Item 22: Ending the Covid disaster ordinance. Back in March 2020, we passed an emergency declaration. It’s been in effect ever since. Maybe it’s time to let it go?
This is not really about ending the emergency declaration. It’s about the 3 month eviction delay, which we began discussing last time. If the emergency declaration ends, the eviction delay automatically ends, too.
So when should this happen? On what date?
- Mark Gleason is very worried about landlords. Thousands of new students will show up in August. Landlords need to be able to evict all their deadbeat tenants and then have another month or so for repairs and remodels before students arrive on August 1st.
- Alyssa Garza’s sympathies are with the tenants. She keeps hearing from families whose leases expire this summer, and they just want to patch it through without getting an official eviction on their record, because that’s the kiss of death when you’re trying to find a new place.
Earlier this year, Council specifically set aside some rental relief money. But it won’t be available until August. Alyssa would really like to hang on to the eviction delay until the money is available.
In the end:
What day should landlords be able to evict tenants who are delinquent on their rent?
June 30th: Jane Hughson, Jude Prather, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason
July 15th: Alyssa Garza, Matthew Mendoza
(Saul stepped out for a moment)
So the eviction delay will end sooner rather than later.
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Item 24: Shane Scott brought this item up. There’s nothing written down on this item in the packet, so I’ll just paraphrase what Shane says:
“You know how SMART turned into a holy mess? I went and talked with Max Baker, since he was on the SMART subcommittee back then with Jane Hughson and Mark Gleason. He said that he tried to talk to the developers about environmental concerns, and he wanted to talk to the public, and he wanted to talk to SMRF, but city staff wouldn’t let him. But when I was on subcommittees a decade ago, we were allowed to talk to whoever we wanted. What gives? Can we get that back?”
City staff confirms: When Bert Lumbreras was city manager, he implemented a policy that Council members can only talk to staff. Staff is the middleman that ferries info back and forth between developers, experts, etc, and city council.
The reason given is that, under the Texas Open Meetings Act, meeting with developers must be posted in advance under an agenda, and recorded for the public.
Mayor Hughson proposes a change: at the end of each subcommittee meeting, the subcommittee can decide if they want the next meeting to be a public meeting or a private meeting. They can also decide on any experts or outside participants that they want to invite in.
For the record, I don’t think this would have fixed the SMART Terminal disaster. I think Mayor Hughson and Mark Gleason were probably reflexively shooting down everything Max Baker said. If the subcommittee had to agree to bring in outside experts, they wouldn’t have let Max pick them.
And even if they’d brought experts, they certainly wouldn’t have let him go public with the whole thing. They never sought large-scale community input. They never launched a charm offensive to try to sell their vision to the community. Basically, they were just determined to royally screwed the pooch on this one.
….
Item 25: To pull a work permit in San Marcos, you have to be a licensed contractor. To be a licensed contractor, you have to pass a specific test.
Regular people have to pay $500 or so to hire a licensed General Contractor any time they want a permit pulled. There are some exceptions, but that’s the gist of it.
Saul Gonzales brings this item forward. He wants to end the GC testing requirement, and make it so that anyone can pull a permit. You’d still need to be licensed in plumbing or electricity before you did any tinkering, and you’d still get inspected before you get your certificate of occupancy.
Plus: there are only two cities in all of Texas that require this!
City staff explains. This law has been on the books since 1993. And actually, the “two cities” thing is wrong. It used to be us and Seguin. But Seguin killed their requirement, so now it’s just us. Ooops.
Everyone agrees that the it’s a terrible policy. So it will come back as a formal policy change.
The San Marxist 