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: Thanks for joining us for on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And every week we're taking a look at all kinds of different, important issues around San Antonio with the Newsmakers and some of the people who report on them.

And one of the men making news this summer and for the past few weeks and making history in San Antonio as the new city Councilman in district two, Jalen McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you very much for joining us, appreciating congratulations.

Speaker 1: First of all, what are your Speaker 2: Say top two or three priorities For them?

The district?

Um, I think heading into these weeks, um, the budget is a really big concern of mine.

Um, I'm a math teacher, so I'm super excited to get in and make sure that districts who is getting our fair share, um, priority of course, is going to be making sure that we continue to use an equity lens, which I'm glad the city has adopted.

Um, as well, police contract negotiations are underway and we saw this past election district who is very passionate about police accountability.

So that's something I'll be fighting for in this contract as Well.

And now a lot's been made about your age 26, amazingly enough.

And you were a teacher or the first openly gay man on San Antonio city council, and first openly gay black man, is it in Texas and Texas NEC.

And, and how does that fit?

I've heard people ask, well, what does that mean?

You're also supported by the democratic socialists of America.

Uh, what, what does that mean?

Are we going to see a, what some would call a leftward tilt on the council, uh, or not, you know, you replaced a woman, you worked for, uh, Jayda, Andrew Sullivan, where are your priorities different than she than Huh?

Um, so I think we will see a tilt left.

I think a lot of policies that sometimes seem crazy because of whoever is presenting them.

Um, whether far rights are right as Clayton Perry would be or left as now, you know, myself might be, we're just asking for things like expanded funding to home, the home repair programs, things like that, the benefit working class people less priority on the profits of developers on these corporations.

I think that's where you see a tilt that may be seen as left will really, it's just a tilt towards people.

Um, and I think that's going to be a little bit of the difference that you see between me and my predecessor.

We have coming up the big bond program.

People don't realize every five years you have a city has a bond program and it takes that long for them to work on the next one.

What are your priorities?

Not just for district two, but for the city?

Um, I think one of the biggest issues we have is the drainage problems and we see that every time it rains, there's areas of town that it's flooded for days.

We need to make sure that we're prioritizing drainage.

We're improving our streets and sidewalks.

Of course, for me, particularly in district two, I would really love to see a lot of major repairs for Ella Austin community center.

I think that's a, it's a building that needs to be preserved and protected.

And so hopefully that's reflected in this upcoming bond.

Some of the things that, uh, have been issues in the past and may or may not be now, uh, the Alamo Plaza redevelopment, what do you look forward to in that?

Um, I look forward particularly to bringing in community members who are often left out.

Sometimes we see people who are just regular people.

We see them as, um, activists and protestors, but really they're just concerned citizens.

And, you know, they're shunned a lot of the time.

So I'm excited to bring some people to the team.

How tough is it to get started as a new city council person?

We were just talking before, went on the air here.

And you said you just got into the office yesterday, just getting a staff on board.

Yes.

I think a huge part of the difficulty is that, you know, we're coming off the campaign trail.

We're so excited to get started and there's things out of our control that, you know, sometimes act as barriers, trying to get our staff on a boarded.

Um, getting keys to the office has changed.

It issues are, you know, present, but we're really just excited to get started on the constituent work and, you know, running a smooth off And Terry Castillo also, um, I guess you'd say part of that leftward tilt also supported by some of the same groups that you were, um, have you talked with her about what your priorities are and do you see kind of voting blocks develop?

Um, I think anything political, you're always going to see allies form.

You're going to know who your go-tos are for certain votes.

Um, and I think we have that in each other.

Um, of course our priorities are going to be that of our constituents.

I think we'll see a lot of allyship.

We'll see a lot of shared concerns.

And so we should, you shouldn't expect to see us working together quite a bit Now on, on what, right away, aside from the budget, aside from the police negotiations, what do you want to change in terms of the direction that the San Antonio is going in?

Right.

Hmm.

I think we need to particularly look at the, all the different decisions we make and their impact on the environment.

And I feel like so often a green lens is talked about, we talk about the climate plan.

We talk about all these things, but the decisions that we make sometimes aren't looked at through that lens at green lens.

And so I'm hoping that we can start when we're looking at policies and the budget items that we start really thinking about, you know, the impacts that we're having on the environment.

Are you feeling like we're back to normal at city hall, as well as, uh, around town.

Now we had Fiesta this week.

It's weird.

It's weird seeing people without a mask being without a mask a bit.

Um, I don't know quite what normal was going to look like in the coming months, but, um, I'm hoping that we still continue to be concerned for our neighbors and try to protect people as best We can.

You very much, again, that is district to city, Councilman 26 years old, Jalen McKee Rodriguez.

When's your birthday?

February 26th.

Oh, well, thanks for coming.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me, governor Greg Abbott announced that there will be a special session July 8th and then another one probably in September or October, the first one to deal with his priorities.

And then the second to deal with the re-districting issue.

Joining us right now is state Senator Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio.

That district 19 stretches all the way out past big bend.

Uh, thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, what do you think of the governor has called for a special session?

And what do you expect to come out of that?

Given what, what was pushed off in, uh, or what Democrats managed?

So I guess you could say stall and kill in the regular session.

Well, thank Speaker 1: You, Randy.

I mean, it's pretty clear that we're going to have a lot of cultural issues.

We're going to hear more about SB seven, which was the elections law and voting restrictions.

That's right.

It's my real concern that we're going to have a discussion about his small portion of a Trump style wall, which really concerns me because we have a lot of other priorities in Texas that we need to be focusing on like the energy grid.

Um, we have a lot of things that are affecting everyday Texans that are non-partisan issues.

Those are the things that we need to be focused on, not cultural issues.

Speaker 2: And now the voting rights bill was killed because Democrats in the house, uh, walked out and were able to stall it past the deadline.

You have a month long, special session, one of them.

And then if you come back for redistricting, then it's going to be another one.

Is there any chance that Democrats could do that again and could kill that voting rights bill?

Um, Speaker 1: That remains to be seen.

I mean, obviously now the cards are in their favor and they can call session after session.

It could continue to get their work done here, but some good things have happened.

They've already said that they're not going to do the, uh, the, the refiguring elections, uh, if there's voter fraud, the recounts, if you will, that we've seen in other states.

So they've pulled those elements out.

Uh, they've already said that the souls to the polls, that they made a typo and they meant to put 11:00 AM as opposed to one piece Speaker 2: The Sunday, one Sunday, when you can start, uh, early voting, is Speaker 1: It, are they showing the east side community?

We have really an, uh, an, the Baptist churches and the Methodist church in AMS.

We have, what's called souls to the polls where we go out and we'd go vote.

And so it's a big issue on Sunday after church, uh, you know, in the house and Senate wanted to tell us what time that was going to be at, Speaker 2: What is the difference here?

They wanted it at 11 and you wanted it at one or the other way around.

They wanted it.

One, Speaker 1: We were looking for essentially local control.

Why should the state legislature tell a particular county what time to go out and open there, Speaker 2: But that'll be the only difference that Democrats and Republicans might agree on.

And their Republican governor has said that he's not going to really soften anything in that bill.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.

And so we have a lot of work to do there.

Uh, we're going to have to work all the procedural rules to our benefit and do everything that we can to try to stop this and other cultural issues from happening.

Speaker 2: What's going to happen with redistricting redistricting.

Speaker 1: We'll be looking at that in October, uh, once we get the data, um, I imagine that there'll be a lot of contentious issues at that time.

There'll be several lawsuits at that time that will be proposed.

And that's something that we'll be looking on down the road, for sure.

Speaker 2: Now the bail issue is another one that the governor says will be in this first, uh, special session and explain to people what that is about.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, most certainly that was, that was one of the victims of basically walking out.

Um, we do need bail reform.

We need to make sure that the very serious felons that commit very, very serious crime stay in jail.

And we need to also have social justice for others that committed a small type of crime and need to get out.

And so we definitely need bail reform.

I imagine that we'll be seeing that and it's pretty bipartisan in that sense.

And so I imagine that you'll see something very soon on that as well.

Speaker 2: Now people may remember when the, uh, runaway legislature, I don't know how many years ago when, uh, Democrats also not just left and walked out, but left the state.

Uh, and Dan Patrick has talked about round them up, get them, make sure that doesn't happen this time and the speaker of the house that I'm not going to get that far.

Do you think that is Speaker 1: An actual option for this time?

You know, I can't speak for the house.

Um, I know in the Senate we're continuing to fight like we did this last time.

We argued for 13, 14 hours on this issue.

Uh, you know, the folks in the house have other considerations now with the governor vetoing, uh, article 10 of the budget, which is basically the continuing function of government, which is all of our staff and really quite frankly, state, uh, employees within the Capitol.

And so, uh, we have, we have some real challenges there.

And so they do have some leverage.

Uh, we'll have to see how all that plays out here over the course of the next month.

There's Speaker 2: Another issue you said that you and Dan Patrick are actually on the same page on the $350 that you wanted in terms of, uh, payments to rate payers because of what happened.

Explain that as well.

Speaker 1: And, and so that's really the crux of, of my discussion today.

You know, we have a governor that wants to talk, building a very small portion of a wall.

We have a land commissioner that says he's willing to go off and volunteer some state property, which happens to be in my district, in the Chihuahuan desert, not a whole lot of immigrants coming in through the state park.

And so it's absurdity on top of absurdity.

When we have a real priorities in this energy crisis, we spent an entire session trying to do something for rate payers.

And yet we did nothing.

We have government backed bonds for corporations that got in trouble.

We did a very weak weatherization plan.

We reduced the size of the ERCOT board yet, but we did nothing to create or increase a capacity market, which we would need in times of trouble.

Um, myself, I had an amendment that governor Lieutenant governor Dan Patrick agreed to in a bipartisan method.

We sent it over to the house, which was a $350 credit for every ERCOT consumer.

We had a mechanism in place to fund it and to pay for it.

It was the right thing to do, and yet the extremist in the house and the governor just simply weren't Speaker 2: On board, even though you and Dan Patrick agreed on that, it's probably not going to happen because the governor has said gone on record.

We fixed the problems.

So you don't expect that to come up again in a special session.

Speaker 1: So this is what I would tell Greg Abbott governor, if we fix the problems, then tell us why last week we had to have our thermostat at 78 degrees, and we have yet to see the true effects of a long hot summer Speaker 2: And the long hot summer is going to get even hotter up in Austin, starting July 8th.

Uh, good luck with that.

Thank you very much.

State Senator Roland Gutierrez.

Thank you so much, Randy.

This week, a milestone for San Antonio in terms of energy efficient buildings that EPA named us as one of the top 25 cities in the country for green buildings joining us now is a Nita led better, or the executive director of build San Antonio green.

Thanks for joining us.

First of all, what, what does this mean for San Antonio?

People might not think San Antonio green buildings, we cracked the top 25, which means what well Speaker 1: At first, thank you so much for having me.

And this is a very exciting news for San Antonio.

This is the first time we've been in the list of the top 25 cities in the United States.

I think, um, you know, there's a few things that are significant.

I think, uh, the first is that an energy star certified building energy star certified building helps us to be, um, more energy efficient, which means energy savings for, for the people that live there that are the people that are in the building.

Second, it helps us reduce emissions.

So it improves our local air quality, but third, it also really helps to make us more resilient to extreme weather because the building is better insulated, so extreme heat, extreme, cold, you're more comfortable.

And I think being on this list for the first time is important to San Antonio.

We have a great story.

Um, and there's been a lot that's happened here recently and it helps, uh, the people of San Antonio to know about it.

Speaker 2: Green buildings people might wonder, okay, what does that mean?

And to be certified as energy star, I go to home Depot, I see appliances energy star it's similar, but in a whole different, Speaker 1: Absolutely.

So, uh, again, if you go to home Depot or Lowe's and you see an energy star certified appliance, that's just talking about the piece of equipment.

Uh, energy star certified building is, uh, really looking at the entire buildings operating system.

So it's the equipment that's installed.

It's the insulation and energy star certified commercial building is going to perform about 35% more energy efficient than other buildings of its type.

Uh, so I think, uh, you know, what is a green building for us?

It builds San Antonio green it's, uh, um, energy efficiency, water conservation, the materials that are used, um, the site, the way the site is developed and then the health or the indoor air quality of that Speaker 2: Building.

Now, the list says that San Antonio made this list because we have 52 commercial or multi-family buildings.

What I was fascinated by is that some of these are older buildings that were retrofitted to be green and just made the list in the past few years.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

I think what's really important here is, uh, I had a great mentor that once told me what gets measured, tends to improve.

And I think that's what the significant about having retrofits, you know, as you know, San Antonio we're booming and, um, especially, especially right now, we have such a great amount of construction that's happening, but we have a lot of renovation that's happening.

Also, you know, an energy efficient or a green building is really preparing us for the future for more extreme weather, uh, again, energy efficiency and helping to protect our environment through reduced.

Now, Speaker 2: Bill San Antonio, green people, might've heard of, it's a nonprofit that merged with solar San Antonio started at the same time by bill sinking, incredible legendary guy.

What do you do to help people out there who want to maybe make their house greener energy, more efficient?

What, what can you do to help people out there watching?

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1: Well, actually, so we do three things.

Uh, you know, one is that we try to help connect people with their options to go solar here in San Antonio, carrying the legacy forward of Mr. Sinkin and solar San Antonio.

So we have our program called bring solar home, which is a free, um, technical assistance for the people of San Antonio to help you, uh, look at your options or decide if you want to go solar on your home or business.

The second thing that we do is we advise homeowners on how to make their home more energy efficient.

What are the programs available?

What are the low and no cost things that they can do, or maybe, maybe they want to do a, you know, a full blown renovation.

We can help them with that too.

And the third thing that we do is we work with builders and developers to build, um, new buildings.

So we, um, we've done over 12,000 single family homes here in San Antonio.

Um, we also do multifamily commercial and mixed use if Speaker 2: We only have 52, how many of the new buildings that we see around town going up with all the cranes are going to be certified as green energy star?

You Speaker 1: Know, I think we're going to see more and more happen because again, that value of energy star has really been demonstrated.

Um, again, operational cost, it's a more comfortable building.

Um, you know, you have, uh, so many advantages to it that have been proven in since going under such a huge construction.

Boom.

I expect that we're going to see more and more.

I know for us the green building program, um, on the residential side, we've seen extreme growth.

Um, in fact, today we have over 6,000 homes that are under construction today here in San Antonio.

Okay.

Because Speaker 2: Of the snowpocalypse we were talking about and the hot summer are we going to see more of that are builders being pushed by consumers to build more energy efficient houses?

Are you seeing that?

Speaker 1: I, I think, I think that's a really great question.

I mean, in my experience, uh, consumer demand shapes the world, you know, people are out here voting with their dollars.

And so when you, you really look at, um, the increase in, in, uh, solar, the increase in green buildings, that is all really, I mean, yes, we have a wonderful, um, um, um, you know, our, our city and our utilities and so many, so many people out here, including ourselves trying to push for it, but it's really been consumer demand.

That's really meeting it in the middle of making it happen.

And that is why I think it's really been accelerated recently.

People can feel the change that's happening and they're responding to it.

Okay.

They Speaker 2: Can get more information at your website and build San Antonio green Speaker 1: Build essay, green.work.

All right.

Speaker 2: Thanks very much.

I need a lead better with build San Antonio.

Great.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks governor Greg Abbott recently vetoed a number of bills, surprising some people for a few of those vetoes, at least.

And joining us now in this report is Roundtable is the editor in chief of the San Antonio current and a man for whom I have incredible beard and hair envy Sanford now, and a longtime reporter here in San Antonio.

Thanks for joining us.

Tell us about, uh, what struck you about governor Abbott's vetoes?

Yeah, I think the interesting thing here is not that there were a lot of them, there are just 20, which you can compare it back to.

Uh, uh, Rick Perry did 70 at the end of one session and Abbott.

I think this is the fewest number of bills he's been vetoed since 2005.

What's particularly interesting here, I think is that it seems like he's really doubled down on partisanship, uh, with, uh, with the bills he's vetoing.

Um, you know, the, the most explosive of those was when he basically vetoed the money that goes to the state legislature to pay salaries, to pay staffers, to pay legislature for legislative agencies as a punitive measure, because they didn't pass the, uh, voting bill.

They because of the walkout.

Yeah, because of there was a democratic walkout.

The Democrats say this was a voter suppression bill, also surprising to people was, uh, his, his veto of an antique animal cruelty measure that would stop people from chaining up, you know, their dogs in the backyard with heavy chains ensure that they're being given shelter and water, et cetera.

You know, he claimed that was, uh, you know, his reason for doing it was, it was, um, you know, micromanaged, micromanaging, yes.

And over over-regulating.

And that there were already laws on the books, you know, animal rights groups said, no, the laws on the books are antiquated 15 years old unenforceable.

That was why they went to the legislature through, you know, the Republican and democratic guy.

It had broad support from both parties.

Um, you know, and I think this is one of those cases where it was a political miscalculation on Abbott's part.

Um, you know, I think you can look at the Abbott trending on Twitter, but Abbott hates dad hates dogs trending on Twitter right now.

And it's one of those things kind of like the power grid where, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, if you're an animal lover, you're an animal lover and you recognize that there probably was a need for this, or, you know, animal welfare groups, you know, animal control police groups, et cetera, would not have been lobbying to pass this, this measure.

Um, the other one, I think that was interesting was his veto of, uh, of a bill that would require schools to teach, uh, you know, students to recognize domestic violence and the perils of domestic violence, dating violence, dating violence.

Yeah.

And he, you know, sort of, again, going back to, I think, a sort of, uh, you know, Republican talking point that, you know, you don't want to teach sex ed to two kids without parental permission.

Apparently he perceived this as being sex ed adjacent.

Therefore you got to veto.

And again, I don't think that, uh, a lot of people are going to see that and sort of read further into it to understand what his political motivation is.

I think they're just going to look at it and saying, this guy is out of touch.

Is he running for president already?

I think, I think we're seeing him, uh, angling on to political fronts.

I think he's basically trying to go as hard right.

As he can because he fears a, uh, primary challenge more so than he fears a challenge in the general election, unless the Dems run somebody who's a rock star, like Beto O'Rourke or one of the Castro brothers, neither of whom I believe are interested in the job.

Uh, you know, I think, uh, Abbott perceives that he's got, he's got the general election tied up.

Um, and, uh, right now he's got a challenge from the right from Don Huffines from Dallas.

Uh, and I think he's desperately been trying to make sure that, uh, Alan West, uh, the head would be the harder, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, stays out of the race.

We've already seen Sid Miller say, he's gonna run for reelection, his ag commissioner.

He's not gonna run for governor.

Um, and I think, you know, especially now that, uh, avid who's tied up, uh, you know, uh, Trump's, uh, endorsement, I think it's going to be very hard for anybody to challenge him from the right.

Um, but that's, that's one thing we're seeing.

The other thing that we're seeing, I think is him girding for, you know, maybe a 20, 24 run for president.

I mean, because a lot of the, a lot of the stuff he's been doing, uh, seems very calculated to drive a showdown with the Biden administration, all the stuff he's doing on the board or this political bringing in Trump on bringing in president Trump, uh, June 30th.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I mean, this, this, this border wall he's wanting to fund, you know, $250 million is a drop in the bucket.

It, there, there's no reason to believe that the state of Texas has enough land or can get enough land to build this, this wall or, or crowdfund their way into the billions of dollars.

It would be required.

I mean, this is, this is basically political theater setting himself up to say, you know, I challenged the Biden administration all the way, all the way, you know?

So I think maybe it's 20, 24, maybe it's later, but it definitely seems like he, he S he sees himself on, on a national stage with some of this stuff.

It's going to be interesting, long, hot summer with the special sessions coming up.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Uh, earn mental band guy and science fiction fan, uh, Sanford now on, thank you very much for coming in 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@klrwren.org.

And we'll see you next time.