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Hi, everybody.

And thank you for joining us for our On the Record this week.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And in the middle of a blistering July.

Most of us are getting energy bills like we have never seen before.

Joining us to talk about that, explain the whys of that and what we can do about it is Rudi Garza, the interim CEO of CB Energy.

Thanks for coming.

In.

Thanks, Randi, for having me.

First of all, how much are our bills increasing for the average customer and why?

Right now, there's a number of reasons.

Well, there's really two primary drivers.

Number one, it's hotter than we've ever seen here in San Antonio.

In some cases, especially Monday, we had one.

Eight degrees And gas prices are high.

Two things that we don't control, the natural gas.

Which is also affected by the war in Ukraine.

Right.

Because Europe Texas is now exporting more natural gas than ever.

Yeah.

So one of my best friends is the as the public information officer for the Corpus Christi, they're now the number one exporter of liquefied natural gas in the country.

And it's all going over to Europe.

And that's having an impact.

On what is the price.

Now, I understand it's more than 140% higher than it was last Yeah.

I mean, normally it's, you know, two in the two to $3 and maybe range.

And we've seen prices as high as $9 this summer.

So it has it's extremely higher.

Now that brings up what energy companies did during the big freeze and jacked up by some 2000% at some times.

What what is there a threshold of that?

How high could it go?

And are there any limits on that, especially because it's longer.

Yeah, there are no limits.

I mean, it's a global natural gas market.

You know, it's a little different situation.

It's hot.

But, you know, there has been no declared disaster necessarily like what happened with winter storm Uri our position during the winter storm area was during a declared disaster.

The market shouldn't be able to run rampant the way it did.

You know, what we're seeing now is some natural increases due to some geopolitical things going on.

So the situation is a little different this summer than it was in in in the winter.

During winter storm.

But it's still going to have an impact on customer price and customer costs.

And what about solar and wind?

Solar are you think, in the heat and the sun we're doing great.

The wind, though, because of the high pressure, we're not getting as much right now.

Well, so it's just the cycle, you know, depends on high pressure systems and where they're located.

And you know, when high pressure systems come in, you know, the wind gets a little closer to the ground.

So it's not as high up in the atmosphere as it normally is.

And that impacts wind production.

Wind has performed pretty well this summer.

I mean, I have a screen in my office and I'm looking at our resources on a daily basis.

And, you know, there'll be some days that we have 20,000 megawatts within our cost you know, on Monday we had a thousand.

And so when when you have a wind drop like that, you've got to turn to traditional plants.

Gas, you know, called the coal plant that we own and that others own nuclear, those have to show up and be ready when wind doesn't show.

And Monday was one of those days where it got tight.

ERCOT just recently put out I guess it's a warning, you know, advisory for people to cut their power and from two to 8 p.m. and we had hit a peak at about 100 or 1:56 p.m. and then it dropped directly at 2 p.m..

Right.

Tell us about how that works so.

Well, I was looking there obviously Monday was a kind of an all hands on deck situation for us.

All the wind was low and over the throughout the, the, the afternoon.

Slowly but surely wind started coming back.

And so the 1000 megawatts that we saw around noon actually became five, 6000 megawatts in the afternoon.

And you also had some cloud cover come in.

We had some cloud cover here in San Antonio.

And so those factors really kind of tamp down what we expected.

The more extreme, the more.

You warn people and the more ERCOT tells people, bump up the thermostats like you have that automatic program where you can with nest thermostats automatically bump up the temperature.

How much do those help?

And if people are sitting out there wanting to know how much they put their thermostat up, how much can they save?

Right.

So it's I mean, it's extremely important that energy efficiency and demand response remain part of our solution.

On days like Monday, that days like Monday are why energy efficiency and demand response are so important.

What you end up getting when when you tell customers, I need you to conserve between two and 8 p.m.. By and large, our customers here in San Antonio and across the state, they did what we asked them to do.

And we saw 500 megawatt drop right before 2:00 across here.

Cox System.

And as we got into the the afternoon and industrial started coming off the big industrial customers think plants that can turn it back up generation we saw as much as a 1500 to 2000 megawatt drop across the ERCOT system that's basically three or four power plants that our customers provide just by lowering their load.

How much can my bill drop by doing that and it doesn't drop just because I'm not between two and eight.

Yeah, it'll stay what it's going to stay whether I used it between two and eight.

Yeah.

Although it helps to load it.

You got to look at the bills kind of over the of course of the month.

I mean, certainly you're going to save every degree of air conditioning, you know, has a six to 8% impact on your bill on a daily basis.

So when when you kick your your air conditioner up a notch or two, you know, you could save as much as 10% in that in that moment.

What's your forecast right now for natural gas and you do that's part of the CBS gig is forecasting.

What do you think it's going to be in terms of price and how much are people going to pay now?

Sure.

Well, I'll tell you, for the month of June, my bill, my personal bill was up 30%.

And I'm doing all the things that we're asking our customers to do.

The fact of the matter is when it's 109 degrees outside, even at 80, 81 degrees, you're still going to use air conditioner is still going to be running because your AC system is only intended to deal with about a 20 degree difference between inside and outside.

But every degree helps, every kilowatt hour helps in the long term.

And you have we are about out of time, but you have ways to help people on their utility bills and also more tips on how people can save.

Yes sir on your website.

So WW W that Cfps energy dot com we've got all kinds of tips about how to make your home more energy efficiency.

And I would suggest customers who are behind on their bills call 210353 2222 and our energy advisors can help.

If you're eligible for assistance we can connect you to assistance.

I'm on our budget payment plan so my bills are the same every month and once a year they reconcile the difference and they adjust it.

That's hugely helpful for me because I know what I'm going to pay every month.

I would suggest anybody who's seeing price spikes consider that budget payment plan because it's a real good way to ensure that you know what your bill is going to be on a month to month.

And that reconciling isn't going to be a balloon payment go.

Up or down.

It can go up or down.

So yes, I mean, you know, for me, between last year and this year, my bill went actually went down.

I would expect next year when we reconcile it that the bill would go up.

But what happens is all adjusted if you're normally paying 280 the next year, you might pay 250 or 300, depending upon what your 13 month average usage was.

That's kind of how we look at it.

Well, I appreciate it.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Rudy Garza, interim CEO of CBS Energy.

Thanks.

Thank you, Randi.

San Antonio City Council is on a summer recess officially right now for the month of July.

But there are issues that council members are taking a look at, and one of them is in the wake of Roe versus Wade being overturned, what the city may do.

Joining us to talk about that is Councilman Jalen McHugh Rodriguez for District two.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, what is it that you're considering after Roe versus Wade is overturned?

For sure.

So the Grace Act is is an act a resolution of sorts that other cities throughout Texas are considering?

And basically, what it would do is make abortion absolute lowest priority for our APD department and ensure that resources such aren't going use to collect evidence to catalog or report abortions.

To decriminalize it, in effect.

But staying within the state law Absolutely.

So what it is, is we are not wanting to take the resources that we have and shifting them away from sexual assaults and rapes and murders and burglaries.

And it'll still be on the list of items that CPD investigates and does does the works.

But it would be the last the lowest priority.

Is it likely to pass here?

And it's largely symbolic, I think, right So what we have, it's a council resolution as a policy for police, but you can't make official policy for police.

It would be so we already have wonderful supporters at the county like the D.A.

So there's already there's already protections in place.

This would be somewhat symbolic, but also it would it would determine where our resources are going.

And I imagine there's going to be a challenge at the state level.

But I think that we have some protection in that.

And I do think that a number of councilmembers have already signaled support.

Whether or not it comes before council, I think is up to other powers now.

Across the state.

El Paso voted it down five to four after a very emotional meeting.

People on both sides of this.

Do you expect this kind of thing?

And you mentioned the possible backlash from the state, you know, maybe suing the city for this kind of thing.

I imagine so.

I think that's that's something that often I find Councilmember Council members or the council as a whole takes its tail between its legs and says, oh, no, the state is going to come after us.

And I don't think we should be pigeonholed by that.

How many times are we paying out settlements to families who have faced brutalization by our police department?

We've.

Millions and millions of dollars.

So I don't think we should be afraid of that.

I think we should do all that we can do.

And if we have challenges, then we pay them.

What do you tell people who say that this kind of action, even if it's symbolic, is undermining police, undermining law, state law that they may support and that this is exactly what they don't want to happen on a city level?

I would say that I don't quite think it's that.

I think it's a city taking the resources that they have and being frugal.

We are saying that all of the things that have been a concern for our constituents have been those high level offenses like the burglaries, the sexual assaults, domestic violence.

And we're saying that abortion has not been that concern.

It has not been that priority.

And so it should stay that.

And now I just want to point out that the Grace Act stands for guarding rights to abortion care for everyone.

And as an act, it's kind of generic across the country.

There was another Grace Act that was related to immigration.

But this is now that's had.

Some confusion.

Of movement across the country, this Grace act after Roe v Wade.

Are you looking at other cities and what they're doing across the country?

And does that affect what happens here?

You know, we do try to look at solutions that are happening across the country.

We have a very unique predicament in Texas where we have the six week ban and then we have we have a lot of state law that preempts us, whereas other cities and other states don't quite have the same relationship with their state.

And so we do look but we try to prioritize what we see happening in Texas specifically.

Things like that happen in Austin or Houston or Dallas.

And we try to model those and try to be as proactive as we can and sometimes we want to lead, too.

And so this the trigger law that is going to go into effect for Texas for that six week ban that was passed by the legislature that takes effect one month after the official Supreme Court release of the decision, which hasn't happened or is about to happen.

Do you expect and what kind of feedback are you getting right now from women's clinics and abortion providers and women who may want that care?

Fear that they're going to have to travel 500 some odd miles to receive access to a medical procedure that they need and want.

And I think that that's a that right to privacy is a very genuine concern for so many people.

And if we have any ability to mitigate that and to provide some sort of concern, we should do that.

And we've been urged by all kinds of people to take to take action, such as passing the Grace Act.

Do you expect a very emotional meeting when this comes up?

I know if some had called or talked about a special session that the mayor would have to call during July.

Do you expect that to happen?

And and what do you expect fireworks on this vote, or will it be a direct vote right away, or do they have to bring it up several times?

No, I'm a I'm very optimistic that it could happen in this month, that I'm very optimistic and hopeful and I'll continue to make that request that it happens this month.

I imagine that if it did come before council this month or even in August, it would be a one time vote that we can say that.

We say yes or no.

And I imagine it will have draw a lot of interest from the public on both sides.

And I think.

You're right.

We see a lot of we see a lot of issues like that, especially when it comes to this battle between the city, the city and the state.

A lot of.

Emphasis, a lot of a lot of different issues there are, too.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Jaelen McKeever, our three guests, council member for District two.

Thank you for having me.

As of this week, there is a brand new push to get more flights and direct flights into San Antonio's airport.

Joining us to talk about that is Sarah Courageous Rush, who is chief economic development officer of Greater S.A. Tex.

Which used to be called the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.

Thank you for coming in.

Tell us about this new fund, an air service fund, kind of an incentive to get airlines to come here.

That's right.

So Air service development funds are pretty commonly used throughout the country, even globally, to attract more flights into that particular community.

We we at greater ATX have just recently, through our partnership with the private business community, have come up with a fund that we will be using to incentivize airlines to consider expanding into San Antonio.

How does that work?

Say you go to an airline and say, I have X amount of money if you'll come here.

Is it that direct.

It's more of a negotiation, much like all business deals.

So what we would do is have a conversation with the airline, present them with the business case about how many passengers are going through our airport at any given time to the destination that we're seeking.

And then we talk to them about what it would take to get it across the finish line.

And how do you get across to them?

How many people go to Austin for a direct flight and don't fly through San Antonio to another hub at all?

How do you figure out those numbers?

Well, it's really fascinating that data is there.

All airports across the country have access to that.

They're able to track the passenger home all the way through.

Address that passenger.

And how many do you know, roughly go to Austin right now?

Is there any hard data on that?

I'm certain there is.

I don't have that data with me.

But anecdotally.

Anecdotally, I mean, I suspect it's a large number, particularly for international flights.

So how do we compete with Austin for those flights?

Well, I would see it as complimentary in a lot of ways.

So we're not going to try to win every flight that Austin has that would be duplicative.

And the flights may or may not work.

Right.

So we're only going to be looking at those opportunities that are really needed here for San Antonio.

And we have narrowed down our list to a European opportunity We really want to get across the Atlantic Ocean directly.

We're looking at Canada and we're looking at other routes within the United States.

The talk of airport expansion in terms of a longer runway needed for the biggest planes, those would go to Asia as our airport big enough, the runway big enough to get to.

Not today.

Well, how about to London?

Yes, certainly.

Certainly to Europe, but not to Asia.

That's correct.

And how likely is that to happen now with this economic.

We have on Well, let me just say it this way.

We are an active negotiations, and we are hopeful and optimistic that we'll be able to get to Europe here before too long.

And now we talk about adding airlines, but some of it's not adding airlines.

It's getting the existing airlines to add flights.

How how close is that?

Is that easier to do?

Than to add an airline coming in?

Not necessarily, but certainly a little easier if they already have gates.

Really, it's about gate assignments and airplane assignments for the airline.

And just this week, I believe it was Spirit is launching nonstop flights to Las Vegas and Orlando with some special fares later this year.

Mm hmm.

Are we going to see more seasonal kinds of things with tourism coming back?

I believe so.

Certainly, we were seeing that in Dallas before I made the move.

Here to San Antonio.

I think you're going to continue to see that really around the country.

Airlines are dealing with a lot of uncertainty right now.

The industry has changed business travel isn't back to normal.

And so they are trying new and different things.

And I think we can benefit from that.

And now, again, back to the fund, that $3 million, how far will that go?

How many destinations can you work on at one time with that?

Well, I think that is probably just barely enough to get us to one trans-Atlantic destination.

Wow.

And we'll continue fund raising so that we're able to be competitive with the other.

Routes for these funds.

Now, you're also competitive with the Midwestern states.

I understand some of them.

You are using coveted money.

That's correct.

To incentivize.

That's correct.

Airlines.

That's correct.

Is that not going to happen here?

I guess we're committed to covered funding already.

Yeah, that's correct.

We we've opted to go a different route.

We think the private sector leaning in really helps make a stronger business case.

If you think about it, most flights are activated based on having a full front of cabin.

Right.

So you need to have the business.

Of cabin The rest of us don't.

The rest of us.

Well, we count, but that's not what's usually driving the big decisions for for international flights, at least.

All right.

Well, good luck with that.

I think we all want more flights.

Thank you very much for coming in, Sarah.

Sarah Kravitz, Rush, chief economic development officer of Greater SE, ATX, our reporters roundtable.

This week, we're talking about some new hospitals now in the works for San Antonio.

Officially approved this week or the financing for them.

Joining us to talk about that is Ed Arnold, knowing everything about San Antonio business for the San Antonio Business Journal managing editor.

Thanks for coming in.

Pleasure to be here as always.

So these are two new hospitals that university health is going to be able to bear county hospital district.

And where are they and how big are these going to be?

So there's two I don't know exactly the square footage and the bed size quite yet, but there's 21 on the northeast side at one time, a park area.

The other one right across the street from Texas A&M, San Antonio on the south side.

They're talking about a total of $500 million from the county, but that is only halfway there for the size of these two projects.

Close to $1,000,000,000.

Exactly.

Exactly right.

A large investment.

And how important is this?

This was approved.

And obviously the county is going to then issue their own bonds for this.

Right.

How will this work?

Well, in the end, these are both you know, these are both areas that have during the pandemic, perhaps sort of exposed a lack of health care for some of those areas.

Right.

And the county and George Hernandez, who was speaking to the commission yesterday, they've been asking him for quite a while to address some of those areas.

And this is very clearly a move to try to.

The source hospital.

That's right.

Exactly.

And now what else are we seeing in terms of hospital expansion?

This is the only thing.

No, not at all.

There's hospitals going up and in the west side, on the south side, and even a little bit of discussion about some new medical developments on the east side, which is definitely an area that has gone a long time without any new medical developed.

And some expansion of existing properties from New Braunfels.

We're talking Bernie, I think is one solution or something.

Absolutely.

You know, and we we've talked about this consistently for a while now, but as I said, the pandemic really exposed a lot of areas where people were living in health care deserts.

I think all of us understood that the south side had been significantly underserved for medical care over the years.

And the population is booming down there.

People are building new developments.

There's new retail there's new apartments.

And Thomas itself is growing significantly there.

So there's going to be a larger degree of demand there.

These two are expected to come online in 26 and 27 but you know, those kind of things, we're seeing construction delays for a long period of time.

I think that might be a little bit of a.

And the Women and Children's Hospital already is in the works for University Hospital.

The County Hospital District, yes.

And that will come online next year, I.

Believe next year.

That's what they're aiming for.

I will say that for nearly every commercial construction project that we've seen is having a six to eight month delay just because of the pandemic.

But I will say that hospitals, schools and municipal projects have been coming online much, much quicker.

So we may see that.

And people who are stuck in traffic around the medical center have to be thrilled that there is going to be other health care so people don't have to come to that magnet.

This is true of course, it should ease a little bit of the pressure on that part of town.

On the other hand, you know, I don't know that it's going to decrease the demand.

I think there are so many new people coming, so many new people moving to those other parts of town that they will probably not see a decrease in traffic there.

They simply won't see it increase anymore.

And this also affects the value of property around those hospitals and on the south side, north northeast, Selma.

Absolutely.

I mean, you can't if you're an out of town manufacturer, wants to build a new plant or warehousing particularly where every time a park is, there's a lot of warehousing distribution to serve both San Antonio and Austin.

You don't want to be able to build something that can't provide health care for your workers.

So having a new hospital in the area, having something under construction, it really helps the economic development process and it really helps sort of put those business owners fears to rest about getting employees in the building.

And it's just a matter of demand or are we getting older and needing more?

I need a couple of new needs after I had sort ten years ago.

I think both of those.

Things are true.

One as you've documented, and we have a lot and every news organization has now we're growing at an incredible rate.

So just the raw number of people coming to town, we're going to need more beds, we're going to need more hospital space but on top of that, we do have an aging population.

San Antonio has become and has always been very popular for retirees.

So having medical care for them is really important for some of the folks that are moving in there's no question that if you're going to have a world class city, you've got to have world class health care and it has to be available all over the city.

What are some of the other things that you're looking at?

In terms of the future, the trends that's going on?

Absolutely.

We are seeing an enormous amount of build out along the West Side all the way from sea world up to excuse me, up to all the way up to it and then all the way down to Port San Antonio.

I'm sorry, space out there.

But literally every hunk of land on the front edge of 16 of four, there's some activity going on, whether it's rezoning, to try to see if it can be multifamily or new construction.

Land purchase is being swapped around.

I would be willing to bet you that that west side of 16 or four will be easily as built out as 281 in five years.

And what does that mean for the rest of us?

Well it means it's going.

To lower our not lower, but it's going to keep our property taxes maybe the same because there is a growing up or what I.

Think our.

Valuation.

Yeah, I think our property taxes will probably be more stable than others because we're going to have more people willing and helping to pay the bill.

The same time, the overall cost of what we're doing is going up as more people.

It is a balancing act for our for our politicians and budget makers it's doable.

We have a growing city.

Lots of cities in America are not growing or stagnating, and they've got to make a whole different math problem.

But what it should mean is that we're able to accommodate the growth that we're getting.

The last thing we want is to sort of replicate the problems that Austin has had where they have all this growth, but they don't have anywhere to put people.

Yes.

And then they're all moving to sanity, some of them.

This is true.

Absolutely.

A lot of Texans are being chased out of Austin and Houston.

Are we getting the.

Hipper or weirder, you think, because of that, the Austin weird?

I hope.

So.

But I would say that, like, more Texans are moving here, you know, Austin and Houston and Dallas, they talked a lot about Californians moving in.

Right.

That's less so for us.

Certainly there are some Californians moving.

It's a big State of the Union, but we're seeing more people move from Houston or from Austin than we necessarily are more in-state transfers than other cities.

Interesting.

The the Oracle, who knows everything about business and the trends.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Ed Arnold, the San Antonio Business Journal, managing editor.

Pleasure, as always.

Thank you for joining us as well for this edition of On the Record.

You can see this show again or previous shows as well as hear the podcast.

Just go to klrn.org and we'll see you next time.

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