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.
The San Marxist 