On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record this week.

I'm Randy Beamer, and we are starting this week with a project for downtown that may have been eclipsed in the news, definitely has been eclipsed in the news by a couple of more expensive projects that are in the works.

One of them is the missions baseball stadium.

Possible plans for that.

But here to talk about something else called the link precinct four Commissioner Tommy Calvert.

Thanks very much for coming in.

It's super to be back.

Now you have, I don't want to say we've been pushing this, but been talking about this project called The Link for a few years.

What is the link?

Well, the master of the Riverwalk South extension by River Center Mall.

Al Groves had the vision for a link between the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek area.

And this goes across Saving Street in the near the library.

And it would allow us once again to activate the north end of downtown, which has been a bit sleepy.

My first school, Central Christian, is right there by the Baptist hospital, and it's basically been the same since I was in preschool.

And I think when we look at how do we get the highest and best use of land, that we can actually build up and densify and have an area where we have everything from the Dream Hotel to maybe an SLS and other kinds of housing for our workforce.

There is an opportunity to cool down our heat island in the downtown.

We've seen cities like Medellin literally lower the temperature by two degrees.

And when I'm out at Worst Fest and I'm in shorts and and and I'm sweating, I want as much coolness as I can get.

And so this link project would connect those two.

And, it would have a statue to Saint Anthony on the San Antonio riverside, Saint Peter on the San Pedro side, a statue to the Buffalo Soldiers on the San Pedro Creek side and across in the middle, meditative experience for people throughout with the vegetation and even air conditioner condensate from the hotels being part of what puts the water in the Gulf.

And you're talking about a river level, a water link, some kind of creek looking thing between, San Pedro Creek on the west and the Riverwalk.

A little different levels, though.

Well, yeah, there's three plans.

There could be a street plan.

There could be a hybrid plan.

Half Riverwalk, half Street, and then the full Riverwalk reclamation, which really is the best use, of the opportunity.

But, yeah, that plan has been liked by 1400 people on my.com.

And I got to say, in humility, there are very few things I do as an elected that have over 1400 people like it.

And I think it's our time.

It would make us one of the most unique downtowns in the world.

And the renderings are what people have looked at and said, wow, I like that.

Yeah.

So there has been talk about it, but with the renderings that's getting more publicity as well as, I guess, the cost of the different plans.

Well, I have I haven't heard much about the costs from my constituents.

I've only heard the costs from some in the bureaucracy and, some political people, but I literally, have been emailing my constituents updates and, have not gotten a single letter about it.

There was a letter in the Express-News about it, but there was 1400 people who liked it.

So I put it in and there were some reports that really, I guess, weren't accurate to say that, the city hasn't been talking with the county about this.

Yeah, that's that, is not accurate because we actually had the sign in sheets from what city staff were there.

In addition, the city parks director, Homer, was invited to be on the, visioning committee.

But city staff actually participated in the first, visioning session.

But we also are in the process of working and finishing the preliminary engineering, report.

And that preliminary engineering report, is going to have an economic impact.

We have said throughout the building of the museum, reach and the mission reach that when we do these projects, because of the way we take, areas of the floodplain in the new development around it, those projects end up paying for themselves.

And so one of the things that I think we needed to get corrected from the record is there was some conversation from the Express-News that misunderstood that when I talked about there could be private funding.

What what that scenario envisions was not necessarily like a business giving, charitable contribution.

It was taking the private sectors tax revenue, just like you did for the finance on the baseball stadium or a number of other projects along these new waterways.

I've been in, public infrastructure for 20, 30 years, and my wife would never ask the business to do that.

That is a ways from the taxpayer tax increment Reinvestment zone, something like all options are on the table.

I think there's a there may not necessarily be that, but we haven't gotten to the finance portion.

So we're in the economic modeling and then the finance.

But this has been complicated.

Maybe overshadowed by is the better word, the talk of the baseball stadium and that multimillion dollar complex.

And who would pay for that.

How much would be paid for by the tax increment reinvestment zone and how much would be paid for by, private developers?

Where are you in that?

And does that kind of, distraction annoy you?

The, the link route works, concurrently and is copacetic with the baseball stadium.

I abstained from voting for the baseball stadium because my constituents, by probably a 70 or 80% margin, said that they were not for it.

And so, you know, I'm looking at things, in terms of our crime rate, violent crime going up.

I'm looking at the cost of housing and food, trying to put solutions that help and those as priorities.

It's past.

It was in another commissioner's precinct, so I didn't want to.

And now what?

They're against, though, as I understand it, is the possibility of public money going in the tax, even with the taxes that aren't from property taxes, the tax reinvestment that might have gone to the city or the county.

Well, all of that is public money, because anybody who lives in the properties or as a business in the properties, in the tax increment refinance zone, those people are paying that in their rent or their mortgage.

So they are they're are citizens because I represent downtown, 95% of it.

They are paying for that out of our tax, out of their taxes.

And as you understand it, there are people that heard about this and Antonio Independent School District and whether or not they would sell that last parcel of land.

Is that still a sticking point that you know of or it is.

It's the Central New Independent School District is not the not given that up to, the Western or what what do you tell them?

Do you tell them sell, not sell.

I mean, not that you have I too much input, but I tell them to vote their constituents.

Okay.

And so where are we now?

In the link and the timeline for that.

Yeah.

We're still in a preliminary engineering side.

So I think that there is going to be a revision of timelines.

But I think that depends upon, really city leadership and where it's at and other kind of federal infrastructure funding.

There's a lot of variables to that.

So I'm not the expert on that.

That's, that's got to be decided by.

But the renderings are out there.

And now people you think it will get more excitement that they see the renderings.

I've already seen that happen.

And where can they see renderings if they haven't?

Sure.

On our social media, on, the Tommy Calvert County commissioner, social media at the San Antonio River authority has a web page for it as well.

All right.

Well, thanks very much for coming in and explaining all that and using the word copacetic.

You just elevated the level of this program.

Don't forget.

Works best we threw that in.

That's true.

Thanks very much.

Precinct four County Commissioner Tommy Calvert.

Thanks.

You bet.

A couple of big changes for metropolitan transit.

A couple of big changes at the top.

The man who has been leading a VA for the past 13 years, the right is Jeffrey Arndt to be a metropolitan transit president.

You're going to be stepping down.

Thank you for coming in.

Oh, absolutely.

You're going to be stepping down as of, I guess, officially January 3rd.

Correct.

But, you've been there for 13 years.

First of all, before we get to other stuff.

Why are you retiring?

You're a young guy.

That's a myth.

That's a big man.

So years ago, I had said to myself, that I would retire no later than age 70.

And on February 2nd, I will turn 70.

And so that therefore, on January 3rd, a month before I will be stepping down.

Before we get to your plans, looking back at your tenure, the V.A.

is the I think they call it the least funded transit agency in Texas.

But you've managed to do quite a bit.

What are you proudest of?

Oh, well, let me start with the fact that I'm probably most proud of the the legacy that any leader really leaves behind is not the plate that's on the wall of the transit center or anything.

It's the team that has been built.

And so I'm proudest of the team, but that's hard for people to look from the outside to understand that.

But the fact that the board yesterday named the next CEO and that they had interviewed three finalists, all internal, is kind of a reflection of the fact that we built a really strong team.

That's John Kerry, John Kerry.

Who is our current senior vice president of public engagement.

And he will he will be CEO as of the 4th of January.

So I constantly remind him, and it's only been a day.

I am still the CEO.

You know, bucko.

Yeah.

Now, what about the programs where you know.

Everything.

From advance rapid transit to dealing?

People may not know much about that, but, tell us about where you are in the advance rapid transit or art.

Well, let me kind of walk you forward over 13 years.

So excuse me.

When I started here, via offered regular bus service, solid regular bus service.

We had a national reputation for being very strong.

Bread and butter type operation.

And then veal trans, which is a service we offer to folks that have a disability that prevents them from riding the bus right now.

And that was a service product we had in 20 late 2012.

Right around Christmas of 2012, we introduced a new product, which is the Primo line and the Primo lines.

Some people would call them Art light or BRT light, bus rapid transit light.

And it was first time we ventured into a different kind of service, ran high frequency every 10 to 12 minutes.

Ran a little less less frequent stops.

Had some measures that would help it run more quickly and smoothly and more reliably.

So that was the first thing.

So that was some of the double busses.

We saw the bigger busses running down Fredericksburg.

Correct the accordion busses.

Where else are they run.

They now they run on Fredericksburg Road, which is the original.

The second one is on Zamora and the third is on Southeast Military.

So we have three primo routes and then the Keep San Antonio moving plan.

We'll talk about more broadly.

We have additional be, opportunities for that very same kind of service.

Right.

We then introduced things like Wi-Fi free Wi-Fi on, on the busses.

We were arguably the first major transit system in America to offer free Wi-Fi on all the vehicles and serve our customers.

We have a debate going on with VTA in San Jose, California, and I look at them and said, if you barely beat San Antonio, you should be ashamed.

You are, you know, the headquarters of tech industry.

So we will still claim that that title as being the first, that interest free Wi-Fi that became very valuable to the community during Covid because, as you may recall, we weren't running a lot of service, wasn't a lot of people leaving, weren't a lot of people leaving homes.

And so we would park the veterans vans near, apartments so that students would have found themselves doing remote learning, unanticipated hated would have a hotspot that they could could clue into.

So that was something else we did, we we developed a plan called Keep San Antonio moving.

It had three legs.

So now I'm going to get you kind of what you were talking about.

The first leg is the, what we call advanced rapid transit projects.

So that's the green line on San Pedro and the East-West line.

The Silver Line.

Right.

That hasn't been built yet.

They are not built yet.

So the Green Line has made its way all the way through the federal process.

And we are finishing final engineering.

That will be done the beginning of the calendar year.

Right?

Right.

As I'm leaving, the final engineering will be done.

We are in line at least to enter into an agreement with the Federal Transit Administration by the end of the calendar year.

So that's like six weeks for if for a full funding grant agreement for the Green Line, that would pay for about 55% of the cost of that project and.

That cost, because people might not realize what it is.

It's kind of like a trolley line, a dedicated middle lane on most of it, right on a bus.

Yes.

It's kind of like having a light rail line, but using a bus, and it cost half as much and it's more flexible.

So I always say you're getting better service for half the cost.

And people won't be fumbling with change, to get on the bus and go faster because they get their tickets, at their little kiosk there.

Or at the station.

So the whole idea is, let's make that service frequent.

As you know, my mantra has always been frequency, frequency, frequency.

Right.

So let's make it frequent every ten minutes, every 15 on the weekends perhaps, but every ten minutes during the majority of the day.

So we'll make it frequent.

Let's make it reliable.

So let's talk the traffic signals to help us make our way through the corridor without being disruptive, but nonetheless help us make it through the corridor.

But you're right.

The thing that people often forget is one of the major delays when you ride the bus is people getting their fares and getting the fare box to take their fares, just like a vending machine, you know, trying to get that.

On the bus that they you're I slow everybody up.

And so we.

To get guys like you to stop us from slowing.

Down, we.

Are going to.

Have you.

Pay your fare in the station.

And then when the vehicle pulls ups, you've got to imagine this.

A vehicle pulls up in part of it.

It is a center a lane in the middle of the street.

So now the doors are on the opposite side, right?

They're not in the curbside.

They're on the other side.

There'll be three sets of doors will open at once.

Everybody will get on the all clothes.

And the vehicle is like.

A subway, like a light rail.

Exactly, exactly.

And that's what it is.

And so those things are all made to speed that service up.

And that goes, well, the one, the Green line, the first one that is being built is from the airport down to the Mission National.

It goes down to Stevens and Roosevelt, just south of.

But the advantage of BRT bus rapid transit, or we call it advanced rapid transit because it's not a typical bus.

The advantage is it's rubber tire.

So unlike a rail that when you get to the end of the rail, you're stuck.

You're not going to go any further.

That bus, when it gets to Stevens and Roosevelt, can go into the main lane of traffic and and travel and maintain a traffic and stop at regular bus stops.

And we will be extending every trip down to the Brooks Transit Center, in fact.

So the improvement section may between the may be between the airport and Steve's, but the service can extend as far south as Brooks and can extend as far north as the stone oak.

And the silver lining the east west.

Where are you?

In there.

So we are currently in preliminary work on that.

We're doing environmental, so we are kind of where we were out of the election on the Green Line were that the first phase of that, and we already have federal interest in that.

In fact, when the federal when the FTA folks came and looked at the Green Line corridor and drove it, we said, well, let's take you on the Silver Line corridor because that's the next one.

They draw the Silver Line and they were super excited.

And that goes from.

That goes from essentially, Our Lady of the Lake through town and ends the improvements and at, at Frost Project Center.

And then other than that, you have to be proudest, also proud of the link.

Yes.

Which people might not realize in the better bus.

Yes.

Now that I'm.

Really proud of, because for the first time, we're going to be bringing money in from the Capital Improvement Grant program.

That's the biggest grant program the federal government has.

And so, for example, that Green Line will be bringing about $268 million of federal dollars back to San Antonio.

Historically, about the largest grant I can recall us getting is 25 million.

So we're talking a tenfold increase.

And that's for the that's for the for the green line.

So that's you know, you're really proud of doing that because as you said, we are the least funded major transit system in, in Texas.

Right.

And the only reason we are able to do that is that when we got Covid relief funds, we put them to the side as a capital reserve.

So we didn't kind of fritter them away on pet projects or whatever.

We said, we got something major, let's save that.

So we have the local money that we can draw down the federal money.

And it works.

And, finally, what are you going to do?

What am I going to do?

You're going to do?

Oh, you mean like on the fourth?

Yes, 4th of January.

You're out of here, you say?

Yes.

Going to Disneyworld.

No, I. I'm, I don't want to go back to Disney World.

I've been there recently, and it was like, that's enough at my age.

Actually, what what we intended my husband and I intend to do is, we are going to retire to the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Cool.

And so we are the condo is under construction.

We won't be able to move until summer, at least into our condo.

We will be walking distance to the beach.

I will never wear tie shoes.

Probably again.

Or long pants, for that matter.

This is the end of every movie.

When somebody goes down there, whether they're.

They're the good guy or the villain.

Well, congratulations.

I hope I'm the good guy.

You're the good guy.

Congratulations and good luck.

And thank you for all you've done for San Antonio.

Jeffrey Arndt still barely in the via metropolitan transit president.

Thanks.

I'm still firmly the president.

Still firmly until the Ford right.

A little bird you might have heard of in the news years and years ago is back in the news right now.

And to tell us all about it and why is the environmental reporter for the San Antonio Report?

Lindsey Kahnert, thank you very much for coming in.

The golden cheeked warbler.

I remember covering stories about a while ago.

What is it in the news right now again?

So the golden chick warbler is in the news right now because there are efforts to get it delisted from the US Federal Register.

And just a reminder, this is a bird that's nests and lives solely in Texas, and bred solely in Texas.

And so it's very special to Central Texas hearts.

But basically there are people that want to see it delisted from.

The endangered species.

List, correct?

Yes.

To, be able to develop more land in the hill country.

And that the land, the land swap is what's causing the latest, spate of headlines and controversy.

What is the land swap?

So there was an unprecedented land swap allowed by the US Fish and Wildlife Services, to go through, where a developer asked to have 30 acres of protected land to give 144 acres of unprotected land.

They want to develop, homes on this 30 acres, Which is right behind area.

Correct.

So there's a conservation easement back there that was federally protected land, as part of a conservation easement.

And so some of that land has been swapped for, what environmentalists call subpar land, so.

And subpar for the golden cheeked warbler.

They have a specific habitat, and also the issue is how many of them are there because this affected the aquifer and everything.

The golden chick warbler was an issue when they were trying to protect the aquifer, this whole land.

And now, there were some studies done a few years ago that have different interpretations.

Sure.

So two Texas A&M studies came out around the same time, one saying that the golden chick warbler, numbers may be higher than were previously believed to be.

And one saying that their numbers are still being affected by fractured land parceling.

And, you know, that's hurting their numbers.

And so, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the General Land Office of Texas have joined forces to jump on this study that says the warblers numbers were higher than believed.

To say that it is a reason to, reconsider their endangered.

If people don't know.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a very conservative organization backing business.

The Glo with the state officials is also, conservative.

So there are backing the developer in this.

But on the other side, you have environmentalists, right.

And so in this case, with their and there has been, splitting up of land and more development in that area.

What are the environmentalist say this means?

For the golden cheeked warbler?

Yeah.

They're really worried about, the 30 acres that have been given to the developer that it could be clearcut, developed, which means all the trees get cut down.

And because they need really specific old growth ash.

Juniper.

We call that mountain cedar trees.

They're worried that it will affect their numbers.

Even further.

And they also have said that they want to use, the endangered species as a way to block some development, which is.

Rampant in some areas.

In the whole country.

We expect to have so many more people.

But that they admit is a is a the only tool they have to block.

Development.

At the moment.

That's one of the few tools that they have to block development in the Hill country, unfortunately.

So if this was taken away, it could be really, it could be really dangerous for, the environmental impacts within the whole country.

And this goes back to the specific the endangered listing was back when 19.

So that was named in 1990 for the warbler.

And how have they.

They've been kind of out of the news.

The aquifer linkage.

Anyway, how do you think they've done since then when we're talking endangered, they have numbers.

You know, that's what a lot of environmentalists are arguing about.

This land swap is that we don't know what their numbers are right now, and there need to be more studies done today that show where their numbers are at before De-Listing can be talked about.

So these two studies are now being, talked about that.

You said one shows that it may the numbers may be lower, but it doesn't say what the numbers are.

What are the numbers.

What are those studies actually show.

So one of the studies, the one that the TPF and yellow have latched on to, shows the original methodology that the warblers were counted with may be incorrect.

It doesn't show that there's more warblers, but they're claiming that it does.

The other study is, one that has actually continued to have more data put into it, and it's showing that their numbers are still being affected a lot by land parceling.

And then what happens next?

These studies are going to go before the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Yeah.

So, the Fish and Wildlife now have to review the studies and see if it, could be a reason for de-listing the warbler or not.

And so the timeline now is months and months, possibly years.

Or do we know.

That's a great question.

This kind of stuff can take a long time within the legal field.

It can take months, years.

But a federal judge has ordered, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Services to reevaluate, the warblers numbers and, see where that is at now.

And we don't know what's going to happen with the new administration coming in and people talking about, loosening regulations.

Also, if it goes before judges or more conservative judges, these days, that could affect this or not.

Yeah.

And that's a concern that a lot of people have as we enter into a new administration.

Once again with, under President Trump, that, you know, he can hold back, the Texas General Land Office and, the, TPP.

So we'll see what happens with that.

And this is just one of, I guess not a series, but a number of stories you've done on development in the Hill Country affecting all kinds of things.

I'm looking at, some new laws that may affect water quality within the area, that went into effect on September.

So, stay tuned for, for those reports.

Stay tuned and stay checking the website San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Lindsay Carr, the environment or environmental reporter for San Antonio Report.

You can check it out right now at assay report.org.

It's up there.

All right.

Thanks.

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

You can see this show again.

You can watch previous shows.

You can also download it as a podcast.

Just go to klrn.org.

I'm Randy Beemer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you tby Steve and Adele Dufilho