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.

I'm Randy Beamer.

This week, the state's Commission on Environmental Quality approved a controversial wastewater permit for a planned development in northwest Bexar County.

Despite some strong opposition.

From here, a busload of people went up to the TCE.

Q hearing and joining us on the way back from that meeting is Randy Newman, the chair of the Scenic Loop, Helotes Creek Alliance, one of the groups that are against this proposal.

First of all, what did you, present to this, TC hearing about why there shouldn't be, this wastewater permit approved for this development?

Well, the way the program works, our attorneys had eight minutes to make a statement, and that was the sum total of the input from the, opponents.

However, State representative mark the ratio who's been very helpful in all of this, did get to speak on our behalf and, of course, spoke against the plant.

We had ten state reps and three state senators who all asked that the plant permit be denied.

This is a bipartisan group.

If we get back up here, I want to make clear to people this is a proposed development, west of Scenic Scenic Loop and Babcock and north of Gray Forest and our homes out of Florida wants to build about 3000 homes there.

They would get water from a source, but not sewage, treatment.

And so what they want to build is, is build a plant.

And you're opposed to that because.

Well, for a number of reasons, primarily environmental, but it has to do with the drinking water of San Antonio while the local residents will be impacted our wells, because we're all on, well water.

We sit right atop the balconies, escarpment faults and that's the area where water that goes into the Trinity Aquifer enters the Edwards.

So whether this plant were to dump the water down below the street or whether they irrigated on their own property, this car's environment transfers water from the surface to the groundwater rates of up to a mile a day.

And, so we know that the local wells will be painted very quickly.

And that's a concern not just because it's sewage, but because of all these other things that are in sewage today that cannot be removed.

Those are called contaminants of emerging concern.

And that's really the concern.

And this had been, well, the Office of Public Interest Council of the TC had recommended rejecting this City of Gray for us to get against it.

A number of other groups, did the, TC to give a reason today that they would basically overrule their own office and special counsel.

Randy, they're pretty high handed.

They they pretty much knew what they wanted to do, and they don't give you a reason.

And now, you know, Lennar, to be fair, they say they are following all the rules, the laws that the wastewater will not, be causing any kind of, pollution or, to the aquifer, a threat to the aquifer or drinking water.

That's basically the same line that the TC things.

They want to talk just about waste.

One.

And that's 4 or 5 items in that effluent stream that they would release.

They never talked about the contaminants of emerging concern, because these kinds of plants can't remove those from the effluent, but the state allows them to basically just talk about one subset of the flow.

It and they can say, that's okay, but what they're ignoring is the cancer causing agents and all the other things, hormone disruptors, illegal drugs that will now be entering our water supply for the first time.

Well, other you know, there are other any number of wastewater treatment plants, even in the San Antonio area.

Are you saying that all of those now would cause or all of those would threaten our aquifer in other ways, or already are?

Well, I'm not going to speak for all of them because I haven't researched all of them.

Our our focus has been on the the Lotus Creek watershed and part of the reason that we're so focused on that watershed is because Southwest Research did an actual scientific study, two year long study, and determined that the watershed is pristine and that 15% of the total recharge of the Edwards Aquifer comes from this watershed.

In the city of San Antonio.

Through the BP has spent over $50 million preserving land in this watershed for the sacred purity of our customer.

And the ranch is the last large, undeveloped piece of property in this watershed.

So to have taken our money and spent $50 million to preserve the aquifer and then allow Lennar to come in and dump sewage on those lands and pollute the aquifer, just doesn't make any sense.

Now, this is the latest hurdle that they've had to overcome in terms of, trying to develop the property.

But you're not giving up the fight.

So absolutely not.

We will file a motion for rehearing, and, we will also go on from there to an appeal, which could be talking years.

Public Improvement District, I understand, has to be approved by Bexar County leaders for this to happen.

Where where are they in the process?

We have been working with the county and the city.

The way this works, it will start at the county.

If the county approves it, it will go to the city.

And the city has 30 days to either give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.

These kids were originally designed to do improvements in existing subdivisions.

And what's happened is developers will come in and coopted these neighborhood improvements to basically become a developer reimbursement scheme.

So in this case, all of the cost of developing the ranch would be borne by the four folks who buy the 2900 houses in the subdivision.

Yet Lennar grows.

These are affordable homes starting at the 200,000 as well.

But unfortunately, that is a relatively inexpensive home.

But they're going to be saddled with an additional $2,000 tax bill that the rest of us won't see.

And that's not my definition of affordable.

And Lennar could have, paid what it would cost extra to have the sewage, through source.

But, but that not to or to refuse Robert.

When they said, in the early section of city Council last week that they offered connection to San Antonio sewer system, there were two options.

One was 20,000,001 was 40 million because of cost.

But now I turn those down and went with the cheaper package.

Last one.

All right.

Well, I appreciate again this is, the latest chapter in this battle.

We will be covering this, however long it takes.

Thank you very much.

Randy Newman, who is the chair of the scenic Loop.

Hello Creek Alliance.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

In.

With early voting underway now here in Bexar County, there had been a question about whether there was a backlog of voter registration applications that would be done, processed in time for early voting and Election Day itself.

Here to talk about that and more is Grant Moody, precinct three commissioner for Bexar County.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Happy to be here.

We want to get to, an exciting development on Fort Sam Houston in just a moment.

But first, with, the election coming up and there was tens of thousands of voter registration applications that were backlogged because of a different system that had to be used.

Question of whether they would be processed.

They have been or will be.

They have all been processed.

So our previous third party contractor quit providing service either July early August.

We needed to, transition over to the state teams, system.

And that took place it took a little bit of time while we were transitioning that backlog built up of applications, but once we were set up with teams, then that backlog has has been addressed.

I think the other piece here, though, is the court move forward with trying to hire another third party contractor, commissioners court.

Yes.

VR systems to do what the old third party was doing.

Vo tech.

To to me, that seems premature.

We're going to go spend $1.52 million with the new third party when we are just getting on to the new team system at the state, which provides the service to 235 counties in the state of Texas and is being upgraded continuously.

So it offers a lot more services than it did in the past.

Why would we spend another 2 million taxpayer dollars if teams can.

Can provide that?

And since we are going ahead with teams right now without the new VR system or possible VR system, you'll be able to see the results of this election, how it went exactly, and so you won't be making a decision on that at commissioners court.

The new system until after the election.

Right.

That's my understanding with the timing.

But we did already approve the ability to negotiate, with that third party.

So the court was already moving forward with it.

A lot of times, these things, once they start, it's really hard to slow them do But we'll see.

We'll see through this election how teams performs.

We'll see all the functionality.

And I think that it's going to be capable.

People are going to be surprised at some of the new functionality.

I've had conversations with the elections department, within the Secretary of State's office.

And I think that, we should give it a real go before we think about spend another $2 million.

And now at Fort Sam Houston, people, I just realized recently, Defense Department decided to get rid of U.S.

Army South and U.S.

Army North Command's in San Antonio.

Move them.

And so we're losing jobs, but you're trying to keep jobs or get more jobs here.

How is that going with the, beach pavilion renovation?

Yeah.

South beach.

So this has actually been out there for for many years.

And, it's a great opportunity to, to really double down on, military medicine here and in San Antonio, make US military medicine City, USA.

Opportunity to potentially bring up to a thousand jobs here, $600 million of economic impact.

And, you know, the county contributed $10 million, the city's contributed $10 million.

Both the city and county have submitted grants, grant applications to the state for an additional $10 million.

So 30 total.

And that will be able to, cover the vast majority of a renovation of that building on Fort Sam, which could bring all those jobs and, and, continue to bring jobs from the defense, health Agency here to San Antonio.

What's the timeline on when, the feds would make a decision on where they would move those jobs?

If they do?

Well, it's really, really complicated.

Up there right now.

And I'm not privy to all those discussions.

Right.

They have a lot of different, leased space in the DC area and other locations around the country.

They're constantly evaluating, whether they should renew leases, whether they should buy buildings, whether they should, you know, come to a military base like Joint Base San Antonio.

But it's ongoing.

But I think in the next, you know, 12 months, it's a really critical time for us to show meaningful progress on the renovations.

And I think if we do that, we have, a great opportunity to bring all those jobs here and further, you know, reinforce the military medicine component here.

And one of the selling points is that the, the lease deal here, because they would lease it from from city, county, state, whatever are or you've already paid for those, is that would be cheaper to come here than it is in Falls Church, Virginia, or.

Wherever it would be here way cheaper.

Numbers.

You know, I need to confirm that tens of millions of dollars cheaper by coming here to Joint Base San Antonio.

And so, I think it aligns with the administration and the Department of Defense, their goals, right now to, to cut costs and bring, efficiencies to the departments.

And, I think it makes a lot of sense, both from the federal perspective and for our local community.

I would just like to touch on the the Army North and Army South, because I think there's some misconceptions there.

Those commands have been proposed to to move to North Carolina that will likely take place.

There are, you know, hundreds of jobs underneath each one of those commands that will not leave San Antonio.

And so, we don't know exactly how many numbers will leave, with that move.

We'll obviously continue to, to work, with our congressional delegation, and with, you know, the Pentagon to try to ensure that we keep as many of those as possible.

But I think there's some other real opportunities here with the Department of Defense, as there's all this consolidation, this reorganization going on.

We may lose a command here or there, but there's also opportunities to bring commands here.

And DHEA is one of those.

But there's others.

And we need to, to be leaning into all those.

And and I want to.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Grant Moody, precinct three.

Commissioner.

Thanks for coming in.

Happy.

If you haven't been to Brackenridge Park recently, you might notice some changes.

And next time you go, there are more events than ever going on down there on a regular basis, and they're getting ready for a number of projects that will help transform that historic park.

Here to tell us all about it is Chris Maitri, who is the CEO of the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Well, thank you for having me, Randy.

It is one of my favorite parks.

The history is fantastic.

All this going on down there.

Tell us about some of the new things you're working on.

The playscape.

People might think, okay, well, I know there's a small playground that's been closed for a while by the pavilion, but this is a whole different concept.

Yeah, this is a whole different concept.

It's a nature playscape.

That's what we're calling it.

It's two acres and it's 11 different features that span Brackenridge is history.

There's a water feature in there, and many people don't get an opportunity to play in the San Antonio River anymore.

There will be a water feature there for all kids of all abilities, with inclusive and accessible moments for them to play and clean.

Water.

Clean water, clean water, recirculating water.

And there'll be ten other areas that I'll talk about.

Brackenridge culture and history and immersive play, and allow children and adults to participate together in a bunch of different experiences.

This will be South for people who know the area south of the baseball fields, and kind of across the river from the pavilion.

Yeah, it's surrounded by the river on three sides, and it's just south of Lambert Beach Softball Pavilion and across the river from Jose and a stone's throw away from the Whitney Museum.

So it's an ideal location rather underutilized.

There are nine picnic nodes there, and we're going to preserve those nine picnic nodes because we love we know how many people love to picnic and celebrate with family in Brackenridge.

Park, and right now, there is no way across the river to the city that could change.

That is going to change.

Part of our project has a bridge, a brand new bridge.

We know bridges build connections both in moving people about a park, and one of the opportunities for us was to connect to our very natural trail area just south of the existing site for the Nature playscape.

People might wonder, okay, well, wait, if, the Whitney Museum's holding events are they charge to get in, I can just walk over there.

That's a possibility.

Yeah.

The nature playscape is free, and it's open to the public.

And it, again, has no boundaries, no admission.

We want people to come visit it.

And we have been in conversations with the city about the opportunities to program together, a program, an opportunity to visit the city, as well as the Nature Playscape site.

Most people, have been for this, as I understand you getting feedback.

Some people have wondered about the trees and how many trees you'll have to move or get rid of.

Yeah.

Well, we had great overwhelming success.

We took our project to the community, three different installations around Brackenridge Park, but we also took it out to a number of San Antonio parks and and in the area, whether it's Woodlawn, whether it's some of the other parks in the south and east and the west.

We did a survey online as a speaks.

We got a lot of positive feedback.

And yes, people are concerned about the trees and so are we to be honest with you.

That's why we invested almost $762,000 in preserving the existing trees out of there, relocating some that will be within the project site, but also investing in 94 new shade and ornamental trees that will be irrigated in the site.

Because we're not only worried about the existing canopy of trees, worried about the next generation, and we want to start planting those, we're committed to making this a natural space with natural shade cover, to make it climate ready for any season.

In San Antonio.

And the Brackenridge Park Conservancy, people may not realize that is a private nonprofit grew out of the conservation society a number of years.

So you're spending money that's not tax dollars, correct?

We were going out and fundraising for this project.

We are getting a little support from the Midtown tours, but all of the Brackenridge partners, the Whitney, the zoo and the Botanical Garden all get support from the Midtown tours.

But largely and holistically, this project is funded via private gifts.

When will this be finished?

And even about once.

The groundbreaking?

Yeah.

The groundbreaking.

We expect that to be in January of 2026, and we expect to complete it by December of 2026.

So it's a 12 month project.

We're doing a great deal of due diligence right now on the trees, as well as potential archeology moments.

So we're preserving and protecting, which is really what we were formed to do with the conservation society in the city.

And it's not the only project, the playscape.

It is not.

It's one of four that we're actively tracking on right now.

The other one is, Brackenridge Trail Area, which is celebrating some of the earlier water distribution system that George W Brackenridge really was famous for, and kind of helped allow San Antonio to grow.

So we're tracking on that project.

And meantime, we also have two other trail projects that are coming.

One is coming up from River road area and the 281 through the golf course that will end at Mulberry.

There's another one, Northland Brackenridge Park, called the spirit Rich trail, working with our partners and the UAW that actually brings the student trail system into the park just underneath Hildebrand and connects to the aforementioned Brackenridge Trail.

And the timeline on those.

Those are a little bit longer, about 2 to 3 years out.

Right now, we're finishing construction documents and working with the community engagement moments, but those are really being led by our partner with San Antonio River authority.

But both those trails are fascinating to me.

So eventually you can come up from downtown, under the freeway, through the golf course in that area and up into the park.

Exactly.

That's the plan right now.

And it's been adopted by the Alamo Golf Trails Group, which is running the Brackenridge Golf Course.

And so we're working with a River road neighborhood association and working with the Army Corps to make sure we're doing as little damage, obviously, in protecting the amazing foliage there, while also removing invasive species which dot Brackenridge landscape.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

So a lot of stuff going on down there fishing even on some weekends.

Chris Maitri, Brackenridge Park Conservancy CEO.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, the City of San Antonio said it will challenge the governor's order to get rid of rainbow crosswalks across the state.

Here to talk about that is City Hall reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

Megan Rodriguez, thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Now, first of all, this whole issue dates back to the summer.

And the transportation secretary talking about rainbow crosswalks.

How did that.

Work?

Yes.

Sean Duffy had asked that all the states across the country basically jump in on a roadway safety campaign.

He was calling out the removal of any kind of political statements on roadways.

He specifically mentioned rainbow crosswalks in cities across the country.

He wanted those removed.

He felt like they were distractions, things that money should not be spent on.

And Governor Greg Abbott this month jumped in on that as well.

On the eighth, he and the Texas Department of Transportation said that these needed to be removed from all cities and counties within 30 days or risk losing roadway funding for for their areas.

So for the city of San Antonio that affects, these kind of four crosswalks over, North Main Avenue and East Evergreen Street.

By SAC right there.

And what's called, I guess it's the Pride Cultural Heritage district.

Yes, that's correct.

That was a recent designation earlier this year.

And so this is really at the center of where there are a lot of LGBTQ plus owned businesses and oriented businesses in that stretch.

For years and years, it's been, an area where the pride parade is held every year.

So it means a lot to the LGBTQ.

Plus community.

And they're really pushing for it, too, since since 2018.

And so, with the city attorney, I understand this week told a, a committee that they would be filing for an exemption based on safety.

That's correct.

So there is, stipulation in texts order saying that you can request an exemption, if you have kind of a safety argument.

And so the city is saying, well, we don't believe that this is a safety hazard.

We actually believe that it potentially makes things more safe.

So, first Assistant City Attorney Liz Prevencao told, Elizabeth Prevencao told the LGBTQ plus advisory board earlier this week that, their argument is going to be, well, in the three years leading up to the 2018 installation, there were a couple of incidents.

We don't know the nature of those what they were exactly, but there were two of them.

And then in the several years since it's been implemented, there have only been two more.

So there in the city's argument is, if anything, this is safer than it was before.

When Sean Duffy brought it up.

He talked about taxpayer dollars versus being spent on this.

But in San Antonio, as I understand it, since the beginning, it's been, basically the city pays for just the crosswalk and anything above that the pride group has paid for that.

So it's public, private, and it's still also maintained when they pressure wash it as well.

Pride San Antonio group pays for that.

Yes.

So it was always a collaboration between the city and, that nonprofit and that nonprofit, like you said, is keeping up with the maintenance of it.

They have a power wash and company come out monthly to kind of maintain it.

And so, that's another part of why there's some frustration toward this, move is because San Antonio's really wasn't something that was just, city push.

It was it was really from the ground up, from the grassroots community here.

And the timeline now is the city has until at the end of the month to file this exemption.

I don't know who would look at that.

And then when they when they would rule.

So yes, they actually have like 30 days from when this, came through.

So that'll put us right at the beginning of November and the first week in November, calendar days.

And, the city says that they, understand that there will be kind of a process.

They're not exactly sure how long it could take for it to be reviewed.

But they don't believe that their funding will be revoked in that time period.

They think they'll have some time as this gets sorted out, to make sure that they continue with their funding and just move ahead in their in their exemption process.

And it's not just the city attorney saying this, score their councilwoman in that area.

She's talked about how this is important as well.

And so it's a city citywide issue, though the council hasn't really officially voted.

On this, as I understand.

That's correct.

So, yes.

Councilwoman Cora, it was actually one of the council members who has helped push there have been many council members that helped push for, kind of getting the cultural heritage district recognized and supporting this area in general.

And so, the city council will actually take up for consideration.

We're not exactly sure on a date, a resolution in support of this crosswalk.

That was something that the LGBTQ advisory board, voted on Monday to pass along to the city council.

Like I said, unclear exactly when they'll take it up, but that'll be mostly a symbolic resolution saying, kind of, we stand in support of this if they pass.

Well, we'll look forward to more stories on this from you, Megan Rodriguez, City Hall report of the San Antonio Express-News.

You can read all about that and more in the actual paper as well as online.

Megan Rose, very good.

Thank you.

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

You can watch this show again.

You can watch any previous shows and download it as a 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 Dufilho.