Category: Meetings

September 21st City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The big ticket item of the day was clearly Item 44: Hold discussion on not allowing the homeless to camp out or panhandle in San Marcos or in ETJ.  This was brought by Commissioner Scott, who came off looking pretty terrible.

First of all, nearly 20 people turned out to speak forcefully against this item.  They basically all said some version of, “Are you crazy? We’re trying to help homeless people gain access to social services and get out of this vicious cycle, and you’re trying to arrest them for existing. That is cruel and exacerbates all the problems these people face already.”  (Especially since a criminal record can make you ineligible for some of the housing programs, so it can directly sabotage the efforts towards transitional housing.)  And so on.

However, there was one speaker in favor: Gre/en Guy Recycling. I was kinda dismayed, because I like to see them as a progressive ally. They plainly believe that much of the property damage and vandalism they deal with is from the homeless community.

Sidenote: Clearly we are in transition from saying “homeless” to “houseless” but no one has explained why. Maybe there’s a good reason?  Idk.

The item came up for discussion roughly three hours into the meeting. Commissioner Scott spoke first. Annnnnd ….he backpedaled so hard that he nearly bulldozed his way right out of the council chambers, reverse-Kool-aid-man style.   I cannot do his mumbo-jumbo justice, but it roughly went: “Homelessness is a huge problem and we need to think outside of the box! Our current strategies aren’t working! We need a new plan.  I don’t know, maybe some sort of dormitory? Maybe some federal funding? It’s too big for one city. Have I said that we need to think outside the box yet?”

Of course, the problem is that Scott has no idea what’s actually in the box of tools for dealing with homelessness. We don’t need to think outside the box. We need to fund the solutions that are documented to work.

Furthermore, there is already an October 4th work session scheduled, where council will talk through different models for addressing homelessness, and decide how to direct the $400K from the American Rescue Funds. So the idea that Scott put “ban camps and panhandling” on the agenda in order to begin a conversation about building transitional housing is just disingenuous bullshit at its finest.  Truly a “Shane Scott, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining” moment. 

Furthermore, there is a city council committee on homelessness. It’s chaired by Councilmember Derrick, and Councilmembers Garza and Gonzalez are also on it. 

If you want to hear the full ridiculousness of the about-face, it starts at 3:13:59 on the video. I can’t do it justice.

Anyway, at that point, all the allies of homeless people – Commissioner Baker, Garza, Derrick, and Hughson – said all the normal things.  Baker called for staff and the PD to deprioritize citing and arresting homeless people.

Chief Dandridge said that he’d like to draw a distinction between citations for homeless camps and those for solicitation, since getting out into the I-35 lanes of traffic is a safety issue to both the panhandler and the drivers. He also said that so far in 2021, there have been 88 calls for service involving homeless people and only 3 arrests. Two arrests were for outstanding warrants and one for public intoxication.  So they’re not in the habit of arresting homeless people.  There have been six citations for panhandling, but that includes church groups from Austin who come down and panhandle.  So he provides evidence that the PD doesn’t automatically escalate things, and he outlined the steps that get taken before a citation would be issued.

Commissioners Gleason, Scott, and Gonzalez all say things along the lines of how much they trust and admire the police and how they don’t want to get in their way, but of COURSE they also don’t want to see anyone arrested. Of course.

In sum: “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Nothing comes of this whole thing. The October 4th work session was already on the books. If anything, this mobilized the network of advocates to be on high alert and to provide data, resources, and information to shape the conversation during the October 4th session.

September 7th City Council Meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The other two most-important items are Items 14 and 34.

Item 14: Interlocal Agreement with SMCISD on School Resource Officers

Commissioner Baker has a list of concerns about SROs.

  • They are reassigned to different schools for failure to do their job, instead of being removed as SROs all together
  • While training is required to be an SRO, officers get placed on campuses that are not trained as SROs
  • There is language about how SROs will “promote the concept of punishment for criminal acts”. How is this useful in our schools? Some people extend this concept to undocumented community members. This is destructive.
  • “Increase students’ knowledge and respect of the law” – what about when officers aren’t due that respect?
  • May we identify the funding sources of this study?
  • Why are we putting protection of property above protection of students?
  • Why aren’t we surveying students to see how the officers are doing and if they feel safer?
  • We put a pro-SRO video on YouTube featuring an officer whose actions have raised concerns.

Commissioner Derrick weighs in with points about SROs needing mental health training. She’s had particularly negative eperienc

Broadly, I agree with all of Baker’s points. However: Chief Dandridge is consistently great when he talks to City Council. I don’t know what he’s like on the job, and I know that there are community members who are frustrated with our police. All I am saying is that Dandridge’s performance at council meetings is very good. So far, this is what I’ve seen:

  • He generally does not respond adversarily to aggressive questions from Baker.
  • He often agrees partially or completely.
  • He backs up his statements with information and data,
  • He admits when he doesn’t know something, and offers to find the information.
  • He does not offer pat solutions and does not reduce the complexity of issues.

Again, maybe he’s a jerk on the force! I don’t know! But he’s good at council meetings.

Chief Dandridge responds to all of these points, one by one. On the questions about statistics and data, he pledges to write a memorandum compiling his data and that he will send it out to council. He lists the classes that the SROs are trained in. It includes restorative justice, mental health, developmental psychology, suicide prevention, and many more. He doesn’t try to dispute Baker’s points per se, but provides context for how these things play out in San Marcos. And he’s supportive of ideas like surveying students.

In the end, they vote to postpone and have work session. So nothing is resolved here, but I’m glad to see these issues discussed.

Item 34: Greater San Marcos Partnership, GSMP

GSMP is a pro-business organization that works across the entire county to bring business in and support existing businesses. San Marcos kicks in $400k/year. Several issues are raised:

Does GSMP make life better for San Marcos residents? Commissioner Baker wants GSMP to conduct a survey to quantify the impact of GSMP on San Marcos residents.

Mayor Hughson seems rather obtuse on this one, repeating several times that San Marcos already conducts a detailed quality of life survey and there is no need for GSMP to duplicate this. The difference is that the city survey is attempting to ascertain the benefits brought by the city, and the GSMP survey would attempt to measure benefits brought by GSMP. One does not substitute for the other.

Amendment for a mandatory survey passes, 4-3.
In favor: Derrick, Gonzalez, Garza, and Baker
Opposed: Hughson, Scott, Gleason

Next issue up is the Environmental Social Grievance reports, or ESG. These are third party reports compiled on the externalities that a business imposes on the community. City Council has asked for information from GSMP on wages, environmental impact, and other externalities. GSMP says that for $10K, they’ll buy an ESG from a third party company.

Baker would like to read one before agreeing that this suffices. But there isn’t one to read, because they cost money and they’re proprietary. It’s a very frustrating business-y solution. “We’ve contracted out with a niche business, and obviously they aren’t motivated by the public good. What’s the problem?” It’s not exactly corrupt, but it’s annoying and full of middlemen.

Baker moves to postpone until they can see a sample ESG report and see if it is satisfactory, but the motion fails.

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

Councilmember Derrick makes an amendment to add mental health providers as a targeted industry. This passes 6-1, with Scott voting no, like a dillweed.

A representative speaks up about how intractable the problem of attracting mental health providers is. He promises that they’ll target, but not that they’ll be successful.

This last part is the BEST. Now, Councilmember Baker has been furious since he was at the GSMP Summit last spring, and nobody was wearing masks. Baker makes an amendment to the agreement that the GSMP will have to follow CDC guidelines on safety.

This passes 5-2:
For: Mayor Hughson, Derrick, Garza, Gonzalez, and Baker
Opposed: Just Gleason and Scott.

The whole discussion takes FOREVER, but the poetic justice of Max getting to force GSMP to wear masks is so sweet and worth every last bit.

(Finally, the actual agreement with GSMP passes unanimously.)

September 7th City Council Meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

This was a big, important meeting. Here are the items I’m categorizing as Top Tier Importance:

  • The 21-22 budget
  • Rate increases for various utilities and setting the property tax rate for the next year
  • School Resource Officers
  • GSMP

I’ll start tackling these, and split it into separate posts if need be.

As an aside: this meeting ran until 1:05 AM on Wednesday morning. Wouldn’t it be nice if they adjourned at 10 pm, and reconvened on Wednesday evening for the last three hours? A well-rested councilmember is a happy councilmember, maybe?

  1. Item 21: Proposed Fiscal Year 21-22 Budget

The budget is one of these items which is very difficult for me to weigh in on and analyze. I don’t have years experience to compare this to. I did not watch the workshop in August where they sliced and diced it more finely.  So for now, I’m mostly observing and not analyzing.  The total city budget is $259 million.

There not many substantial questions. Shall we make the budget available to the public in infographic form?   Should departments notify council for budget adjustments? Sure, sure. Controversial details were hashed out already.  Aside from one: there are a number of rate increases which will be voted on in the next few items, however.

2. Items 22-25: Rate hikes for waterwastewater, electric, drainage, and solid waste.

Several rate increases for the utility funds: water, electric,  drainage utility solid waste. All votes passed the hikes with a 4-3 vote, with Commissioners Scott, Garza, and Gonzalez voting against the hikes.

The total rates average $100/year increase per household. Commissioner Scott made the case that this is a pandemic year and we should wait and double the rate increase next year. Gleason sensibly points out that these projects desperately need funding. Mayor Hughson also pointed out that saving the hike for a year and having to hit households with a doubly large hike isn’t necessarily best for anyone, either.

In my opinion, this is an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” situation. Keep your utilities maintained and running smoothly, lest ye run up a boatload of catastrophic expenses when a disaster strikes.

Of course I’m sympathetic to people in poverty being asked to contribute an extra $10/month. I would much prefer it if we had a progressive tax code instead of regressive one. But with utilities, it is scaled by usage, and it is worthwhile to incentivize reduction of water and electricity. Let’s keep utilities solvent via rate hikes, and then be generous with a social safety net. (Granted, we are depressingly stingy with the social safety net. But still. This is not the place to make up the difference.)

Item 26: Overall property tax rate for the coming year.

So, this is a bit math-heavy. Let’s see if I can keep it simple. The state of Texas caps how much a city can raise it’s property tax rate. By that, our upper bound tax rate is $0.7554 per $100 of property value. We are staying well below that, no worries.

Next up is the No New Revenue rate, where the city brings in the same amount as last year. This is set at $0.603 per $100. Now, the city has a bunch of properties that weren’t taxed last year. Those new properties will bring in $1.4 million under this tax rate, and so all existing properties actually get a tax break, which totals about $300K less than last year.

Finally there’s a penny deduction, which is discussed at length. Can we run the city on a tax rate of $0.593, instead of $0.603? On average, this will save each household $17. It costs the city about $600K to drop down.

They’ve prepared both a $0.593 and a $0.603 budget. So what gets cut? Six new positions for the police department. The city tells us that the extra $600K will pay for three traffic officers and three 911 dispatchers. So there’s the rub: lower taxes or fund the police? (As a dedicated lefty, I took a moment to relish the sheer poetry of making conservative commissioners pick between these choices.)

Commissioner Gleason was the first to wring his hands over this. He tries to find the $600K out of the CIP budget, but those projects aren’t actually paid for out of the current year, and so next year’s budget doesn’t do us any good right now. Commissioner Gonzalez tries to raid development impact fees, but that also can’t be redistributed for this use.

Commissioner Scott suggests that we use traffic ticket revenue, which pisses me off. That is exactly the kind of counter-incentive that leads to aggressive over-policing of minority communities. (Commissioner Baker makes that point in rebuttal.)

Chief Dandridge is invited to weigh in. I find him to be measured and thoughtful at these meetings. He says that we have 3200 car crashes per year, and a high number of young drivers, and every crash is time-consuming. Most cities have dedicated traffic officers to deal with accidents. As to the 911 dispatchers, we are covering a larger area than just the city and the staffing hasn’t increased since 2013, but our calls have gone up a lot.

Commissioner Baker weighs in. He’s okay with the 911 dispatchers but questions the need for more police officers, and points out that this is not the best way to reduce car crashes. He advocates for redesigning dangerous intersections and implementing a Slow Streets project, where streets are designed in a way that drivers automatically reduce their speed. (I am also a fan of these solutions.)

Commissioner Gleason again wrings his hand over this choice: Safety! But lower taxes! But safety! But lower taxes! You can see the smoke coming out his ears.

Commissioner Derrick speaks up. She agrees with Baker on the alternate solutions for safety, but points out that those take years, and we need to provide health, safety, and welfare now. (This is basically where I land, too. Traffic cops can be abusive or they can be a benefit to society. I don’t know which they will be, but the solution is not necessarily not to have officers available for car crashes.)

Finally it’s time. Mayor Hughson makes a motion to lower the tax rate to $0.593 …and no one seconds it! I was not expecting that! Exciting times.

So they vote on the original proposal of $0.603, which would fund the traffic cops and dispatchers.

For: Baker, Derrick, Gonzalez, Gleason, and Mayor Hughson.
Against: Garza, Scott.

……..

Let’s stop here, and we can save SROs and GSMP for the next post.

August 17th City Council meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Third most interesting item:

Item 20: Project Robot! Great name, right? Project Robot is a three year property tax break that we’re giving to a giant laundry service that will go in next to the new Amazon facility, on the north side of town. It sounds like it’s mass laundering of hotel sheets and towels.

A lot of attention was paid to requiring the facility to maintain its Clean Green standing for ten years. This is good, but I am not an environmental engineer and can’t really weigh in on what’s greenwashing and what’s substantial.

Supposedly the facility will create 100 jobs at average salary of $44k, with full benefits from day 1. This sound suspect. To me, that sounds like 90 jobs at $25K and ten jobs at $500K. “Average” is not necessarily what you want to know about that situation.

What else was discussed?

  • Universal utility forgiveness passed unanimously, although Commissioner Derrick allowed herself a small “SURE I GUESS” through gritted teeth. Total price tag comes in at $581K.

(There was a hilariously petty exchange between Commissioner Scott and Mayor Hughson that basically descended into “am not” “are too”, like my kids do, over whether or not it is a sure thing that this won’t affect our budget score. Technically the bickering when “We’ll be fine” “We don’t know that” “I know that” “We’ll see” ad nauseum. I enjoyed it immensely.)

  • 390 acres of Whisper South were annexed, with only Commissioner Baker dissenting. There was no discussion and I have no opinion.
  • Electric Cab Bus Proposal was postponed for a month. I grokked that the entire council is mad about an extremely shitty proposal that was put forward, although I don’t know what went wrong. The proposers have a month to fix it, or they will go back to the pool of proposals to reassess.
  • Max tax rate was set, although the actual tax rate will come under that.
  • Some vacancies were filled. Amy Meeks will join P&Z.
  • Spear guns will come back around as an ordinance
  • P&Z and Council will be required to undergo CodeSMTX trainings

And while there were some other fiddly details, I’m declaring that to be a wrap! Thanks, folks, and see you in September!

August 17th City Council meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Miracle of miracles, this week’s meeting was over by 10 pm! I watched the whole thing in one setting! (I was remiss and failed to post a Previewing the Agenda post.) Let’s dive in!

I’ll say that the most significant items are Item 1 and Item 30, taken together.

Both of these are focused on Covid. Item 1 was a local Covid update, given by the newly hired Emergency Response Coordinator, Rob Finch. It was good to see him up and running in that capacity. He did a great job painting a dire picture of our current Delta surge.

Item 30 was a plea from the Christus Hospital (ie formerly CTMC) for $500K to help them hire nurses during this surge. We currently have exceeded our ICU beds and have ICU patients in the PICU, but so does everyone else regionally (although it fluctuates constantly.) The nursing burnout and shortstaffing sounded dreadful, and in addition nurses can now command significant salaries nationwide, and it all combined with the current surge to put the hospital in this desperate position. The $500K is a stopgap while the hospital pursues other funding from the state and county and wherever else.

The whole thing was very compelling and all the commissioners were very compassionate.  The $500K comes from other line items on the American Rescue Funds, and those projects will see part of their funding deferred (but not eliminated) until the next $9 million.

Highlights include Commissioner Scott asking two questions: does the hospital require its staff to be vaccinated? and does the hospital provide alternative medicines, like this Ivermectin stuff his friend got from his doctor? It healed him very quickly.

The representative from the hospital neatly disposed of both of these questions. For the first, he basically said, “We are strongly pro-vaccine but also in a staffing shortage, and we can’t afford to pit these ideals against each other. We’re working with a combination of incentives and encouragements and education campaigns.” For the latter, he said, “I am not a doctor, but we’re totally happy to use all scientifically supported therapies.” (Again, I paraphrase.)

Note: the Ivermectin stuff is the voodoo horse pills, I believe. So maybe his friend is a horse.

Christus guy: 2, Commissioner Scott: 0.

Item 2 gets my vote for next-most-significant:  TxDOT presentation on I-35 and SH 123.

Oh god, this will be a nightmare. TxDOT will be destroying and rebuilding various parts of I-35 from now until 2025. As my grandmother advised, multiply all time estimates by 3, and so we should be in a sorry state all the way until 2033.

The first chunk is focused on the access roads. Those will be closed down (allegedly) for up to 18 months, in various reconfigurations. And I’ll be damned if the Southbound access road wasn’t partially closed this morning! Fast work, TxDOT.

During this time, the northbound access bridge over the river will be raised to the same level as I-35, so that it won’t flood when the river floods. As a consequence, the underpass at River Road will be eliminated. (More on that in a moment.)

They’re also switching the on-ramps and exit-ramps. The idea is that if you have an on-ramp closely followed by an off-ramp, then the merging and lane-changing happens on the highway. Whereas if you have an off-ramp closely followed by an on-ramp, then the merging and jockeying for position happens on the access road.

In my opinion, this is lame. Or at least this location is not a great use of that principle. The problem is that the intersections under I-35 are in very close proximity, and each light gets an on-ramp and an off-ramp. So the ramps are all spaced evenly and there’s no clear “close pairing” of on-ramps and off-ramps. It just alternates. Merging and jockeying happens in both the highway and access road, in an alternating pattern. And so if you switch the ramps, you’re spending a whole lot of money just to shift the alternating pattern along by one unit.

The next chunk will be widening the I-35 main lanes themselves, including the bridge over SH123. And then at the end, they’re going to tinker with SH123 itself. The whole thing sounds like a 4-12 year headache. I feel sorry for myself.

The most controversial part is the closure of the underpass at River Road, and how that disconnects Blanco Gardens from the other half of the city. Commissioner Gleason lives in that neighborhood and is furious that TxDOT has decided to do this.

The underpass itself will be converted to bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, which actually sounds very lovely, but Gleason is 100% right about the negative impact on the neighborhood.

I understand that the access road will be lifted up, and therefore can’t connect with the underpass anymore. What I don’t understand is why the underpass can’t just go under the access road and connect with River Road? It can be a thoroughfare without involving I-35.

(I assume the answer is because TxDOT doesn’t actually care, and that would be more expensive.)

August 3rd City Council Meeting, (Part 4)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Anything else of note?

  • Some housing developments are moving forward:
    • a block of condominiums buried back by the Hays County Government Center. Good location – infill without threatening any neighborhoods. Close to schools, parks, and businesses. The drawback is that it’s near Purgatory Creek, and it’s not great to develop that close to it, but the entire plat is already mostly developed. There was some conversation about making sure that they do an archeological survey first, which is also good.
    • More on that Whisper Tract, northeast of town. That whole area is a little bit sprawl-y for my tastes, but at least it’s not environmentally sensitive.
  • The funding opportunities that were discussed in July were finalized. Important but not controversial
  • Mr. Exotic’s Steakhouse. Oh lord, these guys. Here is my best speculation: a couple dudes said, “We want to open a nightclub on the square! But we’ll never get permits. Let’s open as a restaurant and then run it like a bar!”
    “Yes, yes, this will be great!” they all congratulated themselves.
    “We need a name that straddles both a plausible restaurant and a plausible nightclub. How about Mr. Exotic’s?”
    “yes, yes, great! It can masquerade as an exotic game steakhouse.”

    So they trotted off for an alcohol CUP to P&Z, where they got swatted down HARD. The kitchen was way too small to be a restaurant, the menu was laughable, they’d gotten in trouble for starting renovations on a historical building without work permits, and then they’d violated the stop work orders and gotten busted doing so.

    Now they were appealing the decision to Council. They came, quite contrite, apologetic and asked for more time to get their act together. Commissioner Derrick pointed out that the one dude who now claimed to live in San Marcos was staying at a short-term rental with a long history of disturbing the peace. It seems he owns the rental, but has been a crappy landlord?

    In my opinion, this was all the flimsiest of facades. “Oh, we have to play hangdog to get the alcohol permit? Look at our sad, sad faces!”

    A guy from Code Enforcement basically said these guys were truly unusual in how many violations they’d racked up in short order.

    Commissioner Scott went on the dumbest of rants, first accusing the Code Enforcement guy of having an axe to grind, and then about how the people need restaurant choices! A steakhouse would be great on the square! (Yes, but if you think this will actually result in a steakhouse, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.)

    It was pointed out that you can run a steakhouse without a CUP. Have it be BYOB for a year, and then they can re-apply.

    In the end, the vote to postpone passed.
    In favor: Scott, Gleason, Garza, and Hughson
    Opposed: Baker, Gonzalez, and Derrick

    Garza did her extreme naivete thing, where she appeared to genuinely feel that both Derrick and Scott were equally sincere in their rants.

    So this item will come back around in another month or so. Amusing but ultimately doomed and not important, in my opinion.
  • A discussion on raises for four city employees, who were individually named. I guess these four are hired directly by council. Commissioner Baker sparked a long discussion by asking for reports on their SMART outcomes from the year before.

    Hughson was literally like, “I’ve never heard this acronym before and I’m confused and suspicious.”

    The discussion was very unclear to me: did they set these goals only in May 2021, or did they set goals both in May 2020 and in May 2021? Baker’s request to see outcomes only makes sense if there were SMART goals set in May 2020, which could then be measured, etc, a year later. But Hughson et al were clearly acting like they were brand new to this topic and hadn’t heard these terms before, and were acting like it Baker was proposing to evaluate the employees on their brand new goals. The whole thing was a mess.

    Finally they settled on having a workshop to explain what SMART goals are. Hughson seriously needs this – she was saying things like, “It’s not fair to make them accountable for measurable goals that they don’t have control over! If they say they’re going to process 20 applications and then 10 come in, that’s not THEIR fault!” (To be explicit, that would never be a SMART goal. You’d make it something like, “If there are fewer than 10 applications in a week, they will be processed within 7 days.” Or whatever.)
  • A discussion on reducing the number of false alarms for residents before fines kicked in. To be clear, this has nothing to do with 911 calls, which was my concern. This is home alarm systems that automatically call the police when they go off. Furthermore, it was just aligning a discrepancy between two ordinances. Truly nbd.
  • Mexican-American and Indigenous Heritage and Cultural District was postponed.
  • The Dunbar School Building. This is the small, currently shuttered building behind the Dunbar building. It is very old, and served as the African-American school historically. Clearly it should be renovated and given its proper historical accolades.

    At some point, a city form implied that it might be converted into bathrooms. The city maintains that this was a straight up clerical error. It could be, or it could have been someone who was ignorant, or racist, or both, and sincerely thought it was a great location for bathrooms for the playground.

    There was a heartfelt letter from a citizen whose name I recognized but couldn’t quite make out, who was deeply offended by the implication of converting the building to bathrooms. She is a long-standing member of the African-American community, I believe, and likely either attended or knew people who attended the school.

    City council members, for their part, are falling all over themselves trying to really, really make sure that NOWHERE is the suggestion that it should be bathrooms. The error has been long since corrected, and they are GRAVELY sorry for the mix-up.

    LMC, for her part, is fanning the flames on this, and citing the issue in nearly every comment she gives, which is generally ~3-5 per meeting.

    Anyway: There was actually an agenda item on the Dunbar School Building. Everyone enthusiastically voted to support the restoration of the building.

And that’s a wrap! The August 3rd meeting is on the books!

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!