A Run Down On LWV San Marcos Debate

By, Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

The League of Women Voters held their yearly debates for San Marcos mayoral and city council candidates Monday night at the San Marcos Activity Center.

Starting at 6:30 p.m., residents, university students and city officials spent two hours watching and listening to all fourteen candidate debate local issues.

Topics ranged from the city infrastructure to comprehensive plans for the city’s present state and current growth.

In a recent Forbes article, the Austin-San Antonio corridor was named the “fastest growing metropolis” in the country, which includes San Marcos. San Marcos has been experiencing a steady growth and will continue to grow within the next five years.

“How we manage our growth has and will continue to have the largest impact on our community in the years to come,” Lisa Prewitt, current city council place 1, said. “Wherever that growth goes, we must ensure that there is significant infrastructure to handle it and that the cost is not solely burdened on our taxpayers.”

Prewitt said she wanted to continue disaster relief efforts, improve transportation, expand the clean-up crews and add park rangers to monitor the river.

Her opponent, René J. Compean, who is also running for Place 1 on the San Marcos City council, agreed that the infrastructure of San Marcos needed improvement.

“I’ve lived in San Marcos since 1992; my family bloodline has been here since 1899,” Compean said. “I really love San Marcos; I want to see San Marcos grow. I want to see San Marcos stay San Marcos.”

The main concern for the candidates and the community in regards to infrastructure was related to flooding. Eighteen months after the historic Memorial Day and Halloween floods, residents and neighborhoods are still recovering.

Saul Gonzales, running for City Council Place 2 against Shane Scott and Lisa Marie Coppolleta, stated that his most important issue is the flooding and development. Gonzales said if elected, he would look for an unbiased opinion on the impact developments would have on the city.

“When we get developers into San Marcos, they bring their own engineers to tell us everything is going to be fine,” Gonzales said. “And then we get our city engineers, who do the same thing. I’d like to go outside…and contract a civil engineer to get an unbiased opinion if this area is going to flood or not.”  

Coppolleta said flooding is her primary concern as well, and she has been an advocate for the residents who have been flooded out due to new developments. Coppolleta spoke out against developments along the flood plain like the Woods, which she feels should either have a retaining wall built or be knocked down entirely, she said.

While flooding remains a concern for all candidates, others were more focused on the San Marcos community itself. Officials hope that as the city’s growth continues it will retain the same sense of community that San Marcos is known for.

Four candidates are running for place 3: Jason Dalton Montgomery, Ed Mihalkanin, Brian K. Henderson and Gaylord Bose.

Mihalkanin said that though flooding is a very issue, there are other “stark” realities to address in San Marcos. Twenty percent of San Marcos residents only make $10,000 a year, and 36 percent of the city’s citizens are in poverty, he said.

“We have to deal with the bedrock economic issues,” Milhalkanin said. “And there’s not a solution; we need to look at daycare options, adult education, GRE…training, public transportation…work with the individuals in town and the university.”

In order to improve the economic issues, candidates want to draw in developers to bring in more jobs and housing options.

Throughout the debate, the topic of Code SMTX, a rewrite of the San Marcos Land Development Code, came up as a topic of discussions. Residents were concerned how the new development codes would affect residential areas.

There are five mayoral candidates running for office this election year: Sam Brannon, Jacob Montoya, Cherif Gacis, Ruben Becerra and John Thomaides.

Keeping on the topic of the night, the second question asked to the mayoral candidates was on the condition of San Marcos’ housing issues.

Montoya said, “I’m not sure I have a solution for bringing in more housing,” but did mention he would like to see more code enforcement and would continue with what we are currently doing.

Gacis spoke about the Forbes article last week, which talked about our growth over the next five years.

“The price of rentals is going sky high and what we need to do is diversify the options for developers coming to San Marcos,” Gacis continued.

Mayoral candidate Becerra spoke about business supply and demand and believes working with TXST, the school district, county and city.

“If we finally, and once and for all, unite effectively, more than ever before, then we have a better chance on tightening this together,” Becerra said. “Because this idea of ‘no houses’ is a can being kicked down the street, over and over and it must stop – the merry-go-round must end.”

“We have actually approved all most 9k single family homes in the last three or four years. As for parking complexes – we have kind of done that to death, right?” John Thomaides, current city councilman and mayoral candidate, said. “We’ve got a great single family plan and a large stock of parking.”