South Guadalupe Street Improvement Project moving forward

San Marcos City Council awarded two construction project contracts for the South Guadalupe Street Improvement Project in their Tuesday night meeting.

The contracts were both awarded to New Age General Contractors, Inc. for bike lane traffic signals in an estimated amount of $183K and another to the same group for sidewalk and landscaping, estimated at $793K.

The council also voted to award $567K of Coronavirus Response (CDBG-CV) round three funding for the design and administration of a COVID-19 Emergency Housing and Business Relief Program the Community Development Block to Community Action Inc. and BR3T.

City staff and council reviewed applications from Veteran Services Office and the HOME center as well.

The councilmembers eagerly approved the resolution, taking staff’s recommendation, with a stipulation that a minimum of $454,260 be awarded to the beneficiaries of the program, the remainder will go toward staff hours spent on the program.

In other business, the councilmembers voted on the first of two readings to make amendments to sections 7.2.4.1 and 7.2.4.2 and Chapter 8, Article 1 of the City’s Development Code. The amendments include limitations on turfgrass installed in new developments, requiring the use of drought-tolerant turf grass species in new developments, requiring minimum soil depths in new developments, adding a definition for turfgrass and other minor edits for clarification.

They also voted 6-1 with Councilmember Shane Scott voting no, to approve an ordinance amending Chapter 2, of the Code of Ethics of the San Marcos City Code. The amendments include requiring ethics complaints to be sworn before a notary public and establishing a twelve month time period to file a complaint regarding an alleged violation.

City employees and officials will be required to cooperate in hearings before the ethics review commission and the use of intimidation to discourage employees from filing ethics complaints or testifying at hearings before the commission would be prohibited. Retaliation in the form of adverse personnel action against city employees who file ethics complaints or testify at commission hearings on pending complaints will also be prohibited.

The councilmembers will also awarded contracts for on-call electrical engineering services to Stanley Consultants, Inc. and McCord Engineering, Inc. with an initial two year term and authorizing three additional annual renewals in a not-to-exceed amount of $5,000,000 per firm for the full five year term.

Scott moved to add an amendment that requires the city manager to notify the city council prior to each annual renewal.

The councilmembers approved a $1.579 million agreement with TMT Solutions, Inc., relating to the replacement of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software system with an Ignition system to support the City’s Water and Wastewater System.

They are also approved financing $521K for the purchase of an air street sweeper, a dump truck and a Takeushi excavator for use by the stormwater division of the Public Services Department.

They also awarded an agreement to Hi-Lite Airfield Services LLC for the striping of three runways at the San Marcos Regional Airport on an as needed basis in the annual estimated amount of $75K.

The councilmembers also voted to approve a contract with Holiday Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram for the purchase of eleven Dodge Charger pursuit vehicles for use by the SMPD in the amount of $270K.

Councilmember Saul Gonzales’ nomination of Esther Garcia was approved unanimously to the 2021 Charter Review Commission.