Tag: buc-ees

Hours 0:00 – 1:00, 3/5/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment:

  • Fourl people spoke, calling for City Council to issue a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
  • Three people spoke against Buccees.  I’ll save the details for the item on Buccees, below.
  • One landlord speaks against items 17 and 18. These are resolutions from the Neighborhood Commission. We’ll get to those, too.

On the topic of the Gaza ceasefire: clearly, the mass killing of the Palestinian people by the Israeli army is a humanitarian crisis. Now in general, city resolutions on international issues aren’t going to carry much weight. We didn’t issue resolutions when the Rohinga were being killed in Myanmar or the Darfur genocide in Sudan.

But Gaza is more relevant because the US supplies Israel with weapons, and it’s even more local because Governor Abbott actively supports the Israeli army. So you can make the case that cities in Texas should actively and vocally oppose Abbott on this. I support the speakers calling on Council to issue a resolution for a ceasefire.

……

Item 13:  Some folks want to put a hotel on I35.

It would go here:  

On the street level, it looks like so:

That’s the view from the southbound I35 access road, as you’re heading from Wonderworld towards McCarty.

It had been zoned Heavy Commercial, which does not allow hotels. So the developer is asking for regular commercial, where they can.

What does Council think?

(Saul is absent.) So it passes easily.

…

Item 14:  Rezoning some land out by Redwood:

There’s a gas station and some senior apartments there already.  

It has been zoned CD-5, which is supposed to feel like a walkable downtown area.  Cute little two-story buildings along a sidewalk, where you can easily dip in and out from store to store.  Zoning that farmland as something “walkable” is a little ambitious?  But sure.

The owner hasn’t been able to get any developers interested in the spot. So he wants to change it to regular commercial.  This is more like your strip malls or dollar generals.  Big parking lot out front.  No longer striving for walkability.  

What does Council think?

Great.

….

Item 2: Buc-ee’s.

At citizen comment, there were several people who spoke against Buccees.   I’m going to organize their concerns:

Concerns that are nonsensical:

  • Buccees doesn’t reflect our values/preserve our unique character/reflect our priorities.
  • Inefficient land use
  • This is not what San Marcos needs. 
  • We cannot handle this. We don’t have the infrastructure to handle this.

Is the problem that Buccee’s is tacky? Do the good people of San Marcos only want serious, dignified gas stations, without cartoon mascots? What are we talking about here?

Concerns that at least make sense to me:

  • Buccee’s promotes oil-dependency and unhealthy food.
  • Keeps travelers from exploring San Marcos
  • Buccees generates less property tax revenue in NB than other I-35 frontage retail.
  • Jobs are closer to Kyle than San Marcos.
  • We should not be subsidizing retail jobs that pay below the median wage.

These are all legitimate drawbacks. Are they drawbacks that outweigh the projected $400K/year that the city will get in taxes? Eh, probably not.

Concerns that I share:

  • Contract is full of green-washing and light on details.
  • The work environment is toxic. They pay well because they work you to death.

I can’t evaluate whether or not the contract is green-washing. It’s certainly incredibly brief on the rainwater collection and oil-and-water runoff separators. I’d be interested to know what an environmental expert says.

On the work environment, I did a quick Reddit search. For example, this long thread from two years ago. Or this shorter thread from three months ago. There are lots of complaints that it is in fact a very toxic environment. Many comments say turnover is super high.

One last piece of evidence came during the February 20th meeting. The Buccee’s representative said multiple times something like, “The job is tough, so we compensate you for it! No one said it’s an easy job!”  That is not a great thing to hear from management.

What does council think? 

Mayor Hughson: I just want to highlight the dollars that this will bring in to the community.

Alyssa Garza asks if there’s any representative here from Buccee’s, who can speak to the accusations of bad labor practices?

Answer: There isn’t. City staff weakly gives some anecdotes about staff retention. But there’s no data on turnover or anything

Matthew Mendoza speaks to the quality of the opportunities and why we need good jobs for people without college educations.

The vote:

Everyone reassures Alyssa that labor violations are a federal matter! Surely the Department of Labor will respond promptly to any issues. 

That is some magical thinking right there. (Also I learned something new: federal law does not require lunch breaks or rest breaks. Unsurprisingly, neither does Texas. We should probably require breaks in our Chapter 380 agreements.) But generally, there is plenty of wiggle room to be an abusive employer without facing consequences from the DoL.

Hours 1:00 – 1:57, 2/20/24

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 17:  you may have heard of this gasoline station?

They want to come to San Marcos. 

Specifically, here:

Even more specifically here:

It’s going to have all your Buc-ees features that you know you love:

120 gas pumps, some electric vehicle charging stations, massive travel center, endless Buc-ees themed gear, etc. You know the drill.

There’s going to be some extra roads:

This is a good location.  It’s not in any floodplain, it’s not over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, nor any other sort of environmentally sensitive zone.  It’s good for traffic, too, because there are off-ramps and on-ramps right there. Southbound I-35 traffic can get in and out, without having to wait at any traffic lights.

…

So now the bargaining begins. What can they offer us? What can we offer them?

They’re offering a minimum of 175 stable jobs:

Just to be clear, $18/hour puts you at $36K per year.   That is above the federal poverty rate for a family of four, but it does not exactly leave you any breathing room. It’s a hell of a lot better than our $7.25/hour  joke of a minimum wage, though.

The benefits are meaningful – health care, 401K with matching contributions, 3 weeks paid vacation.  They’re not doing the asshole move of scheduling everyone for 35 hours/week in order to avoid having to pay for healthcare.  

Environmentally, they’re offering to install an oil-water separator to handle the runoff from the fueling area.

Virginia Parker, the director of the San Marcos River Foundation, had a recommendation: include a clause in the contract to require regular maintenance inspections of the oil-water separator on a regular basis.   

Take her advice, Council!!  Systems need maintenance! Don’t just let things degrade over the next 50 years.

(Council ignored this.)

So what do they want from us?

Background: businesses pay both property taxes and sales tax. 
– Property tax rate: 0.063 cents per $100 appraised.
– Sales tax rate: 1.5 cents per dollar. 

The deal is that Buc-ees would pay all of their property taxes, but only half the sales tax, for 15 years.   

Here’s what the fiscal analysis predicts:

So we stand to bring in a lot, but we’re also giving a lot away. 

Let’s just do some quick back-of-the-envelope math.  If Buc-ees expects to pay $188K in sales tax in the first year, that means they’re expecting to bring in over $25 million in sales, from this one store, that first year.  Over the whole 15 years, we’re rebating them $3.2 million. That implies they’re expecting to earn $426.7 million in sales, at this location alone. 

Bottom line: Sure, it’s in our best interest to give up this $188K so that we can get the bigger revenue. But they’re not struggling to keep the lights on. This isn’t a feel-good grant to a struggling mom-and-pop shop.

One other note: 

This is not in SMCISD.  Your local schools won’t see that money. Is Hays ISD a perfectly nice place? Sure. But it’s vast and stretches up to Austin, and it’s mostly not San Marcos, which is what this Council represents. Probably 98% of the kids in San Marcos are zoned for SMCISD.

One more interesting detail:  The EDSM board  is the Economic Development of San Marcos Board.  They took a look at this project at the end of last year, and they recommended a 10 year rebate.  But then it got changed to a 15 year rebate.  Why?  

Shane Scott asks this very question, later on:  Why was 10 years not okay? 
The Buc-ee’s rep says: This is our standard Chapter 380 agreement! If you want 10 years, we need a bigger rebate. Or if you want 20 years, we’d take a smaller rebate. You’re getting the standard package!

Saul asks: Would you stay if it was 10 years at 50%?
Answer: Yeah, no.  We’d walk.

Mmhmm. 

Saul asks: What about part-time employees?
Answer: We pride ourselves on having a maximal number of fulltime employees.

Saul: Is your customer base going to be local people or I-35 traffic?
Answer: We think it will be 80% out-of-towners.  Our business model is that we’re a road trip stop.  Shouldn’t affect local convenience stores or gas stations.

Matthew Mendoza asks about trash and recycling.
Answer:  We are aggressive recyclers! We do as much as we can! 

Matthew also asks if this is actually a truck stop?
Answer: Nope! No 18-wheelers except for the ones delivering things to the store.

Alyssa asks about benefits for employees?
Answer: 3 weeks vacation, health care after 60 days, and a 401K with 100% match up to 6%.

Those are all reasonable.

Jane Hughson asks one of the city staff to talk about programs for local small businesses, and he rattles off a dozen small programs. You can get coaching, you can get grants to replace your awning, you can get a grant if you want to do something environmentally friendly, that kind of thing. (That is the extent to which City Council heard and placated the citizen comment complaints.)

Jude Prather is super stoked.  This sends a message that San Marcos is OPEN FOR BUSINESS! 

Mark Gleason praises the choice of location for traffic and environmental reasons, which is fair.  He says he’s a little uneasy about the 15 years, and wouldn’t have agreed to it if they also were getting property taxes back. Also fair.  He compliments them on their fair employment practices and reiterates Jude’s OPEN FOR BUSINESS line.

The vote:

This will come back around next time for a final vote.  

I know I sound a little grumpy here. I’m not saying Buc-ee’s is a bad corporation. They seem like nice people. They seem like they make an effort to treat their employees well and do more than the bare minimum for the environment.  

Here’s what I’m saying:  In Texas, we allow corporations to get away with staggeringly awful behavior. So when a company comes along and doesn’t treat their hourly employees like utter dog shit, we fall all over ourselves with shock and awe.  What heroes! They pay $36K a year!  You can go to a doctor and take a vacation! 

Excuse me while I sidle away from the wankfest?  Thank you for clearing this extremely low bar of decency?

Bottom line: do I think we should we take this deal with Buc-ees?

Eh, yes. I do.  I’d vote for in favor, if it were up to me.

…

Item 5: THE CAN BAN!

This is the final vote. We’ve been over the go-zones and no-zones, the issue with the coolers, and everything else. (Here, here, here, and here.)

Alyssa Garza mentions again that she’s opposed to the ban on big coolers on the river.  I too think it’s silly, but the “go-zones” ended up being so big that there’s plenty of space for big coolers to hang out. 

Everyone is very gracious and appreciative of staff, and very excited to get this done. 

THE VOTE:

There was an actual burst of applause in the chambers.  Everyone’s super stoked.