Hi, everybody.

Thank you for joining us for on the record, I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are starting with what Bexar County voters approved last year.

Part of it for the stock show and rodeo grounds.

About 195 million.

But are the plans now what voters really voted on?

Here to talk about that is Cody Davenport, executive director and CEO of the Stock Show and Rodeo.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having us.

Good to be with you, Randy.

Tell us about this controversy.

Now, you said you wouldn't have been behind the plan that another group has now come up with for the rodeo grounds, because you can't have the rodeo with it.

Yeah.

I mean, to keep it very simple.

We went out and campaigned and, you know, we put a lot of faith in our fellow Bexar County constituents out there and presented a plan in conjunction with County of, you know, officials on stages went through the entire campaign.

And proposition A, the language inside of that also was very specific, talking about rodeo related facilities and things of that nature.

Well, in November, after the election was won, about two weeks after that, I have an out of town development group by the name of Lincoln Hunt and working together, come into my office and present this grandiose multi, you know, level plan that encompasses the golf course, south of us, north of us.

But what matters to us is not not the development around us or who very much are in favor of.

We want development on the east side.

We need development all the way around us.

But what was extremely concerning to us was that the actual grounds, the joint hearing, Freeman Coliseum grounds, everything around it had development throughout it, from from housing to residential streets to all this stuff in it had a little barn over there for us to do our stuff in, but there's no way it works together.

There was actually.

There was a rendering before that you were okay with and done by a local group.

100%.

We used, Gensler architectural firm here.

We work with the Coliseum Advisory Board to develop those plans together.

We went to Vegas, we went to Fort Worth.

We looked at all these different facilities so we could show them what works in a rodeo environment on a year type basis.

So we worked with this firm, with county officials from Cobb inside of there as well.

And that was.

An advisory board.

Yes, sir.

And that was the plan that we presented to the public.

That was a plan that we all were unified.

When we went out for the campaign, that also was the plan that Proposition A's language was written for.

And you went to the county yesterday to talk about this.

What happened there?

We had a. Very positive experience yesterday.

Obviously, the stirred things up.

But yesterday I had two of our county commissioners, come out extremely strong about getting back to what we promised the voters, getting back to the way the proposition was voted and their directive, was to David Smith, the county manager, to get back and start negotiating with the rodeo to finish out, you know, where we started.

It was a positive day yesterday.

How did this happen, though, going back to November?

How did this other firm come in and just say, here's what we're going to do?

Yeah.

Randy, I wish I could answer a lot of that.

That would clarify a whole lot for us.

But I will I will say that the Coliseum Advisory board, they, they sent out an RFQ or firm in July.

Request for qualifications.

Request for.

Yeah, not for proposal.

Yes, sir.

Request for qualifications.

They sent that out in July simultaneously while we were working with Gensler, with them for the plan that was supposed to go to the public, we didn't know that.

We were never included in it.

In fact, if you read the 30 page, RFQ that was presented, rodeo's not mentioned once in the entire 30 pages, not one time, is it?

Mentioned inside of their.

We don't know anything about it.

Come July, after the campaign, they come rolling into our office to roll this out to us.

And we, of course, were like, you just destroyed, the San Antonio stocks.

Probably more importantly, you just restored our entire mission of stock.

Show all the giving we give to the youth.

You know, remember, we're a nonprofit, and you destroyed everything that we give.

Could we go throw a rodeo in the AT&T and our.

I'm sorry, the false bank center?

Can we throw a rodeo in there?

Well, yeah, but that's not who we are.

And it was supposed to be a year round rodeo district or Stockton on rodeo district.

That was kind of the theme you like.

It was.

And we worked in conjunction with Cab, so they would have, convention hall finish outs and things like that, that would work in conjunction with the western part of the campus.

So we'd create an identity down there, drive people from out of town into or they're driving people out of town there.

And we're working cohesively to create this environment.

And that is what we did, extensive work and sign up with Gensler.

We work hand in hand on that.

And that is what was presented to our fellow Bexar County voters.

What did Lincoln Hunt and some of the county commissioners say about?

Well, we need this.

I don't have the answer of that either.

What I do have is I received a phone call, from David Smith that essentially told me we're shutting down all work.

The commissioners are looking at an alternate plan.

That's what I received.

And, of course, immediately we go into the office of, say, one, the center on structure one is not going anywhere.

We will we will fight to reside there on the east side, what we always called home, number one and number two.

Probably more importantly, that's not what all of our fellow voters voted for.

Where were they in the campaign?

And also to make clear, the county owns that land.

So what's the relationship with the structure when.

The county owns the, owns the land?

We would lease it.

Farm.

We're working right now.

You know, if we get through all this, we'd have a long term lease with them.

But there are also Joe and Harry Freeman donated that land to the county, and there are deed restrictions attached through legislation in that regular donation.

And it states for agricultural use.

It even has some references to the amount of parking necessary.

So this isn't real clean as far as they own that land.

But it was given for a purpose which we have fulfilled, you know, since 1949.

And we want to continue fulfilling and we want to have a great relationship with the county continuing.

Again, I go back to you.

We have commissioners in there that are standing up and doing the right thing right now.

And I'm hoping we all get back to that point.

What you know, specifically in this new plan or this other plan would not work for the rodeo.

Absolutely not.

Oh, why.

Will one of those residential roads throughout it, too?

It has rental housing right up next to a festival grounds and rodeo grounds.

We've got getting animals through and you can't.

It's dangerous.

There is no pedestrian street right next to livestock holding streets, combined with residential housing right next to festival grounds.

They do not blend.

There's no compatible compatibility.

I can't move livestock in.

And now there I can't throw festivals like San Antonio used to.

We don't have flexibility of moving things around and essentially when the development allows control of all the traffic in the streets inside of there, you've destroyed a rodeo or a festival event.

It would be the end of us.

And what do you think the timeline is going to be now after everything stopped?

We have a, internal timeline with the county right now as far as where we're negotiating these types of things, and we're looking at August to have everything wrapped up and deliver what the voters voted for.

How about different firms being involved?

And you said there was only one that responded to this request for qualifications.

Yes, sir.

Not even a proposal or request.

Will that go out again?

Do you think that could change with different requirements?

I would sure hope not.

I think again, we need to deliver what was presented to the voters.

We have a firm in there.

We show drawings throughout the campaign.

That's where this is Gensler, the local firm.

Right.

Local branch area.

And they could do the whole thing.

This wasn't just a conceptual rendering.

They would be able to do.

They'd be able to finish it all the way through.

Yes, sir.

And what would this involve when you talked about development around it, what you would like to see, say, in those parking lots or the areas even farther south or north, the industrial areas and then across with the golf course.

Oh, had great opportunity.

It's it's real simple math.

You look at us in February and we're bringing on 1.5 million people in the month of February.

You know, you go down there and we have people all over the place.

And as I said throughout the campaign, these are not people just driving in for the day.

These are people coming in on our competition formats.

Things like that, staying on average for three days.

So the opportunity is ripe for all that around us.

I know the golf course has been mentioned, you know, many times by Judge Sacchi, whatever takes place with the city and county, there's way above my pay grade.

But what an opportunity to take at least a front section along there and do some nice development there.

There's property right next door to Coca Cola right now that's for sale.

There's property of the North, that's industrial, that's for sale.

There's opportunity all around the perimeter.

Why would you take the established economic impact driver of the San Antonio Stock Show on rodeo right now?

There's there every year we're at what, around 330 million and economic impact.

Why would you destroy that and take a gamble on something that might work.

Now on the other side, I don't know how County Commissioner Tommy Calvert feels about this, but they are arguing they need more residential, they need more full time.

Some had questioned whether there could be a year round stock show and rodeo district that's feasible.

Sure.

And I agree wholeheartedly with him.

I think there does need to be housing.

I think there does need to be retail into them.

I believe that all that what I do not believe is you take an established entity that brings in people and has the economic impact like we have.

It has been there as long as we have and displace it with all that as an idea that might work.

And how about getting along with all this?

You think by August it can happen that you have, say a different plan that's more acceptable to you?

I think it can be done by August.

I do not believe in a different plan.

I think we deliver what was promised to the voters.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

Appreciate your time and coming in.

Cody Davenport, executive director and CEO of the stock Show and Rodeo.

Thanks.

Thanks, Randy.

A bill is moving through Congress right now that would affect the limits on air pollution in Texas.

Here to talk about that and the status of the bill is Cyrus Reed, the legislative and conservation director of the Sierra Club, the Lone Star chapter.

Thank you very much for coming in.

This is called the Fences Act and the House has passed.

It's going to the Senate.

What would this do?

So do a couple of things.

One is it expands and the federal Clean Air Act, the ability of local governments that have high levels of pollution, whether that pollution is from ozone or smog or particulate matter, both of which are very dangerous to people to breathe.

But it would allow them to seek an exemption from having to meet air quality standards by claiming that the pollution came from out of the country, so be it Mexico or sub-Saharan dust, basically saying we don't need to meet these pollution standards because this, these emissions from out of the country are affecting our emissions.

Therefore, let's not do anything now.

That sounds maybe odd to some people, but I remember doing stories since the 80s that the wind direction and, some of the pollution actually comes into Texas from the northeast and then down along the coast up to the Big Bend area in West Texas.

Is that.

The case?

That is true, that depending on the pollutant, pollution doesn't respect boundaries, right?

And it is true that some of the pollution that we breathe comes from other states or other countries.

That being said, we still believe this act is very dangerous because what it really does is create an exemption and create the ability for local government to say, hey, we can't do anything about this, so we're not going to do anything about that.

And that means that our local population breathes dirtier air.

And from Mexico there are coal fired power plants along the border and farther into Mexico.

And those, the particulate comes up from Mexico.

Yeah.

That's correct.

And the other big source of pollution from Mexico tends to be the wildfires or the burning of agricultural products.

And we see a lot of this in the valley.

The valley has pretty high levels of particulate matter at certain times of years.

Some of that does emanate from Mexico and Central America, from the burning of crops.

So how do you prove that?

How would you say that's that's illegal?

You know, dust.

It's a hard thing to prove.

For many years, El Paso County had under the federal, federal Clean Air Act, they had some exemptions.

It didn't cause them not to do things locally to reduce pollution.

It did give them sort of a little bit of a pass on some of the requirements.

And that's in, in the existing law.

But the fences act really expands that.

It allows a local government or the state that is, submitting the state implementation plan to the EPA to say because of any one of these factors.

And so it's factors for things like exceptional events that are occurring or for an emissions, or other ways that can prove they're not ever going to get designated, not attainment when you don't get designated, not as hazmat.

Not only are you not subject to potential fines, but you don't have to do things like have, more rigorous permitting processes.

So right now, in Texas, if you're an industry that wants to locate in Bexar County or Houston or Dallas or El Paso, all of which are non attainment, you have to show how you're going to reduce pollution from other sources in order to locate there, and you have to go through a more rigorous permitting process.

Those things could go away with the fence.

When you said non-attachment, I know that rings a lot of bells in San Antonio.

The center, you know, the business industry here has fought against that for years.

People don't want to have emissions testing, which is coming.

How would that affect us?

Or would an emissions testing?

So I don't know if it would affect, you know, a lot of this this is this is a proposed law.

It hasn't passed yet.

A lot of it is going to depend on how the state and the local government entities choose to move forward.

Are they going to argue that we have the science to show that all of this is being caused by foreign emissions or exceptional events, or aren't they?

And so a lot of it goes back to what is the public pressure on those local governments.

And so I'm not sure that it would impact Bexar County in particular.

But those are the types of measures, meant to reduce air pollution, because after all, that's why the Sierra Club is against this act, because we want to protect people from air pollution.

And you are also on, the Texas Water Development Board.

Are you going to the meeting about, say, data centers and, and water supply?

What's the latest there in terms of the Texas legislature addressing this?

Yes.

So the, Texas Water Development Board is required by Texas law every five years to produce a Texas water plan.

Right now, they have a draft water plan.

That water plan shows that we're going to need, something like $170 billion over the next 50 years to meet our water supply needs.

And, of course, the Sierra Club did support the law that passed last year that voters then authorized, and.

That was to the whole water plan to pay for more water sources.

Exactly.

But it didn't really bear in mind or a plan for all the data centers.

It did not.

And if you look at the proposed draft Texas water plan, it does not incorporate this growth in data centers in the water they're going to need going forward.

We need to be able to incorporate the water use from data centers and at least predict it, because if we know some of that data and we know what the future might bring, for one, hopefully we can encourage the legislature to say, if you're a data center and you want to come to Texas, don't use potable drinking water, use reclaimed water, and two, don't use open cooling systems where the water is being lost.

Make sure they're closed loop system.

So if we could do those two things stay away from potable groundwater.

Do you think that that is possible?

I think it is.

Especially after what's happening in Corpus Christi right now.

I think it's possible.

I think the legislature is hearing from lots of conservative and liberal Texans who are very concerned about data centers, particularly coming to more rural and suburban areas and potentially sucking up the groundwater.

We saw the a lot of people concerned in San Marcos just up the road.

They were concerned about how it's going to impact the springs and their aquifers.

And so I think if I think if the enough pressure comes on the legislature, whoever wins in November, I think we can make a difference.

And from water to power, you also on a committee with Ercot and for data centers there, that's another thing, I guess part of the technology is changing so fast.

Maybe lawmakers haven't kept up with how this is working.

I mean, I would say even for myself, four years ago at the at the legislature, we were worried about crypto mines and bitcoin mining.

That was the big thing on the horizon that everyone concerned, they passed a law to at least require some reporting on it.

And then last legislative session, they did pass a law, SB six, to require some interconnection standards for these large loads coming to Texas.

But the scope and breadth of it is overwhelming.

So Ercot just did a prediction in April of if all these data centers actually interconnect, what would our total amount of energy use be?

And it goes from get this 85GW of power currently on Ercot at peak 85 to 92, 367GW in five years.

In five years.

Yeah.

Now all those data centers and AI and hydrogen facilities aren't coming, right?

They're not going to come in five years planned.

Those are predictions.

People who've said, we want to come to Texas, we want to interconnect to the Ercot grid.

So that's not actually going to happen.

But we are expecting a large influx of these data centers, that is going to impact potentially everyone's bill.

The Public Utility Commission is looking at how we pay for transmission.

And hopefully they.

Would use more liquefied natural gas, coal, that kind of thing.

And that's why the Sierra Club is involved.

So I don't know that they use coal or liquefied natural gas, but they are interested in building gas plants.

So there's a number of proposed gas plants, both within undercut.

But even in El Paso matters, and El Paso Electric are working on some new gas plants.

There's ones, and Hood County, CPS energy also recently purchased a number of new gas plants right.

In East Texas.

And East Texas.

And I think part of it is they're looking at the future of data centers even coming to San Antonio area and saying they're going to need power.

So we got to serve them.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

Appreciate your time and, expertise and explaining all this stuff to us.

Cyrus Reed, who is the, executive legislative director, and conservation director of the Sierra.

Legislative and Conservation director of the Lone Star chapter, the Sierra Club.

Thank you, thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, the results of the primary runoffs and what they mean.

Here to talk about that is Andrea Rush government and politics reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Busy night Tuesday night.

Were you surprised by any of the races?

Or at least by the numbers, maybe with, Cornyn and Paxton?

Cornyn wound up losing by 28 points.

I don't think that anybody could have predicted that going into the night.

But, you know, we spent the last six months or so hearing from Republicans how if, if a Paxton makes it through this race, if, if some of these Republicans make it through, this will be so dangerous to them in November.

And now that is the situation that they find themselves in.

And, and we'll have to sort of turn around some messaging here on how they're going to pull this off in November.

But it shows, for one thing, Trump's power in the Republican Party with the base, he came in last minute with an endorsement, all of his endorsements in terms of senatorial and gubernatorial candidates and House candidates, have paid off.

True.

And headed into this night.

He'd had some big victories.

He had Trump critics that lost in, Indiana and Kentucky and Louisiana and so on the Monday of early voting, you had both John Cornyn and Chip Roy, who was running for attorney general in San Antonio, feeling kind of good about their prospects.

And I think Chip Roy and said his polling was showing him pretty close.

And then the next day, Trump comes in with this endorsement in the Texas Senate race, and everything kind of goes out the window.

And we wound up with this weird dichotomy of Democrats that had this crazy primary, where all of this turnout surrounding James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett wound up with all these sort of weird down ballot results where you had Marino Lindo finishing first in this Texas 35 race where she just, you know, taking 300 votes in a city council race.

And people were kind of panicking about what to make about these results.

Yet incumbents that were popular who were swept out.

And then fast forward to the runoff.

James Talarico had already won the Senate nomination.

They had a much quieter runoff, not as many exciting races.

And the results were very predictable, and you had more inclined to just get crushed in that Texas 35 race.

You also had, you know, the former constable Michel Berry, into fellow Democrats who were a little concerned about what she might do in House district 125, but she was defeated easily by Adrian Urena there.

Then on the Republican side, you still have this raging primary that's influencing.

Absolutely everything is on the ballot.

Yeah.

Took out Chip Roy in the attorney general's race.

Probably took out John Luhan in Texas 35, which, you know, he left his state House district to run for that.

So he's out of a job totally all the way down to this crazy railroad commissioner race.

Bo French, the former Tarrant County GOP chair, who Greg Abbott was campaigning across the state saying, we've got to stop this guy.

This is not who we want to be.

The face of our party.

He's made so many controversial comments about, immigrants and Muslims, and he winds up wiping out this incumbent on the railroad.

That has nothing to do with a railroad commission.

Now, which has to do with railroads.

But also has nothing to do with race in district 35.

And in that race is going to be Johnny Garcia, now.

Sheriff spokesman Johnny Garcia, not somebody who we were expecting to run for Congress this year.

But Democrats, that district was drawn for Republicans, and it looked fairly red.

And they didn't get any high profile recruits.

And national Democrats looked at the candidates and said, this guy actually, we think he's got it and spent, you know, a good chunk of money getting him over the line against Maureen Galindo.

They were they ended up spending money against her at the end, while Republicans were spending money for more England to try to get a weaker opponent in there.

So Republicans have said that that district is not concerning to them at all, but they were interested in trying to get a weaker opponent through there.

Now, Republicans spent more money than ever before in the Senate race, in the Senate runoff, kind of beating each other up.

Are we going to see that kind of money, you think, from outside for both Democrats and Republicans?

Are we going to see more money spent than ever before?

Presumably, Texas looks like a much better target for Democrats after last night.

And yes, spending records were broken to try to protect corn.

And that's money that came from, you know, the protecting the rest of the Republican senators that then was set on fire when Trump came in and endorsed against him.

That's you know, they're supposed to be on the same team up there in DC.

And now, speaking of that up there in DC, what does it mean, you think with Cornyn unleashed, you could say he's a lame duck, a chip Roy on the House side.

Could they throw a wrench in Republicans plans.

The coalition of ousted Trump critics is growing.

You know, Bill Cassidy from Louisiana.

The senator who lost his primary went back in immediately, then voted with Democrats on a resolution to end Trump's Iran war.

It's interesting.

Chip Roy was in town talking about, you know, I'll have seven months left up there no matter what.

He ran circles around his own house.

Speaker it it'll be interesting to see what this unleashed group of critics does over the next corner.

And I understand last night said something like that.

He is going to support the Republicans, the Republican Party and the Republican ticket, which after that race would be hard.

But, okay.

Other races, Jane Davis loosening chop.

Da race.

What does that.

Mean?

You know, the winner of this is in a blue county most likely to replace, Joe Gonzalez, who's retiring, and Luiz Elena Chapa pulled it out by a hair.

She's the former Fourth Court of Appeals justice who has never been a prosecutor before, but she wound up with the endorsement from the police union that was so tired of the Gonzalez era.

Jane Davis was up in the beginning, and then end up ended up tightening up.

But this is kind of like what we've seen across the board that Democratic primary voters were excited about Luis Elena Choppa because of more of a values proposition than experience.

And same thing wound up happening in the attorney general's race where Mayes Middleton, you know, was the exciting candidate to conservatives.

And Chip Roy was out there like.

But this guy has never been anything related to this job at all and didn't matter.

So on the Republican side, we see more conservatives winning on the Democratic side.

Did we really see any trends with progressives versus moderates or conservatives even in that a couple of races?

Yeah, well, in that Texas 35 race, a lot of money was spent for Maureen Glendon, the outspoken progressive, and for Dani Garcia, the more moderate candidate, very moderate.

And he wound up pulling it off.

So this primary runoff was just a different beast for Democrats.

You know, there's talk every year on the Democratic side, complaints of, well, the people who, vote is a very small number on the Republican side in the primaries.

And they basically decide who is going to win because Texas is a red state.

Do you think this year Texas will be as red?

I mean, that's the bottom line.

Everybody's flipping a coin there.

Always.

Democrats are always talking about turnout at purple.

Do you see that this year with, the economy and blowback against some of Trump's policies?

Well, I think it'll be the voters in November who decided not necessarily this primary.

This was a flashpoint that Republicans had warned.

Would, you know, John Cornyn had warned would put this state in play.

And so I think tons of money will flow into Texas, and that will impact every race up and down the ballot.

And that, state Senator Mays, MAGA Middleton, that just shows the power of MAGA.

That shows the power of $15 million.

He is an oil and gas heir who was able to put a lot of money into this race in the beginning, and then finish, you know, sort of surprised Chip Roy finished a distant second in the primary, the first round and then sort of tightening up as more money was coming in at the last minute for Chip Roy.

But now you have sort of a conservative leader sidelined from this fight.

What else surprised.

This spreads I think that these races weren't even close and none of, the district attorney races about the only place close race we had and that railroad commissioner race, the 2030 point spreads, was just astounding.

I think, you know, for Democrats to have come in and spent all that money against Maureen Glendon, it wasn't even close to spend all of that money on John Cornyn.

And it wasn't even close.

It's just kind of wild.

Does it show the weakness of polling?

I don't want to say the weakness of punditry, but the weakness of polling.

I don't know, you know, the do you see that the House campaign arm wound up coming in with ads for Johnny Garcia, like on the last day of voting.

So who knows?

Yeah, who knows what numbers that they were looking at that could be influenced in one day of voting?

Well, it's going to be interesting, but you get a break from all that kind of stuff for a while, at least a month before the ACC runoff.

All right.

Thanks very much, Andrea Ross.

Who knows everything there is to know about politics, and government for the San Antonio report.

You can read her stuff there.

Thanks.

Thanks.

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

You can watch the show again.

Any previous shows?

You can also download it as a podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.