Category: Meetings

San Marcos! I got your zoning cases, your Buccee’s, and I gripe at the Neighborhood Commission. Also the Lindsey Street Apartments, recycling, and SMPD.

Happy Spring Break to those who celebrate. Here we go!

Hours 0:00 – 1:00:  Gaza ceasefire,  two zoning cases, and some criticisms of Buccee’s.  

Hours 1:00 – 1:42:  Power lines, and the Neighborhood Commission pushes my buttons.  

Bonus! February 27th P&Z meeting:  The winds are changing on P&Z?  And also we look at those Lindsey Street apartments.

Bonus bonus! 3 pm workshops: Updates on the city contract with Green Guy Recycling and SMPD

One final note:

The results of the VisionSMTX survey came out, and were shared here on FB. Some thoughts:

• There were about 160 responses.
• 39 voted for the original plan, and 101 voted for the revised SMTX++ version. 5 wrote comments without choosing. 
• 129 of them own property, 17 are renters, and 4 said neither or left it blank.  So this is not a representative sample of San Marcos whatsoever.

Kind of a bummer.

This week at City Council: it’s Buc-ee’s time! Should we accept them on their terms?  And also the can ban makes it across the finish line.

Let’s do this:

Hours 0:00 – 1:00:  In which we discuss Area Plans for Dunbar and the Historic District, and the River View apartments in Blanco Gardens.

Hours 1:00 – 1:57:  It’s Buc-ee’s time!  Should we accept them on their terms?  And also the can ban makes it across the finish line.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops:  Someday, there will be a new city hall.  Where shall we put it?

(I learned this week, over and over, that Buccees is actually spelled Buc-ees. Every time I see it with the hyphen, it looks weird and awkward, but here we are.)

Welcome back! This week, we’ve got a gas station by the high school, details on the river can ban, PDDs, and emergency sirens. 

Don’t forget! The VisionSMTX survey is open until Friday, February 23rd! My cheat sheet of recommended language is here for your cutting-and-pasting pleasure.

Onto the meeting! 

Hours 0:00 – 1:30: A new gas station, and the can ban moves closer to the finish line.

Hours 1:30 – 2:50: Bringing PDDs back! And some emergency sirens, and P&Z re-appointments.

I just want to note: lately no one talks besides Mayor Hughson. Jane takes her job super seriously. She reads everything carefully and offers up improvements. But no one else ever has any amendments to anything, nor much discussion to Jane’s amendments.

I think there’s a number of reasons:
- General indifference to details. (Saul, Shane, Jude)
– Thinking it’s futile. (Alyssa, being the only progressive)
– Sincerely agreeing with everything Jane says (Mark Gleason and Matthew Mendoza)
– Having a full time job on top of council is too much (Probably all of them)

But even if the reasons are sympathetic, it’s not great. If you watch a P&Z meeting, everyone seems prepared to ask good questions and weigh the decisions carefully. If you watch a city council meeting, there is barely any discussion of ideas or improvements to policies. It feels like things get rubber-stamped without scrutiny. It’s not great.

This week, we’re giving $800K to repair homes, we’re writing new rules for short-term rentals, and I’ve got your cheat sheet for the VisionSMTX survey. Get it all while it’s piping hot!

Hours 0:00-0:54: EV Parking Space fines, and allocating $800K of ARPA money to Mission Able and Operation Triage. It was a mini-meeting.

Bonus! 3 pm Workshop: New rules for Short Term Rentals.

Double Bonus! Cheat Sheet: My recommendations for the VisionSMTX survey. Take whatever suits your fancy!

The meeting was extremely short, but that survey cheat sheet took me forever to write up. Please feel free to share it far and wide.

Finally, next week is another Council Meeting. These are the back-to-back meetings they scheduled last December. So I will see you right back here, same time next week. Bye for now!

Welcome back! It’s been awhile! We’ve got new gateway signs and parking ticket fines. Plus VisionSMTX, and we hammer out the details of the coming Can Ban.

It was a short meeting! Jude Prather and Shane Scott were both absent, and no one else was feeling particularly talkative.

Hours 0:00 – 0:52: In which we talk about gateway signs, a bit of re-zoning, and your new parking ticket fines.

Hours 0:52 – 1:43: Community surveys on VisionSMTX are coming.

Bonus! 3 pm workshops:  Let’s hammer out some can ban details.

This marks the two year anniversary of this blog. Last year I did a little Q&A about myself to commemorate the occasion. Most of it still holds true! The number of readers has grown a bit, but mostly it fluctuates depending on how hot the topics are.

I don’t have much else to say this time? Thanks for reading! 2024 is going to be a wild year…

Hello everyone! It’s been a whole Thanksgiving and Sights & Sounds since I last saw you. Today’s big topics are HSAB grants to nonprofits, and getting into the details of a can ban on the river.

Here we go:

Hours 0:00 – 1:51:   A small apartment complex,  a road name change, and we debate how to spend $650,000 of  HSAB grant money.

Hours 1:51 – 3:03: New ACC classrooms, electric city vehicles, and how would a potential ban on single-use beverage containers exactly work?

That’s a wrap! See you in two weeks, for the last meeting of the year!

Morning all! I know you just saw me last week, but we had back-to-back meetings this month, to get it all done before Thanksgiving. We’re talking about the Purgatory Creek drainage project, and building low-income housing, and why it’s slow.

The whole meeting was only 55 minutes long. It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!

Hours 0:00 – 0:55:  In which we look at the Purgatory Creek drainage project, and why low-income housing doesn’t get built much. And a fire truck.

Bonus! 3 pm Workshops: The city did a compensation study for city employees.  Let’s see how we stack up.

That’s a wrap! See you in December!

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.

Here we go!

Hours 0:00 – 1:58:  VisionSMTX++ continues to disappoint.

Hours 1:58 – 4:01: The CM Allen District – shall we embiggen the parks, or embiggen our budget?

TSM Official Take on Place 4 City Council Election: it’s Shane Scott vs. Atom Von Arnt, at the League of Women Voters debate.  

But wait! One more thing!

The Bumpy Resolution to the Biden Bus Incident

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!