SAN MARCOS CITY COUNCIL
At the May 20 City Council Work Session, the council approved a temporary fence around Rio Vista Park with managed access points. This decision was made in response to the increased summer tourism, which is leading to increased litter and parking issues at river front parks such as Rio Vista. The city presented an access fee system for out of town visitors, but after much debate between city officials there was a 5 to 2 vote to discuss the fee system at a later meeting. The city also presented a request to modify the city ordinance to allow parking enforcement technicians the authority to initiate the towing of an illegally parked vehicle. The council did not approve this change to the ordinance with only three members voting in favor.
The city is rolling out a managed access test plan, which includes installing the temporary fences along the border of Rio Vista Park and staffing entrance points during the weekends with Park Ambassadors who will educate tourists and citizens about the park rules, including the can ban. There will be signage installed on the fences informing the public of the rules and restrictions for the park.
The city has been working on a riverfront parks summer season action plan since last year saw historic highs in nonresidents visiting the river on weekends and summer holidays. The can ban was adopted into the city ordinance in February 2024 and officially began enforcement on May 1 of this year. The ordinance states that, “It is unlawful for any person to possess any glass or single- use beverage container in or on the public waterway or in any designated areas where signs prohibit them on city park property.” The first year of the ban focused on education only with the city implementing permanent park signage, dispersing printed materials, distributing city branded Reuse at the River containers, billboard messaging, social media campaigns, direct messaging, and they leveraged community partnerships to provide education to local business patrons.
During citizen comment, Virginia Parker, San Marcos River Foundation executive director, and Kileigh Reed, Wild Rice Studio owner and The Eyes of the San Marcos River board member, gave their support for the managed access points in order to combat the litter issues caused by weekend river usage.
During the meeting Rodney Gonzales, San Marcos Assistant City Manager, gave a recap on the 2024 summer season.
“It is difficult to enforce non-life[-threatening] safety ordinances — single- use beverage container, styrofoam, charcoal, etc. — because of the need to attend to multiple and consistent incidents that threaten life safety and life-threatening injuries sustained due to intoxication, falls and hot environment,” Gonzales read from the presentation slides.
The insights the city gained from residents, businesses and visitors include the notion that the riverfront parks are not a safe place to visit because of intoxicated visitors and fights that occur. Other concerns include that the weekend crowds are too large to enjoy the swimming pool and tennis courts and that there is too much traffic on residential streets as well as illegal parking. The data collection from the Marshalls office showed that in 2024 there were 8,714 violations recorded at city parks with 329 people ejected from the park with 48 citations given, two criminal trespasses issued and two arrests made.
“Going into last year’s summer season [the Marshalls office] had nine full time deputy marshalls, and we are down to two fulltime deputy marshalls,” said Tiffany Williams, San Marcos interim marshall.
There are four dedicated city teams and one contractor who are on-site at the riverfront parks during the summer season. The parks and recreation department provides Park Ambassadors at a cost of $138,000 for the summer season. The Marshals Office provides Deputy Marshals, Park Rangers and Parking Technicians at a cost of $452,000 for the summer season. Easter Seals are also contracted by the city at a cost of $118,000 for the summer season. The city has a Habitat Conservation Plan and instream litter removal that costs $20,000, totalling $728,000 spent by the city to manage patrons and litter at riverfront parks during the summer season.
The 2025 summer season operations plan includes utilizing contracted peace officers during the weekends to supplement on-site Deputy Marshals. The Lions Club shuttle will use a new route that avoids Riverside Drive to alleviate neighborhood traffic. The new shuttle route uses Hopkins and IH-35 access roads to get to Rio Vista. On holiday weekends, the city will close Cheatham Street between Riverside Drive and CM Allen Parkway during park hours. Ramon Lucio baseball fields and the Rio Vista pavilion usage and rental dates will be blocked during holiday weekends, and the Children’s Park parking lot will be used for staging and emergency vehicle ingress/egress.
The city council approved the managed access test plan. The temporary chain link fencing with gates will be installed prior to Memorial Day weekend and will remain up through the summer season with Park Ambassadors staffing key access points during weekends. The company that the city uses to install and maintain portable toilets at the city parks is including the fence at a heavy discount.
The city manager’s office proposed an access fee for out-of-town visitors to generate revenue that will offset the annual cost for securing, cleaning and maintaining riverfront parks. The proposition said that residents will not be charged an access fee and instead would be issued a resident river pass. The proposed access fee would be $5 per individual age six or older and $25 per group up to 10 people of any age. The parks and recreation team said they are prepared to host multiple in-person resident events throughout June to help residents register for the passes as well as providing education and an online registration portal. After debate, the city voted 5 to 2 to revisit the park fee plan at a later date.
The city requested a modification to the parking enforcement ordinance to allow parking enforcement technicians the authority to initiate the towing of a vehicle. Currently, the only way a technician can get a car towed is to call for a Deputy Marshal or Police Officer to arrive at the scene to initiate the towing of a vehicle. This request is due to the rising number of cars parking illegally in or around riverfront parks, which risks the safety of pedestrians and blocks pathways for emergency vehicles. Only three city council members voted in favor of changing the ordinance.
Interim Marshall Tiffany Williams commended the efforts of park rangers.
“There is no one size fits all [solution]; it has to be done with numerous folks acting together to accomplish the goal,” Williams said.
Park hours are 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. unless stated otherwise. A full list of park rules and a link to the city ordinance can be found online at tx-sanmarcoscity. civicplus.com/889/Park-Rules.
