Neighborhood Commission - Regular Meeting

We hereby I'm hereby opening the the meeting for the city of San Marcos neighborhood commission on Wednesday, April 15 at 06:03PM. Yvonne, will you please call the

room? Samantha Benavides?

Here.

Robert Eby?

I'm here.

Rick Kennedy? Bobby Gasol Hernandez? Here. Michael Adams? Here. Roland Salcedo?

Here.

Michael Vernon? Rui Gleason? Just a second. Somebody's in the lobby.

Okay.

Michael Vernon is just signing on, and Rick Kennedy has just signed on as well too. Rui Gleason, Heidi Holiday McKittrick, Jason Valdez

Here.

Tyler Barstow.

Here.

Alexis Monzanoras. Absentees are Rui Gleason, Heidi Holiday McKittrick, Alexis Monzanoras.

Thank you. And now I'm open to the citizen comment period for three minutes, three minutes per citizen. Persons wishing to participate or speak during the citizen comment portion of the meeting must email ypalacios@sanmarcustx.gov prior to 12PM on 04/15/2026, the day of the meeting. A link to join by a mobile device, laptop, or desktop computer will be provided for participation as well as a call in number to join by phone. Do I have anybody signed up to speak?

You do, but I don't see them online. It's Virginia Parker.

Think we move on.

Okay. I'm gonna since she is not signed on with us and it is already 06:05, I will be closing the six zero comment period. Moving on to our next agenda item will be the minutes. Consider approval by motion of the 03/18/2026 meeting minutes. I'll give everybody a few minutes to look over them since we just got our packet yesterday.

I didn't mean to say something. Was just kidding.

The packet is also online the week before.

Well, I was told you it was gonna or you left on a challenge.

No. Well, are we No. I never Who? Yeah. We're not.

Hold on. Are we all

We got a motion from we got

a motion from Jason to approve. Can I get a second? I'll go ahead and second the roll, please.

Okay. Samantha Benavides? Yes. Robert Eby? Yes. Rick Kennedy?

Yes.

Bobby Gasa Hernandez? This is Canada back. Yes. Michael Adams?

I'll say. I'm far down.

Roland Salcedo? Yes. Michael Vernon? Michael Vernon.

We can hear him again.

Ruik Gleason. Heidi Holiday McKittrick. Jason Valdez. Yes. Tyler Barstow.

Yes.

Alexis Monzanoras.

Okay. Thank you so much. Rick, can I get you to turn your camera back on, please? Thank you, sir. And just a final reminder to everybody, all commissioners must have their cameras on y'all are via TEAS.

We wanna do it from here?

Okay. Moving on to our next agenda item is gonna be our guest speaker, John Locke, is our finance director. We're gonna receive a presentation of the fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget. He will do his presentation, and then we'll open it up after his presentation, we'll open it up to question and answer session. Mr. John Locke, welcome, and good to see you again, and it's all yours.

Thank you. Thank you all for having me. Good afternoonevening, everyone. We we just put together a few slides to share where we're at with the FY '27 budget. That's next fiscal year's budget. And we're it's early in the in the budget process. The department's actually budgets, and they had an initial review with finance, and they're going to meet with the city manager's office starting tomorrow. So that's kind of where the budget process is in general right now.

Okay.

This is a look at our calendar. And, Roland, you mentioned that the budget process starts in January, and it does with city council visioning session. And you can see we've had the budget policy workshop, and that's really what generates this meeting with the neighborhood commission is we we get that guidance from city council, and then we meet with the neighborhood commission, just give an update of where we're at with the budget, you know, at this point in the year. And for those that aren't aware, the city does operate on a fiscal year, so it'll this the budget that we're working on right now will be in effect from October '26 through September 2027. Inflation affects the city, you know, just like it like it does us at home.

You know, when when we go to the grocery store and what used to cost a $100, cost a $120, you know, that same impact is on the city. And that's what this slide is intended to show. It just shows the the index that the city uses is a is a little different than the consumer price index, which is what most of us are used to hearing about. And because it just better shows what the cost of municipal service increase is experiencing. And just to point out a couple of things you see in that red box is that the general fund departments have had to hold their budgets flat for the past two years, and that's been just from a lack of resources to be able to increase the budget.

So, you know, that's been effectively a budget cut. You can see in 2024, it was 1.3%. And in 2025, it was estimated about 2.8%. And also for the current fiscal year, the departments did cut collectively a $100,000, not each department, but collectively a 100,000. So now just to take a look at the general fund, the the general fund the city has a lot of different funds.

The general fund is the one that people are probably most familiar with. It is the the fund that provides public safety when you think of police and fire. It also, provides parks and recreation and library services. So those are the types of core services that the general fund provides. And the primary revenue source sources are property tax and sales tax.

As you can see from this slide five, property tax make up 35% of the total budget and sales tax make up 32%. And the total general fund budget is a $123,000,000. The the total budget that the city has, operating budget, is 370,000,000. So you can see how big the general fund is compared to, you know, the whole general fund budget. This is a list of department requests that there just wasn't enough capacity or funding resources available in the current year's budget in fiscal year twenty six.

It it has a list of the departments, and the top part, it shows personnel requests. There's a total of 47 different requests for new people that would have cost $5,000,000. Then operating requests, these are requests, you know, where the departments had to keep their budget flat if they wanted to add any kind of new program or service, and they had to request that separately. And so there were three of those. So in total, there were about 50 requests for over $5,000,000 that the department's asked for, that there just wasn't enough capacity in their budget of or in the general fund budget to be able to help.

So now we'll talk a little bit about property tax. So these these two charts show how a dollar of property tax is divided, and and this would be for a Sam's a Sam Marcus resident that is paying property tax. If they do not have a homestead exemption, so this would be, if they owned a rental property or some kind of business property, that is on the left hand side. So for every dollar of property tax paid, 49¢ would go to the San Marcos consolidated independent school district, 32¢ would go to the city, 17¢ goes to Hays County, and about 2¢ goes to the special road district for the county. To the right of that is the is what someone who has a homestead.

So somebody who owns a home that has a homestead exemption, 38¢ goes to the school district, and 38¢ comes to the city. 21¢ goes to Hays County, and it looks like about 3¢ goes to the school district. The reason for that change, y'all might remember that the the legislature and then, approved moving the homestead exemption up from a 100,000 to a 140,000 for school taxes, and then the voters, approved that at the election. So that took effect, and and that's what brings that down from on the left hand side, it's 49¢, and on the right hand side, it's 38¢. That's the reason for that.

With so for every dollar of property tax that the city receives, property tax and and what are called tax increment financing zones comes off the top and tax increment financing or special zones that are set up that the property taxes generated within that zone have to be used for a specific purpose. For example, there's one downtown that has to be used downtown. So all of that has to come off the top. And so what we're left with for every dollar of property tax that's paid to the that the city receives, 65¢ goes to operation. So that's to fund things like police and fire and public works and parks and recreation.

22¢ goes to pay off debt that's been issued for things like fire stations and road construction, and 13¢ go to those tax increment finance incentives. This is a look at at the city's taxable value as well as our tax rate. You can see that the tax rate increased from 25 to 26 by about 5¢. 3¢ of that was just to get the city to the no new revenue rate, and it it gets kind of pop comp complicated and complex when when you look at start talking with this different terminology. What the no new revenue rate is is the tax rate that will generate the same amount of tax revenue, on properties that were taxed in both years.

So and some of you may have experienced this. The value of homes have been going down. And so when value of homes go down, then that's less property tax that the city is going to receive from it. So the tax rate can go up without increasing the the amount of taxes that that the average homeowner is paying. So that is that accounts for some of that.

And then city council also increased the tax rate close to 2¢ for the emergency medical services. I don't I don't know if if some of you may have heard a little bit about that, that the current structure is is dissolving. We had a a regional structure with the city and Hays County, and the county portion was made up with a couple emergency service districts they're pulling out, so that leaves the city to have to decide on how we're gonna continue to provide the EMS services. And and so the we're in the process of standing up a emergency emergency medical service department within the city. So that that's the reason for that tax rate increase.

This this slide just talks about the the tug of war that goes on between debt and and taxes. When when the tax rate remains I'm sorry. Between debt and operations, when the tax rate remains the same, if we issue debt, that causing that our tax rate to have to go up, then that reduces the amount of money that we have for operations. And I think there might be a slide next that'll show what a penny yeah. So one penny on the tax rate will generate about $876,000, and this slide just shows what that penny will buy.

So it's equivalent of five police officers when you include their vehicles and uniforms and equipment or six firefighters including their uniforms or equipment. On the other side, on the debt side, we can issue $11,000,000 of debt and be able to make that debt service with that 1p or that 876,000. And that $11,000,000 would build a new fire station. It's the equivalent of a new water tank as well or the Hopkins Street improvements from Moore to Guadalupe. Part of the the reason that departments have had to hold their budgets steady is because of the our declining sales tax collections.

And we've talked about this here in in this meeting over the the past couple years. You you can see the fiscal year twenty six budget, the sales tax is at 30 the budget amount was 39,700,000, which is less than what it was in fiscal year twenty three When, you know, a couple slides ago, we said the sales tax and property tax are the two biggest revenue sources. And if in order to keep up with inflation, you need those to grow, and and they weren't growing. And so that's one of the the reasons why just a couple other pieces of information are on this slide. The outlet malls make up a big piece of the city sales tax, and that's and you can see the the outlet malls is green and what we call everything else for the base is in blue.

That black dotted line is the percent of the total property tax or sales tax that the outlet malls make up. And and you can see if you go back to 2020, it was close to 30%. Now it's close to 20%, which is a good thing because it's just showing that the city's sales tax base is growing and is diversifying, and we're less dependent on the on the out of malls. This just shows how our sales tax is growing. It's looking at a twelve month average.

It's better to look at sales tax in a year increment because it takes away the volatility that you'll get in month to month. And and so you can see we've been negative from November 24 on this chart all the way through August '25. And here recently, we have been going positive, which is a positive sign. Sales tax, do seem like they're turning around, which which will be great moving forward for the city. So this is what our general fund forecast looked like when when we shared it with city council.

You you can see for fiscal it has the prior year actual activity in '24 and '25, and then it has the budget for '26. You can see the shortfall is growing. '27 was estimated at 4,000,000 and growing up to 15,000,000 by the time we hit 2030. There's also a dotted red line and a dotted black line. The the red line is just the trend for expenses, and the black is the trend for revenues.

You would like to see them look the other way so that revenues are trending higher, but that hasn't been the trend. This has since changed, and I'll this is the last slide. So a couple of things that have changed from this. We because of the what we've been experiencing with property tax where the reappraised values going down, we assumed that property tax values will would stay flat, and that's not what happened. So we did see some growth.

And we also had a early retirement incentive program where we offered people who are eligible to retire the ability to retire and knowing that we would save money by not filling that position down the road into '27. So between the additional money that that we received from property tax stand flat in that program, We're actually a million dollars to the good right now. So that's great news for the city. Instead of looking at a 4,000,000 shortfall, we're a million dollars to the good. So that's what I wanted to share with you all. So if you have any questions or anything, I'd be happy to answer them.

That was that was one of mine. The the retirement options, how would that help increase?

Yeah. So the so the the way that that helped is the the total amount of salaries that and when you look at the salary and benefits of the people that took that, the city saved $2,000,000. And and what we had to pay in incentives in order to as part of that agreement was $400,000. So we had a onetime expense of $400,000 as part of the early retirement incentive. And beginning in f y twenty seven on, we're gonna save $2,000,000 recurring because that position isn't gonna be filled again.

So that that really took a big chunk out of this shortfall. And and that helps moving forward too. Right? Because in 2028, that $2,000,000 isn't gonna be here. It's and it and it probably would have increased by some some percentage amount with the like, with whatever COLA that city council would have heard. So so that's so that's how that saved this money.

Anyways, so on that, piggybacking on that Mhmm. So you can you clarify? You said those positions will not be filled Right. Like,

Right. Or So so I let I'll back up a little bit from that in that the the majority of those positions are just that cut and dried. They're not gonna be filled ever. There were a couple of positions that that if it saved at think the amount was at least $10,000 that human resources was working with, that they would allow the person to retire, and then that person that would come into that position would have a salary cap to where it had to at least save the city $10,000. Those were in the minority, though.

Those were I wanna do you have any idea how many of those out of the total there? Know? Until '19. It it it is in the minority. The majority of these savings is just from eliminating the the positions. So and I I think that may have been something that that we shared at at a previous meeting that we had here. And just in that, you know, in the general fund, the biggest expense is personnel. And so if if you're having if you're struggling with your budget, that that's really where you have to go because in the general fund, it makes up about, I would estimate, about 80% of the total

budget. So let me ask you. How many positions how many positions and so is this still ongoing, or are y'all already done with Done with that. Everybody that's decided to take

the early retirement? So it was supposed to be already closed, and it it recently opened up because of but and it's only opened up for another week, and it's only opened up to the people who were eligible for it before and didn't take it. And and the reason we got opened up again was part of the reason that some of the people didn't take it is is that gap between not having health insurance, between when you retire and when you become Medicare eligible. And the city worked out this agreement with a with Frontier, which that they can purchase insurance to be able to go to Frontier at at a lower rate. And and so that might might open it up to people where they wanna go ahead and take advantage of this now because they have access to that.

And and it it didn't seem fair to roll that out right after we just offered the the program to people. No. So it was closed off, and it got opened back up for one week because of that new program. And

how many how many people took it right until the I wanna say it was 20 something. Do you Yeah.

Twenty twenty one, I think.

21.

And then possibly a few more with

the new Yeah. Possibly some week.

Yeah. Okay. And so with that, we said so, like, when y'all work this little prop program together Mhmm. Were variances or variables considered as to, like, deficiencies in those departments and stuff since, one, that's not gonna be filled. You

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. And we did not do this in in a vacuum. We we met with the departments, and so human resources provided all the directors a list of the people that are eligible.

And before we even started down the process, the the directors of that department had the opportunity to say who they could let go, like a position that they could eliminate by by shifting some of the duties internally and and who they just couldn't because they would have to fill that position. And and so, yeah, so there there was a lot of discussion with that. So these because the majority of these people I don't wanna estimate because I might estimate wrong, but out of that 21 people, the majority of them are positions that are just gone. They're they're just, you know, I would say a few of those at at the most that are those that are meeting that where they can they can bring somebody back on, but there's a salary cap that they can't go above so that we're at least saving the $10,000.

And some of the 21 positions were they were already vacant positions, and the city has just decided to let that position go and not fill it

in the future. So

it was it was already a vacant because the departments did that look to see, you know, where they could move work around or switch things around. And in that, they said, well, we have this vacancy, and we don't we could eliminate this one as a part of the program and have, you know, the work picked up in these other areas.

And then so on that, can you explain to me, like, how I mean, we weren't spending that money. So how is that how how is that gonna save us by eliminating somebody that wasn't even there?

Right. So the the city has has been actually, since 2024, has been under a managed hiring program to try and and manage our budget, and and that started just with the downturn in sales tax. We can't continue to spend this this the amount that is in our budget when we know that we're not gonna meet our revenue goals. So we we have a managed hiring program where positions are held vacant for a longer period of time. Except for some mission critical public safety positions, those are still filled.

But, other positions are held vacant. And and so the but they're still budgeted. Right? So it's still in the budget. And what so what happened the way that it saves us money is that when that position just gets eliminated, it comes out of the budget. They can't fill that in future years.

Robert, Andy has it.

Okay. Robert?

Yeah. Thank you. You did just answer my first question, so thank you, Roland, for asking that critical question that was on my mind as well. Follow-up, I guess, separate question, though, about in inflation. We've seen wild swings in inflation lately. Is your forecast, do you feel confident in your forecast that you're capturing, potential future inflation, worst case scenarios? Because I know some numbers have been down, but a lot of numbers are way up higher than we ever expected. So is your forecast are you reasonably confident with what you're forecasting?

That's a that's a great point, especially when you look at fuel costs right now. But, you know, fuel costs are a lot higher than than than what they were just a few months ago. And so what we have factored in is 3%. And if if you go back and look at the the slide, you know, that that has the the the different inflation amounts for a city, 3% would would would capture it in, you know, in in most years. I think the the average is probably closer to between 223%.

So what we have factored in is three. And to your point, if things if things go above three, then then no. You know, it's not captured in in our forecast. 3% is is what we're using right now.

Oh,

sorry. No. Does anybody else have any other question?

I got two. You mentioned supplement emergency services at 2¢. That's still different. The city pays the private companies 2¢?

Yeah. No. So what so what what that well, yes and no. Yeah. So what what that is, we're right now the the city has to contribute its share to the Private group city? Yeah. It's the what is this? The San Marcos Hays County partnership, EMS partnership. And so the city contributes about 4 and a half million dollars to to them, and that is our share of for them to provide EMS services. And we did, prior to that about 2¢ increase, we we only contributed 2 and a half million.

So so that generated roughly $2,000,000 for us to be able to, increase it to 4 and a half million dollars.

And that's gonna be covered by the city now because the private companies are moving out?

Right. And and so we are in the process. Right now, our goal is to be is to take over completely by the start of fiscal year twenty seven, which is October 1. Would that complete investment for the entire Hays County also be needed for the city only? Because you're only gonna cover the city's Right. Yeah. So we're only cover the whole Hays County area. Exactly. Yeah. The those emergency service districts will will cover the different parts of the county. So we'll only be covering the city.

Then I know you saw that that trend of a month in April was the bottom month, like, 2.8 negative 2.8%.

Yeah.

The city thought about maybe doing some kind of events or anything to help raise revenue, maybe With raise revenue, like, do something that brings in people from out of town?

Yeah. Well, the we we economic development is is a is a big thing that that we try to do, and and we have a new economic development director that has a lot of great ideas, and she is her name's Helen Ramirez. She's been with us for, what, maybe a couple months?

Maybe a couple months?

Yeah. She she I'm

sorry. Followed her on LinkedIn.

Oh, do

you know

who she is? Yeah. So she's she's great. She has a lot of great ideas. That that's the best way to, you know, to boost sales tax revenue. Another great thing, I didn't mention it, but we have going for us is with Texas State joining the Pac twelve, you know, that we think that that's going to draw a lot more people into the city. And when people come here, you know, that they buy things, they go to restaurants, they stay in our hotels, and, you know, that's gonna generate a lot more revenue for the city too.

What the apartments that were purchased by nonprofits are coming back online? You mention that at all?

No. I I didn't. There there there were three apartment complexes that that were purchased by housing finance corporations, and that made them tax exempt. The the total amount of revenue that the city lost from that is about $800,000. And so it's possible that one of those might so the city's fighting that right now. It's it's in court. It's possible that one of those might be coming back on, which would give us another $200,000. It's not final, though. So so we're still waiting to hear. And, I mean, it's still possible for the whole 800,000.

Wait. Go ahead.

Ahead. Is it okay?

Okay. Yes. Go ahead.

So we're just waiting to see how all of that ends up in court.

We need to load the. G Jamie, the AC, we like a lot of.

Okay. Does anybody else have any other questions? So just real quick on that EMS on the EMS. So, like, I know there was there was talks about that we were still in, like, the negotiating phase. Is that is that true? So, like, while there's a plan Mhmm. But it hasn't been finalized and, like, there's still some kind of wiggle room with the numbers, but, like, more of an increase in the numbers. Is that correct?

But there is a it's the the way the plan is to move the EMS completely over,

you know,

to Right. Under the city. Exactly. And some of the some of the negotiation that is still ongoing is there there were assets, you know, when you look at some of the ambulances and some of the equipment that that were purchased, in part by the city's money and in part by the county's money. Right. So there's still some discussions on how that's gonna be split up, you know, now that that entity is gonna dissolve and be no more. So that's part of what is an ongoing negotiation. Yes.

Oh, good. And we're looking at it being finalized by approval of By one. Okay. By ten one? Okay. Yeah.

And all of that would have to work itself out. So it's it's not a lot of time when when you think of of moving, you know, such a important big service like emergency medical services, you know, from one entity to the other. But we there's a plan to to get it done. So

Okay. Does anybody else have any other questions? No? Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you all for being here.

We appreciate it, miss, for the information. And and I I should ask, I mean, is there anything that you would want us to take back? You know, because we're still early in the budget process. So if there's any kind of feedback or anything that you want us to to take back and share with the city manager's office or with, you know, city council, you know, as we're developing the budget. If there's something, please let us know.

I was gonna ask one question. I forgot right now. I have a good thing on the court here. And this is just for purposes of our constituency, you know, that anybody that will that will see this. Mhmm. So and that's not familiar with just, you know, folks. Can you on page five, can you kinda elaborate as to you show us the the two graphs, but one of them is 3532%, whereas the other one is twenty four and twenty two.

Alright. Just a few want that?

Distinguish why why the difference?

Yeah. So on the left hand side, those are the primary revenue sources. And and so so the blue, the color, the 35% is property tax. So property tax make up 35 of the total $123,000,000 general fund budget. And right below that, you see sales tax is the second largest revenue source.

It makes up 32% of that total budget. And and as you keep moving over, you can see franchise fees makes up 12%, and all other is grouped up in that 15%. On on the right hand side, that those are expenses so that and when you look at all the different departments that make up the general fund, the 24% is police. So police is the largest portion of the general fund's budget. The second largest it shows that support services, and that's a lot of different departments.

And there's an asterisk that points out all the different departments that makes up support service. Say, see the city manager's office, city clerk, city council, communications, finance, legal. There's a lot of different departments. And then fire makes up the third. So when you look at just the two biggest departments in the general fund, it's police and fire.

Okay. And so just for clarification, like, layman's terms, so so if someone is looking at this that's not familiar with budgeting or craft stuff Mhmm. Just in layman's terms, so the one on the left, that's what what what we got coming in.

Yes. And

that's that that that chart right there, if you take the chart of the right, that's what's being pulled out of the chart from the left. Yes. Does that understand? Correct.

Yeah. That's accurate. Yes.

What I wanna check here. Okay. Alrighty. Does anybody have any input, any suggestions of

I think suggestions is the last time. Don't don't pay for outside, finding services for personnel. $50,000 every time you need to put out assistant director or director's position when you're gonna hire from within. Outside. That could waste some money. The last the last four big ones were filled internally.

Yes. And and, and the city is making a a move to do that more. You know, another change the city has done is that, you know, we've, we have a lot of, temporary employees, and we're using temp agencies to fill those positions. And when you do that, you know, there's a fee that the temp agency is collecting. And so our new human resources director has brought that in house, and so we're managing that now so that we're not having to pay that fee on top, you know, to the temp agencies. That's along the same lines that you're talking about. But I understand, yes, those those types of search agencies are expensive.

They feel positions wiped out that $100,000 they're gonna save.

You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.

Yeah. So, yeah, like Jason said, basically, what we had shared the last time, I think the spirit is still the same. You have you definitely, you know, gone above and beyond doing every you know, taking those suggestions in mind and and working with the budget.

And I know there's still gonna be some more tweaking that that, you know, quite a bit more tweaking that

still has to be done.

Yes.

And, you know, y'all will hear from us via Yavon, you know, any any any effort that thumbs up Yeah. From the commissioners in in the future for many of us, we'll share it with we'll send

it to Yvon and Yvon will share

it with them. Okay. And I I think we're scheduled to be back in August once the budget is delivered to city council, then and then we'll bring to the commission what that budget looks like for fiscal year twenty seven. Awesome.

Well, we appreciate everything you all are doing. Thank you all so much, and thank you all for being here tonight.

We thank you all. Great. Appreciate it.

Good to see you.

Yeah. You will. You are.

Just saying.

It is. Exes today. I need some help, obviously. I used to. Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Commissioner, I'm having a little bit of an issue. Can we take a five minute recess? Can I get a second for a five minute recess?

A second. That's fine.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna bring the the meeting back up. Thank you all for your patience, for bearing with me.

So as y'all know that we had already opened up I had already opened up citizen comment period and and waited a couple of minutes and then closed it. And just to share with y'all, Virginia Parker, the executive director of the San Marcos River Foundation, did sign up. She was the citizen that signed up. And, unfortunately, because we have already opened and closed that agenda item, she won't be able to speak. And so but we'll I I did inform her that she can submit information to Yvonne that was that she can share with us.

So just to give you all that notice. And then, Yvonne, you said two of our absentee

Yes.

I wanted to announce that Rui Aglisa and Michael Vernon are in attendance in our our meeting. I think I had announced them absent at the very beginning.

And I will make this comment is miss Parker, she is online with us. However, that she won't be able to speak until the comment, she can join for the question and answer session at the end of the meeting. So if you want to remain online with us, miss Parker, while we discuss the agenda items that I assume that you go that you're here for, you can ask us questions at the end of that, and then we can take any information from there and make sure that it's that information is included in our final or next month's meeting because the agenda item will be finalized next month. Okay? So moving on to our next agenda item is gonna be inform the commissioner on Caves Dam survey and scheduled open house.

I just wanted to let everybody this is going on. Please let your sectors know about it. And it closes this the survey closes on May 1.

I sent everybody the flyer for it as well. So and I guess I

Jamie Lee Case, the director of parks, is online if she wants to make any comments about it.

Jamie, is there anything that you would like to share with with us?

Sure. And just real quick. Thanks, Amy. We did send out individual postcards to Blanco Gardens residents and Wallace edition. That was something that the city council wanted us to specifically do. So those are out in snail mail, so hopefully, those should be delivered. I'm hoping they got delivered already, but if not, hopefully by the end of the week for sure.

Thank you so much. Okay. Moving on to our next agenda item. Here's an update for Sector 2, San Marcos Police Department neighborhood conversation meeting.

So I did attach this to to the packet, and this is the update that was sent to us in reference to the meeting that was held.

Okay. And did did y'all get that? Did y'all see in the packet, Yvonne, do you include the update from the San Marcos Police Department as to what the what the what they discussed at the meeting. It's the one that looks like this with the San Marcos police logo on the top.

How is this distributed? Who who got this beside?

It wasn't. It was just it was just sent to me.

Okay.

And so I because we are updating every month after a sector has their meeting, I felt this would be good to attach to the packet and inform you of what was and I know you were there. Inform the commissioners of of what was what happened and what was the outcome of the meeting.

Do you know what was

sorry.

Go ahead. I just wanna say that I think PD is using this to contact the departments that would address the different situations or issues that were addressed that were brought up.

Go ahead, Samantha.

Thank you. Do you know if one of these was sent out for the session that they had in Sector 1?

I don't think so. No.

No. But we're gonna reach out and see if they have anything that they that they could share with us regarding Sector 1.

Cool. Yeah. I wasn't able to make it, unfortunately, so I would love to hear how that meeting went.

Yes. We'll we'll we'll

I'll get something for you, Samantha, send it to you.

Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Joanne. Okay. Moving on to our next agenda item is review with possible action. The draft for the recommendation a resolution regarding recommendation 202503RRDashPRB of the park and recreation board regarding Riverfront And East Side Regional Park preliminary design plans. And as you'll see so Yvonne and Amy and myself worked on a draft that Yvonne had already started.

As y'all know, she's such an expert, done does such a great job with it. And so if y'all wanna look, the reason that there are two is because on a lot of it is just really verbiage, but we wanted to make sure that

On the fourth one down.

On the on the Go ahead. On the fourth one down, that we wanted to make sure that we I got a consensus from y'all and that we took a vote on the actual verbiage. If you look on one of them, it says, whereas a majority of the neighborhood commission opposed the parks and rec the recreation board's recommendation of concept d of the proposed riverfront parks plan. And so that's on one. And the other one is, whereas the neighborhood commission is fully opposed to the parks and rec more to recommendation of concept d of the proposed river parks plan.

And the reason that we did these two drafted these two is because there was one commissioner that was there was one commissioner, to my recollection to our recollection, that was okay with the concept d, where the rest of us opposed it. So we just wanna, you know, get from y'all what's the what's the verbiage that y'all want us to send forward to the council? And the mayor is, do we want to say fully do we wanna take another vote and say fully opposed, or do we wanna leave it as a majority of the neighborhood commission? So I'm opening it up. Can I hear from y'all?

Yeah. So I'm gonna go ahead and read the first one that was based on the commissioner that that was okay with concept g. So recommendation resolution. Neighborhood commission. Recommendation resolution number twenty twenty six dash zero one r r dash n h.

A recommendation resolution of the neighborhood commission to the city council to recommend a commitment to a more thorough review and assessment of Parks and Recreation Board, recommendation number twenty twenty five dash zero three r r dash p r b riverfront and East Side Regional Park preliminary design plans. Whereas the neighborhood commission has received a presentation and discussed the proposed parks and Recreation Board's recommendation for the riverfront and the East Side Regional parks plan. And whereas the neighborhood commission believes the Parks and Recreation Board community outreach has been lacking and there are unaddressed concerns due to an an incomplete public engagement process. And whereas the Neighborhood Commission is concerned about an increase in potential refuse and debris runoff into the San Marcos River due to the increase in crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed riverfront parks plan, and whereas a majority of the neighborhood commission opposed the Parks and Recreation Board's recommendation of concept d of the proposed Riverfront Parks Plan, and whereas a majority of the neighborhood commission opposed the parks and recreation board's recommendation of concept b of the proposed East East Side park plan, and whereas the neighborhood commission respectfully asked council to evaluate the potential impacts and environmental burdens on surrounding neighborhoods, specifically regarding noise, pollution, traffic flow, and excess excessive nuisance lighting.

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Neighborhood Commission of the City Of The San Marcos, Texas recommends the San Marcos City Council to prioritize the quiet enjoyment and overall livability to the neighborhood by addressing the impact of residential health, safety concerns, and environmental awareness. And that is the first draft. That is the one with the with the verbiage majority. And whereas the second one reads the same recommendation resolution, neighborhood commission recommendation resolution number 2026Dash01 r r Dash n h, a recommendation resolution of the neighborhood commission to the city council to recommend a commitment to a more thorough review and assessment of Parks and Recreation Board, recommendation number twenty twenty five dash zero three r r dash p r b, Riverfront And Eastside Regional Park preliminary design plans. Whereas the Neighborhood Commission has received a presentation and discussed the proposed Parks and Recreation Board's recommendation for the Riverfront and the Eastside Regional Parks Plan.

And whereas the neighborhood commission believes the Parks and Recreation Board community outreach has been lacking and there are unaddressed concerns due to an incomplete public engagement process. And whereas the neighborhood commission is concerned about an increase in potential refuse refuse and debris runoff into the San Marcos River due to increase in crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed riverfront parks plan. Whereas the neighborhood commission is fully opposed to the parks and recreation board's recommendation of concept d of the proposed riverfront parks plan, and whereas the neighborhood commission is fully opposed to the parks and recreation board's recommendation of concept b of the proposed East Side park plan, and whereas the neighborhood commission respectfully ask council to evaluate the potential impacts and environmental burdens on surrounding neighborhoods, specifically regarding noise pollution, traffic flow, and excessive nuisance lighting. Now therefore be it resolved that the Neighborhood Commission of the City of San Marcos, Texas recommends the San Marcos City Council to prioritize the quiet enjoyment and overall livability of the neighborhoods by addressing the impact of residential health, safety concerns, and environmental awareness. So, again, like I said, the the main verbiage the main issue on this is paragraph four where it says either fully opposed or a majority.

And so before we go into that, there is one thing I want to make perfectly clear that everybody understands and that everybody agrees with this is in paragraph two, whereas the neighborhood commission believes the Parks and Recreation Board community outreach has been lacking, and there are unaddressed concerns due to an incomplete public engagement process. So I want to clarify on that to make sure that everybody understands that paragraph and why it it's included and and why it's worded that way is because that paragraph, we're taking from the citizens of the neighborhoods of the, you know, the emails, phone calls, and texts of people that sent in to letting us know that they opposed it, but, you know, that they did feel they were part of the conversation. If y'all will recall, when Jamie presented to us in January, she in her presentation, she gave us a very detailed they gave us a very detailed schedule of all the open houses, all the meetings that they had, all the survey dates. And and you can you know, if any of y'all go back to it, you'll see that the city did do, you know, hold quite a few of the open house engagements and open to the public.

But the based on the comments that we were receiving from the citizens and some of our commission some of them are commissioners, we just feel that the that the proper stakeholders were not thoroughly vested or vetted. You were not an opportunity to vet this properly. So that's why that that's why that paragraph is there. So now I'm gonna shut up, and I'm gonna open it to y'all. And the first thing I wanna know is where y'all stand on fully opposed or a majority.

I don't mean to call out any commissioner, but if if you want to kick it off, Robert, the reason that we use majority and not fully is because at the last meeting, you were not opposed to the concepts. And so you've changed your mind or give us a feeling of where you are with it and the and the verbiage of this.

So me, personally, I guess I thought I wasn't opposed to concept d, but looking at the parking the parking around that one ball field, I'm opposed to that. So I am opposed as as written, I am opposed to both concepts. So I have no objection to full using the word fully.

Okay. So oh, Rick. Rick, go ahead, Rick.

Yeah. This isn't this isn't a question about the fully or or majority. This is on that paragraph two where we say, neighborhood commission believes the parks and rec board community outreach has been lacking. Should we have some verbiage in there that indicates that our basis for that belief is the feedback that we've received from the people in

the

neighborhoods? So, you know, something like, whereas the neighborhood commission has heard significant objections to the plan from the residents of the affected neighborhoods, we believe that the parks and recreation board community outreach has been lacking. So it's not coming from us, so to speak. It's coming from the people.

Well, no. But we do I understand where you're going. But, Rick, actually, there are some commissioners, some of us commissioners that did feel because if you if if and also, let me clarify. We're saying that the commune the community outreach have been lacking. It's from the parks and rec board, not the city in whole.

It's the parks and rec board. Like, in the past, whenever the neighborhood commission, whenever we've had an issue that's that's come up that's gonna be majorly affecting, you know, a certain narrow neighborhood, we've always made sure to have a neighborhood meeting in that neighborhood to make sure that the people that weren't able to go to the open houses and all that, we took it to their neighborhood so that way, once the decision, once whatever council does, this way we have the proof that us as the neighborhood commission, which is our role, is to advocate for the protection, preservation, promotion, beautification of our neighborhoods. We're the advocacy group for that. And so that's that's why we're saying the that a lot of people feel the Parks and Rec board, when they got these plans, aside from the the outreach that was done by the city, some people feel that the Parks and Rec board, because they are an advisory board just like us, that they should have reached out maybe to have a meeting in, you know, somewhere that was neutral to both Blanco Gardens and Blanco River Village. Blanco River Village to be you know, to where they felt informed and they felt like they had a a voice.

And then, like I said, the reason that we're not putting that based only on community concern is because, like I said, some of us commissioners I know myself. I know commissioner correct me if I'm wrong, but commissioner Bobby Garza Hernandez also had some some feelings about this. Jason also and some other commissioners. So but we're willing to include that. That that's what this is about. Sure. This that's what this is about is we want to get all y'all's recommendations of verbiage that should be included in that.

Let's say everybody's recommendations with consensus on what goes into it. So I think there's gonna be some discussion. There's two other people with their hands up as well.

Yeah. So what do y'all think if we do this? So, Rick, I'm gonna ask you to repeat that again. We'll write it down, and then we'll go and everybody will say theirs. And then once we've got a list of verbiage that needs to be included or removed, then we'll go back and we'll start voting that way. Does that work for everybody? Okay. So, Rick, can you please I I see the people that have their hands up. Y'all are next. Let me just finish with this. Okay. Wait. Can you give me that verbiage again?

Yeah. Absolutely. So paragraph two amended to read, whereas the neighborhood commission has received significant objections to the plan from residents of the affected neighborhoods. The neighborhood commission believes the Parks and Recreation Board community outreach has been lacking, and there are unaddressed concerns due to an incomplete public engagement process.

That's scary. You lost

me at significance. Yeah. But

do you want

me to

drop it into the chat?

Yeah. That would be great. But, well, can

we You're not able to chat.

Oh, we're not able to chat.

But so you if everybody heard that, do they agree with putting that in there before we start writing this all down?

Okay. Okay.

Let's look at consensus first on that.

Can we read it one more time a little bit slowly Yep. So everyone can hear it. Yeah. And then once you finish reading it, I'll look to everybody for a thumbs up, and we're all good with that. Okay? Go ahead.

Okay. Whereas the neighborhood commission has received significant objections to the plan from residents of the affected neighborhoods, comma, the neighborhood commission believes the Parks and Recreation Board community outreach has been lacking, and there are unaddressed concerns due to an incomplete public engagement process.

Okay. Everybody did everybody get that? If you did, raise either raise your hand or give me a thumbs up and hold it up while Yvonne counts it real quick.

That's assuming that's saying that you would like to add that verbiage to the draft that's currently here.

Correct.

That yeah. That's that's assuming that you want that you're in agreement with adding the verbiage to the draft that that we're going to to finalize. So at this time, everybody, give me a thumbs up, a hands up. Do we got a poll?

Yeah. Can't. I'm okay. Let's see everybody.

12345.

I think we should just go down the I think

Everybody okay. Go ahead.

We should just go down list and just say yay. Yay.

So we're eight, nine. How many people do we have in the meeting? Nine. That that everybody thinks Chen.

No. I can't see Rua.

Yeah.

Oh, I don't see Rua. That's the only one.

Rui is waving a thumbs up.

Okay. Rui is waving a thumbs up. So that's that's that's that's complete. That's both. Okay. Ivan. Okay. Wait. Thank you so much. Okay. Who was who was first? Samantha? Samantha. Samantha, go ahead. Thank

you. Yeah. Just in the spirit of adding more, I guess, like, meat to this resolution, one suggestion I have is, I guess, written as a resolution, whereas the city of San Marcos survey respondents ranked baseball fields twenty third out of 25 total recreational items. I think that that says a lot about the weight of, yeah, desire for these baseball fields. So I think that that could add a really, yeah, powerful argument against these recommendations.

Okay. You have to bear with me, guys. Okay. So

She's talking about the insignificance of the baseball field's ranking. I think that's what she's getting are all she wants to put.

Yes. You're

you're trying to you're trying to say the insignificance of the baseball field, like, necessity of the number of the baseball field?

Yeah. The necessity, desire based off the correspondence, it ranked twenty third out of 25.

Okay. Do you have the verbiage that you'd like to have included in it?

I guess

Or or do you want us do you want us to work on on coming up with that verbiage but to but to have the spirit of that information. Correct?

Yeah. I think that works. I just wanted to throw out that those numbers and see if that could be worked into the resolution.

Okay. Once again, everybody have can you repeat that one more time, Samantha?

Yes. The City of Sun Medical survey respondents ranked baseball fields twenty third out of 25.

Okay. So everybody who who is in agreement, that that is that we're gonna come up with the correct verbiage. And then once we come up with that verbiage, it'll be brought back forward for everybody to approve. But can we have a consensus that everybody agrees that that information information a paragraph pertaining to that information should be included in the verbiage. Raise your hand or put the thumbs up.

Is that everybody? Okay. See Bobby.

Yeah. Either yeah. I see Bobby.

I don't see anybody.

Did anybody see Rua? Because I for some reason, we can't see her on the screen.

She's saying thumbs up. Okay.

Seventh. And then Jixon?

Okay. All of us. Ninth. Okay. Alright. Then that's the that's that's unanimous. Okay. Bobby, I believe you were next. Oh, your hand went down.

Have to wait.

I had it up was

yeah. The reason that that I had the my hand up was to ask if it was the pleasure of the commission to actually request that public engagement process be taken to those two affected neighborhoods.

K. I do know that, and, again, director Jamie Case of Parks is on the line. I was on they she did they specifically went to some of the neighborhoods. So if she wants to repeat which neighborhoods they did that outreach in

Jamie, are you still with us?

Yes. Give me

just one second.

Did did you hear what commissioner, Bobby Barthead in office is?

Yes. I

agree. Suggestion and recommendation was?

Sure. So for we had we attempted to have one out at Quail Creek, but it got rained out, so it got moved to the activity center. So we had to reschedule another one. So we had one out at Quail Creek. We had another one. Let's see. I'm just gonna list off all of the ones that we had. So we had the first one with the consultants present at the San Marcos Activity Center. The remainder of these were hosted by Parks and Recreation staff. So we we did all of these ourselves.

The next one was held at Centro. The next after that, we had one at Bowie. Then we had one at First Lutheran Church, then we went back to the San Marcos Activity Center, then we went to De Zavala Elementary, and then we went to Dunbar Recreation Center. So that was just phase one. Phase two, we had the first one at the activity center. The second one, as I mentioned, was scheduled for Quail Creek, and then we had to have an additional one out at Quail Creek due to, the first one being rained out. The most attended ones were at actually, at the activity center. Those were the most well attended

open houses.

Okay. And just out of curiosity, the the ones that were held at Quail Creek and Sithro and Dunbar. What day and times were those meetings set for? What day of the week?

So I believe we did the one at Synthor. I believe it was a Saturday. Standby. We we alternated. We didn't do them on specific days of the week. We alternated times and okay. So they they don't have the days. I have to look it up on the calendar. So Centro was on Saturday, February 15 from 10AM to noon. And then you said Dunbar. Dunbar was held on 03/27/2025, which was a Thursday, and that it was an evening meeting from 05:30 until eight.

And what about Quail Creek?

Quail Creek. Let's see. The first one was held again, it got rained out, but it was scheduled for Monday, May 12 from 05:30 to seven. The second one that was rescheduled was also Monday. It was on June 2 from 05:30 to 07:30.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Okay, mommy. So do you have an idea of what what, you know, what you think like, you know, of course, Yvonne can come up with the verbiage, but can you give us a can you repeat a little bit more about the spirit of because my understanding is on here, we we wanted to say something like, for us, the neighborhood commission recommends highly recommends that the city council take initiative to host another open house or public meeting or public, you know

So I guess, I would ask Jamie one more question.

Okay.

If I can, just so everybody understands the process. Jamie, I know that Neighborhood Commission will be giving their recommendation resolution. What is then the process for the plan? So maybe the commissioners understand that there's still public input that can happen or something like that.

Sure. So with plans, you know, we start out with open houses, yada yada, the next step. Once it gets through the Board and Commission, it goes to city council. So ultimately, I myself take direction from the city manager who takes their direction from city council. So that would be the the next step is for these to be presented to city council to to discuss and then, you know, go it goes from from whatever city council directs the city manager and ultimately myself. I

guess my question would be, are those public hearings? Are they just a discussion item?

What they Sure.

That way that they get

an idea that that there's other Right. What all the process is?

Yeah. So first, it would be presented at a work session. So that is their first blush at it, would be at a work session. We would then take, you know, direction from there. They may have modifications that they're requesting to see. And then ultimately, you know, depending on whatever the direction is is what our next steps would be, with the ultimate goal to for city council to ultimately approve the preliminary design report.

So just just a lot just for clarification. So once you present it at the work session, y'all role is kind of stopped and and and basically, it's just waiting to okay. City council will say, okay. You know what? We wanna add this or we wanna do we wanna make these minor changes amongst themselves. That's a decision that that will be made between them that they relate to city manager's office. And the city manager's office will say, okay. This is what the you know, of course, you'll be there. Yeah.

I mean, I'll be receiving the direction at the time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically so, basically, you know, because I I think I know where Amy was going with this. But so, basically, unless the city council tells y'all or tells the parks and rec board, hey. Tell you what. Before we finalize and before we put this on an agenda item on the council's agenda, we want y'all to go back and have two more meetings with each neighborhood.

Yes. I mean, that that could be their direction, but I I do wanna because you mentioned the parks board holding those, that that's not within the parks board's, I guess, task of duties is to hold community. I mean, that would fall on staff. So that's not within the parks board's role, unlike, you know, the the neighborhood commission. That is part of, you know, what is made up in your ordinance as far as your role. That language is not within the parks board's ordinance.

Okay. So then so then the suggestion would be if if it's decided by the commission based on commissioner Bobby Garza Hernandez's recommendation or suggestion is that we can you say it, Bobby?

I would I would highly encourage that city staff conduct another public engagement meeting in each one of those neighborhoods. Not those that are adjacent to the project. So that would be East Guadalupe. Might include Rio Vista in that because they're on both sides of the river. And then one over in the Blanco Village area on the where the east part is.

At least at least one more. I think now that it's kind of on everybody's radar, what what came forward, Samantha and

I both

received information from one from the East Side Park community, and there are 16 items on there that they have brought forward. And so there is a need for them to have another meeting with staff. I know that one of the things that Anahuada, doctor Juarez articulated in in her comments a couple of meetings ago was how how things changed from the time that she attended the meeting at the at the activity center and then what came out of the parks board. And so and it that could have been impacted by some of the other meetings and the feedback that you've got. I mean, I don't even know at this point how how well those meetings were attended that you had at Centro and at Quail Creek.

And so yeah. Or or or at Dunbar.

And

so doing another round of due diligence would only serve to demonstrate that the city has done everything within their capacity to provide the information to that community. If they don't show up then, then you've done your due diligence. But Okay.

Ahead.

But I think that they they should have at least another opportunity to to come forward and provide this.

Okay. In all fairness, just to let you know, commission just to remind you, commissioner Garza Hernandez is we in January, when Jamie did the presentation to us, that those that statistical information was provided. It was provided in the packet. And if you need Yvonne can review if you don't have the packet from January anymore, I'm sure Yvonne will be more than glad to send that back to you. But in the packet, it was included all the the the number of attendees, the number of surveys returned. All of that statistical information was provided in the presentation.

Roland, I'm sure that I read it because I do read everything that we get. In this moment, I can't tell you what that information is, and that's why I'm suggesting that.

Oh, okay. You just based on the number of respondents and units amount I've had, That number could increase and change, Leslie. Okay. I got you. I just do I I just wasn't aware if you knew that those numbers, we have them. Okay. So everybody

Robert, how's his hand over?

I know, but we gotta finish with Bobby first. So everybody, I would like to see your hands up. Thumbs up. A consensus that we agree inserting another paragraph with the spirit of us recommend to the city council that they direct the staff to go back out and at least do two to four more public engagements with these targeted neighborhoods, would be Rio Vista, the Swanalupi neighborhood, and the River Village Paco River. Zico River Village, which will be the Pearl Creek.

So if everybody's in agreement with Yvonne working on Riveridge for that, please give me a thumbs up or a hands up. That's everybody. Okay. Thank y'all. Okay. Robert, you're next.

Yes. Can we bring the resolution back on the screen again?

Give me a second. No worries.

My I don't really have a addition. It's just somewhat of a concern, and maybe we maybe it's we don't need to address it. But my concern is the order of the whereas. The what last whereas is kind of a to me, the last whereas is a justification. Whereas the fully opposed to concept d and fully opposed to concept b are the are the those are the ones where we say what we think.

So in my opinion, fully opposed to concept d and fully opposed to concept b should be the last two points. Whereas, the one that talks about the environmental burdens should come previously because that's our justification for our conclusion. It's just the order is what I'm bringing up. That's all.

Okay. So just for clarification, so what you're trying to say is where whereas the neighborhood commission respectfully asks its council to evaluate the potential impacts and environmental burdens on surrounding neighborhoods, specifically regarding noise, pollution, traffic flow, and excessive nuisance lighting, that that should be above or either remove or

No. He should go above

it should go above the two that say fully airflow.

Number four, basically, instead of number six. Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

Yes. Okay. So with that being said well well, the reason that that but I'll tell you, the reason I feel that it's in the proper space is because the the body of the resolution tells is we're telling the council, okay. These are the things that we need you to look at. And for that final paragraph is basically a summation of the spirit of the resolution, whereas the neighborhood commission respectfully asked its council to evaluate the potential impacts.

So, basically, we're we already told them how we feel about it, that we're opposed to it. And now that we've told them, you know what? We want you to to take into consideration this. We want you to staff for this. We recommend staff we we rec these are all of our recommendations.

And that last paragraph, I think I feel it's perfect where it is, but we'll we could take a consensus with everybody. So Robert feels that One, two, three, four, five, three. Whereas number six, the paragraph number six should be moved to paragraph number four. So if everybody feels that way, let me see a thumbs up or hands up.

Two. Two.

Four. I I

mean, I would say whatever. That's fine. I think it's

fine either way. So that's what? 524?

Yeah. I didn't that was it.

That's alright.

Okay. Can you ask them one more time? I'm sorry.

Not Michael.

But Room

23. Oh, here. I have to do I have to do this in order to see everybody. Okay. Now we can see everybody. 123456.

6.

Yes. So

Alright. Then we then we will have paragraph we'll have paragraph six moved up to paragraph four.

Anything else? Anyone else?

Okay. Anybody else? Does anybody else have anything that they wanna contribute or suggest?

Also, I I I got one more comment. Also, the comment about the increased crowds and refuse, I do understand why that was put in there, but it sounds very nimby. It it sounds very, like, just whiny and complaining. Like, we don't want crowds, and we think there's gonna be trash. Yeah. If you improve the parks, there's gonna be more people, and more people are gonna have more trash.

Okay.

We we know this as a fact.

So I I understand where you're coming from.

Helpful comment.

I understand where you're coming from on that. However, on that one, I will have to object on that one because of the fact that this resolution, although it's coming from the neighborhood commission, it's coming from the input and concerns and suggestions of the residents. And that's what we are is an advocacy group. So I I get where you're coming from, that it may sound whiny or whatever, but that's how the citizens feel. And we need to make sure that the the council know that's what the citizens told us.

So that's where I stand on that one. I I do not believe that that should be changed in any way because that is the spirit of the residents and the citizens that the the the the highest stakeholders. But let's open it up. If if if anybody agrees with Robert that wants to have that verbiage removed, raise raise your hands or show us a thumbs up. If not, then we will leave that verbiage as it is.

So at this time back the verbiage as it stands? Yes. So What is

hey. Sorry.

I can't hear him. Read number that. Okay. I got it. I got it. I can do it.

So he's he's talking about paragraph number three. Whereas the neighborhood commission is concerned about an increase in potential refuge and debris runoff in the Zanarkot River due to increase in crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed riverfront parks plan. So the only thing based off what Robert said, the only thing that I would add in there is the on based on information and concerns from residents, the neighborhood concern the neighborhood convention, and they carry on from there. So that way that covers that. You know what?

It's not necessarily us that's that's that that we we have these that we, I guess, that we all shared some of these issues. But also, you know what? We're we're putting this in because that's what the residents came and told us, that they wanted us to let the city council know with their objections.

So whereas the neighborhood

so whereas based on concerns by residents provided to the neigh or

or something. Yeah. Because if you if you look at every paragraph, right, it's it starts off the same, whereas the neighborhood commission the neighborhood commission. So what I was gonna ask is whereas the neighborhood commission, comma, based on

Oh oh, yeah. Concerns. Oh oh oh, you know what? We could do that the way you did at the top. The neighborhood commission have received input and concerns from residents regarding the increase an increase in yeah. Did you get that? Mhmm.

Regarding an increase in potential refuse. Okay.

Okay.

Okay, everybody. So I wanna know what y'all think about this if we read, guys, paragraph three that will read can you read it, Yaron?

Whereas the neighborhood commission has received input and concerns from residents regarding an increase in potential refuse and debris runoff into the San Marcos River due to increasing crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed riverfront park's plan.

Is everybody good with that? Raise your hand and thumbs up while your while your vote counts.

Stop sharing, Dave.

Six.

So the only three are Bobby, Tyler. Oh, Bobby is

not breathing. I think Bobby had a comment, and I wanna hear what

Bobby is saying. Wait. But this is this is the vote for the verbiage that Yvonne just came up with.

I understand. I have to end

up to provide you with the verbiage, but I was never recognized.

Okay. No. No. That we're gonna then we'll open up to you for that suggested because not there was three votes that didn't support it. So go ahead, Bobby.

Well, I would've

never mind. No.

We want we want to know what your suggestion for the verbiage because the verbiage has not been agreed yet. You know? I I prefer a full majority I mean, a full unanimous consensus as opposed to having some yay or nay. And if you got verbiage, we would love to hear it. So if you'll please share that with us.

Whereas the neighborhood commission has received community input and concerns about an increase in potential refuse, so on and so forth.

Did you get that? Mhmm. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Re Yovana, do you read it to everybody?

Whereas the neighborhood commission has received community and concerns from residents regarding an increase in potential refuse and debris runoff into the San Marcos River due to increasing crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed roof front parks plan.

Okay. Everybody, wait. I'm not stopping. I don't

need to stop. Was not that was not it, Rowan.

Okay. Can you repeat it, please?

The neighborhood commission has received community input and concerns about an increase in potential refuse. You don't need to go back and say from residents. You've said community from community, period. That's residents. Okay.

I I she if she if Bobby wants to Okay. The whole entire thing because I've I've scratched

and Okay. So

the district commission has received community input and concerns about an increase in potential refuse and debris runoff into the San Marcos River due to increasing crowds and improper waste disposal in the proposed riverfront parks plan.

Okay. Everybody, if we're good with that, can we stab a thumbs up or a hands up? Okay. It looks like it's unanimous. Thank you, Bobby. So that's the verbiage that it's gonna that we're gonna have for paragraph number three. Okay? And does anybody else have any does anybody have anything else?

Is there a hand raised?

Bobby, do you do you have something else, or did you just leave your hand raised? Oh. Does anybody have anything else that y'all want to include? Oh, did we already did the had the program prior to highly encourage the

I think that we're gonna have to come back the next meeting with a clean version.

No.

But did we agree that it would be a majority or the full

It's gonna be the yeah. It's gonna be the well, I'm gonna have another vote done right now. But it's gonna be a full because Robert rescinded both opposition I mean, Yeah. Support of that. So but I do wanna make sure we do have in there, Yavon, to add highly encouraged and conduct for to direct staff?

Yes.

Highly encouraged to direct staff for another public engagement on both? Yes. Okay. Alright.

So we'll clean this up and bring it up to the next screen.

Okay. Okay. So so based on everything, Yvonne will clean up everything, and we'll bring it back to our next meeting with a clean and concise one for full approval. But there's just one last thing, and I know Robert, you already shared with us, but I just wanna just for the record, I wanna get the consensus again is that in paragraph number four, which would now be paragraph number five, And the new one, whereas the neighborhood commission is fully opposed to the parks and rec board's recommendation of concept d and the same thing on the following paragraph. We'll be using the verbiage fully opposed and no longer majority since Robert has rescinded his support of the two concepts.

Can I get a hand up that everybody agrees with the verbiage fully opposed? Alright. Because you're there, miss. Okay. And before I close-up this agenda item, does anybody does anybody else want to add or have concerns about anything of the resolution? No? Okay. If something comes up

No. We're good.

Okay. We're good. Okay. Yvonne will have the the the draft of the of the cleaned up version, And then we hopefully, we'll be able to finalize it finalize the approval at our next meeting. And that way, then Jamie can move forward with scheduling hard work session with counsel for presentation. And at that time, our resolution will be ready to be sent to counsel or counsel will have it the the same day that Jamie will be presenting. Jamie, does are we are we working into your timeline? Or

I mean, it's it's it is what

it is.

Extension. So just for I mean, just a reminder, you know, you whenever the commission will adopt the recommendation resolution, your staff liaison will then send that out to the city clerk and the city council. Well, the city clerk will then send it out to the city council. So they'll they'll have it before, you know, we would be presenting to them. So I just wanna make sure that that's clear.

Okay.

I mean, it'll be attached as, in the background, but, I I will be only presenting the parks board's recommendation because that's what, you know, will carry forward. And, obviously, like, the council already have your sentiments.

Right. But what I would what I would just say is so, like, if we find if we if we approve it next month, once we approve it, then you'll be able to you'll be all good with going to present to the the group session. Okay? Yeah. Okay. Alrighty.

Thank you all.

Thanks. Okay. So moving on. Thank you all, everybody, for your input and suggestions on that. So moving on to our next agenda item is reports, which we have none. And at this time, I'm gonna open the question and answer session with press and public. This is the opportunity for the press and the public to ask questions related to any items on this agenda. Three minutes per individual. Is she still on? Okay. Miss Parker, Do I have anybody that wants to ask questions?

I'm still on, but I'm good. I appreciate you.

Okay. Then I will go yes, ma'am. With that being said, I'll close the question and answer session with press and the public. And moving on to our next agenda item is our chair and vice chair nominations and appointments. And so the first one will be nominations for chair. So at this time, I open up the floor to any nominations for chair the neighborhood. Anybody interested? I nominate Robert

Tyler nominated Robert Eby.

Or I moved to nominate.

I don't know what we do.

No. You said it right. Okay.

Nominate Roland Salcedo.

And just real quick for clarification. Robert, do you accept that nomination? Because I as I recall, last month, you were concerned about the election because you were no longer going to be able to serve as vice chair. You are no longer gonna be able to serve as vice chair because of some things that changed in your life.

Yes. I do accept the nomination. I have discussed it over with my family, and I am able to attend in person if if voted into that role. So I do accept the nomination.

Yeah. I just wanted to make sure with you because you have that's what you

shared with me that Yes.

You wanted to know when the elections were because you needed to get off of the vice chair. So I just wanted to make sure to clear that up. Okay.

Thank you for checking, Roland.

Alrighty. Any other nominations? Okay. Then we'll go ahead and open it up to a vote. Yvonne?

How how do you wanna vote? Do you just want them to say who they're voting for?

Well, normally, they we'll we usually just say the person everybody who wants this person, they vote. However you wanna do it.

I would just save ask them to save. Will vote for me.

That's helpful.

Okay. By the way, we're gonna do it is are you are you gonna call the roll? Or

I'm going to.

Yes. Yvonne is gonna when Yvonne calls your name, you will let her know who your vote is for, whether it's for myself or for vice chair Robert Eby, commissioner.

Samantha, gonna be this.

Robert Eby. Robert

Eby.

I I feel bad about voting. I guess but I have to vote. I vote for Robert Eby.

Rick Kennedy.

Roland.

Bobby Garza Hernandez.

Robert Eby.

Michael Adams.

Robert Eby. Sorry.

Roland Salcedo.

What's up?

Michael Vernon.

Didn't hear you. Robert. He said Robert.

Ruig Gleason. Rolando Socedo, please. Penny Holiday McKintrick is absent. Jason Valdez.

He's Rolando. Rolando Socedo.

Tyler Barstow.

Robert EB.

Alexis Montanaras is absent.

That's 1234. 123456.

It's six to four with Robert being

voted

in as the new chair.

Good afternoon, Chintra Rocco.

Thank you. Pleasure.

K. Moving on to vice chair. The vice chair position, I'll open up the nominations. I would like to nominate Jason Valdes.

Yourself? Anybody

else have any other nominations for vice chair? Hey, Walt. Go ahead and just, for the record, everybody.

Call on.

Because I don't know what's The

bands are gonna be this?

I'm blanking on the person's name, but

yes. Jason Valdez.

Jason Valdez.

Done again.

Robert Eby.

Jason Valdez.

Rick Kennedy.

Jason Valdez.

Bobby Gasa Hernandez.

Jason Valdes.

Michael Adams. Roland Salcedo.

Jason Valdes.

Michael Vernon.

Jason.

Ruah Gleason. Jason Valdes. Heidi Holiday McKittrick absent. Jason Valdes. Tyler Barstow.

Jason Valdes.

Alexis Monzanaris is absent. Jason Baldes is 75.

Thank you, everybody.

Congratulations to Jason, our new vice chair. So again, let's give a round of applause and welcome to the new chair, mister Robert Ipi and Lisa Valdez. Congratulations, Thank

you very

much. Yep. And so moving on to our next agenda item, his adjournment. So can I get a motion to adjourn?

Motion to motion.

Okay. I got Jason to motion and Robert to second. Okay. Samantha

Benavides?

Yes.

Robert Eby?

Yes.

Rick Kennedy?

Yes.

Bobby Yassa Hernandez?

Yes.

Michael Adams? Yes. Roland Salcedo?

Yes.

Michael Vernon? Ruah Gleason. I Heidi Heidi Holiday McKittrick. Jason Valdez.

Yes.

Tyler Barstow.

Yes.

Alexis Madonaris.

Okay. I now adjourn the Neighborhood Commission meeting for the city of San Marcos, 04/15/2026 at exactly 07:59.