Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow Speaker 2: 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 on Speaker 1: Hi everybody.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and we are now deep into Fiesta, and we're finally getting out of COVID, but you put those two together and you have concerns with all those people pack together.

At wonder, are we going to have another surge?

How should we interact during Fiesta and Dr. Jason Bolling, the infectious disease specialist at university health system.

Thank you for joining us.

First of all, what do you tell people about going back to Fiesta as the numbers are dropping here in bear county?

Speaker 2: Right.

So fortunately we're at very low level activity of COVID-19.

We're actually at the lowest level that we have been since summer of 2020.

So quite some time since we've been that low, which is really good timing for this large, you know, Fiesta S city celebration.

So it's good for people to be able to go out.

We don't have to wear a mask per the CDC at this point, which is good, but I will say there are still some cases it's not completely gone.

And so for people that know that they're at higher risk, that their immune system compromised or medical problems, it's something they should think about when they go into large crowds, maybe talk with their doctor.

If they're going to go to an indoor setting with large crowds, also something they should think about.

So Speaker 1: We should understand that some people are going to wear a mask and maybe be a little more standoffish than others and not to be offended by them, I guess.

Speaker 2: Right.

I think what we should do is, you know, obviously tolerate, it'd be very tolerant and understand why some people may need to wear masks, not make comments, be appreciative of the fact that they're taking care of themselves.

Maybe just to protect you as well, Speaker 1: Booster shots now, 50 and over again, and can get a fourth booster.

Others.

You said never got the booster and that's a concern, Speaker 2: Right?

So one of the things last week, the FDA authorized a fourth dose for certain people over 50, or if they're immunocompromised, but we're still really behind on people getting that third dose, that booster to get them up to speed.

And we know what the newest variants people need that third dose to have better protection.

And so we really want people to get that third dose Speaker 1: And that next variant at BA too, it's on the rise and pretty prevalent in Europe.

What do we think's going to happen there?

And what is it like?

Speaker 2: Right.

So this BA two is very closely related to Omicron, which is the variant that caused our most recent search.

It is a little more transmissible, but what we've seen is it's increased activity in Europe, as you've mentioned.

And what we've normally done in our pattern has been that Europe has gone up first and then we followed them.

And so everybody's kind of been on the edge of their seats waiting for this next bump.

We haven't seen that yet here in the United States, but it's in Fort important for people to do what they can.

Now, all levels are low, get their third dose.

If they haven't got it, talked to their doctor, if they have concerns Speaker 1: And there are people here still getting it, Joaquin Castro and Congressman, he has mild symptoms.

And I guess most people that have it now have mild symptoms, most people, Speaker 2: Right?

So this variant is more transmissible, but fortunately it doesn't cause a severe disease as Delta and alpha, the variants that were we saw before, but people that have not had it before are getting it.

It's still transmissible.

And it's still out there, not in high numbers, Speaker 1: Vulnerable and older populations, or is it pretty much everyone?

Speaker 2: It's pretty much everyone.

And particularly people that are not fully up to date with their boosters, but even people that are up to date with their boosters can get it.

They're just less likely to get more severe disease.

Yeah.

Speaker 1: And how many people now, I guess we're down to the dozens in the hospital, Speaker 2: Right?

So city wide, we're less than 70 people hospitalized to all the hospitals in San Antonio, individual hospitals are very low numbers.

There's a couple that even have zero patients right now with COVID, which is great.

Speaker 1: And we had thousands a day in January, still getting COVID hundreds a day in February, and now we're down to dozens a day.

Right?

Speaker 2: Right.

So one of the remarkable and challenging things with this has been the rapid swings and increases and decreases and you know, the healthcare systems having to adjust all of this has been a real problem, as well as everybody.

Right?

Trying to sort out how to find a balance with this in their personal lives.

Speaker 1: How concerned are you that there's going to be a bump after Fiesta and through the summer when we're everybody gets together.

Speaker 2: Right?

So I kind of biased, but I'm always worried there's going to be a bump.

And so we can be ready and prepared.

We will see an increase in activity, likely this, as far as isn't gone, there's still people that are vulnerable.

We know that even when people get in natural immunity from having infection, it's fairly short-lived and the vaccine immunity is fairly limited at some degrees, as well as how long it lasts.

We're still learning about that.

And so we will see a bump in activity.

Hopefully it won't be as significant and disruptive as the prior bumps in activity we've seen before.

Speaker 1: We also see headlines in world news about China locking down cities for Alma, but they have a whole different mindset of how to deal with it.

They don't have that many cases technically, right.

Or they don't report them.

Speaker 2: Right.

So it's always a little bit challenging looking at information, but right.

They've taken a very different approach to COVID.

They've taken this zero policy, zero COVID policy, which really means they've been aggressively.

If anybody's positive, they locked down a building, sometimes sections of a city and, you know, news out just today is that they're going to lock down the entire city of Shanghai, which is multimillion is a huge city.

And that Speaker 1: Scares people when they see that.

But that's not the kind of thing that we're seeing in Europe where those cases are going up and we expect them to go up here.

Speaker 2: Right?

So the difference in, in China is they have a lot of people that have not received vaccine or have not had disease.

And so their, their population is much more susceptible.

Europe has probably more closer to ours because they've used similar healthcare policies to try to keep, keep the levels low.

But they've been a little more, COVID diverse at some parts.

And some parts of United States we've had very limited mitigation measures.

And so we probably had more people with disease, which is why our death rates have been a little bit higher in the United States, in some parts of Europe.

Speaker 1: What about the outlook in terms of sub variants and more variants down the road?

This BA two is I guess, a descendant of Omicron of a Omicron, is it Speaker 2: Right?

So BA two is very closely related where it's right.

So it is like a descendant.

A cousin is closely related to Omicron.

The X-Factor is really, if we see a new variant, that's entirely different, like Omicron was from Delta before it.

And that's the part that really is hard to predict because it can happen at any time.

It may not happen.

We don't know this, we know this virus mutates over time, but we just don't know when we might see one that's really, really different.

Like we saw with Omicron to Delta, Speaker 1: The meantime you're breathing a sigh of relief and you're going to Fiesta, or you going to Fiesta, Slapping and hugging people.

Speaker 2: I'm going to celebrate as well.

We should all enjoy the time that we have this lower activity and, and just be really aware of what's going on.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Jason Bolling, infectious disease specialists with the university health system.

It's good to see you like without a white coat and without all the bad news we've had you on for.

Speaker 2: Thanks.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Speaker 1: And as we are getting back to a real Fiesta and trying to put COVID behind us, we are going back to office spaces.

At least some of us are, and here to explain everything there is to know about how San Antonio is getting back to work back to business or back to home.

Working at home is at Arnold, the managing editor of the San Antonio business journal.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Pleasure.

How is San Antonio doing in terms of getting workers back in the office?

It's sort of fits and starts from what we can tell.

Some large employers USA, for example, is sort of opening up flexibility for workers that wanted to come back to the office.

Maybe have that team atmosphere work with people in person again.

And I think it's fair to say that a lot of great ideas happen when you can get your group together at a job.

Right?

On the other hand, they have realize that a lot of their employees don't have the infrastructure to go back.

Full-time again, they're not interested in going back full-time again.

And so they're trying to keep some amount of flexibility and I think that's what we'll be seeing going forward from employers.

You know, my viewpoint on it is pretty simple.

Employers are having more trouble than ever hiring people.

It is very hard for them to find the talent that they want.

Lots of retirements, lots of quits, right?

Both the top and the bottom.

We talked about it before.

How are you going to encourage new employees to join you?

If you have rigid back to work schedules, people just aren't going to accept that going forward.

I don't think Sweat pants.

That's what you're recruit people with now Who doesn't want to wear sweatpants at work.

I'm here in this monkey suit.

I wish I could be wearing sweat pants underneath that.

We got to get a covered table.

I thought you were so, but it's not like a USAA and some of the other businesses here saying you got to come in two days a week.

We need you in here.

It's not a percentage time thing.

It's how does it work?

What is hybrid for a lot of times?

Yeah, I think what hybrid essentially is, is a refocusing of what people are judging their employees with.

So rather than, you know, I see him at his desk cranking every day in that cubicle, I know he's working hard as opposed to evaluating them on the work alone, as opposed to seeing them, managing them, touching them, you know, being in the building with them and managers and companies are going to have to change the way they evaluate employees and how they manage them And the way they evaluate buildings.

What does that doing to the, the business office space in San Antonio is whether it's needed.

You said they're kind of, we're running behind the curve.

Yes.

To some degree.

You know, I think if you look around for, for those of you that don't know, you know, office space is graded a through D you know, a office space.

There's not a lot of it.

If you want a office space in San Antonio, it is very rare.

It's hard to find for us.

Tower is an example of class, a office space.

If you have class B or class C office space, filling that space has been incredibly difficult, but we have not yet seen prices match.

That prices are still about where they were pre pandemic and businesses need less of it.

Now businesses are trying to renegotiate their office leases.

They're trying to figure out ways to cut down their footprint size and save some money.

And right now office space is still at about the same prices that it was in 2019.

I think that'll come back to haunt business property owners if they don't align themselves with what people are actually looking for in that.

And now some of them don't need the space.

I talked to a Ted Flato like flight of architects.

They're redoing their building outside right now.

And they have more workers than they really have space for it, their new building.

So they're almost counting on not having all the people there all the time.

Absolutely.

Is that going to be the, the business of the future, the workplace?

I think to some degree, we're going to have more, you know, free open office space that you can use with your team when you need it and less, this is your cube.

I heard that you, I say, Hey, it was doing some of that even before the pandemic hoteling, is that what they call that?

What is that?

That seems very impersonal.

And I don't have my own space.

I don't have any ownership, but yeah.

Yeah.

I think, I think there's just a mentality shift and there's going to be a balance and for a giant company like USAA, they have to deal with, you know, thousands of different wants, needs, and personal decisions about their employees.

And so they're, I think they're trying to cover as many bases as they can.

Some people, the hotel experience was sort of like, you know, renting a conference room and we all come in there and use this, you know, there's a coffee maker and we all just sort of work out the space.

People definitely found that in personal and certain people.

I, I certainly like having my little corner with my kids, pictures of my stuff at work, but I would say a lot of younger workers don't really care about that.

And the indoctrination into a culture of a business, or they used to do a lot of team building and have picnics and all that kind of stuff.

Or they're still doing that in addition, or they want to do that.

You think that'll come from.

So I think that'll be the thing that they use as team building.

More often, there'll be more kinds of quarterly get together.

It's more sort of, you know, a formal go out to get, you know, dinner drinks night or have lunch together sort of events.

I think it will be the future.

Speaking of dinner, a drinks, there's a new brewery coming to Broadway and that Broadway Stop.

My Beautiful, your exciting.

So what does that mean for all that Broadway development?

What's the brewery, There is a, so the brewery is very interesting.

It's one that is focused on a non-profit engagement and charity giving.

So in the same way that charity bar downtown that's near the Alamodome, which is a place I quite like a lot has specific charities that they, that they, you know, donate to.

This is also about sort of supporting nonprofits in the community through a brewery concept.

And it looks really good.

They have locations in Austin and San Diego.

I've never been to one, but it looks like a really interesting sort of style.

And now we're on Broadway.

And where will that add more businesses around it from, Well, that's the thing about Broadway, right?

Is there is no stopping Broadway development.

It seems despite the fact that the state's kind of come in and try to play with the traffic patterns or who's responsible for the street development along Broadway, whether you're talking at the south end down by, you know, the August steakhouse, you know, or all the way up on the north end, where four 10 comes in, there's something being built or developed or being suggested or sold all up and down that.

So people who live in Alamo Heights and the Northern parts of the city and all the way down to the den, just be ready because your traffic patterns are going to be insane for the next four weeks.

Great.

Thank you.

And so how about a couple of other stories XFL coming to San Antonio?

True.

False.

Maybe As we speak, the XFL is supposedly making an announcement about where they're going and what they're doing.

We haven't seen it yet, but senior reporter Scott Bailey, the ACE of staff, did get a coach to confirm that he was going to be the XFL coach in San Antonio.

He left his job at the university.

Scott called the university said, is he coming to the XFL?

I said, yes.

Is he coming to San Antonio?

They said, yes, we can't get any still to confirm that, but I would be willing to bet in the next day or so we're going to, What does that mean?

Long-term everybody's saw always wondered.

Okay.

Does that mean, Hey, it's a tryout team for the NFL.

They're going to be a different kind of XFL than they were before.

Not that he hate me kind of, yes.

It's not WrestleMania with football.

It apparently is this time around.

And I think there's a lot smarter investment in what they see their position is there is still room for minor league football out there.

I think, you know, there's minor league baseball.

The NBA has done a pretty good job with its D league.

There is no such thing except for college and football.

They think there's a niche.

There might be Westover Hills.

We were talking about that a minute ago.

You got some stories on that and development out there Just Booming.

Yes, absolutely.

A new hospital, a new developments, new residential, new theaters going out there, new businesses going out there.

It's one of the parts of San Antonio.

And frankly, I think it's something we've talked about in the newsroom.

We could rotate ourselves around the city choosing neighborhoods.

There is no part of the city anymore that hasn't been touched with booming, booming development.

And Westover Hills is beginning to get its slice of the pie in a way that it probably has an historic.

Some of the development though is, you know, hedge funds or whatever from out of town.

Are we seeing more of that or still the same amount of that?

Yes, absolutely.

Hedge funds are still looking for value.

The big, the big piles of money out of New York, California, they're still looking for value.

And even though costs of things have gone up significantly.

The last few years, San Antonio still means value to those kinds of investors.

Pearl, how's it at the Pearl is still a high rent, but you say they're moving maybe more towards Lots of stuff happening at Pearl new music venue and the stable, which is going to be really exciting and, and sort of opens up that whole area to a new area of Pearl, to a new kind of visitor.

I think there'll be more restaurants coming.

There's new development at the edge of where our office was in the canned plant, excuse me, the full goods building.

And there's a new restaurant and development coming there and even more so it's bleeding over to the St. Mary's strip by the time.

I think if you and I sat down three years from now, they'll probably be brand new homes and brand new businesses all the way from Josephine street, all the way to St. Mary's and you, there's not a hunk of land left, So you're not buying up property on your own.

You're not gonna Have the money speculating You guys.

Don't, you know, You go to those breweries.

That's a good Time.

That's a good point.

I should, I shouldn't buy that avocado toast.

Right.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for an Arnold managing editor of the San Antonio business journal and brewery officiant auto.

Thanks for telling us all about the business.

And you can read about that in the San Antonio business Trends and pleasure.

You might've seen an article in San Antonio current this week about operation lone star and the real results of that.

And joining us to talk about it is Sanford.

Now, one of the San Antonio current, they editor thank you very much for coming in.

Great to be here.

Tell us about your story and what the real results.

And we should also explain operation.

Lone is the governor's border crackdown initiative.

Speaker 2: It's a border initiative that I believe that the bill has now risen to $2 billion on, and it's essentially Abbott has repeatedly said that the Biden administration is not doing enough to stop illegal border crossing.

So darn it.

He's gonna call in the Texas national soccer, Texas national guard, the state troopers, and, and basically take over border control Speaker 1: Of course, state laws that they can enforce right down there and there, they talking about it, a number of arrests and stopping a certain amount of, Speaker 2: I mean, if you, if you caught any of the Abbott TV commercials leading up to the, to the primary, the primary, yeah.

You saw the, the north Texas sheriff who looks like Yosemite, Sam talking about all the Wii fit that they've stopped because they're apprehending it at the border.

And Abbott new surrogates have claimed that 11,000 arrests have been made through operation Lonestar and millions of lethal.

What was it?

Lethal deaths, millions of lethal deaths from, from, you know, fentanyl and this sort of thing.

Well, the interesting thing is the sort of a nonprofit newsroom triumvirate of ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and the Marshall project got together.

They crunched the numbers from the state and they found out that that 11,000 maybe a little high, right?

Because if you look at the numbers that they were breaking down, those numbers include a lot of crimes that had no connection to the border, including some that were, you know, took place hundreds of miles away from the border, Speaker 1: The DPS troopers made a Russ for, but they were lumping those in.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Some of these were for basically statewide, you know, drugs, sweeps.

Some of them were, you know, things that were, you know, investigations that DPS had started prior to operation Lonestar going into effect in interestingly in December, the, the state basically sort of backpedaled and remove 2000 or the charges from that list.

Once they found out that these, these three newsrooms were doing the investigation Speaker 1: And that's when they started, but they've kept up that investigation.

And then there's also change the report.

The state has changed the way it's reporting even more and cut back on numbers.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

I, and I think that's, that's interesting to note that, you know, once the investigation starts, they start backpedaling and pulling those numbers out of there.

You know, so a lot of these felonies were hundreds of miles from the border.

A lot of them had absolutely nothing to do with illegal immigration.

And the narrative from, from Abbott in his people is, you know, we're doing this because we have to stop the human smugglers.

We have to stop the cartels.

We have to stop all these, these people who are committing felonies.

And then in April, there was a follow-up investigation from the same three newsrooms that found that about 40% of the arrests under this operation were basically for trespassing, Speaker 1: Which is, I guess, something now that they can arrest for as well as face some state charges on this.

Yeah, Speaker 2: That's right.

I mean, it's a misdemeanor charge.

Right?

Right.

And, and, you know, they're basically picking people up for walking across the border on a seventies ranch land.

Speaker 1: They can say that stopping illegal immigration, Speaker 2: I guess they can.

Right.

And they certainly throw these people in jail.

And many times they languished for weeks and weeks without a trial, you know?

And the, and the, the, the report from this week sort of centered in, on a couple people, like a Mexican immigrant, who basically was just trying to come over to get work so we can send money back home to his family who ended up spending all this time in jail.

And the other one was a Venezuelan human rights attorney who was basically fleeing because he was scared for his life because he had gotten crossways with the regime and the same thing.

It's like, they, you know, they're picking these people up on, on misdemeanor, trespass charges, throwing them in jail.

So there is a real human effect to stuff.

You know, I think the interesting thing is that the state has basically told these three newsrooms that in July, they were basically told to count most crimes being committed in a 63 county swath of Texas as prosecutions happening under operation, lone star six, Speaker 1: Just Speaker 2: Three Speaker 1: Counts.

Just those counties along the border, Speaker 2: 63 counties.

Yeah.

That's, that is a territory.

The size of the state of Oregon Speaker 1: Into west Texas and up towards the Northern border.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

You you're, you're obviously been reading up on this, but yeah.

I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's really fascinating.

And this comes as the, today, the breaking news is that the Texas military department who basically oversees the, the Texas guard said it needs 531 million additional dollars.

That's half a billion to you and me with the B to keep sending troops down there into south Texas to keep this operation going.

Right.

Speaker 1: Well, now they're also going to say that we'll title 42, when that goes away, whenever that happens.

And they are blaming the Biden administration for that, the, you know, the rule that kept asylum seekers in Mexico, a lot of them that they're going to need more people.

What do you say Speaker 2: Title 42?

The problem there is, I think it would be very difficult for any administration to keep that in effect indefinitely, right.

That it was put in place by the Trump administration and the justification was we're having a health crisis.

We can't let people into the United States right now to seek asylum.

Well, you kind of have to ask yourself, well, which is it, or are we back to normal here?

And nobody's wearing masks in Texas and nobody has to get a vaccination and, and governor Abbott and his, his cronies can, can basically say everybody just needs to get back to normal.

And nobody needs to get, you know, wear a mask.

Nobody needs to get vaccinated pandemic over.

Or do you say no, we're in the throws of this pandemic.

And we need to have this, this, this, this measure in place, because this is how Speaker 1: Well now all those ads that avid had running in the primary mentioned Biden a lot.

And it seems as if he is, you know, positioning himself for a run for president.

And a lot of people have talked about that in 2024.

And this works into the Texas Lyceum poll, which she just reported on as well with him and, and with Abbott and Speaker 2: Roar.

So you may have heard of him, right?

Yeah.

Speaker 1: So what's the latest on that poll and the numbers.

Speaker 2: And on this pole hit this week.

It was interesting.

It's an annual poll, a well-respected poll, not just on Texas politics, but on sort of the attitudes of Texans and priorities of tax.

And it's called the Texas Lyceum poll.

And they found that, you know, Beto O'Rourke, the democratic challenger was winning two points of governor Greg Abbott, which is the most of, you know, sort of the closest margin.

I think anybody has reported so far.

It's a 3.2% margin of error on that, that poll for anybody who's keeping tabs at home.

And that's unusual because I mean, in the past, we we've tended to see, you know, Republicans, you know, especially governors wind by like a 10 plus percent margin Speaker 1: Early.

And it's like 40 to 42.

So there's 18% Speaker 2: Absolutely Speaker 1: Undecided.

Speaker 2: That was what I was going to say was, it was, there's a lot of people undecided in that poll it's early on, but I do think there are a couple of interesting takeaways from that poll.

And one of them is that if you look at the other statistics in the poll, people are not concerned about a lot of the issues that Abbott championed during the legislative session was very much culture, war stuff.

It was abortion, critical race theory, you know, transgender kids, playing sports, all this kind of stuff.

And there was very little attention played to, you know, paid to kitchen table sort of economic stuff.

And that turns out in the Lyceum poll.

That's what people are really interested in.

You know, they're worried about their property taxes.

They're worried about not being able to, to afford a home if they're already in a home that worried about paying.

Speaker 1: So we can expect people to pivot to that in terms of the general election and the habit.

Speaker 2: I mean, I think, I think it's going to play an important part.

I think Abbott is going to repeatedly go back to this.

This is Biden's fault.

It's all about the inflation.

But when you look at it that a lot of these things were playing out like the high home prices that, you know, the, the, the property taxes that stuff was playing out.

And, you know, during the legislative session, did he and the Republicans do anything about it?

No.

To quote, you know, Robert DeNiro and Copland, you had your chance and you blew it.

Speaker 1: And with that, we are out of time.

Thank you very much.

Former a drama, a major Sanford Nalin of the San Antonio current.

Thank you very much for coming.

Speaker 2: Thanks be Speaker 1: There'll be more of this throughout the election season.

Thanks.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see the show again, or previous shows as well as the podcast at dot org.

And we'll see you next time.

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