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With early voting nearing, city council candidates - vying for places 1 and 2 - are making their rounds. Such was the case midweek, when the Four Rivers Association of Realtors, along with the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce, presented a political forum on Wednesday.
Each candidate had 90 seconds to answer a battery of questions presented them by proctor Keely Sonlitner with Corridor Title.
Q. Affordable housing - Place 1.
While San Marcos is rich and natural beauty, resources and culture. Our citizens to a large extent, are economically disadvantaged. This coupled with the popularity of our region, and the accelerated growth we are experiencing makes the issue of finding affordable housing much more difficult for people in our community. What role do you think our city should play in addressing the issue of affordable housing? And when city strategies do you see as the most effective and achieving affordable housing?
Mark Gleason
“First off without good-paying jobs, and the opportunities for citizens to thrive, it’d be very difficult to impact the affordable housing question. One of the first things I will try to do, and I will encourage the city to do, is try to bring in good-paying jobs. I think without that we will struggle ‘in’ a housing option. The city can also use the flexibility Code SMTX has given us. There’s some flexibility and some options in the different styles of housing. That’s why I supported some of the things that have come before planning and zoning…for those options. Keeping taxes low.
One of the things that can keep people in their homes is bringing in new jobs, but also a diversification of the property tax base so we can actually give individual homeowners a property tax break. I think those are the three things: jobs, property taxes, and opportunities should help encourage homeownership, along with the things that Code SMTX has put into place, with the land development code, has given us some flexibility on some different types of styles of housing.”
Maxfield Baker
I believe the city’s role in affordable housing is not just to consider the supply of it, but the actual form of it. A lot of times we hear we simply do not have enough housing to solve this issue and frankly, when we look at the density we see in other cities, we see that density does not necessarily bring the price down. What we need to do is leverage the city’s resources to help bring more affordable players to our town. People willing to build something that is not a cost burden on some of the more suffering members of our community. I believe we can achieve that using things like community land banks, as well as basic understanding how the appraisal process works, and empowering our citizens to fight what they believe to be an unjust appraisal of their property.
We all know this has become a big issue and we see while our taxes aren’t necessarily going up the appraisals are. That’s what’s becoming a burden to a lot of the members of our community. Now, we talked in the last budget session, the City Council kind of discuss the possibility of freezing that tax rate. I don’t think that’s quite the solution, because it might create more budget shortfalls for us in the long run. So, I think the city needs to have a more holistic approach and focus on bringing in developers that are willing to build an affordable product.”
Q. Property Rights versus historic preservation - Place 2
This past June in the San Marcos City Council called a special meeting to address changes to the demolition permit review ordinance. As you know, this act received many mixed reactions. Knee jerk or not this has raised many concerns in our local business community. What assurances can you provide to business owners, potential business owners, and landowners that they should not fear over-regulation and a burdensome permitting process? Where is the balance between historic preservation and property rights?
Saul Gonzales
“Well, that’s a really hard question. I believe in property rights - there’s is no doubt. But when it comes to our historical district our buildings need closer examination before they’re knocked down and torn apart. There’s a lot of culture in our buildings, and instead of someone just getting a permit, or contractor getting the permit to knock a building down, I think it should go through a process. That’s why I voted to extend that period of six months to make sure we can check those things out.”
Devin Barrett
“San Marcos is historic. We are one of the longest inhabited places in America and to have that distinction is crucial. We should do everything we can to protect every historical site in the city. Property rights are extremely important, and I will never infringe on property rights. We do have to take into consideration what the city’s history is and what kind of culture we want to show to the rest of the world that come to San Marcos, and Texas State University and see everything that we have.
We must protect both property rights and historical sites.”
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
“I think it’s unfortunate the way the city council has been so reactive. That historical resources survey has been out since February and suddenly, under the cloak of darkness, with that blue telephone building, the city wants to change its workflow.
People I’m sorry, they had a right to demolish that building. But what’s happened is it’s become an antithetical us/ them scenario, versus an open and honest conversation. We’ve known since February, we’ve had that resources survey, but the city council has not been transparent. This has put the business community in a bind. Frankly, it seemed to be the optics were more to protect their political careers than open and honest communication with the business community. But instead, we don’t have an open dialogue. Now as far as a level playing field, the rules need to be out there, and we all need to follow them. We don’t just change the rules midstream. With me, you’re going to get someone who’s on the ball, and I’m watching what they’re doing and I’m open and transparent. If we have those documents, we need to stick by them and frankly, the business community was shut out of that dialogue."
Q. The topic is on growth – Place 1 & 2
As we all know, San Marcos is growing consistently ranking as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country; Best Places to retire; Top University Town. For years, we have watched our neighbors to the north continually fail and dealing with their growth. Austin donned the attitude if we don't build it, they won't come. As anyone who has sat in Austin traffic knows that did not work, and people are still coming. As our neighbors continue to pay the price for inaction there are many lessons, we can learn from them and what not to do. What are your priorities when it comes to managing growth and preparing for the San Marcos of the future? Be as specific as possible.
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
"Well, I agree with something Mr. Gleason said - we need jobs. I commute. They call it Slaughter Lane for a reason because you get stuck in traffic for 30 minutes trying to get your location. Okay, so that means we need to make sure we have streets we can get through. We start a project we finished in a timely manner. Look at the whole town, it's just all revved up, the jobs are important. I talked about affordable housing, but people like me, who have been teaching for 30 years, we must commute. Additionally, I think that we need to have incentives for builders who have green building products. We have wonderful products for upscale housing. Some of those developments are beautiful. They've taken great care to protect those trees, and green spaces and so forth.
I think we have a lot of people in this community with a panoramic vision and a passion for San Marcos. The problem is we're not having enough dialogue and a lot of that is getting log jammed at the city management level. With me and the City Council, that's going to stop."
Devin Barrett
"I think the city is growing. We see that at Texas State University where it's extremely densely populated, and everybody is just in one place. I think part of that is parking. It's unrelated, but parking is completely an issue when it comes to densely populated areas. We see parking issues all over campus and all over downtown. I think what our neighbors to the north and the south, they don't see the aspect of how parking affects everything at the more local level. If I'm elected to City Council, parking would be a huge priority, because density equals parking."
Saul Gonzales
"We've got to be realistic with ourselves. Growth is coming. It's coming fast, the university's growing left and right. Our housing market is also growing left and right. Those are big concerns. I think one of the most important things we should have is the infrastructure before we start doing all this rezoning. I think that's crucial, to have that in place to be able to manage the traffic from point A to point B. But keep in mind, growth and homes are not a bad idea. That brings in property taxes and right now our budget is maybe 30 percent of taxes, and maybe our sales tax is 30 something percent before we're relying on sales tax quite a bit for our budget. But when we get more homes and development here in San Marcos, I think that's good and healthy."
Maxfield Baker
"I would have to agree with Councilmember Gonzalez that a lot of times our infrastructure is lacking to support the amount of density being asked for. I do serve as a Planning and Zoning Commissioner and a lot of my decision process is based around whether the streets and the sidewalks are there to support that kind of infrastructure, in addition to transportation.
So, all too often we're trying to balance our growth between density and sprawl. We all understand and have seen the reports that sprawl is not very tenable, and density does have some merit to it. But it's a matter of not what it is, it's where it is.
We need to figure out the right places to put these densities and to me, the key for that is the infrastructure that's in place for it. If we want to encourage more density along with our cores, or along with other neighborhoods than we need to improve their roads and their sidewalks so that those are tenable to that kind of density. We cannot just assume we're going to build up without the infrastructure in place as Mr. Barrett said, we have a parking issue. A lot of times what our investors and the developers are asking for is for us to build more density and reduce parking. I don't think that's a solution for us."
Mark Gleason
"Growth is going to happen. It's something I don't think we need to be scared of. Without it, we can't expand the tax base, improve jobs and opportunities, and provide more housing opportunities. We worked hard on things like the Land Development Code. To put some of those things in place where we can balance growth, with environmental challenges. That's why I did support things like Mystic Canyon and the Smart Terminal. I think without things that we put in place with the Land Development Code, I may not have supported them. So, I think that the staff and the City Council and Planning Zoning Commission, and the community worked very hard on putting that document in place. I think we can use that as a guiding document to help manage growth and not fear it. To expand the tax base to bring down property taxes to bring new jobs and new opportunities to the city."
Q. Workforce and talent retention – Place 1
If you talk to any HR director in San Marcos, they will tell you the same thing, they are hiring. From the talent on the hill, Texas State to the talent coming out of our local school system, San Marcos is prime for job growth and career growth. That said, many San Marcos residents are underemployed, and most Texas State students are unable to stay after graduation. What Do you believe is the greatest workforce development challenge in San Marcos? And how do you propose we as a community address it?
Mark Gleason
"Being a retail manager, I've employed hundreds of people in town. I wish I could have, through the opportunities I had in my business, or through the corporation to pay them more money, to give them opportunities to advance their career and to make better money. I approve of the 380 (agreement) processes that GSMP and the council put into place previously with $15 as a minimum wage for tax abatements. I think those are incentives we can give to corporations to bring jobs here as opportunities. I don't think that is a too low of a wage for a starting opportunity for people that may be working retail, or people in my type of industry making $20 now, to make $30 or $35 let alone advancements of manufacturing processes and things like that, that we may see in the future and take advantage of. I think I think we can take advantage that and partner with the university and put those kids to work for the corporations we can attend to try to bring here."
Maxfield Baker
"Part of my work history is that I actually worked in human resources, or what was formerly Customer Research International, a telephone survey company. So yes, we called you at dinner. But what we focused on was hiring hundreds of people throughout my tenure there. What became very clear is we are lacking in necessary skills such as typing and being able to read a script out loud and that starts at the high school level. So, I think we need to work much closer with our work development resources, our Workforce Solutions - get them involved - help make sure we have the proper training in place, as well as Gary Job Corps. But the reality is, these jobs that even the University is offering, don't pay a whole lot. So, they're not the cash cow we need. They're not the type of businesses going to open and unlock this opportunity for people.
I think we need to focus on, from a city level, is instead of handing out these tax abatements to these large corporations, I think we need to start empowering a lot of our smaller and local businesses, legacy businesses, that have been here and have shown that they are dedicated to staying in San Marcos. Instead of somebody coming here to make a profit, that doesn't really have the tenure here to suggest they're going to be here, in the long run. I think businesses like the loss of Tuttle Lumber, for instance, was a tragedy. Now what we're seeing is an apartment complex go up over it. If we were able to support our small businesses and help them pay higher wages to their employees, I think that'd be the best start for San Marcos."
Q. Beautification – Place 2
First impressions are lasting. Believe it or not, in communities around the country, beautification efforts play an active role in economic development. According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank and MIT, a city with twice as many picturesque locations as another city saw 10 percent growth or greater and population and jobs from 1990 to 2010. In fact, urban beauty ties with lower taxes as the most important predictor of overall population growth in cities. How would you support beautification efforts and San Marcos? And what do you think is the top beautification priority for San Marcos today?
Devin Barrett
"Beautification of San Marcos is crucial. I think, on the council, we start with the river, the one thing that has stayed constant in the city, long before any of us. I think to do that we continue to make sure the river stays clean as possible. It's kind of our crown jewel, and we don't want our crown jewel to be muddy and dirty and everything like that. I think as a city councilman, I would push for more projects, I would push for more murals, and statues because those help the cities by bringing more people into the city. Even me, I just started looking at these statues when they popped up and I had no idea where they came from, but I liked them. So, I think everybody else would like them. I think we have to push for beauty in all aspects of the city because the city is beautiful."
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
"I think the city has done a great job with all the murals and I love all those statues around town. Now I don't know if y'all have noticed that wonderful green space; have y'all seen that behind the brewery there downtown. Do you remember that old building, there was a bunch of barrels that were stacked up there? That was one of my pet projects about 10 years ago, I called the TCEQ and in 24 hours, they hauled off all those barrels that would have been projectiles in the flood. That's something as a maverick that I took care of. These were small businesses in our community that has been contacting the city for years and in one day, through a state watchdog agency, we got that taken care of. Now as far as my high priority, I'm shocked that the development community is held to a higher standard of tree preservation than the city itself. The city can come through my yard and chop down my heritage Live Oak for a sidewalk, but y'all must jump through all sorts of hoops. I say we hold our city accountable to the same rules they're holding to you when it comes to heritage Live Oaks. Many of you know I live on Belvin, I've taken much pain to make sure that my house is brought to its heyday. So, we need to continue to protect and protect what is here before it's gone forever. So, I would say things like trees and historical assets, as well as the river."
Saul Gonzales
"I'm glad to say that we do have a process for beautification, we do have a fund for that. But it goes a little bit further than that. I think beautification also is helping the low income with her homes that are in pretty bad condition. I think we need funds to help those folks to fix her homes. When people come to San Marcos, they can see those nice, old homes that are well kept. I think that's another avenue we should take when it comes to beautification. People that are struggling to make sure that their homes are kept up."
Q. The role of the city council – Place 1&2
The City charter states that Council enacts policies, adopts ordinances and resolutions, establishes the annual budget to provide services to the public sets the city tax rate, and water and electric and wastewater wage rates for San Marcos. In addition to these duties, what do you see as the most important role of a city council member?
Maxfield Baker
"I believe city council members main objective is to be a voice for the people they're serving. All too often we find our citizens are frustrated with the perception of the process that they feel left out, or that things are being taken care of behind the scenes. I believe that is the biggest tragedy we face in San Marcos because if that continues, more and more citizens will begin to become disengaged. So, I think what we need to do is hold our city staff accountable and bring more transparency forward.
Academic advisors at Texas State are required to keep track of every single piece of communication they have with students and be able to pass that on to their bosses if necessary, or for an audit. In that same vein, our city staff should be able to benchmark and give us all of the conversations that they've had with the developers, similar to how we would expect lobbyists to be handled, and make sure we are seeing that conversation when it comes to our packet at City Council. All too often, we don't quite understand why a developer was guided in a specific direction. That clarity would help us see why they chose a CUP maybe over a rezoning. So, I believe transparency is the number one fight a city council member can truly make an impact for and bring that voice of San Marcans to the limelight."
Mark Gleason
"As Max said, we need to be representative of all the people, we need to be part of the community. We need to listen to everyone from the business owners, to the homeowners. From the renters to the university and be part of the community just like everybody else, and not above it. As someone who went through the flooding process in 2015, I understand some of the things, the struggles that parts of town have had to deal with, those impacts. The biggest thing we can do is represent the people and be part of the community and do everything we can to listen to every single citizen and business owner in the community."
Saul Gonzales
"One of the roles we do in city council is to make sure we stay within balance and make sure we have a healthy fund balance as well. In this time that we're living in, we don't know what could happen five years from now, so we want to make sure we have enough funds to pay our employees. I can honestly say that we have a healthy fund balance. That's very important to me. Another role required of us is to make the budget. One thing we don't do, no individual on the council can tell the city manager what to do. It must come from the the whole Council. That's one thing I'm proud of because there's no one that's going to go up to him telling him ‘you better do this.' It doesn't work that way. It must come from the majority of the Council."
Devin Barrett
"I think the city council is crucial to be a help desk and a place for resources for citizens. Citizens should be able to come to the city council, they should be able to Gmail, they should be able to email or message their city council member and just say, ‘Hey, I have this problem can you help.' That citizen should have every amount of trust possible to know the city council member, and the entire city council is going to do something. We're not just a city, we are a community and I think the city council represents the community as a whole."
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
My experience has been as a very active member in this community and that the city manager is not listening to the neighbors nor the business community. I can cite numerous examples which neighbors will come in 10 to 20 deep, and they will be completely ditched by the city manager. I know this is also occurring, in the business community. We have no diversity right now in the city council. I'm a fiscal conservative. We need someone to watch that budget.
Additionally, we must have a dialogue. That relates to my opening statement. We need someone to make sure we're not only looking at the big pictures, the strategic initiatives of the year, but also the day to day nuts and bolts. Oftentimes I have experienced from conversations with people, taxpayers and business owners in this community, that is not necessary happening. Additionally, we need much more aggressive incentives for builders that are using green products and innovative standards that keep our town not only sustainable but beautiful as well."
Q. City staff recommendations – Place 1
In most communities when city staff recommends approval and a project has satisfied all the criteria as set by the city leaders. More often than not these projects are approved by the planning and zoning commission and subsequently City Council. In San Marcos city staff recommendations are often overlooked or dismissed. Where do you believe is the disconnect? How do you propose we provide any kind of predictability to people looking to invest in our community?
Mark Gleason
It's a challenge anytime at the dais that we have to take a vote on a project, whether it be a development, a rezoning change…anything along those lines. Staff is going to recommend approval if it meets all the criteria. But zoning is still an issue that can come up regardless of what is the criteria if it's met; it is still discretionary. What I do for every vote that I make, I take each one of them on a case by case basis. For the most part, I take the staff's recommendations, and we do approve. I have voted in favor of most things that staff has recommended. Have I voted for everything? No. Has it created some instability? Yes, it does. I think the staff should know how planning and zoning and council think along those levels. Pass that information to the person applying for the permit, as much as so that the permit applicant kind of understand the situation the council is already in, and what planning and zoning have approved and not approved in the past.
Maxfield Baker
"A lot of what we see coming before us at planning and zoning, when we see the approval, staff recommends approval, they have a box list of criteria and some of those staff will admit are subjective. So, there is the ability for us at P&Z and at a city council level to interject and the reason for that is staff is in the weeds on this all day. They truly are the experts here and I don't doubt that. But oftentimes, as I mentioned in a previous statement, we don't have all the information. When we ask questions, we need to get direct answers. We can't just be muddled under or muddle over and shown, ‘oh, well, they just don't understand this because they're not engineers, or they don't understand water, or they don't understand housing.' That is not their job. Their job is to explain that stuff to us.
We're not always going to be in the field of business that is the expert on something. So, the city staff needs to understand who they're talking to. The number one aspect of speaking is knowing your audience. So they should be able to explain that to the developers and get them to understand what the overall sense is from the strategic initiatives and the direction that city council has given them to figure out how to smooth that process over and to make it more amenable to all of us."
Q. Town and gown – Place 2
San Marcos enjoys the benefits of a very diverse population. We're home to both permanent residents as well as university residents attending Texas State University. In many cities, wherein a large university resides, the relationship between the permanent residents and university residents can often create conflict, becoming strained and divisive, leading to a town versus gown relationship. Rather than working together as one community, the university in town, can step on each other's toes or even flat out ignore one another in the pursuit of separate goals. However, the benefit of aligning priorities and cultivating a stronger relationship is plentiful, for both sides. If elected, or reelected to the city council, how would you foster and grow the relationship between the university residents and the permanent residents of San Marcos?
Saul Gonzales
First of all, I think I will reach out to the president of the university and let her know how crucial it is to also have a good dialogue between both parties. I think we both can live here in harmony. I think a lot of our college kids end up staying in San Marcos because this is a great place to live. Granted, when they're young, 21-22, they're going to do what kids do. We've been there, done that. But once you grow up a little bit, you become good, productive citizens. But what I like to see is about dialogue with the university. We've been trying to improve that in the last two and a half years since I've been on the dais, and to no avail. But I'm going to keep on trying and see what we can do.
Devin Barrett
"I'm a student. So, I think having a student on the city council would already greatly improve relationships, I think, to ensure that Texas State University and the City of San Marcos have a great working relationship is to itemize and find out what issues we both agree on. We both want to clean river, we both want to provide housing, not just for students, but for San Marcans that have been here for 20, 30, 50 years. We all want to have an economy that is ever evolving, that evolves not just with the state but with the nation. So, when there is ever an economic downturn or recession, San Marcos is not hurting from it, but thriving through it. I also just want to point out while students are sometimes temporary, I think a lot of them consider themselves locals as well. I consider myself a local. I think most of them would be more than happy to say that this is their home and would be more than willing to do something about it, to make it even better."
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
"I don't think the city council's done here enough for open communication with Texas State University. We need to be much more aggressive and much more proactive and that means opening the voices not only for our business community but those that are residents. I think the event that they have going on with the mermaids, they're going to have a symposium with various experts in the field here in our community, I think that is an awesome start. Because it's allowing people with different skill sets to come to a table in a symposium fashion and deconstruct the key issues, some of the crisis facing our community. I would like to have some sort of symposium where we invite Texas State and we have a robust attendance of those who are committed to historic preservation, those who are committed to our river, our business community, our green builders, and our developers to have a voice of dialogue out in the open public forum, not closed-door meetings where we're wondering, whatever happened with that dialogue, because lots of us have concerns. Quite frankly, you never see any report out do you during the city council meetings. Rarely do you get an instance of what kind of communication is going on right now, between our city council members, our elected officials and those up on the hill, as an elected official. I will be very transparent with those conversations and I will invite the business community to be part of that dialogue, as well as those of us in the neighborhoods were very concerned about many issues that are not being addressed."
Q. Initiatives as a city council member – Place 1&2
As a city council member, you will have the opportunity to influence and direct initiatives for our community. If elected, or reelected, what initiatives will be or will continue to be top priorities for you? And what active steps will you take to affect change in those areas?
Lisa Marie Coppoletta
"As a fiscal conservative, I'm not going to be throwing out the flavor of the month initiative and that's what we've been getting. We need to stick to the plan. If they've crafted a strategic initiative for workforce housing, then we need to finish that. If we have a code that has some holes in it, we need to tighten those up. We need to make sure that everybody stayed in their lane and we have an equal playing field. I'm not going to come in with some new initiative. I've been in this community for 30 years, and many of us are very attuned to the problems and we need to be focused.
First, we need to finish the issue with flooding. We need that infrastructure in place and those folks have been waiting for four years now for that to come to fruition. There are a lot of other small business things that we've been talking about what we need to finalize. So, I say like I did my opening statement, we need to finish what we start.
Devin Barrett
"I think elected to the city council; I would push for a renters commission to be established. I think if we had a commission directly responsible for making sure that people who rent in the city or rent an apartment, or their home, they should be able to have a place where they can get resources and voice their concerns. They should be able to have a kind of beacon to voice their concerns and find help in terms of housing. We have a 70 – 30 percent ratio when it comes to renting housing. To fix that I think we should work on bringing more into writing. And we should try and better the standards that we have. Because with 70 percent renting, there's going to be problems and those problems can be solved if we had a renter commission."
Saul Gonzales
Earlier, we talked about Texas State and one thing that I would like to see is a partnership when it comes to policing downtown. We have a lot of crime. I would like to see them join us and work downtown with their police force. I think that the students seeing their officers up there would be a big plus. That's one way that I would like to get Texas State to participate with is join our forces downtown.
We talked about the rental property here as well. You're right there are about 70 percent rental properties. The only way we're going to solve that, and I think one of my colleagues said it earlier, is jobs. They take time but they're coming and I'm excited about that. There's a lot of things we must work on. Flooding, it's an issue and I wish we could fix the flooding overnight, but we can't, there's a process. It doesn't happen that quickly."
Maxfield Baker
"I would like to continue our strong efforts on affordable housing. I think one of the areas as it's been mentioned before, is we need to focus not only on renters but people that have been established in their homes for a long time to avoid displacement. It's one of the most tragic reasons that we see our housing situation in such peril is because not only do we have folks that are no longer able to afford their rent are no longer able to afford their property taxes. But we also see folks that live in apartment complexes that are seasonally displaced by the rising rents. So, when talking with these organizations and these developers, we need to make sure that we are bringing that to the forefront and trying to figure out what the actual issue is there so that we can help keep people in place. The more folks move around, the more complicated our housing situation is going to remain.
On top of that, I agree with the sentiment that some of our flooding still does not seem solved. We remove that as a strategic initiative recently, because we have a lot of flooding mitigation projects in line. I believe that before we increase any more density in those areas, we need to ensure that those projects are finished. I live over a Rio Vista Terrace and had that flooding mitigation and not been done by the railroad track and my neighborhood would have flooded in 2015. So, I'm incredibly thankful and I have seen the power that these projects can bring and I know that's what we need to do to make sure no other folks in San Marcos are displaced by floods in the future."
Mark Gleason
"Number one, jobs. Without jobs, the expansion of the economy, without the expansion of the tax base to the city, we cannot alleviate the property tax burden we have in town and make homes affordable enough if they don't have the jobs to pay for them. Once we expand the economy and we ride the wave that hopefully, we will continue to ride for the next few years in Central Texas and the region. We can take that money and alleviate some of the burden on the lower-income, moderate-income homeowners. Flood mitigation was on the list for Council, they did take it off and I am very proud of some of the projects that we have coming down the pike. Are some of them may know slowly? Yes. But I am hopeful that some of the projects that we have, will come to fruition. And of course, without flood mitigation and without the city, we can’t do a lot of things we want to do and take advantage of what we worked on in the land development code. We put restrictions in place and things in place to try to take advantage of the growth in over the aquifer in the floodplains and do it and try to do it safely.
Q. Local business community
Currently businesses and say Marcus employs over 30,000 people and represent a majority of the local tax base. How will you involve the business community in city-wide discussions and help bridge the gap between private citizens and the local business community?
Mark Gleason
"One of the biggest things the council can do is try to encourage and get out of the way of those local businesses. We can try to streamline this the CUP process, try to make permits and fees more affordable, bring down the property taxes that they also must pay and try to encourage citizens that can come here and work for those small businesses or stay in town from the university. We must have a dialogue between the council and from staff and to the business community, there can't be the separation. We need to encourage the local community to participate in going to those local businesses, they cannot thrive on the university alone. So, the more we can try to integrate the citizens of the community, and the business community and council and bring everyone together and forums like this on local dialogue. That's how we can try to continue to put everybody together."
Maxfield Baker
"I believe one of the issues we see with businesses is we want to solve their problems for them. As everybody knows, nobody likes to be told what to do. So, I think when we see a situation like our second Saturday, formally third Thursdays, where we're throwing money at certain businesses to help them be more successful, but not helping other ones in different areas, because they're not part of downtown, that is only going to push them further to the outside. So, it is important to revitalize our downtown, but we need to make sure that we aren't leaving people out in the wind. We need to make sure we're taking care of businesses, again, that have been here for a long time, are legacy to our community. Like I mentioned earlier, you know if we can offer them some sort of tax incentive, I think that's the right thing to do. But simply throwing money at them and saying, ‘Hey, have a party for everybody,' that's going to bring you more business that has not worked. I've participated in many third Thursdays and second Saturdays, and I don't spend money at those things. That's not what I'm being called to do. There are bands here, there are bands there, there are drinks there. So, people are just rotating around those things and not necessarily shopping. If we want to encourage those businesses, I think things like helping their small businesses with signage is the right way to start as well as helping them have a solid foot at the table by having these kinds of conversations more regularly."
Q. Leadership
There are different levels of leadership, including positional leadership, which is given and influential leadership, which is earned. While not mutually exclusive, it is common to have positional leadership without influential leadership. As a city council member, you will sit in a position of leadership and be responsible for making decisions on behalf of all the residents of San Marcus. Please describe your leadership qualities and how you can be a leader of influence and not just position.
Devin Barrett
"I think my leadership qualities are, I am undoubtedly a great listener and probably a little bit quieter than I should be. But also listening is thorough, it's thinking through every option thinking through every policy idea. It's making sure that every base is covered before you make a complete decision. I think my leadership style is to listen to all outcomes, listen to all aspects and decide from there. Work with other people and see where everybody can come together and unite around a common goal. That's what true leadership to me is."
Lisa Marie Copooletta
"I teach leadership in my business communication class, we talked about all different types of leaders. I would label myself a transformational leader, which means that like to elevate everybody who is on the team, whether it's someone new to the team, or someone who's been working with the team. That means you look at the big picture, and then the small details. I'm a public policy researcher with a 30-year track record here in this community. I've been a maverick; I've given you examples of how small businesses complain about the toxic waste dump, the next day, we got that cleaned up. I follow the rules, but I also see how the rules can be applied so that they're fair and oftentimes that's not happening.
I would appreciate the opportunity to serve you, for your voice to become part of that conversation. That's what a transformational leader does, someone like Steve Jobs, they're global thinkers, they're a big picture of thinkers, but they also look at the details. Everybody's voice on that team becomes important. Steve Jobs ran those teams by teams, you step back, you let them do their work and then they would implement that, there wasn't any micromanaging. Often what the top of your finding from the city staff perspective, is there micromanaging going to business community but those the neighbors, but then when concerns, erupt suddenly are locked out of the process. With me, that's not going to happen, the field of communication is going to be fair and an open and transparent."
Saul Gonzales
Leadership for me, it's always been to listen, but also act on what you told me. I don't speak very much from the dais, but when I hear concerns from individuals, I guarantee I address those concerns. I talk to staff, and I said, ‘look, they're right I want answers.' If it has to be done and is needed, I'm going to push it. Like I said, maybe I don't say very much but I listened to your guys and will return your calls. I think out of 97 percent of the calls I received maybe just a few I can't get back to. I encourage you to reach out to me. I'm easy to talk to and I do listen. I think that's a good leader. I promised that I was to get some dialogue with Texas State. That didn't happen. But it did happen with the school district and the county and it's working for us at this time. It's a good partnership.
