Happy November! We punted on VisionSMTX and the CM Allen district decision, but we talked extensively about little Spidy Web Lassos for the cops.
Let’s do this:
Hours 0:00 – 1:39: We stuff VisionSMTX++ and the CM Allen District into a little can, and we kick it down the road.
Hours 1:39 – 2:48: BolaWraps! Should police be able to zap-and-wrap you? We also discuss cosmetic improvements to vacant buildings, Sunset Acres flood mitigation, and whether Shannon Mattingly broke any rules.
Bonus! 3 pm Workshops: the river took a beating over the summer. Parks Department tried their best to keep up.
Saul Gonzalez has gotten much more talkative. I’m going to have to update his profile where I called him the silent councilmember. I can’t always tell what he’s getting at, or why he votes the way he votes, but he’s definitely trying harder to make himself known.
Election Results: Congrats to Alyssa and Shane. Nothing surprising happened here.
See you next week for BACK TO BACK MEETINGS, Thanksgiving Special Edition.
It’s election season! Remember that time Shane Scott waved around a baggie of pot during a city council meeting? I am definitely milking that. (But also serious candidate talk.) Also we discuss the CM Allen District and VisionSMTX++ until we want to keel over.
Just last meeting, we wondered when the Biden Bus incident would get resolved. And then on Tuesday, it was announced that the city settled for $175K. Honestly, I think we got off cheap – it’s completely insane that Biden staffers called 911 and got mocked by San Marcos city employees.
Anyway, I took note of this sentence: “According to the settlement, the city is also required to issue a public statement within three days.”
Here you go:
The contrition isn’t exactly oozing off the page. That last sentence is particularly rich.
Another big meeting: Airport zonings, occupancy restrictions, and two downtown student complexes are brewing.
Hours 0:00 – 1:55: Mostly we talk about the airport, and what should and shouldn’t be built around it. Hours 1:55 -2:55: The Land Development Code, and the zombie occupancy restriction discussion that just won’t die. Hours 2:55 – 3:36: Special Events Permitting, and not one, but two potential downtown student complexes. Bonus Council workshop: Boarded up, derelict buildings are maybe getting a glow up? Lots of good pictures to marvel at.
This is a great meeting for showing how “Democrat” and “Republican” stop making sense at the local level. There are at least two issues where I think Shane, Jude, and Mark are seeing things more clearly, and Jane and Matthew are delusional, but at the national party level, all five of them probably vote pretty similarly.
Election talk:
October 12th is the League of Women Voters debate: Shane Scott vs Atom Von Arnt. Stay tuned!
Please don’t let city staff approve restaurant alcohol permits. (Item 9.)
There are some apartments being proposed on Lindsey, between Academy and Comanche. (Item 17.) This gets a lot of traction:
Against it: Three students/former students represent a recently formed group called “Tenants Advocacy group”, to fight on behalf of tenants. (Be still my heart.) They’re strongly opposed to this complex.
Love it: The developer is all in favor of the Lindsey street apartments, and Shannon Mattingly – former director of San Marcos Planning Dept – is now working for this developer.
We’ll get into the details of all this, in due time!
Finally: one of the speakers (Kama Davis) brings up an item from Executive Session (Item 20):
A developer wants the title of this alley, in purple:
The speaker wants it to stay with the city.
This taps into a much larger conversation about What To Do Along CM Allen. Should it be parks? Should it be apartment complexes? You just sit tight, we’ll get to all of this.
…
Item 1: We get CDBG funding from the federal government, specifically from HUD. We qualify on a few different points:
Tonight’s presentation is an internal audit, by Deloitte and Touche, on the $34 million we got after the 2015 floods. They’ve looked us over, and say everything was fine. Hooray!
Items 2-3: We get Q2 reports on the budget and our investments. Both seemed unremarkable. We’re a normal-amount of the way through spending and bringing in revenue. Our investments are doing middling-well.
…
Item 8: New airport zonings
So, the FAA and TxDot Aviation both want you to regulate two things:
Stay out of the airways where planes might be flying
Don’t build things right by airports that are going to cause problems later on.
However, neither the FAA nor the state actually control zoning, so they incentivize it. It’s a precondition for various grants and funding opportunities. The state of Texas also gives cities some extra leeway to regulate airports, beyond their city boundaries.
Over the summer, in Georgetown, a plane really did crash into someone’s house. So airport safety is a real thing. We’re all clear on the concept of plane crashes and why they’re bad, yes/yes?
So now it’s time to nail these things down.
Height Hazards: The city staff rep described all these abstract shapes in the air. There were pancakes floating 150’ in the air, cones beyond that, etc. You get the feeling that it looks like a giant invisible stadium around the airport. No one can build into the giant invisible stadium, but you can build below the bleachers, so to speak.
Here’s the bird’s eye view of the invisible stadium:
I don’t think anyone is too fussed by this part. Everyone understands that you need to stay out of the flight path of planes.
2. Compatible Land Use: this is the controversial part.
The main problem is houses and runways: you don’t want houses near your runways. But people already own this land, and no one likes to be bossed around. (Existing houses are grandfathered in.)
Here’s what’s being proposed:
Obviously all those rainbow-spokes are designed around either end of the runways.
So basically:
Bright green means absolutely nothing can be built.
The city owns almost all the bright green, but are some teeny green bits sticking out past the purple line.
The rest of the blues: feel free to build commercial, industrial, or anything else besides homes. Homes are restricted.
Like I said, anything that’s already built gets grandfathered in. The problem is: what if you own the land in those stripes, and you want to someday sell it to a developer? Or you wanted to build apartments yourself? Once those stripes are zoned, you’re out of luck.
Generally, the city is not allowed to downzone your property. If you own some land where you can build 7 stories, and the city wants to change the zoning to 2 stories, they may have to compensate you for the loss of potential revenue.
Here, they don’t, because airport zones are specifically carved out by the state of Texas for protection. Texas wants cities to make airport zones so that there will not be people living in a runway flight path. Makes sense.
So this decreases your land value, and land owners are mad about it. (On the plus side, your property taxes will go down.)
I’m trying not to sound like a total ass, because my initial reaction is, “You’re mad because you wanted to build homes that would be dangerous to the tenants and now you can’t? Fuck off.” (I guess I am a total ass.) But I mean, you can still build things. Just not homes.
Jane Hughson is more sympathetic to them than I am. She’s worried that we’re doing something to land owners, above what’s required by the state or federal government. She asks that the staff speak directly to the speaker who showed up.
Shane Scott says that he is a pilot, which I did not know, and he is pro-airport safety.
If one of these landowners wants to build something not allowed, they can ask for an exception! There’s a procedure for this:
Apply for a variance with the Zoning Board of Adjustments
If you don’t like what they say, you can appeal the decision to district court
The question is, is this sufficient? Or should we feel so bad for them that we do something additional, to show we care about the landowners who want to build homes in front of runways?
Jude Prather’s take: “I’m okay with the ZBOA and appeals procedure. Let the boards and commissions function like they’re supposed to.”
Alyssa Garza’s take: “I feel like there are more details I should understand.”
Saul: Property rights 4-ever!!
Matthew Mendoza: Can we say no to the feds?
I mean, sure. But it’s only going to get harder to make these airport zones, the longer you wait.
Look, this is common sense. The best time to prevent homes from being built is before the homes get built. Shane and Jude are the only ones willing to say this outright, and everyone else comes off as mealy-mouthed.
The vote:
I truly don’t know why Saul and Alyssa voted against it. I mean, I vaguely understand PROPERTY RIGHTS!! But allowing people to build houses in a runway path is a pretty big abdication of the whole point of government.
Good lord, you all, this week is DENSE and MEATY. We’ve got your budget. We’ve got your property taxes. We’re selling water to Kyle. We’re updating the development code. We’re banning cans, goddamnit! There is just so much to cover.
Also, I spent a lot of this week’s write up yelling about everything. Sorry about that.
One over-arching observation:
The first half of the meeting is spent wringing our hands over the high taxes.
The second half of the meeting is spent preventing measures that might reduce the tax burden.
The cognitive dissonance hurts my brain!
Anyway, here we go:
Hours 0:00 – 3:19: The budget, the tax rate, the utility rate hikes, and lord, the fighting.
Hours 3:19 – 4:07: How to actually reduce the tax burden, plus VisionSMTX, and selling water to the city of Kyle.
Hours 4:07 – 5:45: Updating the Land Development Code, and revisiting occupancy restrictions. Also SMPD body cams, and a future ban on single use containers in the river.
One final note:
This council – except Alyssa Garza – loves the status quo. The new budget cements the status quo, because fundamentally that’s what council wants. Very little legislation ever gets introduced that transforms any problem in a significant way. They see presentations on homelessness, housing costs, sustainability, and other big problems, and then a year or two later, they see another one.
There are some exceptions – Mark Gleason initiating the can ban, for example, getting the transit agreement completed, banning puppy mills – but those are rare. Mostly, this council likes to keep it business as usual.
Hello San Marcos! We’re back! Let me be honest: this week is a bit dry. We’ll just muddle through as best we can. Maybe tax rates are your thing?
Hours 0:00 – 2:36: In which we talk about the budget, and taxes, and exemptions, and a sneaky little bit of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer even gets in there.
Hours 2:36 – 3:14: Some Right of Ways get altered, some speed cushions arrive, we talk about CARTS, and multiple kinds of cats.
Election talk
Place 3: Last time we said that, barring any wild cards, Alyssa Garza would be running unopposed. There was no wild card. There was a very mild card – someone filed to run as a write-in candidate – and then that person withdrew, so even the mild card went away. So Alyssa is back to running unopposed.
Remember: Alyssa is just one progressive vote! Until we get her some teammates up on council, all she can do is gently nudge other councilmembers towards decency.
Place 4: So Shane Scott vs Atom Von Arndt is the only election to cover, and there’s nothing much to say yet. Shane has a huge encumbancy advantage.
This was a very short meeting! Some weeks are like that. Let’s hop to it.
Hours 0:00 – 1:26: In which we talk about Leah Avenue and Rattler Road. We worry about flooding in Hills of Hays, and the low water level in the river. And some property taxes and public transit.
Some election talk:
Place 3: Alyssa Garza is the incumbent. There’s currently no one running against her. Griffin Spell had filed to run against her, but he withdrew his candidacy.
Vote for Alyssa! She is great, and she’s your only choice! Win-win.
Place 4: Shane Scott is the encumbent. Adam “Atom Von” Arndt is running against him.
Preliminary thoughts: Shane is basically your standard libertarian. He likes businesses, he does not like authority, and he really does not like council discussions that exceed his attention span.
Adam “Atom Von” Arndt is very green. Or at least, he was when he ran against Saul Gonzalez last year. I’m curious to know what he’s done in the past year to grow as a candidate. (If he wants to learn city politics, may I politely recommend this very blog?)
If Atom wants to have a prayer against Shane, he needs to get out there and shake a lot of hands. Shane is very well known at this point, and I don’t think many people have any idea who Atom is. Lots of signs help too, but shaking hands and meeting voters one at a time is how this town still functions.
August 21st is the last day to file to run, so we’ll know by Monday night if there’s any wild cards. But my guess is that this is it.
I just want to point out a pattern. Several times in this meeting, this happens:
“Look, here’s a problem!” “Yes, yes! We all agree that this is a problem!”
Then we sit, waiting for someone to make a motion to fix the problem.
No one makes a motion.
Everyone shrugs and moves on. It drives me crazy. You all just acknowledged it was a problem! You got to third base, but then got bored and never got to home plate.
Oh well, moving right along:
Hours 0:00 – 1:29: A bunch of fiddly little items. And my favorite: the curfew is dead! Hours 1:29 – 2:57: In which the Land Development Code is scrutinized. Some important changes are coming. Bonus workshop: There’s some nasty chemicals in the ground near the town square. Read all about our plan to do nothing! We’re doing it responsibly, though.
This week’s meeting is mostly the kind of small scale local dithering that I love best. Parking fee structures and new art installations, all in one week? Count me in!
Hours 0:00-1:39: A little on SMART/Axis Terminal, a little on CDBG money, and a lot on parking.
Hours 1:39-3:02: A little ARP, a little art, and a lot more on parking.
The summer months are quiet: there’s only one meeting in June and one meeting in July. July will have some hot-button items, though – namely, the SMART/Axis Terminal.
The July meeting is on the 3rd, which is a Monday. The 4th of July is a Tuesday. It’s a very weird day to have a big meeting with consequential decisions, but there you have it.
This was a busy week! We’re going to talk about comp plans, Meet & Confer, and we’re kicking it all off with a measured and reasoned invocation from the lovely Satanic Temple. Who’s in?
Here we go:
May 9th P&Z meeting: In which I just had to yell and stamp my feet about the stupid new comp plan, VisionSMTX+, for a minute.
Hours 0:00-2:40: In which Lanzifer Longinus graced us with a delightfully Satanic prayer, and I complain about 1100 acres of sprawl
Hours 2:40-3:17: The demoralizing conclusion of Meet-and-Confer. Spoiler: we never actually asked for the Hartman Reforms.
Hours 3:17-4:14: The eviction day now has an end date. There’s a slight reckoning slightly with how the SMART Terminal procedure went so badly. And an end to the General Contractor licensing test to pull a permit in San Marcos.
That’s a wrap for this week! Enjoy the beginning of low traffic season!
The San Marxist 