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 Beamer 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 Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week you probably saw on TV a number of city leaders, past and present, talking about moving the municipal elections from May of odd years, where they have been for decades to November to bring in more voters.

Here to talk about that is Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Good to be here, Randy.

Why move the election?

So let's help people understand how we got here.

Right.

There was a recent change at the state that allowed for this to happen, right?

When we have our elections is determined by state law.

There was a recent change that said municipalities that have their elections in May of an odd year.

Right.

You have the ability to move it to November by simple resolution.

But but you've got to do it by no by the end of the year, which is why this is moving quickly.

How did I find out about this?

Well, I. Read because it was one of 1100 bills passed, but it kind of was quietly.

Well that's right.

It was written for Dallas or by Dallas.

Well, so the Dallas delegation really was pushing for this because they've been working for this for a long time because, like us, their municipal turnout is low.

So mid November I'm reading the news and I see that the Dallas City Council voted unanimously to move their election from May to November.

Why?

Why is that?

Because it saves money.

Saves money?

By the city manager's estimate, if we did this here in San Antonio, we'd save between $800,000 and $1 million.

Because we run the election and it cost so much.

You split it among those that are on the ballot with you.

And then secondly, increased turnout, increase turnout.

People, voters associate voting with November.

That's why Houston has their municipal election in November.

Austin has a municipal election in November, and now Dallas does.

So this is also an instance of hey, I don't want to get left behind.

And the data is very clear.

The data is very clear when our folks have to pick between Fiesta and voting.

Fiesta wins.

Right.

Let me let me just.

And there's a key data point on this that that makes this point in terms of why the date of the election matters.

Houston, you're very similar to Houston in many ways.

Income level, education level, socioeconomic demographics.

All the things are turnout in state and federal elections is very similar.

Our turnout in municipal elections is very different.

Their turnout is double.

And the only difference is they have their municipal election in November.

Same order, and ours is in May.

So when people vote, in fact impacts the turnout.

And this is all based on the very basic premise, the more numbers that we hear from, the better our democracy, the better our government.

I've heard in the past that the arguments the couple of them against that was that municipal elections are nonpartisan, or it's supposed to be independent.

You don't have an R by your name.

And also that some have said that the turnout, the people who vote in the municipal elections may be more likely to vote for city propositions or certain candidates.

And some people like it that way.

Some I mean.

So let me go back to your first point.

The legislation is clear.

And this change, opportunity is is specific only to those municipalities that have their May election in an odd year.

So you can only move it to November in an odd year.

And, Randy, that means that the election remains nonpartizan.

Right.

Because the Partizan races are in the even years.

So if we stay in November of an odd year, we still keep it nonpartizan, which I agree with, and I think it's very important.

To your second point.

Yes, I understand that there are some groups that really like knowing who their handful of voters are, right?

Because it's easier for them to pass their agenda.

But again, motivated.

Or.

I don't know about more motivated, I think, frankly, a certain maybe potentially more based on the interest.

Right.

But again, my premise is the more voters we hear from, the better our democracy and the better our government.

And by the way, who doesn't want to save money and who doesn't want to hear from your neighbors?

I have yet to hear a good argument on this.

Hypothetically, then people might wonder, okay, if your election and you were elected in the spring was moved to the fall, and say the county's election on prop A and B, which was in the fall, had been in the spring or at a different time.

Do you think the results would have been different?

Would it have been easier or tougher for you to be elected?

I don't know.

I don't know.

That's also again, not it's not why it's not why we're doing this.

We're doing this to save money.

And we're doing this to hear from more voters.

Right?

More for more of our neighbors of the top 50 cities, Randy, we are and we are in the bottom five of turnout for municipal elections.

The bottom five.

Okay.

We can do better.

I think we need to be in the business of helping more people vote.

And you have this does that.

You had a lot of different people next to you.

People might be surprised.

There's Ron Nurnberg, there's some other past mayors, to your point.

Five former mayors support this people with firsthand experience and know what a, You know, consolidating helps in terms of turnout.

So to your point, Henry Cisneros, Phil Hard Burger, Nelson Wolff, Ron Nuremberg, Julian Castro, they all supported groups like Voto Latino, Voto Latino, does voting, voting engagement, voting rights all throughout the country.

And they have so they've weighted League of Women Voters, San Antonio, Texas organizing project, cops, metro, all of these groups that work in this space, have said this makes sense for our community.

Maria Barry as well.

Videos of all scuse me, the first Latina to serve on city council.

People like Graciela Sanchez, people that are in the community.

So.

That's right.

What what do you think is going to happen?

Is this council going to vote for it and will it take effect today?

We will have a Be session, right?

We will discuss the discussion here from various sides.

Right.

And then my intent is that we vote on this on the 18th because again, the legislation says if you want to do this, you got to get it done by the end of the year.

So, we've got a short timeline, but this is the right thing to do.

Save money, $800,000 to $1 million, and we hear from more voters.

That strengthens our government and strengthens our democracy.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, appreciate you coming in.

Thanks, Randy.

We have been following the story of a controversial development plan for North West Bear County that would involve a wastewater treatment plant and many people in that area don't want it built.

And there is a new pivot, by the developer in terms of the strategy they're using to get it built here.

To talk about that is Randy Newman, who is chair of the steering committee of the Scenic Loop, Lotus Creek Alliance.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

First of all, Saws is going to supply the water or the plans are that they would supply the water for this development.

About 3000 homes off Scenic Loop, but they wouldn't supply the, sewage treatment, basically.

And so this is a land are the developer wants to build that treatment plant?

Some people and Lennar says it's safe.

Why not?

Well, one of the things that neither Lennar, the TC or Sarge likes to talk about is contaminants of emerging concern and these are, constituents in wastewater that we as consumers actually put down our toilets and sinks and what have you.

And they're things like hormones, hormone interrupters, prescription medicines, illegal drugs, over-the-counter medicines, and then a lot of things that we inadvertently put down the, the wastewater stream like pathos and fats and other harmful chemicals.

Well, the systems that we have today for wastewater control really don't address those.

In fact, the EPA and the USGS both warned that PFOs and PFOA, which are known cancer causing agents, are in those effluent streams.

And this would be going into the whole Lotus Creek watershed.

Correct, which communicates with the Edwards Aquifer after it's treated now, the Sierra San Antonio River Authority and San Antonio Water System, between them run one of the biggest, if not the biggest recycled water system in the country with their treatment plants.

And so the issue is the same with those treatment plants.

Would you be against those if they were built new?

No, as a matter of fact, the difference here is that those plants are located south of town and dumped into the San Antonio River, where those constituents are carried away from the city of San Antonio.

In this case, the plant is being built upstream of the Edwards Aquifer, dumping into the Edwards Aquifer.

So these dangerous contaminants will be in our drink.

Is it, as, Robert, plenty of sources said, is it similar to the treatment of sores or is it.

It's as good.

It's not as sophisticated.

They are planning for a bio membrane reactor.

And the EPA says that bio membrane reactors are incapable of removing or completely removing these contaminants of emerging.

You've been working on this for four years as Lehner has worked on this, they have wanted in the past a public improvement district or appeared.

But now they're asking to create out there a municipal utility district or a Mud, which is gets kind of muddy for a lot of us.

But what does that mean?

It's it's not tremendously different from the PID that they were asking for.

It's basically a financing mechanism for them to build the subdivision, and they will be reimbursed by virtue of bonds that are passed by the municipal utility district and the homeowners who buy the 3000 homeowners who buy will be left footing the bill for that.

So in this case, they're asking for a $150 million.

And the 3000 homeowners will have to repay that.

Well, Lennar could say, well, we figure that into it.

We'll tell these people it's part of their cost, their ongoing cost.

That's true.

But can you imagine if H-e-b came into the city Council and said, hey, we want you to up front, pay us $150 million to build a grocery store.

It'll be a great convenience for the people of San Antonio.

They'd be laughed out of the place.

But here a developer can come in and say, give us $150 million to build a subdivision that we will profit on, and we're considering it, and it potentially will spoil our water.

So the city Council could have a resolution, saying they won't approve or don't want to approve a municipal utility district, but then Lennar could go to the state, try to get that, decision reversed, taken out of that area, taken out of the ET, the extended territorial jurisdiction.

Do you expect that to happen?

I do, because I don't expect the city will fall for this.

The city won't get any property tax out of it, and they risk their water being degraded.

So there's really no upside for the city.

So I think that's the avenue they'll pursue.

They'll go to the state.

One of the thing I want to bring up, you mentioned before that I have heard on the other side is that, well, there is recycled water going into the San Antonio River north of downtown.

Otherwise we wouldn't really have a river because of the springs by the blue, blue hole.

They don't flow anymore.

Right.

So that is recycled water going from the zoo on down it is.

And dogs who drink that water die on a regular basis.

It's bad stuff in that water.

So, you know, you have you have to kind of dig into this to find these things out.

There's a reason why you can't swim in the San Antonio River, the San Antonio River, south of town, because of our three huge plants that dump there is the fourth most polluted river in the state of Texas.

What do you expect to happen?

Well, so far everything that could go against us has pretty well gone against us.

We know that we have science on our side.

We know that we have reason on our side.

State legislators, the state legislators are certainly on our side, but the rules of the state are written in such a way that they're really friendly to developers.

So it's very hard to triumph in this thing.

However, we, we are going to appeal and we will, we'll have some really good points for the appeal.

So we're hopeful.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Randy Newman, chair of the steering committee of the Scenic Loop.

Hello, Lotus Creek Alliance, thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

Earlier, we heard from the mayor talking about moving the city elections to the fall.

And another official here in San Antonio County official is here to talk about that and more.

Tommy Calvert, County Commissioner, thank you very much for coming in.

It's great to be back.

First of all, what do you think of moving the municipal elections to the fall where you are usually elected?

I'm for it.

I also think you've got a 200, only a $200 million deficit at the city.

And so having $1 million savings where you can find it is a good thing.

It also, most importantly, allows the elected officials to get ramped up on the business of the city and, and make sure that they are influencing the new budget.

So it makes a lot of sense.

Will it money the voters with so much to deal with?

All the city council races, mayoral races, propositions, your races?

I think I. Know, I think it I think it simplifies it.

I also think that the city council should change their campaign contribution limits.

I think that they should, because it's going to be more expensive to run that race in a general election.

I think they need to do what Congress has done.

Whatever the restrictions of campaign contributions that Congress has done.

I mean, those restrictions were put on probably around 2004, if my memory serves me correctly.

And it's just time, you know, $500, you know, is is not a lot of money in the way inflation's working.

A couple of other things I want to talk about.

One is an urban farm that the county is opening.

What does it mean?

Well, I think practically the urban farm is going to help feed people.

Anything we can do to make life more affordable.

But we're also teaching 100 courses through the Texas A&M Agrilife curriculum.

And those courses are everything from how to make, beer and wine to accounting to falconry to leadership, in the future, I'd like to have a conservancy where we can have young people raise animals and participate in things like the stock show and rodeo for scholarships.

And where is this and how does it work?

Can I go out and farm part of that?

Do I apply?

Is it county people farming it?

People are maybe confused.

It's it's a county farm.

So this is the new Bexar County Agricultural Extension Service, part of the movement in agriculture.

And and it's going to be the premier one in the state of Texas is to go urban and help create agri hoods.

And so, through those 100 courses, you'll be able to sign up online and call, we have a 100 person outdoor classroom.

We have 100 person indoor classroom.

We have numerous classrooms.

And so yeah, you'll just be able to, to recreate, and also will have a connection with the university health system.

We are going to implement a food is medicine program so that a prescription maybe you need some beats to help you with X, Y and Z health element so that you can, understand the connectivity between what we eat and, our health outcomes are.

Another county project.

Just approved the, animal care center for the county because the county in, in the unincorporated areas has a lot of problems with stray dogs as well as the city.

Absolutely.

We probably have over a half a million people in unincorporated county around the around the whole Bexar County.

And as a result, we we don't have enough shelter space.

And, you know, even though I think the cost of building the shelter, you could probably house those dogs or the contest cheaper than we built it, but we built it and are building it, and we'll have more capacity.

Also, after problems and be passed with the city or with the county vote.

When do you want to see happen around the Freeman Coliseum, the Frost Bank center, not just on the grounds, but around there.

And what kind of control do you have, number one?

We've got to see some community benefit.

The city's got 75 million.

The county needs a similar amount of of investment in the areas that have endured, blight and are contributing financially to the new arena.

Secondly, I think we need a Texas A&M veterinary school, to be located on the grounds.

And Mary.

And here's why the study the county actually produce about the economic future of the arena with the new, proposition that we passed it since it barely breaks even now, like anything, it's like a plus or minus.

It probably means it may not do as well as you think it's going to do.

And so how do you create real economic development?

A higher education institution keeps, the dollar circulating with housing, with professors, with all kinds of ancillary things.

And there's only a few veterinary schools in the whole state of Texas.

It's time for South Texas to have a veterinary.

So you've got Mary with the rodeo.

You've got the idea how far along is that?

And our commissioners.

Those those ideas take years.

But I think what we do in the negotiation of the grounds is, say that the rodeo and the county make room for such an investment by it's ultimately regents and governor kind of call.

So we're garnering support from good old Aggies around the city to try and make that a reality.

That area is your precinct.

What do you want to see happen, say, in the Willow Creek?

Golf, roller Springs golf course in that area?

Yeah.

So I want to make sure that I'm clear that, I am in lockstep with Councilman Jalen Rodriguez on what we want.

We want workforce housing.

The county judge has talked about only market housing.

And we need workforce housing.

You can, if it's public land, you can do what you want on that public land that you're going to land.

Yeah, it's city land.

I also want to send the message to the council, the mayor and the council that, you know it.

We understand that.

I understand that Willow Springs is a city institution, and the green space is very important.

So I want to help the city preserve that green space.

But it would be nice to see that college campus, even a, children's, like a petting zoo.

That connected the veterinary school and the rodeo.

That could happen on the 200 acres that you have across Willow Springs.

You can still probably keep nine holes on that golf course, but, that golf course really makes more money from its parking than it does from the actual golf course.

But the green space is very important.

And it's.

Industrial, but the most important thing also is small business opportunity.

We've got to make sure that there are restaurant tours from the community, who are able to benefit from the traffic that happens.

I haven't seen that from the rodeo.

I haven't seen that from the Coliseum Advisory Board.

I haven't seen that from the plans, from hunt.

And we need local dollars for local people.

All right, well, thank you very much.

I'm sure that's a conversation we'll have over the years.

Tommy Calvert, County Commissioner, thanks very much for coming in.

Glad to be back.

On reporters roundtable this week, Megan Rodriguez, who is the Express News City Hall reporter.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you so much for having me.

We talked with the mayor and Tommy Calvert a little about this, moving the city elections from the spring to the fall.

You've been covering this likely to happen.

You think?

You know, that's a great question.

The city council has been kind of waffling a little bit on like, which direction they're kind of leaning.

There's a lot of interest in this idea that it could boost voter turnout and potentially save the city money.

But then there's also a lot of concern that this is such a tight runway.

The city has only until December 31st to pass it, and the mayor pitched it right before Thanksgiving, when it became, evident to her that this is something that other cities are doing.

And and so there's just this short runway to get some information out to residents and, and so there's this kind of concern and concern over how it'll affect school districts and, and things like that.

So it's like there's a lot of interest in the potential positives, but then some concern over these potential drawbacks.

And so we're really going to see some discussion about it first time publicly from the city Council.

The it's not a vote yet like on Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

We may end up seeing a vote and see actually where they completely fall.

And how would it affect school districts.

What's the concern there?

Yeah, so there are, a bunch of school districts who currently have their, elections on the May ballot alongside the city of San Antonio, but the city of San Antonio, if you think voter turnout is low for us, you know, it's even lower sometimes for school districts.

So the idea that the city would be moving to November would then kind of put these, these school districts in an odd situation of like, how do we draw out voters for hours?

Should we also move hours to November?

They don't have as tight of a timeline.

They can kind of choose to move at pretty much any point, but it does just kind of open up all this kind of forms for them of like, how, who how do we feel about this?

Do we want to move it?

What are we going to kind of do next?

What bond issues?

I've heard people say before that a bond issue may be less likely to pass with a larger turnout.

I don't know.

Is that one of the issues that they're talking about now, or is that from the past?

So City council, and the folks who are kind of advocating for this are really zeroed in on just the municipal election side of this, the actual elected who will be on the ballot at this point.

The idea is that it could potentially, in hopes of double voter turnout.

And a couple of professors of political science who kind of study this have been kind of saying and that's what, Mayor Ortiz Jones is kind of been leaning on and other advocates of this to kind of this research that says maybe we can see a big jump because we've seen other communities, the small community, Mesquite, Texas, outside of Dallas, kind of saw a big jump.

And I will say it was up from about 5% to 10%.

So it's not through the roof, but, you know, doubled.

And it's still a municipal election in an off year, at least from, you know, the national.

Yes.

Yeah.

This is all still going to be odd number of years, not even number of years.

That's something I think a lot of people are getting lost a little bit in the context here.

It wouldn't necessarily be alongside like a presidential election.

That's actually another thing that some of the advocates are saying for this is like it won't necessarily be a Partizan issue because what you usually see an odd and an odd November years, is, is, Texas constitutional amendments.

Obviously those can get political as well, but it's not quite the same.

And as we we talked about with mayor, there are a whole lot of former mayors up there.

There's other city officials, talk from Tommy Calvert.

He's for it.

The sky.

Is also.

Right.

And on the council side, though, you say there's still some waffling.

Yes.

And I, I should say not everyone.

Councilman Edward Magnolia, who is a district four councilman, he is supporting it.

He was actually at a press conference alongside the mayor and a bunch of others who were in support of this.

There are a lot of, voters, rights groups and other nonprofits that are backing this as well.

It's just that not as many council members have come forward and said.

Exactly.

It's partly because of the timing here.

You know, it's just they've just learned about this.

They're kind of getting their hands on it.

And we're really going to see this week and next week where they all fall.

And it also is one of those things, though, that they can just go ahead and vote on their own.

It doesn't have to go to the voters, as a proposition, so they can do it by the end of the year.

And it's really no problem in that way.

Yeah.

So the legislation, that was passed earlier this summer that kind of allowed for this is, gave until the end of the year.

And I will say also, the, the city of San Antonio on its own cannot move an election like this.

The, the state has to say you have the authority to do this.

And so they did that and now they have this, option and they don't have to go to voters.

But I will say some folks are a little concerned about that because there are other cities that have made this move that did go to voters.

Dallas is the most recent.

They had gone to voters for, to I kind of ask them if they wanted to make this move before the legislation passed, before they kind of move forward.

One other quick story that you've done recently is the women in minority Grant or program, that it was quietly cut.

Yes.

So basically the city of San Antonio cut this as a result of the federal government saying, no longer can programs that, are for like grant funding or contracting funding include or exclude anybody based on like, race, gender identity, things like that.

And so, they the city wanted to make sure that they protected their federal, grant funding that they could have potentially lost if they didn't make this change.

The city's current budget, relies on about $150 million in federal grants, and they were concerned about it for.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Busy time down at City Hall even the end of the year.

Megan Rodriguez Express-News City Hall reporter thanks.

Thank you.

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

You can watch the show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download them as podcasts.

Go to KLRN.org.

I'm Randy Palmer and we'll see you next time.

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