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 Beemer 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 Beemer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for on the record, I'm Randy Beemer.

And this week, in the middle of a Spurs title run, we are going to be talking about maybe a little Spurs, but the city budget with the San Antonio mayor who was just on ESPN.

So thank you for coming in to our.

Little hey, no problem.

Local show.

First of all, we were talking budget in San Antonio.

Water system wants a rate increase.

Where are you right now on that?

Yeah.

So I think it's important to note saw as many some of the infrastructure that we've got there is is way past its lifetime.

You've got a wastewater treatment facility that was built in 1965.

We've got some pipes that are over 100 years old.

Some of these things, frankly, should have been done much, much sooner.

The challenge, as you know, in life, is that when you kick it down the road, there's a risk that it becomes more expensive.

And we just happen to be living in that time where one of these things are past their life.

It is also expensive to maintain, but we owe it to the people of San Antonio and those that we serve to make sure they've got safe drinking water, and they've got infrastructure to keep that water flowing.

And so this rate increase that they have requested, I support, it does a couple of things.

One, again, it minimizes the risk of these things failing.

The challenge with some of this infrastructure not only is it's age, but if it's not meeting code, you also then potentially invite major penalties from your overseers, some to the tune of $100,000 a day, right?

Do you think it will get the what saws wanted or less, or where?

Where is the company?

So we're having that some don't want to give you know, or to allocate that much money.

Well I mean okay, I mean I don't want to eat my vegetables every day, but I still do what I need to do, right?

Because it's the right thing to do.

And so this is what we're talking about at the high end of this.

We're talking about over four years 26, 27, 28 and 29, about a $4.70 increase.

The first two years are set.

It's the last two years where we've got kind of a range that we're looking at, in part because we're trying to see we will see how well some of the investments that we've made in inefficiencies prove out.

Right.

But we know it will be no more than about four 6470 even in those last two years.

Okay.

So the budget in the right, in my mind, does two things.

It addresses the infrastructure that needs to be addressed.

Some of these things are more expensive to maintain as is than they are to just go ahead and replace.

Right.

So it's actually the more efficient, cost efficient.

And we get a better product for our for our community.

And again, what it does also is help us avoid some of these costly fines.

Let me also just say, though, a big topic in our community, as you well know, are leaks.

And so there's one thing to talk about leaks.

Talking about leaks does not fix them.

You know, what does investing in the infrastructure to do that.

And so when you look at just there's about 65 ish critical miles of water mains that we need to replace.

When you look at that, they are disproportionately 70% of that are in just five districts.

District one, district ten, district ten, district two, three and four.

Right.

So these we have to address the infrastructure.

Let me just say this.

Yesterday I met with a group of public admin students at UT San Antonio, and one of them is from corpus.

And she said she's like, I've got a silly question for you.

And she said, you know, given what's happening with our water.

Are you ready for us to come up here?

And I thought it was a really important example of I said, you know, that what's happening in corpus is not a water issue.

It's actually a leadership issue.

Many, many years ago, those leaders failed to do what they needed to do, and they kick the can down the road, and now they're dealing with the consequences of it.

We have the opportunity as the city council to make sure we've got the data.

There's been no pushback on the capital projects that need to be done and the timing of those by city staff.

So we need to make these investments.

Budget and possible property tax rate increase.

What's going to happen there?

So this is where we are.

We are in a $131 million budget gap going into FY 28.

Okay.

As you know, with almost two thirds of our budget being tied up with public safety police officers and firefighters, there's not just a whole lot of give elsewhere to be able to make up for such a large gap.

$131 million our city policy financial policy is that we budget across two years.

So you get a budget in 27 and 28.

My concern, though as well, with that budget, we also take a five year outlook and our five year deficit has grown 17% in one year.

So when we did this exercise last year, if we didn't help ourselves, our budget deficit would be 224 by 2030.

Now, when we look five years out, that budget deficit grows to 264 million by 2031.

So 17%.

I say all that because when you're only trying to balance in the near term, you're only talking about cuts because you don't have enough time to do anything else.

If you wanted to help yourself in the out years and say, hey, we're also going to now have a financial policy that limits deficit growth out your deficit growth by 10%, for example.

Then you're actually being more creative about additional revenue, which I think we need to do.

So we haven't increased the property tax in our community in 30 years.

Some could argue we can tell, but we really have to be thoughtful about the consequences of not doing that, which is why.

And I'll let you speak, Randy.

But but I think this is a very complex issue.

I mean, it's not like a ten second sound bite stuff, because the things that we're looking at to really make sure we have kept that number as down to as minimal a number as possible, which is why, and I see it in front of you.

I'm going after the money that we're owed.

We should be.

Doing to Peter Holt, wanting the the money from Spurs Sports and Entertainment, that.

That was just one example as well.

There's other some some other.

Times about the.

Private entities.

About the soccer.

Not not about the Spurs.

Right, right, right.

Do you think have you gotten a reaction to that?

My checked in with the city manager.

I sent that letter because I really wanted Mr.

Holt to be very clear about where I was on it.

And I think, you know, the money that's owed is.

And frankly, adhering to that an original contract is just in the spirit of mutual respect between the Spurs owners and the people of San Antonio that have that have paid.

And so I have not heard and I my understanding definitively, the city manager's engaging with those folks, and we anticipate an update before the 18th, I think is.

What he said.

Will there be a bond issue for the Spurs arena?

Is that what you want?

There has always been discussion about the infrastructure needed to support downtown arena related activities.

That's always been on the table.

What has the range has always been 220 million to 250 million.

We don't have a finalized number there.

You're also seeing as people are reading things that are that are coming off of that, right?

As those plans are changing, what I think is what I think you might be alluding to, though, is a letter that I sent to Michael Dell, which is, yes, the city is on the hook for $489 million.

I had a conversation with with Michael Dell, and following that.

One of the Spurs.

Owners, a minority Spurs owner.

Yes.

Thank you.

And following that, I followed up with a letter and and said, you know, look, the mayor of the third poorest major city in the country asked the seventh richest person on this planet, right, seven who worth $220 billion.

Yes.

I asked him, would you be interested in paying a part of, if not the entire $489 million that the city is on the hook for?

You're damn right I did that.

Right.

And actually.

To close mouth don't.

Get fed.

That's right.

You know, you have a reaction to that yet?

So I have not received a response but and we followed up.

But you know what?

I did my part because you know what?

People come to public comment and I get emails and I get stopped at H-e-b and hey, why can't billionaires pay for their own thing?

So I asked a billionaire to help pay for their own thing.

And after going to the game, no change on that.

And what do you think?

Also Spurs Spurs in how many games or Knicks.

And I. Just want him to win.

I don't want to jinx anything.

I just don't want them to win.

We're so proud of how hard they have played and considering how young they are.

And I was proud to tell that little ESPN team that they got.

They got a plan to be in San Antonio quite often because the team is is really, really good.

And we're we're excited about what's what's what's to come.

Well, thank you very much for your time, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, appreciate your time.

Thanks, Randy.

And Councilman Mark white, district ten, joins us now to talk about a number of things with the city, what they're doing right now, including a taxpayer impact statement that just passed that he had championed.

What is.

Thanks for coming in, by the way.

And what is this taxpayer impact statement?

Why do you think it's so important?

Yeah.

So we put forth this initiative last year.

We get questions all the time from from residents saying, hey, there's a new charge here.

Why are my rates going up there?

And that's not right.

Right.

It's about transparency.

And so we put forth an idea to where every year the city will have to publish on the city's website, in the newspaper what's called a taxpayer impact statement, where all the new fees and any rate increases, CPS soars the property tax rate, which of course is a hot issue right now.

The citizens will get to see if that's changing from one year to the next.

Up or down for different things.

Up or down.

Different departments getting more money or less, or how that works.

It won't go into all the different departments.

But again, if the citizens are being charged more by sors, by CPS, if we're raising the property tax rate, if we're raising this fee or that fee, the citizens will get to see it in an easy one page format.

Again, it's all about transparency.

And you talk about different boards, different parts, departments of the city.

Another thing you brought up, the speaking of departments and breakdowns is you want sunset style review for the different boards and commission.

Now they already do some kind of review.

You just want to definite on a cycle and on schedule.

Yeah, we have 90 or 100 plus boards or commissions with the city.

Some of them meet regularly, but a lot of them don't.

All of these boards and commissions require staff time, city resources, whether they're meeting regularly or not, waste a taxpayer money.

So what we need to do is have a regular process where we review the boards and commissions.

If they're not meeting regularly, if they're not producing results, let's do away with them.

Let's save city resources for the ones that are working great.

But look, the time is over for business as usual.

Just pouring money into all these different organizations, boards, commissions, etc.

where we're seeing no results.

So we need to have a definite process where things that aren't producing for the city we can do away with.

What are some of the boards and commissions you think aren't well?

Well, there's a lot there's there's boards and commissions in the area of transportation that aren't doing anything.

We have different boards that focus on small segments of society, different groups, some of the economic development, ones that we have economic development very, very important.

But some of the groups that are there to do that, again, aren't meeting regularly.

We're not seeing any results.

So let's take a full view, let council review everything that's been going on with these boards and commissions.

And if they're not producing, if they're not meeting, let's do away with them.

I know you want to go before the council.

What kind of support you think you'll get?

I think right now we're going to get support to do this.

I mean, look, times are tough in terms of the budget, which we may get into.

And so we cannot afford to be wasting city resources on boards and commissions that aren't producing anything.

And so I would hope that my colleagues would join me in this effort.

I was pleased that a number of them join me on that.

CCR so we're on the way.

Another thing I want to get to before we get to the budget is something else you want to take up with the council is a flood plain tree planting program that should help with some of the flooding that we've had and the devastation that we've had.

Yeah, we've seen that over the past year.

All too many times.

We're coming up on the one year anniversary, of course, of that terrible flooding incident right there on the border of districts ten and two.

But yeah, this is just a small effort to say, let's, let's plant some trees in some of these areas, help with the flooding.

Everybody likes more trees.

And so small effort to see if we can make a little bit of a. And that would be paid for by the flood or I'm sorry, the tree mitigation.

Fund fund that developers have to pay.

Basically there's some money in there.

Yeah.

All right.

To the budget and possible property tax rate changes.

Where are you in in this as the city prepares or city staff prepares to give you their proposed budget?

That's right.

We're going to get the trial budget next week.

And as everybody knows, we're in a budget crisis here in San Antonio.

We've got a deficit.

So cuts are coming.

Some of my colleagues say, well, we want to keep spending all of this money, so let's raise the property tax rate.

I am adamantly against that.

That is a nonstarter for me.

We don't need to be asking people to pay more.

What we need to do is actually start living within our means.

We do not have a revenue problem here in the city.

It's a spending problem.

Let's cut out the waste.

Let's cut out the duplication.

And we're also going to have to cut out some of the nice to haves, right?

Our city government right now is too bloated.

We cannot be everything to all people, right?

We've got to right size the government.

We're going to see it next week.

It's going to be a difficult conversation, but the time is now to do it.

A bond program that's also being talked about where do you where are you on that.

Yeah.

So that's again going to come down to property tax increase as well.

So there's two sides of the property tax number.

You know the and M side.

And that's where we're dealing with.

Do we raise that to have more money to spend in our general fund.

But on the debt side right.

The city staff has told us the bond right now is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 625 million, if council wants to do a $1.2 billion bond like we've done in the past, we would have to raise the property tax rate there.

On the debt side, again, I don't think we need to be doing that.

Let's not take more money out of people's pockets.

Let's work with that $625 million and spend it again on what's important.

That's core city services.

It's our infrastructure needs.

It's our flood mitigation efforts around the city.

That's where the people want to see the money going.

People don't know where the bulk of the council stands on these kind of things.

In terms of vote counting, where do you think the council lands on increasing the property tax rate?

At least right now.

If they had to vote.

It's going to be real interesting.

From what I've heard so far, it seems to me that it looks like more council members than not are in favor of raising the property tax rate.

The mayor has been you know, she's she's been a little bit in the middle on it, not quite sure where she stands, but but that'll be interesting.

But again, it's something where we're going to see what the trial budget is next week.

And then council is going to have to say, okay, well if we really want all these extra programs here, here and here, we're going to have to raise the rate.

I'll of course be fighting against that.

It's time to live within our means.

We got to cut out these.

Nice to have.

Like I keep saying, there's all these programs out there and these organizations that do great work, right?

But we can't do everything.

So the time is now to make those changes.

Some of those specifics of those, what are you what do you want to see cut from the budget.

Well, sure.

So first of all we got to cut out.

You start with cutting out the waste and duplication.

And there was a news story not too long ago about the over $100,000 for art classes or something in the parks were absolutely zero people attended.

Right?

So it's finding the waste, getting that out of the way first.

Then in terms of the nice to have, you know, there's many nonprofit organizations here in the city that, again, do great work providing for homeless services and all sorts of other things.

Again, can we really afford to be spending 24, $25 million in some of these areas when we are short police officers, when we have 22% of the roads in this city that have been graded to be in poor and failing condition when we have flooding, that's taking the lives of our citizens, we've got to get back to the basics.

It's about public safety.

It's about infrastructure.

Speaking of infrastructure soars and the rate increase going before the council, it was a difference you're looking at, I guess less than what Saws wanted.

Tell us where that stands right now.

The Saws wants about a 32 to 33% increase in rates over a four year time period.

That equates to about $220 a year for the average ratepayer.

Right?

That's a week's worth of food for groceries.

For a lot of families, that's a lot of money.

I do not believe as we sit here today and the votes next week that Saws has shown us that, number one, they've been using our money in appropriate fashion up to now, and two, that they have a clear plan on how to use the additional revenue if the rate hike goes forward.

A lot of folks don't know we have a billions with a B gallons of water being lost every year in San Antonio due to broken pipes.

Well there is we need that money to fix those.

Why haven't those pipes been fixed up to now?

Right?

Why are we at a stage where some of our water systems are in such bad shape?

They're so old that we have this crisis now, and they say that they need the money right now, you know?

And cost of living is so high for people right now.

Frankly, it's not a good time if it is ever to be asking people to pay more.

So again, do I think we need to invest in our utilities, CPS, energy and saws?

Yes I do.

The question is where is that money going to come from?

Is now the right time and how much additional money should we reasonably and responsibly ask the ratepayers to pay?

That's what we need to flesh out over the next week.

The votes going to be interesting.

And aside from that, one final question.

Spurs in the Knicks in how many?

Yes, Spurs are going to win this series in seven.

We have the better team.

We've got the best player on the planet.

Let's go get it done.

All right.

Thanks very much.

Councilman Mark white, district ten.

Appreciate your time.

Thanks.

On Reporters roundtable this week, a story that kind of flew under the radar for a lot of the media, a national story.

But here in San Antonio, Nancy Prayer Johnson, who's a senior projects reporter for the Express News, I wrote about this.

I was frankly amazed or stunned at what happened to people.

Just what this story is about, about medical research.

Yeah, it caught.

Me by surprise to.

And I do feel like in a lot of ways, although it was it was covered in The New York Times, in the Washington Post, that I didn't see a lot of talk about it.

So I appreciate the opportunity.

So over the weekend, there was a huge conference in New Orleans for the American Diabetes Association.

There's about 12,000 physicians from all over the country and beyond globally, come together every year for their annual conference.

While they're at that conference, their own in-house, the American Diabetes Association in-house publication, some of the editors from there started distributing an editorial that had already been published.

So they.

Started in their own journal.

Yes, in their own journals.

So they start distributing this publication.

It was just the editorial.

So they started distributing it and then it was confiscated.

So basically they started picking up the editorials.

They had some officers, like security officers, remove five researchers from the conference, and they didn't allow them to go back.

And the editorial was all about they were angry about cuts in funding for research, which doesn't seem to be surprising.

It's not surprising.

You know, I think by now, you know, everybody's kind of heard about those cuts.

And diabetes research is a huge deal for San Antonio.

So it did catch my attention when I first started seeing some of the coverage.

And then it really caught my attention when I started seeing a local doctor talk about it.

And it was controversial, I guess, because they were distributing this outside when a speaker from the NIH was speaking and they thought, I guess that was disrespectful and political when they shouldn't have been, is that.

Well, what the what they say the, the Ada what they say is that they broke a, some kind of policy, that they have some kind of rules to stay nonpartizan.

And they saw distributing that editorial as Partizan.

And the reason they thought that is because the editorial talks about the cuts to funding and expressly names President Trump and the administration, and to spells out in there these cuts that have happened and how they affect patients right throughout the country.

And so they were threatening to basically kick these people out or arrest them, or they thought they were.

Well, no, not arrest.

They just, you know, they took the they actually took the papers up.

The video that they show is quite something to watch.

So they take the papers up and then they take they remove those people.

There was it was kind of physical.

It was a little bit physical.

They actually removed them.

And then there was just, you know, some different doctors were putting videos out.

There's a change, this petition online that thousands of people have signed, and there is an uprising on social media a little bit.

And here in San Antonio is when you got into the story.

There's a doctor here, very upset doctors.

A lot of people have said.

A lot of people are upset.

But the doctor that I saw really write about it explicitly right about this is doctor Lee Rogers.

He is now he did not attach his title.

He did not say, I am a UT health doctor.

He didn't he didn't put all that on there because he was talking personally as a personal like an expert that he is.

He has very important positions.

He does very important work in San Antonio.

I'm sure you're aware that in San Antonio diabetes, it's not just an abstract idea.

I mean, over 15% of people who live in the San Antonio area have been diagnosed with type two diabetes.

And I'm, you know, they believe that a lot more people have it and haven't been diagnosed.

Cuts to research in that directly affects us, directly affects those researchers and doctors.

And he wrote this letter to.

He wrote he wrote it to the Ada.

He was he wanted an apology and for removing them.

And he at the time he was asking because he wrote it right away.

At the time, he was asking for those researchers, those doctors, to be let back into the conference.

And then he wants he wants their you know, he wants their guarantee that people, doctors, researchers can use their First Amendment right to speak out about any issues that they see the need to speak out on when it is backed up by evidence and professional discourse.

And now this really, I guess I want to say the tip of the iceberg, but it's going to spur more reporting on this.

Yes, yes.

What do you think you're getting into next?

Just about the cuts in San Antonio or potential cuts here and the effects on the diabetes research?

Absolutely.

I'm really interested in what this means to people who live in San Antonio and the area in our state, you know, how is this going to affect them as far as the funding cuts?

And I think that that that is one thing, that the story kind of shines a light on.

It shows that doctors care so much about this, that they want to speak out, that they're writing this.

They did back it up with evidence.

You know, it did have some information and some proof of what they were saying.

It did not have opinion in it.

You know, I mean, I've been an opinion writer before.

I know how that goes.

It was not laced with opinion.

These were facts that they were sharing.

And and it shines a light on what is happening in the administration and how it affects health care.

And also, I guess internally within the American Diabetes Association, if somebody said, okay, well, this is something we should publish in a journal, but then somebody else said we shouldn't distribute this at a conference.

I mean, it was already published, it was already online.

And then they decided to someone, I don't know exactly who decided to print it out and distribute it there, but it just I guess they just didn't want that attention.

And maybe they felt also that it was a distraction from the conference.

You know, I mean, they've been talking about every issue, if you think about it.

I mean, it's such a large conference, right?

They're talking about diabetes there.

I read an article the other day about what they talked about dealing with and the DLP one drugs, they're how they affect diabetics and overall health and weight loss.

All of that is about research.

It's all about research.

And it also shows how doctors like Lee Rogers here don't want to attach their professional affiliation, because they don't want it to reflect badly and threaten funding of a UT San Antonio.

It is a really stressful time for for all doctors and for all people who work with publicly funded, you know, entities because they feel that if they speak out about what is happening, even if they think it is wrong and it's going to affect people, right, their patients, their citizens, their, you know, there are people, their constituents, whoever it is, that there's going to be backlash.

And I think that this story, what happened there at that conference shows that.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in.

Nancy Prayer Johnson, senior projects reporter from the Express News.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Many members of our community were disturbed, disappointed and concerned by what occurred.

I have heard your voices.

I understand your concerns.

And I know that trust, once shaken, must be earned back through actions and not just words.

When events occur that create division or cause members of our community to feel unheard or unwelcome, we must acknowledge that openly.

To ensure transparency and accountability.

The Ada will commission a thorough, independent review of the events that occurred, as well as the policies, procedures and decision making process that guided our actions.

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

You can watch this show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

Download it as a podcast at at KLRN.org Randy Beamer.

And I'll see you next time.

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