Speaker 1: On the record is presented by launch essay, San Antonio, small business owners.

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 are driving this change.

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

Join us now as we go on, Speaker 2: Welcome to on the record.

I'm Jonathan Gurwitz.

We're now less than a month away from San Antonio's municipal election voters will choose a mayor new council members and decide on two propositions, prop a, which would allow changes in how bond money can be used by the city and prop B, which would repeal collective bargaining for the police.

A new poll from bare facts and case had 12 gives us an idea of how voters are feeling heading into the May 1st election Christian Archer political analyst with bare facts joins us Christian.

Welcome.

Well, thanks Jonathan.

So let's start with bare facts.

Um, how did it get started?

What exactly is it?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so w Verifax was actually founded, um, uh, it actually models, uh, what's been going on in Harris County for 40 years.

Um, rice university teamed up with the kinder Institute and for 40 years, Harris County has been doing this deep dive into what's important to Harris County and to the city of Houston.

And in 2003, I ran bill White's campaign for mayor of Houston and used the kinder Institute findings, uh, throughout the entire mirror election.

And w you know, I think it was just disappointing that we don't have anything in bear County.

And so I got together with Lisa about it, the chair, uh, who used to be at the chamber, uh, and then ran the, uh, the hotel association and Demante Alexander and the trio of us really about a year and a half ago, founded bare facts.

It's nonprofit.

Our website is bare facts dot award, where we post all of the polls.

And really the idea Jonathan, is that we just become smarter about the policies that are being made.

Um, so it's, it's available to the public, uh, we sample size, um, it's a really large sample size for a scientific based poll telephone pole.

It's a telephone pole, but we also, um, look with changing technology.

We do online surveys.

We also call people on their cell phones.

Sorry.

Um, it's just part of the part of what we want to do.

We want to take a deep dive into what matters to people and, you know, so we'll do it each quarter.

Um, so we can also Mark the trends, right?

Popularity, are we headed in the right direction?

Are we headed in the wrong direction?

Speaker 2: And this is your fifth pole, right?

The fifth pole I w I want to get back to those trends, but let's talk about, so your fifth poll, you released the results this week.

Um, any surprises that you saw in the results, Speaker 1: You know, there were, there's just a ton of information in this.

We, we tested a lot of different topics, but we did, we, we pulled the mayor's race.

Uh, I think that the mayor's commanding lead, uh, 56 21 to Greg Brock house 4%, um, to a relatively unknown for, you know, newcomer to politics.

Um, you know, with 18% undecided, I was surprised that mayor Nurnberg was as strong as he was positioned, that he was in, that he could win without a runoff, I think is, is, uh, is a real potential where I think if, you know, if you backed up six months ago, you wouldn't have thought, Speaker 2: And then, uh, two propositions that are going to be on the ballot on May 1st, I think there was a little surprise and the results on property, Speaker 1: The truth of matters.

I thought that there was a surprise in both, I think, changing the future bonds.

That's probably we've been involved in a number of bonds together and to add a new bucket, uh, affordable housing.

And it pulled at 56% popularity with some undecideds.

You know, I think it was around 15% undecided, which will break, you know, a number of those will still go to for passage.

So I think it'll probably pass in the, in, at the 60% Speaker 2: Same range and then probably be on the collective bargaining for the police, Speaker 1: Uh, really changed a lot, uh, last year, uh, pro B, uh, is really to eliminate collective bargaining with the, with the, with the police union.

And I thought that it w I thought there would be stronger support to vote against eliminating the collective bargaining, uh, as it turns out it's kind of a dead heat race, which I think to most political insiders would think that that's, uh, a pretty big surprise.

It was 39 against 34 passage.

And I think, you know, look, we're, we're looking at, uh, on TV every night, we're looking at Derrick Chavez and the case for the murderer, uh, of George Floyd.

And so I think that that's helping, um, the people who are for ending the collective bargaining with the police and trying to add more accountability to San Antonio.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

A lot of the questions you asked, uh, surrounded the winter storm in February.

Yes.

Yeah.

What, uh, what kind of results did you see there?

Speaker 1: One, I think that, that people were frustrated with local leadership.

Uh, I think everybody kind of was frustrated with everything that went on with winter storm, but for the most part, the blame, we asked a question, who do you really blame for this?

Uh, the Blaine 53%, uh, of, of bear County residents blamed ERCOT 13%, uh, laid the blame at the governor's feet, 10% lay the blame at CPS and only 2%, uh, laid the blame at Marriner Burke's feet, which to me was a surprise.

I thought that, that he would take a bigger hit, uh, for the winter storm.

And that would hurt his head-to-head numbers versus versus Brock house.

But as it turned out, it just skipped right over him.

And, you know, kind of this, nobody knows who are caught is this unnamed acronym is going to take the blame for the winter storm.

So that, that was a surprise to me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So your first bare facts poll was in February a year ago before the pandemic.

Now you've got four that have taken place during the pandemic.

Yeah.

What any interesting trends you've seen over that period?

Speaker 1: Well, uh, yes.

Uh, certainly, you know, last year, Jonathan was such a crazy year dealing with the pandemic and the Corona virus.

And then we had to the civil unrest around the, the murder of George Floyd.

And so th there were different things that happened last year.

We took a deeper dive.

Our first poll was really to get a baseline understanding of where people sit, are we headed in the right direction, or are we headed in the wrong direction?

Most people believe we're headed in the right direction.

Both at County, government and city, government mayor Nurnberg was pulling in the mid fifties at that time, in terms of popularity, his handling of the Corona virus, um, shot him up.

I mean, uh, you know, he, his numbers took off like the space shuttle straight up to 76% approval since then.

It's been slowly coming down over time, kind of back down to earth.

Um, but I think that his handling of the coronavirus is the reason why he's in such a strong position going into may into the May's election city County government was, was also very popular.

Um, we'll continue to track those trends.

Um, last year, again was a little bit weird because, you know, we wanted to continue to do these baseline polls, but get more into policy, transportation education.

What can we do to make San Antonio better help the policy makers understand what, what people really think about these very important issues?

What we had to diverge a little bit and test more on coronavirus and then more on the civil unrest.

So I think this year will be a little bit more of what we hope to accomplish last year in terms of a deep dive into policy.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, great word, Christian.

And thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 1: Yeah, Jonathan, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: Joining us now is Danny Diaz, president of the San Antonio police officer's association.

Danny.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

So, uh, you're two months into this job, two months into your tenure as president and of suppo.

Yes, sir.

Uh, who is Danny Diaz?

Oh, a homegrown, uh, I've been an officer for 29 years, uh, after a stint in, in patrol and having a, a traffic safety program.

Uh, I spent majority of my career on SWAT.

Uh, once this opening came up and, uh, my Kaylee was retiring.

Uh, I saw the need for me to jump in and, and, uh, and take this association in a different direction.

And that's what I did.

Yeah.

And you're two months into to that tenure and you've got two, two big issues on, on, on the plate.

One is you're in the middle of negotiations with the city on collective bargaining.

And then on the may, first ballot is probably B, which would, if it passed with strip the collective bargaining rights from the union.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

So, uh, jumped into a perfect storm, right?

That's that's, uh, basically that's what happened, but we're working together, uh, with the city on that and, uh, trying to educate the citizens as best as we can in a short amount of time.

Yeah.

So, um, on prop B, what, what is the union's position?

What would it mean for you?

So what it means for us, uh, but not just for us, for the citizens, uh, we'd be hard pressed to get individuals to come and apply here.

As an example, when I came on, there was 4,500 individuals that took the exam.

Now we're hard pressed to get a 150 just to apply.

Um, with that, uh, response times, we don't have enough officers if officers decide to leave because there's, uh, no protections in place, as far as, uh, their, their benefits, their pay, uh, being able to sit and talk with a city staff and, and, uh, and bargain in good faith for the equipment that's needed, vehicles, radios, all of those things.

So there's an alternative to collect a bargaining, which is meet and confer, Right?

So if you look at meet and confer, the city's already stated that.

And I think the express news has quoted the assistant city manager.

That's not the way that they would like to go.

Uh, the activist keeps stating that, uh, meet and confer is the right way to go.

What we're saying is that it's not, and all you have to do is drive a hundred miles up North, and you can see what happens with meet and confer.

Uh, Austin PD, they're having a mass Exodus now of officers that are leaving because once their collective bargaining was taken away, the main thing was, uh, being able to bargain for equipment and essentials that they needed to protect the citizens.

And they're just in a bad spot.

Uh, vehicles are falling apart.

Um, you know, and it's not good for anyone.

When you talk to rank and file about this, what, what, what are they telling you?

They're afraid that there's a, there's a little over 600 officers that can retire, uh, not to mention the, uh, the officers that have one to five years on that don't have the time invested that other officers do.

Uh, and they're looking at, is it time to leave?

Uh, should I leave in April?

Should I leave in September?

Uh, so w we're telling them is, hold on, you know, stand fast as citizens will understand and, and, and we'll do right by us.

And that's, that's the intent, and that's what we're telling them.

Uh, but there's a big fear.

And, and I've never heard this in my 29 year career.

I've never heard this conversation the way that it is now.

And, and you said the younger officers in particular, or are fearful of what it means?

Yeah, most definitely.

So it costs approximately give or take 120,000 125,000 to train these new officers.

Um, they have the ability to go elsewhere.

Uh, I know I have some friends that in Fort worth they're, um, they're eager to come down here and recruit, uh, and they're also looking at other States that have defunded, because from our standpoint, it's a form of defunding Speaker 1: When you're taking things away from you.

Speaker 2: Well, Danny, congratulations on, on taking over as president.

Good luck.

And thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Our next guest is a Nanda Thomas deputy director at fix SAP D and Nanda.

Welcome.

Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, uh, Nanda Speaker 2: Let's start with the organization itself.

When did, was fixed SAP D started and, and what was the impetus for that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, fixed SAPD started out of the uprisings last summer in June, 2020, and we were focused on why it is so hard to hold officers accountable for anything from misconduct and infractions, all the way up to lethal and excessive force.

And, uh, you know, what we discovered was a common theme nationwide, and here was the contracts, every story I mentioned, disciplinary barriers and loopholes in the contract.

Um, and so we found out that we can remove to local government chapters, one 74 and one 43, which will essentially scrap our current contract and rewrite a new one without these loopholes.

Speaker 2: So you started the process to put proposition beyond the ballot.

Uh, you had to gather how many signatures.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Uh, chapter one 74 required 20,000 signatures.

We have successfully put that on the ballot for Maine first.

We're still working on one 43.

It currently requires 80,000 in person signatures.

That Speaker 2: Would be on a P in a future election.

Speaker 1: Correct.

Next municipal election.

We can put it on.

Right.

Speaker 2: So let's talk about prop B.

What, uh, what exactly would it do?

Speaker 1: Property would repeal chapter one 74, which is collective bargaining for police officers, and we'll end our current contract and move us to a system of meet and confer where the police union still meets with the city to, uh, you know, negotiate over wages, benefits, promotions, working conditions, but it really inserts more community voice and control over the contract.

Folks will be able to vote on a contract that they don't agree with.

You can repeal it.

And it's one step closer to being able to remove every disciplinary loophole and barrier that has led to 70% of our fired officers returning to the force and SAP, which is the highest in the nation.

Speaker 2: Uh, police, uh, the police union leadership says that, uh, prop B will make it impossible or difficult to recruit new officers.

And that we'll see an Exodus from the San Antonio police force.

What do you say to that?

Speaker 1: Every other major city in Texas, Houston, Austin, Dallas operates under meet and confer.

They have more officers per capita than San Antonio.

They have the same or better wages and benefits.

There is no evidence or data that shows that officers will leave in droves, or that we will have fewer officers or officers that are taken any less.

Speaker 2: And the other argument that you see frequently is that, uh, conflating prop B with defund the police.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So, you know, it's a very easy thing for our opposition to put on us, because that is a scary term for folks.

Um, this is not a defund initiative.

We are only focused on being able to give the community more voice and control over what policing looks like in their, in their community.

Um, we have the worst ranked civilian oversight system in Texas, and it's literally because of these chapters and the way our contract is set up and we want to change that.

Speaker 2: So what's the history.

Are there individual cases, or how does San Antonio compare to other major cities in Texas or even across the United States in terms of, you know, the, the disciplinary process and holding officers accountable?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So, um, our contract really laid the template for police contracts around the nation.

And Speaker 2: That goes back to the 1980s, right?

Speaker 1: Correct.

Well, the 1970s is actually when we brought it in and then the 1980s really is when Rhonda Lord and other, uh, negotiators and activists were able to turn it into the contract.

It is today.

Uh, the New York times wrote an extensive article on it.

The problem started here in San Antonio with, uh, problematic lease contracts.

And we can fix it here through ballot initiative, by voting yes.

On prop B.

Okay.

Speaker 2: Amanda, thanks very much for, for joining us.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Joining us next is Michael Amesquita chief appraiser for the bear appraisal district.

Michael.

Welcome.

John's good to see you, Michael, let's start with what exactly does bear appraisal district do?

What statutorily can you do and what can't you do?

Because I think the public doesn't have a clear understanding of it, right?

And, you know, primarily our, our two major functions at bear appraisal district court to list and discover property and to administer exemptions.

And so when we list and discover property, we have to appraise that property according to market value.

Uh, you may or may not recall last year, we attempted to get the, the legislature to allow us to avoid reappraising for 2020 because of the pandemic, the attorney general promptly shut that down.

Uh, even though the mayor and the County judge advocated for the same thing for us, uh, we, we were not able to do that.

Uh, taxpayers are rightfully upset that we're sending out a pretzel notices that show what the market is doing.

It's continuing to boom in San Antonio, as it is in every Metro Metro in Texas.

Uh, I've had many people write me asking me, can't you just forego property taxes this year, praise all districts not authorized to do that.

We get to get, we're basically told what to do by the state legislature.

So those appraisals are going, I know we just received ours and just about everyone is seeing their property taxes go up and, or their appraisals go up.

Rather, I was hoping, I was hoping to see some of that inefficiency in the mailing process, but they went out on Friday.

I got mine on Saturday morning, right.

And ruined my Easter weekend.

So I know a lot of people ask how, so during the pandemic, how does the, how do those appraisals go up?

Whether there's a pandemic or whether we're not in a state of a pandemic?

Uh, the fact of the matter is appraisal districts are required to look at and follow the market.

So we rely on third-party data.

You know, we don't have full disclosure in Texas, so we don't have MLS.

Uh, but San Antonio board of realtors publishes aggregate data as does, uh, Texas, uh, the real estate center at Texas a and M university.

So we use a lot of that information to bounce our values off of to see if we're following the same trends.

Unfortunately year over year for the last several years, the trend has been on an upward trajectory.

We know San Antonio is one of the hotter markets in the country actually led the entire state of Texas of all the major metros.

We had the highest number of new home sales in Texas.

And how has the pandemic affected your ability to interact with, with the public?

Well, unfortunately, one of the, one of the more enjoyable parts of my job is being able to interact with the public right now.

I'd like to interact with anybody.

Uh, but it's just been my wife and I, uh, so, uh, uh, essentially we we've operated in a virtual situation, right?

Our office remains closed, hopefully gonna open a little later this year, the vaccinations and the positivity rates continue going as they are.

Um, but currently we offer multiple platforms.

One of the good things about the pandemic is it helped me open up our office in a virtual way that allowed us to serve almost 11,000 more taxpayers.

And we reached the year before.

So, because you didn't have to take off from work because he didn't have to drive downtown and find parking.

Uh, you didn't have to wait on my schedule.

We actually offer a scheduling system for a call back an email or a zoom meeting for your informal, where you get to pick the date and time, and then we accommodate you.

Well, Michael, thank you for joining, joining us and good luck over over the next few weeks, John.

It's great to see you again.

Thank you.

Joining us now for the reporters.

Round table is Jackie Wang, local government reporter for the San Antonio report.

Jackie, welcome.

Hi, thanks so much for having me pleasure to have you so new bare facts poll came out this week with some local government, uh, issues that they measured, including, uh, the race for mayor in San Antonio.

Any surprises there?

Speaker 1: Um, I don't know.

I, I was very, um, I guess I definitely wasn't surprised to see stronger support, uh, when you look at the incumbent, um, on Nierenberg just because when you look at his job approval ratings, they've been pretty consistent since, uh, April of last year, when the pandemic started, um, you see him holding pretty steady 60, 67 in that range.

So that kind of was reflected in the number of people who said they would vote for mayor Ron Nierenberg.

Um, I think that was about 56%.

So he's got at least a majority of the people polled Speaker 2: Two years ago, this was a race that went to a runoff, um, wa was pretty tight, a pretty close race mayor Nierenberg won.

What's what, what do you think the difference is is that the pandemic and, and, and the response, the leadership that he's demonstrated?

Speaker 1: I imagine that's a large part of it, right?

Because, um, he is so much in the face of the community.

You're constantly getting updates from him.

Um, I think people are a lot more aware of what local government is and can do with things like, um, financial grants for your businesses, uh, PPE given out to businesses and to individuals who need it vaccines, they're hosting a whole mass vaccination site.

So the idea of, um, your city council, your mayor, the various city departments, those are all much more in the face now of what they can do.

And of course Meron Nierenberg is kind of the face of the city as the mayor.

So I think he definitely benefited from that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

As a challenger, I suppose.

And in these circumstances, we're, we're still in the pandemic.

It's tougher to get traction.

Um, ha ha, have you spoken to Greg Brock house and, and talk to him about how he's reaching the public, how he's campaigning?

Speaker 1: Well, not at length.

And, um, I think we all know that campaigns have really changed.

Uh, we saw a little bit of that last year when people tried to pivot, um, there's not as much door knocking, obviously there's not as many, uh, meet and greets in person.

Um, but I think there have been enough opportunities for these virtual events for people to get to know, at least the challengers to, um, our incumbent right now.

Uh, we will actually be hosting a forum, uh, next week with three of the candidates.

They won't be debating, but each night, um, we'll have either Meron Nierenberg Greg Brock house and Denise Gutierez, Homer who ran for district two in 2019 and missed the runoff by less than 60 votes.

Speaker 2: And other than the pandemic and issues related to the pandemic, what do you think the primary issues are when they're considering their vote for me?

Speaker 1: Oh, man.

I mean, it's so hard to think of beyond the pandemic right now.

Um, obviously economic recovery is going to be a huge issue.

Um, and okay.

Speaker 2: I mean their bread and butter issues, like, like, uh, public safety and sidewalks and streets.

Are those really just secondary issues now?

Or are those still in there?

Speaker 1: I think they're very important, especially since we have prop B on the table, um, which, uh, looks to repeal the collective bargaining power of, uh, the police union.

Right.

And we have a police union contract up right now for discussion.

Um, so I don't think are maybe always that familiar with, happens with labor bar labor, sorry.

Uh, collective collective bargaining.

Thank you.

Sorry.

I could not remember the words.

Um, but right now it's highly publicized.

Um, we also had the whole, uh, summer of protests when we discussed police brutality and, um, that definitely put the idea of how public safety should function on people's minds.

And then one other issue that's going to be on the ballot that was also measured by, by bare facts is prop a, which has to do with, um, allocating, uh, city bond funds for affordable housing.

Yes.

Um, and that has gotten pretty strong support and at least the bare facts poll, right.

We've got 56% saying they would likely support.

I think it was 27% who said they were against, um, the remaining undecided, but that is something that I think the city council really strongly supported.

Um, and we're of her or our language from different cities ordinances.

If I recall correctly, It's a change that that's not something normally our bond, uh, pro propositions have been focused on, on libraries on infrastructure so that it's affordable.

Housing is a new measure.

It is a new measure, but it's, I think it's something that San Antonians have at least demonstrated an interest in.

Um, one of the things that they also, and I think we'll talk about this later with other people, but they asked about homelessness and how the local government was addressing homelessness.

Do you approve disapprove?

And, um, I think only 39% said they approved.

So we're clearly having a housing issue and a homelessness issue.

Jackie, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us for on the record.

You can watch a repeat of this show as well as previous shows or hear the podcast at dot org.

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