SAN MARCOS CITY COUNCIL ELECTION
The November election will see several candidates for San Marcos City Council on the ballot, including mayor, council member place 5 and council member place 6.
The San Marcos Area Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Four Rivers Association of Realtors, hosted a Local Candidates Forum to allow the chance for the public to get to know each of the candidates and their views a bit better. This article will focus on the candidates for place 5 — Griffin Spell, Roland Saucedo, Atom Von Arndt and Lorenzo Gonzalez.
Editor’s Note: This article has been lightly edited for readability. Opening and closing statements were not included due to the length of the conversation. The remaining questions and answers are written in the order in which they occurred.
Question: San Marcos continues to experience rapid population growth. The solutions of yesterday are often inadequate for tomorrow. What are your priorities when it comes to managing growth and preparing for the San Marcos of the future?
GONZALEZ: I think we need to have smart and various solutions to answer that question. I think, as far as housing goes, we need to invest in mixed use communities, not necessarily a bunch of single family homes out in the far east side. We need to definitely make sure that, as we’re going to take care of our natural resources everywhere, and our drinking water as well as preserving the charm that is historic San Marcos. … I don’t have all the answers, but I want to be the representative to ask all the right questions to make sure we get the right answers from the developer community when they are building those properties for our future residents.
ARNDT: We all know that it’s not slowing down anytime soon. I found out over the weekend — I went to the river symposium … And apparently, in the next 15 years, there’s gonna be another San Antonio worth of people between Austin and San Antonio. So it’s not slowing down, right? It’s not going to change. What we need is housing. We need housing that we can afford. How do we do that? Huh, I have an idea. How about we eliminate these rentby- the-bed student housing projects? Why do you ask? Because they’re predatory on students. Not only incentivize our residents to become business owners, to incentivize small businesses so that people that want to raise [kids] in San Marcos can stay in San Marcos. Another thing that is kind of off subject, but one of my priorities in job training is keeping Texas State graduates here. I have a lot of friends that come to San Marcos, go to Texas State, fall in love with the city the four years they’re here, but then have to leave the city to pursue their career fields. So I think working with businesses, existing businesses, but also incentivizing residents and students to start their businesses and grow their career in San Marcos to provide jobs for other residents.
SPELL: So one of the issues I see in this community is just uncertainty and concern about the future. You know, where is the city going to be in five years, ten years, 20 years from now? As a planning commissioner, that’s one of the things I focus on a lot. What’s the consequence of this decision five, ten, 20 years down the line. Where is San Marcos going to be? Is this going to provide jobs? Is it going to be a net benefit for us? Are we going to regret this decision 20 years from now? And I see this all the time at City Hall. We asked, “Why did this thing not happen? It should have happened.” And the answer sometimes is, “Well, back in 2002, council did XYZ, and that’s why something didn’t happen, or something did happen.” The cost and consequence of our decisions at City Hall are going to matter 20, 30, 40 years from now. Whether those are good decisions that prepare us for the future or bad decisions that we live to regret.
SAUCEDO: Well, like I said before, I’ve advocated for over 20 years in my community, and that’s one of the reasons why I chose to run for office. I never wanted to be an elected official. I always felt that I was doing more on the other side, but there is a huge gap that needs to be bridged between the business community and the citizens itself and the city. The thing is whenever we have these kinds of things for a business development community. They would sponsor a Town Hall, provide refreshments and claim that they’re answering questions. But further down the line through the process and while they’re before the dais, that’s when it starts to come to fruition of what the project is actually going to entail and how it negatively affects our community.
Learn more about each of the candidates at these links: sanmarcosrecord. com/news/saucedo-running- city-council-place-5, sanmarcosrecord.com/ news/von-arndt-runningcouncil- place-5, sanmarcosrecord. com/news/ gonzalez-running-council- place-5, sanmarcosrecord. com/news/spell-runcity- council-place-5.
