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, and this week we are starting to talk about money and the city of San Antonio and the budget, not just for this upcoming year they're going to vote on soon, but also how they are going to budget in the future.

Joining us to talk about all that is district ten Councilman Marc Whyte Thank you very much for coming in.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

First of all, the zero based budgeting is what you have been pushing for for some time.

And we'll get to this year's budget in a minute.

But how is that going to be different?

How is that going to impact your average taxpayer.

Yeah.

So we're excited about it.

Earlier this year I put forth an initiative to change how we do budgeting here in San Antonio.

What we've done in the past is really called incremental budgeting, where every year each department gets a little bit more money and government grows and grows and grows.

But what we want to do now is what's called zero based budgeting, or a hybrid of that budgeting technique, which requires all city departments to come before council and justify each expense in the budget for the upcoming year based upon the outcomes that they want to achieve in the upcoming year.

So it's budgeting for results, for outcomes, rather than just budgeting to spend money.

And so I put forth that initiative earlier this year.

A few Fridays ago, I'm happy to report that by a vote of five to nothing.

It passed through the governance committee.

So starting in 2027, we're going to be implementing this new budgeting model, which is going to make how we spend our money more efficient.

It's going to make it more transparent.

We're going to get rid of redundant spending spending on programs that are outdated.

We want to put the citizens tax dollars to better use for them, so that we can more directly impact the quality of their day to day life.

Now, this was passed by the government's committee, but why didn't it have to pass the full council?

And why does it start in 2027?

Yeah.

So the city manager's office gets to determine how we do budgeting.

And so this just needed to go through the governance committee.

I propose that we start this in 2027.

And that was a negotiation with my council colleagues when we filed the council consideration request.

There was some negotiation there.

And this is a more tedious budgeting process.

It is going to take more time and more staff effort.

And so they need a little bit of a ramp up.

So rather than require them to do it for next year's budget, we're saying, hey, let's get this done for the 2027 budget.

And that is the criticism of this kind of budget that a lot of the entities, governmental entities don't do it this way, because from ground zero each year, it's going to take a lot more time and effort for some of those departments, especially smaller departments are going to have to.

It's like, you know, studying for the tax test or the star test.

They're going to have to spend a lot of time just doing that.

It is going to take more time and effort.

But remember, I'm not proposing that we do this every single year.

We need to do this for the 2027 budget.

Start over.

See where we are from there.

Right.

We're going to find a bunch of money that then we can reallocate to the citizens priorities.

And then from there, let's see where we go.

You know, the city of Houston did this several years ago, and they then changed their yearly budgeting model to an outcomes based budgeting approach, which is somewhat similar to zero based budget.

What's the difference between zero based?

Because there's different kinds of zero based budgeting.

And depending on what you what your goals are.

Yeah.

And again we're going to be using a hybrid of zero based and outcomes based.

So every single department won't necessarily have to start from zero.

We're really going to be looking at what do we want to get out of each department on a yearly basis and make sure we're only spending the amount of money we need to get that result?

And is there a five year window for the 2020?

Did I hear that right that there's going to be you know, it's zero base for 2027, but it's out to 2032.

We're going to see where we land after 2027.

And what about the budget that you're voting on this week or next.

And what are the big highlights that's going to change this year?

Yeah.

So what I'm going to fight for in every budget season.

And we did again here is for more money for public safety.

And in this year's budget we're getting funding for 65 more police officers.

We're getting funding for more firefighters.

We're getting funding for more infrastructure dollars.

Right.

22% of the roads in this city are in poor or failing condition.

We need more money to fix our roads, to fix our sidewalks, to get our drainage system in, in better order.

All of that is in this year's budget.

In addition to and again, we surveyed the city.

What was the number one concern from our citizens this year?

It was these homeless encampments that are popping up all over the city, and we've got more money in this year's budget to help clean up those encampments.

What kind of, priorities, in that sense of cleaning up the encampments are going to have more people doing it.

Are you going to have more outreach officers to get those people off the streets and do something else?

Yeah, both in the city committed last year that once an encampment is identified, we'll clean it up in 14 days.

we missed that a little bit this year.

It was more like 18 days.

But, yeah, more personnel to go out to the encampments offer the Health and Human Services, that these folks may need, but then also get the encampment cleaned up, you know, because there's a lot of folks in our neighborhoods where these encampments are, they're worried about their safety and things like that.

So.

So we need to do continue to do our job in cleaning up the encampments and providing these people, with any services that they need.

So when they here cleaning up the encampments, it's not just going to be pushing people into different areas around town.

You clean up this when it pops up there, it pops up there.

Well, we we do have that issue, right?

An encampment gets cleaned up and then these folks, if if they don't want to take advantage of, some of the services the city offers, they do end up sometimes setting up encampments in different part of the cities.

but again, people need to call 311, identify the encampment and let our people go out there and get them cleaned up.

And all of this because some of the Arpa money that you had, the federal money from the Covid era is down, all of this that you want more to spend more money on means cuts in other places where the cuts.

so so we are going to be cutting, in various areas in this year's budget.

there's going to be some cuts, from, from via there's going to be some cuts to the Reese fund and other places because what you said is exactly right.

Right.

We've been living with this Arpa money, the Covid money for these past three years.

The money is now, run out.

And so we have got to get back to basics here as a city.

We have to spend our money, in a better, a more efficient fashion if we want to go where we do as a city.

And our people want core city services provided to them and at a high level.

And that's where we need to focus, our efforts in this year's.

Budget and the fire contract that's, people might not realize it has been so long since actual firefighters voted on a contract that went to arbitration years ago.

This is finally getting done.

Yeah.

We finally have a tentative agreement that should be voted on by, by both sides, both the union membership as well as the city here in the coming month or so.

and we're happy.

Listen, we have the best fire department in the country.

these are the brave men and women that run into burning buildings for us.

our folks deserve to be paid, like, the best fire department in the country.

And I'm glad we were able to get a good deal.

Another issue has been on the news.

possible baseball stadium, northwest side.

You're going to be voting on that one.

Are you going to be voting on.

We're actually going to be voting on a new minor league baseball stadium that's going to be downtown.

and here's the important thing to note on this, because I would not have supported it if this was going to require raising taxes on our citizens.

But this is all going to be paid for, through the the Houston Street turned down their tax.

Increment reinvestment zone.

That money from taxes going up.

That's right.

So the team is putting up, the ownership group is putting up a big chunk of the money and then the, the restaurants and bars and hotels right around the stadium.

They'll be the ones that have their tax dollars go to pay for the rest of it, along with potentially, so some federal money that that may help as well.

More reporting this week on the soap factory apartments and whether those people are going to have a place to go, controversial issue.

Where do you stand on that?

Yeah.

So listen, we have listened to the concerns of those citizens.

in any time anybody's going to be displaced for a project like this, it's of the utmost concern to those of us, city council.

it does look like that.

Some at some, of these folks in the soap factory apartments, may have to move within a year or so because, again, they're on private property that is going to be used, as part of this, downtown development.

and so we've listened to their concerns.

We've heard them.

There is a good displacement plan in place, that the ownership group has, has put forth paying for moving expenses, moving them next door, etc.. And so I believe we are doing right by the.

City, and you're not going to be moving people who have a lower income out of downtown.

And we wind up with just that's right, richer people downtown because there's concern about that as well.

That's right.

That's not going to be the case.

All right.

Well thank you very much.

Mark White going to be busy on, budget and baseball for a while.

And it'll be interesting to see what you get into after that.

Finally, the budget process.

You can exhale.

That's right.

After that.

All right.

Thanks.

Marc Whyte, district ten.

Appreciate you.

Coming in.

Thanks for having me.

As we are heading back into the school year, parents are spending a little less time with their children.

And so you wonder where they are always concerned about kids.

Right now we're talking about fentanyl.

And the problem that is in San Antonio and across the country.

Joining us to talk about that and what we can do about that is Doctor Jennifer Potter, vice president of the UT Health San Antonio and executive director of Bell, Texas.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks.

How are we doing in terms of fentanyl in our community and what kind of threat it is here right now?

We know across the country there are different pockets, places where it's really bad.

How is it here?

So fentanyl has come to Texas.

it's important to recognize that there is fentanyl in the drug supply in Texas.

And so what that means is anyone who is using drugs needs to be cautious and assume that there is fentanyl in what they're taking.

And it is a particularly dangerous and potent substance.

So it's critical to pay attention and make sure that you are safe.

If you are going to use drugs.

How do you do that?

How does one, know whether this particular drug might have fentanyl in it or not?

I mean, in Austin recently they had nine deaths and 80 overdose is that didn't result in deaths.

Just suddenly you're talking about all the drug supply, any drugs, any any form.

Yeah.

Again I go back to, universal precautions.

If you're going to use drugs, you need to be safe.

So the incident that you described in Austin, is an excellent example of how complicated this is.

there are, testing tools that exist where an individual could test a drug to see and ensure that it is not contain fentanyl.

Unfortunately, in Texas, that is not legal.

So there is no way to access those tools, except in the underground markets that might have those.

So again, I go back to if you are going to use a substance that you do not know what it is, even if you think you know, because a friend gave it to you, to help with anything, it's just a very dangerous time to share medications and do that.

So if I was a parent, what I did with my children was I told them, that the only medicine they should take is medicine that we received from a doctor and that I hand it to them and that I monitored.

Is there any form of drug that's more likely to happen in it?

Is or is it a pill?

Is a powder, or is it something you in just other ways?

How does it.

Work?

Sure.

So typically, what appears to be happening is that if people are interested in gaining access to heroin, for example, and again, the average child is not going out looking to buy heroin.

Having said that, kids do experiment with drugs.

there is a lot more drug experimentation than there used to be where that places you at risk for an overdose.

So it could be a tablet.

someone could say to you, hey, this is something I got.

It was an oxy, for example, meaning OxyContin.

But many of the things that look like pills these days aren't pills that were made by a pharmaceutical company.

They're made, we're using pill presses so it could be in someone's garage, where there's a pill price.

So drug dealers are creating things that look like pills.

just like you might get from your pharmacist, but they're not.

And that's the danger is that the pill could be contaminated with fentanyl.

There's some benefits to drug dealers in using in using fentanyl.

What are the signs to look out for in terms of drug use that could lead someone to get into an accidental fentanyl overdose?

What kinds of things should you look for as a parent or a friend?

Sure, that the key is a parent or a caregiver friend family is to really pay attention to changes in behavior.

I always recommend that individuals know where their children are at the end of the day, parental or guardian monitoring is one of the best things you can do.

You need to know where your kids are.

after that, it's noticing those changes in behavior.

if you feel like your child is hiding something, if you're concerned about grogginess or a noticeable sustained change in behavior, it's time to start looking into what might be going on.

And there are treatments out there.

Absolutely.

the the tragedy of the, overdose epidemic that we're experiencing in the United States and in Texas right now, because we do have an overdose crisis in Texas, is that there are evidence based treatments.

These are science informed treatments, that can help an individual.

Unfortunately, we do not have enough access to those treatments, particularly for young people.

That is, people under the age of 18.

It can be very difficult to get access to treatment.

And you're talking about specifically for overdoses or for a use no one really knows if they're not up to that level of an overdose or, Correct.

Typically, if someone is using drugs, particularly at a young age, we know that that increases the likelihood for an addiction.

It's very important to assess whether or not that is actually the case.

The funny thing about opioid use disorder, and that is an addiction to fentanyl, heroin, OxyContin and other prescription medications.

Is that in some ways, that is the most treatable condition that we have right now in addiction, because there are medications that actually work pretty well.

we know we can have, the we can reduce the risk of an overdose by 50% in a population by treating them with a medication based treatment.

The challenge with young people is that many times people are nervous about the treatment.

There is stigma associated with opioid use disorder that prevents people from coming forward.

Most people don't want to talk about it, and that's why stigma can be so deadly when it comes to addiction.

Well, thank you very much.

If we could talk about this all day and I'd love to some time.

But Doctor Jennifer Potter is a great insight.

Vice president of UT Health San Antonio and executive director of Bidwell, Texas.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

On Reporters roundtable this week, we're talking about development around the Toyota plant, what can and can't be built, and a little bit of a conflict between parts of the city government joining us to tell us everything there is to know about that.

Is Ramzi Ghalioum Hume, who is the real estate and finance reporter for the San Antonio Business Journal.

Thanks for coming in.

I appreciate you having me.

Tell us about this, little conflict between departments and how it developed.

First of all.

Well, so, I mean, it started in kind of a banal way, the way that a lot of things start off at the city, which is that somebody put an item on a city planning agenda.

and it was supposed to be discussed, this time around, the city actually put two different items on, one on the planning agenda, one of the zoning agenda.

And both of them were kind of meant to do similar things.

The one, with city planning was called the A&M San Antonio Regional Center Plan.

And it was supposed to be this sort of kind of loose, kind of specific document that guided development and sort of a 15 mile radius around the A&M campus, which did include the Toyota plant.

And that was kind of what led into the second, item that was put on the zoning agenda, which is called the Industrial Compatibility Overlay District, and that was going to be implemented around Toyota.

and basically said that, residential development primarily could not happen within a certain area around the Toyota facility a couple of miles or so or two miles was was the last number that I heard.

This goes back to a 2003 agreement the city signed with Toyota.

That ended up getting them into a little bit of legal hot water.

They sort of tried to enforce zoning practices through that private agreement with Toyota when you can't really do that in Texas.

And so they wanted to formalize it as a city agreement.

And that's when homeowners in that area or landowners in that area said, no, this is my land.

I want to keep it.

You know, the south side is exploding right now.

Land out there is cheap.

And so developers found that there is a market.

You have people like Brooks who discovered that there really was a market for people who want to live, on the South side.

I think right now the conflict is that they said no residential development could happen around Toyota.

There's, as I understand it, a few, a couple thousand landowners who are in that vicinity who were saying, what's going on?

I can't profit off my land because of this agreement that they realized that land is cheap, but they want to make some money off.

They want to make it, of course, or they don't want to sell it, or they want to keep it, whatever use it is.

Yeah, well, they would be able to keep it.

Whatever use it currently is.

They would if the zoning, item passes, which is which, it has not yet, the A&M Regional Center plan has passed.

That was a couple of weeks ago, but, the zoning item has not passed because it stoked a lot of controversy.

And, like you said, there's still this idea of, you know, what are we going to do about those homeowners or about those property owners who want to maybe do something different with their land later on?

Maybe they're going to be grandfathered in, maybe they're not.

I don't know.

But I think, like you said, the city is trying to get itself out of this situation.

It it talked itself into in 2003 what happens with the JCB plant, for example, the new English, company that's coming in, we know where they're going to build and what that would affect.

We broke that story on where they were going to be.

Actually, I knew that, but yeah, I'm not sure that's another every time somebody mentions Toyota nowadays in the same breath they mentioned Navistar, they mentioned the JCB plant, the South side, like it's becoming a residential darling.

It's becoming a manufacturing hub.

And I think part of the reason people want residences there is so that the people that are working at those places have somewhere to live.

You have the new hospital campus near Vita, you know, you want folks there to live.

And the adage is that retail follows rooftops.

So what you've got now is the South side on the cusp of becoming like downtown, like med Center, like the North side, like all of these other little enclaves in San Antonio that all have their own things going on the South Side now wants that as well.

and now it's a question of how is it going to be allowed to become the thing that it wants to be, which I think is the really you're watching a city develop kind of before your eyes, which I think is the interesting part about being about watching what's going on on the South side.

You know, a lot of people who live on the North side, whatever part of town you're in, your little bubble.

You haven't been out there in years.

Yeah, you don't recognize it.

But how much of retail is there yet?

No, much.

Not much at all.

Not much at all.

I remember watching a city meeting, a couple or last year where this developer, was talking about.

He was talking about building, a little bit more on the southeast side than than really near Toyota.

But, the city council was asking him, you know, is there an H-e-b down there or is there any grocery store down there?

And he was like, we're still several thousand homes away from H-e-b.

Be thinking about putting us.

So that's how that's how new the development is in that part of the city.

It doesn't look like San Antonio when you go down there.

It looks like a different thing because people think, okay, and we've had stories on about a food desert, but that's not keeping people away from buying that cheap land and turning it into houses or apartments.

Well, cheap land means cheap houses.

So I think it's it's allowing people to tap into a kind of affordability that, that we're quickly losing in other parts.

Like I mentioned, the West Side, the North, especially the north side, downtown, you know, these areas are becoming our, our sort of, you know, slipping out of the grasp of a lot of San Antonians.

And the South side is a place where now you can be a homeowner at some of the more affordable price ranges in the city.

Use a crystal ball.

If you're several thousand homes away from an H-e-b there.

How what's the timeline on how fast they're building?

the homes, right.

Especially with the interest rates, the way they are right now.

Oh, all of these are several years.

Yeah.

Ten years.

Yeah.

I think from everything that I've seen, we're looking at 8 to 15 year plans for, for putting especially because the economy is the way that it is.

Right now.

Folks who were thinking they were going to put 200 or 250 homes down in a community per year, now have scaled it back to like 100, 120.

What about, around Texas A&M, San Antonio?

How fast is that going to change?

That's I think is going to be a lot faster than some of the some of the places on the South side that are just now getting.

Oh, well, also remember that those places, near A&M have, you know, legitimate access to sewage infrastructure and water infrastructure.

the places on a lot of places on the southwest and southeast side do not.

so when you have that kind of infrastructure development is allowed to happen a lot more quickly.

And Brooks, that is a whole different ball of wax in terms of how it's developing and what's what's being built there.

They have their own kind of little city down there.

They found a lot of success, with building office towers and building apartments at a time when a lot of other places in the city are not doing so hot.

And those markets, Brooks has really tapped into something again, I think all signifying the level of demand there is to be on San Antonio.

It's outside.

There's definitely a wall that they will run up against if they build too much too quickly, I think.

But I don't know that we have reached anywhere close to that yet.

This, brought up a little controversy between the planning and zoning.

Yeah.

Brought up, that there are regional development plans that the city has for all different places around.

Yeah.

the city that we don't really think about.

but they all do include this kind of thing.

Whether you can use land, whether you can't.

And all of that falls under what's called land use, you know, allowable land uses.

And when when you look at the, the in product of this little controversy here or the whatever the end game is and how it develops, how do you think that's going to set a precedent and what's going to happen?

I don't know how.

I mean, it will certainly set a precedent, what that precedent will be.

I'm not sure it's Texas at the end of the day.

and Texas likes to tout its business friendliness.

So I think they're going to try to really find a happy medium that will make it so that businesses still want to be here, because I think that is still very important that is still a priority for the city.

And we're still in the, the corridor from Laredo up to the rest of the.

And that was supposed to be the hot spot down in there.

Is it is it still developing?

Is that that?

And, Kelly or we used to call Kelly that kind of place with the rail.

Is it developing like they said it was going to 20 years ago?

Well, I don't know about how they said it was going to develop 20 years ago, but those are all Kelly.

You're talking about Port San Antonio and Brooks and all of these former the places that that were now where is also where Brac yeah.

they're all developing.

They're all developing.

I mean, port San Antonio certainly has a lot less, residential.

I don't think they have any inside the actual port itself.

I don't think they they've looked at residential at all.

I think they're they're just looking at commercial real estate.

But again, around that area, you will certainly have residential, projects sort of blossom to cater to all of that commercial real estate that is going up in that area.

Well, thank you very much for coming in explaining all that.

The Oracle for real estate and finance in San Antonio are one of the oracles.

Ramzi Ghalioum for the San Antonio business area.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

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

You can see this show again or any previous shows as well as download the podcast.

Just go to 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