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

San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving community with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with the news makers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the.

Hi, everybody.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record this week as we are getting closer and closer to San Antonio, coming up with an official budget.

Some of it is still being decided.

And joining us to talk about that is city manager Eric Walsh.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having me, Randi.

Now, you released the final proposed budget, I guess, after all kinds of input from across the city, 3.4 billion proposed budget.

Your vote, city council will vote in mid September, September 15th.

But we were talking about some of the extra KPBS money that's coming in, still being decided.

What's going to happen with that because all the extra money from the heatwave over the summer.

Yeah, well, not just the not just the heat, but higher natural gas prices.

We are projecting $75 million over budget this fiscal year, which is about 21% over revenue.

Yeah, not over budget, I guess, but more revenue.

More revenue.

It certainly the city has seen extraordinarily high revenue during the month at the same time that ratepayers have seen extraordinarily high utility bills.

So you propose giving that money at least 50 million of it straight back to ratepayers averaging about $30 on their October bill.

But that's just the proposal being debated No, that's, that's the proposal I made on August 11th.

The council's had to work session is going to be another one next week and certainly there's a lot more conversation that council will need to have It is unusual, you know, from my standpoint, I'm responsible for laying out the financial plan for the city and we well, we've done well this year from a revenue standpoint and certainly 21% over our revenue projections is something more than we expected.

So we needed to do something and I felt like we needed to do something to recognize that the pain that everybody went through.

But some want to address some of the reasons for heat problems or at least the use of energy.

Do you think that's going to happen or what are your vote counts right now and how that.

$31 per bill is going to go back or not?

We don't vote.

We don't count votes beforehand.

That's a no no.

But I think the conversation with the council has been the issues are obviously valid policy level conversations the council needs to have.

It's the mix about what we do or what we do as a city.

Now, with that money and what some of the possibilities are, I think regardless of what the Council decides, those issues that they've raised at the policy level, we'll need to continue to work on whether that is trees or urban heat island effects.

Those are those were issues before the summer.

We certainly understand.

I think all of us in the city understand the real impact of that and the be more conversation will have to happen.

Bigger picture of the budget.

Where is most of the money going for?

This is a street, sewers, roads kind of budget.

It is our our general fund budget is a billion and a half dollars, 60.7% is dedicated towards public safety.

And that's where the majority of our money is spent in in the general fund.

And I think the public expects that we that that percentage has gone down over the last seven or eight years as we've worked with the unions and controlling costs of health care those are all been really well.

And they give us the flexibility to be able to do the investment in libraries or streets or code compliance or parks.

But now the top five when you did the suggestions from the people, you asked the survey, top five things they wanted were property tax relief, police, fire and EMS streets, parks, and recreation.

Yet some have pointed out that the police percentage of the budget is going down, though it's going up overall in terms of numbers.

Well, it is.

It's it's also our largest department.

The police officers are scheduled to get a three and a half percent pay raise.

So we're not defunding police or cutting down.

Absolutely not.

The police budget is going up.

$31 million.

It's going up about 5.6%.

And we also have in the proposed budget adding 78 new officers.

So we're growing the force.

And but in relation to how it grows to the rest of the budget, it's not it's not surpassing our revenue, which was the issue ten years ago.

One of the thing in the budget 140 million for airport plans to add a third terminal.

Right.

Where are you on that.

So that that number and we're doing the preliminary work right now, we'll bring that cost estimate back to the council in January, but it will be north of a billion and a half dollars and that's the total over the years.

Yeah.

And that'll be a new terminal development, a new entryway, all the enabling projects that will be the largest capital project the city's ever undertaken.

And certainly the bond program that the voters approved is big and important.

The airport is going to be bigger and as important in terms of economic development and growth of the city, and capital improvements in this budget, a lot of that is going to help implement the 2022 bond for the next five years.

We are kicking off the 2022 bond program we are the council will be selecting all the engineers, architects and landscape architects this fall.

All all 182 projects will start design years one and two.

We're going to be design heavy years, three, four and five construction heavy.

The pledge that we'll make that we made is by the time the voters go back to the to the to the ballot box in 2027 that 90% of the city projects will be either completed or under construction so so making sure that we've got the resources in place, we've got a good plan in place, and we've laid that off of council and the tax rate we should point out is going down, although the tax valuations that people have gotten that have skyrocketed are going to make up for some of that.

But at least the tax rate has gone down, the tax rates going down 1.6 $0.07.

But the council also took three actions in June.

They increased our the homestead exemption for city taxes from point 1% of the value of your home to 10%.

They increased the disabled exemption from 12 and a half thousand 85,000 and the over 65 exemption over 6560 5080 5000.

So all told an additional 22 and a half million dollars in property tax revenue.

The city's foregoing next year and that's in addition to the property tax freeze for those over 65.

All right well thank you very much for talking we'll have to have you back to talk about the Broadway expansion plans where you're waiting for the state.

A couple of other things what we're out of time.

Absolutely.

Thanks very much city manager Eric Walsh.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Explosive growth up in the Texas Hill country now combined with drought over the past few months, have advocates worried that we could be reaching a tipping point where our demand for water outpaces the ability of the rivers and the aquifers to be replenished?

For all that water.

Joining us to talk about that, Kathryn Roman is the executive director of Heal Country Alliance.

Thank you for talking with us.

The the aquifers between the Trinity Aquifer that a lot of the Hill Country relies upon and the Edwards Aquifer and kind of in a different situation because they don't replenish at the same rate.

Tell us about that and how bad it is right now, how the concern is up in the Hill country especially.

Yeah, absolutely.

As you mentioned, the Edwards Aquifer is a really unique aquifer in Texas and that we can see the impacts of a rainfall event in the aquifer only hours or days later with increases in that aquifer level in the Trinity, which covers the majority of the hill country, that recharge time takes longer.

And as we're seeing more growth, as you mentioned in your introduction, more growth, more development pressures and more pumping into the Trinity Aquifer, we're increasingly concerned that that pumping is impacting the ability of the aquifer to replenish itself.

Once we do see those rainfall events.

And you have some very dramatic pictures on your Web site, kind of before and after with the drought at least definitely impacting it.

But Jacob's well and another creek.

Yeah, absolutely.

We've seen a number of our iconic springs and rivers running dry this summer.

Jacob's Well went to Zero Flow for only the fourth time in recorded history.

Rivers like the land, the poor analysis, the Freo and others having increased dryness And really, the concern is that those rivers will take longer to come back once the rainfalls come again because of the pumping that we're seeing with this explosive development pressure in central Texas, we have three of the top five fastest growing counties in the entire country.

Folks are moving here because of the quality of life, because of the natural resources and our booming economy.

And so our focus is really on how do we channel that growth in ways that are protective of the natural resources that are drawing people here.

Another difference between the San Antonio area, the Edwards Aquifer and the Trinity Aquifer, is we have the Edwards Aquifer Authority.

The Trinity doesn't really have that kind of organization that can cap the pumping.

Do you want to change that?

Do you want a new group that could do that?

You know, that's a great question.

The Edwards is pretty unique in Texas and that there is that overall cap on production and it creates a good market place basis for managing pumping in the Trinity.

Conditions are really localized.

And so what we would love to see is increased funding for science so that groundwater conservation districts can better manage their groundwater resources, enhance tools for those groundwater districts and for counties to direct growth in ways that's protective of overall water resources.

And really, what we need to be doing is looking at the cumulative impacts of growth in our region, how they're impacting water resources and making sure that we have water for future generations of Texans.

And you want the legislators in the upcoming session to take a look at this.

What do you want specifically?

What's most important?

Absolutely.

So we've got tools already within cities to manage and direct growth.

One of the things that is unique about Texas is that we don't afford counties the ability to plan for and direct growth, particularly when it comes to water resources.

So it's time for both our local leaders, but also our statewide leaders to look at the real impacts of the booming economic growth that we've seen over the last several decades.

But even more acutely, over the last several years.

And look to give counties a little bit more tools to plan for and manage that growth that we know is coming.

And also conservation districts, because San Antonio is in different situation.

We've diversified water.

We have the Vista Ridge pipeline that taps water up in mile on Lee Burleson County I think it's Burleson, and they are pumped down to such a level up there because their groundwater conservation district allows these long leases that neighbors their wells.

They're having to go deeper and deeper and deeper.

But it's it's a quirk of the law in that the groundwater conservation districts can do different things in different places, right?

Absolutely.

And groundwater ultimately in Texas is a private property.

Right.

So if you've got landowners who are interested in selling their groundwater under the current framework, they are able to do that.

What would be great is if every new development every new rooftop came with rainwater harvesting collection.

If we were really pushing on innovation for water reuse, for creating and recycling water as close to where it's being used as possible, the technologies and ideas are out there.

It's just a matter of incentivizing and pushing development, especially new development to go in that conservation direction.

And bottom line for your average viewer, what would you ask them to do in terms of their own conservation as well as effecting change at a higher level?

Absolutely.

So as we're talking today, the whole country is still under exceptional drought conditions and Comal and Bear and Kendall County.

That means that every homeowner and every individual can be contributing to minimizing their overall water footprint.

And then start talking to your neighbors, start talking to your community leaders about what solutions they are putting forward to really ensure that we have water, not just for the economic growth that we're seeing in the Hill country, but for the long term health of our environment, the ecology, our rivers and springs and future generations of Hill Country residents.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for talking with us, Katherine Romans.

Some things to think about, about water with the executive director there of the Hill Country Alliance.

Thanks.

Thanks so much for having me.

This week, you are getting your first chance to get the new booster shot for COVID, the vaccine that is to protect you from the original strain as well as the newest strains.

Joining us to talk about that is Dr. Brian Alsip, who is the executive vice president and chief medical officer of University Health Thank you very much for coming in.

Tell us about this new vaccine.

A lot of people have been waiting for it, knowing it was in the pipeline, not getting the old booster.

Do you expect there will be a rush when you get the vaccine?

Some of the pharmacies here have it.

You don't, I guess, at University Health.

But Will, what do you tell those people who have been waiting for it?

Well, thank you, Randi.

I think, like we've said, there are a fair number of people who have been waiting for this newer version because up until now, all the vaccines we've been giving, whether it's the original series or booster doses, have been the same formulation based on that original strain of the virus.

And now this one, this virulent, which means it has sort of two components to it.

One is part of that original strain, SARS-CoV-2, of the COVID vaccine.

But also the other part is of these sub variants, of Omicron, which is really what we've been seeing for the past few months, circulating at very high levels.

And it's got the via four and five sub variant in it.

And so those components hopefully will be even a better match for what's circulating.

And we think we'll be something that we want people to get because it'll provide better protection and hopefully more sustained protection against what we might see in the fall and in the winter.

But you don't necessarily want everybody rushing in if they've had a booster, say, within the past couple of months, even though that's allowed, you say it's better to wait a few months.

Why is that?

Well, I think the CDC and the FDA have said that you don't want to get it any earlier than two months from a previous booster dose or say three months from a previous infection with COVID.

And that's because there's there's very good data around sort of the minimum interval that you don't want to shorten that.

But there's a lot of good data.

And not just for COVID vaccines, but vaccines in general that if you extend the interval and you get a booster dose later in the course, it probably works better.

So some evidence is suggesting it might be better to get this vaccine booster maybe four to six months from your last booster dose or your last infection if you actually experienced COVID and then it probably increases your antibody levels higher, it allows other parts of your immune system like your T cells and B cells to work better in that together.

It could give you a not only a better response, but a longer response.

And that response isn't going to keep everybody from getting the the the virus.

But it is to, as you said, boost the antibodies to give you better protection.

So you may not, if you get it necessarily have to go to the hospital.

Shouldn't be the hospitalizations that deaths that we've had recently.

Right.

That's correct.

I mean, I think we've learned that even the best vaccines don't prevent infections 100% of the time, but they do do a very good job of preventing severe illness or hospitalizations in individuals.

And particularly if you're at high risk, you want to really consider that as part of your additional protection.

And how are we doing here in Bear County?

You know, it's patchy across the country in terms of the number of infections and hospitalizations and deaths.

Well, I think we've seen almost a sort of a plateau in this latest surge with respect to hospitalizations.

You know, a couple of hundred in all of our hospitals together and so it's not gotten anywhere near in terms of some of the previous surges that we've had, but it's been kind of prolonged.

It's it's not as high, but it's flatter and longer.

And so that's the good news, is that means, you know, we're not seeing as high number of people being hospitalized, but we know the number of infections are still high and we're probably undercounting those because people have access to home tests and those aren't necessarily reported.

So infections are still occurring.

The good news is that the ones that are occurring are probably same as what's in this vaccine, which could provide better protections.

We're coming into flu season.

It's about that time to get your flu shots.

Do you recommend people coming in and getting a flu shot and a booster?

Well, I would say get your flu shot first because we're in that series that season now.

Where you want to get that flu shot.

Before we get into the that the time when that becomes more active here in our community and for the COVID booster, you could get it at the same time It hasn't changed in terms of the rules.

You could get them at the same time just like you could before.

But like I said, I think it depends on when your last exposure was your in terms of infection or if if you had a booster dose.

I think most of the data suggest anywhere from four to six months from that time period rather than the minimum interval of the two to three months that they've already recommended.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

I guess you can check the websites around with the pharmacies as well as university health to see when your appointments are available.

Appreciate your time.

Dr. Brian Alsop of University Health.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On Reporters Roundtable this week, we're talking about a new plan, a revised plan for some major renovations of part of Brackenridge Park They have moved on now.

They're going to the state after a series of what you could only call contentious public meetings.

And joining us to talk about it, the man who covers everything to do with this.

Well, with everything, Scott Huddleston, staff writer for The San Antonio Express-News.

Thank you very much for coming in.

There's been what, seven now public meetings after there was kind of an initial outcry about this Brackenridge Park Bond project for the just the Northern part of the park, very small part of the park, and a lot of it was over trees.

So what's happening now?

Yeah.

So this started back in early in the year.

In January, went to the Historic Design Review Commission in February.

And there was a really long meeting that 4 hours long of discussion and public testimony and deliberation by the board.

And they ultimately could not decide whether to support that proposal.

That initial proposal, which would have removed 105 native trees.

And so after after that, the city manager, Eric Walsh, decided, let's put this project on hold, because they were trying to rush it through in order to, you know, get the work started before the migratory bird season began.

And and now so we've cycled through these seven meetings and what's come out of that is instead of 105 native trees are down to 77 native trees.

And now when we talk native trees, I've been at some of the meetings and native trees are different than heritage trees.

Native trees are just the type of species, but in the end their heritage trees are the ones that are 24 inches big, but they're only going to be.

Yeah.

Eight of those.

Yeah.

Eight of them are also going to be moving some 40 trees right.

Eight of the 77 trees that would be destroyed would be heritage trees, and that's down from the ten heritage trees that they initially wanted to remove.

But they're also planting even more trees and so in this latest plan they get into the details.

There will be more carbon sequestration, more tree canopy.

Yeah.

And I also say native trees to distinguish them from non-native trees which are invasive and about 21 of the non-native or dead or near dead trees will be removed.

But now we've talked a lot about the controversy over the trees, but we haven't really seen much about what is going to be, you know, improved in.

Talk about that because there's a historic race where a historic dam is to water in that raceway the pump house improved.

Yeah there's that 1870s pump house and they want to kind of clear out some of the old construction and weeds and that kind of thing so that the, the, the arches underneath that pump house will be revealed so people can kind of envision how it might have functioned.

Also there's an 800 raceway that was part of San Antonio's early water system and going back even further to the 1700s and old Acequia alignment that's in that project area.

And that raceway was literally the water would race down from the dam, turn the turbines that pump the water up to make people.

Would get pumped up actually to an area in the botanical gardens where that is now.

And then from there it would kind of like being a reservoir and filter down by gravity to homes in the area.

And what are those things?

In the last meeting, they promised they had more renderings so that people could actually see the good from this.

Yeah, that's what people wanted to know.

Yeah.

There are still some people, no matter what, they weren't going to be satisfied.

There's been a lot of soil erosion, and so they want to do a lot of plantings, a lot of native grasses, a lot of biodiversity.

They want to remove all the invasive species at the ground level.

And so that really would help rebuild an ecological system that's really sustainable for the park and really it needs it throughout the whole part.

But we're talking about an area that's just 2% of the park.

And some of that along the banks we think of.

It's nice, but it's they tell me soil is compacted to the point where it acts like concrete.

And so the water drains off.

There's no grass that they need to renovate that environment.

Right.

It's the the ecology of the park that's really failed.

And I you probably can remember there used to be a bridge where where cars would drive through water at Breckenridge, and that's no longer accessible.

But when you think about those cars driving through that water, that's not good for the water quality.

Even though it was a lot of fun.

And the water quality has improved because at least in part of that river, because the zoo has this U.V.

filter that is cleaning up the water from the zoo, but it's bird droppings that that's been a problem.

Right.

And all the birds.

Yeah.

And now one of the other things that they're getting into, I talked to the River Authority biologist.

People don't realize that with all those birds, some of it's not healthy that we're feeding the birds too much.

Yeah.

And that that's a problem.

They just want people to help with to keep the birds healthy as well as the turkeys.

Yeah.

That's been part of the issue that the human versus bird conflict, you know, who is the park for is it for the birds or is it for the people?

And if we helping the birds with what we're doing.

Yeah.

Which apparently isn't the case.

Right.

That's been part of the problem with this whole issue is what is the purpose of the project?

And early on in some of the documents, the project description mentioned removing the rookeries where the birds would breed as part one of the objectives of the project.

And that's been kind of I think assistant city manager David MacQuarrie has apologized for that because that's not really the end goal.

They're trying to restore the ecology of the park.

And in the end, your conclusion is that all this controversy has improved what the project will be, right?

I think that the public pressure has has forced them to get better contractors to have a more thoughtful process to do more of the due diligence.

And so now this is headed to the Texas Historical Commission and the city's HRC Historic and Design Review Commission.

So they'll have the renderings available.

They'll have their rationale for if the trees are removed, why they have to be removed in their opinion.

And those renderings, some of them you can they can see at the Express News Web site.

Right.

Or it's on the city website as well.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Scott Huddleston, staff writer, historian for the San Antonio Express-News.

Thanks for coming in.

My pleasure.

Randy.

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

You can see this show at the end of previous shows as well as our podcast at KLRN.org.

And we'll see you next time.

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