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 this week.

I'm Randy Beemer, and we're starting with a look at the East Side, some of the developments there, some of the challenges and what is going on here to talk about it.

Is James Norte, the CEO of Sage or San Antonio for growth on the east side?

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having me, Randy.

It's great to be back.

Sure.

We had recently an event that you were at.

It was the state of the East Side.

That's right, that's right.

Tell us about how you see the state of the East Side right now.

One of the big headlines, of course, is that the Spurs are going to be moving eventually in the next few years.

Back to downtown.

What's the headline from that state of the.

East Side?

That's a great question.

And all starts with our mission at Sage.

We exist to promote the economic development and coach vitality of our beautiful Eastside community.

And the way we do that, as we support small businesses, we preserve our culture and heritage, and then we promote community development without displacement.

And so oftentimes when people visit the east side, they sometimes get caught up in misunderstandings or perceptions.

And we start with our assets, all the beautiful things we have, including our arts and culture.

So in May, we had our annual state of the event.

Every year we bring together businesses, artists, politicians, leaders of the community to understand what is going on in our community.

And we know that for over 100 years, institutions like the Carver Community Cultural Center or like Saint Philip's College or for over 70 years the rodeo have contributed to a culture that is not just built our identity but is built are.

And that was the story we wanted to forecast.

And what about going forward now?

Where are you in the Spurs and the city you're talking about downtown, or what's going to be there and the arena and the growth there, the county and the saxophone rodeo.

We had Cody Davenport, in talking about there's a misunderstanding about what's going to happen there, and there's a little bit of tension.

A little bit.

But look, we acknowledge all the wonderful things that are happening, including the Spurs with a historic playoff run.

There are ahead of schedule.

And so acknowledging this, we saw the excitement.

So many bars and restaurants, not just all of our state.

Antonio's Pacific on the east side filled up with this with this excitement.

And so that said, the Spurs there at least ends in 2032.

They're moving downtown.

And as a result, there's a question about what's going to happen to their current site, the the Frost Bank arena.

And so last fall, the voters of Bexar County supported proposition A and proposition B, proposition A allowed the county to raise a venue tax increase that would help support what could be year round rodeo.

And certainly I believe that's what our good friend Cody Davenport would like to see us, what the community want to see at the same time before the conversation, even before prop eight pass last year, the East Side have long called for more development.

More restaurants, more hotels, more greenspace, more things to do.

And so the Coliseum and board through the county.

They they were over at the Freeman Coliseum.

They had put out an RFQ saying, hey, how can we masterplan this area?

At the time, there was no guarantee that either prop air property will pass.

And so as a good safety measure, we were able to get a response from a group hunt Lincoln, and they put together a beautiful possibility of what could happen here.

But nothing's guaranteed.

Nothing's been executed in my eyes since I've talked to both the developer team and the rodeo.

All good people.

People are working in good faith.

There is a way to integrate these plans so it can be win win.

Yeah.

Cody said that he didn't think the the design has come up with by that group, that he was kind of thought he was blindsided by, really would allow them to grow as a year round stock show and rodeo district that it was totally different from what they understood it was going to be.

And I can understand that those designs were built before prop eight passed, and at the time, I know the development team has always envisioned the road to being the crown jewel.

Nothing works here without the rodeo as a centerpiece, and so to me, it could be pretty easy to just redo some of those designs to then allow the radio to have the space they need to operate their operations while still welcoming development, preserving green space as a win win.

Just a matter.

What kind of development do you see?

Do you think most people on the East side want to see around there?

Because when the Spurs moved out there, we thought, okay, there's going to be bars and restaurants.

Well, now we're talking a hotel.

We're talking something that could happen with Willow Springs Golf Course across the way.

What do you want to see develop out there?

Well, not about what I want to support the residents here on the east side.

So fortunately, Commissioner Calvert is wisdom hosted two community sessions recently, and he had hundreds of people give their voice.

And they want is not just a place where you can live homes or work jobs, but a third space somewhere.

We can take our kids to a park, like green space or for a creation, we're seeing the need for more indoor and outdoor sports.

We're seeing a need for how do we develop our youth?

Because there's a sometimes this fear that there's nothing to do.

We have a need for arts and culture, where people can learn not just to celebrate their talents, but to learn and turn those talents into jobs and creating income for our community.

All of those amenities are available with the Lincoln Plan.

At the same time, we see the rodeo as making that next step where they're not only just having a show, where they're teaching kids how agriculture can help us prepare food, they're teaching how they can care for our livestock.

And most importantly, the next step is how do we care for environment?

These are a win win opportunities here.

Do you think there can be a stock show in Rodeo District year round that brings in people from around the state, around the country for specifically stocks on rodeo, and those other things will go on around it.

Absolutely.

We've seen Fort Worth do it with the yards.

And to be quite respectful, San Antonio is a lot bigger than Fort Worth.

Anything they can do, we know we can do better.

What about the the other concern that was raised on the East side a few months ago, after Ice bought that warehouse and planned to use it as a detention center.

What is the latest on that?

To be candid, the reality is any time the federal government makes a move like this, they have, through separation of powers, the authority to move forward.

That said, several community members, including the staff here at Sage, are concerned about the economic impact of the community.

We know San Antonio prides itself on tourism and being a welcoming force.

The fear is when you have institutions of incarceration in the middle of a community particularly close to a school, it tends to depress wages.

It makes it less desirable.

So to the extent if there's an effort to still make sure that whatever development is planned to be retrofitted or reconsidered, to keep our community welcoming for all, that would be our preference.

And is.

Have you heard anything recently about about the progress of that?

At this point, there's been no updates to my attention.

All right.

Also, there was velocity.

Texas is something that a lot of people haven't heard about or you may have heard about from a while back, but what's the latest on that?

So velocity, Texas, for those who may not know, is an incredible nonprofit on the East side on Houston Street.

They are a bio tech space designed to bring the best of military and medical research together.

We know San Antonio is Military City, USA.

We also know that we have a growing health care industry, so they're at the cutting edge, bringing together companies from the startup phase to the more mature companies together on a single campus, because we know that when you bring good companies together, you create a whole that's part in the sum of its parts.

So as a result, we're seeing new jobs come online.

That's the business standpoint.

But they also have a community mission.

They're bringing in kids from all over San Antonio to come and learn about the biotech space, learning about how they can see a career where they themselves can become scientists.

This will in turn create a need for more housing needs, more coffee shops, more restaurants to cater to these new jobs.

And so this is another example of how the East side is growing, because it's more than just the sun that rises in the east, and the people.

And people might not real.

Okay, where is that in my head?

Velocity Texas say from tall square.

So it's on.

So Saint Paul Square is on commerce.

Velocity is on Houston streets at 1305 Houston.

It is about two blocks away from 281.

And where is that in the growth and development in the long term plan what's going to happen around?

And so we have partnered with velocity in another nonprofit list, local district corporation.

And so there's two missions happening here one velocities acquiring adjacent land to prepare for potentially an affordable housing complex, as well as thinking through future campuses as they grow and expand simultaneously.

Some of the infrastructure around the East side is pretty old.

We have drainage issues, sidewalks that don't quite connect and rows that are in need of repair.

And so as the city in the community think through a potential bond next year, one of the things we've done is how do we serve the community we live in?

How do we make sure residents and small businesses have adequate shading, lighting protection?

And so what's coming up next is we've had a series of conversations over with the community business leaders about what needs are met.

So many times when there's a concert at the Alamodome, residents who are living next door can't always get out of their own driveways because of cars blocking them.

We need to rethink how can we re-envision these streets and do a better job making sure the residents who live here can enjoy it, but also visitors can as well?

You think that will be part of the bond?

So that's our hope.

We can never make any guarantees.

The committee has to look at the needs, but we certainly think there is coming to the East side.

And then from a history standpoint, there's certainly been a long history of underserved unmet needs.

So we think it makes perfect sense.

We're trying to build consensus now to get ahead of that and then hopefully push to have that part of the bond.

Well, it's fascinating to see all the growth, the development, all the different challenges that you're working on very hard.

Thank you very much for coming in.

James Norte, CEO of sage.

Thanks.

Happy to be here.

Thank you.

Randy.

After revelations earlier this year about the life of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, so many things have changed and are still changing, changing the name of a street here in San Antonio, different foundations and March was canceled here to talk about some of what is changing, not just here in San Antonio, but across the country.

As Ernest J. Martinez, who was the chairman of the Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation here, which is now in unity, say, thank you very much for coming in.

Now, your dad helped found a number of these things here in San Antonio.

Jaime Martinez, a labor leader himself, worked with New Cesar Chavez.

When you heard of this, all of these revelations, what did you think would happen and need to happen?

Well, first, first and foremost, doing the right thing, acknowledging the victims.

They came forward that was important, not defending anything that shouldn't be defended.

Right.

So that was the first thing.

And making sure that that that's acknowledged.

And I think all of us across the country that are part of the communities all across the United States that have been part of a movement were discouraged, obviously, but really thinking about moving forward, how do we transition?

What's next?

But we have to be reminded that what brought us, what has brought us together over the decades through generation to generation, is not losing sight of what's most important, and that is being of service to others.

That is what has brought people together on the many issues that really are impacting communities today.

And so it's always been that that focal point, right, being of service to others.

So yeah, it was it was it difficult absolutely challenging.

I can't I can't even put it in the word.

That's how difficult it was.

But I'm reminded of what my father used to say.

My father would, would often remind me that the mission is above any one individual.

Focus on what's most important, and that's being of service to others.

And the movement, really.

It started as your Pin shows there, the farm workers union, the brand then kind of became Cesar Chavez focused, but it was much more than a farm workers movement, especially across the country and here in San Antonio.

What did it?

What did it encompass?

Well, when you look at the Aguilar button or the symbol, it's an iconic symbol for social justice, in my opinion, the most recognizable symbol for social justice.

It's not an individual.

It's an it's an eagle.

Right.

And so what emerged out of this movement many decades ago and persisted over and continues to this day, are the issues that we connect with housing, immigration, education, voting rights at year, at the march, those those signs and those T-shirts and those banners.

That's what you saw emerge every year.

And that has been the inspiration for all of us that connect to community.

And that's really kept everyone together who are maybe from disparate groups.

Do you worry about that continuing as you focus now on what you call in unity essay and others across the country, because you're involved in the national group as well?

Well, in unity essay, it's a word about in UTSA.

My father used to sign off every letter within unity.

Jaime p martinez.

Right.

So in unison really speaks to us coming together for one common purpose, one common goal.

And when you think about the very reason why this movement was inspired, it was inspired to lift up and raise the issues of the farm workers.

And it doesn't matter what socioeconomic background you come from, whether you live in seven, eight, 207, which is the very impoverished zip code in our city, to 78209, we're all beneficiaries of farm workers.

We're all beneficiaries of farm workers.

So I think there's a common denominator there.

In farm workers were fed by farm workers.

Food insecurity is a major issue in our city.

So that's one of the pillars of unity is is fighting food insecurity as an example of the mission in the.

Work, what are some of the changes you had to make immediately?

You had to figure out what to do with the March cities, figuring out the name.

But there are other things you needed to do.

Well, there was three things that we did successfully for 30 years.

Yes, the Thanksgiving in the body, which we're going into our 17th annual, we provided for 1000 families last year.

We're going to continue that education, education in the informal sense by making sure young people understood their history, but also two, through scholarships, we awarded 62 laptops to students.

They didn't we didn't do the scholarship because they had not declared their school year.

It was too early.

So we the scholarships, there's a digital divide, right?

So we got to that education.

But the third piece now I would say it is a moving part right now is the march.

So what's different is the march obviously is is we're getting a lot of positive feedback.

People are texting in Columbus earnest.

This needs to continue.

So those are the three things that I would say added as we evolve as an organization.

I will be serving as chairman emeritus effective June 30th.

So we have new leadership emerging in the organization.

But I will tell you that the march is that one event that brought us together that will look different.

But the spirit of that event is not going to change.

And you're still figuring out where or when it's going to be, because it was in March around his birthday.

Right?

And so when do you think it will be?

Well, there's discussion around around that right now as we speak there.

We want to get more feedback from the community.

But right now we are thinking there's Farmworker Day, right?

There's also Hispanic Heritage Month, so there's opportunities there.

We just want to make sure that we sync up with the community.

Because K through 12 colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations all participate.

There's a there's an infusion of young people in this event.

So we want to make sure that we're inclusive of that demographic so that we continue this march and continue to grow it.

Do you want to worry that there will be some splintering of the organization as it evolves?

I mean, it was an umbrella, a brand, if you will, as the Season Chavez Legacy Foundation.

And as you mentioned, it brought people together.

Well, some of those people are involved in different.

They have their own focus.

You were there will be a little bit of power struggle there.

Very, very good question.

But I will tell you, a nonprofit leader approached me, said earnest.

You know, something about the march is that it is a collective of different organizations from different spectrums, from all parts of San Antonio.

It's no longer my father.

We started this March.

Yeah, it was a West Side event, West Side March, but then it evolved into a citywide celebration.

But the one thing that she said to me was earnest, something about this March, there are people in this march that typically are in the same won't be in the same room together, but in this March, they're united and that's that.

Really.

You want to keep that.

Going, keep that unity theme.

Right?

In unity, say, is the name that we have created.

Now that's in San Antonio.

You're involved nationally as well.

How how are how is that organization changing?

For full disclosure, I don't speak for the family.

Right.

But I do serve on the foundation in California as a as a board member.

So that is a separate entity on itself.

Now, locally here in San Antonio in Unity, say, is a standalone 501 C3 organization.

So there's no crossover in the mission of the foundation continues to do great work.

And I want to definitely highlight Paul.

Paul Chavez, the son of who who is still chairman of the board, has done a phenomenal job guiding us through this time, as well as the CEO and chairman, CEO and president Manuel Bernal.

That leadership has guide us through a very difficult time, but their focus is around affordable housing, K-12 education, curriculum through the ten radio stations that they have.

They do communications outreach.

And by the way, we broke ground on a $23 million investment, affordable housing, community, modern, meaningful housing right here in San Antonio.

That's the work.

That's the.

Work named after your father.

Named after my father.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

And good luck with that.

And getting the name out there in unity, S.A., Ernest J. Martinez, chairman of now the In Unity S.A.. Is it also the Legacy and Educational Foundation?

Well know that that was the prior name right.

The Legacy Educational Foundation has been dissolved effective June 30th.

It is in unity, say.

All right.

Thanks for clearing that up and fascinating.

Good luck going forward.

Thank you.

Randy.

Thank you for having me.

On reporter's roundtable this week.

Public education and the number of schools and school districts that are shrinking, schools having to close for a number of different reasons.

Here to talk about that is the San Antonio Express-News education reporter, staff writer Scott Huddleston.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Hi, Randy.

You had a story recently about not just districts here in San Antonio, but across the state, the biggest districts, as you put it, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Tell us about just how much these districts are shrinking.

Yeah.

So we do a weekly feature called Ask an Education Reporter in the office.

We call it Education Explainer.

And I wanted to kind of examine what's been going on with the five largest school districts in Texas, including Northside ISD here in San Antonio, because the numbers have been changing so much.

And traditionally, we refer to Northside as the fourth largest school district in Texas.

But I was thinking, surely with all these numbers fluctuating, that might have changed.

And surely enough, I found out that it looks like they'll be running neck and neck with Katy ISD, which is currently number five, but they're both now projecting that they'll both have about 95,000 students.

And there's a lot of effects of that.

But before we get to that, it's not just public school voucher or vouchers taking students away from public schools, although that's a huge part of it.

Yeah, it's basically an open landscape, an open market, if you will, of what's occurring in choices that families are making about where to send children to school.

So along with the traditional public ISD's, we've got charter schools which have proliferated in the last ten years, got private schools, a lot of homeschooling that's been occurring.

And now you've got virtual learning opportunities which are becoming more and more prevalent.

And so since Covid, the pandemic, that's kind of been the point of reboot for Northside ISD.

And that's when they they started to see their declines.

They were peaking in 2020 at about 108,000.

This year they've had about 97,600.

And this next year in the fall, they're expecting about 95,500 students.

And it's also hard for them to project because the effects, nobody really knew what was going to happen with school vouchers.

Right.

How do they even predict today what's going to happen?

They could have a loss of 1% to 5% in the public school, in the ISD's to the the private school vouchers.

But, you know, you really don't know until you know, you have you start the fall semester and you do the the student counts.

And this was just the first year, or this is just the first year that the state is giving these vouchers to a, I guess, a limited number of people.

They had to get a lottery.

But and this was $1 billion this year, but it could go up.

And that was a concern of public school educators.

When it goes up, who knows how much it will cut in the enrollment of public schools?

Yeah, I think that there have been some reports and some studies that show that the families that are qualifying for these private school vouchers, some most of them are already in private schools.

So, you know, the impact to the public school enrollment could be minimal.

But there's also a wild card that's been occurring that a lot of school districts don't really want to talk about publicly.

And that's the increased immigration enforcement.

And that's that's caused some declines in enrollment from families of mixed status who have chosen to keep their kids home, and some of them have self deported.

And we don't there's really no way to keep stats on that.

But it's not, as I understand it, not just in what you would think are the poor area school districts or certain area school districts.

Demographically, it's around the city.

Yeah.

One of the things I was really interested in, in looking at was, you know, we talk about the enrollment losses at Northside, but it's been occurring at at the large largest school districts in Texas, Houston and Dallas.

ISD's have both lost about 15% of their enrollment in ten years.

And that's that's really that's a very steep loss.

Northside lost maybe 10 to 11% since 2020.

So that that would be six years.

And that's that's a very steep in a shorter time period.

Steep loss.

And we've had superintendents in here also mentioning that it's not just these kind of factors, but demographics that younger people are having fewer children, they're having them later.

And that is one of those things we haven't thought about.

Yeah, really interesting and kind of strange.

The decline in birth rates and Texas is growing.

People are moving here, but they're not of the demographic that would be, you know, having kids, I guess they're older or maybe they're professionals who aren't interested in having children.

What about the effects?

Now, people don't realize or may not realize.

In Texas, public schools get money based on attendance per day per student, and if your attendance goes down, your money can go down drastically, right?

Enrollment goes down.

If your attendance goes down, and school districts like, for example, Edgewood, not a property rich district, they've seen declines in their attendance rates from about 93% to 89% is what they're budgeting for, and they're predicting a $3.2 million deficit in their budget for this school year.

But they're basically saying, if we could get back up to 93% in our attendance rates, that would cover the deficit, that would, you know.

And so they're.

Trying to win the budget.

Trying to encourage that to to parents to get the kids in school.

But how do they do that.

Yeah.

How do you get that back up?

You have popsicles with the kids and you do all kinds of family engagement kinds of things.

What about other districts and what they're having to do?

We're hearing about tax rate increases and tax rate elections that are going to have to.

Alamo colleges is having a tax rate increase that they're planning to decide in in August.

Northside ISD is looking at a three cent increase in its tax rate, and that would be voted on through what they call a Vader voter approved tax rate election.

Is there going to be a big push for more money for public schools?

Yeah, for sure.

The legislature is going to do something, but you don't know what that's going to be.

And if our Republican state leadership can recognize that public education is a sinking ship these days and decide what they could do about that, that would be helpful.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Scott Huddleston, who knows everything there is to know about education as a reporter, staff writer, thanks very much.

You can read him, by the way, in the San Antonio Express-News, which is an actual newspaper still.

It is.

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 and download them as podcasts.

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

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