16 thoughts on “Guest Column: Taking San Marcos from good to great”

1. Do you have a budget in mind for this globe-trotting “delegation”?

2. I’d also like to see you address what is being done now compared with what you suggest. Costs are important, as Lila notes, but let’s compare what is being done with what you propose.

3. Um, we lost out on Amazon to Schertz, not Mumbai. And where did the number 20 come from? And these 10 blue chip companies are coming here because? A city council member, a banker, and a real estate agent convince them to on expensive taxpayer funded trips? Look, it’s not like I’ve seen a candidate with good ideas in as long as I can remember, but I’d rather have no ideas than this. This is nonsensical. On the other hand, your other choice is an incumbent who doesn’t even think that continuing to have Carter Morris on the P & Z board might be a bad idea…so good luck with all that San Marcos voters.

4. San Marcos needs to create a strong employment base with good paying jobs. You can debate the best way to do that but you must actively recruit those businesses and you will have to put your money where your mouth is to make it happen. Otherwise San Marcos will be stuck with low paying retail jobs, increasing poverty and the crime that inevitably follows. More jobs and more capital investment in the community leads to a higher tax base and more money for the important things like schools, streets and police.

5. The government doesn’t create the employment base; government creates the environment that allows the growth of the employment base. Real people risking their own money create the employment base. The best pitch we can make to the people that make it happen is to streamline regulation, build first class infrastructure, improve our schools, and lower the tax burdens. If we don’t do any of those real things, then snazzy presentations of the same old stuff will fall short. Business leaders are choosing to go elsewhere for real reasons, not because we haven’t sent the right people to talk to them.

6. Skeptical, I agree for the most part, although it would seem far more cost effective, to identify where and what infrastructure improvements, which tax breaks, etc., a particular employer would want, rather than try to overhaul the entire city and wait for something to happen.

7. Ted, we probably aren’t that far apart, but you are looking at existing employers with robust businesses potentially relocating to San Marcos. I prefer to improve our schools, ease our regulatory and tax burden, and improve our infrastructure for the businesses and people who are already here. We didn’t attract Thermon or McCoys with incentives. They were here, and they thrived because the environment allowed them to do so. I believe that some of future San Marcos best potential employers are probably students right now at Texas State or SMHS. We don’t need to attract them here, we just need to create a fertile environment for whatever idea they have to grow into a business that changes the town. It may take a while, but in the meantime, the taxpayers will benefit from the investments.

8. I’d like to do all that, but I’d like to have a little left to offer the right business.

   I’d also like to learn more about what we could do to make the climate even better for existing businesses. One recently moved away, and I wonder if anyone in economic development even knew it was happening.

9. Affectively? Let’s start by spelling it right. Then we can move on to effectively helping the city. Key to that is attracting new business, business that doesn’t rely on Texas State or the growth of Texas State. Not that anything’s wrong with the university, but we need more than fast food restaurants to achieve proper growth. So we lost Amazon. We lost an Alamo Draft House too, among other things. Our Chamber of Commerce could find out how greater Dallas attracted JC Penney and American Airlines as well as other businesses, adapt the methods to fit our location and go from there. I see us on a freeway between San Antonio and Austin, two of the fastest growing cities in the country, with Dallas in a straight line further north, going on to St.Louis or Kansas City. I see thousands of trucks on these freeways. Logistics companies use modern technology, need skilled management, millions of gallons of diesel fuel, millions of dollars in maintenance and spare parts, warehouses for goods and accommodation for drivers earning real money. There’s a target market.

10. San Marcos – Truck Stop Capitol of Texas

11. There’s a vast difference between a logistics hub and a truck stop. Victorville in California has grown from a sleepy village in the desert to a big city, thanks to being a transportation hub.
    San Marcos is between two large airports and on a major rail line. Land is plentiful here. There is an opportunity for major and meaningful growth, if the City of San Marcos wants it.

12. I’m pretty sure she knows that – but Lila has elevated “willful obtuseness” to an art. I’m pretty sure she would argue with a fence post if she thought she could get it to talk back…..

13. But would she win?

14. CapitAl.

15. This was actually a very thougtful post – with some great ideas. And very good questions. Until somenoe (who ?’do they have a real presence? Or persona?) went personal. It’s not about me. It’s about our cities. And our future.

16. Is this serious?