redwood – The San Marxist

Hours 0:00 – 2:50, 3/18/25

March 23, 2025March 23, 2025 by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

Main topics:

Malachi Williams: Seven speakers, including family members. They want justice for Malachi. Several of the speakers focus on the detail that Malachi ran because a cop pulled a gun on him. Before the videos were released, this detail wasn’t mentioned. It shows how the officer escalated the situation instead of de-escalating it, which then ended in tragedy.
Human Services Advisory Budget funding: Council is thinking about increasing HSAB funding for next year. Three speakers advocated for this.
Cape’s Dam and the Mill Race: Two people talk about how much they love the river, east of I-35 and want council to keep it. We’ll unpack all of this!
Tenants’ Bill of Rights: The San Marcos Civics Club made this a focus, and got Council to put this in their visioning statement. Now council will need to make it happen. Two speakers focus on this.
Ceasefire in Palestine: four speakers. They still want the city to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

…

Onto the meeting!

Items 1-4: A bunch of audits and investment reports.

We got the audit reports for CDBG funding and the 23-24 fiscal year. Plus the quarterly financial report and investment report.

Everything looks normal. No rude surprises. (Apparently we’ve gotten awards for excellence for the past 35 years, on our yearly fiscal audit. OH YEAH BABY.)

…

Item 18: Rezoning about 15 acres

This property is way up north:

Back in 2020, we annexed this yellow and pink bit:

The yellow was zoned Manufactured Home, and the pink was zoned Light Industrial.

There were some concerns then – do we really want to make the folks in the mobile home community live right against an industrial park? But we let it ride.

Now the pink part is coming back for a rezoning – they want to switch it from Light Industrial to Manufactured Home. In other words:

Great! Now nobody has to live near an industrial park.

…

Item 20: Budget Policy Statement

We’re working on the Fiscal Year 26 budget.

First: There was a two days Visioning workshop in January, which lead to approving the Strategic Plan.

The nex workshop was at the end of February. Today we’re approving the thing from that: the Budget Policy Statement.

What’s a Budget Policy Statement?

This is like the guard rails for building the budget over the summer. Most of it is pretty dry? Like “Do you want to budget to maintain 150 days worth of recurring operating expenses in the budget, or just 90?” “Are we okay using the General Fund for Stormwater projects over $5 million?” Etc.

There are two interesting bits:

Each year, the city sets the rate for electricity, water, sewer, trash, etc. To do this, they have to predict what their costs will be. Then they pick a rate that will cover all their costs.

From the Budget Policy Statement

What does this mean? If your utilities get turned off, you have to pay extra late fees to get your utilities back on. All of the late fees, taken together, add up to big chunk of revenue.

The question is: Suppose we are predicting that we’ll bring in $100K in late fees. (I’m making that number up.) Should we use that $100K to lower the rates for the rest of the customers?

Argument in favor: It’s more economical to include the late fees in your calculation. It allows you to set lower rates for the whole city.

Argument against: It’s kind of icky to count on late fees, for two reasons. First, you’re charging your most desperate customers – the ones who already can’t keep up – an extra fee, and then using that fee to help out all the other, less-desperate customers.

Second, it creates an incentive to creep up your late fees over time. When budgets are lean, it’s tempting to lean on late fees as an extra source of revenue you can tap, like cities that ticket their poorest residents into oblivion in order to balance their budgets.

The current council has already been going in the opposite direction. They are already trying to lower the late fees, to make it easier for residents to get their electricity turned back on.

To the original question: they decide that we are not going to use the late-fee revenue in computing utility rates. Then, when late fees come in anyway, they’ll put that money towards the Utility Assistance program.

It’s a small touch, but a good one.

2. Here’s the other one worth paying attention to:

This is what the speakers during Citizen Comment were talking about.

Last December and January, HSAB funding was a total mess. There was too little funding, and Council ended up pitting nonprofits against each other. It was clear that we need to significantly ramp up city funding of nonprofits.

Right now, HSAB gets $550K. Council sets a range of additional funding, between $50K-$200K. When we find out what kind of money we’re getting from property taxes this July, then we’ll determine where we land in that range.

This part makes me extra happy:

Yes!! Peg the HSAB budget to inflation. We do it in contracts with for-profit entities all the time. It should be universal.

(The failure to peg minimum wage to inflation was one of the greatest policy near-misses of the 20th century. Having a federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour is such a mockery.)

…

Item 21: Cut-and-fill in La Cima

Pedernales Electric wants to build a substation here:

But it’s on a hill. Like we saw last time, it’s hard to build on a hill. So they also want to do a cut-and-fill.

This time, no one is worried about flooding.

Matthew Mendoza is a little worried that the people in La Cima might have to look at a substation, though.

Staff reassures him that there is another building, and then the La Cima apartment complex, all separating the substation from the houses. So their eyes won’t be hurt by the substation.

This passes 6-0.

…

Item 5: Council Compensation

This was so weird.

Quick Recap: (Full story here.)

Councilmembers get three kinds of money:

Monthly stipend
Travel and expenses
Flex money (either)

Shane Scott proposed doubling the flex money and travel money, and he wanted it effective IMMEDIATELY. Like, something lit a fire under his butt.

Last time, they went in circles forever, but ultimately landed here:

Travel budget

There’s plenty of travel money already. The total council travel doesn’t go over budget.
Council members can lend each other travel money if one is going over.
If they STILL go over, there can be an extra $15K in a special travel fund that any of them can apply for.
AND, they each get an extra $2K for travel.

Flex budget

Double the Flex amount from $7.5K to $15K.

In other words: right now, a council member earns $24.9K a year, if they choose to take their flex pay as income. This would increase it to $32.4K.

…

The item was put on the consent agenda, which means, “Staff thinks this will sail through.” After all, they hammered out all the votes last time.

Jane said nope! and pulled it off the council agenda. She gives a speech about how none of this is needed, there’s plenty of money in the travel budget. And how we certainly shouldn’t be doing this mid-year.

Amanda agrees on the mid-year part. More responsible to start it with the next fiscal year. She makes that amendment: Delay this until next year’s budget?

The vote: Postpone changes until next year’s budget?

Ok, great.

But then Shane – who started this whole conversation back in December! – says, “Let’s just kill the whole thing, who cares. We don’t need it anymore.”

(This is when I first thought, “What the hell is happening? Was this whole thing a ploy to get some quick money?”)

Jane sees her chance and makes a motion to kill both the travel increase and flex spending increase.

On the flex spending, Amanda pleads, “But why?”

Amanda has been quite open about having to resign her state job to take this position, and the impossibility of surviving on $24.9K per year.

Jane: “We don’t need it. We already raised it in 2023.”

What she means is that before 2023, council members got $23.4K per year, if they took their flex money as pay. They gave themselves a raise of $1500 then.

Amanda: I agree on the travel. But on the living expense, who here – anyone? – can live on this little?”

Jane: “It’s not supposed to be a fulltime job.”

Amanda: “Fully agree. But we both know that it is actually a fulltime job.”

Jane: “For some people it is. Not everybody.”

Amanda: “Oh trust me, I understand that too. And I wish everybody shared full interest.”

Jane: “I do too.”

Amanda: “But again, please tell me, who can survive on this? Would anybody in this room?

Then conversation dies.

…

The key issues is this: Is being a councilmember a fulltime job? We pretend it isn’t, but in order to do it well, it definitely is.

If we pay poverty wages, then council members have three options:

Be independently wealthy or have someone who can support you.
Try not to neglect your council job as you juggle multiple jobs
Live in poverty

This is not how you get the best possible council members. This is how you get mostly wealthy and/or distracted council members.

…

But anyway, then they vote:

The vote: Should Councilmembers survive on $24.9K per year?

So yeah, no raise.

I’m so baffled. Two weeks ago, Shane and Lorenzo both thought it was reasonable to increase flex spending, and now they don’t? What the hell happened?

….

Then they vote to roll back the travel funds increase:

This one doesn’t bother me so much. There is plenty of travel money, if you allow people to donate funds to each other.

Bottom line: After all these meetings, everything is back where it started, aside from a special bonus travel fund.

Clearly I have no idea what happened, but it felt like petty bullshit, to be honest.

….

Item 24: SMCISD stormwater voucher

This is a continuation from last time. (Full backstory here.)

Super quick background:

Statewide, the legislature is intentionally starving the school districts. This is not hyperbole. Abbott is hellbent force-feeding school vouchers down everyone’s throat. He’s denying funding to the public schools is a way of increasing the pressure on the state legislature to vote for his deal.

Funding hasn’t increased since 2019, but there have been several unfunded mandates that cost a lot. Plus inflation.

SMCISD is in a $9 million budget crisis. They’ve asked for the city for a stormwater waiver, which would save them about $350K.

Which brings us to today.

First there’s a presentation about the stormwater fund:

Immediately after San Marcos created the stormwater fund, Texas State University asked the State Legislature to grant them an exemption. They were the very first university in Texas to ask for one! What go-getters.

After that, all the other universities thought it was a pretty good idea.

Here’s the total list of state-wide exemptions:

So basically, empty lots, lakes, universities, and ….El Paso school district. Who knows.

…

The state law says that stormwater fees must be equitable. They go into a fair amount of detail about how we put ours together.

Basically, if we want to help out SMCISD, here are the four options:

Option 1 would cost a lot and open the door to other nonprofits asking for a waiver, too.

Option 2 would cost some, and open the door.

Option 3 might open us up to legal challenges of being non-equitable.

Option 4 is the one that Staff clearly favors. In fact, city staff and SMCISD staff have already met, and they’re both open to this.

Option 4 is about Mendez Elementary. Mendez is located in Sunset Acres, which has terrible flooding. The city wants to build a detention pond on Mendez property, to help with the flooding.

All the council members are on board with pursuing 4.

The only thing is that Mendez Elementary is being renovated. Until SMCISD knows the new footprint of the building, they can’t donate the land.

(Now, SMCISD has already submitted the Mendez plans to the city for permitting. So the city could literally go look right now at the Mendez plans. It’s not a mystery. We can see exactly how much space there might be for a drainage pond.)

…

There’s a long, weirdly circular conversation where Lorenzo and Amanda keep saying, “We should meet occasionally with the school board, just to stay informed on what we’re each up to.”

Jane keeps responding with, “It’s no use. Alyssa and I keep trying to think of a reason that all three entities – city, county, schools – should meet, and it’s very hard to think of issues that need attention from all three groups.”

Ok? That’s a different thing? That’s not what Amanda and Lorenzo are suggesting?

Anyway, they vote for 4.

…

Item 25: Redwood/Rancho Vista

Last time, we discussed this property, immediately north of Redwood and Rancho Vista:

We were trying to figure out if that industrial portion would make flooding worse in Redwood.

Redwood and Rancho Vista have severe septic and flooding issues, which leads to a parasite living in the soil. It’s a big health issue, and it usually only happens in developing countries. But the community is quite poor and vulnerable, so it’s happening here. Any solution is going to be very expensive.

Last time Council tried to have it both ways: “We’ll let this development through, but we promise to take action on Redwood.”

So tonight is that action: A strongly worded letter to Guadalupe County about how the septic issue and parasites is a public health and safety issue, which has been going on for years and years.

Jane suggests that we let them know about the Texas Water Development Board, which has a specific Economically Distressed Areas Program. Maybe Guadalupe County could get some money from there.

City Manager Stephanie Reyes mentions looping in SMCISD – after all, these families go to our schools and are part of our community.

So staff will draw something up, and it will come back.

My two cents: this is fine as a first step, but not as a last step.

Hours 0:00 – 2:16, 3/6/25

March 9, 2025March 23, 2025 by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

Three topics came up:

Malachi Williams:
Redwood and Riverbend Ranch
Speedbumps in Trace Development

Let’s take these one at a time.

Malachi Williams: his mother and sister both spoke about their loss. They will continue to fight for justice.

It’s always particularly heartbreaking to hear from the family, and it’s worth being grateful that they have not shied away from speaking on his behalf.

2. Redwood/Rancho Vista and Riverbend Ranch:

Basically, Riverbend Ranch will be a gigantic development that is immediately uphill from Redwood. The development agreement was approved in 2021.

Now, Redwood has huge problems with septic and flooding. Today the developers want to change up the agreement, in ways that might increase the flooding.

The two speakers are Veronica Reyes Ibarra and Monica Reyes Ibarra. Veronica is the president of both the Redwood/Rancho Vista Neighborhood Association and Water Supply Corporation, and Monica is a former resident and advisor to the organizations. They are both advocating on behalf of their community. They both explained about the flooding and challenges to Redwood/Rancho Vista, and the consequences on the people who live there.

We’ll unpack all of the details in Item 17!

Speedbumps in Trace:

Rodriguez Elementary is here:

in the middle of Trace subdivision.

The speaker wants speedbumps on Van Horn and Esplanade, due to people tearing through the main road at unsafe speeds:

I can imagine that – it feels like a nice, big wide expressway:

Ok, that is a terrible photo. In reality, it has trees and houses and people living there.

(I got that photo is from Bing maps and it is obviously very outdated, but Google maps is even worse:

But I didn’t have a chance to go photograph it in person. Oh well.)

Anyway: yes. Speed bumps are probably a good idea.

…

Item 1: HUD grant money

We get federal grant money from HUD , (the department of Housing and Urban Development). Some of these grants we get regularly, and others we’d apply for if we have another flood or natural disaster.

HUD grants require a few things:

A citizen participation plan
A five year consolidated plan

So we’re updating these.

The Citizen Participation Plan:

HUD requires you to have a plan on how citizens will be able to participate in the decision-making process for how the grant will be used. You have to update it every five years.

Here’s ours:

No one has any questions or concerns about this.

…

The Five Year Consolidated Plan:

This is a little more in-depth. Basically we need to pick some broad categories to prioritize.

Background

We generally get about $700K each year in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money.

HUD puts some rules on it:

During the past 5 years, these were our priority categories:

And here’s what we accomplished over the past five years with the CDBG money:

…

So what do we want to prioritize for the next five years?

Here’s what HUD directs us to do:

Staff held surveys and open houses to get public opinion.

Survey results:

Feedback ranked along themes:

Based on all that, here’s what staff recommends that our priorities should be:

…

So what does Council think?

Amanda: What about sidewalks? Can we include sidewalk projects?
Answer: They’re generally too expensive, but the gap sidewalk program has smaller, cheaper projects that are a good fit.

Alyssa: What kind of survey response numbers did we get?
Answer: 86 online, and then in the 7 dream sessions we got another 50 responses.

Alyssa: Transit is clearly a big response. Can we include that as a priority?
Answer: It is included under Public Services.

The city also gives out grants to nonprofits, under the Human Services Advisory Board, or HSAB.

Jane: Can we merge the application process of CDBG and HSAB?
Answer: We’re going to align the applications in 2026, but we still have separate committees looking at the applications.

There’s some discussion of workforce skills and economic development. ACC offers HVAC courses at the library, for example, and Community Action picks up the tab using CDBG money.

Everyone is on board with these two plans.

…

Item 15: Summer Fun! And other fun.

We’re updating our Youth Programs Standards of Care for 2025. This means Summer Fun and Discovery Camp and any other kid-things that the city runs.

What is Summer Fun?

It’s a weeklong summer camp held for 8 sessions during the summer. The biggest point is that it is extremely affordable – $40 per week for city residents, including breakfast and lunch – and so it’s a real service to families who need affordable childcare. It’s hosted at different SMCISD campuses each year.

Before Covid, Summer Fun had 300 kids per week, across two different campuses. It dropped dramatically during Covid, and now we’re somewhat back, up to 120 kids per week. There’s usually a waitlist of about 50-60 kids each week, but we’re short on staffing.

There are a few questions about scholarships and residency and growing the program.

scholarships are available for anyone in SMCISD, even if you’re out of the city
City residents get priority registration, so it’s been filled with just city residents for the past few years.
They would like to grow the program and serve more families, yes.

The city also runs a discovery camp, and a spring break camp, and other helpful camps.

(The vote for the Standards of Care is 7-0.)

…

Item 17: Rancho Vista/Redwood, and Riverbend Ranch

This one is big and tricky.

Backstory:

Riverbend Ranch is an enormous piece of land that kind of wants to be its own town. It is just north of Redwood:

It’s not built yet, though.

We approved a development agreement with them back in December 2021. (This was when I was practice-blogging, and had not yet gone public. I did write up the meeting, but did not notice the importance of this item.)

…

Keep in mind: Back in 2021, development agreements did not trigger any notifications. So no one in Redwood would have been notified about this development.

This changed after SMART/Axis blew up in 2023. Now they notify people within 400 feet about an upcoming development agreement.

That’s better, but still not much. The notification radius should be proportional to the size of the development.

…

So as far as I know, no one noticed this massive tract of land was being discussed.

Just for funsies, here’s how the original vote went, back in 2021:

Yes, this looks AWESOME: Jane, Shane, Saul, and Mark Gleason and Jude Prather
No, this seems terrible: Alyssa, Max Baker

Mm-hmm.

Redwood/Rancho Vista

Just south – and downhill! – of Riverbend Ranch is the Redwood/Rancho Vista community. They’re part of SMCISD and the greater San Marcos community, but they’re also kinda their own community. The Guadalupe-Hays county line runs right between Riverbend Ranch and Redwood.

Back in 2017, a study by UT-Austin uncovered widespread parasitic infections in the residents. This is due to septic problems and flooding. The soil is terrible for septic systems, so they break down and leak almost immediately. Anything that increases flooding risks will expose this vulnerable community to more adverse health effects.

Since then, the two speakers – Veronica Reyes Ibarra and Monica Reyes Ibarra – have mobilized the community around solving the septic, flooding, and parasite issues. The three issues are all intertwined, and all expensive to fix. (Veronica is the president of both the neighborhood association and Redwood/Rancho Vista water supply corporation.)

…

In August 2022, the development agreement came back for amendments. This time I noticed. They wanted a variance for a 30 foot cut-and-fill.

What’s cut-and-fill? I drew you some pictures!

Suppose you’re trying to develop along a hill:

Now, you can’t put a foundation on a slope – you have to level it out:

(I’m sorry. I wasted a lot of time doing this.)

So this is cut-and-fill:

Developers love this because now you can fit a lot of houses, or one big industrial building:

But now you’ve destroyed the natural drainage patterns, and this is going to make flooding much worse.

So the city code requires you to take little steps, like this:

You can’t fit as many houses though:

and you definitely can’t put a giant industrial warehouse on it anymore.

Back in 2022 at least, that was exactly what the developer wanted to do:

This went to P&Z.

There was a huge outcry from the residents of Rancho Vista/Redwood. About 30 residents wrote letters, and more showed up in person, to talk about the flooding and drainage issues and health consequences.

P&Z turned the cut-and-fill down.

Then it went to Council. Council did not vote on it, but instead formed a subcommittee in January 2023. Matthew, Saul, and Alyssa are all on it.

Then two years passed? I’m not sure why?

Which brings us to the present moment

They want a bunch of amendments, but specifically they want the cut and fill. No one mentions if this is for an industrial portion anymore. (Sure do hope it’s not another AI Data Center!)

Here’s the deal they hammered out with staff:

So this is the question that’s before Council: Can they have their cut-and-fill if they agree to do all these other nice things?

….

What does Council say?

Matthew: It is shameful that Guadalupe County isn’t helping our neighbors! I dream of annexation! I am a simple man, and I like retention ponds. They’re a visual indicator that storm water is being detained. Can we have more of those?

(I’m really not trying to mock Matthew here – these are quotes! He literally said “I am a simple man!” Council members are just endearing goofballs sometimes.)

Answer: They’re going to have retention ponds. Those were already in the development agreement.

Matthew: But can we have more?

Answer: No? They’ll be there? Look at this map, there’s a lot of them:

It’s hard to see, but I believe it’s the two red hatchmark regions, on the left and lower right parts of the pond?

….

Jane is arguing hard for the deal. She keeps hammering the angle that if there were no development agreement, there’d be no protections at all. Therefore this is better than the alternative.

I am not so sure. Big cut-and-fill is generally banned for a reason. Jane doesn’t seem to be taking that into account – she’s only arguing that the mitigation strategies are great.

Shane comes out against the deal. “It’s like the Woods all over again. 15% increased retention is barely anything.”

Staff: They’ll divert the water and release it downstream of Redwood/Rancho Vista

Shane: Doesn’t matter. 15% is barely anything.

(I’m inclined to agree.)

Saul is worried about the parasites and the flooding. It floods really badly there.

Staff explains a bit: the soil is really bad for septic systems. They basically break very quickly and release sewage into the soil. The parasite lives in the sewage in the soil.

Several council members ask: Can Redwood be annexed and brought onto city sewage?

Answer: Redwood/Rancho Vista might not want this? Every home owner would have to individually request annexation. Annexation comes with lots of taxes and fees. Just the sewer would require connection fees and stormwater fees and other things. It’s not likely that Redwood would reach consensus on this.

Staff: The advantage of this development is that it will at least bring a sewer line much closer to Redwood.

Q: What’s all this about a M.U.D.?

Answer: M.U.D. stands for Municipal Utility District. This is like a city-lite. They charge taxes and have a board. They run utilities for people that live in the M.U.D, but they don’t do all the rest of the city government stuff.

(If you are curious about the insanity of the Cedar Park M.U.D, enjoy this blog which is their version of The San Marxist. Things are pretty bonkers.)

City Manager Stephanie Reyes weighs in with the following, which is worth quoting:

“That’s the hard part with a lot of decisions Council is faced with. Because, sometimes, it will look like you’re supporting a certain development, and a lot of times, it’s not about supporting the development – it’s about supporting the regulations on the development, that you would not otherwise have if you did not vote a certain way.

So that is something to contemplate, and it’s not lost on us that that is a very heavy decision… Some of the things can be developed by right, so even if you don’t vote for it, it’s still going to happen, but you lose the negotiating power to make some of these concessions and negotiations happen.”

So basically, no one likes this development any more, but we can’t stop it. (Well, I think Jane still likes it.)

…

Here’s my read: City staff and Jane Hughson are absolutely convinced of two things:

The benefits of the improvements outweigh the risks of cut-and-fill.
They will definitely develop the property anyway, if the cut-and-fill is denied.

The rest of council has to decide if they agree on those two things. Everyone feels very uneasy voting yes but also uneasy about voting no.

I will say this: Council seemed genuinely concerned about the residents of Redwood.

Jane makes one last point: This is a big environmental win, because they wanted to build a package plant, and we got them to agree to a lift station instead.

What this means is that the developer wanted to install a cheap little sewage treatment station that would then release to the river. This means it would have higher levels of phosphorous and lead to more algae blooms and other bad river outcomes. Also, package plants are not staffed, so it takes longer to notice when something malfunctions and it starts dumping untreated waste into the river.

Instead, we’ve gotten them to agree to a lift station, which brings the sewage back to San Marcos, to a higher quality treatment plant. So this is good!

(This win is independent of the welfare of the people in Redwood, though.)

The final point is that the Redwood parasite is already a problem that needs dire attention. And ultimately, Redwood is not in either San Marcos or in Hays County – it’s in Guadalupe County, which we have no jurisdiction over.

What Council decides is that they’ll to bring the issue of Redwood septics and flooding back, at a future meeting. They will discuss a resolution to send to Guadalupe County, to try to somehow get them to take action on the issue.

The vote:

Yes: Jane, Matthew, Alyssa, Saul, Amanda, Lorenzo

No: Shane Scott

My take: This is a really hard one.

I’m not convinced that the mitigation strategies will outweigh the cut-and-fill risks, but I’m also not convinced that they won’t?
The package plant thing seems like a win
Passing a resolution to get Guadalupe County to help Redwood seems likely to be empty, but maybe Council will be more persistent than that.

I felt like the current Council is sincere in their desire to help the residents of Redwood, but it’s not obvious how they should do that. It will require sustained attention and energy to help the residents out.

Hours 0:00 – 0:36, 8/16/22

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022 by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

A few people speak on renaming an alley as Boyhood Alley, in homage to the movie Boyhood, which was filmed in San Marcos.

However, the comment I want to focus in on is from a person from Rancho Vista/Redwood. She also spoke at P&Z last week, along with probably ~30 residents who wrote letters in. This deserves some extra attention. She raised two separate issues:

The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood
The intractable health problems facing Redwood

As best I can tell, these only somewhat connected, insofar as Redwood gets generally neglected and ignored.

The proposed industrial development immediately adjacent to Redwood

Last week at P&Z, probably 30 residents from Redwood wrote letters against a developer who’s trying to put an industrial development in the bottom half of this:

It was an astonishing turnout. (Quick note: City council doesn’t read letters outloud at meetings. P&Z does. This is annoying – the public should know who took the time to communicate.)

The Development Agreement had been approved last December, which put an industrial zoning right here:

But no one noticed. (I even blogged it, and didn’t notice.)

So why didn’t anyone turn out from Redwood, last December? Because Development Agreements don’t trigger notifications the way that zoning changes do. This is insane. The community in Redwood had no way of knowing that they were now downhill of a massive industrial complex, until just before the P&Z meeting.

(I went back and watched the December meeting again. There was barely any public discussion about it, although clearly a lot had happened in Double Secret Executive Session. Max Baker and Alyssa Garza voted against it.)

So the Development Agreement is already in effect. Two weeks ago, at P&Z, the developer came forth asking for two exemptions – a block perimeter exemption and a cut-and-fill exemption. Basically, this would allow them to build a gigantic thing instead of a normal-sized thing.

But like I said, there was a giant turnout by the Redwood/Rancho Vista residents, describing the current flooding and sewage problems, and how this would exacerbate them. P&Z voted both down. This is great!

Either the developer will appeal to council, or they’ll go back and reconfigure their plans. Either way, this needs to stay on the radar of San Marcos residents who live inside city limits, because we can hold council accountable more easily than Redwood residents can.

2. The Health Problems Facing Redwood

There was an article in The Guardian about the parasites endemic in Rancho Vista/Redwood:

Although it can be symptomless, Strongyloides is the deadliest of soil-transmitted parasites. If an infected person takes immune-suppressing drugs such as steroids or chemotherapeutics, or has a lowered immune system because of a disease like leukemia, the worm can rapidly multiply throughout the body and cause death.

In Rancho Vista, the 16 positive blood tests from a group of 97 residents is the highest percentage of positive blood samples found in a non-refugee population in the US, according to Singer, though the sample is relatively small. (A positive blood test can also occur in someone who was previously infected but no longer is.)

Apparently the problem is that we just should never have put septic tanks in this location – they leak and are impossible to maintain. However, the residents can’t really afford to deal with and fix the raw sewage.

There’s two things that need to happen:
1. funding needs to be acquired ( but from where? federal, state, local?), and
2. the neighborhood needs to tie in to San Marcos city sewage.

I don’t know exactly how this all will unfold, but this would be a good issue to ask about during the debates and the campaign season. It’s not okay for vulnerable community members to lack basic health and sanitation provisions.

The Riverbend Development should be structured with an eye to getting San Marcos city sewage access to Redwood. That’s not profitable, and so it won’t happen without some activism.