Youth Services transitioned to Core 4 Partnership

The San Marcos City Council voted to dissolve the San Marcos Youth Commission and the San Marcos Commission on Youth and Children in order to transition those services to the Core 4 Partnership.

This change comes after the council approved a contract in February with Community Action Inc. to hire a Youth Services Director that will work with the City of San Marcos, Texas State University, San Marcos CISD, and Hays County — “Core 4” — to implement the recommendations and goals set forth by these entities and the Youth Master Plan.

The Core 4 has created a task force with their appointed representatives who will work with the Youth Services Director to implement the recommendations and goals. 

The councilmembers will come back in their meeting in the first week of November to appoint three representatives to the task force, one who will specialize in working with teenagers. 

They did, however, vote to appoint Councilmembers Melissa Derrick and Mark Rockeymoore, and Assistant City Manager Stephanie Reyes to the Core 4 Policy Group. 

Councilmembers happily approved an agreement with Milsoft Utility Solutions for an Outage Management System for the Public Services Department that will include automatic notifications of power outages, automatic location of outage sources, a map that will show what areas are experiencing outages and other technical support.

In other business, the councilmembers approved a five-year extension of the agreement  with Texas Disposal Systems, Inc. for the collection and disposal of solid waste and recyclable materials after adding an amendment directing city staff to begin preparing a new request for proposals. 

The decision to extend the contract was made with the knowledge that anytime during the next five years, the city can decide to terminate the contract and go out for bid, and the councilmembers made sure this work would begin soon. The change resulted in an estimated annual increase of $400,000. 

The city council postponed appointments to a steering committee charged with assisting in the City’s Comprehensive Plan rewrite. 

The steering committee’s role will be to serve as representatives to various constituents and individuals, provide input throughout the process, share feedback on topics and champion the plan and carry it out through implementation. 

There will be community-wide engagement opportunities, small focus groups, eight comprehensive plan committee meetings and three city council workshops for the rewrite.

The council will likely each appoint three members, two councilmembers, two planning and zoning committee members, one Hays County representative, one SMCISD representative, one Texas State representative and one Chamber of Commerce representative.

They also postponed an item amending the original Interlocal Cooperation Agreement with the Austin Regional Intelligence Center while staff reviews limits on data transfer and information privacy in the contract. The agreement allows for information sharing between regional law enforcement agencies.

Councilmembers intended to review applications for the ad hoc committee to study the use of force policies of the San Marcos Police Department, however, they voted to postpone until the next meeting after considering whether or not to wait until a new police chief was hired.

They are accepting some applications that came in late but are not taking any new applications. They also voted to limit applications to city residents. 

The councilmembers also approved their resolution opposing the relocation of the city’s only Post Office requesting immediate action by the United States Postal Service, the Postmaster General and both houses of the United States Congress to relocate the United States Postal Service retail services in San Marcos to a location that is safer and more convenient than the selected location at 900 Bugg Lane. 

In their work session, City Manager Bert Lumbreras updated the council about the progress of negotiations with Hays County to repair and rehabilitate Cape’s Dam and Mill Race on the San Marcos River. Hays County is currently in discussions about permitting and has not yet drafted an interlocal agreement.