Citizen Comment
No one spoke at the 6 pm Citizen comment! And just one person at the 3 pm:
- We have two young daughters who love the library, but there are too many incidents with homeless people that make us feel unsafe. There was a guy sleeping in the entrance with his pitbull off the leash, and another guy with a knife on his belt.
- I demand a safety action plan within 60 days or I’ll be back with more notes!
I will note that I am a frequent library user, and this does not match my experience.
But also: this is a great example of how everybody wins when we take care of homeless people!
- Imagine if everyone had a safe home with air conditioning and space for their dog, and access to mental health services.
- Imagine if there was a social work emergency line to call if someone is acting weird in the parking lot.
- (Also I’d like a pony.)
Anyway: there is a lot of transition of leadership at the library right now, so I’m pretty sure there will not be a safety action plan within 60 days.
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Items 1-2: Quarterly financial report and update:
How was the budget from March-June last year? Did we actually bring in the money we expected to, and did we limit spending to the amounts we expected to?
We did! Green is healthy. None of the funds are yellow or red. Great.
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Item 17: New apartments on North LBJ
Suppose you’re heading north on LBJ, north of campus.
You pass Treff’s Tavern on the left, and Grins on the right:
You pass these apartments on the right, with the charming mural on the retaining wall:
And then you pass these apartments that I’ve literally never noticed before:
They’re fine! Totally nondescript. I’m told they were built in 1979.
What if there were bigger, better, and more urban apartments there?
A developer wants to tear down those vague brown buildings and rebuild shinier versions. This is partly because of the North Campus Area Plan: we’re being intentional about what parts of the city should feel walkable and urban. This is one of those areas.
Sadly I don’t have any renderings of what it might look like, but here’s the generic ideas from the city code:
The biggest difference is that the buildings will be by the sidewalk, and the parking lots will be in back. This is much nicer for pedestrians. It makes your street feel more like Sesame Street and less like a sad parking lot.
I’m guessing there is one other major difference. Zooming in to the photo above, of the current 1979 buildings:
Looks like there are nine total units there. I’m guessing the new building will have a lot more!
That’s fine! Building more housing is good, and this is a good spot for it. (It’s only going to be 3 stories tall, anyway.)
Great.
The vote:
Great.
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Items 18-21: La Cima
Here’s La Cima:
It’s enormous. It was first approved in 2013.
The 2014 plan looks like this:
In 2026, the plan looks like so:
If you’re curious about the journey, go here.
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It’s only partly built, so far:
This is the whole point of today: they want to start building out these red sections:
I don’t love La Cima very much!
I don’t love how residents pay an extra $1600-$2700 yearly, which feels like a property tax and contributes to the idea that property taxes are out of control, but is not actually a property tax and goes exclusively to La Cima. I don’t love the sprawl. I don’t love how these huge decisions get locked in, back in 2012, and last for decades. I don’t love how it’s over the aquifer, which is super environmentally sensitive.
That said, it’s not the absolute worst:
- A lot of land was set aside for conservation, on the aquifer.
- They are going to build apartments out there, so it’s not exclusively single family homes.
- There are significant constraints on impervious cover.
Anyway: we’re 13 years deep into La Cima. Give that, today’s bit isn’t particularly controversial. They want to annex and zone those bits in red, above.
The four votes:
- Annex the northern bit (22:21, using time stamps in the lower left)
- Rezone the northern bit (30:52)
- Annex the southern bit (35:14)
- Rezone the southern bit (41:35)
Sure.
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Item 3: Meeting minutes
They’re approving the minutes to the September 15th meeting. Amanda flags some inconsistencies about what time people are recorded as being present.
It sparks a brief conversation about how the process for meeting minutes actually works. How do meeting minutes actually work?
It turns out: staff draws up the minutes, which then go to the Mayor, which then come forth to Council as a whole.
In the future, they’re going to bring Council the redlined version, so that everyone can see the revision process, and determine which version is most faithful to the meeting. (This matches the procedure that we use for other revisions, anyway.)
Great.
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Item 16: Hays Caldwell Economic Development Partnership
There used to be something called Economic Development San Marcos, which was supposed to go out and court businesses and make life better for businesses. We used to give them $400k every year.
Now their name is the Hays Caldwell Economic Development Partnership, and we give them $200K per year, and we have an in-house economic development person who works for the city.
There’s going to be some changes coming next year. Right now, Hays county puts in $400k, and has less board representation than we do. It sounds like they’re frosty about this.
But for today: do we want the status quo for one more year, until the changes are proposed?
The vote:
Great.
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Item 22: Habitat for Humanity
Back in the 60s and 70s, the city acquired this little lot:
For years, it was home to the Community Health Services Clinic:
In 2023, they announced they were vacating.
Shortly thereafter, Habitat for Humanity asked we had any properties that they could develop?
Council said:
- don’t demolish the existing building
- don’t spend one dime of city money
So they sold the existing building, and the buyer moved it a few blocks away. Great.
The city’s aerial photo shows that it’s gone:
but google maps hasn’t been updated yet.
Habitat for Humanity has a lot of rules, like the future owner (or a relative) must work on the house for 200 hours. (It’s called Sweat Equity.) If the owner sells the house in the future, it must stay affordable. If Habitat ever dissolves or the property stops being a Habitat property, it reverts back to the city.
It’s going to be a duplex. Sounds great!
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Item 25: Arts Commission
Two vacancies on the Arts Commission get filled – congrats to Nancy Slitz and Steve Wilson.
Note: I usually don’t post when vacancies get filled. This is because it all happens out loud, and they mumble the last names, and then refer to the applicants by their first names. The names of the nominees aren’t written down anywhere (until the minutes get approved at a later meeting). So I’m usually stuck.
However: today they said the first and last names very clearly, and even spelled S-L-I-T-Z.
