Tag: waste water

Hours 0:00 – 3:44, 7/7/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

9 speakers. Main topics:

1. Human Service Advisory Board funding: speakers from three nonprofits – Hays Helping Hands, Southside, and BR3T. (I’ll save their comments for Items 31-32.)

2. Accessibility and San Marcos: one speaker, he’s available to support the city as they start to implement accessibility measures.

3. Subdivision coming on 123 and FM 1978: three speakers.
Two neighbors who are concerned about changes coming, and one representative from Redwood who is interested in the wastewater treatment plant. (I’ll save their comments for Item 22.)

4. Thank you for the ban on data centers. Don’t let developers build student housing and flip it to university. Hold the university accountable for supporting the city. (1 speaker)

5. We need to bring more businesses to San Marcos, to grow the budget. We need Texas State to help staff police downtown. They should be responsible for their students. (1 speaker)

On to the meeting!

…

Consent Agenda

The consent agenda is about 10-20 items that get voted on as a group, without discussion.

One item of note – SMPD officers in schools:

This is not new, of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

There was no discussion, but Alyssa and Amanda both voted “no” on this item.

….

Item 21: HOT and STR fees

“HOT” stands for Hotel Occupancy Tax, and “STR” stands for Short Term Rentals. We charge a tax on hotels, and use the money to promote tourism.

Sometimes the hotels and short term rentals pay the city using a credit card. Credit cards come with a 3% surcharge. So the city has been paying 3% to the credit card companies every time the hotels pay by credit card.

This adds up to about $40K/year.

Today: Should we make the hotels and short term rentals pay the credit card fees?

The vote: Yes, we should. It’s unanimous – pass the cost on.

……

Item 22: Sedona South

There is a huge tract of land southeast of San Marcos which has gotten kicked around for years:

Map of four tracts of land - Riverbend Ranch, Riley's Point, Riley's point industrial, and River Bridge Ranch, all southeast of San Marcos. They are north and northwest of Redwood.

Someday, this is mostly going to be a massive amount of single family housing sprawl. (Why not include 4-plexes and townhomes and stores throughout these developments?)

Now we’re adding in this one:

Same map as before, but with the addition of a 5th tract, Sedona South, which is between Redwood and 123

And if I’m reading things correctly, this one is also coming soon:

Same map as before, but with Sedona North, a little triangle development between Sedona South and 123.

But for right now, we’re talking about Sedona South.

We’re going to talk about the reasons I don’t like it, and the reasons I do like it.

Here’s the main reason I don’t like it:

Concept plat of Sedona South

All that pink is going to be single family housing. The brown on the left is going to be half apartments, and half commercial.

This is not walkable at all. This is not a 15-minute neighborhood. This would not fly under the Comprehensive Plan. But it doesn’t have to, because they’re not asking to be annexed into the city.

Here’s the main reason I do like it:

Concept plat with the wastewater treatment plant circled.

We’ve discussed this wastewater treatment plant before, in March 2025, July 2025, and in June 2026

This new wastewater treatment plant is very important, because of this:

Map showing Sedona south next to Redwood

That wastewater treatment plant is crucial for the people living in Redwood.

Some backstory

Back in 2019, a researcher from UT Austin came to Redwood, and started testing people, and found that a lot of people there had the parasite strongyloides. This was living in the soil because the septic systems were failing, mostly because the soil there is incompatible with septic systems and causes them to break and leak. So even if there was money for everyone to fix their septic systems, they would break and leak all over again.

The only solution is to get on a wastewater system.

So Redwood and Rancho Vista organized. They connected with a group called Water Finance Exchange. They formed a nonprofit, the Redwood-Rancho Vista Water Supply Corporation, and they applied for the Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap grant. They were selected to receive assistance, and they’re now working with some engineers to find a solution.

The solution: connect to a wastewater treatment plant.

OMG look!

IT’S RIGHT THERE. How could we not?

Confidential to Council: You hold the power! From your lips to God’s ears!

….

What else?

Two neighbors spoke – they’re not exactly thrilled that this massive development is going in across the street, but they said the city staff has been super helpful in talking with them. (The third speaker talked about the water treatment tie-in stuff with Redwood, from above.)

Council mildly made comments fiddling with the details:

  • Can we ban car washes, to conserve water?
  • Can we ban waste services?

Answer: Maybe! Sure!

The vote: unanimous. Everyone is in favor.

Note: I couldn’t find anything on how much money the city gets from this agreement. Seems like an important detail, though.

….

Items 23-24: Riverstone Apartments

Riverstone Apartments are located here:

Location of Riverstone apartments on Wonderworld, near 123

It opened in 2024.

Riverstone Apartments is a LIHTC complex, which stands for “Low Income Housing Tax Credit”.

Their LIHTC project works like this:

  • They get a tax break from the state.
  • They still pay full taxes to San Marcos.
  • They had to make all 336 units “affordable”.

“Affordable” means it’s priced for families earning $67K – $80K, or individuals earning $47K – $56K. These rates are based on what people earn in Austin, because San Marcos is in the Austin metro area.

That might be poor for Austin, but that’s pretty mid for San Marcos. It excludes a lot of poor San Marcos residents who need affordable housing.

Here’s the problem: the LIHTC deal was made in 2019. Then Covid and inflation happened.

They thought they’d be paying about $100K in property taxes, but their project ended up getting appraised three times higher than they estimated. So their property taxes are actually closer to $300K. Now they can’t afford their local taxes.

Today’s question: Are we willing to cut a deal with them and waive their local taxes?

They’re offering to set aside 51 of the 336 units for extremely poor families with income under $40K, or individuals earning less than $28K. In exchange, they wouldn’t pay county taxes or SMCISD taxes, and only $100K/year to the city.

The argument against it:

  • The city really can’t afford this – this would eat almost 1/3 of the entire Social Services grant budget.
  • This would cost SMCISD about $400K in taxes. And they don’t have a say in this deal.
  • The county would also lose money. (I don’t know how much)

The argument in favor:

  • We really do need more affordable housing, and this is at least a little bit.
  • There are also residents living there currently. If this complex gets sold, their rent will go up.

What does Council say?

Everyone is pretty grim. It’s just too much money, compared to how other nonprofits could stretch that money.

The vote

Yes, give them the tax break: nobody

No, sorry: all seven council members

So the apartment complex will probably get foreclosed and they will have to sell it off.

……

Items 25-27: Back down by Redwood again:

This time we’re focused on region 4, River Bridge Ranch:

Map of Riverbend Ranch, Riley's Point, Riley's point industrial, River Bridge Ranch, Sedona south, and sedona north, with River Bridge Ranch highlighted. It is northwest of Redwood.

(We’ve talked about this before: November 2024, Marcos 2025, and December 2025.)

River Bridge Ranch is a different kind of development than Sedona South. First, it’s inside the city limits. Second, it’s a PID, which stands for “Public Improvement District”.

What’s a PID?

If you buy a home in River Bridge Ranch, you’re going to pay an extra $1300-$2800 on your tax bill. This extra money will just go to pay for streets and infrastructure in River Bridge Branch.

My $0.02: I do not like PIDs! (In fact, I just complained about the La Cima PID in May.)

The developer gets to artificially lower the price of the homes, and hides the extra cost in yearly taxes. Residents feel extra burdened by taxes. They blame the city, and pressure the city to lower taxes. If the city lowers property taxes, it hurts vulnerable people. So we’re helping the developer out, at the expense of people who depend on city services.

Is it the worst crime in the world? No, of course not. But it still makes me cranky.

Back to River Bridge Ranch

It will be all single family sprawl:

River Bridge Ranch concept plan. Just single family housing, a fitness center, and a little green space.

SIGH. Can’t we put some 4-plexes and townhomes throughout this? Can’t we ever have some stores?

So what brings us here today?

Before, the PID was for $10 million.

  • The developer gets to knock about $7K off the price of each house,
  • Instead, each resident would pay a yearly PID fee of ~ $250 every year, rolled into the tax bill.

Now the developer now wants to make the PID worth $60 million:

  • Now the developer gets to knock $40K off the sale price of every house.
  • Each resident will pay a yearly PID fee of ~$1480 every year, rolled into the tax bill.

The reason is because construction costs have gone up so much since 2020. Sure, that’s understandable. But I still resent the PID.

The vote: unanimous and in favor. Oh well.

….

Item 9: Berry Aviation

We lease part of the airport to a company called Berry Aviation.

If you’ll recall, Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis got into a little pissing match back in 2022 and 2023. They were both trying to be the most ostentatiously cruel to immigrants, for shits and giggles.

Importantly, DeSantis used Berry Aviation for some of this.

So at today’s meeting, Amanda asked them, “Are you involved in any immigration activity?”

They said no. They do some airplane maintenance and parts sales to DPS, and everything else is international.

Hopefully they’re done with the “abuse immigrants for kicks” business forever.

…

Items 29-30: That water treatment plant again.

Now we’re back here again:

Sedona South with wastewater treatment plant circled

We’re allocating $42 million for the next phase of the water treatment plant, and another $2.5 million for the electrical stuff. Great.

…

Items 31-32: CDBG and HSAB

CDBG and HSAB are the grants to local social services:

  • CDBG stands for “Community Development Block Grants”. This is federal money that comes with a lot of paperwork and restrictions.
  • HSAB stands for “Human Services Advisory Board”. This is city money that is completely flexible.

Each pot of money are about $750K, so there’s a total of about $1.5 million. (Past CDBG allocations, past HSAB allocations)

In the past, we allocated these two pots out separately, which was tricky for the nonprofits. Should they apply to both? Is one a better fit than the other? If they apply to the lesser, does it make it harder for them to get awarded the better fit one? etc.

This year, we’re discussing both pots together at the same time.

Here is what staff is recommending for the CDBG money:

This is the list of all the CDBG allocations. I don't know how to handle the alt text here.

Here is what staff is recommending for the HSAB money:

This is the list of all the HSAB recommendations.

(If you want to read why things did not get funded, I could only find it in the gigantic meeting packet. Go here and read pages 1380-1382.)

Between the two pots of money, the total amount requested is $3.3 million. We only have $1.5 million to give out. So that’s a bummer.

…

The actual answer is to increase state funding.

Good news!

This is a rich state! There is plenty of money to solve a lot of humanitarian problems.

Bad news!

  • Our elected officials are ruthless asshats who will not spend money to solve humanitarian problems.

The problem with San Marcos is Texas, as always.

…

Citizen Comment

At the beginning of the meeting, people from several nonprofits spoke to Council:

Hays Helping Hands (formerly Nosotros Los Gente): why $0 for the one program?  Can you combine our applications and let us shift money around?

Southside:  We knew we would not receive our full amounts, but the ask was real.  The need is beyond our current capacity.  

  • In the past 6 months, we could only provide 20% of eviction prevention aid
  • We provided 16K meals in 2025, but we’re projected to provide 20K meals in 2026, on same budget
  • The waitlist for shelter 250 people long.

All our partners are also underfunded.  Feeding programs have gotten full funding but other parts of funding children and elderly have not.  City leadership needs to put together an action plan to find more funding for nonprofits.   Less than $1 million could fund every request. 

BR3T: BR3T started off using a lot of covid money to provide emergency shelter. 

  • Currently in Hays county, 59% of renters are rent-burdened, which means spending >30% of their income on housing.
  • Eviction rates have doubled since pre-covid.

Our partners are equally underfunded.  The need has outgrown HSAB funding.  HSAB needs more funding.

…..

What does Council say?

Lorenzo: HOME Center applied to both pots of money for the same project. Can we consolidate them to one application?

This does not go anywhere, since he didn’t consult HOME center ahead of time.

Amanda: I’d like to move $5K from Hays Mental Health Court to HOME Center.

The vote on Amanda’s motion:

Yes, give HOME Center the extra $5K: Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh

No, don’t: Lorenzo

Jane abstains because she is on the Mental Health Court board. Matthew is absent.

Then the overall vote on CDBG funding:

The vote on all staff CDBG recommendations:

Yes: Jane Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh

No: Lorenzo

I have no idea why Lorenzo is being ornery.

Note: HSAB funding will be rolled into the budget in September, so we don’t vote on that now.

….

Since Texas is not going to step up…

Could San Marcos afford to spend more money on social services?

Sort of! We do not have much extra money laying around. But we could have made different decisions in the past.

Have you ever heard this Jar of Life rocks-and-sand thing? Here’s a typical explanation:

Screenshot of text from the link: How the Jar of Life Works 1. Big Rocks: These are your most important priorities—family, health, personal growth, meaningful relationships, and core goals. They represent the things that truly give your life purpose and fulfillment. 2. Pebbles: These are secondary priorities—work, hobbies, social activities, or material things. They’re important but not life-defining. 3. Sand: These are the small, day-to-day distractions like social media, trivial tasks, or mindless entertainment. If you start with the sand or pebbles, there will be no room for the big rocks. But if you place the big rocks first, the pebbles and sand will naturally fill the remaining spaces.
Illustration of three jars. One has big rocks, one has middle rocks, one has sand.
Faig? Facks? Hamily? What in the AI slop is this garbage.

The City Budget Is a Jar

Our city budget works like this, too:

Big rocks: things that tie up millions of dollars for 30 years

  • Bonds for construction projects. (Like the $44 million for the wastewater treatment plant that we approved a few minutes ago.)
  • Development agreements for things like Embassy Suites/Conference Center, or Amazon, or Buccee’s
  • Developments like Kissing Tree, which gets $1.8 million per year. (They have a deal known as a TIRZ, Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.)

These guys are all set for 30 years! No yearly proposals. No justifying their pennies. No unexpected cuts when budgets are lean. Once they get approved, they’re golden.

Medium rocks: Departmental funding

  • Salaries and benefits for city employees
  • Basic maintenance and supplies

These departments do have to grovel every year, but there’s an expectation that budgets won’t be drastically slashed without warning. It gets incrementally squeezed, little by little.

Sand in the crevices:

  • All the social services.
  • Anyone’s pet project

Imagine if social services was a big rock! Imagine if they were guaranteed $1.8 million a year, for the next 30 years, like Kissing Tree. Imagine if we took out a bond to fund social services.

Note: I am not recommending this. Funding should come from Texas and the US federal government. We are not a rich town!

My point is how choices have been automatically baked into the budget, for decades. No one has to consciously choose an unfair thing for it to perpetuate itself. (This is called an accountability sink.)

….

Item 33: Hays Central Appraisal District

If you’re a home owner, your home gets appraised every year, and then you get taxed on that value.

The magic happens up in Kyle:

Location of the Hays County Central Appraisal District on I35 in Kyle

Apparently they’ve outgrown their building.

The main problem is that they need to be able to handle protests. To quote the packet:

Since 2019, the number of protests filed has increased from 22,000 to more than 55,000. To address this growth, the Board of Directors expanded the number of members of the ARB, but the District office does not have the capacity to house more than three panels per day. Even with these efforts, the increasing volume of protests continues to place significant demands on District facilities and resources.


The current District office does not adequately support our public visitors, staffing levels, operational needs, or future growth. Parking shortages create ongoing logistical and safety concerns for staff and visitors alike. We must be better positioned to serve the public, support the ARB process, and produce timely appraisal rolls for all taxing units.

Here’s what it looks like:

Bird's eye view of the appraisal building.

In order for the new building to get going, the county has to get permission from all the cities. Council was fine with this.

This means that our payments will go up in the future. But not today.

….

Item 37: Homelessness Committee and Criminal Justice Reform Committee

These two committees are getting merged to one Safety Committee.

Seems fine. There are a lot of solutions that affect both of these.

Hours 0:00 – 4:21, 6/16/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

Citizen Comment

The biggest topic was the arrest and ICE imprisonment of Gerardo Reyes and SMPD treatment of his son. Five people spoke on this topic (including Gerardo himself, his wife, and his daughter).

Since the last meeting, Gerardo was released from ICE, but there’s still a lot of issues left:

  • Legal fees have piled up, the family has been traumatized, and they have lost 77 days of income
  • There was never any crime committed in the first place. The son was a minor and was treated inhumanely as well, and is still facing charges.
  • The officer has not faced meaningful consequences, despite evidence that he violated SMPD protocol
  • SMPD and San Marcos have stonewalled the family. Release the bodycam footage.
  • The family deserves apology, remedy, and transparency

(Petition and family GoFundMe if you’re so inclined.)

A few speakers on the Land Development Code:

  • Still a lot of concerns with data centers. The constraints on water and noise are insufficient, and you need a decommissioning process for when they fold and walk away.
  • Restrict electric and gas offsite generators to Heavy Industrial zones.
  • Regulate the sale of water to other communities
  • Form an environmental commission

Other topics:

  • The two El Camino Ways are very confusing. Please rename one of them until they are connected in the future.
  • Apartment complexes should not give the location of the complex on parking permits, for safety reasons.
  • Good job on the budget town hall. But the public did not show up. You should update the downtown cameras for safety.

….

Item 1: FM 1978 Water Treatment Plant

Let’s talk about indoor plumbing. You flush your toilet or wash your clothes, and the water goes down the drain. If you’re on city water, it flows down city pipes until it gets to a water treatment plant. The water treatment plant cleans up the dirty water, and then releases it into nature.

We’re getting a lot of development east of 35, so we need a new water treatment plant.

Here’s where it will be:

From what I understand, there are a few different kinds of water treatment plants. From worst to best:

  1. Multiple small package plants. These are bad because they cause algae blooms in the river.
  2. Regular water treatment plant.
  3. Reclamation water treatment plant.

We’re doing option 3! This means that we get gray water back out. You can use it to water a golf course or flush toilets or irrigate crops. It’s not clean enough to drink, but it replaces drinking water.

Eventually it will produce 2-8 million gallons per day. This is great! (It’s 100% bonkers that we use pure drinking water to water our lawns and flush our toilets. Or to cool a data center.)

…

This will be our second water reclamation facility. We already have one that’s been up and running for years.

Here’s some of the places that we already run gray water out to:

via

The Kissing Tree golf course, the Hays Energy power plant, and a lot of the irrigation downtown and at Texas State are all on gray water. This is great!

…

How much will this second water reclamation plant cost?

It’s not cheap. This is why City Hall will cost $80-100 million. It’s just expensive to build things.

Everyone thinks this is great.

…

Item 13-14: Student Housing

The neighborhood around Little HEB is kinda getting bulldozed.

Here are the student apartment complexes that Council has approved recently:

(2024 project:  Feb 27, April 2nd ,  April 16th,
2025 project: April 15th)

You can’t lower housing costs without an abundance of housing. But at the same time, it is a bummer to see a cool part of town lose its soul.

One other irritating thing: this is all the same developer. They hired Shannon Mattingly, who was the San Marcos Planning Director, and now they’re running the same playbook over and over again. It feels like we’re a buffet table for them.

Today they’re back for this piece:

I admit that it is a very good spot for apartments!

What’s there right now?

That main building is the Pennington Funeral Home:

Or rather, was the Pennington Funeral Home. (We’ve discussed how it has already been demolished.)

You see that little house to the right? The back half of it is white.

If you walk around the corner, this is the back half of it:

So this corner house and the yellow house behind it will be demolished, too. Or they already are!

…

Okay, fine. What’s going to get built?

They can already build apartments here. They can already sell them as rent-by-the-bedroom, as well. They do not need council approval for that.

However, they would like two perks:

  1. They would like to have up to 5 bedrooms per units. Right now they’re capped at 3.
  2. They would like to have 7 stories instead of 5 stories, so that they can fit in a lot more apartments. The height wouldn’t change.

Both of these mean that they can fit more students into one building.

In exchange, Council could ask for different things:

  • Make the building LEED-certified, which means more environmentally friendly
  • Make up to 10% of the units affordable housing
  • Make up to 20% of their units “workforce housing”, which means slightly less affordable but still below market rate.
  • Include a childcare facility, or retail space on the ground floor, or extra public park space.

Council could get creative! They have some cards to play here!

….

There is one extra important thing that Council cares a lot about:

In 2023, both Sanctuary Lofts and Vistas Apartments were sold to Texas State and converted to student housing. But Texas State doesn’t pay city taxes. So the city lost about $750K in yearly taxes, with this sale. Everyone was pretty salty about this.

Consequently, there is a condition that these new apartments can’t be sold to Texas State for 12 years.

….

For funsies, the developer made some drawings of what it might look like:

That’s nice!

…

What does Council say?

Amanda: I’m a no.

  • This doesn’t benefit local residents.
  • It doesn’t provide any affordable housing
  • A 12 year delay on selling to Texas State is not long enough.
  • We don’t have enough protections for tenants in place yet.

Matthew: I’m a yes!

  • Keep students next to campus, and away from our neighborhoods.

Nobody: Why don’t we ask for more concessions, like affordability, Leed-certified, or extra green space?

The vote:

(There were two separate votes – one for extra stories and one for 5 bedroom units. They both went the same way.)

…

My $0.02: I probably would have voted yes, but I think we should have asked for more concessions. We gave away too much in 2025, as well.

…

Item 10: back to Operation Triage

[Note: I got this story garbled when I first published it. I think the current version below is correct, now.]

A few meetings ago, Council was going to give some money to Operation Triage and Mission Able, for home repairs. The Mission Able part got derailed by one specific home owner, who told a harrowing tail of how her foundation repair became a nightmare.

Today, this item took about 30 seconds. Everyone just said, “We got everything squared away! We’re giving the money to Operation Triage. The home owner is getting help.”

The vote:

Lorenzo wasn’t convinced, I guess.

….

Item 17: Land Development Code amendments

Background: The Land Development Code is where all the detailed rules live that govern how things get built. Every few years, it’s time to make updates. Previously discussed here , here, and here.

Last time they passed 5 amendments, but they weren’t done with everything yet.

Today’s topics are:

  1. Banning Data Centers
  2. Alcohol permits downtown for bars and restaurants
  3. Signs posted to announce upcoming hearings
  4. Council overturning P&Z decisions on alcohol permits
  5. Regulating large scale electric and on-site gas generators
  6. Strike a weird bit about businesses being limited to corners

Let’s dive in! I’ll keep this brief-ish.

…

  1. Banning Data Centers

Backstory: Back in April, Amanda made a motion: all data centers should be banned in city limits.

The April vote went like this:

So it failed.

Council then spent two more meetings wheeling and dealing about how to regulate data centers. Do they get permitted from P&Z or Council? Which zonings are they allowed in? What regulations do we put on sound and water and electricity? Etc. Many hours were spent.

This meeting

So I was not expecting it, on Tuesday, when Lorenzo said, “I’d like to re-open the vote on whether to ban data centers.”

Clearly there have been off-screen discussions!

They spend barely 30 seconds debating it. Jane and Josh both say: “I’m a no. I’m hoping the technology gets better and so we can allow them without destroying the environment.”

Lorenzo: “I actually feel that way, too. But we can always go back and un-ban them.”

The new vote:

So there you have it: no data centers in the city limits.

All the wheeling and dealing clearly occurred outside of Council meetings. It was weird and mysterious.

…

Is this good? Some thoughts:

  • This is democracy! Residents of San Marcos do not want data centers! It is healthy for city council to reflect the will of the people.
  • The technology for sustainable data centers already exists. They can use reclaimed water for cooling and solar for electricity. Texas just isn’t willing to regulate businesses.
  • The data center problem isn’t a city problem. It’s a county problem. Counties can’t regulate data centers. The overwhelming majority of data centers are outside city limits. Until Texas law changes, the data centers are going to cannibalize central Texas.

As always, the problem with San Marcos is Texas.

…

2. Alcohol permits downtown involving food trucks.

Lord. We spend about 30 minutes listening to Jane go in circles. Back in May, she got flustered and upset about this topic and never really recovered.

The issue: do food trucks count as restaurants that can sell alcohol?

I keep deleting my explanations, because it’s truly too boring to read. Yes, food trucks count as restaurants that can sell alcohol.

In the end, they add a definition: mobile truck unit.

…

3. Signs for public hearings:

When there’s going to be a public hearing for an alcohol permit or a rezoning, you have put up signs like this:

via

except it says “San Marcos” instead of “Temecula”.

Up till now, the city has put them up. Should we have the applicant put them up, instead?

Council decides no. Double-checking the applicant’s work is more work than just doing it ourselves.

…

4. P&Z decisions for alcohol permits

P&Z grants permits to restaurants to serve alcohol. If someone doesn’t like the decision, they can appeal to Council. It takes a 6-1 vote to overturn P&Z.

This played out with Tantra in 2024. P&Z put a severe noise restriction on their CUP. (It was ridiculous.) Tantra went to Council, and there was a huge community outcry. Council overturned the decision.

Amanda wants to kill the supermajority requirement to overturn P&Z on alcohol permits, so that the Tantra situation can’t happen again.

The vote:

So it passes.

…

Note: I strongly disagree. This is bad governance. The Tantra situation was a very unusual edge case, and edge cases make bad policy.

Much more often, it goes like this: a business wants to renew their alcohol permit. They’ve been extremely negligent about paperwork. For example, they let their permit expire 8 years ago. P&Z puts some constraints on their permit to get them back on track.

The business says, “Wah! But I’m just a baby!” and calls up every member of Council to complain and piss and moan. Then Council reverses the P&Z decision, and lets them get away with negligence.

Listen – two things can be true:

  1. Sometimes P&Z makes crazy decisions that need to be overturned. (Tantra)
  2. Sometimes businesses are trying to use their connections to get out of consequences.

The second scenario happens WAY MORE OFTEN than the first scenario. But Amanda has now tilted the playing field towards those businesses. Boo.

(Also, it’s generally bad when a government body weakens a check-and-balance mechanism.)

….

4. Cleaning up weird code

There’s an odd clause all over the Land Development Code:

No one knows why it’s there and no one enforces it. So we’ve removed it.

…

5. Regulating gas and electric generators

Originally, this was part of all the data center discussions. Data centers all have large scale back up generators, which can cause a ton of pollution and noise and mess.

But now, we’ve banned data centers. Do we still want to regulate generators?

Answer: Yes. Someday data centers might be un-banned, or there could be another reason someone is using large scale power generation.

…

And with that, the Land Development Code updates are complete! Good work, team.

…

Item 18: Fire Station No. 3

This is Fire Station No. 3:

It’s down on Hunter Road, near Miller middle school and across from the HEB distribution center.

They’re getting an apparatus bay, workout/fitness room, storage areas, new driveways, and interior renovation. It’s costing about $5.6 million.

Someday soon, kids, it will look like this:

Great!

…

Item 21: City Hall Steering Committee

The whole 3 pm workshop was about City Hall. At that workshop, they decided to grow the steering committee.

The steering committee was originally chosen back in November 2024. Every councilmember picked two steering committee representatives.

It was the last meeting of Mark Gleason and Jude Prather. In a jerk move, council voted to let the outgoing council pick the members, rather than the incoming council. So Amanda and Lorenzo have never had representation, and new councilmember Josh does not either.

Now we’re fixing this. Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh will each pick a steering two new committee members. The committee will get six new members.

Would YOU like to be on the committee? If so, you can apply here. Or you can just email Amanda, Lorenzo, and Josh directly, at arodriguez7@sanmarcostx.gov, lgonzalez@sanmarcostx.gov, and jpaselk@sanmarcostx.gov.

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Item 22: El Camino Way

We’re going down just past the high school for this next one:

In that area, there’s a road called “El Camino Way”, which is partially built:

The problem is that the two halves of the road don’t connect. This causes all sorts of problems for delivery trucks and people using google maps.

Eventually they will connect! Some day. Just not today.

In the meantime, we’re going to pick a new name for the new one.

Some ideas:

  • Crested Cara Cara Way
  • Wild Wind Way
  • Old Johnson’s Farm Road
  • Heritage Road

Someone named Carla spoke at Citizen Comment, because she lives over there, and explained the whole situation to Council. She joked that Carlita’s Way would be a good name.

Everyone on council agreed! You can’t say this town doesn’t have a sense of humor.

P&Z gets to recommend a name. They can pick whatever they want, but Council’s gonna overturn them in favor of Carlita’s Way.