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

“The local police force is bound by our Constitution, and they will enforce the laws under the constitution, which immigration falls under that scope…”

*The excerpt was updated as it matched the unedited transcript versus the revised version originally published.*

This article is a transcription of an interview with the candidate. It was edited for clarification; uhs, umms and incomplete thoughts were removed. This page has since been updated to include the first part of the unedited transcript for the candidate’s response to Question 2 because of concerns it had been taken out of context.

San Marcos City Council Place 4 Candidate: Joshua Simpson

Joshua Simpson is a 25-year-old entrepreneur, who has lived in San Marcos for the last six years.  

He is a Texas State graduate. He is a passionate advocate of property rights and innovation. Currently, he works as a reclaim specialist for Adamson Brothers design.

He believes residents should not be told what they can and cannot do on their private property.

Joshua is currently working on building and growing his own business in San Marcos. 

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?

JOSHUA SIMPSON: The Dam should be repaired and saved. Anyone that is a farmer knows that nutrient cycling is critical to any biological organisms in that area to survive. It will take awhile for that area to recover, base prey will lose micro nutrient sources; trees and plants will be susceptible to disease, which would cause for more research dollars to be invested. They spent money on Spring Lake and other areas; they can spend money on Cape’s Dam and repair it.

A specific person is looking for research dollars; metrics are not encompassing and very narrowing. It is easy in that case to get specific numbers to get specific results. You don’t need a PH.D to understand nutrient cycling. I am disappointed that professors at Texas State would pursue this type of behavior. There is greed and political bias from my standpoint.  

QUESTION 2: If you had been on the City Council when they recently voted on filing an Amicus Brief on SB4…..how would you have voted and why?

JOSHUA SIMPSON: I wouldn’t have voted to be a part of it…because it’s nonsense…in you’re violating federal law, and you’re picking and choosing what you want to enforce and further more you’re inhibiting your police department’s ability to enforce the law. It doesn’t matter; federal law is being broken. State law is being broken, what have you? The local police force is bound by our Constitution, and they will enforce the laws under the constitution, which immigration falls under that scope.

“I wouldn’t have voted to be a part of it…because it’s nonsense (inaudible) in you’re violating federal law and you’re picking and choosing what you want to enforce and further more you’re inhibiting your police department’s ability to enforce the law. It doesn’t matter, uhh, federal law’s being broken, state law’s being broken, what have you? The local police force is bound by our Constitution and they will enforce the laws under the constitution which immigration falls under that, I guess, uhh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Under that scope.”

And what I usually say is, and it’s the truth, that you’re picking a select few—and also, I’ve heard that some people that there’s a desperate need for a working force in San Marcos; and I sit there, a) I find it insulting because it insinuates that American citizens are just lazy people, that don’t work. But b) that it completely ignores the overwhelming majority of immigrants that are legal, that went through the process, and they didn’t violate federal law to do so. And they’re paying income taxes; there’s a lot of different taxes that people are paying. But when they talk about illegal immigration in terms of using American tax dollars, putting kids in public schools, all of these different things Medicare, Medicaid, all of these benefit programs are incorporated into being American—in the United States and its being used by both citizens and non-citizens, and its making them…citizens of the country.

Again, I find it disrespectful; illegal immigrants grow up in the process by just saying “uh no, we’re just going to forego the whole thing,” all of these people come through that didn’t even bother to even engage with the process. I’m not saying every single one did it, but I’m saying that as far as I understand, I don’t see that a lot of these people who are under the DACA ruling…were going through the process to be naturalized. That’s something I find very interesting; there’s still millions of people going through the naturalization process, where’s their DACA? Where’s their—I guess, their freeway cards, the way to get to the Fastlane cards? Basically, that is what the DACA is; it’s not fair.

There’s no equity; it’s truly subjective arbitrary delegation. And you know, it’s not popular that I’m saying this, but it’s the truth. I mean we all pay tax dollars, and I would like to see that people who go through the process visa…from what I understand, we live in a very unique country, the best on the planet Earth, bar none. Not even an argument, I mean really though you go anywhere else, you can get sued for offending somebody; you can go to jail for offending somebody, put that in an argument…I don’t mean to go on a tangent here, but some lady had offended, I guess, LGBTQ community by whatever she put on her Twitter.

I was like “who cares about Twitter?” That’s stupid. Social media is an informal way to communicate with people; that’s like well, I mean, you see it all the time, that’s what they talk about is tweets, and crap like that, it’s nonsense. It dumbs you down. You’re not really paying attention to that stuff that matters. But anyways as far as the DACA brief, yea, no.

I think the Amicus Brief situation, it’s really sad to be honest, and there’s so many issues that this city is facing. And the fact that they’re going to sit there and demonize the police basically saying police can’t enforce immigration—someone, and I say this again, if you give a police officer false identification or no identification that’s grounds for detainment. That’s when they go and check your background, look you up; they’ll probably take you to jail. The fact of the matter is, they’re going to detain you and run you in the system; and if you’re not even a citizen, they have an obligation to report you, so that’s another thing. It’s like, as far as, what they say their concerned about the DACA…public officials speaking out or against it, duh! Of course! I would send a public official to jail too; if they wanted to sit there and arbitrarily enforce or not enforce law’s that’s been on the books for a long time.

There’s plenty of laws that I disagree with; don’t get me wrong. I wish that we didn’t have cultural and ethnic and you know, societal divides across the planet, but the stark reality of the situation is that we live in a very unique place, like I said before that not everyone wants to live here, which is fine. But I mean, all the people that want to be a part of the system because we have the most available economic ladder to climb up and fall down. One year you can be broke on the street, and the next year, you can be on top of the world, so that’s the beauty of the American system.

You can’t ask for anywhere else—I mean you can in some instances, but for the most amount of people, it happens here in the United States. That type of stuff blows my mind because you turn on the TV, and all you see is how bad cops are, and now you have City Council sitting there restricting the cops even more. And it’s like “These guys are people, and they have—you can go speak to them individually. I want city police officers to represent the entire police force or department. Each department has their individual standards; each state has their individual standards. Basically, what you’re doing is tying the police force’s hands behind their back even more.

When you’re calling them racist or something or telling them that they’re gonna racially profile people for being a Hispanic person in South Texas. They’re plenty of people that overstayed their visas, their work visas or student visas. There’s plenty of those types of people, and I would just sit there and say to the people who talk about the unfair racial profiling—you tell me how easy it is to identify, if I were to tell you that there’s guy in a white shirt, blue jeans, black shoes running down the street with no other description. Tell me how easy it would be to find this person or I could say “that’s a white dude running down the street with whatever shirt, whatever pants and whatever shoes,” then it makes it easier to identify a person.

I feel like it’s all out of outrage culture and who can get more enraged about little things like this, and it’s not worth it. It’s just getting things done. I understand why psychologically speaking, it’s practically the way we are because we have people putting roadblocks in front of other people that are trying to prosper and make things better for not just themselves but everyone around them, a consequence but because they’re following their own personal interest and I need more people to realize that I’m not going to sit here and trying to say that I am selfless and be as selfless as possible. It’s not genuine. It’s not true. Everyone plays off their own self-interest, and that’s what you have to do if you want to really communicate with people.

No difference in you working at the newspaper situation; everyone that you met there has a similar interest as you or similar personal interests in terms of the news and that’s who you associate with or at least at your job. I understand that you can do great things, but I’m at my shop right now and people, we have similar interests and we talk. It’s not like I’m going to go out of my way and sacrifice my well-being for any kind of business partner that I’m not going to get equal benefit out of. That’s the great thing about the free market, a similar scenario of how people should be looking at things, instead of someone saying someone should be losing and someone should be winning… i.e. that business is equals $15 mandated minimum wage. Rather it should be we need, it should be, I have a personal interest here, here and here, this is where this candidate aligns with my personal interest, and I’ll play on those personal interest because it’s someone sitting up there telling you that they’re gonna go out of there way and sacrifice this and that, I don’t believe it. It’s not human nature; it doesn’t make rational sense. We all have, you know, our own need to self-preservation, is, I think comes first.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I don’t know if that applies, but I would say that personal interests. But I would say, you know, personal interest, and the DACA thing. You’re really stepping on your own toes by A) politicizing it and demonizing people for not agreeing with the politically correct thing about borders, and everyone should be able to travel anywhere, which is completely not true. I’m not going to get into that, but it’s true. I mean don’t get me wrong though…you know the civil war going on with the cartels in Mexico; that’s kind of comparable to Syrian civil war; there’s extreme carnage going on down there and the government is implicit, completely. I’m talking about 50, 60 college aged males being mass murdered and thrown in a ditch grave by the mayor and cops of, I forget the specific Mexican town, but it was a big story. You can look it up.

This is the type of stuff that’s going on down there. And I really feel for the entire country, but at the same time you have the governments in there being a part of it, and then our government is again, kind of a part of it. And I go through this struggle.

I can go on and on and on, but it’s the truth; it needs to be written down and people need to read this stuff. I don’t care if I win or not. If I do, I believe things would be much better here in San Marcos business wise, and it’ll be making more innovative decisions specifically in terms of solving problems such as drainage in the city, but the real content needs to be taken into more consideration. There’s a whole bunch more discussions rather than them just saying well all these people or this or that, let’s talk about drug law because it’s such a profitable market for these cartels–growing heroine, growing cocaine, excuse me, growing heroine, growing coffee, growing the coca leaf, synthesizing all the way down to making heroine cocaine.

You know, it’s pretty obvious what keeps those industries afloat; you know Americans aren’t all innocent in all that, but people’s personal interest, I don’t, but I can go on and on about that basically, I feel bad for the people that come here with their parents when they were kids, and they had you know, their infants or the mother was pregnant and you know…and they’re left between a rock and a hard place.

I sit there, and I go if you are aware of your situation, apply for naturalization ASAP especially as a minor. A minor here in the States are, you know they’re held in—such a standard. If you are below 18, you can go buy a car and wreck it, and go get you money back from the same dealer, I kid you not. It’s pretty astounding—-and so, I just say it’s all about being aware of your situation, situation awareness and then going and apply for naturalization.

Don’t demonize the people…because they believe in their orders; that’s just, I don’t know what country has their problem with borders. I don’t care if it’s a fence there or not—like people, French people have French culture, German people have German culture, American people have American culture, and our culture is neat. I don’t like the term “multi-culturalism,” it implies separation. Pluralism implies melting pot…which we are.

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?

JOSHUA SIMPSON: First off, as far as the involvement I’ve had going to city council meetings and being a part of them, not many people bother to go. They’re aware of it; they just don’t go. I, honestly, that’s a tough question; there’s two parts to it: city council and the citizens of the city. They have a vested interest especially in the budget. So, I mean I got asked this question somewhere on the radio, and you know, talking about adjusting tax rate and the rising appraisal values. And there needs to be a schedule; I guess off the top of my head I’m thinking schedule…two meetings doesn’t seem to be quite enough to get through all the nuance of the budget. 

In all frankness, I think really the citizens need to be more involved in understanding what exactly they’re paying for in terms of taxes. And this goes back to what I was talking about in terms of adjusting tax rates to climbing appraisal values. The tax rate that was voted on in May; you know, people were involved in that, but they weren’t necessarily privy to all the relevant information being that just in my area, where I live near Hutchinson street, the appraisal district cordons off areas of the city to appraise the values of land. And my area in particular, the property values have gone 100 percent. So, even if the tax rate wasn’t .61 cents per $100, I would still be paying 100 percent more taxes. And that’s what the city council did not articulate this to people very well at all. Being that now that the tax rate has gone up and the amount of taxes I have to pay have gone up. And now I protested my evaluation, so it’s not a 100 percent more. But if I hadn’t gone and protested, other properties in my area have gone up a 100 percent, so you’re looking at 100 percent increase in the amount of taxes you’re paying, and at the same time, you’re paying a higher rate of taxation and people, they voted on this for an improved library and I believe, it was an approved activity center as well, and also I think there was a fire station involved in that. I’m not a 100 percent, but I believe that’s what it was. I bet you people were privy to that information then, saying that the amount of taxation they’re going to be paying just to live here in San Marcos. The medium income hasn’t risen, but people paying more just to live here. People think raising rent is a problem; that’s peanuts compared to your rising tax appraisal, not just the tax rate but the amount of appraised value on your land. There are a lot of nuances not being articulated. More meetings would be better sure. More open forms, every single city council meeting is an open forum, but I guess putting this on the agenda a few more times where they can at least go over it cursory wise and allow people to put their input in more often sure. But again, I think there is just a lot of nuance being glossed over…Once you get to the lease, you start figuring stuff out; the dollar amount you’re paying for X and Y becomes a lot greater when you start factoring in the amount of variables that go into projects that cost money, and the free market they call that ‘Rich Conception’. The government doesn’t really have much of rich conception involved. Flow of government has to do a lot more rich concepting but again, particularly in a tax rate increase; the tax rate was not made privy to the people of San Marcos. Now they say San Marcos is growing, but they’re not telling you it’s becoming more expensive to live here every single year. I don’t care if you’ve lived her for thirty years; you’re paying more to live here now than you have ever before. 

I think more meetings; people need to be more privy to more nuance within the budget–especially because of the budgets coming from their property taxes. They really should scrutinize; ‘Okay, I’ve been paying more taxes for the past I can’t tell you how many years; every single years appraisal rates keep going up, and every single year people are paying more in tax dollars. It doesn’t matter if the rate increased or not. So, I think that fact should be made really…I’d shove that talking points down as many throats as I could because I don’t think it was ever truly acknowledged or understood at what the implications of this rate of growth had on the residents of the city, and it’s the responsibility of the City Council to alleviate the stresses of higher appraisal values. Because the appraisal district, you can’t do much about them. You can do everything about your city council. That’s kind of where I stand on it. The city council needs to come and adjust the rate of taxation to fit the increase in appraised values to alleviate the dollar amounts people are paying in taxes every year. 

More nuances need to be made privy to people, but I guess that takes those people going to those meetings. They’re going to have those types of questions. Unless, the council member you’re speaking to is someone like me who is directly affected by that, and I think they all are…but me being an entrepreneur, I’ve got very few pennies to push together because I’m investing in my business and myself. I understand how much affect even the slightest increase in the amount of money I’m paying the government; they’re taking that away from me being able to be able to invest and prosperity in the future. I haven’t seen it before when a council member has gone up there and passionately and articulately and simply laid out how property taxes work. How the appraisal districts and city councils play off each other in terms of the City Council blames the appraisal district for higher appraisal values. The appraisal district says, ‘Don’t blame us. You voted for the people in your city council.’ And I sit there like I can’t have a choice of who appraised my property; I will have a choice who applies the specific tax rate. The tax rate should be appropriate to the amount of appraisal value that goes on my property. It’s a very complex situation where I can’t sit here and articulate a concrete solution for fixing the appraisal slash city council dilemma. Because there’s an appraisal district that we cannot do anything about we, as citizens of the city, take it upon ourselves and put our city council people to go ‘hey, our appraisal values are going up X amount. Now we’re paying this much more taxes every year; there’s this percentage that you’re paying more. You can take that percentage and knock it off the rate of taxation so you’re paying the same dollar amounts in taxes, and that’s the city council’s job to do that. Now again, there is a lot of nuance to that though. I’d really have to sit down with members of city council and a forum of people to really come up with the proper ideas for this. Because I’m not going to come up with all the ideas myself. They’re not as founded. There needs to be a way to look at the appraisal values, which there is, and go okay, the appraisal district has increased evaluation of this area by 30 percent, this area by 40 percent…our tax rate for the city is .61 cents per 100 dollars. Well, people are paying now 40 percent more taxes over a one year period. We need to sit there and adjust the rate of taxation to alleviate that increase in tax dollars. Maybe, not a hundred percent but at least alleviate… the average San Marcos citizen, who isn’t living in these big $800 a month rental high rises, they’re living in mobile homes, and they’re sweating for a living like I am. These are the types of people, the average San Marcos Citizens. And my income has not increased 100 percent, or even 50 percent over the last year. So the fact that people are paying that much more in taxes every year.

It creates a viscous cycle because people are having to go seek state and federal government aid to be able to just stay afloat. And it’s the City at the root that’s causing that because the people are paying so much of their earned dollars to just live. And they have to go rely on the government to buy food and things of that nature. 

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 and dorms 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.

If you are to become a council member, what will you do to find a solution to this public safety and public health issue that goes ignored in San Marcos?

JOSHUA SIMPSON: The entire student debt bubble is something that needs to be in a forefront in people’s minds. It’s an artificial market. Mandatory move out; if you have to live out of your vehicle it is something that we as young people should be realistic about. As a Texas State Alumnus, I feel that we are pampered. Being in the free market (real world), it is a jungle.

Money is the issue. The university makes it seem like sunshine when it isn’t; there are days when it is sunny, and there are days when it’s raining. To be realistic, if you really want to go to college, that’s fantastic, and you should be realistic in how to navigate the realms of the real world as well. We have an influx of students that want to move here; we have a council that is not working with our job growth. We are depending on the apartment builders to creates these toothpick styles complex to suit these issues, but we know that it can’t happen. Students are living off of student loans.

Paying back loans is taking a lot of the investment dollars out of us. The university market is a debt market floated by tax dollars that can’t be paid back; the human capital at the university is low. The growth only lasts for so long. The debt of the university itself places a lot of burden on the firefighters and police; it affects every aspect of the city budget. We need to think about the university debt and how to fix it to resolve the issues of overcrowding. The thing is that the investment in the university is not getting a return investment from its students. “What are people getting out of it?” Unemployment.

These students have no idea how to negotiate in the real world because of how the university treats the real world. I think the problems of the university isolates us from the reality of the real world, the rougher edges of reality of finding a job. You have to know how to negotiate. The debt of the university itself has long term financial risk. You have to pay someone back every month of your life. This needs to be addressed and resolved first.