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.

Thanks for joining us for this edition of on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And over the past week, one of the big stories in the news has been, uh, the non-discrimination ordinance that is currently in effect here in San Antonio possible expansion of that.

And the Councilman who brought that up is from district to Councilman, uh, Jalen McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you for coming in.

First of all, what, what do you want to do with the non-discrimination ordinance?

People might not even realize that there is one in San Antonio started in 19 or 2015.

What do you want to change about that?

Speaker 2: I think that's one of the big things that we need to, uh, address.

So this council consideration requests, um, one calls for an educational campaign so that people are more aware of the federal and local protections that they have.

Um, in addition, it would seek to expand and clarify what protections exist in the, uh, private employment sector.

Um, as well as increase the kind of support that the city provides complainants, because one of the barriers that people have to, you know, reporting discrimination is that they feel like they're not gonna receive any Speaker 1: Poor.

And now discrimination.

We're talking about the LGBTQ community and veterans.

And when this came up in 2015, there was a controversy you had just gotten here, not as counseling, but what did you think of that whole controversy over protection?

Okay.

Speaker 2: It was definitely disheartening.

And I think where we're beyond that now, I think where we've evolved as a people and people.

Now we have eight years of reference and there has been no harm to anyone, um, as we've established protections for others.

And I think something that also needs to be noted about this is that now the LGBTQ plus people are already protected.

This is about expand.

This is about expanding protections for all and increasing support for all.

So that means the black and brown community.

Um, it means, you know, expecting mothers.

It means, uh, the LGBTQ community.

Of course it means the disabled community.

This is for everyone.

Speaker 1: And now this is also going to affect private businesses, which could bring in a whole different, uh, atmosphere about this.

What do you tell businesses who are concerned?

I believe it's about 15 employees or higher that they will be affected by a government policy telling them what to do.

That was one of the, you know, that's been one of the concerns across the country.

Don't tell me how to run my business.

What are utility?

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

I would say that one of the things that we want to do is we want to incentivize people to develop their own non-discrimination policies.

And I think we could do that by awarding points in the contract procurement process with the city.

Um, I also think just as a black man and as a member of the LGBTQ community, whenever I'm looking to travel somewhere, I'm looking at, where am I going to be safest?

Um, are there, is there going to be a welcoming community and Texas isn't that place for a lot of people?

And so we want to make sure that San Antonio is, and so that's good for business.

Speaker 1: And what kind of complaints have we seen from the past few years about this ordinance, Speaker 2: Um, complaints as it relates to, Speaker 1: As it relates to the ordinance.

Speaker 2: So there have been, and we get calls quite a bit about housing discrimination specifically.

Um, there have been people who have been mistreated in restaurants and they don't know where to go.

And so they call the field office or they leave it unreported they've even called the LGBT chamber of commerce, um, and made a report.

But it seems to be a common, uh, a common occurrence that people don't know to go to the city.

Speaker 1: And now when they go to the city, what happens when Speaker 2: You go to the city, you file a complaint.

Um, it goes through the office of equity and then they review it with the city attorney's office.

And often nothing often, it never, it doesn't even make it to the enforcement stage.

And, um, so we definitely want to give it more teeth.

We want people to know that they're gonna get support and what that might look like is contracting with an entity like TRLA that provides legal assistance and, um, providing that support to complainants so that people know they won't have to opt for private litigation, expensive private litigation, and they won't have to go it alone.

Speaker 1: When you talking about putting more teeth into it and, uh, you know, penalties for this, that's still to be decided is I understand.

And so how long down the road do you see a, a vote on this and what kind of public input?

Speaker 2: I think it be a while we have it first has to make its way through governance.

I think we also have to have a longer conversation about what it is and what it, what it isn't, because some people will think, and the people who are very early opposed think that it has a list of things that are automatically going to be amendment amendments, and it's going, but what it is is this is an opportunity to get staff, to review and propose amendments that accomplish a number of goals, and that's going to be what the discussion is.

And so I see no reason to not support it.

Speaker 1: And now, what do you think the boat's going to be in terms of talking with your colleagues right now?

What kind of support have you had?

Speaker 2: I've had substantial support.

I feel as though if we were to vote right now, we'd be in a good place.

Speaker 1: And how about, uh, from the community again, when this came up initially a few years ago, there was quite an outcry against, there was concern, uh, that this, this would be a problem for some.

Do you expect that?

Speaker 2: Um, I expect it from people who don't read it, who don't read, what the policy is asking for.

Um, we get a lot of what I've gotten is a positive response from people we're in a new age of post pandemic, you know, in a pandemic post, winter freeze, people have been particularly vulnerable and that means all marginalized communities.

And so we've got a lot of calls, especially from seniors who say, Hey, I've been, you know, I've experienced employment discrimination because of my age.

Um, and so we're going to be rolling out some stories and we have a lot of community support and I'm excited to start writing.

Speaker 1: And again, as one of the things you've mentioned, what you want to do is to just get out there, the fact that there is a non-discrimination ordinance in San Antonio, what it means right now, as well as what it could mean.

Yes.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Jalen Makilah Rodriguez, who is a Councilman in district?

One things go, I'm sorry, too.

I just waited.

I was waiting for you to do district two things going on.

Okay.

For you so far.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

I'm having a, I'm having a good time and I enjoy, uh, fighting for D two.

Speaker 1: All right.

D too.

Thanks.

Very much to Jalen located Rodriguez.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Speaker 1: Joining us now to talk about expanding on what the non-discrimination ordinance means right now and what it's expansion could mean is another Councilman.

This is John courage of district nine.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you, Randy.

What's your initial reaction to possibly expanding that?

I was concerned.

Uh, I wasn't sure what the council member and the other council members who signed on that, uh, we're hoping to achieve through that.

I did read over their CCR, uh, to me I'm still not quite certain.

So I think it's going to take, uh, some discussion with, uh, more of the council members to understand what they believe we should be doing and what we can be doing to expand the Indio.

I mean, obviously it's purpose is to protect the safety and wellbeing of workers in our community.

And I totally support that.

And I think almost everybody in the community would, and I think the NGO was, uh, a great, uh, ordinance.

It was put in place and I supported it years ago, even though I wasn't on the council simply as a citizen.

Uh, and I support it now.

And I think that the city should do everything it should do and can do to continue to encourage other businesses to adopt it as a way of doing business.

Uh, just a good way of doing business.

What are you concerned about and what kind of concerns have you heard about that?

Uh, that you're, you're worried might, might be a bad thing if the expansion goes Well, I think the concerns are for a lot of business people.

What does this mean?

What do they want to do?

Do they want to go ahead and have some kind of a local city police department looking at how they're running their businesses to ensure, uh, they're living up to the NDA?

I think a lot of businesses, fear that might be part of what's going to go on.

I mean, they already have federal oversight.

For example, you know, OSHA looks at a lot of manufacturing businesses, make sure they're being safe and, uh, you know, people can go to the EEOC if they feel like they're being discriminated against, I think specifically for the LGBTQ community, as well as some veterans might have that that's what they're talking about is more concerned than what would be covered from other realms.

Well, You know, I, I think that's part of the explanation and the conversation we have.

We need to have, you know, uh, I'm not saying that I am going to vote for or against any kind of changes.

I always believe these things are worth considering and worth discussing.

And, and I think that's more of what we need to do so that the public and the businesses understand what we really are talking about.

I'll give you an example.

A lot of people in our community and the city council itself believes we shouldn't be enforcing federal law, like the immigration law.

Uh, and so now we're saying, but we should be doing more to enforce, uh, EOC laws, which are federal laws.

To me, that's a bit of a conflict from the way the city stands on trying to enforce federal law, uh, from a local.

And now is it all your concerns about the business aspect and what it would mean for them in the past when this first came up, there were some faith-based organizations that were concerned just about this ordinance itself for a whole different set of reasons.

Sure.

Are you hearing that?

You know, I haven't yet.

And we, we very well may, but I think we pretty much understand first amendment and the right of religions, uh, to go ahead and make their own decisions about what they want to do.

Uh, and that's a personal choice that people make to join any, any religious organization to follow their faith.

I think we need to focus more on the endio, which was geared towards originally, uh, businesses that wanted to do business with the city and the city itself and how we operate and then yes, expanding it out into the community.

So we hope, like I said, all businesses adopt the same principles in the NGO for how they operate and treat their employees.

How long Do you think this discussion will take before you keep getting to a Vote on this?

Well, you know, the process is that it'll go to the governance committee.

I sit on that governance committee, there's five members, oftentimes we'll go ahead and, and determine, is it something the city can do or should do once we do that?

Well, then we decide, does it need further examination?

Should it be referred to another committee so that they can have public input, bring in people to speak about it from a perspective of business or the general public are interested groups.

So I tend to think this may go in that direction that the council may say, yes, it's part of what we've been talking about.

So let's go ahead and have one of our, uh, SA San Antonio city council committees, look at it, invite public input, and then determine what is the best action to take.

Uh, while we have you here briefly to talk about some of the other things you're working on right now, and that is the strategic housing implementation plan it's been in the works for years, kind of winnowed it down.

There's going to be a 70 plus page document come out.

And then the council votes on that.

What will this bring as a framework to the, to the bond program here?

Where are you going to have a couple of hundred million on housing?

What do you think's going to happen with this?

And what does it mean to have the council vote on it?

Well, I think when people understand what the plan helps us under a C is that there's about 95,000 families in San Antonio that are very challenged just to pay their mortgage or their rent.

And this gear, this program is geared towards helping those people maintain their homes, or be able to afford other homes, uh, whether it's an apartment or a house.

And, uh, we're particularly targeting those in the greatest need.

People who are earning about 30% to 50% of the average median income in San Antonio, the AMI, uh, which is assessed by the housing and urban development department every year, right now it's about $73,000 for a family of four average median income.

What we're looking at is to try and target new housing development or rehabilitation.

So people are earning half of that or less.

That would be, you know, 36, 30, 7,000, all the way down to, you know, poverty level where, you know, some people are earning maybe 21,000 for a family of four, so that we can provide housing that can sustain them in their family, Just that the city money would help with us.

You've identified a whole range of some federal money to private money.

Exactly.

And I think the most important thing about this is that we want to initiate more, uh, city, public and private partnerships to develop this.

It's not just a city handout.

Uh, it's a way of, of kind of leveraging the funds that the city will have available to work With private industry, subsidizing developers, which have been a criticism for some of the market rate things.

Some people may say subsidizing, but really, I think it's more of a partnership and there are always strings attached so that we ensure that we get affordability from what they do and that the quality of the construction is what we would expect.

Right.

Well, thanks very much.

Appreciate you coming in.

Councilman John courage, district nine.

Thanks.

Thank you, Randy.

Glad to be here.

A big story here this past week was the contract extension 10 years for UTS A's football coach.

Who's overseeing now a record season for UTI as they are now ranked 16th in the AP poll, the football team talking about what this means is ed Arnold, the managing editor of the San Antonio business journal.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Your average viewer sees this and says, okay, the ten-year extension $28 million.

Oh my gosh.

UTS say it's a smaller college.

They're paying this much money, but you've done some articles.

And Scott, Bailey's done some articles about what it means in terms of the publicity and the money that will come in to UTS because Speaker 2: Absolutely it's hard to overstate how important college football is to drawing in dollars for a university's stock, a large state school at UTS, nearly 40,000 kids.

That's double the size of universities that are paying their coaches 2, 3, 4 times as much.

Uh, it also is in the middle of a city that has a, a big NFL style dome that it can fill up with it gains enthusiasm.

Uh, it's, it's important for us to note that at $2.8 million a year, no one's ever going to say that's not a lot of money.

$2.8 million is a lot of money, but when you put it into context of college football, Jimbo Fisher at a and M makes $9 million a year.

John Calipari, a basketball coach in Kentucky makes nearly $10 million a year.

And those contracts come because those programs generate enough revenue to justify them.

So Speaker 1: To say, you know, a professor of physics and, and this and that to get a whole lot less people would think what those guys do a lot more in terms of, for the school, of course, but this is about money.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

It's just like actors, right?

We, we understand why, why George Clooney gets as much money because he's going to draw an audience.

The same thing applies to a football coach.

They're not going to throw money at someone who can't bring in a good audience in good wins.

That's what gets you to, to that level, Speaker 1: Not just a good audience in the stadium, but we're talking to TV revenues.

And how does that work?

People don't realize that, you know, schools pay and other schools pay a UTS to come in as an opponent.

Speaker 2: Sometimes colleges will, you know, it's a revenue sharing agreement, right?

So a university will pay another to come and do in a way series with them do back and forth.

It's part of the reason why you get schools coming to get whacked by upper sec championships, because it's a Speaker 1: LSU was going to pay you at TSA.

But the pandemic, right last year, I was going to be Speaker 2: On a schedule, pick up a game.

That's right.

That's not an uncommon thing.

Speaker 1: And what does it mean that they are 16th ranked now, but they are undefeated.

Speaker 2: Well, it means a lot for those T those potential television revenues.

And it means a lot for ballgame revenues, which again, is just going to continue to build the esteem, ballgame revenues.

You know, they, they are not anything to sneeze at.

They're not what you're going to build your program off of, but they're a huge bonus over the course of the season.

Uh, and, and those kinds of things, as you go further up that ranking ladder, the more assured you are to be in a choice bowl and a choice time.

I know you mentioned that Speaker 1: Esteem, and this is one of those things.

Uh, when Ricardo Romo, Dr. Ricardo Romo, who is the former president of UTC first brought up the idea and then push for football.

Some people wondered, really does, does a school need a football team, but in terms of bringing up the visibility, what does it mean?

Speaker 2: Well, if you think about it, it is the first touch place for alumni, right?

It's where alumni can remain connected to their schools.

And as you build the road runner identity, we have only dealing with an 11 year old football program.

That identity is still in flux and being built right now, as you build that identity, you want something for the, to come and connect with something that they can get involved with and go to the dome.

They can buy gear, right?

They can do all those things that help keep the university foremost in their mind.

And football program is probably the number one way to build that relationship.

Speaker 1: What does it mean that they're moving up conferences after UT in Oklahoma announcer moving to the sec?

It was a whole chain of dominoes and they're moving, uh, up one level.

Does that also mean money and visibility?

Speaker 2: Well, it means a better TV contract and a lot more money that comes with it.

Uh, even even sports like golf have gotten two thirds more with their most recent TV deals than they were in the previous TV deal.

So, you know, I'm using golf as an example, simply because we don't think of that as a huge boost for TV ratings, but the, the network partners for golf are now paying $700 million for broadcasting rights.

They were paying $200 million, 10 years ago.

So the, the value of live sports on TV is very high.

It's one of the few things that people still tune in and inappropriate time for and advertisers are still interested in that revenue in that time.

Speaker 1: What about the length of the commitment and whether it's guaranteed or not that 28 million?

I mean, at OSHA, Ron is now leaving LSU a couple of years after Joe burrow really helped build his contract.

They're going to have to pay him off.

That's a common thing in football as well.

Sure.

It's true.

Um, and is that going to be a downside down the road?

Speaker 2: It would be.

I mean, obviously if things go south right away, they're going to want to replace him.

But at the end of the day, I think a $2.8 million contract this year, five years from now, cause they're going to give them a long leash from this second year going defeated.

Even if he didn't win another game this season, he would've done better than anyone before.

And he's likely to keep winning for a little while.

There would still be value in keeping that five and six year gap.

It could hurt them, but in the end, I doubt it.

I doubt that there'll be anything they regret.

Speaker 1: And it also there's part of this deal was they're increasing the pool for the assistant coaches and the support staff as well.

Right?

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

And that's a huge factor in keeping talent and keeping good kids on the, which is how you win football games.

A lot of the kids are not going to have close relationships with the head coach, but they do have close relationships with the ride receivers coach, the line coach, all the various faculty that also help out with the team.

So having all of those people get a pay raise also helps keep that talent in and draws better.

Speaker 1: We should also mention they're going to be on YouTube or playing UTEP at UTEP.

I'm trying to stay undefeated and in a, in five seconds that they're going to win.

Oh, Speaker 2: I'm going to say yes, just because I don't want to stop the street who doesn't want to see a street continued.

Speaker 1: I wouldn't see him go all the way.

All right.

Well, you heard it right here at Arnold managing editor, San Antonio business journal.

Thanks very much.

Thank you for Joining us now to talk about a story you might've seen at the San Antonio Heron website about some Airbnbs being developed down in the king William Southtown area.

And, uh, what that means for that area is Ben, who is the editor in chief, the co-founder of the publisher of the San Antonio area, great website.

It looks at downtown at all the core issues in San Antonio.

Tell us about this.

This is Mike Casey, who had some called the mayor of Southtown owned some houses there, sold them to be converted, at least a couple of them for Airbnb's.

Yeah.

There's three homes on, uh, basically on the corner of St Mary's and steering.

And, and for those folks who are familiar with south town, it is in king William and the homes are also are next to solid Diaz, which is a, an arts, nonprofit, and gallery space, um, that that's very prominent as well.

Um, Mike Casey sold these homes to a local developer who wants to convert them into, um, two of them into Airbnbs.

And the third home may be, uh, an expansion for, And now these are, I guess we call them historic homes.

They were a part of an arts compound called or a hub, or it was on our tub called the compound.

Right, right, right.

Th this was back in the nineties.

Um, and, and Mike Casey, uh, was, was sort of the one who kind of put this together.

Um, I guess over the years, um, it's sort of been undone a little bit, but, but, but now I guess if solid Diaz does indeed, uh, a purchase requires that the house next door, then it might start to become sort of a compound again.

So, And now, what do you think of the idea?

And I don't know if there's been much reaction yet in that area, just to the idea of houses being turned into Airbnb.

Well, that that's been a hot topic, uh, especially in inner city neighborhoods for, for a number of years now.

And I know the city has done some things to, to try and curb, um, or to limit to limits, uh, that way you don't have Airbnb is popping up all over the place.

I know that when we posted our story, which is written by, uh, one of our reporters, Richard Webner, I know when we posted our story, there was some reaction from some, some, uh, Southtown and king William residents who were concerned.

And I think, uh, the way the developer can kind of get away from it for, from what I heard on, on the, um, uh, from one of the officials in Lavaca is that you can have neighboring Airbnbs, but in this case, one sort of facing St. Mary's and the other one's facing steering.

So their addresses are technically not Technically not in the same block.

Right.

Which could be the limiting factor, But they're in reality, they're physically right next to each other.

What do you think this could mean to other areas?

Um, even within the downtown area, of course, everybody's concerned about the gentrification word and the threat.

What, what does this kind of Airbnb moving into Southtown king William mean for us?

Um, I know I happen to live in this area.

And so I know just from, as a resident, um, on the different Facebook groups, I know most people are against this type of thing.

Um, and so, but, but I know that, I mean, it's definitely a pattern.

It's a pattern on the east side and dignity hill, uh, Denver Heights, um, any, and, you know, Tobin hill, any neighborhood that's close to, uh, any type of downtown amenity.

Um, there's a lot of, there's some breweries popping up on the east side.

So obviously that's attractive.

Um, south town has become, uh, in my opinion, the number one culinary destination, you've got all these new restaurants coming in, a lot of prominent chefs coming in.

So it would make sense that Airbnb is, would be, you know, they would want to do that.

Some people might see it as a victim of its own success in terms of the publicity, somebody coming in from out of town.

Oh, I want to be in a king William Southtown area.

Right.

A lot of publicity for that.

Are you seeing it, do you feel it as, as a resident, Um, in terms of that type of, yeah, just the, the buzzes yeah.

The buzz and the interest from people out of town as well as in town.

Absolutely.

And it's mostly driven by, by the new restaurants that are popping up.

Um, you know, Gustus fried chicken from T from Memphis, um, Micheli, which was very prominent restaurant.

They moved down there, um, farm table, uh, by Elizabeth Johnson.

She's now down there, brown coffee.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

Um, it's definitely becoming, uh, uh, probably the most buzzed about neighborhood In terms of, uh, locals versus people from out of town There.

There's definitely a, a really good mix.

Um, just from the folks that I interact with, a lot of them are from out of town.

I mean, it almost seems like they're, they're coming to San Antonio just to experience that neighborhood and other neighborhoods like, you know, obviously the Pearl area is still growing, so I wish we had more time.

Ben.

Livo good luck with that down there.

You should you hipster millennial here.

Thanks.

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

You can see the show again, or previous shows as well as our podcast at dot org.

We'll see you next time.

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