Jude Prather and Mark Gleason secure City Council Seats in 2021 election
3 years ago
Hays County Election Office entrance at the Hays County Government Center. Photo by Sierra Martin.
Sierra Martin | Managing Editor
SAN MARCOS – San Marcos City Council Candidate for Place 6 Jude Prather and City Council Place 5 Incumbent Mark Gleason have announced their victories after polls closed in the 2021 election. Voters also approved several propositions to amendments to the city charter.
Jude Prather, San Marcos City Council Place 6
The 2021 election had a low turnout, with only 11.8% of registered Hays County voters participating.
The race for San Marcos City Council Place 6 was tight, with Prather winning by only 26 votes. Gleason secured the seat for Place 5 with 316 votes.
Prather served as a member of the United States Army and has been the Hays County Veteran Service Officer for ten years. Gleason is the incumbent for Place 6 and is currently on the council’s Legislative Committee.
San Marcos voters also had the opportunity to vote for several propositions that could impact how City Council and local governments will operate.
Mark Gleason, San Marcos City Council Place 5.
San Marcos Proposition A passed by about 77%, and will amend a section of the city charter to replace the current section with a new statement of goals of city government that is organized by the categories of people, place, environment, economy and public services.
San Marcos Proposition B passed by 80%, and will establish term limits for city council members. The change in the charter will provide that a council member elected at the regular election will be ineligible to run for any city council position, other than mayor, for two years after serving three consecutive terms of office.
San Marcos Proposition C passed by about 82%, and will establish term limits for mayor and enforce that mayor will be ineligible to run again for mayor for a period of two years after serving four consecutive terms in that position.
San Marcos Proposition D passed by 90%, and will require all regular city council meeting agendas to include a “Citizen Comment Period” and “Question and Answer Session with Press and Public.”
San Marcos Proposition E passed by 56% to allow the removal of city manager by a vote of four members of the entire city council instead of five members.
San Marcos Proposition F received exactly 50% of the vote, and will remove the requirement for city council approval of the city manager’s appointment of assistant city managers.
San Marcos Proposition G passed by about 54% and will remove the requirement for city council approval of the city clerk’s appointment of assistant city clerks.
San Marcos Proposition H passed by 60% and will change the residency requirement for the position of city clerk to allow the person appointed to that position to reside in either the city limits, as currently required, or within Hays County or within the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.
San Marcos Proposition I passed by only 51% to remove the requirement for city council approval of the presiding judge’s appointment of a municipal court clerk and assistant clerks.
San Marcos Proposition J passed by 68% to remove the residency requirement for appointment of the presiding judge.
San Marcos Proposition K passed with 53% of the vote to remove the requirement for city council approval of the city attorney’s appointment of assistant city attorneys.
San Marcos Proposition L received nearly 80% of the vote, and will add a provision stating that no action of the planning and zoning commission shall have any force or effect unless it is adopted by a vote of five or more of its members.
San Marcos Proposition M received 90% of the vote and will require the charter review commission to make a final report of its recommendations and require that the chair or a designated member of the commission present the report to the city council.
Hays County Election results as of November 2, 10:38 p.m.
It is absolutely ridiculous that only 11.8% of the people turned out to vote. Have people gotten so lazy that they think their vote doesn't matter? For heaven's sake, our forefathers fought and died to give us this precious gift. Get off your lazy duffs!
Pissed off that so many of these crappy @$$ propositions passed. Now term limits are useless and city officials don't have to live where they serve? WTH?
Dear Mad,
If you want the bigger picture, look no further than the 30,000+ voters who
aren't allowed to vote in our municipal elections, yet nevertheless do.
Any person who is a student or faculty member of Texas State University
System ("TSUS") cannot claim to be a "resident" of the City of San Marcos.
As a matter of well settled law such persons are full time residents of the
Texas State University System--no matter where they lay down to sleep.
Put another way, how would the residents of San Marcos feel if the citizens of
the City of Martindale began voting in our city elections? Especially if the issues
they voted on here affected Martindale's own interests ? Is that okay?
By law, Texas State University is a separate political subdivision of the state of Texas.
It's controlled by its own laws, its own police force and its own territorial jurisdiction.
It has its own system of courts which according to its own laws, are not controlled by the
same procedure and rules of evidence that control our public courts. Any person who is
accepted into the TSUS system by law is a "resident" of its separate political subdivsion
for as long they remain a member--whether student or faculty.
Well . . . gosh, if that's really true . . .You got it. They've been rigging their own outcome here
for years, by way of student "activism" , by way of San Marcos politicians who pander to the TSUS
student vote, and by way of TSUS faculty who also just happen to be members of
the San Marcos City Council. All of whom incidentally vote upon issues affecting TSUS.
The 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits this harm worked upon the
legally entitled voters of the City of San Marcos by way of this ongoing scam. TSUS in this
manner will continue to control the outcome of all issues affecting their own interests.
I attended EVERY Charter Review Commission (CRC) meeting and spoke at citizen comments. Also asked questions during the Question and Answer Session from the Press and Public. Do NOT blame the CRC, you can direct your concerns to elected officials who, in aberration manipulated the language of the CRC final report. They took each measure and crafted them to their own liking. Complete disrespect to the MONTHS of hard work and analysis of the CRC. You got hoodwinked San Marcos. Your Mayor in a span of five minutes changed the Free Speech/Free Press Provision of the fourth ballot measure on Citizen Comments and Questions and Answers from the Press and Public. So, now our city charter is antithetical to the Texas Open Meetings Act. If you voted for item D, you actually limited free speech because she has instituted in the City Charter that Work Sessions and Special meetings DO NOT have public comment nor a question period for the press. It is an honest mistake if you did vote for item D. Jane knew exactly what she was doing. I anticipate that this will have to be rectified since it creates city charter local provisions against TOMA. If you are concerned that 500K was passed recently with NO public comment, you can thank Jane, Gleason, Derrick, and Saul for limiting your free speech. Shane Scott, Maxfield Baker, and Alyssa Garza wanted to go with the CRC recommendations. Via open records, Ive obtained at least the past four CRC recommendations and compared them to the ballot measures. City Councils in 99.999% instances take the CRC language right to the voters. Sometimes there are minor changes in language for clarification. Former elected officials can confirm this fact. This city council (with the exception of the three above) seem to think their own appointees do not know what the pulse of the community is regarding amendments to the city charter. We had one of the best CRC in the history of San Marcos. Why even appointment citizens if our elected officials are just going to fiddle with the CRC final report? This is the "Constitutional Convention" at a local level. So, in Sum the City Council thinks they are the Queen of England. IT was embarrassing to watch the meeting, the arrogance. And, they did it in a 3:00 PM work session with NO public comment. I would implore the citizens to be more involved in the next CRC. However will that even make a difference? In sum taxpayer dollars were wasted with a ballot measure that flys in the face of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Not gonna fly with state law....just saying. Clearly some elected officials were not judiciously studying TOMA when they took their required training.
sad, another adult raised without paragraphs. please don't drop that thing on my foot.
View Comments
It is absolutely ridiculous that only 11.8% of the people turned out to vote. Have people gotten so lazy that they think their vote doesn't matter? For heaven's sake, our forefathers fought and died to give us this precious gift. Get off your lazy duffs!
Pissed off that so many of these crappy @$$ propositions passed. Now term limits are useless and city officials don't have to live where they serve? WTH?
Dear Mad,
If you want the bigger picture, look no further than the 30,000+ voters who
aren't allowed to vote in our municipal elections, yet nevertheless do.
Any person who is a student or faculty member of Texas State University
System ("TSUS") cannot claim to be a "resident" of the City of San Marcos.
As a matter of well settled law such persons are full time residents of the
Texas State University System--no matter where they lay down to sleep.
Put another way, how would the residents of San Marcos feel if the citizens of
the City of Martindale began voting in our city elections? Especially if the issues
they voted on here affected Martindale's own interests ? Is that okay?
By law, Texas State University is a separate political subdivision of the state of Texas.
It's controlled by its own laws, its own police force and its own territorial jurisdiction.
It has its own system of courts which according to its own laws, are not controlled by the
same procedure and rules of evidence that control our public courts. Any person who is
accepted into the TSUS system by law is a "resident" of its separate political subdivsion
for as long they remain a member--whether student or faculty.
Well . . . gosh, if that's really true . . .You got it. They've been rigging their own outcome here
for years, by way of student "activism" , by way of San Marcos politicians who pander to the TSUS
student vote, and by way of TSUS faculty who also just happen to be members of
the San Marcos City Council. All of whom incidentally vote upon issues affecting TSUS.
The 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits this harm worked upon the
legally entitled voters of the City of San Marcos by way of this ongoing scam. TSUS in this
manner will continue to control the outcome of all issues affecting their own interests.
I attended EVERY Charter Review Commission (CRC) meeting and spoke at citizen comments. Also asked questions during the Question and Answer Session from the Press and Public. Do NOT blame the CRC, you can direct your concerns to elected officials who, in aberration manipulated the language of the CRC final report. They took each measure and crafted them to their own liking. Complete disrespect to the MONTHS of hard work and analysis of the CRC. You got hoodwinked San Marcos. Your Mayor in a span of five minutes changed the Free Speech/Free Press Provision of the fourth ballot measure on Citizen Comments and Questions and Answers from the Press and Public. So, now our city charter is antithetical to the Texas Open Meetings Act. If you voted for item D, you actually limited free speech because she has instituted in the City Charter that Work Sessions and Special meetings DO NOT have public comment nor a question period for the press. It is an honest mistake if you did vote for item D. Jane knew exactly what she was doing. I anticipate that this will have to be rectified since it creates city charter local provisions against TOMA. If you are concerned that 500K was passed recently with NO public comment, you can thank Jane, Gleason, Derrick, and Saul for limiting your free speech. Shane Scott, Maxfield Baker, and Alyssa Garza wanted to go with the CRC recommendations. Via open records, Ive obtained at least the past four CRC recommendations and compared them to the ballot measures. City Councils in 99.999% instances take the CRC language right to the voters. Sometimes there are minor changes in language for clarification. Former elected officials can confirm this fact. This city council (with the exception of the three above) seem to think their own appointees do not know what the pulse of the community is regarding amendments to the city charter. We had one of the best CRC in the history of San Marcos. Why even appointment citizens if our elected officials are just going to fiddle with the CRC final report? This is the "Constitutional Convention" at a local level. So, in Sum the City Council thinks they are the Queen of England. IT was embarrassing to watch the meeting, the arrogance. And, they did it in a 3:00 PM work session with NO public comment. I would implore the citizens to be more involved in the next CRC. However will that even make a difference? In sum taxpayer dollars were wasted with a ballot measure that flys in the face of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Not gonna fly with state law....just saying. Clearly some elected officials were not judiciously studying TOMA when they took their required training.
sad, another adult raised without paragraphs. please don't drop that thing on my foot.