Speaker 1: 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 2: Welcome to on the record and happy new year I'm TJ maze.

The second wave of the Corona virus has turned into a deep, upward spike case numbers and hospitalizations had surpassed summer peaks with hospital capacity.

Now reaching the breaking point, Marin Nurnberg, but the city's models or projections.

See anything near this.

When you were looking at what was going to happen this winter, Speaker 1: The models that we, we continually review are mathematical.

And so it really depends on the movement of the virus at the time.

And so since the summer, uh, peak we've seen relatively flat growth.

It hasn't been until this fall season really started that we've seen the velocity increase.

And so the, the, the models are showing we're going to go up, uh, significantly.

Um, and hopefully we're able to slow that down as much as we can to help the capacity catch up.

Speaker 2: Is there anything that the city can do to help with the slowing the spread?

I know that Linda springtime, as we were kind of dealing with the new pandemic, there were measures you adopted them.

The governor came in and kind of preempted the city.

What is the local leadership thinking about in terms of those?

Speaker 1: You know, we, we've literally used every tool, every legal tool in the box for slowing this virus down and really right now where we are.

And I think the rest of the country is as well with this pandemic.

Now lasting over 10 months is that we are in a position now where we have to really rely on, on information and data to drive the behaviors that people have been aware of for a long, long time.

And so where we are right now is it is a very serious situation that if you are in a car accident, for instance, or you have surgery, you could be in a situation where you're out of a hospital room and that's due to the fact that we're seeing an overwhelming number of COVID cases.

That, and it's also extremely dangerous to be out and about right now because COVID transmission is so high people know that they know the simple ways of slowing down the virus mask, wearing physical distancing, and we're appealing to people's common sets.

So I'm here Speaker 2: And you described two problems.

One is you get to the hospital and there may not be a bed for you.

That's a big problem.

The second is as we're going around town, it's more likely that we're going to contract the virus.

We've been talking about these non-pharmaceutical interventions, masks, physical distancing, and so on.

We now have a vaccine.

What role does the city playing in the distribution of that vaccine Speaker 1: Has been a suitable to this pandemic, which has been very discoordinated from the federal level to the state level.

And ultimately, ultimately, ultimately to local communities, we've seen the same thing happen with vaccines.

It's been a very decentralized process.

So local communities, public health districts across this nation have been working to coordinate the information and ensure the vaccine, which has being distributed to individual providers that don't answer to public health districts.

They answer to the state that provides them that we're coordinating with them to make sure that it's delivered equitably it's Dillard, uh, effectively.

And then ultimately the public knows where and how to get the, Speaker 2: I think there there's a sense early on, there might be some vaccine skepticism that might be harmful to the distribution of the vaccine.

I know you were at Wonderland mall of the Americas the first day the vaccine was available.

Did you see any skepticism going on there?

Speaker 1: No hesitation whatsoever.

In fact, we've seen an overwhelming amount of demand that isn't matched yet with the supply that's available, we're waiting for more supplies from the state, but the good news is that people want this vaccine.

I think they've heard the message that this is a serious virus and that they need to take it, that they need to do their part to protect themselves.

But also also to ultimately become immune requires the vaccine.

So we're seeing good demand out there.

We want it to continue and we need to match the supply now with the demand.

Speaker 2: So imagine the supply, I think there's been talk about the city opening up some vaccination clinics.

In addition to the capacity we have right now, what's the timetable for that?

Yeah.

Speaker 1: The university health system has done an amazing job, creating a model that really didn't exist.

And I, and we've gotten some national attention for that because they've delivered now a mass vaccination system that works.

And so what we're trying to do is replicate that.

And so over the next week or so, we're going to try to open up as supplies are made available, open up additional mass vaccination sites so that we can distribute them equitably across the city.

All of this again is dependent upon supply.

That's not yet available.

Uh, the other thing that's happening is that there's multiple numbers of vaccines.

There's two that are currently FDA approved the Pfizer and the Moderna Moderna has been much more, um, uh, much easier to use because it doesn't require that deep freeze.

So the modern vaccine is really in demand from every local community.

Now we're waiting for those supplies to, Speaker 2: I mean, one of the big effects of this pandemic has been the economic impact.

Even talking about workforce training, there's a big ballot initiative in November that you spearheaded that got that approved a sales tax measure that would help fund workforce training programs, helping people get retrained.

What is the implementation of that workforce program looking like?

Right.

Speaker 1: So it's being implemented right now because of the phase one, which utilizes the cares act has been underway.

And we have roughly 15,000 slots with the city and the County that are going to enroll into the job training program.

And surprisingly, even through the holidays, we're seeing demand outstrip the supply.

I mean, the people want these opportunities because it also allows for stipends to make ends meet while people are in training.

So we are implementing that program right now in the phase one in phase two, which is the voter approved program, which is going to go from fall of 21 out through the next four years.

We're currently putting together the board.

We've got an open call for board applications for the advisory board.

And we're also preparing the solicitations program providers to, to, um, service those wrap around services that are needed for, uh, the people that are enrolled in the training, as well as the actual curriculum providers, whether that's an educational institution or it's the employers that are providing training while on the job, Speaker 2: Uh, we're looking at a municipal election season with an election in may.

Are you running for reelection?

I'm running for reelection discern Nurnberg.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1: Let's see TJ Speaker 2: Petitioners are demanding change at the San Antonio water system with ballot measures.

They say will increase transparency and accountability.

The San Antonio water system has sought a judicial finding that those petitions should be nullified.

Joining us is Robert CEO saws.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you for the invitation.

So what did saws ask the judge to do in this case?

Uh, what this is called as a 1205 action that's part of the government code.

And essentially it was what we're asking the judge is to validate, uh, the language in the bonds that were sold and to be sold, which is borrowing money, uh, to build our projects, that that language is, um, language that will support those, uh, individuals and corporations and companies that buy our bonds, that they bought the bonds with the expectation that certain things are happening and will happen.

So we're asking the judge to validate that language.

So Bonds are used to finance infrastructure improvements like sewage infrastructure, water.

It's not just big projects, it's all sorts of things, Right?

Exactly.

It's the bread and butter of what we do at sauce, Borrowers on wall street and elsewhere, they expect a certain kind of governance.

Are you asking that that would basically amount to some kind of a misrepresentation if we were to change the governance midstream on those bonds?

That's exactly what it is.

TJ is a, there's an expectation when they bought the bond that are, uh, and they bought it at a certain rate of return.

And based on that, they're saying, well, then I expect solves to be run in a particular way because that's what you promised me when I bought the bonds.

What is the next step when the case?

Uh, well, the judge, uh, it was set for trial, uh, and the petition, the respondents, which is the individuals seeking to, uh, have a charter amendment, uh, appeared that morning.

So the judge is giving them more time to prepare.

So as of right now, we're waiting for that day to happen.

Petitioners is that one of the petitions is asking for more oversight of large infrastructure projects, the big blockbuster infrastructure projects in the past decade, the Vista Ridge pipeline is the Vista Ridge pipeline up and running.

Yes.

Uh, it came online April 15th, uh, there, as they're talking about a performance audit of the contract, there's two things wrong with that is, uh, first of all, uh, if you talk about performance, it's happening every single day, every single day, we are receiving water and delivering water.

So it's working.

And the other one is it's a private contract, uh, by the, the companies that built the pipeline.

We did not build the pipeline.

We did not drill the Wells.

We did not acquire the easements.

All saws is doing in that project is buying the water.

So you cannot publicly audit a private contract of a private company.

So those are kinds of things that we want, uh, judges to confirm that that type of language is not something is, is something that could adversely affect our credit rating.

So these large projects are probably going to become, are they going to become more?

I guess my question is, are they going to become more prevalent as time goes on and water becomes more important commodity?

The answer is no, these are once in a lifetime, if not entire generation of, of, uh, of happening.

In other words, um, for the next 70 years, 60, 70 years, we will not have another Vista bridge project because that's how long this project, uh, is, is on the books for, uh, uh, two 30 year contracts, uh, back to back, uh, 60 years, total, 60 years total.

And there's some language in there that could extend it up to 70 years.

Uh, the other one is our sewer system where we were mandated by EPA to make improvements in our sewage system.

That was a billion dollar project.

Those happen once in a lifetime.

So they've already happened.

So the fact that they may be able to get language in the future in there is not really going to help them because these projects are, are, are done.

And they're working, uh, as a matter of fact, the consent decree we're in years, eight of a ten-year decree.

So we're almost done with it.

And the consent decree was an agreement between saws and the EPA to adopt certain waste management, uh, wastewater management practices, is that right Improvement of your sewer system to prevent sewer overflows.

So it was cleaning, assessing what you have, and if it's too small, a bigger pipe, if it's in bad condition, repair it.

And so, as I mentioned, we're in year eight of the 10 year consent decree, we were one of the first cities in the nation and in Texas to receive a consent decree.

Um, we are now one of maybe, uh, 40 different cities.

Uh, Houston just got there as Corpus, just got their consent decree to comm is Austin and Dallas.

So you'll see some big expenditures having to be made in those cities.

So big capital projects and, uh, sewage, and also in water pipelines.

Um, we're dealing with this petition, uh, issue and that we're going to be watching that unfold.

Uh, Robert pointer, thanks for being here.

Thank you.

housing continues to emerge as an issue for our community that San Antonio housing authority is charged with, uh, helping fix some of that.

David has been the CEO since 2013, and today is his last day.

And he's leaving to go to Denver.

He joins us to talk about his tenure here.

What are you most proud of in your tenure as the CEO of the San Antonio housing authority?

Speaker 1: First of all, let me say thank you for having the opportunity to be here today and talk about the importance of the housing authority and the greater ecosystem of the city of San Antonio.

I think I'm most proud of the relationships I built and not necessarily within my professional ranks, but within the people that we serve on a daily basis, you know, the people who require our assistance, whether it's for, you know, stable, safe housing, or some of the social programs that we bring along to treat the whole person holistically, to help them find their place in life, to be where they want to be.

So those relationships, those stories and experiences of our residents, bringing them to me, I can become a better person and understand that.

I think I take that with me as a person.

Now I'm proud of many different things that we do, and hopefully we'll get into those too.

Speaker 2: So one is through project, it's a foster care children, housing initiative it's really intriguing.

Can you describe the three project?

Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to go through the master's leadership program and the whole idea is to serve on a board.

And one of the nonprofits that intrigued me was the through project through project is a small nonprofit who helps aged out foster care.

Children, young adults have a stable life, and some of that was housing.

And so I was introduced to them and I'm thinking, how can I help these, uh, young adults and children 18 and older, really have a firm foundation, no pun intended.

And some of that was to provide a housing voucher.

So they always had the rent payment so that it would give them the stability of continuing their education, getting their jobs and working opportunity opportunity.

And so we were lucky enough that the through project was willing to have that discussion with us.

We have a pilot program it's been going great.

The idea is to grow that into more than just 10 vouchers into about 50 vouchers to help the through project grow, because unfortunately there is a larger need out there for aged out foster care, young adults that have stable housing Speaker 2: And the need is going to continue to grow.

Right.

The other program you've worked on is with Alamo colleges.

There are a lot of students who are homeless, sleeping in their cars and saw hot.

Did something about it?

Tell us about that program.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

I was a, again, lucky enough that I attended a United way meeting where I heard two administrators of San Antonio colleges talk about a parking lot.

They had at their campus where they are providing security for kids to sleep in their cars at night because they're homeless.

So at that point, I had to introduce myself and say, how can I help?

Um, and so we, uh, worked with St Phillips college cause we did a lot of analytics to see where our, most of our homeless college students were and where I had some property potentially to build something on and Palo Alto college.

And we originally went down the pathway of two different programs, Palo Alto, just providing straight, uh, subsidy support and the voucher for the homeless students and Palo Alto has their own educational requirements and community requirements for that program for their students at St. Phillips.

Originally the idea was that we were going to build micro housing and have St Phillips since they have a construction arm at the university, have their students do that work, you know, overseeing and then provide community space, but provide them and then saw how was going to, uh, donate the land.

Cause we have a piece of property.

We are going to, uh, uh, fund the construction and provide the, uh, the financing for the vouchers longterm.

But what happened is COVID hit, right?

And so we lost a lot of those resources because we had to reprioritize.

So then we went with the Palo Alto program where initially, which is to get them vouchers though that have stable housing.

And then we'll grow that in the future when everybody's able to come out of COVID and get back to a resource level that's appropriate.

Speaker 2: What do you discuss that, that concept you were working on, but had to abandon because of COVID you talk about different things that does?

I don't think everybody knows you have a kind of a development financing.

There, there are all these moving pieces and, uh, housing and low-income housing, middle income housing in our community is very complex and our viewers may not know a whole lot about it can.

So can you just kind of sum up briefly what the big challenges San Antonio faces from your perspective as you leave, uh, what challenges we face is?

Sure.

Speaker 1: I appreciate the question and the opportunity to maybe give a really quick summary affordable housing is necessary.

And I know a lot of people think San Antonio, if you look at the financial demographics, they're going to say, you know, we're the most economic economically diverse, uh, you know, separated city, big city in America.

So there's really not a need for a lot of affordable housing because there's a lot of housing already that is affordable within our community.

But I would say it's substandard.

It's not up to quality.

It's not up to standards.

And we have more, a million people moving in over the next, you know, 10 years into San Antonio.

So the needs ever growing, especially when you have a lower economic strata in the community.

So we provide an opportunity to resource for that housing.

Now, how do we deliver that?

Right?

We deliver that under traditional programs called public housing, where we own and operate.

And we manage those properties some as old as, you know, 1939, right?

And some then built in the early forties in the seventies and the two thousands.

Then we have a section eight program where we're not the owner, but we're a facilitator between a private landlord and one of our clients.

And we give that voucher, which is a subsidy, so they can afford the rent.

Then lastly, we have an affordable program, which we call beacon communities, which where we own and manage, but there's different levels.

There's market rate units in there.

There's deeply subsidized units, there's vouchers in there.

So it's a mixture of financing tools to make sure the property works.

And our strategy lately has been because the need is that we need so much affordable housing, whether it's 30% AMI, which the majority of our clients are, but there's a big void of 40 to 50% AMI.

So AMI is, uh, uh, average median income for a family of four in San Antonio is about 74,000.

So about, you know, two working parents at $36,000.

That's a lot of San Antonio.

So we're trying to develop properties that fit that niche that has market rate affordability in it, as well as deep, deep subsidies.

Speaker 2: There's a, there's a lot of criticism of the market rate being there.

Am I hearing you, am I hearing this correctly?

Um, that maybe the market rate helps subsidize the development of the lower Speaker 1: Out the market rate unless the housing authority or other entities are willing to write a very large check and resources are very tight.

Yeah.

They're strained and, uh, you can't really make those proformas work.

And unfortunately it's sometimes all about penciling out, right.

And as the agency we're mission-oriented, so we want to do as much deep affordability as we can, and we've done a wonderful job.

In fact, we'll, uh, produce 10,000 units and, uh, $1 billion worth of construction over the next five.

No one in the country is doing anything like the housing authorities doing.

Um, and, uh, a lot of that's going to be focused on the deep subsidy, but you need the market rate to balance that out a lot.

Speaker 2: Program's a billion dollars in the pipeline, David, thanks for your service to our community.

And thanks for joining us now Speaker 1: At the time.

And it's been a pleasure.

It's been a great city to be in.

It'll always be place.

I come back from visit and have warm feelings, and I look forward to the next CEO and the board elevating the agency even more and being more impactful in the city.

So I appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaker 2: And now the reporters round table, joining us, Josh Radetzky editorial page editor at the San Antonio express news.

Thanks for being here.

Hey, thanks for having me, TJ.

It's great to be back Big month in terms of the durability of our democratic institutions in America, the editorial page has taken pretty strong stances on this.

As we speak right now, the electoral college certification is occurring at the Capitol that will have been done by the time this airs.

What is the view of the editorial board and you about what we've seen in the last month of this electoral college process?

Well, I mean, I guess an optimist would say that the system has prevailed, right?

That we've had a number of baseless claims about widespread voter fraud that were sat down in the courts.

That, um, in one instance, I guess, I guess you could argue that, you know, under the really challenging circumstances, we will move forward with the transition of power to president elect Joe Biden.

But I think, uh, there's, I think anyone who loves democracy should be really concerned about what's transpired over the last month and, uh, should really recognize that this election, uh, doesn't end those concerns about erosion of democracy or corrosive attacks on democracy, but, but really that, that we should be expecting to have this type of debate around the sanctity of our elections and the faith of our institutions, uh, for, uh, you know, into forthcoming elections as well.

So, so two Texas leaders have taken a pretty big role in this one is Senator Ted Cruz.

The other is attorney general, Ken Paxton.

Let's talk about Senator Cruz.

I think he's been a ringleader in trying to, um, not certify electoral college votes.

And you wrote some editorials about that.

What's, what's your view about what Ted Cruz is trying to do?

It's really a race to the bottom.

It's incredibly unfortunate.

Um, you know, I think traditionally we tend to talk about politics across the liberal conservative access, right?

A, a spectrum of someones on the left or on the right, but they're really, we're in a moment where we need to look at politics as you're you're either for democracy or you're, um, you're taking actions that are corrosive to democracy or anti-democratic with a lower case D not, not the political party.

And when I look at, um, what Senator Cruz is doing, uh, these, you know, he he's, he's challenging the certification of the electoral college, uh, based on allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Those allegations have been debunked.

They've been disproven, they've been rejected from court.

Uh, the reality is that there, there has been no widespread voter fraud.

Uh, it's, it's incredibly corrosive.

And it's really, the really has to be asked, is this about Senator Cruz for 2020 for a possible presidential run?

Is this really what's in the best interest of our nation, as we move forward with, uh, you know, the sanctity of a peaceful, what should be a peaceful transition of power?

It's incredibly disturbing.

And, you know, my, I guess my plea to any, to, to all, um, viewers out there is to not think about this and traditional political terms and not look at this as, as a, as a team sport or, you know, you might be conservative, you might be liberal, you might be happy about the election outcome.

You might be unhappy, but to really think long and hard about the acceptance of election results, um, the, the faith that we have in democracy and, um, and, and kind of look at Senator Cruz's actions, of course, attorney general, Ken Paxton lawsuit, uh, through that lens.

So one notable kind of example of that was Ted Cruz, his former chief of staff, Congressman chip, Roy who represents San Antonio Austin corridor kind of took a different stand from Senator Cruz and the attorney general, and was pretty strong in supporting the electoral college votes.

So that's sort of what you're talking about, right.

Taking the tribalism and the ideology out of it, Right?

Yeah.

I thought Congressman chip Roy's, uh, approach was, was really, um, welcome.

And it expressed a certain amount of principle, a fair amount of principle, and really what he exposed was hypocrisy, right.

That if you're going to accept the election outcome of, um, uh, house members and Arizona, or Michigan or Pennsylvania, and so on Georgia, then, then if you accept those results, then, then how can you allege fraud?

And in these States at the presidential level, but they don't go hand in hand.

And so I thought that was really powerful and it's important to see these expressions of democracy, of being supportive of our institutions and our processes, uh, come from both sides of the so-called political aisle, right.

You know, that we need widespread expressions of support at this moment.

And I guess my concern is going forward is that this election doesn't Mark an end to this type of assault in democracy, but really is just perhaps a harbinger of, of further future attempts to, to undermine our election Kind of a wake-up call.

We're kind of emerging from what could be a political crisis, hopefully we're emerging from it.

We're at the kind of a peak of the public health crisis.

What are you doing at the editorial page in terms of your editorials about the coronavirus, the pandemic, and the second wave?

Sure.

Um, you know, with a chronic virus for an incredibly tragic moment in time, uh, both in San Antonio and across the nation where we're just seeing a huge surge of, um, of cases and of course hospitalizations and the loss of loved ones, right.

Of neighbors, family, friends, it's incredibly heartbreaking, you know, from the editorial boards perspective, uh, we're advocating of course, for people to, uh, maintain the best practices of wearing masks of physical distance animal.

I've used the word social distancing, because we need to be close with each other.

Um, you know, even if a resume, uh, you know, of realizing that, you know, the fatigue that we're all feeling from this, and I haven't had a haircut in months and it shows right.

Uh, but my, my hairstylist is 75 years old.

He was, Barbara is not a hairstylist.

So to really stick with best practices, um, to embrace, uh, the vaccine as it's distributed.

And of course, we're going to advocate for equity in that distribution.

Uh, in terms of when I say equity, I'm talking about access to it.

Um, you know, to ensure that people who don't have internet access can still be connected to, uh, to the vaccine to ensure that, that it reaches a broad group of people that the hard to reach populations, um, are, are communicated with about the importance of this.

So, um, we're putting forward our efforts to promote best practices Until there's a vaccine.

These non-pharmaceutical interventions are going to be key.

People call it a lockdown or shut shutdown.

It's not really, it's just a physical distancing.

Like you said, the, the attorney general of Texas sued Travis County challenging their authority to take certain actions to limit the spread of the virus, has the editorial board talked about that and sort of what that means in terms of the state versus the local fight about controlling, who has the authority to do what We haven't weighed specifically into what happened with Travis County, but in broad strokes, you know, we have been supportive of, uh, local actions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

And really that's based on a few key principles.

One are supportive local control that people in trucks, County, or people in bear County, uh, the elected officials there obviously have, you know, the best interests, uh, or the best knowledge of what, what the community might need or in El Paso, for example, um, you know, also though we're going to support public health measures that, uh, help limit the spread of COVID-19 because of the sanctity of life, uh, and, and one's health and, and fundamentally, you can't have a functioning economy in a pandemic.

You know, that's the reality that I think sometimes there's this confusion of these stay home measures that they they've affected the economy there.

The reality is that if you have hospitals overflowing and people are really scared to, to be out and about, uh, you're not going to have a full and healthy economy anyways.

So, um, you know, obviously I think we're way past the point of full lockdowns or things like that.

Um, we know that there are harms that come with that.

So I want to be really clear that, that we recognize the social and economic harms that come with going too far on uncertain, um, stay home dynamics, I guess, but fundamentally we're going to support local leaders and making the best decisions for their communities.

All right.

Joshua dusky, thanks for joining us.

And thanks TJ, and thank you for joining us for another edition of on the record.

As always, you can go to klon.org.

If you this episode or previous episodes and video or podcast format, we will see you next week.

Thank you.