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

I'm Randy Beamer.

Tonight we are starting with a brand new report from a group called the Hill Country Alliance.

Since they have been around now for 20 years.

And in the middle of a kind of rainy week we've had, we are starting with talk about the drought, which is something you point out in here, has been an ongoing problem, but could get worse even this year.

Leah Curry back with the Hill Country Alliance, joins us.

Thanks for coming in.

First of all, how how bad is this drought despite this rain that we've had this week.

And we always see rain.

Okay, great.

It's over.

Yeah, I think the tendency is we get a little rain, we get excited, we feel better, the grass greens up, and we think the drought's over.

What we've seen, you know, actually back in February, Texas Water Development Board released what they're calling a drought anomaly map.

And that shows that we've gotten significantly less rainfall, specifically in Central Texas.

I think 16 counties show 24 inch.

That's two foot deficit in rainfall in the last three calendar years.

So a little rain is awesome, but it's not going to fix two feet of ketchup that we have.

And this is one of the things that you do.

The Hill Country Alliance, if you can tell us a little about it, is a nonprofit group 20 years.

What do you focus on?

Yeah.

So Hill Country Alliance, we're a regional nonprofit.

We cover the 17 counties of the Texas Hill Country.

That area by our definition, stretches from Austin to San Antonio, down the I-35 corridor and then out west, out to junction and Rock Springs.

It's a big area, 11 million acres.

It's home to a lot of Texans.

And it's it's facing a lot of similar challenges.

So from water shortage to water quality challenges from night skies and our view of them trying to protect that, to preserving the way of life that's really common in these.

Areas and land development and yes, that how that is doing.

Land development, land conservation, as the as our region reacts to, to growing population trends, we're facing a lot of pressure right from development.

And this started in you said Travis County with just a few people back in 2004.

Yes.

Yeah.

Back in 2004, long before I joined the organization, this group started in the living room of a couple neighbors, a few neighbors.

And Travis County started to feel development pressure in their neighborhood, and they started to organize.

And what they dreamed up has turned into a regional nonprofit serving 17 counties.

We've got a staff between 11 and 12 people right now, which is really big for us.

It's the biggest we've been.

And, you know, in my time at the organization, I've been there for over six years now.

I've grown and the organization has grown, and it's been a really cool thing to see.

That passion for coming together and coming up with collaborative solutions has really been a driving force.

From those original neighborhood conversations to what we do now.

And, you know, like in a drought, is that kind of what you're focused on right now and just getting the word out?

What do you want people to know and to do about that?

Yeah.

So drought has been has been a constant for the last 3 or 4 years.

When it's not a drought, there's other issues like flood.

So water is one of our main priority areas that we focus on.

We've got four program areas land, water, night skies and communities.

Water touches everything.

It's something people are very aware of right now, especially and land conservation plays another really big role.

So a lot of our work also has to do with getting out in the field, working with landowners, helping them to do better stewardship techniques, that really preserve soil quality so that you don't get runoff when you have a big rain.

A lot of the work we do on the land side is going to help us out when we do get the next rain.

And then, of course, night skies.

That's another focus of our programs.

Night sky preservation is a newer dark.

Skies trying to get, you know, people to have down focusing lights.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it's great that you know about that.

I think light pollution is a topic some people have heard about San Antonio is actually doing some good work on that front.

Our Night Skies program has been really involved here, but there's tons of partner groups and grassroots groups across the region that the Alliance kind of supports, who are out in their own communities working on educating and getting people to change out their light bulbs, because that's a really easy fix.

And another issue that we've talked about is sprawl in San Antonio.

Growth and development.

But limiting development isn't what I guess you want to do with knowing we're going to have a lot more people.

You want to have it focused and planned so we don't just have a haphazard growth.

Is that am I right?

Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of the time we run into challenges between development and conservation.

And they often wind up at ends with each other.

What we have seen in our organization is that there are solutions and there are ways that we can build better, and that's just not the status quo.

You know, we've got great examples.

I think some of them are mentioned in this report.

But, you know, like in the city of Wimberley, they have a one water school.

The school reuses water on site and and puts a better system in place than what our standard is.

You know, we flush a toilet full of potable drinking water.

That's kind of silly when you think about it.

And San Antonio's a great example to saw, as has been really involved in pushing better conservation standards.

And so when we think about development and we think about growing, we shouldn't think about doing it the way that we've always done it there.

There are good examples we can point to, whether it's a one water school or, you know, a site that uses recycled water.

And also, I understand you're involved in, there are some development issues in the northwest part of San Antonio where septic tanks or runoff water was going to go into a river or creek.

And that's something you want to keep an eye on.

Yeah.

You know, I think when we think about our water, we often think of it as all separate, right?

There's wastewater, there's stormwater, there's rainwater, there's drinking water.

It.

What we have been pushing instead is a more holistic view.

This is like a net zero or a one water approach where you start valuing the resource altogether.

With wastewater discharge, like the example you mentioned, you know, we've seen, rapid expansion of wastewater discharge per permits across the region.

And that's common when you have growth, people need bathrooms and they need to dispose of wastewater.

But there's better ways to do it.

You know, you could do the treated land application and that allows that water to go across land before it just goes straight into a creek.

Our hill country, rivers and streams are very pristine.

They have really low levels of nutrients in the water.

And when you introduce wastewater like that, you can get algal blooms and stuff that's really harmful for.

Water can go down into the aquifer in some places.

And that's a bigger issue.

Right now we're in the middle of the legislature.

And what are you keeping an eye on there that is going to affect all this?

Yeah.

So we're in session.

The Capitol is busy.

Our staff has been there.

Actually.

We've got half our team out there today for a meeting with county commissioners at the at the legislative level, what we're really keeping an eye on is water.

And we were really excited to see that the governor had water on his priority list.

There's a lot of action for water at the Capitol.

We're also really hopeful that instead of just considering new infrastructure, we'll have the opportunity to invest more in fixing leaky pipes and in natural nature based infrastructure and in water conservation.

So when we think about water, we want to think about conserving what we've already had.

We also are keeping an eye on, Texas Parks and Wildlife.

They've gotten some good attention recently.

There's been a scary bill that I believe has been removed right.

About getting rid of Texas Parks and Wildlife, but that's gone away.

Yes, and that's awesome, because in the last session, we got some great support for that has led to the purchase of state parks in the Hill country.

Yes.

An additional land.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much.

So now you're going to be, busy the next few weeks with the legislature and hopefully with more rain.

Leah Cuddy back with the hopefully Leah Cuddy back Hill Country Alliance.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

Speaking of the legislature, we're talking now with Chris Tomlinson and opinion and money writer on politics as well for the San Antonio Express-News, a Houston Chronicle.

And he joins us now to talk about some bills that, are bipartisan in support that people might not have heard about as much.

We usually report on the controversial bills, more Partizan bills.

But, Chris, you focused a recent article on some things dealing with health and nutrition, especially that you might be surprised to find out who sponsored.

Yeah, it's fascinating how we're seeing this bipartisan effort to try to improve people's health.

And it's, I think part of the Robert F Kennedy phenomenon where you're now having conservative Republicans taking on issues like food additives, you know, addictive foods.

And so, Senator, state Senator Lois Cole, course, she's from Brenham, has a long history of covering health in the legislature.

And she's introduced a bill that would set up a Texas nutritional advocacy Fund and other steps to help improve Texans health.

And it's it's getting bipartisan support.

And she's a Republican.

And people might not expect, you know, historically, as she wrote, the nanny state, against people talking about they don't want the nanny state.

They're against regulation.

But in this case, it dovetails with health and the chronic problems that we have in Texas.

Yes, diabetes, you know, high blood pressure, heart disease are running up massive health care bills in Texas especially, but also across the country.

And I think there's also, part of the MAGA movement, part of the, Kennedy Jr movement is to hold these big corporations accountable for the formulations of food that, make it make it addictive and make us eat too much.

And, and I'm fascinated by how this has become a right wing cause as well as the left wing cause.

And it may be.

Create things like the Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee to look at this kind of stuff and educate, educate kids on nutrition.

Yes.

Mandatory physical activity.

Randy, like what we had when we were kids.

Yes.

Where there was no choice about going out for recess and running around and playing games, that's going to be mandatory under this law.

Medical students will be required to learn about nutrition, which is kind of fascinating to me that they're not required to learn about nutrition.

Now.

That is amazing.

How's housing as well is another one.

You say there's more bipartisan support there for a couple of bills.

Yes.

Texas needs at least 320,000 new homes built.

Now that can be condominiums.

It can be townhomes or single family homes, but we just don't have enough housing stock.

And one of the problems so far has been this restriction on minimum lot size.

And so Senator Bettencourt from, Houston has introduced a bill that would make it, possible to build new homes on as little as 1400 square feet in new developments.

We've had that in Houston for, about a decade now, and it caused a big boost in the number of new homes built.

And so hopefully this will also pass with bipartisan support and make it easier to build in Texas.

Smaller lots for multiple family homes as well, because that's, somewhat more contentious topic if you're changing the character of neighborhoods.

Well, that's the point of Senate Bill 15 is that there?

It's only for new developments, new tract homes.

So we're not going to the doesn't go into existing neighborhoods.

And, you know, it's not going into King William's and saying, okay, you know, now you can chop these lots up.

It's saying only with these new developments that you have this minimum lot size.

And there's a.

When they.

Go ahead.

Now when it comes to multifamily, Senate bill, Bryan Hughes has a bill that will make it easier to convert commercial buildings into housing.

Speed up the the permitting.

I understand exactly, because right now you have to completely revise the zoning before you can take an old office building and turn it into condominiums, and this would eliminate that.

Another thing we're watching here in San Antonio is the growth of the cyber community at UTSA.

And another bill would increase, the look at cyber security in Texas, right.

House Bill 150 would establish a Texas Cyber Command at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

It's a great addition.

It's an important part of protecting us, you know, because we're all getting those text messages, from people pretending to know us or you know, now we have, voice mails that mimic our relatives voices trying to extort money from us.

We need more cyber protection.

And and House Bill 150 would do that and also create jobs in San Antonio.

And it also I was fascinated to read this.

And people might not realize that ransom has been paid, because of some of the ransomware.

I mean, cities have paid this, businesses and pay this throughout Texas and here in San Antonio as well.

Oh, all over the state, all over the nation.

In Texas, we we've we know about maybe a couple hundred million dollars in ransom that have been paid to these cyber thieves, who take over the computer system of a hospital or a government and then demand a ransom in return for turning the system back over.

It's it's one of the least understood and one of most serious crimes facing Texas today.

And energy.

This is one, where generally things have been a little more partizan.

But there is at least a bill or two that would, bring people together and say geothermal energy is one of those.

Exactly.

Geothermal is an exciting, new technology.

It came out of the fracking industry, when, some petroleum engineers figured out that when they were horizontally drilling through really hot rock, that they could generate a lot of steam from it.

And so this new technology that uses oil and gas technology can provide 24 over seven electricity and heat.

It's still in the early stages, but we've had some very successful pilot projects around the country.

And so, yes, lawmakers are passing laws that will make this easier.

By by making it designating it a reliable, dispatchable form of energy.

And that should give the industry a big boost.

So now that is all of the positive.

Bipartisan bills.

And so people might hear just this and think, well, the legislature, they're getting along.

And so they'll, get along in some of these other issues.

What what is your take on the legislature this session, how they're getting along and what kind of, you know, contentious bills are we looking at?

Are we going to have runaway Dems and anything?

You know, I doubt the Democrats will try to flee.

You know, that that kind of quorum busting really doesn't work anymore under new rules passed at the legislature.

There are some very contentious bills.

And, you know, one of them is, a ban on THC, the active ingredient in delta eight and Delta nine gummies.

A lot of people are finding, that it helps them to deal with anxiety.

Vets are using it to treat PTSD.

And, you know, the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, wants to ban all THC products in Texas.

That's going to be a big fight.

There are oil and gas interests trying to pass laws that will basically shut down all new renewable energy construction and wind, solar and storage.

That's going to be a big fight.

So now there's still plenty of disagreement.

But at this point, it's a lot of Republican versus Republican violence.

The Democrats are kind of sitting on the sidelines because they have little power to do anything.

And how.

About schools?

You know, this is the year after the fights over school vouchers went into the special session.

We look forward to at least some increase in school funding, though.

We had a superintendent on here last week said it won't be nearly enough for what's your sense on where we are in schools and school vouchers and funding.

There, you know, speaker Dustin Burrows in the House held a press conference alongside Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Governor Abbott, saying that he's going to pass a bill.

It'll come out of committee soon.

It's going to fly through the House.

We're waiting to see the text of that bill to see if it matches the one that the Senate passed.

So that's the details that we're waiting to see and whether or not this kind of devolves into another food fight or whether they've actually got their act together.

The additional funding for schools, that's going to be a separate bill.

And that's, you know, it's not going to be enough.

It's not going to be enough because they have to spend this money on vouchers.

And finally, with all of these bills, maybe getting more bipartisan support, maybe spending less time on them, legislature a lot of times at the end of the session doesn't have any time to work on other bills.

So they just kill so many.

Are we going to get more bills, you think this legislative session because they'll have more time to work on other things?

You know, I would like to think so.

You know, I think they have worked out these issues between, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House.

You know, under the previous speaker, Dade feeling Patrick was in constant battle.

And the governor likes to sit back and let others fight and then step in and make his move.

So, yes, we'll have that crazy rush to the end of the session.

We'll have a lot of, drama.

I'm sure.

But hopefully, you know, we're going to get some good bills passed, if nothing else, on the on the fast track of the local and consent calendar, where bills passed without a vote because everyone agrees they're a good idea.

Wow.

Well, thank you very much.

Chris Tomlinson, opinion writer on Energy Money, politics, anything he wants to write about for the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, for having me.

Randy.

On our reporters roundtable this week, a couple of more bills in the Texas Legislature right now that would directly affect San Antonio.

And San Antonio is pushing for what affect car burglaries in the city.

Joining us to talk about that is Raquel Torres, a public safety reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Yes.

Thank you.

Tell us about this, this push right now in the legislature about car burglaries.

Where did it come from?

Aside from the people who filed this in Austin, where did the push to support these bills come from?

In San Antonio?

Yeah.

So thank you so much for having me here.

Representing the San Antonio Report, this story came across my desk because, Central San Antonio, had a petition that they were passing around asking, people of the downtown core area to support House Bill 727 which, looks to, change the way that the punishment, happens for people who break into cars in San Antonio and in the petition and, you know, said that, car break ins are a common thing in San Antonio.

And the biggest concern for Centro as an organization was that people, you know, were visiting our downtown area for Fiesta and Final Four and maybe had their car broken in and wouldn't want to come back.

And so the bills, at least one of them would increase the penalty, make it from a possible misdemeanor and your first time offense to a felony.

Right.

This is another bill.

Going into the legislature this session, central was supporting another bill that, if someone has a gun and a weapon or is driving a stolen car in the process of, breaking into a car, then, you know, there's harsher punishment.

And the other bill would increase the car burglary charge from a misdemeanor to a felony.

So essentially, a change in jail time.

And you point out in this article, the San Antonio, according to the ATF, is fifth in the country in terms of, weapons stolen during car burglary.

So that's a big problem.

And as I understand it, that one bill would also make it, a harsher penalties if someone steals a weapon, not only if they use it or if they use a stolen car, but if somebody steals, a weapon out of a car or truck, that also would be, harsher penalty.

That is correct.

Yeah.

That is what we're hearing.

And what are they doing now?

They passed around this petition.

I also understand Trish DeBerry from Centro went to Austin to, speak about this.

Yes.

So this petition and went to Austin to show that San Antonio supports, the, at least house build.

727 Sheriff Harvey Salazar also spoke in Austin on the other bill.

But what I think is really important to point out, is that the city of San Antonio, has also signed Centro's petition, which is significant.

But also, as you point out in the article, while this is getting attention in Austin, actual numbers of car burglaries in San Antonio has gone down.

That's right.

According to SaPD numbers, the highest year for car break ins was 2023.

But the good news is that those numbers are decreasing.

And I know they're working on this.

I went out with the officers one time, and they focus on certain hotspots, which, can be downtown, but also along the freeways, because that's a quick route off if there's a car garage or something like that.

Also, as I understand it, you pointed out here, that was one of the suburbs that was targeted, maybe an upscale suburb where people don't think they have a problem with burglaries.

And so they they leave their cars open.

Yeah.

You know, Trish actually told me in our interview that last year during Fiesta, 15 cars were broken into in downtown, kind of near the church by Travis Park in.

One.

Loft.

Right.

And one lot.

So, we don't want that happening to visitors coming into San Antonio.

So I understand the city signing the petition.

But on the other hand, advocates told me that this, well, may not affect the number of car car break ins happening in San Antonio.

They're more, worried about who is being affected and the jail time that they face.

And you talked to William Cruz Shaw, who's one of the judges dealing with the juveniles, who are brought in for this.

What did he tell you?

Yeah, he told me that juveniles can can face felonies.

So if a juvenile in San Antonio gets caught breaking into a car, they could face a felony.

Even though it's their first time.

But it gives him more options in terms of what he can do, trying to detain him, that kind of thing.

Yes.

He can send them to, a safe facility for juveniles, which there is one in Bexar County.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

A good reminder to lock your doors of your cars and trucks out there at night.

Be careful around Fiesta and Final Four, but that at least car burglaries are going down.

Right?

That's.

And don't leave your weapons in cars.

Yes.

Don't leave your guns out in your car.

Well, thank you very much.

Rocco Torrez, public safety reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thanks.

Thank you.

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 you can download this as a podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org I'm Randy Beemer.

We'll see you next time.

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