City begins negotiations on new police contract

The city of San Marcos and the San Marcos Police Officers’ Association are in new formal negotiations to discuss issues related to wages, hours of employment and other terms and conditions of employment, some of which have generated wide public involvement, for city police officers. These negotiations are in anticipation of the city and the SMPOA drafting an agreement for ratification that would be effective at least through 2025 and potentially longer.

At a special called 'meet and confer' meeting Thursday in the City Hall Conference Room, with the city and the SMPOA attending, City Manager Stephanie Reyes welcomed participants and called the meeting to order. Reyes was joined at the table by Linda Spacek, director of human resources and civil service, and San Marcos Chief of Police Stan Standridge.

Reyes said the meeting would only be a recap as opposed to one moving the participants into a more line item by line item agenda.

In the interest of transparency and to correct some pre-meeting activity and posting confusion, Reyes requested that Standridge review a series of slides that defined areas for negotiations this spring.

The public was invited to attend and the small conference room was full at the start of the meeting. It was noted on the meeting agenda, though, that active participation by the public was not permitted in this meeting, and that caucus time for parties represented in the meeting was permitted under Section 142.113 of the Texas Local Government Code. Caucus time for participants is not open to the public. This meeting was not available on either the city’s cable television channel or streamed online.

With a June 7 deadline for coming to a mutually supportive agreement, also attending the meeting were SMPOA President Jesse Saavedra and Daniel Arredondo, as well as other interested officers and citizens who have followed recent action by the city council that repealed the previous agreement by a vote of 4-3 on Feb. 7.

That council decision was largely prompted by the work of Mano Amiga, a 6-year-old community organization, that advocates on behalf of criminal justice reforms it considers necessary in Hays County and San Marcos. A petition was started at that time and was signed by a sufficient number of citizens to compel the city council to consider the repeal of the agreement or to send reform considerations to the voters in a general election. The council vote set into motion the negotiations that took place Thursday.

At issue in the meeting and during February is what is now called the Hartman Reforms. The reforms are named after former San Marcos Police Department Sgt. Ryan Hartman who caused a vehicle collision in 2020 that killed Jennifer Miller.

Standridge said the proposed “Hartman Reforms,” are: 1) End the 180-day rule, which would repeal the statute of limitations on investigating wrongdoing by officers, 2) End delay of interviews for misconduct: officers and currently afforded over 48 hours to prepare their answers, and are provided an opportunity to review any videotape, photograph or other materials in advance of giving an official statement; 3) Public transparency for personnel file: documented misconducts should be available for supervising officers and the community; 4) End third-party arbitration: the Civil Service Commission offers a more democratic and locally accountable alternative to the arbiter system; and 5) End vacation forfeiture as a substitute for suspension, and in this way, stop letting officers preserve seniority and promotion when they are disciplined for misconduct. Each of these five items were addressed in more detail by Standridge, who drew attention for example to the issue of 48-hours for officer review of evidence including videos. He also said that under the current agreement, the time frame for statute of limitations represents a higher number of days than is provided for by Texas statutes and code.

Standridge said the department has also implemented an Event Review Board that meets monthly and is overseen by a police commander. The purpose of the board that includes officers, representatives of the city’s risk management staff, is to create “a strong culture of accountability,” he said. In addition, he spoke at length about the question of 5th amendment rights for both the public or for officers, and how the approach differs for each in the context of Texas law and department policy.

Prior to the start of the 11 a.m. meeting, a press conference was held by Caldwell/Hays Examiner and Mano Amiga to bring forward their continued set of concerns for the negotiations underway and to specifically remind the public of “three recent cases of police misconduct in which the offending officer was issued a suspension but, in fact, never actually took a disciplinary break from employment.”

Speaking were Jordan Buckley, of Caldwell/Hays Examiner, and Sam Benavides, communications director for Mano Amiga.

The San Marcos Daily Record has requested public information documents associated with some of the cases discussed during the press conference and at time of press, these were not yet available for review.

Later during the meeting, Buckley started to take issue with some of the points presented by Standridge, but due to the meeting structure was not allowed to speak. When the meeting moved into the caucus phase, Buckley said that he disagreed with several of the statements offered by Standridge, particularly when the chief was discussing the definitions of misconduct by officers and the ramifications of how disciplinary actions are either open or closed to public scrutiny.

A portion of the meeting had not concluded as of the time of press.

The next special called meet and confer meeting is set for 9 a.m., Thursday, March 30 in the City Hall Conference Room and the agenda is available at sanmarcostx. gov.

Once a proposed meet and confer agreement is in document form for consideration by the city council and is ready to be ratified, the document as prepared will be available to the public for review.