San Marcos — After earlier talk about the city adopting “Open San Marcos” transparency recommendations and the desire for the school district to do the same, city council candidate John Thomaides came under fire Monday from a resident and an opponent over his own filing of financial reports.

“Your financial reports are often late,” Lisa Coppoletta said.

Thomaides responded saying, “mine are timely, accurate and clear.”

But one of his opponents in the Nov. 8 race, Terry Nichols, disagreed, saying Thomaides’ July 15 report was not filed until Aug. 31.

“We need to be ethical and responsible. The Texas Ethics Commission has specific rules and John is not paying attention to details,” Nichols said.

Nicholas Cubides told the audience that transparency was important while Hooper responded saying his job entails working “everyday on ethics.  I stay clean and conflict free.”

The exchanges came during Monday night’s League of Women Voters debate for the two city council seats up for election this year. Held at the city’s Activity Center, it drew a large crowd to hear four candidates vying for the Place 3 seat left open by Fred Terry’s decision not to seek re-election and two candidates running for the Place 4 seat currently held by Chris Jones.

Thomaides, Nichols, Cubides and Hooper are the four candidates running for Place 3 while Wayne Becak is challenging Jones.

First on stage were the Place 3 candidates, and in opening statements while Thomaides, Hooper and Nichols talked about vision and public service, Cubides was more blunt.

“I really want to be a politician.  As a kid I took a look around and said  I can’t believe these are the people....” Cubides said in referring to politicians he’d seen.

Revitalization of downtown and what to do with Springtown Mall found some common agreement among the candidates with discussion of adoption of the new smart code.

Thomaides also suggested he’d like to see something similar to downtown Fredericksburg as the county begins to vacate buildings later this year.

“We have a lot of activity at night, but we could work towards an environment for the daytime too,” Thomaides said.

Hooper and Nichols also talked about looking at Springtown Mall with some sort of sporting connection given its location to the university stadium and the Bobcats’ pending move to the WAC next year.

“I’d like to focus on the family, indoor sports and mixed retail,” Hooper said.

The proposed Aquarena Springs overpass came up in response to an audience question from resident Ollie Giles regarding growth of the city, traffic problems and transportation.

“We have the power to move the trains down the road,” Cubides said. “We should be able to schedule the trains too.”

Thomaides responded that the Aquarena Springs overpass was coming soon, but Nichols said that wasn’t the case.

“I was in Washington last week, and the Aquarena Springs overpass is not funded from what Congressman Doggett’s office told me,” Nichols said.

In the second hour of the debates it was the Place 4 candidates’ turn to answer questions by the League and audience participants.

Both Becak and Jones agreed upon the importance of a master plan for the city, but with slightly different emphasis.

“The master plan needs revising, we need to protect neighborhoods,” Becak said.

“The master plan has got to be a living document and be open to changes,” Jones said. “You, the citizens, tell us what you want.  Not everyone in San Marcos can afford to buy a house.”

When asked about bringing living wage jobs to San Marcos, Jones called for the need to go after high tech and medical jobs as well as develop and support small businesses.

“We need to be sure and communicate what we have,” Jones said.  “We have a young work force, something the other communities don’t have.”

Becak also called for implementing the plans a consultant had presented which showed this area ripe for attracting high tech and medical field jobs.

Affordable homes was another area brought up in the questioning.

“We need more diversified housing for first time homeowners and the middle class, but we also need gated communities for higher income workers if we are going to attract large businesses here to San Marcos,” Becak said.

Early voting for the Nov. 8 election starts next Monday, Oct. 24.