This election is sure going to be interesting, I'm voting for Daniel McCarthy though because he's a friend in the San Marcos biking community and wants to actually implement the bike lanes in town that everyone is griping about. I mean we already passed the bond and the funds have been allocated, so whats the hold up?
So you think you snap your fingers and bike lanes appear? Adding bike lanes is basically a road widening project which requires (much of this by federal or state law) public hearings, engineering, bidding and awarding of contracts, disruption of foot and car traffic, taking part of someone's yard or business property, relocation of sidewalks, etc. Thta's why the council has been adding bike lanes and sidewalks when they have been doing road projects, just adding bike lanes and sidewalks willy nilly is irresponsible is wasteful government.
Absolutely correct Brete. However, there can be a city council that thinks these things are not a priority. That would be reflected in a yearly budget that does not fund such things. Does anybody know the other candidates positions on this?
The mayor sent out a flyer claiming that she has "Expanded our economy by adding 6,877 new jobs at Kulabyte, Phillips (widelite), CFAN, Hadco, Embassy Suites Hotel, etc." Even by the most generous calculation, that is about 1000-1500 jobs by those companies listed, which presumably are the largest expansions. I'm in disbelief until I hear a believable explanation of the other 5,300.
The mayor sent out a flyer claiming that she has "Expanded our economy by adding 6,877 new jobs at Kulabyte, Phillips (widelite), CFAN, Hadco, Embassy Suites Hotel, etc." Even by the most generous calculation, that is about 1000-1500 jobs by those companies listed, which presumably are the largest expansions. I'm in disbelief until I hear a believable explanation of the other 5,300.
There are only 3600 total jobs at both outlet malls. So again I ask is this claim by the mayor based in truth? This is according to www.ecodevsanmarcos.org.
Hey man, you got me. I have no idea. Frankly, I can't even understand why anyone would brag about any jobs created at an average pay of $11 per hour, or whatever ridiculous rate it was.
If you're still measuring it in "per hour" terms, it isn't the right kind of jobs, IMO. Now, maybe per hour is a typical unit of measure for job data like this, but even if that is the case, if it isn't an average of $18 per hour, it still isn't the right kind of jobs.
Now granted, these numbers are due to be freshened up, but look around; do you think they are that far off? I bet we're still behind the average for Texas and well behind Austin and there are a lot of **** jobs and po' folk in Austin, its not all Dell and AMD.
How many students do you think would stay in San Marcos after graduation if Dell, or Google, or Microsoft had a significant presence here? Or anyone like that? How many homeowners would no longer have six students renting the three bedroom house next door and parking all over the lawn, if the students didn't have to work at the Outlet Mall? How many of the tensions between the students and the non-students would go away, if more of us worked together at the same companies? How many improvements would come off the wish list and actually get completed, if we had the schools and the jobs necessary to support higher property values and more property tax revenue for the city?
Semi, I agree with almost everything you say in your post. Only one thing I have always had trouble with. My neighbor is a college student who works part time at the mall. 2-3 days a week and earns about $4K per year. If my income is about $45k and his are added together we have and average of $25K per year. This is why our numbers are skewed so low. I do know that the US Census counts all residents (and their income level) where they live when they are counted.
I thought the same thing about the students and actually had one student on this board twist my comment around to say that I was blaming the students for poverty in San Marcos.
Sadly, I have since found reports that show the students do not skew the numbers as much as you would think. I'll dig for them. I believe one was a SMCISD report that identified the percentage of students in San Marcos (K-12, not university) who are economically disadvantaged and the number is disturbingly high.
Yes, a college student working part time for $4,000 per year does skew the numbers some (although 20 hours a week at minimum wage is closer to $6,000 and a lot of them pick up hours when school is out). Most of the students do not live in San Marcos. And, to use your example, $4,000 and $45,000 average out to nearly double our per-capita income. It would take 3 of them to bring you down to $14,250, which is close to our average.
If you grant me that they make $6,000, then it takes four of them to approach our per-capita income. There are "only" 30,000 students. If they all lived here and all earned only $6,000 per year, they would bring the average down for 7500 residents.
I've seen reports that fewer than half live in San Marcos. If we say half do, then they bring the average down for 3750 residents.
Given that 68% of our population (more actually) are between 18 and 65, that means 34,000 residents are of working age. So, the other 30,000 average $13,000 per year all by themselves.
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