Speaker 1: San Antonio is a fast growing fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters round table to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now, as we go Speaker 2: Welcome to on the record, my name is Tuesday night.

The San Antonio children's shelter has been in the news this week.

First, the state put the shelter on a placement hold, forcing the shelter to remove the children in its care and finding them other facilities to stay.

Now, there are allegations of sexual abuse.

We're joined by a net Rodriguez, president and CEO of the children's shelter.

Thank you Annette, for being with us today to be here.

Now, let's address these allegations.

What is happening?

Speaker 1: So the children's shelter has historically served younger, younger youth or younger children.

Um, this past year we have been faced and not just the children's shelter, but the state of Texas San Antonio bear County has been faced with the capacity crisis.

We have had challenges finding placements for older youth, primarily teenagers who range in age from 14, 15 to 17 years of age.

And many of those youth have very complex, um, histories, um, lots of trauma that brought them into care and then trauma that they've received also while they've been in care.

Um, and they require very tailored and, um, very specific services, but because of the current environment, um, both are that, that, that are, um, sorry, the environment, um, that exists for our youth right now, and that has been created both by COVID.

Um, and also a federal lawsuit.

We'd find ourselves with less residential facilities willing to take some of these older youth.

And so the children's shelter has been responsive to our community.

We've cared for children for over a hundred years and we saw a need to step up and start taking some of these older youth.

And that's what we started doing.

So we started taking, um, older youth here in the last several months.

Um, and a couple of weeks ago we had some, several incidents that have led to, uh, calls to the DSPs hotline, um, and have bled to some of the, um, abuse allegations that have that you, you spoke about.

So right now they're under investigation.

Um, they are allegations, nothing has been confirmed or denied, and we are working through the process and providing all, all, um, information possible.

Speaker 2: Now how much more difficult even with the pandemic a net is placing older children versus younger children.

Speaker 1: It's difficult.

I mean, even if it was a youth who did not have, um, any presenting challenges, whether emotional or behavioral challenges, it is difficult because when you think about the foster care system, you oftentimes think of the younger kids.

And, um, and that's, those are the children that are easier to place, but as, as a youth gets older.

And what we also know in terms of research is when a teenager stays longer in the foster care system, the more likely you are to see some presenting challenges or percent presenting issues, um, from that youth.

And sometimes it's those behaviors that make it challenging to, to be able to place them.

Um, and, and so we're, we're working through that and trying to build capacity, trying to work with our, with our community and our service providers to get to a point where as they feel calm, comfortable, and confident, and being able to provide quality services to, to youth of that age.

Speaker 2: Now you provide services 24 hours a day, and there's always something happening there.

How has this closure affected those?

The people, the staff, the, the children that are there.

Speaker 1: Um, we had about 43 children here last week when we were told that we were being placed on placement hold and, um, told that we needed to move, move the children.

So all the children were moved by five o'clock or thereabouts on this past Monday on the 26th.

Um, and it's definitely an impact.

We have a campus that was built for children.

Who've been abused, abandoned, and neglected, and, and it's sitting empty right now.

Um, and so it has an impact on all of us, particularly those directly, who worked with the children day and night.

And so we're, we're having conversations with them.

Our hope is that, uh, we will be able to have the placement hold lifted.

We have presented a plan to the commissioner and to the department of family and protective services.

Uh, they are in receipt of that plan and are reviewing it.

And we hope that we can come to an agreement and come to terms, um, with a path forward for our emergency shelter.

Speaker 2: Wonderful.

So what would you tell the people that are in need of your services?

What would you tell them right now?

Speaker 1: So we have, we have a family of services here, um, on our, on our campus.

Um, the shelter is one of them, but we also offer services for parenting.

We have programs for fathers through our composite and gram-positive program.

We have a nurse family partnership program that works with first time mothers.

Uh, we have an program that works with, you know, you're a parent, if you're a caregiver, uh, if you're a relative, that's caring for somebody else's child, we have services for you.

And also we have our counseling services, um, that continue on.

And so we continue to be here for the community.

If you require any of those services, we'd love to be able to help you.

And also we have our foster program.

If you are so inclined to become a foster family and consider taking a foster youth into your home, we'd love to talk to you.

Speaker 2: And even though there's a shortage of beds, we're still encouraging people to come.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

What are some of them?

We, we need more families.

We need more facilities to be able to help care for our youth.

Speaker 2: So outside of the plan that we have, and trying to make sure that you are providing all the services that you need for San Antonio, uh, net, we really appreciate your time today.

Thank you for talking with us.

And we really appreciate you being with us on the record.

Speaker 1: Thank you for having me Speaker 2: Well, welcome back.

We have Reed Williams, the chair of the committee of emergency preparedness.

So read, it seems like it was a year ago, but I know it was just a couple months ago when we had the snowpocalypse last, just, it was really difficult for us San Antonians.

And now you as the chair person of the committee on emergency preparedness, you're talking with the city, you're talking with saws and CPS.

Tell me what's going on with that.

Well, uh, as you know, we've taken a lot of questions from the public, um, hundreds, and we've consolidated those into requests for information for each one of the three groups.

So CPS, the city in primarily, uh, focusing in the city and the, uh, uh, uh, emergency, uh, control center and emergency response center.

And then, uh, and then saws, and we've taken those who consolidate them down there out to each one of those entities.

And we're starting to get information back, uh, as we've mentioned before, our job is to communicate with the public.

It's not necessarily to do a report for any one of these entities, because we're trying to figure out, you know, what happened and why it's then for those entities, entities, entities, themselves, their boards, and their management to decide how they fix this.

It doesn't happen again, right?

So it's not like we're going to come up with the fix answers, but we do have to come up with the, what happened and why answers for our public.

We spent a lot of time, all of our meetings are live stream.

We spent a lot of time trying to get a website.

We're getting a new website so that all of these questions as they come in, we can, for each one of these entities, we can put them in questions that have come in, that we're following up on or still need analysis.

And then the final bucket, honey, they're coming in from the public and we're getting them posted.

Now, technology is what it is, and everybody's careful with websites.

So we got to go through a lot of protocols to get anything posted.

And I know that's frustrating needs to some folks that we're not getting enough posted, but you will start seeing in the next week or so, I would say one way or the other, either the question was responsive.

It wasn't responsive.

It's complete it.

Wasn't complete.

You'll get probably 60, 70% of the questions posted.

Do we have a timeline on when we're Looking to get these questions responded to, Well, I do.

We don't.

I have a timeline.

I want to get it done as quick as I can.

Okay.

Because this is not an ongoing committee.

This is a committee to look at a one event, help the people understand that event and then make, you know, what happened.

Why did it happen?

Turn it over to the, to the boards and the management of those entities to, uh, to fix it.

So I want it done quick.

I agree with that.

The public, it has to well, and that's why we are not following the traditional report system so that when you go through this whole time, and then you publish report, we're putting, if you will, the individual questions, as they're answered by the entities on the site.

Now, the committee is also looking at other questions as well.

Well, it's primarily just questions on this, on this, what I've defined with the committee.

And I've got a great committee.

I just can't say enough about them.

What we've defined as the event time is between the ninth and the 19th of February.

So we're just looking at those.

Well, I know the public is really excited about hearing what you report it.

The snowpocalypse was not fun for anyone.

So Reed, thank you so much for all of your work and the committees help, but I know we're really looking forward to Great.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Welcome.

Now we have Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez.

Thank you for being here with us today on the record.

Now, recently you made a video asking the Texas legislature to make cannabis legal in Texas.

How has that been received?

Speaker 1: And Tuesday is it's been received quite well.

You know, um, I think it's just really time that we turn the corner on this.

You know, we need more people in the Capitol specifically watching it.

Um, ultimately we did it because we wanted to tell the truth about cannabis.

We wanted people to understand that we didn't want to do a documentary that said this cannabis is good for you.

We wanted to do a documentary.

I said, why not?

Texas 36 States have already done this it's time.

Speaker 2: We've had a lot of people that spoke in the video that talked about health benefits and what that looked like.

And so what are the experts telling you?

Speaker 1: Well, you know, we've done a lot of research, a lot of study over the last year and a half since we started the documentary, certainly talked to a lot of people.

Cannabis is good for you.

First off as 7% addictive rates to 15% alcohol, not one person ever has ever overdosed from over consumption of cannabis in the history of cannabis at all.

We used to use it medicinally in the 19 hundreds and early 19 hundreds, uh, after which time with prohibition and the fight against alcohol, there was a similar prohibition to cannabis.

And later on, Richard Nixon came out and really wanted to put it on schedule one because he was fighting the counter-culture at that time.

And so he insisted on placing it on schedule one, his own hand-picked select committee said that cannabis has high, uh, therapeutic value and very low addictive qualities.

And yet Nixon cut a deal with Congress.

And part of that deal was putting cannabis on schedule one.

And so that's kind of our modern experience with cannabis Stinson.

We have incarcerated hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people for low level marijuana crimes and affected their lives in a horrible way.

Um, 36 States have done this, like I said before, we can do a better job at it.

We can regulate a product that's already on our streets.

Speaker 2: And so those States are California and Colorado.

And so looking at what they've done, what type of success would come to Texas, if that, Speaker 1: Well, it's also this very conservative state of Oklahoma as one of the most liberal medical cannabis States in the nation.

Also a state like Montana and Arizona.

What they've been able to realize is new taxable revenue, which means that you and I don't pay increasing property values at home.

Don't pay more, don't pay more taxes on our, on our real property, on our homes.

Speaker 2: So economically it would be good for Texas.

Speaker 1: We could generate about $3.6 billion in new revenue per biennium.

Wow.

Tangible amount of money or infrastructure or schools, law enforcement.

If you will collagen jobs, he has been able to do their $300 million per year, but they've also done about an extra $200 million just in the city and County of Denver.

And so local communities can create taxation as well.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

And so you had mentioned something also about jobs.

Speaker 1: There is never been a time where we could create where a new industry could come into a state in great, over 30,000 jobs in farming and manufacturing and distribution and retail.

We're at a specific time.

And I mentioned this in the documentary in the advocates, don't talk about this much, but we have something called the interstate commerce clause.

And it says, if we have a legal product in the United States and we, a state cannot restrain trade from another state.

And so we have a time right now where we can create that infrastructure, create the factories, create the manufacturing plants like I've seen in Canada and employ up to 1500 people at $15 an hour.

Great.

The plants that I've seen in Colorado, we can do that.

Now, if this issue legalizes federally, we will have lost that opportunity to create the infrastructure raid the jobs in Texas.

And those 30,000 jobs will be jobs that have been graded in Colorado and Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana States all the way around us and the product will simply be imported to distribution and retail sites so we can do better.

Speaker 2: And, you know, Texas always can do better.

We say that a lot, don't we?

And I know that you are really advocating for this.

So, um, we're wrapping up, but can you tell me what you think is the next step?

Speaker 1: Well, my hope is that in this session, we take up some cannabis bill.

You know, the Lieutenant governor has been pretty adamant about his decision on this.

However, you know, Jose Menendez has a very good medical cannabis bill.

I think we need to start looking at that.

Our compassionate use bill simply is not enough.

The notion that we're going to increase incrementally session after session THC, um, equivalents that neither in never measure up to a medical cannabis bill just doesn't make sense to me.

We can do what Oklahoma's done.

We can do what Colorado started in 2000 with California started with, and we can be in that space and let doctors make informed decisions for their patients.

I think that that's the right thing to do for our veterans on this video.

The last thing I'll tell you that one of the myths that we tried to break in this thing was that this wasn't that Cheech and Chong culture anymore.

You saw veterans of every, uh, racial, uh, diverse group, uh, that have, are weaning themselves off of opioids through cannabis, right?

Speaker 2: And that's part of the health health benefits that you talked about in your video.

So I would encourage people to really watch your video.

I think it was very informative.

Um, but it also talked about the difference in cannabis and THC and some other things, but Texas state, Senator Roland Gutierrez.

Thank you so much for being here with us today on the record.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

You take care of choosing.

Speaker 2: Welcome back.

We are so happy to have Cher.

Machaca here with Sabre San Antonio board of realtors.

Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you for having me.

So in the news, we have luxury home sales that are booming in San Antonio.

What is going on?

Well for one thing, uh, there's several opportunities out there for folks, but because the interest rates are still so low, those folks that are financing, they're buying the houses.

And in spite of the pandemic, our pricing is going up a little bit, but our sales are booming.

Wow.

And being the chair of save whore, I'm sure you're seeing a lot of that happening.

So are there any trends that are happening across the United States or is that just here in Texas?

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

I can even say I have a colleague in Seattle, Washington, and they're going through the same thing.

The housing market is just simply booming and the largest cause of that is our inventory Estelle lack of inventory.

So supply and demand.

And I'm sure the pandemic really did push that along a little bit further because people wanted to move into bigger homes now.

Right?

They do.

Um, it made some changes.

Some folks elected to stay in a certain price point to stay in their homes.

They would refinance they've.

We've seen a lot of, uh, I don't want to use the word rehabbing, but a lot of redesigning on in the houses, uh, turning rooms into offices, home offices, taking away the formal dining, making that a home office taken away, the fourth bedroom, making that a home office.

So we've had a lot of folks, uh, decide not to sell their homes.

And that too has contributed to lack of women Inventory.

And we have people coming from other States.

We talked about that too.

What does that look like?

Uh, yes we do.

Well, they like Texas and they like San Antonio because in spite of, uh, the price points that are going up a little bit, we're still considered an affordable area than other States.

So it's making us very popular other than the fact that we're just a great city.

Other than that, that's the best part about San Antonio.

And so with all of the realtors that you're working with, are they seeing a trend in that this is going to continue for a while?

Or do we think that this is going to stop?

Eventually, I feel as long as the mortgage rates stay low, we're going to still continue to see this competitiveness going on.

Um, if you see something you like and you want to purchase you better act quickly, Cause the dates, the time is changing on how long it takes the house to be on the market.

Well, we're absolutely.

Um, I don't have those statistics with me, but the amazing difference, for example, and I don't know exactly, but it was under 30 days right now.

It's under five days now.

It might even be the day, depending on the price point.

Right?

Well, you know, how is Texas going to sustain this?

Well, we do need more inventory and a lot of things are going on.

That's affecting it.

Uh, even for new home builders, you know, because supply and demand materials going up for whatever reason, there's so many variety of reasons that things are happening.

I believe though, right now we're in what we call the listing season.

And I've seen a little bit of increase of some more houses, you know, coming upon the market.

But again, as long as that desire is there.

And as you mentioned, the folks coming from out of state coming in, and there's just a variety of reasons that we've got this going on, but the biggest one is supply and demand.

We are low on inventory.

We're hoping some will pick up.

Uh, but the folks that are selling right now are selling for a reason.

They're not necessarily, Oh, I'm ready to move up or I'm ready to do this.

It's usually I've been transferred a job change.

Cause we have a lot of military here in the city, right?

Lifestyle change.

Yes.

If they have to go, they have to go.

So they're going to list their house.

Uh, I know of some folks now that listed their house and, um, it was in a lower price point below two 50.

Wow.

And it was gone.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, I think people are seeing that and you know what, I can't blame them.

San Antonio is a wonderful city.

So share, thank you so much for being here with us today.

We're really appreciative of your time with us on the record.

So thank you.

Welcome to the reporters round table.

We are so excited to have the eaglet Mendoza Moyer.

Thank you so much for being here this week with us.

Thanks for having me.

So this week you wrote a story for the San Antonio express news about CPS rate increases and what that looked like.

And so now after the snowpocalypse, um, we're talking about bills and rate increases.

Tell me a little bit about what you wrote.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So of course, you know, CPS has an Institute, any kind of rate increase yet, but they've got, you know, about a billion dollars in charges from the winter storm related to really high, natural gas bills and high wholesale power bills.

And so they've got a lot of challenges with that and, uh, of course they suspended disconnects of, of customers for non-payment about a year ago.

Uh, the start of the pandemic to, you know, of course provide some relief to customers.

But at this point, you know, you know, customers are about a hundred million dollars past due on bills about a year ago, they were about 36 million past due.

So you can see kind of the, the financial pressure, this mounting on CPS from all angles.

And so, um, you know, given these, these huge charges and these, you know, different challenges that are facing them, uh, it does look like increasingly likely later this year that they're going to approach city council, uh, for some kind of rate increase.

And of course city council would have to approve that.

And so what CPS has board and, and CPS hasn't officially said that that's what's going to happen, but, uh, they're just signaling, I think with all the various pressures on them, uh, that that's something likely they're going to seek this year.

Speaker 2: I think CPS is really working with all of those providers that we had issues with because there were, there were really a lot of people to blame in this situation.

So what do you think is has happening with those vendors?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so of course, certainly, I mean, as it relates to the winter storm, there's no one person at fault, you know, I wouldn't say CPS is at fault.

You know, I wouldn't say they're at fault there or any one particular party, but you know, as it stands now, CPS owes about $670 million for natural gas.

It bought during the winter storm.

And what happened there was there a lot of, uh, you know, natural gas, Wells and pipelines and things like that froze.

And so the companies that were still able to provide natural gas, the prices went way up because different utilities around the state, they're bidding for a limited supply of natural gas.

And so the prices went through the roof.

And so CPS now owns this huge bill and, uh, they've sued, you know, quite a bit of, of companies, I think 17 energy companies to try to sort of challenge these costs and say that, that, you know, it was price gouging and these prices sort of went up, uh, so high, it became illegal, um, you know, legal experts I've talked to, don't really buy that argument.

Or at least the argument CPS is making, uh, visibility, surprise scouting.

So, you know, more than likely CPS is going to be faced with this, you know, uh, like I said, around a billion dollars in charges that they're going to have to, you know, likely pass onto the customers like you and I for the next 10 years or so, Speaker 2: We'll have the snowpocalypse not happened and the pandemic with them not disconnecting people for a year.

How do you think that that affected the normal day-to-day operations?

Yeah, I mean, certainly CPS Speaker 1: Has been signaling for some time that a rate increases, uh, you know, something that they're, they're likely gonna get.

I mean, something to keep in mind is CPS hasn't had a rate increase, so they haven't sought one out in about seven years.

So, you know, that's quite a long time to go, uh, you know, with never increasing the sort of money you're bringing in from your customer.

So, um, you know, given that, it, it just seems like, um, you know, the pandemic obviously accelerated the pressure on CPS and, and, you know, suspending disconnects and things like that.

But, you know, this is something I think was, was going to be coming for a while.

Of course, we've got, um, you know, there's a lot of pressure on CPS to close their spruce coal plant.

So that's a big challenge and, and, uh, you know, potential expense down the road.

So there's all these different factors that we're coalescing where a rate increase was likely whether the pandemic hit or not.

I think the pandemic just kind of sped up the need for one, Speaker 2: Right.

And after seven years of no increase, it was going to happen at some point.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

And, and, uh, certainly I, you know, I, I do want to give credit, CPS does have, you know, really very low rates of the state of Texas, um, uh, particularly for a municipal utility.

Uh, and, and, you know, the data that, you know, prior to the storm, it may not seem like this now, but they were a very reliable utility.

Uh, and then, like I said, just, just very affordable.

So it was always something that was going to be likely.

And like I said, I just think this is really, you know, all the situations have just made it all the more, uh, necessary for CPS.

Speaker 2: Right.

And now we have some are coming, so thank you to Texas for it's a hundred degrees.

Yeah, Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, I understand there's, uh, you know, the concern, uh, you know, we just got out of the winter storm and so there's a lot of concern and we just had a couple of weeks ago, ERCOT, you know, the, the state grid operator told CPS and other utilities, Hey, we need to cut the power use.

Cause there was, um, you know, a lot of, uh, sort of power plants offline.

And so there was, there was kind of a scare there that we might have some blackouts.

So certainly it didn't, you know, that was a little bit of a scare, but I would say this, um, you know, CPS has power plants.

They're, they're sort of the way they're built in Texas is to shed heat in the summer.

And so, uh, you know, at a time of extreme cold, the power plants really aren't designed to trap in heat, but they're designed to sort of shed it.

So they're there, they're designed to run in really hot Texas summers.

And so I don't think that, you know, I think that they're sort of prepared for that and they're prepared for the heat.

Um, and, and I just think Texas in general, in the utility system is more prepared for extreme heat and extreme cold, like we saw in February.

Speaker 2: Right.

And that's telling us that we need to be more prepared as we go about.

So, uh, we're about to end our segment, but is there anything else that you wanted to make sure our viewers know, especially going into the summer?

Speaker 1: Well, certainly, I mean, I, I think, um, I know CPS is going to be really pushing, uh, you know, conservation and telling consumers to really try to cut your use as much as possible.

Um, but yeah, I mean, I would just tell viewers that, you know, you might want to expect a bill increase sometime this year.

Um, we still have to let the legal process play out with CPS as lawsuits, but certainly it seems likely that, you know, to some degree, we're going to see our bill increase in the next year.

And, um, can't say when exactly, but I would say something that's something to expect.

Wonderful.

Well, Diego, thank you so much for being here.

And as we talked about earlier, proud Sundevil so thank you for being with us today on the record.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for joining us for the episode of on the record.

You can visit Kayla rn.org to watch this episode again, or see previous shows.

My name is Tuesday night and as always, thanks for joining us on the record.