SM City Council Place 5 Candidate Arredondo Chats With SM Corridor News

Conducted by, Jarrett Moehn

 

 

Question 1: Earlier this year, the current council members voted themselves a raise. If you’re elected and this comes up on an agenda, how would you vote and why?

 

Arredondo: Let me tell you a little bit about that. When I served on the Council back in ’74 through ’79, we weren’t compensated.

 

We weren’t compensated for anything. In fact, when I wanted to attend the Texas Municipal League Conference we paid out of our pockets to attend. To me this is something new and I believe, don’t get me wrong, I believe that Council members do spend a lot of time on city business. It takes some of them away from their businesses or their employment.

 

I think the community needs to be considerate of that. Having said that, to be honest with you, I don’t know what they get paid. I’ve not looked into it because I’m not running to earn money for representing the people. I think that if a raise is going to be considered or it was, as you said it was increased, it’s up to individual members on their conscience on what they think they need to get paid.

 

If I’m ever presented an opportunity I will examine it and make the best choice as what fits my conscience. I would be amendable to a cost of living, so to speak, raise if it was necessary, but not a raise for a raise. It would have to merit it. Like I said, I don’t even know what they’re earning at this point. I also think there ought to be a cap. This shouldn’t be a full-time job type of position. It can be at times, but it mostly isn’t and I’m speaking from past experience.

 

I’ve told people before things have changed. Technology has changed because when I was on the Council last. The education level of the staff and the people who represent the community has increased. We all have to take that in consideration. We are, for the third year in a row, the fastest growing city in America. We all need to keep that in mind.

 

Maybe there is a lot more time spent on city business than when I was on the Council. I can’t be a judge of that now until I get into being an elected official.

 

Question 2: San Marcos is currently growing in population and business growth. Do you want San Marcos to continue this path and why?

 

Arredondo: Certainly, I’m for jobs, job creation. I’m for getting jobs to San Marcos that will increase the wages and jobs that will provide benefits to the workers of these jobs that are going to be created. Growth is going to come to San Marcos whether we want it not. We’re on the Interstate 35 corridor. It’s booming. What we need to be careful is getting to guide that growth to the corridors where we think would be most helpful for the community. Where there’s infrastructure. Where there’s an area enough for them to create their factories or their corporate offices that will not interfere with the established neighborhoods.

 

I’m for the growth. It was going to come. We need to manage it. Excuse me. As I stated earlier, I want our youth, my grandchildren, that once they finish their education, if it be high school or it would be a college degree here at the University, that they can have a choice to stay in San Marcos because there’s jobs available for them with adequate pay that would allow them to earn a good living, enjoy a quality of life. That it would allow them to raise a family and qualify for a mortgage.

 

We need to keep our talent here in San Marcos. There are many students that graduated from Texas State University who have told me they had to go to Fort Worth. They had to go to Austin. One of my own children had to go to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to do his work, the type of work that he does and earn the money that he was capable of earning because there wasn’t one here in San Marcos.

 

Most parents would like to keep their children and grandchildren close to them. It’s not always possible, but if there’s a choice and they can make it I want it to happen. I want good jobs here in San Marcos. A rising tide lifts all boats and we have a problem now with the poverty rate in San Marcos.

 

We’re having people from Austin that are getting priced out of housing that are migrating to San Marcos. They need to find a job and trying to find housing less expensive than they’re facing in the Austin market for example. We need affordable housing.  We need rental housing. The only way that’s going to happen is if there’s more job creation that can bring in this new money that will allow contractors to build tract housing for affordable housing.

 

We also have a need for executive housing. If we’re going to attract businesses like Amazon, Google, Tesla, Apple those types of companies are going to be looking at San Marcos because this attraction of Amazon has been a bell weather for our community. We’re on the map now. The other companies are going to take notice and they’re going to say what’s happening in San Marcos? Let’s look at it.

 

When they bring their management staff I would like them to live in San Marcos because as we know those management positions, that type of job, has people who invest in the community. They become part of the community. They become part of the civic involvement, part of the fund raising. We need more of those type of families coming to San Marcos to stay here and not have to go to New Braunfels or go to Austin to get the housing that they’re been used to.

 

We need affordable housing. We also need executive housing. I’m all for that. How we can do it with respecting our established neighborhoods as they are right now.

 

Question 3: If elected and the development for multifamily, single family and manufacturing came up for a vote, where would you want that development to be located to vote in favor, or vote against, on all 3 types of development?

 

Arredondo: Right now we have a plan that the city, that has been put together on guiding the growth to the east side where it’s more environment friendly to build. We also have housing that could go to the east side. There’s plenty of property out there. It’d be less expensive to develop in the east side because you don’t have the rock formation. You don’t have the aquifer. You don’t have other constraints that you do have on the west side.

 

That’s where the current plan dictates where growth should happen to the east and to the south. One thing that I would not be in favor is of any manufacturing or commercial that is water hungry. Given our present situation, the river is the greatest natural resource that we have here in San Marcos.

 

Water in general in the State of Texas is in dire need right now. Water is the new oil. Water is what everyone is looking for. It’s getting piped from across one end of the State to the other because of the need for water. We need to be protective of what we have. We’re the envy of many communities because not only do we have aquifer water, we have our river, but we also have purchased water rights in Lake Dunlap. There’s another one that I can’t remember the name where we’ve already purchased future rights of water availability for San Marcos.

 

Question 4: Currently San Marcos is giving ‘incentives’ to businesses that want to relocate here. This benefits San Marcos, bringing more tax dollars into their coffers and it gives a chance to the lower income portion of our population to get better jobs, able to make more money, and receive better benefits.

One area the city council is overlooking is the small businesses that are popping up all the time, the entrepreneurs, i.e. the 1 to 5 employees or 1 man entrepreneur who takes on tremendous risks. If elected, what could you do for this entrepreneur group?

 

Arredondo: Small businesses and large corporations are two distinct entities. The greater San Marcos partnership in going out and recruiting the creation of new businesses or the relocation of businesses has to have the city provide incentives to bring them to our community because that’s the name of the game in Texas. Companies want to know that we really want them here. They look for those incentives whether they need them or not. It just shows the level of interest that the community has.

 

Local businesses, which I’m very familiar because my family through the years have had small businesses and have had employees less than five and over thirty employees I know the need. The good thing is a partnership is a great resource. They have a component that deals with small businesses. They’re currently launching small business workshops for local businesses so they can increase their viability in being able to learn about the banking and getting loans; buying inventory; finding lines of distribution.

 

All this is being put together and has already been available on a one-to-one basis. Maybe one of the things that a lot of the small businesses are not aware of that being a small business, having come from that background myself, we all have to realize that it’s hard for anyone of the principals or an employee to attend these workshops or take time to go learn about resources or get the education necessary on finding avenues of distribution or purchasing or getting together with purchasing groups that can lower the cost of buying goods.

 

That’s available now. The partnership has a strategy to assess these local businesses. As far as incentives are concerned, that’s another ball of wax. The way rebates or incentives are created or used is they have to provide the number of jobs they are going to create. They have to give a dollar amount of the investment they’re making. They have to give a category of wages, besides the number of employees they’re going to hire, as part of a formula wherever an incentive is going to be granted or not.

 

Now, I have to make a distinction. Rebates, incentives are not free money. These businesses have to be cash positive. When they sign an agreement, they get the incentive and sign an agreement they’re going to create X number of jobs. They do have to pay the property tax. They do have to pay the sales tax. That will be rebated on the performance of that business. Did they create the number of jobs they said there were going to be?

 

If it’s 80% of the jobs, 80% of the investment, then they will get 80% of the sales tax or property tax back. We don’t exempt them from paying it. It’s a rebate. They pay the taxes first, then we’ll refund them after their performance is evaluated. Having said that, I don’t know how small businesses could fit into that formula. Maybe that’s something that needs to be studied. It’s not easy, but we do want to create a lot of jobs, but we also have to be mindful and respectful of those businesses that start with a lot of guts to put their money out to try and produce a money making business.

 

Question 5: Earlier this year the current city council had a tough time agreeing on the Greater San Marcos Partnership contract.

 

Arredondo: I’ve been on record. I’ve been an ardent supporter of the GSMP. I have no reason at this point to either consider reducing or eliminating the funding that we have. In fact, because of the growth we’re getting and the revenue that’s coming into the City I don’t know why we would not consider increasing the funding by the City to the GSMP.

 

They’re doing great work. It’s a good entity. It’s akin to what I mentioned earlier. Our prior economic development stance was like a college student getting a degree and tacking their resume up to their door of their residence, their house, their apartment, and hoping that people passing by would read it and see how great they are versus that college graduate taking that degree to the Houston Chronicle, to the Dallas Morning News, to the Apple’s of this world, to the Tesla’s of this world and saying here’s what I can do hire me.

 

That’s what the GSMP is doing. They’re going out and recruiting. They’re going out attracting businesses. We’re not waiting here because we’ve got a great river and Interstate 35, rail access and two regional airports. That’s not the only reason they’re going to complain here. They have to have some sort of push, some sort of attraction to come. That’s when we go out to court those businesses, court those corporations and that’s what the GSMP is doing. I’m a big fan of the GSMP.