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: Everybody.

Thank you for joining us for on the record here at RN I'm Randy Beamer.

And one of the things that is big news in the summer is how much the city has to spend for the next budget year and is getting in, in terms of tax revenues so that they can spend that city council has been spending a lot of time trying to figure that out and a month or two they'll finalize everything.

And joining us is district nine.

Councilman John courage.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Oh, you're welcome, Randy.

Thank you.

Property taxes is one of the things that you wanted to change in terms of a homestead exemption and expanding that small homestead exemption for San Antonio city taxes.

Uh, where are we on that now?

What did you want to have happen to?

Where are we in that possibility?

Well, Speaker 1: Two years ago we initiated a homestead exemption for property owners in San Antonio.

Uh, and it's for people who live in their own home.

So they had to, uh, ask for a homestead exemption.

That initial exemption was pretty small.

It was the minimum required by state.

If you're going to have one, which was $5,000, which kind of equated in a percentage to 0.01% or something, and then Speaker 2: $5,000 is just $5,000 off the value of your faults.

It's not giving you that's Speaker 1: Right.

You take the value of a home.

You subtract the first $5,000.

That's not taxable, Speaker 2: No matter what the cost of that home is.

Right?

Speaker 1: And, and now we've, we wanted to myself, Councilman Perry wanted to expand that to 5% of the value of a home.

So if you had a $250,000 home, you'd be looking at something like, you know, the first 12,500 would be tax exempt or something.

Speaker 2: It's more in line with what say Dallas or Houston have.

Right?

Well, Speaker 1: A lot of different cities have homestead exemptions that can go all the way up to about 20%.

And quite honestly, that's my goal over the longterm.

But one Speaker 2: Thing San Antonio has that those cities don't is the senior exemption, right?

65 and older.

Some of those other cities don't have that's Speaker 1: True.

Uh, the ones that do that are similar would be, uh, Fort worth has that in place.

And I believe, uh, Corpus Christi has that in place and we have that in place.

Uh, so yes, we do have a slight advantage in that we give a homestead exemption for people over 65, which freezes their taxes at what the level was when they turned 65.

But we've got tens of thousands of working families in this city, uh, under the age of 65 who have seen their property values just really go up and up and up the last few years.

Speaker 2: But now, while you wanted to change that you and the other council when there, and there was a big, long presentation as part of the budget, a workshop that in the end did not go through, but other council members said that's really, they could do one or the other.

You could, uh, spend more or spend, how did they put it?

They can either have that homestead exemption or cut other services.

That Speaker 1: Was, that was some of the discussion.

I think that was pretty much a false narrative though.

I have to say, you know, we've got four brand new council members.

And I think for them, it was that kind of a decision.

If we say we're going to raise the tax homestead exemption, that means less taxes coming in.

That means we might need to cut a program we support.

Uh, and, and that simply isn't the case, but we weren't, we didn't have enough time to educate those new council members or even some of the other council members who've who've returned because, uh, there was a runoff election.

It didn't end till June 5th.

And then two weeks later we're talking about the budget and it's awfully hard to, uh, educate new council member.

Speaker 2: So bottom line is there's no change for that homestead exemption or Sr for this current, for this current year.

What's the good news that we were talking a moment ago in terms of taxes about the city is getting more taxes than originally expected or predicted during the pandemic that we're coming back faster.

Right?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

A year ago, when we were looking at what was going on with the pandemic, we were forecasting probably, uh, declines and property values, which meant it would have been a decline in property taxes.

We were looking at client and hotel occupancy taxes.

We were looking at a decline in sales taxes because we were predicting fewer people coming to visit San Antonio, all of which actually occurred.

But fortunately the decline and return, uh, has kind of put us in a better position than we were anticipating because Speaker 2: Even within the last couple of months, and you found that out also the last few weeks, and before you adopt the budget, uh, August 12th in the September 15th, I think is the final vote.

Can there still be more?

And then could you still add more to that trial budget or the plan budget right now in terms of services?

Yes.

Speaker 1: We'll definitely be able to reconsider what we can spend.

Uh, probably around the middle of August.

We'll have a much good, much better look at how much is coming in from all of those different, uh, taxing and revenue sources.

So I think we're going to have a reasonable budget.

The last good budget we had was 2019.

And I, we probably will not be able to return to that budget because we were still having declines, but the decline isn't as great.

So we're not looking at making the kind of deep cuts we were considering.

So I think we're in a better position than we thought we'd be in, but we're still not as good as we were a couple of years ago, Speaker 2: But, uh, we're still looking at, uh, some raises for city employees.

Speaker 1: Yes, fortunately, now we will be able to go ahead and give pay raises, which we did not give last year.

And I think that's important.

We also believe we'll be able to do more street maintenance street work in the city.

Uh, we're negotiating a contract right now with San Antonio police officer's association.

We feel like we'll have the money to be able to have a, a good, honest, uh, agreement with the police officers, associates.

Speaker 2: And now, where are you in the negotiations for that?

Well, this off and on Speaker 1: W we're kind of at a position that both sides have taken that is really stalled negotiations right now, uh, police officers association, uh, is not willing to allow the final word of the chief to stand when it comes to discipline and the city's, uh, of the position that we expect the chief's final word to stand when it comes.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Does that mean that an evergreen clause could, uh, that's in the current contract that was so controversial in the last one, could that stay in effect through negotiations and could they draw out for, I guess it's five years now?

Speaker 1: Well, the comp the council and the SOP I have till the end of September to come to an agreement.

So there's still several months worth of negotiations and talks about this, but if we don't reach an agreement by the termination of the contract in September, then the evergreen clause goes in, which really means everything's frozen for SAP away.

Uh, and that means no new increases in pay.

Same thing happened with the firefighters before, and they have an eight, eight year agreement, but we really don't believe that's going to happen.

We think we're going to find, uh, uh, the decision.

Speaker 2: Okay.

The thing is I was watching that budget presentation is Metro health.

Um, it was revealed that we are at least from a couple of years ago in the bottom five of the big cities in the country in terms of spending on health, that's going to change with this budget.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yes it is.

And you know, that was one of the areas where some people said, well, if we, if we, uh, decrease the taxes, cause we give a homestead exemption, does that mean we won't have enough money to go into some programs?

And public health has become a very important one.

We saw during the pandemic, the value of having a strong public health program, or you might say the weakness of not having a strong one.

And so we're committed as a city council to improving Metro health in the city and working even more in conjunction with bear county health and others.

And Speaker 2: There is still a chance for people out there to give their input on the budget through, I think July 23rd, they can go onto the city's website.

You're still taking that into account and possible changes.

That's right.

Speaker 1: I say, speak up as continuing to accept comments on the budget and encouraging people were still reaching out to different areas and different groups of people asking them, let us know, what are your preferences?

What do you think the city should be focusing on next budget?

All right, Speaker 2: Well, thanks.

I know you're busy right now.

I appreciate your time.

Councilman John courage, district nine.

Thanks.

Thank you, Randy.

San Antonio has been asleep and not realize that it's one of the pearls of the civil rights movement, and that is a young man of 70 years old.

Ernest Kadimah sail talking about a house and some other development on the east side of San Antonio.

That really a lot of people here have not realized before.

And joining us now to talk about the push, to recognize that house at another location is Dr. Charles Gentry of UTS center for cultural sustainability.

Thank you very much for coming in.

I just happened a couple of hours ago to talk to earnest.

Kadimah civil about this house.

And I thought I knew a lot about San Antonio history.

I didn't tell us about how important this place is to San Antonio and why?

Well, uh, the house at 6 0 1 pine street and the, uh, adjacent, uh, store that was there, that we are trying to establish registered Texas historical landmarks about, uh, they are the heart of the black community when the Denver Heights neighborhood there on the east side was developing, uh, in the early part of the 20th century.

And so that's long before we hear about the MLK March and that people had marched with MLK and it's historic black churches.

And that important part, this was also part of that, but years before, so his grandfather was PF Roberts born, a slave and Mississippi came here.

And then tell us about the history of what happened in that house, in that area.

Well, he was an educator.

He graduated from Tougaloo college valedictorian of his class, and then came to San Antonio on a train in the livestock car and began teaching first in the Floresville area.

But then he came to San Antonio to teach at the Norris Wright CUNY school, uh, which was in the downtown area before moving on to the Douglas school, which was the African-American public school here in center Antonio.

And then at his store at that location, incredible talk of who came there and what they did.

Right?

Right.

So the first store was located in the Baptist settlement neighborhood, not far from the CUNY school where PF Roberts taught.

And then he, and that's Where the Kodak, uh, theater was.

What's now the John Wood federal courthouse.

It's, it's part of hemisphere right there outside of the Hemisfair area.

The, uh, CSR Chavez street would now run right through where the store would have stood.

Uh, but it was early black community there in the Baptist settlement area of Mount Zion Baptist church was founded there among other, uh, Baptist church.

It was a community Center really for people to get together.

That's right.

That's right.

It's a, the grocery store was, uh, one of the few black businesses that existed around the turn of the 20th century.

And so he sold dry goods, meats, and other, uh, things that African-Americans could buy there because remember, this is the Jim Crow, era segregation, uh, black, uh, patrons couldn't shop at white stores.

And so, uh, PF Roberts had one of the few places where they could, uh, uh, patronize.

And There's also a fascinating story about Tom frost or TC frost, I guess it was the Colonel frost.

It started the frost bank here, befriending this man.

And, and, but it went under the radar because it was really, I don't want to say off limits at the time, but it was looked down upon Very unusual.

I mean, I think we have the story of two families, the frost family that, uh, many San Antonio's know about, but this is, let's say an undertold a chapter of the frost family's history, and then an untold chapter of the Roberts family history where Tom frost, friends, PF Roberts, and decides to lend him some money, which, uh, Robertson uses to buy properties, the grocery stores, but also some residences and other business interests that he was able to, uh, establish on the east side of San Antonio And not only loaned him money, but a lot of money.

And some of that money was to, to basically pay off the debts of his mother who was still at a plantation, because even though she was a former slave, it costs to get her out of bondage.

That's right.

That's right.

In Mississippi, she was a subject of the sharecropping system.

And in order to bring his mother to Texas with them, he not only had to, uh, buy her out of debt.

He also had to, to bring his siblings, brothers, sisters, and, uh, get this cost several Thousand dollars, but frost gave him that money.

And where are we?

Sure.

Why yet they just had a relationship.

They, They had a friendship, but I think he saw something NPF Roberts.

They, they had some shared interest in hunting and, and, uh, you know, hunting dogs and, but they were also both educators.

And so I think he saw something, uh, you know, most African-Americans who were business owners back then, weren't just business owners.

They usually couldn't just make it running a business.

So he was also a teacher and educator and amongst some others, like the, the Sutton family, uh, of the time, uh, they were leaders in the black community.

And now, uh, also Ernest is talking about what he hopes will happen to this 6 0 1 south pine address, kind of a transitional neighborhood it's been broken into for a while.

But why is it historically significant?

I mean, it's connected to LBJ and Thurgood Marshall, tell him about the Thurgood Marshall There's, it's the heart of the civil rights history of San Antonio.

Uh, PF Roberts was one of the founding members of the San Antonio chapter of the NAACP.

And, uh, he had alongside, uh, the, uh, Sutton family were leaders of the NAACP, uh, here in San Antonio.

They hosted, uh, some of the great leaders that were part of the civil rights era when they came to San Antonio to talk about strategy, not just locally, but throughout the state of Texas.

And so this was a hotbed of civil rights activity, and there was a Story.

He was showing me a garage where LBJ would pull in a car and then he would take another one.

That's all right.

It'll LBJ kind of had to, to lay low and not, uh, call too much attention to himself when he was in town.

So they would park the car, uh, deep in the garage, and then he could go about his business here locally.

But, uh, there's a, it's, it's a fascinating history and we're just scratching the surface of it.

And why aren't we just finding out about this now?

Well, I think because it is this time of Jim Crow segregation, and so, uh, we know within the, the black community about, uh, the earliest neighborhoods in the Baptist settlement, uh, and then as the railroad station came in at sunset station and the Southern Pacific railroad goes through, uh, the family start to move to the east side and it's a, it's a diverse community at first, but now we think of it as, uh, the heart of the black community in San Antonio.

And I think we're just now starting to document that history and establish some historic sites and landmarks that are, uh, people are going to become more familiar.

And Ernest Also told me that he had run into somebody who worked at a frost bank who knew some of that history and there's, uh, relatives involved.

Um, but is this like, he was hoping that it would someday be like a tourist spot, San Antonio.

Uh, UCSA what we're doing is a lot of the, uh, research to get all of the documentation we can find to establish that history, but we're also doing some oral histories.

And so we really do rely on the stories that people tell us, and then we can go back and verify it against the historical record.

And now the historical Designations that you're trying to get, what are those and what will they mean?

Right.

Well, uh, we've, uh, put in applications to the Texas historical commission to establish registered, uh, historic Texas landmarks, both at the 3 0 1 Victoria location site.

Um, and then also at the pine street, uh, site, and basically what this would mean as a marker, a plaque that can go up and that people can see and read and learn more about the history of this neighborhood.

And I think for people who live in the neighborhood, they can take a sense of pride that they know something special, something important happened here.

And the people who come from this neighborhood really did some amazing things, but, okay, I talked to a woman across The street, what are you doing?

I didn't know this, and she didn't even know earnest, but he's hoping to get some financing to maybe renovate what he owns there is that you think feasible.

I think that given the, uh, tourist attraction that San Antonio really is, uh, the fact that we have these great civil rights, uh, legacies that are unknown.

And undertold, I think this is going to Be a total and some of the other, uh, lunch counters.

You mentioned it building, uh, people are just starting to learn San Antonio's important role in, uh, desegregating lunch counters here in San Antonio.

And I think that what we're going to find out is that, uh, folks who are from here or who were involved with the civil rights movement here, uh, were part of that and, uh, uh, many other, uh, legacies that central, and it can be proud Of Churchill.

It was on San Pedro Creek.

I Think it was.

And, and as the, uh, San Pedro Creek, uh, opens up for more activities, people are going to learn more about that history and that site.

And I think we're going to see a number of other historic markers.

It was surprising like the MLK March, while we have a relatively small black population, there's an incredible amount of History.

Well, I, I think that what made it possible to happen here is that San Antonio has always been this diverse place with a rich cultural history.

And it, it drew people here who wanted to make it a home and to make things happen here, like PF Roberts, well being Into history.

I just love it.

And thank you very much.

Maybe a book down the road by Dr. Charles Gentry.

Uh, maybe I'll, co-author it with some of my other research partners Nicely said so humble.

All right.

Thank you very much.

That again, that is Dr. Charles Gentry look forward to more of the research that you're doing at the UTS center for cultural sustainability.

Thanks for coming in.

My pleasure, joining us now for the reporters round table, which is actually a round table again, post COVID is the first time we've actually been able to sit, sorry, face to face with people again.

It's great.

Uh, Madison is LER with the San Antonio express news business reporter.

I don't know that's official title, but it's, you covered everything in business.

Very busy week in business here in San Antonio, taco cabana long, a San Antonio then Texas based company is being sold.

And taco cabana is, are being sold to end of an era for a Texas based company what's happening.

Speaker 1: Yes.

So Fiesta restaurant group just announced that they're planning to sell taco cabana for 85 million to an affiliate of an entity known as Yadav enterprises, which is a big franchisee of TGI Friday's Jack in the box.

Denny's they have a bunch of restaurants in Texas, California, and other states.

Um, Fiesta restaurant group says it's planning to use the proceeds from that to pay off its debt and also to expand its polio Tropicale chain, which is the other chain it owns, um, the headquarters is going to stay in San Antonio.

Um, but it is the end of an era.

Speaker 2: And if people are going to wonder, okay, so what's going to happen to the restaurants.

Is it going to Nash go with national and it's kind of watered down or not?

Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I would think that the new owner would want to expand it right now.

Most of taco Cabana's locations are in Texas about 142, and they have a couple of franchise locations in New Mexico.

Speaker 2: And they had had, I don't want to say some trouble, but during the pandemic, um, and before they had pulled back a little bit on the number of stores, right?

Speaker 1: Yes.

Yeah.

The pandemic definitely affected their sales.

And they also, right before the pandemic closed a bunch of underperforming stores about 20.

And Speaker 2: This is one of those things that you're going to be covering I'm sure for a long time, because they're paying off the debt, polio, tropical is your Tropicale is going to be expanded, but you've been busy because, uh, as well as that, which has a fascinating history in San Antonio, won't get into right now, but nationwide is changing what it is doing.

And tell us about that.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So the pandemic has definitely affected how companies are thinking about their office space and where, and how employees are working.

So nationwide has a big campus on the west side, in the Westover Hills area.

Um, and about a year ago in March, 2020, they send employees home to work remotely because of the pandemic.

And then the next month they announced they were going to a hybrid model, a mix of in office work and working remotely.

And so, yes company-wide yes.

And so that meant scaling back their real estate footprint.

And so recently they said, they're planning to put that Westover Hills campus, which is about 270,000 square feet up for sale.

It has room for 2000 people, or so it hasn't been full for some time because of their changing business needs, but they're planning to sell it in July.

They have about 900 employees here and they've said San Antonio is going to remain a big employment center for them.

So those employees will either work in a different office building or nationwide Elise back some of the space from that big campus.

Speaker 2: Okay.

In terms of property taxes and whether that's going to be tough for them to sell, um, in the current market right now we talked housing, you know, it was very tight, but commercial real estate.

How was Speaker 1: That?

I'm curious to see what will happen with that because a lot of companies are shifting to a hybrid model, a mix of working from home and then in the office.

And so office needs are definitely going to change.

So I'm interested to see how that shakes out with this campus and others around San Antonio.

Speaker 2: No, also another story you've covered is USAA getting some blow back from military people, which is this base about advertising on Fox news or Tucker Carlson's because specifically he had called attorney or I'm sorry, general mark Milley, uh, chairman of the joint chief chiefs of staff as stupid and a pig, which, so what's the blow back there and where, what are they doing?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So after Tucker Carlson's recent segment that you're referring to a firestorm just erupted on social media.

Um, USAA customers were tweeting, they were posting on Facebook.

They were posting on the company's online forum.

Um, very upset about USAA advertising on Fox and Tucker show, um, and threatening to take their business elsewhere.

They saw it as very disrespectful to the military, which USAA obviously founded upon.

Um, so that just went crazy.

It Speaker 2: Turns out though that they actually haven't been advertising on that Tucker Carlson show for a couple years.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So it turns out the complaints were unfounded.

Uh, USDA has not been advertising on the show for about two years, since 2019.

And, uh, with our article, we had reached out to USAA and they declined to comment.

Um, and I assume that that's in part because they saw it as a lose, lose situation.

If they said, we're going to keep advertising on Tucker's show, you're going to anger one portion of your customers.

You know, if you say the opposite, then you're going to anger them.

Speaker 2: And the same that they went through with the Sean Hannity show a few years back, but in a kind of a mirror way, because some of the people, Fox news viewers said, make sure you keep advertising on Hannity, even though other people were pushing against it.

Right?

Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.

A few years ago they caught a lot of flack and again, social media pushback for advertising on Hannity.

And Speaker 2: You're going to be covering more of those kinds of stories, I think in the future.

Right.

Where, because people are more emboldened on social media to call for accountability or what they see as accountability.

Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.

It seems like social media has just seeped into kind of every area of our lives and with the political polarization.

Also, I think companies are kind of caught in the middle of that a lot of the time.

Speaker 2: And one last question we were talking before about when you're going to move back into the building, the old San Antonio light building the express news, going to move over there Speaker 1: Right now, we're supposed to move in this fall And you're going to move.

Some people will still be working from home.

All right, well, good luck.

And you just bought a house or a real estate business reporter can find out more about that process.

Look forward to reading that you can read more of Madison is learned in the San Antonio express news.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having me and thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see this show again, or previous shows as well as our podcast.

Just go to kale, rn.ford.

We'll see you next time.