San Marcos City Council Place 6 Candidates Participate In Four Rivers Association Of Realtors Debate

City Council Place 6

• Melissa Derrick, Incumbent
  
• Juan Miguel Arredondo

Place 6 Candidate Melissa Derrick

Gumby’s and Wonderworld CUPs were the only two alcohol CUPs that were denied during the three years that I’ve been on city council. Those were both, the issues with them, they were too close to the neighborhoods. I think we are open for business.

We have plenty of alcohol CUPs that are approved monthly by our planning and zoning commission, but I think that when we’re approving alcohol CUPs to the detriment and quality of life to our neighbors that we need to be careful because as we grow; our entertainment is growing and as it gets closer to our neighborhoods, we need to have some kind of buffer, an assurance that these establishments are not going to disturb family life and people who have to get up in the morning and go to work and have children that need to sleep.

I myself live backed up to Capstone Cottages, and I can tell you we have to run box fans; and it can be rough, but I think we are open for business.

We have the big program that helps our small businesses. We offer incentives. We have… I’ve supported Splash and they’ve funded them to get entrepreneurs to get some more footing under them and some more resources, and I’m always looking for new ways that we can support our small businesses.

I am an owner of a small business. My husband I run a computer shop here in town, and we’re very much for supporting local business and kind of being a team here in San Marcos. I consider myself a member of that community. I think that when people come here to do business, and they want to serve alcohol; they should take the temperature and see how close they are to the neighborhoods before they purchase the property.

Place 6 Candidate Miguel Arredondo

I think the assurance that I can provide is that as a council member or hopefully, as a soon to be elected councilman, I will not move the goal posts after student planning and development services.

I think as an investor as a developer as a home owner when you make that commitment to spend your money, you should not change to move the goal posts or change the rules of the game at the 11th hour.

I think we send mixed messages as to whether or not we’re open for business and we ask a developer or a business owner like Gumpys or the Wonderworld Park owners that we are going to ask for things above and beyond our code of ordinances are and lays out. I think that’s an assurance I can provide. I think as someone whose family has made their livelihoods as small business owners.

As a fifth generation San Marcan, I know the commitment and the time and really that you put your livelihood on the line to be a small business owner each and every day. And I think we need people who have those experiences and put that into consideration when they ask business owners to go above and beyond what is actually in the code. If we have adopted code smtx then how can we have council members or planning and zoning commissioners change the rules of the game at the last minute.

Place 6 Candidate Miguel Arredondo

Growing up in San Marcos, I have the unique opportunity of actually learning how to swim in the San Marcos river.

So when you talk about preserving such a wonderful and beautiful natural resource, trust me when I tell you if elected to City Council I would never vote or do anything that would  be a detriment to the river.

I see people come from across the state and across the nation to experience this river, and I think with fair and balanced leadership we can find that middle ground between recreation and preservation.

I applaud previous councils and previous entities like the River Foundation for doing what they have to make sure that our river can both be used as recreation and as a natural resource and experiential place in our community.

I think unfortunately we have seen in previous years a spear mongering when it comes to development and growth in this community.

I am proud of the fact that San Marcos has some of the highest development standards when it comes to environmental stewardship, so with those things taken into consideration I do not think we as a community have to be afraid of growth or development. Because those systems and those programs are in place to ensure that we don’t negatively impact the river.

Place 6 Candidate Melissa Derrick

I think as someone else has said in regards to our springs, the river is not ours. It is ours to be stewards of as others have been for generations before us.

We need to be very careful when thinking about development close to our river and our development standards, and Austin has much better standards for this sort of development than we do.

I’d like to see us go to lid developments and encourage a lot more environmentally conscience development in this community because we won’t get a second river. We have one; and we have to protect it, or we will lose it.

I think it is possible to promote the river tourism and protect it at the same time. It’s what drew all of us here. It draws businesses here. It draws business relocation here because they know that their employees will enjoy the access we have here in San Marcos, and it keeps people here. They fall in love with the river, and they want to make San Marcos their home.

But I think we have to be careful in over usage, because it is like when you graze cattle, and they have been in one place to long you have to move them. There’s a lot of  things that we can be doing better. But I think that  with a lot of work we can promote and preserve the river as we have been doing.

Place 6 Candidate Melissa Derrick

Mandatory rental registration in general and I have a long six year history.

I was on a neighborhood commission when we worked with the real estate community to compromise and worked towards something that everyone could live with in regards to rental registration and out of that came the nuisance abatement code that we have right now; it’s the bad apple, and it has been working.

However, with the adoption of code SMTX, our staff asked us to once again consider to have mandatory rental registration very soon after we had put the nuisance abatement on the book.

So I’m concerned about going back on an agreement that we made, I’m concerned that we don’t have the staff resources to do it, but in the light of the iconic village tragedy, I think that we all must be mindful of older rentals and fire suppression and alarms.

And I was at our first meeting on the rental registration committee meeting was just a few days before that fire, and all we talked about was fire suppression and alarms. So that is something I really want to look into.

Place 6 Candidate Miguel Arredondo

I’m supportive of rental registration if it’s not used as a way to get code enforcement to go indirectly after renters and students. You want my opinion on rental registration; I think it’s a response from our community and even some elected officials with their anti-student or renter sentiment. And the fact is that over 70 percent of our community rents.

And I think it is disingenuous to say that we care about affordable housing when then we go talk to the home builders and developers and say we want you to go above and beyond what our code asks for, which would directly pass those costs on to those renters or those home buyers.

And so in regard to rental registration, I’m supportive of it, but I would hope that our council would look for some type of system that would not allow code enforcement to use that information in a way to over legislate or over police those renters because in all honesty that’s what I see happening with rental registration in this community with this current council.