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

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

And that's why each week we go on the record with the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the right.

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

I'm Randy Beamer.

And this week it looks like you are going to get a chance if you live in San Antonio to vote this May on a charter amendment that is called the Justice Charter by the group of activists that are behind it.

This right here, this is a newspaper.

If you don't read the newspaper this week on a paper, just as Charter could be on the May ballot, a group called Act for Essay has come up with 37,000 signatures.

They have to have confirmed at least 20,000 to get that on the ballot to talk about exactly what is in that charter amendment and why they are opposed to it.

The president of the San Antonio Police Officers Officers Association, Danny Diaz, joins us.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me, sir.

Now, recently we had an end of Thomas, who is the leader of the group for essay.

One of the things that this charter would do is basically codify some of the things like banning chokeholds, decriminalizing abortion, decriminalizing marijuana, among other things.

Tell us about where you are on this whole movement, this whole charter.

Well, we disagree with the thought process that they have right.

And let me start off with you mentioned chokeholds.

Chokeholds is in our policy already that we cannot do it.

No knock warrants is in our policy already, that we cannot do those either.

Chokeholds have been there since the nineties.

The only way that you are able to do any type of chokehold is in a life or death situation which has been there, like I mentioned, for a couple of decades now.

I think they just want to make it as I had asked her.

They want to make it official.

City policy so it couldn't be reinstated by a future chief.

Yeah, but it's it's an official policy.

By being in our rules and regulations, I don't think will be changed if you flip it.

What they're asking for is to have a director of justice that can make those decisions on city initiatives, department initiatives, department training.

So how do we know that they're not going to do the same thing, do things that are egregious, outrageous, that is detrimental to police work?

And if you look at in that 13 page petition that they had, there's quite a few things there that are not only detrimental the law enforcement, but it's detrimental to the citizens of the city.

What are some of those?

Well, what they're wanting to do is, is, for instance, in criminal mischief cases or shoplifting cases.

What they want is for us not to have the ability to arrest people if it's less than $750.

So release instead of an arrest, even though it's a stop, no arrest, period.

So if that's the case, how does that affect the business community here?

If you have a mom and pop restaurant that is, you know, week by week and it's a small organization and people are walking check, or if you have small mom and pop stores where they're going in and doing beer runs.

Right.

How much bigger do they have to take?

That will add up to $750.

That's a lot.

That's a lot of merchandise.

They lose out and we won't have the ability to arrest if this goes into place, the kinds of things like that.

You wouldn't be not allowed to, but you wouldn't be directed to investigate things like marijuana or any abortion violations.

Well, first off, I can tell you that the San Antonio Police Department has never arrested anyone for having an abortion.

That that is not something that we deal with.

Look, let's face it, legalizing abortion or marijuana does not come at the city charter level or the city level.

That's done up in Austin at the state level.

Quite frankly, what they're asking for, it's a violation of state and federal law.

And people seem to forget as officers, we took an oath to uphold the laws of the state of Texas.

Federal and state.

We'd be in violation of doing that.

Now we get in trouble.

Now, this came out actually to say this group kind of got together a number of groups, as I understand it, after George Floyd and the response to that and I'm getting the vibe that it's just police that don't want to be over seen or questioned or explain it to me differently, that you think they're questioning what you do know, how you do it.

Well, it's not that we don't want to be overseen, but if you think about it, we have rules and regulations, policies and procedures that are in place that dictate what we do on a daily basis.

Not only those procedures, but we're follow they're mandated by the Texas Penal Code Code of Criminal Procedure and the Health and Safety code.

Right.

We've got all these things as far as guidelines on how to do our job.

And so not only that, but we also have the mayor city managers and city council that oversee what we do, the oversight.

We're not afraid of the oversight.

The problem is what they're asking for is reaching way beyond where they should, in a sense, to where they're basically trying to rewrite laws that's not done through City Charter, that's done through Austin.

If you look at one of the items that they had on there for graffiti, if we catch someone with graffiti, it has to be less than 20 $500.

Well, the last time I checked, it's $100 a square foot.

So they could basically do three quarters of this building and we won't have the opportunity to arrest them if that goes into place.

And this looks like it's going to be on the ballot.

I don't know if you expect it to be or not, but how do you plan to fight it?

I know the Police Officers Association in the past has has had a big lobbying budget that has proposed its own amendments.

What what do you see coming up in the next few months?

So, look, this is the second fight in two years, right?

The last time we were short on time because we had just come into office.

We've got two months more than what we did the last time.

The difference this time is, is we have to educate the community on how it affects them.

It's not only them as business owners, it's going to affect the city with tourism.

I mean, who's going to want to come to a city that has a high crime rate?

Right.

Next week, the crime stats are going to come out and don't take my word for it.

Just wait till the 20th and you're going to see how crime has skyrocketed because some of these things that they've asked to be in place previously, what's been going on across the country and what's been happening to our judicial system here locally through the DA's office, we were talking about that just before you came on the air here.

Policies that the district attorney and the morale of police here are related.

Tell us about that.

Well, a lot of what's going on is as cases are being filed, cases are being dropped and it goes back and forth, well, this is your fault.

This paperwork wasn't turned in.

And quite frankly, the the the idea is this.

If you look at and you go back to the night of the election, the one interview that the D.A.

did, some of the individuals that were there endorsing him and had on a lot of their their shirts were these activists.

So what is it that the activists want people not to go to jail?

They don't want they want to decriminalize a lot of things.

What has been transpiring with the D.A.

when he first came in side and released for Minor marijuana cases, and progressively it's added up to larger amounts of marijuana cases that they won't file.

Not just marijuana, but it also happens with any type of narcotics, cocaine, fentanyl.

And fentanyl right now is a hardest thing that we're having to fight with across the country because it's killing so many people.

What about property crimes here?

I've heard people talk about the property crimes have been on the rise to skyrocketing.

What activists were wanting is for police, not just like these things that they have to put in their petition.

They don't want police to be out there arresting people.

A lot of what we've been told to do is de-escalate retreat.

We've basically turned into report writers, Right.

There is no proactivity out there.

So officers aren't looking out.

They're looking for guns.

They come across it.

Sure, they're going to arrest people for it.

But the way I was raised in this department is we were always out looking for guns and looking for narcotics to keep this community safe.

Right now, if we do that, officers are constantly getting in trouble or the cases are getting worse.

With whom?

Through the DA's office.

It's either through our administration because of the policies that have been put in place, because of what activists have wanted.

Right.

So there's there's changes in policing across the country, and we've done that.

But in doing so and no fault to our administration, but in making those changes, it changes police work.

I can't be going out and following people to try and find these guns in narcotics.

One of the things that they're asking for is no knock warrants.

All right?

It's already in our policy.

That's one of the things that they wanted it before.

But me being on a SWAT team, not on correct me being on a SWAT team for 22 years, I can tell you we're not going to go to a drug house and knock on the door and ask a drug dealer to give me the drugs.

It doesn't work that way.

The idea of no knock warrants is the element of surprise.

So that one, they don't do away with the evidence.

Two, we are able to catch people that are felons and that are delivering, transporting all these types of drugs that are detrimental to the department or detrimental to the city.

The biggest problem is, is that they blanket everybody because there was a mistake done up north where a young lady was killed because the officers went whatever it was that they did.

Their procedures aren't the same as ours.

We have procedures in place that would solidify to make sure those things aren't done.

And what I mean by that is you don't hit the wrong house.

We've got officers that are assigned just to identify the house.

We've got officers are assigned specifically to do that more.

We have officers that are assigned specifically to dictate is it drugs?

Is it weapons?

What's the address?

All the criminal history.

So there's every department is different.

Don't blanket us like things that happened up north.

All right.

Well, it's going to be an interesting few months.

We appreciate it.

Danny Diaz, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association, thanks very much.

Thank you for having me, sir.

Appreciate it.

A charter amendment will be a hot topic for the next few months.

And joining us to talk about it as well now is Jalen McKee Rodrigues district two city councilman.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Now, we just talked to Danny Diaz, president of the Police Officers Association, and, well, just tell me what you think of that Justice charter, because you've been working on some of those same issues for a couple of years or longer.

Not a couple of years.

You know, I'm relatively new to council, but I am super excited.

One of the big things that I was there was a key goal of mine early in my term was codification of site and release as a policy.

Currently, it's something that we're doing at saving our city millions of dollars.

And if the next police chief wanted to do away with it, they could.

And so codifying it is something that's super important.

And a lot of those other things, such as the no chokeholds, no knock warrants, those are critical.

And I think we also have a lot of support for decriminalization of marijuana as well as decriminalization of abortion.

Now, what are the things that he brought up is that there are really 13 pages to what they'd like to have happen.

Of course, there's that really, if you put it on a ballot, you would have to read all 13 pages.

So there's concern, even among the supporters, that.

How do you reflect.

That on the ballot, that 13 pages of what you want to do?

That's a science that I'm not quite sure of.

Right now.

I think it's something that we'll probably have conversation about fairly soon.

I think really what is important is that we get the nature and the spirit of the initiative listed in as concise a way as possible.

What are the big things in that charter amendment?

So in addition to the things that I just mentioned, so codifying sign or release, no chokeholds and knock warrants, decriminalization of abortion and decriminalization of marijuana.

There would also be the creation of a justice coordinator.

I was going.

To say, what are the big things that you are pushing for?

And that's that's it right there.

That's one of them.

Absolutely.

So we did just get a crime recidivism prevention coordinator in the budget.

And we're going to be putting that posting that position fairly soon.

But this one would do that's unique is that it would oversee those kinds of programs.

The Office of Crime and Recidivism Prevention is ideally working with state departments to prevent crime through their department's lens.

This is specifically relating to the way that we handle policing and the reforms and making sure that we're following through on the promises of the charter amendment.

And now the police union, among others, we expect, will be strongly campaigning against this.

What do you expect to happen in the May election on this?

What kind of, say, polling or gut feeling do you have?

Well, I'm extremely confident that there's enough support for each of these each of the components of the amendment individually to where I think overwhelmingly San Antonio is going to come out in support.

Want to move on to another thing that you had done recently.

You tweeted about some public information requests that came into your office.

Tell us about that.

Absolutely.

So I just thought it was interesting.

You know, I'm going through this list.

It's an overwhelming list of documents that are being requested.

And it was very unusual.

And, you know, I have no problems fulfilling any open records requests.

But the nature and who it came from, which is this political operative connected to very high governmental government officials, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Paul Rand.

These are people who, you know, I was concerned and I feel like people in San Antonio need to know that.

Now, this is, I guess, expected by some in political races.

You're up for reelection as well as this charter amendment in May.

Did you expect something like this when you got into office?

You know, so most folk don't know who someone in Washington or Chicago really doesn't care who a city council person is in San Antonio.

So I expect it from the average constituent.

I expect it from anyone who's running for office.

And what I suspect is that whoever this person works for is not a candidate for office.

I believe it's something larger than that.

Like.

I mean, I'm not going throw names out, but I believe that there are some groups that would have a lot of interest in receiving in having someone like me removed from council.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much.

I wish we had more time because those cryptic answers I can't end on.

But thanks very much for coming in.

And we'll ask you more questions also about what's going on in council in future weeks.

Thanks very much.

They all the Key Rodrigues.

District, too.

Councilman, thank you.

One of San Antonio's biggest business organizations has a brand new leader and he joins us right now.

Dave Peterson is the president of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

An interim right now?

It is.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

But could be.

Sure if that's what the board would like.

I'm open to that.

Well.

Richard Perez, long time president of the Chamber of Commerce, retired.

Why don't you want to get to this position and maybe hold this position?

Well, I've worked with Richard for really the last seven years, so I've been the executive vice president.

We've worked very closely together.

I've got incredible respect and friendship with Richard.

And I think, you know, he's he took the chamber in a great direction.

And I'd like to take the chamber beyond.

I'd like to continue that work.

The 20 something other of us are still going strong.

And with last year, we developed a strategic plan and we're executing that plan right now.

So it's really very clear to the team, you know, what direction we're on and how we're going.

We had him on not too long ago and he talked about some of the changes that they did make and you did make last year, including paring down the huge committee that had to be pulled before you made any decision, any announcement.

How did that work?

It worked, I think, very well.

So we did a survey of our membership initially, and 85% thought, you know, that we needed to do something about our governance and potentially bring it down to a smaller, more fiduciary style board.

So we did analysis.

I did a lot of outreach to the other chambers in Texas and to other associations around the country, and we found that most do something like that.

So we established a task force of leaders from the chamber to come together and review what's been done in other places and see how how would it apply best to the San Antonio.

More than 100 people on the the.

Original we did.

Group that you had to he said he had to pull them call them each one before he would make an announcement or a decision.

Now it's down to how many.

But we have a 15 member executive board.

But that very large board continues as our board of investors.

Let's back up a little, too.

What does the chamber do these days?

There's a Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

There are other groups economic development Foundation and others with the city and outside the city, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

So how do you differentiate yourself?

And if I'm a business person, why would I want to join the Chamber of Commerce?

What do you do for me and what do you do for the city?

Well, our emphasis is on business advocacy.

We are working day in and day out with city leadership, with county leadership, with state and federal leaders to improve the business climate so that the city of San Antonio at large benefits from an improved business climate with better jobs, with better opportunities, with more places for people to really feel like they're accomplishing things.

What are you looking for from the legislature year this year?

Absolutely.

So first and foremost for us is economic development.

So chapter 313, which was an incentive program to bring businesses into Texas, died at the end of the last legislature.

At the end of the last year, in the last legislature did not renew it.

But we need tools.

We need ways of getting those businesses into San Antonio and Texas so that we can have, you know, a thriving community and a thriving, you know, opportunity for people to work.

We also we're extremely focused on military affairs.

So the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce puts an extreme emphasis on our relationship with our military community.

And so we're working with the state.

There's a fund, the Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant that provides monies to communities to improve their ability to work with their their military residents.

And so we're working that very hard.

And usually you go to Washington, D.C., or there's a group that goes to Washington in January or there has been in the past.

But this year you're going in March?

Yes, last year we went in March.

And I think we kind of got the bug that, you know, it's a lot nicer in Washington in March than it is in February.

But we were last year when we went to the capital, we were really one of the very first community groups to get to D.C. after it started to open up after the pandemic.

And so there were some fits and starts getting it going.

But we had 150 people go, and nothing impresses legislators more than when they see a large group come to town.

Well, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Dave Peterson, the interim, at least for now, president of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

Thanks for coming in and have a good spring break up in Washington.

Well, thanks, Randi.

I appreciate it.

On Reporters roundtable this week, we're talking about the state of downtown San Antonio and maybe the future.

And joining us is a man that longtime viewers of PBS would recognize from having a show very similar to this, Professor Haywood Sanders public administration at UTSA, as well as a columnist now for the San Antonio Current.

And do you.

Wrote an article.

Recently about downtown and what we should be noticing about it That hasn't happened yet.

What interesting thrust of that article?

Tell us about.

It.

Well, I was struck thinking about what has happened over the past year and in particular about our downtown, our continuing problematic downtown in lots of ways.

Two big things.

About a decade ago, USAA announced a commitment to put a chunk of its employees and contractors into the major downtown office buildings at 300 convinced Region one Riverwalk.

We found out at the end of last year that USAA was ending its leases and going and the tax abatement deal that the city had signed on to was done.

The USAA would pleasantly pay the city back, but it was a striking issue, partly because that subsidy obviously didn't do what it was intended to do, which was boost employment downtown, put more people on the street, create some more vitality downtown.

And at the same time, it indicated some of the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic office.

Work has changed.

And while we don't know quite the extent of that in any particular city, including ours, it's clear it's going to make a difference going forward.

We're not going to see the same presence in the office.

Are you worried about downtown and what what the city's policies are of downtown?

Absolutely.

And I think that and the sale of the tower Life building now that Zachary has left and its potential conversion to housing, tell us we need to have a serious community conversation about where downtown is and where we want it to go.

And part of the problem is we've been doing lots of deals and we've done those deals over the years.

As you.

Add tax abatement deals, tax.

Abatement.

Farallones well.

Used in a targeted, sensible way.

They can get you something doled out to everybody and all comers.

You're working again just to.

See those kind of tail off soon.

We've had, you know, a lot of businesses that are coming in and and either turning something into apartments or condos and we're getting more people living downtown.

But you say not enough.

And that is still basically tourist oriented and we'll have to stay that way.

It doesn't have to, but we've got to have a plan for targeting stuff and doing it in a in a sensible way.

And that means when we provide a subsidy, we want to make some strategic choices.

I was driving out I-10, the other day out by the north of 1604 out by the rim, and they're sitting up on a hillside is Medtronic.

That's a tax subsidy deal.

That's 1300 jobs.

Where are those jobs?

They're in one of the wealthiest, fastest growing sectors of the city.

Why couldn't we have Medtronic try to induce Medtronic to put those jobs?

Some jobs in a place that where this community would get some broader benefit, potentially even downtown.

So they should have, you think more abatement possible of these downtown or just more guarantees?

I think more focus and we have a very difficult time here making choices among our development goals.

Everybody wants one.

You know, you had a council member on today.

Every council member wants something for their district.

That's not news.

But if we want to make a difference downtown, if we want to take the jam that we have and make sure that it works, we need to have some policies that focus on it and a plan that realizes that just continuing to base things on tourists is not going to get us well.

We need to have more time to talk about this, as you did when you had the show, the agenda in the with Haywood Sanders.

And we're I'm sorry, we're out of time, but check out the current for the latest and we will have you back.

Shari promises.

Okay.

Thank you.

Pleasure.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see the show again or preview shows as well as download the podcast at KLRN.org.

And we'll see you next time.

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