Item 35: Spending $5,401,600 of Federal ARP money.
The city is supposed to approve the next $5 million of spending from the American Rescue Plan money. They discussed it at a workshop on June 29 .
Mayor Hughson makes one motion: to reduce the funding for the new Equity program coordinator from $400k over 4 years, to $200K for 2 years. She says, “Look, if we want to make this position permanent, we’re going to need to find permanent funding, so we may as well move that process along.”
When I listened to this meeting, I was livid. Here is what I originally wrote:
that is rat-fucking, my dear. It sounds very reasonable! We just want to make the position permanent, even sooner!
The lie is basically “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. Guaranteed funding now is what matters. Hypothetical funding in two years is not worth a bucket of warm piss, to paraphrase LBJ. It is very sleazy because it sounds so reasonable.
I thought she was trying to pass off her amendment as being what’s best for equity. Since then, I went back and listened to the budget meeting from June 29th. In it, Mayor Hughson raised the same concerns. She stated then, “If this is not a permanent position, then it shouldn’t take four years. If this is a permanent position, we’ll need to find funding from the General Fund.”
Now, Mayor Hughson is being wildly naive if she thinks equity will be “solved” in two years. This should be a permanent position. But I no longer think she was being sleazy – just wrong – by making this motion.
Max Baker is irate, and mostly makes good points – an Equity director will bring in tons of grant money. They were specifically told this during their trip to Washington.
Jane Hughson gets very defensive about equity. They’ve been doing equity in San Marcos! She was on council in the ’90s, and they were doing it then, although perhaps more piecemeal!
(Did Jane Hughson know that racism was a problem in the 90s? Absolutely. Did they think about it, and try to do things to ameliorate it? Sure, I can believe that. Did they do enough to move the needle and actually make a difference? Ha, no. Did they pat themselves on the back and move on? Of course – that’s how the 90s went.)
Alyssa Garza – from her fevered Covid state – gently, gently uses universal language to say that we all have privilege, and a major part of equity is not centering ourselves, but looking to the community and just working to improve things.
Here’s a big part of how you (Jane) should think about equity: you can only measure progress by outcomes. It doesn’t matter how hard you’re trying, if the outcomes are still inequitable. For example: if you survey the San Marcos community, and all your responses come back from west of I-35, then your survey was not equitable. You may put an equal amount of resources into advertising it to all parts of the community, but clearly you didn’t end up with a representative response, and so that’s that – it wasn’t equitable. Sorry.
The vote: Should we only fund two years instead of four years of the Equity Program Coordinator?
Yes: Saul Gonzalez, Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, and Mark Gleason
No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker.
So it passes.
…
While I’m on the topic of the June 29th Budget Session: the highlight was when Alyssa Garza gently asked Mark Gleason what his understanding is of what an Equity Coordinator does.
Mark Gleason goes on an absolute rant about everything besides what an Equity Coordinator does. He says that equity is fixing our flooding, and making 911 calls responsive, and fixing homelessness, and many other worthy causes. He says he doesn’t need an Equity Coordinator to tell him what equity is because he already knows, so why waste the money on the coordinator, instead of funding the things he already knows about? Alyssa and Jane Hughson both point out that he hasn’t actually answered the question. He never does answer the question.
Gentle, nonthreatening challenge to Mark Gleason: look at those programs you listed and tell me if any of them currently achieve equality of outcomes.
…
Post script: The Daily Record has a nice write up of this item, and Nick Castillo took the time to include the full list of ARP projects. That’s a good thing to include! That’s why they make the big bucks, I guess.
The San Marxist 