The Greater San Marcos Partnership

By: Amber Craddieth
KTSW News 

Recently on March 17th the Buda Economic Development Corporation has discontinued their five-thousand dollar annual fund from the Greater San Marcos Partnership. The Greater San Marcos Partnership is a public/private partnership who has numerous community and private sector investors, and their mission is to create jobs and increase investment for San Marcos, Hays County, Caldwell and all the communities in between.

During the time Buda opted out, Dripping Springs joined the partnership contributing five-thousand dollars annually last month, and the GSMP is excited that they now have representation in western Hays County. Though Buda’s Economic Development Corporation has made their decision to cease funds, the President of the Greater San Marcos Partnership, Adriana Cruz, says they are not letting that loss put a halt on their job.

“Buda Economic Development Corporation makes a  decision you know as every community but we have strong support from our other communities Kyle, Lockhart and Lulling and now Dripping Springs as of last month is our latest investor, so we’re positive and you know continuing to do our job.”

San Marcos City Council has also questioned whether they should discontinue their annual fund of 360-thousand dollars, but Cruz says the San Marcos City Council has decided not to cut funding. She says that if the they had decided to cut funding they would continue with their job, but as of now they are working with the San Marcos City Council sub-committee to revise their contract that has been in place since 2008.

“We would continue to do our job. We are under contract with Hays County to bring opportunities to Hays County, and so we continue to do that. It does send a message to the outside world when you’re not working together, but I think the path we are on now, where we’re working with the sub-committee, we’re talking about contract language, we’re talking about different deliverables and these are the things that the City of San Marcos want to see those changes you know when they’re incorporated that’s much different message to the outside world.”

The GSMP is looking forward to working with the San Marcos City Council, and Cruz says that all the changes happening for the GSMP is in good timing because at the moment they are working on a new economic development strategy. They have been working on the strategy for the past eight months going over current demographics, assets, even things going on at Texas State to determine what target industries should be focused on to help bring more attraction to the growth of San Marcos.

The new strategy is called “Vision 20/20” and it goes into effect this October. The GSMP hopes to have more community involvement to help further this strategy, so that San Marcos growth will continue to grow in the near future.