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.

I'm Randy Beamer.

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

As we look ahead, we are going to be talking with a top law enforcement officer here in bear county, sheriff Javier Salazar.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for that.

We're also looking back, first of all, and what you had to recently deal with one year ago, the January 6th incident at the Capitol, you had a Lieutenant at the jail who was there, fired her, and then recently the arbitrator upheld that decision.

Tell us about that.

Speaker 2: Well, yes sir.

It went through the process and the arbitrator saw things our way with regard to our, our argument is absolutely we believe in our first amendment, right?

To demonstrate and to speak out.

However, when that event crossed the line over into an unlawful assembly, tear, gas was dispersed and she remained there as a member of this agency.

Uh, she remained a part of this unlawful assembly, you know, AF after which, you know, we saw, uh, officers of the law losing their lives, civilians, losing their life.

Clearly to me, that was where I drew the line and we had to separate her from this agency.

Speaker 1: Some people are going to see that as political, uh, you know, looking back at January 6th, there's several different ways that people are looking back at that.

You didn't see it as political in terms of Speaker 2: Firing her.

I don't see it as political.

I just think it's improper for somebody that wears this uniform for a living, uh, to, to proudly be a part of a, of an operation because it wasn't organized operation that resulted in the loss of life of people that wear this very same uniform.

Uh, to me, that was unconscionable and I was not going to tolerate it.

Speaker 1: I expect that she will appeal this decision.

She hasn't filed anything yet, but we are told the lawyer will do that.

Speaker 2: Uh, you know, my understanding is that they, they have the ability to, to, to file some sort of a lawsuit at this point.

I can comfortably say though, that she is not a member of this agency anymore, as we look ahead Speaker 1: For bear county, one of the biggest challenges here right now, first of all, we'll get to COVID, uh, because you have how many people at the jail now, Speaker 2: Uh, 103 COVID positive inmates.

Uh, the majority of those are coming in from the outside already infected.

We're catching them at our screening process at, at the booking process.

We're catching them.

So we're doing a good job of that.

Uh, and the vast majority of them are also, uh, asymptomatic positives, which is a scary thing, because that tells me that out in the community, throughout our, our normal everyday life, we're probably walking around people that we have no clue half COVID.

Now Speaker 1: This is what a third of the biggest you had, you had 300 right at the beginning of the pandemic, right?

And now you're able to and ready for separating everybody all the time anyway.

Right?

Speaker 2: Right.

Well, because of our monitoring process, we test a hundred percent of our inmates.

We're able to get a very clear picture of what we have in house.

When we very first started universal testing, we had 300 COVID positive inmates.

Uh, that number went down, uh, to the point where we only had one COVID positive inmate, uh, at the end of November.

And then that number has skyrocketed since that point today we're at 103.

And so we'll see where we go from there.

And now Speaker 1: The staffing is a problem with the jail all the time right now.

Is it worse?

How are you dealing with that?

Speaker 2: Everything's an issue because of the fact that we're doing we're, we're keeping our inmates a distance still within the, within the jail setting, that's more labor intensive.

And so, uh, it, it is eating up more manpower add to that, that we also have deputies getting sick as a result of COVID as well.

Speaker 1: People who live in that area or may want a test.

You're also doing some tests and booster shots, initial shots at the jail periodically.

Speaker 2: The other day, we did an operation with the Texas national guard where we, we actually did a drive-through event at the jail where we offered testing, but we also offered boosters and, and initial vaccinations.

So my understanding is we gave out about a hundred to seven boosters and we did 300 COVID positive COVID tests.

72 of those 300 came back positive though.

And Speaker 1: Were those asymptomatic for the most part, Speaker 2: Many of those were symptomatic.

They were there for a reason because they felt sick.

They looked sick when we were going up and talking to them at the car.

Uh, but additionally, some of them said, well, I maybe not.

Wasn't on my best behavior.

I went to a new year's party, went to a Christmas party, went to a ball game.

And now I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm worried about it.

Speaker 1: Protocol again, for officers who are going to be called out.

If I call somebody, I need some help, what, what should I expect?

Speaker 2: The deputy is going to want to conduct business outside in the open air.

And the deputy's probably going to want to keep distance and keep their mask on as well and ask you to keep your mask as well.

Yeah.

Speaker 1: And finally, as we look ahead to the new year, um, you know, headlines over the past year, we talked about how violent crimes were up across the country.

What do you expect this year?

And what are you seeing?

Speaker 2: We're seeing the same thing.

Violent crime is up a bit, uh, gun crime is up a bit as well.

And so we're certainly doing our best to stay on top of that.

Uh, we've got our organized crime group.

That's still out working a uniform and covertly, uh, in, in, you know, doing, doing a great job of, of keeping it in check to the extent possible.

Speaker 1: We have 10 seconds.

What's your new year's resolution?

Well, Speaker 2: Randy, I'm a, I'm a man of a certain age.

And so I'm going to do a better job of taking care of myself and seeing a doctor on a more regular basis.

Speaker 1: Wow.

That's commendable.

Thank you very much, sheriff, Javier Salazar.

Appreciate you coming in.

Thank you, sir.

Sadly, one of the biggest stories as we enter 2022 again, is COVID and the Omicron variant is just skyrocketing across the country here in San Antonio as well.

We've had close to 15,000 new cases in the first few days of the new year and Dr. Jean Patterson of Texas biomed joins us now to talk about that.

Thank you for joining us.

First of all, what do you tell people about this Omicron variant that some people say, well, it's not as severe, uh, and should they be worried about it?

How worried should they be?

Well, it's clearly much more transmissible than the Delta variant to us.

I mean, we, once we even knew that it was available, it was already in this country.

And as you can see, it went from basically 20% to 70% of our cases within a matter of days.

I mean, that's incredibly transmissible.

The good news, as far as we can tell is it is less virulent.

We have, um, data, both in the laboratory and with epidemiology that says it doesn't seem to get into the lungs the way Delta got into severe lung disease.

And therefore it seems to be more of an upper respiratory disease.

More like the common cold Corona viruses like SARS two is a Corona virus and they have caused common colds for, for we've known about them for a long time.

It's possible.

This thing is mutating more toward the common cold, then the more severe, um, Delta or the original variants that we saw, But it's less severe for those who had a vaccine.

And it's still very important to get a vaccine.

Everything is less severe.

If you've had the vaccine, that there is no other, there's nothing else you can do to help yourself other than get vaccinated and to get boosted.

We know that two vaccinations are important, but what we found for Omicron is that you're much more protected if you have your booster.

There's no, it's, there's no qualification to that.

The best thing to do is to get all your vaccinations as soon as possible.

If you get all Macron or you think you have all Macron and at-home tests, one of the people that have been waiting in line, you can't get a test.

What do you tell people to do to take care of themselves and to stay away from others?

Absolutely.

If you think you have it and you can't get a test, then you stay home just like you would any other time.

If you're sick, you stay home and stay away from people.

Um, what I'd like to get across though, is if people that have been vaccinated and have been careful and wear a mask, you still may get contacted.

It's that transmissible it's, it's going to be very difficult to avoid it at this point.

And people shouldn't feel guilty or bad if they get it, they should know that they've done everything they can to protect themselves and encouraging others to get back to native, to protect their friends.

And, But at the same time, they need to stay away from those who are more vulnerable and keep in mind that it can be deadly to some of those people now, including young people who are getting it more.

Well, I think what they're seeing is that you're, since young, since children are the least vaccinated and since you're more likely to see disease in those that are unvaccinated, I think that's why we're seeing increase in pediatric patients.

I don't think that it is specifically targeting, um, or more severe in, in pediatric patients.

It's just that they're the most unvaccinated in the U S they're the ones that are likely to feel the effects getting vaccinated yourself is protecting your children.

Last quick question for parents.

What do you tell them about sending their kids to school?

I'm not going to tell people what to do about their children up.

I think we should understand that this is a highly transmissible virus.

It is not nearly as, as virulent as we have seen in the other variants, and there's going to be a surge and we're going to see it.

And then hopefully it will drop as quickly as it has in other places like South Africa and the UK.

Alright, thanks very much Dr. Jean Patterson, we know you're doing a lot of work out there at Texas biomed with COVID still and good luck with that.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

As we talk about kids and the Omicron variant and schools, what you tell parents, we're also going to be talking about teachers and how they are reacting to the surge in cases joining us right now is a lead organizer of the American Federation of teachers and the Northside district that's Molina is spilled through as Zocar.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

You have, after coming back from the break, we have had a surge in staffers in the north side district, uh, out absent.

And what do you want the school system to do about this?

You made a number of requests.

Speaker 2: Uh, well, I think initially the first thing to say is it's not just an issue that we're seeing in north side specifically.

It's certainly an issue across the state and across this nation.

Uh, secretary Cardona came out and was very clear as we were returning back to school that there was there, there were aware that there was going to be some staffing issues across the entire nation.

Um, you know, we, we, as, as, as I, you, you all have communicated with, with the district.

Um, you know, we don't have specifics as to why every single person is out, but we do know that there is a large amount and we're hearing from our members, there's a large amount of folks out with COVID, um, and, or recovering from COVID or, um, dealing with family members that live in their home that have COVID.

And it's a, it's a big concern.

Um, what do we want to see?

I mean, most certainly, I think the concerns of the teachers are one safety.

Um, the concerns of our members that we have heard in the last week of safety concerns in regards to COVID and also, um, coverage for classrooms, um, in regards to not having the proper amount of staff and, and, um, substitute teachers to cover those classrooms.

That's a big concern because, um, when, um, when classes are divided or when they're trying to find coverage, a couple of things occur.

Um, one being that teachers would receive students from other classes, making their class sizes very large.

A lot of our secondary classrooms are sitting at 32 already, um, adding extra students into that classroom mix.

It is an extreme challenge to, um, give each of those students attention that they need, um, and properly give, you know, provide them what they deserve as far as education goes.

Um, and Speaker 1: I think I understand his, his mask mandate right now.

You want that mask requirement that I ended, I guess, last spring to come back.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So what we've requested, uh, at the district level is that we are requesting that they initiate, um, a mandatory mass mandate, a temporary man, mandatory mass mandate, um, to try and slow the spread because we are seeing that student, there's a large amount of students also out.

And, um, we know that there are students out and families out with COVID and, um, masking is a mitigation strategy that is recommended by this by CDC for school reopening.

Um, and we are asking the district to follow that.

Now we do understand that the governor, um, and the state of Texas, uh, have provided some barriers and ensuring that the districts can, um, can take the steps that they need in order to protect students.

Um, but we, we have seen that the district did implement a mass mandate at the beginning of the school year.

And, um, Dr. Woods stated that if necessary, that mandate would be put back in place.

And we are asking that they, that they do that Speaker 1: About the number of teachers.

And I don't know if you know this anecdotally or actual numbers who are not coming back to the classroom because of the risk, not that they're sick or that they have to quarantine because of somebody in their family, but, but basically a refusal as sick out, if you will, Speaker 2: Um, well, where we're not scheduling a sick out or have a sick out going on.

But we do know that there are, uh, staff that have deep concerns as far as their safety goes.

Um, and there are staff that, um, that can't return because there are safety issues, unfortunately, where we are losing teachers across this nation, not just in the district, but across this nation.

Good, um, uh, experienced teachers because of the, um, uh, the weight that has been put on their shoulders, um, that was already difficult, but, but be due to, to this virus, Speaker 1: But this isn't like in Chicago right now, this is making headlines across the country where the teacher's union basically is refusing to go back to classes.

And, uh, the mayor is basically saying, that's ridiculous.

Uh, you don't want to have classes shut down, uh, or anything like that.

Speaker 2: I think, I think this Chicago public, public public school teachers also don't want to see, um, a school shut down.

They simply want safety measures implemented that was promised to them so that they are able to, um, safely go back to school.

Do we have something like that plan?

No, absolutely not.

Um, but we, we, our teachers want to be in school just like teachers across this nation want to be in school.

They know the best place for students is in school, but they deserve to have safety measures put in place to secure their safety and the safety of the, Speaker 1: What are you hearing from teachers here about how many kids, how many teachers, staffers are wearing masks, talk about a mask mandate.

How much would that increase mask wearing in schools?

How is it right now?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I do think that there is a large amount of the students and staff that are masking, but there are still those, those students and staff members that aren't masking.

And, and I think that mass man would ensure safety.

The other issue that we, that we are concerned about is in regards to the change in the CDC guidelines that say, oh, that you only need to quarantine for asymptomatic folks for five days, but then after those five days, there needs to be a really strict mask wearing of those individuals.

Well, it's very difficult for the district to monitor which individuals are supposed to be masked in which, uh, which individuals can not be masked.

And so initiating that mass mandate would ensure that everybody, including those individuals that should be, um, coming out of quarantine and mass our map.

Speaker 1: And I know we're about out of time here, but you have been in touch with some people in the district you haven't heard back yet.

When do you expect to hear back yet about a mask mandate or some of the other things that you want Speaker 2: Really important for, uh, unions and staff members and the community to have a voice in this process.

And so we're hopeful and we continue to be hopeful that the district will be willing to work with us.

We'll be willing to hear out the members of, of our union and listen to the concerns they have and do what's right for the safety of the students and staff and preserve human life, um, and he and health in these situations so that we can continue to have schools open and provide proper education.

Speaker 1: All right.

Well, thank you very much.

That is Molina is spirited too, as, who is the lead organizer of the American Federation of teachers in the north side district.

Appreciate you talking with us.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Randy.

Appreciate it.

Speaker 1: Looking ahead for the new year in business in San Antonio, the man with a crystal ball who knows everything, every single thing there is to know about it, whether it's good, whether it's bad, what it means for all of us is, and Arnold, the managing editor of the San Antonio business journal.

Thank you very much for coming in and pleasure.

First of all, everybody, it seems like all the news is about retirements and people quitting in terms of jobs and how that affects businesses.

How big an issue is that right now?

Well, there is no business that we've talked to in any industry, healthcare tech, particularly service workers who are not struggling to get workers.

They're not struggling to hire, and they're getting hit on two angles.

One people at the lower end of the income spectrum are quitting, oftentimes to get another job that pays them more because the competition is high for their service.

But also we're seeing an enormous number of retirements, particularly people who are 65, 66.

Um, it's tough to know exactly why they made that choice though.

I think psychologically we'd understand why if you could retire during the pandemic, why you might, but also the market has been doing so well that I think has compelled a few people at the, at the later end of their careers to go on again, You're talking about 65, 66, as opposed to those in the past, it would have gone to 70 or just kept working.

Exactly.

Right.

Exactly.

Right.

And now in some of those industries, we're seeing things like bill Miller, closing it's dining rooms because they can't get enough people.

That's right.

And what is that going to do?

The domino effect?

Yeah.

Over time, it's going to be, it's a question of how quickly these changes take place.

Bill Miller will have to raise their wages to compete overall.

Eventually bill Mueller may not be the perfect example, but workers are now demanding higher rates than they would have in 2019.

They're just not going to go back to those service worker jobs for the same price.

Um, now that they're doing that, it's putting a lot of pressure on larger companies to increase those wages, increase.

Those benefits with that is going to come and increase in prices.

We've all been watching prices increase.

It's a cascading effect.

The concern that most economists have is, is this a longterm issue where inflation continues to spiral in goods that we're used to paying for much, much more expensive, or does it happen at a slower rate?

It's a little healthier and improves the sort of inequality imbalance that we've seen.

How about in San Antonio?

We talk about inequality imbalance.

We have one of the worst in the country in terms of lowest income to highest income.

And we also have a lot of service jobs and the tourist industry, how is that affecting and will affect?

It's going to be tough for a lot of employers in San Antonio for the next year to year and a half, because quite frankly, uh, the wage pressure is much higher than they used to some of the other cities in Texas Dallas, for example, Houston, for example, have kind of dealt with this in other ways, the halo effect of their larger industries, but San Antonio has always been able to trade on that lower wages increase to encourage companies to come here, the lower cost of living lower cost of doing business, but that is changing.

And I think the end of the day, we're going to see those wages increase what's concerning is that in the early numbers, we see the wages at the top end, increasing at a much faster rate than we see wages increasing at the bottom.

Uh, however, with a come with a, uh, uh, a economy that is very, very, uh, reliant on service jobs, you're going to see high quit rates.

You're going to see higher wages, But at the very beginning of COVID, it wasn't high quit rates at the lower end.

It was firings and layoffs and all that.

And then the city among others, trying to make sure that people are trained for other jobs.

We, I guess we all expected that the people that were out of work would be desperate to come back to work, to make up the money that they lost.

Is that not happening?

No, It is happening.

I think it's just happening in different ways.

Uh, so for example, uh, you're seeing people quit a restaurant, not work for a month and then get a job, but a higher rage at another restaurant.

So there's gaps in their, in their employment, but they're making smart economic decisions and trying to improve their wages through moving around there have been improvements in the number of white collar jobs jobs at the top end six figure jobs.

It's still a relatively small number compared to the rest of the city.

Of course, we're talking 55,000 people.

However, it was 25,000 people, five years ago that are making six figure jobs.

So there's a significant increase in that top end as well.

And certainly some of that comes from people upscaling and upskilling upskilling as they call it What people learned over COVID in terms of their priorities and w liking staying at home with the kids or liking, not being all worried about having to get that, that next job.

For sure.

I think there's a, I mean, I think it's hard to quantify a numbers, but there's clearly a psychological issue here as well.

We've all been through a very difficult period as a, as a, as a society.

People who have been living check to check someone who's maybe been working two part-time jobs, as well as still needing assistance to make ends meet.

It's hard to understand why they would be in a rush to get back to that lifestyle.

And also, I guess people thought well after the benefits run out, that everybody would go back to Not exactly.

I think those benefits were certainly, um, composed a few people, encouraged a few people to stay home a little bit longer at the end of the day.

I don't think that's the main motivation.

It's, it's tough to say what it is for sure, because we can't interview and survey all of them, but, you know, childcare was an issue.

People didn't go rushing back over the past summer.

Maybe they didn't have childcare available the amount of money they could make.

Didn't equal the amount that they would have to pay to keep their children at home.

Um, all kinds of factors like that are, you know, stressing individual, uh, workers, and they make those choices based on Now, complicating everything is this recent skyrocketing in COVID cases, crystal ball, that what's going to happen.

What does that mean?

Well, the numbers we've been talking about predate this variant, so we can only expect the quit rates will increase over the next few months.

I will not be surprised if you see nationwide, you know, passing 7 million quits over the course of a month.

Uh, now how many of those people are back in the labor force come February and March.

That's really where the big key comes in.

I think you'll see most of those people back into work as this passes over, but who knows, you know, it's tough Inflation and prices and the market, because you said the market going up has encouraged people at the upper end or the older end to retire.

If the market starts to drop, is that going to change it?

I mean, there's a balance.

Yeah, Absolutely.

I mean, people should be, if they're retiring, pulling back out of the market to some degrees and setting themselves up safely, but at the end of the day, there's not any sign that the corporations that are building as much profits of record levels are really slowing down yet.

Inflation will catch up to us eventually.

Hopefully it will be at a, at a pace that we can manage.

That's what my biggest, How about we've had, uh, people coming into Texas and everybody has been, you know, recruiting more jobs in Texas.

Those are big stories of the year that isn't making up for people moving down to Texas.

That's not making up for some of these losses Incredibly fast to this growth rate is even this incredible influx of people is still not enough to feed all the jobs that we actually need.

That has been one of the things that has been hitting the construction industry.

We know that there is a huge demand for more housing in San Antonio, there still not enough skilled labor to meet the construction demand for that, even with this massive To some of the different industries that we have, that we are maybe unique in cybersecurity, uh, UTS is new building downtown, and there's separate, uh, training in that area that we just had announced, what will that do if anything, or is that just a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture?

I think it will bring up the mean for sure.

It'll bring the media now, but, but that's I where you're seeing that increase in six figure income in the healthcare industry and technology cybersecurity is a big positive for us there.

Cloud computing is a big positive for us there.

Um, that's where that extra 25, 30,000 people making more than six figures a year is coming from.

I believe in those sectors, that'll continue to be an advantage.

Uh, it's a question of whether or not we can continue to balance both the labor needs that we need at the base end as, as well as the ones at the top.

And at my concern is it will be two or three years before we really know what the balance looks like.

What are the bright spots you think in the, in the new year for San Antonio?

Oh, I think that there's going to be quite a few of them.

I think that, uh, San Antonio has been better at dealing with the COVID spikes than a lot of other cities.

Uh, especially when you look at the rest of the Sunbelt and they have, uh, we're lucky that we're going to have some preferential weather.

That's going to get people back outside sooner than others.

And that'll sort of help us disperse some of this as well.

I think we still continue to have huge advantages economically all across the board.

The question is, is will we get enough air from these variants to, to take advantage of it?

And your answer Is my answer is yes.

My answer is yes, we will.

I'm generally positive.

I'm generally someone who thinks that San Antonio is going to remain on the upswing in the five years that I've seen it up close.

And in person I've lived here, it's exceeded my expectations every year, even 20, 20 and 2021.

That is the word from the managing editor, the all-seeing Oracle of the San Antonio business news.

Thank you very much.

Ed Arnold, managing editor of the San Antonio business journal.

Appreciate you coming in and thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

Tell your friends about this show.

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