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.

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

I'm Randy Beamer and the big news this week is a guy who has been in the news and in leadership positions here in San Antonio for 50 years now, as decided he has just had enough, he is out of here, or at least he is not going to run for reelection.

And that is county judge Nelson Wolff.

Joining us now, thank you for joining us.

Uh, first of all, why after only 50 years, uh, in different offices here, uh, why did you decide now's the time you're not going to run for reelection?

Speaker 2: Well, I've served as county judge now for a little over 20 years and I have a year and three months left to go and it's always difficult.

Uh, you know, regardless of what kind of job you have to make a determination when you think it's time to quit.

Uh, and, uh, so I've decided to serve out my term, uh, and not run for reelection.

Um, you know, I've always thought it's best to try to leave office when you think you are at the top of your game and not, um, you know, have to be carted out.

Um, and so, uh, I'm 80 years old.

In fact, I'll be 81 this month.

And, uh, I think it's time for me to leave.

And, and, and, um, uh, so that's, that's why I'm not running for reelection.

Uh, there's still a lot of work to do in the next, uh, year and three months.

And, uh, I think we'll have some good candidates running.

That's why I wanted to make it perfectly clear.

Uh, there's stale, uh, five months before the Democrat and Republican primaries gives candidates a chance to, uh, you know, decide they want to run and get their campaigns going and get their message.

Speaker 1: And you mentioned in your state of the county address when you announced this yesterday kind of buried the lead there at the end, but they, you talked about what do you want to do over the next, uh, more than a year, and some of the things you're proud of, you're looking forward to the last thing when we talked about, when I saw you in person was looking out over that, uh, San Pedro Creek project downtown.

Speaker 2: Well, that's the big one.

Um, as you know, we, uh, uh, finished the first section, which is from the inlet up to Houston street.

We're now working on the, uh, Houston down to, um, uh, Cesar Chavez.

And we hope to complete that by the internet she here.

And then the final two sections that'll take us on to the confluence of the San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio river.

Uh, uh, we'll be finished sometime in 2003.

So I'm anxious to get that, uh, second section finished before I leave office a huge number of, uh, economic development projects that have come along the Creek.

And some of them will be completed by the time I leave.

And, uh, so that's a big one I'd like to get, like to get through up through Cesar job is taking that area where the UT, um, uh, university of Texas data science center is where the federal courthouse is, um, uh, where, where a huge number of apartments are going up, um, Speaker 1: In terms of, uh, decisions still to be made very important decisions.

You have to decide within the next few months, what you want to do with the money that's coming to the county from the federal government, the ARPA money that kind of, Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, that's a big one.

Uh, we'll have to make a decision.

I think we'll make it in the next couple of months or so.

And so will the city, I think we have about 120 million available funds now to allocate, uh, from that, uh, we have several different proposals.

Uh, we're going through those now.

Each commissioner has a copy of those.

A lot of them are very, very good proposals and, uh, we made a w w we, we stated that when we, uh, uh, we're going to allocate these funds, we wanted them to be for sustaining projects, not just a stop gap.

And so that's sort of been the driving force of, um, where we want to go with these projects.

Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it.

We, I wish we had more time.

Uh, I know you have a lot of work to do still.

We're not doing an obit on you yet, and then talking about your books are going to ride, but thank you very much and good luck over the next year or three months county judge Nelson will appreciate it.

And from the county now to the city, Councilman Manny playas of district eight, joins us with, we're also talking about, uh, the human performance campus of the spurs.

Now this is one of those things that you would call it, I guess, a gamechanger or one of those.

Yeah.

And in sports parlance, we've called it a game changer, but I've been using the word catalytic, right?

I mean, it is that kind of project that will change lives, and that will change the nature of the way San Antonio does things going forward, big splash.

We're going to feel big ripple effects going forward for generations.

Uh, possibly one of the most important projects that the north side of San Antonio is seen in many years.

People say it's the most important in terms of keeping the spurs here, or at least guaranteeing their investment here, and they wouldn't want to leave if they had this year.

Yeah, correct.

And, um, yeah, I gotta tell you that that's one of the factors that we included in our algebra as we were, as we were looking at this, uh, certainly keeping the spurs here for another 20 years, um, is an investment that San Antonio, San Antonio is want us to make.

Um, and some people say, you know, well, they were going to stay here anyway.

And, uh, people said that about the Raiders right now, they're in Las Vegas and teams move all the time.

Um, there is a new ownership group at, at the spurs And, and Michael Dell of Austin.

But if they moved to Austin, uh, there would be a culture war way worse than tacos That's right.

But, you know, the, the, the former group was all San Antonians, and now we've got non San Antonians in this group and with no affinity, right.

For San Antonio where the tradition.

And so this inoculates us, I believe from, from, uh, you know, from that decision to leave.

But also, I I'll tell you, there's a really big military component to this, You know, tell us about that because There's a lot of folks out there who are saying, wait, this is just a practice facility.

Absolutely not.

This is not just a practice facility.

This is an enormous campus dedicated to, uh, scientific research into something called human performance.

This is a developing niche of medicine and science, um, that is applied to not just sports teams, but also to tactical athletes like our military, right.

And like police officers and firefighters.

And so the idea here is to make this a worldwide destination for those folks, I just listed off so they can come and train, but more importantly do research side-by-side with scientists, from UT, Matt and UTS.

Uh, so the, we can learn how to make a tougher, faster, uh, athlete.

Right.

And we used to call it sports science.

Now it's human performance and ed bamse center for the Intrepid.

They'd be some of the same things right now.

And are those going to be, Yeah.

So we've, this is, uh, this new science is obviously standing on the shoulders of a lot of research that's been done in the past.

Right.

But we've reached a level of perfecting this, um, to where now, you know, again, it's not just military, who's looked into the science traditionally, but now we're talking about other groups.

Um, and anyway, the idea here is not just to give the spurs, you know, another reason, you know, another sticky reason to stay here, but it's also a big reputational feather in our cap, right?

I mean, we are going to be known around the world as the center for this kind of, But no other sticky reason to stay here.

Or you could get, say giving the spurs as well as $17 million in tax incentives, which some people might say, well, they're going to say here anyway, why give them that money?

Yeah.

Well, um, I'll remind you again, that everybody's said that, uh, you know, and then watch the Raiders leave, right?

Um, but we've done this before.

This is not new.

And when we make these investments in economic development projects, they work, there's no debate that they work, right.

I was the first person that Toyota motor manufacturing ever hired that has paid off tenfold 12 full 20 fold that initial investment by the city.

And the council was the smartest investment we've made in a generation.

This is the next big one.

Now that one though came on the south side where people realize we really needed that investment.

This is in the heart of the Northwest side.

Doesn't really need any incentives in terms of whether it's going to grow or not 1604 and 10, that would have been filled in any way.

Why not push them to put it on the south side?

Because It is key.

What is perfect about this as the proximity to the medical center, to the United, to TSA and to camp Bullis, right?

So there is no sweeter spot than right there.

I'll push back on you a little bit too, right?

Because the students and the researchers at UT med and the students, the researchers at UTS, they'll tell you that this is going to bring a big benefit to them.

Right.

And we want this as close to the researchers, right?

So we go to where they are.

Uh, and, um, there's no D there's no debate, right?

That these two, these two agencies, these two institutions are now world-class and we're throwing a world-class, It's not just the human performance campus.

It's also retail and commercial and whatever, which they could make a good amount of money.

Huh?

Yeah.

They're going to make it, they're going to make a lot of money.

And I'll remind you that this is a $17 million investment in exchange for them creating a thousand plus jobs and a $246 million investment in San Antonio Or the strings of it.

They only have to create technically like 15 jobs, but you expect a thousand.

So remember it's just 15 jobs for the spurs, right at that training facility.

But this is an entirely huge campus with medical offices, hotel, um, restaurant.

And then there's going to be a public performance space, a huge park, uh, on the north side, this is the first time the north side of San Antonio will ever get a cultural fee, uh, asset where we can actually do culture up there, like concerts, jazz in the park and all that.

And so, um, again, this is, uh, this is a whole bunch of elements and people, you know, who look at it as just the spurs part of it, aren't seeing the full, How about people who ask, is there going to be some of that money invested in infrastructure and transportation right around that area?

Because it was great.

You have a park there and people are in gridlock at I attended success.

So don't forget also that, um, commissioner Kevin Wolf, and I helped bring billions of dollars back to San Antonio so that we can expand 1604 that's 1604 is going to become a 10 lane highway.

And that's exactly what we're putting this, right?

We're not putting this somewhere where it's going to be causing more stress.

We're putting this exactly where we are building more capacity And groundbreaking is, uh, Whenever the spurs decide to, to groundbreak.

But my understanding is in the next two months.

All right, well, thanks.

Many plies city council with district eight.

Appreciate you pushing back as always.

Thanks.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

And now, to the overall mood, you could say our priorities.

If people here in San Antonio and bear county were talking to the expert, because she is a co-founder of bear facts, a nonprofit polling firm, that's been here for a couple of years now, Lisa brought it to chair who is a co-founder of that.

You just came out with a poll and, and tell us about some of the big highlights of that poll about what we are interested in concerned about in bear county.

Speaker 2: The first thing that I would say that is interesting is that consistently people in bear county think highly of what's going on.

We have a plurality people who consistently say we are headed in the right direction, Speaker 1: Not as super local government, city and county Speaker 2: Of overall the city and the county.

So more than 40%.

So not a super majority, but a plurality of people think that our community is headed in the right direction and that we're not on the wrong track.

And then we see that reinforced by the popularity of the job approval of the mayor and the county judge.

So consistently the mayor has had the numbers in the sixties as, as well as the judge.

There was a big spike right after the pandemic started.

I think it was, you know, very impactful for him to be with the mayor and the judge to be in front of the camera, meaning being leading the city and leading the, the decisions, um, that they put up a fight and, and, uh, with the governor, I think that that, that has shown that, um, that the community has supported that it's particularly as it, as it relates to face masks, we see parents very supportive of face masks in schools is one of the things that we, um, pulled.

And then that leading to the job approval we saw in the governor's race Speaker 1: Changed more dramatically, Speaker 2: Very much so.

Right.

So the first time we tested the governor was right after the pandemic started.

And the numbers for the governor were really high, is again with the mayor, the judge approval numbers were high in the seventies, actually.

And then that was last April.

And in this poll that just came out yesterday, that was in the field last week.

So it's very fresh that his numbers have declined to 38%.

So we went from a 70% range to it below.

Speaker 1: Well, I guess we're talking only at bear county statewide, there's still much closer, but it gives an indication that in the urban areas where the governor and you also pulled Lieutenant governor and attorney general, right.

That they are, I don't want to say in a little more trouble, but that they're in a different position.

Right.

Speaker 2: Right.

Well, we know that bear county is, has a larger population of Democrats.

And so we see the partisanship really throughout the poll and the approval rating of the mayor judge, and then the approval rating of the governor, which is right now really low.

So interestingly, uh, it was very high regardless of the partisanship in April when leadership was really in need.

And, and we've seen this steady decline, um, as, as well, you know, as well as in the other leadership roles, this is, you're Speaker 1: A nonprofit now started a couple of years ago, explain about bare facts, because this is something you, you wanted to help people focus on priorities or to figure out where the priorities were of people and then opinion leaders could use that, how they, how they would.

Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.

So the three founders, um, came from a political background.

We have seen polls, we've seen polls utilize.

We've seen how they can be useful tools in shaping people's opinion, directing people's campaigns.

And in Houston, they have a kinder Institute and they have done a, a, an annual poll for 40 years, which has had a huge impact on the community.

They community leaders have been able to utilize this research and this data for 40 years, and we didn't have anything like that in San Antonio.

And, uh, when Christian was in Houston, working Christian Archer, when he was in Houston working for the bill white campaign, he saw this tool and thought, we need to do this in San Antonio.

So Christian was instrumental in getting this off the ground.

And our mission is to amplify the voice of the people to shape the future of our community.

And so really what, how you described it as is exactly right.

We really want people's input.

We want to hear the voice of the people, and we want to be able to bring data to decision makers and to leaders to be able to shape the future.

Speaker 1: And now when you started it, though, you were saying that you had a different idea of what people's priorities might be.

Transportation may be higher.

Speaker 2: So when we started, there was a lot of conversation around, via and about the transportation plan.

And there was a big effort underway with, with Henry Cisneros and hope and the mayor.

And there was a lot of momentum for transportation.

So we, we had anticipated, we would do right.

That's right.

So we thought we'll do the first poll.

We're going to see the numbers.

We're going to see people's priorities.

There were some assumptions made on our part that there would probably be a dig, a deeper dive into transportation when we did the first poll, which was in the field of February, 2020.

And so once, February, once it was released, it was right on the cusp of the pandemic.

And so instead of shifting into perhaps a deeper dive into transportation, what ended up happening is we took a dive into the, the next emergency, which was the pandemic, Speaker 1: The polls really guided your polls.

Really?

Speaker 2: It did.

So the pandemic was the next poll and that was released in April and then George Floyd was murdered in may.

So then we had a big, uh, community policing conversation, uh, in the poll.

Speaker 1: And now we're almost out of time, but, uh, use your crystal ball in 10 seconds.

What's the next priority going to be in San Antonio?

Speaker 2: Well, so we did this poll has a lot of interesting numbers on the homelessness, um, the issue of homelessness and really wanting to get beyond just the superficial people think homelessness, there's a problem.

So on our website, www.barefacts.org, you can see the numbers, what the sentiment is around homelessness and beyond just the superficial people across the board part, nonpartisan issue, Republicans and Democrats though, shank that this is a really important issue for our community.

Yeah.

Speaker 1: Across the country as well.

Lisa bought it to chase the bare facts.

Co-founder thanks very much for coming in.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: On reporters round table.

How would you like to get from San Antonio's airport to downtown very quickly in a tunnel on a Tesla car?

Well, that's at least being talked about right now and reported on right now by a business editor.

Is that your official title?

Now?

The Senator and columnists, don't forget the column.

That's, it's hard to report all this stuff.

Yeah.

Tough guy Business at the San Antonio express news.

Tell us about this, uh, Elon Musk, at least idea or talk that's been going on for a couple of months here about is his company's tunnel.

That could be, Yeah.

So a little background, first of all.

So Elon Musk, we all know Elon Musk, uh, mostly from SpaceX and Tesla.

Those are his two major concerns.

Uh, but about four years ago, he started a company called the boring company.

And there, this is boring, the earth, terrible pun.

I mean, it's, if you read Elon Musk, Twitter feed, it's kind of on par with what he does, uh, anyway.

So they do tunnels, they make tunnels, um, and their strategy is to reduce the cost of what it makes to or what it takes to build these underground tunnels.

Uh, and by the way, there are no above ground tunnels.

So that was an automobile anyway.

Um, and so what they've been doing is they've, they've been shopping this concept around the country where they will take one, uh, destination where you, you receive a lot of people, uh, like an airport and you say, okay, well, we can build a tunnel from this place to another, you know, highly populated destination, say at the airport, in San Antonio, you have a lot of people coming in, uh, and they either have business or they're staying downtown.

What if we had a tunnel and you still would Call that maybe a subway, but it would be Way cheaper than a subway.

I would say.

Um, you're talking about, uh, if this were to come to fruition and we'll see, I think it's, uh, odds at this point, I think are against it, just because of the cost.

You're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.

Uh, yeah, that would be roughly 10 miles of tunnel and lot cheaper than a subway, but you're moving people at a much slower rate, for example, uh, they, they do have one functional Tran.

They call them transportation routes.

Uh, these are basically tunnels 40 feet underground, uh, very narrow.

They can basically, it can fit a Tesla sedan.

Um, and you know, they can ferry, uh, passengers at up to speeds of 130 miles an hour, pretty terrifying.

Right.

But, uh, they've actually got this, uh, operating in, uh, Las Vegas.

So it, it makes the convention center.

Yeah.

So basically they've got this tunnel goes from, uh, one end of the convention center in life, Las Vegas to the other.

These are, It's pretty long for a convention center.

We think of, Well, it takes, you know, to walk from one end of the convention center to the other, like to, to basically follow the path of this tunnel above ground would take about 25 minutes, 25 minutes in Las Vegas.

Heat is not cool.

I mean, you are going to be fried at the end of it.

Uh, so anyway, so they've got this, this loop functioning there, and it would look, uh, what you're talking.

I mean, that's basically, uh, the prototype for what they're talking about doing in San Antonio, although it would be a relatively straight line from the airport to downtown, but it's, it's important to step back, um, a bit, uh, this is, you know, the boring company began, uh, approaching San Antonio officials just a few months ago.

It was really over the summer when these talks really got started, uh, and eventually the, the idea of connecting, uh, the airport to downtown.

And we don't know where downtown, uh, that really kind of solidified it, got to the point that, um, the boring company made a formal proposal to the Alamo regional mobility authority, uh, which is it's basically, you know, it's essentially an arm of county government.

Um, and just because they received this plan from, uh, the boring company, the RMA, can't just say, okay, well, let's do it.

Let's just do it.

So, uh, what the RMA has done is opened it up to all contractors they've said, uh, okay, so we have this plan to, you know, get people back and forth more quickly from the airport to downtown.

Okay.

Contractors, engineering firms, construction companies, if you have a better idea for getting people back and forth more quickly, uh, let's hear them.

So, um, basically we're in a competition now.

Uh, so The idea of how to get there and views advanced rapid transit has been out there for a while, and that would be more or less high speed dedicated bus lanes.

Exactly.

Um, it's not, it's not in operation now.

Uh, this is, uh, it used to be bus rapid transit.

Now it's, uh, advanced rapid trends.

They changed the name every two or three years.

Anyway, they do have a route planned from the airport to downtown.

It would go along San Pedro avenue.

Uh, they've got federal clearance to do it.

Um, but it's, it's still in the works.

Uh, and I'm not sure, uh, when they plan to bring that into operation, but In terms of money, people are talking About this more now because of the infrastructure bill.

Right.

And so do you think it's much more likely to happen that we've had?

Yeah.

I mean, if it, you know, with the politics, uh, consuming Washington, now it's a fool's bet to say, yes, it will definitely happen, but there's more potential now than there's been in years for a lot of money to flow to cities around the country, including San Antonio.

And I have to think that, I mean, you know, via could, could benefit from that obviously.

Uh, but I also think the boring company and San Antonio officials, as they, as they look at this, uh, airport to downtown plan, they have to be thinking there could be federal, federal dollars available.

We were also talking before about, there is a cave system right underneath the opera for basically right in that area, Robert Baron cave off neck coaches, that goes all the way to Exactly.

I mean, there are a ton of technical issues, a lot of unanswered questions, uh, that I don't think actually have been addressed even in the boring company's proposal to the RMA.

I mean, there could be, uh, you know, there, their cave formations probably close at hand.

It would, it would the route actually, But at least through that conversation started.

So it gives you something to report on A lot of them, me more To report on, and it's fun enough now with, And we'll see, you know, like I said, this is, uh, the RMA, can't say, you know, we're going to entirely embrace, uh, the boring company plan.

Like I said, they, they have opened it up to other contractors.

Uh, the boring company is clearly set the terms.

So their plan, uh, dealt with the airport, you know, a route from the airport to downtown.

So now that's what everybody else will be competing on.

That's the basis.

But I mean, you could have something like gondolas in the air, shuttling people For a kind of an idea.

Right, right.

So, yeah, it's all highly conceptual impeding.

Alright, thanks very much.

Greg Jefferson business editor and columnist for the San Antonio express news.

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 the podcast@kllwren.org.

And we'll see you next time.

on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow.