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

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.

Joining us now as we go on the Record with Randy Beamer.

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

I'm Randy Beamer.

We are starting this week with a change in policy at the San Antonio water system and how they're supplying water and services to different areas in what's called the extraterritorial jurisdiction outside the city limits, where developers want to build a lot of things and that's sometimes over the Edwards Aquifer, the recharge zone.

Thank you for coming in, Amy.

Heart Burger, a San Antonio Water System trustee.

Appreciate you coming in.

Thank you for having me.

The vote you had recently of the trustees, what did you change and why?

So before I answer that, just some there are a lot of it's kind of an alphabet soup.

So you said extraterritorial jurisdiction, 1880 J And then we have sea ends in U.S.A..

It sounds.

I don't know.

So essentially the stores or any utility has a service area that's our and that's preapproved.

If you're in that area, we're going to serve you.

So if there's a new development, you may need approval from source, but you're essentially going to get it because, you know, there's a difference between water service sometimes and just wastewater service.

That's right.

So the map is very confusing because we have city of San Antonio, Bear County, and then we have a service area for water, as you mentioned, and then a separate service area for wastewater.

And they don't, unfortunately, all overlap, which is really what led to these discussions that we've been having and ultimately the vote that we made as a board.

So, you know, the growth of San Antonio is going in a lot of different directions.

But for us, from a water protection standpoint, all those directions are not created equal.

And so we had a couple of issues that we wanted to solve at the same time.

The first one was that in a couple of areas our CCN laughed Bear County.

So completely outside the edge of the city and outside county jurisdiction, that really created some problems for us as a board because all of the great things that San Antonio citizens do to conserve and all of the rules the city of San Antonio has can't be enforced in every county in Kendall County.

County.

That's right.

And so we really had some concerns about, you know, what does that mean for San Antonio ratepayers if everybody here is abiding by all of these conservation restrictions or right now drought restrictions?

And then we have people sort of outside an area of our reach.

So that was kind of one of the first issues.

And of course, both of those areas have sensitive research features.

So we have kind of a double a double issue that we really do want to be able to be careful about how that's being developed.

And so that was kind of the initial discussion.

Now, the other area that has been talked about a lot is the I-10 corridor area.

So kind of the northwest area of town.

As you know, if you've ever been out I-10, that area is growing very, very rapidly.

And we lost some opportunities, to be frank, along the 281 corridor.

That area is now quite covered.

So we have some very sensitive recharge features in that area and conversations about, you know, do we want this to be completely covered, dense development.

Correct.

And that's what you provide as a water and sewage.

And that's one of those things that, well, some people would call that land use politics.

North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce wanted you to approve, I guess, in a blanket way, Right.

Water service requests in that area.

But you voted to say no.

We're going to take a look in the case, a case by case basis.

That's right.

So there's a part of that area that's not already covered in our CCN.

So what ends up happening is if somebody wants to develop an area of that land, they have to come to source.

And in certain circumstances, when it's oversize, it will come to us, the board, to vote on.

And so what the Chamber had asked for was, look, if you can't, you just while we're making all these changes to the CCN and we're pulling CCN back from Kendal and come out, you know, couldn't you just cover that area completely all the way up to the edge of the the air and the board as a whole with stops recommendations did not vote for that and wanted to do it on a case by case basis because of the science of that area that there we wanted to be able to have conversations about, you know, is this a wise area to have a project such as this or to serve wastewater in this way?

People would ask, okay, if a source doesn't provide it, somebody is likely to provide it.

And so while it helps us in terms of also it's the cost of the infrastructure that source has to provide, right?

So that releases that.

But does it really change anything in terms of sprawl and development over the aquifer?

Hopefully.

So I would say that the most important thing about what you said is that size is not really the governor of development.

So we are making decisions because as an organization we have an obligation to protect the water that serves all of our existing customers.

But we're not meant to be doing this in a vacuum.

So my hope is that this is the beginning of a lot of conversation sessions with the city and people who have sort of more of an agency or authority over land use to make sure that some of those things don't happen.

While you voted to go ahead and do it on a case by case basis in that area.

And also to expand in the southwest, you still have to have that approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

How likely you think it is that?

I mean, I never try to predict politics, but I would say that historically, my understanding is if the utility is wanting to release a portion of their corn with the blessing of the city council, that it will be approved.

If there are folks that are contesting that, you know, it might change.

I don't think that there's anybody really pushing back in the Kendall County area.

That's a slightly bigger area than that come out county area.

Do you have any real input?

Can you make a difference in terms of if a developer comes to you and says, I want to put X amount of houses on this and you say, no, this isn't really good for the aquifer, we would rather have less dense development.

Does anyone listen to that or can you even bring that up?

Yeah, we have had opportunities where and I think that's one of the reasons why we didn't want to just blanket that area and just, you know, not require these case by case reviews.

Nobody's saying that we don't want development, but we want the right development in the right place.

And so I think that we are now in a world where there should be some negotiation, there should be some conversations.

It can't just look exactly like what the person who wants to put it in wants it to look like necessarily.

I mean, I think we really are moving into an era, I hope, of conversations like does every house automatically need a sprinkler system?

Does every house automatically need to require, you know, not drought, drought resistant grass in the front and the backyard?

I mean, we need to be very honest about where we live and what's happening already.

You're getting pushback.

The North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce says what they want is predictable engineering and economic factors to drive the growth instead of what they call land use politics.

Right.

Which you could also just say is land use policy.

Right?

That is forward looking.

And you want to protect the aquifer, which is what we have for at least part of our water.

You know, I mean, it's easy to call planning's politics, right?

So it's more salacious.

But the reality is this is just based on science.

I mean, I get that that area is open and we are a lot of people are coming here.

And so there is this need to sort of fill it.

But the reality is you pave that over or you pollute the aquifer and you have now impacted 2 million existing customers.

And I'm from here.

I want to live here for a long time.

Even though we've diversified our water resources at size, we need the Edwards for for us, but also for the region.

And we are still buying as a city land over the aquifer ongoing on going on some of the bond issues, as you mentioned earlier, have paid for that and are still paying for that or other other funds from the city.

That's right.

Yeah.

So the city multiple times approved a bond package that would by either buy land outright or be able to pay for conservation easements.

And the goal of that was to look for highly sensitive areas and kind of draw a boundary around that.

And I think that that was incredibly forward looking of the citizens of San Antonio to vote for that.

So it really would make even less sense to then undo all of all of that good work.

And we're about out of time.

But what's the timeline for the PUC to approve this and for you to change your question, I should have double check before I came.

I feel like it's a few months, but I could be I could be incorrect on that with the state.

It's not going to be tomorrow.

That's right.

It never is.

Well, thanks very much.

Come back and let us know how things are going, what the sprawl is like and development.

Amy Hard Berger, San Antonio Water System Trustee.

Thanks.

Thank you.

There is a fascinating college course here.

Eternity University, they believe, is the first of its kind in the country.

It is called natural environment and well-being.

To tell us all about it is Courtney Krim, who is an associate professor of education.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks.

This is.

Well, explain what it is.

It's definitely not just bookworm and no, it's not.

It's this our third semester teaching the course and we designed the course because students were so stressed out.

And you can tell them we know heavily with decades of research that getting outside, letting yourself recharge is really important.

But if you tell a really stressed out college student to go sit outside and do nothing, that doesn't go over well, it just kind of elevates their stress even more.

So we we created the course in it's intentionally interdisciplinary in nature so that we can get all students from all disciplines.

And it's meaningful, but it really includes the three elements of theory, research and practice.

So while a lot of courses will talk about theory and research that might be there, they don't include that bridge.

In other words, the others would stay in a classroom.

But you get out and have the students actually experience what nature and well-being is supposed to do to a person.

And with that, they look at their own bodies and their own research and their own changes, which is really powerful.

Adolescence and emerging adults are a little still egocentric because their brains are developing.

They're supposed to be they're supposed to be.

But when they can, they can read all the research and say, Well, I'm different, I'm unique.

But when they're able to see their own changes in mood and resilience, that that's rare.

And you've seen that over the semesters.

Yes.

Yes, we have seen that.

Our first semester, the data we ran was only correlational.

Nature helps well-being.

But the last two years we've been able to do a control group design difference in difference design, which has a causality.

So those taking the class are doing much better as far as increasing their well-being.

And this is also part of environmental studies as well as education.

Maybe a bit of psychology thrown in there.

Yes, there's a lot psychology, history, sociology, urban studies.

We want to meet the needs and interest of all the students.

So if we have psychology students, we want to be able to offer that research and those connections.

If we have someone that's an education, we want to be able to make those connections.

So there's a wide variety of.

So when you talk about putting it into practice, you go out to places like Brackenridge Park, maybe Elmendorf, Woodland Lake, and what do you do there?

What are the students doing?

Different things.

So when we first went to Brackenridge, we started with the forest bathing walk.

My colleague and I, Laura Allen, are forest bathing.

Yes, we are certified forest.

Well, in Japan it's forest bathing.

When you come to the US, people thought you were running around bathing in the woods.

So it's more often termed forced therapy.

And in the US and we went through a six month training to be able to do that.

But it's basically getting out of your cognitive realm and into your senses because that allows your cognition to stop and that's when you can refill your glucose, a different part of your brain and different part of it.

Well, it's actually out of the brain into the body, like looking at your senses of touch and smell and taste.

And so that's what we did.

BRECKENRIDGE We started with an abbreviated version of that.

So you train them you how does it we it's kind of like learning a sport.

I guess the more you do it and you're exposed to the skills and practice, the more second nature they become.

So there's elements of the force therapy that we work with them, but there's smaller parts that they can do individually.

They do a weekly sit spot, which is 30 minutes wherever some kind of green space is, some go to Breckenridge, some stay on campus and find a pocket of green space.

But working on the idea of doing nothing for a while and at first it's really hard for them.

They're all talking about, I can't believe you're making me do this.

I have an organic chemistry exam.

I can't sit for 30 minutes.

And then a couple of weeks into it, they're saying, I'm so glad you're forcing me to do do this.

And it gets in the way from technology and their phones and all that.

That is not allowed.

I assume no new technology.

They can't sit and work on their grocery list or anything like that or homework.

So no homework, no technology.

They use the technology only to take a photograph of where they are and to upload that with their reflection.

And that's an element of forced therapy.

So we kind of tuck those in along the way.

HERBERGER It was just exploration or finding.

Yes, Herberger Park, they I had a student say I go under the land bridge every day on my way home and I didn't know this park was here.

Breckenridge is I don't even know if it's a quarter mile from campus.

And usually one third to 50% of the class have never been there.

So with that, it's also introducing them to spaces around San Antonio that they can visit and then teaching them practices like meditation or is similar to meditation that they can use their whole life.

Yes, that's our goal.

Our goal.

And we haven't done the longitudinal work yet, but in the spring that's our goal because we'll have now three completed groups that have gone through.

And so we want to see are they able to take that transfer beyond the semester and take that transfer into other areas, whether they've graduated and gone on to high stress jobs?

Anecdotally, what are you hearing from students after they how it changed them?

What did they learn that they might not be able to put on a test yet?

And they're on a test, by the way, but they want to take this class.

There are no test.

It's all a reflection.

And show us about your own change.

As some of them said, this is the first class where I've actually learned about me.

I've learned more about myself in this course and what I need to do to take care of myself.

Some of them have said, like every student at Trinity should take this course.

Which performance?

That's great.

So yeah, the the feedback has been extremely positive with the qualitative reports that we get back from them.

And I think the biggest thing is just in a really busy world being given permission to stop and breathe and recharge and rest and is it helping them in other classes?

They say it is.

We haven't done that, that connection to look at their grades and comparison.

And because there's just so many variables, it gets really muddy.

But they they say it does.

And for example the sit spots, they normally do it.

They don't have to, but normally they have at a certain time during the week.

And when we get to finals, we've heard, you know, they'll write comments in the reflection of they're only doing on Sunday.

But I knew I had an organic chemistry test on Tuesday, so I did it right before that test because I knew it.

Help me focus.

And is there a waiting list for this?

How many students are the class or up to 35?

Well, we started at 35 or back down to 31 because they get other courses that they need to for graduation or something.

So we're down to 31.

Our first group was 25 and it's just a lift because every other class we're getting 31 students all across the city.

And it's I mean, there's a cost, but this last year we had a little over 70 students on the wait list.

All right.

Well, I'm sorry, we're out of time, but I appreciate it.

Again, the class is natural environment and wellbeing at Trinity University by Courtney Cram, associate professor of education.

Thanks very much.

Thanks so much.

On the record this week, a story from the Alamo.

San Antonio Express-News reporter Scott Huddleston covers the Alamo in history and preservation and education for the paper.

Thank you very much for coming in.

My pleasure.

So there was a plan for a day to explore the history of the Mexican soldiers during the Battle of the Alamo.

But that was suddenly canceled.

What happened?

Titled DIA del Salado Day of the Soldier.

So basically it's saying, you know, join us for an eventful day to remember the soldiers of the Mexican army.

And this this would be the first time the Alamo, as an official event has had, you know, an event focusing just on the soldiers of the Mexican side of the battle, the siege and battle of 1836.

So, you know, that would have broken new ground.

And according to the vision Plan for the Alamo Project, the Alamo is expected to include that perspective, along with the Tejano Native American African-American perspectives on the Alamo.

But they wanted it to include, apparently the Texan or Texan soldiers as well at the same time and not leave them out.

Is that what I understand?

So, yeah, there's where did the decision come from?

Was it because that they want to focus in on the Texan side, the heroic side of the story only or mainly I should say there are any I don't know all the details about what happened internally, but we did get a complaint from one of the volunteers at the Alamo, one of the living history re-enactors, that suddenly this event was going to be postponed perpetually.

That's what the person said.

But Jonathan HUME, the communications director at the Alamo, said that that's not the case, that we plan to revisit how we're going to do this.

And and have this event that will focus on all of the soldiers of all periods at the Alamo.

So I don't know if that will be strictly the Mexican soldiers, but this is you know, this is an ongoing conversation about how we view the Alamo and, you know, the cultural reset that's occurring.

And ever since the well, for years, this is kind of the third rail of the San Antonio and the Alamo.

If you touch on anything, people will have different ideas of how it should be represented.

When they first talked about that the Alamo Plaza plan and everything from the Cenotaph, Texas Historic Commission.

Right.

And Dan Patrick said, we want to focus on the Battle of the Alamo.

They could come to the other missions to find out the history of the missions as well as the Alamo.

But this is why they come to San Antonio because of the battle.

Do you think there is some input, too, from the state leaders?

I think in your story you said conservatives don't want just a focus on other things.

They want to focus on this no matter what.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, people have different opinions about this.

Certainly there is a conservative side.

You know, a lot of people are used to that traditional narrative that focuses on the heroism of the defenders of the Alamo.

But when you include those other perspectives, you make the Alamo more palatable for young people who they want a more inclusive story.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, providing those different perspectives allows us to also tell that traditional narrative that a lot of people want to hear.

And there are the living history re-enactors that do explore the Mexican soldiers.

But there are it seems as if there are more always Texans down there in Texas.

And so was explaining what happens from, I would say, from that point of view.

But they because they explain all of it but it's focused on that.

Right.

The Alamo Project has a vision and guiding principles document that says, you know, the perspective of the Mexican soldier and the Mexican citizens will be included in this.

And at the time, you know, the Mexican Mexican people viewed, you know, Texas as a land that belonged to Mexico.

And so that's part of it.

But I also think that it's important to revisit the whole perspective of of the way the Mexican side, if you will, has been told, because mostly it's been through a lens of, you know, Santa Ana's ideas about, you know, the take no prisoners approach.

And so in my article, I wanted to include the fact that he had, you know, high ranking officers under him who who wanted to show more compassion and in that was fascinating that we haven't really heard about that, that Santa Ana had one idea, kill them all, basically take no prisoners and the others didn't want to do that.

Right.

And that's what Santa Ana had been exposed to as a young officer in the Spanish army.

It was a Napoleonic approach to warfare.

But I thought that I think that it's important to revisit the nuance, and that allows us to have really important conversations about what happened.

And this also may be a harbinger of what's to come in terms of conflicts over what's at the education center that has been debated at the coming visitor center, the education center of the buildings across the way.

Where are we and finding out what's going to be in that or are they still deciding?

The Alamo recently opened a new exhibit in the church, the sacristy exhibit.

It's really amazing.

Gives you an idea of what it looked like.

It was a worship space during the mission era, and it was also a place of refuge for the women and children.

During the battle in 2025, they're expected to open an education center on the grounds.

And then 2027 is the Museum and Visitor center.

And so that across the street from the grotto.

Yeah, okay.

Right in the plaza.

Right.

And but they're going to open that.

But it's still to be decided what's going to be in there or how it's represented.

Right.

They're just going to be in charge of that.

There are committees that are meeting to have those discussions.

And so they're working on that, you know, mostly behind closed doors.

But they have a really, I think, a very good program manager who's overseeing all of that, Patrick Gallagher.

And he's also working on projects at other sites, such as I think Goliad and Washington on the Brazos.

And so there'll be continuity and there's a lot of construction going on down there, and some of that's going to be done before that.

2025 seems like on the plaza.

Yeah, the Plaza de Valera, which is that area just south of what we call the historic footprint of the Alamo, that will be that's in the works right now.

And what are some of the other things you said, the old Dart library that's going to go away because it was only from the fifties.

It wasn't old history.

Right.

That will be part of the education center and the Paseo del Alamo.

I know that you've asked me about that.

Yes.

The waterway leading from the Alamo Plaza down to the river that's going to be presented to the DRC later this month, redone.

And that was some consider is historic because it was done by some architects, Boone Powell and others.

Right.

But that will be redone like re revision or Yeah, I don't know the specifics yet on what that's going to look like, but I think that there are a lot of infrastructure issues, water leaking, basically that needs to be addressed, but they want to give it a new look and, you know, beautify that area.

And the southern one are they're going to open it up so you can go through this southern gate and the blue net that will be 2025 oh, okay.

Yeah.

The the main gate exhibit that's been open for a while.

But but I think they want to finish that out along with the Plaza de Valero.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

The man who knows everything about the Alamo.

And by the way, we'll also be having people in from the Alamo who can tell their, you know, the official version, because I know that was a different than what you had found out from the the volunteer that they had.

That was a scheduling issue and not anything else.

Right.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Scott Huddleston, History and preservation and education reporter from the Express-News.

Appreciate it.

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

You can see the show again or previous shows, and you can also download the podcast at KLRN.org I'm Randy Beamer, and we'll see you next time on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele.

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