Tag: La Cinema

Hours 0:00-1:21, 7/3/23

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

The SMART/Axis Logistics Semi-Unsatisfying-Partial-Resolution

We were scheduled to have the big vote for zoning the SMART/Axis Logistics 2000 acre monstrosity to Heavy Industrial. But instead: they withdrew their application. So this chapter of the story lurches to its anticlimactic conclusion.  (Backstory: here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

This isn’t exactly a bad thing – a bad thing would be if the Heavy Industrial zoning had passed. But it doesn’t mean that the community can let their guard down, either.

Here’s what I imagine: city councilmembers were squirming under the pressure to deny, and told the developers that a denial was likely. It’s better for the developer to withdraw and regroup, rather than get the denial. If they had gotten denied on the zoning request, they’d have to wait a year to re-apply.  This way they can play their cards close to their vest and figure out what they want to do. 

Besides: the developer still has the original 880 acres zoned Heavy Industrial and ready to go.

Citizen Comment: Mostly frustrated citizens who want answers to the current state of the SMART terminal.  Which development agreement is currently in effect? What’s the future hold?

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Items 11-13:  La Cinema, the La Cima Film Studio.  (Background on La Cima here.)(La Cima is controversial because it is over Edwards Aquifer. More background.)

Here is the current version of La Cima:

That’s RR 12 going through up through the middle of the pink part. (Everything to the right of RR 12 was added in May 2022.)

Back in November 2021, Council said that La Cima could have movie studios in their commercial zoning areas.  Just like with revising the SMART development agreement, this passed on a single reading, and no one in the community got wind of it. 

Then in June 2022, it was time to decide what kind of tax credits the studio should get. (Me, in my tiny voice: why should they get any?) This is when the community first heard about the movie studio. Everyone got mad, because we really should not be building on the aquifer.  But it was too late: that ship had sailed the previous November.

This past Tuesday, it got annexed and zoned. The film studio is the dangly part of the pink land in the picture above:

That’s about 147 acres.

The inner part is film studio, and the outer part has to stay natural:

So there you have it. It’s been annexed and zoned. In ten years, we’ll know if this was an extremely bad idea, a moderately bad idea, or if it worked out pretty well, after all.

Passes 7-0.

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Item 14:  Universal Gas Franchise.

Apparently in Texas, any gas company can demand to have access to dig up your streets and put their pipes in so that they can sell gas to the people of your town, and you have to let them.  More accurately, you have to give them the same contract as the other gas companies have. 

In this case, it’s someone called Universal Gas Ltd. The city gets 5% of their profits, and in exchange, they’re allowed to dig up our roads and put pipeline in and whatever else.  It sounds like they’re aiming for Riverbend Ranch, but it wasn’t entirely clear. 

I got annoyed with the Universal Gas lawyer, who kept answering questions that were directed at city staff.  For example, Saul Gonzalez asked if 5% was typical for the cut that the city gets.  The Universal Gas lawyer hopped right in and said, “Oh yes! If anything, it’s too high!  Usually they’re 2-5%.  You wouldn’t want us to have to pass those costs on to the consumer, would you?” [waggles eyebrows in threatening corporate-speak.]

The city manager, Stephanie Reyes, said that every few years we conduct a rate study, and then implement new rates across the board. 

Passes 7-0.

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Item 15: The city is taking over Southside’s home repair project. This has been in the works for awhile.

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Item 16: The animal shelter has hired a vet, and they’ll be joining the Animal Services Committee.

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Items 17-18: Top Secret Executive Session about wastewater plants going up way out on 123.  I’m guessing this is also related to Riverbend Ranch.

And that’s the whole meeting! It was weirdly short. But the workshops were very interesting, so go read about those next.

Hour 0:00-1:30, 7/5/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment was dominated by the film studio at La Cima. One person called it La Cinema, which I find hilarious, and will now adopt.

There was a legit community uproar after the last meeting.  People are furious about developing over the aquifer.  There were two protests, I believe? one last week during P&Z, and then another during the City Council meeting.  

Item 48: In response, Alyssa Garza and Saul Gonzalez put the film studio discussion back on the agenda. (I think it had to come from them because they’d voted “yes” at the last meeting; “no” votes (ie Max Baker) are procedurally not allowed.)

The job of the council was to placate the angry protesters:

  1. The existence of the film studio was not up for a vote
  2. It was about tax breaks, in exchange for using the updated city code.
  3.  the deal has already been signed, right after the last meeting. (Literally, Alyssa Garza clarified this point.)  

I will lovingly call this portion of the evening the Great Placating Tour of La Cinema.  For example, Jane Hughson and Max Baker are putting an agenda item together about protecting the aquifer, for later in August.  Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are putting something together about how Chapter 380 tax break deals should get two readings at council, not one.

Everyone grandstands a little bit about why they stand by their decision last week.  Max is convinced that there must be some sort of conspiracy or real estate deal, but he means it in a more nefarious way than the straightforward way in which this is a real estate deal. He’s self-aware enough to acknowledge that he’s grasping at straws, but chides his councilmates for not being suspicious enough. 

Max is correct that there’s a good possibility that this studio will fail. Businesses fail all the time. The thing is, we generally don’t stop people from acting on their dumb ideas. Provided you’re playing within the rules and you’re not malicious nor more destructive than the alternative, you are allowed to build a film studio. And since La Cima is going to build something, they’re entitled to pick La Cinema.

(San Marcos has had its share of bad ideas. Remember the old Mr. Gatti’s building on the corner of CM Allen and Hopkins? The next owners painted the exterior of the building black with daisies on it? Look outside at the sweltering 103° heat, and just contemplate walking into a free-standing building painted all black. It didn’t last.)(This is before it was torn down to make room for the food trucks, which then eventually left due to the food inspector drama a few years ago, I think. So now we have a beautiful slab of concrete with some gritty weeds making their way here and there.)

What have we lost, if the studio fails?  Our hopes and dreams about future tax revenue and internships for students.  We’d be stuck with a big old building, over the aquifer, that would have to be re-purposed. That’s not good. The $4 million in tax breaks isn’t exactly lost – it’s money we wouldn’t have collected either way, and it ensured that the building we’re stuck with complied with 2020 environmental standards instead of 2013 environmental standards.  (At least, I hope that’s the case. I hope we’re not actually laying out money on this Hollywood dream.)

Hour 2, 11/16/21

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

What happened here?

  • The anti-bigotry affirmation went off the rails. In fact, the theme of the night might be “Commissioner Baker is correct but hella undiplomatic about it.” Baker tied together a whole lot of different points in a long, passionate statement against racist cops, the student at Texas State who recently set synagogues on fire, the anti-semitic flyers, the Trump Train, Chief Stapp’s commets, the 911 responder’s comments, and a bunch of other things. He opened by asking if the Mayor would support holding police officers accountable for racist comments on social media. Mayor Hughson plainly interpreted this as an attack.

The problem is that Baker and Hughson were having entirely separate conversations. I believe Mayor Hughson felt like it was time to update and re-affirm the anti-bigotry statement as a matter of housekeeping. Baker is furious about police brutality, the treatment of the Biden Bus, and in general, San Marcos is a lightning rod for white supremacists to try to drum up conflict.

Baker is correct when he says that council stays quiet on these issues because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. He’s correct about all of this stuff. He also comes in with guns blazing.

Commissioner Scott made the dumbest comment of the Anight, when he said something like, “We all disapprove of this stuff, but I think the more we talk about it, the more of it there is.”

In the end, Commissioner Garza moved to postpone until after the federal case against the city for the Biden Bus incident is resolved. That passed.

  • City Council voted on a ton of open committee assignments. I certainly got the impression that committee members were angry at Baker and not going to vote for him for anything. And that is how we got Jude Prather, “tough on crime”, on the homelessness committee, and Shane Scott on the sustainability committee.

The thing is: we no longer have a progressive coalition on council. There used to be three mostly reliable progressive votes. Hughson and Gonzalez have always been centrist. Now there are two progressive votes and three reliably conservative votes. Baker will kneecap himself if he continues to be a bomb-thrower, I fear.

  • One other thing: archaelogical surveys. The city has a robust procedure for handling discovery of artifacts in the course of development. Private developers have zero requirements. Commissioner Baker spoke diplomatically here about the need to find some way to have our history preserved, and city staff offered up San Antonio as an example of a city that does in fact put some responsibility on private developers. Mayor Hughson and others were in favor of having city staff look into possible policies here and to bring it back.