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.

And thanks for joining us for this edition of on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And this week, one of the biggest stories is CPS energy and the rate increase they had asked for much more, they're asking the city this week.

In fact, there is a vote on a 3.85% rate increase joining us to talk about that as Reed Williams, familiar face former Councilman.

Now on the, uh, rate payer advisory committee for CPS, a chairman of that, in fact, 21 member board.

Thank you very much for coming in and now people want to know about, okay, how did this 3.8, 5% come to where it is?

And what did your group do?

One of the rate payer advisory committee do in terms of input into how big it is and what it pays for.

Okay.

Speaker 2: Okay.

The rate advisory committee was, uh, established about a year ago, uh, by the board of directors.

And our job is to, uh, become familiar with, uh, energy matters, right?

Making and power generation and advise CPOs and the board on those items.

Uh, it's a, it's a citizens group.

We've got 21 folks.

Uh, 10 of the individuals were, uh, nominated, uh, onto the committee by city council.

People, uh, 10 were by CPS and one was, uh, through agreement, uh, which was myself as the chair and the right advisory committee is, uh, been working very hard since last may to learn about rate making energy matters in general energy generation.

Uh, we then immediately moved in to looking at this rate increase and our job was not to propose a rate increase.

It was that's the job in the city, uh, that the, the job that the CPS management has to have, and the city has a very capable staff under Ben gazelle that looks at that and vets it, our job was as citizens to look at it and try to understand what was being done.

What was asked for, was it appropriate?

Was it justified and reasonable?

And that's what we did.

Speaker 1: And what did you think after all of that?

Speaker 2: Well, it was a long process and as you know, it was pretty messy.

I mean, I went through a lot of iterations at, uh, in the beginning, it was touted as a 10% bill impact, which really was about a 13 and a half percent rate impact.

So we had to get through that confusion.

And then as we looked at individually items and what they really needed to have CPS need to have a, it changed, it changed a lot.

That was very frustrating for the committee.

It was frustrating for the community.

And I can tell you, it was frustrating for CPS that Speaker 1: Change in terms of at least the rate yeah.

Proposed right down to 3.85, but what was frustrating for them?

Speaker 2: Well, because it kept changing.

We kept having to look at new numbers, new, uh, assumptions again, right.

Making is just cash cost recovery.

And you got to look forward, you got to say, is this the appropriate amount that we need to stabilize this organization and do the job that they need to do for us as rate payers and in any monopoly, you've got the supplier, which is CPS.

You've got the customer like you and I, and then you've got the city of San Antonio, uh, city council as the rate making body.

And the rate making body is there to make sure that we're getting charged appropriately and that we only pay justified and reasonable costs.

Speaker 1: Now there were some people on the committee, I assume that didn't want any rate increase as there are right now on city council that, you know, um, and what was it, or was there a high end that people pushing for, especially after the, uh, the event, the freeze last year?

Speaker 2: Well, I, I haven't met anybody that wanted the rate increase.

Okay.

I mean, nobody wants the rate increase now that once we got past that and we got down to, well, what is it going to take to make sure that this utility can do their job in the next few years, nobody wanted to provide another eight or 10 years of rate increase.

Right now there's a lot of distrust from on CPS right now.

We're after the winter storm, the fallout in their management.

And certainly through this process that kind of came and went as it went down.

So they're going to, there was a sense on the committee and I won't speak for the committee because my job was really to get their voices heard, not my voice.

Okay.

So in the end, each one of them put their statement out and we had them take a position either for, or against it.

So as you go through this process, it is a very detailed and very complicated process.

But in the end, I think a lot of people began to realize that, yes, they did need a rate increase.

Now Speaker 1: Been one for eight years.

And there's also looking ahead, they talked about, they need more people.

Uh, there's a shortage of workers, the infrastructure, isn't what it needs to be.

How big of problems are those?

And you've worked in management for, Speaker 2: I think they do have a problem.

I think they do need to rebuild their organization.

As you know, we've had lots of resigning, uh, resignations.

We've got a lot of retirements.

Uh, there is general pressure on all wages.

All right.

Now with inflation we have, and it's a wage push inflation as well as the demand pool.

So we, we definitely have pressure on getting people, uh, and keeping them paid appropriately.

So they stay.

Uh, so yes, there was a problem.

They also have the issue of making sure they went arise, their plants so that we don't have a repeat of last year.

There's a lot of expenditure for that.

There was also a need to upgrade their computer systems.

So we identified, you know, three or four or five needs that definitely need to be done, but we didn't in that process, pay for the computer system all the way through the next four or five years, we just paid for what it took to study to figure out we didn't pay for converting all the plants.

We just paid for what they need right now.

We're not asking people to trust them out.

Let's see how it works in the next year.

Speaker 1: Part of it than an adjustment fee that would be added on I w what is it, a 3.8, 5% plus an adjustment fee that would help pay for the past natural gas from that event?

Speaker 2: That's been confusing to some folks reasonably confusing, because it is not when you have a problem like this, you have to set up a fund to finance against.

We have about a billion dollar problem from the winter storm.

And, uh, and a certain amount of that, uh, three hundred and eighty three hundred sixty three hundred $80 million has been agreed to be paid.

So that amount is going to go into this fund.

And then CPS is going to go borrow money against that fund and charge it out over time.

It's a way to amortize out the cost like buying your home.

The part that has not been agreed to is not in that yet the 600 and something it's still in there, technically it's in the fund, but we're not recovering on it.

Our CPS is not asking us to recover.

It is very technical, but think of it as a house versus an addition that you want to make in the future, you're going to pay for the house.

Speaker 1: And I want to make sure people know the bottom line.

If they're, I guess the average rate payer pays out $152 bill.

These to increase in rates.

And the adjustment fee would add about $5 and 10 cents to that monthly bill on the Speaker 2: Average bill.

And again, averages are dangerous.

They're very Speaker 1: Now the bottom line is, do you think, as a, as a person who's gone through this at that as reasonable, Speaker 2: I think what we've asked for right now, the 3.8% plus setting up the regulatory asset to recover the amount that we've agreed to pay is reasonable.

Okay.

I'm not saying that we needed to have the 13 and a half or the 10 or the eight, but right now, what we see, I see that as justifiable and reasonable hormonal.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, Reed Williams.

Thanks for explaining it to us even.

So somebody like me could understand, uh, CPS rate payer board chairman.

Thank you very much for coming Speaker 2: Here.

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: San Antonio city council is also getting ready to finalize a bond package that we'll vote on in may.

And some of the project includes a renovations for parks.

And one of the projects that has proposed would be a renovation to the sunken Garden theater, historic theater there at Bracken Ridge park.

And joining us to talk about this is a Blanquita Sullivan at the river road neighborhood association.

Thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, what do you think of this plan to renovate sunken garden theme?

Well, it's not a renovation.

I think that is totally misleading.

It's not a renovation at all.

Uh, we're talking about a complete overhaul of that, uh, theater, and it's not really going to be a theater.

It's more like a stadium is what we're talking about.

It's not the same thing.

It's not a renovation About traffic, as well as noise.

The theater has been there for since 1930 and they've had concerts, including some big, heavy metal bands, anthrax, Megadeath, and you say you could hear them and it would shake the windows then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's okay because those concerts happen every once in a while.

And it's fun, you know, it's fun to have big concerts there.

Uh, but those concerts were for, um, uh, a venue that has 879 seats.

And this venue will have 7,000 seats.

Uh, those concerts happen That venue also was able to take 4,000 in terms of seated in whatever, as I understand it.

And in the configuration that it is now.

Yes.

So it wasn't just a few hundred seats.

It could have, I think that's the maximum capacity.

I don't know what the maximum capacity is for the proposed theater.

We know that it's 7,000 seats.

Um, it's probably additional several thousand with general seating, maybe standing behind, but we don't know that number 49, at least in the original plans that they put out last September, it was something like a 4,900 actual seats and other 1100, uh, in a, in an area.

But Yes, and we, we just don't know if there will be any additional space beyond that, but we know that the minimum is 7,000 And now it's the kind of theater and the kind of shows that would, it would, it would repeatedly bring, is that where you're opposed to?

No, we're not opposed to the kind of shows at all.

We are just, um, really worried about, um, the, the volume of traffic, the volume of people and the frequency of shows.

So, right.

The fact that it would bring in, you say a number of shows a Week.

Yes.

So we have shows now and there, you know, a few shows a year and that's fine.

Uh, but we're talking about three shows a week.

Um, and that's not all year that they're talking about that as a minimum of about, I think between April and October, a minimum of two to three, But now some would say then it's, if it's only a few shows a year now it's really being underutilized and that it, it does need, would you agree something done to fix it up?

Okay.

Of course we definitely think it needs to be restored.

And, um, w you know, we want that.

Uh, absolutely.

We just want a little bit more, uh, done in terms of wildlife study.

We haven't heard anything about what the, um, what this is going to do to the zoo.

That's next door.

We'd like more in terms of traffic and safety study.

We haven't seen any of this, uh, information.

It hasn't been released.

We, we don't know what this means for the, for the animals.

We've got the Audubon societies that go there and they love to go and see the birds.

We just don't understand yet what it means, As I understand it, it's kind of in the early stages.

Now, what they're asking the city council for is I expect now down to $5 million out of a $62 million project, which they would have to raise a lot of money for.

And so this is years in the works, but right now, so you want the city council to what totally reject the part of the bond plan.

That's for the, I think we would like for this project to slow down so that we can have some public input.

We have not had any opportunity to have any input in the planning of this.

So this was all planned and, you know, kind of behind the scenes and Input then started in late September, October when you were invited to No input.

I, there was a presentation where they said, this is what we're going to do, but we were not asked, there wasn't any input.

They didn't say, what do you think about this?

Um, it was more, uh, this is what we're going to do and hope you like it.

And, and we really don't like it.

And we would like to be able to, um, not just for us, I think that this is something that really the entire city should be able to step in and talk about before it goes.

And now this is part of, uh, the Breckenridge park Conservancy, uh, working on renovating the whole of Brackenridge park.

Now, are you with them on that part of this, because that actually was a lesser number in terms of dollars that they wanted for that?

I think a park renovation sounds just wonderful.

I think, you know, what we're, what we're really worried about is what does a 7,000 cars coming into the park?

I maybe three nights a week mean for the entire area.

And we're, we're not so much worried about, you know, just, um, our neighborhood.

We think that, you know, I guess I grew up there, I grew up, I've lived there all my life.

I've seen people that do the car shows on Sundays.

I see families that hang out in the playground.

I see, uh, people that go fishing there.

I see the bird Watchers, uh, you know, people who like to go to the zoo.

So we're just wondering, well, how are we going to fit now a big stadium space in there on top of all?

Well, now they say, and I have here a sound attenuation plan in terms of trying to enclose the stage house and limit the sound.

So it could be even less of what has been in the past.

And also a traffic plan that they're trying to, uh, make sure that there is still access and usage and, and limits of traffic.

So in terms of the sound, I, I have seen that plan and I think it, it, uh, they do talk about how they're gonna manage the amplification, but we're talking about a crowd size.

That will be the, you can't really manage the sound that comes from the crowd.

So I think that is something that the, you know, what, whether we have a great speaker system in place, that's not really going to change the crowd size.

And, um, and then with the traffic plan, um, I just don't think that the traffic plan places have really very effective plan.

And I don't think it's a very thorough and well thought out.

Well, we, uh, we asked the people with the Conservancy to come on and they, they couldn't at this time, we wanted to read one, uh, at least part of their statement.

They say the proposed renovations would elevate the theater to a top tier facility to attract world-class acts, currently passing San Antonio by for shows and other major Texas cities also providing San Antonians with a convenient entertainment venue all while maintaining the historic integrity of the theater.

And that's going to be an issue as to how that is done, I guess.

Would you agree with that part of the statement With anything in that statement?

I think it's misleading.

Um, first of all, they're talking about, you know, they're saying there's a need for, uh, for this venue, but there's an amphitheater opening in Selma this year.

And just a few months that is 17 miles from Brackenridge.

And that's a big amphitheater it's for 8,000 people.

And, um, I even think having that this many amphitheaters in such a close proximity is probably not a very good strategic move for the city.

I think we might end up where one of them can't meet the need and the parking, But again, you're, you're okay with it being redone somehow.

Yes, of course.

And, you know, we, we want that theater to go on for forever.

I mean, we want it to be successful and protected and we want the people to enjoy it.

We love concerts, we love events.

And, and I think that, you know, we, we certainly want to see it.

Well, it's going to be interesting to see how this resolves itself city council going to take a look at it, and then, uh, eventually voters, at least this first input from the city in terms of possible money.

Well, thank you very much.

Blanquita Sullivan.

I didn't realize you're, Blanquita Collins a little girl.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming in and, and tell her hi For sure.

Thank you.

In far Northwest bear county, right now, there is an issue of a planned development of about 3000 homes and 1100 acres that has run into some opposition and joining us right now is Brendan Gibbons, the assistant manager of the greater Edwards aquifer Alliance or Ghia.

Thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, tell us about this plan for development and where it is right now.

Speaker 2: So that's the very early stages.

This development would be on a piece of land called the Guadalupe tract, and it would be 3000 homes going in on roughly 1100 acres.

So it's very, very dense.

We just know about, um, that plan for that area because, uh, w a potential whole home builder Lenara homes has approached the San Antonio water system about connecting water and sewer service to that area.

When I say it's early, though, Lamar has not bought the tractor or anything, it's still in the hands of private ownership.

So we just want to make sure that we're, um, informing people about what's going on there very early in the process, Speaker 1: Original what's called the north sector plan for San Antonio, even though it's outside the city limits.

There were plans to make sure that this area had only homes with 10 acres or more because they were concerned about possible runoff into the aquifer contributing, and then the recharge zone, right?

Speaker 2: The aquifer Alliance, um, was part of developing this north sector plan.

And that's the city's planning document that envisions how growth will proceed in that area over the next 35 years.

And, um, when, when everyone sat down on the table and haggled that out in 2010, um, the, the use that they proposed for that tract was large lot development.

So like 10 acres, um, onsite, well water onsite, um, septic system.

So just kind of like big ranches state kind of development.

And what we would like to see is just have the city stick with what the plan says.

Um, you know, it, it was reached at via lots of compromise, um, and, and you're negotiating on both sides.

And we just want to make sure that if anyone approaches the city to, uh, change that plan and get a variance to it, that the city would deny that we just want them to stick with it.

Speaker 1: There have been in the past, a number was 80 some various variations granted by the city out of 180 applications.

And do you think that's way too many, or what do you think of those variances?

Speaker 2: The Alliance does feel that that's, that's far too many variances to that plan.

We, we had some great interns do a research report first, so they counted how many have been done.

And, uh, I forget what the time period was, but in recent years, it's that plan has been amended 85 times.

So we just think it's important to not be constantly changing something after it's been agreed to like, Speaker 1: And now in this particular case, it's over the contributing a zone, the reach out to the recharge and the aquifer, but you, so you don't want any wastewater treatment plant to allow that a treated sewage to go into the Creek.

Yeah, Speaker 2: It's really that's right.

It is over the contributing zone in any, any stormwater runoff or any wastewater discharged down the Creek will flow downstream towards the Edwards aquifer recharge zone.

So our mission here is to help keep that water flowing into the recharge zone as cleaned as, Speaker 1: And now we're about out of time, but this isn't the only development that you're concerned about in this area.

And that has gone this route of maybe putting more development on land than you want.

Speaker 2: We at the Alliance are constantly tracking projects like this that would affect the Edwards aquifer.

And I really encourage anyone who's interested to follow along with these issues to check out our website, aquifer alliance.org.

We post regular updates about all of them there.

And you can read more about the specifics of this tract and the other ones that we're following there.

Speaker 1: All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Brendan Gibbons was a reporter and now a management guy, assistant manager with the greater Edwards aquifer Alliance.

Thank you very much for coming in Speaker 2: Pretty slot for having me Speaker 1: On reporters round table.

This week, we are talking with Scott Huddleson, who knows everything there is to know about pretty much everything, but especially the Omicron and the COVID you have been covering now for, it seems like 10 years that we've had COVID, but with the recent things that you've had to cover our testing and how people are, you know, we're so behind we're short on tests, how the county is dealing with that.

And then also what it means in terms of businesses.

First of all, what's the county doing in terms of trying to get more tests out there?

Well, the county this week, um, set aside 1.3 million in grants.

That's federal money from the, uh, what they call our American rescue plan act, uh, to, uh, provide, um, testing with, uh, through contracts with, uh, Bio-Bridge global, uh, community labs.

It's a $1 million outlay, basically continuing a program that's focused on the schools.

And then also a $300,000 for, um, testing conducted by, uh, Colin Corazon, San Antonio.

And that also will be focused on schools and group settings.

And now we are, you know, we've seen it all seen all over stories on how people are waiting in line for testing and things like that.

Uh, how is that affecting people in terms of daily life and jobs?

Yeah, Well, this, this Alma Cron variant is it's spreading at a rate that's reportedly seven times what the Delta was.

And, um, and so folks are, are not going to work and, and that's causing staffing issues.

Um, it's causing restaurants to close down.

It's creating problems for the school districts trying to scramble to find sub substitute teachers.

And basically we're in the fourth surge in bear county since the, uh, pandemic began about two years ago.

So we're on the upswing.

Don't know how far it's going to go in terms of hospitalizations.

We're about around 900 right now, and we've peaked out at about 1500 during the pre previous searches.

So, um, that's one of the key indicators that our county judge Nelson Wolff has been looking at, and really just one of many indicators that people have been looking at.

And Now you're talking about staffing in hospitals or bringing in more people again, and people who kind of downplay the Omicron variant saying, it's not that severe, it's severe enough to the point where you have to bring in extra healthcare workers again.

And that's why people should get vaccinated there.

That's why they want people to get vaccinate.

There are those breakthrough cases where people have been fully vaccinated and gotten the booster and they still get it.

Um, and that's, I think contributing 30% of the hospitalizations as opposed to 20% that we had in Delta.

Uh, so that's a really serious concern and for people that are unvaccinated, um, they're still the majority of the hospital patients.

So, you know, it really is a continuing health concern.

So put on your Crystal ball or, or your soothsayer hat with your crystal ball, where do you think where you're going now in terms of talking to all the people about when this should peak and when we should get some workers back from at least from the Omicron?

Yeah.

Well, the last winter surge that we had about a year ago ended in late January.

So hopefully we're on track to end in late January, but, um, that was a really bad one because it started in about November and it didn't really come down to that sub 500 hospitalization level until about March.

And so, um, I think that the officials are hopeful that this will be more like the Delta, uh, episode, the Delta surge that occurred last summer, where it was, it went up quickly and then came down quickly.

And as a reporter covering this, the questions that you get are, are you vaccinated?

Are you boosted?

Do you tell people whether they should or not, or do you stay totally out of that?

Um, people can make their own decisions.

I, you know, I, I trust the science and I personally have been fully vaccinated and boostered, um, it may be time to get another booster cause I had one in November, but I'm waiting.

I think there's going to be a tweak of the next booster that will address the AMR Crohn's specifically.

So that's what I'm waiting on Very much, Scott Huddleson I know you're at least getting sick of covering the COVID as everybody else's, but I appreciate all your coverage.

You're also working on the Alamo project, got some stories on that in the San Antonio express news, where you can fight Scott Huddleston's work all the time.

Thanks, Randy.

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

You can see the show again or previous shows as well as the podcast at dot org.

And we'll see it in this on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow.