City council candidates speak out on key issues

Eight candidates from three city council races discussed their stances on issues affecting the city in the recent forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Hays County. The first to speak were candidates Dr. Joca Marquez, Rick Henderson and Mark Gleason for City Council Place 5.

Moderator Brenda Smith opened the debate with the question, “In your opinion, what is the most pressing challenge facing the city and what strategies do you recommend to address that challenge?”

“I think there are several challenges, not just one,” Dr. Marquez said, “one of them of course is river and environmental stewardship – that’s important. Criminal justice reform is another, as well as urging the university to do more to heal the town and gown rift and revitalizing our legacy neighborhoods. Revitalizing the arts is very important, prioritizing people and neighborhoods before developers, prioritizing election integrity is another one and pursuing no kill status at the animal shelter.”

Henderson said the most pressing challenge facing the city was job growth.

“I think the most important  things for the city right now has to do with creating jobs,” he said. “We need economic growth and we need it quickly...I believe we need progressive decisions and partnerships to work to get more jobs, more high paying jobs. We’re in a market where housing costs are very high, so government is going to have to get involved a little bit and help out with established homes in neighborhoods and with projects that will make those neighborhoods even better.”

Gleason also gave a list of his top-priority challenges facing the city. 

 “Probably the main thing that we all notice as an issue is parking and transportation, a coworking relationship with the university, more affordable single-family homes, a better economic relationship with the university, neighborhood preservation while still protecting the neighborhood with responsible growth and fiscal accountability should all be a top priority.”

Smith then moved on to what recommendations the candidates had to improve downtown transportation and parking.

Marquez brought up the inflexibility of hours and stops that the current CARTS bus system has.

“A lot of residents have a concern that they need to get to places during the weekends so CARTS is not an option for them,” Marquez said. “I propose to increase the number of stops, extend the hours of service, build in ADA accommodations for people with limited mobility, as well as access of wheelchairs.”

Henderson recommended paid parking meters in downtown as a solution saying, “I actually support the return of meters and I actually support the ability for  small businesses to be given vouchers for their employees, so that their employees can use the Texas State University parking garage… We do not need to have employees of local downtown businesses and owners paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars in parking fines a year.”

Gleason recommended integrating university and city bus systems as well as possibly enacting a ban on freshmen having vehicles. “Extra bike lanes would help and of course, maybe including the university to look at not allowing freshmen students to have cars on campus – that will do something to alleviate several thousand cars from parking downtown,” he said.

Henderson disagreed with Gleason’s stance on freshmen with vehicles on campus.  “I’ve been here teaching for a long time, I have not seen a more responsible group of students. They are volunteering more than ever before, river cleanup, Bobcat Build, and with other nonprofits; and the percentage of freshmen that are here in town and immediately taking part-time jobs in our community and at the outlet mall is so high, that denying  them access to their vehicles at the university wouldn’t work too well.”

Candidates Melissa Derrick (incumbent) and Miguel Arredondo for City Council Place 6 took the stage next. 

Smith opened their debate by asking them what steps they would support to implement the comprehensive plan Vision San Marcos.

Arredondo said the steps are already there, it’s just a matter of implementing them. 

“I think the steps are already built into the comprehensive master plan,” he said. “I think what we as city council members need to do is start administering that plan when it comes to different developments that come before city council and different issues that arise in our community.”

Derrick, however, said that Code SMTX was just the beginning of implementing the plan, that neighborhood character studies and  small area plans have yet to be done.

“We’re not finished yet,” she said. “A lot of people would like you to think we’re done. It’s time to use the code to its fullest capabilities, but we’ve not yet completed our neighborhood character studies and our small area plans that are ultimately the blueprint of how our city grows and where density is appropriate and where it’s not. In order to really let our comprehensive master plan guide how San Marcos grows, we’ve got to finish these studies.”

Arredondo responded by saying perpetual planning by the city isn’t helping address issues.

“If there is an issue of traffic in a neighborhood, it’s ‘how do we plan to take care of the traffic,’ not ‘How do we actually take action to address the traffic,’” Arredondo said. “When it’s something like downtown parking, we have officials who say, ‘Well we have a committee or a plan to address downtown parking,’ but we’ve never addressed downtown parking. I think that’s thing that our city council desperately needs… is someone that will take action and not be in a perpetual state of planning.”

Smith opened the City Council Place 4 debate with candidates Shane Scott, Mark Rockeymoore and Griffin Spell by asking them what goals they believed could be better accomplished by partnering with Texas State University.

Spell began by pointing to an issue that, according to him, he has already started working toward  — integrating city and university buses. 

Rockeymoore also said that buses for community wide transportation was an important goal, but the overall relationship between the university and the city needs to be addressed.

“There seems to be some sort of distance between the university and the city in regards to interacting for community purposes,” Rockeymoore said. “I do not think there is enough of an overt relationship whereby the university staff, faculty and students engage with the city. So I believe that different aspects of our interaction needs to be combined so that we don’t have a town and gown separation, as occurs in many towns.”

Scott also used the university bus system as an example, but instead of integrated buses, Scott proposed two parking garages, one for northbound students and one for southbound students on Interstate 35, “so that they can be off our highways, our streets and be bused in from those areas.”

Smith then asked candidates whether the city of San Marcos should offer incentives to bring large businesses to the area. 

Scott answered both yes and no. “Initially businesses would need to be enticed for San Marcos to start growing, and Amazon was pretty much the beacon point where I felt that was enough that we would need because other companies would see this massive company here and know it’s the place to be.” 

Rockeymoore, on a similar note, said that San Marcos could afford to be pickier with the employers and businesses we allow to open up shop.

“We are one of the fastest-growing cities, not only in this region, but in the nation and this region is going to continue to expand and grow, so we can afford to be a little picky about what kinds of jobs and what types of companies we allow in our city,” he said.

Spell said he isn’t against economic incentives for companies coming into San Marcos “when it’s appropriate, when it’s based on fact-based evidence and where it’s something that GSMP works with us on to try to make that work for all of us.”

Early voting began Monday and runs until Nov. 2. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. For location, dates and hours of polling places, visit the county’s website.