Item 13: Opioid settlement
Obviously there is a massive opioid crisis right now, with severe addiction, Fentanyl overdoses, and all the rest of it. I’m pretty sure anyone reading this site is pretty aware of the scope of the crisis. (Hays County made the New Yorker, even.)
If you really want to go down a dark path, read up on the Sackler family and how intentional it was that pharmaceutical companies worked to ramp up addictions, in order to make grotesque amounts of money. (Or watch the three part John Oliver version.)
But if you don’t want to go down a dark path, just know: there were eventually national lawsuits, and now there are settlements which cover a tiny fraction of the destruction of the wake of the opioid crisis.
Which brings us to:
And
So we’ll get around $300K from this settlement. Alyssa Garza makes the case that this should go towards evidence-based treatment solutions.
Will this help the opioid crisis? Yes, in the sense that jumping up and down gets you closer to the moon. There’s a lot still to be done.
…
Item 15: We are buying a Pumper, Midship, 1250 GPM, Aluminum Body, Spartan Metro Star, 4-Door, Tilt Cab, Single Axle Spartan fire truck.
Shane Scott jokes, “Wouldn’t the $300K from the opioid settlement just about cover the shortfall here?”
Haha, it’s funny because fuck those community members wrestling with addiction and overdose! Shane is a funny guy.
…
Item 19: We talked about Gateway signs before. The choices before were…questionable:
To me, they were very corporate-lobby.
Today city staff presented four new options, and I think they’re all better!
I love the heron. Easy, done. NEXT!
Council is split. They argue over the “Est 1881” for a while, because that date is wrong. It should have been 1851 but maybe 1808, and if you look on our seal, it says 1877. Or maybe tens of thousands of years ago! So that will change.
Mayor Hughson doesn’t like any of the overhang bits – the tree, the words “San Marcos”, etc. And she also wants the rock to be more horizontal and less angled.
Mark Gleason advocates, “The simpler, the better.”
In the end:
We ❤ the heron: Matthew Mendoza, Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott
We ❤ the simplicity of Option B: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez
That tree, tho! Option D for Jude Prather
City manager Stephanie Reyes and Jane Hughson both worry that locals don’t actually identify those big herons with San Marcos very much. I suppose it comes down to how often you get to the river.
Here’s where the signs will go:
It’s always odd when they draw I-35 going left-right instead of up-down. (But who declared that North was oriented Up anyways? I’m not going to defend the Big North Industry. We can let North go to the right and West point up for a change.)
The San Marxist 