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 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, welcome to on the record.

I'm TJ days, Speaker 2: The 2021 Texas legislative session has begun and state lawmakers face tough choices on budgeting and other relief measures related to the pandemic.

One of the recurring themes throughout the pandemic response has been a debate about whether the state or the city should have the authority to take appropriate measures, to respond to the virus.

Jeff Coyle is director of government and public affairs for the city of San Antonio, and he joins us.

Jeff.

It's no secret that San Antonio is leaders specifically mayor Nurenberg and judge Wolf have been at odds with the state over local authority versus state authority.

We saw it with the COVID restrictions.

We see it with COVID vaccination distribution, and we're going to expect to see it in the session.

What is San Antonio is planned to tackle this ongoing battle?

Speaker 1: That's a good question, TJ.

Um, it's actually local decision-making local authority is actually at the center of our legislative efforts, every session, uh, usually about things not related to the pandemic where state government doesn't like things that city government is doing and, and seeks to take away, uh, our elected bodies ability to make those decisions, um, that sort of playing itself out a little bit now with the pandemic as well.

Although I would argue that there have been, uh, just as many examples of cities working with the state during this pandemic.

Uh, in fact, I, I think that's one of our strongest arguments up there is that we've been a partner of the, uh, of the state and the governor throughout this process while at the same time, uh, being a little bit frustrated from time to time about not being able to take certain actions to deal with things on the ground.

So, um, it's a, it's going to be a challenge for us.

It always is, but that's why we're up there to defend the right of the San Antonio community to govern itself and make our own decisions about what we think is best for our city.

Speaker 2: So the city's legislative position broadly is more local decision-making authority.

What are some of the specific actions or specific bills that the city is going to support or oppose, uh, in this legislative session?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so, uh, it was a whole variety of things.

Uh, some has to do a development.

For example, we had the legislature trying to tell us, uh, to stop us from having a tree preservation ordinance or, uh, under cutting our short-term rentals ordinance.

Uh, even our non-discrimination ordinance, uh, some at the state level don't agree with.

Uh, and so, so those are some of the specific issues, but as a general rule, it's sort of a, a desire to govern from above, from the state level, rather than having cities, making decisions that may vary from other cities.

And so, um, one, one issue that because that's been sort of at the center of our, uh, battles, if you will, at the legislature for the past 10 years or so, this local decision-making authority issue because of that, we've seen some legislators this session trying to just preempt that entire fight by saying that cities and local communities can no longer lobby at the legislature.

Speaker 2: There's a bill, the last session to ban taxpayer funded lobbying.

And it was, uh, it was killed at the legislature.

Is that right?

They're gonna bring it back this way.

Speaker 1: That's correct.

It came out of the Senate.

Uh, I don't think anyone really took it all that seriously.

We certainly did, but I think a lot of legislative observers didn't think it was really going anywhere.

And then to everyone's surprise it made it to the house floor late in the session and was voted down, uh, with, with both Democrats and Republicans voting against it.

It's been brought back up two new bills have been filed already.

That basically say a political subdivision, which means a city, a County, a school district, a hospital district, community college district, uh, via transit agency.

All of those are public entities, uh, may not spend any money to, uh, lobby or influence the legislature and may not contribute any money to trade associations, uh, that lobby the legislature.

And so what that is, is essentially a blanket effort to silence us from here forward in every session, it's really should be, uh, an a front to, to every San Antonio who values our ability to govern ourselves as a community.

And so we're, it's a real concern this session and something that we hope your viewers pay attention to and get engaged.

Speaker 2: One of the issues we've been talking about locally at the state level and nationally for years now is immigration.

We have a new president expecting new immigration policies from the federal level, the state level, um, maybe some more harsh immigration policies with bills like SB four, which was kind of an anti-immigration bill a few years ago.

The city has had a conversation about sanctuary cities.

So we have all these layers of government who have different ideas about immigration and what their respective roles are in enforcing immigration.

Does the city of San Antonio have a position on, uh, state bills regarding the immigration issue?

Speaker 1: No, not really because, um, immigration law really is a federal issue and should be a federal issue.

What Senate bill four S before that you mentioned, uh, from the 2017 session, I believe what that did was basically say no city can have a policy that, uh, prevents the city from cooperating with federal agencies and federal law.

Speaker 2: Does the city of San Antonio?

Yeah.

The city of San Antonio does not have such a policy.

Speaker 1: I don't have that at all.

Uh, in fact, uh, federal officials enter the local jails on a daily basis and check immigration status, and people have been arrested if we are, uh, asked by the federal government to detain someone, we will do that.

Um, but it's not the S the city's responsibility to run around enforcing federal law.

That's the job of federal agencies as, before tried to blur that and say, um, that we needed to be doing much more.

And so, um, it it's been tied up in litigation, as you may know, uh, that the Texas attorney general has sued San Antonio and what we view as a very baseless lawsuit.

And I think if you had seen the elections in November changed the makeup of the house, if the house had turned Democrat, I think you would have seen Democrats trying to undo what was a Republican passed bill several sessions ago that didn't happen.

Republicans are still in control in the house.

So I don't think there's going to be a, a substantive immigration related debate at the state level.

Speaker 2: This session we're speaking on Wednesday afternoon, right before city council be session on collective bargaining.

I know that police reform is going to be at the legislative session.

Has the city taken a position on any police reform bills for the legislative session coming up?

Speaker 1: Yeah, we have actually I'm and you're, you're all over things as usual.

CJ, thank you.

Um, w we have, uh, what we've heard from the community over these discussions throughout the summer is that the re the main area, one major area that needs to be addressed in police reform is accountability and transparency, meaning the ability for officer, for us to discipline and hold accountable officers who engage in misconduct.

And right now there are problematic provisions in both our local police contract and in state law, which undermine frankly, the chief's ability to deal with an officer who has engaged in misconduct, the cheapest fired officers in the past for, for, uh, actions that a lot in the community would see as very egregious and, and harmful to the whole department only to have that firing overturned by an arbitrator who disagrees with the level of punishment.

And so we're trying to eliminate that.

Number one, we, there should be an appeals process for an officer who gets fired, but that appeals should be limited to whether or not the facts were sustained in the firing.

If they were, then we shouldn't have somebody from outside of our community who doesn't run the police department, deciding the appropriate level of punishment for that officer.

So that's one thing.

The second is there's an arbitrary, somewhat arbitrary rule that says the chief can only discipline an officer 180 days from the date of an incident, not 180 days from when the chief found out about it, but the actual date of the incident.

So we've had firings overturned that, uh, because they were outside of that, or we've had issues that the chief's not been able to deal with because he was not made aware of it.

The department didn't know.

So we want to change that 180 day rule to be a discovery rule, very simply 180 days from when the infraction is discovered that chief and the department must act.

That seems fair enough, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us.

Absolutely.

TJ, thanks for your time.

Speaker 2: For those of us who have lived in San Antonio for a while, we remember Hemisfair park as being something very different than it is today.

Andreas undo heart is CEO of the Hemisfair park area, redevelopment corporation, which oversees the redevelopment of Hemisfair.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you, TJ.

Thanks for, uh, the honor to, uh, visit with you this morning.

So I think a lot of people are wondering about the property at Alamo and market street.

It's the large grassy property surrounded by chain link fence by the convention center.

Can you discuss what the developments are on that property?

Yes, I'm happy to, uh, since a year ago, as, as the pandemic, uh, took over, uh, or, or planning, generally speaking, we, we have, uh, spent, or time in design and construction.

And part of that is starting construction on various projects, um, because visitation is, uh, is, is way down and that makes perfect sense.

Um, but, uh, we're taking advantage of that slower part-time to, uh, make changes that are planned for him is fair.

And that includes what we call that Northwest zone and particularly the civic park.

So the municipality, uh, issued bonds from the 17 capital bond, um, approvals by, by the community for investment on a park at the centerpiece, eh, park at Hemisfair that will go in on that corner.

And so now we're to the point where we will be going out to beds with that design, and we'll start construction this fall, who, um, begin the execution of, of that, uh, long awaited, uh, centerpiece park for Hemisfair the civic park piece.

So that's a big discussion about financing with Hemisfair.

I know you just talked about the city bonds.

I know Hemisfair is a nonprofit organization.

Is this a public private partnership, or how is this being financed completely?

It is, it is a private, uh, public private partnership.

Um, part of the public space is being, um, funded through municipal bonds, but there is also other investment coming to the public, uh, spaces at Hemisfair, including, um, the private developers lease payments for use of land on, on mixed use projects that are first residential, and then other uses like office hotel and retail plus parking that are all part of our plans.

And those plans are solid and continue to move forward.

Um, but then there is also an important component of, of financing for these public spaces from philanthropy.

And, um, recently we received a gift from the Mays family foundation for the Peggy maze garden at Hemisfair a million dollar, uh, contribution.

And so we continue to work on philanthropy to, uh, make a change and an improvement at Hemisfair.

So you've discussed funding sources from philanthropic organizations from government entities.

We've discussed a residential hotel, some commercial public space.

There's a lot going on at Hemisfair.

How long have you been working on this and how long do you think it will take to complete The original?

The inception of, of, uh, the organization is 2009 and, um, staff came on board in 2011.

So we're 10 years in with the liberal Yana wana garden, uh, five years ago.

And through that, we're using that area as our laboratory for thinking to, to test drive concepts.

And now we know that Yana wana garden is the second busiest part per acre in the state of Texas and 85% of our visitors are from San Antonio.

So even though we are adjacent to the convention center in the Alamo and the river, most of our visitors are San Antonians coming back downtown.

Some of them because they live here or work here, but others are driving from what we call from Lac Canberra to collaborators from all over the city.

People are coming to Hemisfair to enjoy the various activities that we became used to having here.

And we'll come back again.

When San Antonio meets again in public spaces, like Hemisfair, Are you seeing a big downgrade in, in attendance at these public spaces as a result of the pandemic and as hemisphere taking action to ensure that there's physical distancing among park goers, There is currently that plan in place.

Obviously we are very fluid with, uh, uh, the measures that need to be taken to protect the community.

And we are tracking perfectly with the city's, uh, orders.

And so as, uh, events come back, and if there are any special considerations for those larger events, we will be taking that into consideration.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for your time.

And now for the reporters round table with us Gilbert Garcia, Metro columnist, San Antonio express news.

Welcome.

Thank you.

So we're talking about the peaceful transfer of power, uh, president Joe Biden is now president.

I know there was some about it being peaceful, even following Joe Biden's career for a long time.

What are your thoughts on this historic occasion?

Well, one, you know, Speaker 1: He's, it's an interesting situation with Joe Biden because this is something that he's been aspiring to probably for 50 years.

And he was a very ambitious political figure from the beginning.

He served 36 years in the Senate, uh, eight years as vice president.

Um, and he ran twice before.

Uh, so, uh, you know, in a way this is, you know, this is the culmination of what somebody has been looking at for a long time at the same time.

I think he's, he's in a unique position because, um, he's older than, than previous presidents.

His legacy, uh, as a public figure was, uh, somewhat, you know, ensured anyway, he had the years as vice-president.

And I think that he really left the vice presidency, not expecting to run again four years ago.

I don't think that was his plan.

Um, and I think that he's looking at this not necessarily, uh, in the way that maybe some presidents come in and think this is I'm going to create this legacy for myself.

I think he's looking at this as, this is the end of my career, and I want to maybe bring some, uh, some healing to the country.

And I know some people might scoff at that, but I think there is a genuine feeling that he wants to be a stabilizing force, you know, coming off the Trump presidency, when there's been so much, Speaker 2: We have a narrowly divided Senate, uh, house majority barely with the Democrats, Joe Biden came from this cloak room, union hall political background that sort of out of Vogue these days.

Is there a thought that that might be helpful given the wounds in our nation right now?

Speaker 1: I think there is something to that.

I also think that, uh, I mean, a couple of things happened for him in the last, uh, few weeks, which were, you know, unanticipated.

He got them the narrow majority in the Senate with those two Georgia, uh, runoff elections.

Uh, also I think the fact that Mitch McConnell, who has been the majority leader will now be the minority leader, had such a sort of public, uh, falling out with Donald Trump.

Mitch McConnell was really unhappy about the way he felt Donald Trump incited that mob, that, that rided at the Capitol a couple, a couple of weeks ago.

So I don't think that's going to make him, uh, you know, uh, necessarily being a chord, but Joe Biden on policy issues.

But I think he's going to be more receptive to the idea of working with him, because I think that he is also disturbed by how intense the division is.

Speaker 2: It changes the tone McDonald shift.

So you talked about the Senate races in Georgia.

We had a local political consultant who worked on one of the Georgia races.

You wrote a column about that, right?

What was the deal with it?

Speaker 1: Well, loud Barberino who's worked, uh, worked on a lot of council races, worked on some, uh, you know, uh, state representative races, um, was, was, was brought in to kind of help with, uh, Spanish language media for Jon Ossoff.

And, uh, you know, we, we don't often think about the Latino vote in Georgia.

I mean, the population Latino population is close to 10%.

The, I think the, the, the voting percentage is a little lower than that, but it is really a factor and becoming a bigger factor in Georgia.

And she worked with him, uh, his wife, who is a, a physician, uh, is very fluent Spanish, and, uh, Lauder was mentioning that she was surprised that Jon Ossoff, he was kind of insecure about, about his own ability when it came to that and was in, uh, was asking, you know, if he sounded bad, but apparently it was, it was, was very good at that.

And, you know, as close as that election was, Speaker 2: Could have made the different clinics, making the difference.

We were probably, Speaker 1: We'll probably learn more about, you know, how the vote broke down as time goes on, but it could have made a difference.

Speaker 2: The local issues right now, the big conversation at city hall is, uh, police reform defund the police police reform.

What are we talking about?

I think that there's a lot of confusion about what the activists are trying to accomplish, Speaker 1: Right.

Well, you know, after the, the George Floyd, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer last year, uh, we started to see, you know, uh, uh, activist groups forming in different parts of the country.

And we've had that in San Antonio.

There's a group called fix SAP D which has been gathering petition signatures.

They were very, uh, active during the November election trying to gather, uh, signatures.

And I think they're coming from the perspective of, uh, that we need reform and that the collective bargaining process with police union has just, is not going to, it's not going to deliver, or they have doubts about that because they feel the police union has, has been, has not been receptive to reform.

So what they're trying to do is they're trying to repeal chapters one 74 and one 43 of the Texas local government code chapter one 74, basically gives public safety unions, the right to collective bargaining.

One 43 is kind of a civil service framework for them.

Uh, and so they want, they want to repeal both of them.

And because they feel that, uh, for example, with, with one chapter, one 43, you have, you have something in there that says that, uh, a police officer, for example, cannot be disciplined for something that happened more than 180 days before the police union, uh, when they, when they have a bargain in San Antonio have generally said, you know, they've, they've been unwilling to give up that, that, uh, uh, provision because they feel this is this isn't the state local government code.

And so I think that fixed SAP D is trying to, uh, to deal with that.

We we've also got a movement within the city to try to deal with that question.

Uh, at the state level, you've got to Barbara Gervin Hawkins, a state representative had introduced a bill last week, which would change that one 80 day provision and say that they could not be disciplined, uh, more than 180 days after it was discovered after the incident was discovered, which would give the police department more time to handle disciplinary Speaker 2: The new justice department under president Biden.

We have a legislative session looking at police reform.

We have this petition drive looking at reform, and is the council engaged on this, or are they kind of trying to see where it goes, how city council, So a, an appetite for reform with the council.

But my sense is that there is some concern about whether the, uh, this repeal effort with these two, uh, uh, state laws that that's the right way to go.

I think there's a feeling of hope that maybe the police union, uh, understands mood of the country has changed.

We also have new leadership with the police union, and that may be that there will be, I think there's, there is some feeling, uh, many police actually, uh, the council member from the district.

They actually put out a statement, uh, this week saying w let's make these changes through collective bargaining.

That's the process that we need to follow.

Gilbert, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

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

As always, you can go to rn.org to view this episode or previous episodes and video or podcast format.

We will see you next week.

Thank you.