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 Beemer 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 Beemer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record, I'm Randy Beemer, and this week we are starting with San Antonio's mayor, Gina Ortiz Jones, who has been working along with all the council members on the budget and on the budget and on the budget.

You have to pass it by middle of next month, I guess.

September 17th.

And where are you in all of these budget negotiations facing that $158 million projected budget deficit?

Well, so to your point, $188 million deficit is jarring, which is why I've been working early, as you've heard me talk about where some additional sources of revenue.

Right.

The conversation, the July 24th letter I sent to corporations, philanthropy, foundations.

Hey, here are some things, right?

That if you wanted to be helpful, they provide good services.

It's a general fund is just looking a little bleak.

Right.

So that's why I started some of those things.

Early even the conversation about how can we redirect some of that ready to work money to programs that can be backfilled.

And so this week it came out that not too many of those philanthropists or businesses have responded to this.

So what I shared, actually, Randy, I didn't come out.

It wasn't a secret.

What I shared is that those conversations are ongoing.

You know, I appreciate the fact that we have started those, that I've started those as a result of, you know, when you look at some of these things, a bike festival and botanical garden, a book festival, when you go into other major cities, those are normally funded by philanthropy, corporations and foundations.

So I have done certainly my part, which is ask because I think as we get closer to when we have to finalize the budget, I have yet to meet the person that says, you know what?

Please, I'm okay with you raising my property taxes.

Oh, by the way, 8.3% over two years.

But and I'm okay with you still giving the botanical garden $1 million.

I haven't met that person.

When you meet them, please introduce me.

So I think folks recognize that costs have increased.

We have to adjust to make sure we fund public safety, etc., etc.

but they also expect us to cut the fat, right?

And that's what I think we owe folks.

And that's why asking other folks to cover down on these things that are that are good services.

I'm not saying I don't have anything against the botanical garden.

In fact, I think it's a treasure.

But when we're looking at our general fund and the core services that we have to fund, I mean, I think back to when I was growing up, my mom raised my sister and I by herself.

And so when she had when she had time and when she and we had, we had time together.

I wasn't at the botanical garden, you know, where we were?

I was at Johnston Library on Highway 90.

And we're looking now at cutting library funding.

And that's one of the things.

And I say all that because when I'm thinking, when I'm looking at this budget, I'm looking at the most vulnerable.

Right.

And how do we shore up services for those?

Because it's not just the cuts that we're going to see in our own budget.

We are still looking at what the cuts from the federal level we already are in Bexar County are seeing a 13% decrease in Snap enrollment in our community.

Right.

So these are these things on top of, of course, the economy not getting any better.

So we're looking at minimizing cuts to to the most vulnerable and do the most good for for as many folks as possible.

To your point, I want to say on the library and didn't mean to cut you off on the library.

This is where we've got to make some hard choices.

We can either fund the book festival to $150,000 on top of, by the way, the 90 K that they get from the hot, the hotel and occupancy tax.

Or we can take that money and backfill some of the 39 positions at the library that are currently under under threat of being cut.

So I think you fund the library and I think you let somebody else pick up the book festival.

What about the tax rate increase?

You're looking at a little bit about $0.02 per $100 valuation.

It's coming down to that time where you're going to have to fight.

It's the sausage making time.

You're going to have to fight over exactly what to cut, but also the tax rate.

And you have to have that set by a certain time.

Is there going to be a tax rate proposed increase?

I mean, there's already been proposed, but do you think there will be one?

I mean, we'll see.

I think again, you've got to have I think we're going through the process now to figure out what we were presented with some, some options.

What would it look like if there was no property tax increase.

So you'd have to go find an additional $75 million just in cuts.

Right.

Because let's be very clear about what the city has proposed.

The city staff has proposed in order to close the $158 million deficit over two years.

It's an 8.3% property tax over two years.

So 3.9% in FY 27, 4.4% in FY 28, on top of $90 million in reductions across the two years, on top of $30 million in additional fees.

And so with all of that, though, in that budget, again, things like the botanical gardens still get $1 million.

You've got all these other things.

And I'm like, we've got to make it make sense, right?

I think, again, people understand that costs have risen and we need to keep our commitments, make sure our public safety is well resourced.

But they also expect us, again, to be judicious with a property tax that they've been trusted us with, which is why I think it's only smart we go after pots of money that exist that can help us in these times, ready to work money.

They're ready to work money.

That's $100 million that's sitting there.

One of the things that the city staff is recommended to to close the budget deficit, they have zeroed out the San Antonio Education Partnership scholarships.

That's $2.1 million every year.

That helps.

About 3500 kids get to higher ed.

So what what you can do in the city staff has identified it as an opportunity is use the ready to work money, backfill that scholarship.

Right.

I think you not only backfill it, I think you double it.

I think you double that to 4.2 million.

I recommended that amendment yesterday because in these times when you know that 250, 500, 700 folks could be $700, could be the difference between somebody's going to higher ed or not.

The other area that I think it's important that we look at because it's property tax we already collect but we forego.

Right.

It's in these tax increment reinvestment zones.

And so I understand there are projects that that people want to pursue in some of these areas.

But when we're facing $158 million deficit, I think it's important that we are being judicious with the property taxes we collect and bringing some of that back into the general fund.

Are we not committed to some of those Ters funds right now?

I know the city is looking at extending the midterm tours, possibly to what is it?

2016 for the arena.

But that's out, you know, years and years away.

Can you cut for this budget any money that would go to the general fund.

Next year?

I've asked the city manager to look at what can possibly be brought in from the city initiators.

I've asked for that on the Midtown tours.

The this is again that area map as part of this because it's really helpful.

The Midtown tours, this is largely around the Pearl area.

It goes up north Saint Mary's a little bit, but it's largely in that area.

I think one would hardly describe that area as blighted.

And so it's really important when we're looking again at the at the future of our entire city, that we look at the property taxes that we could be collecting, as if that tours were not to be extended to 2060.

Right?

Currently, it is scheduled to sunset in 2041.

I think it makes sense to do that.

I don't support extending that in light of the needs in our community.

Some of the projects in there.

Randy, again, nothing against the zoo, but the zoo has a lot of resources and the zoo can go fundraise.

And so one of the projects in there is an animal hospital at the zoo.

Now, with all due respect, highway 90, if you live south of highway 90, your life expectancy is 20 years lower than if you lived north of highway 90.

So, you know, excuse me if I question whether an animal hospital at the zoo is the best use of our property taxes.

So those are some of the specifics you want.

Where do you think the fight is going to be in the next month?

As you try to get down to this?

And the city staff then has to go back and forth and back and forth.

Well, this is about priorities.

At the end of the day, it's about priorities, right?

I have said I will.

Raising property taxes for me is the last resort.

We've got to cut all the fat out of the budget, I think.

And yes, we're having we're challenging some folks as assumption.

I get that some of this stuff has been on autopilot for for a bit, but that's also how we got into $158 million deficit.

This didn't happen overnight.

And so I think it's really important that we think about our long term investments, right.

We're dealing with $158 million deficit today.

I'm dealing with the consequences of the decisions my predecessors made.

And so I think we owe it to our not only to the to the folks that were potentially asking for a property tax today, but also for the future of San Antonio and what is in the best interest, and is it extending this non blighted area to 2060 to forego property taxes for the pet projects in that area?

I don't think that's correct.

When will the city vote on property taxes on the property tax increase?

When will the council actually vote on that?

Before the September.

So we are scheduled to we're scheduled to take action on the budget on the 17th of, of September.

On the 10th of September, the council will vote to will take some actions on city initiated tours.

And one of those is includes extending the Midtown tours to 20.

Six this week.

You've always been also been talking about data centers, possible moratorium on that.

Where do you think that's going to happen?

If there is a moratorium, there would still be three months before that could take effect.

You'd have to have public hearings.

You are for a moratorium on that right now.

At this point, I don't support a moratorium.

I think there are there's what I've asked the staff to do is come back with some additional information that would then help me determine whether an appropriate route would be the moratorium, even if it's time limited, just because it gets us time to to put certain things in place.

But what some of the things I asked for, because you could do quite a bit through zoning and just through, hey, make frankly making asks.

Right.

So some of the things I asked the staff to, to, to to go look at is can we prohibit the provision, say we're not going to provide you with potable water for your primary purposes or your accessory purposes?

Right.

We don't want anybody to think that that potable water, they're competing for potable water with data centers looked at even some noise, some noise regulations, noise limitations.

We also wanted to make sure, you know, these are large facilities, the hyperscalers in particular.

So they clear out a lot of green space when they're built.

One of the things I asked about is, hey, can we ask them when they come in to double the amount of green space, for example, that they eliminated?

And then, of course, I think we have to think about these long term.

Right.

Which is a concern in general, is that you're going to build all this infrastructure and there could be a bust, right?

So then the communities are left with all this infrastructure.

What do you do with it.

So how can we get the staff to kind of already be thinking about what is some kind of clause in there that if this thing is no longer needed in five, ten years, how are we going to turn that into something that is of use to the community.

Bond issue?

You're going to be looking at that for next spring.

Some people have talked about the 200 and some million that it would take for infrastructure around the arena, and the project Marvel to be split off from everything else or to be wrapped into other infrastructure.

What do you think is going to happen on that?

Well, to be very clear, to remind everybody, our bond capacity in 2022 was 1.2 billion this year.

Based on the economic factors, we're at 450 million.

That's it.

We only do this every five years 450 million if we don't choose to increase the property tax rate.

Right.

So we're looking at property taxes, potentially property tax increase to potentially close the $158 million deficit and then another potential property tax increase.

If we wanted to increase our capacity for for the bond, which is only at 450.

So it remains to be seen kind of how we're going to to divvy that up.

The city manager has said there's going to be a new estimate for the infrastructure around the arena.

So we'll see what what that looks like.

CPS are you going to get an extra money to help the budget with a hot days?

Do you know when that estimate will come in and how much that could help?

Well, we'll see how much.

How much there is, but 158 million is pretty significant.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones not busy down there.

It's city hall.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you.

San Antonio's conservation society that has done so much for preservation all over San Antonio for decades, is going to reset its biggest fundraiser, what has been its biggest fundraiser and Fiesta.

And it has had to make a couple of layoffs recently.

Here to talk about that is Betty Boucher, president and CEO of the Conservation Society.

Thank you very much for coming in.

And now this is all necessitated by we were talking before about it has been the biggest fundraiser, but last year no net proceeds from it.

That's correct.

We we did not get any proceeds from it.

And so we necessarily because we are a nonprofit organization, must look at this event and make sure that it is still doing something to support all of our programs.

And you mentioned what we do for the city.

And I'll tell you some of the things that are not well known, and that is that every year we give grants to owners of historic homes and small buildings where there are businesses to help them restore their historic facades, and the public then can enjoy the historic buildings and the ambiance in our community in that way.

Why the drop of money of visitors at night?

Well, attendance was down for one thing.

And of course we experienced rain, but rain is always a possible hazard for these events.

The attendance.

We looked at that and it seems that nationwide, there is a trend for people to not go to these kinds of events as much as they used to.

And so we need to examine everything that we're doing and look at those events that are still attracting visitors, and make sure that we are stepping up.

That nationwide trend.

Any reasons for that as an age?

Is it traffic?

Is it parking?

It's all of those.

Plus there's concerns about security and there appears to be a less inclination to spend.

People are just not spending the kind of money that they used to spend.

And that is a is a trend that always changes.

So we're hoping to change that.

Speaking in terms of money, the mayor recently and this may be totally unrelated, but it's talked about funding events with the budget or Fiesta events.

Was the city giving you any money for this or you were giving the city money?

Yeah.

No.

Neosho has never received funds from the city.

Neosho has paid all of the fees that the city has charged since the entire history of the of the event.

In fact, we recently did a spreadsheet that shows that since 1988, we have paid to the city about $15.3 million in various fees for the fire department, the health department, the SaPD, and other fees.

So you ask people for suggestions.

You're getting a lot of suggestions, and I guess some of them are about moving Neosho because, well, right now, Maverick Plaza, you can't use it this year or may not be able to invite Assembly Hall as well.

Yes.

So we want to say that we are supportive of any efforts that the city and anybody makes to preserve historic resources.

And we're very pleased that the city has, after many years, positioned itself to engage in the redevelopment of Lovett so that everyone can enjoy it year round so that things are happening there that help Lovett is a good thing.

So we're not in any way upset about that.

All the construction we've had there in South Alamo, right?

We're happy to have helped the city for many decades to support Levita, while the city positions itself to restore it and redevelop it.

But you could move.

You could change Fu.

Everybody's recommending all kinds of things for you.

Yes, we we really have been fascinated and very interested in everything that people have to say.

And they're leaving their suggestions on our Facebook page and other social media posts.

They have recommendations about food and music and the location and the parking and from A to Z. So we're taking all of those suggestions in, and we're crafting an event that going forward is something that people really want to see.

Along with suggestions you're taking in.

How about donations?

I mean, this is highlighting really an issue that we assumed was making a lot of money for the conservation society, and it did for years.

Any philanthropists stepping up right now or calling you saying, hey.

Well, not exactly philanthropists, but we have formulated a program in which we will be seeking sponsorships, and we've never had sponsorships before.

So this is a new approach that we'll be taking.

New era and the layoffs I had mentioned earlier, those people, you don't have a big staff to begin with, right?

We actually produce this event with recently it's been about 6500 volunteers.

In the past, the number of volunteers has ranged up to around 10 or 11,000.

And they're all volunteers.

We do have a few staff members, five total that have supported the event.

And while we take this pause and go through the reset, we have had to say goodbye, at least temporarily, to two of them.

Once we reconfigure and reset, there may be an opportunity for them to come back.

And finally, when do you think you'll have reset it?

By the end of the year.

By March.

We hope to have new plans ready for our board to review within a month or two.

And then once we have new plans, we expect that we'll have some new partnerships, whether that's sponsorships or partnerships at a new location.

We're not sure yet.

All right.

Well, thank you very much and good luck with that.

However you say the acronym niacin or Neos.

Good luck with that.

Betty Boucher, president and CEO of the Conservation Society.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

On Reporter's roundtable this week, the City of San Antonio is going to try a different approach to dealing with homeless encampments soon.

At least a pilot program here to talk about that is reporter from the Express News, Megan Rodriguez.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you so much for having me.

Now, you wrote recently about this new pilot program, starting in the next few weeks, that gives outreach workers more time to really intensively try to get people off the streets.

But then after that, they could be arrested and the encampments actually closed off.

Yes.

So currently, the city of San Antonio conducts sweeps all across the city, and right now the city is planning to have swept at least 130,000 sites at the end of the fiscal year, which ends at the end of September.

Many of them same time.

Exactly.

Many of those are repeat sites, so there are 30 locations that they have to repeatedly go out to ahead of these sweeps.

Say actually let people know, hey, we are going to sweep.

These are your kind of resource options of affordable housing and shelter.

But with this new approach, they want to basically pause for a couple of targeted sites, the sweeps for up to six weeks while they try to, like you said, kind of intensively talk one on one with each person and make sure that they have a place to go before that sweep.

And then at the end of that six week cycle, basically shut it down.

And what that could look like is kind of up in the air.

There are other cities that have approached this and it's meant fences, it's meant more patrols, it's meant more arrests.

So we're going to see really what the city ends up employing in the next few weeks.

And this has been tried in other cities.

Yeah, I guess they call it decommissioning.

Has it worked?

Other cities have tried it.

The city of Dallas, Houston and Oklahoma City all have kind of their own versions of it, and all of them have said that it dramatically decreases the number of people that they've had living on the streets, but they're often are kind of coupled with additional housing options.

So, for example, the city of Houston closed down more than 100 encampments over the course of a few years, but they used federal pandemic relief dollars to do that.

Other cities that have tried it have also had kind of funding boosts in order to make this happen.

And cynics or critics might say that you're just going to be closing off those areas and moving people or forcing them into other areas, which is what happens now.

And then they come back to those certain areas.

But fencing off public areas under bridges and things like that, that's feasible.

That's doable.

We're not sure exactly which locations are going to target if it's going to be something under a bridge, if it's going to be something else, where we are still waiting to hear exactly which sites they're looking at.

The city is basically saying that this is kind of a new approach that they're hoping would mean that people wouldn't necessarily need to return.

The whole point is to get everybody in that location housed.

But yes, additional efforts and resources might be put in, like fencing or patrols in order to make sure that nobody returns, who maybe didn't get housed in that process, or who was just kind of stumbling across the.

And they can start this even before the budget changes in October, because they're not adding any more resources.

They're not adding any more outreach people.

Yes, exactly.

So the city of San Antonio currently has about a dozen or so outreach workers that go out and inform people of their options before a sweep.

And so those same folks are going to be going and conducting these more intensive one on one conversations.

They don't believe that it will result in any more additional funds needed in order to launch this type of effort, in part because it's a pilot, in part because they're going to be kind of targeting smaller areas as well.

And now I've done homeless stories in San Antonio over the years, decades.

And the big problem is getting their trust.

Outreach workers say it takes them, the ones downtown even it can take them more than a year to get that trust from a person, to get them to open up and say, okay, well, maybe I could go here.

And in six weeks that's possible.

And some of those people are going to be driven away just because people are their outreach workers are there.

Yeah.

Their hope is that in those six weeks that they will be able to basically do individual case management and be able to talk with people about their options.

Obviously, even in other cities that have tried this, not everybody takes them up on it.

Some people do not go into these different shelters or housing options that are offered, but many places see, like a pretty high success rate of the number of people who do choose to say yes.

And there has been, I guess, pushback when there are arrests at the end of the six weeks.

And that that's something we could see here as well.

Yes.

Again, still going to we still have to wait and see exactly what is going to happen at the end of those six weeks.

The city manager confirmed that arrests could happen, but that that's not necessarily the only option.

They are wanting to explore as many avenues as possible to close these sites down.

But yes, kind of some of the pushback that has been seen happened in Dallas County.

For example, there was at the end of one of their six weeks stints for a major encampment in Dallas.

There there was an outreach group that was really caught off guard when police came on the last day of the end of this and arrested dozens of people.

And another homeless issue that you've written about is Cattleman Square, one of the, I guess you could say, most visible issues.

It's not too far from Haven for Hope.

It's not too far from the jail.

More than a hundred homeless people are said to basically live in that area.

But tell us about the new and different approach there with a different group?

Yes, absolutely.

So this is separate and apart from what the city is doing, but it's a very similar approach, actually, Close to Home, which is a nonprofit in San Antonio that actually organizes and collaborates with all the nonprofits around the area to kind of combat homelessness, is partnering with the San Antonio Housing Trust.

They are working together to try to house those 170 or so people who live there.

They're thinking that it could take around three years, potentially cost up to $12 million to actually house everybody and find units for people to live in and stay in.

And but it would be kind of a similar approach like this of trying to do those, like one on one interactions.

More concentrated outreach right now close to home, is actually trying to find donors to tap to fund this effort.

And San Antonio Housing Trust, they have an interest in this because there's land there, and they have what they're calling project DC on the West Side, kind of a much smaller project marble on the east side to develop that area.

And the homeless issue a big impediment to that.

Yes.

So basically, they have this broader approach that they're wanting to take of, you know, kind of revamping the area.

They've bought up a lot of the buildings in that stretch, and they're really not sure exactly what the vision is going to look like.

They're still in the process of kind of working with community members to see what they want to have there, but they knew that no matter what approach that they would take, they wanted to address the homelessness issue in that area.

So that's kind of their first step in all.

Of it and something they do or can't do.

There really is the fencing that they're talking about and the rest of the city with this decommissioning, what kind of closing off of a homeless area can they do to try to keep it close on a permanent basis?

That's a great question.

And it's really something that's yet to be seen because they're in such early stages.

Like I said, this is going to be multi-year.

It's going to be three years before we really know exactly what that plan is.

An approach is going to look like they're in the stage of trying to tap in and find donors to even get housing to, to move forward with that.

So we'll really have to see what they have.

I think their main approach and their main goal is just how is everyone who is in this area and kind of take those next steps as they come?

I know that they also wanted to, you know, have intensive outreach in that area even after those people are housed, though, knowing that this is such a concentrated area where people come for resources, where people come after the jail system, where people go for the via transit system.

So wanting to make sure that as soon as they start seeing additional people, sending out more outreach workers, making sure that the system is robust enough to support those people.

So possible fencing.

But also if I call in about another area at the same time, it's what within two weeks that they have to do a sweep or go out there and see if they need to do a sweep and those will continue.

On the city side.

Yes.

Possible fencing, not necessarily the cattleman square side, but yes, as far as the sweeps that we currently see, the city of San Antonio tries to go out after they've received a complaint from a community member or anyone else about an encampment.

They try to go out within two weeks to sweep it.

That is still going to continue, though there may be a targeted spot or two where they halt those sweeps for this pilot program.

All right.

Well, thanks from Megan Rodriguez.

You can read all about that and much more city budget stuff, especially right now in the express news for city coming in.

Thank you so much for having me.

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

You can watch this show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download them as podcasts at.

KLRN.org I'm Randy Beemer.

We'll see you next time.

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