Lots of little topics this week! Keeping downtown looking nice, the new city EMS, new tax rates and new utility rates, school zones, bus routes, and new scooters. Each item is pretty quick and zippy.
Let’s get into it:
Hours 0:00 – 1:18: Lots of little topics: downtown, new scooters, EMS, school zone hours, utility rate hikes, tax rates, and bus routes.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: More detail on tax rates and utility rates, and new EMS rates.
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Elections: the candidate filing period is over, so no one new can jump in. Candidates are locked in!
If you know about any candidate forums or interviews, please let me know.
I’m combining citizen comment from the 6 pm meeting and the 3 pm workshops:
Cottonwood Creek is very far from all polling stations. There is not good public transit to get to any of them. 123 is dangerous and insufficient.
Under the new impact fees, a small 1200 sq ft house, built on an infill lot in town will be $40K more expensive. That’s a big burden.*
San Marcos Civics Club meets the 4th Monday of the month, at Tantra. Candidates should look for the SMCC questionnaire coming out soon. Also their 3rd annual “Reasons Not to Vote” rally will be coming up.**
City government is facing public perception that they only do the right thing when tons of people show up and get mad, and that they don’t do a good job of promoting things that are important to the people. The Ethics Inquiries are not widely promoted. Consider ramping up your outreach and social media messaging.
The streetlights in Allenwood are chronically out. It’s not clear if the city is responsible or if the San Marcos Housing Authority is responsible, but residents are getting the runaround. In addition, the roads are awful, to the point where it impedes mobility for wheelchair users.
* This is true, but this is why Council needs to offer rebates for infill, affordable housing, and green housing. They have said they will do this! They just need to follow through.
** The name of the rally still hurts my soul.
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Item 19: The Downtown TIRZ
Background
TIRZ stands for “Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone”.
Basically, a TIRZ is a way to pull money from the General Fund to one specific part of town. The goal is to make that part of town so much more economically vibrant that it generates way more tax dollars for the General Fund after the TIRZ ends.
TIRZes have a specific time frame. During the TIRZ, the city budget doesn’t get extra money. The pay-off should be after the TIRZ ends.
We have a Downtown TIRZ, which covers this territory:
It started in 2011 and it runs until 2028.
The details are a little weedy, but basically: take all the property tax dollars paid by all the businesses and properties in that green region. Those tax dollars get split up into two buckets:
How much downtown properties paid in taxes in 2011. This is called the base value. The base value is $87 million, which is about $560,000 in tax dollars. The city keeps all the tax dollars from this bucket.
How much more valuable the downtown properties have gotten, since 2011. Since 2011, the downtown properties have grown by about $300 million. That yields about $2 million in property taxes.
This city gives 70% of this bucket back to the Downtown TIRZ. So the Downtown TIRZ gets about $1.3 million from the city this year.
The city keeps about $700,000 from this bucket.
Here’s the actual amounts, split between the city and the Downtown TIRZ in the past few years:
The Downtown TIRZ is supposed to spend their chunk on things that make the downtown a great place to visit, so you’ll want to go and spend money and enjoy it.
It all ends in 2028 – the two buckets get combined again and everything goes to the city.
Are TIRZes good or bad?
The good: Everyone gets to enjoy a nicer downtown! After 2028, the general fund will get a boost!
The bad: The downtown gets their tax dollars before it gets to the General Fund. They get that $1.1 million, no matter what. When department budgets are dwindling, Council can’t revisit this $1.1 million and divy it up differently.
My $0.02: I’m fine with the Downtown TIRZ. A happy, vibrant downtown benefits everyone. However, Kissing Tree is also a TIRZ, and it’s gated off. They get $1.7 million from the city this year, and it only benefits Kissing Tree residents.
That is more than double what we spend on the entire HSAB fund for social services! Just for those residents. It’s wild.
Remember: we subsidize Kissing Tree residents far more than anyone else in town.
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Anyway, back to downtown. Here’s what they’re going to do this year:
They’ll pay to do things like scrape the gum:
And light the trees:
And spruce up the intersections:
Everyone is fine with this!
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There’s a bit of a digression to talk about this tree:
and how it’s tearing up that sidewalk. It’s right by mini-Target, by campus.
It’ll cost about $300K to build a usable sidewalk around it.
Question: Can Texas State kick in some money to help with that price tag? Answer: Maybe! We’ll talk to them.
Either way, the tree will be preserved. Everyone loves giant oak trees.
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Item 9: Scooters
We used to have rental scooters around town. Back in June 2025, Spin Scooters decided to break up with us, and they up and left San Marcos.
Look how happy you’ll be. They’ll be here on September 1st.
You’ll be able to use them in all the green zones (plus Texas State):
But the pink bits are off-limits. No scooters in the river.
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Will these be affordable?
Potentially! There is a low-income discount: anyone who qualifies gets 50% off all their rides.
How do you qualify? It’s a little murky. Basically, they want to piggyback on other programs that have already figured out who qualifies:
We don’t have a reduced utility program, and everybody in SMCISD gets free lunch. So this will take some tinkering.
Jane: “By golly, let’s vote on this!”
The vote: 7-0. Everyone is excited.
Look out! September 1st, they should be here.
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Item 14: EMS coverage
Here’s the county lines around Hays:
So Guadalupe is directly below, where two corners meet.
Zooming in on that region:
That is San Marcos plus the northern corner of Guadalupe county.
Historically, San Marcos-Hays County EMS has covered that little yellow bit, because we’ve got better road access to it than anyone else, and so it’s safest for residents. But of course, San Marcos-Hays County EMS was dissolved last year because they had decided to unionize.
Every school has its school zones, where you have to drop your speed when the light are flashing. We all know this.
Currently, here’s our school zone hours:
7:00 am to 8:30 am
3:00 pm to 4:30 pm
That’s supposed to cover all schools. However, Blanco Vista and SMHS don’t really fit:
Blanco Vista isn’t in SMCISD, but it is in the city limits.
So your new school zone hours are going to be:
6:30 am to 9:00 am
2:30 pm to 5:00 pm
This is good, because we want to keep kids safe. It is also annoying, because school zones are annoying.
But hey, keeping kids alive is more important than not being annoyed.
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Items 22-23: the budget
There’s an odd state law that requires cities to vote on a tax rate cap, before they vote on the actual tax rate. They will vote on the tax rate on September 15th. Today is just setting the upper bound.
Decision: the tax rate will be ¢65.15 or lower. That’s the rate from last year.
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However, there will most likely be utility rate increases – this is most of what they discussed at the 3 pm workshops.
If this passes, an average house would pay about $7 more per month.
They’ll vote on these increases in September.
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My $0.02: We haven’t increased department budgets to keep up with inflation in 3 years. That means we’re in the hole about $740K this year, and $1.4 million over 3 years. (Amanda asks about this, specifically.)
I’d prefer to see very small yearly increases, rather than walloping taxpayers with giant increases every now and then.
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Item 25: Bobcat Shuttle Service
Did you know that everyone in San Marcos can ride the Bobcat Shuttle for free? I did not!
A good transit system has frequent buses and routes that cover the whole town. If the bus comes once per hour, and you have to make a transfer to a second bus to get to work, it’s going to eat up hours of your day. A bad transit system has incomplete coverage and infrequent buses.
But there’s a chicken-and-egg problem with transit:
If you have a bad transit system, you won’t have many riders. So you want to build a good transit system.
Good transit systems are expensive. You need funding. You qualify for federal funding by having lots of riders.
See the problem? Riders won’t show up until you’ve got a great system, but you can’t get a great system until the riders show up.
This is why we’ve merged with Texas State – they’ve got high ridership, and so this helps us qualify for more funding.
There is huge need in San Marcos for a great system. Owning a car is really expensive – like 12K per year. If we can build it, a great transit system would improve the lives of many people in town.
This is how cities address affordability: they can’t lower car prices, but they can provide cheaper alternatives.
Short meeting! All about sprawl: who should pay for the costs of sprawl? where is the new sprawl going to be built? Plus a little about the river. Welcome to the new 2026-2027 season of the San Marcos City Council!
Just one council meeting this month, but it’s a good one! Lots of subdivisions going in around Redwood, a new San Marcos logo, and concept plans for the river parks and Quail Creek park.
Here we go:
Hours 0:00 – 3:44: Lots of discussion on developments going in near Redwood, and grants for social services. Also some smaller items – SMPD, Berry Aviation, the Hays CAD building, etc.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: we unveil the San Marcos logo, discuss some water/wastewater fees, and look at concept plans for the river parks and the new Quail Creek park on the east side of town.
I’ll be back later this month for the yearly wrap-up post (yawn), and then we’ll dive into election season! Exciting times.
Only one June meeting! You’ve probably heard that we banned data centers – get the (few, meager) details here! Plus new apartments by little HEB, a lot of City Hall debate, and wrapping up the land development code updates.
Dive in here:
Hours 0:00 – 4:21: New apartments by little HEB, gray water, we ban data centers in the land development code, a fire station, and El Camino Way.
The biggest topic was the arrest and ICE imprisonment of Gerardo Reyes and SMPD treatment of his son. Five people spoke on this topic (including Gerardo himself, his wife, and his daughter).
Since the last meeting, Gerardo was released from ICE, but there’s still a lot of issues left:
Legal fees have piled up, the family has been traumatized, and they have lost 77 days of income
There was never any crime committed in the first place. The son was a minor and was treated inhumanely as well, and is still facing charges.
The officer has not faced meaningful consequences, despite evidence that he violated SMPD protocol
SMPD and San Marcos have stonewalled the family. Release the bodycam footage.
The family deserves apology, remedy, and transparency
Still a lot of concerns with data centers. The constraints on water and noise are insufficient, and you need a decommissioning process for when they fold and walk away.
Restrict electric and gas offsite generators to Heavy Industrial zones.
Regulate the sale of water to other communities
Form an environmental commission
Other topics:
The two El Camino Ways are very confusing. Please rename one of them until they are connected in the future.
Apartment complexes should not give the location of the complex on parking permits, for safety reasons.
Good job on the budget town hall. But the public did not show up. You should update the downtown cameras for safety.
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Item 1: FM 1978 Water Treatment Plant
Let’s talk about indoor plumbing. You flush your toilet or wash your clothes, and the water goes down the drain. If you’re on city water, it flows down city pipes until it gets to a water treatment plant. The water treatment plant cleans up the dirty water, and then releases it into nature.
We’re getting a lot of development east of 35, so we need a new water treatment plant.
Here’s where it will be:
From what I understand, there are a few different kinds of water treatment plants. From worst to best:
Multiple small package plants. These are bad because they cause algae blooms in the river.
Regular water treatment plant.
Reclamation water treatment plant.
We’re doing option 3! This means that we get gray water back out. You can use it to water a golf course or flush toilets or irrigate crops. It’s not clean enough to drink, but it replaces drinking water.
Eventually it will produce 2-8 million gallons per day. This is great! (It’s 100% bonkers that we use pure drinking water to water our lawns and flush our toilets. Or to cool a data center.)
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This will be our second water reclamation facility. We already have one that’s been up and running for years.
Here’s some of the places that we already run gray water out to:
The Kissing Tree golf course, the Hays Energy power plant, and a lot of the irrigation downtown and at Texas State are all on gray water. This is great!
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How much will this second water reclamation plant cost?
It’s not cheap. This is why City Hall will cost $80-100 million. It’s just expensive to build things.
Everyone thinks this is great.
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Item 13-14: Student Housing
The neighborhood around Little HEB is kinda getting bulldozed.
Here are the student apartment complexes that Council has approved recently:
You can’t lower housing costs without an abundance of housing. But at the same time, it is a bummer to see a cool part of town lose its soul.
One other irritating thing: this is all the same developer. They hired Shannon Mattingly, who was the San Marcos Planning Director, and now they’re running the same playbook over and over again. It feels like we’re a buffet table for them.
Today they’re back for this piece:
I admit that it is a very good spot for apartments!
What’s there right now?
That main building is the Pennington Funeral Home:
Or rather, was the Pennington Funeral Home. (We’ve discussed how it has already been demolished.)
You see that little house to the right? The back half of it is white.
If you walk around the corner, this is the back half of it:
So this corner house and the yellow house behind it will be demolished, too. Or they already are!
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Okay, fine. What’s going to get built?
They can already build apartments here. They can already sell them as rent-by-the-bedroom, as well. They do not need council approval for that.
However, they would like two perks:
They would like to have up to 5 bedrooms per units. Right now they’re capped at 3.
They would like to have 7 stories instead of 5 stories, so that they can fit in a lot more apartments. The height wouldn’t change.
Both of these mean that they can fit more students into one building.
In exchange, Council could ask for different things:
Make the building LEED-certified, which means more environmentally friendly
Make up to 10% of the units affordable housing
Make up to 20% of their units “workforce housing”, which means slightly less affordable but still below market rate.
Include a childcare facility, or retail space on the ground floor, or extra public park space.
Council could get creative! They have some cards to play here!
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There is one extra important thing that Council cares a lot about:
In 2023, both Sanctuary Lofts and Vistas Apartments were sold to Texas State and converted to student housing. But Texas State doesn’t pay city taxes. So the city lost about $750K in yearly taxes, with this sale. Everyone was pretty salty about this.
Consequently, there is a condition that these new apartments can’t be sold to Texas State for 12 years.
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For funsies, the developer made some drawings of what it might look like:
That’s nice!
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What does Council say?
Amanda: I’m a no.
This doesn’t benefit local residents.
It doesn’t provide any affordable housing
A 12 year delay on selling to Texas State is not long enough.
We don’t have enough protections for tenants in place yet.
Matthew: I’m a yes!
Keep students next to campus, and away from our neighborhoods.
Nobody: Why don’t we ask for more concessions, like affordability, Leed-certified, or extra green space?
The vote:
(There were two separate votes – one for extra stories and one for 5 bedroom units. They both went the same way.)
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My $0.02: I probably would have voted yes, but I think we should have asked for more concessions. We gave away too much in 2025, as well.
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Item 10: back to Operation Triage
[Note: I got this story garbled when I first published it. I think the current version below is correct, now.]
Today, this item took about 30 seconds. Everyone just said, “We got everything squared away! We’re giving the money to Operation Triage. The home owner is getting help.”
The vote:
Lorenzo wasn’t convinced, I guess.
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Item 17: Land Development Code amendments
Background: The Land Development Code is where all the detailed rules live that govern how things get built. Every few years, it’s time to make updates. Previously discussed here , here, and here.
Last time they passed 5 amendments, but they weren’t done with everything yet.
Today’s topics are:
Banning Data Centers
Alcohol permits downtown for bars and restaurants
Signs posted to announce upcoming hearings
Council overturning P&Z decisions on alcohol permits
Regulating large scale electric and on-site gas generators
Strike a weird bit about businesses being limited to corners
Let’s dive in! I’ll keep this brief-ish.
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Banning Data Centers
Backstory: Back in April, Amanda made a motion: all data centers should be banned in city limits.
The April vote went like this:
So it failed.
Council then spent two more meetings wheeling and dealing about how to regulate data centers. Do they get permitted from P&Z or Council? Which zonings are they allowed in? What regulations do we put on sound and water and electricity? Etc. Many hours were spent.
This meeting
So I was not expecting it, on Tuesday, when Lorenzo said, “I’d like to re-open the vote on whether to ban data centers.”
Clearly there have been off-screen discussions!
They spend barely 30 seconds debating it. Jane and Josh both say: “I’m a no. I’m hoping the technology gets better and so we can allow them without destroying the environment.”
Lorenzo: “I actually feel that way, too. But we can always go back and un-ban them.”
The new vote:
So there you have it: no data centers in the city limits.
All the wheeling and dealing clearly occurred outside of Council meetings. It was weird and mysterious.
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Is this good? Some thoughts:
This is democracy! Residents of San Marcos do not want data centers! It is healthy for city council to reflect the will of the people.
The technology for sustainable data centers already exists. They can use reclaimed water for cooling and solar for electricity. Texas just isn’t willing to regulate businesses.
The data center problem isn’t a city problem. It’s a county problem. Counties can’t regulate data centers. The overwhelming majority of data centers are outside city limits. Until Texas law changes, the data centers are going to cannibalize central Texas.
except it says “San Marcos” instead of “Temecula”.
Up till now, the city has put them up. Should we have the applicant put them up, instead?
Council decides no. Double-checking the applicant’s work is more work than just doing it ourselves.
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4. P&Z decisions for alcohol permits
P&Z grants permits to restaurants to serve alcohol. If someone doesn’t like the decision, they can appeal to Council. It takes a 6-1 vote to overturn P&Z.
This played out with Tantra in 2024. P&Z put a severe noise restriction on their CUP. (It was ridiculous.) Tantra went to Council, and there was a huge community outcry. Council overturned the decision.
Amanda wants to kill the supermajority requirement to overturn P&Z on alcohol permits, so that the Tantra situation can’t happen again.
The vote:
So it passes.
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Note: I strongly disagree. This is bad governance. The Tantra situation was a very unusual edge case, and edge cases make bad policy.
Much more often, it goes like this: a business wants to renew their alcohol permit. They’ve been extremely negligent about paperwork. For example, they let their permit expire 8 years ago. P&Z puts some constraints on their permit to get them back on track.
The business says, “Wah! But I’m just a baby!” and calls up every member of Council to complain and piss and moan. Then Council reverses the P&Z decision, and lets them get away with negligence.
Listen – two things can be true:
Sometimes P&Z makes crazy decisions that need to be overturned. (Tantra)
Sometimes businesses are trying to use their connections to get out of consequences.
The second scenario happens WAY MORE OFTEN than the first scenario. But Amanda has now tilted the playing field towards those businesses. Boo.
(Also, it’s generally bad when a government body weakens a check-and-balance mechanism.)
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4. Cleaning up weird code
There’s an odd clause all over the Land Development Code:
No one knows why it’s there and no one enforces it. So we’ve removed it.
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5. Regulating gas and electric generators
Originally, this was part of all the data center discussions. Data centers all have large scale back up generators, which can cause a ton of pollution and noise and mess.
But now, we’ve banned data centers. Do we still want to regulate generators?
Answer: Yes. Someday data centers might be un-banned, or there could be another reason someone is using large scale power generation.
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And with that, the Land Development Code updates are complete! Good work, team.
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Item 18: Fire Station No. 3
This is Fire Station No. 3:
It’s down on Hunter Road, near Miller middle school and across from the HEB distribution center.
They’re getting an apparatus bay, workout/fitness room, storage areas, new driveways, and interior renovation. It’s costing about $5.6 million.
Someday soon, kids, it will look like this:
Great!
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Item 21: City Hall Steering Committee
The whole 3 pm workshop was about City Hall. At that workshop, they decided to grow the steering committee.
The steering committee was originally chosen back in November 2024. Every councilmember picked two steering committee representatives.
It was the last meeting of Mark Gleason and Jude Prather. In a jerk move, council voted to let the outgoing council pick the members, rather than the incoming council. So Amanda and Lorenzo have never had representation, and new councilmember Josh does not either.
Now we’re fixing this. Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh will each pick a steering two new committee members. The committee will get six new members.
Would YOU like to be on the committee? If so, you can apply here. Or you can just email Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh directly, at arodriguez7@sanmarcostx.gov, lgonzalez@sanmarcostx.gov, and jpaselk@sanmarcostx.gov.
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Item 22: El Camino Way
We’re going down just past the high school for this next one:
In that area, there’s a road called “El Camino Way”, which is partially built:
The problem is that the two halves of the road don’t connect. This causes all sorts of problems for delivery trucks and people using google maps.
Eventually they will connect! Some day. Just not today.
In the meantime, we’re going to pick a new name for the new one.
Some ideas:
Crested Cara Cara Way
Wild Wind Way
Old Johnson’s Farm Road
Heritage Road
Someone named Carla spoke at Citizen Comment, because she lives over there, and explained the whole situation to Council. She joked that Carlita’s Way would be a good name.
Everyone on council agreed! You can’t say this town doesn’t have a sense of humor.
P&Z gets to recommend a name. They can pick whatever they want, but Council’s gonna overturn them in favor of Carlita’s Way.
The run-off for County Judge, between Ruben Becerra and Michelle Gutierrez Cohen, has blown up. It’s gotten real ugly.
Full disclosure: I switched my vote from Becerra to Cohen. This is not my wheelhouse! I do not watch county commission meetings! Basically, I trusted what other people are telling me.
Lots of stuff this week: selling water to Kyle, food trucks, community gardens, parking lots, lawsuits, the Edward’s Aquifer, the murals around town, and so much more.
Much to discuss!
Hours 0:00 – 5:15: Some small rezonings, selling water to Kyle, a trail to New Braunfels, and an enormous amount of Land Development Code details.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, some impact fees, and the public art policy.
Hidey ho, Neighborino! We’re back. Will Council regulate data centers? Will this grandmother in Dunbar get her home repair nightmare resolved? (Seriously, her story is awful.) Get your zesty details here!
Let’s go:
Hours 0:00 – 5:07: Forming our policy on Data Centers, annexing Five Mile Dam parks, loopholes for downtown restaurants, and a total home repair horror story in Dunbar.
Bonus! 3 pm workshops: the yearly homeless Point in Time count, and the Homeless Action Plan that has been implemented by Southside over the past two years.
The San Marxist 