On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

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

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

I'm Randy Beamer.

We have a lot to talk about this week.

First of all, the Bear County judge Peter Takai is joining us.

We're going to talk about all kinds of things, but I appreciate you coming in.

Well, thank you.

We have been very busy and I guess it was mid April or mid-March when you announced you wanted a big review of all of the accounting processes and that you were going to get that back.

You had hoped, I believe, May 31st.

Big questions are what's back and what are you going to do with all those recommendations?

We've only got partial recommendations from the county management office.

We're focusing on issues of procure ment.

We're looking at the the way the commissioners court meetings are being handled.

Certainly the agenda.

I made a commitment to be open and transparent and that's of assisted on that.

Also to set the tone at the very first Commissioner Court, meaning that I wanted everyone to be collegial and to operate and work in a very dignified manner.

And I'm pleased to say we were working well on Commissioners Court.

Now you wanted to modernize things.

Judge Wolff, was there some 20 years, no matter who's in a position, if they're there that long, you wanted to bring in fresh eyes.

You also wanted this kind of top down review to make sure you have a good roadmap to where it is.

And also, you said the employees ask you they want more direction.

What kind of feedback have you gotten since you came into office about what needs to be change?

Well, that's a great question, Randy.

One of the things that I promised was that I'd be listening to all employees, to all the vendors, to everybody who has contact with the county system.

And so one of the things in ordering the organizational review was I wanted an introspective review of our system.

We're still getting pieces that we're still under review, and hopefully we'll get a final report or more preliminary interim report.

One of the things in regards to the technology is I'm real pleased to say that our I.T.

director, Mark Gauger, and his department has really stepped up.

He's identified some of the issues that are holding his department back.

And so we're working to move that technology piece.

Obviously, we still have some antiquated technology and we are working with our justice system, our jail system, to improve those systems, because I think if we do that, we can make county government work far more effective and efficient.

City Council meets every week.

They have other meetings that people see them at.

Now, County commissioners, you meet twice a month and then you also wanted to add work sessions that would be transparent.

And how is that idea going?

Well, we finally got that going.

I think the system was a little resistant to that, but it's been a game changer in my mind that we talk about issues that would probably take more time in our commissioners court meeting.

Sometimes our meetings have been very long and so the work sessions have allows us to have open discussion.

In other words, be open and transparent to the public and the agenda item.

So that's one of the things that you wanted to see sooner so that people both on the court would know what's going to happen sooner and then also the public and how.

How has that changed?

That's still a work in progress.

The agenda items, we're trying to make sure that they're put up more far in advance than the current situation.

We're trying to see that the backup information that support the agenda items are provided earlier and get it on the website.

The other big part of the organization review is to get our website Modern ized, and that will probably be a big ticket item and a major overhaul.

Now, one of the things you've made headlines for is bringing in, say, the Travis County judge, the L.A. County judge, where you were from and others to make you what you want to make.

San Antonio Beer County more of a regional hub.

What does that mean?

Okay.

Well, obviously, we've had prior discussions of how San Antonio in the Dallas Houston Austin Sanatorium is at that bottom of the triangle, so to speak.

And sometimes our community and our public leadership looks that we are behind those communities.

I, on the other hand, want a regional concept that creates a triangle that we're San Antonio is at the top.

Laredo, Corpus Christi, the valley into Mexico, from an economic development perspective.

And so I want San Antonio at the top of the triangle.

I want it to be the leader.

I want it to, you know, all things will run through San Antonio, Bear County.

And that's that's the vision I have for County.

And as a former judge who's worked with children in the county, people might have wondered about your connection to business or your focus, let's say, on business.

And then I think it surprised some people why, in a way, are you so focused on business as opposed to at least in terms of headlines, what we see about changing things like in in the courts?

Well, economic development is a big engine to Bear County.

So long, we're growing so long, we grow in a responsible way, so long that we take care of our citizens, especially public safety and public health.

Those are all things that we've got to pay for right now.

And so, unfortunately, the issue of property taxes is something we're going to have to be dealing with this summer, and we've got to keep growing in order to provide for our citizens.

Speaking of growth, the conflict with the city, I know you've worked with the city.

There's been a little conflict with the city, the emergency services district.

If you could explain that to people, the emergency services districts out in the county.

The city has a debt cap.

Explain what that is and why there's been this kind of odd at least that's been resolved Randi.

Right.

I know.

And I help do that for the county and the city.

What it boils down to is the the unincorporated areas are now covered by what's called ESD emergency service districts.

Typically, the city used to be able to annex with more abilities to cover those areas.

Well, I think the state legislature has created it.

So where those unincorporated areas will probably not be brought into the city of San Antonio.

So the county has to step up.

And so they in order to step up, when it was originally put through to the legislature, they put a cap on what the ESD could do.

And so what happened was that legislature was outdated.

We needed to remove those caps so that the ESD can build their fire stations by their fire department equipment, by their fire trucks.

And so that was also we had a piece of legislation that has released that cap.

And so, yes, it was a little bit of a misunderstood dandy, but I, I believe that we're working well with the city said that brings up the growth in the county because we had 20,000 people move into just the city of San Antonio last year.

People don't realize how much the county is growing the sprawl.

What kind of pressures that put on things like emergency services, How many people are moving into Bear County and how can you deal with all those people?

What is the sprawl problem going to do?

Well, we we anticipate we'll have another million in the county by 2040.

So we need to be prepared for the growth.

That's the reason why, in meeting with the fellow county judges, I've developed relationship with Judge Keith Lutes out of Medina County.

And anybody that has been in that Western sector knows how big that population has grown.

Both on the Bear County and Medina side of the county lines.

And so we're going to have to work together.

That all ties into my regional concept, The regional concept.

I've heard the words passenger rail brought up in a context of when you and Travis County judge and where are we on passenger rail and what can you do to Austin?

Well, all I can say is Judge Andy Brown out of Travis, wants a train from San Antonio to Austin and back, especially when it comes like to the Spurs.

He wants to be able to have people to come through Austin and shoot down on rail and not have to drive down.

That's something I can embrace.

But at the same time, we know that that has been a hot button issue.

And so we need to proceed with all due caution.

Obviously, it's a big ticket item.

And I know also when you bring up Spurs and Austin, that's another hot button issue, at least there for a while, people wondered, are they going to take it over?

You talk to them, you know, with the investment the Spurs are making here.

What's your take?

Oh, I have sat down with Peter, John Holt and Corina Holt, the children that are running the Spurs organization now.

He is giving me his word and we've shook on it that he's not going anywhere, that he appreciates all the support that Burke County has given.

We will continue to support Burke County and San Antonio Spurs because they're our best goodwill ambassadors.

And you also brought up return on investment for sports items when we're talking about baseball stadiums in San Antonio.

Where do you think you are on that?

Well, I had the opportunity to meet the local group.

It's an impressive group.

Manu Ginobili, David Robinson, the Nolan Ryan family.

And Reed Ryan is the president of the local baseball.

So we see a new direction and leadership in the San Antonio baseball professional team.

And so when they came to talk to me, I indicated to them that I needed to see that there was going to be return on investment of any taxpayer money that would be used to either support them or build a new stadium.

Do you expect you'll have a request for a new stadium officially?

They are doing their due diligence.

They have said that Major League Baseball, which controls their operations, has required that if we're to continue to have a minor league baseball team, we will have to have a new stadium for them.

Are you a baseball fan?

I love baseball.

And does that mean that you would be extra happy if we had a minor league baseball stadium downtown?

I would be happy if we could find a way to finance that without taxpayer money.

But I'll I'll I'll look at the deal when it comes across the table and we're about out of time.

Well, what's your biggest frustration so far?

What if you're a judge now?

You can say, oh, I want to change this.

It's dealing with the inertia of government.

It's dealing with people who question why we have to change a mind in frustration with people that don't want to change.

And so as I try to improve county government, I'm challenging all of those there.

So I'm hoping everybody and I'm confident that we're going to get everybody on board, so to speak, make county government more effective and efficient and better serve the community.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Good luck with that judge and come back when you're making some of those changes.

We can outline what they are.

Thanks.

Thank you, Randi.

Governor Greg Abbott vetoed dozens of bills this summer and one of them affects a bill that was pushed by lawmakers right here in San Antonio in response to that deadly dog attack that happened back in February.

Joining us to talk about what the bill would have done and what the veto means for us here in Bear County.

Shannon Sims, who is the access director of City of San Antonio, thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

For those people who don't know this bill that was crafted by people here in San Antonio, Representatives 4759, the Raymond Head Act, what would that have done?

So it would have done several things associated with the dangerous dog process.

Number one, it would have increased penalties against the humans, the owners of these animals.

Right now, the animals end up either being euthanized or confined very, very closely.

This would have made it more on the human side to try to encourage, not repeat behavior.

Secondarily, it would have provided some anonymity to folks that were reporting these incidents, the affidavits that were required to have the sworn statements.

And thirdly, it would actually allow us to initiate a dangerous dog investigation without those affidavits or sworn statements, if we had sufficient history and kind of background to to start that investigation.

And this came up after the death of Mr. Raymond Harrah, who was 81 killed by dogs that had been deemed dangerous in the past, and neighbors had complained about them.

And after that, there's a lot of investigation, a lot of outcry.

And you thought this bill was was going to pass.

It wasn't going to be a problem.

Do you have any idea what happened?

So so first, these animals were involved in bites, but they were never formally designated because we're not formally, yeah, because the neighbors were afraid of the individuals who would not fill out affidavits.

So that's part of what this would address, that fear of retribution from the neighbor.

Secondarily, it would have allowed us, because we had already impounded those animals for by quarantine and they had significant history.

This bill would have allowed us to initiate that dangerous dog investigation and designate those animals dangerous just based on the bites and the previous history.

So the bite quarantine doesn't make them a dangerous dog?

No.

That is a state required rabies mandated, mandated protocol to make sure the animal doesn't have rabies.

What does it take to be deemed a dangerous dog?

Officially?

So right now, under state law, you have to have an affidavit from a witness or a victim, and it has to be someone who actually witnessed the incident, not just hearsay.

If the if the animal meets the elements, as we do the investigation, which means that it had to be off property during the you know, it had to be free of restraint at the time of the attack and either caused bodily injury or led a reasonable individual to believe they would have been injured at that point, then we can in non provoked, of course, the animal couldn't have been provoked into the behavior, but that would allow us then to to look at all that information and say this animal is formally designated under state law as dangerous.

And so you are optimistic this is going to make it easier for you to do your job.

What how would it have done that?

Number one, in the case of the Ramona Raymond NAJERA incident, like I said, the neighbors, he didn't even live in that neighborhood.

But the neighbors, they knew the individual that owned the animals wasn't a fantastic citizen, and they were afraid of him.

And so despite having multiple bites, nobody wanted to fill out that affidavit and possibly get retribution from him.

So this would have allowed us to initiate that investigation and designate those animals without them having to come forward.

Secondarily, it would also allow them it would have given them a little bit of an anonymity to open records so they file it.

If the owner of the animals didn't put in an open records request.

It would have restricted their their personal information from being released.

And so it seemed, I guess, non-controversial at the time when the bill came up with lawmakers here, worked on it with you.

What happened?

So from the feedback that we received from the governor's office is that he thought it was overcriminalization of animal ownership.

And one aspect of this, like I said, did increase the penalties for your animal, biting, for it being a dangerous dog that continued to be out of compliance or for severe bodily injury type cases where not just the animal would be punished, but the owners would also receive if it was a Class C before, it would now be a class B misdemeanor, you know, and it escalated all of the different areas by one level of penalty.

Were you surprised by this?

You said the governor had vetoed a bill a couple of years ago about the say, pets bill.

Yes.

And then the legislature passed the bill again.

Yeah.

They they went into a special session on the Safe Pets Act.

And either because he received feedback from the community or from from residents, he decided to change his mind and, you know, didn't veto it.

The second round, this one, I'm not as optimistic.

This bill is very specific in the way that it was written to Bear County.

It was originally intended to cover the whole state of Texas, but due to the way the legislature works and everything, it ended up getting pared down to just Bear County.

And I am a little bit shocked that and disappointed that knowing that it was only going to impact Bear County and San Antonio, that it it it wasn't passed.

And then also in his statement, he said that he, quote, looks forward to working with the author of the Bills to Create investor nations and procedures that stop dog attacks before they happen.

What does that mean to you?

My thought process is that is what this bill did.

We worked very closely with Representative Campos and Senator Menendez to ensure that we weren't throwing too wide of a net out there and getting, you know, unconfirmed types of investigations rolling.

We still want to have confirmed information, but we thought that this provided reporting individuals that safety, that anonymity allowed us to initiate something that we saw is just a little bit, you know, kind of a borderline situation.

And to me, most importantly, providing higher penalties to the owners, because what we see all the time is an owner of a dangerous dog.

They end up not coming into compliance.

We get the dog, we euthanize the dog.

A year later, that very same owner now has another dangerous dog.

So it's you know, it it's not the the animal comes out that way.

It's you know, it's the owner that you need to follow to keep an eye on the owner needs some some push to become a better owner.

We're not only animals.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Shannon Sims.

Appreciate you coming in.

Animal care services director for the City of San Antonio.

Thanks.

Thank you, Randi.

A lot of reporters roundtable this week are going to look at a new program that should make some landlords around San Antonio happy and also some renters who've been having trouble trying to get people to rent to them.

Joining us to talk about it is Madison Iszler, business reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, this Cash for Landlords program is for who specifically?

It's for new landlords who haven't been renting to voucher holders.

So if a landlord rents to a tenant that has a voucher, they'll get $500 for every new lease.

So if you rent to two people that have vouchers, you'll get $1,000.

If you rent to three.

You'll get 1500 dollars.

And the goal of the program is basically to find more landlords who are willing to rent to voucher holders who are just having a lot of trouble right now, finding housing in San Antonio.

You know, voucher holders, people may not realize who gets vouchers, how they get vouchers and how much those are for.

We're talking about section eight.

Yeah, Section eight.

So people have to apply to get a voucher.

They usually wait a couple of years to get one and then they get one from the San Antonio Housing Authority, which recently changed its name to Opportunity Home, San Antonio.

And so once they have that voucher, they can go out into the private market and try to find a place to live and opportunity home.

San Antonio will pay most of their rent and the tenant will pay a little bit.

And that funding comes from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which every year sets fair market rents.

So Opportunity Home will communicate with the resident and say, Here's how much will pay in each zip code.

And that varies depending on the zip code and the size of the apartment and the opportunity home.

And say again, that's San Antonio Housing Authority.

The program's been around for a while, but and not the cash, but the these vouchers, I guess they have a stigma and that's why people landlords don't want to rent to people with vouchers.

Yes.

That's what housing advocates said is the biggest barrier that people with vouchers face in finding a home is there's a stigma among some landlords that if they rent to a voucher holder, they're going to see an increase in crime at their property or their property values going to go down or the tenant is going to damage their unit.

And the housing advocates that I talked to for my story said that could happen with any renter.

That's a stereotype of these particular renters who have a voucher, but it could happen with any renter.

And there's an aspect of stability because opportunity home is paying a large portion of that tenant's rent.

And what about the rental market these days?

How is that and how is this feeding into the rental market?

Is it is it helping prop it up or because we've had such competition in the past?

They don't.

Landlords don't need specifically those.

Those tenants would be tenants.

The rental market exploded kind of like the for sale housing market did during the pandemic.

Rents just went crazy after kind of initially slowing down.

But now, again, like the housing market, rent growth is kind of starting to slow down, but it's still pretty high, especially in certain areas.

And so one of the another barrier that the housing advocates brought up to me is these tenants are trying to find places to live near their work and near public transportation, maybe near their family, if their families helping with childcare.

And so some of the more expensive places in San Antonio are around downtown where a lot of them might work if they work at a hotel or a restaurant downtown or another sort of tourism oriented business.

And so certain parts of the city rents are particularly high.

And so that can be a problem, is trying to find a place that's that's near enough that you can make the public transportation and maybe the schools for your kids or the like work.

And they're getting on this waiting.

I mean, it's a whole long process to get on the waiting list to get the vouchers.

And then after that, if they get the voucher and they can't find a place to live there right now, there is a deadline.

Right.

Was some something between two and four months that they have to get an apartment and that can expire.

Yes, that's right.

Yes, They have a set time in which they're supposed to find an apartment or a rental house.

Opportunity Home has said it's been extending a lot of the vouchers because people have had such a hard time finding a place.

But it takes so long in the beginning to just get a voucher.

It usually takes a couple of years that when you finally get one, it might seem like a golden ticket, but then you go out to try to find a place.

And it's just really tough to find a landlord who will rent to you.

And so that's what Opportunity Home is trying to encourage with this incentive And this incentive, the timeline on this is how's how does it work for, say, I'm a landlord and I hear about this.

Do I search out these people?

Will they come to me?

Do I have to let them know?

And when can renters say, okay, here's that $500, You know, give me a give me a place?

It starts on July 1st and Opportunity Home.

San Antonio has a section of its website devoted to landlord resources.

And so it's part of that section on its website.

And so a landlord can get in contact with opportunity home, and they might help get them connected with a tenant who has a voucher, who's looking.

What kind of reaction are you getting from people, both renters and housing advocates, about this?

I've heard from more housing advocates that it's just a real problem that became even more difficult during the pandemic.

Opportunity Home and HUD are spending more money on the vouchers in terms of what they'll actually pay out because rents are going up.

And so that's that's kind of a separate issue, but it's still part of the broader conversation about housing costs going up.

And I've just heard about more barriers, for example, tenants having trouble getting to an apartment to take a tour to see if it's safe.

It fits in a place and a condition that they want.

That's another barrier.

And landlords just not wanting to deal with the red tape and kind of the bureaucracy of using this this program is this pilot program with the cash for vouchers, or is it kind of a to be determined opportunity Home is hoping that with the money that they've set aside for it, that it'll last a year and they'll reassess in a year.

It's not guaranteed that it will last that long.

It just depends on how many landlords take advantage of the incentive and the program.

But if it goes well, they're planning to reassess it in the future.

I don't know.

Also this week, you're looking at home sales around the area.

What are you finding?

Their home sales are still declining.

They've been declining for about 14 months now.

Things first started slowing down last spring because interest rates started going up quite a bit and prices had been had been going up for a while.

And so buyers were dealing with a combination of higher mortgage rates, making their mortgage payments higher, and prices, of course.

But the median price recently has started coming down to the past three months.

It's been falling.

And so that's another indication of just the market slowing down because of various factors.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Madison Esler, The San Antonio Express-News Business reporter.

Appreciate you coming in.

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

You can see the show again or download the podcast klrn Dot org.

I'm ready.

Beamer and we'll see you next time on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho