Two presentations, about Green Guy Recycling and SMPD.
Green Guy Recycling
We’re renewing our 5 year contract with Green Guy recycling. We’ve been working with them since 2009.
San Marcos residents get some free drop-offs per year, because of this contract.
Per year, you get recycling for:
24 hour drop off for common items
5 passenger tires
1 TV
2 CRT screens
2 appliances with Freon
2 mattresses or box springs per year
This costs you $1.85/month.
They also provide a ton of long dumpsters for recyclables at Community Clean Ups throughout the year, and other things, like nuisance vehicle recycling, for the city. It all sounds good to me.
….
Police Chief report
Congratulations! If you made it this far, you get a personal anecdote.
I actually come from a family of communists. Literally, Marxists on both sides of my family. At one point in the early 2000s, I was arguing with my uncle about the 2000 election. He did not live in the US, but he was saying he would have voted for Bush over Gore. I was outraged.
He explained to me why: he felt that the entire capitalist system is so rotten that the only recourse is a revolution. Electing Al Gore would placate everyone and delay the revolution by releasing steam, whereas electing Bush would make life worse, and thus hasten the revolution.
To an abolitionist, small improvements are counterproductive because they distract from the revolution. When things get worse, it lights a fire under people to fight for a revolution.
(I still don’t agree with my uncle: I think it would have been better to elect President Gore, and I’m guessing 150,000 Iraqis might agree with me. But here we are.)
At the same time, sometimes the abolitionists are right, and you need a revolution. This is the WEB Dubois and Booker T. Washington debate about civil rights: can you fix things incrementally? Or do you have to fight for revolution? There wasn’t really an incremental fix for Jim Crow laws – people risked life and safety to fight for the civil rights movement.
So now we’re talking about SMPD, and there’s a split in philosophy:
Small improvements to police departments are good, because it improves policing.
Small improvements to police departments are bad, because the whole system is rotten and needs to be thrown out. Small improvements prevent the fire from building that will motivate real change. In other words, an abolitionist approach.
Here’s where I stand: I’m okay with incremental improvements to SMPD. Waiting for a revolution leaves too many vulnerable people stranded in 2024.
Chief Standridge’s entire presentation is “Look at these positive incremental changes we’ve implemented, and the modest successes we’re showing!”
Here are Chief Standridge’s main talking points:
We did a huge amount of community events and outreach in 2023.
We have 60 active volunteers.
School marshall program for the elementary schools, officers for the middle and high schools. (bleagh, but that is a different conversation.)
Brought in a qualified mental health professional to respond alongside the mental health unit. (This is good!)
Accountability:
It sounds like they’re documenting and investigating any significant incident. Do I have the proper context to analyze this stuff? no, of course not.
We hired a bunch of new people:
Our crime stats are trending down:
Two comments:
Nationally, violent crime went down, because we’re getting further away from Covid life disruptions. But the drop in San Marcos does seem bigger than the national average.
Chief Standridge says something like, “You can’t credit the police for a drop in crime, and you can’t blame the police for an increase in crime. Crime is due to complex socio-economic factors.” I give him credit for framing everything in terms of grounded evidence like this.
There are a bunch of mental health initiatives, collaborations, and new hires made, both to support the mental health of the officers and to take a holistic approach to crime reduction in San Marcos. These are good things!
There was one interesting question: Shane Scott asks about reserve officers. Do we let volunteers be officers on the streets?
Chief says diplomatically, “I’m not comfortable with that. This city is still pretty …challenging.”
GOOD. I would be worried about George Zimmerman-style volunteers.
Item 5: The police department wants to buy 70 BolaWraps, at a cost of $112k.
A BolaWrap is this surreal Spiderman thing:
You aim your gadget at the bad guy, and shoot out this Y-shaped thread. The outstretched parts whip around your dude, and lasso him up tight.
BAD GUY CONTAINED! You saved the princess!
So should we buy 70 of these 7.5 foot Kevlar lassos for our cops?
Alyssa Garza is a hard no. She is the one pulled this item off the consent agenda for discussion, saying that purchases like this need some scrutiny and public attention.
She read a bunch of cop message boards, and found cops laughing at how terrible they are
She also notes that other communities hold big studies and have well-thought-out policies on new implements like this.
Chief Standridge is present. He comes up to talk.
The point of the BolaWrap is that it’s a nonlethal remote restraint.
It’s used to de-escalate situations where someone is having a mental health crisis, drug psychosis, or some other criminal behavior
Does not rely on pain compliance
“Non-lethal de-escalation” emerges as a major talking point. I’ll grant you non-lethal. But de-escalation?
Let’s meditate on the word de-escalation for a second. That means that tempers have escalated, and you’re trying to calm everyone down, so that the situation can resolve peacefully.
Lassoing someone’s legs may buy you a couple seconds while you slap some handcuffs on them, but it sure as shit does not calm anyone down.
So no, this does not actually count as de-escalation. It’s absurd for Chief Standridge to toss around that word so much. He’s just grabbed it as a useful buzzword du jour. Restraining someone with a bug-zapper so that you can slap handcuffs on them may be less violent, but that’s a gross misinterpretation of de-escalation.
Are BolaWraps the worst thing ever, then? No, of course not. Let’s do some ranking:
Shooting someone: the actual worst thing
Tazing someone: quite dangerous and possibly lethal
Bolawraps: not likely to hurt anyone, aside from making them trip and fall.
If you are happy with cops enforcing the current criminal justice system, BolaWraps are pretty neutral. If you are trying to dismantle the status quo and change the criminal justice system, then things that are neutral are bad.
To Alyssa’s questions, Chief Standridge says: “These are 80% effective. Not 100%. Just another tool in our toolbelt.”
Alyssa asks, “Where did you get the 80% number from?”
Chief Standridge says, “The BoloWrap website!”
Alyssa says, “So the people who are selling it? Who have a profit motive?”
Chief Standridge: “Yep!!”
Chase Stapp, the assistant city manager, steps up and says, “It costs more if we use excessive force.” In other words, if we taze or shoot someone and get sued, the lawsuit is more expensive than a BolaWrap.
[Side note: The reason you shouldn’t taze someone or shoot someone is because you are injuring their body. Cops are not judges nor juries, and so that bad guy is legally an innocent person, and you just injured or killed them. (But yes, lawsuits are expensive.)]
Chief Standridge says, “When you have a mental health crisis, you have a choice. You can use force, or you can use bolaWrap.”
Alyssa says, “Maaaaaybe mental health shouldn’t be under SMPD.”
Chief Standridge quips back, “Maaaaaaybe your police chief would completely agree with you! But until that system is built out, people still call 911 for mental health crises. We send out PD and an embedded mental health clinician, when she’s on duty. We’re working on your solution, but we’re not there yet.”
AnotherSidebar:
This sounds like an invitation to create a new system, yes? Chief Standridge just explicitly says he’d like to see mental health first responders separated from SMPD.
In order to separate out mental health crises responders from SMPD, you’d need a few things: – Public buy-in. If you think that a person having a mental health crisis should get a mental health expert responder instead of getting BolaWrapped, you should reach out and let city council know.
– City Council buy-in: they will only support something like this if they think it will affect their election chances. (Aside from Alyssa.)
– Staff buy-in: My read is that the city manager and assistant city manager don’t approve of progressive revisions of policing. That would have to be overcome.
– Chief Standridge is on record here voicing support for separating off mental health crises from the current police system. But I don’t know what he’s like behind the scenes, and how actively he’d advocate for this.
To me, this seems like something worth pursuing.
…
Some other facts get tossed around:
Seguin has purchased these. (yay?)
In 2022, SMPD had 65,000 interactions with citizens, and 59 required use of force. In other words, about once a week, they use force.
Saul: I need a demonstration.
Chief Standridge: I mean, it’s still a firearm. We shouldn’t just be discharging it indoors. But here’s a video!
Here’s the video they watched:
Next up, Matthew Mendoza chimes in.
I’m going to quote Matthew fully, because this is starting to be a trend. Clearly he’s done something like research, but whatever he found is total nonsense. He says, at 1:57:
Columbia County, in Oregon – it’s where Portland actually sits, in the center of that county. Let’s be honest, that tends to be an area where they are very observant of… they want a lot of visibility and interactions with our first responders and authority. As of 6 hours ago, their Fox station released a report saying that Columbia County sheriff’s department has been using this for the last two weeks. And it’s been successful! If Columbia County, Oregon finds this to be suitable…
Alyssa: For how long, now?
Matthew: For six days now! But I’m sure they’ve taken months to, I mean, this is Oregon. This isn’t someone I would imagine would just be jumping in, or tossing it up there. I’m seeing everywhere that people are trying this!
His argument seems to be: “We all know Portland is a bunch of liberal mushy-hearted saps, and even they love this technology! We know Portland would vet it thoroughly. If they’re in, I’m in!”
Just to be clear:
First, Portland is not in Columbia County, although I’m sure there are suburbs that spill over out that far.
Second, here’s the map for the 2020 presidential election.
Columbia County is Trump Country, by a margin of 53% to 42%. Whereas Hays County broke for Biden, 54% to 44%. So let’s not hold them up as a standard for anything, okay?
I’m editing things down significantly. There’s lots more repetition of: – the nonlethal de-escalation bit – how they are only 80% effective – how they’re cheaper than lawsuits
Alyssa: We have a Use of Force Policy for the department. Where can we find policy and procedures document for this?
Chief Standridge: That would be backwards! The order goes:
First I get permission from you all to buy them.
Buy them.
Get all the training done.
Then we’ll know enough to write a good policy about them.
This is cousin to “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” Chief Standridge could have easily showed up today with a few policies that other police departments use, as possible rough drafts. But once you already have the BolaWraps in officers’ hands, you’re going to write the policy framed by eagerness to get out there and get going. You would have gotten a much more cautious and measured policy if they weren’t already holding their new toys.
Alyssa: A bunch of people say it sounds like a gunshot. Doesn’t that make a situation more dangerous?
Chief Standridge: I always wear hearing protection around guns, and I did not use hearing protection with these.
Alyssa: I’m a no. There are much better uses of this money.
Saul: How long do batteries last?
Chief: I don’t know!
Saul: Who gets the 70 units?
Chief: Patrol, School Resource Officers, Mental Health Unit, and Traffic Stops.
Matthew Mendoza asks if officers also carry lethal weapons.
Answer: Yes. Cops have guns.
Finally, Chief Standridge ends with a speech: “We act like officers are the impediment to change. But we’re all stakeholders in this community! The people, the city council, and the department. If we want to change the system, let’s do it!”
We don’t want to make the opossums and raccoons live somewhere so sad.
But we can give them a quick glow up:
by requiring that boarded up doors and windows be painted to look like regular doors and windows.
Hooray!
In fact, we already have a version of this downtown:
and
So there you have it. Coming soon to a derelict property near you!
…
Item 11: I know “Sunset Acres” sounds like a retirement village, but it’s actually this neighborhood:
Mendez Elementary is right in the middle of it.
At Council one year ago, Sunset Acres came up because they’ve got a disastrous flooding situation happening. (And it sounds like it’s been going on for decades, and has just been chronically neglected by the city.)
The city is finally working on it:
Phase 1 costs $1,642,910.00. With that kind of money, you could buy 1,027 BolaWraps! So you can tell this is important. We’re starting Phase 1 now.
Saul asks: What happens if they take too long?
Answer: Contracts have timeline clauses. They get fined $800-$1K per day if their time runs out.
Sounds great! But also sounds like the kind of fine that never quite gets enforced.
(That’s a fine of about half a BolaWrap per day.)
…..
Item 13: Remember this, from last month? Shannon Mattingly was head of the Planning Department from 2015 to 2022. Then she resigned, started working for a developer, and showed up recently to advocate for some new student housing.
Apparently Jane Hughson has been getting an earful from people who are pissed off about this. It certainly looks shady.
It’s not technically a violation of our current code:
(Yes, it’s a screen shot because it’s not in the packet.) She showed up at Council meetings, not P&Z meetings, and so she is fine under the current policy.
So the point is: maybe our conflict-of-interest statement needs to be strengthened? Council is sending it over to the Ethics Review Committee to look it over.
…
Item 14: Let’s summarize all these Comprehensive and Area Plans:
VisionSMTX++: punted till January.
Downtown Area Plan: passed, minus CM Allen district.
All the other Area Plans: still to come, over the next few years.
The current plan is that each Area Plan gets seen by Council at one meeting: there’s a presentation, a discussion, and a final vote. All wrapped up in one night.
Jane Hughson wants each Area Plan to come before Council twice, instead of once. In other words, the first meeting would have a hearing and a discussion. Two weeks later, at the second meeting, you’d get any fall-out from the first meeting, more discussion, and the final vote.
This is an example of Jane’s best skill as mayor: she’s looking ahead to upcoming issues, and figuring out that the community will care a lot, and that it may blow up if they don’t have enough opportunity to weigh in. She’s very thorough and thoughtful in detail-oriented ways like this.
City Staff says that the area plans will:
Go through Neighborhood Commissions
Go through P&Z
Then come to Council
And now, come back to Council a second time.
All this is to make sure that no one feels blindsided by things.
We’ve talked a lot about this. Last week, Chief Standridge explained the new contract, and tonight it’s up for a vote. During Citizen Comment, a lot of people spoke in favor of police, and a lot of people spoke in favor of increased oversight and transparency.
A trend I noticed: the pro-police speakers were all happy with the contract and urged Council to approve it. The pro-oversight/transparency speakers were all unhappy with the contract and urged Council to continue negotiations. That tells you who got the better end of the negotiation.
Since this is the second reading, it went straight to discussion.
The Council Discussion
Mark Gleason: “This is fair. Thank you to everyone.”
Alyssa Garza: “Community input is not dialogue. I’ve worked with people on both sides. We’re strongest when we’re unified. Why was there no town hall? Why no community forum?”
Everyone tried to answer Alyssa’s question:
Matthew Mendoza: “I wanted to take it to the voters!”
(Note: that’s not really a response. Alyssa means, “Why didn’t we discuss the Hartman Reforms with the community, and include their input in the negotiations?” Matthew means, “I wanted to let voters decide whether we should reopen negotiations.” These are different.)
Shane Scott: Chief Standridge listens to all this community input.
City Manager Stephanie Reyes: I followed Council direction.
Jude Prather: This is measured progress. We’re moving the needle. But we still need to be able to recruit the best officers.
Alyssa: How would the Hartman Reforms be an impediment to recruiting the best officers? They only affect you if you’re a bad officer. How are we okay with barely any change before and after this community push?!
Mark: We’ve heard what the community said! It’s not one-sided! Retention is so important!
Saul: You can’t have everything, but it’s a start. Being an officer is a terrible job.
Matthew: I appreciate the signature-getters. I have faith in the chief.
Jane: This contract is better than no contract.
Alyssa: This council, in executive session, put forth which reforms we cared about. The people in charge ruled out some.
All of a sudden, it dawned on me what Alyssa saying. She’s asserting that the negotiating team did not actually take the Hartman reforms to the negotiations. That City Council had an executive session, and told the city manager to scrap most of the five reforms. Our opening bid in negotiations was the diluted peanut scraps, and the only thing uncertain was how much SMPOA would want in increased compensation.
Let’s be clear: when you start a negotiation, you should start with your ideal position. Then you bargain back and forth, and chip off parts of the fantasy to get to a realistic compromise. But you start with your full wish list.
The key moment happened at 3:10. City Manager Stephanie Reyes gave the most crucial statement on the matter:
We took the direction from council, as far as the five Hartman reforms that Chief Standridge provided information about, and we asked Council for parameters, and then that’s what we went back to negotiations with.
We did get direction to move forward with the 3rd party arbitrator, and so that’s one that we brought forward to negotiations. We wanted to keep the second 180 days, and that’s what you all asked for. You asked for letters of reprimand to be considered during the promotional process, and we even asked if they could be considered public file vs g file, and SMPOA said no. The video review was something that, because of the difference and nuance, that was one that council said “no, let’s go ahead and keep that”. The vacation – the council discussion was very split on because of the financial aspect, but it’s also the fact of coverage and the fact that discipline doesn’t happen right after an action has happened.
(That’s a transcription, lightly edited for clarity.)
OKAY WHOA. Let’s unpack here.
Here’s my best guess:
Before negotiations start, City Council goes into executive session with Chief Standridge and Stephanie Reyes.
Chief Standridge gives basically the same presentation we heard last time, where he explains why the Hartman Reforms are unacceptable, and offers up two lesser substitutes: 1. End the 180 Day Rule: “We’re already doing the compromise position!” 2. End Delay of Interview Rule: “No.” 3. Public Transparency: “I’m pretending my hands are tied, legally. But we will incorporate reprimands into promotions.” 4. End 3rd party arbitration: “We’ll tighten up a few situations where the 3rd party can’t overrule us.” 5. End Vacation Forfeiture: “No.”
Council – minus Alyssa – thinks this all sounds swell. They direct Stephanie Reyes to go enter negotiation, and only ask for those two things: letters of reprimands and tightening up 3rd party arbitration.
SMPOA really does say no to one thing – making reprimands part of the public file. Everything else they agree to, in exchange for a salary bump.
The very last few sentences that Ms. Reyes says are also infuriating:
What I heard from the council discussion wasn’t “no, no, no, we don’t care what anyone says”. It was more about trying to find that give-and-take. A negotiation is a negotiation. You cannot go in and say “I need all these things or I’m not going to participate or I’m not going to be happy with this.” That’s just simply not what happens. It is a situation that is very difficult as staff that is the ones negotiating the contract. Ultimately they report to us. This is not an adversarial process. This is not a system of them calling the shots or us calling the shots. We’ve gotta work together, we’re a team. Ultimately this is about the betterment of San Marcos. We have to represent ALL interests.
This is just deliberately trying to make Mano Amiga look like jerks. “I need all these things or I’m not going to participate”? Yes, that would be terrible bargaining. But they did expect you to start with all five Hartman Reforms. You are not supposed to start by saying, “Hey guys, we preemptively threw out most of our wish list because your boss doesn’t like it.” That is sabotaging a negotiation.
Most of City Council genuinely didn’t want the Hartman Reforms, so they left them on the cutting room floor before negotiations started. We actually got almost everything we asked for. It’s just that Council decided to ask for crumbs.
Listen: if I were an A+ blogger, I would go watch the videos of the Meet and Confer negotiations. Because I’m lobbing a lot of accusations here, and I haven’t verified what actually happened during the negotiations. Sadly, you are stuck with a B- blogger who just can’t bear to go watch something so boring.
(If YOU want to go watch the negotiations, I would be delighted to hear your favorite parts.)
The Vote: Ratify the new Meet-and-Confer three year contract? Yes: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez, Matthew Mendoza, Jude Prather, Shane Scott No: Alyssa Garza
Landlords are mad about the Eviction Delay still being in effect.
Community members rooting for good SMART re-negotiations
Both of these will come up tonight.
Item 1: Presentation on Meet and Confer negotiations
Background: After the whole mess leading up to Ryan Hartman’s termination, Mano Amiga called for five police reforms. The city negotiated the new SMPD contract and ignored the five reforms. So Mano Amiga circulated a petition to overturn the contract. Legally, City Council had two choices: either re-open the contract, or let the voters decide. Council decided to renegotiate the contract. The negotiation process is called Meet and Confer.
So, We Meet (and confer) Again
Here are the five Hartman Reforms from Mano Amiga:
City staff has met and conferred with SMPOA. They have a new contract they are proposing. At this past Tuesday’s Council meeting, there’s a presentation on the new contract. Then City Council will vote to adopt (or not) the new contract on May 16th. (They will definitely vote to adopt.)
Here’s the short version:
End the 180 Day Rule: “We’re already doing the compromise position!”
End Delay of Interview Rule: “No.”
Public Transparency: “I’m pretending my hands are tied, legally. But we will incorporate reprimands into promotions.”
End 3rd party arbitration: “We’ll tighten up a few situations where the 3rd party can’t overrule us.”
End Vacation Forfeiture: “No.”
City Manager Stephanie Reyes made a point to say that Chief Standridge was not part of the negotiation team, because it would put him in such an awkward position. He was only there as a neutral resource. (Who all actually was doing the negotiations? I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t on the agendas of the Meet and Confer meetings. I watched a little bit of the videos – April 7, April 19, April 23 – but didn’t see any introductions, and I could only recognize Stephanie Reyes. There are no documents besides the presentation in the packet. So I have no idea.)
It’s a weird situation, where the police union (SMPOA) is on one side, and city staff are supposed to be on the other side, advocating for these five reforms on behalf of Mano Amiga that they don’t necessarily believe in. So it’s mildly amazing that they moved the needle at all.
In other words, my expectations were low, and they successfully cleared my low expectations.
The main presentation
I found myself getting pretty mad, listening to Chief Standridge. We’re going to unpack what he said, but there’s a couple main themes:
He acts deliberately obtuse about the reason activists are requesting a reform. “Why on earth would you not want to support our valiant officers?”
He is mushy about the difference between holding an employee accountable in their job, and someone’s legal rights in a criminal investigation. These are very different things, but he switches back and forth as if they’re the same.
He acts like something is legally forbidden, when he means “Well, we have the power to change the law in these negotiations. But until we do, it’s forbidden!”
He organizes his presentation according to the five Hartman reforms, so I’m going to do the same here.
So here we go.
The 180 Day Rule:
What Mano Amiga says about it:
What Chief Standridge says about it:
Before San Marcos negotiates a contract, there are some background Texas laws in effect. These are the Civil Service laws. If an officer does something wrong, Chief Standridge has 180 days to investigate, meet with all parties, and dispose of an investigation.
Last summer’s Meet and Confer agreement made it stronger. Now Chief Standridge has 180 days to file a complaint, and then another 180 days from the complaint to carry out the investigation and draw a conclusion or punishment or whatever.
Standridge gives some other contexts:
If it’s not a criminal offense, the 180 day clock starts running at the incident. If it’s criminal, the 180 day clock starts running when the crime is discovered.
Federal law mandates 300 days statute of limitations for sexual harassment
Statute of limitations for misdemeanors is 2 years, for run-of-the-mill felonies is 3 years.
Mano Amiga wants to end the statute of limitations altogether.
Standridge’s argument against this is basically:
That’s absurd! The statute of limitations for most crimes is only 2-3 years!
It’s really hard to get good evidence as more time passes! For example, a lot of video footage auto-rewrites every 30 days or so. It’s hard to collect old evidence. “An unlimited time span is unreasonable if we believe in evidence.”
This is Chief Standridge at his worst. He’s completely ducking the issue. The issue – which he is well-aware of – is that nationally, we have a big problem with police department protecting abusive cops and shielding them from investigations. One good way to do this is to circle the wagons and run out the statute of limitations. Then shrug your shoulders and say, “oops! Too late to do anything!”
Does SMPD do this? Clearly Chief Standridge thinks not. I genuinely have no idea. But Chief Standridge is being a jerk by not acknowledging that this is a broader problem among police departments in general.
The next thing that Standridge is doing is switching back and forth between the employment rules for police officers versus the actual law for civilians during a criminal investigation. When it comes to employment rules, there’s no statute of limitations at your job. Your boss can pull you in and say, “Wait a minute. What were you doing back in 2017?” It doesn’t mean that your boss can file criminal charges against you, but they can certainly open an investigation with HR.
The fact that the statute of limitations is 2 years for misdemeanors and 3 years for low-key felonies is 100% irrelevant. Who cares, Chief. You’re their boss. If you have a bad cop and something comes to light from 2019, don’t you want the option of looking into it?
Which brings me to my final point: some crimes have no evidence, and it’s just the end of the road. If the incident was a year ago and there’s no evidence, then you’ve done what you can do. End of matter. Why do you need to decide preemptively that all crimes from a year ago have no merit? None of them could possibly be investigated? Even if someone was deliberately obfuscating and hiding the matter?
Outcome: nothing changed.
Hartman Reform #2. 48 hour delay of interviews and video review.
Here’s what Mano Amiga says:
Here’s what Chief Standridge says:
Suppose an officer is accused of misconduct. That officer is given 48 hours advance notice and shown the video before they are interviewed. Community members are not. You may think this is unfair towards community members, but it’s actually unfair in the opposite way! It’s unfair for officers, because they can’t plead the 5th like you can. You’re allowed to ask for a lawyer before you talk to the cops. The officer is forced to give a statement and answer questions by Internal Affairs. They can be fired if they don’t cooperate!
Again, Chief Standridge is drawing a false equivalence, and it’s bullshit: if you’re being hauled in for questioning, you’re a civilian being questioned by the cops. You’re entitled to rights under the constitution. Whereas if the cop is hauled into Internal Affairs, he’s an employee being questioned by his job. That is not a criminal investigation.
Chief Standridge almost acknowledges this, because he cites Garrity, which is a court decision that says that a cop’s compelled testimony for Internal Affairs can’t be used in a criminal proceeding. In other words, everything is completely fair:
You can be forced to talk to your boss at work, but you can’t be forced to talk to the cops in a criminal investigation.
A cop can be forced to talk to Internal Affairs at their job, but that testimony can’t be used against the cop in a criminal investigation.
Nothing of substance was said regarding the 48 hour delay. It was just glossed over.
Then Chief Standridge talks about why officers are allowed to watch the video before they testify: studies prove that it improves officer recall by 11% when they watch the video before they testify! Isn’t that amazing?
It is a wild misreading of the situation. He is literally explaining the point that watching a video helps you remember what happened. No shit, Sherlock. That’s not the issue.
The issue – just to be painfully explicit here – is that watching the video allows a cop to get their story straight. Does the video show you planting evidence? Did the video catch something that makes you look bad? Wouldn’t you like time to prepare for that?
If we take Chief Standridge at his word – that he literally believes that showing someone a video is best practices because it improves their memory – then he ought to extend that practice to community members. Everyone should get to watch the video! If you haul in a burglary suspect, you should show them the grainy ambiguous video footage before asking them any questions. It might help jog their memory. RIGHT CHIEF? BEST PRACTICES!
This would have been a respectable answer from Chief Standridge:
“Eye witness testimony is notoriously inaccurate. Showing a video to a witness has pros and cons. It can solidify someone’s memory of what happened, but it also reveals to someone the extent of what the investigator knows. If a person has nothing to hide, it helps them give better testimony. If a person does have something to hide, then it allows them to sharpen what they hide in the testimony.”
But that is not what he said.
Outcome: nothing changed.
Hartman Reform #3: Transparency
Here’s what Mano Amiga wants:
(I know, Chief Standridge went out of order. This is 3rd in his presentation, even though Mano Amiga’s graphic has a 4. Ignore it.)
Here’s what Chief Standridge says:
By law, there are two files on every cop, an “A” file and a “G” file.
The A File: – Anything good that happens to the officer (a commendation, congratulation, or honor) – Any misconduct that ended in a suspension, firing, or demotion – Regular formal evaluations
The G File: – Soft things, like coaching and mentoring and job improvement things. Letters of reprimand go here.
The G files contain complaints by citizens, testimony from fellow officers, body-cam video, written reprimands and memos, and other details that justice advocates think should be accessible to the public.
Chief Standridge tells us that legally, he can’t release anything in the G file. His hands are tied.
But he’s misrepresenting the situation (and by this point I’m pretty irritated with his whole presentation). Here’s the thing: It’s illegal under Civil Service Laws, yes. But Meet and Confer contracts override Civil Service laws. So it’s only illegal until we pass a contract that says we want the G file released.
This exact issue is currently being debated in Austin:
Subsection (g) applies to Texas municipalities whose police officers (or firefighters) are civil service employees – that is, ones that don’t have unions that negotiate the terms of officers’ employment. Here, the city and the Austin Police Association, through what’s called the “meet-and-confer” process, do hash out a contract that could preempt Subsection (g) should the parties so agree. Both APD and APA leadership insist the G file must remain secret – that it will contain frivolous accusations that officers can’t defend themselves against, particularly under Austin’s current procedures that allow such claims to be made anonymously. However, during this year’s negotiations for a new police contract, the city’s Labor Relations Office is proposing to do away with G files.
In other words: It’s only illegal until your meet-and-confer agreement overrides it. Let’s file the G File in the Chief-Is–Misleading-the-Public File. (Or the circular file.)
And it passed! Unfortunately, San Antonio’s Prop A, also including some police reform, did not pass.)
Anyway! Chief Standridge says that they found a compromise position: G-files and reprimands should play a bigger role in promotions. Or rather, if you’ve got a bunch of reprimands, you’ll get “negative points” and won’t be able to earn a big promotion quite so fast.
Kinda shocking that this wasn’t already happening, but better late than never!
Outcome: Letters of reprimand and suspension will be included in the promotion process.
Hartman Reform #4: End 3rd Party Arbitration
What Mano Amiga says:
(I know, still out of order. It’s the least of our worries.)
Here’s what Chief Standridge says:
Suppose an officer gets in trouble. There are three kinds of discipline: – you get fired, – you get suspended, or – you get demoted.
If one of those happens and the officer doesn’t like it, they have two options:
Civil Service Commission Three commissioners hear the appeals. I think they’re local citizens
Hearing Examiner hears the appeals. This is 3rd party arbitration.
What I remember from back in January is Karen Muñoz saying that 3rd party arbitration almost always lightens the discipline, and that arbiters have a motivation to stake out a middle position.
Here’s where Standridge ticked me off in this one: he goes back to Ryan Hartman and says, “Now, Ryan Hartman appealed his discipline to a Hearing Examiner, and the Hearing Examiner upheld the punishment. We prevailed! The system worked! So why would we want to change something that works?!!”
In other words: these dumb, irrational activists! They don’t even realize that their poster child Ryan Hartman was such a shitheel that even the arbiter upheld his punishment! Aren’t they silly?
Okay, you got me? I’m glad that Hartman wasn’t let off with a lighter sentence? Woo-hoo? Now what about the rest of the cases, where they do get a lighter sentence from the arbiter?
Anyway: there’s something called a Dishonorable Discharge on an F5. This means you got fired for criminal conduct, lying, or insubordination.
Standridge proposes using that as a standard: if the appeal is filed for one of those three things – criminal conduct, lying, or insubordination – then the arbiter can’t overturn the chief’s judgment.
Standridge also says this is very progressive. It would be 1st in Texas! Unfortunately I’m too irked by this point to celebrate.
Outcome: Unless there’s evidence that the Chief is violating some ethical conditions, the arbiter can’t override the Chief’s punishment in the most serious cases.
Hartman Reform #5: Vacation Forfeiture.
Mano Amiga:
Using your vacation allow you to avoid a “break of services for promotion”.
Chief Standridge: “I’ll do a pros and cons list.”
Pros of vacation forfeiture : – We avoid a costly appeals process, because they admit wrongdoing. – It helps with understaffing because we’re not down yet another police officer – They still lose those hours of pay, and we don’t have to pay overtime to someone else, so it’s cheaper for us
So it’s a huge win!
Cons: he never got around to this part. (In fact, even in the slide presentation there’s a “pros” slide but no “cons” slide.)
He says the vacation forfeiture will show up on your G-file. So since G-files are now being used in promotions, it will show up there.
Outcome: Double-dipping on the G-file outcome again. Gets used in promotions.
Thus concludes his presentation.
……
There are some outcomes that didn’t show up in my recap above. Here is the full list:
We only discussed bullet points 1, 2, and 5. (And the 5th really isn’t a change.) The 3rd bullet – streaming future meet-and-confer meetings – is a good thing.
So the last bullet: why did SMPOA agree to this? What’s the carrot in it for them?
They make more money. Which, fine.
Both City Manager Stephanie Reyes and Chief Stan chime in about the violent crime rate some more, and their desire to focus on other things beyond this contract. The end!
The Council Discussion
Alyssa asks if the Chief could explain about Ryan Hartman and vacation forfeiture.
Chief Standridge’s answer:
Hartman’s situation is totally different than what’s being discussed here. In the contract, we’re talking about suspension. You can substitute vacation time for suspension.
“Administative leave” is a totally different thing, which means “we don’t trust you with a gun and a badge right now”. Hartman was placed on administrative leave for six months.
…
One moment that I want to highlight:
Chief Standridge gives a very sincere statement on the early part of the Hartman investigation. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but he did show remorse. It was something like, “The early part of the investigation did not live up to SMPD standards. We’re not going to look in the rearview, we’re going to look through the front windshield and move forward, and moving forward, we’ll have higher standards.”
It’s not exactly groveling for forgiveness, but he delivered it with sincerity and I believed him.
…
So what did the rest of Council say?
Jude Prather: This will make us safer!
Mark Gleason: Let’s move on! (And he uses the phrase “so-called Criminal Justice Movement”. I use the phrase “rolling my eyes at him”.)
Saul Gonzalez: Thank you thank you! Win-win. My son is a cop.
Matthew Mendoza: I have faith in this new agreement.
Alyssa Garza: Staff devoted a lot of time. Improvements have been made. It took a ton of work from our neighbors. Town Halls and conversations would help.
Jane Hughson: Thank you to everyone. Everyone worked hard to come up with an agreement that everyone likes.
….
Bottom line: This contract has some legitimate improvements to it. I think the Chief’s presentation was cagey and semi-deceptive, but there are actual improvements to the contract.
There is also still a lot left to fight for!
So there you have it. It will be signed on May 16th and that will be that.
….
Two final notes
1. There was a funny moment at the beginning when Chief Standridge says, “I want to dispel any rumors. I’m not going anywhere. We’ve bought a house here. Abilene is our home.”
Then he waits a couple beats and says, “I just said Abilene, didn’t I. SAN MARCOS! San Marcos is our home!” It was pretty funny.
2. Chief Standridge goes off on a tangent at 1:14 that is very confusing. He seems to think that the activists are being hypocritical by simultaneously believing two things: – there’s a lot of police misconduct – there’s no accountability
Standridge believes these contradict each other. You can’t have a lot of police misconduct and no accountability!
Here’s his reasoning: the public doesn’t find out about misconduct until the police department makes it available. Therefore, any time you hear about police misconduct, you’re also seeing evidence of accountability. If there was no accountability, the misconduct would all be invisible. Ta-da!
This is idiotic, of course. Misconduct is not invisible. People seem to notice when they were tazed, or searched, or intimidated, or stopped and harassed, even if the police try to hide and suppress it. Gossip spreads, reputations get formed.
It’s possible that Chief Standridge really does open an honest investigation into every complaint he hears about. But he’s naive if he believes he hears a complaint about every incident that occurs.
Several people (mostly from Mano Amiga) speak on Josh Wright, the guy killed by a corrections officer at the hospital a few months ago. (Six shots in his back, while wearing leg shackles. There’s no way to parse that as anything but cold-blooded murder.)
Several of the speakers point out that none of the councilmembers, besides Alyssa Garza, have issued statements on Joshua Wright’s death, nor offered condolences to the family. It’s true that the corrections officer is part of the Hays County system, not the city system, but councilmembers are still public officials with a platform and influence. Right now, they’re using that influence to quietly twiddle their thumbs.
Several people speak on the SMART Terminal. SMART Terminal was approved two weeks ago. Last week, at P&Z, the SMART Terminal was up for re-zoning to Heavy Industrial. An even bigger turnout of people showed up to speak against it. A ton of people shared stories of flooding downstream of the proposed SMART location. I do not see how Council could have thoroughly vetted stories of flooding before approving the terminal, given the vast number of personal stories that popped up last week.
P&Z ended up postponing it for a month, to give the developer time to meet with community members and gain their support.
As an aside: A lot of people are upset because the SMART Terminal was approved before they even heard it was coming. This is a big problem: how can a city notify the public about a project in their area? The city does actually try pretty hard: there are supposed to be signs posted, in big font, and there are supposed to be notifications mailed out to residents nearby. The problem is that these things are time-consuming, expensive and still don’t work that well. Signs blow over, mailers go out to home owners and not renters, people live further than 400 yards away but still will be affected, etc. (Council is fixing the renter problem – they will start getting notifications too.)
I want to talk about mailing notifications. The notification radius is 400 yards. Everyone who lives within 400 yards of the boundary of a project is supposed to get a notification in the mail. It used to be 200 yards. It was expanded a few years ago. City staff was stressed out by increasing the radius – it increases their workload, and also gets expensive.
So look, here’s an easy solution: the notification radius should be proportional to the size of the project. Rare gigantic project like the SMART Terminal or the entire Riverbend Ranch Development? Should have a very large notification radius. Frequent, ordinary, small scale project? Should have a proportionally smaller notification radius. It’s very weird that the notification for Sean Patrick’s CUP is the same radius as for the Martindale-sized massive-slab-of-concrete-by-the-river future SMART Terminal.
…
Item 17: The speed limit on 123 is going to be reduced from 60 mph to 55 mph.
I mean, this is basically the stretch that half the high school students take to get to the high school. It doesn’t seem crazy to me to knock the speed down just a hair.
(There was an awful tragedy at Goodnight Middle School on Friday, involving a car. We are all so fragile, and the people we love are so fragile, too.)
…
Item 18: Apparently the state of Texas wants to give us $45,000 for us to build a metal awning to protect police cars. Nothing wrong with a metal awning to protect cars.
The problem is that the source of the $45k is deeply tainted: it’s from State Seized Asset Funds. Civil asset forfeiture is a giant gross mess. Basically cops are allowed to confiscate anything potentially related to a crime. But then, regardless of whether the owner was innocent, guilty, or completely unrelated to the crime, the cops end up keeping the property. Police departments end up profiting hugely off it, which then motivates them to grab property even more aggressively and ever so tenuously connected to an actual crime.
Do I think we should turn down the money? I don’t know. This state is so broken on this topic that I don’t think it would do any good, frankly, except as protest. Whether we accept the money has zero bearing on whether or not Texas ever reforms its civil forfeiture policies. But it’s worth adding this to your mental rolodex of ways that police abuse community members.
Items 16-18: Various CDBG funding. Moving money around to fund rental and utility assistance, a project where they buy flood-prone land to keep it from being developed, and working on some ongoing flood projects for the Blanco Riverine and around Blanco Gardens.
Item 17: The Planning Department has a lot of fees for various services and permits. How do they set these prices?
It’s been a while since they updated what fees they charge. So they had a consultant come in and analyze how much it costs the city to carry out all these services. Then they compared fees to seven comparison cities. Then they shared all this at the December 14th workshop, and proposed new fees.
The city wants to balance covering at least 50% of their costs, without charging homeowners and small businesses too much or being too out of line with the other cities. I did not dive deep into the fees, but the methodology sounds fine. Council said it was all fine.
Item 20: The result of the HSAB drama from December. At the 3 pm workshop, city council worked on this with city staff. Here’s the outcome:
(Note: It says “The Board should not fund all programs” but they intended “The board should not feel compelled to fund all programs.”)
All seems fine. I think they’re going to go back and re-allocate the December money according to these principles.
Item 21: Mano Amiga circulated a petition to repeal the SMPD contract. Now, I obviously live here in San Marcos. If Mano Amiga were to approach me, I would sign their petition, because I generally support their mission.
But as your local friendly blogger, I’m going to call shenanigans – the actual petition is confusing. As far as I can tell, this is the entire thing:
What’s the actual, specific gripe with the meet-and-confer contract? And what’s the specific, desired outcome? Maybe there’s another page somewhere spelling it out? (Update: It’s the Hartman Reforms. But I still don’t see anything about it on the Mano Amiga website.)
Now this incident is extremely clear-cut abuse by the correctional officer. You’ve got an unarmed inmate in a hospital, wearing ankle shackles for god’s sake. He tries to escape. The officer shoots him six times. That officer had some fantasy that the only way to handle a person running away was to be judge, jury, and executioner. Joshua Wright has to die because this correctional officer can’t properly evaluate and handle the danger of an unarmed guy wearing ankle shackles. What the utter fuck.
Mano Amiga is clearly livid, and sprang into action, demanding bodycam footage and holding events and raising awareness. Of course, I wholly support their efforts for justice for Joshua Wright. This is the most just and deserving of causes to fight for.
The SMPD has a union, SMPOA, which negotiates contracts for cops with the city.
No one else gets to do this, because unions have been undermined in Texas. First, it’s a right-to-work state, which means you can’t be forced to join a union, even though you may benefit from the outcomes. (This is bad, in my book.) Second, unions aren’t allowed collective bargaining powers. If you’re not allowed to bargain for contracts and legal matters, then you’re basically an advocacy group. Underfunded advocacy groups don’t generally have much power.
The exceptions is police and fire fighters (and Houston municipal employees?) Meet and Confer is how the city of San Marcos negotiates contracts with the police and fire fighter unions.
The Ryan Hartman issue: Ryan Hartman was a police officer with SMPD. In 2020, he was in off-duty in Lockhart. He was speeding, ran a stop sign, probably under the influence, and crashed into Pamela Watts and Jennifer Miller, and Miller was killed in the crash. He had an open container in his car, but refused a breathalyzer for a few hours.
He wasn’t indicted in Lockhart, and Chief Standridge was brand new, and dithered on the issue until the 180 day time frame expired, and Hartman was put back on the force. Somewhere in here, Mano Amiga takes up the cause on behalf of Miller’s partner, Pam Watts. Mano Amiga begins a full press assault on Hartman. Back on the force, Ryan Hartman tazes someone under sketchy circumstances, and is suspended again this past January. Finally he’s terminated, this past June.
Mano Amiga has a list of five “Hartman Reforms” that they want implemented (and that are incredibly hard to find online.) Based on this article, I’m pretty sure they are:
End the 180-Day Rule
repeal of the statute of limitations on investigating wrongdoing by officers
“End Delay of Interviews for Misconduct,” due to officers being allowed 48 hours to prepare answers and review materials before giving an official statement.
Public Transparency for Personnel Files
End Third-Party Arbitration.
(I’m not really sure how 1 and 2 are different from each other.) In the Meet and Confer agreement, they are proposing to extend the 180 day rule to a 360 day rule. The other reforms are all ignored.
Max Baker asks about the rest of the Hartman Reforms.
City staff says that the Hartman Reforms were announced on June 15th, but the negotiation meetings had already run from April-May 27th. Max Baker says that the Hartman Reforms overlap with reforms he’s brought up in the past, but he hadn’t gotten the support of council on those.
In Citizen Comment, Mano Amiga made it clear that they do not think this contract holds officers accountable. They’re going to collect signatures to get a repeal of this agreement on a future ballot. Stay tuned!
What do I think? Here are some reforms that I think are important:
Reviews of police misconduct need to be done by independent, external investigators
End qualified immunity for police officers (Currently, officers can’t be sued for violating someone’s civil liberties. San Marcos can’t just unilaterally change this, but it’s important)
Ongoing de-escalation training (this may already be happening, I don’t know) and cops need to be immersed in neighborhoods and build positive relationships with young adults.
Prioritizing mental health of police officers, keeping ongoing relationships with therapists or counselors
Redirect mental illness emergencies to first responders with social work or mental health backgrounds
On one slide in the presentation of the Meet and Confer contract, it says, “Applicants with degree in social work, sociology, psychology, human services, or human relations will receive additional points.” This is good! You want officers with backgrounds in areas that humanize people.
By all appearances, Chief Standridge is implementing progressive principles into SMPD. This seems like an opportunity to collaborate and make progress.
….
Item 32: Chris Cardoza is voted onto the Arts Commission.
Item 33: Should renters get notified when there’s a proposed zoning change? This is sent to a committee.
What made this meeting so short is the lack of public presentations. Mayor Hughson implied that the next meeting may be grueling, though.
First up, Citizen Comment:
Richard Amaya slams SMPD. Biden Bus, Ryan Hartman, other issues that have come up. (The very next day, actually, it was announced that Ryan Hartmann has been terminated. Activism making a difference.)
Darlene Starr speaks about the Animal Shelter and how dismally it’s being run, and how admin is driving away volunteers. This is the latest in a steady stream of speakers painting a totally dysfunctional picture of the Animal Shelter. It sounds demoralizing. I gather that we’re finally trying to hire a director, although the position has been vacant for over a year.
Non-consent Agenda
they tweaked the homestead exemption for disabled people and people 65 and over.
They created the Animal Services Committee, with Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, and Alyssa Garza joining whichever community members are on it.
Packet meetings have a Do Not Resuscitate order placed on them. (No one but me can possibly be following this deathly dull story line.)
And then: Body Cameras. This was brought by Alyssa Garza, asking about the city policy around body cameras. Namely, what is it?
First, Chief Dandridge says there are state laws governing release of footage, and that SMPD follows those policies. It wasn’t clear to me if San Marcos has other, additional policies, or if the state code is the sum total.
Next, Chief Dandridge makes his main point: Police bodycam footage can’t be automatically released because it would taint all legal proceedings. It would make it very hard to seat a grand jury to get an indictment. To me, this didn’t land as quite as big a bombshell as he seemed to think it would land, because I immediately wanted to know, “Okay fine. What about after the trial is over?”
Dandridge answers that all footage is available, under FOIA, after all adjudication has ended. Fair enough.
Apparently Texas Municipal League is a resource everyone respects. Commissioner Garza has gone and found best practices for body camera footage release according to TML. She begins to go through it with Chief Dandridge, and then suggests that he just send the SMPD body camera footage policy over to council and she can read it for herself.
(Why couldn’t the policy have been included in the packet? Your guess is as good as mine.)
So that’s about where it wrapped up. Everyone professed themselves a little more informed and enlightened on body camera footage release policies. I’m interested to see if anything comes of the review of the official policy.
Post-Script: In Q&A from the press and public, LMC asked if the public has access to the body camera footage policy. Chief Dandridge says that it’s not up on their website, but that it can be FOIA’d.
The other two most-important items are Items 14 and 34.
Item 14: Interlocal Agreement with SMCISD on School Resource Officers
Commissioner Baker has a list of concerns about SROs.
They are reassigned to different schools for failure to do their job, instead of being removed as SROs all together
While training is required to be an SRO, officers get placed on campuses that are not trained as SROs
There is language about how SROs will “promote the concept of punishment for criminal acts”. How is this useful in our schools? Some people extend this concept to undocumented community members. This is destructive.
“Increase students’ knowledge and respect of the law” – what about when officers aren’t due that respect?
May we identify the funding sources of this study?
Why are we putting protection of property above protection of students?
Why aren’t we surveying students to see how the officers are doing and if they feel safer?
We put a pro-SRO video on YouTube featuring an officer whose actions have raised concerns.
Commissioner Derrick weighs in with points about SROs needing mental health training. She’s had particularly negative eperienc
Broadly, I agree with all of Baker’s points. However: Chief Dandridge is consistently great when he talks to City Council. I don’t know what he’s like on the job, and I know that there are community members who are frustrated with our police. All I am saying is that Dandridge’s performance at council meetings is very good. So far, this is what I’ve seen:
He generally does not respond adversarily to aggressive questions from Baker.
He often agrees partially or completely.
He backs up his statements with information and data,
He admits when he doesn’t know something, and offers to find the information.
He does not offer pat solutions and does not reduce the complexity of issues.
Again, maybe he’s a jerk on the force! I don’t know! But he’s good at council meetings.
Chief Dandridge responds to all of these points, one by one. On the questions about statistics and data, he pledges to write a memorandum compiling his data and that he will send it out to council. He lists the classes that the SROs are trained in. It includes restorative justice, mental health, developmental psychology, suicide prevention, and many more. He doesn’t try to dispute Baker’s points per se, but provides context for how these things play out in San Marcos. And he’s supportive of ideas like surveying students.
In the end, they vote to postpone and have work session. So nothing is resolved here, but I’m glad to see these issues discussed.
Item 34: Greater San Marcos Partnership, GSMP
GSMP is a pro-business organization that works across the entire county to bring business in and support existing businesses. San Marcos kicks in $400k/year. Several issues are raised:
Does GSMP make life better for San Marcos residents? Commissioner Baker wants GSMP to conduct a survey to quantify the impact of GSMP on San Marcos residents.
Mayor Hughson seems rather obtuse on this one, repeating several times that San Marcos already conducts a detailed quality of life survey and there is no need for GSMP to duplicate this. The difference is that the city survey is attempting to ascertain the benefits brought by the city, and the GSMP survey would attempt to measure benefits brought by GSMP. One does not substitute for the other.
Amendment for a mandatory survey passes, 4-3. In favor: Derrick, Gonzalez, Garza, and Baker Opposed: Hughson, Scott, Gleason
Next issue up is the Environmental Social Grievance reports, or ESG. These are third party reports compiled on the externalities that a business imposes on the community. City Council has asked for information from GSMP on wages, environmental impact, and other externalities. GSMP says that for $10K, they’ll buy an ESG from a third party company.
Baker would like to read one before agreeing that this suffices. But there isn’t one to read, because they cost money and they’re proprietary. It’s a very frustrating business-y solution. “We’ve contracted out with a niche business, and obviously they aren’t motivated by the public good. What’s the problem?” It’s not exactly corrupt, but it’s annoying and full of middlemen.
Baker moves to postpone until they can see a sample ESG report and see if it is satisfactory, but the motion fails.
In favor: Derrick, Garza, Baker Opposed: Hughson, Scott, Gleason, Gonzalez
Councilmember Derrick makes an amendment to add mental health providers as a targeted industry. This passes 6-1, with Scott voting no, like a dillweed.
A representative speaks up about how intractable the problem of attracting mental health providers is. He promises that they’ll target, but not that they’ll be successful.
This last part is the BEST. Now, Councilmember Baker has been furious since he was at the GSMP Summit last spring, and nobody was wearing masks. Baker makes an amendment to the agreement that the GSMP will have to follow CDC guidelines on safety.
This passes 5-2: For: Mayor Hughson, Derrick, Garza, Gonzalez, and Baker Opposed: Just Gleason and Scott.
The whole discussion takes FOREVER, but the poetic justice of Max getting to force GSMP to wear masks is so sweet and worth every last bit.
(Finally, the actual agreement with GSMP passes unanimously.)
The San Marxist 