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: Hi, everybody.

Welcome to on the record.

I'm Randy BeamerP and we're talking about some of the big issues in San Antonio.

And of course this week we had an election that was a little different than usual.

We ran and we had a mayor's election.

We had people running for all 10 city council districts, school, district elections, but the big one was focused on policing here in San Antonio and what some people might see as kind of a wonky part of it is collective bargaining and proposition B.

And joining us to tell us about the winning side of that campaign.

Danny Diaz, who was Danny Diaz, who's president of the police union here that you police association, Danny, thank you for joining us.

First of all, last time I talked to you, you had just moved into the office and they hadn't moved anything in, and you were already focused on this proposition.

B how does it feel now that you won, even though it was a narrow victory?

Speaker 1: I still haven't moved everything out of the office cause I was focused on that election.

Uh, but look, I, uh, it was a lot of work and it was hard fought and, uh, it was a victory for the citizens of San Antonio.

Now the, the work is to continue to educate the citizens and let them see that the information we were getting out is true and factual and, and, uh, not misrepresentation.

Speaker 2: What does that really mean?

Because some people were either for or against, but for different reasons.

Um, what do you say that the, uh, defeat of prop B means for the average citizen?

Speaker 1: So for the average citizen, that gives us the opportunity to continue the work and the dialogue with the city city staff.

Um, look, we've said it all along and it not only entails, uh, the, the officer's, uh, benefits and whatnot, but it's the equipment that we need to work, uh, for the citizens.

Uh, so those things we can, we can sit down and talk about.

Uh, but first and foremost, Randy, I got to tell you that, that if, if anything showed me about Saturday night, was that 49% of the citizens don't trust us.

And, um, I'm, I'm, I'm here to say that we're not the, uh, the evil beans that we've been portrayed out to be.

Uh, so my goal is, and I said this before, and when you and I first met is that we need to get back out into the community and let the citizens know that we are here for them in many ways and one other than, than, uh, than in a, in a police perspective.

Uh, but we got get back and so that we can meet that, that one-on-one that open dialogue and, and they know where we're coming from.

Uh, we also know the needs and, and work together.

Speaker 2: Well, now there's a lot of, uh, history people might not realize about this particular issue.

It goes back to the state allows, uh, local organizations like the police union to have collective bargaining if the city okay.

Is it so city, voters years ago?

Okay.

To didn't think a lot of it, but there was a lot of bad blood, a lot of controversy over the police and fire union contracts and how they extended and extended the negotiations.

Um, because of that evergreen clause that got a lot of attention, this election was more about, was it about that or in any way, or was it because of things like defund to police and people wanting to have a tighter reign on, uh, discipline, uh, policing?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So, uh, look this time around, it had to deal with the national conversation, right.

Uh, which has reformed.

We understand it.

Uh, we've been working hard and doing our due diligence to talk with the city about those.

Uh, and if you've actually been watching, uh, some of the sessions that we've had already, we've made, uh, concessions to a lot of those issues that they were talking about, we're still in talks.

So I don't want to say, um, we specific on, on certain issues because we don't even know if those are going to change, right.

We will continue to come and bargain in good faith and to work hard, to reach an agreement that is not only fair, uh, for the city, but for us having the citizens, as far as what happened in the past that I can't speak for my predecessor.

Uh wasn't in charge then, uh, the only thing that I do know is that it was personal between him three individuals, which was, uh, uh, my predecessor Christele and Charles Kelly.

Um, and that was the infighting with them, but I wasn't involved in that aspect of it.

Um, if you look at our past contracts, one year was pensions.

The next contract that was pay, uh, last one we had was insurance.

Speaker 2: This contract, the negotiations, are they focused on discipline?

And how much will that, can that change?

Speaker 1: Well, th there's there's room for improvement, right?

And the idea is to make sure that everything that we do is, is, is to move forward, not to regress, but to progress and to improve.

Uh, so we can improve on, on all of the things that that's in that contract.

Uh, we'll be more than happy to do it, uh, but we need the, the, the ability to sit down and speak to the city is what we needed to keep.

Right.

So, um, I guess, let me throw this, let me put it this way.

Um, I have no idea what it takes to do your job, and I can't be expected to come and do it, uh, the way you would write with perfection and get those questions out.

Uh, the same way that I don't expect fix SAPB to come in until the city and the union, how to do the bargaining and what's good for them and what isn't, because what it boils down to is they want what they want when they want it.

Um, and that might not be best for the entire city of San Antonio.

Um, so th they, uh, they kept throwing out things like meet and confer, and the city said they didn't want to go to that.

Um, they kept saying, Austin was a meeting confer.

They got better Pam benefits, but I was in Austin last week.

And those officers are telling me that the reason why they want me to converse, because they can come back and just get signatures on a petition to knock that down also.

So there's fairness to it.

Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much.

This is going to be something we're going to hear a lot about in the coming days and weeks because of the ongoing negotiations.

Uh, look forward to hearing more about it.

Danny Diaz, president of the San Antonio police officer's association.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Joining us now is EJA Pinnock, who was in the other side of the prop B debate.

He is the president or co-founder of fix SAP D and you push for property.

How do you react to what happened with property?

It did fail, but it was close.

Yeah.

First of all, we'd like to thank everyone who came out and voted for proppy and everyone that came out and voted against property.

What we wanted to do with prop B was bring this issue to the public.

Now, the entire city of San Antonio is talking about what's going to happen with these upcoming contract negotiations.

It was represented in different ways by different people, defund.

The police was one of the phrases used.

How do you describe what proposition B was for in your mind Proposition?

B was a very simple concept.

It was a way that we can move to a system where we, as citizens get to vote on the police union contracts.

We felt that that was the best way to make sure that citizens' needs were addressed at the negotiating table.

Discipline.

That is the main thing with it, or is it a bigger than that?

In, in many ways it started just in discipline and then it expanded to the idea that why as citizens, we should have greater control over our contracts.

Now, the number one issue for citizens is discipline.

And that's been the issue that for decades just has not been addressed simply because citizens were not at the negotiating table.

It was either the union.

They did not want to talk about discipline or the city that was willing to fold on discipline to get, uh, breaks in other issues.

Now you're an example of a lot of people who got into this whole issue recently, or more recently, what got you into it?

You said that George Floyd and your sister.

Yeah.

So, uh, after the death of George Floyd, there was a, you know, mass protests all across the country.

Uh, this was also during the COVID lockdowns.

Uh, my little sister had called me and she said, Hey, we're going out to a protest.

Would you like to join?

I felt bad because I felt like a little bit of a wimp because didn't want to go outside because of COVID.

But I thought, you know what, I'm going to do some research on this and see what we can do, uh, locally.

And then that's really where we got started.

And also talking to my big sister.

Uh, we decided that this was, uh, an issue we could focus on the San Antonio police union contracts.

And Can you describe what you see as the relationship between the city or the police I should say, and the rest of the city and the community in San Antonio, what do you want to change in that relationship?

So, let's talk about that.

Uh, so there is the relationship between the city and the police and the police union and the city and the citizens of San Antonio.

So it's like very complex things like most San Antonians I'm from the city.

We love our police officers.

They, most of them do a fantastic job.

The problem we had was we had a contract that was designed without citizen input, and it's designed to help keep bad officers on the force.

And for decades it's never been addressed.

This is our chance to address it.

And when I went out and I talked to officers on the street, most of them were like, Hey, look, we don't like these bad officers will, we're also willing to move on a discipline.

So I think these contract negotiations that are coming up are a great chance for everybody citizens, city and the police union to get together and come up with a wonderful solution for it.

Now, the police chief is also a one who has complained about not being able to get rid of those bad apples as he put it, but was against prop B. Um, and the mayor was kind of, uh, you know, stayed out of that.

Um, were you surprised at how much money and effort was put against property or did you expect that?

No, not at all.

Not at all.

There is a great video.

I really hope everybody goes online and sees it.

It's a chief McManus, the mayor, and there were co-ops city manager, the city manager.

And they're talking about what would happen if somebody did make an attempt to fix the issues within the contract, they said, you would see great political pressure and great financial pressure put upon you by the union.

So the chief was right then and he, he proved prescient.

Uh, we saw a lot of pressure to put up against us now as to him being against property and never officially came out and said he was against ropy.

He said, he's for collective bargaining.

Now he never said he was for collective bargaining for officers.

Never said he was against making changes to the contract.

You see for fixed SAPD from here again, they're still working on negotiating the contract.

Uh, what do you want to see in that contract?

Well, we want to see is right now, there's a major problem that neither the city or the union is talking about San Antonio's, uh, civilian oversight is ranked worst in the state.

And I want to repeat that it is ranked worse in the state, and we have the worst rehire rate for fired officers due to this broken system.

So the number one thing that is that we would like to see the neither the city nor the union is talking about is for us to reform our civilian oversight system and make it a true civilian oversight system.

Right now they're fighting over whether an out of town arbitrator or the chief of police should have the final word in the civilian oversight system.

We think that just doesn't make any sense.

Civilians have a place, and they should be the final and whatever its civilian oversight system should definitely leave room for the chief to be able to make hiring and firing decisions.

But ultimately you need to have a systems where it's civilians make the final decision and we can audit, uh, you know, we can audit the investigations and feel, feel comfortable as a community.

Is your organization going to continue after this?

I mean, I know there are public, you know, input on negotiations and what people want to see in policing in San Antonio.

What are you, what are you pushing for right now?

Right now?

Our focus one city council has been the city council racism and settled is to focus on the creation of that contract.

We're calling on every citizen to call up your city council member, heck call up the candidates who are running for city council.

If you must and let them know, we need to address the issues of fixed SAP is identified.

And if you have more issues that you'd like to add to the contracts, please let them know.

The whole point is to get the whole community, uh, San Antonio, as a whole focused on this issue, making sure we get the best contract that works for everyone.

And then also one last thing.

Uh, you mentioned the mayor and how he basically stayed away from this issue.

Uh, the mayor, this was the same guy who ran in the street and said, I'm the mayor, hold me accountable.

Everybody quilts that line, but there's a line right after that, where he says, we can fix this together.

And that's the line I wanna focus on.

How can we citizens city council, the mayor, and the rest of, uh, San Antonio?

How can we work together to fix this issue?

All right.

Well thanks very much EGA Pinnock.

It sounds like you might have a little political future.

No, it's really no.

In fact, that's the one thing that I, I, I, I love about not wanting the future in politics.

It allows me to be consistent.

I don't have to hide my actual views.

Wow.

All right.

That's unusual for people that we interview.

All right.

Thanks.

Very much.

EJI pain of a fixed SAPD.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

And back to on the record, we were talking now with Jackie Wang of the San Antonio report used to be the Revard report and she covers local government for the website.

And thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, this was an unusual election in terms of the voter turnout, a little better than we expected record early, and then record that record overall, but pretty good over all 17%, we have also five runoffs in the council districts.

What surprised you about?

Speaker 1: Well, I think everyone knew that district two, which has historically been a district of constant council overturned in the last 10 years or so.

And, uh, we weren't surprised to see that go into a runoff, especially with such a crowded field.

Three and five were open without incumbents.

We expected that, but one to nine, um, which both have, uh, incumbents who've been there for some time, uh, are going to run off, which I definitely didn't expect.

Speaker 2: John courage, nine Roberto Trevino one.

Do you think it was maybe a little controversy over the Alamo and the fact that he was taken off, uh, that position that could have played a part in that he was kind of at a, I wouldn't say a rift with Ron Nurenberg, but there was a of opinion there over what to do.

Speaker 1: So I can't say for sure, obviously I don't know exactly what brought motors out and what didn't.

Um, I would imagine that maybe seeing his name in the headlines, um, and the coverage of it might have put him in a different light than they would have thought of him before.

And we all know, uh, the mayor was very popular, right.

Um, throughout the pandemic and he won overwhelmingly in his race.

So perhaps that did play a role, but we'll never know for sure.

Speaker 2: John courage and Patrick gondola and a challenger in nine what's going on there.

Speaker 1: Well, um, Patrick Von and has run, I think three times now he's ran in 2017, 20, 19, 2017.

He didn't make the runoff, but, um, 2019, Oh, no, he's never made the runoff.

I'm sorry.

And, uh, I think that maybe a combination of him consistently running, um, uh, Councilman courage himself said, uh, that he ran a very strong campaign as did air Como, who came in third.

They both outraised, um, courage in the last haul.

Um, and I think they also outraised him in other periods as well.

Um, so it was a combination of both name recognition built up, I think, I think, uh, and also just being really willing to raise and spend money.

Speaker 2: Also.

It seems like this year it's more people want to know who is a Republican and who's a Democrat, even though we run as independence in city races.

I understand people were calling the election office asking that, and in, in number nine, uh, Patrick Von Dolan is run more as a Republican.

And we've seen that in some of the other races.

What do you make of that?

Speaker 1: Uh, I think it just kind of shows that people maybe aren't as connected with local government as they could be.

Right.

I remember seeing headlines myself on election night that said democratic challenger or Republican candidate.

And that's just not how it works here.

Right.

Um, but it's also very advantageous, um, to someone like Patrick Von Dolan who runs on, um, very conservative values.

Right.

And he's tried to pay himself as that, even though none of those values maybe come up in actual city council decisions.

And that's what I think Councilman courage has done his best to emphasize Speaker 2: Now a district to Jayda Andrew Sullivan and the challenger who could be the first openly gay black man to be a Councilman.

Uh, but he had worked for her in the past.

What is it there in district two, as you said, they have changed the council members.

How many times?

Over the past 10 years, Speaker 1: I believe the last repeat person was Ivy Taylor.

So it's been a while.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

And is there something there as an issue or is it just that, uh, people are, are, did the police prop B thing come into play at all in?

Speaker 1: Oh, I I'm not.

I don't think so.

I think property played a role in pretty much every race that we saw, because that was the most turnout of any of the races, right?

Like more people voted for the prop B than, um, or voted in the property race.

Then they'd voted in the mayoral race.

Um, both are citywide.

So I would hesitate to say that was the reason why D two drew so much interest from the community.

I, I think, and this is me.

I moved here very recently.

So my historical knowledge is not as good, but I think maybe they're, they want to see something and they haven't seen it every time.

Um, whenever they see someone maybe not rising to the occasion in their minds and they say, we'll try for a new one.

Speaker 2: And the other two races also, no incumbents, uh, big, big fields, not really a surprise.

There's no runoffs.

What do you look forward to in terms of the makeup of the council overall this year with five runoffs, it's hard to tell, but in the past we've had more diversity, more women than in years and years past.

Are we going to see that again this year?

And is that important in the issues that we're facing right now?

Speaker 1: Well, I think that having, um, diverse representation on any body is usually important just because having perspectives come in from, uh, not all one background is helpful.

Um, that being said, it's not like, just because you're a woman raises your man makes you a better council person.

Um, in district three and five, both of our departing incumbents are women.

And both of those races have women who did quite well in the, uh, the general and we're ahead of the pack.

So I think it's a good chance that we see that trend continue, Speaker 2: But philosophically, no big changes you think in terms of, uh, the direction that the council will go?

Speaker 1: I don't think so.

No, but I mean, that's remains to be seen.

Um, they're really just trying to turn out voters right now and we'll see if they can do that.

Okay.

Speaker 2: I'm asking your crystal ball and I know it's going to be real tough, especially before five runoffs and, uh, it's important for people to get out there and about, thank you very much, Jackie Wang.

Hmm What are you talking now with Madison is leader of the San Antonio express news covers real estate.

And right now we're talking about something a little different on the West side.

People might not have heard or may have heard of the concept, but land trusts and there's one being used now to develop or help develop a certain part of the West side, uh, that the Esperanza peace and justice center is involved in which people might wonder, okay, wait, Esperanza peace and justice center, or the Esperanza center and land, how did that come together?

And what do they do?

So the Esperanza center recently received some funding from the San Antonio housing trust foundation and fund to set up this community land trust, and also an emergency demolition fund.

Um, so the goal of this is to preserve affordable housing on the West side, which is where the Esperanza center.

Um, so the way that a community land trust works is the trust buys property houses or land where houses will be built, um, and then rents it or resells the houses to residents often at a certain income level.

In the case of the Esperanza center, that's residents earning up to 30% of the area, median income, um, the trust then leases the land underneath it to the residents, which lowers the property tax bill.

Um, and the lease terms are often for quite a long time.

So 99 years, for example, um, to preserve that affordable housing in perpetuity, And now the Esperanza center had been working in this particular area.

I think they call it Esperanza.

And then this is an expansion of that, But they've done a lot of work preserving other structures in the area and recently acquired three small houses.

So they'll start the trust with those three houses, rehabilitating, and then renting those out And kind of backing that up.

Uh, they're going to be spending some money as well to match, but where is the rest of the money w San Antonio housing trust fund, where does that come from?

Basically San Antonio housing trust funded foundation is providing about 300,000.

Esperanza's matching that with the three houses that I just mentioned and also some of their own cash.

And then there's more fundraising to be done.

So this is in the early stages.

Um, when I interviewed the, the Esperanza's director Graziella Sanchez, uh, she said there are still a lot of conversations to be had with the city with taxing entities.

Um, and just with education, with explaining what a land trust is and how it works and how the demolition fund also will, But it's becoming more important.

And that was an issue when, uh, the Alison courts deal that was going to be raised and then redeveloped.

Um, there was an issue with that and they decided not to do that.

They're going to rebuild that.

Where are we in terms of in San Antonio, the price of housing going up, it's been a great year for real estate for some, but for so many, it means taxes are going up.

Can't afford the house that they're living in.

How big an issue is.

If you see as you've covered real estate Housing prices have been going up for a while, but have really spiked during the pandemic and inventory or the supply of houses that are available for sale has gotten even tighter.

Um, it reached a record low, I believe in March, um, at 1.3 months, um, and inventory at the lower end of the price spectrum is particularly tight.

It's really hard to find a house under 350,000 that's in decent shape.

Um, so land trusts vehicles like land trusts are becoming more important.

As housing costs are rising and outpacing wage growth, um, in the area where the Esperanza center operates on the near West side, there are also some concerns about the potential effects of development, uh, with projects planned in West downtown and more interest in developing in San Antonio's urban core, as well as of these projects, the Land trusts, uh, buy the land, not to redevelop the houses, but to rebuild.

And that's not going on in this case, right?

This is what they want to do is to rehab the house.

They would rehab these three houses.

Yes, that's the, they're starting with that.

When you mentioned the demolition emergency demolition fund, what would that do?

So that would prevent houses on the near West side from being raised.

So the Esperanza center would help step in, um, in the case of a house that might be at risk of being demolished, um, and help provide resources for fixing up that house.

Um, in return, the property owners would be required to join the land trust.

Yeah, Infill development say redeveloping, the area inside four 10 and the houses that are getting older and decaying and the property values going down and older people generally live there.

In fact, the San Antonio independent school district, the population is going down because the, uh, you know, the population is getting older and a fewer kids.

What are some of the other ways that you're seeing besides Elantras of people trying to redevelop those neighborhoods with what we used to call inner city or the West side in particular, There is a lot of infill development.

The building of small houses or small buildings on lots land is getting really expensive though, downtown.

Um, so that's, that's harder to find it in some cases, that's why the infill development is happening because you have these small kind of oddly shaped parcels.

Um, there are also new apartment buildings being built downtown.

Um, one of the big projects that's on the horizon is at Western Urban's, um, plan to build a large residential high rise on a parking lot on Solidad.

Um, and then there are also some affordable housing projects in the works, um, with the San Antonio housing authority and also the, um, one of the arms of the San Antonio housing trust.

Yeah.

And then we hear about pushback against the gentrification word.

The G word is that in this area, not an issue yet because there hasn't been that development toward that far into the West side and Guadalupe in that area.

I think it's a concern among residents, the potential effects, um, uh, Verizon property values, um, in that area and the impact that could have on existing homeowners, um, as development picks up.

Okay.

There's a big issue in that district five race.

It's going to be interesting to see, you know, what happens with the new city council, because they're talking about renovating homes and affordable housing as much bigger issue than it was 10 years ago.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Madison is learned 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.

We'll see you next time.