Tag: covid-19

Hours 3:30-4:42, 12/6/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 13: Marijuana has now been decriminalized in San Marcos! Go nuts. But not too nuts, because you’re still in Texas and none of the other police forces (including the Tx State campus cops) are playing by these new rules.

….

Items 14/15: Reallocating money.

The Chamber of Commerce has $200K leftover Covid Relief money. The city is giving it to a few other programs:

  • Training members of the community to get certified on QuickBooks for bookkeeping
  • Training local small business owners and setting them up with bookkeepers from the first program
  • Childcare gap funding for families

I am hugely in favor of that last one.  Childcare is wildly expensive.

There’s also some CBDG-covid money to be reallocated, $188K worth.  The city staff propose that it go to two programs:

  • Marble Falls has a stress-healing nature program, where you’d take a bus there and spend a day or two outside. It’s ~$300 per person, which would be covered by $75K of the Covid money.
  • Improvements to the Kenneth Copeland Memorial Park.  It used to be the El Camino park, but was renamed to honor the officer that was killed in 2017.  They want to put $112K into improvements to it.

Nobody likes the Marble Falls idea. Too far away, too expensive, and we have very nice local parks.

Alyssa Garza proposes that we use the money on something that meets people’s direct needs a little better – rental assistance, utility assistance, that kind of thing.  Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, and Matt Mendoza all basically agree with Alyssa.

Mark Gleason and Jude Prather want to put $113K on the Kenneth Copeland park, and the other $75K on rental assistance. 

Shane Scott wants to put all $188K on local parks, arguing that parks benefit everyone, while rental assistance only benefits some people.

Alyssa says, “You guys. The people are going to be living in those parks if we don’t help them cover their rent,” and tells them they’re out of touch with the needs of the community.

Jude Prather relents. But he makes some dippy comments here, “Could we call it Kenneth Copeland rental assistance?” (The park is already called the Kenneth Copeland park. We’re not disrespecting the officer by postponing new picnic tables. It’s already a nice park.)  “Next September, I’m knocking on your door for that Kenneth Copeland money!” he says. Jane Hughson suggests that he doesn’t need to wait till next September. He can just go through the normal budgeting process that starts in a few months.

Anyway, five councilmembers want to direct the money towards rental assistance, so that’s how it will go.

…

Finally, they have to go through and replace Max on a bunch of committees and such. There’s probably 20 appointments or so.

Some that caught my attention:

  • Shane Scott has joined the Criminal Justice Review committee
  • Alyssa Garza has joined the Workforce Housing committee.

And a bunch more. Mostly these details are getting too into the weeds, even for me.

August 17th City Council meeting (Part 1)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Miracle of miracles, this week’s meeting was over by 10 pm! I watched the whole thing in one setting! (I was remiss and failed to post a Previewing the Agenda post.) Let’s dive in!

I’ll say that the most significant items are Item 1 and Item 30, taken together.

Both of these are focused on Covid. Item 1 was a local Covid update, given by the newly hired Emergency Response Coordinator, Rob Finch. It was good to see him up and running in that capacity. He did a great job painting a dire picture of our current Delta surge.

Item 30 was a plea from the Christus Hospital (ie formerly CTMC) for $500K to help them hire nurses during this surge. We currently have exceeded our ICU beds and have ICU patients in the PICU, but so does everyone else regionally (although it fluctuates constantly.) The nursing burnout and shortstaffing sounded dreadful, and in addition nurses can now command significant salaries nationwide, and it all combined with the current surge to put the hospital in this desperate position. The $500K is a stopgap while the hospital pursues other funding from the state and county and wherever else.

The whole thing was very compelling and all the commissioners were very compassionate.  The $500K comes from other line items on the American Rescue Funds, and those projects will see part of their funding deferred (but not eliminated) until the next $9 million.

Highlights include Commissioner Scott asking two questions: does the hospital require its staff to be vaccinated? and does the hospital provide alternative medicines, like this Ivermectin stuff his friend got from his doctor? It healed him very quickly.

The representative from the hospital neatly disposed of both of these questions. For the first, he basically said, “We are strongly pro-vaccine but also in a staffing shortage, and we can’t afford to pit these ideals against each other. We’re working with a combination of incentives and encouragements and education campaigns.” For the latter, he said, “I am not a doctor, but we’re totally happy to use all scientifically supported therapies.” (Again, I paraphrase.)

Note: the Ivermectin stuff is the voodoo horse pills, I believe. So maybe his friend is a horse.

Christus guy: 2, Commissioner Scott: 0.

Item 2 gets my vote for next-most-significant:  TxDOT presentation on I-35 and SH 123.

Oh god, this will be a nightmare. TxDOT will be destroying and rebuilding various parts of I-35 from now until 2025. As my grandmother advised, multiply all time estimates by 3, and so we should be in a sorry state all the way until 2033.

The first chunk is focused on the access roads. Those will be closed down (allegedly) for up to 18 months, in various reconfigurations. And I’ll be damned if the Southbound access road wasn’t partially closed this morning! Fast work, TxDOT.

During this time, the northbound access bridge over the river will be raised to the same level as I-35, so that it won’t flood when the river floods. As a consequence, the underpass at River Road will be eliminated. (More on that in a moment.)

They’re also switching the on-ramps and exit-ramps. The idea is that if you have an on-ramp closely followed by an off-ramp, then the merging and lane-changing happens on the highway. Whereas if you have an off-ramp closely followed by an on-ramp, then the merging and jockeying for position happens on the access road.

In my opinion, this is lame. Or at least this location is not a great use of that principle. The problem is that the intersections under I-35 are in very close proximity, and each light gets an on-ramp and an off-ramp. So the ramps are all spaced evenly and there’s no clear “close pairing” of on-ramps and off-ramps. It just alternates. Merging and jockeying happens in both the highway and access road, in an alternating pattern. And so if you switch the ramps, you’re spending a whole lot of money just to shift the alternating pattern along by one unit.

The next chunk will be widening the I-35 main lanes themselves, including the bridge over SH123. And then at the end, they’re going to tinker with SH123 itself. The whole thing sounds like a 4-12 year headache. I feel sorry for myself.

The most controversial part is the closure of the underpass at River Road, and how that disconnects Blanco Gardens from the other half of the city. Commissioner Gleason lives in that neighborhood and is furious that TxDOT has decided to do this.

The underpass itself will be converted to bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, which actually sounds very lovely, but Gleason is 100% right about the negative impact on the neighborhood.

I understand that the access road will be lifted up, and therefore can’t connect with the underpass anymore. What I don’t understand is why the underpass can’t just go under the access road and connect with River Road? It can be a thoroughfare without involving I-35.

(I assume the answer is because TxDOT doesn’t actually care, and that would be more expensive.)

City Council Meeting, May 5th, 2020

by The San Marxist, posted in Uncategorized

Well, it’s already 6:50, so I missed the first chunk. What’s on the menu today?

Currently:

  1. ID#20-231 Receive status reports and updates on response to COVID-19 pandemic; hold council discussion, and provide direction to Staff.

CDBG grants, I think.

2-6: Consent agenda meh. Ed abstained from something to do with getting his salary from Texas State.

A speed limit thing: 30 mph to 25 mph. Harvey street between North Street and Blanco Street. A tow away zone. Another speed limit thing. An agreement between Texas State and the city. Tax stuff. Anti-computer-virus stuff.

11. 50K from the Asset forfeiture program to an employee wellness program.

Max: civil forfeiture: can we explain this to the public? It’s like 150K. Can you explain for people where this comes from?

Presenter: Proceeds of felonious activity. Drug seizure. Money that’s along

I love that Max is asking him to explain this.

Passes quickly.

12. Revising and updates some public records. Meh. Passes unanimously.

13. Prohibiting motor-assistend scooters owned by commercial scooter companies.

Backstory: this is the compromise version. I was personally opposed to the first version. I even wrote a letter. Originally it was really extreme and banned all motorized scooters. This seems fine. I don’t totally know the motivation.

Presentation: This has been going on for 6 months, with vagueness.

None of those motorized rental scooters, like our motorized bikes. Users and companies will both get in trouble. Private scooters okay. City can carve out exceptions in the future. End of presentation.

Melissa: Do we really need to penalize the users? We get new students to town constantly.

Answer: These are big and require credit cards.

Melissa: yeah but that’s not my question. Is it legally required?

Answer: I’m not answering. I’m wandering around it and talking about intent.

Melissa, tightlipped: thank you.

Mayor Jane: I agree with Melissa. How would a kid know about city ordinances? But it’s pretty piddling. Only up to $100. They could give warnings.

Bert: The companies try this! They have dumped a bunch of scooters or bikes without permission, before! We end up finding out really quickly and wouldn’t fine the individual. We’d just confiscate them.

[The San Marxist: Civil forfeiture!]

Mayor Jane: Do we want to deal with sidewalk width?

There’s a back and forth. Who gets to ride ad walk where, etc. I’m just asking. You guys can take care of that.

Bert will look into it.

Max: I also had the width question! Got another. When they dump a bunch of scooters on us, can we raise the max fine?

Answer: We can’t go higher than 2K on any safety thing. That’s a city ordinance that $2K is the max.

Max: Is that per instance?

Answer: It’s per dump, not per vehicle. Also the vehicles can be impounded and there’s a per-scooter $50 impoundment fee.

Ed: I just like to agree with what other people said.

Constantino: There is already a city ordinance about lots of other things with wheels in the Central Business Area, ie downtown. Like roller skates and skateboards and bikes. Anywhere else, things with wheels have to give right of way to elsewhere. Been the way ’round these ordinances since the 1970s.

Mayor Jane: Is that a real hand, Ed?

Ed: I forgot to lower my hand. [In all fairness, these are zoom-hands.]

They lowered the fine to $250? Not sure, I missed stuff to chat with our little neighbor.

Anyway, it’s unanimously passed.

14. The delay for fees associated with food permits, etc. They discussed this last week. A covid relief thing for small businesses. Skip a payment and divide the rest into thirds, and spread fees over 6 months. By request.

15. Some covid stuff. Parklets for downtown? Savings clause?

Temporary licenses for parklets. To reactivate downtown.

Oh, this is nice: businesses can use little parking spaces as extra outdoor seating. Sidewalk cafes, etc. They already can, but they have to get approval, etc. from city council. This is going to expedite it and make it more pro-forma, waive application fee, and it would all be temporary and end when the students get back, mid-August. Food, retail, etc. Use the space.

[The San Marxist: This is a very good idea! More things need to be outside during Covid. Use the natural outdoor ventilation! Avoid congregating indoors!]

Should there be alcohol allowed? Council could explore that.

Mayor Jane: TABC wouldn’t hold outside their business perimeter, would it?

Shannon: Not normally, no. In Covid-times? With the take out, etc? Maybe.

Mayor Jane: I’m not staking any side. I’m just saying it may be moot.

Shannon: Yes ma’am.

More presentation: For this, we streamlined the parklet manual. Delete delete delete. Kept ADA. Durable plates, etc. Gotta keep it clean. Insurance, liscense. Max of 2 parklets per block, and a parklet is two parking spaces.

Per block? or per block face? Council, you get to pick! I mean, you still want to have parking spaces. You know how testy everyone gets about parking.

[The San Marxist: Parklet is just the cutest word. Sparkly parklets.]

Mainstreet is into this, as well. Wants to promote it and make more of these.

Melissa: With social distancing, two spaces seems small. And can they do this with the private parking in the back? If it’s not in a public right of way?

Shannon: if they’re serving food…thinks it through…should be okay?

[Back parking lot parklets seem really hot and parking-lot-ish. I’m picturing the pavement just exuding massive amounts of heat, and the soles of my shoes getting sticky, and feeling immensely uncomfortable. No breeze. Etc.]

Blocks vs. block faces? “Yer a block face,” quips my spouse. “Specially that guy.”

Mayor Jane is counting angled parking spots out on Google Maps: Angled spaces don’t seem like they’d be as useful as parallel.

Melissa: Something about coffee to go. And what about courthouse lawn? Grab and go food?

[I missed some stuff. Some darling friends cookie-bombed us and ran.]

Melissa: I want to make an amendment – two per block face.

Max: Abbott requires everything disposable, to go. What’s up here?

Shannon: If it’s an extension of your restaurant, I’m not sure you’d have to do Abbot’s thing.

Max: what’s this about ADA?

Shannon: we usually don’t remove ADA details.

No smoking in the parklets.

Max: What if there’s competition for these? First come, first serve?

Shannon: yes. So far, no one’s ever wanted one.

Ed: Shouldn’t it say something about emergencies?

Constantino: yeah, maybe!

Ed: Yeah well can you put that in there?

Melissa: This parking space bit about two spaces isn’t in here anywhere.

Shannon: It’s on page 4 of the manual.

Mayor Jane: but we’re not approving the manual.

Shannon: yes you are.

Melissa: Two per block face, please. I’m making an amendment.

Saul: I don’t like the alcohol. I don’t like the courthouse lawn.

Mayor Jane: Alcohol wouldn’t be allowed. The courthouse part isn’t in this ordinance.

Saul: ty.

Max: Is there a distance-to-door thing? Can parklets be adjacent? That seems bad for social distancing.

Shannon: already on it.

Bert: we’d stop it.

Amendment passes unanimously.

Jane: Ok, social distancing. Remember how Abbott tied our hands on keeping people 6 feet apart? Let’s interject somewhere here and make it tie parklets to a 6 feet distancing. Make the restaurant uphold it. Just tie it to the parklet permit.

Ed: I only want it to apply in the parklet.

[The San Marxist: Make it everywhere! Mayor Jane is right.]

Melissa: I just don’t want police officers sticking their heads in restaurants to check.

Mayor Jane: It’d be complaint-driven. But if you all just want in the parklet…

Saul: Inside and outside.

Max: Inside and outside.

Joca: Samesies.

Markeymoore: Samesies.

Melissa: I mean, I’m not going to die on this hill. Inside and out is fine.

What about using the parking hub? Doesn’t require extra language. It’s city property. Just let people wander over with their to-go food.

Max: I think they should have to notify their neighbors. I think we should require hand sanitizer.

Both sort of loosely agreed on. Emergency measure stuff to account for it being approved on a first reading.

Saul: What if a neighbor is opposed?

Shannon: Since these are temporary, a neighbor does not have veto power.

Unanimous!

——————————————————————

16. There’s going to be an Executive Session after this, and then they come back and talk about their Executive Secrets. The topic is “acquisition of property in Downtown San Marcos for public use”. My guess is…parking garage??

I don’t know how much stamina I have for this sort of thing – it’s 8:40. If they don’t return soon, I might just post this and watch the last bit later this week.