Corridor News Sits Down With San Marcos City Council Candidates For Places 3 And 4

“There seems to have been a promise made to the Stokes family, when the Stokes family gave the land that is now Stokes Park to the government, that the dam would be repaired if and when it became damaged in the future.”

San Marcos City Council Place 3 Candidate: Ed Mihalkanin

Dr. Ed Mihalkanin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. His specialties include International Relations, Latin America – Government and Politics, US Diplomacy. He was elected to City Council 2016 and has served the unexpired term for John Thomaides, who resigned to run for Mayor of San Marcos.

He previously served on the San Marcos City Council from 1998-2000 and from 2001-2007. He served San Marcos as Chair of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Tourism and Chair for the Tourism Product Development Committee among other memberships.

He has been with Texas State since 1990 and has taught a variety of Junior level and Graduate courses. Dr. Mihalkanin has put considerable effort into University programs, organizations and committees such as Fulbright Evaluation Committee, the Presidential Upper Level Scholarship Selection Committee as well as serving as a faculty advisor to Sigma Pi Epsilon, Pi Sigma Alpha and the SWT Water Skit Team among many others.

QUESTION 1: The fate of Cape’s Dam is a topic on the community’s mind. Many citizens are asking to rebuild the dam while others believe it should be removed. With the safety of boaters, no bids to repair, overcrowded current river parks and the possibility of endangered species being wiped out, what are your thoughts on preserving history but also taking into account the risks of safety for the people who access the river and the possible extinction of wildlife in the area and why do you feel the way you do?

ED MIHALKANIN: Well, I’m in favor of repairing Cape’s Dam. It is a historic dam; it’s part of the original settlement and really industrialization in our community. There seems to have been a promise made to the Stokes family, when the Stokes family gave the land that is now Stokes Park to the government, that the dam would be repaired if and when it became damaged in the future. Also, there is recreation occurring on the river because of Cape’s Dam. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Wounded Warriors and Boy Scouts and other groups will kayak. It may not be a long stretch of the river, but for them, it’s a very significant stretch of the river.

And I do think there is the additional issue of the mill race, which, if the dam is removed, there will be consequences for the mill race. And also, frankly, I’m a little concerned because roughly where Cape’s Dam is there is a drop-off in elevation. That’s why the dam was there really. And the drop-off is significant enough that the current was rather strong. In fact, when I walked along it, I’ve walked along it more than once, I didn’t even think of it as the San Marcos River. It looked like it was a different river from the parts of the river that I was accustomed to. And so I would be very concerned from a safety aspect of it. I think if the dam was removed, more people will be likely to continue on the river not realizing how significantly faster and choppier it is.

And so, for me, I take the issue of dam removal or dam maintenance by case-by-case basis, and let’s be honest, the San Marcos River is not a completely natural river since Spring Lake Dam was built. And my understanding is that’s the oldest dam. And once that dam was built, the river was no longer 100 percent natural. And frankly, it’s not natural now even without that dam because look at how much work the city government has done legitimately to protect against bank erosion. I mean, who wants all this muddiness into the river? And the city has done that a number of times. And it just makes the river banks look much better; they’re safer, and it actually protects the river a lot more. That’s why I’m in favor of repairing Cape’s Dam.

QUESTION 2: If you had a chance to change your vote on SB4, would you?

ED MIHALKANIN: No, I would not. I firmly believe in federalism, and each level of our government has different functions, and immigration is a federal government responsibility. I understand the frustration that many people have with what they perceive to be the lack of enforcement on immigration laws, but if the state government is angry at the federal government for what the state government may perceive to be a lack of enforcement, then the solution is not to require local government law force agencies to pick up the slack. And so, for me it was putting one: immigration is a federal responsibility, not a local government responsibility; number two: it was putting a burden on local law enforcement. I don’t want people who don’t pay taxes in our town to be telling our police officers what they should be doing. Number three: I don’t know if you’ve read the law, but part of the law actually said that if an elected or appointed official of local government said anything that could be perceived as to be against SB4 to the point of affecting local law enforcement from not complying with other aspects of SB4, then these elected or appointed officials could be removed from office, fined, and/or jailed, and I have always thought that the reason why we in Texas have the constitution of 1876 was to create limited government. It is not limited government where the state can pass one law which gives the State Attorney General the authority to remove people from office who are elected or appointed by local governments. I mean, that was the radical Republican Reconstruction government of Governor Davis and he had authority to impose martial law in the counties of Texas and under another law passed when he was governor, the governor appointed over five thousand people to local government positions. My vote in favor of the city government filing a friend of the court brief against the law. To me, it was a draconian violation of First Amendment rights of city, well not just city, but I mean, any local government official. And that’s why I was against it.

QUESTION 3: Due to the fact that they the City of San Marcos released 1/3 of the proposed budget to be reviewed by the residents of San Marcos and only held two public hearings, how did city council expect residents to comment on the city’s budget during the two public hearings?

ED MIHALKANIN: Well the city council held a number of workshops that were open to the public. I think it’s a misstatement to say only a 1/3 of the budget was released. Many of the departments of government will have more generic categories for spending like vehicles and fuel or communication. I mean, frankly, it would be a waste of taxpayer’s money to literally explain how many first class stamps the city government was expecting to use during the fiscal year. So I do think that the city government was giving enough information to our fellow citizens for our fellow citizens to be able to weigh in on our budget. I think we have made, since I was elected in December and we had our first (not sure) meeting in January this year, I and others have done everything we could to make our local government transparent. One of the reasons why I ran was concerns I heard from different people in our town who were very concerned with what they perceived to be the decision making of the city government, or at least part of the city government, when it came to important public policy issues. So, I’ve done everything I could to be as open as I could and have the city government open as it could be.

You can’t have perfect transparency in government. If there is a personnel issue, do you want to a discussion of the city council on a personnel issue? I mean that’s not appropriate. That’s not appropriate for the city employee or the city official, you know sometimes there are things that are necessary to be done in a less public form. Same thing with what if the city government was considering economic incentives to bring a business in. Again, we would want to be able to have a full conversation and to get information that might be proprietary and that cannot be shared with the general public. So, yeah, I would say we’re good.

QUESTION 4: Texas State University has had record enrollments for several years in a row and the 2017 fall enrollment was over 38,000. Every semester, students are required to move out of their apartments for roughly 3 weeks in every year in August.

The majority of students, having full or part-time jobs, are unable to move home. The mandatory move outs, strands a large majority of these 38,000 students’ homeless for 3 weeks out of the year, which leaves some students with no choice but to live in their vehicles.

Does the current city council know about this situation and what is the current council doing to find a solution to this public safety and public health issue in San Marcos?

ED MIHALKANIN: You should be asking that of the university administration. Texas State University is a state university. It is considered a body, a legal entity of the government of the state of Texas. We as a city government have no authority over Texas State University. And, see, this is something that is very frustrating to me when I was off the council and I was on the council. People will not call their state representative or state senator, they will not call up the president of the university saying “You are doing things we are very much agains.t”  The citizens of our town are not only the citizens of our town.

They are the citizens of our county, and the citizens of our state, and the citizens of our country. And I am very upset over that policy, but if I as a city councilman were to say anything to an official of the university, the university official could say, “Excuse me, I can’t; now that you’ve said this as a city official, a city government official of San Marcos, I can’t do anything because then I could be found guilty of violating state law because it would appear that I was allowing myself to be given direction from the city entity which is below a state entity legally.” So if the recourse has to be with the university or with the state government to say “Could you please direct the university not to do that?”

Yeah, it is a hardship, and I feel very badly about it, but our hands are tied under a very old state-law and constitutional interpretation.