Tag: boyhood alley

Hours 0:00 – 0:50, 11/6/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Onto the little meeting!   

Just one citizen comment, from a community member about the Dunbar Heritage buildings that are under renovation.

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Item 12: The good people of Riverside Drive want to ban parking on their street.

The issue is that the street fills up with river-goers in the summer. Since there is not enough proper parking around the falls, people park on Riverside Drive during the summer, and walk over. 

Look, I’m not in a great mood.  I didn’t like it last month on Sturgeon, and I don’t like it now.

  1. This is exclusionary.  The street does not belong to you.  

  2. It’s counter-productive! Street parking is a traffic-calming measure. It makes drivers go more slowly, instead of tearing through your neighborhood at 40 mph.

  3. I might be sympathetic if local residents did not have driveways, and were forced to park away from their houses and walk to get home.  But that is not what is happening. The residents of this street put out orange traffic cones to block river-users from parking in front of their houses.  They’re not putting their own cars out on the street. 

  4. The parking ban is year round. (Holidays and weekends.) There is no reason for the ban to exist during the winter.  Does it matter? No, but it’s overreach.  

Living near the river is a privilege.  The streets belong to the public, and that includes those who want to visit the river.  I’m just not in the mood for territoriality and exclusion at the moment. 

The Vote:

Yes, parking bans are great: everybody
No, parking bans are the worst: nobody

Oh well. At least I can rant on the blog.

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Item 4:  The new HEB.

Everyone cheered and quickly voted on this, in about 30 seconds.

Here were my concerns last time:

  • Would all HEB employees get the $15/hour as required by local ordinance, even at the existing stores?
  • Can we include something about wage and benefits, to make sure our workers are given good jobs?
  • Is it in writing that Little HEB will stay open for a certain number of years? 
  • Can we ask HEB about purchasing that little triangle of land next to Purgatory Creek from them?

Here’s what council said about these questions:

[Nothing.] 

I know, we were all consumed with the election. But I still wish we’d fought on behalf of employees.

The vote:

YAY HEB 4-EVAH: Everybody, unanimous, etc. 
I hate everyone’s favorite grocery store:  nobody.

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Item 10: The Mitchell Center

We mentioned this last time at the workshop: it’s being handed over to the Calaboose African American History Museum. 

It’s located here, tucked in the back corner of Dunbar park:

Apparently there is a covenant that runs with the land that requires the land be used for a public, non-profit purpose.   This seems like a good choice.

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Item 13:  Naming the alleys

This also came up last time:

Those seven alleys with names in white are getting officially named. 

The remaining alleys are driving Jane crazy.  She wants to pair them up with movies or anything, and get them named.  No one else seems to be in that big a hurry.

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Item 14:  Municipal Court

I guess we’re getting a new spot for our municipal court?

I don’t know if this is where the public will go for court, or if it’s administrative type stuff.

Here’s the building, according to Google Maps:

We signed a 20 year lease.

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Item 17: River Bridge Ranch is this giant future subdivision:

It’s located here:

(That bit above is actually two closely related developments: River Bend Ranch and River Bridge Ranch. But the details are murky to me.)

This development makes me cranky:

  1.  In 2022, they wanted to put an industrial plant on the southern corner, which would have required an insane cut-and-fill.   This would have increased flooding in Redwood. Huge numbers of residents from Redwood turned out to argue against it, given the flooding and infrastructure.  The permit was denied.

  2. Originally, River Bridge Ranch was approved to be both housing and commerce. After all, it’s huge! And we have this long-standing issue where there isn’t any commerce on the east.  They waited for a polite amount of time to pass. Then they came back and asked if Council would just forget about the pesky commerce bit. 

    Council said “You betcha!  This way you’ll make more money!” And lo, no more commerce.

This meeting, Council forms a subcommittee on it: Saul Gonzales, Matthew Mendoza, and Jane Hughson.

So this means it’s going to be coming back around again. Fingers crossed!

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Items 16 and 18: The New City Hall

We’re designing a new city hall.

Council has this grand idea that the new city hall should replace the dog park and skate park, and the current location should be housing:

I am not convinced! Why should we develop our parks? Why not re-build where you are?

Anyway, Council appointed a 23-person steering committee:
– The mayor and two councilmembers
– These groups all get to pick a member: P&Z, Library, Downtown Association, River Foundation, University representative, Chamber of Commerce
– Each councilmember picked two community members.
In total there are 23 people.

SO! After multiple meetings and lots of discussion, what did the DEI Coordinator say about the end result? Did we achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion? Moment of truth!

…Nothing. The DEI coordinator wasn’t there. Status quo was upheld.

This would have been the moment to verify that “business as usual” had produced a diverse committee that matches San Marcos.  We did not verify this!

Hours 1:24 – 2:05, 10/15/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 13: Remember that time we didn’t have any commerce on the east side?

Will anybody save us from this food desert??

OH YEAH! It’s all very exciting. 

Back in May, Council approved a call for bids, saying “hey Grocery stores! We’ll work with you on tax breaks if you hit up the east side!”  HEB was listening loud and clear, and reached out to us in August.

Here’s where it will be: 

So right next to Embassy Suites, on NB I-35. 

They’ve owned this land for a long time, but HEB likes to do that: purchase potential land and then just chill with it for awhile. 

It’s a pretty ideal location: Between McCarty and I-35, you can zip pretty much all over the place. 

(This would be a great time to connect the two Leah Drives! Which are disconnected for reasons that are still murky to me:

Idk!)

So what are the terms?

Those rebates are pretty much exactly what Council proposed last May.

What kind of dollar amounts are we talking about?

I’m mildly skeptical about these sales tax numbers. Or rather, it’s not all new tax revenue to the city. Some of that money would have been spent at the existing Big and Little HEBs, and is just being diverted to the 3rd HEB. Now, a lot of folks on the east side currently drive down to HEB in New Braunfels, and so that will bring in new tax dollars if they switch to this new store. But not everyone!

What about jobs and such?

Ok, but what kind of pay and benefits? When we negotiated with Buccee’s, the company specified that they will pay $18/hour and get full benefits.

As far as I can tell, we entirely skipped this part of the negotiation. HEB will have to abide by the 2016 San Marcos law requiring companies to pay $15/hour, in exchange for tax breaks.   Does this mean that all HEB stores have to pay at least $15 an hour?

I believe HEB is pretty good to their employees, but this is poor work by Council and staff. We should always be negotiating on behalf of employees.

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Sidebar: When we passed the 2016 (partial) minimum wage law, we did not include automatic inflation adjustments, the way we do for other contracts. If we had, $15/hour in 2016 would have automatically risen to $19.96 in 2024.

Hey council: Let’s update the 2016 ordinance and include automatic inflation adjustments! Like we do for so many things?

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Back to HEB. What did Council say?   Mostly everyone gave a victory lap of thank yous. 

Mark Gleason added: “To other grocery stores, our economic incentive offer still stands! The east side can have more than just one grocery store!”  That’s great to hear.

Also: Mark is hearing from the community that lots of people are worried that Little HEB will close. During the meeting, councilmembers say “It’s great that they’ll keep Little HEB open” but I can’t find this actually written down anywhere. It would be good to have that in writing.

So here are my questions:

  • Would all HEB employees get the $15/hour as required by local ordinance, even at the existing stores?
  • Language about elevated minimum wage and benefits should always automatically be in these agreements.
  • Is it in writing that Little HEB will stay open for a certain number of years? 
  • Will Council please update the 2016 ordinance to peg the minimum wage to inflation???
  • Can we ask HEB about purchasing that little triangle of land next to Purgatory Creek?

The vote: 6-0.  Everyone hams it up in really cheesy ways: “Absolutely yes!” “Finally…yes!”  Fist pump. Etc.

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Item 14: Alliance Regional Water Authority (ARWA)

ARWA is our big plan to shore up our water supply for the next 50 years. We originally signed onto it in 2008.  Instead of getting our water from Canyon Lake and the Edwards Aquifer, we’re piping it in from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer. 

(image via)

It’s just about time to start drinking that sweet, sweet Carrizo-Wilcox water! 

These are slides from the packet, but no one actually gave a presentation on it.

so I’m just winging it here.

Tonight is about extending a bond for the next part of the project.  Everyone celebrated it, but I’m not sure what the special significance was. 

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Item 16: Renaming downtown alleys

A couple years ago, Council dipped its toe in the exciting world of naming downtown alleys.  First up was Kissing Alley, in 2017.  It came with a whole revitalization effort – Kissing Alley concerts, etc.  It’s been great!

Next up came Boyhood Alley, to commemorate the movie Boyhood, which has an iconic scene shot there. This council conversation was kinda hilarious, because some councilmembers thought it sounded like Pervert Alley.

In order to dilute the pervy-sounding Boyhood Alley, Jane proposed that the rest of the unnamed alleys to be named after other movies. 

So the Convention and Visitor Bureau Advisory Board and the Main Street Advisory Board took up the charge. Tonight they’re back with their recommendations:

Four of the alleys have names already used:

That’s kinda cute about the dog.

A few others have informal names:

  • Music Alley
  • Imagine Alley
  • Railroad Alley

The committee is proposing two new ones:

  1. Getaway Alley, because some scenes from The Getaway were filmed near there:
Clockwise from top left: Sewell Park (upstream of Aquarena Drive), Texaco at 205 West Hopkins Street, intersection at West Hopkins Street & Moore Street, tire shop at 141 West Hopkins Street. Via this now-defunct website.

Steve McQueen! Ali McGraw! Haven’t seen it, but it seems like a fun romp.

2. Telephone Alley, after the old Telephone building that got torn down in 2019:

Isn’t that a very cute building? I was bummed that it got torn down. (Photo from here.) It was demolished to make room for The Parlor apartments.

That’s on San Antonio. Here’s a before and after, according to Google Maps:

I’m not actually opposed to the apartments, but I wish we could have spared the cute Telephone building.

… 

There are still more alleys without names. Jane wants to pair up the rest of the unnamed alleys with old movies, but other councilmembers want to roll it out more slowly – maybe Main Street can pick one or two per year, and figure out a good name for it. Sounds like that’s how it will go.

Hours 3:00 – 4:10

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 16: Back to Boyhood Alley!  Shall we name the alley after the film, Boyhood?  

Jane Hughson still thinks Boyhood Alley sounds dirty, which still cracks me up. She offers up an amendment. “How about Boyhood Film Alley”? she offers.

Saul Gonzalez likes it. 

Max points out that “Boyhood Film Alley” sounds even dirtier than whatever someone is misconstruing Boyhood Alley to be.  

Jane concedes this point, and backpedals from “Boyhood Film Alley” to “Boyhood, the Movie Alley”, which is hilariously clunky.  We’re almost in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series territory for winky-awkward names. How about “Boyhood, the Movie, Not the Porno, the Alley”?  I’m here for it!

The vote on “Boyhood, the Movie, the Alley”:
Yes: Jane Hughson and Saul Gonzalez
No: All the councilmembers under 60 years old

So it fails. 

Should we call it Boyhood Alley?

The vote on just plain “Boyhood Alley”
Yes: Everyone except Jane.
No: Jane

I will say this for Jane: she takes defeat in good humor. She merrily says, “It’s not the first time I’ve lost a vote in public!” and shrugs it off.

…..

Item 27: Library fines will go away! This was fast and unanimous.

Item 36: Eco-friendly burials are now going to be allowed at San Marcos cemeteries.

People are just dying to have them!

(Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.)

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Items 28-29: We’re going to trade some land with Texas State, right at Sessom and Loquat. Trying to get a map of what’s going on is a disaster, because they didn’t include it in the packet, but here’s where we’re talking about:

So if you’re driving west on Sessom, then Loquat Street is on your right while campus is on your left.

I am not sure I’ve ever been on Loquat before, but I’d better check it out soon, because they’re closing it, as part of this deal. Jane Hughson was kind of bummed out about closing it, since it makes a useful shortcut.

Google streetview tells me it looks like this:

which is probably why I’ve never ended up on it.

So, we’re giving Loquat street to Texas State, and they’re closing it down. In exchange, they’re giving us some land along Canyon Road, which we’re using to stabilize Sessom Creek without polluting it.

Would you like to see a good map of what’s going on? So would I. Unfortunately, the presentation was not included in the packet, so I only have a screenshot of it:

City council videos are the WORST quality. I mean, seriously. Sessom is running along the bottom of the diagram here.

  • The thick red line is Loquat Street, which we’re giving to Texas State.
  • Green is the land along Canyon, which Texas State is giving to the city.
  • Blue is staying as the city property
  • Yellow is fragile environmentally

So, what is Texas State planning on doing in that big red area? NOBODY ASKED.

Here’s the problem: Texas State University does not have to follow city flood mitigation rules. In our land development code, we have a million rules about floods: limits on impervious cover, catching run-off water, water quality treatment zones, flood zones, recharge zones, and on and on. Texas State follows exactly ZERO of it. By state law, Texas State University does not have to give one whit about city ordinances.

This is insanely sensitive land, and it drains directly into Sessom Creek. It’s uphill from most of the entire city. It should not be paved and it should not be developed. In fact, this is more-or-less where there was a huge fight circa 2013, when a developer wanted to build apartment complexes around there. It’s a TERRIBLE SPOT to build.

Some more googling tells me that the blue part below is owned by the city, called the Sessom Creek Natural Area:

I assume that blue part is staying put. But what about the other side of Loquat?

I am extremely worried that Texas State is going to put dorms or something high intensity on it. There is nothing in the council packet, and no one asked. We just gave them the final piece they needed.

Maybe I’m wrong! But maybe this is a big fucking disaster and we just waltzed into it.