Tag: citizen comment

Hours 1:20-2:37, 12/19/23

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 4: ”Citizen Comment” vs. “Community Perspectives”

Shane pulled this item from the Consent Agenda. 

Backstory

Mayor Hughson decided to clean up the city ordinances on committee meetings. She flagged a bunch of things that were inconsistent or unclear. One thing she noticed is that “Citizen Comment” is a terrible phrase, because you don’t actually have to be a citizen in order to comment. It sends a bad message.

We’ve discussed this here and here. Jane suggested “Community Perspectives” and in the past two months, no one ever protested it.

Here we go:

Shane says that he doesn’t like “Community Perspectives” because it implies that each speaker represents the entire community, instead of their own individual opinion.

Look, clearly “Community Perspectives” is a bit dippy. It sounds like a church bulletin board. But Shane’s complaint is also silly. No one is going to think that some rando speaker is supposed to represent everyone in town. It’s not “Community Spokesperson.”  

Jane, wearily: We’ve talked about this on a bunch of occasions.

Shane: I’ll just vote against it.

Jane: The entire list of all the changes?!

Shane: No, just this one. 

Jane: You can’t just vote against one.

Shane: Oh right. 

So Shane makes a motion: Keep it “Citizen Comment” after all. Alyssa seconds it.

Saul: I’m fine the way it is. Citizen Comment.

Matthew: I don’t care either way.

Jane: Honestly, I was concerned about changing it, because it’s been called “Citizen Comment” for years. Everyone is used to that. But I just don’t want anyone to feel excluded.

Alyssa: I appreciate that. But maybe we can just say something on the website.

Mark: I’m on the fence. Everyone knows it as Citizen Comment. 

The vote to amend:

Keep calling it Citizen Comment: All seven councilmembers

Change to Community Perspectives: no one.

On a scale of 1-10 of importance, this is maybe a 2. Nevertheless, they got it wrong! “Citizen Comment” is bad because “citizen” is exclusive. Jane is exactly right here. 

Off the top of my head, they could have gone with:
– Community Comment
– Open Comment
– Civic Comment
– Citizens-and-Not-Citizens Comment (okay, now I’m getting punchy)

I know they’re worried that changing the name would up-end years of familiarity. But that’s tunnel vision from being in the center of the action for too long.  Most of San Marcos is not paying any attention to City Council at all! Those who know the phrase “Citizen Comment” are not emotionally attached to it. You can switch to “Open Comment” and we’ll all be okay.

They didn’t want to go with “Public Comment” because it sounds very similar to “Public Hearing,” which is a specific different thing. 

Oh well!

The vote on all the little changes that Jane proposed:

Yes: Everyone.
No: No one.

….

Item 21:  Gary Softball Sports Complex is getting renovated.

We’re spending $1,238,000.22 on the following:

  • Roadway, drainage, parking, water/wastewater improvements.
  • Parts of the fields are 20+ years old

There were no slides or pictures for me to nab for you.

….

Item 23: Human Services Advisory Board (HSAB) Funding Policy

We’re going to spend some time on this item, because it drove me batty.

Backstory

Earlier in December, we allocated $650K in grant money to local nonprofits. There were 34 applications. Each nonprofit got between $5K and $34K, except for the Hays-Caldwell Women’s Shelter and the Hays County Food Bank, which got $50K and $80K respectively.

I griped last time that Council makes these nonprofits jump through a lot of hoops, while we just hand out other money seamlessly and invisibly. 

Guys. guys. We are about to get SO MUCH MORE micromanaging of this whole mess. We are going to nitpick this thing to death.

The current issue

Recall that the HSAB committee assigned points according to this rubric:

Jane is mad about Council Priorities being neglected. It’s only 15 points! Nevermind that people with nonprofit experience developed priorities 1-4, and that Council Priorities are somewhat redundant.

Here are the things that Jane’s mad about:

  • It’s not punitive enough if performance reports are late.
  • The Council priorities should add up to 25 or more points!
  • We want to know where the board members live. Do they live in San Marcos? Do they live in Kyle? In Austin?
  • They should spell out all acronyms. No unclear abbreviations. (I acknowledge this one. They really should.)

Complaint #1: Those Pesky Performance Reports:

Because last year was so weird, the money wasn’t approved until March. So the whole calendar was up-ended. The nonprofits were supposed to turn in mid-year reports when they re-applied for new funding in August. One nonprofit was late by one day, due to turnover in staffing. One other nonprofit was later, but ended up withdrawing altogether. 

So there is not really a problem here: nearly everyone turned in their mid-year reports on time. Final reports will be due at the end of January.

First off, everyone seemed really confused about the calendar. It is legitimately confusing, because it was never spelled out clearly up front.

Here’s the normal situation:

A funding cycle is three years:

Year A: You apply and get your money. (Applications are due in August, money awarded in December.)
Year B: You spend your money. (It’s a calendar year, Jan-December)
Year C: You turn in your final report. (It’s due by January 31st)

If you are re-applying for funding, you’d apply again in Year B. So your final report from the previous cycle isn’t available yet, because you’re still spending that money.

Jane is acting like it’s a two year cycle, and that it’s just incompetence that keeps nonprofits from having their final report on time. The staff member gently tried to explain, but Jane kept misinterpreting the explanation. (Jane kept acting like the issue was nonprofits that skipped an application cycle, and she’s say things like “If they didn’t apply for a year, then they should just turn in the most recent report.”)

Alyssa: Working for a nonprofit, you are constantly dealing with so many grants, and this is a small amount of money. These are good people, overworked on a shoestring budget, and we’re offering them 50¢. Can’t we have just have grace for our neighbors? Let them work it out on a case-by-case basis with staff?

I’m going to skip about 20 minutes of haggling between councilmembers, but suffice it to say: No. We cannot have grace for our neighbors. Matthew Mendoza is the biggest hard-ass of all, harping on how everything needs to be promptly on time, no exceptions. 

Jane: How about this: the report is due in August. We’ll accept late reports, as long as the final report is in before the committee needs to consider applications. 

The staff member tries to explain again: this year, only half-year reports were due Oct 15th. The Board considers applications in November. So the nonprofits really can’t get final reports in by decision time. They can submit final reports eventually though. 

Jane: We’re going to need to see the final report!

Answer: The final reports are due January 31st. So they could easily submit that for the following cycle, in August?

Jane: Yes. Have them print it out again.Thank you.

Bottom line: if you’re funded in Year A, you’ll submit that report two years later, when you re-apply for funding August of Year C. No one could possibly be late with their final report, because it was due seven months earlier, in January.

Alyssa, “This is really insulting, because it’s not actually a problem. Bigger granting agencies handle extenuating circumstances with grace all the time. We’re the ones treating nonprofits like they can’t handle being professional.”

Alyssa is right. The whole tone of this conversation is that nonprofits are naughty wayward children, and if they carry on, they shan’t have any figgy pudding. 

Such naughty, naughty non-profits.

Complaint #2: Council priorities should add up to more points!

We’re talking about this slide again. Jane suggests that the points allocated should be:

2 years San Marcos Service (5 points 10 points)
Office in San Marcos (5 points 10 points)
Funding creates increase in service (5 points)

Everyone nods compliantly. 

Alyssa:  What’s the rationale behind increasing the first two and leaving the third the same?

Jane: No reason! We could do 10/10/10, make it 30 total!  

This is exactly how haphazard this all is. She’s not actually making a claim about the relative merits of the bullet points. Council just felt neglected, since their priorities were only worth 15 points. (I think they settled on 10/10/10.)

Complaints #s…: Other Things

  • Jane would like to know which cities the board members live in. She doesn’t need to know their address, but she is interested to know if they live in San Marcos, or Kyle, or Austin, or what.
  • Jane wants to require them to spell out acronyms. (One application didn’t.) 

No one objects to these two criterion, although I assume Alyssa rolled her eyes. I mean, it’s good manners to spell out your acronyms, but I wouldn’t make it a rule.

Matthew: Can we ask them what percentage this grant is of their total budget? 
Answer: We already know this, based on the information provided.

Jane: Could they could have a coversheet that divided the applications, with the organization’s name and their San Marcos address with their requested amount?
Answer: no problem.

(I actually find this one quite reasonable. It’s just about improving the readability of the applications. And staff can implement this without inconveniencing the nonprofits.)

Jane: Will Council be able to review and vote on the final draft of the application and rules?
Answer: No problem.

Alyssa has one final comment. “Can we see this level of accountability and reports when we talk about the police department, or the fire department, or public works? We give the police $322 per resident. We give the fire department $218 per resident. And we give public works $141 per resident. Yet we are wasting all of this time over the HSAB board, which works out to… $7 per resident. Can we carry this energy when we talk about budgets in general?”

Jane responds: That’s different. Those are all city departments with department heads that report to us.

Let’s analyze this last bit. Who gets micromanaged, and who doesn’t?

  • It is true that micromanaging city departments is different than micromanaging contracts and grants to external groups. 
  • However, all of those departments have many external contracts that run between $5K and $35K, and those contracts do not get scrutinized by council. We just trust the department.

In fact, immediately before this item, we approved a contract for $1 million, for improvements at Gary Softball Complex. We did not check whether the contractor was a local company. (They are not local.) We did not ask the private company to explain what all the acronyms meant! We did not second-guess how council priorities were weighted in the selection criteria. We just voted yes, because we trusted the city staff that recommended the construction agency.

Furthermore, there are at least two Very Special Nonprofits that the city negotiates with directly.
1. The Greater San Marcos Partnership, or GSMP.

Back in 2021, we signed a three year contract with them for $400,000 each year. They get $1.2 million dollars! Isn’t that something. 

GSMP has to submit a yearly report card. The last – and only! – time they gave an update to City Council was back in May 2022. I can’t find any yearly report cards on on the San Marcos website, so transparency is nonexistent there. From the GSMP website, here’s their yearly report from 2022. It reads more like a promotional brochure than a detailed report, though. Is that the same as a yearly report card? I have no idea!

Things no one on Council cared about:

  • Where the board members live. Do the GSMP board members live in Wimberly? In Austin? Who knows. Because no one cares.
  • The exact date that the report was submitted, or whether yearly reports are happening at all. City Council has not hyperventilated about this yet.
  • Whether all the acronyms were spelled out precisely. In fact, there are a lot of abbreviations!
  • What percent the San Marcos money is of their total budgets.

What a funny thing, right? (I actually wrote about the contract with GSMP here, but I was a newbie blogger and was still trying to get the hang of it.)

2. San Marcos Chamber of Commerce

We give the Chamber of Commerce $28K/year. They get two automatic yearly renewals. We got some details because we gave them more money this past fall, reallocated from Covid money.

There has not been any discussion that I can see about this money since a work session in 2020. I did not watch the work session, but the powerpoint slides are very vague and uninformative. 

Here’s the thing: I don’t think we should micromanage GSMP or Chamber of Commerce, either! We could have a philosophical conversation about how they benefit the community, but I think they basically do what they say they’re doing. (I’m not opposed to the idea supporting small, locally owned businesses. We can quibble about dollar amounts some other time.)

The point is that we treat these groups like professional adults. If they’re late, we pick up the phone and give them a call. If there’s a confusing acronym, we shoot them an email. We don’t act like a grumpy school principal who posts an additional rule on the bulletin board every time someone misbehaves.

Finally: it helps small locally-owned businesses if we lift people out of poverty. Middle class people can eat out downtown more than poor people can! Supporting the most vulnerable members of our community is actually best for everyone.

…

Item 24: Should we postpone VisionSMTX?

Right now, VisionSMTX is supposed to come around on January 16th for a final vote. In the meantime, a subcommittee had been meeting, and they’re recommending that we do more community outreach.

There’s a brief discussion, and Jane checks with everyone informally. It’s really hard to hear who is a “yes” and who is a “no”, but I think this is how it goes:

Check-in on January 16th, but not the final vote: Everyone except Matthew Mendoza
Final vote should be Jan 16th: Matthew Mendoza

I’m not sure what Matthew is hung up on. He clearly has some strong opinions about this process, but didn’t quite say what’s bugging him.

Hours 0:00 – 1:55, 10/2/23

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Citizen comment:

Here’s what the community has to say:

  • Please don’t let city staff approve restaurant alcohol permits. (Item 9.)
  • There are some apartments being proposed on Lindsey, between Academy and Comanche. (Item 17.) This gets a lot of traction:

Against it: Three students/former students represent a recently formed group called “Tenants Advocacy group”, to fight on behalf of tenants. (Be still my heart.) They’re strongly opposed to this complex.

Love it: The developer is all in favor of the Lindsey street apartments, and Shannon Mattingly – former director of San Marcos Planning Dept – is now working for this developer.

We’ll get into the details of all this, in due time!

  • Finally: one of the speakers (Kama Davis) brings up an item from Executive Session (Item 20):

A developer wants the title of this alley, in purple:

The speaker wants it to stay with the city.

This taps into a much larger conversation about What To Do Along CM Allen. Should it be parks? Should it be apartment complexes? You just sit tight, we’ll get to all of this.

…

Item 1: We get CDBG funding from the federal government, specifically from HUD.  We qualify on a few different points:

Tonight’s presentation is an internal audit, by Deloitte and Touche, on the $34 million we got after the 2015 floods.  They’ve looked us over, and say everything was fine. Hooray!

Items 2-3: We get Q2 reports on the budget and our investments. Both seemed unremarkable.  We’re a normal-amount of the way through spending and bringing in revenue. Our investments are doing middling-well.

…

Item 8: New airport zonings

So, the FAA and TxDot Aviation both want you to regulate two things:

  1. Stay out of the airways where planes might be flying
  2. Don’t build things right by airports that are going to cause problems later on.

However, neither the FAA nor the state actually control zoning, so they incentivize it. It’s a precondition for various grants and funding opportunities.  The state of Texas also gives cities some extra leeway to regulate airports, beyond their city boundaries.

Over the summer, in Georgetown, a plane really did crash into someone’s house. So airport safety is a real thing. We’re all clear on the concept of plane crashes and why they’re bad, yes/yes?

So now it’s time to nail these things down.  

  1. Height Hazards:  The city staff rep described all these abstract shapes in the air. There were pancakes floating 150’ in the air, cones beyond that, etc.  You get the feeling that it looks like a giant invisible stadium around the airport. No one can build into the giant invisible stadium, but you can build below the bleachers, so to speak. 

Here’s the bird’s eye view of the invisible stadium:

I don’t think anyone is too fussed by this part. Everyone understands that you need to stay out of the flight path of planes.

2. Compatible Land Use: this is the controversial part. 

The main problem is houses and runways: you don’t want houses near your runways.  But people already own this land, and no one likes to be bossed around. (Existing houses are grandfathered in.)

Here’s what’s being proposed:

Obviously all those rainbow-spokes are designed around either end of the runways.

So basically:

  • Bright green means absolutely nothing can be built.
  • The city owns almost all the bright green, but are some teeny green bits sticking out past the purple line.
  • The rest of the blues: feel free to build commercial, industrial, or anything else besides homes. Homes are restricted.

Like I said, anything that’s already built gets grandfathered in.  The problem is: what if you own the land in those stripes, and you want to someday sell it to a developer?  Or you wanted to build apartments yourself? Once those stripes are zoned, you’re out of luck.

Generally, the city is not allowed to downzone your property. If you own some land where you can build 7 stories, and the city wants to change the zoning to 2 stories, they may have to compensate you for the loss of potential revenue. 

Here, they don’t, because airport zones are specifically carved out by the state of Texas for protection.  Texas wants cities to make airport zones so that there will not be people living in a runway flight path.  Makes sense.

So this decreases your land value, and land owners are mad about it. (On the plus side, your property taxes will go down.)

I’m trying not to sound like a total ass, because my initial reaction is, “You’re mad because you wanted to build homes that would be dangerous to the tenants and now you can’t? Fuck off.”  (I guess I am a total ass.) But I mean, you can still build things. Just not homes.

Jane Hughson is more sympathetic to them than I am.  She’s worried that we’re doing something to land owners, above what’s required by the state or federal government.  She asks that the staff speak directly to the speaker who showed up.

Shane Scott says that he is a pilot, which I did not know, and he is pro-airport safety.

If one of these landowners wants to build something not allowed, they can ask for an exception! There’s a procedure for this:

  • Apply for a variance with the Zoning Board of Adjustments
  • If you don’t like what they say, you can appeal the decision to district court

The question is, is this sufficient? Or should we feel so bad for them that we do something additional, to show we care about the landowners who want to build homes in front of runways?

Jude Prather’s take: “I’m okay with the ZBOA and appeals procedure. Let the boards and commissions function like they’re supposed to.” 

Alyssa Garza’s take: “I feel like there are more details I should understand.”

Saul: Property rights 4-ever!!

Matthew Mendoza: Can we say no to the feds?

I mean, sure. But it’s only going to get harder to make these airport zones, the longer you wait.

Look, this is common sense. The best time to prevent homes from being built is before the homes get built. Shane and Jude are the only ones willing to say this outright, and everyone else comes off as mealy-mouthed.

The vote:

I truly don’t know why Saul and Alyssa voted against it. I mean, I vaguely understand PROPERTY RIGHTS!! But allowing people to build houses in a runway path is a pretty big abdication of the whole point of government. 

Hours 0:00 – 1:18, 1/17/23

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment: The big topic for citizen comment is the SMART terminal. Residents of the area are worried about:

  • Flooding
  • River pollution
  • Litter
  • Traffic
  • Noise and smells

Representatives from the San Marcos River Foundations also spoke, but they got super specific about policy proposals, so I’m going to save that for actual item.

Max Baker was the last speaker, and he railed against the community survey results and lack of trust in city staff. He also spoke out against the Riverbend Ranch, saying that HK real estate people operate and negotiate in bad faith. Finally, he says, “I’ll have more to say about the SMART Terminal, but I’ll save that for the public hearing.”

That last sentence is supposed to be me foreshadowing for you. Hey everybody, <waves hands>, for no particular reason, note that Max has said that he is planning to speak during the public hearing for the SMART Terminal.

…

First up is the SMART Terminal!

Items 20-21:  A few meetings ago, we got introduced to the Cotton Center and the SMART Terminal:

Yellow is the Cotton Center, the gigantic master planned community that was approved in 2016. Aqua blue is the SMART Terminal. The SMART Terminal is supposed to bring together the magic of a tiny airport, all our trains, and Highway 80.

How big are these things? The SMART Terminal blue bit up there is 900 acres. The Cotton center yellow bit is 2500 acres. The issue is that the SMART Terminal wants to take 600 acres from the Cotton center, and then also three more packets of extra land.

So here is the proposed future of the SMART Terminal:

The aqua blue is the old SMART Terminal. Yellow is getting taken from the Cotton center. Green is brand new.

San Marcos River Foundation is concerned because there are two creeks running through the property to the river. You can sort of see the creeks above, and in the map with my janky drawing, you can see the San Marcos river at the bottom.

First is a staff presentation. We learn that “SMART” stands for:
San
Marcos
Air
Rail, &
Transportation

So that’s a good start!

One detail is this little green box with the yellow highlighting:

That little yellow box lives in Martindale’s ETJ, instead of San Marcos’s ETJ. So we’re not allowed to make a development agreement for that little bit. (I’m guessing maybe that’s part of the mysterious Martindale fuss alluded to here.)

The total acreage of this new, SMARTER Terminal is 2,017 acres. That is huge. Google tells me that 2,017 acres is 3.15 square miles. Google also tells me that Martindale is 2.09 square miles. So the SMART terminal is going to be 150% larger than Martindale.  (More like SMARTindale, right?? …I’ll show myself out now.) 

Environmental standards

The developers want Heavy Industrial and Heavy Commercial. Here are the creeks that run to the river:

The blue striped parts are floodplain. The green is the creeks themselves. That’s a pretty direct channel to the river.

Here’s what the developer worked out with the planning department:

  • 70% impervious cover, overall.  This is stricter than the regular city code, which would allow up to 80% impervious cover.

  • Impervious cover can be patchy – up to 90% in some places, less in others, as long as it averages out to 70%

  • Total Suspended Solids (TSS):  Here’s my shaky understanding of TSS: when it rains, rainwater is nasty because it carries all the surface pollution with it.  So you retain rainwater in retention ponds to prevent flooding, but then you want to clean it before you release it.  So you either want to let it settle, or filter it, or whatever. TSS is how much you have to clean it.

    They’ve agreed to 70% TSS.  I don’t know what our code requires. (The developer claims their sand filtration basin system actually captures up to 89% TSS, but they’re only obligated to maintain 70% that by the contract.)

  • Water retention: what kind of flood do we want it to be able to handle? They’ve agreed to 1.25” rainfall. My memory is that this should be given as a rate: 1.25″ per hour, or 1.25″ per eight hours, or 1.25″ per day, or whatever. Not just a 1.25″ without any time frame. But in this agreement, there’s no time window given.

    My uneducated read is that 1.25″ without a specified time window will get overwhelmed any time we have a mildly disasterous rain, let alone one of the massively disastrous rains that we’re known for.

  • Run-off: they have to reduce run-off by 10%. This is stricter than the code – code says you can’t make run-off worse than it was before the development, but you don’t have to improve it. So that is good.

San Marcos River Foundation weighs in

Earlier, during Citizen Comment, SMRF made their case.  They’ve had good conversations with SMART. They want:

  1. Half of the floodplain acreage should be removed when calculating total gross impervious cover.  

    In other words, say you’ve got 100 acres, and 20 acres is super sensitive land where you can’t build on it. Suppose you’ve agreed not to pave over more than 70% of it.  Should it be 70% of the 100 acres, or 70% of the 80 buildable acres?

    SMRF is proposing to split the difference – allow them to compute the 70% based on 90 acres, in this analogy.
  1. The setback to the floodplain should be wider than 30 feet. SMRF observes that 30 feet is really pretty slim.
  2. Any acreage using 90% localized impervious cover be placed farthest away from the river.  In other words, the most-paved parts should be furthest from the river.

Council Discussion

Council begins asking questions, and then this very weird thing happens: Jude Prather speaks up and says: “I think we have one more public speaker…”

There is some fumbling around. Over zoom, you hear Max Baker say, “Is it my turn to speak now?” (Remember the foreshadowing, when he said he would be speaking during the SMART Terminal? This is that.)

Jane Hughson says no, Max can’t speak, because he didn’t sign up to speak the day before. She adds, “If you’re in person, you can just get in line to speak. But over zoom, you have to sign up the day before.”

What she means is that back in March of 2020, council had to set up zoom rules.  How will citizens get the zoom number? How will they get moved from the waiting room to the main room? Etc. So they said that you have to sign up to talk the day before, to help with logistics.

Now: Max clearly did sign up the day before, because he spoke during Citizen Comment, and so someone gave him the zoom link. Jane is arguing that Max should have signed up for each item that he wanted to speak on, even though it’s the same zoom link. And even though that was really not the intent of the original rule.

Alyssa points out that we’ve revisited Covid-era rules many times, and this one just hasn’t come up, but Jane is firm. “He’s allowed to speak, he just had to sign up yesterday.”

Here’s the thing: generally Jane extends a lot of courtesy and grace to ordinary private citizens who take the time to show up and speak. It seemed like this was a maliciously strict standard that only applied to Max Baker. It felt kinda vicious.

…

Back to the SMART Terminal: So what did our council do?

The whole thing was very, very cordial. Everyone emphasized continuing dialogue with SMRF and other stake-holders.  That makes me nervous, because the only thing that is legally binding is the Development Agreement being voted on.  Dialogue is very nice, but it doesn’t compel any action. Acting like you believe the developers are our friends is not reassuring when you’re negotiating a contract on behalf of San Marcos residents.

First, Jane Hughson asks about the added truck traffic.  The answer seems very thorough: you make some assumptions and do a traffic study before anything else.  If they exceed the assumptions, then they have to do more mitigation.  Widening roads, adding traffic lights, etc. They’ll keep updating and mitigating.  (Fine.)

Matt Mendoza asks about retention ponds.  They’re required to have them, so the developer just sort of explains what they are.  They talk about the 10% reduction in run-off, which is admittedly an unusual standard for San Marcos.  They commit to having more dialogue with stake holders.

Here’s the thing: environmental standards are very wonky and nerdy and specific. Every time Council asks an environmental-ish question, the staff answers in a very narrow, reassuring way. “Oh yes! We already did part of that!” and then the councilmember lets it go.

Example 1:  Jane Hughson asks about the list from SMRF. She seems to have this SMRF list in front of her:

She just references the list and says it includes a lot of things, like lift stations.

The engineer, Richard Reynosa, only answers about the lift stations, and nothing else. He says the lift stations haven’t been placed yet, but if they were in the flood plains, you’d have to meet stricter standards.

No discussion of the other nine bullet points.

Example 2: Jude Prather also vaguely tries to get at the environmental standards. He says, “Dialogue is really great and all, but should these environmental things from SMRF be put into the contract? Like the Dark Skies thing?”

In other words, he’s waiving his hand at the long list of technical standards, and the only one that’s coming to mind is the Dark Skies one. (Which was mentioned briefly during the SMRF comments, but is clearly not their primary concern.)

The planning department person, Amanda Hernandez tells him that he can definitely add any provisions that he wants! And says that the Dark Skies one is basically already in the code.

Jude asks, “What about the other environmental features?”

Amanda Hernandez answers that they worked with the developer, and in fact, many of these standards are from the 2019 agreement with the original SMART terminal.  (This is at 1:11, if you’d like to go watch this bafflingly useless non-answer.)

And Jude drops the issue. He doesn’t raise any specific line item from SMRF.

Example 3: Mark Gleason’s turn to act environmental-ish is next: on the 1.25” capture, he exclaims, “That’s above and beyond code, isn’t it!” (In other words, he’s just praising the developers.) 

Mark does specifically ask about one of SMRF’s concerns: “On the setbacks being 30′: is it longer in the recharge zone?”

Richard Reynosa, the engineer, answers, “There’s not a specific setback in the recharge zone.  You have a water quality zone requirement there, based on the size of the tributary.”

Mark says, “Thanks, that’s what I wanted to clarify!”

That’s what I mean: Everyone talked near the SMRF amendments and sounded like they liked them, but no one was willing to actually make a motion and require them. 

What the fuck? Every person up there claims to be in favor of the river. SMRF hands you a list of recommended asks from the developer. SMRF highlights the three most important ones, during citizen comment. No one proposes a single one as an amendment, or even discusses them in a meaningful way.

The vote: 
Yes: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Jude Prather, Saul Gonzalez, Matt Mendoza
No: Alyssa Garza

(Shane Scott was absent)

So the SMART Terminal is coming.  City Council asked some softball questions and approved it.  It was kind of gross.

Now, Alyssa Garza also didn’t offer up the SMRF recommendations, but she voted against the entire project. You could argue that maybe she should have tried to get the amendments passed anyway, but in the end, she is one councilmember and the other five councilmembers wanted the SMART Terminal, and any of them could have pressed for the SMRF recommendations.

Does your friendly local Marxist blogger like the SMART Terminal?

I’m wary of it.  I can see why business people might see an opportunity what with the railroad and the airport being right next to each other.  (Full disclosure: I guess don’t see it. Why would you ever need your cargo to go from train to plane, or plane to train? I’m sure I’m just lacking enough business sense to understand.)  

Anyway, surely it makes logistical sense to business folks.  But here came SMRF with three specific amendments, and they were all roundly ignored. That’s enough to undermine my trust in anyone advocating for it.

Item 20: By the way, what happens to the Cotton Center planned community? Here’s the old 2,500 acre version from 2016:

Here’s the new 1900 acre version:

Wow, kind of a fragmented mess!

Okay, it’s making me laugh, the longer I look at it. What a soothing place to raise your kids. Ignore that gaping industrial black hole, please and thank you.

Hours 0:00-1:40, 12/6/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment: the San Marcos activist community is a force. It warms a blogger’s heart to have a dozen activists show up and speak passionately against the proposed curfew.  (You can read about why I loathe the curfew ordinance here.) They make the right arguments – keep kids out of the criminal justice system, it’s not equitably enforced, it can be traumatizing to kids, etc. In addition, a ton of homeschool parents signed on some quick petition, worrying that their kids might get tangled up in the daytime curfew.

One speaker – Bucky Couch – did show up to talk in favor of the curfew ordinance.  I believe he’s the owner/developer of lots of things in town, maybe including the Kissing Tree? His kids own Cody’s restaurant, maybe? The Couches are in on many, many profitable projects around town.

…

Item 9: First up is a zoning request.  You may remember this, from August:

Today we’re looking at the green square, #3, again, between Amazon and Embassy Suites.

Last time, the developer wanted to rezone it from General Commercial to Heavy Commercial.  P&Z approved the zoning change, but then City council swatted them down, citing the beauty of Embassy Suites.  We do not want clanky old Heavy Commercial zoning next to our prized and glorious tourist conference space.

Now they’re back, changing their request to Light Industrial.  This time, P&Z denied it (due to the beauty of Embassy Suites), and Council felt stuck.  It would now require 6 votes to overturn P&Z. 

Council would like things like restaurants and service-related businesses to go in. They don’t want a bunch of warehouses. The developers want to include restaurants, but also a bunch of warehouses.

In the end, Council decided to form a committee and punt the matter to them. Stay tuned.

Hours 0:00 – 0:36, 8/16/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

A few people speak on renaming an alley as Boyhood Alley, in homage to the movie Boyhood, which was filmed in San Marcos. 

However, the comment I want to focus in on is from a person from Rancho Vista/Redwood.  She also spoke at P&Z last week, along with probably ~30 residents who wrote letters in. This deserves some extra attention.  She raised two separate issues:

  1. The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood
  2. The intractable health problems facing Redwood

As best I can tell, these only somewhat connected, insofar as Redwood gets generally neglected and ignored.

  1. The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood

Last week at P&Z, probably 30 residents from Redwood wrote letters against a developer who’s trying to put an industrial development in the bottom half of this:

It was an astonishing turnout.  (Quick note: City council doesn’t read letters outloud at meetings.  P&Z does.  This is annoying – the public should know who took the time to communicate.)

The Development Agreement had been approved last December, which put an industrial zoning right here:

But no one noticed. (I even blogged it, and didn’t notice.)

So why didn’t anyone turn out from Redwood, last December? Because Development Agreements don’t trigger notifications the way that zoning changes do. This is insane. The community in Redwood had no way of knowing that they were now downhill of a massive industrial complex, until just before the P&Z meeting. 

(I went back and watched the December meeting again. There was barely any public discussion about it, although clearly a lot had happened in Double Secret Executive Session. Max Baker and Alyssa Garza voted against it.) 

So the Development Agreement is already in effect. Two weeks ago, at P&Z, the developer came forth asking for two exemptions – a block perimeter exemption and a cut-and-fill exemption. Basically, this would allow them to build a gigantic thing instead of a normal-sized thing. 

But like I said, there was a giant turnout by the Redwood/Rancho Vista residents, describing the current flooding and sewage problems, and how this would exacerbate them. P&Z voted both down.  This is great! 

Either the developer will appeal to council, or they’ll go back and reconfigure their plans. Either way, this needs to stay on the radar of San Marcos residents who live inside city limits, because we can hold council accountable more easily than Redwood residents can.

2. The Health Problems Facing Redwood

There was an article in The Guardian about the parasites endemic in Rancho Vista/Redwood: 

Although it can be symptomless, Strongyloides is the deadliest of soil-transmitted parasites. If an infected person takes immune-suppressing drugs such as steroids or chemotherapeutics, or has a lowered immune system because of a disease like leukemia, the worm can rapidly multiply throughout the body and cause death.

In Rancho Vista, the 16 positive blood tests from a group of 97 residents is the highest percentage of positive blood samples found in a non-refugee population in the US, according to Singer, though the sample is relatively small. (A positive blood test can also occur in someone who was previously infected but no longer is.)

Apparently the problem is that we just should never have put septic tanks in this location – they leak and are impossible to maintain.  However, the residents can’t really afford to deal with and fix the raw sewage.

There’s two things that need to happen:
1. funding needs to be acquired ( but from where? federal, state, local?), and
2. the neighborhood needs to tie in to San Marcos city sewage.  

I don’t know exactly how this all will unfold, but this would be a good issue to ask about during the debates and the campaign season. It’s not okay for vulnerable community members to lack basic health and sanitation provisions.

The Riverbend Development should be structured with an eye to getting San Marcos city sewage access to Redwood. That’s not profitable, and so it won’t happen without some activism.

Hour 0:00-1:00, 8/2/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment

Three big topics:
1. Last time, we discussed a bunch of potential houses in the middle of nowhere, down south, past Trace, next to a power plant. At this meeting, the owner of the Hays Power Plant shows up to further explain how miserable it would be to live next to the Hays Power Plant.

2. Lots of people show up to support the ballot measure decriminalizing pot (or maybe just passing the ordinance outright). Mano Amiga pounded the pavement and gathered 10K+ signatures for this.

3. People express support for the discussion item on abortion, called The GRACE Act, which stands for Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone. Originated in Austin, and then more recently passed in San Antonio.

Go watch this one comment, starting at 43:20. This testimony is too moving and compelling to get buried and lost in the shuffle of City Council minutes.  It’s a moment of vulnerability from a woman who had an abortion last week, and you can viscerally feel how terrifying it is to get one in a post-Roe world.  It’s super brave and heartbreaking.

  Go listen – it deserves to be heard by a broader (supportive) audience.

Hour 1+, 1/4/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Some of the citizen comments:
– In favor of a committee for animal services. (Which is on the agenda tonight. Spoiler: it passes.)
– Problems with SMPD: Namely, Chief Stapp’s complicity in the negligence during the Biden Bus emergency calls, and how we continue to employ him. We need SMPD oversight by external community members, instead of recycling the same individuals to guard the henhouse, so to speak.

Public Hearings:

1. There’s going to be a gas station at the corner of 123 and Clovis Barker. Eventually. This is just before you get to the McCarty overpass, heading south.

2. Renewing some low income tax credits for a housing complex (Champion’s Crossing), right at the entrance to Blanco Vista, at Yarrington Road. It’s been there for a long time, 156 apartments.


Max Baker points out that the income percentiles are based on Austin median income, not San Marcos median income. According to this, Austin median income for a family of 4 is $99K. And hooboy, those are not San Marcos numbers at all. Having apartments priced to be affordable at 40% of the median Austin income is just a regular San Marcos market rate, and yet the city is subsidizing this.

It passes unanimously. Baker basically holds his nose and votes to grandfather it in, but points out that new projects need to clear a higher bar.

3. Transportation Master Plan
Mostly they hashed these details out at the last meeting; see here. Mayor Hughson raised one last issue for discussion: reduction of driving lanes on Sessom and Craddock.

Shane Scott and Mark Gleason come out against this. Scott is pro-speed bumps in order to calm traffic, although the engineer says that Craddock and Sessom are busier thoroughfares than what you’d normally stick a speedbump on. Gleason points out that there already is a crushed granite path on Craddock, from Bishop to Old RR 12.

(Does it really extend all the way to Bishop? In my memory, the crushed granite path starts out strong on the Old 12, and then dribbles to extinction somewhere along the way. Google maps agrees with me! I win. The existing path appears to end at Ramona street, and then turn into a sidewalk till Archie, and then it peters out.)

Gleason also makes an impassioned plea to future growth. Won’t the ghost residents of tomorrow resent our bike lanes? Max Baker points out that they might also prefer the bike lanes.

Mayor Hughson asks the engineer, Richard Reynosa, some of the key questions: how much does it cost to put the bike lanes in? how reversible is the decision? what are the traffic studies showing?

Reynosa says: It’s just the cost of striping. It can easily be un-striped. The traffic studies show that these streets can handle being reduced to one lane. He points out that Sessom already has been reduced to one lane for the past year, due to construction, and will continue to be reduced for the next year.

Gleason makes another semi-nonsensical plea – what will we do in the case of natural disasters? If there is a tornado or a fire, aren’t we courting danger by reducing these roads to one lane? (Nobody responded with the obvious response: Bro, we’re just re-striping the lanes. Cars can drive over stripes, especially to flee a forest fire.) Whenever Gleason stops making sense, I start to wonder who is whispering in his ear.

Gleason makes a motion to keep Sessom and Craddock as they are.

Max Baker makes the appropriate arguments in favor: bike lanes can actually reduce the number of cars on the road. Traffic congestion is often due to speeding, and not the sheer quantity of cars on the road. Craddock in particular is like a 1950’s drag-racing avenue, just yearning to be sped down, with its wide unfettered lanes. It needs to be calmed.

Jane Hughson is persuaded mostly because this is such a cheap, easily reversible investment. Why not try it out and see how it does?

In the end, Gleason’s amendment fails:
Yes: Gleason, Scott, Gonzalez
No: Garza, Baker, Prather, Hughson

The vote on the entire transportation plan passes.
Yes: Everyone besides Shane Scott and Saul Gonzalez.
No: Those two.

Honestly, Saul Gonzalez plays his cards so close to the vest that it’s impossible to know what his game is. What didn’t he like? I have no idea!

Hour 1, 12/7/21

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

There were quite a few speakers on the topic of pets and the humane society. They were concerned about two things:

  • the alarming deterioration of the humane society while nothing seems to progress on finding a new director. It’s been open since October 2020. Employees are quitting and it sounds like the wheels are coming off the whole operation.

    I truly don’t know what the hold up is. A lack of applicants? Paying too little? Lack of urgency?
  • Item 28, banning the sale of out of town cats and dogs at local pet stores. Apparently this is a widespread ordinance in towns – mandate that pet stores must sell animals from the local population, rather than import animals from puppy mills and the like. Sounds like a win-win to me.

    We shall see how Hour 4 goes, however, when we get there!

Also in the first hour, we annexed land and approved two gas stations. One down 123, at Clovis Barker, towards the high school. The other on I-35, at Trace Development. Done & done.