Category: Meetings

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.

May 18th City Council Meeting (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Item 20: Cape’s Dam MOU

I sat down to write up this item, and got so bogged down in the backstory that it became clear that that had to be its own post. With that out of the way, the story becomes less important.

The foreground issue is a Memorandum of Understanding between the city and the county, about an East side park called the Cape’s Dam Complex. The background issue is whether or not the dam should be rebuilt.

Melissa Derrick moved to strike a clause from the main statement:  “whereas the scientific community has pointed out that the flow race of the main channel and the mill race are important for the protection of river wild rice etc etc,”

If you don’t know the background, this clause sounds totally innocuous, and Derrick sounds like an anti-science nut. But this is actually the false environmental propaganda, in my opinion. (I’m basing my opinion on the San Marcos River Foundation.)

Anyway, the amendment passed and the clause was struck.

Max Baker moved to insert SMRF into the groups where communication is a high-priority. This passed.

The county clearly thinks that the dam ought to be rebuilt. I don’t think the city has decided yet. Or rather, they’re split. “Renovate/rehabilitate the dam” may mean different things to different councilmembers.

The MOU passed. Only Baker voted no.

Onto the next-most-interesting items!

Items 19 and 27: Miniature goats! Spear-fishing!

You are now allowed to have miniature goats within city limits. Congrats! You must have a pair, so that they don’t get too lonely and hence noisy. You’re not allowed to sell your goat cheese or goat milk. Your goat shed must meet certain criteria. The billy goats must be neutered, lest ye develop a third goat.

Shane Scott likes to gig fish and doesn’t want to have to get a permit, because it’s not a spear-spear. Can gigging be exempt from the permitting process? Others pointed out that all fishing needs a permit, aside from the special spear-fishing permit. This was just a discussion item, and four voted yes to have city staff research it and bring it back. But it did not appear that four people would actually want to change anything.

Everything else:

  • Reviewed the process for Community Block Development Grants (CBDG) for the coming year
  • 10% discount for San Marcos residents at the Kissing Tree. Will it be raised to a 25% discount? Probably not.
  • Purple heart trail, ethics review training, etc.

DONE.

I skipped the work session again, this week. I’m still getting my sea legs on this whole thing, and the Cape’s Dam entry took a long time.

May 18th City Council Meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The next two most important items are probably the Charter Review Commission and the Cape’s Dam MOU.

Item 1: Charter Review Commission

So, the city charter is like our constitution, I gather. It gets reviewed every four years. I think it can only be amended by public vote at the ballot box. A committee was formed, met over six months, and provided their final report to Council. Then Council decides which issues go on the ballot in November. (I might have this wrong, but this is what I inferred.)

Former Mayor Thomaides chaired the commission. Lots of connected people on there: Esther Garcia, Travis Kelsey, Zach Sambrano, Chance Sparks, Paul Mayhew and [Someone] Taylor. I’m less familiar with Garcia, Sparks and Taylor, but recognize Garcia’s name. Kelsey and Sambrano are on the Planning and Zoning commission, Mayhew used to be on the school board, and Sparks has apparently worked with lots of city managers thoughout Texas. And Thomaides, of course, was mayor until 2016, when he lost to Hughson.

On the whole, their recommendations did not seem to have any ulterior motive. They seemed genuinely to be thinking about the city as a whole. I haven’t read the charter, so I don’t know what they might have omitted, but at this point I have no qualms with their process.

Their 13 recommendations, loosely clumped:

  • Term limits: Council members would be able to serve three consecutive 3-year terms, and then they’d have to cycle off for a term. Mayor would be able to serve two 4-year terms, and then cycle off.

Baker, Scott, Garza, and Gleason were in favor of term limits. First, to limit the power of encumbency. Second, to have time to reflect on your decisions in office and see how they played out.

Hughson, Derrick, and Gonzalez were opposed – let the voters choose who they want. So that will probably go to the ballot.

Note: these are limits on consecutive terms, not term limits. Interestingly, Thomaides, Scott, and Hughson all have experience with cycling off. Former Mayor Thom/aides, the chair of the commission, is currently in one of these alleged periods of reflection. Scott also lost his council seat (maybe 5-6 years ago?) and got back on this past November. Has he grown and reflected on his choices back then? You be the judge. Finally, Mayor Hugh/son was on the council in the ’90s. She took 10+ years off before running again, circa 2010.

Currently the mayor serves two years, not four. The argument for the change was to free up the mayor from campaigning, and to align that election with presidential elections. Four of them opposed this, so it probably won’t be on the ballot.

(The combination of these two votes is weird: originally it was proposed that the Mayor should have two 4-year terms, and inadvertently they’re now proposing two 2-year terms. I hope that gets cleaned up at the next review session.)

  • Loosening a bunch of residency restrictions and council appointees. These seemed fine. It’s good for city managers and judges to live in town, but it does reduce the applicant pool. Some will be on the ballot, others kept as is.
  • Codifying some current practices around ethics investigations, Citizen Comment procedures, deadline flexibility, and cleaning up inconsistencies. Nothing else seemed momentous.

That’s all, but it took about two hours for them to get through all that.

Omissions I might have advocated for:

  • City Council meeting weekly instead of biweekly
  • City Council earning a living wage, to enable a broader portion of the community to be able to run for office

Next Post: Cape’s Dam.

May 18th City Council Meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Well! The most interesting item turned out to be such a clear smackdown that it is more open and shut than expected. Item 28 was to re-discuss Cite & Release.

[Sidebar: if we’re having 6+ hour meetings every two weeks, when do we start thinking about meeting weekly for 3 hours, instead? This is dumb.]

Background: San Marcos passed a Cite & Release ordinance a year ago. Since 2005ish, Texas police officers have been allowed to give citations and court dates for certain nonviolent offenses, instead of arresting people and hauling them down to the station, and setting in motion the turmoil of having one’s life abruptly struck. People miss work, get fired, can’t arrange childcare, CPS gets involved, etc etc. It’s the kind of thing that tips people from “barely getting by” into “abject poverty”. Since then, C&R hasn’t been applied fairly – white people were getting cited-and-released, black and brown people were being hauled down and physically arrested. So after a HUGE campaign by Ma/no Ami/ga, we made it mandatory to use C&R for seven specific offenses, a year ago.

So, tonight? Councilmember Scott has put C&R on the agenda as a discussion item. It’s very nebulous: “Hold discussion on Ordinance 2020-18, Cite and Release and provide direction to the City Manager.”

First, Mano Amiga generated a ton of citizens to show up during Citizen Comment.

[Sidebar: Citizen comment is 30 minutes. Each person gets 3 minutes. 27 people signed up to talk. The Mayor asks the council if they are okay extending Citizen Comment Period. There was exactly one dissent: Shane Scott, who preferred to cut it off after 30 minutes.]

Anyway: the community members make many great points about the benefits of C&R, the inadequacy of the data after such a weird Covid year, and so on.

Six hours later, the council finally gets to Item 28. Shane Scott has to go first, because he put it on the agenda. He basically says “I’m getting a lot of phone calls about increased crime. We just need to give Chief Dandridge some breathing room!”

(Crucially, Scott mentions that he has not talked to Chief Dandridge about this.)

Everybody weighs in, in predictable ways. Derrick points out that the chief was hired after C&R, and said he supported it in his interview.

Finally Chief Dandridge weighs:

  • We need to be victim-focused. There is huge amount of victimization of violent crime in SM.
  • We are nearly 50-50 on violent crime vs property crime. That’s crazy. There’s way too much violent crime here.
  • Violent crime is NOT being driven by C&R. He quite clearly emphasizes and dwells on this point: He fully supports C&R. He has continuously supported C&R. It frees up his officers to make them available for more immediate concerns. A direct quote: “It would be a myth to suggest that our city is more dangerous due to C&R.”
  • He goes through the 7 categories, and gives 2019 vs 2020 numbers. (Drug paraphenalia, theft, disorderly conduct, pot, driving without a license, city ordinance, mischief.) All are steady or down. He gives a big caveat about how Covid complicates everything.
  • The SM/PD has a dashboard, available to the public, keeping track of C&R data. (I would link it but I’m not ready for a broader readership. It can be easily found via the city website.)

He will share a major plan soon. He has a lot of ideas. Two major themes for crime-reduction:

  1. Community Engagement
  2. Technology. Apparently we have a woeful 20 year old CAD system, and I can believe that it’s pitiful in terms of wasting everyone’s time and energy.

Basically, Chief Dandridge gave a statement that was perfectly clear and concise and laid to rest this issue completely. C&R is going to stay and is not up for debate.

The rest of the councilmembers weighed in, in predictable ways, and that was that.

Mayor Hughson did mention how she did NOT support C&R last year. I had forgotten that. She said that she wanted officers to have discretion. She says she still does, but she also supports the chief, who supports C&R, etc. So hers was a bit mealy-mouthed.

It was decided to postpone this topic until the Chief shares his business plan.

Incidentally, “business plan” for a police department is annoying. It’s not a business. Profit is not a consideration. “Strategic plan” would be better.

May 4th, 2021 City Council meeting (Part 3)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Miscellaneous – what else was discussed?

  • Mobile Home park approved, north of airport, east of 35
  • Redwood affordable senior housing development approved
  • Fire department,
  • Tax contribution for downtown master plan
  • PID for Whisper tract
  • PD Victim of Crimes fund
  • Environmental Air Quality policy
  • Commercial Scooters are in.
  • Some other pro forma stuff.

There were like 34 items and it went till almost midnight, and that didn’t include the afternoon extra session, which I skipped. But finally I have completed one meeting!!