Tag: sidewalks

Hours 0:00-1:20, 12/19/23

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

People talked about:
- Funding for rehabilitating various buildings in Dunbar
– Whether we really want to change the name of Citizen Comment to “Community Perspectives” or not.
– Concerns over police accountability
– How Mark Gleason got a letter of admonishment from the Ethics Review Commission, for voting on items where he should have recused himself. Specifically, he voted on the meet-and-confer contract for the fire fighters union, after receiving several donations of different sorts from them. (Details here but all you can do is watch a video. There are no minutes or documents.)
– Max Baker is starting a monthly San Marcos Civics Club, to get the public engaged and hold City Council accountable. (I imagine you could reach out to him on Facebook if you’re interested, and he’d be glad to have you.)

Item 1: We have a Sidewalk Maintenance Program.

Basically, the city looks for places where people are complaining, or there are pedestrian traffic accidents, or underserved areas, or high pedestrian traffic areas.

This is the type of thing they do:

Here’s what’s going on for the next year:

The five year plan is a little more loosey-goosey and responsive to changing needs, but here’s the tentative map:

If you have strong opinions, share them here.

What does Council think?

Jude Prather: there’s been a lot of improvement to our sidewalks. Let’s keep the gas pedal on.

Shane Scott: It happened outside my shop. They were really careful about the tree roots.

Mark Gleason: It happened to me! They laid the sidewalk today. They were very professional and they were careful of my trees.  Added convenience and safety. 

Mark Gleason does have one suggestion, which is that the city should use goat paths to identify potential places for new sidewalks.

I think he means this kind of thing, where over time people have worn a little path:

via

I’ve heard these called Desire Paths.

Alyssa: Great job. One of my neighbors posted about their really positive interactions with the city.  

Jane: We started thinking about sidewalks in 1992, we said “schools and grocery stores.” So we’ve come a long way. 

One issue is how to add sidewalks to streets where we don’t have a right-of-way. In other words, how do we build a sidewalk in a high-needs spot, where the city doesn’t own an easement along the road? Jane asks about this.

Answer: It makes it a bigger project than the Sidewalks Maintenance Project. We have to collaborate with Public Works. It goes on the CIP list.

My two cents: We need sidewalks running out to the high school. I know it’s far away, because that’s where land was cheap enough to acquire. Do not put a bike lane that feels like part of the street down 123 – put in a proper sidewalk. All the way to the high school. (And do it now, because a lot of that empty land is zoned for housing and apartments, and putting sidewalks in will get even harder.)

Item 18: Flood money.

After the 2015 floods, we got a big chunk of CBDG money from the federal government. It comes in two flavors:

  • Housing assistance
  • Stormwater projects

For Housing Assistance, we built 14 homes and repaired some of the public housing homes on CM Allen. (We discussed a few of these homes last year, being built in Sunset Acres.) 

It’s depressing that it took eight years to get these people into safe housing.  I think the main reason is that there were five rounds of funding, and so those from the first few rounds got their housing sooner. Plus I’m sure there were Covid delays, and some of it was generic government red tape. The last few houses remaining were finished this past year. 

Three applicants withdrew in 2022 and 2023, and at that point it was too late to get new applicants, and so the housing portion came in $1 million under budget.

On the stormwater projects, we’ve got:

  1. Uhland Road Improvements:

This one finished up in the fall.

2. Midtown Drainage – Aquarena Springs and I-35

This one will finish in April 2024.

3. Blanco Riverine: Berm and Floodwall

This one is supposed to finish in June 2024.

We discussed this one briefly back here. It’s a really big project:

and it’s supposed to do this sort of thing:

Basically geo-engineering a place for the water to go when it floods, instead of going into Blanco Gardens.

4. Blanco Gardens Drainage Improvements

This one is supposed to finish in August 2024.

The point of today’s presentation is that as some of the projects wrap up and have a little money leftover, the money gets shuffled around to the other ones that are still ongoing.

There are some other projects that will take a little longer to finish:
– Acquiring land for flood prevention
– Electronic rain gauges that are tied into the flood warning system
– 3 sets of permanent flood gates: Cape Road, McKie Street, and Jackman Street/Gravel Street.

This is all supposed to wrap up by 2027.

What does City Council have to say?
Saul: On Barbara Drive: what kind of drainage? Looks different than Conway.
Answer: It’s the same as on Conway. They’re both Open Channel. 

Saul: Is it dangerous for kids?
Answer: Velocities should be slow. Will have gates. Won’t have easy access.

Mark: I was personally affected by all the flooding. We’re still dealing with the ramifications. 

Mark has a few questions:
– Will the new raingauges be integrated with the WETmap website on the Hays county website?
Answer: Yes.
– Will emergency info/river flood data be shared with NOA?
Answer: I assume so but I don’t know for sure.
– When will rain gauges be done?
Answer: End of 2023, but they’ll be tinkered with in the Stormwater Master Plan.
– What kind of gate are you using for gating off those channels?
Answer: Single arm.
– So people are losing access to these alleys in Blanco Gardens. Are they aware?
Answer: we sent notifications and knocked on some doors. 

 Shane Scott asks the hard-hitting questions: What about Quiet Zones for trains?
Answer: That’s a totally different topic.  Different grant money.

Alyssa: I was also in Blanco Gardens during the floods.  As projects wrap up, can we get back to the people in these neighborhoods? We need to explain that we’re working through issues and they haven’t been forgotten.
Answer: there will be ribbon cuttings, etc.

Saul: A neighbor said they’ll only be allowed to have 1 cable.  Is that true?
Answer: Yes. There are 3 telecom companies. Time-warner/Spectrum, Astound/Grande, CenturyLink/Brightspeed.  Two of these pulled out of Blanco Gardens. So you basically only have Spectrum. 

This is just a discussion item, so there’s no vote.

Item 19: There are some toxic chemicals under Guadalupe. (We talked about this here a few months ago.)

Short version: there’s a bunch of groundwater toxic chemicals – PERCs, TCEs, VCs – deep in the ground, leftover from some dry cleaning businesses 40+ years ago.  They’re really not good, but the chemicals will break down over the next 100 years into carbon dioxide, a little chlorine, and water, which are not so bad.  They’ve basically sunk down way underground, into this stuff called Navarro Clay, which is a super thick gunky layer that just sits there underground, above the water table of the aquifer. So we can’t really clean it up, but they’re also not going to get into the river or the aquifer water table. We mostly need to leave them untouched until they decompose.

Here’s the three properties we bought, at the site of the original contamination:

The official way to let the chemicals sit there is to set up a Municipal Settings Designation, or MSD:

In this region, no one can drill any groundwater wells. You already can’t, because it’s within city limits, but now you EXTRA can’t.

We notified anyone who has a private well within 5 miles of this site. That worked out to 109 well owners. None of them seemed particularly concerned.

The vote: should we create an MSD?

Yes: everyone
No: No one

Hours 0:00-2:45, 11/15/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment: Citizen Comment is mostly animal shelter experts who are politely asking us to undo the amendments that were added to the Animal Ordinance last meeting, and to trust that the experts have designed the policy to work best when you don’t throw sand in the gears.

One person also speaks up about the curfew ordinance, which ends up being the item of the night that I’m most fired up about.

Item 1: Sidewalk Maintenance and Gap Infill program

There is a quick update from the city – how do they pick which streets to install sidewalks on, what’s the process, how does it work for the landowners, etc. It seems very straightforward to me.

Your neighborhood can petition to get sidewalks added*. Max Baker asks if there is a petition process available to prevent sidewalks from being added to your neighborhood. There hadn’t been, but since all the councilmembers like the idea, there will be, now.

(I hate this idea. I want everyone to want sidewalks. They benefit people who may not live on your street! But that is not the Texas we live in, so I suppose anti-sidewalk petitions are good for the libertarians out there.)

* Although it’s not totally clear at that link where you find the petition. Maybe you have to email.

Item 17: Curfews. I actually feel really strongly about this issue!

Did you know that San Marcos has a curfew for underage residents? Neither did Chief Standridge. Apparently it’s been on the books in its current form since 2009, and it gets re-upped every three years. 

There are two parts:

  • Curfew overnight: 11 pm – 6 am on school nights, and midnight – 6 am on weekends.
  • Curfew during school hours: 9 am – 2:30 pm, Monday through Friday.

Chief Standridge first says that it’s not used very often, and it was impossible to use during Covid when everyone was at home during school hours anyway.  So far this school year, they’ve only used it three times.  

He specifically talks about “troubled neighborhoods”, neighborhoods with violent crime. Standridge likes curfews because it gives officers an opening to stop and talk to someone who looks too young to be out and about.  Otherwise they’re not allowed to just detain people walking down the street, because that is a hallmark of a police state. 

I’m so frustrated by the conversation that I want to start with a rant, instead of the council discussion. We’ll get back to the council discussion.

Are curfews best for kids?  

Let’s say you’ve got a kid who is jeopardizing their future by missing too much school.  Is it in their best interest to entangle them with cops and the legal system?  NO.  Just no. 

Best case scenario, it costs them or their family $150 to go to court and straighten it out.  Worst case scenario, they are now tangled up with the juvenile criminal justice system, and they are starting to accumulate prior offenses.  This is particularly bad for kids who are likely to get racially profiled.

 We lock up an astronomical number of people in the United States.  We have a moral obligation to work to keep kids out of the criminal justice system.

And remember, we’re not cruising all neighborhoods on an equal basis, looking to talk to youths! We’re cruising troubled neighborhoods, and stopping young people there. The effect is biased along race and class lines, no matter how much Chief Standridge insists that there’s no racist intent. Maybe there is no racist intent! But in effect, there is bias. Only kids from troubled neighborhoods are getting ensnared under curfew laws.

What about those kids that really are getting up to mischief overnight or during school? Most of the time, you can let the family handle it.  The police are not needed to help the kid straighten out.

But other times, kids causing problems are the ones that have big problems. They are in unstable homes. They have mental health issues. They are living with poverty and/or witnessing substance abuse and/or violence and/or manipulation and/or emotional control, etc.  Getting these kids ensnared in the legal system just pours fuel on the fire.

What’s the alternative? What would be in the best interests of the kid?  Basically, any meaningful, evidence-based intervention. Run it through community services, rather than the cops.   Cops are really not trained to handle traumatized kids! Traumatized kids will deliberately try to provoke adults and be disrespectful, and cops are the worst at handling that kind of thing!

Why don’t we do implement more of those interventions that are shown to work? First of all, we do. Notice that there was no one from Community Action or the public schools or other after-school programs there to talk about what actually works against truancy.

If kids are still slipping through, why don’t we do even more of these programs? $$$$$$$$$.  Anything that works will be labor-intensive and time-intensive. You have to have programs and you have to take time to build relationships with kids.  You know what’s cheap? Letting officers stop kids whenever they want and intervene.

This is absolutely not best for kids. This is cheapest for kids.

Is it best for everyone else?  Does it protect the rest of us to keep kids under curfew?

No.

  1. Do kids get up to mischief? Abso-fucking-lutely.  They are absolutely capable of petty theft and vandalism and being a nuisance.  But if any of those things are going on, then cops are allowed to stop people who may be involved. If someone calls in that the neighborhood kids keep stealing shit off their porch, the cops are allowed to go talk to the neighborhood kids.  No curfew needed.
  1. Do kids get up to violent crime?  Maybe occasionally?  But most violent crime is going to be committed by men aged 17-30, who are not affected by curfew.  You can address the stray kid with a propensity for violence using the same techniques that you address the 17-30 year olds. No curfew needed.

When there is mischief or criminal activity, there are already mechanisms to intervene. 

But more importantly, curfews don’t actually work.  The academic studies show zero or minimal improvement when there are curfew laws in place.  (What actually works? This chart summarizes the outcomes of a bunch of programs, both good programs that work, and also the dumb, authoritarian ones like Scared Straight that turn out to increase crime. This longer read is really thorough and good on programs that work.)

 So how did City Council actually deal with this? 

First, Shane Scott makes a motion to deny. Great! I agree.

Max Baker asks several times for data surrounding whether or not curfew is used to just stop teens randomly.  What percent of stops do not result in tickets?  Chief Standridge says that they don’t track that, and it would be overly cumbersome to do so. 

Mark Gleason is a Chief Stan-stan, and so he’s all in. Anything that reduces truancy and violent crime (or pretends to) is good with him.  His wife is an educator, and knows that truancy is a major problem. And violent crime in his neighborhood is out of control.

Alyssa asks, “How much of the violent crime is actually committed by minors?”

Chief Standridge doesn’t know this either.  He openly says that the point of a curfew is to give officers cover so that they can stop minors and ask them why they’re out and about.  I genuinely think he thinks it’s best for kids. (It’s not.)

Fundamentally, if you’re a hammer, you see the world as a nail. If you’re a chief of police, you think that police intervention is good for community members. (It’s not, necessarily.)

Jane Hughson asks about the list of exceptions. For example, you’re allowed to be out after curfew if you’re heading home from work or church.  You’re allowed to be out and about on school holidays.  Why don’t we call those “exceptions”?  Instead we call them “defenses to prosecution”.

The reason is kind of creepy: If we called them exceptions, then officers would not be allowed to stop minors with exceptions.  If we call them “defenses to prosecution”, then officers can stop whoever they like and give them a ticket, and the kids can use those exceptions in court to fight the ticket.  It means that the cops don’t have to presume innocence. They can presume guilt, and let the kids fight it, in court.

The vote to deny the curfew ordinance: 
Deny: Max, Alyssa, and Shane
Do not deny: Jane, Mark, Saul

Jude Prather is absent.  It takes 4 votes to win a vote, so the motion to deny fails.  So now there is a motion to approve the ordinance, which still needs to pass.

Max Baker asks how much the tickets cost.  This is also a big consequence of over-policing poorer neighborhoods! You nickel and dime people to death!

Do you remember how much hand-wringing there was over a tax increase of $24 per year, which goes to help the entire community?  The tickets here are set by the judge, with a max of $500.  Plus court costs, which run $80-$100.

Max Baker makes a motion to cap the ticket fine at $50.  This seems eminently reasonable to me. You’re still running up $150 in costs by being stopped by cops.

The vote:
Cap tickets at $50 max: Jane, Alyssa, Max, Shane, Saul
Fuck those poor people: Mark 

Mark believes that punitive punishments are effective.  That is a very authoritarian mindset.  It drives me up the wall.

Next we go down a real rabbit hole with data. Max Baker wants the police to start recording a lot more data around these curfew stops.

I think asking for data is a waste of time, to be honest. The issue of curfews is a moral issue, and we already know, straight up, that curfews target people based on where they live.  The only consequence of asking for data is to throw sand in the gears, because data is cumbersome to acquire.  (Furthermore, Max’s question – are you stopping kids in a biased manner? – is not going to be answered by the data Max wants. You’d have to know which kids they just let walk by, without stopping them at all.)

Alyssa reiterates her question about wanting to know what percent of violent crime is caused by minors.  This is the right question. And it’s not cumbersome at all to acquire. You’re not asking cops to fill out an extra form throughout their day, you’re asking someone to retrospectively pull a number from a spreadsheet.

Standridge balks at this.  Minors records are protected by law! 

Alyssa points out that she wants aggregate data, not individual data.  (What Alyssa does best on the dais is respond to points like this in a soothing manner. She says, “Data is really powerful! I bet we can figure out a way to get the answer and still protect the kids!”  in an upbeat, soothing way. It’s very effective.)

Max goes off on a rant about Mark Gleason being a shill for the police, because they endorsed him, and therefore he’s going to be in favor of this, no matter what!

Max is a little off here – Mark Gleason has a true authoritarian streak. Mark supports curfews because he sincerely loves heavy-handed police tactics, and believes in “good guys” and “bad guys”, and believes that the police can tell the difference.  The police endorsed Mark, but Mark was always already in their corner.

Mark Gleason takes offense, and goes on a rant about the violent crime in his neighborhood. (He lives in Blanco Gardens.)  He’s sick of it! He hears gunshots all the time, and kids are stealing car parts and messing up people’s yards. 

Clearly Mark thinks that allowing cops to stop and talk to anyone looking young on the streets will have an effect on violent crime.  That’s a very authoritarian take, and ends up hurting people who “look” like criminals.

The vote: Should cops have to collect and present a lot more data?
Yes: Max, Shane, Alyssa, Saul
No: Jane and Mark.

Finally, the main motion on curfews:

The vote: Should we have curfews?
Yes: Jane, Mark, Saul
No: Max, Shane, Alyssa

So this fails too!! What does this mean?  It means that when they discuss curfews at the next meeting, it will still be the first reading.  However, Max will be gone and Matthew Mendoza and Jude Prather will be back.  So I’m guessing this will pass.

Hour 1, 5/3/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 1: The Sidewalk Maintenance and Gap Infill Program:

If you don’t know Lisa Marie Coppoletta – or LMC – then you are missing out on one of the more memorable of town personalities. She speaks up at far more City Council meetings than anyone else in town.  She ran for mayor a few years ago.  She tends towards libertarian beliefs – lower taxes, individualism – and so she can veer into ideas that I am vehemently opposed to. But she also picks a few key issues that are personal to her, and focuses like a laser beam on them. What I am saying is that she is the most ever-loving persistent person you’ve ever met.  And this item is her shining moment in the sun.

Apparently San Marcos had a survey back in 2011, and road and sidewalk maintenance faired dismally:

 Whoops. So we decided to become more walkable.  So we needed sidewalks.  In 2013, we started the Sidewalk Maintenance & Gap Infill program.  They’ve got a teeny budget – 150K-200K per year. They survey the town, look at where we’re not wheelchair-accessible, or where parks aren’t connected to neighborhoods, etc, and generally chip away at the streets of San Marcos.

At some point in the last 5-6 years, Belvin got sidewalks. LMC lives on Belvin, and something happened with the sidewalks and LMC’s trees in her front yard.  (I literally do not want to fully understand this issue.) Since then, this has been her number one talking point, and this presentation is the pinnacle of her time and effort spent wearing everyone down on the topic.

But she is successful, and I don’t mean that dismissively! There are four proposed changes to the Sidewalk program, and one is: “Develop protocol for tree inspection and analysis prior to construction, inspection during construction, and follow-up.”  This is a good idea.  Local activism at work! 

Then the question arises: Who gets to vet upcoming sidewalks? Should they go to neighborhood commissions? Historical Preservation Committee? City Council?

Alyssa Garza asks how well the citizen input has been going.
Answer: lately it’s been pretty poor. They’ve tried to reach out, and people just don’t show up.

All the councilmembers agree: Sidewalks should go to neighborhood commisions, HPC, and yes, to city council.

Here is my question: Suppose staff is planning a sidewalk project, and brings it to the neighborhood commission. And suppose the neighborhood says no, we don’t want sidewalks. Does it still come to council?  Can Council override a neighborhood vote? Would it require a supermajority?

Here is my problem – I’m cynical about neighborhood associations. I’m worried that individuals will focus on the twenty yards of sidewalk along their property, and will only be mad about that. I can imagine a neighborhood full of people who are mildly enthusiastic about sidewalks in general, but passionately mad about the portion in front of their own house.

This could easily be the death knell of the sidewalk program altogether, which is then a huge collective loss.

People are averse to change, and they will overestimate how much it will sting to lose their street easement. But once it’s built, it’s not going to be a thorn in their side. Don’t let their fears wreck what’s best for the whole.