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 latest on the measles outbreak up in Lubbock area.

You know, made headlines here because there was a person, an infected person who had been in San Antonio for a day, a while back.

People are wondering, what does that mean in San Antonio?

Would there be an outbreak here?

Joining us to talk about it and what you should do is Doctor Jason Boling, who is professor and infectious disease specialist at UT Health San Antonio, as well as chief epidemiologist at University Health.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

Tell us about this outbreak up in West Texas.

I mean, this is measles.

We had, we thought, eliminated in the country back in, what, 2000?

In 2000, the United States was considered eliminated for measles, which means that there was a zero incidence of measles in the United States.

But it requires ongoing efforts to maintain that status, so that this outbreak is a reminder that we could lose that elimination status.

And it's mainly because those people weren't vaccinated.

Right.

So the outbreaks that we're seeing of measles generally occurs when somebody that's traveled to an area where there's measles transmission comes back to a community where there are higher levels of people that are unvaccinated.

So that allows this person to person transmission allows an outbreak to happen.

Before we get into the vaccination rates.

And whether you show how it works.

Tell us about the measles itself.

What is that?

Because we haven't seen it very often.

What does it do to a person?

How serious is it?

The best information we have on how serious it is is the information.

We had the stats before the measles vaccine became available in 1963.

So in early 1960s, about 3 million people per year would get measles.

Most of those would be children 15 years of age or younger, because older people had already had measles because it's so transmissible.

About 48,000 hospitalizations per year and about 500 deaths.

So some people can have very serious illness.

And that's why we're very concerned about measles.

And I think I was one of those, the first group to get an early vaccines back in the early 60s, as well as, the polio vaccine.

That's another success story of vaccines.

Tell us about that, because I remember, you know, you grew up, you got that, you got a little reaction.

But I also then worked with people who had had polio, and it was very serious.

So it really showed how important it is.

That's right.

Polio and its militating effects.

Some people had long term neurologic sequelae, paralysis, other significant issues because of polio and because of a concerted public health effort, we were able to eliminate polio in the United States and actually throughout the globe, except for just a handful of countries.

At this point, it's something that there continued to move to trying to completely eradicate.

And after the early 60s and the early measles vaccines, now there's the MMR vaccine.

What does that protect against?

And why should kids get that?

MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella.

Rubella is often sometimes called the German measles.

It's basically a milder, shorter form of measles.

It's a different virus.

So you get protection for all three of those when you get the MMR.

Chickenpox I remember as a kid, but that may be confused with measles because of the red rash, that kind of thing, much less severe.

It is less severe.

There are similarities.

They both cause fever and rash.

The rash that you see with measles tends to be these flat red.

The brown spots that starts around the hairline on the face, and then it moves down to the rest of the body.

With chickenpox, varicella virus, you see more blister like, fluid filled lesions as the rash.

And that of the vaccinations.

What about the rates over the past 20, 30 years, as you've watched as an epidemiologist and a doctor, seeing patients, what do you think that's from?

And what do you say to people who are reluctant to get the vaccine for their kids?

I think there's a couple important points in that.

One is that we want to see vaccine rates or vaccine uptake for measles, especially because it's so transmissible to other people.

90% of people that are considered susceptible are unvaccinated.

If they're exposed to somebody that has measles infection will develop measles, and the measles can stay for two hours suspended in the air after an infected person has left a room.

So there's a lot of concern about why we want people protected.

We would like to see this magic number of around 95% of people in the community or higher vaccinated, because that provides what's called herd immunity, right?

Where people who are not able to receive the vaccine can be protected from the others that are vaccinated.

Because there's so many people vaccinated, it prevents person to person spread.

And so that's really what we want to see for our community to prevent the risk of having an outbreak.

I've heard that some of the people in Lubbock have said in that area have said parents, well, they're going to get it.

Let them just have it, and then they'll be immune.

That is a really dangerous way to approach this.

We've had the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, so we have over 50 years of experience with this vaccine.

Serious side effects are extremely rare.

Most people may they may have a little soreness with the arm.

It's possible to get a rash with the vaccine.

That's very light, goes away pretty quickly.

Happens about seven days after people are not transmissible to others when they have that versus the measles, which can lead to hospitalizations.

About 1 in 5 people with measles will be hospitalized.

People can have complications like pneumonia, meningitis, encephalitis.

And then there's deaths that occur with measles infections as well.

And now the anti-vaccine, or I should say, vaccine skepticism has grown in about the last 25 years out of the supposed connection that's been debunked between autism and, vaccine.

And tell us about that.

The doctor who did this study has been run out of the profession, basically, and his study, debunked.

This study was published in Lancet, a journal in the United Kingdom.

This was a physician there that had a study.

It was a case series of patients that in the report said that they had received at developed autism after receiving the vaccine, was later found that there was falsified data in that study.

It was retracted, as you said, that the doctor was prohibited from practice in that area.

Since that time, there have been 18 well performed studies that have not shown a link between vaccines and autism, so this has been studied very thoroughly.

And there is not a link between vaccines and autism.

There's no data to support that.

But after that initial study, there were public figures who came out in support of that study skeptical, including RFK Jr, who's now Health and Human Services secretary.

Are you worried that the anti-vaccine or vaccine skepticism is only going to increase?

It's concerning that we have people that think of things too much of it all in one or the other.

I think it's very important that people ask questions.

It's very proper to ask questions about anything we put in our body, and that includes food and other things as well.

But we should also be open to when we start getting information back.

That shows what the risks are to take that information and sort it out.

Obviously, you wanna make sure it's from a credible source, but if you get credible information that shows that there is not a problem linked to something else, we should start to really look at that and have a little more, more trust in what that information is.

Now, there is also some of the vaccine skeptics I heard on, one of the media outlets here in San Antonio the other day that, big Pharma is involved and has been pushing vaccines for years.

And that's why there is the emphasis in on vaccines through doctors.

Very important that we do not have conflicts of interest with people that are making decisions, especially if they're giving recommendations to all of us about what we should be doing from a health care standpoint.

So I do think we need a lot of transparency for things like the Sunshine Act that you can look to, online, where it shows where physicians are getting paid by companies.

I think it's important when people are in these, review boards or advisory boards that provide information that they're disclosing any financial connections they have so that there's no perceived or actual conflicts of interest.

Another claim of anti-vax or vaccine skeptics is about the Covid vaccine.

That that caused more side effects than we originally thought.

Is that the case?

There were a lot of questions that came up with the Covid vaccine, and part of that is because it came up so quickly.

But I will say at this point, the Covid vaccine is one of the most studied therapeutics that we have available.

Now.

There are a lot of other older medicines that people take, over-the-counter medications that have not seen the same level of rigor or study applied to them.

And so I think at this point, we have a better understanding what the Covid vaccine does and doesn't do.

In the long Covid.

I've heard people, again, I don't know if you would call them conspiracy theories, but, quoting studies is saying long Covid is linked to the vaccine more than Covid.

So there's no credible evidence at this point.

It would say that the Covid vaccine itself causes long Covid.

There is an ongoing there's multiple ongoing studies, but there's a huge ongoing study looking at long Covid right now because it is a problem that we need to address, but we also need to make sure that we're looking at the right streams, sources of information, established factors and good information.

Are you worried about at the national level?

RFK Jr has, gotten rid of or at least, gotten rid of the members of this at the vaccine advisory committee, the no meeting scheduled.

The first meeting for this ACIp group is advisory board that provides expert recommendations to the CDC on how to use vaccines and schedules has been canceled.

We'll keep a close eye on what's happening with that.

They've been very helpful.

It's a multidisciplinary board of people that provides information, looks at the available evidence for the vaccines, including safety factors, which is an important part to look at.

Is this vaccine providing more benefits?

Are the risks serious?

We need to have ongoing input from advisory groups to make sure that we're doing the right thing with vaccines.

Bottom line here in San Antonio, if you're a parent, you've heard about the measles outbreak.

You're not you haven't vaccinated your kid.

What do you tell them?

And where can they get that?

Here in San Antonio.

Importantly, we haven't had any active cases of measles yet.

We're need to continue to monitor the situation.

It's a dynamic situation, but this is a good reminder that we should all be looking at our vaccine status.

Everybody should have two of the recommend doses for measles.

Very efficacious.

It's been out since 1963.

So we have a long history with this vaccine.

And if you're older and you're not sure, say in the early 60s, did I get what did I get?

Are older than that.

Are there booster kind of things, or should you get a vaccine or ask your doctor to check that.

They can talk with their doctor about that?

You can't check a titer if you're if you're born in the 1960s, 19 people considered born before 1957 are actually considered immune by natural exposure.

We had so much measles transmission at that time that most people have been exposed, but they can you can talk to your provider, they can check a titer.

If you fall into that.

Category A titer.

They look for an antibody titer to see if you have antibody to suggest that you've been exposed to measles in the past.

Okay.

Well, thanks very much.

Some great information, doctor.

Jason Boling, professor and infectious disease specialist at UT Health San Antonio, chief epidemiologist and university health.

Very busy guy with all those titles.

Thank you for coming in.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

There will soon be a change in the orientation procedure for new San Antonio city employees.

Here to explain what that change means is district six Councilwoman Melissa Campbell.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

What is different about what will happen now with new city employees?

What does it mean to them?

So when a new a city employee is hired, they go through a new employee orientation.

And in the past, they got all kinds of information to get ready for their employment with the city.

But they were not they did not have access to talk with union representatives.

So this policy ensures that union representatives are able to go into the new employee into orientation and talk to employees about, about their rights, their benefits, and, and their in representation.

And that's something you push for.

People might think, well, why would an employer push for a union organization, you know, to increase the membership, do you think?

Yes.

I mean, I think that that could be part of it, but it really is to make sure that every new employee understands their rights and their benefits and that they have access to that representation.

We're very strong, Uniontown, and we want to make sure that our, our, our employees feel like they're being supported.

They have all the information they need.

Strong employees make for a strong city.

And so I think this is a win win for everybody.

A lot of people in Texas might hear you say, we're a strong Uniontown and go, we are.

This is Texas.

We're not, you know, right.

We're a right to work state.

Well, San Antonio does things its own way, right?

We've always we've always, kind of followed our own, our own lead.

And I think in this, we have a very strong Uniontown.

We have really strong unions here.

Our employees and our workforce is vital to our community.

And I think as city leadership.

Electeds.

We all understand that.

So that's why I say that we're.

And this is the AFSCME, American Federation of State County Municipal Employees.

Correct.

Why do you think it makes them stronger or better?

In terms of what they bring to the city if they're involved in union?

Well, it's why any union makes you stronger and better.

You have access to different kinds of information that maybe you wouldn't have been able to find on your own.

But there's always strength in numbers, right?

When you come to, an employer and say, I'm looking for these benefits or these rights and they, they deny you, you have a whole army behind you.

They can come and talk with you and, and make that that argument a little bit stronger.

And I think most employers, they welcome that, that, opportunity they want to, to be able to engage effectively with their employees.

And I know that the city wants to support city employees, that they they're a backbone.

They're the backbone of this community.

We can talk about city leadership and even your electeds, but the the people that come in pick up your trash every day, the people that make sure your potholes are fixed.

So city employees are vital to what we do every day.

It might seem counterintuitive that an employer would want to be able to say, let go somebody that they don't think is effective.

I mean, at the federal level, that's what we're seeing now.

But at the city level, that is going to make it tougher for the city to get rid of, get rid of people that, I think that we're going to make sure that people are supported.

We want we want people to stay in jobs.

You go through a very intense hiring process with the city, and if you're having any trouble, we want to support you as a city.

We went and the union wants to support you.

Make sure that you have all the resources, the equipment, the skills that you need.

Think about, you know, our first responders, they're part they have unions as well.

And they have to have all the equipment and skill sets that they need in order to provide, their, the service for the community.

And remember, this is for all of us.

I mean, the city employees are working for us.

So to ensure that they are supported and have everything they need to do their jobs well, really benefits all of us.

Speaking of the federal government, we're talking about how much the city could lose in terms of grant money and the hundreds of millions with the county's like 330 million and employees you could lose.

Tell us about how you how do you budget coming up with that uncertainty?

We stand to lose 325 million at the city in federal grant money.

We're talking about firefighters.

We're talking about police officers.

We're talking about all the nonprofits that we support that are doing all this work in the community.

So even if you don't feel like you're closely associated with local government, you may be affiliated with a nonprofit that could go under because we help fund them.

And so this is far reaching through our community.

And 325 million is nothing to sneeze at.

So we're going to have to figure out different ways to, to make up that money.

And we're going to have to probably make some cuts, and it's going to be really hard conversations and tough decisions to be made.

So that's going to be, dealing with unemployment of those people.

But already you're getting calls for other people worried about jobs and wanting to get city jobs.

Yes.

So there have been a lot of, you know, neighborhood associations or other organizations that we go and we visit as Electeds and they're saying, what's going to happen if I lose my federal job?

Can I turn to the city?

And I mean, you know, I would love to be able to say, yes, the city's going to have your back, but we need to figure out the funding for it.

We need to figure out, all of the mechanisms to make sure that our community is being taken care of.

About the city's job training program.

They tried to increase that, especially after Covid and.

Yeah, as that, you know, they wanted the numbers to increase.

So people coming through that program.

Yeah.

For ready to work.

Right.

Ready to work is only funded through this next year.

Maybe the voter wants to extend ready to work.

Maybe not.

But we have to figure out a way to help people that are losing their jobs because of a decision made outside of our community.

And a couple other things that you're working on now.

The city just closed the Migrant Resource Center.

Yeah.

And, is that going to help in terms of the budget?

A small amount.

It could we were getting reimbursed by the federal government.

So, it took us forever and we got but we would get reimbursed.

Now, some of that funding is I mean, we don't know, even though it's gone through all the process and signatures have been made, to get that funding back, or reimbursed.

We don't actually know if that's going to happen.

There's just a lot of, as you said, uncertainty.

So now that it's closed down, I guess it's, you know, we don't have to worry.

So much about federal funding coming in to, to, to reimburse us, but we will be out that money upfront either.

So it could help.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in.

District six, Councilwoman Melissa Cabello.

Havana.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Randy.

On reporters roundtable this week, if you vote in the upcoming election in San Antonio this May, you will see maybe more candidates than you have ever seen on the ballot for mayor and for whatever city council district you're in as well.

That could happen.

Joining us to talk about it is a reporter who has been writing about this and getting all the names right, Andrea Rush of the San Antonio Report.

Thank you for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

This, we knew this was going to happen when Ron Nurnberg, you know, he's term limited out, but in his place now, how many people are running and what is that, like.

27 when filing closed on February 14th.

And remember that Ron Nurnberg ran against an incumbent when he first ran.

So this is the first open race with no incumbent on the ballot since Leon Castro was elected in 2009.

So first open race in a long time drew a ton of contenders for from the city council, including one who dropped out, got back in at the last minute.

Yes.

And then a former Air Force undersecretary, a former Texas secretary of state.

A lot of other folks with long resumes, but also a lot of folks who are brand new to politics and jumping in the mayor's race right off the bat.

And I just saw the first advertisement for one of those, and it's really going to be a struggle.

Last fall, UTSA did some polling and the number one candidate was at 9%.

John Courage, who had dropped out and then has gotten back in the race.

Clayton Perry is now in the race.

Who do you think is at the top, or at least the known better known candidates out of those 27?

Well, this San Antonio has an elected a mayor from outside of the city council in a long time.

So you've got four candidates from the city council most happy to Adriana, Richard Garcia, John Courage, many players.

And then you've got three other candidates from outside the city council, former Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, tech entrepreneur, beat Dell to Murano, and Gina Ortiz Jones, who was the undersecretary of the Air Force and who's run for Congress twice in this area.

And I think the three of them in the amount of money that they raised in a short time, it's kind of shocking.

There may have been this moment where the council incumbents could have gotten behind one candidate, but they didn't.

So now you've got seven serious candidates in that race at least, including another, also a former council member, Clayton Perry, and a few others that people would recognize.

At City Hall.

And some of them are going to obviously split different constituencies, like there's, you know, some would say the business Northside community.

And you have certain candidates for that or Republicans.

And it comes down to a runoff between two of them.

Yeah.

If no one gets to 50% in the first round, you got a runoff on June 7th.

So that's seems more than likely at this point.

But that first UTSA poll from September of last year, yeah, nobody over 10%.

Most of the respondents, I think, said that they weren't familiar with any of the candidates that didn't have the full list of candidates at that point.

And I think they're in the field right now pulling all 27 of them.

But how do you even put that many people on a debate stage.

And they, order on the ballot?

How was that determined?

So that was their randomly assigned, that state law.

But they did it yesterday.

They all showed.

Most of them showed up to draw a number to see what their ballot position would be.

And, Rolando Pablo actually drew first.

He was not there, but he he said he didn't care what position he was on the ballot.

But the experts say that this does matter, especially in a field of 27.

If you've got 3 or 4 candidates, maybe everyone's familiar enough with the candidates to make their choices.

But, you know, this ballot may stretch on more than one page.

So it's important to be maybe even on the first page.

Yes.

And that's just for mayor.

Now, in the council races as well, we have a whole lot of people running for each most of the council districts.

Right.

All of the seats are up.

And this is the first time everybody's running for a four year term, including the mayor.

They used to be two year terms.

They just change that in November.

So this is going to bring a ton of new faces who are going to be there for a while on the council.

And we've got open races and four of these seats.

We also have in district one, 11 candidates are running in district one against first term incumbent at Core but they is going to look a lot different when it gets back in June.

Also of the council races, there's only a couple where the incumbent is running against just two challengers.

That believe that's just one in district seven.

Marina Al, director of ETO, elected in 2023, who drew an opponent with her same last name.

That's the one of the two.

This is also going to be, the time we had thought maybe the Spurs, referendum on the vote on the tax would be on the ballot.

But it turns out that's not the case.

No, not the case.

And when you're looking at this long list of candidates, there are some people who say there was a chance to address this in the last Charter Review Commission.

San Antonio charged $100 to get on the ballot, races three or 4 or 5 manageable.

But our races of 27 candidates are really manageable.

Does it cause voters to check out because they feel uninformed about the choices?

It came up briefly last year, maybe that they would raise this filing fee and it was shot down as that it would be harmful to candidates.

We want to open this process up to as many people as possible.

But compared to the other cities in Texas that are charging $1,250 for a filing fee or 500 in El Paso for mayor, yeah, 1200 in Houston and 500 in El Paso.

There's an option to submit signatures to get on the ballot.

That could they could cut your cost there, but no one took advantage of it in San Antonio.

Also the petitions, because, state law allows home rule cities like San Antonio to set their own requirements.

We could have set, petition signature, minimum threshold that would have also cut down that number running.

Yeah.

Dallas doesn't allow you to buy your way onto the ballot.

You have to do the petition route.

And in San Antonio, it's such a low bar.

It it varies based on the council district and the size of the voter turnout in the last election.

But in one council district, it's like 20 signatures to get on the ballot.

It's like 600 for mayor, 650 or so, 120, 118 for the largest council district.

Like very, very low bar.

If you wanted to go that route instead of $100.

From, people might think, well, why is it only two that, if you don't get 50%, why couldn't it be 3 or 5 or something like that?

Is that a route that anyone goes in Texas that.

I think would assume that's set by state statute, but, you know, but we're talking about nonpartisan races, so there's no primary.

There's no Republican or Democrat next to your name.

So it's just a long list of people you won't even see who the incumbent is.

Although we have a lot of research to do before you go.

Vote, although it's maybe not as independent as it was decades ago in San Antonio, since maybe, 20, 30 years ago, mayoral candidates and council candidates have identified more as a Democrat or as a Republican, even though they don't call themselves that.

Sure.

But if you walk into the voting booth and you are expecting anything on that ballot to help you tell who has your similar values, there won't be anything.

There won't be.

There's no primary to whittle down the field of candidates before the fight, before the first race.

And I understand some of the forums because there are candidate forums going on already.

That some of them have maybe a half dozen or so of the main, I just say main candidates, more better known candidates, and some of them try to have more.

And it's tough.

Yeah, I think one of the candidates told me at the, at a forum this weekend that they have 37 forums on their agenda.

Wow.

So and I do see people inviting the whole crew and getting a section of them.

And then you just sort of have the same conversations over and over because you can get to about 32nd responses.

Right.

And what how is it to cover these candidates and to try to get their, you know, basic message out?

This is why we're just sifting through who these people are trying to figure out, especially with the council candidates.

Some of these people are nonexistent online.

Yes.

Or even when you call them.

Are you trying to they don't have, email addresses or they don't have to file addresses and things like that.

So we don't know anything about some of them, right?

Correct.

But at the San Antonio airport, we're putting together a comprehensive voter guide this year, like we do every year, that we'll have voter profiles of all of these candidates.

You'll have question and answer forms that they can fill out links to their social media profiles, pictures of them.

We'll give you everything that we know about them.

I mean, when you see a place to find it.

And also in Colorado, yeah, you're going to be involved in a show we'll have coming up that will outline the candidates and what we're going to be voting.

On.

We'll give everybody everything they need to know.

You're the expert.

Well, thank you very much for coming in.

Andrea.

San Antonio reports reporting on what is it, 87 candidates that are going to be on the ballot.

Oh, amazing.

For just for the city.

Thanks very much for coming in.

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 the podcast.

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