The city of San Marcos is moving toward a contract with the Greater San Marcos Partnership, the entity responsible for economic development in Hays and Caldwell counties, but some council members are questioning the transparency of the negotiations that have been ongoing since December.

At the next meeting on May 5, council members will consider approval of a contract with amendments provided by the GSMP. If council members have additional amendments to suggest, they will be able to vote on them at the meeting.

Two versions of the contract exist, with one reflecting council members' John Thomaides and Lisa Prewitt's suggestions and one reflecting the GSMP's suggestions. Under both contracts the city will pay the partnership $30,000 per month. But whereas the GSMP contract runs through September 2016, the version authored by Thomaides and Prewitt is only good through September 2015.

The agenda for council's April 21 meeting would have allowed council to discuss and reconcile the differences between the two contracts, but Councilman Shane Scott requested the council move forward with one contract and allow amendments to be suggested before final approval at the next meeting.

"I can't believe we're even discussing this," Thomaides said. "I can't believe that we're not willing to discuss openly and publicly the details of a contract. I know there are some uncomfortable positions that people have to choose. I just cannot believe we're having the discussion of, 'Should we have the discussion?'"

After the meeting, Thomaides said he has heard from community members who are concerned that they do not have input in the city's economic development efforts. He said he believes the decision to forego discussion of the contract at Tuesday's meeting is a mistake and "a miscarriage of the public trust."

"By cutting the ability to have a thorough discussion about these contract issues and disallowing that, it's really cutting the public out of the process," he said.

Scott, Mayor Daniel Guerrero and councilmen Ryan Thomason and Jude Prather formed a majority at the April 21 meeting, directing staff to move forward with the GSMP version of the contract, despite protests from Thomaides, Prewitt and Councilwoman Jane Hughson.

"Hundreds of hours have been put into [forming these contracts]," Prewitt said. "I think we owe it to the public and staff to go ahead and go through this."

Scott shifted from his stance in December, when he was one of four council members—along with Prewitt, Thomaides and Hughson, who recommended council take a closer look at the contract.

"I didn't understand [what the GSMP does], was the problem," Scott said at the April 21 meeting. "I did take the time and hours and energy of my life to look and understand what the GSMP does, and I was wrong. I was wrong. I can face when I'm wrong. There is so much potential in the GSMP."

Scott said he still believes the city is lacking an element in its economic development efforts though, and he does not believe the GSMP will be able to fill that hole.

"We're going to have to create our own for that," Scott said.

One version of the contract, formed by a majority—Thomaides and Prewitt—of a subcommittee that also included Guerrero, differs from the GSMP version in requirements for transparency and involvement in the selection of the GSMP's executive director.

The subcommittee version calls for the partnership to comply with the Texas Open Meetings Act and for GSMP board members' conflicts of interest in relation to economic development incentive deals and other activities to be disclosed to the city manager. The partnership's version says the organization will "conduct such meetings in the spirit of openness and transparency," but omits any mention of abiding by the Texas Open Meetings Act. The GSMP version also foregoes disclosure of conflicts of interest and instead requires board members to recuse themselves from discussions when there is a conflict of interest.

The subcommittee version also calls for the city to have final approval of the organization's president and CEO, whereas the partnership's version says "City Council representatives will be on the search committee for the corporation's President/CEO and provide meaningful input to the process."

Will Conley, chairman of the GSMP's executive board, said the city already has enough power on the organization's board, and giving the city ultimate authority in selection of the executive director would be unfair to the other interests on the board. The request to comply with the Texas Open Meetings Act—which 501(c)(6) organizations like the GSMP are not legally required to do—did not sit well with some members of the partnership who have only been in the private sector and are not used to the scrutiny public officials experience, Conley said.

If the board were to come into compliance with the Act, practices such as voting by conference call or by email would be difficult, because the partnership would have to provide a location for members of the public to watch the deliberations, said Kelley Shannon, president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

Guerrero said the council's scrutiny of its contract with the GSMP was unusual compared to those of other contractors, including the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, Hays County EMS or Goodyear Industries, which provides the city's janitorial services.

"Why are we treating this entity different than anyone else?" Guerrero said. "With the CVB we go through what they get from hotel occupancy tax, but we're not going through some of the different details with them. If we do that with this group, we should do that with every other contractor that we work with."

Thomaides disagreed with the idea that council does not put other contracts under a microscope. He said the council was essentially allowing the contractor to write its own contract, and the GSMP's function differed from contractors such as Goodyear Industries.

"We deal with contract terms all the time," Thomaides said. "We have negotiations all the time. This is a bit of a different contract. This is something City Council is directly responsible for. We're not directly responsible for the janitorial services of city facilities. We're talking about economic growth and jobs in our community."

Conley argued that Court Appointed Special Advocates, The United Way of Hays County and the Southside Community Center—each of which requested a portion of the city's Community Development Block Grant funds earlier in the meeting—do not get the same treatment when council members are deciding how to disperse funds.

"I'm not familiar with Councilman Thomaides making that request for ... any of the many organizations that the city can fund, trying to get that deeply involved and that level of control in their governance and their executive bodies," Conley said. "I find that to be really inconsistent and unheard of."

Conley said the partnership has changed since it was created by the city, county, university and other stakeholders more than five years ago.

"I think the contract that we had in the past with the city of San Marcos definitely needed to be reformed and rewritten to address the new planning strategy that we have, the new needs and concerns that have come up in the community, specifically the San Marcos area," Conley said. "We've grown and evolved from a young organization to what it is today, and I think in a very positive way."