Early voting on for San Marcos runoff

New mayor, two City Council members will be selected Dec. 13.

On a brisk December morning outside the Hays County Government Building, it was election season all over again.

Voters trickled into the building, past a sea of campaign signs. Local candidates offered greetings and thanks to the handful of people doing their civic duty.

Early voting is underway for the Dec. 13 runoff, in which San Marcos voters will pick a new mayor and select two new City Council members. Amid the crowded field of contenders for four seats on the Nov. 8 ballot, only Place 1 Council Member Lisa Prewitt clinched a majority of the votes needed to win outright.

The five-person mayoral race has been whittled down to local business owner Ruben Becerra, who took 34.5 percent of the vote in the general election, and Council Member John Thomaides, who received 31.8 percent. They are vying to replace Mayor Daniel Guerrero, who decided not to seek another term.

The four-person race for the City Council Place 3 seat, which Thomaides had to vacate to run for mayor, is down to Realtor Jason Montgomery and Texas State University political science professor Ed Mihalkanin. Montgomery had a razor-thin edge of six votes in the Nov. 8 race, with both men earning about 28.3 percent of the vote.

And in the City Council Place 2 race, the field has narrowed to Planning and Zoning Commissioner Saul Gonzales, who won 35.2 percent of the vote last month, and former Council Member Shane Scott, who won 30.6 percent. They are competing to succeed Council Member Jude Prather, who didn’t seek re-election.

Heading into runoff mode, some

candidates said one of their campaign challenges this time around is educating people that there is still one more election to go.

“Many people think I’m already the mayor,” Becerra said. “It’s so humbling and wonderful when people run up to congratulate you, but you have to say, ‘Ah, I’m sorry, we’ve got to do it again. It’s not quite over yet.’ ”

In Thomaides’ experience, though, much of his core group of supporters are part of a group that consistently comes out to vote on local races, and those people are aware of the upcoming election.

“These are people that have supported me over the years and put me back in office, and I’m just hoping that they turn out once again,” he said.

New sparring

In recent weeks, Thomaides has made an issue of records that show that Becerra was months, and sometimes more than a year, late paying the property taxes on his home every year between 2007 and 2014.

“I think the mayor should show an example and pay their taxes on time,” Thomaides said. “One year here and there is different. Seven years is a pattern.”

Becerra said he was on payment plans for those taxes and bashed Thomaides for resorting to what he described as personal attacks.

“Instead of talking about all the good things (Thomaides has) done for our community, he’s got a group of friends and supporters that are spreading half-truths and misrepresentations of fact,” Becerra said. “And that’s unfortunate because people are kind of sick of that at the national level, and then you’re trying to bring that home at a local level, and people are not interested.”

Becerra has criticized Thomaides for supporting the controversial third H-E-B store to be built at Wonder World Drive and Hunter Road, near Purgatory Creek Natural Area.

Many in the community had spoken out against the project because they disagreed with the location, citing concerns about traffic and flooding among other things.

Three council members walked out of a September meeting in protest.

“That (is) policymaking he’s shoving down people’s throats, because lots of citizens spoke against it — and yet he disregarded it,” Becerra said.

Thomaides acknowledged the location was not ideal, but said that with a population growing as fast as San Marcos’, increasing amenities was “desperately needed.”

“It was a development that, while fully understandably was of concern to a lot of people, everything was proven that it would be safe, that it would not harm any neighbors, that it would not harm the river,” Thomaides said, referring to analyses the city considered on flooding and traffic.

“It’s going to have a positive impact on our citizens’ lives and on our community moving forward.”

Tactics that work

In the two council races, the candidates are doubling down on their general election campaign tactics.

Montgomery said he is sticking to what has worked for him in the past: attending community events and talking face-to-face with voters.

Mihalkanin said he’s using tried-and-true methods of putting up yard signs, meeting with citizens who ask to meet with him, sending out mailers and door-knocking. Both are casting wide nets. Similarly, Gonzales said he is focused on door-knocking and meeting constituents across the city.

Scott has been doing the same, he said, but as a conservative, he knows he will appeal to other conservatives, so he tries to stress that similarity in talking to constituents.