San Marcos council considers nominations to Hayes Culwell economic development partnership board

The San Marcos City Council discussed nominations to the Hayes Culwell Economic Development Partnership board during its meeting, including a volunteer council representative and a staff appointment nominated by the city manager.

Councilmember Garza volunteered to serve as the council representative on the Hayes Culwell board, and council members noted that the city manager would nominate the staff seat. Council discussion referenced a recent bylaw change that permits the city manager to nominate the staff appointee to the partnership board.

Members debated the timing and attendance for Hayes Culwell meetings. One councilmember summarized the board’s schedule as quarterly with the annual meeting in October at 3:00 p.m. and additional meetings in January, April and July. Members discussed that lunches are provided at meetings and disagreed about when Zoom attendance options became available; staff confirmed that some meetings have offered Zoom participation since shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began. Several members questioned low attendance at the board’s regular meetings and described other engagement opportunities with the partnership beyond the four quarterly meetings.

Council directed staff to prepare the nomination for formal action and asked clerical staff to set up the vote after the agenda item was read. The transcript records the nomination of Rodney Gonzalez, assistant city manager, for the staff seat; the record does not show a completed vote on the nominations in the portion of the transcript provided. Livestream viewers experienced technical issues during the discussion; staff said recordings would be uploaded to the city website.

Because the transcript does not include a completed roll call or final confirmation for the appointments, the nominations are recorded here as pending formal council action.