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A date has been given for a public hearing regarding an ethics complaint made against San Marcos City Councilmember Joca Marquez.
The San Marcos Ethics Review Commission met Wednesday and agreed upon April 8 as the date to hear complaint 2019-2.
Under review is a tweet Marquez made on Nov. 19, 2019, which stated: “All the developers seeking to make big profits in SM for ‘affordable housing’ all have the same look: White, male, tall, wear blue blazers, money hungry, and emotionless…AND It feels damn good to vote against their proposed development.” The tweet has since been taken down.
Complaint 2019-2 was made by Phil Hutchinson on Dec. 12. In the complaint, he stated, “shortly after publicly posting this message the councilperson voted against a project where the applicant fit this description and did not give significant reasons for her vote, thereby introducing the prospect that the vote was based on her stated bias. Although the councilperson has removed the message, she has not disclaimed the content.”
Marquez defended her tweet following the ethics commission’s decision to send the complaint to a public hearing.
"My various statements on social media are often misconstrued and misunderstood because of a general lack of understanding of how systemic injustice and inequities work,” she said in a statement on Jan. 8. “On Twitter I call out systems not individuals...systemic oppression, institutionalized racism, hegemony, misogyny, patriarchy, White supremacy, assimilation, cultural appropriation, ableism, homophobia, xenophobia, political injustice, classism, displacement of people of color, housing justice, and my experience as Latinx in politics...only intended for audiences who have been educated in how this country has been built on the oppression and genocide of my Native people, the enslavement of people of African descent, and the continued institutional inequities against many other vulnerable communities such as the Muslim, LGBTQIA, people of different abilities, children, the homeless, our veterans, among others. If one of my tweets is more offensive than any of the aforementioned inequities, then it's time to re-assess our values, perspectives, and priorities.”
The San Marcos City Council voted on Jan. 21 to hire the firm Davidson Troilo Ream & Garza PC as special legal counsel.
