On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and happy New Year.

I'm Randy Beamer.

I want to thank you for joining us for this first edition of On the Record for 2025.

And this year.

Tonight we are going to start with a look at the Edwards Aquifer, where it is and where we wish it would be.

And also what it means for the people of San Antonio that we are at about the second lowest level at the beginning of a year ever in recorded history.

Joining us to talk about that is Paul Bertetti who is the senior director at Aquifer science research and modeling expert for the Edwards Aquifer Authority.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you Renee.

Appreciate it.

What what does this mean?

That we are at the second lowest level to begin a year ever for the Edwards Aquifer.

Well, I guess what it really means is that we are in a consistently, prolonged drought.

Something that we've been in since, early 2022.

And, that looks like that, unfortunately, might continue for the next few months.

So one of the concerns is if we start the year at very low levels, given that we know it's likely to be warm and a lot of water use during the summer, you know, as we go into 2025, people should be aware of that.

Restrictions could be, increased.

Over the next few months.

And where are we right now in terms of restrictions, both in San Antonio and out west, where it's a different part of the aquifer, they have different restrictions.

Yeah.

Out, out West in the Uvalde pool.

They're in stage five, which is the most significant restriction.

That's a 44% reduction.

And they're pumping and they've been that way, for almost a year now.

So since, early last summer, in the San Antonio pool, we're currently in stage four, and that amounts to a 40% reduction for those permitted users.

So entities like SA's need to reduce their permitted use by 40% during the period in which we're at stage four, and people might not realize or even think about where the water comes from and who is really the authority of that.

Now there's the Edwards Aquifer Authority that you are, and then there's the San Antonio water system, the supplier of the water.

And in terms of how those, restrictions come down, you put those on source puts those on.

Well, what we do is, we regulate the people that have permits.

So essentially we, establish, stages based on the water levels or spring flows.

The people who, permits or the entities that permits, need to comply with those.

How they choose to comply is up to them.

So SA's may have a different strategy based on the water sources that they have available in order to comply with the permitting requirements that we have on them.

Now, we have heard a lot about the drought in the past 40 years.

I've been covering this since the 80s, and it's always compared to the drought of the 50s, the drought of record, where it was really bad and the springs went dry for the first time.

Where are we compared to that, that dire scenario.

Right.

And so you mentioned that we are at, we're going to start the year at the second lowest water level.

So it turns out that the worst year of the 1950s drought in 1956, as we ended 1956 and started in 1957, that was the lowest year.

So, we started in 1956, actually higher than the water levels are now.

And the aquifer system now, 1956 was a pretty significant year in terms of low rainfall.

It had very low rainfall across the region.

It's unlikely that we'll have a similar amount of low rainfall, this year.

But, we're starting from a precarious position.

And what do you think is going to happen in terms of a lot of this is agricultural water that is used.

People don't realize that, say, at this time of year, people need some of the ground water.

The farmers need ground water to think about how how much water they'll be needing for the year.

How does this compare right now to where we've been in the past for farmers?

I'm there, you know, out in Uvalde, and Medina County, where a lot of the agriculture is now.

They've been very dry.

And so they're going to have to plan to be able to use, groundwater as they go into the growing season.

Essentially, their typical irrigation season will start in a couple of months and runs through about mid-summer.

But they they'll have to plan on how much they can grow and what they can do based on their expectations for the amount of water that they'll have available.

Like I said, they may only have, 60% or less of the water that they normally would have available for this growing season, which could be impactful for their planning.

Your part of your title is research and modeling, and you look at models compared to the past and what might be, how do you game that out as to what might happen and how soon we could be in stage five, how bad it could be.

Right.

Well, in terms of trying to predict what the aquifer is going to do in the very near term, we just use the the statistics of what's happened in the past.

Try to estimate how the aquifer might respond.

So we know typically what happens, how much water might be used as the year starts.

If we get normal rainfall as we go into 2020 5th October, levels are likely to remain low and we may avoid sort of the stage five if you will, if it stays normal.

If we get more than normal, then October might recover some.

But unfortunately, over the last five years I think, we've had maybe 60 inch deficit in rainfall.

It's almost we're almost two full years short of rainfall for the region.

And so that's a significant amount, to make up.

So we we would need, you know, these big storms to really recover in terms of long term prediction with, I think the end result for authority has led the way in terms of our trying to understand what the future climate might hold.

Do some analyzes to look at how those might affect the aquifer system and what might, transpire.

I think, what we see is it's unlikely that we would have a 1950s drought of record, but it's likely that the droughts, like the one we're currently in currently in, might occur more often.

And so we have to be cognizant that, water levels may be low more often than we're used to.

At least in the last 50 years or so.

And one of the ways that we are aware of this over the past decades is there are certain species of animals up in the, in the springs and come out springs that, they're concerned are only live there that that may go extinct if the water goes dry.

Right.

So essentially people sometimes it's difficult to kind of grasp like, well, the Oxford has a lot of water in it.

It does.

And so there's really enough water for people to use, no matter what.

But what we try to do is manage the system so that we have adequate spring flows to protect those species at the springs.

And so the whole system and, pumping restrictions are geared to maintain the health and quality of life of those species and also the interests of the people of New Braunfels and San Marcos that really depend on those spring flows and downstream flows in the rivers.

So the fish and wildlife issues a permit to be able to pump from the aquifer system based on our ability to, control spring flow.

But it's likely that not likely, but it's a possibility that, we could have an extended drought and the springs might run dry.

So we actually have a refuge year program as part of this habitat conservation plan that has these endangered species in which they're grown, bred cycles so that we have essentially a, a zoo, if you will, above a bank, for those species, in case the worst, conditions, occur.

And is that, something that's also in your, in your models right now?

Are you just I don't know, the models, the biological models account for that kind of activity.

In terms of our understanding of, for system flow and spring flow, that's a little bit separate.

So that's, kind of the physical characteristic we offer.

And we worry more about recharge, precipitation, what's going in versus, what's being used and how much is leaking out of the square through the springs.

So while we're we're worried about the cold right now, we also need to be worried about our water.

Probably.

So all right.

Well, thank you very much.

Paul Bertetti senior director, aquifer science research and Modeling, Edwards Aquifer Authority.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In a few weeks, the City Council is going to vote on a new bike network plan for San Antonio that could triple the number of bike lanes or the mileage of bike lanes in San Antonio, and hopefully make it a lot easier for us to get around on bikes in San Antonio.

Find out all about that with Harley Hubbard, who is here.

She is with the city of San Antonio and is overseeing this bike network plan that's been in the works, I guess, for two years.

Just about at least.

What is how how big is this for those of us who have a bike?

It's big.

I think it's really going to change the landscape of biking in San Antonio.

We've been working on this for just about two years.

The goal of the bike network plan is really to first improve safety for cyclists in San Antonio, and make it safer for people.

All right, already riding their bikes and maybe even change the minds of some people who are on the fence about using their bike for commuting.

And then also for connectivity to make sure that people who use their bikes to get around can get where they want to go.

A lot of people see bike lanes in different areas that have been added as we have widened roads and such, but then you go down another road and you can't get between those areas.

Is that really what we need to do is to weave together the bike lanes that we have.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's why we called it a bike network plan.

We really wanted to make it a cohesive network so people can get around just as easily and safely in their bikes as they could in their vehicles.

We focused on safety first and foremost, because we know that when we design roads to be safe for cyclists, we increase the safety of everyone on the road, including pedestrians and people in their cars or in busses.

All road users are safer when cyclists are safer.

So by prioritizing these safe facilities in areas that we know are highly trafficked, have a lot of destinations that people want to go to, will really make a smoother and safer experience as a. Cyclist, as a cyclist yourself, and hearing from other cyclists.

What are their biggest complaints that you have about what you want changed?

Yeah, I think the network that we have is really reflective of the 2011 bike plan and the best practices that were around at that time.

So the bike plan that we're hoping to adopt in a few days is really just an evolution of that.

In 2011, it was a perfectly fine best practice to just have a painted bike lane on the side of the road, kind of regardless of speed or volume.

And that's just not the case anymore.

We know that it's safer to have more protection and separation for cyclists.

And we've also looked at more connectivity, like I said, to key destinations.

So I think the state of cycling right now is very reflective of our previous plan.

And we're excited to evolve with more safety and get people where they need to go easier.

Which means, instead of those just painted bike lanes, what are we going to be seeing?

So it depends on the roadway.

There's different kinds of bike.

We call them bike facilities.

Depending on the roadway you're on, it can be anything from a shared street.

This might be something that you see in a neighborhood where bikes and cars share the same space, which is appropriate because the speeds are generally low and there's not a lot of vehicles on there's shoulders at a time.

Or when you have, you know, higher speed, higher volume roadways.

That's when we're looking for a greater a degree of separation, which means there needs to be some sort of physical barrier between motorists and cyclists and ideally, additionally a barrier between cyclists and pedestrians as well.

That can be something like a concrete curb.

It can be a plastic delineate or, it could be a small bollard, all sorts of things to keep cyclists, motorist and pedestrian separate and safe.

Now we'll get to the cost of this in a minute.

And when there is more money, there is more.

Sometimes space, sometimes there isn't.

And people who are driving, maybe not cyclists might be more concerned with how they're going to take another lane away from me.

That isn't always going to be the case, as this network plan is expanded and and invested in.

I guess you could say that there is going to be some money to widen some streets as well.

Yeah, I definitely think it's a false dichotomy that in order to put in bike lanes, we need to take away travel lanes.

For motorists.

That's not the case in the majority of situations.

Honestly, looking around our city, even without widening the roadway, there's opportunities for just narrow lanes in some cases, or there's opportunities to instead widen the sidewalk and make it a shared use path for both cyclists and pedestrians, or add a separate path along that way.

So there's tons of options.

It's not always going to be taking away a lane for motorist.

It just depends on on the use of that area.

And in terms of the money, there have been headlines billions that this could cost the city billions of dollars, wouldn't you?

How do you explain that?

Yeah.

So if we were to just.

Technically it could I guess.

Technically technically it could if the city stopped everything they're doing right now and built the entire plan right now, independent of everything else, it would cost billions of dollars.

But that's not how it works.

In actuality, this is not billions of dollars on top of the existing city budget.

City already has budget for roadway reconstruction and maintenance, and a lot of the bike plan will be implemented through that process.

So that budget's already set aside.

There's also bond dollars that can be used, federal grants that can be used.

So it's not like adoption of the bike plan leads to, you know, $3 billion for bike facilities in the city budget.

There's a lot of different buckets that it comes from, and it gets funneled into additional projects so that the cost is, less significant.

What about the timeline, say, the city?

And we expect them to, I guess, the city council to vote on January 30th, to pass this.

What happens then?

Yeah.

So there's a lot of different projects that we can do.

If you look on our website sabikenetwork.com you'll see the map of all of the projects we're proposing for connectivity.

Some of those projects are low hanging fruit.

We call them tier one projects.

They're projects that are highly needed and highly feasible.

This means there are less constraints.

It's going to be easier for us to build.

We have tier one all the way to tier four.

Tier four projects are still very necessary, but might have more constraints that mean we might have to talk to people who own different parts of the roadway.

There might be right of way constraints.

We might have to bare utilities.

Tier four will be most likely things that turn into bond projects or total roadway reconstructions, as opposed to something easier.

Our tier one projects.

We're hoping to get done with construction sooner.

Tier four can be something decades into the future that we start now, and we'll kind of see come to fruition for for decades.

Kind of similar to the Howard Peak Greenway.

It started off small with easy sections, and now we're getting into the more difficult parts as well.

But along with construction, we will start immediately on analyzing the policies recommended in the network plan.

Infrastructure is only a part of the piece.

We also have to kind of develop a culture of safe cycling in San Antonio through outreach and awareness, and then also through a policy arm as well.

The bike plan recommends policies in San Antonio, kind of like right now it's technically illegal to, ride on a sidewalk in San Antonio.

And a lot of cyclists don't know that.

So is that something we should look into repealing?

How should we do that?

What does it look like?

Is that a sweeping policy or is it for specific areas, things like that that we'll be looking into as well.

And this is also one of those, issues that's related to construction.

People are concerned about, say on Broadway.

There were a lot of complaints about how long it's taking to do Broadway, in the different, jurisdictions.

And it would have to do with the Saws and CPS or whatever.

We don't expect that to happen with the bike improvements because it's part of a regular roadway improvement.

Yeah.

We're hoping to avoid some of those construction delays for the bigger projects because they will get folded into regular roadway improvements.

But even the smaller projects will need to be diligent to do a lot of work on the forefront and to make sure that we can be as smooth as possible with our construction and get safe bike facilities out as quickly as we can.

And this isn't just something that you came up with all of a sudden in these two years, you've done a lot of outreach.

You mentioned outreach.

You had a lot of meetings.

What were some of those, important inputs from people in San Antonio that you've got maybe made changes in the plan because.

Yeah, we've made lots of changes to the plan.

We did three different rounds of community outreach.

We had an online survey, we did pop up events in each district.

We had two open houses.

We've had all these community and council meetings.

We've been talking to people constantly for two years.

We've heard a lot that people want to bike more than we thought.

A lot of people who use their cars every day to get around would rather bike.

They just don't currently feel safe to do so.

And that was really a sign for us that we were on the right track.

We also got very specific feedback regarding, our routing on the map and the network saying, hey, I see you guys have it proposed for this street.

Did you know that that one might not actually work because we have only a street parking and on trash days there's like these weird.

Every third Tuesday there's a parade.

And it's difficult just these very, niche stories that are really relevant to that area that we might not have seen.

So we did make tweaks to the map into the policies based on that feedback as well.

So we really tried to listen to everyone we heard from from the last two years and make the best plan, for all ages and abilities of cyclists.

Are you pretty confident that the council will go ahead and vote on a vote for this?

When they vote on this, we're very helpful.

We've received a lot of support from City council so far.

We've already gone to the Transportation Infrastructure City Council committee, and they recommended that we move on to a session for full consideration.

We've also talked to the Planning Commission, and lots of other cities, city commissions, boards, committees, lots of stakeholder groups.

So we're we're hopeful for a positive outcome on January 30th.

Well, thanks very much.

And, good luck with all that.

And you have an e-bike.

So you're you're really committed to.

I'm committed.

I have a pink e-bike.

I love to ride around on it.

I got lights for for Christmas that are like hot pink and go around the wheels.

So, I mentioned that when we were out in the community, I was like, hey, if you see me on the trail and want to talk bikes, if you want to talk network, I'm pretty recognizable, all pink stuff.

So I'm very excited, to ride a little more as this gets implemented.

Well, thank you very much and good luck with that.

Harley Hubbard the Bike Network Plan I we're working with the City of San Antonio voting on January 30th.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

The New Year is bringing new developments in the quest for a couple of stadiums in downtown San Antonio, the missions baseball stadium, and talk of a Spurs arena as well.

A couple of developments in a long ongoing process for both here to tell us all about everything there is to know about both is Michael Karlis, staff writer for the San Antonio Current.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Great to be here.

With the city.

We'll get to this soon after the county commissioners, this week, voted to create, an authority for the baseball stadium.

Just a couple of be kind of confusing developments.

What happened this.

Week?

Yes.

There was a lot of developments yesterday on both the stadium or proposed stadium projects.

So yesterday, county commissioners approved the creation of the San Pedro Creek Authority.

And what that will do is it will oversee the tax, increment reinvestment zone, which is a financing mechanism that will pay for the ballpark.

The baseball.

Yes, yes, the the minor.

The northwest part.

Yeah.

The minor league baseball stadium for the San Antonio Missions.

So now all that really has to happen is council just has to approve the creation of that authority, which I assume they will.

And then the ballpark can pretty much get underway pending on the San Antonio Independent School District approving the sale of the land where the stadium will be built.

The last parcel of land is a parking lot the Cisd owns.

And I guess I thought that was already voted to be okayed, but that was a preliminary vote.

They still have to finalize the okay of that sale, right?

So that vote by the board of trustees for the ISD in December basically approved that they were going to begin negotiations on the land sale.

And a final contract the board of trustees is hoping is hashed out and could be voted on as soon as January 16th.

And now on the other side of downtown, the southeast side of downtown, we're talking about a Spurs arena.

And there was also discussion of that at county commissioners yesterday.

But.

Right.

So just discussion.

Yeah.

So just to recap, city council was briefed on Project Marvel in November.

And that project includes Alamodome renovations, convention center expansion and a new Spurs arena and a few other things.

The San Antonio Spurs have been reportedly pushing Bexar County Commissioners Court to add a question regarding the visitors tax, and that question would be on the mail.

During the May election, that question would ask voters to two questions.

Basically.

First is everyone okay with raising the visitors tax to 2%?

And the second part of that question would be, can we use the revenue generated from that tax pretty much exclusively to help pay for new Spurs arena, which would be at HemisFair?

And that is something that the county commissioners said, hold off on.

Right.

So in order to get that question on the ballot by May, the Spurs and the city would have to present a pretty detailed plan regarding the arena, which no one has seen.

Real pictures of the arena capacity, amenities like it's there still aren't there.

The details aren't there yet, but they would have to provide all of that by the end of next week.

And then if they did that, it would still have to be approved by Texas Comptroller Glenn Hager, and his office would have to prove all the financing stuff and say everything looks good by February 14th.

All of that would have to happen by February 14th for county commissioners to then reconvene and approve the question to be asked by on the May ballot during the May oral.

So that's not going to happen.

Or at least it looks like it's not going to happen.

So after executive session, Sacchi came out and spoke to reporters and basically said, that's not going to happen.

Mainly because there's no details about the arena.

But also he has a lot of concerns about, what's going to happen to the Frost Bank center, which is still a usable facility, and he doesn't want to just abandon a usable arena.

And also, he has a lot of questions about economic development on the East side, which was initially promised when the Frost Bank center was built but never really materialized.

So he would like to see all of those questions answered before commissioners even entertained, asking the voters to more or less approve public funding for the arena.

Do you think there's some confusion out there between the baseball stadium and the Spurs arena?

And people kind of conflate those and say, oh, they're going to be spending money on this when they're not going to be spending it because it is a both both areas would be using tax increment reinvestment money or venue taxes, or at least partially.

So.

I mean, I'm pretty confused.

Randy's what keeps me up at night trying to keep everything straight.

But, the baseball stadium would be funded by the terms.

Tax increment reinvestment zone.

Right.

And that'll come from property tax increases created by the development surrounding the ballpark.

Or at least that's.

And it's not just the ballpark for either of them, really.

It's a lot more than a ballpark.

It's a lot more.

But the terms it's pretty much exclusive to the ballpark, where the financing for the arena and the Alamodome upgrades and all of that still is a big question.

I don't know if you remember the Marvel.

Well, yeah, but remember in November when City Council even said, how are we going to pay for this?

Yes.

And the assistant city manager said, we hope you were going to come up with some ideas for us.

So it could be tours, it could be venue tax or, visitors tax.

I mean, and that's why Commissioners Court is hesitant to ask the voters because there's still not a solid plan on how they're going to pay for all this.

But at least it's it went through this part.

You think the Spurs push for this to at least get people starting to talk about it and starting to understand what they need, what they want?

Yeah, I mean, the Spurs are being very aggressive about this new, arena.

As to why I don't think anyone knows for sure.

Wembley.

Could be Wembley.

Could be, I don't know, maybe they want to hold the all star game.

Like I don't know what the push is, but, the as soon as they could even break this lease is by 2028.

And even then they would still have to pay a hundred million because, the lease doesn't end until 2032.

So they're being very aggressive.

It'll definitely be a story worth keeping an eye on.

And kind of figuring out which strand of which story is affecting the others, keeping you up late at night.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Michael Karlis, staff writer and, know it all.

Everything about sports in San Antonio.

Thanks.

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 it as a podcast.

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

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