Category: Uncategorized

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/

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.