Tag: elections

May 2nd City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Election day was yesterday, and it was a good one! Let’s celebrate some election outcomes:

District 1: Jessica Cain!
District 2: Margie Villapando!
The four bonds: All passed!  Everything worked out great.

Thank you to all of you that turned out to vote, and to everyone who worked on those campaigns and put in the hard work. Let’s take a beat to celebrate! Ok, back to work.

(I am still embarrassed that I posted the wrong voting district last time.  I promise to triple-check my work going forward.)

Onto last Tuesday’s meeting:

Hours 0:00- 2:04:  We take a deep dive into the newly proposed SMPD contract.  I found Chief Standridge to be kinda infuriating and I got a little steamed up about it.

Hours 2:04-2:58: Some zoning cases. And a brief trip down memory lane, in a gondola.

Hours 2:58 – 4:37:  The latest on the SMART Terminal, putting boots on cars, and some talk of ending the eviction delay.

That’s a wrap! Enjoy those good election outcome vibes while they last!

Unpacking the Election Results, November 8th, ’22

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

Full election results here. My thoughts:

1. The least surprising thing is that Saul Gonzales trounced Atom Von Arndt, 75% to 25%. Saul is well-known, and he knows how to turn out voters to the polls. 

2. Or maybe the least surprising thing is that Yay On A passed overwhelmingly, with 82% in favor of decriminalizing possession of marijuana, up to 4 oz.

Note that city council is way out of step with San Martians on this.  If it had been put to a city council vote, Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, and Saul would have all wanted the amount reduced to 1-2 oz. I’m not sure 4 oz would pass at all, and 1-2 oz might have only narrowly passed.

3. Max Baker lost to Matthew Mendoza. Initially I was really shocked.

But now I understand it like so: I think the election was a referendum on Max Baker. There was most likely a huge whisper campaign against Max from a lot of people (and other councilmembers, I’m guessing). I agree with his politics, but he did lob a lot of unpleasant accusations at people and made a lot of people mad with his tactics.

Matthew Mendoza is from a well-connected family, and may have benefited from Saul’s network of voter mobilization efforts.  I’m still disappointed that we’re losing Max up on the dais, though, and I hope he stays active in politics and activism.

4. Jane Hughson handily beat John Thomaides, 63%-37%.

I didn’t expect it to be so lopsided. I wish it had been a little closer, so that she’d feel some impetus to govern a little more proactively. This is a pretty clear mandate that voters want her to keep doing what she’s been doing.

5. Finally, the Hays County Commission turned blue! This is a big deal, because they’re the ones that make contracts with private prisons like this one for $17 million over the next three years, instead of working to reduce the number of people who are sent to prison in the first place.

TSM official take on City Council candidates, Fall ’22

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

Here’s my official thoughts on candidates!

I listened to the League of Women Voters and the Hays County Democrat forum.  I don’t have recordings of anything else, but feel free to point me towards them.

Short-short version: 

  1. Jane vs John for Mayor:

 I’m actually on the fence.  I trust Jane 100% to be honest, but I disagree with her principles in significant ways.  (She’s solidly centrist on the business community, cops, and the environment.) Based on his debate answers, I’m still nervous that putting John together with Shane, Jude, and Mark is going to mean open season for developers to maximize their profits, and we will not require developers to build what’s best for San Marcos.  Developers are not your friend!

Here are two truths:

  • We need housing
  • Developers are going to prioritize profit over what’s best for San Marcos

Here are my fears: Jane isn’t going to prioritize dense housing enough, and John will let the developers get away with murder.  

Conclusion: vote for whoever you want.

2. Matt vs Max for Council Seat #1:

Matt Mendoza comes from a family that is deeply woven into San Marcos. He’s new to politics. He seems bright and eager to learn.  At the Hays Dems thing, he was forcefully pro-GRACE act (not criminalizing abortion) but lukewarm on Prop A.  My guess is that he’s left of center on some issues and centrist on others. I would love to see him grow and develop on P&Z for another year. (Perhaps he would enjoy reading this very blog for a year, idk.)

But Max knows so much, and is so clear on what he’s fighting for, and he’s fighting for the right things.  We’d be fools to vote him out.   If Max learned to cajole and charm people into buying into his ideas, he’d be unstoppable.  (At one point, Max made the case that he’s gotten less argumentative and more collaborative since the DEI workshop in August.  Could be! He needs more time to build up a track record.)  

Conclusion: Vote for Max, save Matthew for next year.

3. Saul vs Atom for Council seat #2:

I am pretty harsh on Saul for his answers below, because they are so entirely devoid of content. He is an open ear to large portions of the San Marcos Hispanic community, but I don’t think he does anything with the information that comes in.   He’s been on council for two terms, but can’t answer basic questions. I became very exasperated with him.

Does that mean you should vote for Atom Von Arndt? Look, I don’t know. He’s the outsider. He was at his best when he spoke bluntly (WINK) on Prop A: sending people to prison for possession of pot supports the private prison industrial complex.  So I think he has a general liberal bent.  And he seemed like a bright person who was willing to learn.  But he has a lot to learn. (And he’s got a thing for clown facepaint.)

Conclusion: Vote for whoever you want.

And now, the long-long answer!

The LWV debates are super short, ringing in at just under an hour.  Candidates are only given one minute to answer each question.  Also, they held it on Tuesday, and Matthew Mendoza had a P&Z meeting.  So that seems a bit unfair.

The Hays Dems forum gave each candidate plenty of time to speak at length and then field questions. But only Jane Hughson, Max Baker, and Matthew Mendoza were there.

First up is the Mayor Race:

Opening Statements:  Both candidates give basic bio details. What can you say in a minute? They’ve both lived in SM forever.  Jane Hughson worked at Texas State for decades and has been on a billion community service organizations. John Thomaides owns a business involving water somehow. They both like buzzwords about “common sense” and “being frugal” and “balance”.

The Hays County Democratic forum gave a much longer stretch for candidates to talk, but John Thomaides wasn’t there. Jane talked at length about all her experience – she’s worked with every San Marcos organization under the sun – but I didn’t exactly learn anything new. We know how she governs.

First question: Diversity/Equity/Inclusion?

I’d say both candidates give equally half-assed answers. Jane Hughson says it’s the right thing to do and we had a half-day retreat.  She defends her effort to cut the equity coordinator from a $400K/4 year position to a $200K/2 year position, saying that we need to embed the position permanently.  I guess? You still jeopardized two years of funding for the position. 

John Thomaides says all the departments should practice best practices.  And Austin has a whole DEI department, and we’re not there yet. It’s a balance.  He did not seem like this is an urgent issue to him.

Second question: Housing Density? 

This might be the question that tips the entire election towards Jane, if I know our NIMBY friends.  

John answers first: we need infill-friendly policies. We need to consider things like condos and townhomes.

Jane Hughson says: You need density to make transit work.  We allow smaller lots now.  I absolutely will not touch old neighborhoods, but maybe new neighborhoods could experiment with smaller lots?

Thomaides’ answer is closer to what I believe.  I wish he’d mentioned a sense of scale, because I’m still skittish about the giant apartment complexes that went up a decade ago while he was on council.  There’s a big difference between 4-plexes and 8-plexes integrated throughout neighborhoods, and something like The Cottages and The Retreat, forming their own entire ecosystem.

However: the old neighborhoods in town are extremely spooked by the word infill.  They are convinced that frat boys will pee on their hedges, fill the streets with Coors Light cans, and throw massive house parties that last until 3 am.  And sometimes, the unspoken part is that they just don’t want to live next to poor people. 

Third question: Homelessness?

Jane Hughson’s answer: there are many reasons people are homeless, and you have to tailor individual responses. The Homeless Coalition is working to do that.

John Thomaides’ answer: Every city is dealing with this. You can’t give every person a house. Find those people who are willing to change and work with them. It’s a difficult issue.

I’m giving this point to Mayor Hughson.  Thomaides’ answer sounded defensive and like he is going to blame homeless people for not wanting to change, and therefore they don’t deserve help.

Fourth question: Infrastructure? How to evaluate a project?

John takes this to mean “how does SM decide which city projects to work on?” He wants to re-do how we award contracts.

Jane says that you have to work with engineers, and modify how much different projects disrupt peoples’ lives.

Closing Statements

I am allergic to the kind of buzzword-heavy scripted statement that candidates are compelled to cook up here. “I will be all things to all people!”  It’s a waste of time to scrutinize these crumbs and say anything meaningful about how they’d be on the dais.

What about other topics?

The environment/river: John’s website and Facebook make it clear that he works his tail off to clean up the river and feels strongly about littering.  

Does that mean he’s willing to vote for constraints on businesses that want to develop over the aquifer?  I have no idea. What about broader measures towards sustainability? What kind of cost is he willing to impose on businesses to force them to implement sustainable solutions? I have no idea.

Jane tends to support the river, and is willing to work with businesses on greener solutions, but she’s not going to force anyone towards anything game-changing.  

My guess is they’d be roughly the same on the environment.

Cops/crime: John’s website doesn’t say anything, and Jane has been pretty centrist. She voted against cite-and-release, I think, but then came around and supported its renewal. (Which Chief Standridge also supported.)  My guess is they’d be roughly the same, here, too.

What about their past voting records as Mayor and on council? This takes so much work to properly summarize. For example, in 2011 and 2012, there was a big city fight about a proposed development over Sessom Creek. Here’s an article that says it was postponed . Here’s an article that says a previous vote was a no, and now it’s scaled down. Neither say how anyone voted. I’d have to look it up to see if Thomaides was even on council in 2012. The two main places that I go to find the council archives only go back to 2014. Oh wait! Thomaides was instrumental in its defeat. Good job, John.

What about the HEB shitshow, on the corner of Wonderworld and Hopkins? In 2016, slightly over a year past the Memorial Day floods, HEB applied to rezone the corner of Wonderworld and Hunter – right next to purgatory creek, which had just flooded the previous October. The plan was to put curb cuts on Wonderworld, west of Hunter. It was an insanely terrible location and the town was furious. Both Hughson and Thomaides voted in favor of it, though, so that’s a wash in terms of your upcoming mayoral decision. What about the Woods? Thomaides (and Jude Prather) both voted against it. Jane Hughson wasn’t on council back then.

I have a vivid memory of a controversial vote where (some? all?) the men all left the room to avoid going on record, and Lisa Prewitt, Jane Hughson, and Melissa Derrick were all left sitting there holding the bag. But I can’t place it. I thought it might have been Cape’s Dam, but it appears John and Jane both voted originally to remove it.

Since Jane’s been mayor, she voted against cite-and-release, but since then tentatively supports it. Covid hit. How should we spend $18 million in American Rescue Plan dollars? She did not apply any pressure over Ryan Hartmann. She helped rewrite the Land Development Code. I dunno – their two stints in office have been characterized by very different kinds of issues.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t watch city council meetings when John was mayor. I don’t know if he’s careful and judicious, or if he comes unprepared to meetings, or if he makes his decisions ahead of time, or if he comes with an open mind and discusses things in good faith. There were ethics complaints against Scott Gregson while John was mayor, and in my mind, I had them as friends. But again, I did not listen to the council meetings where those issues were actually discussed. There is a wealth of knowledge out there on how John governs, but I don’t have it.

The Other Council Seats

It’s kind of shitty, but they held the debate during a P&Z meeting, and so Matthew Mendoza was in a bind.  He sent over a short personal statement and skipped the debate. However, he was at the Hays Dems forum, and got to speak for as long as he wanted, and then answered questions. 

Summarizing Matthew Mendoza on his own: Born and raised here, loves this city. Some sort of IT guy.

  • Tentative Yay on Prop A, but not whole-hearted. 
  • On the river: Absolutely no development within 100 yards! Beyond that, we’ll have to work with the developer.  We need to shake down businesses like Chuck Nash for donations to help fund conservation efforts.

(This is not a great answer – I’m pretty sure there’s already no development within 100 yards. And you can’t work with developers unless you’re willing to walk away. Otherwise you’re just letting them hold all the cards.)

  • On abortion/the GRACE act: enthusiastic support for not prosecuting women.
  • On animal shelters: he’s a softie for animals and wants to support the shelter.

None of those are nitty-gritty answers that tell you that he’d hold corporations’ feet to the fire, but it would have been very hard for him to pull that off. Like I said, my guess is mostly centrist, maybe tilting to the left.

Onto the debate itself!

Note: From here on out, I’m sticking with the League debate, and mostly ignoring Max’s answers at the Hays Dems Forum. His answers were interesting and the whole thing is worth listening to, but he already has way more to say than Saul or Atom, and it just would be too lopsided.

Opening statements

Max’s keywords are sustainability, equity, and transparency. 

Saul’s new grandbaby was born today!

Atom Von Arndt is relatively new to town, and a renter, with a regular job, who keeps scratching his head at how we do things here.

Question 1: What are your priorities?

Max’s priorities are sustainability, equity, and government transparency.  He wants more town halls and more engagement.

Saul’s priorities are flooding. Work with small businesses. Housing but NOT in existing neighborhoods. Finish the projects that are midway through.

Atom’s: Roads. Why do we have bike lanes to nowhere? What the hell happened at Hopkins and 35? Affordability. More outreach.

Question 2: Homelessness

From this point on, Max is just playing a completely different game than Atom and Saul.  He can just rattle off such a more well-informed, complex answer, with specific examples and experiences he’s had to fortify it.  

It really reflects most poorly on Saul.  Of course Atom doesn’t know the details – he’s brand new and running as an outsider. But Saul is running for his third term.  He should know a lot by this point. 

Here’s what I mean – on homelessness: 

  • Saul says, “Outreach! Provide education and mental health services”
  • Atom says “Outreach and mental health.”
  • Max says “I have volunteer experience with XYZ org, we did a homeless study with the American Rescue Plan funding, I’m focused on implementing a continuum of care with all the organizations in town, which I can enumerate. Want to talk about transitional housing? A housing-first policy is important. We need to de-silo our non-profits – they’re a patchwork and not cooperating that well.”  

When Max speaks, you get the idea that he could keep going for another ten minutes with developed ideas. When Saul talks, it feels like the kid hoping that the teacher won’t notice if they increase the margins, increase the font size to 14, and triple the line spacing to get their essay up to two pages.

Question 3: How do you evaluate infrastructure? 

Atom: He’s comfortable ranting here. Why did we spend $10 million on fancy street lights for Hopkins?! [Note: we didn’t.] What’s up with these nutty bike stoplights to nowhere? What the hell is going on with I-35 and Hopkins? We should be fixing the drainage and potholes!

I mean…those are the kind of questions you get from outsiders. They’re easy to ask. The answers are slow, technical, and wonky. This doesn’t make him a bad candidate for office, but it doesn’t tell you much about what he’ll do when he gets there.  (Actually, it tells you the very first thing he’ll do: he’ll learn that those answers are slow, technical, and wonky.)

Max goes next: Equity, equity, equity! Evaluate projects through an equity lens. Bring your full understanding of historical and systemic biases. 

 It’s really a pretty good answer.

Saul: We need to have different parts of the pie. You can’t give the whole pie to one project. There need to be consequences for contractors who go too long. 

SAUL.  We do have different parts of the pie.  You just approved a budget, which is literally how you divide up the pie. What on earth are you nattering on about.

Question 4: Density?

Max: The only infill that gets financing is large scale multifamily.  Can we figure out how to do small-scale infill, like the mini-complexes on San Antonio?  Sprawl drives up everyone’s taxes and is bad for everyone.

This is fairly close to my own answer: 4-plexes should be allowed by right, anywhere. 8-plexes should be allowed very often.  Sprawl is bad.

Saul: Smaller homes on smaller lots! 

Twice Saul refers to the zonings “CF4.5” and “CF5”, and I’m pretty sure these don’t exist. My memory is that there is SF6 and SF4.5, (Single Family 6 and Single Family 4.5), and there is CD4 and CD5, (Character District 4 and Character District 5). But there’s no CF anything.  

It’s really not a big deal – people misspeak all the time. But he’s not providing other evidence that he really does know what he’s talking about.  And he was on P&Z before his two terms on council, and he was on council when they re-did the land development code. 

Atom: Mixed use apartments downtown are insanely expensive, and then that allows other landlords to raise their rents too. We’ve got to build more housing and make sure it’s affordable. 

He’s not yet plugged into the NIMBYism he’ll face, but sure, his instincts are fine.

Question 5: Yay on Prop A?

Saul: 4 oz is a LOT.  That’s 475 joints. That’s not personal use. But I voted to let the voters decide. 

Atom: YAY!  Pot possession just feeds the private prison industrial complex. We should do anything we can to keep people out of the criminal justice system.

Max: In 2019, I ran on Cite and Release. 4 oz is because that’s where the state of Texas draws the line between “little” and “lots”. It only applies to nonviolent offenders, and just possession. 

I appreciated Atom tying this into the larger human rights issues associated with our prison complex, because that’s mostly where I think the moral salience comes from, too.

Question 6: Diversity/Equity/Inclusion?

Atom: It’s everyone’s town! We need a ton of engagement/outreach.

This is both right and wrong. We do need a ton of outreach, but it’s way harder than he’s imagining. Solving the outreach problem is not just a matter of good intentions.

Max: I advocated for a 4 year DEI coordinator. Every person on the DC trip told us to keep DEI front and center. Equity lens helps us do everything better: better policing, better planning.  I want to pay people for feedback.

(I don’t think that last sentence is quite right. That doesn’t target the people that are hardest to reach. We have to do the hard work of showing up at barbershops, churches, and working with well-connected existing groups like Community Action, the food bank, the women’s shelter, etc.  It just takes a ton of labor, ultimately.) But aside from that, Max generally has a solid track record of voting to support DEI and think about issues connected to it.

Saul: You guys, you need to hear Saul’s entire answer, in his own words:

“First of all, I think everyone should be treated equally and fairly, no matter what walk of life they come from. I think something we have to remember, also, is that people have different cultures and different heritages, and we gotta take that into consideration as well.  Those are two things that I’d like to really focus on. And maybe we can someday live in that world. That’s all I have. Thank you very much.”

Read that outloud, and time yourself.  Saul manages to make it last almost 40 seconds. (It starts at 50:51 if you’re interested.)

WHAT THE HELL. There’s no there there.  

Closing statements:

Saul: I want to finish projects we started. Covid delayed everything. I’ve never seen anything like that.

Atom: I heart San Marcos.  I’m a single dad with a 10 year old.  My superpower is that I can connect and communicate with everyone really well, so I can get out there and find out what people want.

Max: The DEI workshop made me a better collaborator. I was endorsed by the Hays Women’s caucus.

And that’s a wrap!

No grand conclusions from me. BUT, if you’re feeling moved to do something, reach out to Hays County Democrats about helping on election day to make sure MAGA “poll-watchers” aren’t intimidating voters and sabotaging democracy.

Early Thoughts on the Candidates

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections

What do I think, before hearing any debates or anything? Glad you asked!

Mayoral Race

Mayor Jane Hughson is a centrist. She is extremely honest, hard working, detail-oriented, and she operates in good faith. She tries to compromise and find common ground. She tries to educate herself when she doesn’t know or understand something.

In short, she’s an outstanding politician, but I don’t entirely agree with her ideology.

John Thomaides was on council from the 2000s until 2018, and he was mayor from 2016 to 2018, when he lost to Jane Hughson. Early on, he was the single liberal vote against a tide of conservative votes. Then in the early 2010s, he switched sides. Thomaides joined forces with Shane Scott, Jude Prather, and Scott Gregson. They rammed through a bunch of contentious issues, despite community uproar. (The issue of the day was large student apartment complexes in central San Marcos. Think the Cottages, the Retreat, and the Woods, which is the worst of all, and is now called something else. Redpoint? They were also trying to put one on Sessom Creek, which would have been a holy disaster. Fortunately that one got defeated.)

[Updated to add: I need to go through and check those assertions above, when I’ve got a minute. JMA pointed out that neither Thomaides nor Prather voted for The Woods, and also reminded me about the HEB fight next to Purgatory Creek. And that Prather just opted not to run for re-election. In the next few days, I’ll try to get a more accurate post written. And I’m sorry about potentially spreading misinformation.]

Thomaides burned through all the trust and goodwill that he’d built up from the left, and then some. Scott, Prather, Gregson, and Thomaides all lost their council seats in the mid-2010s.

In short, I expect him to tell me what I want to hear, and then go vote for the opposite. I have zero trust in him. With Shane Scott and Jude Prather both back on Council, it feels like Thomaides is trying to get the band back together.

City Council Place 1

Max Baker is the encumbent. He is extremely liberal. He is very knowledgeable and prepares thoroughly. He sometimes argues tiny points to the detriment of the larger battle that he’s fighting, and has a reputation for getting into fights up on the dais.

He’s great on the environment, challenging the status quo, and being suspicious of traditional bastions of power that keep the status quo entrenched. The only thing I often disagree with him on is increased housing density. He’s anti-sprawl, but not particularly pro-density.

Matthew Mendoza is new to P&Z, as of March. I know very little about him. I’m open to hearing what he has to say, during the debates.

I wish he hadn’t picked Max to run against. Max is an asset to the progressive movement, and Matthew is brand new to politics, and would benefit from another year or two on P&Z to learn the ropes. On the other hand, if Matthew had picked Saul, then he is competing against another Hispanic candidate and can’t increase the Hispanic representation on council.

In the absence of knowing much else, that is one thing that Matthew Mendoza has going for him: he can represent the Hispanic community, which needs more representation on Council. Still, if he waited a year, he’d be a stronger candidate and could run against Shane Scott. That seems better, right?

City Council Place 2

Saul Gonzalez was first elected in 2016, then re-elected in 2019. He almost never says anything, and almost always votes with the majority. In the past two meetings, he’s been talking a lot, and it’s been a comically abrupt change from his usual.

I do know that he’s extremely well-known in the Hispanic community, and thus represents them quite well, even if he keeps it to himself. My guess would be that many people feel very comfortable reaching out to him. So that is his biggest strength.

His opponent is Adam Arndt. Facebook tells me that this is the same person as Atom Von Arndt. That’s about all I know of him! He seems colorful. I’m looking forward to the debates.

August 16th City Council Meeting

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Election season is coming up! Here are the candidates so far:

Mayor: Jane Hughson is facing John Thomaides, the former mayor.

City Council Place 1: Max Baker vs Matt Mendoza

City Council Place 2: Saul Gonzalez vs Adam Arndt

Last day to file is Monday. I will be posting on the specifics of these candidates, but not right now.  Stay tuned!

However: San Marcos City Council elections are really problematic.  I decided this deserved its own post. Enjoy.

Onto the City Council meeting!

Hours 0:00 – 0:30ish: Citizen Comment Period. Let’s spend some time talking about the community in Redwood/Rancho Vista.

Hours 0:30-3:00: A small rezoning case that I was not very interested in, and city council pay raises.

Hours 3:00-3:50: Cops in schools, and what on earth is Shane Scott waving around?!

Hours 3:50-6:00: The Lobbying Ordinance dies a frustrating, fishy death. Also Boyhood Alley, and some smaller odds & ends.

Two final thoughts:

  1. Almost every single vote taken this evening was Max Baker & Alyssa Garza against the other five councilmembers. This is why we need a progressive coalition. They can’t go it alone.

    Last year, Jude Prather was elected over Zach Sambrano, and Mark Gleason was elected over Markeymoore. [Update: Jude v. Markeymoore, Zach v. Gleason. Correction from Mark Rockeymore in the comments.] If Zach and Markeymoore were on the council, we’d have a lobbying ordinance right now. We need to build a progressive coalition. It doesn’t work to consistently have two voices losing to five voices every night.

    2. Mark Gleason’s conservative grandstanding is sucking the life force out of me. Every single item, he rambles on, in his particular brand of Aw Shucks Humble Everyman, Who Just Loves Cops and Capitalism.  I just get weary of it.

    (To be fair, Max Baker has equally many rants, but I more often agree with him.)

San Marcos City Council Elections are Problematic

by The San Marxist, posted in City Council Elections, Explainer

Why are San Marcos City Council elections so bad?

First, every person in the city can vote for every city council position.  (In other words, they’re all at-large.)  At-large elections have a very problematic, racist past.  Generally, it works like this: Suppose your city is 70% white and 30% black.  The white majority can elect their favorite candidate in every single council election, and so a city ends up electing a 100% white city council.  

What’s the solution? Usually, single-member districts. This means dividing the city into six equal parts, and each part gets to elect one city council member. We do this for school board elections already. (Probably the mayor would still be elected at-large.) If we had single-member districts, then the candidate would have to live in the district they represented, so we would have city council members from all over San Marcos. It’s also easier on the candidate, because they can focus on a smaller region and concentrate their efforts.

So, lawsuits get filed. The SMCISD school board was sued in the mid-90s for having all at-large elections. (Could not find any record of it online, beyond #60 listed here by the lawyer who brought the lawsuit. That’s when they went to 5 single-member districts and 2 at-large positions.) Austin, San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Seguin are all single-member districts because they’ve all been sued or struggled over it.  Austin here, San Antonio here. There’s a whole chapter on Seguin here. And here is a fascinating Washington Post article from 1983, on MALDEF bringing lawsuits against Lockhardt, Corpus Christi, and Lubbock. The last sentence in the article is:

Last week MALDEF filed suits affecting city council systems in Pecos and Port Lavaca, and school districts in New Braunfels, Port Lavaca and Pecos.

So there you have it: 1983.  ANYWAY. Who still has all at-large districts in 2022? We do! Boo, hiss! 

But wait! There’s more! We have a peculiar system of declaring places.  Right now, we have four candidates for city council – Max Baker, Matt Mendoza, Saul Gonzalez, and Adam Arndt.  Suppose my favorite candidates are Max and Matt, and I don’t like Saul or Adam.  Well, I’m stuck, because Place 1 is Max vs Matt, and Place 2 is Saul vs Adam.  I can’t vote for my favorite slate of candidates.  That’s not the best way to elect a council that reflects the choice of the people.

Declaring places does not serve a purpose for elections. We could say that Max, Matt, Saul, and Adam are competing for two spots, and all the voters get to cast two votes. (We do this with judges, for example.) Then the top two candidates would win the two slots.

In my opinion, we should switch to single-member districts. (But you could easily convince me to try Ranked Choice Voting, also known as Instant Run-off Voting, or multi-member districts, or one of the other innovative electoral systems out there.)

Hour 4:12-5:20, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

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.