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Joining us now as we go on the Record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record this week.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And for the last couple of weeks, while many of us have been focusing at least a lot of our attention on the national political scene, the work here of city and county government goes on.

And we wanted to kind of pull back and look at some of that right now.

First with the county government and what they are doing in terms of getting ready for this election and others and also getting ready to work on a budget.

Joining us to talk about that from one side of their aisle is Grant Moody.

He is a Republican Precinct three county commissioner.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Representing the north and northwest side, parts thereof.

Wanted to talk, first of all, about voter outreach measures that the county has approved, county commissioners just approved.

One is a contract to.

Well, we'll start we'll start with the other one first.

This advisory committee, a Bear County voter advocacy advisory committee, I think is what it's called or referred to.

Tell us about that and why you voted against it.

Yes.

So, Randy, thanks for having me on the the advisory panel.

There was first a question, I guess, about what's what's the mission here?

We have an election board that that works with our election administrator and looks works with elected officials.

So is this kind of a redundant committee that's being set up?

You know, the construct is there's actually one appointee from each one of the commissioners and the county judge on the panel.

But, you know, the the charge for this committee is to look at the the policies from democracy, from the ground up, which involves a long list of, you know, polling and election process ideas that are being put forward.

And some of them are just not permissible under state law.

And the whole point is to get more people in their county to vote and you take it that that's not something the county should be involved in.

Yeah, and this gets more into the registration process.

But the county's responsible for administering elections.

We've never been responsible for, you know, forcing voter registration or voter turnout.

You know, that has always been the responsibility of county parties on the responsibility of individual candidates.

And it seems like Bear County is is taking a huge step into a space that we haven't been in before.

And I don't think it's necessary.

Okay.

So that's the advisory committee, which you will appoint one person to.

And you plan to do that even though you were against the committee itself?

Yeah, I absolutely will.

Actually, I I've selected my my appointee, Kurt Nelson, and he's a former GOP county chair.

He's also an election judge.

So he knows the process very well.

He's a well-respected, you know, businessman and been involved in the process for a long time.

So I think he will be a voice that's needed on that committee because he also understands some of the challenges in that democracy from the ground up.

A wish list that that are challenging.

They're not going to work with our current process.

Some other counties in Texas have done similar kinds of things to the state government.

It is argued by some and especially Democrats has tried to make it harder to vote in some ways, limiting expanded hours, limiting what we have never had here is that drive thru voting they try to have over and in Harris County, those are the kind of things you think aren't what counties should be doing or should there be this county versus state battle over this kind of thing?

Well, I'm not trying to make a battle out of any of this.

I do think, though, that we need to be very cautious when we venture out into doing new things that could impact the electoral process.

And, you know, the the other item that we were covering in commissioners court was this $600,000.

There was going to be a voter registration effort that was also supposed to boost turnout.

This is the contract with a civic government solutions company that promises to bring in some data, send out forms and get more of those people in their county to register.

Yeah, and the timing is problematic.

And I said this in court, you know, three months before national election.

I think it's the wrong time to be doing something like this.

You know, honestly, again, I think this is the responsibility of county parties.

We could have let this continue with county parties doing the registration process.

We have dozens and dozens of volunteers out there who are registering voters today.

We could have also pushed this till after the election.

We could have also focused on our primary elections and our local elections.

That's where we have abysmal turnout in our national elections.

We're going to have, you know, 60% of voters show up.

So where it's needed the most when it comes to trying to encourage turnout and make sure voters know about elections are on those local races.

Well, not the local races, including county races and others are down ballot and presidential years like this.

And there is an argument that understand there was an interview with a civic government solutions person who said, well, Republicans should be happy with this because the ones that aren't registered, if it's more of an even thing in a Democratic county, it will bring up Republican votes more than it will bring up percentage wise Democratic votes.

Yeah, I disagree with that.

That assessment entirely.

I think that at best you would suggest that the unregistered population would mirror the registered population in a county like Bear.

That's, you know, probably 60% Democrats.

You know, and I think it's also generally assumed that the there's more unregistered Democrats probably than there are Republicans out there.

So you can have a nonpartisan, nonpartisan data.

You can have a nonpartisan process.

But at the end of the day, if it creates a partizan electoral impact, and that's going to cause a concern for for, you know, a minority of voters out there.

And that's the the message I was trying to bring to commissioners court.

And I just don't think it's something we need to do right now.

Let's move on to the budget.

Speaking of which, and things that you have voted for and against, there are some things recently as we're getting into the final budget process that that you have been against, including some things on the urban farm.

Tell us about that and some other items that you're questioning as to how much the county should spend, if anything.

Oh.

Yeah.

And just to tie this back again, this voter registration effort was going to be $600,000 of taxpayer money.

And so we can't let that get lost either.

You know, we deal with the big numbers, but that's a lot of taxpayer dollars that we're putting into that effort.

Now, to your point about the the urban farm, you know, this item came forward, the challenges every time we just had a conversation about debt that I advocated for.

We have $2.5 billion in debt at Bear County that's been accumulated, you know, over the past 20 years or more.

We have the highest debt per capita in the state of Texas for counties.

And again, people might think, well, how can a county actually run this debt and the operating budget, it's not allowed for a county to have to go into a deficit budget.

But on capital expenses, you can take on debt or issue bonds and accumulate that debt.

Correct.

Correct.

And we're servicing that debt, obviously on an annual basis.

But that, you know, the good thing is if we, you know, hold back if we learn how to say no or not right now on some of these projects, then we will actually bring that debt down approximately $100 million every year.

And that's the start.

That county manager had advocated for a moratorium, a two year moratorium on new capital projects and new debt issuance.

I firmly support that.

I think we should take it a step further.

I think we should actually go back and look at our ten year capital plan and scrub it, look at our priorities, how they changed, you know, that capital plan was actually proved, I believe, in 2021 before some members of the court were even, you know, in our current seats or current roles.

So I think it's important we go back and look at priorities, look at some capital projects that that no longer are needed or just aren't a priority for Bear County.

Thank you very much for bringing your perspective on what's going on in the county.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thanks very much.

Grant Moody, Precinct three, county commissioner here in Bear County.

Thanks.

Thank you, Renee.

We all have been enjoying some much needed rain recently.

But in the middle of all this, San Antonio water system is still working on making sure that we don't either run out of water or lose too much of what we have right now as what we're losing through water mains.

Broken water mains is a bigger and bigger problem.

Joining us to talk about that and how they're dealing with it is the president and CEO of San Antonio Water System, Robert Fuentes.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you, Randi.

Now, recently, the council approved a five year conservation plan for a San Antonio water system to talk about this deal with this really, really surprisingly big problem of losing water that we we have in the system.

How big is that?

Now?

We're talking 21 billion gallons.

It's a huge number.

It's it's a number that we're not proud of.

Every water utility, if you can imagine, loses a lot of water through broken water mains, through meters that don't register correctly.

So it's an industry wide problem.

But be that as it may, even though our numbers are some of the better numbers in the industry, we still need to drive that number down.

So we are in the process of reforming the way we address that problem, transferring people to different parts of our within our company and spending more money on that to make sure we have that taken care.

To put that number in perspective for viewers out there, 21 billion, that's gone up from about 13 billion just a few years ago.

And it's more money than or more water than we get from the entire Vista Verde project.

Yes, the numbers are somewhat equal.

So that is another incentive for us to do this and make sure that we spent we're spending money in the right way and we're increasing those expenditures, not only with the construction crews that we have, but also spending money on outside contractors to help us.

And that's gone up partly because of the drought 100 degree days say we had last year.

You will see the numbers go up during drought and they they tailed off during wet years.

And that's because the main reason is because of the ground shifting the ground contracts and just shifts and breaks are made.

So when you have a good rainfall like we had the last couple of days, it'll help for the next few weeks, maybe month, and you'll see hopefully less main breaks in the coming months.

Now, when you fix a main break and you realize this is old, you said downtown some of the old water mains date back to 1900 and the first system in San Antonio.

When you get a break on that kind of system, you have to fix it right away.

But are you planning long term fixes?

Oh, definitely.

We have a five year master plan that gets updated every three or four years, but it's always a five year plan and we relatively know all the ages of our pipes in our entire system.

We know their age, their size, what they're made out of, and different sizes and different types, different material break at different intervals.

So it is if it's a break, we immediately fix it.

And either if it's an isolated break, it broke.

But if we had repeated breaks in that same neighborhood, it's it's either already on the list to be replaced or will be on the list to be replaced.

How about the sizes of the mains, say downtown, if we have them that are 1900 and we're putting more people downtown and much more, you know, hotels.

Where are you in the process or how big are the mains now?

What are they going to be?

Well, the mains essentially will be the same size, just different material.

We can still deliver water into downtown despite the growth of these hotels, because we're we're centralized in the sense that water can be brought in there from the mission pump station was a little bit south of downtown right next to the Hilton Palacio del Rio.

We have a major pump station in right east of downtown by the the Prospect Center.

We have another very large pump station, so water can always be moved within downtown San Antonio.

It's the hotels themselves, the the vertical buildings that have to worry about whether they have the infrastructure to accept our water.

How much does it cost to send a crew out?

And is that one of the reasons that you're you're moving people around?

Are you going to have more people available to work on fixing the mains that we've had in the past?

Yes.

For example, for the last five years, we've averaged about $68 million just for line breaks.

This year alone, we've budgeted 99 million.

Next year we're budgeting 129 million.

So you see the progression up of expenditures just on line breaks.

So that includes more work crews.

And so just this year, budget we hired an additional four crews, four members to a crew.

So that's six individuals.

And so these are going to be dispatched to when we hear about these breaks.

So we'll be able to hopefully cut down the time when somebody reports the leak and we actually get to it.

There are different areas in town that have different kinds of ground underneath that.

We have some of the clay in the south side.

We also have limestone.

We have hilly areas that are, you know, just crisscrossed with all kinds of open water seeping through.

How do those affect the breaks and where are the worst areas for breaks in San Antonio?

Well, we do know where the clays are and we do know where, as I mentioned, the types of material that we have.

So surprisingly in northeast San Antonio and in southern San Antonio is where our lot of our breaks are.

The Stone Oak area stone does not move during a drought.

It just stays there.

So we don't have as many breaks in the Stone Oak area.

So we know where they are.

We know where to send our crews, we know where to send the expenditures that we're going to have to be to make sure we address those line breaks.

And what about after the problems we've had in the cold and making sure pumping stations and electric stations ahead?

Are we okay with with that?

If we had a power outage, you could pump what you needed to.

Yes.

Senate Bill three from a couple of legislator sessions ago mandated that water utilities do certain things.

And we are doing those things.

We're in the process of of building generators at each of the major pump stations.

And we are on a line on time in doing that.

So we will have the redundancy that we'll need if something like Winter Uri ever happens again.

We're just on your.

And at the same time you're working on the conservation plan.

Recently Source and the council also okayed the plan to change how you're dealing with water wasters to build them directly instead of having citations issued to them.

You can't tell yet how that's going to work or what reaction you're getting.

Get from water wasters, right?

It's essentially been on the books only for about 45 days or so.

So we don't have a good data coming in, but we know we know what's going to work because before, if you were irrigating on the wrong time of the week or the wrong hours, you would get a ticket.

So like a traffic ticket and you might have violated it in July, but you wouldn't go to court until August or even later into the winter.

And so the incentive there of doing the right thing is lost.

And then you have to go downtown to take care of it or mail a check in.

Now, if you have violated there's a fine that goes on your bill.

You can obviously appeal it to us.

And there's an appeal process that there's about three or four steps.

Ultimately, non sales employees, you can appeal to them of a committee made up of non sales employees that will ultimately make that decision.

Is it costing water wasters more as well and the more they waste, is it costing them more?

Well, the the initial fine will be the same as it was if you were fined by municipal court.

So that doesn't go up.

What we do have is if you use more water, there will be a surcharge.

These are individuals that are not violating the ordinance.

They're just using a lot of water and it's usually outdoor irrigation.

And if you want to do that, fine, that is your right.

But you have to pay more for it.

It is cost more to deliver that water, so you have to pay more to receive that water.

What about, as we've seen this week, it's raining in some areas and you're still seeing irrigation.

If you get complaints about that, what do you do?

Well, if it rains and you're irrigating on the time that you're supposed to, thank you very much.

We we love the revenue you're not supposed to be.

Oh.

You don't need to.

We'll take the money.

Exactly.

But if we do find out that you're irrigating the wrong time of the day, wrong day of the week, then that's when the violation on your bill will come, will show up.

So thank you.

And we'll take the extra money.

Correct.

All right.

Well, good luck with that conservation plan and appreciate it.

Robert Fuente, president and CEO of San Antonio Water System.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Over the past couple of weeks, so many of us have been focused on the national political world from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to the Republican convention and then President Biden dropping out of the race.

One person here has been focused as well on the reaction to all of that from people right here in San Antonio, in the political world.

Joining us to give us his take and the reactions of all those people, Sanford Nowlan, who is the editor in chief of the San Antonio Current.

Thank you very much.

I feel to be hearing it.

So tell us about some of the reactions from people, especially to the more recent news of President Biden dropping out.

Yeah.

In terms of in terms of Biden, it was interesting because Texas was sort of at the forefront.

Texas Democrats were sort of at the forefront and urging him to step aside and let someone else finish the race.

You know, we saw Lloyd Doggett from Austin and who used to represent San Antonio be the first Democratic member of Congress to say it's time to move on.

And it was very quickly echoed by Julian Castro.

Former San Antonio mayor, former Obama housing secretary, who I think was trying to deflect a little bit because he he said something about Biden's memory when they were, you know, on the debate stage a few years ago.

But he you know, he echoed that sentiment.

And, you know, it just sort of built from there.

And when, you know, when the announcement came down, I think you saw a pretty much a chorus of, you know, the San Antonio Democratic congressional delegation thanking Biden, saying he did the right thing.

And, you know, in some cases almost immediately backing Kamala Harris, which is what Joaquin Castro and Greg Gustavo did.

And Mayor Ron Maria right.

There.

Recently pushed for Biden to leave.

Then he he effusively praised.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, Ron Nurnberg was one of those people who went on the record saying, I'm 100% Team Biden.

You shouldn't leave.

You just had a bad debate performance.

But, you know, when the announcement came down, he said, I'm you know, I think he did the right thing.

It was a heroic thing.

And I'm going to put my support behind Kamala Harris.

And now somehow had predicted before that if a Vice President Biden would win a second term, that Mayor Ron Nirenberg would somehow be part of his Cabinet.

Yeah, there was certainly that speculation.

And now does that change, you think or not?

That's that's interesting.

I would I would think there you know, there might be some carryover, right.

Because, you know, Biden and Harris serving together.

You know, whether he'll he'll be as specifically on, you know, on the radar of the people she surrounds herself with.

It's a you know, it's an open question.

But are there any others who think and this isn't one of the things you've written about Joe, but just that come to mind that might be moving from San Antonio to either a Trump administration or a Harris administration?

You know.

I don't know about San Antonio, but we've certainly seen a governor, Greg Abbott, sort of positioning himself to say, look at me over here.

I mean, you know, if you if you saw his his his tweet reacting to Biden dropping out of the race, it was very Trumpian.

He was basically insinuating that the Democrats pushed Biden out in front of the debate camera early so he he would fail.

It was all a setup, you know, very conspiracy, you know, conspiratorial, you know, And then when the Trump assassination attempt happened, you know, he said they can they can they can run him down, they can insult him.

They can, you know, try to send him to jail.

They can try to kill him.

But he's indestructible or something to that effect.

I mean, it seems pretty clear to a lot of people.

I think that that Abbott wouldn't mind a post in the Trump White House.

What happens if Trump loses?

And there are some, you know, the Republican bench, as they would call it, includes a Greg Abbott as he sufficiently, I would say anti-Trump, but different than Trump, that if the party wants to move on, he could go to the top of that list.

Well, he's certainly.

He's certainly shown a willingness to to reinvent himself to do whatever needs that he feels he, you know, appropriate.

You know, this is a guy who went from being the, you know, the sober jurist to as soon as he got into the the governor's mansion, he was railing about Jade Helm.

You know, I mean, he said, you know, I think that was a surprise to some people that they that he was that that willing to cave to the most extreme right flank of the party.

But he's he's done it over and over again.

I would assume that if if you know, the Republican Party turns on Trump, he'll pretend like he.

Trump who Donald who Now, just a few months ago we were talking about Republicans fighting Republicans in Texas, bringing in millions of dollars to fight basically over school choice, even though on TV, Governor Abbott was attacking people saying, I can't trust you on the border, even though they supported him on the border, it was really over school choice.

We haven't heard about that.

Are we going to then have whiplash going back to that next spring and we're or January when we're.

Suddenly, I have no doubt, school choice will, you know, or I should say school vouchers, because that's what it really is, that school vouchers will be brought up again.

And I think I think the governor and his his acolytes are going to try as hard as they can to push it through this time.

You know, it seems like, you know, with the removal of people like Steve Allison and some of the, you know, rural Republicans that stood up against it, they're going to have more votes this time around.

But, you know, we'll see what what kind of luck they have.

I do think it's it's interesting to watch in the fallout of this whole thing.

You know, one of the things, you know, in talking to some, you know, progressive and Democrats, progressive folks and Democrats here in the San Antonio area, I think one of the reasons I think a lot of them were so excited about Kamala Harris is not necessarily because they think, you know, she's got this magic power to beat Trump, but it just gives them a chance to press reset.

You know, and I think I think for, you know, beyond the debate appearance by Biden, I think going even going into that debate, there were there were a lot of concerns that he just wasn't connecting with people.

And I won't ask you, but if you do have an answer, who's going to win in the fall?

I would not I would not want to predict that.

But I do think the Democrats have a better chance with Harris on the ticket.

There have already been some early polling that suggests that that's the case.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

You've read all about it.

Sanford now on editor in chief of the San Antonio Current.

Thanks.

Great to.

Be here.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see this show again and previous shows.

You can download the podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

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