Council tables 'Compact to Combat Hate' pledge

The San Marcos City Council tabled a vote regarding the resolution to affirm the city’s “Compact to Combat Hate” pledge during its regular meeting on Tuesday.  

The idea to table the item was first encouraged by Mano Amiga in a statement released by the group on Monday. 

According to the agenda, the purpose of the resolution was to reaffirm that the city of San Marcos will “not tolerate hate, extremism and bigotry; reaffirming the City council’s support for the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s Compact to combat hate, extremism, and bigotry.”

In 2017, the resolution was passed by council under Mayor John Thomaides. During the item’s discussion, councilmembers along with Mayor Jane Hughson made comments both in support and opposition to the resolution. 

“I’m not necessarily asking council to sign on. It's merely an offer for council to be able to stand united against hate, extremism and bigotry,” Hughson said.  “If you want to amend, you can make a motion if you don’t want to sign on you may certainly vote no.” 

Councilmember Maxfield Baker addressed Hughson while speaking of his concerns regarding the resolution. Baker began with questioning the purpose of passing the resolution 

“People are saying that this is empty and theatrical because the last time you did it nothing was done in between,” Baker said. “I think just substantively I’m, I’m curious why you want to pass something so empty like this that you haven’t seemed to take any action on.” 

Baker brought up the recent events in San Marcos related to the pledge, including a San Marcos teen facing federal charges for arson after setting fire to an Austin synagogue and the Biden Bus incident. Baker further questioned Hughson as to why she would want to pass the resolution. 

“It’s something that council passed before and I thought that the new members of our council who have joined us since the time that this was passed would like to review it and maybe sign on to it,” Hughson said. 

According to Baker, something should be done to combat hate and extremism, however, claimed the resolution would do nothing to assist in that. 

“Some of the verbiage in here is a dog whistle and some of the people in our community are responding very aptly to those dog whistles they are spreading hate at Texas State, they’re spreading hate in our community and, and now we’ve seen it even infiltrate potentially our own police department,” Baker said. 

Baker suggested that the item be tabled until the case that alleged the City of San Marcos violated the Klu Klux Klan Act of 1871 has been decided. Councilmember Alyssa Garza also expressed her support in tabling the resolution. 

“It’s 2021 and people are exhausted and disillusioned by the government a.k.a us and performative actions could not replace critical conversations that need to happen in the community,” Garza said. 

During the conversation, councilmember Shane Scott mentioned that the resolution seemed redundant while expressing his stance. 

“I just think when Mr. Baker goes off of these individualist thoughts you know, about the police department, how bad this is and how, you know now the criminal justice department is infiltrating you know that kind of stuff, that same attitude can be completely turned back around with your BLM movements,” Scott said. 

Ultimately, staff would vote 5-1 to postpone the item until the conclusion of the Biden Bus incident case. 

“I think that once there’s an outcome and we can more openly discuss it I think those conversations will lead us to maybe come up with some kind of amendments or edits to this resolution that will be more meaningful instead of performative,” Garza said.