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 in the news here this week, what it will mean for San Antonio, that the border with Mexico has reopened to tourists.

Mexican nationals can now come again with a vaccination proof of vaccination, Al Arriola, who is the president of the south San Antonio chamber of commerce.

Joins us to talk about what this means because people don't realize how much business literally walks and drives across the border or did until about 20 months ago.

Right?

Speaker 2: Well, before the pandemic, we were clearly engaging the commerce back and forth non-essential traffic is what's been limited ever since.

Uh, now you've mentioned now you just have to have approved vaccine and come over, but I could speculate to say that there is a direct correlation between all the ports of entry, um, their, uh, revenue from their bridge and what we ended up generating in sales tax revenue here in San Antonio.

Um, so as you continue to see traffic on the porch from Del Rio Eagle pass Laredo, um, you see that traffic continue to increase.

I would speculate you're going to continue to see our sales tax increase here.

As people winked their way, all the way to San Antonio.

I was looking at Speaker 1: Some old numbers and I think in 2013, there was an impact of something like $2 billion plus on all of south Texas and central Texas, including San Antonio is like $400 million in direct spending from people hearing that we have been missing every year.

What does it mean to places on the south side, like Pika Pika Plaza?

Speaker 2: Um, you touched on that.

So a lot of these businesses on the south side very much are rooted with their family in Mexico, even still, a lot of them are, um, with the non-essential traffic.

A lot of those businesses were affected that all these folks were just crossing in their own cars, bringing some of their own merchandise.

And so right now that's going to help alleviate inventory issues for them.

This is going to help just again, beyond the tourism component, this is going to help them just get inventory in their business.

But now that they're going to have shoppers available to come to them, um, in our own backyard, on the south side, which is very, very Hispanic driven, uh, you're going to see that it's going to be very, Speaker 1: And some people don't realize that personal connection for them.

If they don't know anyone in Mexico, a lot of people here have family that they've been coming back and forth, but then considered non-essential.

And even through this week, weren't allowed to see each other, those some big reunions.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

And you know, if you look at the demographics of the south side, if you just south of 90 alone, there's about 400,000 residents of that 400,000 residents, about 82% are Hispanic.

You better believe we're all rooted in tied to most of our families that are pretty much still in Mexico, still Speaker 1: Some businesses.

I understand that well throughout the city, but it had to close because they couldn't get some merchandise as well as get people to come over and buy what they had.

Right, Speaker 2: Right.

Again, with the non-essential traffic, that that would have been a big limitation.

Some of that essential traffic was still happening, but those was feeding, uh, major, uh, manufacturers, bigger type employers and not so much the retail environment, the retail economy of San Antonio, Speaker 1: Otherwise, how are things going on the south side?

Now you represent the south San Antonio chamber merged with the west side chamber just this year.

How are things going in terms of business on these parts of town?

Speaker 2: Those two areas of talent have much of the same market demographics.

I would say we are still recovering from, from the pandemic.

Uh, most of these businesses did put their best foot forward through and through, uh, most were able to shift their business models.

If they were a restaurant, they became a market, if you will.

So a lot of folks, not only in the interest of their bottom line, but in the interest of keeping the community going, you saw a lot of that happen, especially on the south and west sides.

Speaker 1: And how about the growth?

I mean, Brooks is just exploding in, in that area.

And also now near Toyota, there's more businesses coming in.

Speaker 2: Uh, Brooks has been a significant economic engine for the Southeast side.

You mentioned down south further south Toyota.

Now with the Navistar coming in, there's, they're expected to hire another 300 employees, the TJ max distribution center.

A lot of folks still don't know about that major footprint on the south side, um, major employment footprint, also about a thousand employees.

Um, you're going to continue to see that happening in the south side and with correlation to Mexico, uh, NAFTA 2.0 that this whole, um, bloodline, if you will, from highway 90, even 35 south, um, this is all interconnected.

How about Speaker 1: Historic site designation for the missions?

It seems like we haven't really capitalized on that yet.

Speaker 2: I think to, to the spirit of faith of Mexico, which is very Catholic driven, I think there's even more opportunity for that kind of tourism to show them that footprint and that history that is essentially tied to Speaker 1: We haven't capitalized on it yet.

I should say we haven't capitalized on it as much as we like to Speaker 2: It's people are still learning about it and the world over is still learning about it.

But, um, I continue, I continue to see that type of tourism increase every year.

And how about Texas Speaker 1: And M university San Antonio?

That is also a huge driver right now.

There's some developments going in right now.

I mean, massive developments with thousands of homes and apart, Speaker 2: Right?

Not only are they enhancing their actual campus, but the surrounding Avita community is expected to add about 1400 residential, some office and commercial space.

And so we what's, what's exciting about what's happening on the south side with Brooks a and M the area around port San Antonio, all of it's grown in a very sustainable live work, play, stay type of environment.

And so the future of the south is very exciting.

Speaker 1: W port San Antonio mentioned that we haven't talked about it yet.

If people haven't been down there, you need to just drive onto what used to be a base we'd rarely go on there.

Well, it was an open base for awhile, but there's so much construction going on there.

You don't recognize it, Speaker 2: Right.

Uh, they have a new innovation center that they're very excited about.

They've really been trying to tie their footprint to a lot of the vocational stem studies that you're seeing become more and more popular across America, but we've been taking a very serious in San Antonio.

And so, uh, their new museum, their new, um, innovation center, that's going to be a big gaming arena.

You can expect is going to be not only popular amongst Texans, but probably popular all over the nation and the world Speaker 1: In the museum Speaker 2: As well.

Yes.

There's stem museum showing what's it.

What's really cool about that museum that I appreciate, uh, as maybe a nerd too, is it shows you how many innovations have come from San Antonio?

A lot of folks don't even know that the camera phone was invented in San Antonio.

Yeah.

I mean the older one.

Right.

But yeah, I mean, some of these basics that you are seeing now are, are staples in your daily lives.

Some were created in San Antonio and now the representative, Speaker 1: The west side, Southwest research Institute and Tom slick and all that he created in that whole area out on the far west side, Speaker 2: The incredible things they do, their footprint development that is expanding and significant.

It's a wonderful time again, to be on both the south and Southwest side.

Speaker 1: Well, some good news and look forward to more business coming to all of this area, especially the south and west side.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh, Al Arriola with the south San Antonio chamber of commerce.

Appreciate it.

Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: I have some news now about San Antonio's best known artists, Jesse Trevino.

He is in the hospital right now, over in Houston, where he's getting ready to undergo a major surgery on Monday to remove a cancerous tumor.

That's been growing in his mouth and jaw still at the age of 75.

This legendary artist still has plans for more artwork here.

In fact, he told me that while he was getting a C scan in the hospital last week, he was also imagining plans for a mural right in the heart of the west side, where he grew up, Trevino is maybe best known for his massive murals.

The biggest is that nine stories tall, one called the spirit of healing, mosaic tile, right on the children's hospital of San Antonio downtown.

Also that 3d Vella Dora the Guadalupe cultural arts center on the west side, along with so many other murals and paintings that capture the real spirit of San Antonio and the people here.

Now, he is also known for his incredible life story and what he has had to battle through just, you could say so far, a promising artist.

He was almost killed in combat in Vietnam.

He lost his right hand, that's his drawing and painting hands.

So he taught himself to paint with his left.

I've known Jesse for 35 years, but since I left TV news a few months ago, I've gotten to know him better talking with him, sometimes shooting video of him interviewing him.

And just a few months ago, he seemed much healthier than he had been in years.

He finally seemed to get over the throat cancer that hit him very hard a few years ago.

In fact, he even built a porch onto the side of his house, but in the last several months, he's had to fight a new cancer, a sarcoma that's embedded in his mouth and jaw in his hospital room at the VA over in Houston, we talked about what he is still looking forward to, um, mural he wants to do on a west side church, as well as how he's feeling, getting ready for the surgery.

Terrified the second tablet is cancer treatment surgery.

So certainly resolve my life.

But this one seems to top them all 75 years ago, but I wouldn't be strong enough to, it's very hard as I want to think positive about being able to do some of the projects that were in the back room.

Like I said, it's home to sacred heart church, the actual church Henry.

She said told this girl, I said, dream that they're doing something I taught for hill, grew up in our chapel.

And like, that's like, that's one of my dreams to, And that is just one of his dreams.

He says he has so many more and it has been through so much.

He does plan to get through this.

So I asked him how people here could help him.

They've been praying for me all that's I'm here.

So I, it would be there then I think would be the, the papers major for me would be to prevent Jessie.

You got it.

Good luck with that surgery on Monday.

And we will all keep you in our thoughts and prayers, a little drama at bear county commissioners court this week over of all things redistricting and how they should split up the different precincts as they redistrict to make things more equal for the four precincts.

Joining us to talk about that is Jackie Wang, the local government reporter for the San Antonio report.

Thanks for coming in.

We don't usually think of a little drama or controversy or conflict at a bear county commissioner's court, but, and especially when you say re-districting, cause it's usually kind of tedious, but what happened?

So I think were Speaker 2: All expecting a pretty straightforward redistricting process because if you look at how bear county has grown over the past 10 years, um, district or sorry, precinct three and precinct two were the ones that were most kind of out of balance.

Um, so they all have to be somewhat equal to each other.

They don't have to be perfectly equal cause that's very hard to Speaker 1: Do all the growth has been basically north side.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Precinct three exploded.

Right?

So, um, I think the ideal population size was 502,000 precinct through was at like 553,000.

So they were very much out of the realm of where they should be.

Um, so I think commissioners thought it was just going to be a swap between two and three, um, three giving a lot of its residents to, to, and that would be it.

But on Tuesday we saw a little bit of last minute shuffling and that did cause a little bit of drama.

Speaker 1: It was between Rebecca Clay, Florida is and Tommy Calvert and district two east side and the Southeast side.

And he got what, three more districts.

And wasn't happy that he didn't know what those are.

I'm sorry, uh, precincts and didn't know what those were.

Speaker 2: Right.

So I'm voting precinct, voting precincts, right?

So one of the ways that redistricting works is that voting precincts, which is where, you know, you can vote and like who represents you and all of that, those cannot be split by commissioner boundaries.

So Rebecca Clay Flores precinct one commissioner offered up three of her voting precincts that touched precinct three's border and said, I would like to give these roughly 5,000 residents to precinct four.

Um, and commissioner Tommy Calvert, who is the precinct four commissioner, um, said essentially that he had no idea that this was on the table and he was not happy with the suggestion.

Speaker 1: And we know why.

Speaker 2: So from what we understand, um, commissioner Calvert, uh, said that traditionally commissioners hash out redistricting tweaks like this ahead of time.

And he said that he did not receive any phone calls or text messages from commissioner clay Flores, who on her part said she did attempt to reach out to him.

Okay.

Speaker 1: So he just wanted to know who was going to be in his district, what the boundaries were beforehand, before they voted.

And I guess it came up that day.

Yes.

And she said, Speaker 2: I just want to make sure that we attempt to equalize it even more because as it stands, if precinct four had not been touched, it would have been about 477,000 people.

Um, which is, would have been the smallest and still is the smallest.

Even with this change of all four precincts, um, she said she wanted to achieve more balanced between populations.

Um, but he did not take it that way.

Speaker 1: And so what happened, uh, Speaker 2: He essentially said that he thinks that there is a primary challenger in one of those three voting precincts that could now take him on in the March.

Speaker 1: We don't know who that is.

We don't know who that Speaker 2: Is.

He declined to tell reporters who he thought that would be.

Um, and there's really no way of figuring out who lives there unless I go down to the elections department and get that role Speaker 1: We were talking before about that.

It's no one obvious at least to us.

And it doesn't seem like, or does it that she put them there, put those extra precincts there because of a challenger.

Speaker 2: She maintains that that is not the case.

Um, she said her only reason for doing that was to again, achieve some more balance.

Um, she said very clearly that she did not intend to redistrict any kind of a challenger or opponent into commissioner Calvert's Speaker 1: Precessional final vote.

Speaker 2: A final vote was actually split.

Um, we saw, uh, commissioner Calvert clearly was not in favor of this commissioner de Berry.

Um, also back to him up, she said something along the lines of wanting to maintain collegiality in the process.

Um, and she felt that had not been maintained here.

And then we had commissioner clay Flores, commissioner, Justin Rodriguez of precinct two and bear county judge Wolf all voted in favor of moving those three voting precincts into precinct.

Speaker 1: Okay.

So bottom line at the end, it's going to be what she came up with.

Yep.

The other thing is we were talking about that you reported on is the elevator theater project, um, because of COVID they were short on their capital campaign fundraising.

So they're going to the city and the county now for more money.

Yes.

Speaker 2: So as it stands, they should be able to have full funding soon.

Um, the city has now approved $7 million in tourist funding, Speaker 1: Tax increment, reinvestment zone, the tax money that would have, yeah.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

The fun acronym that I always kind of have trouble with re saying out loud.

Um, but so they're going to get 7 million from the city, this project restoring the Alameda theater, and then they're thinking they're going to get 7 million from the county.

The county has not voted to approve that yet.

Um, or maybe they have, I'm going to have to check that agenda one more time, but I'm pretty sure they didn't yet.

Um, Speaker 1: That's the most honest I have ever seen a reporter on the, Speaker 2: But there, the idea is that the county has essentially said they would commit that money.

Um, and they're also hoping to get federal and state tax credits that have to do with historic restoration to shore up the rest of the construction budget.

And with that they should up all their funding and it should be done by 2023.

I believe Speaker 1: Jackie Wang, San Antonio, local government reporter for the San Antonio report.

Thank you very much for coming on and being so transparent and honest.

That is a true reporter on the record.

Thanks Speaker 2: For having me Speaker 1: On reporters round table.

This week.

First we are talking about a sound check.

You could say for the city of San Antonio right now have a pilot program where they're trying to figure out what to do.

If anything, about the noise ordinance and enforcement that has come up again, at least in some places joining us now is Sanford Nolan.

Who is the editor in chief of the San Antonio occurrence?

Is that right?

Your official title?

That's correct.

I can't believe anybody would give me that responsibility, but you got the title, correct?

Yeah.

Uh, so tell us about the noise ordinance.

You know, since I've been here in the eighties, nineties every year, it seems like we are covering some kind of noise ordinance thing, but again, it got to critical levels this year because of a couple of areas of concern.

Yeah.

I mean, I, it seems like the big concern was that, uh, you know, you had folks in district one, uh, re Roberto Trevino represented on city council approach.

Jim, they were concerned about St. Mary's strip noise levels.

They were concerned about Southtown noise levels.

Uh, and he basically, before he was voted out of office, agreed to put together this, this noise task force to look into it.

He ended up bringing in district 10, um, Clayton Perry, um, who wanted the same thing because he'd been hearing complaints from his, uh, folks over there at the north end of Broadway, around four, 10 there's clubs up there as well.

And, you know, uh, this task force has been meeting.

There was a pilot program started last month that, uh, is basically dispatching half a dozen, uh, city code enforcement folks with noise meters to go out.

And Basically Friday, Saturday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

And you know, if they're detecting noise levels that are in violation of the current ordinance, they're basically gonna have the, have the police send a ticket to Cover story on the current this week, you talk about this and there was something like 30,000 a year, basically noise complaints, but only 3% of them are about Bars and clubs.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the fascinating thing.

If you look at the, uh, the last year and a half of data, uh, ending, I think June 30th of this year, 53,000 complaints, 3% of them are bars, restaurants, music, venues, everything else is basically people call them calling the police on their neighbors.

And so, uh, people, uh, that don't want any changes or at least changes to the ordinance itself is that on this task force, it's overly represented by people in those districts near St Mary's and Southtown and 10 in Brooklyn.

I mean, that's, that's been a complaint, it's a 15 member task force, uh, and only four people representing business on it right now.

And by my count, none of those people are, are strictly music venues or musicians, right.

Uh, you've got three people from city staff and the remaining eight are people, you know, from the neighborhoods, uh, you've already had one, uh, guy, uh, Blaine Tucker, who was an owner of a St. Mary's, uh, uh, music venues, also the head of the St Mary's business association or president right now St. Mary's business association.

And he resigned and issued a, a, a, uh, uh, an email basically saying that he thought the, uh, the task force was a farce because it was so weighted with, you know, people who had access to grind with specific venues who didn't seem interested in working with the businesses and coming up with something, uh, feasible that everybody could live in that This is Beethoven manner Corp down there has been having live bands outside since 1920.

That's correct.

And so they haven't had enough complaints to have to change things, but they have, they have made changes trying to keep the neighbors happy.

And they're still not.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's to the point right now where we're there talking to ha talking about having a sound engineer coming in, come in to put up a wall to separate them from some of their, their residential neighbors.

And that's going to require them to go to the city to get a variance, because it's a historic, uh, neighborhood down there in king William, you know, and the thing is too, uh, I, I have spoken to other bar owners who say, I mean, they're already feeling the heat that the city is already sort of, you know, breathing down their neck about live music.

Um, for example, uh, down on St Mary's alone, some rows, you know, they used to have singer songwriter stuff of an evening out on their back patio.

They started doing it during the pandemic, kind of it's a safety measure.

Uh, and recently city code folks came by and said, no, you can't do that.

Here's where it says in your lease, that you can have music.

And it doesn't say specifically, you can have music on the back patio.

So Taskforce, they come back to city council with recommendations, and then, you know, there's going to be a lot of people hashing out and fighting over that.

What do you think is going to happen?

Yeah, I think the interesting thing will be to watch and see how much of this is guided by science and how much of this is arbitrary.

Um, you know, Mario Bravo, I've talked to him about it and he said, look, I understand why neighbors are mad about noise, but I also understand that we can't just sort of start shutting down culture in San Antonio to appease people.

And he is advocating that they need to have experts like sound engineers, come in and actually talk about this stuff, because some of the things that have been advocated for my understanding so far on this task force are just lowering the decibel level allowable by 10 decimal points.

That's not how this stuff works, right.

I mean, because right now you're at 72 decibels.

If you lower it to 60 to 62 is about the, the sound level of an air conditioner running.

And Yeah, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous and speakers or what other people have other people have advocated.

Well, you shouldn't be able to hear anything if I'm in my house.

I shouldn't be able to hear anything from a venue nearby.

How realistic is that?

I, I don't think it's very realistic.

And I think, I think the complaints you hear from a lot of musicians who lived through this in the nineties, when they're going around and having cops show up and ticket bands and venues, we're exceeding the noise ordinance, um, you know, is that, look, if people are going to move next door to the St Mary's strip, if people are going to move into Southtown because they want to be in this thriving bustling, entertainment oriented part of the city, they're going to have to accept that there's going to be a little bit more noise than if you bought a house out at 1604 bustling means noise.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I mean, you know, this, I really see this as being sort of a component of the gentrification, uh, arguments and debates we're having as San Antonio grows and as people continue to want to move downtown and Who's going to arbitrate.

Yeah.

I think that becomes an interesting question.

And my hope is, you know, I, I, uh, viewed the last one of these, um, uh, task force task force meetings, you know, and it seemed like folks were largely largely being cordial.

Uh, you know, they were sort of setting the ground, the ground rules for how the discussion was going to go on.

And at the end of, at the end of the meeting, you know, somebody said, well, I think, I think, you know, this one of the neighborhood folks that I think we're pretty close on this, you know, with, with, uh, you know, with the business folks on this, this task force.

And I hope that's the case.

I hope I hope they come up with something that's reasonable.

And I know that, uh, uh, Perry's staffers have said that, you know, it may just be that we need to enforce what we already have.

And I think that may be, that may be the optimum situation.

Uh, I, I think, you know, striking something arbitrary that suddenly shuts down clubs or requires them to spend a whole lot of extra money to have permits, uh, could really be chilling to live music in San Antonio.

And it's at a time where we're really trying to embrace our culture and export our culture.

Live music is a part of that culture.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

And covering that live music and being involved in live music yourself back in the day, Sanford media back in the day.

Oh, you're still are, what's your band now?

What's your band Now?

SERE.

S Y R S Y R. And you can be seen, Uh, no where yet stay to stay too.

Wow.

What a tease Sanford Nolan, chief editor in chief of the centers on your current.

Thank you very much.

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.

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