Category: Meetings

Hours 0:00 – 2:35, 9/18/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Citizen Comment

Three speakers. Main topics:

  • The city funding of HSAB is generous, but there is a much greater need. Southside is getting less than half of what they need to continue their Homeless Action Plan. There is a matching grant proposal from the McCoys, if the city can match it.
  • We have a new budget. Meetings are too long. Staff does a great job, but Council talks too much. The speaker has great respect for SMPD and has always been treated respectfully by police in many different situations, over many decades.
  • Council Candidate Lisa Prewitt – Could we pull items 6,7, and 8 for the Transit details? When she was last on Council, San Marcos became direct recipients of federal grants. They developed the Hutchison Mobility Hub and focused on connectivity along the I35 corridor.

That’s a wrap!

….

Consent Agenda

The consent agenda is the “bulk items” agenda. Council votes on 10-15 items all together as a package, without discussion. (It’s not mandatory. Any item can be pulled for discussion.)

All these feisty items from last time got bundled together in the consent agenda this week:

  • Raising the electric rates
  • Raising water/wastewater rates
  • Raising trash/recycling rates
  • Community benefit charge

Specifically almost all of this:

(But not Stormwater. That got pulled and discussed separately.)

Last time, Alyssa complained “Look, this doesn’t match what my constituents get on their bills. This may be the average, but I need to see more details. What is someone paying in a multi-generational household?”

Staff tried to help. They organized utility bills by neighborhood:

That’s a pretty big spread of electric rates, from 516 kilowatt-hours, to 1416 kWh. Here’s roughly what different neighborhoods will get billed:

(The rate increase is pretty similar across the board, though.)

Here’s the neighborhood breakdown for water:

So the spread is from 1,525 gallons to 6,938 gallons per month. If I’m reading this chart and this chart correctly, you’d most likely pay:

  • $37.13 for water and $32.40 for wastewater, on the low end
  • $41.22 for water and $41,74 for wastewater, on the high end

I don’t think we’re incentivizing people to use less water! It costs you maybe $10 extra to TRIPLE your water use.

I mean, JFC these guys use a lot of water:

My dudes. Maybe invest in some drought-resistant native plants.

….

Anyway, like I said, there was no discussion during the consent agenda, so I’m just noting the vote here:

Increase utility rates, water/wastewater rates, and trash/recycling rates?

Yes: Jane, Amanda, Josh, Matthew

No: Shane, Alyssa, Lorenzo

To be clear: The “no” votes are chickenshit. These contracts have already been signed. These council members approved the new developments. We have a wastewater treatment plant already being built!

They are only voting “no” because they know the other four council members will suck it up and vote yes. If these votes actually failed, we’d be up a creek and scrambling for a re-vote. That’s what makes this cowardly.

OH WELL!

…

Separate thought: those charts above are very AI, but it’s nothing compared to this one:

Holy AI, batman! Someone found the Copilot key on their keyboard.

…

Item 14: El Camino Way

El Camino Way is way down here:

Some day, El Camino Way will be extended. Right now, it’s in pieces:

The yellow part and the red part don’t yet connect, but they’re both called “El Camino Way”.

This is a bad idea because you don’t want EMS calls going to the wrong piece of a street, and being unable to get to the right piece of the street. (Discussed before here.)

Solution: temporarily rename the new, little yellow piece where no one lives. Then it will switch back to El Camino Way when it is connected.

Options:

  • Carlita’s Way
  • Crested Caracara Way
  • Old Johnson Farm
  • Wild Wind Way
  • Heritage Lane

Some of these got ditched already:

These are Caracaras:

I like them!

Council goes with Old Johnson Farm Road.

(At P&Z, one of the commissioners had to recuse herself, for being a Johnson of Old Johnson Farm. I thought that was neat.)

…

Item 4: Stormwater Rates

This is the one rate increase that Council did pull to talk about. We saw this last time. Should everyone pay 86¢ more, to pay for projects to help with flooding?

This time, we go a little deeper into the rates. Not everyone would pay 86¢ more:

So home owners might only pay 53¢ more, or 86¢, or $1.26.

It’s based on the paved footprint of your home. If you’ve got a big home and driveway, you’re causing more water run-off than someone with a small home and no driveway.

Today’s discussion is about the last category: Non Residential. In other words, businesses.

Your business gets also charged according to how big it is. Anything impermeable will cause water run-off. So parking lots, pavement, and your building footprint all get counted. It’s measured in ERUs, which stands for “Equivalent Residential Units”. In other words, how many houses equals the same amount of paved ground as your business?

By state law, you have to charge stormwater fees in a way that scales with size. You can’t carve out different rates for home owners and businesses.

So how much are we charging local businesses?

So Chepo’s bill would go up $3 a month, from $52 to $55.
Premium Outlets would go up $960 a month, from $16,547 to $17,503.

Jane Hughson feels awful about this. She focuses in on San Marcos High School, but she’s also concerned about the outlet malls and Amazon, and the rest. SMHS would go up $647.49 a month, from $11,163 to $11,808 per month.

…

Let’s talk about SMCISD.

I’m not so worried about this $650 increase, like Jane is, but it is true that the high school pays $11K/month to the city. It works out to $133K/year. That’s a lot! On the other hand, there is a huge amount of paved parking there.

Two notes for context:

  1. In March 2025, SMCISD came to the city and asked for a waiver on their stormwater bill. Their yearly bill was $372K to the city, and they were facing a $4 million budget shortfall.

The city didn’t say no, but they didn’t say yes, either. They said, “Can you donate some Mendez land for flood run-off in Sunset Acres?”

The school district didn’t agree, but they didn’t disagree. They said, “We’re starting Mendez renovations and we don’t have final plans yet. We’ll get back to you.”

The new larger Mendez opened this year, so these questions all have answers now. Maybe it’s a good time to revisit this trade-off! (Presumably it’s been happening behind the scenes. Presumably it’s still in a stalemate, or else it would have come up at a meeting.)

Let’s be clear: the villain in the story is the state of Texas, which has refused to keep up with basic inflationary costs in their school funding formula. They starve public schools of resources, and then everyone scrambles locally to cover costs.

2. SMCISD pays stormwater fees, but Texas State university doesn’t have to.

Texas has laws that state that their universities don’t have to pay fees. Their pavement causes more stormwater run-off than anywhere else in the city, because it’s at the top of the hill! It’s far worse than the high school or the outlets, both east of I35

How much money are we losing here?

Texas State is about 517 acres in town, which is mostly paved. This works out to 8739 ERUs. They would be charged $137,727 monthly, if they paid local fees, or $1.65 million every year.

That would probably help with stormwater projects!

(Always! Always! The problem with San Marcos is Texas.)

….

Back to the meeting:

Jane’s concern is a little weird. She’s not upset that SMHS is paying $11K every month, but she does think the extra $600 increase is too big, too fast. She proposes a 3% increase, across the board.

By law, you can’t just cut businesses a break. So residential fees would get cut in half, too.

Josh: These rates seem appropriate. Premium Outlets is a huge business with a ton of stores. $12K for them doesn’t seem crazy.

(I agree!)

Amanda: This will save us money long term. Floods are super expensive.

Alyssa: Where was all this concern for SMCISD a year ago?!

The vote: should we cut this from a 5.8% increase to a 3% increase?

So Jane’s amendment fails. (Alyssa voted outloud, over zoom, because she was home sick.)

Final vote: Should we increase stormwater fees by 5.8%?

great.

…

Items 15-17: The budget and the tax rate

All of these sail through. The tax rate (65.15¢) is not changing from last year.

Property values went down a little, so home owners will get slightly smaller bills:

But business values went up a little, so the city is going to bring in a little extra money.

Because of this, the Texas government has laws about the exact words that council members must utter. It’s so bizarre and micromanaging. The council member has to say these words:

This state is wild. Your taxes will go down, but the state is so obsessed with Performing Conservatism, that they literally are controlling the words that must be said outloud, even though the words are very misleading in this case.

…

Here’s the whole budget:

Here’s the General Fund:

We eliminated 20 positions and kept department budgets flat for the 3rd year running. That’s not sustainable or responsible, you guys.

The vote:

(Both the budget and the tax rate go the same way.)

…

Item 18: Fees and Fee Schedule

San Marcos has about seven pages of fees, across all departments. We’re talking things like:

  • what’s the Jumpy Castle permit fee at Rio Vista?
  • what’s the False Alarm fee with SMPD?
  • the library card fee, the copying fee at the library
  • the rabies vaccine or microchip fee at the animal shelter,
  • burial lot fee at the cemetery
  • building permit fees with the planning department

and so on. There’s a LOT.

The plan:

  1. increase all fees by 3% every year. (Otherwise inflation costs will get passed onto taxpayers.)
  2. Review fees every three years, to make sure they still make sense and don’t need specific adjustments.

Everyone is fine with the automatic 3% fee schedule.

The reviewing is done on a rotating basis. This year it’s Parks and Library.

Library:

Parks & Rec:

Here’s what the slideshow says about how they got the new rates:

The actual study wasn’t in the packet. So I don’t have any details about how it was run.

What does Council say?

Amanda: When you looked at peer cities, did you look at poverty rates? Are we really comparing apples-to-apples here? Some of these rate hikes are really significant.
Answer: We did not look at poverty rates, no. We were just comparing and also thinking about recouping costs.

They discuss the port-a-potty rental rate, which is increasing five-fold from $18 to $115. Apparently that’s just the reality of the vendor fees – it costs San Marcos $115 for the portable toilet cleaning, so we just pass that on to whoever is holding the event.

They discuss the Activity Center. It’s very popular and bursting at the seams! Yearly membership would go from $92 to $130.

Question: Can we offer a monthly payment plan?
Answer: yes, but we eat the credit card fees every month.

….

I have thoughts! The Activity Center is incredibly popular and bursting at the seams. And it is also closed on Sundays

This is a weird combination of facts:

  1. It’s always packed.
  2. It’s sitting empty for half the weekend, every weekend.

Sounds like the Activity Center needs more funding! Right now their budget is $1.4 million. So maybe it would cost $200,000 to stay open on Sundays?

This is peanuts. This is budget dust. Free the Activity Center from its Sunday chains! Double their weekends!

…..

Bottom line:

Council postpones the Library and Parks fee increases until October 20th, to give the community time to weigh in.

My $.02: Subsidizing the library and parks is one of the most tangible ways that San Marcos improves the lives of the residents. They should not be trying to recoup their costs through fees.

This is philosophically different than utility rate increases:

Water and electricity: Environmentally, you want to incentivize people to use less. However, you also want to support people who are financially precarious. This means you want:

  • Rates that reflect the reality of the resource constraints.
  • Utility assistance programs for people with financial need

Parks and Library: This is totally different! We want people to use these, as much as possible!

  • We want to remove obstacles on using these.
  • Your entire community gets bigger and better parks and libraries when they are well-used. Everyone wins!
  • People who are broke stand to benefit the most.

You don’t want Parks and Libraries to be self-funding, out of user fees. Subsidizing them out of taxpayer funds is the right mechanism. Keep them as cheap as possible.

…

Item 20: HSAB funding

San Marcos gives money to nonprofits in a few different ways:

  1. HSAB Funding (Human Services Advisory Board) – $750K
  2. CDBG Funding (Community Development Block Grants, money from the federal government) – ($775K)
  3. Museums, Core 4, Project Graduation, Crimestoppers, Arts, Special Events, Utility Payment Assistance Program all get funding from the General Fund. (As of 2024, this was about $500K)

There’s a lot of overlap between who gets HSAB and who gets CDBG funding, but they occur at different times of the year. The CDBG funding has to go to the federal government over the summer, and the HSAB funding gets voted on in September.

To deal with the calendar mismatch, Council did both back on July 7th.

Today is mostly a formality, then. Here’s how the funding is shaking out:

(Sorry, I know that’s tiny. Find the whole chart here.)

The only tweak is that Hays Helping Hands gets their two applications consolidated, so that they can spend their grant between either project, as they see fit. (I believe Hays Helping Hand is formerly known as Nosotros La Gente?)

No one has much else to say! It passes, 7-0.

The city HSAB process used to be full of drama and fireworks. But now there is:

  • an independent board that works for months
  • a scoring rubric and documentation of all their discussions
  • a clear and transparent time frame
  • etc.

Lots of great procedural improvements.

Bureaucracy is super annoying! Everything takes forever, moves incrementally, and systems have momentum that keep perpetuating the status quo. But the alternative is favoritism, unpredictability, and chaos.

It’s kind of like that Churchill quote about democracy: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

…

Items 6-8: Transit

They sped through these pretty quickly – Triennial Review of some Federal Transit stuff – but I think the takeaway is that the Transit Development Plan is starting!

Here is the website: 2026 Transit Development Plan  | City of San Marcos, TX

So I imagine there will be lots of surveys and public outreach to watch for, over the next year.

September 1st City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Big meeting! Big, frustrating meeting. The theme of the night is “San Marcos Has to Pay Bills” and the second theme is “lalala I can’t hear yyyyyooouuu”. Lots of budget drama!

Hours 0:00 – 5:51: EMS billing, a boatload of budget and rate hike discussions, some minor SMPD funding, and CARTS

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: the 10 year CIP list and the next draft of the River Parks and Quail Creek Park plans

whew. It was a weird night.

…

Election tidbits!

On We the People, over at KZSM, so far Rob Roark has interviewed:

I’ll update with more links as I get them.

Candidates: get yours scheduled! This is a great way for me to get to know you.

In addition, he’s holding a Hays County DA debate between Kirsta Melton and Alfonso Salazar on Monday, September 14th, from 7-9. (More interviews: Kirsta Melton from earlier, also Ruben Becerra on this whole hospital district thing.)

…

Community Impact Interviews:

Place 3: Alyssa Garza and Jane Hughson

Place 4: Heather Hunter and Shane Scott (not out yet)

Place 6: Juan Miguel Arredondo, Bill Miller, and Lisa Prewitt

Mayor: Amanda Rodriguez and Ryan Thomason

…

Let me know as debates get scheduled or interviews get published, and I’ll keep a running list.

August 18th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

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.

…

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.

Hours 0:00 – 1:19, 8/18/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Citizen Comment:

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.

…

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

….

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!

….

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.

…..

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.

But now we have a new company!   Meet Lime Scooters:

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.

…

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.

…

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.

Today: Can the newly forming San Marcos EMS cover that little region?

Answer: Yes.

Great.

….

Item 20: School zones

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.  

…

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.

Almost the whole 3 pm workshop is about the budget.  By the 6 pm meeting, everything has been decided.

Decision:  the tax rate will be ¢65.15 or lower. That’s the rate from last year.

…

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.

….

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.

….

Item 25: Bobcat Shuttle Service

Did you know that everyone in San Marcos can ride the Bobcat Shuttle for free? I did not!

Here’s a quick snapshot of the bus routes:

All the route and time info is here:  Bobcat Shuttle : Texas State University 

You can hop from city buses back and forth to Bobcat buses.

Here are the city routes:

And here’s the link: Local Bus Information | City of San Marcos, TX .

It sure would be nice to have one unified map!

…

Let’s talk about transit for a sec:

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.

Also!! A great bus system is great for everyone:

When you replace cars with buses, you have much less traffic. Your roads will last longer. You can get places faster.

People who still need to drive their cars are better off. People who ride bikes are better off. The city is better off.

August 5th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

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!

Enjoy:

Hours 0:00 – 1:44: Sprawl down by Redwood, and who pays for sprawl?

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Promoting river recreation (or not), and spending the last bits of federal Covid money before December.

…

Council Elections

One more week left for city council candidates to enter the race.

I absolutely love election season – my soaps are just getting started.

July 7th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

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.

June 16th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

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.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Lots of debate around the new city hall, and no conclusions.

Happy summer solstice!

Hours 0:00 – 4:21, 6/16/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Citizen Comment

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

(Petition and family GoFundMe if you’re so inclined.)

A few speakers on the Land Development Code:

  • 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.

….

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:

  1. Multiple small package plants. These are bad because they cause algae blooms in the river.
  2. Regular water treatment plant.
  3. 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.)

…

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:

via

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:

(2024 project:  Feb 27, April 2nd ,  April 16th,
2025 project: April 15th)

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!

…

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:

  1. They would like to have up to 5 bedrooms per units. Right now they’re capped at 3.
  2. 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!

….

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.

….

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.)

…

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.]

A few meetings ago, Council was going to give some money to Operation Triage and Mission Able, for home repairs. The Mission Able part got derailed by one specific home owner, who told a harrowing tail of how her foundation repair became a nightmare.

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:

  1. Banning Data Centers
  2. Alcohol permits downtown for bars and restaurants
  3. Signs posted to announce upcoming hearings
  4. Council overturning P&Z decisions on alcohol permits
  5. Regulating large scale electric and on-site gas generators
  6. Strike a weird bit about businesses being limited to corners

Let’s dive in! I’ll keep this brief-ish.

…

  1. 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.

…

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.

As always, the problem with San Marcos is Texas.

…

2. Alcohol permits downtown involving food trucks.

Lord. We spend about 30 minutes listening to Jane go in circles. Back in May, she got flustered and upset about this topic and never really recovered.

The issue: do food trucks count as restaurants that can sell alcohol?

I keep deleting my explanations, because it’s truly too boring to read. Yes, food trucks count as restaurants that can sell alcohol.

In the end, they add a definition: mobile truck unit.

…

3. Signs for public hearings:

When there’s going to be a public hearing for an alcohol permit or a rezoning, you have put up signs like this:

via

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:

  1. Sometimes P&Z makes crazy decisions that need to be overturned. (Tantra)
  2. 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.)

….

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.

…

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.

May 19th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Very short meeting! A little bit on Gerardo Reyes Gonzalez, a little bit on La Cima, and some budget stuff. Plus a sign of the new HEB.

Let’s dive in:

Hours 0:00-0:56: Gerardo Reyes Gonzalez comes up in Citizen Comment. Plus a little bit on La Cima, and the signs of the new HEB

Bonus! 3 pm workshops: Budget details and the utility assistance program.

….

The run-off election day is Tuesday! Full details here.

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.

May 5th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

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.

See you next time.