird quirk.

So staff lays out these possibilities:

That’s in the afternoon, at the 3 pm workshop.

Matthew and Saul are all willing to go up to the middle column now. The gravity of the budget crisis is evident to everyone.

The Lorenzo changes things up: “I want to go between 64.96¢ and 70.49¢. I want to land on the number that gives a $0 in that last row. Neither a surplus or a deficit forecast for 2027.”

Everyone is intrigued by this idea. He ends up successfully getting everyone on board with this! What careful planning we’re demonstrating!

That night, at the 6 pm meeting, they vote on the tax rate cap:

So we go with the 67.69¢.

This is our max: the final tax rate cannot be higher than 67.69¢.

…

Note: In August, they also mentioned something about an EMS study. It was another potential looming cost. This is going to become a very big deal, but it didn’t jump out at me then.

…

Last background month! We’re now to September.

September 2nd meeting:

They take the first official vote on the 67.69¢ tax rate:

Now you’re all caught up.

…..

This current meeting!

Here are the three scenarios we need to have on hand for this conversation:

What would home owners actually have to pay, if we raised rates in these categories?

    • The “No New Revenue” rate, 62.78¢. (NNR)  Your tax bill goes up $0.
    • Option 1: 64.96¢.   The average tax bill goes up $72.46 per year, or $6.03 per month.
    • Option 2: 67.69¢.  The average tax bill goes up $163.21 per year, or $13.60 per month.

….

Sidenote: Those amounts are based on an average house worth $347,398 (and $15K homestead exemption).

Most of San Marcos rents! But for those who own homes, home value varies a lot.

Here’s the average home price by neighborhood in San Marcos:

The last column is the monthly increase, under 67.69¢.

That chart has 40 rows. Only the last eight rows exceed the average home value! (Blanco Vista and Kissing Tree are both way bigger than they seem.)

Point being: most neighborhoods would see smaller tax increases under these proposed hikes.

….

The public outcry:

<crickets> …. <crickets>

There was none. I mean, I’m sure Council got phone calls. But I’ve watched these meetings for years now – compared to other years, this is nothing.

Two people showed up to talk about the budget during the public hearing. They both made nuanced points about the good parts and bad parts of the budget.

Contrast that to the big items this year:

  • Tantra: 50+ speakers showed up.
  • Gaza: 125+ speakers showed up (on the day of the vote)
  • Data Center: 14 speakers on August 19th

People show up when they’re mad. This ain’t that. This is the wind at Council’s back, pushing them to make the responsible decision.

And then suddenly there is a big curve ball: EMS.

This came up in August, but it was uncertain. Now it’s certain.

So, there’s something called the San Marcos-Hays EMS.  This is who you call when you need an ambulance.  It used to be a lot bigger.  Over time, Wimberly left. Then Buda left. Then Dripping Springs left.

Since the August meeting, it’s now official: Kyle and everyone else is leaving.  So it’s just San Marcos.   (The cheese stands alone)

This is a big problem! We don’t have a city-run EMS.  We’ve got fire fighters who may be trained paramedics, but they can’t take you to the hospital. We don’t have ambulances. We don’t have a facility to store ambulances.  We don’t have the infrastructure to run another department.  But because this partnership is dissolving, we’re going to have to figure it out. 

This is going to cost about $2 million.  This will start getting dealt with in November.

Bottom line: those tax rates all need to increase by about 2.4¢ to cover EMS.

Council Discussion

Council asked a lot of questions about the EMS situation. They also were asking about Council priorities – what had to be decided on Tuesday, and what stayed flexible. It was not a very long conversation.

Lorenzo keeps acting squirrelly.

Finally he says: “I don’t like the 67.96¢ anymore. The State legislature didn’t pass those crazy laws after all. We should have more economic development! I want to go back to 64.96¢.”

Well, shit!

A few things:

1. “Economic Development”: I erased a big rant about this.  It’s not a magic bullet.

This is like walking out onto the NFL sideline and telling the coach, “Hey, you should try to score more points than the other team! Then you’d win!”   City staff really does know about economic development. They are always working on it. 

2. The State legislature will definitely do Abbott’s bidding, and Abbott wants those laws. If not 2025, then watch for them in the next session.

3. The 64.96¢ isn’t an option anymore! It doesn’t include EMS!

The City Manager responds with alarm: “Please, please don’t go with 64.96¢. That won’t even cover EMS. We need at least 65.15¢.”

….

Listen: The rug just got yanked, suddenly, and nobody is prepared. Nobody has the presence of mind to call a time-out and fix all the numbers.

Confusion reigns.

But look how helpful I am! I made you a chart!

This is what I think city staff would have put on a slide, if anyone had had advance warning.

Here’s my theory: I think Lorenzo intended to go from the 3rd row to the 2nd row. After all, he said “64.96¢”. But since we now have an EMS crisis, he didn’t even cover the first row. The City Manager is asking him to please at least get to 65.15¢ in the first row.

…

We’ve suddenly rolled back all the careful planning for the budget cliff. The budget cliff is still coming! We still did all the planning! But instead, we’re about to do this:

I’m especially flabbergasted because Lorenzo himself was the one who promoted the 67.69¢. He literally picked it to leave us with a balanced budget in 2027 – neither deficit, nor surplus.

Saul, Shane, and Matthew were always barely willing to make a difficult vote. So as soon as Lorenzo gives them permission, the coalition for 67.69¢ falls apart.

The vote on 67.69¢:

Yeah.

Let’s have a time lapse:

(Technically, I’m combining two separate votes in that last column. First they vote for 67.69, and it fails. Then separately, they vote for 62.78+EMS. This passes.)

Anyway, that’s the whole saga! We had the wind at our backs, and instead we shot ourselves in the foot. It felt like someone whispered in Lorenzo’s ear at the 11th hour, and the whole thing unraveled.

Honestly, I’m kinda salty about the whole thing. .

…

One final note: $2 million for EMS is a bargain. That works out to 2 cents. By law, Emergency services is allowed to charge a special tax of up to 10 cents. That would bring in about $8.5 million.

Nobody is trying to shake down tax payers here. They just want an ambulance to show up when your grandmother has a heart attack.

…

Item 4-5: Electric and Water Rates.

The next discussion is even goofier, if you can believe it. (But less destructive.)

Your electric bill comes in two parts:

  1. a base rate ($14.31)
  2. a usage rate. (Based on how much electricity you use.)

Usage rates are going up. (Discussed here before.)

Shane Scott speaks up:”Let’s just cancel the base rate!” He wants everyone’s bill automatically lower by $14.31 every month.

You can practically hear staff’s hearts all plummet through the floor as they try to grapple with this craziness. (Ten minutes ago, we tanked the budget over whether to raise taxes by $6 or $12 a month. And now Shane wants to throw away another $14?!)

The director of utilities tactfully explains that this would blow a $3.4 million hole in our budget. The city manager gently mentions our bond rating and debt service coverage. We could get sued by bond holders.

Shane withdraws his motion.

The vote on electric rates:

A little later, we have the vote on water rates:

So water rates will not change.

Listen: this is totally irresponsible. This is lazy, wishful thinking.

The city is not turning a profit on water. You have to cover the costs of your water utility.

If you want to save people money on their water bill, help them conserve water. Don’t strangle the department that has to fix the pipes and pay for the water rights.

…

That’s basically it for the meeting. I know barely anyone cares, but this was super big bullshit.

Hours 0:00 – 3:04, 9/2/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

Some years, citizens get fired up and angry at the budget. This year was the opposite. 

Three people spoke on the budget, and they all praised council for increasing funding for the Human Services Advisory Board. (HSAB grants are how the city helps fund all the nonprofits that help kids, people in poverty, vets, the elderly, etc.)

It was pretty short!

…

Items 20-24:  Welcome to our $371 million dollar budget!

It’s budget time. So far this year, we’ve talked about this back in February, then in March, again in May, and just now in August.

We’ve got several big problems:

  1. We’re bringing in less money from sales tax and property tax.

Sales tax peaked in 2023 and hasn’t returned.  Property taxes have been flat.  Actually, they’ve gone down on existing properties, but they’ve been propped up by new builds. 

(That slide is from the May workshop.)

  1. Everything is more expensive, due to inflation.

City department budgets were flat two years ago. This past year, they cut $100K collectively.  But everything is getting more expensive, so even holding things flat means you have less purchasing power.

  1. The State Legislature is always, always trying to knee-cap cities:

This past session it was House Bill 73 and Senate Bill 10. City staff implied that there were a few others. All of these cap city spending or cap city taxes.

The concept isn’t new – we already have caps on tax hikes. But these new bills are brutal in their severity.

All these bills were still up in the air last Tuesday, when city council met. Since then, the special legislative session ended. As far as I can tell, none of these passed? But Abbott could always call a 3rd session, or these could return in 2027. So this is always looming.

(Can you imagine how relaxing it would be if our state government wasn’t so hellbent on wrecking Texas cities?)

  1. We have three HFCs that are tied up in the courts

“HFC” stands for Housing Finance Corporations. These didn’t used to be scams, but they’ve become scams. For example: “Pissed” city leaders urge lawmakers to close loophole costing millions in tax revenue.

We’ve got three apartment complexes that were purchased by HFCs, and we’re losing about $630K in tax revenue from them.  (They’re tied up in lawsuit appeals, so it could still tip our way.)

  1. There are almost $4 million worth of new expenses that are kicking in soon, over the next 1-2 years.

The ones with the checkmarks were funded from federal Covid money, which is expiring next year.

6. Council also has some new priorities, which cost money:

  • Increasing HSAB funding by $200,000
  • Increased funding for tenants rights and tenants legal support
  • Start an office of community support and resource navigation.
  • Probably more that I’m not remembering

…

Because of all this, tax rates are going up.  

I mean, we don’t really have a choice, right?

If you own a $365K house, here’s how it affects you:

If you own a smaller house – say $200K assessed value – then you’d pay like so:

Last year: $1,115 per year, or $93 per month.
This year: $1,252 per year, or $104 per month.

We always focus on home owners here, because it’s easy to compute their tax costs. But rest assured: landlords cover the cost of property taxes by passing it on to their renters.

My back-of-envelope estimate is that an average renter pays about half as much: $640 per year towards their landlord’s property tax bill, or $53 per month.

…

Your utilities are also going up:

This is mostly based on CUAB recommendations. CUAB stands for Citizens Utility Advisory Boards.

Basically, if you don’t raise rates for a few years, you’ll get into a big financial hole. Then your bond ratings tank and it gets more expensive to borrow money, and you’re in even bigger financial trouble. To get out of it, you’d have to shock the community with a giant rate hike in order to right the ship.

So the idea is that it’s better to nudge prices up gently every year, to keep up with inflation. CUAB is the one that has to figure out the new rates. This is that.

…

One funny detail: The goal is to stabilize our budget going forward. We could have scrapped by this year, but then we’d be in a big hole next year. The looming expenses will kick in, and we’d have to raise taxes a lot, or cut services significantly, to handle it.

But because we’re being proactive, we actually will have $1.3 million of breathing room in the meantime.

City staff went to all the city departments, and asked about things like deferred maintenance projects or other ongoing needs. Here’s some possible ways to spend the money:

Council will hash this out later.

…

Finally: my yearly rant about taxes.

Taxes are good! This is how we can take care of our most vulnerable people. This is how we can solve collective problems, without someone trying to extract as much profit as possible.

The problem is that our taxes are not fair:

via

So yes: you do kind of pay way too much in taxes! We don’t charge our rich Texans their fair share.

(Also we Texans turn down about $5 billion every year by refusing to expand medicaid, and we turned down $350 million this past summer that would feed hungry kids.

We do this in order to prove a point, or something? The feds can’t force us to feed our kids or get medical care when we’re sick, dadgum. )

Look, 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.  We just choose not to. 

Stop electing Republicans who are in the pocket of extremely wealthy Texans.

(End of rant. Thanks for playing along!)

…

Back to council. How did the votes go?

The votes on the tax rate and the budget:

Lock step, baby!

The votes on the various utility funds:

That’s the votes on Trash & Recycling rates, Electric Utility rates, and Water and Wastewater rates, respectively.

The votes are dropping like flies! Hang in there, councilmembers! They all passed, though.

….

Saul asked some interesting questions about our water supply:

Q: How much water do we sell to other cities?
A: We sell to Kyle, to County Line, and we sell reclaimed water to Buda and others.

(I don’t know what “County Line” means, and when I try to google it, I just get a bunch of BBQ joints and maps of counties. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[Updated to add: “County Line” is this special utility district. Thanks to Diane Insley for filling me in!]

Q: What happens if they don’t use the water they buy?
A: Our contracts are “50% take or pay”. So they have to pay for at least 50% of the water we’re setting aside for them, even if they don’t use it.

Q: Were we ever in danger of not getting our water from Canyon Lake, due to drought?
A: Both Canyon and Edwards water have tiered drought restrictions. So we always get some water, but they require us to use less water during a drought. Before the July floods, Canyon Lake was Stage 4, but now they’re Stage 1. Edwards Aquifer has been between Stages 3 – 5 all year long. They’re about to tip into Stage 5 again.

…

That’s all of the budget talk for today! The official, final vote will be at the September 16th meeting.

…

Item 25: Just one tiny rezoning!

This is 906 Chesnut St:

From the street, it looks like so:

That’s if you’re standing on Chesnut looking back towards LBJ. Vie Lofts is on the right.

The developer wants to rezone it as CD-4. (Basically, they want to tear it down and build small apartments.)

Everyone says okay.

I’m okay letting it go, as long as we take a moment to pour one out for this wallpaper:

I mean:

I’m not made of stone, people.

Also this window treatment:

and maybe this pink trim:

ok, and this built-in cabinetry and paneling:

I take it back! Save this house! It’s too pure for this fallen world.

(Enjoy the full zillow tour here.)

…

Honestly, the rest of the meeting was pretty zippy. A few quick items:

  • postponing the new development by the high school
  • funding for the new water reclamation facility
  • funding for CARTS
  • setting some dates for elections and city council meetings next year.

On CARTS, we pay about $621K, and the federal and state government combined pay about $1.75 million. That’s great! Redistribution of wealth at work.

…

One last detail: Executive Session

Finally, Council discussed this land in executive session:

That’s the land that SMCISD is selling. There’s a big petition and movement in the community for the city to purchase the land, so that they can dedicate it towards the Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District.

So I don’t know what happened in Executive Session (obviously), but afterwards Council directed city staff to ask SMCISD about delaying the deadline of the sale, so that the city can get its ducks in a row.

I think it all comes down to timing:

  • Can the city speed up enough to meet SMCISD’s budget crisis timeline?
  • Can SMCISD delay long enough to accommodate the city’s due diligence and bureaucracy?

Also Hays county is somewhere in the mix, too. We’ll find out the details eventually!

Hours 0:00 – 7:58, 8/19/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

There is only one topic, but there are over two hours of comments. It’s all data center, baby.

There were 14 speakers in favor. Here are the main arguments made by the people who want us to approve it:

  • These are all over the place already.
  • San Marcos needs the tax revenue.
  • I am the property owner, or I’m going to work in some way on this project, and it sounds great to me

There were 29 speakers opposed. Here are the main arguments made by the people who oppose it:

  • We’re in a drought, and data centers use a massive amount of water.
  • Data centers use a massive amount of electricity. Our rates will go up, this is bad for the environment, and the grid can’t handle it.
  • Don’t sell out the San Marcos river to greedy corporations
  • Cyrus One is secretive and unwilling to answer basic questions.
  • Anecdotally, people have stories of odd illnesses from living next to data centers.

There were another few speakers opposed at the 3 pm workshop, and then another 25 at the public hearings. (The vast majority were people speaking more than once, though.)

This will take up the vast majority of the meeting, so we’ll unpack all these points. Stay tuned.

…

Items 10-13: But first! we have the quickest little rezoning.

Have you ever been driving south on I35, towards New Braunfels, and noticed these guys?

They make concrete, and they’re here:

The owner wants to zone two little blocks of land, between Heldenfels and I-35:

He wants these to also be Heavy Industrial.

No one is fussed. Everyone says okay.

…

Items 14-16: Ok, it’s time for the AI Data Center. This is a doozy.

Background: We are talking about land here:

The property owner wants to zone this land Light Industrial, so that he can sell it to Cyrus One, a data center company.

Let’s talk about data centers

Apparently there are 300+ data centers already in Texas. Of those, 40 are in the Austin and 49 are in San Antonio:

via

Not counting the one on tonight’s agenda, there are apparently two being developed in Caldwell County and three more in Hays.

Data centers have two big problems: they use a lot of water and they use a lot of electricity. Texas makes this worse, because counties aren’t allowed to regulate use of natural resources. (Virginia Parker, director of the San Marcos River Foundation, said we’re the only state with this particular idiocy.)

So as long as data centers stay outside of cities, there is currently no way to regulate how many get built.

This specific data center

The owner is a guy named Mayberry, and the property has a funny history. (Not funny haha.)

Back in 2022, he asked the city to annex most of this land into San Marcos. He wanted to sell the land to a developer, to build single-family homes out there.

This was always a weird, terrible idea! First, the sprawl would be insane. It’s farm land out there, not close to anything.

Second, there is a massive power plant next door:

Council had endless discussions about whether it was fair to build homes next to an extremely loud, bright, flashing power plant. In the end, they settled on a mandatory disclosure to potential buyers and some fencing.

It’s been three years, and clearly no one wants to build these houses. So Mayberry has moved onto the next idea, which is this Data Center.

But since most of the land has been annexed into San Marcos, he now has to get permission from the city to rezone.

In this one data center, and only this one, we now have a say.

Back in March, Planning and Zoning denied the rezoning. (In fact, this was Jim Garber’s last meeting.) Planning and Zoning had a ton of concerns.

When P&Z votes down a rezoning, it takes a supermajority at Council to overturn them. So tonight, the data center will need 6 votes out of 7, in order to pass.

We’re going to cover these topics next:

  1. Noise and lights
  2. Water
  3. Electricity
  4. Impact on San Marcos, and the Restrictive Covenant
  5. Property taxes

Buckle up!

  1. Noise and lights:

Staff basically says, “Look, plenty of data centers are in residential areas already and everyone seems to be chill with it. Look!”

“Isn’t that so close? See?”

“And also, what if Mayberry had built those homes! Wasn’t that an even worse idea?”

(For the record, Jane, Shane, Mark Gleason, Saul, Alyssa, and Jude Prather voted yes for those homes, in 2022. Max Baker voted no.)

The comparison to the imaginary, nonexistent homes is silly. The homes don’t exist.

…

Here’s the real argument the city should have made: this data center is next door to the Hays County Power Plant.

Seriously, the noise, lights, and weird vibes that come from this data center will be dwarfed by what’s already coming from the power plant.

2. Water:

Data centers run hot, and so they use a lot of water to keep the computers from overheating. A traditional, evaporative system uses maybe 550,000 gallons/day?

Technology has gotten better, and now they use a closed loop system. You fill up the building one time, and then it keeps re-using that water for the lifespan of the building. After that, the only water needed is for employee bathrooms and kitchens.

Mayberry says that the initial fill up will require 60K-70K gallons of water per building, and there are 5 buildings. So roughly 400,000 gallons will be needed to fill the buildings, one time.

After that, he says that each building will use about 4-7K gallons of water each day. That’s pretty normal for a business:

3. Electricity:

The electricity is insane.

Mayberry says that each building will use about 75 megawatts of power. So over five buildings, they will use 375 megawatts.

City staff says that all of San Marcos, at peak usage, is about 150 megawatts. Every single one of us, on the worst day in August! That’s insane. On a typical October day, all of San Marcos uses about 25 megawatts. So these data centers really do gobble up a ton of energy.

Two questions come up:
– Will this drive up water use, indirectly?
– Will this drive up rates?

Both answer are yes, sort of.

Producing electricity requires water. But it’s not using San Marcos water – it would be from any power plant, in the entire state. All the electricity from all of the power plants gets dumped in the grids, and it gets blended around. When you draw electricity, you’re getting a random blend of all those sources.

(Also, not all energy sources require water. Gas, coal, and nuclear all do, but wind and solar don’t.)

The same is true for electric utility rates: all 300 data centers are putting a huge strain on the grid. More power needs to be generated, and that is going to cost money. But that cost is going to get spread across the entire state.

Electric rates are spiking and will continue to spike, over the entire state.

4. Impact on San Marcos and the Restrictive Covenant:

This data center will not use San Marcos water or San Marcos electric. Water would be supplied by Crystal Clear water, and they’d get electricity from Pedernales.

All data centers in central Texas are harming all of central Texas. The bad effects are distributed pretty evenly. We’re all using the same water table and tapping into the same electric grid.

This specific data center does not specifically damage San Marcos or the San Marcos river.

The Restrictive Covenant: A restrictive covenant is a legal contract of all the hoops that the developer is willing to jump through, for the city.

Since getting knocked down at P&Z, Mayberry is trying to do whatever he can to get approved. Here’s his offer:

and

5. Why even do this?! (Property taxes)

Allegedly, it would bring in an enormous amount of money.

To put that in perspective: This past year, we’ve had a budget crisis, and city departments had to make cuts. Total, across all departments, we cut $100,000, and it was a huge strain. $9 million would go a very, very long way.

My two cents

I’m out of step with my readers here, and I apologize. I think we should take the money.

Data centers are run by greedy, irresponsible corporations that do not care about local resources. They will exploit and destroy all the beauty in this state, if they can. Texas desperately needs to regulate this industry and limit the number of data centers that are being built.

And yet!! I think we should hold our nose and let them pay us lots of money. There is so much need in San Marcos, and so much poverty.

Rejecting this does not move the needle on the actual problem. Take the money.

Here is what Council says:

Matthew Mendoza goes first, and he is fired up. He says:

  • I voted against putting houses by the power plant. Terrible idea.
  • We didn’t annex SMART/Axis because of local activism, and now they’re building anyway, except unregulated. I get complaints every day from people who live in Pecan Park. Annexation means regulation, and that’s good.
  • We cannot run this city on tax income from neighborhoods. It’s not sustainable. You all don’t pay enough in taxes for how much it costs to run a city.
  • We need opportunities in this town. My blood is in the river and soil! Jim Garber was my scout leader!

Jane Hughson goes next:

  • I have a ton of water cred. I was the first chair on the board of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, senior board member of ARWA, etc.
  • I’ve got some concerns, but I also am open to negotiation.
  • Listen up: you think you hate living next to a data center, but you would really hate living next to manufacturing. I’m trying to keep that from happening to you.
  • The amount of power needed is crazy. I have a lot of questions that we’ll get to.

Saul Gonzales goes next:

  • No. I’m a hard no. I listen to my constituents, and they know more than me. Everyone knows my reasons why. No.

(Ahem… everyone knows his reasons why)

Amanda Rodriguez goes next:

  • I’m also a hard no. I’m not going to dismiss the voices of this many people.

…

Let’s pause and talk strategy:

This item needs 6 out of 7 votes to pass. Saul and Amanda are voting no. Therefore it can’t pass.

But everyone pretends like this didn’t just happen! We proceed to have a detailed discussion for the next hour. It was a little weird.

However: the ending is not black and white, so I’m going to force us to walk through all this slowly.

…

The nitty-gritty questions

Q: Can the restrictive covenant be changed?
A: Yes. This is just a first reading. Staff can bring back changes for second reading.

Q: Is the property owner willing to make the covenant permanent, instead of expiring in 20 years?
A: Sure.

Q: How can we enforce the covenant?
A: A bunch of different ways:

1. The biggest items are how buildings are built. We withhold occupancy permits until it passes inspection. We have a lot of leverage there.

2. We can require them to submit their monthly water bill to the city, and make it publicly available.

3. We have an (overworked, underfunded) code compliance division who will make the rounds out there and check for things like noise violations.

4. For any other violations, we’d take them to court and get an injunction. Court orders them to stop doing whatever they’re doing.

Q: How do you end up using 4-7K gallons of water in each building, each day?
A: That’s pretty standard for a regular office building with a bathroom and kitchen. Nothing major.

Q: If you ever had to drain the closed loop, what would you do with all that water?
A: It’s got a ton of awful chemicals in it. It would need to be disposed of as a hazardous waste. That can’t go down the drain.

Q: Can they build their own gas power plant and get around ERCOT?
A: Not if they’re in the city limits. They’d need approval from P&Z. If they’re outside the city, yes.

Q: Why does everyone have stories of how this will cause electric rates to rise?
A: Electric rates will definitely rise, because of the 300 data centers across Texas. Whenever there are new grid costs, those costs are spread across the entire state. So we’re already facing this. This particular one doesn’t affect us any more than the rest.

Q: Can you use reclaimed water on all your landscaping and stuff? Will you be sustainable?
A: Sure.

Q: Can you fill the original big amount of water using reclaimed water?
A: Probably not worth it, to run pipe across the street for a one-time use.
Q: but could we use a water truck?
A: Yes, that would solve the pipe problem. We don’t know if it’s okay for a data center.

Q: Go back over the part about how much water it takes to make electricity.
A: It does take water to make electricity, if you’re using non-renewable energy. But not for wind or solar. But all the electricity goes into a big mushpot. So data centers just draw a big blend of energy. It’s not coming from the San Marcos river or anything.

Also, if you’re starting a new power plant, you have to show ERCOT that you’ve purchased the water rights before you connect to the grid. You can’t just start using the Edwards Aquifer for your new power plant.

Q: Remember that KUT article about how we’re running out of water? It was factually incorrect and scared a lot of people.
A: I know, right?! That was crazy. It was like the author missed the part of the presentation with the good news. We reached out to them, but they ignored us.

Q: Go back over the electricity usage again.
A: Each building uses 75,000 MW of power, and there are 5 buildings. So they use 375K megawatts, altogether. On a typical day in October, San Marcos uses about 25K megawatts, and our peak usage is about 150K megawatts.

HOLY MOLY.

A: But keep in mind, they’re not on San Marcos power. But also keep in mind, the grid costs are shared by all Texans.

Q: How easy would it be for them to go through disannexation from the city, and build here anyway?
A: It’s actually pretty hard to disannex. They’d end up having to sue us.

Q: So is Cyrus One backing out of the project? Why are they not here?
A: No. They said they are “withdrawing from the zoning case.”

Translation: Cyrus One does not want to deal with San Marcos residents. To be super duper clear, they are 100% assholes who will screw over everyone and anyone. (I’m still okay taking their money.)

The vote

By this point, it’s well past midnight.

It’s finally time to vote:

So it fails! Remember, it takes 6 votes to override P&Z.

Remember an hour ago, when Saul and Amanda both said they were “no” votes? Lo! it hath come! As heralded.

The vote has failed.

…

SO IS IT DEAD???

No. This is where it gets murky.

Council dabbles in entertaining the notion to send it back to P&Z. The argument goes like this: “P&Z didn’t see the restricted covenant. Maybe they would have approved it, if they saw the current version! And if they approve it, then council only need 4 votes to pass this, and not 6 votes.”

However, Council cannot just send it back to P&Z. Either Saul or Amanda have to agree to reopen the issue. They both say no.

Amanda, in fact, is quite angry: “You lost a vote. Quit trying to find a workaround.”

(I mean, I’d be furious if I opposed the data center, as well.)

Council does not quit trying to find a workaround! They have a giant conversation about it. In fact, they break out the giant rule book of technicalities, to figure out what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. Will the developer have to wait 6 months or 12 months to re-apply? Or can they waltz in tomorrow with this exact paperwork, and re-apply, and go to P&Z for approval?

Answer: [This answer takes a while. Picture much shuffling of paper, scrutinizing all these detailed scenarios, double-checking what exact words were said. But eventually…] There is no waiting period. They can waltz in tomorrow.

So there you have it.

…

Bottom line: This application is dead. But Council left a trail of bread crumbs for the applicant to re-apply to P&Z and get a better outcome.

…

Item 19: Upcoming budget details!

We’re beginning budget season. At this meeting, Council sets an upper bound for the property tax rate for next year.

In many ways, this is a continuation of the 3 pm workshop conversation.

Normally there would be a big presentation. But it’s 1:30 am by now. I’m just going to zip through some key details.

Our property taxes are down:

If you add in newly built property, it’s a little better, but you can still see the problem:

Here are the different property tax rates that Staff proposes for Council:

and here’s what that means in terms of your property tax bill, if you’re a home owner:

Council ends up choosing ¢67.69 as their upper bound.

There is a really long discussion of how they got to this number at the 3 pm workshops. So if you’re curious, keep reading.

…

Item 20: Changes to the LDC

“LDC” stands for Land Development Code. All year long, staff makes notes about all the little improvements that anyone ever mentions. There are also things they have to change, based on the new laws passed by the legislature.

This is a big, long complicated process that will take months.

Everyone is exhausted, and they don’t go through the details. It’s going to come around a few more times, though, so we’ll unpack it before it passes.

…

The meeting was finally over at 3:11 am.

In other words, council members just spent TWELVE HOURS sitting in those chairs, up at the dais. That’s rough!

Hours 0:00 – 3:27, 8/5/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Before Citizen Comment

City Manager Reyes gives a little disclaimer about one part of Item 34, possibly purchasing the land next to El Centro.

Background:

This is El Centro:

El Centro’s full name is Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos and they put on a lot of great Hispanic arts and cultural programming.

It’s located here:

The building is the old Bonham Elementary building, and SMCISD still owns the land and leases it to El Centro. correction: and SMCISD donated that part of the property to El Centro in 2022.

I think what’s going on is that the school board wants to sell off the rest of the property:

This block sits within the Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District. (This district was created in 2021, and then never mentioned again. Literally, I searched.)

I don’t think there’s a map of the district anywhere. This is the closest thing I found:

Professor Ana Juarez started up a petition a few weeks ago to get the city to buy the land, so that it doesn’t become developer-bait. It’s got a lot of historical significance:

Over 900 people signed the petition so far! And a bunch of people signed up for citizen comment.

This brings us to Tuesday!

Purchasing this property got put on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. But the city put it in Top Secret Executive Session, so it wasn’t discussed publicly. It sounds like this choice riled up a lot of people? and city staff got an earful of complaints about this?

So Ms. Reyes issued this disclaimer: “Hey, we love this property too! But we have to put real estate discussions in Executive session. It’s not some weird scheming thing. Also if we want to move on this, we have to move fast, because it’s time-sensitive.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

So the city is trying to get on board! This is great news. But the school district and the county also have to buy in. If you’re so inclined, you can:

Now you have homework! sorry!

…

On to Citizen Comment:

Big topics:

  1. The Lions Club: ten people from a bunch of nonprofits spoke in favor of renewing their lease.
  2. Tenant’s Right to Organize: seven people spoke in favor.
  3. Buying the land next to El Centro: three people in favor

We’ll discuss the Lions Club and the Tenants’ rights items at length.

A few smaller topics:

  • three people speak against the AI data center proposal. This is supposed to be decided at the August 19th meeting
  • One candidate for council introduces himself: Brandon Oles. (Another candidate – Chase Norris – also spoke, but not about the election. He spoke on tenants rights, Lions Club, and El Centro.) They’re not running for the same place, though, so they’re not opponents.

…

Item 5: The Texas State Boutique Hotel

We saw this back in July. Almost everything is the same, but Amanda mentions a few important wins:

  • Wages will rise automatically with inflation
  • If you work 25 hours per week, you’re eligible for medical/dental/vision benefits.

Those are both really great for workers.

The vote:

My two cents: there’s not much downside for the city, but it’s hard to imagine this hotel turning a profit.

…

Item 7: Lions Club

You know these guys:

They rent all the yellow tubes on the river:

via

Here’s how it works: The city leases the building to the Lions Club, and they’re the only group that can run shuttles and rent tubes for this stretch of the river.

The Lions Club then donates all their profits to organizations around town, and also fundraises for additional money for donations. (Lions Clubs have chapters all over the world, where they fundraise and give money to nonprofits. Ours just happens to run a tubing operation.)

…

Tuesday’s question: Should we extend the Lions Club lease at the tube rental for another five years?

Alyssa has a number of questions.  Basically, she appreciates the Lions Club’s good work, but her constituents want to better understand the charitable funding decisions. How does the grant selection process work?

Answer: The Lions Club accepts grants all year long. There’s no fixed due date.

They fund grants that fit any of the eight pillars of Lions Clubs:

Sort of a hodge-podge, but all good things.

Here’s how much our local chapter has given out, over the past five years:

Here’s a list of everyone they’ve funded over the past few years:

Question: What kind of outreach do you do? How do nonprofits find out about your grants?
Answer: We reach out to any organization that we’ve worked with in the past, but we don’t have contact information beyond that.

My read on the conversation: I’m guessing that Alyssa hears complaints that grants keep going to the same agencies over and over again. And also: some of those organizations are politically touchy. Why these organizations, and not others?

Answer: these aren’t city grants. This is a city lease of a building to a private organization. City grants require transparency and oversight, but a private organization can give out grants however they want.

My two cents: Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. The Lions Club donates to lots of great nonprofits around town, they partner with river clean-up, and they employ lots of young people. They work hard to make San Marcos better, even if they do things slightly differently than I might.

The vote to renew the Lions Club lease:

great!

…

Item 18: $25,000 from the Department of Justice to SMPD

Ok, this is fascinating.

Last year, SMPD teamed up with Hays County, and applied for a grant from the Department of Justice. Together we were awarded $37,516. The plan is to split off $25,500.00 for San Marcos, and then Hays gets the other $12,000.

So that’s why it’s on the agenda tonight – are we okay sorting out this split with Hays County?

Everyone seems okay with this!

…

Say, what are we spending this money on, anyway?

Ok, fine. Technology, and yet another camera. (Not a flock camera, though.)

What’s a JAG grant, anyway? Is it specifically about technology? It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about that, but Amanda went and looked them up:

Indigent defense! Crime prevention and education! Drug treatment, mental health programs, behavioral programs, crisis intervention teams! Out of all those possibilities, we landed on… some new software and a pole camera?

Amanda would like to know if we could change the scope of our funding towards something a little more aligned with council priorities? and Alyssa asks how this happened?

No one has a good answer! So let me help: this grant was written last year, and this would have been totally fine with last year’s council. They liked technology and cameras! Alyssa was the only one on council last year who would have rejected this. Everyone else would have given this a big thumb’s up.

This is a new year, with two new councilmembers, and now we have a coalition of progressive voices up there! It is making a huge difference.

Jane is fine in principle with changing the scope of the grant, but she’s worried that if we have to go back to the federal government, they’ll cancel the grant altogether and we won’t get any money. (That’s a valid concern.)

It goes in circles for a long time. But eventually, they land here: staff is going to see if we can change the scope of the grant. This will come back in September.

…

Side note: What about the other half of the grant? How is Hays County spending their $12K? Are they going to fund mental health initiatives and indigent defense? Will they crusade to a more just society?

Answer: They’re buying vests!

okay then. I hope they look dapper.

…

Item 22: 100 acres south of McCarty

We’ve seen this property here before, just in July:

Nothing important happened on Tuesday.   It’s going to be discussed on September 2nd. I’m really only bringing this up because I saw this news article and this other news article pop up.

I did thumb through the draft proposal, though.  Supposedly it will have:

  • Two big apartment complexes  (800 and 400 apartments)
  • A much smaller number of townhomes  (44 townhomes)
  • 84 houses for sale
  • 120 houses for rent
  • A hotel
  • “Live Work Play” mystery item
  • Office/retail/grocery space

Everyone keeps mentioning that there will be an indoor/outdoor recreation portion, so I assume the mystery item will be some sort of Trampoline Roller Skating Splash Pad.  Let’s all spread that rumor, anyway.

Hours 3:27-4:14, 8/5/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 32: Tenants rights to organize

The Question: Should San Marcos pass an ordinance that would protect tenants’ right to organize?
The Answer: yes! Done. Moving on!

Okay, now let’s get into it.

Backstory: What should you do if you’re a tenant, and there’s mold in your bedroom, or your AC goes out, or you have no hot water, and your landlord refuses to fix it?

In Texas, you have very few options besides suing. You can talk to your landlord, of course. If they start to see you as a problem, you might be evicted. Filing a lawsuit is expensive, of course, and if you try to sue, you might be evicted anyways.

What’s the alternative?

Basically, tenants should be able to talk to each other about their landlord problems, and form tenant organizations, and bring issues to their landlords as a united front, without worrying that they’ll get evicted or face retaliation.

It’s this kinda thing:

via

We actually already have a great tenants organization here in town! The Tenants Advocacy Group, or TAG, has been working on all this with the San Marcos Civics Club, which is why this is here before council. (It’s part of a larger Tenants Bill of Rights that they’re working on.)

How do you protect tenants?

You pass an ordinance that protects tenants from retaliation if they want to organize. There are two parts:

  1. What kinds of tenant activities need protection?
  2. What kinds of landlord retaliation or interference needs to be banned?

Amanda prepared some helpful slides:

So that covers the tenants. And for the landlords:

The penalty would be a misdemeanor.

Are there any laws that already exist, that protect tenants?

It depends on where you live! City staff made this helpful chart:

So yes: Austin has protections. The state overall has no protections. There are federal protections, but only in subsidized housing.

The idea would be to use the Austin ordinance as a jumping-off point, and then modify it to fit San Marcos.

This brings us to Council Discussion

Jane Hughson brings up a few details – what if a property manager is interfering on behalf of the landlord? Should they be included in the language? What about trained organizers and other non-tenants who might need protection? Can we avoid having the fliers become litter?

Amanda: Great ideas! We should definitely workshop this.

Lorenzo: A Class C Misdemeanor requires a police officer. I don’t want to criminalize landlords.

Note: Historically, marginalized groups are over-policed and criminalized. Fortunately, landlords are not historically marginalized! They’re pretty much the opposite. They’re the marginalizators!

Groups that have historically held outsized power – like landlords, or wealthy people, or police officers, or elected officials – are generally under-policed. In these cases, cities need to be more consistent with enforcement, and not worry about criminalization.

Lorenzo: Can we work out the details in a subcommittee? I don’t want to modify Austin’s ordinance. I want to write ours from scratch.

Jane: I agree. Let’s get a subcommittee going, and write out something homegrown.

Note: These are both bad ideas.

  1. Don’t bury something in subcommittees. As Alyssa puts it, “Council subcommittees are where dreams go to die.”
  2. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If Austin has a workable model, then let’s build on it.

Amanda points out that Austin’s ordinance has also been around for years, without being struck down by the courts. So that’s a more solid foundation to build on than if we just improvised our own thing.

City staff suggests a workshop?

Eventually everyone comes around to this idea, so it will be held on September 16th.

My dear minions: Go forth and tell Council that you think tenant protections are a great idea!

Hours 0:00 – 3:03, 7/1/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

The big topic is the Data Center. It was postponed until August, though, so it’s not actually on the agenda for the meeting.

  • 9 people showed up to talk against it. It is deeply unpopular!
  • Two people spoke in favor. They both happen to work for the developer.

Smaller topics:

  • Two people spoke in favor of Item 22, asking council for money to help fund veterans services in San Marcos
  • Two people spoke in favor of the Texas State hotel, in Item 20.
  • Two people spoke on general national and international political events. (Palestine, Trump’s BBB disaster of a bill, Adriana Smith, and more.)

…

Item 13: The Data Center proposal

It’s been postponed until August 19th.

😦

…

Items 14-15: We’re annexing and zoning 10 acres here:

They want to zone it Heavy Commercial.

A few years ago, we signed a Chapter 380 agreement with these guys. Part of the deal was that they get annexed and zoned when they’re ready to open. This is that.

…

Item 16: This is very close to the previous item!  

It’s here:

It’s supposed to be this:

I mean, that’s super vague.  But okay.

This is part of a whole bigger thing San Marcos is trying to do, called the East Village.  It’s supposed to go here:

It’s supposed to be a dense shopping/living/working urban area. Read all about it, if you’re curious.

…

Items 18-19: There is a new wastewater treatment plant going in here: 

There have been a ton of developments approved down this way lately.

We’ve talked about this one a bunch:

here and here, because of its impact on Redwood/Rancho Vista and flooding, and sewage problems.

Apparently there are a boatload more developments coming:

These areas are all contributing money to help pay for this wastewater treatment plant.

I don’t recognize most of those names! And I don’t think most of those are built yet? My guess is that they didn’t need city approval, because they’re outside city limits.  

What it really is, is a massive amount of unchecked sprawl.  That’s a big bummer.

(However, it’s not like it was caused by this wastewater treatment plant.)

…

Item 20: The university wants to build a fancy new hotel.  

They want to put it here:

In other words, if you’re standing with Mini-Target on your right, facing the university, this location will be on your left:

Here are a bunch of beautiful renderings from the presentation:

and

and

ooooooh! aaaaah!

Note: You should not trust beautiful renderings like these.  They’re pretty pictures, not promises.

Here’s what they are willing to promise:

All this sounds great! I can see why the university wants a fancy hotel.  This is also good for downtown businesses. Everything is great.

…

So why isn’t this great?

The issue is that they want a lot of tax breaks over the next ten years. 

A hotel pays 3 kinds of taxes:

  1. Property taxes
  2. Sales taxes
  3. Hotel Occupancy Taxes, or HOT Taxes.  

Category 1: Property taxes.   The actual ground under the hotel is owned by Texas State.  Texas State does not pay property taxes.   (This is why we lost $1.5 million in property taxes when Texas State bought Sanctuary Lofts and Vistas apartments.)

Texas State is going to lease the land to the hotel people.  The hotel will pay property taxes on the physical bricks-and-mortar building, but not on the dirt underneath the building.

The estimated yearly property taxes will be $241K. We’re not offering any tax rebates in this category:

Ok, great.

My guess is that if the hotel owned the land, property taxes would be closer to $750K per year. But oh well.

Category 2: Sales Tax: Here’s a big rebate.

For the first five years, they pay almost nothing.  Then it steps up a little bit, over the next five years:

Ok, fine.

Category 3: HOT Tax:  Also giving most of this category away:

Ok. This is starting to seem like a lot.  

…

Total over 10 years:

  • If there was no deal in place, they’d pay $13.76 million in taxes.
  • Under this deal, they pay $4.66 million in taxes.
  • We’re refunding them about $9.1 million.

That seems like a terrible deal?

City staff says that unless we subsidize this hotel, they don’t have a viable business model.  I think that means that… you don’t have a viable business model.  

…

Listen: every time a luxury thing attempts to come to San Marcos, it goes out of business. This feels like wishful thinking. Like this bit:

In other words: “People will tube the river and then stay overnight in this hotel!”

Sir. SIR. We just spent months trying to keep the river free and affordable, because everyone who comes to tube is broke. A luxury boutique hotel is not going to keep any of them here.

I’m sure that there will be some fancy parents who pay full price, and I’m sure the University will put up lots of people (at a discount rate). Overall, I’m guessing the hotel struggles to turn a profit.

…

What’s in it for us?

Perk #1: They’re going to bring in some maybe-good jobs:

Amanda asks if these averages wages could be nudged up to $20/hour? 

Answer: They’re open to running some numbers, and will come back with something definitive next time. 

Perk #2: We’re protected if they sell the whole thing to Texas State. Since Texas State pays no taxes, the whole deal goes belly-up, and they have to reimburse us for the rebates:

But look: they could also just straight-up go out of business.

…

My 2 cents: There’s not much downside for the city, but I’m pessimistic anyway.

If we’re going to do this, we should:

  • Make the wages rise with inflation.  Always. (We do this with every contract we sign with a vendor! This is common. We can extend this norm to low-wage workers.)
  • Get them to agree to be sustainable. Here’s some examples of sustainable University-affiliated luxury hotels.

Council votes on this, but it’s not the final vote.  That will come at the next meeting.

…

Item 22: Veterans Funding

There’s a committee, the Veteran’s Affairs Advisory Committee. They undertook a big study over the past year, and concluded that there are four big needs in San Marcos:

  • A trained case worker specializing in veteran issues
  • Help figuring out transportation, especially when vets are trying to get up to Austin or down to San Antonio to the main office
  • Some money for the Veterans Memorial
  • Also ask the county to kick in money for the memorial

This item gets discussed for about an hour.  Basically, the committee is making a very compelling case, but the city has very little money.  It goes in circles.

…

Item 23: Gary Job Corps

What the hell is going on?! 

Background:  Job Corps are free job training sites, run by the federal government.  You get free room and board, and get trained in some sort of vocation. You must be between 16-24 years old. Generally you’re there from 8 months to 3 years. 

In general, the point is to give poor kids a path out of poverty, so that they can land a stable job. 

Gary Job Corps is the one here in town:

Everyone always says it’s the oldest and biggest in the country! (I couldn’t actually verify this. This says the first job corps was opened in Maryland. This says that our site is 775 acres, which is probably the biggest because it’s an old air force base, but I can’t actually find enrollment by campus.)

Here’s my take on Job Corps in general: there’s a huge need in this country to help young people get jobs that will lift them out of poverty. But conservatives have been trying to shut them down since the beginning, so it hasn’t been properly funded in decades. Since the program was broadly popular, Republicans settled on death by a thousand cuts, instead. Here’s a good article on the whole thing.

…

The current mess

On May 29th, the Trump administration announced that it was shutting down almost all of the Job Corps sites – all the ones run by contractors.  This includes Gary Job Corps here in town.  They gave everyone one month to shut everything down.

On June 5th, a judge ordered an injunction. Things are currently in limbo.  It’s extremely hard to find good information on what’s going on. This is why Mayor Hughson wanted an update from someone involved.

There’s a representative from Gary Job Corps here today. He gives some information:

  • Currently there are 480 students enrolled at Gary. 
  • When the May 29th order came, everyone was sent home.  
  • About 400 students had somewhere to go, but the other 80 did not have anywhere to go.  In other words, they were facing homelessness if Gary closed down abruptly.
  • When the June 5th injunction came out, Gary invited all the students back.  About 25% have returned so far.
  • There are 99 sites nationwide, and 77 of them are being closed.

(He also says some strange things, such as that they were told one year ago that Gary was closing.  This doesn’t seem to be true at all.  In December, Biden announced they were pausing two locations, Maryland and Kentucky, but that’s all. As best I can tell, the May announcement shocked everyone.)

Jane’s big concern is these 80-90 students and families with nowhere to go. If Gary is shut down tomorrow, will they all become homeless? Very possibly, unless we work to secure some emergency housing.

Bottom line:  they’re trying to work with the homeless emergency housing programs, in case Gary is in fact shut down, and 80 students and their families are abruptly turned on the street.

Hours 0:00 – 3:28, 6/3/25

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment

You guys, the hits keep coming and they don’t stop coming. This week we had a full 2.5 hours of citizen comments. By the numbers:

53 speakers total! (Many spoke on multiple topics)

AI Data Center:

  • 3 in favor. (Two developers and the Chamber of Commerce)
  • 32 opposed

    Flock Cameras for SMPD

    • 9 speakers in favor
    • 23 opposed.

    I’m saving all the specific arguments until we get to these items. Stay tuned.

    Also, one guy on one other topic: That fence at the river is super ugly.

    It’s a really interesting meeting.

    …

    But first, the parade of little items.

    Items 1-2: Every four months we get a budget updates.  This is for January-March of 2025:

    They spend about 30 seconds on this topic.  

    Also we have our money invested places:


    No one does much with the quarterly investment report either:

    Great.

    …

    Item 3: Sidewalks presentation! 

    We have a program to fix small gaps and issues in the sidewalks around town.  (We’ve seen this before, in July 2024, in December 2023, in November 2022, and in May 2022.) 

    Here’s the type of thing they do:

    Great!  Here’s the game plan:

    So who gets new sidewalks? 

    Are YOU getting new sidewalks?  Maybe! 

    Here’s the actual map where you can zoom into your favorite sidewalk and see what’s up.

    More info here, if you’re so inclined.

    …

    Item 25-26:  Banning Street Parking

    Last fall, we saw that Riverside Drive killed its street parking.  They were sick of people parking in front of their houses and walking over to the river. Now you need a resident permit to park there on weekends.

    This pink part of Rio Vista neighborhood wants to join the fun:

    They don’t want rivergoers to park on their streets, either.  

    …

    These guys live by one of the Spring Lake trail heads:

    They also don’t like hikers parking in front of their houses. They want to require parking permits, too.

    …

    You know me: I’m a world-class scold on this topic.  I did not like it when they did this in Blanco Gardens, I didn’t like it on Riverside, and I don’t like it now. I think this is all bullshit. 

    It’s a privilege to live walking distance from a major park.  You’re very lucky!  But the street does not belong to you.  People should get to park there.

    That said: it is super gross when park visitors leave trash behind in people’s yards! But surely there’s a better solution than quasi-privatization of public streets.

    …  

    Anyway, Council approves both the Rio Vista streets and the Panarama streets:

    It’s two different votes, but they both went the same way.

    So now only residents get to park on those streets.

    …

    Item 26-27: CDBG money.

    CDBG stands for Community Development Block Grant. This is money from HUD for local projects. This year we have $750K to distribute.

    There are some rules:

    Council has priorities, and they also had a survey and public outreach to see which categories to focus on.

    The committee waded through a bunch of recommendations, and is recommending these amounts:

    There’s some explanation that goes with these amounts:

    • Salvation Army, Southside, and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid are all getting other funding from the city.
    • Thorpe Lane just needs a little more funding to add to last year’s funding. They got $650K last year.
    • Long Street and Cuatehtemoc Hall are just too expensive for this particular fund, and Cuatehtemoc is getting some other city funding.
    • Calaboose is getting roof repairs instead of a new roof, and the city is paying for that instead.
    • City Home Repair/Rehab will cover 4-5 houses.

    The vote:

    Hours 3:28 – 6:47, 6/3/25

    by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

    Item 29: The Dreaded Data Center

    First off: apparently there are actually like 7 different companies trying to come to Hays County and put in data centers?!

    Out of those seven companies, there are a few specific ones that keep coming up:

    • This one, on Francis Harris Lane
    • John David Carson’s, discussed later on in this meeting.
    • The Cloudburst one, which keeps popping up in the news.

    As best I can tell, these are the locations:

    I got the address of the Cloudburst site from this article.

    …

    So the one we’re talking about now is this one:

    (Discussed previously here.)

    A few notes:

    • There is no vote tonight. It is just a discussion item.
    • The vote is scheduled for the July 1st meeting
    • P&Z denied the request. So Council needs a 6-1 supermajority to overturn the P&Z vote.

    There are 19 more speakers during the public hearing, along with the 35 from from the top of the meeting. (Some people speak twice, though.)

    Here’s the main points that people make against the data center:

    • We’re in a drought, and this will destroy the San Marcos river
    • We’re in a drought, and this will destroy the San Marcos river
    • We’re in a drought, and this will destroy the San Marcos river
    • We’re in a drought, and this will destroy the San Marcos river
    • We’re in a drought, and this will destroy the San Marcos river

    This really is the most important point. Climate change is pushing us towards permanent water shortages, and data centers use a massive amount of water for cooling.

    And also:

    • This will drive up utility rates
    • There are reports from Granbury that these data centers are unhealthy to live near

    Here are the arguments made in favor:

    • We’re going to get a lot of tax revenue
    • This does not cost the city much in terms of roads, utilities, and fire/police/emergency services.
    • These guys are offering to be more environmentally sustainable than the other six data centers. Take the regulated data center over the unregulated one.
    • Specifically, they’re going to use closed-loop cooling instead of open-loop evaporative cooling. This uses much less water.

    Here is the developer’s basic pitch: “Data centers are definitely, 100% coming to central Texas. I’m the friendliest and the most cooperative one. I’m willing to do things environmentally and sustainably.”

    He’s offering to put a bunch of concessions into a restrictive covenant. This is a contract that stays intact even if he sells the power plant. The next owner will still have to comply with it.

    Here’s what he’s offering:

    • Closed loop, non-evaporative water cooling system. (This is very important.)
    • Limiting water use to an amount equivalent to 235 homes
    • Stricter than San Marcos Code on stormwater detention and impervious cover.
    • Sound and light mitigation
    • Getting water from Crystal Clear, not from San Marcos.
    • Getting electricity from Pedernales, not from San Marcos.
    • Only need San Marcos for waste water.

    Here’s the obvious rebuttal to the last few points:

    • Who cares if it’s San Marcos city water or Crystal Clear water? It’s all coming from the same water table underground.

    One speaker puts it like this: “These are straws pulling on the same water table”. Exactly.

    Will this cause the San Marcos River to dry up???

    Here’s what the developer said: they’ll need about 400-500K gallons of water to initially fill about 6-7 buildings. But after that, they don’t need much water until the buildings need to be re-filled in maybe 10 years.

    I asked Robert Mace how bad that is? He said:

    • 100k of water is about what an average family of three uses in Texas a year (~88k). Won’t make the river run dry!
    • If it was an open loop cooling system (evaporative cooling) and an average system, it would be about 12.5% of San Marcos use. It wouldn’t take many of those to overwhelm local supplies.

    So this is a big picture question. Can our river handle this one data center, on a closed loop system? Yes. Can it handle seven data centers on open loop systems? No.

    …

    So does ANYONE have control over how many data centers come to central Texas?!

    This is an uncomfortable question! There’s only flimsy safeguards.

    • Can San Marcos block them? Only if they’re in city limits, and the developer needs the land to be re-zoned.
    • Can Hays County block them? No, they cannot prevent data centers from coming.
    • Can ERCOT block them? Sort of yes. They have to approve anyone who wants to join the grid.

    The rumor is that ERCOT will approve 1-2 data centers in this region, for now.

    It sounds like Cloudburst is trying to work around ERCOT by building their own natural gas power plants. I don’t know if ERCOT would still have to approve them or not.

    Bottom line:

    1. The overall situation is pretty bad for water use.
    2. The San Marcos river has some unique legal protections, because of the Edwards Acquifer Authority. They have legal authority to sue if companies go over their allotted amounts. But still, do we need to test this?
    3. We’re relying really heavily on ERCOT to gatekeep this situation.

    …

    What does Council say?

    Everyone’s a little annoyed that the actual restrictive covenant is not already prepared and ready to read. But it’s not.

    This is the basic argument that emerges: ERCOT is not going to approve all seven applications. They’ll probably only approve 1-2 applications. So if this data center gets approved by ERCOT, it might prevent an unregulated one from getting approved. That would be a net good.

    Jane: It’s better to have these guys, who we can regulate, than the others who we can’t.

    Shane: The wastewater from the center goes to the city system. How much extra clean up do we have to do to the wastewater, from the extra chemicals?
    Answer: We have a filter standard. They have to clean the wastewater up to our standards before they release it to our system.

    Lorenzo: Are there going to be gas turbines or some sort of power plant?
    Answer: No, that’s Cloudburst. We’re not going to have a power plant.

    Lorenzo: What happens if they violate the restrictive covenant?
    Answer: Two things:
    – Before we issue city permits, we’ll check to make sure they’ve built it the way they’re supposed to. So they can’t get up and running if they don’t build what they say they’ll build.
    – After it’s built, if they violate the covenant, we can get a court injunction. The court will order them to comply.

    The developer is trying to be the most accommodating person ever. Would YOU like to talk to him? He’s got a whole website, and a whole shtick about how he’d like to talk to you.

    (Honestly, he’s refreshing after the SMART-Axis Terminal jerks.)

    Amanda: I’m concerned that we don’t know what company we’re actually talking about.
    Answer: I’m not allowed to say who it is yet. I promise I’ll say before the July meeting. They have facilities in Austin, Carrollton, and San Antonio, if you get my drift.

    [Gentle reader, I got his drift. This appears to be the only Carrollton data center.]

    A lot of citizen comments mentioned how utility and water rates will skyrocket. Alyssa asks about this?
    Answer: Council sets water rates. They don’t skyrocket unless you want them to.

    [Note: This answer is a little disingenuous. Council sets water and electric rates for everyone on San Marcos utilities. So those won’t skyrocket. But if you live down south by all these proposed data centers, you might not be on San Marcos utilities. Who knows what Crystal Clear water and Pedernales Electric will do.]

    …

    Conversation turns to the P&Z denial. Right now, it takes 6 Council votes to overturn P&Z.

    Should Council send this back to P&Z, to take another look? If P&Z changes their mind and approves it, then Council would only need 4 votes to pass this data center.

    However, sending it back to P&Z will delay everything by 4-5 months. It might hurt their chances with ERCOT. Council does not want to risk the possibility that ERCOT denies this application, in favor of some other yahoo developer who throws up something worse, out in the county.

    Bottom line: I think Council will approve this one data center at the July meeting.

    We’re in a kinda terrible situation, but this one data center is probably the least-bad option.

    …

    Item 7: Flock License Plate Reader Cameras

    Flock Cameras are these:

    They read all the license plates that go by, and record the date and time. Then if the police are trying to find someone, they can run a search on all that data and see if there’s any record of it.

    “LPR” means “License Plate Reader”, and we first got some back in 2017. But we didn’t join the Flock network until 2022, when we bought 14 cameras:

    (Also I note that they used seized funds for the first batch. Blech.)

    …

    Back in February, SMPD wanted to purchase 19 more Flock cameras. Council delayed approval in order to revisit our privacy policy. In March, we revisited our privacy policy and made some good improvements.

    So now it’s time to vote on whether or not to approve the grant for these cameras.

    What are the arguments for and against?

    In favor: There are lots of examples of how Flock Cameras are used to solve crimes. From the packet:

    Arguments against : They are tracking your every move. Do you want to live in a police surveillance state? The data gets merged nationwide to have one big nationwide network. Private companies can have Flock cameras. Neighborhoods can have Flock cameras. The ACLU does not like Flock one bit.

    But it’s not just an abstract fear about loss of privacy: ICE has access to Flock data. We’ve got a federal administration that plays out revenge fantasies on brown people, and is in the business of deporting people as recklessly and broadly as possible.

    Here’s a particularly chilling recent example: She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down. Those would be nationwide Flock cameras that made that possible.

    …

    How does the Council conversation go?

    Amanda: It’s the times we’re living in. People disappear off the streets because of this technology.
    – The policies aren’t strong enough to protect against a subpoena. Austin didn’t know until they did an audit that ICE was accessing their data. (Austin is now ending their license plate reader program.)
    – Senate Bill 9 would require Texas sheriffs to work with ICE. Our data will definitely get shared. Our policies will not protect us.
    – They’re rolling out new technology, like NOVA.
    – Please just don’t do this to people.

    Saul goes next: I see the pros, but there are not enough safeguards yet. I’m a no.

    Council spends the next hour trying to nail down exactly how much control you have over who sees your data. If Dallas PD is looking for a specific red car, can SMPD decide whether or not to release the data on that specific car?

    Eventually the answer comes out: no. You do not get to decide on any specific request for data. Once you set up a reciprocal agreement with Dallas, they get access to all your data. Either the faucet is on, or it’s off.

    …

    The Flock representative keeps repeating “The city of San Marcos owns the data. Flock does not own the data. They’re just the guardians of the data!”
    Alyssa asks: Can you show me where in the contract that exclusive access is guaranteed to San Marcos? Your policy says that you “retain a perpetual, royalty-free license to use aggregated data for your purposes.”
    Flock rep answer: We promise that we use it only for anonymized training data.

    Lorenzo: Does Flock own the physical servers? Or do you rent servers?
    What Lorenzo means is: where are the actual, physical computers where the data is stored? Does Flock have their own computer storage?

    Answer: We use Amazon Webservices.
    This means, no, Flock does not own large-scale computer storage. Flock sends the data to Amazon for storage on Amazon computers.

    Lorenzo: So Amazon is a third party that could also be subpoenaed for the data? You might not even know if they had to hand it over. What if they violate their agreement and fail to delete it?
    Answer: It’s in our contract with Amazon that they’d delete the data after 30 days. If they didn’t, they’d have to charge us extra!
    [Note: that answer does not make any sense. You didn’t misread it.]
    Lorenzo: Amazon is in the business of data collection.
    Jane: You’re not in control of that data.

    …

    Alyssa: This system is dangerous by design.
    – these claims are absurd! Like “license plates aren’t personal information”. You can track a person with it, can’t you? It’s personal information.
    – We own the data, but we don’t. They keep it.
    – They say ICE can’t access our data, but they do.
    – Anyone that we share our data with can then turn around and share it with whoever they want.
    – There are many cases of cops using it to stalk people.
    – Peter Theil is a backer of this, for god’s sake.

    Chief Standridge: Look, I can only speak on behalf of what happens locally. In San Marcos, Flock helps solve specific crimes. Locally, I don’t have evidence of any privacy breaches. I am only able to speak to San Marcos.

    Amanda:  I have never thought that you all are the bad actors.  We share with 600 agencies. Our policies don’t matter when we’ve already shared with them. Flock would not be in business without this network.

    Jane: I was a software manager at the university. Here’s how it goes: you get a new technology, and you hammer out all the rules with the company. Then they get bought. All the rules with the first company go out the window, and the new company puts all new rules down. If Flock gets bought, all these rules go out the window.

    Chief Standridge: What about all the safeguards and policies we discussed in March?
    Amanda: All we did is require agencies to follow all applicable rules and laws. But there are no federal rules! This technology is not regulated. Your policy ends the moment you share data with them. We share data with Houston! Houston openly says they work with ICE. Therefore we work with ICE.

    …

    Shane: What about the first 14 cameras we already bought? We still have those, right?
    Jane: Yes. But we could put it on the agenda to get rid of them.
    Alyssa: I guess we should revisit this!

    Jane shares a little of her thinking:
    – Originally I thought these cameras were great. And if Flock were only used like in the examples, then it would be fine. 
    – I’ve learned stuff tonight that’s giving me a really hard time saying Flock is good for the US.
    – Then I thought, “But there’s cameras everywhere. There’s Ring, etc, toll roads, smart phones, etc.”
    – But that’s different. This goes to government agencies. I’m not worried about our department, but I can’t say that about other departments
    – Maybe just at major intersections? Nope, nope, that doesn’t work. It’s the other departments.
    – We just don’t have enough guard rails for this. The more I learn about how the system is being used, it’s pretty scary.

    …

    Something has happened since the last discussion, because Chief Standridge does not seem surprised that it’s unfolding like this.

    He makes one last bid: “What if we only share data within Hays County?”

    Alyssa: What keeps Hays County from turning around and sharing it?
    Amanda: What about the Texas Senate Bill that requires sheriffs to cooperate with ICE?

    City Manager Stephanie Reyes weighs in:  It’s clear that you all are worried about where we are as a nation. It’s not an issue about SMPD.  It’s not about our individuals. It’s about the policy decisions that we can control in the national scene.
    Everyone’s like: Yes! Correct!

    …

    Finally, the vote: The motion is to deny. So a green check means no on the cameras, red dash means “yay Flock!”

    Are you a NO on the cameras?

    Amazing. Shane and Matthew are the only ones who still want them.

    The council conversation was outstanding to listen to. It was just so sharp. Everyone made really great points.

    …

    Whew! After all that, we’re not quite done yet…

    Item 15: Spin Scooters

    You know them, you love them:

    (We’ve discussed these before, here and here.)

    It turns out they’re breaking up with us? Their contract is up on June 30th, and they don’t want to renew.

    The reasons are:

    • Low ridership
    • Tariffs
    • Finding parts

    Ouch.

    Once they officially break things off, we’ll start looking for a different company who might enjoy our low ridership, tariffs, and lack of parts.

    …

    Item 24: More data centers!

    So, recall there are seven data centers with applications in at ERCOT.

    These are the three that I know about:

    So now we’re on the pink one.

    Yes, it’s gigantic. The red one from earlier is 200 acres, and this one is 785 acres. They’re saying it would also include housing. Unlike the one in red, the developer wants this one to be on San Marcos water.

    It’s past midnight and everyone is exhausted. They decide to just form a council subcommittee to negotiate and discuss the issue further.

    Council subcommittee: Jane, Amanda, Lorenzo.

    I’m good with that.

    …

    Item 32: Proposed Charter Amendments for ballot

    Here’s the legal language for everything that will show up in the November Ballot:

    …

    Q&A: Max Baker:

    • Matthew Mendoza again! Why do you think it’s appropriate to use swear words during the ceasefire conversation?! C, S, and A words?!
    • Would council consider revisiting EDSM policy and how we award benefits when GSMP knows before Council? Would you bring a discussion item that puts Council knowledge before biz privileges?

    Adjourned at 2:35 am.

    Hours 0:00 – 3:25, 5/20/25

    by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

    Citizen Comment

    So much quieter than it’s been. Only seven speakers! Only twenty minutes long!

    Here are the topics:

    • Four speakers: You should have voted for the Gaza ceasefire resolution!
    • Two speakers: No on the ceasefire! Also we support SMPD and public safety!
    • One speaker (Rob Roark, of KZSM fame): The Charter Review Commission worked hard and has some good recommendations. Hear them out!

    ….

    Item 1: Homeless population PiT Count

    “PiT” stands for Point in Time.   Nationwide, everyone picks one day in January where everyone tries to get a physical headcount of how many people are homeless on that one specific day.  This is how you get funding from HUD.  

    We did our PiT count on January 23rd this year. This is the report on it. 

    ….

    What counts as unhoused, according to HUD?

    What doesn’t?

    It’s not a perfect measure!

    But it’s not worthless, either.  

    Here’s how the numbers have shaken out over the past five years:

    The blue is a subset of the orange.  Those are people who appear to be homeless, but we weren’t able to talk with them.

    The vast majority of homeless people of Hays County are in San Marcos:

    This is partially because the Hays County Women’s Shelter, Southside Shelter, and emergency hotel housing programs are all located here. But also partially because we’re just a much poorer, more precarious community than the rest of Hays County.

    What does Council think?

    The speaker makes a plea: can you help us get the county to work on its emergency response plan? For example, during the freeze, their plan was “Send everyone to Southside.”

    They decide to send the issue to the Homelessness Committee to think about harder.

    …

    Item 2: Charter Review Commission

    Every four years, we take a fine-tooth comb to the city charter, and look for improvements. Council appointed a commission of residents, back in January. They met weekly all spring, and returned back with a list of recommendations.

    Council takes these recommendations, and either rejects them, accepts them, or puts them on the ballot.

    Today is just the rough draft. Basically, they’re weeding out anything that they hate. Anything that Council likes will come back in formal, legal language, and then they can argue about the details.

    There are 15 total proposed amendments:

    1. Better pronoun use
    2. Notifications on social media
    3. Mayor gets 4 year terms
    4. Tweaking the number of yearly council meetings
    5. Cap on councilmembers zooming in to meetings
    6. Approving council meetings minutes on time
    7. Buying hard copies of city code, grammar tweaks
    8. Auditing anyone who gets public funds
    9. Financial disclosures for referendums and initiatives
    10. More time to file referendum petitions
    11. More time to verify citizen petitions
    12. Change P&Z residency requirement
    13. Review the comprehensive plan a little less often
    14. State budgets using plain, clear language
    15. Tweak some headings
    16. Study single-member districts and launch education and conversation, but don’t take any major action right now.

    Warning: This item takes about 2.5 hours to wade through. I’ll do my best to keep it snappy.

    Let’s dive in.

    Everyone is fine with this.

    Everyone like this, too.

    This is the first contentious one. This is about election turnout. Presidential elections have the biggest voter turnout. Midterm elections are the next-biggest. The odd years are called off-year elections, and they have the lowest turnouts.

    For example, the committee chair read out the mayor vote total for the past four years:

    • 2021: there were 3,800 votes for mayor (off-year)
    • 2022: there were 17,000 for mayor (Midterm election)
    • 2023: there were 3,900 votes (off-year)
    • 2024: there were 23,000 votes (Presidential election)

    So the key is those extra 10-20K voters who only show up for big elections: do you think they will vote for your candidate? If so, then you want to align elections to land on presidential years. If not, then you like elections to land on off-years.

    The Charter Review Commission is arguing that we should switch to 4 year terms, aligned with Presidential elections. Here are their reasons:

    • It’s very expensive to run for mayor. Lengthening the term may induce more people to decide it’s worth it.
    • Two year terms means you’re always campaigning. This may mean you’re overly beholden to your donors.
    • We should prioritize all voters, not just the well-connected ones.
    • Often times subcommittees take more than two years to get their work done, so a mayor can’t complete their campaign promises in one term.

    What does Council think?

    Jane goes first:

    • She likes 2 year terms. The mayor should have to earn the votes of the people often.
    • She proposes splitting the difference and going with 3 year terms.
    • It’s easier to run in odd years because there’s less competition for attention.
    • It’s cheaper to run in odd years.

    The conversation kind of deteriorates. People keep making opposite assertions that directly contradict each other:

    • Off-year elections are cheap, because there’s less competition!
    • Off-year elections are expensive, because it’s harder to get donations!
    • Off-year elections are easier, because it’s quiet so you can get more engagement!
    • Big years are easier, because you can piggy-back on the extra opportunities and everyone is paying attention!

    These things can all be true – it just depends which voters you’re talking about. If you try to get students to turn out, then you like the big years. If you rely on Old San Marcos and personal networks, then off-years are easier.

    More contradictions:

    • People may not want to commit to 2 year terms, because they only get a year before they have to start campaigning!
    • People may not want to commit to 4 year terms, because they may feel like it’s too long for something they’re not sure about!
    • Big years are harder, because the ballot gets so long! People don’t want to check all those boxes.
    • Small years are harder, because people don’t want to make a special trip to go vote!

    Everyone’s just making random guesses – no one actually knows how these factors play out.

    Alyssa: I strongly prefer 4 year terms.
    Saul: Two years is better, for accountability.
    Lorenzo: 2 or 4 year terms.
    Matthew: 2 or 3 year terms.
    Shane: 4 years.
    Amanda: I have issues with all the choices. But I guess 4 years.

    This one will go to the people! You get to vote on this, in November! (Which is admittedly an off-year election.)

    …

    Spontaneous side quest: What about the rest of council? Should there be 4 year terms for all council members?

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

    So this fails. It will not go on the ballot.

    …

    This is not controversial. Sometimes it’s hard to have two meetings in November, because of elections, and in January, because it means staff has to prepare a meeting over the holidays. We’re allowed to have as many extra meetings as we want. Everyone’s fine with this.

    SIGH. This is dumb. This is about former council member Max Baker.

    During Covid, everyone else came back in person, and he kept zooming in for an extra year or so. He was also a pretty contentious person who argued a lot, and pissed a lot of people off.

    Would he have gotten along better with the rest of council if he’d been in person? Who knows. But many people believe that him zooming in made everything worse. Anyway, the voters did not re-elect Max, so the situation resolved itself.

    In my opinion, that’s how it should go. Do something that pisses off a lot of people, and let the voters decide whether or not they approve. Democracy!

    This recommendation is not that. It’s about micromanaging who zooms in for which kinds of reasons, but simultaneously pretending not to micromanage these things. “We trust you to give honest reasons, but you’re only allowed to give three bad reasons per year before you get an unspecified consequence.”

    Look, these things are all true:

    • Meetings go better when people are in person
    • People can have good reasons to zoom in.
    • People can have bad reasons to zoom in, and you can’t tell the difference

    Do not get into the business of policing how conscientious someone is at their job. You’ll end up writing a fractal maze of tedious, detailed rules. Extreme cases make bad policy.

    Should this be a charter amendment?

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

    Should Council discuss this further as an internal, lowkey rule?

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

    Sure, that’s fine. It’s just weird to micromanage from the charter.

    …

    Heh. They have not updated City Council minutes since May 2022. Apparently there was some staff turnover, and it fell by the wayside.

    This moves forwards.

    Everyone is fine with this.

    This one is odd. Basically, Council already puts a clause in its contracts that they can request audits like this. In practice, they almost never do.

    The question is: do they need extra firm legal footing to do this? Should they put it in the charter, and authorize themselves with extra authority to do this thing we already do?

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

    So it fails. I probably would have voted yes, though.

    I liked this one, but the lawyer did say that it’s not really a Charter-level thing. The charter is like your constitution – it’s your high-level principles, but not your detailed little laws.

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

    So this fails.

    Council goes with this one.

    Council goes with this one, too.

    Keep five year residency: Jane, Saul, Shane, Matthew
    Shorten to three years: Alyssa, Lorenzo, Amanda

    So this fails, and will not go on the ballot.

    This just builds in flexibility, since it takes so many years to review a comprehensive plan.

    Everyone on Council likes this! City Staff does not like this. The city manager is worried about how you balance formal legal language with plain, understandable language.

    Jane Hughson has an example:

    “Hotel occupancy taxes, utility revenues, and public private partnerships agreements currently secure self-supporting debt. In the event such amounts are insufficient to pay debt services, the city will be required to assess an ad valorem tax to pay such obligations.”

    Can that be stated more clearly?

    Probably the best practice is to keep the formal, legal language, but add in clear little summaries from time to time. This moves forward.

    This is fine.

    …

    LAST ONE!

    In other words, it’s too rushed to put single-member districts on the ballot. We should study and have community conversations about this, instead.

    Do we want to have a conversation about this?

    Yes to a conversation: Lorenzo, Amanda, Alyssa, Matthew, Jane
    No to even a conversation: Shane, Saul

    Jane and Amanda are both pretty sure that they’re “No”s on single member districts. But they’re willing to have a conversation.

    …

    BUT WAIT! THERE’S ONE MORE!

    Jane brings up one last issue: The Texas legislature might eliminate all local elections besides November. If something happens to a council member, you could have a vacancy for 10 or 11 months.

    Do we want the option to have council appoint an interim, un-elected councilmember?

    It sounds like most of council does not want this, but they decide to at least bring it back for a conversation.

    I agree that this is a terrible idea.

    Hours 3:25 – 4:28, 5/20/25

    by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

    Item 21: Downtown TIRZ.

    “TIRZ” stands for Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. We have 5 or 6 of these in San Marcos. This item is about the Downtown TIRZ, which covers this area:

    This TIRZ started in 2011.

    Here’s how a TIRZ works: In 2011, they appraised the value of all that property. Say it was appraised to be $100 million back in 2011. While the TIRZ runs, the city will only get taxes on the $100 million. As the property gets more valuable, the downtown will pay more taxes, but the extra taxes get put back into projects to make the downtown better.

    So for example, suppose in 2018, the downtown is now worth $150 million. The city gets the taxes on the first $100 million, and the downtown gets the taxes on the next $50 million.

    Here’s a little visual aid explaining this in the council packet:

    The downtown TIRZ is actually a joint TIRZ with the county also knocking back some money. Here’s the actual amounts, if you’re curious:

    This next bit did not get a lot of discussion:

    My best guess is that everyone still wants the TIRZ to wrap up by 2027, and so we’re giving them a final boost to get across the finish line.

    Here are the amounts they need to finish up the projects:

    Anyway, it does not get much discussion, and passes unanimously:

    The city is giving roughly $1 million to the downtown for projects this coming year.

    I’m okay with the premise, but I’m uneasy that it didn’t get more discussion, in light of the massive budget cuts we’re incurring elsewhere. If we extended the TIRZ to 2028, could we have spread out $500K somewhere else?

    …

    Item 22: CUP appeal

    There’s this Holiday Inn, on the southbound frontage road, right before WonderWorld:

    They have a little bar and grill inside:

    The bar and grill serves alcohol. So they have to get a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) from the city.

    Here’s how CUPs work: your first year open, you get a 1 year permit. After that, you get a 3 year permit, (There are a lot of extra details, but that’s the gist of it.)

    These guys got their 1 year permit back in 2017, and then never came back.

    Now: this is a really common, widespread problem in San Marcos, and P&Z and staff have been working to clean it up for awhile now. The city was sloppy about sending reminders, at times, and the businesses were sloppy about not coming in for their permits if no one was checking. So a ton of businesses fell behind.

    Here’s the problem: there’s a fee attached to the CUP. (A couple hundred dollars?) The city doesn’t turn a profit, but it covers the cost of staff time and materials.

    So the businesses that skip the CUPs for a decade – like these guys – are saving maybe $1000 over the businesses that follow the rules. It’s a little unfair.

    P&Z handles this by making businesses pay off their delinquent CUPs. If you skipped 2 renewals, you’re going to get 2 6-month CUP permits. When you’re all caught up, you can go back to having 3-year CUPs.

    That’s what happened to these guys. They skipped 2020 and 2023, so when they came in last August, they got their first make-up CUP, lasting 6 months. When they came back in March, they got their second make-up CUP, lasting 6 more months.

    But this time they got pissed! So they appealed to Council. They want a full 3 year CUP, and they want a refund of $765.

    Here’s the thing:

    1. Is the bar right? Absoutely not! This is the standard that P&Z is applying everywhere. This is absolutely fair, and the bar is wrong. But….

    2. Is this a good fight for City Council to pick? Hell no! Pick your battles. If someone is making a mountain out of this molehill, have the good sense to step out of their way.

    Council steps out of their way and rewards the appeal.

    I’m a little annoyed that Council fawns over them for being such good community members. There’s no need to kiss their ass when you’re the one doing them a favor. But Council fawns and preens over them. Whatever.

    The vote: Should they get refunded the money that the rest of the business owners have to pay?

    Haha. I probably would have voted “yes”, but my heart is with Matthew voting “no”.

    …

    Item 12: Staffing study for SMPD

    Chief Standridge came in 2022. Back then, SMPD did a staffing study, and decided that we needed a lot more police officers:

    Then there was a violent crime spike in 2022, and so we freaked out and claimed that we needed a LOT more police, as fast as possible:

    I would argue that our crime spike was actually part of a nationwide trend:

    (From here.) As covid drifted back in time, crime rates have settled back to baseline in San Marcos, as well.

    Council has been spending all its extra money adding extra police and fire fighters. Back then, Alyssa was the only progressive voice on council. But now she’s got company. So do we really need to keep adding police officers?

    We’ve decided to do another policing staff study. We are hiring these guys to tell us whether we need more police officers or not.

    Is council willing to spend $116K on a new staffing study for the police, from that consulting company?

    Amanda: the timeline looks rushed. How are you going to get community input by July 2025?
    Answer: It’s actually supposed to be five months, not two months.

    Alyssa: Why these guys?
    Answer: They did our Marshal staffing study. We liked them. They didn’t tell us to hire more marshals, but they had good ideas how to move people around.

    Saul: This is a lot of money. Can we see the bidding process?
    Answer: We didn’t have a bidding process, but next time we can do that. Sorry about that.

    The vote:

    …

    Item 4: More SMPD!

    Here’s what they want to do:

    Should we spend $938K on police station improvements?

    Short answer: Yes, because this decision was already made, and now we’re just following through. This is the building and the bullet trap for the shooting range. (We saw the bullet trap earlier here.)

    (Did this item get a robust discussion earlier, when it was approved in June 2023? Absolutely not. But what’s done is done.)

    Amanda: Will there be any more asks associated with this project?
    Answer: Possibly to resurface the parking lots. But we don’t expect anything unexpected to turn up when we break ground.

    Saul: You do know this is an old graveyard, right?
    Answer: No, sir, I did not know that.
    Saul: I’m just kidding.

    That was the best moment of the night right there, for sure. I laughed so hard at that.

    The vote:

    …

    Item 10-11: EVEN MORE SMPD!

    SMPD is applying for a two grants related to license plate readers. This is supposed to relate to vehicle theft and stealing catalytic converters. Total, these two grants are about $183K. SMPD needs Council’s blessing to apply for the grants.

    (This is not the same thing as the license plate scanner saga that we’ve been following here, here, and here.)

    Amanda: Didn’t the deadline pass in April?
    Answer: We got a special exception, because they know that city councils don’t always meet on schedule.

    Amanda grills Chief Standridge over the date, and Lorenzo gets snippy over the time wasted. If you enjoy petty council member exchanges, go here and start watching at about 4:08:50.

    The vote:

    I am 90% sure that Alyssa verbally stated her vote was actually a “no”, but it was hard to hear.

    …

    Item 24, 25: Tinkering with boards and commissions, and filling vacancies.

    There’s a vacancy on P&Z, left by the passing of Jim Garber. Council elects Josh Paselk to be the new commissioner.

    …

    One last note:

    Everyone makes an effort to dress professionally for council meetings:

    But is Amanda rocking a maroon three piece suit?!

    Is this a councilmember, or is this Andre 3000?? I appreciate good drip, as the kids say.