City council approves meet and confer agreement, local activists say they'll petition to repeal

The San Marcos City Council approved the meet and confer agreement between the City of San Marcos and the San Marcos Police Officers’ Association. The agreement, however, has been met with blow back as local activists aim to repeal it through a petition.

Council voted 5-2 to confirm the agreement during Tuesday’s meeting with councilmembers Alyssa Garza and Maxfield Baker voting in opposition.

“Our team was really, really helpful and instrumental and just really trying to make sure we could talk through the issues and to the [police officers’] association too,” Interim City Manager Stephanie Reyes said. ”It was not any easy conversation for us to have on some things. But I appreciate the willingness to listen and at least try to understand the different perspectives … because we all want what is best for San Marcos. And, it’s important for us to have that open mind and open ear to really understand what are the things that are driving some of the conversations out there in the community.”

The Meet and Confer process is defined in legislative statute under Texas local government code chapter 142 where cities are allowed to meet with police and fire departments to come to a consensus on ways to modify state law to meet the needs of local entities. According to the city’s policy, meet and confer allows the city and the police and fire associations an opportunity to understand each other’s interests and come to an agreement on employment issues.  The city and SMPOA began meeting for the meet and confer process in May.

The contract agreement between the two entities addresses concerns regarding hiring and retaining police officers, including providing higher starting pay for experienced officers, hiring certified officers without an entrance exam process, entrance exams offered in the spring and fall, and an increase to the maximum hiring age to 50.

The agreement also made changes to promotions within the San Marcos Police Department, which included the ability for officers with intermediate Texas Commission on Law Enforcement certifications to test for corporal with two years of service instead of the previously required for years of service.

The agreement addresses disciplinary actions, allowing the chief of police to file complaints for non-criminal violations 180 days from occurrence, criminal violations 180 days from chief’s discovery of the act, and 300 days from occurrence of sexual harassment. The agreement allows 180 days from the date of complaint to take formal discipline on each category of violation with the ability to extend time for formal action on criminal violations not to exceed 30 days following final disposition of criminal proceedings regarding the alleged act.

Despite council’s approval, local activists say the meet and confer agreement doesn’t address demands made seeking police accountability.

Pamela Watts -—  whose life-partner Jennifer Miller was killed in a  vehicle collision caused by former SMPD Sgt. Ryan Hartman, while he was off-duty in Lockhart on June 10, 2020 — announced the “Hartman Reforms” in June.

The five “Hartman Reforms” called for an end to the 180-day rule — the statute of limitations for investigating wrongdoing by officers; end delay of interviews for misconduct, officers are allowed more than 48 hours to before giving an officials statement; public transparency for personnel files; an end to third-party arbitration; and end vacation forfeiture as a substitute to suspension.

“[Hartman] has handcuffed the entire city of San Marcos and I want to call these the ‘Hartman reforms,’” Watts said when announcing the reforms on June 10. “I want Jennifer’s death to stand for something. There needs to be change. All of these things need to go in or out of the police union contract.”

Mano Amiga, a local grassroots advocacy organization, said it would work to repeal the meet and confer agreement through a ballot initiative following council’s decision to approve the contract between the city and SMPOA.

“Zero of the five reforms proposed by Pam are met in this current agreement,” Mano Amiga Communications Director Sam Benavides said. “This means the San Marcos Police Department will continue to operate under the same guidelines that protected Hartman despite his blatant disregard for the safety of our community. The current guidelines did not hold him accountable; we did, and until we can implement real change into this agreement, it will continue to protect troubled cops.”

During Tuesday’s discussion, Councilmember Baker asked if the “Hartman Reforms” were considered during the meet and confer deliberations.

“We met with council to discuss the issues that we would have on our issues list in April,” said Linda Spacek, City of San Marcos Director of Human Resources/Civil Service. “We met in our first three sessions on May 13th and 19th and May 27th. Our locked issues were on May 27th by our ground rules. My understanding is that the 'Hartman Reforms' were not made public until June 15th.”

Baker said some issues addressed in the “Hartman Reforms” were the same he had previously raised.

“I asked for file transparency. I asked for a change to the 180-day rule. The third-party arbitration. The vacation forfeiture for suspensions,” Baker said. “So, those requests were put in an adequate timeline. But I just want the record to reflect that while I asked for those in executive session, those did not appear on the other end of our negotiation as a city. Those did not make the cut. My colleagues did not support that moving forward. It wasn’t asked for in the actual negotiations.”

Mano Amiga, alongside several other organizations, recently gathered thousands of signatures for a petition to decriminalize up to 4 ounces of marijuana, which  will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot. The organization says the threshold to repeal the meet and confer agreement is much lower than its marijuana decriminalization effort.

“The threshold to repeal this contract is 12 times lower than what we collected for the marijuana decriminalization petition,” Mano Amiga Right to Justice Coordinator Elle Cross said. “We now have a group of dedicated students and community members ready to assist us in this campaign starting today, and we are prepared to repeal this contract with ease.”

Baker asked during Tuesday’s meeting what would happen if the necessary signatures were gathered to repeal the approved agreement.

“My understanding is once they receive the number of signatures that would be needed then at that point it would be something where the council could either decide to go ahead and repeal the agreement or you could put it on the next uniform election when that would be called,” Reyes said. “So, I don’t know if that would be May or November 2023.”