Category: Uncategorized

Item 15:  San Marcos puts $500K from the General Fund towards nonprofits. The Human Services Advisory Board recommends how it gets spent. Things did not go smoothly this year.

During Citizen Comment, representatives from the Hays County Women’s Shelter, Greater San Marcos Youth Partnership, and one other (I missed the name), all spoke up about the funding process. The procedure was new, they got less money than before, and the new process is problematic. In addition, each year, the money is getting spread more thinly across more and more organizations.

It sounds like the Advisory Board put a lot of effort into trying to rate each organization and be fair.  They had a rubric, came up with average ratings and ranked the organizations. They decided that the top 15 would get funded at 55% and the rest at 20% as a baseline, and then they tweaked some individual organizations from there.  But within each organization, this amount ended up seeming arbitrary and inconsistent. Some organizations got way less than they used to.

Here’s the thing: everyone is acting in good faith, and trying to get money to these nonprofits.  (The process has morphed over the past 3-5 years, it sounds like.)

Jane Hughson handled it wisely. She basically said, “It’s been years since Council gave direction to the committee. This is our fault for not issuing clear instructions.”

She moved to postpone it to January, and then have Council figure out clear instructions, and re-do the allocations.  Everyone agreed.

Way later, during Q&A, Jane added some other details:  First off, San Marcos is a little unusual to put General Fund money towards nonprofits. Similar Texas cities just include this in with their CBDG money. So good on us, for taking care of each other in our community. Second, the original plan was that this fund was supposed to scale up as the city grew.  It was supposed to be 2% of the budget eventually. But it hasn’t grown in a long time, and it’s probably time for it to do so.

…

Item 17: Remove 660 acres from the Cotton Center and make it available for the SMART Terminal.

First, what on earth is the Cotton Center?!  I guess it got approved in 2016.

It’s supposed to be this: 

Ok, so it’s everything under the sun. Where is this gigantic thing with four schools and 8,000 housing units supposed to live?

I think it’s here:

That is my best guess.

This got approved back in 2016.  This is how major things fly under the radar.

Okay, what is the SMART Terminal?

SMART Terminal was approved in 2019. It’s here:

Yellow is the SMART Terminal, nestled along the railroad tracks. The blue thing is the Cotton Center – that’s shape I tried to draw above.  (The little pink trapezoid is Katerra. I think Katerra is a specific business that was going to be part of the SMART Terminal.)

What is the SMART Terminal, anyway?  I read through the presentation and it’s very handwavey on what it actually is.  Like a regular terminal, but smarter!  (Clearly it has something to do with the proximity of railroad and airport, and smartness.)

Jane Hughson said that the SMART Terminal got dropped for awhile, and then sold to someone new, and so now it’s back.

So, which 660 acres do they want to take from the Cotton Center and add to the SMART Terminal? There’s no map anywhere I can find! There’s this vague map of the Cotton Center:

so my best guess is that they’re removing a perfect, circular red ring and leaving a bunch of disjointed chunks. I have no idea.

Is this a good idea?  San Marcos River Foundation says hard no.  Here is their issue:

The Cotton Center has a bunch of 100 year floodplain, and some dry creek beds running through it. 

And here’s the corresponding water map of the SMART Terminal:

I believe that’s the San Marcos river at the bottom, running along the south side of Highway 80.  So this is all draining into the river and potentially increasing flooding.

Council decided to send it to committee.  Everyone acted like this was the beginning of the negotiation, and not the end of the negotiation, and that they’d be sure to talk about things like flooding, and impervious cover, and industrial run-off into the river.  Hopefully that all comes true.

Election day is Tuesday! Here are my bland, room-temperature recommendations and here is where you can go vote, if you haven’t done so yet.

….

Onto last Tuesday’s meeting, which was extremely packed and dense.  There was a lot going on this night.

Hours 0:00 – 2:54: First, an introduction to Pick-a-Pet. Then a big issue: flood victims from 2015 need homes. Sunset Acres has insanely awful sewage and drainage problems. There is a head on collision between these two issues.

Hours 2:54 – 4:00: In which Max gets councilmembers to go on record with their position on every progressive issue you’ve ever considered.

Hours 4:00-5:08: We finally tackle the Pick-a-Pet problem. Are we willing to ban sourcing from puppy mills?

Hours 5:08-5:30: A light item! Finally! What kind of welcome sign says Welcome to San Marcos in the most welcoming manner?

That’s all we got! Make sure your derelict friends and family all show up at the ballot box on Tuesday!

This week’s council meeting was relatively short and sweet.  

But first: if you live in the yellow district below, lucky you! You are eligible to vote for Gabrielle Moore for SMCISD school board, starting Monday.

She is progressive and thorough and smart.  Go vote for Gabrielle Moore for School Board! 

Here’s a zoomed in version of District 4:

Listen: This is the SMCISD school board election. Barely anyone turns out for these things, so your vote counts extra hard. 

I still remember this 2017 election:

You can find it here though.)

Early voting starts Monday and runs through May 3rd.  Election day is Saturday, May 7th. All the stuff about where and when to vote can be found at her site: https://www.votegabriellemoore.com/

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Anyway! Onto City Council matters.

Hour 1

Citizen comment and a community survey.

Hour 2

The proposed warehouse in Victory Gardens, and a brief-but-satisfying wrap-up to the water rates discussion.

Hour 3

In which I get sad about the monotonous sprawl of single family housing.

It really was a quite mild evening.

The most important stuff is the three month eviction delay and the housing discussion. The most entertaining stuff may be the Pauline Espinoza discussion.

Bonus Prequel: The Lobbying Ordinance Workshop

In which it looks like it will be restricted to developers only.

Hour 1

In which you get a brief primer on the Whisper PDD.

Hour 2

I’m at the Pauline Espinoza Community Hall.
I’m at the Pauline Espinoza Rec Hall.
I’m at the Combination Pauline Espinoza Community Rec Hall.

Hour 3-3.5

City Council Goes to Washington! And I get cross with Max Baker’s shenanigans.

Hour 3.5-4.5

The three month eviction delay, and ending the two-person cap on unrelated people living together. Be prepared for an extremely long discussion on affordable housing – I have a lot to say on the matter.

Watch it yourself here! Agenda here. The whole packet is here. Minutes will eventually be posted here.

Afternoon Workshop

I don’t know if I’ll actually listen to the whole thing. As far as P&Z appointments go:,

– Travis Kelsey kept his seat. Kelsey is one of the most development-averse members of P&Z.
– Gabi Moore did not. She is both progressive plus a realtor, meaning she is development-happier than even your friendly local marxist blogger.
– Two new appointees are David Case and Matthew Mendoza. I don’t know anything about either one of them, but I assume they’re more on the Kelsey side of things than the Moore side.

The upshot is that Council is trending NIMBY, unfortunately.

Council Meeting:

Hour 1

In which we have many citizens who speak about how much they love their pets.

Hours 2-3

In which we have a bunch of zoning cases. Let’s talk about the peculiar case of the extra little house proposed for Lockhart street, shall we?

Hour 4

The anticlimactic non-resolution to the Pick-a-Pet Problem.

Hour 5

Edwards Acquifer agreement sails through. There’s some problem with proposed fences, to be discussed at a future meeting.

One final note: Mayor Hughson declared it to be Bert Lumbreras day, in honor of his retirement. Holy hell, does LMC not like that guy. She did not mince words.

Now that I’m actually promoting this site, I’ll add more helpful links. Like: the video, the agenda, and the packet.

Hour 1+

Mostly short, quick items. Plus we get into the transportation plan.

Hour 2-3

In which there is an extremely detailed discussion of the innards of agenda-setting on City Council.

The other item that got some citizen interest was Item 26, approving rules to govern Council committees. In other words, there are Affordable Housing committees, Covid Oversight committees, Criminal Justice Reform committees, etc. Generally these only have two council members, so they don’t trigger quorum rules, and then relevant community members or staff or representation from interested parties. So the city has not formalized rules for these committees regarding agendas, minutes, points of order, etc, and the Mayor decided it was time to do so.

Five people spoke on Item 26 during the Citizen Comment period, all from Mano Am/iga, about transparency of committee meetings. Since Mano Am/iga is very concerned with the criminal justice in general, it gave me the impression that the subtext of these reforms was something to do with the disagreements and feuding over the CJR committee. (In fact, using my crystal ball, it will be the very next May 4th meeting where the CJR committee defends its existence and creates its new mission statement.)

The speakers are all concerned that there is no requirement that committee meetings be open to the public. It’s required to take minutes and make those publicly available, but they can be just the bare minimum of what is being voted on and how it shakes out.

It comes up for discussion at 12:20 am. Everyone is tired. Max Bak/er has a list of amendments. All meetings must be available over zoom, the public must always be invited to participate, that sort of thing.

Melissa Der/rick gives the pivotal speech, roughly “Look, I really support transparency and citizen participation. But we can’t get anything done if we’re never able to speak frankly and compromise. And if we’re always in danger of getting flayed on social media, we can’t speak frankly.” That speech probably didn’t change anyone’s vote, but it gave cover for the centrist position to vote no.

It’s a problem. Councilmembers operating in good faith can be hamstrung by citizens operating in bad faith. In that case, there’s a defensible position for closed committee meetings. Councilmembers operating in bad faith need citizen oversight to mitigate the damage. There’s a reasonable argument for open committee meetings.

Baker’s amendments were all voted down 5-2, and the original proposal passed.

I’m glad Mano Am/iga is scrutinizing these things, and I’m glad Max Bak/er is a squeaky wheel, but it’s probably fine that his amendments didn’t pass. All committees can do is pass policy proposals up to Council, and Council is governed by TOMA, the Texas Open Meetings Act. Bad councilmembers can get voted out of office. Good councilmembers can opt to have open meetings when appropriate. Citizens have to stay engaged and informed. Good governance is hard.

Note: City Council is on vacation for the second meeting of June (and the first meeting in July? I think.) Since my goals right now are to 1) establish this habit and 2) build up the archives, I thought I could work backwards and attend some meetings from this past April.

(My schedule is most flexible in the summer, so it doesn’t really help me to take a break right now. Too bad I can’t borrow from later this year, when my schedule is a mess.)

So what did they cover, way back in April?

Presentations

1. Covid-19 update
2. Deloitte & Touche is giving a presentation on CBDG grants? Quarterly Internal Audit Report.

Consent Agenda

3. Approval of the minutes
4-5. Annexing and re-zoning Gregson’s Bend/Commercial Loop 64 acres, across I-35 from the Outlet Mall.
6. Utilities water contract
7. Conveyance of city-owned land to build affordable housing
8. Airport master plan
9. County property, along Guadalupe St, at Courthouse, to be used for cycle track
10. Data archiving contract, $285K for five years
11. Environmental Systems Institute change in contract, $96K/year for three years
12. 133K for cemetary improvements
13. Changing police construction contract +$200K

Public Hearings

14. Extending Holt Tract PDD for 5 years (sure)
15. Rezoning 14 acres at North LBJ (terrible idea!)
16-17. Rezone 21 acres, then 15 more at Chuck Nash Loop, up towards Yarrington Road
18. CBDG matters

Non-Consent Agenda

19. Allocating CARES funds
20. Residential Wastewater rates
21. Amendment to CBDG action plan
22. More on CARES funds
23. Low Income Tax Credits for apartment complex on Centerpoint, just west of railroad tracks, towards Kissing Tree.
24. Annexation of 23 acres on Old Bastrop and Redwood (will become Senior Housing because I can see the future)
25. Fill vacancy on Board of Directors for Alliance regional water authority
26. Approve council rules
27. Fill vacancies for five different boards: Construction Board of Appeals, Convention and Visitor Bureau, Econ Development Board, Historic Preservation, Neighborhood Commission, and SM Industrial Development Corporation.
28. Bitty goats discussion!

Work Session that Afternoon:

1. 3 month update on Resource Recovery Request for Proposals
2. Status reports and updates on Snowvid Winter Storm

I’m going back a few weeks, and just listening to item 3: Cite and release.

The timing is really terrible, because a police officer was just killed – Justin Putnam – and two others were injured, and yet this is on the menu for this week. So they start with a moment of silence to acknowledge that.

Citizen comment period: probably worth tuning in for. Now, these do show up in the minutes. Also I guess today they’re just allowed written comments. SIXTY COMMENTS JFC.

These do get written out, so I can go back and read them later whenever the minutes get approved. Approval of minutes isn’t very fast. There’s a bunch of old comments on this topic from the April 7th meeting, already posted here.

So I’ll skip these for now. On to discussion.

Max moves approval. Markeymoore seconds.

No additional presentation – I guess I should go back and watch the first presentation.

Mayor Jane: Was there a postponement discussion?

Presenter: The officers don’t want to postpone. They must press on.

Mayor Jane: She supports it, but seems tepid. She’s worried about unforeseen consequences. She’d like to consult with the county. She’s got some amendments. She doesn’t like the fact that staff doesn’t like it.

THAT’S REVOLUTION! STAFF IS THE CONVENTIONS OF TYRANNY! SHAKE IT OFF!

Joca votes against a motion to let staff clean up the ordinance after the motion, and make it sound legally smooth. I guess. Everyone else passes that.

Max: Amendment to Section 1. I don’t know, it looks like it’s digging up specific penal code references. Ie driving without a license?

Some nitty gritty without unintentionally catching some class 3 stuff where a guy is driving without a license and things went haywire and someone got killed.

Max: Class B is all I meant. Not Class A.

Mayor Jane wants to switch it from 4 oz of pot to 2 oz of pot.

Max: um why?

Mayor Jane: I don’t know much about this. I found out that that’s a lot! Sounds like the difference between personal use and commercial use.

Max: As it is outlined in Texas Law, if they’re believed to be a distributor, there’s a bunch of other factors to distinguish these situation. There are other cues that an officer can use.

Saul agrees with Mayor Jane: these things get people killed or robbed.

Max: I don’t think that’s actually true. I think he’s conflating this with other issues.

Markeymoore: I’m on Team Max. State provision says 4 oz.

Max: This allows officer discretion in the 2-4 oz. This is going to be implemented unequally by race. We’ve seen how these things get implemented super problematically.

[The San Marxist: Max is knocking this out of the park. Wow.]

Mayor Jane: Well, if it doesn’t make any difference, I’ll withdraw my motion. Fine.

[Wow. Go, Max.]

Max: There’s a reference that’s wrong.

Mayor Jane: Ok, a bunch of stuff about verifying that you live/work/go to school here. Online or physical. “Here’s my class schedule,” for example.

[Seems reasonable.]

Joca: What if it’s international ID?

Identity verification is different from establishing that you’re a subject in the county, I think.

Markeymoore: (missed it)

Max: What if the person is homeless?

Mayor Jane: I was just trying to help.

Max: San Antonio skips this enumeration and they seem fine.

Mayor Jane: Let’s just add some “or anything else” language?

Joca: What about the library? Do they have library cards?

[Um, what.]

Constantino: “Or anything else” is already there.

[I don’t know, now they’re talking with the officer and it sounds like it will all get scrapped.]

Markeymoore: Where are we going with this?

Mayor Jane: I said this already. This is not about id, it’s about local address verification.

[1:42 into meeting. Going to partial-post.]

I need to make some stylistic improvements. I’m thinking a summary paragraph with links. It would be nice if I could cut/expand by topic.