The San Marcos City Council Place 5 seat is a key position within the city’s governing body, representing constituents in shaping local ordinances, budget allocations and city policies. The councilmember in this role works alongside the mayor and five other councilmembers. Mark Gleason is the current councilmember in Place 5 but he is not running for reelection.
Griffin Spell
What made you decide to run for City Council Place 5?
“I felt like, with losing two people on council, it was really important for someone who was qualified to run for the seat. I was the first person to file and I do have support from the incumbent councilmember Mark Gleason.”
What are your qualifications for office?
“I’m currently the vice chair of the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission. Planning and zoning is really important because so many decisions that it makes go to council … I’ve been involved in the budget process for capital improvements for about five years now.”
As the city of San Marcos continues to grow, what plans do you have to accommodate that growth?
“[We need to] start working on getting a professional transportation infrastructure, a bus service that covers the entire city and having that go into operation soon.”
What are your top priorities?
“We need to bring in things like manufacturing jobs that provide good wages for San Marcos citizens that will also pay property taxes so we’re less reliant on sales tax revenue which can fluctuate year-by-year.”
What do you believe to be the biggest issues San Marcos is facing?
“Strain from growth and development. The strain impacts so many other factors, it impacts our sales and financial issues because we have to bring in new personnel, because our city is larger. We have to maintain our roads because our roads are being used more because they’re larger.”
With San Marcos’ large student population, what would you do to balance the needs of the student population and the locals in the city alike?
“Something we need to prioritize more is helping students who come to San Marcos, who fall in love with the city like I did, and helping them stay in San Marcos to feel welcome here, to be able to get a job that pays well in San Marcos and a home that they can stay and raise a family.”
Atom Von Arndt
What made you decide to run for City Council Place 5?
“It seemed there was a lot of people on the ticket already, and it seemed fun because I’ve kept running against just the incumbent. So I’m like, this is the one to go on.”
What are your qualifications for office?
“I’m just a citizen. I’ve been a salesman for 25 years, I’m good at talking to people. I’m not scared of getting up and getting in somebody’s face about stuff. I think that we kind of need more of that on the council … We need somebody who’s going to be a dissenting voice, to speak the opinion to the people, not just what we think everybody else wants.”
As the city of San Marcos continues to grow, what plans do you have to accommodate that growth?
“Housing that’s available to everybody. Designing the city around what’s coming, a lot of the city is unfortunately talking about ‘Oh we don’t want our neighborhood to change’ but the city is going to keep growing, we need to be smart about where that growth is. We need to go the other side of I-35 and start developing more city centers over there.”
What are your top priorities?
“Correcting the housing discrepancy that we have in this town, working towards more on keeping the developers in check, keeping the thoughts of the people at the forefront and protecting the river. I have a plan for trying to eliminate the student housing issue and making it equitable for everybody in the city, students and residents alike.”
What do you believe to be the biggest issue San Marcos is facing?
“Inflation, everything is too expensive, and we’re a poor town so it would be nice if we felt that we could rely on our city and that it was actually there for us. I’m a dreamer, I’m an idealist, I’d like to think that people could count on the government. Government would be there for people, not this whole corporate structure that we live in now where [it’s just] ‘eat the poor’.”
With San Marcos’ large student population, what would you do to balance the needs of the student population and the locals in the city alike?
“The students are just as important as the people who are going to live here forever, so making sure that they’re taken care of. Change needs to happen and it needs to happen on a bigger scale, but the only way we can start that is on the smaller scale.”
Roland Saucedo
What made you decide to run for City Council Place 5?
“In recent elections, we’ve campaigned and elected people that have made promises and commitments to represent our community, and they fall short of it. I felt like it was time for me to step up and actually give the people a representative that is truly going to represent their voice and not my own agenda.”
What are your qualifications for office?
“For the neighborhood commission, I served as co-chair for five terms, and then my remaining years in it as chair. We got the ear of the city council, and they were more interested and engaged in what we were working toward. Most of our resolutions were approved and acted upon by the San Marcos City Council.”
As the city of San Marcos grows, what plans do you have to accommodate that growth?
“I think all the information from the studies and task forces the city has invested money into needs to be consolidated and applied. Then we need to have a partnership between the students at the university and San Marcos residents as well as the development and business community. It’s that partnership that’s going to garner our economy and the well-being of our neighborhoods.”
What are your top priorities?
“We can apply [task-force suggestions] to our updated current data, and consolidate those initiatives to start implementing them. We need to open a dialogue between developers and residents, so we can start moving forward with a plan of action to be able to increase housing stock and provide alternative affordable housing.”
What do you believe to be the biggest issue San Marcos is facing?
“We need to have more management and more accountability of the contractors to make sure [road and parking] projects that are… properly done and expedited to decrease the inconvenience of our residents and students.”
With San Marcos’ large student population, what would you do to balance the needs of the student population and the locals in the city alike?
“The relationship between city residents and university students isn’t unsuccessful, but needs to be improved. I’d like to just recognize everyone as neighbors, even though they’re students. We need an open dialogue about resident and student needs and the university and the city could also have more transparency.”
Lorenzo Gonzalez
What made you decide to run for City Council Place 5?
“When I ran in the March primary [for Hays County Constable], people asked my opinion on things going on in the city… it was really hard get in contact with elected officials. I’ve always been the type of person that’s for transparency, and that elected officials work for you, not the other way around.”
What are your qualifications for office?
“I was involved in a lot of different committees, just trying to connect people with their elected officials, bridge building and advocate for what the citizens want. I just feel that I would be more open, more willing to meet citizens where they are, and be a better representation of what they want to be able to be their voice on the dais.”
As the city of San Marcos grows, what plans do you have to accommodate that growth?
“I think going and really looking back at our planning and zoning law to see how we could modify some of those rules, especially regarding the requirements for multi-family structures. Some of the rules the Planning & Zoning Committee follow are antiquated and make no sense today.”
What are your top priorities?
“One is getting the wheels turning to begin solving the affordable housing issue, but that’s going to be a long road. Transparency is my biggest motivation for running, so whatever my constituents’ priority is my priority. I want the voice of the everyday citizen in front of the council.”
What do you believe to be the biggest issue San Marcos is facing?
“We’re facing a lack of careers and career choices in San Marcos. A lot of the people moving to the city are commuting to San Antonio or Austin for work, and the record enrollment of students that Texas State keeps bringing in just stay for their education and look for careers in those cities as well. City council can be more proactive in recruiting the companies that move to San Marcos, and the same tools we provide bigger businesses can be provided to small businesses. ”
With San Marcos’ large student population, what would you do to balance the needs with that population and the locals in the city alike?
“Step one is to stop seeing them as two different groups. They might need different needs because there is an almost younger generation versus an older generation situation, and obviously they’re going to have different needs, but to stop seeing them as long-term visitors versus residents would be the first step in that balancing.”
