Hours 5:00-7:30

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 47: Reefer madness! Mano Amiga gathered over 10,000 signatures to get a measure on the ballot this November, decriminalizing weed in San Marcos.  

It always sounds a little silly when politicians discuss pot, but this really is a gigantic civil rights and moral imperative. Lives get derailed all the time in this stupid, punitive state over possession of marijuana.  The criminal justice system wrecks lives. That’s the serious part.

The city council has a few options:

  1. Approve an ordinance on the spot which would decriminalize pot.
  2. Add the ordinance to the ballot, in November.
  3. Add the ordinance to the ballot, and in addition, add a second ordinance of their choosing.

From the beginning, Saul Gonzalez and Mark Gleason both clutch their pearls about 4 oz of marijuana being too much for personal use. 

Max Baker explains that 4 oz came from the state of Texas – it’s the state’s cut-off for a “low” amount.  He also reminds them that it’s the cut-off used in the cite-and-release policy. Back then, the police clarified that they can identify dealers by their possession of things like scales and other dealing paraphernalia. They’re not concerned about the 4 oz. 

Still, Mark mopes around, and suggests an alternate ordinance with a cut-off of 2 oz.  So he wants two nearly-identical proposals on the ballot: a proposal that got 10,000 signatures over six months, and a second proposal that makes Mark Gleason less mopey.

Everyone else thinks this will be needlessly confusing, thank god. So the second proposal goes up in smoke. (WINK.)

Jude Prather speaks up. He thinks pot should definitely be decriminalized.  He thinks that city council should just approve the ordinance on the spot, tonight, and keep it off the ballot. He doesn’t want it to be politicized, since this is a big election coming up.

Let me spell this out: yes, he wants pot decriminalized.  But he also doesn’t want lefty candidates to benefit from the extra voter turnout, on the rest of the ballot in November. He’s worried that the kind of voter who will show up to decriminalize pot will then vote liberally on the rest of the ballot. 

Alyssa Garza responds, neatly dodging the voter turnout question. She just says that this policy will have more buy-in from the community if it gets strong support from voters,  in November.  To his credit, Jude graciously says that he’s convinced, and drops the issue.

Mark Gleason does make one very good point: This only binds SMPD. It does not affect Texas State campus cops or Hays County sheriffs.  The public still needs to exercise caution and keep themselves safe.

Item 36: raises for City Council members

Here is the ethical position: you need to pay City Council representatives enough that any citizen can afford to run for office.  If you don’t pay much, then only people with sufficient extra income can run. 

At first, it can feel a little counter-intuitive and fiscally irresponsible to pay elected officials a salary.  It feels weird for councilmembers to personally benefit from their positions. But that kind of thinking is a trap.  Volunteer positions are mostly only feasible for people with disposable time and income, and so City Council should not be a volunteer position. It’s too important.

How much are we talking? Currently they get $17,400/year.  This would bring them up to $22,200/year.  And if I had to guess, most of them put in 30-50 hours/week.  It’s an insane time commitment, for peanuts.

Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, and Shane Scott are all in favor.  Mayor Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, and Jude Prather are all opposed.  

Mark Gleason dithers back and forth. He has a new baby, and I believe they live rather frugally.  He desperately wants the extra money to be foisted upon him, while he protests that it wouldn’t be right to accept it.  He does not want to have to act like he’s in favor of the raise. 

Unfortunately, he’s the deciding vote, so he’s in exactly that position.  He votes yes, but rationalizes that he just wants it brought back for a second reading. He didn’t want to vote yes for his own benefit, see? 

…

Item 48: Abortions.  I assume that I’ve got a pretty sympathetic group of readers, and I don’t need to spell out the horrors of denying women health care.  We’re all in this dystopia together! So what’s a city government to do?

Austin passed the GRACE act.  The idea is to try to salvage parts of it for San Marcos, as best we can. There are several parts:

  1. San Marcos should not use city funds to arrest or prosecute anything abortion-related.
  2. No abortion-related discrimination from city employees or contractors
  3. Information and education about birth control and vasectomies
  4. City employees should get time off from work and help funding out-of-state trips to get abortions

Max Baker co-sponsored this with Alyssa Garza. It’s 1 am in the morning by now, and she’s coughing her brains out, and so he takes the lead.  (The entire evening, Max is his best self.  He’s congenial and has facts at his finger tips, and brings about collaboration instead of defensiveness.)

So let’s take these one at a time.

  1. Police should not look into abortions.

Chief Stapp is on the call.  He starts off saying that Chief Dandridge sent out a memo to all the officers, back in mid-July, saying that they should not arrest/investigate/anything to do with abortion, unless a woman has died or suffered major injury.   So Chief Dandridge has pro-actively implemented this already, in a really pro-woman way.  

It always feels faintly traitorous to say this, but here goes: Chief Dandridge truly seems fairly progressive (for a police chief).  He supports cite-and-release. He took the initiative to not investigate abortions. Whenever he’s come and talked about school resource officers, or funding for staff, or whatever, he does not sound like a lunatic.  I don’t know what the reality is on the force, and I generally have a healthy distrust of officers.  But I have not yet seen negative parts of Chief Dandridge at City Council meetings.

So that one is more-or-less taken care of.

  1. No abortion-related discrimination from city employees or contractors

Jane Hughson leads with “Why is this needed?” but comes around.  To be clear: you need it so that when a woman needs to travel for an abortion, she doesn’t risk getting fired in the interim.  There are other reasons as well, but that’s the most immediate one.

Mark Gleason, the whole time, keeps harping on “We shouldn’t need it” because medical information should be private and discrimination shouldn’t happen.  I mean, he can fuck right off. Discrimination shouldn’t happen, so it’s not a problem?

  1. Information and education about birth control and vasectomies.

Originally the interim city manager, Stephanie Reyes, is very cautious against this one, because we don’t have a health department like Austin does, and therefore we should stay in our lane.  

Max points out that we often link our community partners and help residents find the right resources, like with Covid testing or whatever, when the service is not available through the city.  Apparently Community Action offers a vasectomy fund, for example (although there’s no mention of it on their webpage). Gradually everyone comes on board.

Mark Gleason has to say, “The website should also link to adoption services!” Sure, Mark. 

  1. City employees get time off from work and help funding out-of-state trips to get abortions.

Right off the bat, Max acknowledges that Austin can do this kind of thing because it’s larger, wealthier, and so on, and that he’s not expecting San Marcos to follow in kind.  Everyone voices concerns that we could get sued, because of of the Texas Bounty Hunter law against aiding women seeking abortions. It’s unlikely this will go anywhere.

At some point, Jude Prather also speaks up. His point is that abortion is a complex, nuanced topic, and the state of Texas wants to make it black and white. So he positions himself as a centrist here. Fine.

(For the record, I don’t find abortion to be a nuanced topic. Elective abortions, medically-needed abortions, party abortions? Have ’em all.)

Mayor Hughson asks if anyone is interested in putting together a committee, which would further hash these ideas out, conduct further research, and keep an eye on the state legislature.

Mark Gleason is not interested in a committee.  He doesn’t see the need for it. Everyone else is okay with it.

Gleason pisses me off in this whole topic. He implies that he and his wife have had to consider or employ medical abortions, and thus he understands that sometimes they are necessary.  However, at every step he’s the one to minimize the dangers to women, promote links to adoption agencies, protest the need for a committee or an antidiscrimination clause, wax on about how he’s against elective abortions, etc. Just shut up, dude. It’s not about you at all.

Let me say one last thing tactfully: there are only two women on city council, and one of them recently helped organize her 50th high school reunion.  There are five guys, none of whom have uteruses.  That’s not great representation regarding who is at risk of an unwanted pregnancy.

The committee will be Jane Hughson, Max Baker, and Alyssa Garza.  As weak as our position is, as a small town in Texas, I appreciate them moving forward in these small-but-supportive ways.

Item 42: Quail Creek Park

San Marcos used to have a country club with a golf course, out on Highway 21, near Gary Job Core/Softball Complex:

The city is buying it for $8.5 million, and the county is putting $6.6 million towards it (as best I can tell).

In general, I’m always in favor of the city acquiring land, because I think that amenities should be publicly owned.  However, we desperately need meaningful parks and investment in the east side of town, and while this is indeed east, it’s not a very useful location.  Traffic on 80 is a mess.  This isn’t walkable.  

So: as long as no one pretends that this park meets the needs of the people who live east of 35, then yes, this is great.

Max Baker is annoyed that it might be a SportsPlex.  I’m a little less opposed to this than he is.  The thing is, I’m guessing this land is already landscaped within an inch of its life. So letting a lot of it go to seed and return to nature would be good, but (ideally) that would mean planting a lot of trees.  Turning some of it into baseball fields is better than destroying existing nature for baseball fields.

City-run sports leagues are a different beast than private clubs.  For private clubs, picture travel teams that cost parents a lot of time and money.   For city leagues, picture something being run by a group of volunteers. Coaches are all volunteers. Fundraising is haphazard.  Scholarships are available and costs are kept as low as possible. 

It’s good for kids in middle school and high school to have an extracurricular that they care about enough that they’ll buy in to the premise of school.  Think band/art/theater/sports.  That can make the difference between squeaking by to graduation vs getting sucked into a downward spiral. So having city sports is a public good.  

However, what you really need are fields very close to houses, or practices that happen at the schools. If you want to serve working families, activities need to be designed so that they don’t require extra transportation from working parents. This Quail Creek thing is not that.

The Parks Department will poll the community and explore different options. It could become lots of different things. I like trails and playgrounds, too. Nothing is set in stone.

Five Criteria for Evaluating Housing Development

by The San Marxist, posted in Explainer

This is a work in progress! But I think it might be nice to have this be a standalone post that I can easily refer back to. Originally written up here.

Price Tag to the City: Will it bring in taxes that pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure and future repair? How much will it cost to extend roads, utilities, on fire and police coverage, on water and wastewater?

Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?

Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run off into the river?Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?

Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?

The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout? Is it walkable?

Like I said, this is a work in progress. I’ll update it as needed.

[Update: I added the fifth question on 8/6/22.]

[Update: added “Is it walkable?” on 4/5/25]

July 5th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

July’s meeting! These summer meetings are too far apart. A whole ‘nother month will go by until I see you all again in August.

Early on, Jude Prather went home, presumably sick, and Alyssa Garza was zooming in, mid-suffering from covid (which is pretty dedicated) and seemed to be feeling pretty lousy. So this meeting felt smaller and a little scaled back.

Hours 0:00-1:30

Are you fired up about the film studio on the aquifer recharge zone? Are you prepared to be politely-but-firmly sent packing?

Hours 1:30-4:00

In which I lump a ton of zoning and land use items into one post.

Hour 4:00-4:12 

Let’s talk about equity, and Equity Program Coordinators. While we’re at it, let’s visit the June 29th Budget Workshop for a sec.

Hours 4:12-5:20

Lots of little odds and ends: elections, GSMP reps, library fines, COLAs, and Amtrak.

And that’s a wrap for July. Bye now! I miss you already! Do write!

Hour 0:00-1:30, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment was dominated by the film studio at La Cima. One person called it La Cinema, which I find hilarious, and will now adopt.

There was a legit community uproar after the last meeting.  People are furious about developing over the aquifer.  There were two protests, I believe? one last week during P&Z, and then another during the City Council meeting.  

Item 48: In response, Alyssa Garza and Saul Gonzalez put the film studio discussion back on the agenda. (I think it had to come from them because they’d voted “yes” at the last meeting; “no” votes (ie Max Baker) are procedurally not allowed.)

The job of the council was to placate the angry protesters:

  1. The existence of the film studio was not up for a vote
  2. It was about tax breaks, in exchange for using the updated city code.
  3.  the deal has already been signed, right after the last meeting. (Literally, Alyssa Garza clarified this point.)  

I will lovingly call this portion of the evening the Great Placating Tour of La Cinema.  For example, Jane Hughson and Max Baker are putting an agenda item together about protecting the aquifer, for later in August.  Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are putting something together about how Chapter 380 tax break deals should get two readings at council, not one.

Everyone grandstands a little bit about why they stand by their decision last week.  Max is convinced that there must be some sort of conspiracy or real estate deal, but he means it in a more nefarious way than the straightforward way in which this is a real estate deal. He’s self-aware enough to acknowledge that he’s grasping at straws, but chides his councilmates for not being suspicious enough. 

Max is correct that there’s a good possibility that this studio will fail. Businesses fail all the time. The thing is, we generally don’t stop people from acting on their dumb ideas. Provided you’re playing within the rules and you’re not malicious nor more destructive than the alternative, you are allowed to build a film studio. And since La Cima is going to build something, they’re entitled to pick La Cinema.

(San Marcos has had its share of bad ideas. Remember the old Mr. Gatti’s building on the corner of CM Allen and Hopkins? The next owners painted the exterior of the building black with daisies on it? Look outside at the sweltering 103° heat, and just contemplate walking into a free-standing building painted all black. It didn’t last.)(This is before it was torn down to make room for the food trucks, which then eventually left due to the food inspector drama a few years ago, I think. So now we have a beautiful slab of concrete with some gritty weeds making their way here and there.)

What have we lost, if the studio fails?  Our hopes and dreams about future tax revenue and internships for students.  We’d be stuck with a big old building, over the aquifer, that would have to be re-purposed. That’s not good. The $4 million in tax breaks isn’t exactly lost – it’s money we wouldn’t have collected either way, and it ensured that the building we’re stuck with complied with 2020 environmental standards instead of 2013 environmental standards.  (At least, I hope that’s the case. I hope we’re not actually laying out money on this Hollywood dream.)

Hour 1.5-4:00, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Hour 1:30 – Annexing and Rezoning 

Item 21: This is a proposal for 470 houses, way out past the outlet mall and past the Trace development.  This is sprawl.  In general, I do not like isolated subdivisions plopped down in the middle of nowhere.  It requires way more mileage of pipes and wires to get them hooked up to the city, it causes more wear and tear on the roads than closer developments, it works against having a functional public transit, and so on. It takes a toll.

It’s that little red pin dropped way at the bottom.

Saul Gonzalez asks my favorite question: Will this pay for itself? 

This is a really important question.  Approving a development costs the city a lot of money. Much is shared by the developer, who hopes to turn a profit, but not all.  Like I said above, a new development needs water lines, wastewater service, electric lines, emergency services, access to city services and facilities, and contributes to wear and tear on streets and infrastructure.

So developments cost the city money. Developments also bring in tax revenue. So will the tax revenue eventually cover the costs? And this bit is crucial: will it cover the lifecycle of the streets/power lines/pipes, as they age and need repairs in 20 years? Have we accounted for this in our budgeting? (Usually not. But we should.)

So that is important question #1: Will this pay for itself, not just costs incurred during the immediate build but also estimating life cycle repairs to infrastructure?

Here is important question #2: When is the estimated time of completion, and what is our predicted housing deficit at that time? 

We have mountains of housing that has been approved, but not built. The city staff need to continuously be explaining to council (and P&Z) what our current housing deficit is, and what it is predicted to be in the future, as different developments are built and more people move to town. (Ideally broken out by affordability.)

Important question #3 is: Is this environmentally responsible? Is it on the aquifer? Is it suburban sprawl? Does it incorporate duplexes and 4-plexes and 8-plexes throughout the single-family region? How much driving will residents be required to do?  

This one isn’t the worst, insofar as it’s not in the aquifer. But I still resent far-flung communities, and I resent that it’s uniformly going to be single-family. 

(We can’t mandate duplexes and townhomes and things like that. This came up at P&Z. We used to be able to, when we had PDDs, and then we threw them away for mysterious reasons.)

Important question #4: Is it mixed income? Is it near amenities?

We have very little meaningfully mixed income housing in San Marcos. Even when new builds like La Cima include multi-family, they segregate it from the single family portion. That’s not great. It is much better for everyone when there is a wide diversity of income levels in a neighborhood, kids attending schools together, different social classes forging connections and co-mingling their lives.

Similarly, developments get built without thinking about where people will shop for groceries, or go for dinner, or whatever. The idea is that the free market will save the day, and you won’t have a food desert. Then you get a food desert, because the free market does not save the day. (Fortunately, city code guarantees access to parks and some public spaces. Because the free market will not save the day.)

So Council should always ask those four questions, in order to evaluate a proposal. As is, we do not have the answers to any of these questions.

Listen: I actually think really highly of city staff. I think they work hard, and I’ve particularly thought that the interim city manager, Stephanie Reyes, seems to be doing a great job. However, on developments, they’re trapped by their forms. The form for the information they put together for P&Z and Council probably hasn’t been updated in at least 15 years. The form needs to be massively revised to provide P&Z and Council with the answers to these four questions.

To recap:

  1. Will it pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure? (Denser development will score better.)
  2. When is it estimated to be built, and what is the forecasted housing deficit at that point?
  3. Are we looking at sprawl? Is this on the aquifer? Is it uniformly single-family homes?
  4. Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing amenities?

Answers: who knows, who knows, yes, and no.

….

But wait! There’s more! Back to that red pin at the bottom of the map, above.

One final thing that makes this particular tract unpleasant is that it contains the Hays Electrical Power Plant.  A rural neighbor shows up and describes what happens when the boilers are cleaned: for 3-4 days, it sounds like you’re living next to an airport, 24/7.

Is it bad for your health to live very close to an industrial power plant? In my quick look at what counts as environmental health risk factors, I’m seeing things like this: “presence of hazardous waste sites and facilities (landfills, incinerators, Superfund sites)” but I’m not seeing power plants in those kinds of lists. So I’m tentatively thinking it’s a nuisance and not a health hazard. 

Here’s what does not count as evidence: the fact that the state of Texas allows it, and there are examples of neighborhoods next to power plants in Austin and Seguin. 

Overall, I still don’t like the subdivision. 

The vote:
Yes: Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason
No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker

Abstain: Saul Gonzalez, wanting to find out more about the health risks.

But then Saul switches to “yes” in order to bring it back for a second reading. He is clear that he’s just doing this to get more information, and not because he’s made his decision.

…

Items 23-27: Several items about Whisper Tract, the ginormous development going in on the east side of 35, up north across from Blanco Vista.

One has gone back and forth to P&Z and to a committee, about zoning one part Light Industrial, right near the Saddlebrook mobile home community. The problem is that while we notify the owners of property, we don’t notify the renters. And mobile home residents generally don’t own the land under their home, so they weren’t notified. We’re being jerks here.

Council carves out some bad-neighbor exceptions to light industrial, and passes it. The other Whisper items all pass, too. Whisper is huge.

…

Item 28: There’s a little patch of land west of I-35, between I-35 and Blanco Vista that gets re-zoned. It’s at this red pin:

This is right near the apartment complexes tucked in that same little tract of land.  It had been General Commercial, and now it will be CD-4.

CD-4 is fairly dense – picture apartments or townhomes. You’re allowed to put some corner stores in.  It’s pretty reasonable for that location. 

Item 39:

Suppose you’re driving up from Seguin, on 123.

This is the intersection of 123 and Beback Inn Road, which is a really great name for a road.  That red house on your left is the Full Moon Saloon.  That giant expanse of empty flat space on your right, starting at the light, is the topic for Item 39.

It’s too early to really answer the four questions above, but that’s certainly way out in the middle of farm land. And the presentation claims it will be “predominantly single family with some commercial.”

Council decided to put together a committee to work with the developer.  Max Baker, Shane Scott, and Mark Gleason will be on it.  Those three make for a highly combustible group, and Max is outnumbered. We shall see how this goes.

Hour 4:00-4:12, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 35: Spending $5,401,600 of Federal ARP money.

The city is supposed to approve the next $5 million of spending from the American Rescue Plan money. They discussed it at a workshop on June 29 .

Mayor Hughson makes one motion: to reduce the funding for the new Equity program coordinator from $400k over 4 years, to $200K for 2 years.  She says, “Look, if we want to make this position permanent, we’re going to need to find permanent funding, so we may as well move that process along.”

When I listened to this meeting, I was livid. Here is what I originally wrote:

that is rat-fucking, my dear.  It sounds very reasonable! We just want to make the position permanent, even sooner!

The lie is basically “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.  Guaranteed funding now is what matters.  Hypothetical funding in two years is not worth a bucket of warm piss, to paraphrase LBJ.  It is very sleazy because it sounds so reasonable. 

I thought she was trying to pass off her amendment as being what’s best for equity. Since then, I went back and listened to the budget meeting from June 29th. In it, Mayor Hughson raised the same concerns. She stated then, “If this is not a permanent position, then it shouldn’t take four years. If this is a permanent position, we’ll need to find funding from the General Fund.”

Now, Mayor Hughson is being wildly naive if she thinks equity will be “solved” in two years. This should be a permanent position. But I no longer think she was being sleazy – just wrong – by making this motion.

Max Baker is irate, and mostly makes good points – an Equity director will bring in tons of grant money. They were specifically told this during their trip to Washington. 

Jane Hughson gets very defensive about equity.  They’ve been doing equity in San Marcos! She was on council in the ’90s, and they were doing it then, although perhaps more piecemeal!

(Did Jane Hughson know that racism was a problem in the 90s?  Absolutely.  Did they think about it, and try to do things to ameliorate it? Sure, I can believe that.   Did they do enough to move the needle and actually make a difference? Ha, no. Did they pat themselves on the back and move on? Of course – that’s how the 90s went.)

Alyssa Garza – from her fevered Covid state – gently, gently uses universal language to say that we all have privilege, and a major part of equity is not centering ourselves, but looking to the community and just working to improve things.  

Here’s a big part of how you (Jane) should think about equity: you can only measure progress by outcomes. It doesn’t matter how hard you’re trying, if the outcomes are still inequitable. For example: if you survey the San Marcos community, and all your responses come back from west of I-35, then your survey was not equitable. You may put an equal amount of resources into advertising it to all parts of the community, but clearly you didn’t end up with a representative response, and so that’s that – it wasn’t equitable. Sorry.

The vote: Should we only fund two years instead of four years of the Equity Program Coordinator? 
Yes: Saul Gonzalez, Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, and Mark Gleason
No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker.

So it passes.

…

While I’m on the topic of the June 29th Budget Session: the highlight was when Alyssa Garza gently asked Mark Gleason what his understanding is of what an Equity Coordinator does.

Mark Gleason goes on an absolute rant about everything besides what an Equity Coordinator does. He says that equity is fixing our flooding, and making 911 calls responsive, and fixing homelessness, and many other worthy causes. He says he doesn’t need an Equity Coordinator to tell him what equity is because he already knows, so why waste the money on the coordinator, instead of funding the things he already knows about? Alyssa and Jane Hughson both point out that he hasn’t actually answered the question. He never does answer the question.

Gentle, nonthreatening challenge to Mark Gleason: look at those programs you listed and tell me if any of them currently achieve equality of outcomes.

…

Post script: The Daily Record has a nice write up of this item, and Nick Castillo took the time to include the full list of ARP projects. That’s a good thing to include! That’s why they make the big bucks, I guess.

Hour 4:12-5:20, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Items 37 and 38: Plans for the fall election.  

Max Baker wants there to be more outreach for election workers and better pay.  Both seem reasonable.  

  • The county appoints election workers, and Max would like it to be a joint appointment with the city, in order to diversify the workers.  (Really, it’s hard to find people besides retirees).
  • The pay is very low ($11-$12/hour). Could that be made more reasonable?

A small bit of pettiness: Max brings this up during Item 38, but it’s a better fit for Item 37, so he moves to reopen Item 37.  Everybody votes yes except Mark Gleason, who snips “no” , appearing to aim to be a petty little thorn poking Max in the side. 

The vote: County and city joint appointment of election workers? 
Yes:  Everybody but Mark Gleason
No: Mark Gleason

The joint selection passes.  

For raising the pay, Max suggests the Hays County average wage, in order to give a changing benchmark which moves with inflation.  Mark Gleason frets that this will be just too hard to implement, due to the shared math between Hays County and San Marcos. 

The vote:
Yes:  Max Baker, Alyssa Garza
No: Mayor Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez, and Shane Scott.

So this one gets voted down. (Mayor Hughson and Saul Gonzalez both say that they’d support it in the future, just not for this fall.)

…

Item 41: City Representatives to the Greater San Marcos Partnership (GSMP) committee.  GSMP is the business community.  There will be the Mayor, City Clerk, and two city council members.

Max Baker, Alyssa Garza, Mark Gleason, and Shane Scott all volunteer.  So there are two progressive and two conservative choices.  Alyssa makes a rather cute plea for support. (Right at 4:50:10.)

She gets five votes and Shane comes in second, and so they’ll be the representatives.

A small bit: Mayor Hughson voted for Mark Gleason and Shane Scott. That annoyed me, to go for the two conservative dudes. I’d expected her to vote for one from the left and one from the right.  She was the only person not to vote for Alyssa Garza.

…

Item 42: The Library board is proposing going fine-free.  Ending fines is very important – besides being an equity issue, it also drives people away due to the shame that lingers when they owe money.  They state that fines make up 0.25% of the library budget. 

City Council agrees to bring this forward as an issue that they’re interested in discussing.

While we’re on the subject of libraries:  we have a terrific library staff and lovely new facility, but very short library hours.  It’s got this beautiful lobby which should offer extended hours with free internet, but instead the library doesn’t open until 1 pm on Sunday, 10 am on Saturday, and 9 am during the week.  

Also, the number of books in circulation is too low, particularly in the children’s section, and the supply of e-books is low, and they are frequently unavailable.  None of this is the library’s fault – it’s all funding – but it would be nice if it had more books and longer lobby hours.

…

Item 43: COLAs for Council Appointees:

Yes: Everyone.
No: No one.

I only include it because we’ve discussed this before. 

…

Item 45: We got a letter from the Mayor of Austin! We’re so fancy.  The letter is from mayors across Texas, together with Amtrak. We’re going to sign it.

Here’s the letter:

Will it do any good?  I am pretty pessimistic about this state’s ability to ask for free money to help improve the lives of Texans.  (See also: why don’t we expand medicaid, Greg Abbott?)

Comparing I-35 to the Hamburg-Berlin train line seems so ill-suited for a Republican audience that, to me, it reads like a tacit acknowledgment that the Texas Department of Transportation is going to wad this letter up and throw it in the trash. But maybe not!

Having a functional rail system in Texas would be amazing, and I’d love to take the train all over the place.

June 7th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

A note: this is my first post since the shooting at Uvalde. Even though it’s been a few weeks, I want to say how crushingly sad and enraged I am.  I know that we all are.  Unsurprisingly, I have strong opinions on gun control and on the utter shitstain of a police force that dithered about, while children bled out.  But I’m not going to wax on about that – I just wanted to take a moment and hold space for the storm of grief that has impounded that city for the foreseeable future.

Since I went public with this blog, there’ve been a number of major stories – the war in Ukraine, Roe v Wade being demolished, etc, – where I’ve wondered if I should say something here.  Ultimately I figured that there are plenty of smart people writing smart things about state, national, and international issues, elsewhere.  There aren’t many San Marcos blogs, and so this place should mostly stay specifically dedicated to San Marcos issues.   The Uvalde tragedy breaks through all that, though, and needed a moment on this local blog.  

Onto last Tuesday’s meeting!

Hours 1-2

In which City Council is quick with a stop sign, and Southside’s CBDG grant application gets scrutinized.

Hour 3-4.5

At some point, every councilmember must look into the abyss and answer the following question: “Does my irritation with Max Baker outweigh my ability to evaluate the merit of his proposals?”

For many, that moment came around 3 hours, 27 minutes into Tuesday’s meeting.

Hour 4.5+

In which we reflect on why this council struggles, and I play armchair psychologist.

Final note: City Council only meets once in June, and once in July. So the next meeting isn’t until July 7th, and then August 2nd after that. Hmmph.

Hour 1-2, 6/7/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

  • The big topic of the night is the film studio to be built out in La Cima, and what kind of tax breaks they should get, and what kind of expectations should come along with it.  Someone from SMRF spoke about holding them to high environmental standards. Another speaker spoke in favor of it.
  • Rodrigo Amaya talked about one specific police officer who is known to racially profile and harass Hispanic community members at Rio Vista.
  • Remember the dangerous intersection in front of the Methodist Church? That was on April 19th. There is now a stop sign, and the head of WalkSMTX came to profusively thank the city for their quick action. That is some responsive governance right there.

(Some financial reports, an annexation into La Cima which is just more houses and not the film studio.)

Item 29: ’22-’23 CBDG Grant Allocations

There is about $850K in Community Block Development Grant (CBDG) money to be allocated this August. Tuesday’s presentation gave preliminary recommendations about how to divvy it up. Applicants are the Hays-County Women’s Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, CASA, Salvation Army, about four different city programs, and Southside Community Center. 

One of the city programs – the homebuyer assistance program – has been a flop, because there aren’t any affordable houses.  So that is discussed, but not axed. 

Max Baker tackles Southside Community Center.  Basically, there are a lot of reasons to feel warmly towards Southside Community Center – they’ve been serving the homeless for a very long time, and doing so when no one else was. As Jude Prather put it, “their heart is in the right place.”  There are also a lot of reasons to be critical of Southside – in recent years, it sounds like the director had his hands full with medical issues, and the management has fallen apart.  

Southside asked for $115K of CBDG money, and staff is recommending $55K.  However, Southside is apparently sitting on $392K, unspent, from prior years.  Max Baker wants to know why we’re even considering giving them an additional 55K.

He starts by reading this bit that city staff posted to the message board, after Max asked about the $400k:

Staff: As a subrecipient, Southside is essentially a “staff extension” – they must handle a program exactly like staff would handle it. Staff is responsible for setting them up for success, ensuring they are trained. In 2019, all City staff responsible for development and oversight of the program left. In 2020, the HUD monitoring had an extensive 15 findings that included every part of the program – such as documenting whether contractors were procured competitively, whether homeowners received information appropriately, and what each expenditure included. HUD required that City staff completely rewrite the policies and procedures and retrain Southside. Staff also chose to take on some of the actions such as procuring contractors, in order to ensure it was done correctly. Southside has been on hold since, waiting for 1) policy and procedure rewrite 2) retraining 3) contractor procurement. In addition, Southside was responsible for the application intake and income verification process and that did not go well; staff has taken this over as well and is working to receive the correct income documentation from applicants.

Max goes on to say “…This is the first time I remember hearing that  there is this large pot of money that is being unused because of Southside’s – I’m going to put it bluntly – incompetence in managing a program, or having the staff necessary, to deal with this. … If staff is doing so much of this work, why are we still working with Southside? My assumption is that it’s because they have the building.”

(The answer to this is supposed to be posted to the message boards, but it’s not up yet.)

As usual, Max is right, but kind of hostile and undiplomatic about it. Southside isn’t run by bad people. Staff is not bad people.  Maybe we shouldn’t be awarding Southside more money at this moment, but maybe we can say it more nicely? 

…

On a different note, Max Baker has an excellent suggestion that the CBDG money could be used to provide 24 hour restrooms available for homeless people and the general public. This is really important. We can ameliorate some of the worst difficulties of living on the streets, while simultaneously working to get people off the streets. 

Hour 3-4.5, 6/7/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 31: the film studio in La Cima.  It’s already entitled legally to be built. The question tonight is what kind of tax incentives should they get.

By the end of this write up, Max Baker is yelling “I AM ASHAMED THAT SOME OF YOU WOULD NOT VOTE TO ADD-” and Mark Gleason cuts him off to yell “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THESE ACCUSATIONS ANYMORE!!”

(“Yelling” is probably overstating it, but at least seething with anger. It starts at 3:27:00 if you’re curious.)

Buckle up! It’s a long drive to get there.

First off: Apparently council-members were deluged with emails from the public.   But this is not a public hearing, and so there was not a dedicated citizen comment period.  And only 2-3 people spoke on this issue at the beginning of the meeting. So while many people cared enough to write in, we have no way of knowing what they said.

Here’s my best guess:

  • First, I suspect a lot of people wrote in against the whole idea. The city staff presenter went on for a bit about how the studio itself is not up for debate tonight.
  • Second, I’m guessing that a number of letter writers took their cue from SMRF, and wrote in based on the SMRF recommended points:

That’s taken from the SMRF newsletter. Those seem reasonable to me.

The staff presentation goes like this:

  • Please stop discussing whether or not there should BE a studio. Focus on the tax incentive agreement.
  • All of La Cima is limited to 19% impervious cover.
  • This will bring in 22 jobs at 100K, on average, and “up to 1,400 contract workers with an average of 1,200 on production projects at $80k average salary”

Note: “average” is a really bad way to describe salaries.  If you have one person making $400k/year and four people making $25k/year, then the average salary is $100k.  Averages don’t tell you when your distribution is wonky. 

What you actually want is the range and the median. The range tells you the highest and lowest salary. The median works like this: if you lined up all the employees according to what they earn, who is standing in the middle? How much does the middle person earn? That is the median salary. If I tell you that the range is $25K-$500K, and the person in the middle earns $40K, then you can tell there is a lot of inequality and a lot of low salaries. Whereas if the range is $60K-$100K and the median is $80K, then the salaries are distributed more fairly.  

With a film studio, it’s very easy to imagine a wonky distribution of salaries.

  • The city says that the proper comparison is with commercial development like you’d see with big box stores, etc, since this project will come out of the allotted commercial zoning.
  • The aesthetics of a studio will be much better than the aesthetics of commercial strip mall, because the studio will be set back much further and have much more landscaping.

“Landscaping”, of course, is a term that gives me the willies – do we mean golf course green lawns? Or do we mean swoles and natural grasses and things which slow down water sheet run-off?

  • The environmental impact. Compared to a strip mall, this will have 89% Total Suspended Solids (TSS) instead of 85% TSS, and impervious cover will go from 80% to 48%.

The TSS increase is meaningful! It’s very important to get all the pollution out of the water before it runs into the ground.

The impervious cover is a red herring, though. Overall, La Cima will be 19% impervious cover. If they save some ground cover here, they’ll use it elsewhere. (The presenter does acknowledge this.)

City Council digs in

Max Baker talks first.  There are two articles that one community member sent to City Council, questioning whether the economic predictions are overly optimistic. (This is why it would be nice if emails could be available somewhere! I’d like to see these articles.) My best guess is that it’s maybe this one or maybe this one?

Max Baker comes out of the gate swinging: Why hasn’t staff prepared a response to these articles?  Staff doesn’t have a response.  It comes out that Max emailed staff at 2 pm that day.  I’m guessing that Max himself only got the email that day. 

There’s no reason for Max to be so aggressive at this point.  Everyone is behaving reasonably.  This is how you burn bridges.  I agree with him – most likely, the economic predictions are overly rosy. But are they exaggerated enough to tank the project?  Not necessarily. (I have no idea.)

Jude Prather, Mark Gleason, and Shane Scott all weigh in to champion the whole project. The economy! The creative class! The bragging rights!  Listen, I’m not necessarily opposed to a film studio, either.  I’m mostly neutral on it.

Max Baker brings up some technical budget issues – MNO and INS? – which catches Mayor Hughson’s attention, and they work together to untangle it. I didn’t really follow this part, but I bring it up to note that both Max and Jane Hughson are behaving in good faith at this point.

Shane Scott moves to call the question. This is super big bullshit.  The discussion has only been going on for about 30 minutes. Shane is basically trying to shut Max up. He doesn’t get a second, though, so the motion dies.

Next, Max makes the SMRF amendment.  As best I can tell, this should be a slam dunk.  Everybody has said that they got millions of emails from concerned citizens.  Either this is a slam dunk, or it should be explained to the public what the issue is.  

But instead…crickets. No one seconds Max’s amendment.  

Mayor Hughson even snaps, “I might second it if I could only find the language in the code!” but since she can’t quickly find the language in the code in time, she declares the motion dead without a second. Max tells her that she has the email, and yelps for staff to bring up the language, and Jane gets mad at him for that. 

Honestly: this is supremely dysfunctional.  Max has alienated his colleagues, and colleagues are refusing to grant him any grace when he has a legitimate point.

Next Max starts throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. He’s concerned about:

  • Environmental spills and hazards
  • Extra strain on security and police 
  • Creating a food desert for the residents of La Cima
  • That we are claiming to be comparing this to community commercial development, but in fact we approved measures in November that allowed for this kind of use.

The first two are vague and seem to apply to nearly any industry. The third is something I’d idly wondered as well. The last is true, but not an argument against the studio.

Throughout all this, Max frequently implies that his coworkers don’t bother to read their emails and come prepared, don’t actually care about the aquifer, are hypocritical, and so on. If he limited himself to just one of these accusations, it could sound grounded and would maybe pack a punch. But the relentless stream comes across as antagonistic drivel.

Alyssa Garza now has had time to read the articles that Max brought up at the beginning.  She weighs in that they aren’t terribly generalizable – these articles don’t fit with our unique culture and situation. They use different key terms and different levels of analysis. They don’t include a policy recommendation. They’re good articles for what they are, but not terribly compelling as evidence one way or the other for San Marcos.

Mark Gleason gently asks the studio if they’d be willing to consider any extra environmental concessions that he could take back to his constituents, in light of the absolute onslaught of emails he got.  The guy demurs and cites the 48% impervious cover. Gleason praises the applicant and asks about rain barrels. The guy is a fan of rain barrels. And of limiting pesticides. So Gleason has two wins to take back to his constituents, I guess. It’s the most timid environmental win I’ve ever seen, but sure.

Some quick bits:
– Saul Gonzalez asks if San Marcos bargained on these tax rebates.  We are told yes, we did.
– Max asks if there is still commercial available to be developed at La Cima. We are told yes, there is.
– Max asks about if jobs will be required to be local? And can we require internships?

Alyssa Garza points out that there’s a difference between having out-of-town people relocate and be considered locals, and actually hiring people who already lived locally, and that what makes the difference is often jobs trainings and career pathway programs. Will there be those?

The beginning of the end

Max makes a motion that the studio must have 50 internships. Then he says 50 for Texas State and 50 for the high school. He finally gets a second, from Saul Gonzalez.

Alyssa tactfully recommends that he not pick numbers out of thin air, and suggests that he require an internship plan by year 2?  Max amends his motion.

The applicant squirms and protests that they’ll be contracting out with yet-undetermined 3rd parties, and can’t possibly commit to an internship program now.  

Alyssa mutters “This is a hot mess.”  And then elaborates: The educational tie-in is a substantial part of their pitch. It feels like a con if they’re not prepared to actually back it up with any concrete plan. She specifically says that this is a strong application and they didn’t need to bullshit like this, and it chafes.

Vote: Should the studio be obligated to provide an internship plan after two years?
Yes: Max Baker, Saul Gonzalez
No: Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason, and Alyssa Garza.

So it fails.

By this point, the discussion has been going on for over an hour. No one is taking Max seriously. Max makes a motion  to require job training. Does not get a second.

Max asks about the studio’s discrimination policy: why doesn’t it match that of San Marcos? It leaves out protecting gender identity and sexual orientation.  (This is a great catch!)

The city lawyer, Michael Cosantino, affirms that this is a problem, and he adds that the studio also left out age discrimination. He recommends that council fix these omissions.

So Max makes a motion to add in protections for gender identity, sexual orientation and age.   Jude Prather seconds it, but chides Max about going on for too long and dragging things out.

The vote: Should the anti-discrimination clause cover gender identity, sexual orientation, and age?
Yes: Jude Prather, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, and Max Baker 
No: Shane Scott, Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason.

That’s right: the lawyer literally just told them to pass this amendment. Shane Scott, Jane Hughson, and Mark Gleason all vote no, seemingly just to spite Max Baker.

Listen carefully everybody: that is the sound of City Council decompensating.  That is a globby, burbling mess of a City Council.

This is my visual representation of that scene:

via

Which brings us to Max Baker declaring, “I AM ASHAMED THAT SOME OF YOU…!” and simultaneously Mark Gleason shouting “I WILL NOT TAKE THIS!” Mark Gleason shouts about abuse, and filibustering, and calling the question.  Max Baker shouts about the actual definition of filibustering. Jane Hughson shouts about people talking over each other and who has the floor. It is not pretty.

At this point, Jude Prather moves to call the question. This passes with a 6-1 vote.  (I bet you can infer how that played out.) So the discussion (yelling) is finally over.

The actual vote on the tax incentive plan for the studio:
Yes: Everyone but Max.
No: Max.

Max Baker spits, “Thank you all for not working very hard on this!”

What is my analysis? 

That in a pissing match, everyone gets pretty smelly and wet?   

Ok, here goes:

I can’t tell what Max Baker’s actual position on the studio is. Does he think it’s fundamentally a bad idea? Does he think that it’s fundamentally a good idea, but the agreement is sloppy? Is he open to being persuaded, if these amendments were taken seriously?

If you think the studio should not exist, you should make a concise and clear argument why not. Since it’s clearly going to pass without your vote, pick one or two mitigating amendments, and try to coax others to go along with these changes. In my opinion, the SMRF amendment and fixing the anti-discrimination language should have been easy wins, or at least thoughtful discussions.

If you think the studio should exist, then say so and provide a balanced list of pros and cons. Work to iron out the cons.

What Max Baker is doing is treating the proposal as though a procrastinating college student wrote it overnight on the last day of spring break. Max is the professor who takes it as a foregone conclusion that the paper is crap. He then nitpicks every last sentence through a lens of finding proof that justifies his beliefs. Any single correction is probably fair, but as a whole, it’s overkill to eviscerate a paper like that.

To be clear: Max Baker’s moral compass is generally pointed in the right direction. It’s just that he’s got no sense of scale. Everything is a calamity of the same proportion. 

Nevertheless, the rest of city council has an obligation to wade through Max’s crises and evaluate each one on its merits.  It’s extremely poor form to vote against him, out of spite.