Neighborhood Commission - Regular Meeting

Sounds great.

Hi. Good evening. We get started. But before we do, per the Texas Open Meeting Act, if if any board members who are online will turn on their cameras, I'd appreciate it. Alright. So I called to order the, San Marcos Neighborhood Commission board meeting on Wednesday, 03/19/2025 at 06:05PM. Yvonne, will you call the role, please?

Samantha Benavides? Here. Robert Eby?

I'm here.

Bobby Gasa Hernandez?

Here.

Michael Adams?

Here.

Roland Salcedo?

Here.

Michael Vernon?

Here.

Heidi Holiday McKittrick? Tyler Bar Barstow?

Here.

Sorry, Tyler.

You're good.

Daniel Martinez. Absentees, Heidi Holiday McKittrick and Daniel Martinez.

Alright. Thank you, Yvonne. Citizen comment period. Three minutes per citizen citizen or person wishing to participate during the citizen Likewise. Citizen comment period. Portion of the meeting must email ypalacios@SanMarcosGX.gov prior to 12PM on March 19, the day of the meeting. A link to join my mobile device, laptop, or desktop computer will be provided for participation as well as a call in number to join by phone. Yvonne, do we have any citizen comments?

No citizen comments. And I also wanna say Heidi just joined us, so she's not absent.

K. Alright. Minutes considered for approval by motion, the 02/19/2025 meeting minutes. I'll give everybody just a minute or two to look over them.

Anybody need me to share the minutes, or you guys got them?

We got them.

Got

them. Thank

you.

I'll I'll do the

first. Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

I'll need the second. If you'll call the roll, please.

Samantha Benavides?

I'm gonna abstain from this vote.

Robert Eby?

Aye.

Bobby Gonzalez? Aye. Michael Adams? Aye. Roland Salcedo?

I'm staying.

Michael Vernon?

Aye.

Heidi Holiday McKittrick? Aye. Tyler Barstow?

Aye.

Daniel Martinez? Okay.

Good.

Alright. So moving on, guest speaker, Marcus Nyser, assistant director of CIP, received a presentation from engineering and capital improvement department on fiscal year twenty twenty six CIP projects, and then we'll have some time after the presentation for question and answers. Marcus, whenever you're ready. K.

Good evening, everyone. Marcus Neiser with engineering and capital improvements department. Chilling in for Sean Condor today. He's my boss. He's the director of our department, and we're gonna be talking about the fiscal year twenty twenty six CIP and kind of an overview of our CIP process as well.

So the, purpose of the presentation today is to provide an overview, of the CIP. Hang on. Let me see. Screen. You're on.

Oh, yep.

Thank you. Is that better?

That's awesome. Okay. Sorry. Okay. So, yeah, I'm I'm gonna be providing an overview of the fiscal year twenty twenty six capital improvements program.

Okay. Here we are.

Are you

better with the mouse?

Nope. I got it. It was not hovering on the right spot. You know, the capital improvement program, it's a long range plan for scheduling and and planning capital projects for system assets, and we use it to identify workload for departments and also identify funding needs for the city and to identify options for financing those projects. It's a planning tool.

It's a living document for us in our department. We're constantly revising it, updating it, adding new projects to it. But only the first year, year number one, which in this case, we're talking about fiscal year twenty twenty six, is approved in a budget each year. So that's an ongoing cycle as y'all know every year. About this time, we come and visit y'all, and y'all are kind of the start of all the meetings.

Years two through 10, if y'all go look at it, those are placeholders, meaning we load those up with future projects for for planning purposes so that we have those in the queue, and then the next priority of projects go into the next year as we look at fiscal year twenty twenty seven. What is a CIP or capital improvements program project? It's the big projects. It's the complicated, capital projects, with significant expenditures of funds. It usually goes beyond the operation and maintenance cost that a department force can handle, and it's usually for acquisition or maintenance of of assets that we have out there in our system.

Usually, the projects are over a $100,000 in costs, and we constantly are updating our master plans. And that master planning helps us identify the projects in whatever area you wanna talk about. For instance, we're we're finishing up the wastewater master plan right now. We updated the water master plan about a year ago. We have the storm water master plan in full swing for an update.

We have a brand new reclaim water master plan in effect. I know parks. Everybody has a master plan because it basically creates a small CIP for that focus area that gets plugged into the overall CIP. So it identifies projects, it prioritizes, and it gives us dollar amounts. We do a a very conceptual level scoping in dollar amount for the projects.

This table shows difference between projects that we can do in house as a city and then projects that and I'm being construct and projects that are going into the CIP that are more complex. So things that we can handle within a department with city forces are pothole repairs and LCR folks out there, main breaks, you know, on water lines, replacing pumps or lift stations, fixing leaks on on water or wastewater lines. The capital improvement projects are large, complicated, expensive projects. They usually take a long time. So replacing a road.

And when we do that, we do everything. Right? So we don't have to come back and tear up the road. We usually have utilities, water, wastewater. Since we're tearing up the road and redoing it, that's why we do storm water to finish off the project. So it's really touching everything in the right of way. It's usually got utilities, storm water, street, sidewalks, and more, in a a CIP project. I mentioned complexity. These projects in the CIP are complex. Like I said, there's usually water mains, wastewater mains, storm water lines, street reconstruction, curb and gutter, sidewalks, could be lift stations.

Sometimes they put the overhead electric underground. We try to tackle everything at one time and touch the street maybe once every, you know, fifteen, twenty years, hopefully. Project factors that also come into play, sometimes there's government mandates, like TCEQ mandates, something on the water or wastewater side that we have to follow through on. There's life cycle, meaning repairing lines that we have, you know, repairing assets that we have that are living out their useful life. We have project partners on these projects like the county, TxDOT, and we're coordinating with other projects that are adjacent to it, multi funding sources because they're expensive projects.

You typically have utility conflicts because there's other vendors that have stuff in the ground that we're we're digging. And there's usually right away. They're always we sometimes have to go get a little extra right away for utilities or widening streets and that. So as you can tell, there's a 100 moving pieces or more on these project that drives up cost, that drives up time, and that is basically a capital project, capital improvement program type project. These projects, when I talk to the public, typically, they're like, why is it taking so long?

Why are we always in construction? A simple project on our side, which is 200,000 to $1,000,000, usually takes three to four years to deliver. And by what I mean by deliver, we start off and we scope that project, you know, outside of the master plan. We figure out where we're gonna get the money for for funding it, and then we put a design consultant on board to design it. And then finally, we get to bid it, and it goes into construction.

And that's usually the sausage making ugly part above ground that's happening until you get it completed, and then you complete it and get into warranty period. All that takes about three to four years on a smaller project. On a medium sized project or a complex project takes five to seven years. Those are about 1,000,000 to 10,000,000. And on the big, complicated, expensive projects above $10,000,000, it takes eight to ten years from beginning to end to get one delivered.

And I'll give you an example on Blanco Gardens improvements just finished, like, two months ago, and that was driven by 2015 floods. So it may have been scoped at the time, but we didn't have the money for it. But the floods created the money for it through grant funding from CDBG federal government. It went to design, It only went to construction. We finally completed it.

The other one is the Blanco Riverine project, the same funding source. Both of those are addressing flooding, and and, actually, it was three other projects like that that have all completed in the past in the last one or two years, but they all stemmed from 2015. Right? So, unfortunately, with the complexity that I talked about, that's why we wanted to talk about that to let y'all know how, how many moving pieces and how much coordination of work there is there. Okay.

Let's talk about funding sources for the CIP. There's about five buckets where we get funding to do this. The first one is the general fund, and that comes from property and sales tax and licenses and permits. We also have the, drainage and stormwater fund, which you all know probably pay a drainage utility fee. That's where that money comes from.

The third one is the electric fund from electric rates. Then we have the water wastewater, fund, which is water wastewater rates and impact fees from the developers. And then there's external sources where, like I said, we're able to get grants. In some cases, can't get a grant, get a low interest loan. They come from the state and the federal governments to help us finance these projects.

Alright. Now let's talk about schedule. We checked off first three boxes there. This is the cycle each this is the annual cycle for CIP. So talking about the fiscal year 2026, the top check mark is we're constantly churning the CIP projects and keeping our CIP projects up to date in our department.

But in October, we started department review where we get feedback from the departments on timeline and work workload. In December, January here that we just passed, we talk about funding, how we're gonna fund these projects. All these things are kinda shaping and molding what's in the CIP eventually. Then we are actually here today, neighborhood commission, having a discussion with y'all about the CIP. Then we go to planning and zoning for three meetings to discuss and have a public hearing and recommend.

And then the planning and zoning's commit recommendation goes to council, and there's workshops that happen start happening in May, but it's not until August, September meeting council to adopt the final final final CIP, which is also the budget. So that is what what we do every year and have to meet those those marks. This year in the fiscal year 2026, CIP, it's over a 115,000,000, and you'll see there's a big double asterisk there for a big chunk of money, and I'll explain that. But there's a there's 11,200,000.0 coming from the general fund. There's 6,800,000.0 worth of stormwater funding, and that asterisk means if it's over 5, we have to supplement with general fund on that because the stormwater fund just doesn't have enough.

Then the water wastewater there, 86,900,000.0. That is because there's a very large project that we're getting about $70,000,000 in money from developer agreements to construct a brand new water reclamation facility that would feed developments that are happening on the Southeast part of town. So that's kind of the anomaly why the number's so big for one year. That lump is gonna come out. It's gonna average back out in the future.

Then there's 10,000,000 coming from electric, and that all totals to a 115,000,000 for 2026 fiscal year for the CIP. Recent successes, it's always good to finish projects. And we talked to I already talked about a couple of them. It's the Blanco Garden neighborhood, which we took a picture of the outfall, not necessarily the neighborhood, but that picture on the left is a big giant concrete storm pipe. There's two chan two channels that were constructed to get water out of Blanco Gardens more quickly, and it outfalls to the San Marcos River there with a a big construction of those those limestone blocks there.

The middle picture is the beautiful Blanco River where that green swath you see is a 1,200 foot long relief channel that would activate above about a twenty five year flood event, and water would go from the Blanco Cross Country to the San Marcos River, and it would mitigate flooding impacts really for, you know, kind of the all along the East side of 35 there where the Blanco causes the flooding. And then the right picture is stream stabilization on Sesem Creek, and that's to prevent all that material from washing down into San Marcos River down there by Herbie Lane downstream of the dam. So stabilize that stream to help out there. So those are CIP projects, and they were completed. And a lot of them took about nine to ten years, those top two did.

Big projects that are on coming up in the future, in the hopefully, getting started here in this fiscal year '26 is Sunset Acres Subdivision. That's gonna be utilities and stormwater and a little bit of everything because that's one of those projects where you touch as much as you can when you're there. Same thing goes for Wallace Addition improvements, Bishop And Belvin Street improvements. Again, these are utilities, drainage, street, sidewalk. I 35 shared youth use path.

Now that takes that, hopefully, if they finish their project, which they're wrapping up, but, you know, they address the bridge right there on on the river. There's enough room and clearance to get a pit a trail, shared path trail from the east side to the west side and connect the park's infrastructures. And the county is gonna be building a park out there at Cape Pond, and it's gonna be an interconnected trail. It's gonna be kinda master plan for other future trails to tie into. FM 1978, water reclamation facility, that's a wastewater plant.

That's the one I was telling you where the developers coming up with close to $70,000,000 to help pay for that. And then improvements to Kissing Alley, those are all important projects in this next go round. So we do all this work, and we put it into a book. You can actually get a hard copy of this thing if you print it out. It's got the overview. It's got project by project. It's got the spreadsheet with all the projects. It's got maps. It's a great resource. It also has a nifty QR code in it now.

They can take you to the interactive one on the website, which you can also get to. The interactive page should be a ten year CIP interactive page when you drill down into the engineering department. You can get to that, and you can just click on it project by project or year by year. And, really, the heart of it for us nerdy engineers is a spreadsheet. So I'm gonna kinda walk you through the spreadsheet that has the summary of all the projects and give you some pointers on how to use that spreadsheet.

I'm gonna be talking about the columns on this this slide, but the far left one is the category, and that tells you what category the project is. And multi means there's just multiple funding sources. And then we also touch on the the comp plan goals that we hit with the project in the middle column there and in the middle of the page. Right next to that is the strategic initiative that council has developed and other commissions have developed that we tackle with the project. And then if the project is a multisource project, it's broken down into multiple funding sources in dollar amounts in years per project.

So that's what you're looking for. And you'll notice, like, again, the adopted year is gonna be the twenty sixth column. Everything out to the right is just for planning purposes to line up for the next year. But what get adopt what what's getting adopted is that '26 number. Okay.

Now looking at it on the row basis, the different colors you see in there, the brown is the TERS funding projects, The pink are impact fee eligible projects. The blue is potential future bond projects. We are talking about a bond election in 2029 because we got a huge demand for projects, and we got a not so huge source of money. So we're gonna need to see if, residents and the citizens agree with spending some money and approving a bond to tackle more of these projects at a faster rate, and it looks like that'll be November '29. White and gray means nothing.

It's just indicators to keep your eyes from blending altogether when you're looking at these things. It's just separating the different projects. Okay. I mentioned the bond elections. So, currently, you'll see on that spreadsheet, it'll usually indicate the blue ones are gonna be future bond project.

About $200,000,000 worth of projects identified for that bond, and I'll just call it the 2029 bond. It's been a while since the city has passed the bond with this kind of work. About a $180,000,000 of that would be general fund and the delta or the $20,000,000 would be stormwater fund. And the schedule would be we're gonna start tackling the update of the projects and design and getting a better cost for each one and more resolution on what the scope is. Engineering wise, gonna start that in 2027.

Then in 2028, we're gonna seek direction during the visioning, and then we go into assembling a bond committee. And that bond committee is going to meet and work with with us to identify the final project list, and that has to be done a year before the bond election. So we're gonna establish the list of projects, finalize it, and then in 2029, it would go on the ballot in November. And if it passes, we would sell the bond in early twenty thirty and start construction process on projects in 2030. And that would play that would pay, you know, at least probably six years on the construction side to finish all those bond projects.

So that is the bond. What are the next steps on the CIP? So after today, we we go to planning and zoning for several meetings. Sean will be Sean Condor, my boss, will be updating planning and zoning, overviewing the CIP on April 8. Planning and zoning for public hearing and discussion.

April 22, planning and zoning action, and that's where the recommendation comes out of planning and zoning for city council. May 20 would be the city council receives the p n z recommendation and then the workshops, the city council budget workshops, like, May through August, and then that last final second council meeting. The final budget would be in September. And with that, that's all I have for y'all. If you, again, you have the you can scan that right now and save it in your phone if you want to, but that's the QR that'll take contain your CIP interactive, or you can see that link in blue.

Or if you like to see a hard copy and thumb through the pages, you can go to the library, or you can go to our office at 630 East Hopkins right behind the City Hall. We have hard copies. And with that, I will try to answer any questions you have for me. Thank you, Marcus.

Anybody have any questions for Marcus?

I do.

Go ahead,

Michael. Yes, sir.

Talking to me?

Yeah. Go ahead.

Okay. You mentioned the I think I understood you say that the Southeast part of town is gonna be a new wastewater facility that you're proposing. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Yeah. You know,

you drive go ahead. I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah. I was gonna say it's it's gonna be out there. It's beyond the city limits, really. It's in the ETJ, and it's FM 1978.

Yeah.

There's a there's a private road called Fleming Pass. It's kinda out in that area.

Yeah. I think I know. I mean, I'm I'm familiar with that area. I think my question is and and I've talked to some people in my neighborhood about this also. There's a lot of concern about well, you know, you drive out Southeast part of town, and there's a lot of construction apartments and new things coming up.

But the the what a lot of people, I think, are very concerned about are what I believe are AI facilities, businesses coming in, and that use a whole big bunch of power and water. And so did you I saw I I didn't quite catch it. Are they I saw something where you said that they're actually helping to pay for some of this.

Actually, the I I I do know the project you're talking about. Well, I knew it because I just read the community impact. I guess they had an article not too long ago about that data center. I think it's even further it's even further south, maybe even west of where I'm talking about. But the the developers that are paying into this wastewater plant are all residential developments.

I see. There's about 8,000 LUEs or rooftops that are planned to happen out there. And, you know, with the new laws, they can deanex and build their developments in the county. And that's what was happening, and they were all planning to build their own little package wastewater plant. So they were all trying to pull separate permits from TCEQ, which would have been about four or five different wastewater plants scattered out there.

And that is something that as stewards of the river and also someone who already has a wastewater plant and knows how to operate it, we didn't want that impact. Because, eventually, guess who inherited inherits those systems usually after they're they've been beat up for about twenty years. It's usually the city, right, as we annex out that direction. We didn't wanna inherit five of these little wastewater plants when it's more feasible and efficient and cost less on the capital side to build one centralized regional plant to serve that entire area. So we're gonna have we're gonna get a second plant that we can expand, and they're gonna get enough capacity to be able to build their neighborhoods, and you're not gonna have five or six different dish discharge points for the treated effluent.

So it was kind of a win for the city and a win for the developers because they don't wanna be in the business of operating wastewater plants. So, but they were they're paying in they're paying in under a separate cost sharing agreement. That's where that $70,000,000 I was talking about. That's all residential. Then I heard about the data center later, which they haven't I'm not aware of any talks about you know, they might they may wanna use the treated wastewater from this plant, but that I don't I think that's a much newer discussion and not really playing

Well, yeah. That's what they should do because it's just a matter of that's what cools that's what cools the, you know, the the all the heat that comes off

Right.

The facility that

you need.

But, anyway, I'll let you go. Thank you. You know, for presentation. I just I would I'm very concerned about what's gonna happen because it's not just one. There's two AI centers, and they're gonna use so much power. We're worried that our bill's gonna go up to pay for a lot a lot of this, which is what usually happens. So I'm gonna try to stay on top of it. But, anyway, thank you.

I will say that to follow-up on that reclaim water you know, reclaim water is the treated water that comes out of the wastewater plant. And we have an existing reclaim water system that usually gets sold to industrial type users like that. And we're going through a master plan to identify how that system's gonna grow, and I think this is a very new scope item to add into that master plan is talking about these types of data centers that, like you say, that need need the water and it makes more sense to use

Yeah. To clean water.

Would say you better better plan on a whole lot because they're gonna use a whole lot, and there's gonna be two

of them. Alright. Right.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions? Both. You have all.

K. So first of all and I do this all the time just for layman's terms. On page four, where it says title long term asset assets, can you kinda elaborate a little bit on what exactly long term assets you're referring to?

No. I you know, we're talking to we're talking about city assets being existing infrastructure, existing water lines, waste wastewater collection system lines, the wastewater plant, the water plant. Let me think of something on the, anyway, those are those are our assets. They have a life, and we're usually tying into them the the drainage infrastructure. So it's really all the underground infrastructure for water, wastewater, storm water, and that's what we mean by tying into that.

So some cases, like these subdivisions you're talking about, if we go in there, we know we're gonna rip up the roads to replace a water line and wastewater line and address drainage, in some cases, it may be just ponding, and we may come up with curb and gutter and underground stormwater to tie into an existing asset, which would be a bigger stormwater line further down the street so that we could get that underground and out. So

Basically, the city's infrastructure.

That's our infrastructure.

Okay. And then my next one is for, on page 12 where you talk about the big projects in the future. That list that's on there, is that the list that has been scoped for the fiscal year 2026, or is that just a projection of projects the city would like the CIP department would like to see, but not necessarily going to be in the fiscal year 2026?

It shows the very first year being fiscal year '26, and that's getting adopted. So that's a commitment. That's I mean, what they're adopting is that first column for 2026, those dollars. So if your project has money in that column, it's go time basically on that project. The ones out to the right that are '27, '28 all the way to whatever, '36, I guess, those are placeholders for what dollar amount we need each year for the for other projects or maybe in some cases to finish off a project.

But the way the city operates, we have to encumber enough funds in year one when you start a project to complete the project. So if you see money there on a project in '26, that's starting in October. You know, fiscal year '26 starts in October. So that will be committed to spending money on that project in the next year and a half, basically.

Okay. And then my last question is when it says when you when you use the term start construction, okay, that usually kinda tells people people think construction in layman's terms means you're gonna see people, you're gonna see trucks start construction. Are we talking about this be this the first step into the CIP program or that's the say, like, 2030, start construction for for the bond election? So then 2030, would that be starting to scope out start scoping what the the bond committee recommended?

So for for the bond, we want to get the engineering done before 2030. So I talked about starting in 2027 update design and costs. We wanna get a jump on the design and the cost so that we do have projects ready, shovel ready, if you wanna call that, when the bond is sold in 2030, and you can start because that's where the bulk of the money is for construction.

Right.

So we are planning to be able to start design earlier so so that we have projects ready to go in 2030.

So in 2030, according to this table So y'all the intent the intent is to start breaking ground,

moved on ground. We'll have to phase them.

I know what you're

Because resource there's the money part of it, but also the resources to manage it all will have to phase that's why it's saying you start construction on the whole program. So the higher priority projects are the ones you need to do first just because they may impact other projects. We'll start in that year, but it's gonna take multiple years to actually build out all of the projects. $200,000,000 worth of projects, it's gonna six, seven. Years.

So we'll start the first projects in the bond. I don't know what those are yet. That's why we need to get some work done on the front end. Right. Mean, we identify the projects, but prioritizing them to know which ones start first and because some of them may receive, like, storm water flows from other projects. You have to build it first kinda, like, downstream going up. Right. So

I'm familiar with that project.

And then but your other that's a good question about construction. We may in our world, when we say start construction, it's noticed to proceed, but y'all aren't gonna see the ants crawling around, the people moving around probably till four months later because they go through plant, submittals. They gotta approve the submittals, and then they gotta gear up for the work, and then they actually start moving dirt maybe three months, three or four months after notice to proceed. But in our world, that's that's usually when we say start construction is you bid it, and we say, okay. Contractor, go. But he's got paperwork in the beginning that he's gotta do.

Well, just as a as a private citizen, I highly recommend that y'all use extreme caution whenever you put that word out.

Or construe.

That phrase, whenever you put that out to notify the public, you need to be I would I would use extreme caution in that because the general layman is going to take that as boots on ground person, and this is why a lot of citizens throughout the city of San Marcos don't have trust in the city. I understand. They feel misled or misinformed.

So, yeah, we could use some more descriptive words like notice to proceed of construction and then actually turn in dirt.

Or implementing project or starting project, you know, as opposed to starting construction. Because starting a project can start, like, as far as, you know, finalizing the scope, permitting Yeah. Permitting and licensing, and then the bidding process. But when you say start construction, the majority of the citizens of San Marcos are going to assume that means boots on the ground. Helpful. We wanna

improve our messaging.

But Anybody else have any question for Marcus?

I have a question.

Go ahead, Mara.

Marcus, our neighborhood presented a project to the city back in 2005, and we were told at the time that there were there wasn't funding available. So we we chased it, and we finally got funds allocated through through the general fund through CIP. And k. And then it was delayed a bit because of COVID. And Okay.

After that was over, we came back to it, and we were told that the funding was needed to fund another project. And so it further delayed our project. And then they came back and told us, okay. We're going to proceed with the project utilizing a flood mitigation. And it's been at a standstill.

It's gone through design, and it's been at a standstill for quite some time. So I'm looking at twenty years now when I first presented this. We we we have felt the impact of not having drainage in our neighborhood. And as a result of it, there are several of us that continue to get flooded every time we have a hard rain. And so I looked at that list on page 12, and it says big project.

Big project. But But My question is or smaller project that is being proposed? Yes.

And I know I think I know the project you're talking about. Is that Riviera? Let's see. It's the intersection bonding and also bonding along the street in Rio Vista. I know that they are at very at close to a 100% design on that, and they're struggling with the right of way.

In other words, we needed some right of way in the backyards to be able to put in a drain to get it to the street. So there's there's some details there that if we can't get permission from some landowners to get a little more right away for a flume, a kind of a channel in their backyard, we may have to change that design. But I guess to answer your question, it's programmed, and there's funding for it. And it is not one of the big projects. It's more of a 4 to $500,000 project, but it's an important project.

And we have a game plan to, you know, address that intersection. That's pretty much designed, and we're done with that. But it's tricky piece of the ponding the side of the road, you know, to get it get it to that ditch over there by the railroad, to get it to the river, get rid of those bamboos that are growing in the ditch and probably impeding flow. So we have a lot of good ideas there, but the best one is to put a flume in and try to drain some of that backyard area. And that's where we're struggling at this point in time.

So we're gonna give that one more shot, but if that doesn't work, we may have to come up with a plan b to get the rest of the improvements that are finished up out on the street, bid them. And if you notice to proceed

That's her dirt.

But, yes, I I I know your project, and I will I will make sure we we put a we put some more effort into contacting the the the landowners back there. You know, I think we've contacted them, but they just are not interested in what we're asking for. So I may reach out to you offline and get your advice on some of that. You may know may maybe some of your neighbors.

Okay. So so my my quick is it norm for it to take twenty plus years to get a project done?

No. No. It doesn't. I think the challenge is on that one that it's the it's the type of there's not much relief. In other words, there's not much slope to get that water out of that area.

And working with minimal right away to try to drain it out is the big challenge. So we're, like I said, 95% there. And if the game plan doesn't work out with the easement that we're asking for, then we'll probably just do plan b for the backyards and go do the intersection because that part of it's ready for bidding. So I will, I think I'll reach out to you offline and talk talk about our game plan and see if you have if you can help us with the with the neighborhood.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Any questions for Marcus? No? Thank you, Marcus. We appreciate you coming out and presenting it to us.

Thank you all. Appreciate y'all's time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Alright. Moving on. Welcome to the board members. Sectors one and eight is Samantha Benavides. Sector five, there's two positions, the reappointment of myself and also Roland Salcedo has joined us again. Welcome back, Roland. Thank you. Sector 6, reappointment of Michael Vernon. Thank you, Michael, for hanging in there with us. And then, the Texas State Student Affairs is is Tyler Barstow. We, we appreciate all of you, and thank you. And if if anybody wants to, take a minute and introduce themselves, feel free.

Yeah. I'll go. I'm Tyler Barstow with Texas State University. I manage our off campus living department, so a lot of it is helping students. Sorry. Got an echo. Helping students find an apartment out in San Marcos. So work with a lot of the apartment managers, and then building that relationship, getting them on campus, and helping students find a place out in San Marcos.

In San Marcos.

So thanks for having me.

Yeah. Thank you, Tyler. Samantha, you wanna introduce yourself real quick?

Sure. Good evening, everyone. My name is Sam Benavides. I have been living in San Marcos since 2019. I'm originally from Laredo. I moved here for college, and I graduated with a bachelor's degree in public administration in 2021. And while I was attending Texas State, I got really involved with different local organizations and just really fell in love with the community and sort of never left. I've been living in this area of town that I'm representing now, for a while. Gotten to know often seeing them. It's a very unique generation. And I

thought I'm getting

lot of that echo. Yeah. I've never served on any border commission, so I'm really excited to learn

from all

of Yeah.

That's a really bad echo right now.

Yeah. Everybody's muted, so we heard everything you said, though, Sam.

Alright. So just myself, real quick. For those who don't know me, my name is Michael Adams. I've lived in San Marcos since 2012 when I transferred to Texas State. I I live here down in the Upper Mino Real subdivision, if you know where that's at. I've been on the board now for about three years. It's been a it's been a cool learning experience for me, and I've gotten to know the city better and and learned a lot about what takes place here and what happens and a lot about it. I didn't even know what happens in the city. So it's been a good experience for me. I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to another three years. Roland, you wanna finish it?

Yeah. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Roland Talsetto. I was born and raised here. I live in the same house that I was raised in. I have been a lifelong community advocate.

My my passions are neighborhoods and elections, and I've served on the neighborhood commission. This is my second commission that I've served. The the first one that I ever got appointed to in 1990 was the minorities commission, which is now known as the human, human services commission. And I served for the neighborhood commission twelve years. I was off for one year, and I've just been reappointed back for this year.

Awesome. Thank you, Roland. Myra, you wanna introduce yourself to everybody else real quick?

No. No.

Oh, okay. Alright. Okay. So moving on to available board member positions. Sector three, Larry Mock has resigned. Sector six, Taylor Faucette has resigned. And in sector nine, Corey Holland has resigned. And then, of course, we still have the apartment representative position available. And then moving on from that reports, vitality coordinator Tiffany Harris updates on happening in the community. Tiffany, go ahead and take it away.

Good evening, everyone. Yeah. Just a real quick update. I don't have too much going on, but I did wanna mention that the deadline for the City University, for for those of you of you that are new, not aware of this program. So City University or University with a c, we started it a couple years ago.

So this is our third year, in putting this class on, and the deadline to apply was March 17. We have 25 applicants, so they will all be accepted. I just wanted to to mention this to you because I did not have any neighborhood commissioners join this year's class. So there are still four there's still four openings that I can fill because I I'm maxing my class out at thirty. So if there's anybody that is interested in participating, the the classes start April 2 on a Wednesday, and then they're the following there's six additional classes that will be every Thursday except May 8.

I'm gonna skip May 8 because that's Texas State graduation. And so so if anybody's interested, please contact me. Or if you're even interested in maybe auditing a class I understand. Of different programs each week. So we usually have, like, two or three departments that present each each week. So if there are any particular classes you're interested in just auditing to check the class, see what it's all about, I'd love to have you. Just let me know. So I don't I don't know if there's anything else to add on that. Does anybody have any questions about university or what that's all about? Anybody have an interest in attending any of the classes?

Okay. Well, if you think about it and and you might be interested in a class, please please contact me. I'm happy to to fit you in. And then, also, Shanna, you're on the call, and maybe you can add to this. But, we are in Sunset Acres next Saturday, so March 29. We're gonna be, kicking off a new initiative called love where you live. So we're having a community party in Sun City on Thursday. Park. So I'll have I'll have Yvonne send that flyer out to kinda give if anybody's interested in coming to coming. I sure hope Roland will be there. I know he lives in

You know I will. You know I'll be there representing?

Yeah. Shanna, is there anything you'd like to add about the class or about the love where you live?

No. I I think you kinda touched on everything. You know, this this project in Southside Acres is gonna take about a year, year

and a half to complete,

but we're so excited. We got to meet with Roland for a little bit, before the neighborhood commission meeting to kinda go over some of the details. And there will be a survey, that we'd ask everyone to participate in as well. The idea is, this will be our inaugural event, and then, hopefully, we can, push this out citywide in the future. So thanks, Tiffany.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. So I think that's all I have. Thank you so much, and, see you all next time.

Hey, Tiffany.

August, can I can I say something real quick? Or

Sure. Let Robert go first.

I would like to attend the parks and recreation tonight. I missed that one. So Oh.

K. Yeah. I know you were in the past last year. I I'm sorry, Roland. Before you get started, I also just wanted to mention that I've been working with I've also been working with economic development department on a another new initiative.

We're the first one, we're starting a regional job fair. So we partnered with the the city of San Marcos, city of Lockhart, Luling, Kyle, and Buda. We're gonna it's we're we took it based on they used to have they have a regional job fair down in, so New Braunfels, Seguin, Schertz, and Cibolo where they rotate a job fair every quarter. So, we weren't able to join in to theirs, so we decided to create our own. So, we're gonna have some top tier employers out at this job fair out at the first one's gonna be out in Lockhart next week.

I'll send that flyer out as well. But, I'm just really excited that we're getting this going just to have some, great opportunity for residents too that are looking for work. I feel like as the community vitality coordinator, part of keeping the community vital is keeping our our residents employed. And so that this is just kind of part of, something I I really wanted to make happen. So, yeah, it's gonna be a great event. So anybody you know that's looking for work, send them our way. They'll again, it's Lockhart. It's gonna be in Lockhart next week. I'll send you all the flyer. Roland, do you have a question?

Not so much a question. I just wanted to address the new commissioners and well, all the commission. I would highly recommend that, if you have the time to definitely sign up for the university. I was lucky enough to be one of the first class members. And for someone who's very involved in the community, I learned a lot more than I thought I already knew. So I would highly recommend. If you have the time, please trust me. It is worthwhile. It is worth your time. And I think y'all still feed them because they sure fit us really good.

Yes. We have good food. So yes. Good. That's that part of it. But it's in the evening. It's gonna be 05:30 to 08:30, essentially, every every Thursday except for the first class, which is gonna be April 2. And April gonna be a great one. That's gonna be with the city manager's office, and the city attorney, economic development. Those are the main ones. But that's gonna be a great class. So anybody want to just give that one a try? And and if

you like it, you can keep coming. Alright.

Thank you, Tiffany.

Yes, sir.

Alright. Moving on to question and answer session with the press and public. This is an opportunity for the press and public to ask questions related to items on this agenda. Three minutes per individual. Yvonne, are there any press or public?

There is not.

Alright. So then moving on, chair and vice chair nominations and appointments. So, first, we'll we'll take a minute. We'll nominate individuals who are seeking to be the chair of the board for 2025. Does anybody wanna make a nomination? I'll I'll start. I'll say, Roland, I'll nominate you for chair just because you know more than any well, I I shouldn't say that, but you know

I want.

A lot about it. You've done this for longer than, I think, most of us, and and have a good background. So I think you you've been chair before, obviously, and I think you would be a good chair again. So I'll I'll nominate Roland.

I appreciate it.

2nd Floor from now?

Yeah. You're gonna like, you opened the you should have opened the floor to get the nominations.

But Yeah. I do that.

Yeah. Okay. And then so there's gonna be a first and then a second.

Okay. So I'll be the first for Roland if anyone wants to second it. Or if you have a nomination for somebody else as well.

There's no other nominations. Does somebody want a second roll in?

Is there is there a second for Rollin?

Does anybody wanna second the chair nomination for Roland?

I'll go ahead and second.

Thank you, Samantha.

Okay. If there's no other nominations, we'll go ahead and take a vote. If call, we call the roll.

Samantha Benavides?

Yes. Yes.

Robert Eby?

Hi. Okay.

Bobby Gasa Hernandez?

You're muted, Bobby.

You're muted, Bobby. Hi. Sorry.

Michael Adams? Hi. Roland Salcedo?

Hi.

Heidi Holiday McKittrick? Hi. Aye. Tyler Barstow?

Aye. Aye.

Daniel Martinez. K.

Alright. And now, well, congrats, Roland.

Thank you.

Vice chair nominations, they might have a nomination for vice chair.

I I would like to nominate you, Michael Adams.

Thank you, Roland.

Is there, any other nominations?

I gotta say, I I I think you missed me. My mute was off. I did eye for Roland.

Okay. Thank you.

Just to make it clear. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Any other nominations for

vice chair?

I'll nominate myself for vice chair.

I'll see. Robert, I'll second you as well. I think you've done a good job.

Thank you, Michael. So

who's first name, Robert?

I guess, can you nominate yourself? Yeah. Okay.

So it's him. I'll second.

Okay.

Any other nominations? Okay. So then we'll take a vote for for Robert to be the vice chair.

Cool. Samantha Benavides? Did Michael not get a second?

No. And then I was I mean, I I enjoyed my time at church. Okay? I'm not I but I'm I'm okay with giving it up to Roland and to you. Y'all I was I was

assuming we were gonna have a runoff here. But

No. You're I'm I'm still,

like, down here.

I'm okay. I don't know what's my word, but I I'm I'm okay not being nominated, honestly. It's okay.

Okay. So what doing now?

So we'll take a vote for Robert to be the vice chair.

Okay. Samantha Benavidesz. Aye. Robert Eby. Aye. Bobby Yassa Hernandez. Aye. Michael Adams.

Aye.

Roland Salcedo. Aye. Michael Vernon.

Aye.

Heidi Holiday McKittrick.

Aye.

Tyler Bostow.

Aye. Aye.

Daniel Martinez.

Okay.

Alright. Do you

wanna just announce the chair at the

of Yeah. So the the chair for the upcoming year will be Roland, and then the vice chair is gonna be Robert. Thank you both for volunteering or for accepting that. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn.

I'll make that motion. Alright.

Is there a second?

Second.

Yvonne, if you'll follow the rule.

Samantha Benavides? Aye. Robert Eby?

Aye.

Bobby Garcia Hernandez? Aye. Michael Adams? Aye. Roland Salcedo?

Aye.

Michael Vernon?

Aye.

Aye. Tyler Barstow? Daniel Martinez.

Alright. So with that, I will adjourn the neighborhood commission meeting at 07:06PM. Thank you all. We'll see you next month.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye. Cheers.