‘Mermaid Capital’ designation now closer

San Marcos is a step closer to being the official Mermaid Capital of Texas.

At its meeting Tuesday night, the San Marcos City Council held a discussion on seeking designation from the State Legislature as “Mermaid Capital of Texas” and the resolutions that would be necessary to make that possible.

“This was brought to our attention several years ago,” Mayor Jane Hughson said, “but at that point the mermaid statues were not out yet, the parade was still new.”

Hughson said that she had said then the city should wait on seeking the designation.

City Clerk Jamie Lee Case said that the city has been in touch with Sen. Judith Zaffirini’s office about the issue, and Zaffirini is willing to carry the issue in the Texas Senate.

Case said there are two different kinds of legislative resolutions: a simple resolution, which would be voted on in the Senate, and a concurrent resolution, which would be voted on in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

“Basically the difference here is formality,” Case said.

The city’s Legislative Committee was charged with drafting a resolution that council will consider on May 7.

In other business Tuesday night, council decided not to pursue measures to change the timing of municipal elections and the length of terms for council members and the mayor. Council had started discussing the possibility of holding city elections in November of odd-numbered years to give voters a chance to focus more on local candidates rather than sifting through the noise of state and national elections.

Hughson said that the issue was discussed in 2017. At that time, a motion to increase the mayor’s term from two years to four failed, and a motion to drop discussion of changing term limits passed.

Hughson noted that the current council seemed to like the current three-year terms for council members, feeling that two years is too short a term and four years is too long.

“I think where we were on that was that nobody wanted to change the terms of council members,” Hughson said. “If we’re not going to change the terms from three years, the every-other-year doesn’t make sense anymore. … We’ve got other things to spend our time on.”

Council also discussed, but took no action on, an item that would give the San Marcos CISD a seat at the table on the Economic Development San Marcos Board. Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Prewitt said the district would like to be in a position to discuss economic incentives and how they might affect the district, particularly as SMCISD moves closer to being vulnerable to recapture. (Recapture is when the state takes money from wealthy districts to distribute to poorer districts.) Council will vote on the measure May 21.