This week: contracts for SMPD and SM Fire Fighters, with a win for transparency. Also a Dunbar Historic Walk, some election talk, and a call to support our school librarians.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 2:29: Basically all about contracts for SMPD and SMFD. How transparent should the process be?
But first! Two quick bits on the election and school libraries.
1. Well, we had an election.
Matthew Mendoza won re-election against Chase Norris.
Saul Gonzales and Josh Paselk are headed to a run-off, on December 13th.
I’m still grossed out by that PAC dumping $50K to sway a local election towards their preferred candidates.
Here’s the problem: we actually have some local limits on campaign donations:
If you receive more than $300 from someone, you must recuse yourself from votes related to that.
No one can donate more than $500 to any campaign, period.
Now look at the donor amounts to the Brighter Future for San Marcos PAC. Almost all are over $300, and most are between $600-$10,000. (And that list is not up to date.)
That PAC spent $35,000* supporting Matthew Mendoza and Josh Paselk. But they don’t donate it to campaigns, so the local laws don’t apply. The PAC just directly buys mailers and newspaper ads. So Matthew and Josh benefit, but would not be required to recuse themselves from votes that benefit the donors.
This is legal, but it’s deliberately sabotaging the intent of our local laws. What bullshit, right?
*also out of date. My understanding is it’s more like $50K+.
2. Our school libraries
At the past two school board meetings, around 10 or so people from New Braunfels, Seguin, Corpus, etc have shown up to harass our district. They find the spiciest parts of any book at any school library, and berate our school board for it. (They also post the spiciest parts to social media! Everyone gets titillated at the thought of saying such naughty words in public.) Then there’s a whole procedure where they flag books, we have to pull the books, review them, and bring the recommendations to the school board.
It might be nice to have some local voices supporting our librarians, our libraries, and our school district at these meetings?
Obviously say whatever you want, but if you’re stuck, I think the major points are things like:
you trust the judgement of our school librarians that they’re only including books with mature themes when there’s age-appropriate value to the book.
Parents are free to monitor the reading choices of their own children, but shouldn’t enforce their personal rules on everyone else.
Want to speak in person?
The next meeting is at 6 pm on Monday, November 17th, at the Felipe Reyna District Offices located at 1331 Hwy 123. (Right by Goodnight Middle School.)
You are supposed to sign up ahead of time. Swing by the Superintendent’s office (same address) or call (512) 393-6700 ext. 6767.
Three people show up, plus one more at the 3 pm workshop. The basic themes are:
Yes on pay raises for police and fire fighters
What’s with the shootings and mayhem downtown?
If we’re so broke, why are we spending money on Kissing Alley and other frivolous things?
Remember, Mark Gleason got reprimanded by the Ethics Review Commission in 2023. This was because he received campaign contributions above the limit from SM fire fighters, but then didn’t recuse himself from the vote on their contract. Any council members need to recuse themselves?
That last point is exactly the problem with the PAC!
There’s also a short note from the city manager about the shootings downtown. Condolences to those grieving, thank yous to first responders, that sort of thing.
….
Items 4-5: Contract Extensions and Raises for SMPD and Fire fighters
Let’s start with some backstory!
Backstory
Unions are massively constrained in Texas. This is because:
Texas is a right-to-work state. You can’t make joining a union automatic. But unions are still required to represent all employees.
Texas allows at-will employment, so it’s easy to find a pretext to fire people
Public sector unions are especially helpless in Texas. In addition to the constraints above, there are explicit laws:
No collective bargaining. Literally, you can’t have your union negotiate contracts on behalf of the employees.
That all is a massive bummer. It means that public employees can’t speak in a coordinated, unified voice. (For a state that claims to worship freedom, it seems a bit off to outlaw employees from coordinating their actions, yes?)
Anyway, there are two exceptions: Fire fighters and police departments are allowed full strength unions! They get a special carve out! How nice for them, and no one else.
You’ll need some vocabulary: SMPOA: San Marcos Police Officers Association, which is their union. SMPFFA: San Marcos Professional Fire Fighters Association, the fire fighter union.
“Meet and Confer” – the collective bargaining process. This is the negotiation process to come up with new SMPD and SMFD contracts.
More backstory
In 2021, SMPD officer Ryan Hartman blew through a stop sign and killed a woman, Jennifer Miller, in Lockhart. He was treated with kid gloves. He had an open container in his car, but wasn’t given a breathalyzer test. Etc. This all happened right when Chief Standridge was first arriving at SMPD. Hartman wasn’t indicted, and got right back on the force. (Hartman was later fired for excessive force in a separate incident.)
Mano Amiga was FURIOUS at how poorly the Hartman investigation was run. In response, they came up with five Hartman Reforms that they wanted the city to adopt:
In 2022, the SMPD contract was up, and it was time for Meet and Confer. The city ignored the Hartman Reforms and just passed a standard contract.
Spring 2023: Negotiations re-open. Some mild concessions are made towards the Hartman Reforms, and the contract is passed.
That’s a breezy summary, but trust me – this was a huge production. Probably hundreds of hours of citizen engagement, all told.
The 2023 contracts expire next October 2026. That means we should start Meet and Confer this spring.
Which brings us to today!
Should we sign a one year extension until October 2027? It includes a 4.5% raise for fire fighters, and a 5% raise for SMPD, effective in October 2026.
Meet and Confer meetings should be open to the public, recorded, and broadcast
There should be a citizen comment portion
Documents should be made publicly available.
Question: How is this different from the current situation? Answer: Really, only the citizen comment would be new. We started recording and broadcasting meetings in 2023, and documents are always available under the Texas Open Records policy.
Why do this?
There are lots of good reasons!
First off, legally there is a clause in Meet & Confer laws that requires transparency and openness to the public. So this is consistent with how these things are supposed to go.
Those big blue and orange slices above are SMPD and SMFD. They make up about 36.7% of the General Fund, and combined, they are about $45 million. Citizens should get to speak up, just as they do for the rest of the budget.
Third, this one-year extension is occurring with virtually no community discussion. It’s a good faith gesture by council to acknowledge the outcry in 2023, and make a move towards transparency.
Finally, Austin has a similar resolution that applies to PD, Fire, and also their labor unions. It seems to work fine.
How would this work?
This is where conversation stalls out for about an hour. I’m going to give your the super abbreviated version.
What would the details of the citizen comment actually be?
Should each person who wants to speak get 1 minute? Should it be capped at 30 minutes? Should it be at the beginning and at the end of each meeting? Should it be on another night altogether, and recorded as a forum? Should there be an email address?
Amanda’s pitch: Let’s leave these details to the negotiating team. Council does not need to micromanage.
Jane is extremely uncomfortable leaving it vague. She wants to know how it will play out. She’s worried if the ground rules aren’t quite right, it will sabotage the collaborative spirit of the negotiations.
2. How exactly does the timeline work?
Does SMPOA and SMPFFA have to agree now, before the extension is approved? Or can this just be where our negotiators start, when Meet & Confer starts, in the spring of 2027?
They settle on the latter. This is the starting point for the future discussion, where they lay the ground rules for the 2027 Meet & Confer contract. It got discussed a LOT, though.
Here are the basic Council member reactions:
Jane: I’m all for transparency but I’m allergic to leaving unspecified details like this.
Saul: I’m all for it. Sounds great.
Shane: This is government overreach. I’m tired.
Alyssa: This shows the community that we are responding to the activism of 2023. This is a good-faith gesture that makes progress towards transparency and community trust.
Lorenzo: I have a lot of detailed technical questions about the legality and timeline, but I’m not exactly opposed to the premise.
Matthew: <crickets>
…
Time to vote!
Here’s the official language they settle on:
And here’s the vote on the amendment:
Should City Representatives start negotiations with a request for transparency and citizen comment?
It sails through.
Hey look – there’s that Matthew guy! The one who was literally just re-elected the day before, with 57% of the vote. He absolutely does NOT want your input on SMPD and SMFD.
(SMPFFA and SMPOA were two separate votes, but everyone voted the same way on both.)
…
And then, the actual vote:
Yes on a one year contract extension and pay increases?
Great.
(Again, there were separate votes for SMPOA and SMPFFA, but they went the same way.)
…
That’s basically the whole meeting! There are some appointments to committees and things, but nothing big.
So the Dunbar Sistas are a group of women who played softball together as teens, decades ago, and are now some of the community anchors in San Marcos. They are the ones who originally came up with this idea. Two of them – Mittie Miller and Deborah Giles Webster – both spoke at the meeting about their process.
Here’s the plan:
This sounds great! So all those little plaques would commemorate important people, businesses, churches etc.
One thing that the Dunbar Sistas stress is the process for determining who will be featured on the walk. There’s a large network of Dunbar alumni, people who grew up in Dunbar over the past century, who may now be scattered across the country. They want decision-making to go to Dunbar alumni, as opposed to people who may be recent transplants to Dunbar. This seems reasonable.
The plan is to roll it out next fall:
Anyway, there weren’t any other neat pictures in the presentation for me to clip for you, but there is a ton of history at the Calaboose Museum and Dunbar Heritage Association.
Super Quick Version: my endorsements and charter recommendations
Summary table of candidate answers to my survey questions
Longer opinions on each candidate
Full candidate responses to survey.
Full explanation of charter amendments
External sources
Let’s dive in!
….
The Super Quick Version:
My endorsements for Council:
Place 1: Chase Norris
Place 2: Um. Argh. I have reservations about every candidate. I will probably vote for Saul Gonzales, because of Cape’s Dam.
Charter amendments: there are 12.
All of them besides Prop C: minor and straightforward. Vote in favor.
Proposition C: Should the Mayor’s term be four years long, instead of two? I don’t have a strong opinion. I will probably vote against this. Do whatever you want.
….
Summary Table of Survey Questions
I emailed all the candidates with these six questions:
Property Tax Rate: If you’d been on council last month, and could pick any property tax rate, what number would you have picked? (Background. )
Data Center: It seems likely that the data center could come back around in the next six months. Would you vote in favor of it or against it? (My write-up)
Cape’s Dam: Cape’s Dam will definitely come up in the next six months. Would you vote to remove and rebuild the dam, or just remove it? (My write-up)
Housing Density: If you were amending the Land Development Code, what is the maximum number of units that you’d allow on a lot in an established neighborhood?
Flock Cameras: If Chief Standridge applies for another Flock Cameras grant, would you vote in favor of it? Would you vote to remove existing Flock cameras? (My write-up)
Networking: which organizations (nonprofits, businesses, governmental, commissions, etc) in San Marcos have you collaborated with or worked for?
Full-length questions and everyone’s full answers, below. Keep scrolling.
….
My Opinions of Candidates
Place 1
Matthew Mendoza: First elected in 2022. He mostly focuses on home-owners in old, established neighborhoods. Kissing Tree – ie wealthy senior citizens – has endorsed him. He voted against a responsible budget in September. Also he likes SMPD a lot. We tend to disagree.
Chase Norris: He is running as a progressive challenger to Matthew Mendoza. He has a lot of experience in city planning and municipal government. Seems to give answers that I mostly agree with.
Place 2
Saul Gonzales: First elected to Council in 2016. Voted against a responsible budget in September. Generally quiet, but sometimes speaks up to ask how much something will cost. Generally votes in a cautious manner.
Barbara Montana-Escobar: I’m going off vibes here, but here’s my take on Barbara – I think she gets stuff done. I think she works with everybody, talks to everybody, and is very practical about solving problems. That said, I think she’s much more centrist than I am. Possibly center-right.
Brandon Oles: Very, very conservative. He has ideas like “dissolve SMCISD and absorb into Hays or New Braunfels.” Does not seem to know San Marcos well.
Josh Paselk: He is the darling of the business community. Kissing Tree has endorsed him. Lots of talk about “balancing the budget”. I am not convinced that he would vote to protect vulnerable community members or the environment and river.
Chris Polanco: Honestly, probably aligns with me better than any other candidate, politically. But he is very new to politics. He is running as a working class representative who can be a voice for the poor and disabled communities. He seems like a bright guy, and I encourage him to join a board or commission and keep going.
…
Full Survey Questionnaire and Candidate Responses
Here is the full text that I emailed to all candidates:
And here’s everyone’s full answers
Place 1:
Matthew Mendoza
Chase Norris
Place 2
Saul Gonzales
Barbara Montana-Escobar
Brandon Oles
Josh Paselk – Josh did confirm that he received the survey, but he did not submit answers at time of publication
What if City Hall moved downtown? Let’s dish. Also Tenant’s Right to Organize makes it across the finish line, Sights & Sounds is back, and – always – some election talk.
Your vote will never make a bigger difference! Go vote!
My endorsements for Council:
Place 1: Chase Norris
Place 2: Um. Argh. I have reservations about every candidate. I voted for Saul Gonzales, because of Cape’s Dam.
Charter amendments: there are 12.
All of them besides Prop C: minor and straightforward. Vote in favor.
Proposition C: Should the Mayor’s term be four years long, instead of two? I don’t have a strong opinion, but I voted against it. Do whatever you want.
Four in favor of the Tenants’ Right to Organize ordinance.
But not the landlords from the Austin Apartments Associations. They want us to carve out protections for property managers.
Other speakers, in response: Please do not protect property managers. That would create a loophole. [Note: we didn’t.]
We need managed growth.
Update on the EMS thing?
You all need to stand for the pledge.
Excited for new City Hall proposal
How about making the new City Hall environmentally sustainable? Like a One Water approach?
Pretty breezy and quick.
…
Item 2: Tenant’s Right to Organize
We’ve seen this here, here, and here. This is the final stretch!
Lorenzo: Can tenant organizers go uninvited into apartment complexes? Answer: No, organizers are required to play by vampire rules. They must be invited in.
Lorenzo: Can we fix that?
Amanda: I don’t think we should fix that.
Amanda’s argument goes like so:
I wish this ordinance had more teeth
But Texas is a heavily pre-emptive state. (Meaning Texas micromanages its cities.)
Therefore I strongly recommend that we stick with the language that has held up so far in court.
City Lawyer: It would be weird to meddle in this way. Some apartment complexes let in Domino’s pizza to put out fliers, and others have gates. Organizers are held to the same rules as Domino’s pizza, and it would be weird to carve out extra privileges for them.
City Staff: Plus, tenant organizers are not helpless. They can mail postcards to residents and see if one of the residents invites them in.
So we end up not changing anything.
The vote on Tenant’s Right to Organize:
It’s official!
Really great work by all the community activists! And I’ll single out Max Baker for kudos – he was really the most visible driving force here.
Last year we didn’t see nor hear the Sights & Sounds of San Marcos.
But this year it’s back, baby!
And we’re spending $100,000 on it.
Half of that comes from Hotel Occupancy Taxes, which are supposed to be spent on tourism. So S&S is a good fit.
The other half is for the lights, which are kept up all month long.
Sounds great.
Pro-tip: if you’ve got a kid who wants to win a hot chocolate, they might want to find out what year S&S was founded, how many light bulbs there are, and what most popular food is. It’s all very cute.
…
Item 17: ARWA
ARWA stands for Alliance Regional Water Authority. These are the folks trying to arrange water sources for us, for the next 50 years. It includes San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, and also Canyon Region Water Authority.
This started back in 2007, and it was a longterm plan to get water from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. It came online this summer! So this is great. Almost 20 years of longterm planning!
It was built in the early 1970s, when San Marcos had 18K people. So cute! Little baby San Marcos. Now we have about 70K people.
Apparently in the past year, they’ve had to evacuate multiple times due to gas and water problems. And whenever something big comes up at Council, community members don’t fit in the chambers. People spill out into the lobby and listen from there.
So the old building has run its course. We’re looking to build a new one.
…
How is the Texas State Lege going to meddle?
The state won’t let cities borrow money to build city halls without voter approval. This makes everything complicated.
My pet conspiracy theory: this was done to deliberately manipulate cities into the loving arms of local private developers. This is called a Public-Private-Partnership, or P3.
In other words, keep it in the current location. They’d tear down the existing site and rebuild. Council would have to relocate during construction.
Option B:
ie move across the street, onto park land.
Option B was super unpopular! A lot of community members showed up to argue against it, because of this:
Both of these are heavily used and very popular!
City Council decided that they could keep the skate park where it is. They would just squeeze City Hall in immediately right up against the skate park, looming like a big shadowy Gotham City Headquarters over your rebel anarchist skater good time. (But the dog park would be relocated.)
In the end, Council went with Option B.
My $0.02: This is a terrible option and they got it wrong! Don’t use up your park land!
…
Now, what if there was a Plan C?
Intriguing! Over the summer, an unsolicited option came in.
Here’s the new proposal:
I love this location! There’s nothing particularly sentimental or historical there.
Let’s check it out!
This is the Hopkins view.
Building 1 is this:
No strong feelings from me.
Building 2 is this:
This is a cute old building! It’s been empty forever. It used to be an Ace Hardware store.
Number 3 is an empty lot. It used to be a Mr. Gatti’s Pizza:
and then it briefly became this:
ie a fever dream of a diner, painted all black with neon flowers. Did we collectively hallucinate this?!
Anyway. Then it was food trucks:
and since then it’s just been parking:
Number 4 used to be where we had Tuesday Farmer’s Markets.
Back then it looked like this:
whereas now it looks like this:
Progress!
…
Back to why this location is great! It would be a really healthy for downtown businesses if our city employees all worked nearby.
Until around 2011, the county employees used to work here:
I liked to call it the Supermarket of Justice:
That is now where Industry etc are:
In 2011, Hays County built the new County Government building, out on Stagecoach.
All the county employees emptied out of the downtown business area. This was hard on the local downtown restaurants and stores – they no longer had a steady stream of pedestrian foot traffic during weekdays.
So moving City Hall downtown would replenish some of that.
This is all great!
….
What else?
The developers are local. They’re all graduates of either SMHS or Texas State, or both. That’s nice!
In 2020, they pitched an earlier idea to the city – a combination City Hall-hotel-workforce-housing. Jane Hughson says, “They wanted the hotel to face Hopkins and City Hall to go in the back, which was a nonstarter.”
What other projects do they have? Well, they have ideas. They have plans with Hays ISD to build some sort of workforce housing thing, and Lockhart ISD is looking at it, too. But there aren’t any lots or conceptual plans or signs of progress on their website.
We are paying them $767,970.00 for this conceptual plan. That is a hell of a lot of money for our broke government.
Now, we’ve saved up about $12 million towards a new city hall, so that’s the source. It’s not displacing funding for something else. But it’s a lot.
2. They’re actually drawing up plans for this whole area:
Edited to add a corrected update: The map below is not the full scope of these developers. I got it wrong above! Sorry about that.
This map below is just showing the full scope of Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C, all together. The Plan C developers are strictly drawing up plans for the downtown piece. – TSM
WHAT IS GOING ON. Why is the Lion’s Club, and the stage area, the Veteran’s Memorial, the Activity Center, the library, the skate park, and the dog park all included??!
Why would these (probably very nice) bozos have any say in what happens to ANY of those public facilities? They do not have any experience in that. What the hell.
…
What does Council say?
First off, they’re only asking questions about this part:
and not the extended map above, that went through the parks and old City Hall.
Q: What about impervious cover? A: It’s already all impervious cover. It can only get better.
Matthew: The old hardware store is historic, and I’m worried about the elevation drop. A: Architects can handle the elevation drop.
Q: What would happen to the alleys? A: We don’t know yet. Maybe some kind of open air space.
Alyssa: I’m having deja vu of their old proposal. A: The 2020 proposal was much smaller. Jane: Plus they had the hotel out front and the city hall in back. No.
Saul: I like it! But I need to see how much it costs.
Jane: Love a hometown developer!
The vote: Should we spend $768K on this conceptual plan?
I probably would have voted yes, because the location is great. I’m just wary because these guys seem inexperienced.
…
Final notes:
Somehow, this City Hall project is going to go off the rails. Really. Not because of this Plan C option, but because the math on this next slide does not make any sense.
This is from back in April:
Let me see if I’m following: we’ve saved up $12.7 million. We think we can get $15-20 million more from private developers. That adds up to ~$30 million.
But the whole project is supposed to cost $62-98 million! Where is this magical extra money going to come from?
These are the only options I see:
Voters will have to vote to approve a bond to borrow the rest.
This project ends up being about half as big as they’re hoping.
This project takes 25 years to complete
We end up selling our souls to find an extra $50 million from private businesses
In some way or another, reality is going to reassert itself.
We are putting together a Historic Preservation Plan. This will be pretty quick.
First off, I thought this background was interesting:
The presentation itself was mostly “How to Read the Preservation Plan” as opposed to the actual San Marcos content. But the plan is pretty readable, so I’ll just grab one or two interesting bits from it, and send you over.
For example, there’s a very detailed timeline, starting in time immemorial, with bits like so:
(Amanda Rodriguez: Could we add the names of the women to this photo? Staff: Absolutely!)
Hello everybody! It’s RIVER TIME! Let’s talk about the ugly fences, the litter (which did get better), and whether to start charging admission. Also tenants’ rights and some election talk.
Here we go!
Hours 0:00 – 1:15: Tenant’s Right to Organize and participatory budgeting. It’s a short meeting!
Council candidate Chris Polanco echoes the first amendment crisis, and also talks about having a disability in San Marcos
Global issues – Ceasefire in Gaza and fascist tendencies of the state government.
The DR Horton homes in Cottonwood Creek were built so shoddily that foundations are cracking in the first three years. People up and down their street are finding themselves trapped financially because these homes are built so poorly. Can the city prevent DR Horton from building new homes until they stabilize the existing ones? Or something else?
That last one feels like lawsuit territory. This sounds awful. (Maybe this is a good candidate for participatory budgeting – see below.)
…
Item 9: Tenant’s Right to Organize
This is nearing the finish line! What should you do if you’re a tenant, and there’s mold in your bedroom, or your AC goes out, or you have no hot water, and your landlord refuses to fix it?
In Texas, you have very few options besides suing. You can talk to your landlord, of course. If they start to see you as a problem, you might be evicted. Filing a lawsuit is expensive, of course, and if you try to sue, you might be evicted anyways.
This is the point of this ordinance: tenants should be able to talk to each other about their landlord problems, and form tenant organizations, and bring issues to their landlords as a united front, without worrying that they’ll get evicted or face retaliation. (Discussed previously here and here.)
But they’re still allowed to do some things! Like so:
This is great! No tenant should fear eviction when they’re fighting for clean and safe housing.
…
Council Discussion
There’s one small discussion point: property managers.
Suppose property managers are the ones doing the intimidating, and the landlord lives 1000 miles away. Should the property manager be held liable? Or does it go to the landlord, since they are responsible for their employees?
Lorenzo proposes an amendment to exempt property managers. Unfortunately, this ship has sailed – employees are already held liable in similar situations. Even if we adopt Lorenzo’s amendment, it doesn’t really protect them. (The amendment fails.)
…
The vote on the Tenant’s Right to Organize ordinance:
Hooray! (Lots of hard work on this from the San Marcos Civics Club and TAG, so thank you to both of them.)
This is just the first vote. It will come through for a final vote at the next meeting.
Participatory Budgeting is a specific thing. It doesn’t just loosely mean “survey the people or invite them to watch the budget process”.
It works like so: a city sets aside a pot of money, and asks for ideas from the public. The community develops proposals, and then the public votes on which project to fund.
One of their taglines is “It gives people real power over real money.”
Alyssa (and Max Baker, back when he was on council) have brought this up for years. It gained a little more traction at the visioning workshop back in January, and then was included in the budget that we tried to pass in September.
But then – I’m still cranky about it – Council sabotaged the budget at the last meeting. One of the items that got axed in the carnage was $250K for participatory budgeting.
Apparently Lorenzo felt a pang of regret for driving us off the cliff? Maybe Alyssa was extra-furious about this part? (I shouldn’t speculate, because I have no clue.) All I know is that Lorenzo went to the city manager and asked if there was any way to fix this. Can she find some money to restore funding for participatory budgeting?
And lo: she found some! It’s displaced City Hall money.
In theory, we’re trying to sock away $1 million each year for that project. But this year, we’re using the most of that $1 million to put an offer in on the land next to Centro.
We’re expecting to have a little bit left over, and that’s going to be the Participatory Budgeting Pot of Money. Hooray!
Gentle readers: this is your call. Start brainstorming ideas!
Is there something in your neighborhood that could be transformed?
Do the kids in your neighborhood need a place to play?
Or a community gardens?
What about opening up the Activity Center on Sundays, or having longer front lobby hours for the library?
Or hey: a coordinated lawsuit or mobilization against DR Horton?
Go think up great things! Your mom tells me you’re very clever.
….
Note #1: This was just a preliminary discussion. Participatory Budgeting will come back around as a formal proposal.
Don’t use up your park land! They’re not making more land.
…
There were a few tiny other items – scheduling the election, filling some commission vacancies, appointing a municipal judge. And that’s all! It was an extremely short meeting.
However! Keep reading, to hear about the river. The action was all in the 3 pm workshop.
It’s all of the litter, and all of the repeated trampling of the banks, and the erosion of the aquatic wild rice and habitats for endangered species. It’s all bad.
3. The cost.
City staff really haven’t even brought up the price tag in the past few years, because the litter, damage to river, and lack of safety were so off the rails.
But of course, all solutions require people, and people’s labor costs money. So this is looming.
…
Solutions
The 2023 season was so bad that Council realized we need to do something. So in 2024, we passed a can ban. Summer 2024 was the first implementation.
So this spring, Council cautiously agreed to try Managed Access for 2025.
That means this:
around Rio Vista and the falls.
Everyone thinks these fences are very ugly and sad! They’re not wrong. But I’m going to make the case that the fences are a good first step. It is a work in progress.
Basically, the falls, swimming pool, and tennis courts at Rio Vista were fenced off. In order to access them, you had to walk to one of the three entrances:
On weekends and holidays, those entrances were staffed. They’d check to make sure you weren’t bringing in anything banned, like alcohol or a bunch of styrofoam plates.
On the big holiday weekends – Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day – they also closed off Cheatham street altogether:
They also increased staffing. There were at least ten more employees just to staff the entrances and exits on weekends and holidays. There are a lot of hands on deck, picking up trash, monitoring situations, and available for emergencies:
It’s a really big operation.
…
What does the public think?
At citizen comment for the workshop, three people spoke. I think they are all very involved in river clean-up efforts.
Major themes:
Fences significantly reduced the size of the crowds
Fences significantly reduced the amount of trash in the river
Fences significantly protected the riparian zones of the river, ie the wild rice and other environmental spots.
There is more work to do. There was still a ton of litter.
Let’s look at places that have done this well – for example, Copenhagen has a sustainable tourism program. Tourists can get perks if they pick up litter or take public transportation.
….
What does city staff say?
Litter started off rough, at the beginning of the summer.
Fences were put up at the end of May. Then:
Looking good!
And some data:
Note: July was much rainier and less-hot than usual. The 4th of July was pretty much rained out (while the tragedy was unfolding in Kerr County and elsewhere). So it wasn’t just strictly the fences.
Did visitors just go to a different part of the river?
Staff said no, they did not see an increased number of problems upstream or downstream from Rio Vista. It seems like everyone wants to be at the falls.
(It could still happen after a few years, of course. But it has not happened yet.)
…
Overall, everything seems optimistic!
That is my personal belief, too – that this year, things were less dangerous and destructive than they’ve been in the past.
…
So that’s 2025. What about the future?
Here are the big questions for Council today:
1. Do they want to keep fencing off Rio Vista in the future? (ie “Managed Access”)
2. Do they want to start charging out-of-towners for river access?
Let’s take these one at a time.
The fencing.
Another angle:
Everyone hates the big, bulky chain link look. Including me!
Can we at least make it look a little nicer?
Maybe!
Staff is not proposing that we put up permanent fencing. This would only go up between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Council questions:
Q: Would we rent or buy the prettier fencing? A: We’d buy it. It would cost about $75K. Renting the fences this past summer was roughly $15K.
Q: People were cranky about the tennis courts being inside the fencing . Can we find a way to make them easier to access? A: Yes, we can definitely explore this for next year.
Bottom line: Does Council want to continue with the fences?
Mostly yes. Alyssa and Amanda are both a little squirrelly on the question, but they’re more yes than no.
Note: I am a hard yes. You only get one river, and overuse will kill your river. This is a dead on, textbook-example of a Tragedy of the Commons.
….
2. Should we charge admission?
The problem is that we’re running a giant operation here, all summer long, and it requires a lot of staff. Furthermore, it mostly isn’t San Marcos residents using the river.
This is an old slide from 2024:
(Zartico is a company that tracks cell phone data. We paid them to track people on the river and tell us where people went afterwards. Yes, it’s a teeny bit creepy.)
The point being, about 1/3 of the park visitors were local, and 2/3 were in from out of town. Here’s 4th of July from 2024:
More from San Marcos, but still under 50%.
No one is proposing that we charge admission to San Marcos residents. But should we charge out-of-town visitors an admission fee?
What does everyone else do?
Lots of cities charge fees:
….
And so now, San Marcos?
City staff is recommending yes, we should start charging.
Here is what they propose to council:
What does Council think?
Jane: we should start our season earlier than Memorial day. Answer: That just costs even more.
Alyssa: How would residents get a river pass? Answer: You’d sign up in person or online. Like getting a library card. It would be a physical hard copy.
Alyssa: One per household or one per person? Answer: Per person. Alyssa: Even kids? Answer: I mean, you all are council. You tell us what you want.
Amanda: I have strong reservations about this. The river is a natural resource. I don’t like the idea of commodifying it. I don’t like the precedent it sets. New Braunfels probably started out only charging a little, and now it’s $25 to set out a blanket. And their river is still trashed.
Jane: Our out-of-town visitors aren’t spending money here. They’re not contributing to the tax base that pays for these parks. I don’t want to charge residents, but I’m okay charging out-of-town guests. They need to share the cost.
Saul: How much revenue would this bring in? Answer: We have no idea. It’s hard to even figure out how many people go to the river.
Let’s break it into categories
1. San Marcos Residents
No one is proposing that we charge San Marcos residents. But there’d have to be some sort of free pass system.
Every time you add a layer of inconvenience, you trip up vulnerable residents. (Think: undocumented community members who don’t feel safe signing up, or harried single mothers who keep forgetting to sign up. Etc.) Alyssa and Amanda voice some of these concerns.
2. People just outside the city limits.
What about people who live nearby? Like you have a San Marcos mailing address, but you’re not officially in city limits?
Jane, Shane, Saul, Matthew: They should get a reduced admission price. Alyssa, Amanda, Lorenzo: they should be free.
3. Actual out-of-town visitors?
Lorenzo: Yes. We should charge them. Jane: Yes. Same. Alyssa: I don’t know. This needs more work. Amanda: Kids at least should be free. Saul: I agree on the free kids. Matthew: I’m fine with what staff proposed. Shane: [never turns on his microphone, I have no idea] Alyssa: Who’s gonna pay $100 for a season pass? Come on. This needs work.
Fair point, Alyssa.
Overall: It’s a little hard to follow, but I think this is where everyone lands:
Yes, charge out-of-town guests: Jane, Lorenzo, Shane, Saul, Matthew
Maybe. We’re not sure yet: Alyssa, Amanda
No one is a hard no.
What do I think?
I’m on the fence. I hate the increase in bureaucracy and bookkeepping, and I wish for a state where we just properly funded parks and local governments. (See also: socialized health care is much cheaper than private insurance because it’s so much less paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape.)
I also hate the idea that everyone on the river would have to keep a plastic card on a lanyard around their neck.
On the other hand, here we are – with actual bills to pay and actual rivers to save, people to keep safe – and that all costs money.
Maybe the river pass can be made into a little bracelet?
…….
Lorenzo: can we hold an evening workshop instead of a 3 pm workshop, so that more residents can attend?
Everyone agrees this is a good idea.
Bottom line: City staff will bring back more rate models and Council will have another workshop. But it looks like the writing is on the wall. I think it’s likely.
…..
One last workshop topic.
Paid parking at the Lion’s Club
We’re midway through a pilot year of paid parking at the Lion’s Club. It’s free for all residents, but you do have to register. (Register here!)
How’s it been working?
Ok, so it just started.
A few notes:
They have not yet been ticketing anyone, but they’re about to start. (Apparently there have been problems with Texas State students. Students can park there, as residents who want to use the parks, but not to go attend class at Texas State. I have no idea how they can tell who is doing what.)
“ETJ” stands for extra-territorial jurisdiction, ie the people who live nearby the city, but not in the actual city limits.
The main question: do we want to charge people less if they live in the ETJ? On the one hand, they don’t pay property taxes. On the other hand, they do come to San Marcos to go shopping, and so they pay sales tax.
How do we want to handle people who live close to San Marcos?
Charge a reduced fee: Matthew, Shane, Jane
Keep it free: Alyssa, Amanda, Saul, Lorenzo
There’s some minor quibbling about what “close” should mean. Anyone in who lives in SMCISD? Anyone with a San Marcos mailing address? some third option? I think they settled on SMCISD.
The San Marxist 
