Category: Meetings

January 3rd City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Blog notes, Meetings

Happy New Year! And happy one-year-of-blogging to me! Today we have the Jan 3rd city council meeting, and then I’ve got some good old self-reflections on the past year for you.

City Council business first

It was a short meeting, only two hours long. Partly because the agenda was short, but partly also because there’s much less discussion without Max Baker there. I think this is mixed.  Max probably gummed up the works overmuch at times. But the danger is that too much discussion happens behind closed doors, and the public only sees the final vote. It gives the appearance that Council is rubber-stamping whatever comes along.  

I do not exactly think that Council is rubber-stamping every item.  Some items do get some discussion. And not every item needs to be discussed.  However, without discussion, the context of a vote is opaque.  On complicated topics where no one says much, it’s very hard to tell the difference between a good vote and a bad vote.

Hours 0:00-1:01: In which we see very little discussion in two rezoning cases.

Hours 1:01-2:10: Several small items, plus the Mano Amiga petition against the SMPD meet-and-confer agreement.

Onto the self-reflection

It’s been one year since I went public with this site!  I am not frequently asked anything, but I thought it might be fun to make up some FAQs.

1. Who am I?

I promise you that when my identity (inevitably, eventually) gets discovered, it will be a giant letdown. I am incredibly boring, and the suspense is way more interesting than my actual dumb self.

2. Why am I doing this?

A long time ago, I heard Diane Wassenich talking about how she made an effort to attend every city council meeting and every P&Z meeting.  She said something like, “Well, someone needs to be watching them.”  I really admired that sentiment, that at least one person should consistently be watching. The thought stuck with me.  I noticed that there was a vacuum when she retired.

However, I’m not a social person who wants to be a part of a lot of organizations. So if I just watched all the P&Z and council meetings, the knowledge would then just die with me.  This blog is a substitute for all the conversations I’d have, if I liked having conversations. 

3. How many readers do I have?

It’s pretty tiny. There seem to be about 30-40 of you that turn out regularly. One thing that I’m particularly pleased with is that most of you all seem to actually read the entire thing.  My stats show me both the number of readers and the number of views. So, for example, on days when I post 4 links, the number of views tends to be close to 4x the number of readers. I’m humbled that this small-but-loyal group truly reads the whole, excruciating thing.

(I did get a small bump from people finding election posts via google. Most of you come over from Facebook, though.)

I’m playing a long game.  I figure that having the ear of 30-40 progressive, engaged community members in San Marcos is actually a really big deal, because you all are likely to turn up to events and have the conversations and actually make change happen.

4. What was my most popular post?

Oh my gawd: the time Shane Scott waved around a baggie of 3 oz of pot, I got 235 views. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

5. Are you planning on expanding the blog?

I really loathe self-promotion, so I haven’t mustered anything beyond posting links on Facebook and Twitter. If anyone has an idea that requires very little time, energy, and money from me, I’m open to it.

I’ve vaguely mused about covering Hays County Commission or the SMCISD school board, but I don’t really have any additional time to spare. This is kinda time-consuming as is.

Seriously, thank you to all of you who read this thing. You make it worth writing. Cheers to 2023.

December 14th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Season’s greetings! It’s the last meeting of the year.  (Wednesday council meetings are hard. I missed having the extra day to write this all up.)

Let’s do this!

Hours 0:00-2:04: Electric cabs downtown! And the dumb curfew, for the third meeting in a row, finally passes.

Hours 2:04-2:40: The Cotton Center is going to maybe donate 600 acres to the SMART Terminal. We take a beat to figure out what these things are. Plus some money to nonprofits.

Hours 2:50-3:40: In which we discuss campaign finance, and whether councilmembers want the Ethics Review Committee double-checking their disclosures.

And that’s a wrap! 2022 is on the books. See you back here in January!

December 6th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Welcome back! It’s been an entire Sights & Sounds of San Marcos, plus Thanksgiving, since you were last here!

Exciting news:

Clickers are back! That’s right. Now all councilmembers have to vote at the same time, so they can’t cheat off each other and game their vote.

Let’s dive in:

Hours 0:00-1:40: In which we revisit the little plot of land behind Embassy Suites.

Hours 1:40-3:30: The curfew ordinance takes center stage. This is the big topic of the night.

Hours 3:30- 4:42: In which we reallocate some unspent Covid money.

This coming Wednesday – December 14th – is the last council meeting of the year. That’s right – you get two consecutive weeks of my drivel this month. And then 2022 will be on the books!

November 15th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

This week we talk about curfews and stray cats. It’s Max Baker’s last meeting, sadly. (My post-election thoughts can be found here.)

It’s a relatively short meeting. Jude Prather is absent, and Shane Scott goes home sick early on. So a lot of items get postponed until they’ve got a full house again.

Hours 0:00-2:45: In which I get fired up about curfews. They’re largely bullshit.

Hours 2:45-4:00: The cats and dogs ordinance is back up again.

See you next time, everybody. Stay warm.

October 18th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

What a short meeting! Just the cutest, tiniest thing you ever did see.  Let’s go!

Hours 0:00 – 0:55: A quick explainer on Mystic Canyon, and EDSM and GSMP get disentangled.

Hours 0:55 – 1:05: In which we rename the Sculpture Garden, and we get excited about renaming all the other alleys in town.

Hours 1:05 – 1:26, plus the workshop: In which we take a field trip to the Edwards Aquifer, and learn all about purple pipe.

It was not even 90 minutes long!

So listen: early voting starts tomorrow. Here’s all the Hays County info on when and where to vote. Here’s my (mostly unhelpful) voting guide for city council elections.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone interested in this blog doesn’t already vote regularly. Still, make sure all your punk friends and family go do their civic duty, too.

October 3rd City Council meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

It was a relatively short meeting this week. Enjoy!

Hour 1: In which we dive deep into La Cima. We also visit Blanco Gardens and El Centro.

Hour 2: Campaign finance limits, noise ordinances and binge drinking, and a discussion on the 3-month eviction notice.

Bonus Council Workshop: Might there be a new City Hall, someday? Have some old-timey photos of San Marcos from the mid-Two Thousand and Aughts.

I never did get around to fixing the errors I made in the post about the candidates last time. I still intend to do it, though.

This coming week, I’m going to write up my thoughts from the debate, and also I’ve got the recording from when candidates talked to the Hays County Democrats, so I’ll add in my impressions from that.

September 20th City Council meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Along with your regularly-scheduled city council meeting rundown, I’ve also started the election-talk.

Early Thoughts on the Candidates. These are my biased opinions on each candidate, before hearing anyone’s speeches or platforms. Enjoy.

Hours 0:00-2:00: In which we finally lay this budget to rest.

Hours 2:00-3:00: Some new developments, some new statues. Did you know we have a sculpture garden?

Hours 3:00-4:10: Boyhood Alley hijinks, and I fret about Sessom Creek being developed.

And that’s a wrap! 10-4, good buddy.

September 9th Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

BUDGET TIME! Who’s a good budget? Yes you are!

Hours 0:00-3:44: Let’s talk about budgets for three hours.
– Property Taxes in their dirty glory
– What would we do with $700K extra in the budget?
– Chief Stephens and Chief Standridge both make their cases

Hours: 3:44-4:30: In which we discuss the development behind the outlet mall, the Blanco Vista flood mitigation project, and the new downtown fire station

Hours 4:30-5:10: It’s time for new contracts for SMPD. Mano Amiga declares war.

The League of Women Voters debate will be on October 11th. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re still only over zoom, which is disappointing. I miss the frisson of live debates.

I am planning on a rundown of my opinions of candidates, but I’ll wait till the election is closer.

August 16th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Election season is coming up! Here are the candidates so far:

Mayor: Jane Hughson is facing John Thomaides, the former mayor.

City Council Place 1: Max Baker vs Matt Mendoza

City Council Place 2: Saul Gonzalez vs Adam Arndt

Last day to file is Monday. I will be posting on the specifics of these candidates, but not right now.  Stay tuned!

However: San Marcos City Council elections are really problematic.  I decided this deserved its own post. Enjoy.

Onto the City Council meeting!

Hours 0:00 – 0:30ish: Citizen Comment Period. Let’s spend some time talking about the community in Redwood/Rancho Vista.

Hours 0:30-3:00: A small rezoning case that I was not very interested in, and city council pay raises.

Hours 3:00-3:50: Cops in schools, and what on earth is Shane Scott waving around?!

Hours 3:50-6:00: The Lobbying Ordinance dies a frustrating, fishy death. Also Boyhood Alley, and some smaller odds & ends.

Two final thoughts:

  1. Almost every single vote taken this evening was Max Baker & Alyssa Garza against the other five councilmembers. This is why we need a progressive coalition. They can’t go it alone.

    Last year, Jude Prather was elected over Zach Sambrano, and Mark Gleason was elected over Markeymoore. [Update: Jude v. Markeymoore, Zach v. Gleason. Correction from Mark Rockeymore in the comments.] If Zach and Markeymoore were on the council, we’d have a lobbying ordinance right now. We need to build a progressive coalition. It doesn’t work to consistently have two voices losing to five voices every night.

    2. Mark Gleason’s conservative grandstanding is sucking the life force out of me. Every single item, he rambles on, in his particular brand of Aw Shucks Humble Everyman, Who Just Loves Cops and Capitalism.  I just get weary of it.

    (To be fair, Max Baker has equally many rants, but I more often agree with him.)

August 2nd City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Oy, Batman, a seven hour meeting?

First, a little housekeeping. I’ve got some ideas for posts that I’m thinking about putting together as running features. 

Possibilities:
1. A list of city council topics from the past year that got introduced, and then were put on hold, and never came back.  It’s so easy to forget about unfinished business – I want to keep track of it.

2. A list of the important things that Council did over the past year (both good and bad), and how councilmembers voted.  Seems useful for election season!

3. A list of projects that Council approved to get built, and now move into the mushy limbo phase where we can’t remember or keep track of what’s been approved.


That last one is hard. Like, how exactly would something ever move off the list, unless you drive by in 2032 and notice it was finally built? How do you keep a list like this from just being an inexorable slog of addresses on little roads in weird far-flung sprawling areas? Should it be organized by chronology or part of town? The more I think about it, the more exhausting it seems.  I dunno.

I picture updating these lists once or twice a year. (Sure would’ve been nice if I’d thought to do this while Council was on vacation!) 

Onto last Tuesday’s meeting!

Hour 0:00 – 1:00: Citizen Comment

Hour 1:00 – 5:00: Four long hours of zoning cases.  Don’t worry, I boiled it down to four hours of reading about zoning cases.

Hours 5:00 – 7:30: You’ll come for the pot, but you’ll stay for the abortions! (I actually think these are both serious, despite the flippant tagline.) Plus city council raises and a new city park.

Just saying: the council adjourned at 1:30 am. Before the 6 pm council meeting, they held a city council workshop starting at 3 pm. That means city council sat in those seats, more or less, for 10.5 hours.  What on earth. 

Why not cap city council meetings at 3 hours, and adjourn until Wednesday, and then put in 3 more hours? Or meet weekly?  All I’m saying is that every city has a city council, but not every city council meets for seven hours at a time.