On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.

San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beemer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beemer.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you for joining us for on the record, I'm Randy Beemer, and this week we are starting with train between San Antonio and Austin.

The question is, why don't we have one?

By now?

We've worked on one or talked about them for decades, and talking about them now, and really pushing the idea in a number of ways is Altamirano, who's an entrepreneur, CEO of Iris technology, CEO of Tech Lock, working with Better Futures of San Antonio.

Thank you for coming in.

Thank you Randy.

First of all, now recently online, you've gone viral with writing a Train to San Antonio.

The current train, one of them, which is at what, six, almost seven in the morning, 148 commuter train and then one coming back close to 11:00.

That's right.

Tell us what you think.

Trains now and what could be.

Yeah.

Look, Randy, I have an incentive, right, to better connect the dots between San Antonio and Austin.

Right, with tech block.

I mean, we want to welcome more investment into the region for the emerging industries, startups.

And the same as a business entrepreneur here, I want to see the economy flourish right in San Antonio and through Better Futures Institute.

I've been doing research around South Texas.

The economic complexity of South Texas, what works down in the Rio Grande Valley, what works in San Antonio, and how we can bolster and pay attention to the economic issues of the next 25 years.

Look, between San Antonio and Austin.

You're going to have almost 8 million people, A+ million people by 2050.

So the question is, how do we prepare for that growth?

It's not how we're going to grow.

And transportation is one of the top priorities that we need to focus as a city, as a region, as a mega region, right.

So when I launched the video series, we received over a million views.

And as I was telling you right now, Randy, I mean, you have profiles of conservatives, liberals all agreeing that they wanted to train.

They challenged today is that we don't have a sustainable train for passengers.

It leaves at 6:48 a.m., it comes back at 11.

We have those tracks that are sometimes parallel to I-35, but their Union Pacific upright tracks and but for years people have wanted this.

And you dug into why it hasn't happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And why?

What are some of those reasons and why do you think we can overcome them now?

So in 97, the Lone Star Rail District is launched, right?

You cover that in 2016, after investing $25 million, it went nowhere.

U.P.

walked away.

U.P.

owns the ground those tracks are on.

And so now how do we bring up to the table?

They're focusing on freight because it pays the bills, right?

It's business after all for them.

And passenger rail impacts their business development.

Right.

And so what we're looking at today's three options, right.

After spending time doing research around what works and what doesn't.

I've seen the work that, for example, Travis County judge is Andy Brown is doing right up in Austin.

So he's suggesting, hey, look, we can bring a train from highway 70 to over I-30 and west of I-10.

And that can be something that doesn't depend on Union Pacific, which I think is creative, right.

Along the toll road.

Yes.

The only problem is that it skips over New Braunfels and San.

Marcos, which is where most of the growth is.

Yeah, it.

Will be exactly right.

So the second option is what I see Texas suggesting in a way.

Although we were just talking about they're making recommendations but not exactly.

They're saying, hey look, we can get you from downtown San Antonio, downtown Austin in less two hours if we add main tracks.

Coming out of San Antonio, we had a maintenance facility in New Braunfels, San Marcos, and then we add additional tracks by MoPac in Austin.

But that's going to cost us about 800 to $2 billion.

And they're not saying how it's going to be funded or who's going to fund it.

They're just stating the facts.

And they would need more rail tracks, because over the years, Union Pacific has said we need these tracks.

But also the problem is how do you build more parallel to that?

Can you?

Exactly right.

So then you have this group coming from San Antonio, San Antonio for rail transit.

And they're organizing themselves, right?

It's a big group and they're thinking creatively.

They have academics on board and they're strategizing what can we do?

So they're saying, hey, what if we add an additional train set coming out of San Antonio, and that can get us from downtown to San Antonio to to downtown Austin, less than 90 minutes.

And I think that's pretty creative.

But they they depend on on having U.P.

giving us the green light.

And Amtrak could ultimately operate that train set.

So it is a creative outcome.

The question is, is U.P.

willing to come to the table?

You're talking about a train set.

That's just one more round.

One more, one more.

In addition to the Texas Eagle.

But that's up to you.

And they say right now we need these tracks because there's a lot more commercial traffic.

Yes, but I think there's demand, right?

I mean, we had over we had over a million views on those videos, thousands of comments.

And I would say 90% of them agree that we need an additional mode of transportation between San Antonio and Austin, right?

I mean, you have so many people driving on I-35, it's about 250,000 weekday trips.

And I talked to my mother, and she has to travel to the Hill country because my my sister lives there and she tells me I dread driving on I-35.

It's dangerous.

And also young people, they don't want to drive on I-30.

Just not dangerous, maybe for a lot of people, but slow.

It's slow.

It's low.

Instruction never ending, and it's not getting better.

Look, I love driving, right?

And I think the train system and cars can coexist.

It's not one or the other.

And I think that's the message here that we need to get creative in what that looks like.

And yes, maybe it's not dangerous for some people, but I five it's one of the most dangerous roads highways in America.

And also Austin has changed over the last few decades.

I mean, you see the high rises, you see a lot of people who live downtown.

They don't have maybe cars, and they could or would get on a train like that, come down here and help our tech sector, which is what you're.

Pushing, and vice versa, right?

I mean, people from San Antonio or the region.

Right.

New Braunfels and Marcos can work in Austin and come back at night to their homes in their respective cities.

Look, when I ran for mayor, people ask me about the train system.

So I know San Antonio are curious about it.

And so I propose this idea.

What if we create an alliance that focuses on on the train system and other issues like economic development workforce?

But I'm really excited to see A.J.

Rodriguez, for example, and Henry Cisneros partnering to launch the Central Texas Alliance, which is a type of of efforts that can actually focus on these issues head on and tackle them.

But we have to be more outspoken about the future of the region.

But it's also the immediate steps.

How do we get there?

Right?

We can talk big vision, right?

And I love doing that.

But how do we get there?

We got to take immediate steps and be practical as well and work with our counterparts.

Immediate steps that you would want.

To look so immediately right.

Bear County government and Travis County government, they are on a committee, a Texas advisory committee on rail.

And so you have a Travis County judge, Andy Brown, and Peter Sakai, sitting in this committee.

And there is a window to apply for funding from the federal government in interconnecting cities through rail.

And so what I would like to see, right, is for the boat counties collaborating and applying to these funding that is coming from the federal government.

The issue is who is going to own the process?

Is it Travis County or Bexar County.

In tax Dot.

Or tech stock?

I don't know about textile, right.

I think this can be led by by Bexar County, or it can be led by Travis County with the support right of the surrounding cities.

And those are blue cities.

And I don't know what federal money strings might be attached to that to a blue city.

It's true, it's true.

But I think ultimately, right.

As I mentioned, I think train and rail doesn't have political parties, right?

I think this is a mode of transportation that we need to explore.

We've been talking about it for 40, 50 years, Randy.

And you look back to the 1800s.

The reason we have trained a train system here or we have tracks here, is because of passenger rail.

1970s when we got rail boom.

That's how it started, right?

And so let's go back to address the main issue, which is how do we move people faster from San Antonio to Austin and all the cities in between, not just by driving and not just by I-35.

And so I think that's the main the main issue that I would like to be championing and pushing forward.

You're talking about federal money, but that's a really just a nest egg starting that or you know, where is that 2 billion going to come from?

Exactly.

So and that's the challenge, right?

Randy I mean, I can I can see two scenarios, right.

Where the federal funding is there is available maybe through the next administration, whoever wins, whoever is elected president.

But you have to make the case as to why we need that funding.

Funding of that level has been received in other parts of the country, in California or in Florida.

And then the additional opportunities private funding.

Right.

You saw Brightline fund the train between Orlando and Miami and is happening as well between LA and Vegas.

You know, Elon Musk or anybody.

Like I know that at some point Elon was interested in creating the with The Boring Company, creating a tunnel here in San Antonio.

And that went nowhere, right?

We know the story behind that.

But I don't know, maybe he's interested in seeing how he can support a train system.

I don't think it's part of his vision with The Boring Company, but if it's about moving talent and resources, it could be an option, maybe.

All right.

Well, thank you very much to talk to him about that.

Betto, ultimate Iris technologies tech block CEO as well, and Better Futures Institute.

That's right San Antonio.

That's right.

Thanks very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you Randy.

Appreciate it.

Pre-K for SA was a program started under Mayor Castro more than a decade ago, and the City council just voted to extend it, or the idea of extending it, which will be on the ballot for you in November.

Here to talk about that.

One of the people behind it, Edward Mongia, district four Councilman, thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Tell us about the the pre-K for, say, putting it on the ballot now when it really doesn't expire until 2029.

Sure.

Yeah.

At a meeting a few months back, my colleague, Councilman Mickey Rodriguez, asked if we could put on the ballot theoretically earlier, and they said yes.

And so we got together.

We thought it would be a great investment for pre-K, first day to have that long runway of 20 years.

And what better time to do that than the present?

And this is one eighth of a cent sales tax that has been on the books.

And it's basically how the city can allocate money in different ways of its sales tax portion.

And so this is a not an increase.

Correct.

Yeah.

Residents pay the sales tax no matter what.

And it goes to some of the other portions to other things like via you know, they reauthorize that for the city.

And voters have gone back to pre-K for say, a couple of times to vote and reauthorize that.

So that didn't increase just, you know, maintaining where we put that money.

And people might wonder, okay, well, how is pre-K for, say, going?

Is it important?

What what's its track record?

Well, it has a very, very good track record.

If you look at some of the data they have, it's a high performing.

And so when you look at students that go through pre-K for us, say, and their kindergarten years, they're the most kinder ready students in San Antonio typically.

And that also trickles into third grade reading levels.

So that has a major hurdle for kids to go through.

The the better you are in third grade reading, the better off your entire education career is, actually.

So we know that early education is the most important education we can give our children, and precariously just has a really solid track record.

And this has nothing to do with the budget and the budget deficit you're working on right now.

Correct.

Yeah.

First thing gets all of its money from the sales tax, which is separate from our general fund.

So you don't use your property tax for that when you go and you pay for items at the store.

Some of that money goes to pre-K for us.

And how is the budget negotiations right now?

$158 million deficit you're facing.

And there is a talk of a tax rate increase.

Absolutely.

Is that going to happen?

You know, we'll have to see what city council decides ultimately.

But I think based on the level of cuts that we would have to undertake, it would be pretty significant.

We will run through scenario at city council if we were not to increase the tax.

What it would look like an additional cuts, and I think it would be pretty detrimental to our residents.

And having to put a tax rate increase also makes up for the drop in property valuations.

People don't realize they would pay less tax this year because their valuation has gone down.

That's the main source of it.

While our prices and our cost of doing the work has increased, our values are property, values have decreased and so we haven't gotten as much revenue from property tax this year and last year.

And also it's been a relatively cool summer for San Antonio.

And so CPS revenues are lower than they were even two years ago.

It was.

A big chunk of money from that.

That's a big part of the budget.

We do.

And sometimes that actually eclipses the property tax revenue.

We get to the city.

So both of those are down.

Cost of service has gone up.

And so we need to make that right.

You also voted this week on the Spurs arena vote whether or not to have a city vote on that.

Where did you stand on that and how do you see what's what happened?

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, I voted to support the public vote on that.

I think it's a separate lever.

So we had the county vote and that was for the county lever.

The Spurs are putting in their own money.

And the third piece is the city piece.

So while we did not, we weren't required by law to have a vote for that.

I did understand the residents that kind of came forward and asked for it, and I think it was fine.

And I said at the council, I said, you can be Pro Spurs and Pro Arena and pro public vote.

And the Spurs have one votes.

Time and time again the city backs them on that.

So I didn't have any concern about that but ultimately did not pass.

And I think it was a change certainly from our negotiating.

Right, the Spurs and not anticipate a public vote on the city side of things.

It was not what we had all talked about at the city.

But, you know, residents came forward and I had to vote my conscience, and I thought it was the right thing to do.

But on the other side of that, people said, well, it's getting confused with the budget deficit, that the $400 a million that the city is putting in.

If we don't spend that, it could go to the budget.

But that's not where the money is coming from for the Spurs.

Correct?

I certainly think there was conflating, you know, talking points about that, about the deficit and the Spurs.

And you know, folks see that for 89 and they think we have that money in the bank and we've spent it.

And that's not how it works unfortunately.

So it had really no side of this current deficit situation.

So certainly it was a conflated argument I think, for folks.

And we would have had to explain that how it's separate and not tied together, at least this fiscal year.

And where do you think the bond issue for next spring, the vote on that is going to be?

How is it going to be split up and how much are we going to be voting on?

That's the million dollar question, or I should say $1 billion question to Randy.

We have.

600 million, right?

Yeah.

We don't quite know yet.

So we have an estimate of our current property tax revenues from the debt side that we could probably afford a 500, maybe $600 million bond.

I think a lot of us are interested in what we could do to make sure we get at least $1 billion, because not only do you have the arena conversation about using bond money for that, or for the entertainment district, I should say not just the arena.

You also have a housing bond that we want to do again, and that's money off the top.

So you take money from housing off the top, you take the entertainment district off the top of that, and then the rest is for the rest of the city of San Antonio.

And the inner attainment districts.

That would be basically for infrastructure and roads and parking and all of that, as I understand it, for that whole Project Marvel area.

That's how I understand it too.

So we haven't had a recent presentation on what exactly those road improvements would be, or widening or lateral replacement.

So don't know quite what that looks like.

I'd be very interested, but I also support putting that as a separate bond item so folks can measure that lever of funding also.

Now if you go up to $1 billion, would it be more likely that people, especially whether the economy is improved and not, might say no?

In the past, bond issues have passed, pretty sure.

But is a billion too much or do you think that would pass?

I think so, you know, last bond 2022 was 1.2 billion.

And we were able to do a lot of good work with that.

And I remind folks, you know, if you want to reduce hours and mora, right.

If you want a pool on the south side of San Antonio, you can't do that unless you have a bond project.

So the lower our capacity, the fewer of those big projects will get.

That money doesn't go toward general fund.

Correct.

It's a whole different pocket.

Exactly.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Edward McGuire, district four.

Appreciate you coming in.

Thanks On reporters roundtable this week, data centers, all kinds of controversies over their use of water, their electricity and whether there should be a moratorium, as the governor has declared.

Is it really a moratorium here to talk about that?

Is Stephanie, who is the San Antonio current digital editor and reporter.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

One of your stories here is about Greg Abbott recently declaring a moratorium on new construction while there is an audit, but there are loopholes in that.

Right.

So on August 3rd, he called a moratorium, seemingly talking tough during an election season regarding something that's a growing bipartisan issue.

But it is worth noting that over 40 AI companies have have applauded this, you know.

Yeah.

And Gina Hinojosa, his Democratic opponents point.

She said, if the very people you're regulating are cheering for the regulations, it sounds like it was written for them.

I'm paraphrasing her, of course.

But, you know, it is interesting that they have all, you know, signed off on this.

And so I looked at why they would be so enthusiastic about this.

And I found a number of loopholes.

I spoke to Public Citizen, which is a watchdog for consumer protections, and they also do a lot of organizing around data centers in Texas.

On the surface, this stuff looks really good.

He wants data centers to not put such a strain on the grid.

He wants to make sure that that local ratepayers are not taking on the burden of all of these major energy consumers, and he's also encouraging them to build their own power sources, which means that there are now over 40 data centers already operating in Texas that have their own power plant, gas powered power plant, the two vantage data centers in San Antonio, for example, on the west side, they have a co-located gas power plant and also dozens of backup diesel generators.

So locals are complaining about pollution, you know, carcinogens, endless daylight.

And noise.

And there's also, I understand the way that they can apply for their plant as one entity and then the gas plant as another.

And so the emissions are higher.

Right.

And this is a major loophole that would require legislation to close it, because right now that is a major issue that's being exploited.

So if a data center has a separate power source, the data center can present itself as its own entity and say, look, you know, we don't use hardly any water and we don't use hardly any energy.

And that's because the power plant is the water hungry source, and that is also the source of the pollution.

This loophole enables the data center to apply for a minor air permit, the same one that a laundromat would apply.

Like a minor air polluter instead of major airport, which they would have to.

And for example, this even applies to the Amazon data Center in Fort Stockton, and that one has its own power plant, and it's a data center campus.

That's how large.

It would be, one of the biggest in the world, and maybe the biggest.

It would be the number one air polluter in the country if estimates end up being.

And so these loopholes are at the state level or EPA or both.

It is basically it's the TCU doing what they can.

How do I say this diplomatically.

What the what the EPA will allow them to do that is amenable to the industry eventually.

And now overall, though, the governor in the past has been open to and welcoming and wanting data centers, and President Trump has kind of oppose the governor on this, because he had an executive order last year that wanted expedited data center permitting.

It's really interesting that the national leadership of the Republican Party is still very pro data center.

But, you know, on the ground, we see this as a as a growing bipartisan issue in Texas because, you know, rural Texans are the ones who are primarily being impacted.

Most of these data centers are being constructed in unincorporated areas, which is all by design, because, of course, it's harder to govern these unincorporated areas.

So rural Texans are bearing the brunt of this rapid expansion.

We have over 2000 connection requests for for the grid.

90% of those are data centers.

And this would equal over 400,000MW, which is over four times the entire demand of Texas.

On our number one energy demand day this year, which is July 22nd.

And that was a record breaking day for us.

And this would be over four times.

Now, there are those on the drawing board what you're talking about.

But some have argued, well, they're not going to be on, you know, we're not going to get all those and it's not going to be very soon.

One way in which data centers can work around this, this supposed moratorium is that it only applies to data centers over 75MW.

And so if you're under 75MW, as far as your demand on the grid, smooth sailing, and also there are a number of major projects that are already in the works, such as an Nvidia campus near Corpus Christi, $50 billion project.

Billion with a, B, B. Yes, they were the secret tenant, you know, because a lot of times it's a different company that owns the building.

And then sometimes they won't reveal who their tenants are.

In the case of the vantage data centers in San Antonio, for example, we know that their clients are hyperscalers, but we don't know if it's Google Meta, you know, OpenAI, you know, it could be any of these.

And now data centers would argue that they are doing their own power.

They have talked about micro nuclear reactors in the future, and that they're using different cooling systems that use less water.

And so it's not or should not be the concern that a lot of people are worried about.

Right.

So so the water usage is an interesting point because yes, while the data center might be using a closed loop system within the data center itself as a cooling method for the towers, that's not where the real water usage is.

It's in the power source and the power source.

I was just soaring through a study the other day can be over 20 times the water usage of the data center itself.

And of course, they treat a lot of this information as proprietary.

So you don't always know what a particular data center is up to, because they don't legally have to disclose that to you because they are a private entity.

And so that's another issue that perhaps should be legislated on.

And, you know, in my story, I talk about how the governor is attempting to legislate or regulate by press release, but of course, only he has the power to call a special session right now if he really means it.

And that's what critics are arguing.

It's like it's a lot of tough talk, but.

And also, some Republicans have gotten money from the data centers that they are now.

Yes.

Criticizing.

Well, and Gina Hinojosa just released campaign ad that claims Abbott has received over $20 million, I believe, from the data center industry.

From what I've seen in the past few months alone, he's received several million from the data center industry.

And PACs Ken Paxton as well.

Overall, Texas Republicans have received so much money in the past just during the primary season from that industry.

So and Paxton has been very quiet on this topic as well.

It's going to be interesting to see what plays out in the election as well as next legislative session.

You're going to have a lot of work to do.

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much.

And again, digital editor and reporter for the San Antonio Current.

You can read her in the current, which is actually in print.

Yes.

As well as online.

On newsstands now.

Okay.

Thanks, Stephanie.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can watch this show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download it as a podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org I'm Randy Beemer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.