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San Marcos City CouncilPosted August 16, 2006, 3:30 a.m.
escapes student stare down |
SAN MARCOS - Chris Jones, elected to the San Marcos City Council as a Texas State student last December, saw fighting words in a proposed city charter amendment.
So, Jones challenged the amendment's supporters to a fight. But the city council didn't want the fight.
Not this time, anyway.
A combination of Jones' gamesmanship and council concern that a controversial charter amendment would over-shadow numerous important issues in the November election led the city council to drop the amendment from consideration at Tuesday night's meeting.
The amendment, suggested by the city's charter commission, would have raised the minimum age of a councilmember to 21 from 18. As Jones was 22 when elected, the amendment wouldn't have prohibited his candidacy. However, the proposed amendment was widely viewed as a shot at Texas State students, igniting tension in a city where the university students and permanent residents are split close to 50-50, long operating at crossed purposes.
The proposed amendment would have been one of 18 for voters to decide upon in the November city election, which also will decide four council seats. The council approved the ballot language for every proposition but the age restriction amendment Tuesday night.
The council first approved placing the age restriction on the November ballot in a July meeting by a 4-3 vote, with Jones, Ed Mihalkanin and Mayor Susan Narvaiz opposing. But as Tuesday's ballot language vote loomed, speculation spread that one of the councilmembers in favor of putting the measure to a public vote might revoke his support and kill the amendment.
Late in Tuesday's meeting, after the council accepted Mihalkanin's resignation and threw him bouquets, Mihalkanin motioned to drop the amendment from the November ballot. A dramatic pastiche of tactical politics ensued, not unlike a child's game of chicken.
First, Councilmember John Thomaides, who voted in July to place the amendment on the ballot, said his discussions with voters in the last month made him change his mind.
"A clear majority told me they thought an increased age restriction written into the city charter wasn't what they wanted," Thomaides said. "... I think it's the responsibility of leaders to help take the city where the citizens want to go."
Thomaides added that he was swayed by arguments from Mihalkanin and Jones that the mere fact of an 18-year-old on the ballot compels no one to support, campaign or vote for him.
At that point, it appeared one vote would flip and the amendment would be dead. It made little difference when Councilmember Daniel Guerrero re-iterated his support for putting the measure on the ballot, adding that voters told him they want to make the choice.
But the council hadn't heard from Jones, who dropped a bombshell.
"We're a community of inclusion, not exclusion and, I'm sorry, but to put forward an amendment aimed at half of your population — that's a move of exclusion," Jones said. "... The action of the charter commission to put this to a vote is a slap in the face."
Jones then added that he would go against his own beliefs and "give the charter commission what they want," an electoral fight. Jones said the issue is bound to come up again, if not now, so he argued for having the fight now.
The vote to drop the amendment fell by a 4-3 vote, with Jones, Guerrero, Gaylord Bose and John Diaz in the majority. So, the game was on. Voters were to decide in November if university students can serve on the council.
But just as a loud political fight between students and permanent residents made its first surge through the body politic, Guerrero motioned to reconsider. The matter back for discussion, Thomaides made another plea, saying the amendment would become such a divisive campaign issue as to obscure everything else.
"Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, it's perceived a certain way," Thomaides said. "We have too many important issues to confront in the next six months, the next year, the next two years."
Guerrero then spoke, acknowledging that he was moved by Thomaides' remarks.
"(The amendment) is going to be detrimental to so many other things we have to consider," Guerrero said. "I don't feel it was an attack. I don't feel it was a slap in the face. But we have an election coming up with 17 other amendments and four council seats to decide."
After a new motion to vote received a second, Jones motioned to table the vote, as if to suggest that his goal really was to have the fight, rather than simply kill the amendment. Jones' motion died for lack of a second.
So, the council voted again, this time going, 5-2, to drop the age restriction amendment. Only Bose and Diaz opposed.
Thus died a proposed charter amendment that would have increased the minimum age of a city council member to 21. For this day, anyway. The differences between university students and permanent residents have colored San Marcos for many years. They didn't fade away with one vote.
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