Local activists begin effort to repeal meet and confer contract between city, SMPOA

Organizers recently collected more than 300 signatures for a petition to repeal the meet and confer agreement between the City of San Marcos and the San Marcos Police Officers Association.

Mano Amiga, local activist group, is looking to overturn the agreement through a ballot initiative after the San Marcos City Council voted 5-2 to confirm the contract during its Sept. 6 meeting.

Sam Benavides, Mano Amiga Communications Director, said asking residents to sign a petition to repeal the meet and confer contract will be a tougher ask than its previous petition campaign to decriminalize low-level amounts of marijuana.

“It’s obviously not going to be that straightforward of an ask,” Benavides said. “We know a lot of public education is going to have to go into the campaign and so that’s why we’ve been talking about it for over a year at this point …  We just think people should have a say in where our tax dollars are going and how they’re going to this police budget.”

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.

“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 during the Sept. 6 meeting. “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.”

Mano Amiga, however, says it’s making the push to repeal the agreement after several reforms suggested by the group weren’t considered during the meet and confer process. Mano Amiga, along with 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 — called for the “Hartman Reforms” on June 10, 2022.

The five “Hartman Reforms” demand 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.

Benavides said the repeal petition is meant to show how their efforts are tied to Hartman.

“Explaining to [people that this] is all this [petition] does is require SMPOA and the city to just renegotiate and actually consider these reforms because they did not consider them the first time around,” Benavides said. “They make the argument that we announced them too late but we attended every single one of those meet and confer meetings and they added three more additional meetings than they actually planned, so I don’t believe that time was the issue because they extended it by almost a month anyway.”

During the Sept. 6 meeting, City of San Marcos Director of Human Resources/Civil Service Linda Spacek said the city and SMPOA met in their first three meet and confer sessions on May 13, 19 and 27.

“Our locked issues were on May 27th by our ground rules,” Spacek said. “My understanding is that the ‘Hartman Reforms’ were not made public until June 15th.”

Following city council’s approval, the agreement was signed by both parties by Sept. 6. According to the City of San Marcos, organizers have 60 days from Sept. 7 to collect enough signatures to place the item to have voters consider a repeal of the agreement on an upcoming ballot.

Benavides said Mano Amiga’s team needs to collect approximately 400 signatures — 10% of the voting population in the city’s November 2021 elections.

Benavides added that confusion occurred between Mano Amiga and the city clerk’s office regarding when the contract was signed, saying they received communication that it was ratified two weeks after they began asking for confirmation.

“We still had questions about when ratification happened,” Benavides said. “Because it’s at the point that the contract is ratified that we have to start collecting signatures. That’s when the 60 days starts. So, we wanted to start collecting signatures immediately. We just wrapped up a campaign, a ballot initiative, and it was physically and emotionally exhausting, and so, we wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible because it’s really difficult work.

“So, that was really frustrating,” Benavides added. “I don’t know if that was intentional or not. I know that they aren’t [former city clerk] Tammy [Cook], but that doesn’t negate the fact that we lost a quarter of the time to collect signatures. So, I let them know in an email that when I speak about this publicly, it’s just to convey the urgency that this requires and the time sensitivity that this requires.”

If organizers turn in the petition by the 60-day deadline, the petition would only go to the city council once the City Clerk has finished verifying the signature, the city said. The city council could then consider repealing the agreement on their own or to have voters decide. State law would govern specifically when an election could be held, the city added.

Benavides said they’re confident that they’ll get enough signatures for the petition. Organizers hope the city and SMPOA would address the “Hartman Reforms” if the meet and confer contract is repealed.

“I feel like if they have any respect for the organizers and the community members who are signing this petition who want to see them go back, it’s my hope that they will come back and talk about these reforms in good faith,” Benavides said. “Knowing over 400 of our community members signed on and organizers put in just hours upon hours of work … So, it’s my hope that they would actually respect that and actually discuss our demands.”