Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow Speaker 2: 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 1: Hi everybody.

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

As we head into the first weekend of Fiesta, I'm Randy Beamer.

And in the past week, you might have seen a story about the chairman of the bear county Republican party and the bond issue that is coming up for the city.

At $1.2 billion bond package and John Austin, who is the bear county or Republican chairman joins us to talk about that.

Your take on this, you sent out a, a, I guess it was a newsletter to those who get this newsletter, the Republican party here in San Antonio.

What did you tell them about your take on the bond package?

And is this the official Republican take?

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we're the Republican party.

So typically our duty is to help Republican candidates get elected, but occasionally we swerve into something that concerns all citizens and it's not really even a Republican issue.

It's more of a San Antonio citizen issue.

I basically told the, my friends and fellow Republicans that I'm voting against the bond and I was just, they research it and really delve into it and make their own decision, but I'm recommended to vote against it for all of my friends.

Speaker 1: And this isn't something that the county leadership got together as a, as a formal meeting and voted against the bond.

And, but it's just your own take on this.

Speaker 2: Well, the Republican planks for the state party and national party are traditional conservative values.

I mean, I'm a Reagan, Ted Cruz conservative.

So I believe in smaller government, lower taxes and lower debt burden and the Republican party believes in that.

So I don't feel like it's just my opinion.

I think it's the, the standpoint of all Republicans that we don't want to be burdened with a huge debt.

Speaker 1: Now, is this something you would have said no to, I mean, it's every five years, the city of San Antonio, like a lot of cities in different different ways come up with bond packages to pay for bigger things like they're paying for a police substation, some fire stations, a lot of streets and drainage.

The main part of this $1.2 billion.

Is that something you just don't think should come in a bond package and add debt?

Technically it should be part of the general budget or Y Speaker 2: Well, I don't think that Republicans in general are against bonds.

I'm not against a good bond, but this is such a gargantuan man.

Monstrosity is $1.2 billion.

And people don't realize that if you pay that debt out over 40 years, you're going to be paying more like for close to three or $4 billion.

It's not just 1.2.

We have to pay interest on that forever, like 40 years.

Speaker 1: Well, now this also is being promoted as the others where that is not adding to the tax rate and that, and that city of San Antonio hasn't increased its tax rate.

And some of my 30 years it's cut its tax rate.

They talked about that again, I believe in February, this isn't something though.

You think these particular projects are not worth it, or they shouldn't be then Speaker 2: Like mayor Nurnberg said, there's something in here for everybody, but that's just kind of a way to get, make sure everybody votes for it because everybody, every little neighborhood they throw a bone to.

So I don't think that, I think there's some really good projects in there.

I mean, we've gone, I haven't reviewed the whole, I mean, read that from stem to stern, but there's some good projects like the police stations and the fire stations.

I'm sure there's good stuff in there, but why don't we do small, you know, focus bonds for those specific issues.

I mean, if you look, there's a bunch of pork in there there's 20 or 15 to 20 million for public art, who's picking that art, you know, you just saw that there was a story last week about a citizen that's putting up a Lennon statue down somewhere around commerce street.

Well, that's a private citizen, but you know, from the Republican standpoint, we don't want some city liberal staffer choosing what public art is.

And all of a sudden we have this, like, you know, Santa Ana statue downtown or something.

Speaker 1: I know there is a vetting process that they go through and the department of cultural affairs.

And these are things that were hashed out over since when the city staff brought it up, I think in, you know, last fall.

Right.

And then there were a series of public meetings.

Did you go to those?

Yeah, Speaker 2: I would like to see who the actual people were that were the quote unquote citizens that were on there.

I don't, none of nobody from the Republican party was asked to go participate that I'm aware of.

There might be some Republican, Speaker 1: Well, I, you know, with city it's not supposed to be democratic or Republican.

It's supposed to be, whoever wants to come come and they were inviting everybody.

Speaker 2: Okay.

So, like I said, there's probably some good items in the budget, you know, proposal and the bond proposal, I mean, but just the monstrosity of it, we're just, just finally had to stop us.

Speaker 1: What kind of response have you gotten from Republicans?

Speaker 2: Well, I think overall it's a positive response.

I mean, if you look at the planks and the party, or just the basic beliefs of like a Reagan conservatives, and it doesn't just go to Republicans, I'm sure most of the citizens in San Antonio don't want to be paying dead out over 40 years for, Speaker 1: Although these are the kinds of things.

I think the last bond issue passed by somewhere between the different packages, 70 and 80%, you know, approval, things like that.

Some might also, when you, you talk there at the beginning about sometimes you swerve into, into this kind of thing, this is unusual for Republicans or Democrats as a party to get involved in city, government outright.

And that's, I think one of the strengths people see as city, government in Texas, although there's been more of that in recent years and people painting different governments has democratic Republican.

Do you see more of that coming?

I mean, what'd, you get more swerving into the politics of, Speaker 2: Well, I think we will because we're seeing even on a national level, the government starting to get more into our personal business.

So, you know, I think that Republicans and just common sense people in the state of Texas and in San Antonio, they're not going to want a bigger government ruling their lives.

I mean, if you look at some of the previous bond issues, like there was one for a Creek project and it ended up being turning into this big park project and then it ended up gentrifying the neighborhood.

So all of a sudden the government was trying to be helpful by doing a bond project for a drainage ditch.

And now all of a sudden people are having to move out because the properties are going up in price.

I think Speaker 1: There's some different takes on that.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: So it's just, you know, we just want to have fiscal responsibility and I just think $1.2 billion is a kind of a big pill to swallow.

Speaker 1: All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in.

This is John Austin bear county Republican party chair.

Appreciate your coming in and giving your input on, on the state of the Republican party here in San Antonio right now.

I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 1: If you've been downtown recently, you may have noticed a lot of construction activity around the Alamo, and that means we're a step closer to the Alamo plan being implemented.

The Elmo plan, of course, the big renovation, and one of the people involved in that is Dr. Carrie Latimar associate professor of history at Trinity university is also on the Elmo museum committee and the city's Alamo management committee.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks so Much, Randy.

We are, after the pandemic, getting back on track for the discussion, that's going to be a little, it's always been tough as to how to portray the history of the Alamo.

And we see people on both ends of the spectrum.

Where is the museum committee now and where you are headed on how to portray that in a big museum?

The museum committee is a committee that's basically put together by the Alamo.

I guess it's the man Alamo trust.

And they're putting a number of experts in different fields together so that we can kind of do the museum the right way.

And so you've got experts.

We've just started our meetings a couple of months ago.

And so we're starting the process.

So the process is basically initiating right now, but we've got a good committee and I'm very positive and hopeful that we're going to get to the right place.

Yeah.

And recently in the news, we've seen, you know, the ends of the spectrum that Alamo was about slavery or that Alamo, the Alamo, the battle was all about Liberty.

Yes.

Federalism, things like that.

Things Like state's rights.

Where do you, I don't want to say where do you fall on that, but where do you fall in terms of how to portray those sides of interpretation as well as, as you're interpreting For me, I think it's a situation aware all of these sites probably have some pieces of things that are right.

Slavery is a piece of the conversation.

I don't think that slavery is the only piece of that conversation.

So obviously state's rights, federalism, those kinds of ideas, immigration, all of these things are part of, kind of the whole Alamo experience.

And it's part of what created the Alamos.

So I think that if we can find a way to bring all of those experiences into the conversation, we're in a better place, But that's going to be tough because there are people you will turn off right away just saying the state's rights as part of it.

If it's not all slavery, they're not going to listen.

If it's not all heroism, others are not going to hear you.

Absolutely.

But I think that the majority of people probably fit in that center.

You've got people on each side and that's kind of how it is in politics anyhow, right now.

But I, I believe that, you know, often these things like the Alamo and the Texas revolution don't happen for just one cause.

And we find that out slavery did lead to the civil war.

That was the one cause that led to the one big war.

But I think in this case, there's a lot of things.

And historically, we've looked at a lot of things.

And I think that in this case, we really have to try to dig deep, to do a deep dive for this Politics involved.

People might wonder you've got the general land office.

You have people like Dan Patrick talking very vocally about what they would like to see what their belief is.

Is that going to be an issue in what's in the museum?

For me, I think that the committee that we've put together, I mean, I think we're non, I think we have to be non-partisan.

Our politics is going to be at play.

I mean, certainly there are going to be actors that are going to act and want certain things.

But I think for a museum you have to be accurate.

You have to tell the accurate story and you have to be looking at the historical narrative.

It cannot be myth taking it.

Can't be creating myth.

And it can't be saying things that we want to hear a museum has to be accurate.

And it has to tell the truth And want to make clear that museum is the one that's going to be longterm across the street, correct?

Submission hall with the Phil Collins thing.

That's going to open much sooner than that.

You don't have anything.

I don't have anything to do with the field college part, but that's going to be a separate, that's a separate piece right now, right?

This part with the Woolworth building.

So there's those that's going to be with them.

You see them.

Well, we'll have more time to talk about that then I appreciate your time coming in.

And again, carry a lot of more.

You have a great book out unshakable faith, where you talk about reconciliation as well.

Hope people can check that out as well.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you With the opening up of all kinds of things.

Since the pandemic, you might've noticed that there are more and more art events that you're invited to more galleries that are open.

Some of them owned by the city of San Antonio.

Joining us.

Tell us about a couple of things.

The city now has opened recently, crystal Jones, the interim executive director, the city of San Antonio's department of arts and culture.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Tell us about the status of women in San Antonio, which is a, to me a fascinating exhibit right across from city hall.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So it's in Plaza, Armas net right next to the Spanish governor's palace.

This is an exhibit where we asked 15 San Antonio women artists to read the status of women in San Antonio report, which was released in 2019 and take those themes in that report that spoke to them and develop artworks based on those themes.

This exhibit, as you can imagine, is incredibly powerful.

That report had a lot of sobering data in it about domestic violence, about pay gaps, about even transportation and housing issues for women.

And these artists took those themes and brought them to a really personal level.

And this exhibit just helps forward that thought through that report.

Speaker 1: And it was put off for a time, but also this is in a place people might not have seen before.

This is where a lot of the people who were out of city hall when it was renovated, had to be for awhile.

Speaker 2: Yes, yes.

And now it's back with the department of arts and culture.

That's where our offices are.

And this exhibit is on the first floor.

And it's filled with these artworks where you can come if you're downtown for business, or even for pleasure, just come into the gallery and learn about these fantastic female artists that we have in San Antonio, but also learn about these issues that are impacting women all across our community.

Speaker 1: Was there any kind of space like this before?

I know there's central, the artists want to get to that on minute.

What's there right now, but was this a kind of space close to city hall that the city had before?

Speaker 2: Yes.

Yes.

It's, it's been city owned for quite some time and it was operating as a gallery before the pandemic hit.

And as you mentioned, this exhibit was supposed to happen in that 2000, 19, 2020 range, but now it's reopening and it's a better, it's a really great time to open it because these issues were just compounded with a pandemic.

So they're as important as ever.

Speaker 1: And what is going on now at central, they are days that's another one that recently opened people might know of that as a one in market square, the big kind of square building that used to be Museo LMA though for awhile, but at the city owns it now and has run it for a number of years.

Speaker 2: Yes we have.

And with the help of our center to art, this committee, which is a subcommittee of the San Antonio arts commission, those are members appointed by city council and the mayor.

We opened center to artists in January, once again, and we have a two-story exhibit, a with over 34 artists represented.

And this exhibit is called the New York foundation for the arts immigrant artists mentoring program, exhibit a big, long name.

But we had, we had a lot of artists and San Antonio be part of the New York foundation for the arts and mentorship program.

And this is just an extension of that program where San Antonio artist and guest curators said, let's take this program and make more of it and have an exhibit.

Speaker 1: What does it mean to be mentored as an artist, by someone from out of town?

Speaker 2: Yeah, well it actually, it paired these local artists with other established artists in San Antonio.

And so these, these emerging artists had a chance to work with artists in our community that have established portfolios, established careers to learn the ins and outs of not only creating artwork, but the business of art.

Speaker 1: And they worked through the pandemic.

Speaker 2: They, they did it Speaker 1: And deal with that or some of it because this was supposed to be before the pandemic.

Right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So the mentorship program happened before the pandemic.

And we were just about again, to, to, you know, open the space with another program.

We had to stall it for a bit.

And as soon as we had the funding restored for this gallery, we contacted the guest curators and said, can we put this together in four months?

And they met the call, the guest curators include lead curators, Kim Bishop, and Luis Valdez.

And they activated all of these artists to create these pieces.

And it is a stunning display.

Speaker 1: What is the long-term effect of the pandemic on the arts in San Antonio hotel tax, you know, helps fund different things?

How much did it fund of artists as well as the tourism industry?

Speaker 2: Yes, it was, it definitely took a significant hit, not only from city funding, but also from funding through other avenues.

You couldn't hold fundraisers as a nonprofit artists had gigs canceled at live music venues and the arts community unfortunately has been shown nationwide to take the longest and recovering from this, this big hit.

So the, the news is, is that the city council just approved $5 million and recovery and relief funds for artists and arts organizations.

And our department will be working along with city council to establish the priorities for those funds.

So we can get it out to the nonprofits.

Speaker 1: And there's a different way for individual artists now to get help that there was not in the past.

Speaker 2: Yes, we have these great individual artists project grants, and that's open right now currently.

And it's $5,000 for artists to create new works, to present, be presented to the San Antonio community.

And so we can all benefit from our, we saw what happened when it shut down and without, without art, you know, it's really the meaning of life.

It's how we express ourselves is how we deal with issues and to see it coming back and in a big way is something that's so significant for our committee Speaker 1: Quickly, before we run out of time, you were ahead of the San Antonio film commission for a time.

And we just had one big filmed here, I guess, filmed, taped here.

Tell us about that.

Speaker 2: American ninja warrior was back in town and they were at the Alamodome and we should be seeing that air.

And the next few months, if you follow us, get creative essay, you'll see posts about that.

But yeah, they were here and they hired over 200 people locally, even support staff in terms of emergency staff.

And it was all within the Alamodome filmed and taped there.

So you're going to see San Antonio onscreen when they established the shot.

And then you're going to see the Alamodome and full Gloria Speaker 1: And hopefully more of that down the road.

And it's get creative essay.com as well as online and the different handles and faces.

Speaker 2: Yes.

On Facebook, Instagram get creative essay and you can simply even go to San antonio.gov/arts and find us right.

Speaker 1: Well, thanks very much.

Crystal Jones, interim still executive director of the city of San Antonio department of arts and cultural culture.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 1: Would you believe that San Antonio is, or at least may be a step closer to having a tunnel that you could ride in from the airport to downtown?

Well, it depends on the story and the guy behind the story or knows everything about this story, business editor of the San Antonio express news, Greg Jefferson.

And we're talking about the Elon Musk, Allah, the boring company official name, and now in negotiations with the Eleanor regional mobility authority after their vote to possibly build a tunnel At tunnel the airport, Tell us about this and the backstory.

What do you think is really happening?

It starts with the regional mobility authority in San Antonio, really having, you know, just not much of a revenue base.

So most RMAs around the state of Texas get most of their money from toll projects, toll roads.

Well, guess what we hate tolls in San Antonio it's been, But it was started here for that.

And so that's exactly.

And the early odds, you know, it was founded created by the county to do toll projects.

Well, there was a huge political backlash and that never happened.

So now about half of the Army's funding comes from vehicle registration fees.

That's, that's kind of a pittance.

It's not a lot of money.

So for about three years now, the army has been looking for projects that could generate revenue.

That's not a toll project.

So about three years ago, they put out what's called an RFP or request for proposals last summer, the boring company, which is backed by a billionaire Elon Musk, they approached the Armand's RMA and said, Hey, we have an idea.

Let's do, let's do a tunnel loop from the airport to downtown San Antonio.

And this struck the RMA staff as being a good idea, good enough to, you know, they could, they couldn't negotiate an agreement with the boring company just as, as it is.

So they had to go out and make it a competitive project.

So they said, okay, tell you what we are going to open this up to any, any firm or, you know, consortium that wants to propose some better way to get from the airport to downtown.

They did, you know, they had five respondents and, you know, surprise, surprise.

The boring company came out on top in, in March.

It was the finalists they selected.

So they they've the RMA voted to negotiate a development agreement.

But I think what's going on is the RMAs, both the board and the staff.

They're kind of, you know, they're examining this, they have a lot to explore.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

I mean, it's, it's an extremely complicated, I mean, it sounds easy, right?

Just you, it's just a bore tunnel between the airport and downtown and back, but I mean, you know, you've got, you've got to deal with karst topography, you know, you've got cave systems in between the airport and downtown, you don't want to mess with those Opera.

Well, I mean, yeah, actually the recharge, the Edwards aquifer recharge zone is much farther north.

Right.

But that's Like, that's Right.

And you've got it.

It's a drainage system that kind of feeds its way to, to the recharge.

So you don't want to mess with that.

You've got property owners, obviously between the airport and downtown, you have to deal with them.

I mean, this is, you know, just because it's underground doesn't mean they can't exercise property rights.

There won't Be at least 30 feet underground.

Well, Yeah.

I mean, we don't know for sure that, and that's another problem.

So the RMA, both the RMA and the boring company, they've released very few details of what they have in mind.

What we know is that the boring company has created a loop in Las Vegas.

It's 1.7 miles, and it's all under the Las Vegas convention center and it's 40 feet below ground.

So if you say, okay, that's probably going to be similar here, you know, they'll, you know, if this ever happens.

And I think there are a lot of questions as to whether it will, if so 40 feet is probably reasonable.

Well, I mean, guess what?

Your property rights will still extend down to 40 feet.

So they've got a lot of negotiating to do.

They've got a lot of studying to do.

And you know, there's, I think there's a lot of public attention on this project right now.

Does he have more pull though, because he's moved his companies to Texas.

And is this part of a push to do a longer thing between San Antonio?

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's, that's Randy, that's a complicated question.

So I'm going to, I'm Going to help you out.

So yeah, I mean, the fact that you've got the world's richest man now most of his working life is now taking place in Texas with SpaceX and Tesla, Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin, you know, late last year.

So yes, he gets a lot of attention, the boring company though, it, you know, he created it, he founded it in 2016.

It's so it's a relatively young company and it's in no way as flashy or successful as space X or Tesla.

So they've got one operational transportation tunnel.

That's the one in Las Vegas.

The boring company has kind of a, it's like a really, they don't have a great track record.

I mean, they've, they've talked about, you know, loops in Washington, DC and Las Vegas or Los Angeles and Chicago.

And it's like, there've been complications with each one of those.

And some of those plans have just gone away.

They do seem to be much farther along in San Antonio than they do elsewhere.

But they're also talking about a similar loop in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, basically from downtown to the beach.

So, And in Austin, they've talked to, I guess, the city council as well to the Yeah.

And they're, they've gotten, they've gotten a much less receptive audience in Austin than they have here.

And at this point, it's, it's important to, to point out that the city of San Antonio, so the mayor and the city manager, they're not in love with this project and they're not putting Sydney city money toward it.

I mean, the boring company approached the city over the summer.

At the same time they were talking with the RMA and the city said, look, this is not a, this is not a high priority for us.

It's not gonna, it's not a dress, it's a Boring project.

It's a boring project.

And it doesn't, it doesn't really address traffic congestion at all.

And it doesn't, and that's, that's where it gets confusing and difficult for the RMA.

The RMA isn't looking at this as, as a transportation project is something that is going to make strange to them.

It's kind of a Where they could then work on other projects.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean the boring company estimates that, you know, they can bring in about $25 million in revenue from this tunnel.

I mean, really, I don't know.

I personally would have my doubts.

Thanks very much, Greg Jefferson.

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 at dot org.

And we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow.