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 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: Welcome to on the record, I'm Ben Oliveo.

We've all been watching it just developments around the Alamo Plaza master plan, but did you know inside the church, there's a major preservation effort underway.

The reason the walls are deteriorating joining us now is Pam Rosser, who is the onsite conservatory at the Alamo.

Can you tell us a little bit about, uh, what the situation is right now with the walls?

And if you can describe sort of the, the, um, is the situation dire, would you, yes, Speaker 1: I would say, um, the Alamo is a very sick patient and we have evidence from, um, a black paper study that we did back in 2017.

I believe where we laid black paper down, left it there for 600 days and four rooms documented the wall loss.

And from that we collected 64 pounds of wall loss, the stone, the mortar, historic plaster, all of that was just falling from that evidence.

You can see that there's a serious problem Speaker 2: What's happening right now.

Um, I read an article in express news by Scott Huddleston that, um, yeller is real assessing the situation right now.

He, he, he wrote about, you know, sensors being placed inside the walls and under the ground.

Speaker 1: So currently what we're doing is we've started back in April, a moisture monitoring program.

Okay.

And, um, what this consists of is, um, anywhere from eight to 13 different sensors that are installed into the walls below grade and above grade, and this program will be going on for one year and we're collecting the temperature and relative humidity that's, uh, in, inside the walls, as well as, um, some of the exterior, uh, units have also areas where we collect water samplers.

Speaker 2: And once you'll collect this information, then the preservation takes place after Speaker 1: That, or how does it work?

So once we collect all this data for a year, then we will then learn a lot about what's going on inside the walls, how the moisture is moving, how the water vape vapers are moving, uh, the movement of the salts, um, the, the types of, of water that we have, um, below grade, all of this has been, but yet we have had, the Alamo has had this constant problem of, of rising damp for decades.

Um, there's interior walls that have contained wall loss at the same level as an exterior wall.

Wow.

And so that's just, um, it's raises a lot of questions.

Speaker 2: W what does preservation actually look like?

Like what kinds of things can, y'all do to, to, to do Speaker 1: That.

So, um, when you're going to do preservation work, you're actually, you're leaving what you see in tact, but you're just conserving it.

So what is left of it will remain there Speaker 2: And what percentage of the walls are having this massive loss of material?

Is it, is it the whole thing, or is it just certain spots?

Speaker 1: I would say a large percentage of the, um, Alamo church has the problem.

Speaker 2: He recently closed, um, Alamo street, um, permanently to traffic, um, right in front of the Alamo.

Is that, could that potentially help, um, ameliorate the situation in terms of traffic?

Not, you know, Speaker 1: Um, it probably will.

I mean, less traffic around a historic building is always better than traffic around a history.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

I know the article also talked about, um, you know, maybe replacing the roof, um, and, and other types of, um, you know, preservation measures.

Can you talk a little bit about what some of the options are Speaker 1: Right now?

We're just still in the investigative part of the roof.

We are doing some, um, required repairs, Speaker 2: Obviously the master plan, um, which is, which talks about all the things happening around the Alamo has, has gotten a lot of headlines.

And I think there's like a $450 million price tag to that.

Is this restoration part of that plan, or is this being funded separately?

And how much is this gonna cost?

Speaker 1: We don't know that the cost yet for the preservation, um, because of the, an investigative work that's going on right now, Speaker 2: You had mentioned that, um, that study where y'all, uh, gathered the, the wall material, um, you mentioned 64 pounds that that was done.

I think it's a 2017 in the article.

I think it's the 2016, but, but the point is, it was like, it was five years ago.

Um, but yet this, this process is starting now to kind of assess what, why that sort of gap in between now and when that, that assessment was done five Speaker 1: Years ago.

Uh, well, we had to receive the funds from the state and then before any of the, um, archeological digging could happen, you know, we had to get a Texas historic commission per architectural permit.

And, uh, and then doing, we started the work doing, uh, working in the long Barrack first.

Um, and so, and when you do these types of digs, it just takes a lot of time because you're not the archeological dig is not your normal type of dig.

So when you do a dig at the Alamo and the long Barrack, whatever you take out, you're putting back the way you found it.

Gotcha.

So all the dirt that was taken out to reach the, um, the hard pan was then put back the way that it was taken out.

Gotcha.

Because when we put the sensors in, we wanted the sensors to go back into the walls and, and everything to be collected as it was, if we, um, had not done the archeological dig that there was, that was the only way to do Speaker 2: It.

Gotcha.

Well, thank you very much for joining us today, Pam, and, and we appreciate your time, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're joined now by David Robbins, the new assistant director and chief development officer at the San Antonio airport.

Thank you for being here, David.

Well, thanks for having us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, so I read an article recently in the San Antonio report that talked about beehives being installed at the airport.

Please tell us all about this.

Okay.

All about bees.

Um, it's a hashtag set.

Uh, we initiated this, uh, project is a way to connect with our community.

Um, a way to, um, talk about, uh, the environment, uh, through our environment section is led by, uh, Steven Southers and Joshua Heiss.

And, uh, we are working to, um, talk about those, um, things in the environment that, uh, that mattered to us.

It's about a colony collapse disorder that the bees are suffering now.

Um, in some of us, some you all, or you may be aware of that.

Um, and so we're looking for a safe place to put the bees for the, their, uh, growth and development.

Uh, it's a way to also partner links us with, uh, farmers with gardeners, uh, that are within the three to five mile foraging, um, radius of these hives.

Um, and then in the end to have, uh, sort of, uh, a pleasant, a sweet harvest of honey in the end that, uh, may be used to, um, uh, with some of our concessionaire partners at the airport, uh, was a program that, uh, initiated also in, uh, my previous employ, which is, uh, in Chicago at O'Hare.

And, uh, we worked with, uh, you know, restaurants here is, is re Rick Bayless.

Um, we did, uh, workforce development programming with this, uh, uh, opportunity as well.

And so I'm looking to replicate some of that here in San Antonio.

Have you had, Have you identified some, uh, chefs here in San Antonio that you may want to work with on this solution?

There Have been some talks.

Yes.

Uh, nothing that we can sort of announce right now, right now we're focused on is, uh, just the establishment of the AP area itself.

Okay.

Uh, this past Friday, we partnered with basis schools here in San Antonio and, uh, it's a K to eight and, um, you know, uh, Joshua hikes, his kids actually go to the school, so it was convenient.

Right.

Um, and so the school kids were able to come out and help us plant a pollinator garden.

They also planted a pollinator garden at the school and they received the seeds, a wildfire, uh, wild, wild flower, uh, native, uh, plants to plant at their home.

So it's a great, uh, learning a lesson for the children about ecology, about, um, you know, the science of food and, uh, the necessity for us to care for our environment.

Gotcha.

How many beehives are we talking about and where are they located on the actual airport property?

Right.

Um, they are located on airport property.

Uh, that's a unique thing about airports as many clear spaces in undevelopable land as per uh, FAA regulations, right?

So they're located on airport property and, and otherwise unused or UN developable space.

Uh, there are two hives at present and we're looking to RO uh, this opportunity.

Uh, one of the ways that we will grow the opportunity is that they have, um, uh, from time to time at the airport, we have absconded bees right there.

Um, entire hives will relocate and the high we'll split with a new queen and so forth, and they land on a jet bridge.

And so we have, uh, a beekeeper that we, uh, partnered with and he comes out and, um, uh, we'll wrangle the hive and allow us to do business.

So now we have a place to send those bees after the fact.

Gotcha.

I was wondering, you know, are, are the be safe, but also are the planes safe?

Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.

Um, also we have a full time wildlife biologist on staff at the airport and, um, and, uh, under Ray parish is a team.

Uh, we work closely with them about the placement of the hives, uh, how they are handled, um, and to make sure that, you know, we're doing this in a very safe manner.

Um, and so again, that's, that's also, I, you know, the location is something that we cannot share, but, uh, it's, um, we're, we're taking every measure to make this a safe venture.

And will you, will you be expanding the number of hives?

Cause I think I've read in the article that, um, you know, you're coming from Chicago and y'all had several dozen, Right?

Yeah.

We had upwards of 25 at one time.

Right.

Gotcha.

Um, you know, yes.

I expect that we will expand, uh, perhaps not to that, uh, level.

Um, you know, I think we've kind of for what we have in place now, we've made our point.

We've made the, this alignment happened.

Uh, we did gain some credit for our, um, uh, climate action plan, uh, accreditation for the airport.

So we get credit for this implementation for that.

Okay.

Um, and so I could see us growing, but, uh, that's not the goal.

Uh, it's also a way to talk about, uh, the way that the airport is going to develop going forward.

Right.

Um, you know, we talked a little bit about a sense of place.

Um, and so this allows us with our community partners to own this place, right.

To have a sense of ownership of the airport itself.

And certainly the kids got a real opportunity to do that in the adoption and establishment of the garden there.

Right.

So, right.

Um, and it's also a way for our environment section to, um, talk about, uh, those other environmental measures that we will undertake, uh, that are not as sort of interesting and fun and sweet it as bees and honey are those things like a warm mix asphalt, uh, like recycled aggregate, um, like, uh, the application of a variable frequency drives for energy conservation in our, our terminal spaces.

So as we roll these other programs out, this gives us a way to sort of swept the pipe toward the, the nitty gritty, if you Will.

Gotcha.

Right.

So we have a little bit less than a minute left, but if you can tell us, um, I mean, is the honey being sold at their airport now, or will it be, when will that happen?

Our, Uh, chief director of, uh, chief of, uh, of, um, uh, commercial development is Jennifer Fisher.

And we expect to have some works, uh, carried out with her okay.

Uh, on that front.

Um, certainly, um, the opportunity is there and that's sort of why we're doing this.

Right.

Um, and, uh, yeah.

Great.

Sounds great.

Well, David, thanks for sharing this, uh, exciting, uh, initiative.

Thanks for being here.

Very good.

Thanks for having me join now by Joshua effector city hall reporter at the San Antonio express news.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, Joshua.

Thanks for having me, Ben.

Absolutely.

Um, so you wrote a re uh, article earlier this week about, uh, the campaign spending that's happening with the five, um, city council runoff elections.

Tell us a little bit about how much money is being raised and if you can put it into Speaker 1: Context.

So yeah, you're seeing money and just pour into, you know, these, these races, um, within the five races candidates, the remaining candidates had spent something like more than 600 K a year.

The spending is just going up and up and up.

Um, you know, you're seeing a lot of that money pour into, you know, the three most contentious races in district nine, uh, where, uh, you know, incoming John courage is facing a conservative challenger and Patrick Von Dolan.

Um, district one where, uh, Councilman Roberto Trevino is in trouble facing a challenger in progressive Mario Bravo in district two where Jayda Andrew Sullivan is trying to fend off, uh, you know, her former staffer, Jaylen, Mickey Rodriguez.

And that one seems like it's gotten a little personal, there are allegations that when Jalen Mickey Rodriguez, who was a communication staffer, uh, was working in Jaida Andrew Sullivan's office, that he faced homophobic, um, behavior on, on the part of her chief of staff, Lou Miller, right.

Uh, you seen him, uh, throw allegations that pastors within the district are, you know, telling people that voting for him is a sin.

Uh, you've seen the pastors come out and say, we never said that.

And so you've seen use, that's probably the most, uh, personally contentious race out of the, out of the five on Saturday.

Speaker 2: Right.

And just to remind viewers, it's districts one, two, three, five, and nine that are, that are up for grabs.

Yes.

Let's talk about district nine because that one's also contentious.

And according to your article, the most money is being spent in that district.

Tell us about, uh, incumbent John courage.

And then as his challenger, uh, Speaker 1: Von Dolan purge is kind of this long time kind of democratic sort of perennial candidate slash Politico.

He was elected to city council a couple of years ago, and he's really kind of fashioned himself into kind of this very neighborhoods oriented, moderate on, on the council.

Um, you know, it was, it came as a shock to people that he was able to win in district nine to begin with given how conservative the north side is.

Right.

And, you know, in, in that time, he's really tied up like a lot of neighborhood groups.

Um, but you know, he's facing backlash this, uh, this past term because, you know, during the summer protests last, uh, last summer, uh, he raised his fist on the dayas with, uh, you know, in solidarity with black lives matter activists that's given, you know, basically these, uh, the far-right challenger, Patrick Von Dolan, who's kind of this perennial social conservative candidate.

This is something to sort of whack at him with.

Um, you know, and as a result, Von, Dolan's been able to raise a lot of money he's raised more than a hundred thousand dollars, uh, to, to sort of unseat, uh, correct.

Speaker 2: And the organization that he heads the San Antonio, San Antonio family association.

I mean, they're there one of his main contributors.

Yes.

So, Speaker 1: Um, you know, at the San Antonio family association is kind of this, you know, very present kind of anti LGBTQ organization that he's the chairman of, uh, their pack, uh, which is called friends of SFAA Texas has given, uh, has spent something to the tune of, you know, $19,000 on, on behalf of Petra fond on to benefit his campaign and his candidacy.

Um, and, you know, he says, you know, there's not collusion, there are collaboration, which is, which is kind of no-no between packs and, and campaigns.

But, you know, it appears that he's found somewhat of a loophole people, you know, campaign finance law experts say like, yeah, it looks like he's able to do this, but you know, nobody, nobody really likes let's Speaker 2: Talk about district one.

Um, cause you were saying that the incumbent Roberto Trevino is in trouble.

I mean, how do you, what, like, why do you say that kind of, what do you see going on with Speaker 1: That race, with, um, you know, with Roberto Trevino he's, he's been able to, um, yeah, he's undergone kind of this interesting transformation, especially over the past couple of years, you know, when he first comes into, uh, you know, when it first comes into office.

And certainly when I first start covering him, you know, he's kind of this arbiter of the new downtown of sort of the decade of downtown he's close with, you know, developers, he's defensive of, uh, basically city housing incentives that as you've reported on it as well have given all of these tax breaks to luxury housing developments that aren't really affordable for, uh, you know, the poorest among, you know, San Antonio residents and, you know, within the past two years, he's really, he's really kind of, he he's still in his pocket, but he's also made this other sort of pitch, which is, you know, this more stall, progressive sort of insurgent, uh, sort of vibe.

He challenges the mayor frequently on issues.

And he's advocated for the homeless, which is, um, which in the way that he's advocated for the homeless making his field office, uh, basically, uh, you know, uh, a place where the homeless can seek services and can camp to some degree has really irritated neighbors.

So Mario Bravo has been able to very much li you know, seize on that and to also, you know, seize on, you know, this discomfort with Trevino in other parts of the district to sort of drive up the gotcha.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Well, great.

Well, thank you for joining us today.

Uh, Joshua and I'm look forward to reading your articles in the future.

So thanks man.

Appreciate it.

Now is Gilbert Garcia columnist with the San Antonio express news Gilbert, thank you for joining us to the queue.

Um, obviously, uh, over the holiday weekend, the Texas legislative legislative session just came to an end.

Um, one of the huge bills I got a lot of national attention was Senate bill seven.

Tell us about, uh, give us your take on that bill because it's been described are Republicans is, you know, maintaining or strengthening the election, um, integrity and democratic, see it as like voter suppression.

How do you see it?

Well, this was a reaction and Texas is one of 47 states that have had where you had legislatures trying to, uh, kind of restrict voting access.

Um, Texas Republicans would say that it's not necessarily in response to the allegations from Donald Trump, that the election was stolen from him.

I mean, you've heard some republics, well, that has nothing to do that, but, but it seems to be part of a national reaction among Republicans to do this.

And, you know, we saw things during the pandemic where, for example, in bear county, uh, those over 65 were sent ballots.

Uh, I, I, I take it back.

They were sent applications for ballots okay.

Without requesting them the, and so, um, you have, you had things like that happening to try to make, uh, the mail voting process easier for people, uh, because voting in person was difficult Republicans.

One of the things in this bill would say that you can't do that.

You ha you have to, you can't, they have to request the application, uh, and you can't, you can't send it out unsolicited.

There are things like that in, in it.

Um, it restricting drive-through voting all those kinds of things.

Uh, one of the things that, that, that happened is that it late, when you tread, they had a conference can be reconciling the house and Senate bills.

There were some things added at the last minute without, uh, uh, an open process.

A very controversial item was saying that on Sundays, during early voting early voting to start til 1:00 PM, right.

And that was seen by many people as a way to keep, uh, African-American voters, uh, part of the souls to the polls movement that happens, which is primarily, uh, something that we've seen among African-American voters to try to restrict the amount of time they can vote.

Gotcha.

So, uh, tell us about, because obviously the Democrats walked out over the, as the session was coming to a close and, you know, there was no quorum.

Um, and so the, the bill could not be passed T tell us about it.

And, uh, you know, w what happens now, because governor Abbott is, you know, it's almost guaranteed, he's gonna, uh, call a special session.

What do you expect to happen from that?

Okay.

I mean, he's, he's, he has the power to decide, not only if there's a special session, but what is what the agenda items are going to be.

And there are things that were left, uh, that is certainly going to be on there.

Um, there are also things that, that, uh, Lieutenant governor Dan Patrick wanted that did not pass, uh, things like, um, re restricting, uh, transgender, uh, kids from participating in sports that aligned with their gender identity.

Um, and so those, we are going to see some of those types of things also, uh, part as part of the special sessions, governor Abbott has said that he supports those.

How does the special session work?

Cause, you know, the Democrats have described their walkout as being sort of a last resort.

W what options do they have to, to kill something like Senate bill seven?

You know what I mean?

There it is possible.

You could have a walkout.

Uh, you know, I, you know, when you're talking about special session, which is like, we're looking at a party about a month, um, it's a very difficult thing, and there will be other items on the agenda.

I think, I think that this was looked at as, uh, a way for Democrats to demonstrate that because this thing was being rushed through among other things, and, and there were certainly many items they disagreed with, they wanted to, to indicate that they were going to fight.

They've gotten, as you said, a lot of national attention, which I think has, uh, you know, it's probably, uh, will, will their cause in the 20, 22 election.

But I think also it's a signal to, to national Democrats to say, we need you to come through for us.

There is a bill, uh, in Congress, um, that is probably going to get stymied because of the filibuster rule.

And there, uh, you know, you have a Democrat, uh, Joe mansion in the Senate who does not want to get rid of the filibuster.

This is really, I think, a signal to him.

I think president Biden has made it clear how strongly he supports a federal law, uh, to, uh, you know, increase voter access.

But he, his hands are tied because if, if you Senate Democrats are not willing to get rid of the filibuster, they're going to need 60 votes to pass anything, and it won't be possible.

Gotcha.

Uh, tell us a little bit about some of the other bills that, um, that either failed or were vetoed.

Um, so some, some high, some highlights for you.

I think because Republicans did better than was expected in 2020 in the election.

And there was some thought that Democrats might even take control of the Texas house, Republicans were able to hold to their majorities.

And, uh, they've they've, they came out kind of emboldened and much more than in 2019, where they dealt with real, you know, some more substantive issues like public education.

And this one, they were, uh, it was very much a culture war sort of session led by Lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick.

We had, uh, an anti-abortion bill, which, uh, basically, uh, restricts abortions after six weeks.

It's it comes very close to, uh, making abortion illegal in the state.

Um, we have a permitless carry bill, which says anyone 21 or over can carry a handgun without a license.

Um, Star-Spangled banner, uh, bill, which is a big item for, uh, Dan Patrick, which says that if you're a sports franchise and you get, you have any kind of contract with the state, you have to play the national Anthem before a game.

So those, we saw a lot of that kind of stuff.

Gotcha.

Great.

Well, Gilbert, thank you for joining us today.

And, uh, you can read all of Gilbert's columns at, uh, experts, news.com.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see those show again, or previous shows as well as their podcasts at KLRN.ORG.

We'll see you next time.