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.

Joining us now as we go on the Record with Randy Beamer are everybody.

And thank you for joining us for On the Record this week.

I'm Randy Beamer, and we are starting with the latest on the controversial development north of a lotus that neighbors say would discharge too much wastewater into Hal Lotus Creek.

Joining us to talk about this is Analisa piece of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

Now, this is something you've been fighting for a couple of years now.

And the latest on this is TCU has approved the permit.

What does that mean?

And are you still fighting this?

Yes, they have approved that a permit application for a wastewater plant that will discharge into Lotus Creek.

It'll be discharging treated sewage effluent.

And we, the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance and the neighborhoods out there will be contesting this permit.

So the formal process, we will be asking the TCU to deny the permit and this is when our homes they want to build what, 2900 homes on 600 acres and build this wastewater treatment plant because source can supply the water.

But outside in this area, they don't have to supply the wastewater treatment or sewage treatment.

How big a problem is this, in your opinion?

It's a problem out in the extraterritorial jurisdiction outside of San Antonio.

Well, it is a big problem.

And source actually had very much concerns.

So they they declined to supply wastewater service.

And as a condition of the water service, they told Lennar they had to cut the number of homes in half on that site.

So they did have big concerns about that.

It's hugely problematic because the latest studies commissioned by the city of San Antonio say that releasing wastewater into Lotus Creek in that area goes directly in to recharge the Edwards Aquifer, even though it's on the contributing.

And some had pushed for septic tanks instead of a wastewater treatment plant.

Were or were there more stringent requirements in this treatment plant and others?

No, the the permit application is pretty standard.

And that's one of the things that we're asking for when we can test the permit would be much, much stricter standards for the treatment.

But TXU has those standards that they have deemed acceptable because treated people might not realize what treated wastewater is in San Antonio.

You would consider reuse water.

You can't swim in it, and it's not good for rivers.

But they say it's seven miles upstream from most of the Lotus Creek and the aquifer.

Well, seven miles from the Richardson is what they say in the statement of the latest study from Southwest Research says that it's actually recharging within those seven miles.

But even so, seven miles from the recharge zone of you're releasing that much sewage effluent that is not treated to drinking water standards.

It doesn't like magically clean itself up as it runs down Otis Creek for those seven miles.

And a lot of the times of year, depending on drought conditions, there's very low flow.

So the majority of the flows would be that sewage effluent that's recharged in the network.

And you're not just concerned about that, but stormwater runoff as well because they have, what, 30% of what's called impervious cover And you want more than that?

Yeah, I mean or less than that, actually.

Yes.

Yes.

Because the scientists tell us that say between 7 to 15% is actually what's safe for the aquifer, and that's an indication of urbanization.

And so you have all the pollutants that come with an urbanized site that runoff and enter the watershed.

And so you want basically 85% trees, grass, whatever that would absorb that exact state of asphalt, put in homes, things like that.

How many other developments are like this or likely to be built in that great area that is going to be developed or a lot of people think it's going to be?

Well, that's a big concern because especially in that area, the scientists are concerned.

It's on the contribute zone, but it is actually in a lot of the area directly recharging the Edwards.

And so, you know, the city had been purchased land with the Edwards protection program.

We would like them to be spending more in that area to protect it because that area and the center on a mobile that goes up and like all the way up to Bandera, they say between I think it's seven and 15% of our water supply for the Edwards comes from that area.

Now, some people up there also are worried about their kids swimming in Lotus Creek up there.

Yeah.

And you know that they had been swimming and now they won't be able to.

Yeah because it wouldn't meet recreational standards and and the city a great forest has a little swimming area that they use for their residents.

It's lovely.

I mean with the affluence we would we would consider, you know, that it would get a lot of algae in there.

Well now this is the same kind of treated wastewater that say is pumped into the San Antonio River near the headwaters, make sure that actually there's a river running through Brackenridge Park and down through the River walk, because otherwise the water is too low.

There would be no river, right?

They can't you can't swim in the San Antonio River in the same way that you can't.

We won't be able to swim up there.

How bad is the water?

But how is it for swimming?

What are the, you know, the numbers in terms of how it affects portability?

Well, you know, the state has recreational standards.

So, of course, the San Antonio River, because it's we're putting that effluent in, which is a great thing because then we're not pumping from the aquifer.

But it it doesn't meet recreational standards.

And with this effluent going into the Lotus Creek, Lotus Creek would not meet recreational standards either.

And what kind of algae is in some of the other rivers and things like the San Antonio River where this wastewater is pumped in.

Well, central New River hasn't had a big problem with with algae growth and all.

But with this treatment plant, we feel like the nitrogen and phosphorus limits that are being allowed would result in a lot of algae growth, which is really bad for for the fish population similar to in now, the Southwest Research Center has also done some work on this.

What have they found?

Yeah, the city commissioned a study through the Edwards for Protection Plan and their findings.

I think the most startling and and one of the reasons we're so adamant about this was that releasing wastewater within the area that they're talking about for this permit would threaten to pollute the Edwards Aquifer.

Are you so and I guess they say it would pollute the Edwards and people might think, well, I mean, there's so much water in the Edwards aquifer that this would not affect overall the drinking water that we have that is still filters through the limestone.

And by the time it gets to the wells, it would be fine.

Now that Edwards doesn't actually filter water.

I mean, it's that water goes in there and with with no filtration because it's large channels and all the the fissures that go in there, the water goes directly.

And so we rely on actually, you know, the land within the Edwards to to filter the water.

So, yeah, it's it's hugely problematic that so many people think that now that it's been approved.

Are do you have any recourse in court or what's the next step?

Yeah.

So we will be asking for a contest ID case hearing, which means we're contesting the permit.

We hope that the TCU will recognize the aquifer Alliance and the citizens in that area as affected parties so that we can move forward.

And the outcome is a lot of times with these there's negotiated settlements where we will ask for various improvements to the project.

On this one, we would actually like to see the project denied.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in and explaining this to us.

And Alisha Peace, Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance.

Thank you.

Okay, Thanks.

The number of migrants passing through San Antonio from the border and on the way to the rest of the country, well, that number has dropped in recent days, which is a good thing in terms of how much money the city is getting to run.

What used to be called the Migrant Resource Center, now the Center for the Bienvenidos.

And joining us to talk about that is Dr. Sook Sook, core of the San Antonio City Council.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Absolutely.

Tell us about the numbers that a lot of people heard about last fall that were up to a thousand people a day, 1100 people a day.

They were, you know, 200, 500 sometimes sleeping outside.

That's changed now.

Why So back in there at the end of November, beginning of December, we saw a significant uptick in the number of migrants that were coming in.

And remember this, this is a center where they stay for a couple of days and then move on to their final destination.

But at the beginning of December, the federal government decided to decrease the amount of funding that Catholic Charities is actually receiving in reimbursement to purchase transportation for free.

And it was a big drop, was a big 4 million a month to 500,000 from FEMA.

Yeah, exactly.

And so given that drop in, we think some other factors like the weather, the the holiday season, we've actually seen a drop in the amount of migrants that are coming on a daily basis.

So over the last 30 days, since basically around Christmas, the average has been around 250 that are coming per daily, per day to the center to receive resources.

And the capacity for that building is actually over 700.

So this means that it prevents people from having to sleep outside, especially with all the inclement weather we've been facing.

We were worried that folks were going to not have a place to stay, but we've been under capacity and so we didn't actually have to worry about that as much.

And this is been open about a year and a half.

July 2022, I think it opened.

What's the future for this?

Catholic Charities runs it and they need everything from blankets to all kinds of donations and money.

What's the future for this?

Well, now that the money has dropped, so the federal government still is reimbursing the funding for this.

So it's not coming from the city.

And so it's important for us to have a center for these folks to come in.

You know, they've some of these people have been traveling for three months to get here and have gone through so many hoops and just trying to find a way to get to their final destination.

So when they come here and they get access to a place to sleep, food, new clothing that they can wear and then move on to their final destination, they really appreciate it.

I actually met someone I recently wrote an op ed about this topic, and I met someone on a flight that I was traveling to D.C. and she was sitting next to me and she'd been traveling for three months from Honduras and stopped at the Centro, got her resources.

She was there for less than 24 hours.

She said she was able to get on her flight and make it to her final destination.

And I actually helped her reunite with her brother, who she hadn't seen for years.

And it was.

And so you think about the compassion that goes into the work that's happening and it's really important.

And yes, we've got to make sure they have enough funding to do so.

And we've been advocating and working with our federal government to make sure we're still continuing to get that support, but that this work is is necessary.

And I think we're going to keep supporting them as long as necessary.

And when you say we, it's not the city of San Antonio's money as many people think it is.

Right.

And they come from the border and they they have to have a sponsor or say where they're planning to go.

So they're only here for a couple, three days if that.

Yeah.

So it can be any if they already have a flight that's leaving that day, they can just be stopping through, get what they need and move on.

But it's a short time frame so it's, you know, anywhere from 1 to 3 days is the average time frame for how long they're staying.

If they don't have already a means of transportation, then they're not able to get that immediately.

It could be a little longer.

But for the majority of people at shortstop over now, in the past, people have gone down San Pedro and they have seen a lot of people, sometimes 100 or 200 outside there.

People had been concerned and that neighborhood in that area about crime.

Tell us about where that is now with the numbers down.

And so it's important to remember it's not a jail, right?

Folks aren't required to stay inside.

It's a place for them to get peace and recovery just for a little bit on their way.

So a lot of them do decide to sit outside.

They go to the H-E-B across the street that takes pizza.

They're using resources, but many of them are just spending a little bit of time until they get on to their final destination, like mentioned.

But that doesn't mean that the trash and things like that isn't more than what's normally experienced by both the residents and the businesses around the area.

So we've actually been working with our city departments to make sure that we're helping keep it a safe place for all of those that are using around the area that may not be attending the center.

So public waste is going a solid waste is going out there three times a day to clean up our office, goes to three times to just check on the surrounding area.

And we have CPD doing more frequent just drive bys and just checking to see if everything is okay with their safe office.

And that's a center for legal immigrants.

Those who have been waiting or will be awaiting asylum and to see a judge at some point not yes.

Years down the road.

Exactly.

So they can't even come in without papers at the border.

And so they're given a court date where they say this is when you're up here in front of the judge based on the final city that they're going to, and then they have papers to come into the actual center.

Now to move to a different topic that people might assume is the same because they see people on the street homeless, totally separate deal from the Migrant Resource Center.

Centro de Bienvenidos.

But that is an ongoing problem in San Antonio.

Where are we with that and what, what are you doing?

So many of you may know we actually pass a little barrier shelter to be starting in December, late fall in our last budget cycle that was also being funded by ARPA dollars, so not by city dollars.

That little bit of shelter is online and we actually have 95 people already staying there.

When you call when you call it a low barrier shelter, what does that mean?

It means that you are not required.

There are less regulations for you to go there.

So we've had haven for hope for a long time and a lot of folks have had now.

We do.

Yes.

And it's an amazing resource, but it's not a fit for all.

So what we know is we need housing at all levels of spectrum.

So a low barrier shelter makes it a little bit easier for folks to actually access a space to live and and do so and then can get the all the support they need.

So they get a social worker or a counselor or whatever help they need to be able to get back on their feet.

So it's a lower barrier to entry.

And where is that?

It's in downtown, and so it's a few blocks away from city Hall.

And so we have a capacity of up to 200 people that are going to be there, and that'll come to full capacity over the next month or two.

And that's been a great help.

We also had our point in time count last night.

I was actually out there from nine to midnight last night talking to folks on the street, figuring out what is it that they need.

And every single person we talked to that we were doing this observation data on said there is there's a question on the survey that says what are the three most important things that you need right now?

And given that it was raining and it was cold, folks were like, we just need a place to sleep and then food to eat.

At this point in time, count beans.

Every year we do this point in time for the homeless.

Do we have the numbers back yet?

No, we'll get the numbers in a few months.

And so we had the numbers from last year.

Basically, we don't use it directly as a tracking year of a year because it is an observation tool and things like weather could take an impact on the numbers that we see last year from this year because it's just one day, one night count.

So it happened last night from five to midnight, but we'll get the numbers in a few months to be able to see what is it that the folks on the streets are telling us that they need and how can we be able to get them housing first and the various encampments that are around town?

What's being done to to help those people move off the streets, encourage them to because some people don't want to.

And that so the question on the survey was that I is that number one thing that people need is a place to sleep.

We need more housing options for folks.

And if we can get people into a housing place and they're able to find some stability, get a part time job.

I had a gentleman who had been on the streets at our second to last night for 12 years, and he's now on the priority list for housing.

And he was ecstatic that he's on the short list because he had one.

He once you get two places to say he was committed to being able to find a part time job.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in and explaining all that, Dr. Sook, core San Antonio City Council, thanks.

Thank you so much.

With all the national political news recently coming out of Iowa and then this week, New Hampshire, we may have forgotten that right here in Texas, we have primaries coming up in March.

And that brings up the future of our elections administrator here in Bear County, Jackie Callanan, here to talk about that is Andrea Dresch with the San Antonio Report.

Political reporter.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

You've been covering what's going on with Jackie Callan and the Elections Commission recently.

What's the future for her?

Because in the past, she's been criticized by different groups.

Yeah, Jackie Callanan has had this job since 2005 in the county.

And she said after the 2020 election, that was her last presidential election then.

And then she kind of went quiet for a while.

She did the 2022 22 midterm and her critics started ramping up calls for a meeting of this election's commission, which is tasked with hiring and firing the elections administrator several months ago.

And her critics had been saying that she needed to have more voting locations on Election Day, more voting locations, more voter outreach, the type of things that in Harris County drew the ire of Republicans and eventually they threw out their elections administrator there.

So she was getting and she was getting criticism because last year you wanted more voting locations in Harris County and across the country.

It's generally Republicans who have been hard on elections administrators.

Yes.

And to be clear, Jackie Callanan has some critics on the right, too.

But compared to other major counties like Tarrant County, which got rid of its elections administrator, as soon as they got a conservative new county judge, like mostly they're pushed out on the right, Jackie Callan.

And there's a group of young people who are registering new voters who feel like she's been too hard on the deputy registrars and that we have fewer voter volunteer deputy registrars here than other major counties.

And that 2024 is this major opportunity to engage new voters and that they want somebody else in that role who's going to make more of it.

And this is one of those posts just that right now is getting so much criticism, I believe Gillespie County, Fredericksburg, all the elections.

People have quit now because it's so tough because they were getting such criticism.

But it's a little different here.

What's her future as of right now?

So that role is overseen by the Elections Commission, which had not met since 2005.

The county thinks the records are a little fuzzy, but that is the tax assessor collector, the county judge, the county party chair from the Democrats and the Republicans and the county clerk.

And they convene for the first time since 2005 recently to look at setting a succession plan for Callanan.

They said, she goes, She hasn't made clear what her plans are, but they're going to reconvene in 60 to 90 days.

And that, I think, maybe puts a little control over getting her to do the things that they want them to do.

Judge Peter Sakai called her in right around after Christmas to say, I want us to stay out of court because they've been sued twice over two few voting locations on Election Day and then had to last minute.

Add some more because Callanan is saying, we've got these voting centers, everyone can vote wherever, so let's put our resources toward these the ones that are most used and that has caused a.

So the early voting locations she came up with and gave them a list this week as the deadline for that for the primary.

Yes.

And so commissioners in that meeting on Tuesday, that was the deadline.

They were unhappy that they were just now seeing this list on Tuesday.

She'll have to come back with the Election Day locations, which is where they could get into some legal trouble.

But I think you see a disconnect between how the commissioners court feels about her and the people on the Elections commission feel about her.

That is a group that includes people from the political parties.

And rumor has it that Nelson Wolff never wanted to deal with this issue.

So he never some of them, the third rail or a third rail of politics here.

But so what do you think the the party chairs, are they more friendly to keeping her?

Yeah, they went after she was I guess she didn't even have to be there.

But on a week ago when she was in the meeting with the Elections Commission and they heard critics and supporters on both sides, all of everyone on that commission came up and thanked her and hugged her.

And so I think that those guys might be more skeptical about finding somebody new before the 2024 election that can satisfy both the Republican and Democratic chairs.

And she had in those party chairs and part of the people from both sides was a year or two ago after there was all this concern about the elections in 2016, 2020, a different group of people.

If the elections board, the party chairs are also on that one, but so is the sheriff and some others, and that's who determines who the voting locations are and some other details of how she does her job.

So the commissioners don't actually have final say over what the voting locations are.

They are supposed to be accepting the direction from the election board.

So the 60 to 90 days puts her or she will definitely be in charge of the primaries and they'll reconvene.

Any sense of what might happen given you're she said that she wants to stay on.

She says that that was the comments that she made about not wanting to do it in 2024 were made in frustration because of the things that were going on during COVID and the governor's influence in that election.

And so she loves her job.

She said she's motivated by a passion for it and that we need to keep politics out of the elections.

Speaking of politics, I want to get into at least quickly here, the mayoral race for 2025, 2025 are already talking about that.

And this week, an announcement.

Yes, this week, John Courage announced the councilman from District nine who won a he was reelected to his fourth and final term in what is the most conservative of the city's council districts.

Although he is he's run for office as a Democrat, pretty liberal guy.

He also had Councilwoman Melissa Cavell have her to tell a dream week that she wanted to be the city's first Latina mayor.

You've got two others, councilman, many players in District eight and Councilwoman Adriana Garcia, and who all also are considering this race.

And they sound like many Playas was in here last week and he sound like he's going to announce maybe April.

So he and Courage are down on the council.

They're term limited after this year could be will have it.

And Richard Garcia both have a little more time but there's already people lining up to run for any seat and they're already raising money.

They can raise more money as if there are I guess if they're running for mayor, then they can they can raise $1,000 a donor if they're running for mayor, 500 for council.

But the campaign accounts of this crew, it's pretty their campaign accounts are not very prepared for a mayoral race, which I think is drawing in some interest from the outside.

You Ortiz Jones is expected to make some sort of announcement soon and former Republicans secretary of state role in Rolando Pablo's four.

So it's going to be interesting and they're going to have a lot to report on.

Yeah, but we have raised sooner than that happening.

We have got you know, the primaries in March that are going to be.

Right.

Going to be interesting, especially so Steve Allison.

And yes, this one, Ken Paxton is coming in.

Yeah, that one is like a proxy war for every division that's going on with Republicans in Austin.

You've got Steve Allison spent in that seat since 2018, was elected after Joe Straus retired.

He is largely in alignment with conservatives on most issues, but he was a former school board president of Alamo Heights and has said that he draws the line on school vouchers and he was one of the 21 or 22 Republicans that joined Democrats in shutting down Governor Abbott's school voucher plan.

And now he finds himself targeted for that decision.

Paxton, who he also and Abbott will be here in a week.

Ken Paxton was here last, yeah, last night campaigning for Mark LaHood, the former Republican district attorney candidate.

Yeah.

So keep busy.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

You can catch Andrea Drescher's reporting in the San Antonio Report.

Thanks.

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

You can catch the show again or download any of the podcasts at KLRN.org I'm Randi Beemer, and we'll see you next time on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele.

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