I’m asking for the endorsement of the Hays County Young Democrats because I want young people to have a real partner at City Hall. Whether it’s making San Marcos more affordable, protecting our river, supporting working families, defending our neighbors, or making sure young people can afford to stay and build a life here, I believe we share many of the same values.

For 11 years on the SMCISD Board, I’ve worked to turn those values into real policy. I fought for a living wage, smaller class sizes, universal FREE breakfast and lunch, access to art and libraries, and our historic dual enrollment partnership with Texas State.

I’m proud to have earned the support of Congressman Greg Casar, State Rep. Erin Zwiener, Commissioners Michelle Cohen and Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe, Trustees Anne Halsey and Clem Cantu, and so many neighbors.

I would be honored to earn your endorsement too and work alongside HCYD to turn our shared values into real progress for San Marcos.

I’m a fifth-generation San Marcos native, proud San Marcos High School graduate, first-generation Texas State University alumnus, and someone who has spent most of my adult life serving the community that raised me.

I was elected to the San Marcos CISD Board at 23, becoming the youngest elected official in Hays County at the time and, for a period, its first and only openly gay elected official. Over the last 11 years, I’ve served as a trustee, including as Board Vice President, helping oversee budgets, employees, facilities, and policies impacting thousands of students and families.

Professionally, I served as Chief of Staff to State Representative Erin Zwiener, where I learned how to navigate state government and advocate for our community. Today, I serve as President and CEO of United Way of Hays & Caldwell Counties, bringing nonprofits, businesses, local governments, and neighbors together to support some of our most at-risk and vulnerable neighbors.

Those experiences have taught me how to listen, build coalitions, manage public dollars responsibly, and most importantly, turn good ideas into real policy and results.

First, affordability. If I’m elected, by this time next year I want people to know me as the housing council member. Housing impacts all of us, whether you’re a Texas State student, a single mom raising a family, a recent graduate trying to stay in San Marcos, a young family hoping to buy your first home, or a senior living on a fixed income. I want us to encourage responsible infill, create more pathways to homeownership, preserve affordable housing, establish a Renters Commission, and create a Housing Affordability Dashboard so we are actually measuring whether the people who live and work here can afford to stay here.

Second, I want us investing in the things our neighbors interact with every single day. Yes, that means roads, sidewalks, drainage and utilities, but it also means shaded playgrounds, bathrooms in our parks, splash pads on both sides of I-35, a better city pool, connected trails, and transportation that actually works for families, seniors, students, and neighbors with disabilities. I also want us investing more in the nonprofits and grassroots organizations already taking care of our neighbors.

Finally, I want to protect the San Marcos we love while preparing for the San Marcos we are becoming. That means protecting our river and aquifer, keeping data centers out, expanding rainwater collection and reclaimed water, incentivizing wildscaping and native landscaping, protecting recharge areas, and finding creative ways to turn unnecessary concrete into trees, pocket parks, and green space.

San Marcos is going to grow. The question is whether we let growth happen to us or whether we shape it together. I want growth that makes life better for the people already here while protecting our neighborhoods, history, culture, river, and everything that makes this place home.

Yes. I support protecting the right of renters to organize and participate in a tenants association without interference or retaliation.

But I believe we should go further. If elected, I would ask my colleagues to support creating a Renters Commission made up of San Marcos renters representing the different ways people rent in our community, including student-purpose housing, traditional apartments, single-family homes, and affordable housing.

Most importantly, I want this commission to give renters a clear and accessible place to go when they are having problems with a landlord or property management company. Too often, renters dealing with unsafe conditions, maintenance issues, unfair treatment, or other concerns simply do not know where to turn. Residents should have an avenue to bring those experiences directly to the City, have their concerns heard and documented, and get connected with resources that can actually help.

I would also advocate for dedicated city funding for independent tenant legal assistance and advocacy, building on the legal-aid resources San Marcos already supports.

The commission could identify patterns in complaints, bring recurring problems to the attention of City Council, and recommend policy changes when needed. It would not just be another advisory board. It would give renters a real voice and create a direct line between tenants experiencing problems and their city government.

If elected, by this time next year I want to be known as the housing council member. Housing impacts all of us. Whether you’re a Texas State student, a single mom raising a family, a recent graduate trying to build a life after college, a senior on a fixed income, or a young family hoping to buy your first home, you should be able to afford to call San Marcos home.

There isn’t one silver bullet. We need more housing choices at different price points, more pathways to homeownership, preservation of existing affordable housing, and smart policies that allow us to add housing where it makes sense.

I would ask my colleagues to consider some of the approaches Council Members Zo Qadri, Vanessa Fuentes, and their colleagues in Austin have taken to make thoughtful infill development easier. For San Marcos, I believe our downtown and urban core are great places to start. Adding housing where infrastructure, jobs, businesses, transit, and services already exist gives people the opportunity to live closer to the places they need to go and makes it possible to live with less dependence on a car.

It also gives us an alternative to simply sprawling farther and farther outward with massive apartment and single family housing developments. Growth is coming. The question is whether we are intentional about where and how it happens.

I believe we can tackle our housing affordability crisis in a way that works for renters, homeowners, students, families, seniors, and our business community while still protecting our neighborhoods, aquifer, San Marcos River, and the natural resources that make this place so special.

Yes, absolutely. I would support increasing funding for Southside Community Center and the other nonprofit partners doing this work every single day.

During my first budget process, I would ask my colleagues to consider something pretty straightforward. Let’s establish a minimum investment in human services funding based on the number of people who call San Marcos home. I would propose starting at $15 per resident annually. Based on our current population, that would mean investing almost $1.4 million a year into the organizations serving our neighbors.

As President and CEO of United Way of Hays & Caldwell Counties, I see firsthand what organizations like Southside are being asked to do with limited resources. They feed our neighbors, keep families housed, support survivors, provide shelter and transportation, and help people through some of the hardest moments of their lives.

We also simply need a bigger funding pool. Right now, limited resources can force the City to essentially pick winners and losers among organizations that are all doing important work. We should have the resources to meaningfully support established partners like Southside while still having funding available for smaller, grassroots organizations and efforts like HOME Center that are meeting specific needs in our community.

I also believe this has to be a regional conversation. Southside serves people from across our county, not just San Marcos. I would use my seat on Council to encourage our neighboring cities and Hays County to step up too.

Yes, absolutely. I really like the vision behind Kyle’s Vybe Trail, and I want us thinking that big in San Marcos too. Imagine being able to safely walk or bike from your neighborhood to a park, downtown, Texas State, our schools, local businesses, or the river through a truly connected network of trails and sidewalks.

Too many of my neighbors don’t have a quality park or meaningful public space they can safely walk to. Even when they do, the playground may be outdated, there may be little shade, no bathroom, or no safe way to get there without a car. We can do better.

And to put it bluntly, CARTS, THE BUS, and Lime scooters are not realistic transportation solutions for everyone. A parent with small children or someone working an hourly job cannot spend most of their day getting to and from an appointment. Lime scooters aren’t accessible to many of our neighbors with disabilities, seniors, or families with young children.

I want San Marcos to explore a true citywide bus system or a municipally funded hybrid on-demand rideshare program. We can use the City’s negotiating power to make sure drivers are treated fairly and paid a living wage while giving our neighbors transportation that actually works for their lives.

And yes, we need to invest more in our parks. Our city pool hasn’t received the kind of significant improvements our community deserves in decades. I want splash pads on the East and West sides that families can actually walk to, bathrooms in our parks, shaded playgrounds, more trees, better sidewalks, and a connected trail system.

No. I do not support the San Marcos Police Department entering into a 287(g) agreement, and I do not support the current approach to immigration enforcement we are seeing from ICE.

I want our local police focused on local public safety, responding to emergencies, investigating crimes, and building trust with the people they serve. Turning local officers into an extension of federal immigration enforcement undermines that trust.

There have been numerous occasions when Councilwoman Alyssa Garza and I have used our positions and privilege to support organizers and protect our neighbors. That has included going out to Redwood while SMCISD buses were dropping students off after reports of ICE activity, making sure agents were no longer in the area and that our students and families were safe.

On the school board, I also worked quietly and deliberately with district legal counsel and a progressive board majority to establish a process for what would happen if immigration enforcement ever came to one of our schools. We wanted every legal safeguard available in place to protect our students and families and severely limit the ability of immigration enforcement to disrupt our campuses or access our children.

That’s the kind of leader I have been. Sometimes standing up for your community means speaking publicly, and sometimes it means quietly showing up, using your title and access, calling the right people, and doing everything legally within your power to protect your neighbors.

Regardless of immigration status, every family in San Marcos deserves to feel safe sending their child to school, reporting a crime, going to work, attending church, or simply living their life without fear.

No. I do not support ALPRs or AI policing technology that contributes to or creates an ecosystem of mass surveillance. There is a difference between using technology to investigate a specific crime and building a system capable of collecting and sharing information about thousands of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

I am grateful San Marcos City Council chose not to renew its Flock contract.

Personally, I sent a letter to Hays County Commissioners Court asking them not to fund the proposed Axon contract and instead invest those resources in social services. We have to keep reminding our neighbors and elected leaders that true public safety is also achieved when people’s basic needs are met. Food security, stable housing, mental health and substance use services, support for survivors, and resources for children and families are public safety investments too.

At my urging, San Marcos CISD is also developing an AI policy to establish stronger guardrails around AI in our schools. I want us thinking about privacy, student data, manipulation of student images, transparency, academic integrity, and the environmental impacts of this technology.

I would bring that same approach to City Hall. New technology does not automatically equal good public policy. We need strong guardrails, transparency about what we purchase and why, protections for people’s information, limits on collection and sharing, and real accountability.

We can protect our neighbors without creating a surveillance system that watches them.

No. I do not support the development of AI data centers in San Marcos, and I would not support changing our zoning laws to allow them. I am grateful City Council ultimately prohibited data centers within our city.

I have been actively involved in this fight. I was at City Hall the night of the data center vote and spoke directly with several members of Council, encouraging them to make the motion to deny.

After Councilwoman Amanda Rodriguez’s initial effort to remove data centers from our zoning regulations did not have the votes needed to pass, Councilwoman Alyssa Garza and I spoke directly with Councilman Lorenzo Gonzalez and encouraged him to reconsider his position. We continued talking with neighbors and stakeholders along the way. Those relationships matter. Local government works best when elected officials, community leaders, and neighbors can sit down together, listen to one another, and sometimes change minds.

I want us to incentivize our neighbors to wildscape their yards with native plants, expand rainwater collection, and make conservation improvements more affordable for homeowners and businesses. The City should lead by example too. Every municipal property should be looking at rainwater harvesting, native landscaping, efficient irrigation, shade trees, solar where appropriate, and ways to reduce water and energy use.

I also think we need to get creative about the concrete we’ve already poured. I would work with property owners and developers to convert oversized, underused parking lots into green space.

Think about the shopping center where IKEA and Jason’s Deli are. Imagine replacing parking spaces that sit empty most of the time with trees, native landscaping, rain gardens, or pocket parks. We could reduce runoff and heat while creating spaces people can actually enjoy. Then scale that idea down to smaller shopping centers across San Marcos.

We also need to invest in reclaimed water infrastructure, fix leaks, protect recharge areas, and make water conservation part of how we evaluate new development.

I learned to swim in the San Marcos River, so protecting our river and aquifer is personal to me. Growth is coming. Our job is to make sure we grow in a way that protects the resources that make San Marcos home.

Yes. I believe what has happened to the Palestinian people in Gaza constitutes genocide.