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.

Thank you for joining us for On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are starting with the goings on at City Hall, at least some of them with the mayor facing a possible censure vote.

And here to join us talking about that is Philadelphia Grand District three Council member.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you Randy.

First of all, as we as we are on the air, it's a Thursday night.

Friday.

What is going to happen at City Hall?

What are you going to vote on consider.

So we are voting on a censure for the mayor for, the findings of the investigation.

So this was, a violation of our code of conduct that the city adopted a few years ago, and two administrative directives.

So if people haven't heard now, the the violation that, the complaint was filed by, district one representative soccer after an altercation, a verbal altercation behind the city council chambers.

But other people witnessed that.

What was that described like in the investigation?

What did the investigation show?

So the investigation showed that there was a violation of our city code and two administrative directives, one regarding harassment in the workplace and the other, regarding threats and violence in the workplace.

So it was from that that we came up with the, censure language and the the variety of sections that we had, to move forward as a council and, to really kind of start, you know, rebuilding and resetting in terms of what our expectations are from each other.

And when we deal with, our council colleagues, our city staff, our constituents.

What does a censure mean or what do you think this will do?

You want her to take some training or want to do other things that you may not be able to enforce that.

So I sent her, but basically is saying this was the evidence, and we find that you you violated this and we would like to move forward.

And these are the things we ask.

Traditionally in the last, you and I, have been in a few as we've, removed council members from their committees.

And so that's where the removal from the governance committee, which is the only committee that the mayor sits on, is one of the things we were asking for on completion of a, a type of leadership training that included civility included, communication skills and things like that.

And so, that was what we were hoping both, both Councilwoman Corps and the mayor were told to, hold their comments until Friday.

That did not happen, as you know.

And so now, you know, we're sitting here with the with what has been said so far, which I'm hoping the mayor will reconsider.

Yeah.

Because the comments you talked about, she has said that she doesn't think she needs to go through training.

And if anybody does, it's all the council.

Yes, yes, those are the comments.

And so you can't order any of that.

Can you agree to any of that?

If, I mean, would you agree to this?

This isn't a negotiation.

This was we were taking a look at this one incident.

So the idea to come in and then think that we can negotiate this, via a press conference is, is very disappointing because we we're not negotiating.

We've, we've put forward it and now it comes for a vote.

What do you make of the mayor's apology this week?

I felt like it was validated.

Reasons of why we move forward with the censure.

That's what I think.

And now this wasn't you mentioned, this incident, but in the complaint or one of the documents, it talked about prior incidents with the mayor.

What what are we talking about?

So we're talking about the the five signature memo that the council women of the dais put out, my signature included.

And, we all and I and I told the media before we all saw the incident with, with, with the press conference for the Spurs, in which he interrupted that and she.

Took the microphone or asked for.

The microphone, you got the microphone, but then proceeded to get into a back and forth with a central employee again to back going forth with this person.

Jesus.

We all saw that incident.

I got phone calls from people all over the city saying this wasn't right.

Why is she doing this?

So there was that incident, you know, there there are incidences that have been caught on media regarding this, this type of behavior of, you know, taking the microphone, interrupting things like that.

So when, when I talk about incident in this, this happening before, you know, we, we've seen that.

And we've had the mayor on and will again and she's talked about and this week again her lived experience is different that she was in the military may have a different personality leadership style.

What do you make of that?

I've heard from military veterans and they have told me this isn't military.

They said we have codes of conduct that don't, condone this type of behavior.

And so I don't I understand everybody has their own lived experience, but when you are called to be a leader, an elected official, there is an expectation of civility, of decorum, an expectation to show respect for those around you.

And we have clearly laid that the line that out in our code of conduct.

And the city of San Antonio has clearly lined that out in the administrative directives.

Now, the governance committee that the mayor is on, the only one she is on, it is, I guess, the most important committee, because anything that comes before the council has to clear the government governance committee first.

It is one of the the most important committee.

It's not it's not there's more than one, I feel.

But this one is the one that with the, cars which are, the council consideration.

Council.

Yes.

Thank you.

They come to this committee and this committee decides whether it goes to committee to a session or whether we look for more, more studies on that.

And the resolution is asking for her to be off of that.

For how long?

We haven't set a date on that.

We were hoping we were looking at, 60 to 90 days in the resolution.

On upon completion of in person.

In leadership.

And with five people, five, council members signing this, what is the outlook for this passing?

I understand there were more, council members that might have signed this, but they only needed five.

Oh, yes.

We we, you know, we don't count votes.

We, wanted to sit with in solidarity with Councilman Core regarding this, this situation, because many of many of us walked back and saw the results of this, weren't there for it, but you saw the result of of this.

What was that?

She was very upset, and she needed some time to, you know, get get things together because of it.

So how is this affected council in the past, you you know, your sister was on council, you've been in leadership.

How do you think it's affected the council so far in terms of the personal relationships affecting the business of the council?

We are still about the city business.

When a council cannot communicate with each other or it's only communicating with each other via press conferences and memos, it slows things down.

So I think that is key is that we don't we the intention of for me is we don't slow things down and we start to talk to each other in a manner where we can continue to get things done faster.

If that isn't something that some council members are interested, we can continue to do this via memo and press conferences.

Going forward, you're working on things like their budget right now.

Has this affected that kind of things?

No.

I mean, and you, you've been in San Antonio for a while.

You know, this is a, city manager council form of government.

So what you need to get done is collaboration and coalition.

And you need six votes to get things done.

So as long as there are six council members or more talking to each other, not in quorum, but talking to each other and moving things forward, we are going to continue to get things done and that is what we've been doing.

We all have our priorities.

We talk to each other.

We know what's moving forward.

So we're looking at budget.

We know there's a budget shortfall, but we also know that there's opportunities with, CPS and the energy resources we have.

So we're continuing to do work.

It's just unfortunately, this is what's making the news.

Well, what about some of the other things you're working on?

I understand some of the data centers.

You're concerned about the growth of data.

You know, Councilman Rick Galvan brought up the data centers.

He's got some concerns.

His constituent has concerns.

So we're meeting on Friday, bringing some stakeholders together in a small group to say, how do we take this out to the community?

How do we do this effectively?

And that's what we're doing.

And as long as we can get, there's the two of us and two other council members that have volunteered to say, this is one thing that I want to be part of, of navigating the conversation.

We come together with our utilities and we move forward so that that's the one thing that we continue to work together.

A lot of the collaboration, a lot of the cooperation happens within the council districts.

We know because this is not a mayor strong government.

It is a manager council form a government, that this the mayor's power lies in their personality and their ability to build coalitions.

Thank you very much for coming in, explaining all that will be interesting to see what happens down the road and how much that overshadows the rest of the work of the council or not.

Thanks very much.

Phyllis via Karen, district three City Councilwoman.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Early voting here in Bexar County is running much higher than in the midterms four years ago.

Here to talk about that and any questions you may have about voting.

Of course.

Election day is Tuesday.

Michelle Kuru, Bexar County elections Administrator.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, this is to me pretty incredible that the turnout is already more than twice what it was at this time four years ago.

It is incredible.

Since the first week of early voting is in numbers is increasing every single day.

The only day that we've had a low numbers on Sunday in this, because it's a six hour day versus a 12 hour day, but the voters are definitely coming out.

Which is exciting to me because their voices are being heard.

And people have a lot of questions this time, because voter registration cards, what you usually take with you to the polls, people don't have them yet.

Why is.

That?

We have not been able to mail them out yet.

We are working with Secretary of State's office to ensure that we can get them out soon.

But unfortunately, due to the redistricting that happened throughout the state, there's been a delay.

I spoke to a representative at Secretary of State's office, and currently they are just verifying the information that's been submitted.

And once they clarify that it's correct, they'll give us the green light.

But now we're in early voting.

So people wonder, I don't have my card, can I vote?

How do I do that?

What do I need?

Yes.

So voter registration cards are not required whenever you go vote.

The state does have a voter ID law in place that requires that a voter bring one of seven approved forms of ID, so should anyone have any questions about whether or not they are registered or what information they need to bring to the polls, we encourage them to call our.

Office photo ID, what?

Seven forms of ID, mainly driver's license.

What a passport.

Right.

So it's Texas issued driver's license.

Your U.S.

passport.

Texas ID card, Texas handgun license.

Naturalized citizens can bring a certificate that has their photo.

On it and anything else, or when you bring it to the polls, or if you don't have that information, you can vote.

And it's on.

I don't want to say temporary.

What's the status when you do that and they don't have your information?

Voter doesn't have a photo ID to come vote.

There is a second set of IDs that we can accept, which would include, a letter from the government or a utility bill.

Something that proves that you are who you are and that you live where you live.

The only thing they'd have to do is just sign a reasonable impediment declaration.

And it's just a quick two question questionnaire.

They sign it.

We process them as if they had a photo ID and then they're allowed to vote.

And this time we've had a lot of, headlines say from last November and before about the switching of Bear County's software system.

And that caused some backups in voter registration applications being processed.

Where are you in that?

Every application that was received on time for this election and of course previous elections have been processed.

So, we've took care of all that.

We brought in several attempts to come in.

The attempts have to undergo background checks.

And, you know, we scrutinize every application that comes in.

So not just anyone can come in to assist us, but the temps were able to come in and take care of the issue within six days.

And we have right now 50 voting sites, early voting sites, open throughout Bexar County, correct.

We have 50 early voting locations that are throughout Bexar County.

Some of the locations in the past have were not made available to us for this election.

So I encourage voters who have a question about where their closest voter vote center is to visit our website, bear.org.

And you can also find out on your website.

I believe how many people are voting at each site.

So you can look at, well, that's not very busy.

This one is also in the news.

We have a lot of that.

That's correct.

We do maintain a roster online of every voting location, providing the numbers so that voters can make an informed decision about where they would like to go.

And hours early voting 7 to 7 on Tuesday.

What is it?

It's 7 to 7 all this week.

Friday is the last day to vote early and then Election day, Tuesday, March 3rd and 7 to 7.

And where are the voting sites that people think, oh, I have to go to this voting site on election day?

My precinct.

Correct.

We have vote centers here in Bexar County, which allows voters to vote anywhere that a poll site is located throughout the county.

So we have the list also available on our website, as well as interactive maps.

And that's election day.

Yes, as well, because you used to have to go to the precincts, but not anymore.

That's right.

And one of the other issues that you're dealing with as you were transitioning to this new software, how long is that going to take and which election is going to help?

Is it going to help in the runoffs for this March primary election or not?

Well, today's our kickoff call with the our systems in order to set a timeline.

Once we have that information, of course we'll be sharing it with the courts and letting them know what that is.

But they did say it could take up to four months to transition, so it doesn't look like we're going to have it in time for the runoff.

But we'll definitely have it in place for the November election.

And the team, software that the state uses and the Bexar County software didn't mesh a lot and didn't mesh well.

I understand, and so you've had to hire extra people or bring in extra people to deal with those voter registration applications.

Well, it's not that it didn't mesh well with our county.

There was just a lot there's a lot of modules that are not complete.

So our ballot by mail module, we're not able to use we're doing everything old school on spreadsheets.

So we're unfortunately we're not able to report as fast to the team system as we did when we had our third party vendor.

So it just wasn't ready for a county of this size.

And people wonder about their ballot by mail if they haven't received that.

Is that is that standard right now or expected?

Well, we do receive phone calls from those who have not received their ballot by mail.

They can track their package from Secretary of State's website.

They can even call us.

We've been very, very open with anyone, as well as emails.

So we receive emails and phone calls, any form of communication.

We answer them promptly and we get them the information they need.

Any idea of what you should expect on Election Day?

On Election Day, I would expect that there will be lines.

Being that we were right at 9%, almost 10% voter turnout, I anticipate that just like in the past few elections, Election Day will be very busy.

And early voting totals so far show because their primaries Republican.

You have to pick Republican or Democrat that more Democrats are voting.

That's correct.

By far.

By far.

And what do you expect, in terms of problems, election night or the time that we will get, winners?

So our goal is always to have the numbers out at 7:00 hour, shortly after 7:00 on early on election night.

We we that's our goal.

But unfortunately, when voters are still online waiting to vote, we cannot post any numbers until the polls are 100% closed.

So as long as we have voters all done and everyone's cast your ballot by seven, we'll have the numbers out by 730.

Now, those mainly are the early ballots.

So you have to have, people literally drive in with ballots from the locations.

That's right.

So at the end of election night, every one of our locations does bring in all of the voted ballots and all of the data so that we can tally the votes for them.

In the past, they had regional sending sites, which delayed the numbers from coming in.

So we've eliminated that.

And now every judge brings in their their voted ballots.

And if people don't know, you will have printed copies of your vote, because that's what you do when you do it online, you electronically, it spits out a vote.

You put that in.

So there's both a printed ballot and electronic ballot.

Correct.

And after the election, the Secretary of state sends us, three precincts and three races that we have to hand-count after every election.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Michelle Karru.

Good luck with the elections.

Of course.

Through Friday is early voting seven and seven, seven and seven on Election day next Tuesday.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

On our reporters roundtable this week, Waymo is in San Antonio officially.

Now, you may have seen those driverless cars kind of like an Uber or Lyft.

I tried out the new driverless Waymo with Brandon Lingle, staff writer and tech reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

So you unlock it first on your app.

There you go.

Okay.

Oh, it says, hello, friend.

Thanks for coming in.

Tell us about Waymo.

The cars have been here for some time.

People have seen them.

They've been tested out on employees.

What are they supposed to do?

Yeah.

So, beginning Tuesday, Waymo's are running in about a 60 square mile area around downtown and neighborhoods, basically a ride hailing app.

So you can get the Waymo app on your phone and request one of these autonomous cars to to drive you around ten and the Waymo app, you have to have an invite code.

You have to get on that, something like Uber or Lyft.

The service right now is limited.

And, they're they're sending out invites, but it's going to be scaling over the next couple of months and open to everyone by the end of the year.

And it might freak people out to see these, but these are been across the country in a number of different areas.

In fact, Tuesday as well, they started where Dallas and, Dallas, Houston, Orlando as well as San Antonio if you want to hit the start.

Right.

All right.

Are you ready?

Yep.

Here we go.

Hello from.

Waymo.

Oh.

As we get going just give us one minute to come up.

You.

That's quick.

And they say they've had more than a million miles.

2 million miles across the country on these and few incidents.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, their statistics show that, that they're safer than human drivers in the cities that they're operating in.

How does it work in terms of they come to your point that you have where you are and just pause and wait there for a number of minutes?

Yes.

Similar to other ridesharing apps, you can set up the ride to pick you up when and where you want and take you wherever you want to go.

And what kind of sensors do these have on them to make sure that it's safe?

Yeah, the technology includes, radar, lidar and a bunch of cameras.

The cars running around San Antonio have 29 cameras recording everything.

And now, in the news recently, I guess there was downtown.

A car was in the middle of an intersection.

There been a couple, hiccups.

I guess, in San Antonio.

One was froze up on Houston Street last month, for for a few minutes, and then it went on its way elsewhere.

I guess there was in California.

There was a there was someone who was hit but not injured.

Yeah.

There was, a school child, struck, and apparently not injured, but the company reported it, and, and that's going through an investigation.

Yesterday I was driving and I expected the Waymo car behind me to not be as fast.

And I kind of checked and it was keeping up with me.

It was still under the speed limit, but it was keeping up, at a good pace.

And it's interesting.

These are they have been tried across the country, but there's also a different service in Austin right now as well as Waymo.

Correct.

The Tesla robotaxis are also operating in Austin and the ones in San Antonio, the Waymo.

And across the country there are Jaguars.

Jaguar I-Pace is is what they're the current version.

And there's newer vehicles to come in.

Now what about some people have reported that they are just sitting in neighborhoods.

Waiting for rides.

Is that how it works?

Yeah.

So as I understand it, they they operate out of a central facility.

They go back there when they're not working, but during the day, or when they're, when they're running, they, they will pause in different areas in the neighborhood to be ready for, for the next rider.

This has raised some concerns from people in neighborhoods.

You've had the Waymo sitting in front of their houses for for a few hours or all day, and do we know if you sit in one of these cars and you want to change your mind, hey, drop me off here or up there, can you?

Yeah, I think you can.

You can change it in the app.

And if you need the car to pull over, you can tell it to pull over.

And there's a touch screen.

And are there, cameras in the car?

Yes, there's cameras in the car.

Also on you.

Correct.

And, there are reports of some people doing odd things.

I remember when they first came out in California.

Yeah.

So you kind of have to watch out for that.

It's something to be aware of.

It says that the cameras are on, but the microphones are off inside the car.

Are you, a little creeped out when you see these still as a tech guy?

No.

I mean, I think it's becoming more and more normal.

But I think, as with any sort of new technology, there's going to be some growing pains.

And while they're Jaguar's more expensive cars, no drivers.

The cost is about the same.

About the same as other ridesharing apps, according to the company.

Do we think there will be some kind of, rideshare wars, you know, to to drive the price down?

We've heard some some concerns from Uber and Lyft and other rideshare people and taxi drivers in town that are concerned at how many of these will we have on the roads here.

So right now, they said there are dozens.

And it will scale up to hundreds.

What do you think?

I think it's okay.

It's interesting.

It drives.

It's driving faster than I expected.

I thought it was going to be a little bit slower.

But it passed the car that was kind of stopped in front of us, waiting to turn rather quickly.

It goes speed limit.

So you're going to get there, do you do you feel safe?

I feel safe so far, no.

What do you think?

Hey, we're rolling Waymo in.

Weird.

Well, it seems a little unusual, but Brandon Lingle, thank you very much for coming in and telling us all about the new Waymo record.

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.

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

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