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, I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are starting with a look at the state of the Hill Country.

The Hill Country Alliance, a nonprofit, has just put out its 2025 annual report recently talking about how they're trying to protect the land, the water, the night skies, all the natural resources.

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

Thank you very much for coming in.

We're first talking about one of the things that you are working on right now, of course, protecting water.

That's what you've been doing, for 20 years.

You've been around now.

But data centers, that has been in the news a lot recently because we have so many in the at least in the San Antonio area.

What kind of impact are you seeing and are you worried about with data centers on our.

Water data centers is definitely one of those emergent threats that wasn't even on our radar just a few years ago in the Hill country.

And the biggest concern, frankly, is the water resources.

These data centers are evolving quickly.

So the technology is changing, but they require huge amounts of water to cool their processes and for the energy creation.

And so the whole Country Alliance is focused on empowering community leaders to ask the right questions of data centers, as they're proposing to come into town to make sure that we're not unnecessarily drawing down water resources for such a big industrial use.

And you've also had, in the past year two, some headlines about, housing developments, having wastewater treatment plants of their own that, feed directly into rivers and streams, which is done, elsewhere in San Antonio as well, but in specifically in the hill country where we're talking the Edwards Aquifer and others.

How are you seeing that change?

How tough is that fight to make sure that they comply with regulations?

The residents of San Antonio know that we have been in a prolonged drought in the Hill country, and that means a lot of our creeks and rivers are flowing at much lower flows than typical.

And so when you proposed to pump treated wastewater into those mostly dry or ephemeral, creeks and rivers, it can have huge impacts on water quality and nutrients, and treated wastewater can cause algal blooms and really throw the whole ecological system off kilter.

So we work hard to educate builders, on the best practices in the Hill country.

And we're working on legislative change that would help protect our pristine streams.

And legislative change.

Going back to data centers.

We didn't really hear about that in the last session.

Is that going to come up?

Are you pushing for changes in a big way for that?

The legislature is going to be taking a close look at data centers in the next session.

They know that that's an issue facing our region and facing the state of Texas.

The demands on water need to be addressed, and local authorities need to have the tools in order to make sure that data centers and other industrial development coming in is being a good neighbor to the rest of.

The the state giving local governments authority.

Isn't it something that is, in vogue right now?

In fact, the state wants to take back any authority that local governments have had.

We work with local officials from across the whole country, and that's one of the toughest challenges they face, is not only do they not currently have the tools to manage and plan for growth, but those tools are being eroded.

And so if we hope to, protect some of the most critical open spaces and water resources of the whole country, I think that's an issue that we're going to have to address at the Capitol.

Related to that, transmission lines power, for data centers as well as just the explosive growth in the Hill Country, especially, what is that looking like you talked about?

There's a specific, power transmission line being proposed right now.

That is an issue.

We're seeing multiple major transmission line projects that are currently being discussed, and it's feeding data centers, certainly, but it's also taking power from right here in San Antonio, bringing it to West Texas to support the oil and gas industries out there in Fort Stockton.

So the Howard Solstice Project is the one that's top of mind for many of my Hill Country residents.

It would connect, right here in San Antonio through CPS energy.

It would carry power all the way out to Fort Stockton and the proposed route maps, you know, crisscross the whole country.

And so we're working hard to make sure that that line is routed along a sensible, route that follows existing infrastructure, existing roads and highways so that it doesn't cross really sensitive recharge lands that the city has invested in protecting.

People who've been out to West Texas or, say, up to Lubbock.

And you see all the wind power out there.

They might think that the transmission line from West Texas would run our way, or would need to run to the rest of the state.

Are you seeing those kind of transmission line issues as well?

That's a common misperception that we think that all of our power and electricity generation is coming from West Texas and it's quite the opposite.

This is a project that was proposed by the legislature in order to electrify the oil and gas fields out there in West Texas.

And so, it's been long in the works, and we are really focused on how CPS energy and AEP, the two major partners in this project, can really find the the least, damaging route for that transmission line.

Closer to San Antonio.

We are fortunate in having a huge green space in Camp Bullis and Camp Stanley and and there's something called the camp Bullis Sentinel, land.

I'm not sure.

The landscape.

Landscape.

Tell us about that.

In 2022, the Camp Bullis Sentinel landscape was designated.

There's only a small handful of these around the country, and it gives special priority for Camp Bullis as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, to receive federal funding to do things like land protection, help raise awareness about dark skies and night sky protection, all with a mind towards protecting the military mission there.

For the future.

Where are we in being able to keep buying land or protecting land through trusts?

That is a big part of our work, is focusing on promoting land conservation.

We just recently completed a study looking at how much land we've conserved in the region from 2021 to 2025, and we added 110,000 acres of protected land.

The more land that we can permanently protect, the more we can protect our water resources or habitat and all the other benefits we get from that open space.

Fight the rain we've had recently.

We're still in a shortage of water.

Tell us about that.

According to the Edwards Aquifer Authority, as of earlier this month, we were a full two years behind on rainfall for the region from 2019 to 2025.

And so we are in a serious drought.

We are grateful for the rains that we've had recently, and it's heartbreaking, a heartbreaking reality that we can have prolonged drought and catastrophic flooding like we saw in the Guadalupe River at the same time.

Well, thanks very much.

It's an interesting read.

Hill Country Alliance, 2025 report.

Kathryn Romans, Executive director of the HCA, thanks very much.

Thank you.

Former Mayor Ron Nurnberg left office last year, but he has a new book out just now called Nurnberg The Education of a Texas Public Servant.

Ron Nurnberg joins us now.

First of all, before we get into what you wrote about, there's some surprising, fascinating things about your life personally and then about the city.

Why write a book?

People are going to see this right now and say, you timed this so that maybe if you were running for something, you are running for Bexar County Judge, but maybe something different.

If I had if.

I knew that it would be part of the book, I really did not know and really, Randy, the the impetus for that book was being encouraged.

And finally recognizing after, you know, some pretty significant times here in our community, I wanted to document, really for my family, the things that happened and, and I experienced.

And when I realized quickly is that you can't really talk about a significant moment in time without talking about how you got there and the things that led up to it, and some of your own thinking and, perspectives about why you made the decisions that you did and so and ended up turning from a letter to my son and my wife into a letter to our entire community.

And and when did the idea for this come on?

Because it was several years ago.

And then you wrote it in to 324.

So I have a dear friend, David Last, who's a historian at Trinity, who had been encouraging me doing, to to write a memoir for several years.

And, you know, I didn't think I had done anything to warrant, a memoir.

And then after the pandemic, he encouraged me again.

And frankly, I went to talk to another good friend, Carrie Clark, who encouraged me to think about it as a letter to my my son.

And so I did, we started the project, and eventually it turned into something a lot more than just talking about a moment in time.

It really is about my education and preparation and perspective.

To become a public servant.

And also the outlook from here.

You know, there are so many things that have happened collectively in this community over the last six, seven, ten years, and they're worth discussing.

Each one of us has a story.

Each one of us has, things that happen, during this collective experience that are worth, Probing.

And before that, you start this with a very personal story.

And then about your education and background growing up, in Austin.

But you started with, Sophia, you had a daughter who lived for two hours.

Yeah.

And that changed your life.

Tell us how and what that means to you as a public servant.

Yeah, well, it's not something that, Erica and I have talked a lot about publicly.

But, you know, in, in the context of really understanding how we've gotten here, what has been clear to me is that I've.

I've always tried to take the perspective of the next generation.

I've always served with a mandate from my son about making the world a better place for him and his generation and those to come.

And as you know, David was doing these interviews to help us prepare for this book.

It became quite clear that that was a critical moment in time that helped shape that perspective.

I have, I place all of the value of my, time in office based on what we can do to make the world a better place for for my son and his generation.

And parenthood changes your perspectives on life, and it certainly has shaped mine as a public service.

Sports.

You talk about, you wanted to be a Boston Red Sox writer because you were originally from the northeast, moved to Austin when you were three years or so.

You're, you know, you're Red Sox fandom stays in the blood.

So I'm still a writer.

And so the sports and you were, as you describe, a debilitating Lee shy and got through that partly some of the things you wrote about bodybuilding and faith, throughout your life, how has that shaped you?

Well, that's also not, wasn't entirely evident until, you know, when I started this project.

But, faith has had a very profound impact on my life.

And I was raised in an interfaith household, and coming to a community like San Antonio, where it is a city of faith, many faiths and perspectives.

It is certainly grounding during challenging moments of time.

The other obviously, weightlifting has been an important part of my life and, teaches you discipline, also the importance of balance and, and, you know, physical and mental health, how those two go hand-in-hand.

So what triggered you getting into public office?

You write about that as well?

Yeah.

It was really.

For council first.

Yeah.

My son was one at the time, and I got encouraged to, get involved in a program called Leadership San Antonio, which was a deep dive into what makes this city tick.

And having had a background in public policy research, what I found at that time was that I was enjoying that more than my day job.

And I remember going home to Erica one day and saying, I think, you know, I'm I'm getting energy from this in a way that I haven't before.

I think maybe I should run for city council.

And that was it.

And she said, I think you've decided.

I think you've already decided by the time you asked that question.

And I had no political background pedigree, certainly no name recognition or money.

But what this city taught me put in the initiative to make our community a better place.

And, you do it with an open heart.

Doors will open for you.

But that was a tough race.

It was an open seat.

But there was an opponent you faced that was, better financed more, had more connections, and then it got kind of ugly in a runoff.

Yeah.

Tell us about that.

You know, that might have knocked other people from getting from continuing in politics.

Well, I will.

Tell you that, you know, our, our, our community here in San Antonio is a special place and public service is open and possible for anyone who wants to do it.

And then you took on Evie Taylor, and, I think it was Lionel Sosa quoted in the book as well.

You said that you willed yourself into office.

Why take on Evie Taylor?

Well, I really had a couple of choices at that point because I was, you know, for all practical purposes, put on an island politically, by our mayor.

And, you know, I disagreed with the direction that we were moving and our momentum as a community had slowed.

And I wanted to change that.

And I was not satisfied with being just a dissenting opinion on council.

I really thought that the community, based on all the work and, you know, visioning processes and plans that we had been executing, wanted to move in a direction.

And I represented that.

And so I decided either I needed to quit, and stop wasting my time or run for mayor to try to change the conversation.

And so I ran for mayor.

And the public did agree with the perspective I brought.

And, you know, it was a solid year of moving our city forward.

What are some of the biggest, accomplishments that you think and regrets?

Well, you know, you made choices.

But what I am most proud of in this community is that we have dedicated ourselves to changing the systems that create a thriving community.

The investments that we've made in programs like Alamo Promise and Ready to Work, and a new expanded pre-K for us that is now middle incomes and three year olds.

We now have a housing program that we didn't have one before.

And it's nationally modeled.

We're finally changing the status quo on transportation and building our first rapid transit lines in San Antonio.

So we are creating an an environment where we can live up to the promise that anyone in this community should be able to thrive.

If you're willing to put in, the initiative, you should be able to have a pathway to a good career and a safe, and healthy home.

And so that's what we're doing.

And I'm proud of that, because, you know, before I came into office, we didn't have any of those things that I just mentioned.

And these are the systems that are going to be required to break cycles of poverty that have gripped this community for so long, and it's also what's ultimately going to make us a more prosperous and economically viable community.

And now I'm back to personally, you are running for office again.

Who knows what it's going to be like in the fall.

But to quote you, Jonah came home, your son came home to school one day, and one of these campaigns said at school, somebody told him, quote, my dad is going to shoot your dad with his gun.

And Erica, last week at an event talked about how personal attacks have been on her as well as on you.

You read that stuff you said in here.

Do you still and what does that do to her family?

Well, you know, it's it's, it's not easy sometimes to see that stuff, but it makes you stronger.

I mean, you recognize the number one online world is not the real world.

And people you know in our community are good and decent people.

And sometimes the rhetoric online gets spun out of control.

You have to put that stuff aside in order to be able to serve well.

But it makes you, you know, it gives you a thicker skin.

But it's something that I signed up for.

I know what I was getting into, but not something that your family does.

And so, you know, that's part of why I wanted to write this letter to my my son.

And my wife is that, you know, I recognize that this is a this is a family endeavor.

And, you know, there along with me on this, not because they signed up for, but because I did.

And and there is important things, worthwhile things that we've done together that this community has experienced because of their sacrifice.

And right now, you keep them busy.

You're working at Trinity?

I am, yeah.

And getting inspiration.

For you went to school when you were a sports intern at channel four?

That's right.

Which I don't see mentioned in the book.

Well worth talking about.

Yes, but another time.

And you were the same affable, caring gentleman you are.

You're a politician.

Thanks very much, mayor Ron Nurnberg.

The book is out right now.

Nurnberg the education of a Texas public servant.

Thanks for coming.

In.

Those much ready?

On reporters roundtable this week, a look at a couple of stories that have made big news nationally recently that, Tony Gonzalez, now former congressman from this area, and Cesar Chavez and the revelations about him and what's happened after that.

Nancy Prayer Johnson is a senior reporter for the Express-News covering both of these stories.

Let's talk first of all about Tony Gonzalez.

Now, these allegations, when they first came up, he denied any what he called rumors of an affair with the staffer who later committed suicide and looked like he was going to get through the primary state congressman.

But you found out some other things after that.

How did this happen.

At the San Antonio Express-News?

We first learned about it when his staffer, died by suicide.

It was a particularly gruesome, just tragic suicide.

I mean, just unimaginable.

Right?

She poured gasoline on herself and and died, set it and died.

So we started looking into that.

And, you know, he she worked in his office, and so we, you know, would reach out to his office just the beginning and just say, like, you know, do you have a comment?

He had no comments.

From the very beginning.

There were rumors from the beginning.

But at the Express-News, we do not report about rumors.

So back five months ago now, more than five months ago, we started trying to report on them.

We were getting, you know, some information off record from a staffer, at, you know, who used to work there with her.

There's only two people in the Uvalde office.

And that staffer was talking to us off record, but was afraid to, like, actually speak, even on background.

Eventually, when he was ready to, when he was ready to speak, he shared some text messages, some evidence, some some text messages that show they stayed at a cabin together, that his family owned a text message.

That was very key.

And one of the first stories we reported was where she said, that she had had an affair with the boss.

And that was what he explicitly denied after this at the Texas Tribune Festival, I think last fall.

Absolutely.

There have been a number of reporters asking him, I mean, KSAT and, you know, we've asked him several times, of course, or countless times.

He denied it.

And, and then eventually he, he admitted, right.

He actually had a interview on the Joe Pags Show, and, and he said that he had had an affair and that he had asked God for forgiveness, and God forgave him.

But then after that, a series of stories finding out more from that staffer.

Did you have to convince or a staffer, talking about how the woman, after her husband had discovered the affair at the time, she was black sheep as a staffer said, and then kind of pushed out of the office.

So it was more than just an affair, was really the abuse of power.

Yeah.

And that staffer had some instability.

Right?

We did find out that.

And from police reports and other records we were finally able to get, it was very difficult and we weren't able to get the police report until Tony Gonzalez himself set it on.

Ex released the report and then suddenly it was released.

So of course, you know, we've been trying.

That's another battle that we had and trying to report the story out.

You know, there's a lot of text messages that show various, various things that have happened in that.

And now this is one of those stories where people might think, oh, the Express-News went after a congressman because, you know.

From the very beginning, I was actually in, in contact with Regina Santos Avila is she's the staffer that died this way, in this horrible way, with her husband.

And so from the very beginning, he told me, I said, what are the rumors?

True.

Right.

I, you know, gave him my condolences.

I said, are the rumors true?

And he said, the truth will come to light and that, you know, that is what journalists do.

That's what we, all of us.

Right?

That's what we try to do, is uncover the truth.

And so I went into it saying like, okay, either we're going to uncover that the rumor is false, or that it is true, or some variation of it is true.

Right.

But we had to have evidence.

We had to get information on the record or, you know, at least on background, and we had to prove it and verify it.

And that's what we did.

And it wasn't just then this story, you had a series of stories.

Yes.

What he said and then what others said.

The staffer, another staffer said, how did that develop that story?

Through sourcing, you know, I mean, as we're talking to various sources, we're we just tell them we've been on the story from the very beginning.

There's been some reporters, of course, who did try to, you know, write the story, too, because and report it out, because the story obviously has tremendous, you know, impact, right on, on the whole country.

Right.

And especially on his, on his districts, but on the whole country.

And they recognize us.

They know us.

The husband, his attorney has been key, and his attorney, has been giving me quite a bit of information.

So that is partly how I've been able to, report on this.

And did you expect that it would lead to this?

And what did you think when that led to his resignation finally?

I mean, I, I don't try to go into it with any expectations.

Right?

I try to uncover the truth and report it out as I can and make those relationships and make sure that I maintain, you know, a strong relationship so that they trust us as journalists, and that I deliver on that.

So I just reported out, as it happens.

And another story much like this or while something like this and Cesar Chavez allegations.

Now, you had a story on this before the New York Times story or official story came out because the Cesar Chavez groups were canceling things.

And so it was reported out that there was there were expected to be allegations about sexual misconduct.

You know, I was on the tail end of the Tony Gonzalez story and honestly, pretty exhausted.

There is quite a bit of stories.

And, I mean, I was interviewed on CNN and ABC news and others, and it was it was pretty grueling.

You know, I've never worked on a story, that big, right.

And, and just that constant there was this, I don't know, I lost track of how many stories I wrote.

And, my colleague Bayless Wagner, she's a political reporter that we, we wrote together as well.

So I was, I mean, still trying to cover that story when I got a tip, that the the local march was going to get canceled, right?

The local Cesar Chavez march is going to get canceled.

And so I said, okay, well, you know, all right, I, I assumed it had something to do with ice.

I thought maybe ice was going to be there, you know, and they just said, oh, we don't want to deal with that or something to that effect.

Right.

Maybe something financial.

I mean, I didn't know much about it.

And so this person, though, that gave me the tip, and a very reliable source, he told me, this is a big deal.

You know, this is going to be a national story.

I am told that a national publication is going to, is going to publish a story soon.

They've been writing on it for over five years.

They've been reporting on it.

And so I started digging.

Eventually I was able to talk to sources who had been interviewed by the New York Times, and I was getting told a lot of the information that they had been giving them.

They were very hesitant because they were waiting on that New York Times story.

I waited because, again, it is very important that what we report out that we have verified, you know, and even though these are sources that, were very strong sources, right.

And very connected, I wanted to make sure to verify, so I waited.

I eventually found out that the, the, the Chavez Foundation was going to put out a statement.

And that was what, though, was going to put out a statement.

And so I got all the reporting that I had done a lot of long nights and weekends, and I waited on that.

And as soon as I got those statements, I added those statements to it.

And, and we were able to publish that story before The New York Times published their project.

And Dolores went to then came out and talked about it, her two children that she had had because of this, and she has been in San Antonio a lot.

She really has.

I actually met her a few years ago here.

She was a she was getting the eda's biggest award.

And, I had some, And so I had some time to speak with her there.

She actually made some time to allow me to interview her, and, she was really personable.

She was.

She was patience.

You allowed me to speak with her.

And, you know, at the end of that event, she had the whole room, the whole gala standing up and and chanting, of course, c sip weather.

It was that was a very devastating story.

And to hear that, you know, I had already gotten some information that that was going to come out.

Of course, I wanted to wait until, you know, she put her statement out.

She's been very brave in, and, you know, sharing that information.

Well, thanks very much for coming in and fascinating stories on how you get those stories come back, when you have more.

And I know you will.

Nancy Johnson, senior reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

Thanks very.

Much.

Thank you.

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

You can watch the show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download it as a podcast@klrn.org.

I'm Randi Beamer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is broughtto you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.