Category: Meetings

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 41, the SMRF application on the Elsik tract, ranks as my next-most-interesting item, primarily because of the absurd about-face by the mayor and four councilmembers since the July meeting.

The issue at hand is that SMRF is applying for county funding and benefits from having the city endorse its application. Council endorsed the application at the July meeting, but in a fit of persnickety pique, struck the sentence, “City supports the possible transfer of the land to the city, including development, management, and maintenance.” (Struck by Mayor Hughson, supported by Gleason, Garza, Scott, and Gonzalez.)

The idea has always been that SMRF would get county money to buy the Elsik tract, thus completing the ring of parks encircling the city. SMRF would give it to the city. The problem is that it is expensive to develop and maintain trails and parklands, and Hughson et al did not want to be on the hook for those costs. However, the motion to strike that sentence was exasperating because it weakened the application and changed nothing. The city was not committing to accept the land, nor to develop it into trails and maintain it. It was merely supporting the possible transfer.

Now in August, somehow it is back on the agenda, just adding that one clause back in. This suggests to me that Council got an earful from the community about not being idiotic dipshits on this one clause.

During the conversation:

  • Derrick begins by reminding everyone that there is no obligation to develop parkland on any predetermined time schedule, and in fact the Bouie tract has sat undeveloped for 10 years with no outcry. You can’t make more land and we should acquire it when we have the chance.
  • Gleason has a long ramble about the lack of parkland on the East side, and seems to imply that it’s a zero-sum game where the Elsik tract will compete with hypothetical applications for parks on the east. City Manager Bert Lumbreras clarifies that there are also applications for parks on the east side and that there is funding available for them.
  • Shane Scott has the most absurd about-face, claiming he thought that the city would have to BUY the Elsik tract, not BE GIVEN it. Now that he understands, everything is rainbows! The problem is that after the vote at the last meeting, he went off on an unhinged rant about SMRF being a bunch of untrustworthy jerks.
  • Nevertheless, Derrick proposes a face-saving amendment for the benefit of Hughson, Gleason, and Scott, which clarifies that the “transfer” will be free.

The whole thing passes 7-0 and it’s all fine.

I will say that Commissioner Garza has issues she understands well and those she doesn’t. When she doesn’t understand, her instincts are terrible. Or rather, naive. She is easily swayed by dumb, superficial arguments or believes people to be sincere when there is a profit motive.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The second most notable aspect of the night? Mayor Hughson arguing with everyone. Mayor Hughson is coming off like a petty elementary school teacher who believes she must shepherd wayward students. When your wayward students are grown-ass adults who are not being disruptive, it makes you look like a petty tyrant. (She has a tendency to be a bit snippy and impatient, and usually she balances it by thanking people often and acknowledging her own flaws. But tonight she came off very poorly.)

Jane Hughson snipped at:
– the city lawyer, Mr. Consentino
– Melissa Derrick
– Max Baker (always.)
– possibly others, and she was also having technical sound issues and missed several items

The Derrick one was particularly egregious. Councilmember Derrick started to ask a question. Hughson interrupted her to scold, “You do not start asking a question before I’ve called on you. But since your hand was raised, I will now call on you. Begin your question.” Her tone was very sharp!

Derrick responded, “Actually, I did have the floor, and you all got off track during my question. So I still have the floor and was not done asking questions.”

They papered over it and continued – they’ve been colleagues for a decade, and Derrick is very easy-going. But it was bizarre!

…

A big part of this is the six hour meetings. Tuesday’s meeting went from 6 pm to 2 am. Mayor Hughson is constantly admonishing everyone to keep their comments brief. It’s understandable, but it would be better to solve the underlying problem of 6-8 hour meetings.

The thing that gets me is that this is VERY SOLVABLE: just meet weekly. I don’t understand this loyalty to bi-weekly meetings.

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 42

Top billing of the night goes to Item 42, the update on the emergency utility assistance. At this point, the city has paid out almost half of the million dollars available for utility assistance. In addition, city staff seems to have stepped up its outreach, from last month when this program was stumbling along ineptly.

Shane Scott says, “Can’t we just forgive all debt?” He said this last time, as well.

The city staff, in their neutral way, is timidly-yet-STRONGLY opposed.
– This isn’t what the consultants recommend.
– This may affect rate hikes.
– This could involve cases where the tenant just plain moved without disconnecting the electricity.
– This could affect San Marcos’s rating with S&P which we need in order to levy bonds.

Scott points out, quite rightly, that the city owns the utility company and can move its money around.

Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are strongly in favor.

Jane Hughson and Mark Gleason are both convinced that people will not bother to apply for assistance until they get the shut-off notice. So they are opposed. Mark even calls it “a tax on everyone else”.

Melissa Derrick wants to know the consequences more thoroughly – how will this affect rates on everyone else? How will this affect S&P ratings?

Alyssa gives the speech of the night, about how detached City Council is from the actual experience of poverty and being buried in bills. That our “simple application” for relief may be simple, but when you’re getting multiple disconnect notices you stop opening envelopes. That no one is secretly sitting on cash, waiting to get a disconnect notice to sigh and finally pay. They aren’t paying because they don’t have the money, full stop.

(Max does say that he originally proposed this but everyone overrode him. He also notes that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the city budget.)

The vote: Shall we just wipe out all utility balances >30 days past due?

In favor: Saul Gonzalez, Shane Scott, Max Baker, Alyssa Garza, and Mark Gleason

Opposed: Melissa Derrick and Jane Hughson

Motion passes, 5-2!

Mark Gleason gets a prize for the weaselliest comment of the night: after being the most impassioned person against this motion, he abruptly says, “Well, since this is obviously going to pass, I guess I’ll vote yes.” Oh, do you like being on the right side of history once the writing is on the wall?

My own hot take:
This is clearly the right move. It’s relatively cheap and helps a lot of people in a way that aligns with our values.

One side point: the city has done a tremendous amount of outreach on the utility assistance program, and it is not reaching people. The number of outreach labor-hours saved by just wiping the slate clean is significant, and should be taken into account in the budgeting of this.

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Anything else of note?

Citizen Comment

Several citizens showed up to talk about Jennifer Miller again. This issue is gaining momentum, but I’m not exactly clear what the end game is. Mano Amiga has taken it up as a political issue, as evidence of police corruption. Recently there was an attempt to connect the resignation of a city clerk, Kristy Stark, with this case, and it seemed far-fetched to me and possibly slanderous.

If the larger activist goal is to have the police officer Ryan Hartman removed from his position, then I’m comfortable with that. But right now the goal seems to be to drum up as much smoke and obfuscation as possible, and I’m a little worried that Miller’s loved ones are being used as pawns.

Consent Agenda

Item 20, the Elsik tract: SMRF needs the endorsement of City Council to apply for funds from the county to purchase the tract in the name of conservation. SMRF, the San Marcos River Foundation, is an amazing organization that is largely responsible for us having a clear, blue river instead of a murky brown river. One of their major functions is to identify sensitive areas and buy them up, then donate them as parkland. The Elsik tract is located adjacent to Purgatory Creek, and would help create a continuous greenbelt from Purgatory Creek up to Spring Lake, which is part of the Parks Master Plan.

This Purgatory-Elsik area is particularly sensitive because it’s all porous limestone. It’s just a straight sieve down to the water recharge zone for the river. This is how your river turns brown – you dump pollution in the recharge zone. Ok, fine.

There was a sentence in the application to City Council: ““City supports the possible transfer of the land to the city, including development, management, and maintenance.”

Mayor Hughson took issue with this sentence in a way that I found contrary and ornery. She doesn’t want the city to be on the hook for the development of the park without further discussion. Fine – she thinks it merits discussion. That’s reasonable. But it says possible transfer – doesn’t that only imply that there will be a discussion?

Hughson moves that that sentence be struck.

In favor: Hughson, Gleason, Scott, and Garza.
Opposed: Derrick, Gonzalez, Baker

So that amendment passes, which consequently weakens the SMRF application to the county for the money. Way to go, Mayor.

Once that passes, Commissioner Scott talks a bit of shit about SMRF and how he just doesn’t trust them. This is why he’s an ass.

(The basic resolution passes 6-1.)

Observation: Garza is hard to pigeon-hole. Mostly presents herself as extremely progressive, but then votes to strike this line, and to delay the ethics vote. But any time she advocates for an issue, she is thoughtful and thinking about vulnerable community members with the fewest resources.

Maybe that’s the common thread: she’s progressive about seeing the world through the lens of vulnerable community members and overly heavy policing. But she’s less progressive about the environment?

Public Hearings:

Item 26: Land Development Code updates: a bit of discussion on storing inoperable vehicles. If they’re vintage, why not have all the fluids drained so that they can be stored without risk of pollution? This is Councilmember Scott’s amendment, and it passes.

Non-Consent Agenda:

Item 30: Spearguns Surprise! State law pre-empts us from requiring a permit for any hand-powered device! What an obnoxious twist. We can’t even make a clause about portions of the river which are heavily used for swimming. You can spearfish any goddamn place you want, at any time you want, as long as your spear is not motor-propelled.

There’s a short discussion about whether to repeal the current ordinance today, or wait to revise it into compliance with State Law.

Repeal fails, 4-3.

Pro-repeal: Scott, Gleason, Garza
Anti-repeal: Hughson, Baker, Derrick, Gonzalez

(See! Another – albeit mild – example of Garza siding unpredictably!)

Item 43: Council will be back in person starting in August. (Surprise twist! Texas recently ended the suspension of TOMA to allow for zoom meetings, and so everyone would have to return in September anyway.)

Some councilmembers are very freaked out by the Delta variant, in ways that are highly sympathetic but probably out of proportion to the science.

Staff will continue to zoom in for presentations. Two reasons: First, to reduce crowdedness in the chambers and allow for more community members to show up instead. Second, so that the poor city staff and presenters don’t have to hang out at City Hall until 11 pm or 1 am in order to deliver a 20 minute presentation. Seems eminently reasonable.

Community members will be allowed to zoom in for Citizen Comment.

Note: During these meetings, they use the word “citizen” interchangeably with “the public”. I’m trying to avoid using the word “citizen”, in favor of “community member”, because I DGAF whether you’re documented or not.

Sometimes I slip up. “Citizens” rolls off the tongue. But I’m always intending to say “community members”.

Item 44: Authorize a study on the actual occupancy rates of student housing – both purpose-built and older complexes that are marketed to students.

YES YES YES! This would be incredibly helpful information to have.

There is a widespread belief that we’re incredibly overbuilt on student housing. The idea is that developers are motivated to build the latest, newest, shiny apartment complex. Students move in because it’s new. Developers sell it off after three years to some chump who then can’t rent it out very well.

Here’s where it gets very murky: The story goes that this drives rents up across the city. Apartment complexes that market to students employ rent-by-the-bedroom, so a four bedroom unit goes for $3k, allegedly. This allows other landlords to peg rents to that, even in regular family apartments and rental housing. We have insufficient stock of family housing and it’s overpriced.

In other words we are simultaneously claiming:

  1. Student apartment complexes charge $3k/month for a 4 bedroom rent-by-the-room apartment
  2. Student apartment complexes are wildly underfilled and run huge promotional campaigns for multiple months of free rent, free food, and all sorts of perks because we’re so overbuilt.
  3. Non-student housing piggybacks on the inflated rents, but lacks the glut of extra supply. Thus families can’t find affordable housing.

I am highly skeptical that (3) is piggybacking on (1) and (2). If we lack family housing stock, then landlords will charge as much as they can get away with. Period.

The murkiness continues: If we get developers to stop building student housing, then everyone will win. Somehow this will affect rents coming down.

The only way rents will come down is if we build a lot more family housing stock. And in fact, massive tracts to the east have recently been zoned for multi-family and workforce housing sorts of plans. But it will take a long time for these things to be built.

Here is the proper way to understand the council’s reasoning:

  1. This study will reveal that we’re massively overbuilt on student housing.
  2. Therefore we will be justified in finding new ways to prevent more student housing from being built.
  3. Then developers will preferentially choose to build family housing instead.
  4. Then rents for families will come down.

I am hugely in favor of conducting this study, but skeptical that this is an efficient route to build up family housing. My opinion is that this is what’s actually going on:

  1. We hate student housing because it’s obnoxious.
  2. Rents on families are too high.
  3. We also hate it when students live outside of student housing, in regular neighborhoods.
  4. We really just don’t like students!

The problem of partying students is half-real and half-imaginary bugaboo. The solution is to:

  • fully fund code enforcement,
  • hold landlords accountable, and
  • regulate the scale of apartment complexes so that families don’t have to live next to sprawling acreage of apartments. A 4-plex or 8-plex is very different from a 5000-plex.

Unfortunately, no one listens to me. I should start a blog!

And that’s a wrap for the July 6th meeting!

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The next recurring theme was a large amount of money to be allocated, across different items.

  • Items 35-36, $9 million from American Rescue Plan Fund (and it sounds like there will be 9 million more, next summer.)
  • Item 40, $800K in CBDG proposals for the 21-22 fiscal year
  • Item 41, $1 million in utility assistance

So these were quite a lot of fun – feeling flush with cash and able to grant all the wishes to all these nonprofits. Down with austerity and belt-tightening!

  1. On the first, the American Rescue Plan Fund:

– they argued about whether tourism and marketing should get quite such a big cut. It seems that this sector is limited in where they can seek funds, and they did take quite a hit during COVID. But maybe not quite as much as was proposed. ($282K)

– they argued a bit about Briarwood, a neighborhood outside of city limits that suffers severe flooding, in part because of how San Marcos has been developing. There’s a 2.5 million stormwater mitigation project there. They managed to thread the needle on that one – postpone it by three months and fund it from several spots.

– A lot of small projects got some money: Southside Community Center, bilingual outreach and communications, KZSM, vaccination outreach, Nosotros la Gente, which provides shoes for local kids. Good feelings all around.

2. On the CBDG funds, nearly everything got funded besides Roland Saucedo’s proposal, which is seeemingly why they chipped in for him in the previous funds.

3. The Utility Assistance fund is interesting. They’ve paid out about 20% of what’s available, and they’re all concerned that people aren’t applying. City staff was put on the defensive about their outreach efforts.

– Everyone who is past due gets a letter with info on how to apply. If the city has an email address, they send an email too.
– The city has reached out to the Food Bank and SMCISD.
– The application was made fairly short – just one page.
– Disconnections have been suspended during the pandemic, but there will be a date set to resume disconnections.

Criticisms:

– how about going through the churches? Commissioner Gonzalez says that he has to KEEP directing city to this and they never do.
– Commissioner Gleason, Commissioner Derrick, and Mayor Hughson all feel like until you send them notice of disconnection, no one will be very motivated to apply.
– Commissioner Garza talks about how people (meaning the Hispanic community) are more likely to just tighten their belts, out of not wanting to take more than their fair share, and that they’ll want to save the funds for someone who REALLY needs it.

Commissioner Scott, actually, was strongest on this: “Can’t we just see who is past due and pay off their balance without them having to apply?”

Hughson concern-trolled about undeserving people who have the money and could pay. Nothing Texas hates more than someone receiving some crumbs when they could have scraped by without them. Garza is enthusiastic about this proposal.

Scott’s proposal – just pay off the deliquent accounts – has to be put on the agenda and brought back as an item, because it didn’t fit onto the existing agenda. So it still could happen.

…

As an aside: there’s an ongoing dynamic where City Council and Lumbreras are perpetually exasperated with each other. It goes like this:

  1. Council frequently acts like he has done something incompetent.
  2. He then defensively retorts that they tied his hands in the way they made the request.

I am not sure yet who is being a jerk, or if there’s blame to spread to both. Mayor Hughson herself is a generally prickly person, and it often doesn’t mean anything.

…

All three topics will be finalized at some point in August.

July 6th City Council Meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The most confounding item – and ultimately anticlimactic – was the Lobbyist Registration measure. Where to begin.

This is Commissioner Baker’s ordinance. It came out of a committee that spent six months or so researching and writing it. The key provisions are:

  • You are a lobbyist if you are paid to make contact with a city official or city staff, or if you stand to profit from an issue
  • If you want to make contact and try to persuade an official on an issue, you must register as a lobbyist, and then report all contacts every two months.
  • There are some exclusions – private citizens are allowed to speak up about zoning issues, for example, without registering.

In Citizen Comment, about 18 people spoke up against the ordinance. They were mad that it’s onerous, would stifle speech and business, etc etc.

The item comes up, and instantly both Commissioner Scott and Commissioner Baker mumble motions into their microphones, but Mayor Hughson sides with Scott and gives him the floor. He moves to postpone the agenda item until November 3rd, which is after the election, and so there will be new councilmembers.

Recall that at the June 1st meeting, they debated postponing this endlessly. It was tiresome! And it failed! And yet we’re right back there.

Commissioner Baker is furious and lights into Commissioner Scott, who has openly mocked the Ethics Review Commission on other occasions. Mayor Hughson reprimands Baker to stay on topic, and Baker argues that this is entirely relevant, and the two of them get entertainingly snippy with each other around the 1:40 mark, (should you feel like listening to grown ups act like cranky children for yourself. It goes on and on! Hughson comes off looking like an overly controlling parent who wants to micromanage her sprog.)

Commissioner Scott can’t really explain why he wants to postpone. First he says, “So it can be re-written”, but he is reminded that it can’t be re-written on postponement. Then he says that he can review it with other people, which is unsatisfying.

Commissioner Derrick points out that it seems like this is an attempt to get a new city council in place first. (Who is up for election? I’m not sure. Garza, Scott, Gleason and Mayor Hughson were all elected last year. So some portion of Baker, Derrick, and Gonzalez could be up.)

Apparently CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas) wrote a letter to the paper which had enough errors that the City Manager, Bert Lumbreras, felt compelled to write a response to the paper to clarify the errors. The key refutations were:

  • This does not prohibit free speech. It just requires registration
  • SMPOA and the Firefighters Org were specifically mentioned in order to clarify their status, but if their names are removed, they’re still included as meeting the definition of “lobbyist”.

This detail is so bizarre that we should dwell on it for a moment. In the original proposed ordinance, SMPOA and the Firefighters Org are explicitly named as lobbyists, and no other organization is named. It’s such an inflammatory way to write the ordinance that it borders on self-sabotage. Who actually chose to explicitly name those two groups? Was it someone who wants the ordinance to pass, or was it someone on staff who actually does not want the ordinance to pass?

I truly have no guesses. It’s just such a lightning rod. Such an unforced error if you actually were fighting for this ordinance to pass. (This may have been removed in the latest draft? it’s hard to tell.)

Mayor Hughson wants to massively pare down the ordinance, and make it so that only councilmembers must report. But that’s not up for discussion, since they can only discuss whether to postpone or not.

Councilmember Baker is clawing out of his skin in frustration, and rightly so. The thing that’s most clearly in his favor is that the proposed legislation uses the language of existing lobbyist policies in surrounding cities. It’s nothing special or onerous. The outsized backlash is more damning than anything else, in the sense of raising my eyebrows and making me wonder what exactly people are trying to hide.

A persistent exchange is one where the someone yelps, “but why? why do we need this when there’s no problem?!” and Baker patiently explains, “We don’t actually know if there’s a problem because it’s all shrouded in secrecy and hidden right now. That’s why we need this.”

Finally it’s time to vote.

Postpone: Scott, Gonzalez, Gleason, Hughson, and Garza all vote to postpone.

Against: Only Derrick and Baker.

Garza gave a very naive speech about how she favors the ordinance, but maybe we can use the next four months to educate people and bring them around.

There is a real point, buried in the flotsam: that paperwork – or the specter of paperwork – will inhibit participation from a largely uninvolved batch of citizens. Behavior is shaped by gentle nudges, and if you’ve vaguely heard that there’s red tape surrounding making contact with council, it could easily dissuade a mostly-checked-out community member from speaking up when there’s an issue that actually does affect them. That would be a worthwhile discussion to hold.

However, postponing discussion is how you drown legislation in the bathtub, and this move is not happening in good faith. But that’s what it is. I told you it was anticlimactic.

April 20th City Council meeting, (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Miscellaneous items? Several policy threads got their start in this meeting, which we later heard more about.

  • Miniature goats were first floated here. (There was a bit of one-up-man-ship over who most grew up on a farm and can chuckle the most knowingly over the folly of anyone who might want to raise goats. I was annoyed.)
  • This was the last of the regular Covid updates. They decided it could be resumed later if things looked more critical, but otherwise it was sufficient for the information to be available on the Covid dashboard. This also gave rise to the first talk of a Covid committee, which was later established.
  • Low income tax credits were approved for apartments to be built between the outlet malls and the Kissing Tree. They run along just west of the railroad tracks. I formed a positive opinion of the developer, who gave thoughtful answers about wraparound services and seemed to represent a nonprofit organization that plans out really livable spaces. Time will tell, of course.
  • The first twinkle of discussion over the annexation of land that will become a Senior Living complex over the next few meetings, down on Red/wood and Old Bas/trop.
  • Some CARES act distributions
  • Airport Master Plan, with Councilmember Bak/er being a bit of a squeaky wheel on health issues – he wants a study conducted, or research to be done, or something, on the health impacts of living near the airport. Is he wrong? no, not exactly. Is it wildly impractical and out of step with regional airport norms? Sounds like it, yes. Is it bad to be wildly impractical? Not necessarily. Overton Windows get shifted inch by inch.
  • Denial of an apartment complex on Chuck Nash Road. They weren’t able to overturn the P&Z denial. Mostly P&Z denied it because of flooding along the Blanco River.
  • Finally, some CBDG things. Auditing the city based on how we handled post-flood repairs: we are doing a good job.

I think that’s all! April 20th, 2021 should consider itself all wrapped up!

What’s next?

Tuesday, June 29th is a 5th Tuesday. No meeting. I decided not to add an archive meeting and just enjoy the 5th Tuesday.

Tuesday, July 6th is a council meeting, I believe.

Tuesday, July 20th is a second skipped meeting for vacation, I think. So for that one, maybe I’ll hit up the archives again.

April 20th City Council meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

(As a reminder, Council was off last Tuesday, and so I subbed in a previous meeting from a few months ago. I believe Council will be meeting next week, but then taking the subsequent meeting off again.)

Nothing earth-shattering happened at the meeting, in part because it’s anti-climactic to hear the beginning of a public policy debate after you’ve already heard the end of the story. But here goes:

Item 15, rezoning 15 acres on the northern tip of LBJ to SF6. Hugely unpopular: there were 21 people who took the time to speak out against this. P&Z also denied the rezoning, which means it takes a supermajority of Council to overturn them. A supermajority requires 6 out of 7 councilmembers to constitute a supermajority. So from where I sit, this was obviously doomed to failure.

So what was this doomed plan? A developer wants to extend the neighborhood further north. This would be behind Timber/crest. The current neighborhood residents hollered bloody murder.

Some complaints are justified: LBJ really does have a hideous blind turn right there, and can’t be widened due to property lines, and truly can’t handle extra traffic.

Some of the complaints were nebulous NIMBYism – and several of the residents mentioned how their feelings had been hurt when P&Z members had accused them of NIMBYism, in undiplomatic ways. (I don’t have the exact quote. Implying that the neighbors were classist and anti-renter? Only wanting houses just like theirs? Something with a kernel of truth, but phrased in a way that stung.)

Some of the complaints are very complex: the perennial accusation that houses will be snatched up by wealthy out-of-town parents, and then given to wealthy students to live in and throw wild parties in. Does this ever happen? Of course. Does this happen to an extent where it renders quiet neighborhoods unlivable and triggers an exodus and the entire neighborhood deteriorates into squalor? The usual narrative goes, “This happened to Sagewood! The only reason it hasn’t happened anywhere else is due to our relentless vigilance!”

Is this actually why Sagewood is a world of rental houses? Or was something else in play? Are there now new policies on the books that keep this from happening in other places? I don’t know! I’m curious, though.

From where I sit, there is a fundamental cure: code enforcement needs to be well-staffed and carry meaningful penalties, enforced on landlords. There’s no reason that college students shouldn’t be reasonable neighbors, if the penalty falls on the landlord.

It’s less obvious to me how to keep out-of-town parents and landlords from snapping up all the housing stock, when their pockets are so much deeper than local residents. This is a thing that happens. But this isn’t an argument against a new neighborhood being developed. A new neighborhood would help, by providing more shiny house-baubles for fancy out-of-town parents to buy.

Finally, the land is sensitive and probably shouldn’t be developed. This is on the Edward’s Aquifer, right on the river recharge zone. The counterargument is that this is probably the least intensive way this land would ever be developed. Is it inevitable that this land will some day be developed? If so, it’s worth taking this deal. Is it possible that this becomes park land? If so, stick to that.

In the actual meeting, deliberations were short and swift. Mayor Hug/hson recused herself, because she owns land over there, and the rezoning was voted down 6-0.

In my opinion, the wildly dangerous curve of LBJ plus the environmental concerns tips this towards denial. So I think this was correctly decided.

Oh, one footnote: P&Z denied this last fall. It went to council. Council did NOT deny it then, which would have forced the developer to wait a year before trying again. Instead, Council threw the developer a bone and told them to meet with the neighborhood, build some relationships, make some compromises, and go back to P&Z.

The developer totally ignored this explicit roadmap towards approval. He said, roughly, “I tried to meet with one resident but they were angry, and so I figured it would be a waste of everyone’s time to meet with anyone else.” So P&Z denied them a second time, and now they really are DOA.

Dude. That is not how you win hearts and minds. Meet with the damn people. Nod sagely at their concerns. Ask follow up questions and feign polite curiosity. Gently modify your plans in ways that show you were listening. Even if it’s mostly symbolic, you’ll mollify your opponents and they’ll feel like they had some say in their changing neighborhood.

June 1st City Council meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Next most important items:

Citizen Comment period: several people came to talk about the case of Jennifer Miller. This was not an agenda item so much as a way of generating awareness in the community. Miller was killed a year ago in a car crash in Lockhart. The other driver was a San Marcos police officer, Ryan Hartman.

This is taken from a SM Record article, which I would link if this site were live:

According to Hartman’s deposition, police reports and forensic evidence, Hartman was driving 16 mph over the 30 mph speed limit on a partially gravel road with an open container of alcohol that was ¾ empty, talking on the phone, and he failed to stop at two stop signs before colliding with Watts’ vehicle. Forensic evidence showed that Hartman was not attempting to brake the vehicle when the collision occurred.

According to the incident report, Hartman denied consuming any alcoholic beverages when asked and refused to take a blood alcohol test on scene; he was detained until a search warrant could be obtained on suspicion of driving while intoxicated due to the open container. Hours later no alcohol was detected.

(I’ll slowly go back and put links in over time, once the site is public. Source)

A grand jury only gave him a citation for running a stop sign, and did not find probable cause for criminally negligent homicide. Miller’s spouse is filing a civil suit.

People are basically upset that Hartman is back on the force, and want Council to do something. It’s a horrible tragedy, for sure, and I can see why it looks like a miscarriage of justice.

Item 28: Mexican American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District

These will be districts honoring very old neighborhoods – some which have been destroyed – where Mexican-Americans have lived for generations. I imagine some other part besides neighborhoods will be noted to honor the local Indigenous heritage. It doesn’t come with Historical Preservation status, so it’s mostly to raise awareness to the community about the heritage of these areas around town. (Everyone was in favor of this.)

Item 29: Light’s Out, Texas!

Central Texas is a funnel to Mexico for migratory birds, and the lights mess them up. I gather we’re already a Dark Sky city, which means angling lights down and putting shades over them? This would include some additional measures during migratory periods. (Everyone was in favor of this.)

Boring but Important, but Not Controversial

There are several items which are surely important, but didn’t generate much conversation and so I’m unable to evaluate which parts are notable. Maybe these are hiding things I would strongly disagree with! Time will tell.

Items 1 and 2: First quarter financial report and investment report.


Item 23. Texas General Obligation Refunding Bonds up to $75 million
I gather that we regularly issue bonds? The only amendment was to remove a category of $1 million for Cape’s Dam. Apparently it was originally set maybe in 2017 or so, and had been deferred ever since. City Staff made it sound just routine to eventually move things from “deferred” to “happening”.


Item 24. $73.6 million for twelve different infrastructure categories

I’m sure this is important. It was also a slide presentation and I was just listening to audio.

That’s a wrap for this week!


June 1st City Council meeting, (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

This may not be the most important item exactly, but Item 22 was definitely the strangest item of the night. And Mark Gleason was the strangest acting councilmember of the night.

Item 22 is about adding language about lobbyists to the code of Ethics. Lobbyists would have to register with the city, and issue reports every two months. Apparently this has been floating around since 2018. Last December, Council gave direction that a committee should be formed. The commission met for three months and gave tonight’s recommendation to council.

Immediately Gleason made a motion to postpone the measure until the end of August. Everyone was caught by surprise. Baker was obviously annoyed and sparred back and forth with Gleason.

Gleason said:

  • He was contacted by constituents over the weekend and now he needs more time to research this
  • He’s worried about unintended consequences
  • The people need to be here to comment on this, and it should be postponed until they are meeting in person.
  • He’s worried about the constitutionality of restricting free speech like this
  • We already passed a campaign finance law, so this is redundant.

The thing is that these five points are easily swatted down, and they were swatted down, and Gleason just stuck to these five points over and over again. It was a bizarre performance and made me wonder what exactly got planted in his ear over the weekend.

The swatting down of these points went roughly like this:

  • The lawyers and experts are right here! If you have questions, please ask them!
  • What unintended consequences might you be imagining? The recommended policies are in place in many similar cities. No new language was written for San Marcos.
  • This has been brewing for 3 years. Citizen have been forced to show up over zoom for the past 15 months – what exactly is making this so unusual that it needs to be postponed, especially since the new election season will be underway by then?
  • No one is restricting free speech. When money is involved, lobbyists just need to register and report.
  • Campaign finance laws are just a different thing. Quid pro quos and influence are not exclusive to campaign finance.

Anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Gleason’s motion to postpone until the 2nd August meeting fails. Then he moves to postpone until the 1st August meeting. That also fails. (Baker, Derrick, Garza, and Hughson vote no.)

There are other concerns – who qualifies as a lobbyist and who is exempt? What should the penalty be? etc.

Hughson had quibbles that annoyed me:

  • Hughson feels like this just doesn’t happen in San Marcos and isn’t needed. This is very naive of her. She says that no one has approached her on council or as mayor. Fine, but perhaps other councilmembers signal a willingness to play ball that makes them more approachable than you?
  • She wanted to expand the definition of lobbyist to include any instance of influence, and then she was tying herself in knots because it would include citizens and nonprofits.

Shane Scott wonders what the big deal is. It still comes up for a vote. Why does it matter if someone picked up the phone and called you ahead of time? He wins the prize for the most disingenuous councilmember.

Gleason keeps these panicked nonsensical rants going. It feels like this: Someone called him over Memorial Day weekend and convinced him to postpone. That person fed Gleason these reasons, and Gleason can’t maintain a coherent conversation about them because they’re not his real reasons, and he’s unwilling to divulge the real reason. He was like a parody of someone squirming under pressure – practically yanking on his collar and wiping his brow and saying, “Is it me or is it hot in here?”

Gleason hasn’t been on council long, but his general shtick is to be the most earnest person on the block, although a bit repetitive and rambly. I don’t always agree with him, but he usually appears to be operating in good faith. This was like an easily rattled stooge sweating bullets before a mob boss. It was very strange!

Finally, conversation seems to be winding down. Surely they are getting ready to vote on this first reading!

But wait! Saul Gonzalez makes a motion to postpone. Everyone is dumbfounded. Saul’s reasons are that it’s getting late and he’s not thinking clearly anymore. He wants to postpone to the second meeting in August, ie the same as Gleason’s first attempt.

WHAT ON EARTH. The conversation has been had already. It’s now 10:30 pm. This is only the first reading – if you have misgivings, you still have a 2nd reading to bring them up! Nothing is binding here! (Like, did someone also get to Saul? Am I imagining conspiracies here?!)

The amendment to postpone fails. Again. As before, Baker, Derrick, Garza, and Hughson vote no.

They vote on some dates to implement the policy, and then hold the final vote on the first reading. It passes 5-2. Gleason and Scott vote no. Hughson and Gonzalez both qualify their yes-votes with ominous “for now…”s.

Well! Not the most important item necessarily, but definitely the most fun to write up.