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Good morning.

The time is now nine oh five AM on September eighteenth.

The Air Force's birthday, and the meeting at the San Antonio City Council is now called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember Castillo Angiano.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Here.

Councilmember Alderete Gabito.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Present.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Here.

Mayor, we have quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Well, it is my high honor to introduce today's invocator.

Uh, Mrs.

Frankie Williams uh was born in San Diego, California, and relocated to San Antonio with her family in the 70s.

Mrs.

Williams received her bachelor of arts degree in education from St.

Mary's University and a Master of Science degree with highest honors in educational administration from Texas AM Kingsville, and was an educator for 44 years.

Mrs.

Williams has been a member of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church for over 54 years and a lead soloist with the church's umojo choir for over 20 years.

The vibrant umojo choir with over 40 members, shares their ministry through music across the southwest, and most recently was featured at the nationally acclaimed gospel fest in New Orleans.

Please receive this song as a prayer.

Oh, he came to love us so he looked beyond my fault.

And so money.

Where Jesus died.

He died for you and me.

The grace.

Oh, that grace that comes my foeing so he looked beyond.

In the midnight hour, he looks beyond.

On your daily work, he looks beyond our.

Thank you, Mrs.

Williams.

Please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Is that what you've got?

Okay.

Item three is approval of the minutes for the city council meetings of August 13th, August 14th, August 19th, 2025, August 20th, 21st, September 2nd, September 3rd, and September 4th, 2025.

Is there a motion and a second for approval of the minutes?

I make a motion to approve.

It is moved and seconded to approve the minutes.

Please vote.

Oh, okay.

We'll have to do voice vote due to technical issues here.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All posed.

Motion passes.

Okay.

So as I mentioned early, uh, today's a very special day.

Today we mark the 78th birthday of the world's greatest Air Force.

Um, that's not an overstatement.

It is, in fact, the truth.

Um, very thankful that we are able to have Nomad here and Chief is here from Joint Base San Antonio.

Um, since its inception in 1947 as a separate branch from the U.S.

Army, the Air Force has been at the forefront of protecting our nation from dominating the skies during our nation's conflicts to pioneering space and cyber capabilities.

Um, many of us in this room are proud to call ourselves Air Force veterans.

Um, many have walked through uh the halls of of Lackland Air Force Base, um, a really a special place given everybody honor to call themselves an airman will spend time at our very best very special um Lackland Air Force Base.

I also want to recognize our distinguished Air Force leaders, service members, veterans, and their families in attendance.

Um, your presence remind us of the deep connection between uh the Air Force and the City of San Antonio.

So thank you to all those that have that have worn the uniform, many of them that are proudly serving um uh their next their next chapter of public service as a member of the City of San Antonio staff for decades.

Our community has proudly partnered with the Air Force in many areas to include funding infrastructure improvements, protecting flying missions from urban encroachment, and supporting military of quality of life initiatives.

I can assure you the support and this partnership will continue in the future.

On behalf of the city of San Antonio, I want to offer our our um deepest gratitude and congratulations to the Air Force having proudly served myself and then having served as the 27th Undersecretary of the Air Force.

We know uniquely the relationship between the City of San Antonio and the United States military, but in particular the Air Force, as you've heard me say, but I will say it on our birthday.

Um the vast majority of folks that serve in the military come from just a handful of counties, and one of those is in fact Bear County.

So it is our responsibility, and I think we have reflected that actually in our own budget today, the ways in which we understand how our investments contribute to raising smart, healthy kids, which are not only important to our national security, but to our city's economic security.

So at this point, um, happy birthday, Air Force.

Um, and I think we are going to bring Nomad uh uh General Oakland up to up to the front to make a few remarks.

All right, well, good morning, Mayor Jones and Council members.

It is a true honor to stand here before you today as we celebrate a remarkable milestone, the 78th birthday of the United States Air Force.

For nearly eight decades, the Air Force has stood as a symbol of strength, innovation, and unwavering commitment to the defense of our nation, and we are proud to carry that legacy forward.

From humble beginnings in 1947 to today's modern force operating across air, space, and cyberspace, the Air Force has continually adapted, evolved, and led with courage.

This day is about honoring that legacy.

But it's also about celebrating the men and women who wear the uniform today, continuing to serve with distinction across the globe.

What makes this celebration even more special is the recognition we are receiving here today from the city of San Antonio, a city that holds a very special place in the heart of the Air Force.

San Antonio is not just home to vital installations like Joint Base San Antonio, it is home to generations of service members and veterans.

This city has embraced us.

It's supported us and partnered with us in a way that truly reflects the spirit of what it means to be Military City USA.

Our partnership with the City of San Antonio is more than symbolic.

It is active, it's enduring, and it's vital to our shared success.

Whether it's through education initiatives, workforce development, family support programs, or collaborative planning between city and military leadership, San Antonio continues to set the standard for what strong civil military relationships look like.

As we move into the future, we look forward to building on this foundation, working side by side to ensure our airmen and their families are supported.

Our missions are strengthened, and our communities continue to thrive together.

Thank you again to Military City USA for this meaningful recognition, and thank you to all who serve, support, and stand with us.

Happy 78th birthday, United States Air Force.

And on behalf of the entire Air Force, I say, aim high.

Fly fight win.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Nomad.

I'm going to read this proclamation, then I'm going to join you down there.

Whereas on September 18th, 1947, the United States Air Force was established as an independent branch of the United States Armed Forces, marking the beginning of a proud tradition of service, and as a global leader in air power, the Air Force remains committed to defending the nation, deterring aggression, and delivering precise, decisive capabilities whenever and wherever needed.

And whereas airmen, both past and present, have demonstrated unparalleled courage, innovation, and excellence, safeguarding our freedom through operations that span the globe, and advancing technology that continues to shape the future of national defense.

And whereas the City of San Antonio, proudly known as Military City USA, is home to joint base San Antonio Lackland, recognized as the gateway to the Air Force and the training ground for all enlisted airmen, as well as multiple critical missions that support national security.

The city proudly honors the dedication, sacrifice, and service of the United States Air Force members, their families, and all who support them in defense of our nation.

Now, therefore, I, Gina Ortiz Jones, mayor of the City of San Antonio, in recognition thereof, do hereby proclaim September 18th, 2025 to be the United States Air Force's 78th anniversary day in San Antonio and Texas, and encourage all residents to join me in honoring the service, heritage, and future of our United States Air Force.

Please come forward and form up behind Mayor Jones and General Oakland for a quick photo opportunity.

Traditionally, regardless of location, service members will pause to observe their service branches' birthday by sharing a cake.

A sword is typically used to cut the cake as a reminder that service members are a band of warriors committed to carrying the sword so that our nation may live in peace.

Mayor Jones and General Oakland will now cut the cake.

There we go.

All right.

Maintain the airborne leg of the U.S.

nuclear triad to ensure a credible deterrent during the Cold War and beyond, and conducted disaster relief missions worldwide, delivering critical airlift and medical evacuation during crisis.

From leading early satellite programs to partnering with the U.S.

Space Force today, the Air Force continues to safeguard America's interests in the skies and in space.

Happy 78th birthday, United States Air Force.

Aim high, fly, fight, win, I will now recognize Councilwoman Meso Gonzalez for a point of personal privilege.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we're gonna have a lot of songs today.

So this is the last meeting during Hispanic Heritage Month, and so we are being treated to a special performance by our local Mariachi group, Campana de America.

Under the charge of two-time Grammy Award-winning musical director Juan Ortiz, Campana de America was founded in 1978 in San Antonio, Texas.

Campana's America Bells of America was named after Belle Ortiz, Juan's wife and the group's manager.

Through their tireless efforts and dedication, the troop has gained national recognition, international recognition.

Their list of appearances, just name a few include Willie Nelson's Farmade, Kumamoto Festival in Japan, Mariachi USA at the Hollywood Bowl, the Kennedy Center, and the White House.

Offering numerous Mariachi workshops and concerts in schools, as well as participating in Grammy in the schools program through the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Thank you to Campana Z America, and a special thank you to Anthony Medrano, the district aid appointee to the San Antonio the SCA's Commission for their performance today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council, thank you.

Do we have any gritos from the dais?

I've done mine.

I did mine.

Thank you for the very beautiful song.

Let me actually just say there's a connection between the two things that we just recognized.

Um the beautiful uh birthday of our Air Force, 78 years.

Um, and while the Department of War does not want to recognize Hispanic Heritage Month, uh, we will do so uh given the number of Hispanic Americans that have proudly served in our United States Air Force.

Um, and a a fun fact the next time any of you are on Jeopardy, um, the Air Force has never had a Hispanic four-star general.

So it's really important that we continue to understand our history, but also from this dais make investments that ensure that we are raising smart, healthy kids that can serve to their fullest and ultimately reach the highest levels of our armed forces.

Is there any objection to taking the consent agenda before the individual items so that we may clear the business for the day to focus on the budget?

Okay, great.

Hearing none, items nine through twenty-nine are on the consent agenda.

This means they will be considered as a group, and there will not be a staff presentation unless pulled for individual consideration.

Are there any council or there, excuse me?

Are there any items council members would like to pull from the consent agenda to be heard individually?

I will pull item 21 as I understand there is uh comment on that item.

Um item 21 having been pulled.

Um are there any other items?

No, okay, good.

We have members of the public that have signed up to speak on the consent agenda.

That is items um nine through twenty nine, with exception of um twenty-one, which has been pulled.

I will call the individuals up in the order that they have signed up.

The first person is uh Rachel Siswinski.

Um you have three minutes to speak.

All individuals have three minutes to speak, and groups of three or more will have a total of nine minutes.

Rachel Sasinski followed by Molly S.

Rachel.

Okay.

Molly S.

Okay.

Several these folks are set on here several times.

Yeah.

John Bachman, I've got do you have John Bachman on your list?

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Kathy Keller.

Okay.

Kathy Keller.

Okay.

Chris Keller.

Okay.

That's right.

So, yeah.

So you have three minutes.

My name is Jack M.

Finger.

And um, Madam Mayor, the Kellers whom you mentioned just a moment ago, I know I saw them come in after I speak.

You may wish to call their names again because I know they really did want to speak to you in the council.

On this uh portion of the agenda, a few things I wish to bring to your attention.

One is item number 23.

What is it?

Well, it's a uh it's about renaming a street.

And Mr.

White, it's in your your district.

It's a naming street from uh well, the Rosell Drive to D'Asouza Drive.

Now, whenever we rename a street, we try to name it for after some significance.

Uh Spurs Boulevard is named after San Antonio Spurs who spent about the last 50 years trying to uh foment uh uh civic pride in a the city's basketball team, and they've even won a few championships, and so that's why uh for for good for better or for worse, we named a certain drive Spurs Boulevard or whatever it was.

D'Asouza Drive, what is it named after?

What's being proposed here?

D'Souza Drive is named after a law firm, a personal injury law firm.

Uh in the past we've offered pejoratives known as ambulance chasers for such law firms.

Yes, they're a necessary evil, but we think that uh if you're going to rename a city street that we pay tax dollars on and maintenance upon, please try to offer a name of some entity that is more than just a personal injury law firm.

Yeah, uh and uh I looked at the backup documents.

Yeah, they they mentioned they're gonna pay you a few pay us a few bucks or for the uh uh the the naming rights and so forth, but I didn't see anything regarding the maintenance that we the citizens will be paying for that block that's there, and you say you're gonna say, well, Jack, it's only a one block.

I don't care if it's two inches.

I don't want my tax laws going to a street that we renamed after a personal injury law firm, sir.

So maybe you want to pull that one there.

Um also um item number 20.

Let's see, 26 is about some more.

Well, you call it affordable housing.

I call it welfare housing.

And uh Mr.

Audible, just quickly show that and show how many percentage points below the average median income?

30 percent, all the way down to 60 percent is whom for people whom you are going to allow to are these promote for well for and I think this is in uh Mr.

Galvann or or no, no, it's mr.

Monge of your district.

Yes, yes, that's where you've got to get all the welfare houses.

Thanks sir.

Yes.

Okay.

I will call to see if they are have made it their way here.

Rachel Sewinski.

Okay, Molly S.

Okay.

Okay.

All individuals signed up to speak have spoken.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda except for item number 21, which was pulled.

I make a motion to approve.

Okay.

It is moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda except for item 21.

Council members, are there any highlights or questions about the consent agenda?

Okay, number three.

Anything here?

Anything?

Okay.

Chair of Don.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, it is just consent and we go through it.

I do want to highlight item 29, the ordinance approving the workforce solution ALMO 2026 operating budget.

Thank you, Mayor, for your appointment to the committee of six.

As we looked at that, uh, it was really resonated that we have to make everybody's looking at their budget, everybody's making cuts, but we're all trying to move forward.

So I appreciate the team and what they're trying to do over at Workforce Solutions Alamo to make sure that our residents are getting help and and getting back to work.

So thank you for supporting that today.

Chair Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just quickly wanted to highlight uh item number 11.

It's an ordinance approving a contract with Mills on Wheels, and it helps support our senior population.

Some of us got to see some of our seniors in action last night with seniors in play, but our senior population is so important, and so I'm excited for the work that Mills on Wheel does and uh grateful that we can continue to support them.

Thanks, Mayor.

Chair Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just like to um highlight the appointment of Lupetoras to the LULAC 648 seat of the San Antonio and DC States Commission.

Um she's a wonderful community advocate for for many years, so I'm glad to see her reappointed.

I was also reminded thankfully of item number 26, uh, which is the Miller Pond Apartment's application for uh rehabilitation.

That is a um apartment complex on old Pearsall Road, uh just down the street from our field office.

Uh it's been around for a long time, so I'm happy.

Hopefully, they will get that application to get the rehab work that they desperately need.

So thank you to NHSD uh and the county for the work on that.

Thank you.

Chair Aldrete Gavito.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to quickly highlight item number 20, amending the city council code of conduct to add a provision concerning non-disclosure agreements.

I while I always appreciate the focus on transparency, I do want to clarify to the public that council members were not asked to sign an NDA regarding Project Marvel.

Um I'm stating that into public so that we can clear up any misconceptions out there.

Thank you.

Do you have anything you'd like to add?

Um thank you for for raising that.

Um on item number 20.

Um, the reason that that was um added, um, obviously I think lots of us that had just come off the campaign trail heard a lot about um why such a major investment of multi-billion dollars um had only come to light.

Um actually your first public meeting on it was last November.

Um and as the San Antonio Express News and many outlets reported, um, unfortunately that was shrouded by NDAs.

And so what that did in the mind of the public is raise questions about well, when does the city use NDAs and what does it cover and and and um how can we ensure that the public is being sufficiently informed?

Um and so uh what I asked um the uh city manager as well as the city attorney to do is to codify um a policy that would apply both to city staff um and then help us as as elected officials also understand what are our responsibilities as elected officials when it comes to um potentially being asked to engage in NDAs.

So I'm thankful that uh um the city manager and the uh city attorney have codified what that policy is, and now all of us up here have the benefit of being able to explain to the people when NDAs are um are utilized, and as explained in the NDA, which anybody can um has ability to to review, those are largely for economic development reasons, as we are um as we all know, we're in a very um frankly difficult fiscal environment, and we don't in any one any way want to uh detract from our community's ability to engage in economic deals, and at times uh companies ask us to sign and NDAs.

Um this then makes the threshold very clear for that.

The economic deal has to be at least 50 million dollars.

Um, and what it also does is lay out very clearly um the reporting uh the reporting requirements for the city staff to electives.

What it also makes clear is that any by any person on this dais at any point in time uh can ask for an update for any activity covered by an NDA.

Okay, so that's on the AD piece.

As we all know, though, um an administrative directives do not apply to elected officials, which is why um we needed something that governs us, which is an update to the code of conduct.

What the code of conduct does is lay out for us that we are some um strongly encouraged not to sign NDAs.

I know there's been an instance previously, maybe not with Project Marvel, but previously where council members have have signed NDAs.

It is strongly discouraged.

I have publicly said I will not sign NDAs, and I strongly encourage my colleagues not uh not to do that.

Um we also recognize though that some of you and your other professional capacities may be asked to sign NDAs, and your signing those may impact um the city uh attorney's ability to sufficiently um advise this council as needed.

So then there's additional language in there that if you are asked in your other professional capacities to sign an NDA that you appropriately share that with the attorney so he can advise this body appropriately.

So that's what that does.

The AD governs the city uh city staff and the the update to the code of conduct ensures that we all on the DIES understand our responsibilities.

More importantly, this the public now has a very clear understanding of when NDAs are entered into and why they are there being no further discussion.

There is a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda, except item 21.

Please vote.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Okay.

Items four through eight are the budget items.

Um staff has one presentation for all four items, so if there's no objection, we will take public comment and discussion for all four items together.

However, these items will have individual votes.

Madam Clerk, please read the captions for items four through eight.

Item number four is an ordinance adopting the annual consolidated operating capital budgets for the city of San Antonio fiscal year 2026 that begins October 1.

Approving projects included in the fiscal year 2026 to fiscal year 2030 five year infrastructure management plan, approving the fiscal year 2026 to fiscal year 2031 six-year capital improvements program for the city of San Antonio, approving certain contracts, providing for a one-time annuity increase for retirees and their beneficiaries, and a revision to the city's contribution rate in connection with the Texas municipal retirement system, authorizing personnel complements, appropriating funds, and amending related ordinances.

Item number five is an ordinance setting the ad valorum city property tax rate to pay the principal and interest on the funded debt of the city of San Antonio at 21.150 cents per 100 dollars of taxable valuation for the tax year beginning on January 1st, 2025 and ending on December 31st, 2025.

Item number six is an ordinance setting the ad valorum tax rate for maintenance and operation of the City of San Antonio at 33.009 cents per 100 dollars of taxable valuation for the tax year beginning on January 1st, 2025 and ending on December 31st, 2025.

Item number seven is an ordinance amending fees as included within the fiscal year 2026 budget within the general fund and certain restricted funds and amending the city code of San Antonio Texas to reflect the such changes.

Item number eight is an ordinance carrying forward certain FY2025 funds, amending prior appropriations, appropriating funds for requirements in city projects and departments and appropriating funds.

Eric, would you please make your presentation and summarize any changes to the proposed budget presented on the 14th of August?

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Good morning, uh Mayor and Council.

So I'm going to walk through the memo that we uh sent out to you last night, and then we'll go through briefly a couple of slides that will outline the uh the proposed amendments as a result of the discussion over the last uh several days uh and and weeks.

So uh overall the attached uh amendment list that has before you today um includes a total of 15 city council amendments that total uh 30.8 million dollars over two years, specifically in the general fund.

There's a total of twelve and a half million dollars of general fund amendments over two years.

These items are proposed to be funded through a couple of different sources.

Uh, one is an increase in the parks environmental fee by 50 cents per month, um, increasing the food safety establishment fees uh as discussed yesterday, uh increasing the vacant building registration uh fee for both residential and commercial.

Um the fee increases um the revenue increases generate nine point one million dollars over the over fiscal year twenty-six and twenty-seven.

Uh lastly, there is uh one point nine million dollars in less expense that is included in the fiscal year 26 uh proposal before you this morning, uh moving um Alamo Promise Expense from the general fund into ready to work in accordance with the provisions that we talked about yesterday during the work session and making those uh allocations or not allocations but making uh that that funding uh contingent upon uh the um uh information being provided and tracked uh in accordance with uh the questions and the answers yesterday.

Um the uh the amendment uh the amendments before you today also includes $8.2 million, uh, a combination of our uh all of our restricted funds the airport, solid waste, stormwater, hotel occupancy tax over the next two years.

That is primarily adjusted for the change uh that the council is proposing uh in the um uh the wage uh for civilians uh to accommodate the two percent plus seven hundred and fifty dollar one-time payment.

Um the the um lastly, before I go through the amendment list, um there's also um uh ten million dollars uh in city what's what's known as city council uh capital improvement funds.

That'll be an additional one million dollars per council district that'll come out of our capital budget.

And then uh the memo did uh mention that the mayor had asked me to follow up on an issue regarding some of our arts agencies.

Um and uh while we don't normally pay for things like litigation uh through our contracts with arts agencies, generally those are for operational support or program support or performances and and such.

Um but after discussing with um Crystal Jones last night.

Um there's nothing in our contract that says we don't.

So our practice has we haven't.

So uh based on that conversation with her last night, I'm suggesting that we make it clear in all the arts agencies budgets that um that uh we do not uh reimburse uh the cost of litigation or attorneys fees.

We focus strictly on uh operations, administration, uh, and uh performances and content.

So let's go through the the amendments real quick.

I mentioned these um um uh additional reductions of Alamo Promise uh in the fiscal year 26 budget to uh the ready to work funds.

Uh number two is reducing the inner city uh incentive fund in fiscal year 27, so that will stay whole as we go into fiscal year 26.

Um the parks environmental fee, uh the 50 cent increase generates a little over four million dollars in each of the next two fiscal years, the increase in the food safety licenses, uh a little over 430,000 in each of the next two fiscal years, and then uh the vacant building registration fee increase that we uh are that that's before you this morning, uh a little over 95,000 dollars in each of the next two years.

Uh as I walk through the potential amendments, uh this was a compilation of the conversation with the council over the last two days.

Um is uh funding to add uh add additional funding to the general fund for the two percent across the board for civilians plus $750 base adjustment.

Um that would get us to having the lowest uh paid employee civilian employee at a four percent adjustment uh going in the next year.

Number two is restoring uh fund half a million dollars in funding for uh radar feedback signs and flashing stop signs.

Number three provides funds for an additional 15 officers above the 25 proposed in the budget, so a total of 40 additional patrol officers.

Number four uh restores funding of a million dollars for our minor repair program.

Um certainly I heard uh over the last two days uh conversation with the council uh had about making sure that that money is going to as much as we can do.

Uh so I suspect as we get into the fiscal year, we'll have ongoing conversations with you all at committee level to make sure we're able to achieve that.

Number five, restores a position that I had proposed cutting in reducing in a vacant position in historic preservation and moving that position into our code compliance division of development services for additional enforcement around vacant buildings.

Number six is adding three million dollars in one-time fundings, funding for uh additional street lights.

Um this is in addition to the two million dollars that was proposed in the budget.

That funding is at zero cost because we are utilizing uh money that we had set aside for a community safety reserve.

Number seven is uh adding 430, a little over 430,000 to the Metro Health Department in a couple of different areas, 150,200 in uh the Metro Health Department's tuberculosis control uh and prevention division, uh, and that is for internal work of the department.

Mental health support, 150,000 that would specifically go to increase our contract with communities and schools for their youth mental um mental health work that they do for us.

They have a contract with us for 400,000 that would increase the 550,000.

Uh the SA Kids breathe uh an additional allocation of 120,000, and then a language access services uh of $10,000.

Uh, all of those are in the Metro Health budget.

Number eight uh restores uh funding that was proposed to be reduced in the proposed budget uh from the SA book festival.

Um I had proposed reducing the funding from two four two hundred and forty-seven thousand to a hundred and ninety-seven thousand.

This this pro this uh proposal before you restores it back to uh current levels.

Um number nine um is uh doing two things.

It is combining two contracts that we currently have with family violence prevention services into one contract, and uh secondly, uh making this uh agency a designated agency and awarding 12 months worth of funding.

Number 10 um is uh allocating uh almost $57,000 to the Alamo Area Rape Crisis Center for a total of 113,000 uh in the proposed in the adopted budget.

Um and that would be funded through the delegate agency reserve that we have proposed set aside for the solicitation you all were gonna are going to be talking about in a couple of weeks in B session.

Number 11, uh nine uh almost 92,000 dollars for for her, uh again funded through the delegate agency reserve um uh for next year's solicitation.

Um, an allocation, a new allocation for Big Mama Safe House of 144,000.

Um I'll say that um regarding um items 10, 11, and 12.

Um we will make sure that um that the scope negotiated uh services for those contracts are supportive and uh conducive to the efforts that we're trying to do here at the city uh in line with the council's conversation.

Those contracts haven't been negotiated, but I think that based on the conversation the last two days, we'll make sure that that it's included and um and make sure we share with you those scopes of those agreements so that we are all on the same page in terms of the the uh the funding and and what it's going towards.

Uh 13 is uh an additional allocation for American gateways for a total of 150,000 dollars.

The proposed budget included 100,000.

Um this additional 50,000 would also come out of that delegate agency funding that's reserved for um uh award by the council next uh fiscal year.

The restricted funds I mentioned uh uh a second ago, there's an additional uh 4.1 million dollars a year, so eight point two million dollars over the next two years.

We've made the necessary adjustments within all of those restrictive funds to accommodate this um this change on the uh civilian pay, and then lastly um uh accommodating within our capital budget out of some future uh debt that we will need to issue uh next uh spring uh but is available for production and project selection by you all as soon as we adopt the as soon as you all adopt the budget and we hit October 1.

So that's 10 million dollars.

So, Mayor, that's the the rundown of the proposal in front of the the council this morning, and we have plenty of staff here in the in the uh room to uh answer any follow-up questions.

I do want I do anticipate um uh and I want to do it now.

I I do want to thank the for uh the mayor and the council for uh all the conversation all the way back to the end of June.

Um it has been a um a different summer than the last couple of summers, and uh uh we we talked about this as a group uh last summer.

Um so I want to thank you for your conversation, uh your policy direction and your hard work.

I know we're running on the on the tail end of a long string of town halls, budget work sessions, follow-up memos, presentations, and uh I certainly think that as uh we go into next fiscal year uh we have uh a fair a fairly um long list of things that we need to tackle and and deal with um immediately, and uh I want to thank you for your leadership and your conversation and and direction.

Uh secondly, I want to thank the uh the departments uh for their work because much of this work uh began in the spring as we were doing our six plus six and our financial forecast.

Um the diligence um and the work and the creativity and the innovation and the really the the thought that originated at all the departments is what allowed us to make sure that we have lay out a solid foundation to you all in the proposed budget.

So I want to thank all the employees and the and the executives in the departments.

I want to thank the executive leadership team uh for helping guide that.

Um and then uh finally the uh Justina and Freddie in the budget office um and uh and Troy and Melanie and Vicky and finance in um um making sure that we are moving along um where we need to be.

Uh, in the midst of all this, we went back uh and went back before the bond rating agencies and were reaffirmed.

Um so, in spite of all the challenges, making sure that we have strong financial policies, uh that we're consistent and that we are in line with uh the community and the council uh is really paramount to ensuring that that we're being able to do the things that we need to do here in the city uh for the for the public.

Um and lastly, uh Maria Ben uh and and their guidance as we've gone through there uh a lot of work and um you truly have a um a top-notch professional team here that is experienced and reasonable and and we try to be as practical as possible, and I think it shows in the product.

So with that, I'll turn it over to you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

We have a few folks that have signed up to speak on budget items four through eight.

Uh now we'll call you in order, and you've got three minutes each.

Uh the first individual is uh John Bachman, followed by Steven Zesserman John Bachman Steven Zesserman, followed by Martin Gordon.

And Martin Gordon, if you'd begin to make your way closer, uh so we can get to you right away.

Good morning, City Council and Mayor.

Uh my name is Steve Zesserman.

If you'd be so kind, there is a video that I have to be played.

So we're not we're not gonna play a video, we're not able to do so.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh, my name is Steve Zesserman.

I am a bassist with the San Antonio Philharmonic.

I've been in San Antonio since 1990.

Um I won the position.

I I uh was fortunate enough to beat out 90 bass players, and I came to San Antonio in 1990, and I absolutely fell in love with the city.

At that time, I saw around me the children of this community, and I wanted to do everything that I could possibly to help educate and inspire, and I felt that it was my civic duty to do so as a member of the orchestra.

Uh my colleagues and I started uh producing uh master classes for free, and I reached out to uh the school system, and I became uh by the grace of God, I became one of the most prolific double bass teachers in the country.

Um many of my students went on, thank God, to go to college for free, which really was my goal is to try and help them get an education, get a job.

But I just looked around and not only did I fall in love with the community as we played 40 to 50 uh thousand children a year with the symphony, but I just felt I had to help.

I could not just you know play a concert and then go home, but I immersed myself.

Um I was fortunate enough in 2006 to purchase a home in uh uh on mistletoe in uh city count uh district one.

Uh luckily I wanted to live in Alamo Heights, but I couldn't afford it under the pay that I was getting at the symphony at that time.

So a home for $60,000, and at that place on Mistletoe.

Uh at that time my house got broken into twice because nobody wanted to live there.

A couple of a couple of uh years later, a friend of mine came over and they said, Have you ever heard about the Pearl Brewery?

And I was like, Well, yeah, but what about it?

And they started renovating it.

I didn't realize at the time where where I bought was such a an incredible place.

I just bought it because I fell in love with the area.

In love with downtown, I'm very close to downtown, and I was able to systematically help as many children as I possibly could living in uh District One.

They would all come to me and and I would teach double bass lessons, we did master classes, we did free concerts for the community, and uh at the same time, uh unfortunately things were not going well for the symphony, and uh when the symphony had shut down five years ago.

Sir, if you have prepared remarks, you may submit those for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Martin Gordon, followed by Angela Caporale.

Go ahead, sir.

Good morning, Mayor Jones.

Um, good morning to the council members.

Um, and I'm speaking today on behalf, as you know, of the San Antonio Philharmonic.

The Philharmonic's mission of being there for the community, such as back to school, an event where we gave away a lot of book bags and school supplies to a large amount of children.

In fact, the food bank came and gave out uh big bags of produce, which I thought was really cool.

Um as a former member of three other symphonies, uh, besides getting the job in the San Antonio Symphony, I have never believed in a mission as much as the Philharmonics.

The reaction we get when we play events such as the Selena and Juan Gabriel tribute is something I've never actually seen before, and I'm touched by it.

I'm not just a musician, I am a resident of District 6.

I buy groceries, and literally as we speak, my house is getting a new roof installed, so I'm not home listening to the banging, which is nice.

Um, which uh it puts money into the local economy and keeps companies in business and keeps people working, which which I think is uh you know just your residential duty.

I go to work with my car, I don't fly here on an airplane, I don't stay in a hotel.

I live in a house in this city where I pay uh property taxes.

Um in between Philharmonic services, I teach students.

Uh in fact, there's a program called Rising Star, something that's set up by the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio, and she's a great kid, and I teach the student that um qualifies for the program that's in that plays bassoon.

Um I also have other three students at Harlan High School, and they're all great kids, and it's uh it's a an honor for me to be able to be in the community and and teach.

Um the Philharmonica musicians are a resource for them, and and it's just a great thing.

Again, I'm asking um I'm asking that you approve 400,000 for the Philharmonic, and not just for the Philharmonic, but for the community that we're serving, entertaining, teaching, and enriching.

I'm so grateful for our audience too, uh, who have been there for us through thicken thin.

Um funding helps us to be there for them in return as much as we can.

In closing, while the Philharmonic is not a resident of the Tobin Center, the Philharmonic is the resident orchestra of San Antonio.

We live here, we do the things that residents do to support the community, and we're here all the time.

So again, um I thank you for your consideration and your time for listening to me.

Thank you.

Angela Caporale, followed by Judith Garwitz, good morning, Mayor and Council members.

Um thank you for allowing me to speak at this moment.

Uh my name is Angela Caporelli, and I'm a violinist with uh San Antonio Philharmonic.

I have been here for 25 years, and I began playing the violin when I was three years old, and I played in my first orchestra when I was 12.

Um at that point, I really loved playing in an orchestra, and I saw all the all the benefits that it gave us as musicians, and then also what it gives to the public.

Playing in an orchestra has been my entire life, and I really believe very strongly in this art form, which is why I'm here.

At the very least, an orchestra can show how many different types of people come together to create one beautiful piece of music or many pieces of music, but we create beauty and we bring it to everybody in the community.

In addition to this, we also bring it to the next generation through all of our teaching.

And I can tell you I've taught probably in the last 20 years, hundreds of students.

I teach very young.

My youngest is very uh age three, and I've taught all the way to age 70.

And that you bring many, many different, they all have their own reasons for why they want and believe in music, and they all love it.

Um if I have a moment, I do have a very nice story that sticks out.

Um I said everybody loves it, but maybe not in the very beginning.

I had a kinder student.

Every time I went to pick her up for her lesson, she would just be she'd slump and like, oh, I don't like this, I hate this, that this is the worst part of my day.

I always had to tell her, I know I understand, but we have to do this.

I mean, let's learn something.

By the end of the year, which she did this every week because I showed up every week, she showed up every week.

And by the end of the year, one day she just put her violin down, came up to me, gave me a giant hug, and told me how much she loved me.

And that was just incredibly shocking.

And at that moment, I saw, wow, I was making an impact, even though like it didn't appear to be that way at all.

But I made that impact with her, and she's still studying three years later.

Um, this is the kind of thing that we can do for all of the our small children, not even small, but for everybody.

Um, I had an adult student who came to me because she loved the violin, had to wait until her children were raised, and then she came to me.

Um, unfortunately now her husband's very sick, but she's still coming for lessons because she says it brings her peace, and this is what we also want to bring to people.

Just that the beauty of what we can provide.

So I am asking you also to restore the Philharmonics funding until uh sorry to restore the funding to the 2017 levels, which was about 400,000.

Um, so that we can continue to bring all of this to everybody.

Thank you.

Judith Gerwitz, followed by Lauren Eberhart.

Uh good morning, Mayor and the City Council.

Um thank you for the opportunity to share my uh thoughts with you.

My name is Judy Gerwitz, and I live in District 8 in my own home.

Um, I am uh fearful about retiring because of increasing city spending and the city's humongous debt of 13 billion dollars.

I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth for what I pay in property taxes.

Half the time I can't even tell what lane I am driving in around the city because the striping is so faded or the roads are so patched.

Yesterday I called uh 311 to report the four-way traffic signal at George Road in Northwest Military was flashing all red.

I was told someone would be out within 24 hours to look at it.

24 hours, that is unacceptable at such a critical um artery between Warsbach and Hebner.

Um for 18 months, two dogs terrorized my neighborhood without really satisfactory resolution from ACS.

I actually got satisfaction through code enforcement to help mitigate the problem.

For years, homeless are camp throughout our city and create waste and environmental damage that seems to go unaddressed.

Last month it took me 36 minutes to drive along Wars Bach between Blanco and Northwest Military because the light was out at George Road again, and when I called 31, I got referred to, I asked about traffic control with SAPD, and they put me in touch with an officer, and he explained that sometimes they get notified that the lights are out, and sometimes they don't.

And it's like, what are we doing here?

We can't get around the city.

We're not getting basic services, and I am very concerned about what the future holds with ongoing spending, increasing debt, and even though our property taxes have the freeze on it, they are still going up in the other taxes.

So please rethink what you are doing with the money you're spending.

Our taxes are very high here, and many of us, just not me, do not feel that we are getting satisfactory basic services.

Public health and safety.

Thank you very much.

Lauren Eberhart, followed by Molly S.

Good morning, Mayor and members of council.

My name is Lauren Everhart, as you heard, and I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me today.

I am a member of the San Antonio Philharmonic.

I moved here almost 30 years ago to take a job with the San Antonio Symphony.

I my request is simple this morning.

I'm asking that you consider restoring our funding to approximately 2017 levels around that 400,000 mark.

I realize that you have an incredible responsibility that is difficult in making budget decisions and in making smart investments in our community.

And I have to say I absolutely have conviction that the San Antonio Philharmonic is a smart and responsible investment in this community.

It returns many times over the money that is put in it, not only in what we generate out into the economy locally, but in the service we bring educationally to our young people.

In the 30 years I've been here, we have literally, I've been part of playing for hundreds of thousands of San Antonio's children through our young people's concert series.

We work very hard to provide those for free in our community.

And your funding helps us to do that.

We have a great variety of concerts, and I love presenting so a wide span of art to our community.

You know, from Bach and Beethoven and Brahms and all those things we think of as deep and intellectual and spiritual works to the Wang Gabriel concert that we just did that was one of the highlights of my career, honestly, and I I have to tell you it was such a moving experience on Sunday afternoon.

A 90-year-old woman got up and came on stage and started dancing for all of us.

And I can't even tell you the feeling that that gave me inside of satisfaction.

I and I want to be her if I ever make it to 90 years old.

Um I have wonderful colleagues and staff that come from all walks of life and that work incredibly hard to provide something wonderful for our city.

Um I have taught for many years, young and old, like most of my colleagues, and not all of my students go on to be professional musicians.

Some of them do, and I'm proud of that.

But I think the most important thing that they get from me as a teacher is the ability to think critically, to evaluate themselves compassionately.

And if you have additional comments, you can submit those for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Molly S.

followed by Jonathan Melendez.

Jonathan Melendez, followed by Mondo Flores.

Thank you.

Good morning, Councilmembers and Mayor.

Uh, my name is John Melendez, and I serve as the grassroots engagement director for Americans for Prosperity Texas here in San Antonio.

And just real quick, I just want to say that our organization doesn't take an official position on the budget.

Uh with that said, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on an issue that touches every family, senior, and homeowner in our city, the rising burden of property taxes.

AFP Texas is a premier grassroots organization dedicated to connecting people with policy and advancing bottom-up solutions that make freedom and prosperity accessible to all Texans across the state.

Our grassroots volunteers have worked hand in hand with lawmakers to deliver meaningful, groundbreaking reforms.

In fact, one of our proudest achievements has been helping drive billions of dollars in property tax relief for Texans.

But here's the reality.

And unless there are significant changes, residents will once again face another increase in their tax bills at a time when many already feel stretched thin by higher costs of living.

I've brought just one slide with me today.

And the slide just tells the story most residents know all too well, despite reductions in the rate, the average San Antonio is paying, is still paying more in property taxes each year.

Even small rate cuts, 0.02% here, 0.03% there, are simply not enough to offset skyrocketing appraisals.

And as you can see, they've gone up year after year the past few years.

The result is simple.

Rates go down if lucky, but bills still go up.

And that's the reality families feel when they open their mortgage statements or tax notices.

The city has often highlighted that the property tax rate hasn't increased in 33 years.

That sounds good in a press release, but I'd ask each of you to consider this.

Would you say what would you say to a homeowner whose property tax bills rises by hundreds of dollars this year's this year?

Because for many of your constituents, that is exactly what's going to happen this year.

This is not sustainable.

Families are being squeezed.

True property tax relief means addressing more than just the rate.

It means tackling the appraisal-driven growth that fuels rising bills year after year.

If our local government cannot meet this challenge, then perhaps the state of Texas will have no choice but to step in to ensure that hardworking Texans are not taxed out of their homes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks.

Mondo Flores, followed by Jack Finger.

Good morning, Mayor Jones.

Good morning, council.

First and foremost, uh my name is Mondo Flores.

I'm the director of field operations for AFSME Local 2021.

I would like to thank each and every one of y'all for taking the time to meet with us, whether that was a phone call, an email, or an in-person visit to discuss the budget that we're here about today.

Um, what initially started as a 2% across the board in conjunction working with the city, with uh Mr.

Eric Walsh, of course, and Renee, we have come to the 2% across the board with the 750 to their base, which is really important as we all talked about.

Uh it's going to make a difference in all the employees across the board.

Um, we're really uh happy about that.

We want to thank each and every one of you, of course.

As you know, well, as I told Eric, you know, we share the same goal.

We want to help the employees who make the city of San Antonio happen.

As they are out there right now working at all the departments across the board in the city, uh, we're here to speak for them to make sure that we can do what we can with what we have.

So thank you very much.

Uh shout out for the tie, uh, Eric, the great Ask Me Green tie.

Uh, but we do appreciate that.

I appreciate uh each and every one of y'all for all the work that you all have done.

Thank you very much and support for what we're here for today.

Thank you.

Jack Finger, followed by Rhett Smith.

Well, Madam Mayor, other members of our illustrious San Antonio City Council.

For the record, my name is Jack M.

Finger.

Now, I've uh come before you in previous discussions talking with you about the budget.

Well, I'm not going to bore you with any of those remarks, just consider them ditto uh for this time around.

But yeah, uh budget, any budget is based on what?

Well, your revenue.

And what kind of revenue do we have with a city?

We have sales taxes and uh property taxes.

Well, property taxes are the big one, and so consequently, uh, that's what I'm going to address to you at the at this point in time here.

Property taxes.

Our tax rate.

What is it?

Well, it's 5354 cents per 100 valuation, whatever that is, you you know what it is.

You you are quite familiar with that.

And you are going to say that you always boast that we have not you have not raised our tax rates at all in 30 some odd years.

In fact, you say you even reduce it a smidgen maybe a couple of years or so ago.

Please, um we the property owners, we know differently.

We know too much.

In fact, the statistics bear that out.

Look at the property tax values, the property values of the of our homes in just the last four or five years, four or five years.

What does it show you there?

In San Antonio, the average home price per year, uh, it was about 260,000 dollars around five years, four or five years ago.

Three hundred is now as of last year, 2024, it's 340,000.

Now, if I do my math correctly, that's right around 30 percent increase, meaning that our property tax levies levies have gone up 30 percent.

Now you're gonna boast that we have not raised the rates.

Please don't make us laugh at such a really a deception.

And that's just up to 2024.

20 last year has been an extra two or three percent.

So it's about a full third, right?

At least a full third.

Our tax bills have gone up.

Now, can't you at least somebody somewhere reduce our taxes, our tax rate, so we don't have to go through all this thing again, not even a smidgen?

I mean, now if you really want to do things right, that 33% percent, you should be offsetting it by at least 10 percent, if not a 30 percent somewhere along the way.

But what are you going to do today?

Thank you.

Brett Smith, followed by Christopher Longoria.

Thank you, Mayor Jones and members of the city council.

My name is Rhett Smith, and I live in Council District 8.

Today I would like to address uh our budget item, the adoption of the budget, and uh remind everyone that we should be focusing on essential essential needs and responsible spending, perhaps considering adopting a no new revenue rate or even zero base budgeting.

Anyway, meaningful reform is important for all of our uh taxpayers.

So this is about addressing that issue, but I also want to uh take the balance of my time to address an issue of violence in our world.

I would like to thank uh councilman, councilwoman uh spears for addressing the issue of Charlie Kirk's murder, and I think everyone in public life Sir, thank you for your sentiment.

We're talking about the budget currently.

Do you have any additional comments regarding the budget?

Uh no, those are my comments for the thank you, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Chris Longoria.

Good morning, Mayor, Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I am Christopher Longoria.

I stand before you today as a San Antonio resident who, like many of my neighbors, is deeply concerned about the burden of property tax rates on our families, our businesses, and our retirees.

While I understand the challenges of balancing a city budget, raising property taxes is not the solution for our community needs.

We all know San Antonio is growing, but so are the financial pressures on working families.

In the past three years, inflation has devastated San Antonio's and the cost of groceries, utilities, fuel, and insurance.

Many of our residents, especially those on fixed incomes, are already struggling to keep their homes.

Raising property taxes now would risk pushing some of them out of the very neighborhoods they lived in and contributed to for decades.

Instead of increasing tax burden, I encourage this council to prioritize small smarter spending and efficiency.

Let's conduct a serious review on non-essential programs and administer overhead efficiency.

Let's conduct a seri, let's push harder for public private partnerships and bring investment without raising taxes.

Let's push harder for public-private partnerships and bring investment without raising taxes.

And let's be cautious about taking on new debt or projects until we secured the resources to maintain a commitments we already have.

San Antonio has always prided itself on being a city that takes care of its people.

But do we?

If we make protecting taxpayers our top priority, we'll send a clear message that this council value stability, affordability, and accountability.

In closing, I urge you to consider property tax relief and not to raise property taxes this year.

Instead, let's look at living within our means, just as families of this city are forced to do every single day.

Together, we can keep San Antonio strong, affordable, and welcoming for generations to come.

Thank you.

Okay.

That's all the individuals that have signed up to speak on this item.

We need a motion and a second for approval of item four, so maybe we may begin discussion.

I move to approve the budget as amendment, amended and presented by the city manager today.

Save and accept for funding for the Center for Health Empowerment in South Texas, known as Chest, because I am recusing myself since I am on the board of Chest.

Okay.

It is moved and seconded to approve the budget as amended and presented by the city manager today.

Save and accept for the funding of Chust.

We'll now move on to council discussion.

Chair Viegran.

Thank you, Mayor.

Today marks the culmination of months of hard work by City Council, the City Budget Office, and all city departments that helped shape today's four million balanced budget that protects our services, invests in our neighborhood, and reflects the collective priorities of my district.

I want to thank our city manager, Eric Walsh, deputy manager Maria Villa Gomez, Justina Tate, and the entire finance department for what is here this morning.

This is a historic moment.

Um I would like you to stand and be recognized for applause.

Stand Maria.

This is historic, not just because this is a new council that is sitting here for four years.

I think this is the first time.

And the last meeting for Councilman uh Castillo Angiano, and who's done a great job fulling filling in, and then the last budget, I believe, for Razi.

So let's give them a round of applause.

Without the help of Alana Reed and SA Speak Up Budget and all that squad that went out, we were we would not be able to have these budget town halls, have these budget set surveys, collect the data, and understand that what we are facing is something we haven't faced probably since the pandemic, which is a budget deficit.

We knew it was coming, we knew money would run out, and where would we go from here with a council that prioritizes the property tax property owners here in San Antonio and keeping those taxes low.

But it is our job to move forward and to find the resources to provide what people are calling essential and core services.

And that means a lot of different things to a lot of people.

So we entered this cycle facing a huge deficit, coming in with new people that would come midterm and have to try and take this all in like a fire hydrant, and I think they've done an excellent job.

The investments from the community to answer the surveys to share their meanings, what was meaningful to them, and to ask us to try and find a way to move forward, trusting that we would do what was in the city and our district's best interest.

I am proud of the investments we secured in District 3, the 15.2 million through infrastructure management program, the fire station replacements, the public safety initiatives, the street improvements, and of course the coverings for our park.

While infrastructure remains a top priority, we still have the code issues and the code enforcement, and I want to thank former County Commissioner Tommy Atkinson, Highland Hills, Becky Ruiz with hot Harland El McCullum, and Ryan Garza with Highland Park for all their efforts, and the countless others that serve on my board that I would like to uh on the boards and commissions.

As we talk about public safety, we've in this workshop, we have seen that we want a holistic approach, a balance between officers and resources and community projects and activating spaces.

And I think what I saw this budget cycle was a true council that had that best interest in heart, and we are going to make it a better San Antonio for you tomorrow, and we're starting today.

That's why I am proud that we worked with AFSME and they were the experts.

I was like three percent across the board, and they came in and worked with our team to get something that would address compression that would address moving forward and address our low lowest paying um employees to move up.

So thank you for your efforts, AFSME.

Thank you, council, for listening to them.

I also want to take this moment to recognize my entire staff, Salvaldez, Melanie Rodriguez, Chris Villa, Ana Galindo, Addie Moreno Soto, Debbie Gunn, Edward Padilla, and Veronica Boyle.

Their work often happens behind the scenes, it goes unnoticed, answering calls, but with them we were able to move forward to Enrique and my chief of staff, Ruben Lazalde.

Your early mornings and late nights do not go unnoticed.

And thank you that into this budget is also a reflection of your dedication.

So I want to thank you all and my staff for doing this.

And as we move forward, I know we're gonna have some discussions up here, and I know we didn't always get what we wanted, but passing this budget today's adoption is the right step as we move forward.

We saw innovative ideas and solutions from all every single one of these council members.

But today is the day that we sit and we decide this is how we get the dollars to move on what is most important here in San Antonio.

Passing a balanced budget is critical to moving our city forward, protecting vital services, and ensuring no disruption to the daily operations our community depends on.

Today we have a budget that reflects the will of the people.

Chair Aldrata Gavito.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I also want to thank Justina, Maria, Eric, you and all your team uh for this huge effort, this huge undertaking.

As a council member, this is one of the this is probably the most important day that we're in office.

Um for Councilman Castillo Anguiano, happy to share this with you and happy to share this uh day with our new council.

Uh so I went into this budget with three priority items.

The first was for more police officers.

We had made a commitment to our residents that we're gonna uh provide them 65 police officers.

We're short of that.

Um when I talk to District 7 residents, they make this clear that they want more police officers.

That is gonna help them feel safer.

We also have the data to prove it with hotspot policing.

So we're not getting to 65, we're getting some would love to see us try to get more.

Uh my second priority was something that Councilwoman Via Gran touched on, and I was glad to lock arms with a majority of my council colleagues, and that was the cost of living adjustment for our city employees.

We know it's tough times, so thank you to AFSME.

I thought they were here.

Oh, there you go.

Um, thank you to AFSME for y'all's help and working with city staff to to make that happen.

Um, I'm glad uh to to partner with my colleagues to make sure our city employees are supported.

My last priority was the vacant buildings position.

This is a constant concern that we hear from so many residents when uh there is a vacant building in their neighborhood, it uh you know it can create a very toxic environment.

Um, and so and it brings the neighborhood down.

So thank you so much to city staff for helping us work through and get that position so that way we can stay focused on on the vacant buildings across our city.

Uh there was a couple of items that that are on the budget, the proposed budget today that you know I do want to echo, you know.

I'm good with the radar feedback signs, the flashing stop signs.

That is also a request that we get from a lot of residents in District 7, definitely supportive of the housing of the minor repair program, street lights, the uh increase in the book festival.

I do have some comments on some of the other parts of the budget.

Line item number seven, the funding for metro health programs.

I just want us to make sure that it does not negatively impact small businesses.

I know this item was a little rushed and introduced to us yesterday, so I think it'll probably go to the community health committee.

I just want to make sure we're doing our due diligence and making sure that it does not negatively impact our small businesses with that increase in those food safety licenses.

The second thing are items number nine through thirteen.

This is funding for our delegate agencies.

I think all of these delegate agencies do wonderful work.

I just also want to make sure that my council colleagues and I are clear that when other nonprofits are gonna come and ask for help, we are now short this much money because we're providing for these agencies.

So we don't have uh endless bucket of money to give to nonprofits.

So we're making the decision today to give to these nonprofits at the expense of other nonprofits.

Totally fine with it, but I just want to make sure that everyone's clear um with what we're doing.

Uh, other than that, I'm glad to see that we agree on increasing these vacant buildings registration fees, and hopefully that this will encourage property owners to activate their space and make sure that they're being good neighbors, and um also looking forward to having that dedicated code officer to address the vacant buildings as well.

And those are all my comments.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo Anguiano.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, first, I'd like to thank each and every one of you here on council for giving me the most incredible opportunity to serve my district two community.

I'd also like to thank my district two staff who are in the audience today.

Frankie, Jolene, Denise, Alicia, Imgarde, Maria, Krista, and Alise.

They guided me, attended all the meetings, showed me where the city gym was, and supported me through these past two months.

And it's definitely been an unbelievable experience.

As it pertains to the budget we are adopting today, I do want to thank each and every one of our city staff members who do the work of keeping our city running day in and day out.

And to the city staff who crunched the numbers.

I hope it all adds up because we are counting on you, literally.

But seriously, I do have to say that this budget for me happened under the shadow of a large vote we took earlier in the year on the Spurs arena.

Every time we argued to support one budget item over another, I would often reflect on how our city just gave the go-ahead on a term sheet that promised millions of dollars to a Spurs arena.

We argued over funds for public safety, and we even talked about how we were going to have less bond dollars for flooding and infrastructure.

But I know that the city is fully capable of finding the money for some projects and not for others.

And so when our residents tell us that homelessness is their top issue for the past three years, I was very surprised that this wasn't the issue we spent most of our time debating.

People will tell you that sometimes things happen for a reason, but I think that most often we bring reason to the things that happen.

I know I'm here on this dias for a lot of reasons, but one of them is because I happen to work in an organization that serves our houses community.

Thrive Youth Center isn't is such an amazing organization, and I'm thankful I can bring some of my expertise to this budget discussion here today.

This is why I met with city staff who are on the front lines working with our houses community from these discussions and my first hand experience.

I put together a CCR, a policy proposal that takes a critical look at the services we currently offer and proposes new interventions to consider.

We cannot expect to do the same thing we've always done and expect a different result.

So although today we aren't adding any significant investments into homeless services, I hope to move us in that direction.

You will see this across your desk today, and I hope I can count on the support of my colleagues for in this effort.

Furthermore, I will be supporting this budget today, although I do have some concerns.

One being I do believe that encampment sweeps do more harm than good.

Um, and I oppose the use of these funds as a strategy to address the homeless issue.

I also oppose the addition of new police officers because during a budget deficit, we are committing ourselves to ongoing costs that we will most certainly have trouble cutting if necessary in the future.

And lastly, we do not spend enough money on a crime prevention, which includes defined monies for interventions that criminologists have stated will lead to longer lasting crime reduction.

And when this issue comes up in public safety committee, I do hope that you will identify separate funds to fully support recidivism prevention.

On the other hand, there are some important items on this budget I want to make sure I support.

Increasing the numbers of spay and neuter surgeries is always a huge win, and we know that it is the path to reducing the stray animal population.

I'm also thankful I could be part of the cost of living increase for city employees, including the base pay rate for 750 for all employees so that our lowest paid employees see the difference in their paychecks.

Also, for District 2, I am very, very proud today for allocating the 3.2 million for the East Side YMCA to replace some of the infrastructure needed to provide equality programming to our Eastside community.

And lastly, I am very happy to approve funding for Big Mama Safe House today as they take a holistic approach to reducing crime and it is in line with our crime reduction efforts citywide.

I am thankful for the thoughtful work that went into building this budget and preparing us for what will be a very uncertain time financially and socially in this country.

Another thing I'd like to say is I would be remiss if I did not mention how proud I am to be the first trans man to serve on this dais.

But I want to make it clear.

So when the attacks come, which I am certain they will, I want you to stand with me in our larger community in rejecting the divisive, hateful and simply the misinformed comments people will make.

Whether it is someone close to you or residents that come before this dais, I want you to denounce the hate speech, the fear with or sorry.

I want you to denounce the hateful speech of people with fear in their minds and hatred in their heart.

And finally, I just want to say how much I love San Antonio.

I was born and raised here, and I love the East Side and the Northeast side.

There's nothing like being part of the Eastide history of the deep roots of music, culture, and trailblazing leadership.

Ultimately, I hope to look back on this time as one of my proudest moments.

And I would like to say I was able to make a difference for our city and move our city and our country forward for not only those that are privileged to sit here among us, but mainly for the most vulnerable in our society who will never sit at this table but will be impacted by our decisions every single day.

It has been an honor to serve, and this is not a goodbye because I do still have work to do.

This may be my last meeting, but you haven't seen the last of me.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chair Golvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

And once again, just want to say thank you to all the city staff and city management and the budget offices uh and all the departments who worked with extremely hard throughout these conversations and preparation for the budget.

Of course, through July, but also through August, we were making our changes and asking questions.

Um extremely grateful for uh all that work that you all have done.

Uh and it's all the questions that you that we had.

Um just coming right off of uh Councilmember Castillo Aguado's point.

Uh of course, Leo, you know, I'm super excited uh that you have been part of this council uh with me.

We've known each other since we were in college, and it just was uh incredible to have someone uh who I've known for extremely long time be able to serve with me, even just for a brief time.

Uh and I'm hopeful uh the last time.

Uh but I know you may feel about uh future elections.

Um but no, I just want to say you've done incredible work.

Um whenever we talked about things that were going on with the budget or other council conversations, uh you were someone who uh was asking thoughtful questions, was someone who was asking for feedback between your other council colleagues too, and had your opinions ready too and didn't shy away from what your thoughts were about uh any kind of decisions we're making up here.

And I just want to say, you know, I I'm grateful for that.

Uh it inspires me as well uh to see someone, of course, in similar age range too, uh, to go in gung-ho uh with these big conversations we've been having about the budget, about policy changes, about uh sports financing, all the other uh mechanisms.

And so you know, grateful for the time you spend here, but I know uh we will continue working together in any role that we're in and doing the good fight here in our city.

Um moving into budget, of course.

Uh the main topic at hand, I just again actually agree with all the city staff who've done this work to get us here, uh, making sure that we're still prioritizing uh housing affordability in our city, making sure that our city services are well maintained and funded and aren't harshly impacted by this uh budget deficit we were facing.

The work that y'all did also even just uh through July to shore up some of those uh services that we were looking at potentially cutting uh was uh incredible, frankly.

Um I know that there's a lot of work that goes into that to make sure that it's the decision is easier on our parts too, right?

And the communication that we provide to our residents about what could be impacted, what was gonna be impacted, uh was great.

You know, and it's it went through a lot easier.

Uh but we know 2027 is gonna be or fiscal year 2027 is gonna be the harder one.

And I'm grateful that we've been able to have these conversations on the council up about uh what those impacts will look like and make sure that we're making a more concentrated effort going forward uh to really dive into what can we do to mitigate some of those impacts to ensure that our city services are still meeting the demands that we have in our community um and that we're using our taxpayer dollars wisely in the way they want us to, right?

Um, I think with uh the amendments proposed um today and that we've been discussing, uh I'm good with all of them uh except for item or amendment number three.

Um everything else I think I'm pretty solid with.

Uh I do want to echo Council Adavito's point about the delegate agency funding.

Um I'm supportive of of course all the delegate agencies that we've discussed within this amendment process.

Um but I'm excited for the future conversation in the fall about delegate agencies just because I think it's worth taking time to think about what we want that process to look like and making sure that it's not um that our the all nonprofits and all of our external agencies get a chance to talk with our our offices in a timely manner and not necessarily uh right before our budget's almost complete, right?

I think it makes it tough for agencies uh we don't have the connections or don't uh have the direct asked just yet to make that ask versus uh more proactive and prior time to it.

And so I'm hopeful that'll all work out within our conversation this fall about delegate agency funding, and of course, looking at what capacity our city will have, not only next year, but into the several years after uh to continue supporting agencies that are doing great work in our community.

Um also want to point to the uh comment about the community health committee potentially reviewing Metro Health Food and Safety Licenses.

Definitely think it's worthwhile to review uh the increase in the fees there, uh seeing its progress, seeing the impact it's having on our small business economy, and of course making sure that small businesses are included at that table too as we go forward with looking at not only this particular fee increase but also potential other ones.

Um maybe economic workforce as well.

We can work together on that to see what ways that small business fees uh are impacting our local economy, um, of course, impacting our city services and where we can kind of meet a good middle ground between both.

Um I think those are all my comments for now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman White.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I want to thank uh city staff, Eric, Justina, Maria, uh, all of your team for for all the hard work.

Um I also want to uh thank all the department heads as well, because this year, um obviously tough financial times.

We did these budget efficiency reviews, which I think is our is our first step before we we move into the new zero-based budgeting hybrid model that that uh we're gonna look at this fall.

And and when you total it all up, uh, and thank you to my team uh for for doing so.

It looks like we found 27.1 uh million dollars in budget uh inefficiencies that we were then able to um redirect towards the citizens' priorities.

And that to me is a testament, first of all, uh to the hard work uh of our city team.

Um Eric, thank you for for insisting that we do that work.

Uh and again, I would just point out to my colleagues, uh, as we've seen over the past few weeks, so much that we want to do, so many needs in the communities.

We've got to continue to press forward to find out where we're spending money needlessly, redundantly, wastefully, uh, and then redirect that money uh towards what our citizens want us to spend it on.

So thank you very much uh to city staff for that.

Uh I want to thank my team as well, led by uh Raul, uh, but it's everybody on my team, uh, right down to to um including our constituent services people that that take the calls and listen to what the residents are asking for uh so that then we can come up on this diet uh and advocate for it.

So thank you very much to my team.

Th there is there is a lot of good in this budget.

Um the raise for city employees, very, very pleased.

It's it's well deserved.

I'm glad we're doing that.

10 million dollars for capital uh improvement projects, right?

These are the things our citizens are asking for every single day.

Uh the encampment response team uh continuing um in the in that effort.

Very, very important.

We hear about it from our neighbors every single day.

122 million dollars for the street maintenance program.

You know, I say it a lot.

Twenty-two percent of the streets in this city are in poor or failing condition.

That is absolutely not acceptable.

Um infrastructure needs to be right at the top of uh this council's priority list because I think it's at the top of our residents' uh priority list.

And so happy that we're dedicating uh 122 million dollars there.

1.3 million dollars to add more firefighters, uh, including some enhanced uh squads, very, very important.

You know, all that uh that our fire folks do.

It's the best fire department in the United States, and I'm happy that we're we're adding to it.

Uh we're also got some money in here for for a needs assessment for fire so we can determine what else they need to do their jobs more effectively, uh efficiently and safely moving forward.

Very, very happy about that.

Um, Councilwoman Corps headed the uh the effort to get some more lighting uh in our city, which is very, very important as well because uh you know, lighting is is something our uh our people want, and it does help deter crime.

And so happy that we're gonna be getting that in this budget.

With that said, um really disappointed in a couple of things.

First of all, the fees that we're increasing on our citizens through this budget, I think is very unfortunate.

Uh it's it's a cop-out to me, is is what it is.

Uh the people of this city should not continue to uh take on the financial burden for what this council wants to wants to spend money on.

Our people pay too much already.

Uh they pay too much in property taxes, uh, too much for uh permitting fees and and other fees that we hit them with every single year.

And so the fact that we are raising fees in certain areas this year in lieu of finding other places to cut and to downsize bothers me.

Um it shouldn't be happening.

And uh next year, when we move into even a more difficult fiscal environment, uh I hope that this body is not going to advocate for an answer that includes continuing to burden our residents with more fees.

It's just it's just not right.

We're gonna have to make the hard decisions and make the cuts necessary.

And then we come to public safety, and um in this budget, we have funding for an additional 40 police officers, which of course is 25 short of what we promised the citizens of San Antonio.

And there is no other way for me to say this other than I believe that backtracking on the promise of 60 off 65 officers to our community, backtracking on that promise is nothing short of government malpractice.

Public safety is our highest priority.

All the other things that we want to do do not matter if our citizens do not feel safe.

Under the last administration, and I said this yesterday, we partnered with a consultant and we conducted a staffing study for the police department.

It was recommended that we add 360 officers over five years.

The point is to move our police force to where 60 percent are on proactive patrol time, and 40 percent of our officers are responding to calls.

One of the purposes for that is to deter crime.

And at the public safety uh budget briefing, Chief McManus, our lead law enforcement official, stood at the podium and he told us the quicker we get to that 60-40 ratio, the quicker we're gonna make our community safer.

The boots on the ground are telling us that.

The experts that did this study are telling us that.

And we even went further and we did a UTSA study that showed when officers patrolled areas, patrolled high crime areas, when we put more officers on the street, the crime went down.

So to sit up here today and reverse course, simply because we're in a difficult fiscal time, um, it's just it's not right.

It makes no sense to me when we say that public safety is our highest priority.

Yes, money is tight, but what you do when money is tight is you start with the most important things and you build the rest of the budget around it.

The 65 officers should have been put in this budget first, and then everything else should have been built around it.

It's what our citizens want.

It's what law enforcement is telling us we need.

It's what the experts are telling us we need.

We paid for that study.

Now we don't listen to the advice and we backtrack on it.

It's putting the residents of San Antonio, their safety at risk.

And I cited the smart asset study from this year.

And I'm going to read the first line of the study again.

It says city safety or lack thereof can lead to great disparity in quality of life and return on dollars invested by residents, businesses, and government alike.

And San Antonio ranks last out of our big cities in safety according to this study.

We can do better.

And so with that said, I make a motion at this time to amend the proposed budget to include an additional 25 police officers at a cost of 1.39 million dollars, funded through a 1,024, 341 dollar reduction to the scheduled replacement of computers and related equipment funding as described in the all funds capital outlay and a $400,000 decrease to the delegate agency reserve fund.

We don't need to replace computers and phones as often as we are, and this $400,000.

Councilman, your time is up.

Councilman, your time is up.

Councilman amounts to less than two percent.

Point of order, you count your time is up.

Councilman, please respect the body.

Thank you.

Second his motion.

Second to his motion.

Is there any discussion on the amendment?

Councilman, have you done an analysis of the cybersecurity risks that the city uh would potentially incur as a result of not funding those um uh required updates?

Yeah, thank you for the question, Mayor.

Um, I've spoken with our city manager um about the schedule and how it's approximately 20 percent of our departments that get new uh computer equipment and phones um each year.

And if this amendment were to pass, the city management the city manager assured me that the security requirements um would be prioritized so that they wouldn't be net negatively affected by this amendment.

Eric, can you can you speak to the cybersecurity risks um associated with changes to the scheduled updates to our equipment?

Again, this whether it be software or whether it be delays in and updating hardware.

This is one of the main ways in which bodies are unfortunately less susceptible to ransom to scams, et cetera.

So would you please speak to that?

Sure, Mayor, and I'll ask uh Ben to help me with that as he goes to the podium.

But I I want to also add um some context and uh to what the councilman said.

We we replace PCs and laptops on a schedule every five years.

So that's the 20 percent that the councilman is talking about.

We don't do everything every year, we do it over time, and we do it uh to make sure that we're up to date on terms of software and access as well as cybersecurity.

And Ben, I don't know if you want to add a part of that to the consideration because um before I hand it to Ben, we would have to mitigate that in terms of security patches and the prioritization.

We know right now what computers need to be replaced because that's what we budgeted for.

Um any adjustments to that schedule, uh, we will need to reprioritize to make sure that we don't leave ourselves susceptible to that.

And I don't know, Ben, if you want to add anything to that.

City managers summed it up well.

Um we have a PC replacement program, computer software replacement program that we want to stick to as much as we can.

It's important because it allows us to keep those machines and that uh hardware and infrastructure up to date, which is really important from a patching perspective.

If we get outside the warranty period, we have difficulty getting those machines repaired, and then they're more susceptible to being um compromised, if you will.

Um so as Eric mentioned, if if we did move forward with this, we would need to determine some way to mitigate that impact because we would we would want to make sure that we don't increase our risk on our entire network.

So it sounds like at this point we do not have an assessment of the risk.

It sounds like we would need to do that.

Um while the funding is a million dollars, we do not know the risk that we would be um inviting as a result of this proposed change.

And I certainly appreciate the financial perspective.

Do we have a cybersecurity expert that can actually speak to the risks or uh chief information security officer is not is not uh in the chamber right now?

Okay, well, it sounds like we're not able to actually discuss the risk that if the prison the principal security officer that would speak to this risk is not in the room.

Okay.

I thank you.

Um so I believe I believe there's two options.

So I'm just gonna say uh IT is is not the thing.

Uh and Andy, if you could clarify, we are voting to not add an additional if we as if we vote this down when we call to question.

We are we are just voting against no additional 10 officers.

So we we still would keep the amendment as it is with the 15, correct?

Uh thank you, Councilwoman, to clarify.

I guess the the motion is to add additional 25.

If the council votes down the proposed amendment, we will preserve the additional 15 that would include them that would then uh have 40 total uh added.

So yes, so we're you're only voting on the the motion to add an additional 25.

Okay.

Uh yeah.

I if no if no other council are going to discuss, I I'd call to question so we can vote because I know we have another one, another option coming up next.

Okay.

Please vote.

The motion fails.

Okay.

Councilwoman Spears, you're recognized to speak.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, I too want to express my appreciation for the work behind today's budget.

This is my first budget, and I can attest that the briefing on these items and their respective departments was intense and did in fact move quickly.

But when I placed my name on the ballot, I knew that the budget was one of the first things that we would tackle on our new council.

When I took office, we had one meeting and went on July break, and I knew right away I would really want more time.

As the council and city staff, we did move quickly, and I understand and appreciate very much that many of the items that we have here today represent critical services from maintaining our creekways and drainage and improving for infrastructure and safety to expanding meal programs for our older adults and addressing homelessness in our city and supporting youth focused initiatives.

I look forward to the information we will learn in the fire department initiatives needs assessments.

We do have the very best firefighters in the nation, and I'm happy we're adding enhanced squads and additional training.

And I also look forward to seizing economic growth opportunities alongside our economic development department.

I'm grateful to our staff for their diligence in bringing forth these efforts that keep our city running smoothly and directly support the quality of life in our communities.

And I also want to thank my own staff for your diligence and hard work.

We began by working from a budget deficit position, which required difficult decisions.

And while it is not perfect, I do want to see our city continue to function efficiently and continue to serve our residents.

That being said, we have successfully crafted a balanced budget.

From my accounting background, I know that the best day to begin work for next year's budget is to start tomorrow.

I'm eager to do just that.

It is my position that we must take into consideration where we are with the number of police officers we have, our overall growth, our projected growth, and real and perceived crime.

If our residents do not feel safe, then they are not.

So with that, I want to make a motion myself.

I motion to amend the proposed budget to include an additional 25 police officers to the patrol unit at a cost of 1.39 million dollars, funded through a 1.39 million dollar reduction in the police district fill overtime budget.

Second is there any discussion on the amendment?

Chief McManus, you've got a question for you, sir.

For the edification of this body, um reducing the overtime budget by 1.39 million dollars.

Um would that in fact um uh negate the need to refill that same budget with 1.3 million dollars?

I understand at uh there may be times where you have to pay overtime, not necessarily because there aren't enough officers, but rather based on the day of the year they are in fact working, for example.

So would taking 1.39 million dollars from the overtime budget to pay for these additional officers, would we in fact have to come again and and refill that based on uh the need for overtime at a minimum based on the based on the contract with the police?

Mayor, I excuse me.

I really don't have a great answer for that question.

Okay.

Well okay, thanks, Chief.

Uh um Eric, if you'd like to answer that.

Well, yeah, I mean I think that and I think the the the I'll give you the I'll give you the not so straight answer, right?

So um we spend that overtime to fill a patrol district to your question.

Um if we have less money there, um, to be honest with you, uh he's gonna fill that position because we've got to have that patrol district filled, so we're gonna spend that money anyway.

So we're probably gonna be over budget as we go into it.

And that's I think that's the difficulty.

Uh I'm not um if if we were um that that's a requirement of the service.

And so if we have patrol, every patrol district every day, every substation has to be filled, and that's where we um respond to the calls, and so we can't have um we shouldn't have um in normal cases unfilled districts when we start shifts.

Things happen, big events happened, and officers go and they leave their ship, their their patrol district to respond to a larger call, they're open.

But but it's a it's a it's a homogenous system that works.

Um I think that the chief's um answer is that um or non-answer to you is that that's that's not where we probably need to be.

And um, and I think we would probably still need to cut back if this is an amendment that you all prop propose, we'll reduce that expense, but um overspend if we have to to make sure that those patrol districts are filled.

Mayor, if I may.

Chief, please.

So so the discretionary overtime that that Eric just mentioned.

I'm sorry.

The overtime that Eric just mentioned is not discretionary overtime.

Uh most of it comes from district fill and callback, which again is not discretionary.

So it's uh to Eric's point, you know, we may wind up going over budget in that in that area.

Okay.

So if I may just to summarize what you said, Chief, if we remove the 1.389 million from the overtime budget as you described to pay for these additional officers, we may go over budget then if we need to backfill.

Is that correct?

What what the what we're gonna do is we're gonna reduce somewhere because um to make up that that difference will need to because he'll he'll have to stay within his budget under the charter.

So we'll make adjustments somewhere because I don't think it's it's um in in the whole departmental budget.

We're gonna have to we'll make other adjustments.

It likely won't be in that area, and I understand that's the that's the topic of of the potential amendment.

Um if we overspend there, we will do less somewhere else, and that's up to the chief and his team to manage that allocation.

Okay.

Chief, I know we're putting you on the spot here, but can you can you speak to kind of top of mind things that would go unfunded as a result of that?

No.

Okay.

And that's why I think it's really difficult for us to to have these these conversations absent any data or analysis uh to suggest any impact on, in fact, public safety.

Um are there other uh Councilman White, if there are others that would like to speak, please raise your hand.

Yeah, just briefly.

I want to make clear that that Chief McManus and his entire department do an absolutely phenomenal job.

Um these are hardworking, brave individuals uh that go to work every day trying to keep our city stay safe.

Um but we've got what more than 400,000 hours of overtime that these folks are uh uh putting in.

Um I think they need help, and that's why we need these additional 25 officers.

Chair View Garon.

Yes, uh, you know I want to increase the uh and I you won't say it, but I will.

It will be the safe officers because they will have to be pulled if there's a big event downtown and their need coverage because that I worked, I worked for PD for seven years.

And when I would be like, where may where are the safe officers?

Oh, they had to help cover here.

So I am not willing to risk that if we're gonna have to spend somewhere and cut.

And I really think I I hear the need, it budget providing, and I think Eric has made it clear.

Budget providing we can have uh we can add the additional 15.

If if I if I believed we could add the full 65, I would be the first one to say yes, but that's not where we're at budget wise.

And the only way we get there, and I've I've repeated that I said this yesterday, is if we find a way to get more tax revenue.

We don't want to increase the property taxes.

Um I we're I hear complaints about increasing the fees, and my priority is my residents.

My residents love my staff, my safe officers, and what I don't need is my safe officers having to cover for somewhere else because of overtime.

So I I encourage all my council members to um to and I this is not a ride along.

You need to do at least two to three days just sitting there watching where these officers have to go, where patrol has to go, and and what SAFE does.

Uh so with that, I won't be supporting um this item.

I do look to for solutions.

I think federally, our federal government needs to help us with what we have, and I am committed to go out and see what they're willing to give us because we've committed to these additional officers here in San Antonio.

So we've done grants in the past, some of you have mentioned it.

There's other specialty projects.

I look forward to seeing what public safety has to come because there's opportunities out there, but I trust Chief and his executive team to find them for us and get creative.

But um, right, I if there's a even a slight inkling that my safe officers could be impacted by this, I I would not be supportive.

So uh thank you, thank you, Chief, for coming up, and thank you, Eric, for the explanation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chair Corps.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just quickly wanted to comment that I appreciate the um innovation in trying to find a solution for the thing that you're advocating for.

But I talked with some of the officers, and the officers want their overtime.

They actually want to be able to work on the events, and they want to be able to go out and get that extra income.

So they were not supportive of um, they they couldn't tell me which one they would pick because they're obviously they they want support in the field, but people work those shifts because they want them.

At least for some of them.

Thanks, Mayor.

Would anybody else like to speak on this item?

Okay.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, these last few minutes reminded me of the time I accidentally took theater and I did the work on paper, but I didn't participate in the theatrics.

Um, but I'm very excited for today.

Um, we know that the budget is where principle meets policy, right?

And with that, I'm extremely grateful for the work that uh city staff and of course the rank and file city uh staff that are doing the work out at our parks, out in our community centers, uh, and all throughout the city of San Antonio, making sure that those needs that our residents are calling us about uh are being addressed and we're working towards a resolution.

I'm also grateful for our district five team uh for the due diligence in their case management when a resident calls us, and of course, always being out in the field, um, ensuring that we have a great post on what the request and the priorities are of district five residents.

So just really grateful for our constituent services team and of course our policy team, ensuring that I'm well briefed and brought up to speed on the different uh changes and things that my colleagues uh would like support on.

So just uh grateful for the D5 team, but of course, city leadership for uh ensuring that what we have before us today is a balanced budget that has been built upon consensus.

Uh and again, while there's things in this budget that I'm a disput disappointed with as well, right?

I believe that this is a consensus-based body, uh, and ultimately that's what we have before us today.

Um, you know, with that, I'm glad to see that this budget has many items that district five residents continue to advocate for, prioritize and ask for more.

Uh, and of course, evident throughout the budget survey, uh, every 10 districts is prioritizing homeless services and housing support.

So grateful to see with the budget amendment, there is that additional million dollars for home rehab.

Uh, all of our districts, district five in particular, always have more applicants than we do have slots.

So grateful to see that there's going to be additional support and meeting that citywide need.

Um, further, seniors and youth support is something that uh our residents are always asking what resources are available, and we're also grateful that city staff, whether it's our code compliance officers or folks at community centers, are connecting our residents to these very impactful services.

So, again, within the budget, the continuation of the senior code assistance and community chair program are very pivotal for D5 residents and ensuring that they get the service and care that they need, as well as the extended senior center hours and continuation of the SAFES property tax program.

Uh, this is something that our team initiated through a council consideration request, and we're grateful that we're going to continue to see uh this program continue.

Uh, next level and the ambassador program.

Um, what I always share in 2019, I participated in the ambassador program, and it was a great experience and a great opportunity for our college students to participate in.

I think we could continue to have a conversation on how we can expand that program to help address uh youth violence in particular.

Um, but of course, infrastructure is one of our top requests within District 5.

So grateful for Stephanie Morales, our infrastructure director who fields those nonstop calls and walk-ins for requests for streets, sidewalks, drainage improvements, and so much more.

Um, so pleased to see that staff found a solution to restore the CIP funding, and of course, always grateful to see that there's a continued investment in NAMP and street maintenance programming, and of course, grateful for the leadership of Dr.

Core in ensuring that we kept that street lights and flashing stop signs funding to continue to meet those needs.

Um there's a lot of improvements in city facilities that I know city staff and our constituents who visit them are grateful for, like the HVAC improvements and of course the new roof at some of our facilities as well.

Um, with public safety, uh we are grateful and thankful for the San Antonio Fire Department and pleased to see that there's the support for the heavy squads and needs assessment for the fire department.

Uh again, right for D5 and many of our seniors in particular, their primary source of health care is EMS, calling 911 and getting to university hospitals.

So I'm just grateful for the work of our fire department, and of course, the continuation of ACS investments like PEC Care and Connect program.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't think Karen Spear, who's uh here in the audience, a member of the ACS board, always sharing with our D5 team, right, where there's opportunity for us to allocate more funding or what services are needed in terms of what residents in D5 are asking for regarding animal care service support.

Um, you know, I'm grateful that there has been strong consensus to support our civilian and first responders with their raises, and again, as I mentioned yesterday, grateful for the leadership of ASME for ensuring that their membership requests and priorities are being relayed to council and what we have here today is because of the leadership and of course your membership to continue to provide that support.

As folks have mentioned, city employees literally keep this city running and they help carry out the vision and goals of all 10 of our council districts.

So just grateful for every employee uh in the city of San Antonio.

You know, one thing that I want to highlight, right, is there's always opportunity to look ahead.

So as the councilman mentioned, we start on next year's budget today.

Um, and I think there'd be value in determining how the CDL training program with Solid Waste can be expanded to other city departments.

I think there's opportunity with the neighborhood and housing services department for us to minimize costs and have greater impact.

And then, of course, um something that we'd like to continue to see is to be provided updates on the progress of the feasibility study and plans for the District 5, District 6 Senior Center.

Um, there's so much opportunity and so much more to do, but I'm extremely grateful for the service of many of our delegate agencies.

As folks have highlighted during this entire budget processes, we know we're going to be facing uh impacts based off of federal cuts, and we know the communities that are going to be impacted the most.

And there's great nonprofits doing that work, already doing that work.

And I'm reminded of when Goodwill came to City Hall and the CEO wanted to get a meeting with me.

And I think some of the delegate agencies, like for her, Big Mama Safe House and American Gateways are examples of where we're hearing from whether it's a city department, constituents, or other nonprofits that these are the organizations doing the work and doing a great job.

And I think we owe it to our community members who rely on those services to move forward today with uh earmarking funding for those nonprofit organizations.

Now I do think there is value, as I mentioned yesterday in having a larger conversation about how funding is allocated.

For example, my constituent services team, there's nonprofits that are delegate agencies that we'll reach out to, and we don't get assistance, but then we'll work with the department to ensure that there is assistance provided to the constituents we're reaching out to.

But I think evaluating right who's doing the case management is something worth exploring.

Ultimately, I'm very grateful for the work again of uh city management, uh, Eric Walsh and Maria and Justina and y'all's teams for putting something in front of us today that's very balanced.

Uh and there's always opportunity and uh a need for more.

Um, but I know you're already planning on what that looks like, and just extremely grateful of what's before us.

Um, and I look forward to supporting this budget today.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you to city staff, uh Eric, Maria, Justina.

I'm just gonna put that like on a coffee mug during this time.

Um, but really we see you here every Thursday.

Um, but really to the folks that we don't see here on Thursdays, right?

It's the staff that's behind you and the staff that's behind all of us that helps us get here today.

So thank you to everyone that's listening, um, that's doing other work that the city's um in charge of right now.

So um I want I know that balancing a budget here or at home uh is never easy, especially when working with a deficit.

Uh this year we faced difficult realities uh that required us to weigh resources against responsibilities, and at time we made a lot of tough choices, and through that um I kept District 8 at the center of every discussion.

Um my priorities remain clear public safety, our infrastructure needs, parks, and continuing to address homelessness in a holistic way.

Um these numbers in a budget are investments that directly impact uh the quality of life of our residents.

And this budget is responsible, uh it's forward-looking, and it's rooted in the needs I know of my district eight families.

Um I'm proud of the work that we've done as colleagues, and I remain committed to ensuring that as we face the challenges of the years ahead, the voices and priorities of district eight will continue to guide my decisions.

I want to highlight a couple of uh accomplishments.

Uh well uh councilmember Garciano uh Castillo Angiano walked off, but want to just recognize him somewhere in the back, uh just for his time and his um him answering the call to serve.

Um it's a call that we all have heard and we've answered, that's why we're up here, and so I just appreciate his willingness.

Um, I know Thrive Center misses him and needs his work.

So back to the accomplishments that I know will impact District 8 and the rest of the city.

Uh, first and foremost, that 2% pay increase for all our city employees.

Thank you to AFSME for um fighting on behalf of our city employees and working with city staff to make this possible.

Uh support the 40 new officers that are included in this budget that supports the city's multifaceted violence reduction strategy.

Um appreciate restoring the funding back uh for our radar feedback traffic signs and flashing stop signs.

That is something we hear a lot about in District 8.

So I hope Oakland Heights and Woods of Chavano and all the neighborhoods off Kyle Seal are listening to our street maintenance projects.

We've got 1,400 street maintenance projects that we will be approving, um, and 11 new shade structures for playgrounds.

I'm also proud to support an all of the amendments that were um brought up, but also the increase to our mental our youth mental health uh budget through Metro Health.

This 150,000 will continue to support the services by community and schools.

You can survey any student, middle school, elementary school, high school, they will tell you that mental health services are are needed.

Um, and so I'm glad that we're answering that call today.

So thank you so much to my colleagues and city staff.

This is my first budget, and I'm glad to start working on next year's budget, as was said by my colleagues.

So thank you so much.

Chair Corps.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Eric, and to the whole team for all of your hard work over the summer.

The mayor charged me with shifting my focus from Orange Cone to public safety.

So I'm going to start with public safety today.

I think we have a really big win for public safety in this budget, starting with our delegate agencies, because our delegate agencies do the work of prevention.

And too often we start talking about public safety with reaction of after crime has occurred.

So starting from before it occurs, we really need to make sure we're supporting our literacy.

For most juvenile folks that are in the juvenile detention system, their reading levels are at third and fourth grade reading levels, even when they're in high school.

If we can figure out how to better address literacy for third graders and make sure they are reading on level, they are much less likely to get in the system in the first place.

So even though it's just 50K, I'm very excited to continue supporting the book festival.

I want to thank my colleagues for their support for this as well.

And I am encouraged that Councilmember White said he was going to join me on a school visit so we can see those kiddos, get to meet the artists, and we'll actually drive, or not the artist author, sorry, we'll drive the authors to the schools and then get to go to the festival.

In addition, um it was already mentioned the street lights win.

This is actually an initiative that Councilmember McKee Rodriguez started a few years ago with a gap analysis.

And what we've I think realized in the last few years of the streetlight gap analysis is not everyone that has a gap actually wants a light there.

And so we need to shift our frame of thinking of just funding gaps to funding needs.

And so I'm hopeful that through the public safety committee that we can actually look at where are the needs in our areas around schools, around transportation hubs, so we can use this five million dollars that's in the budget this year for street lights in those areas.

In addition, other delegate agencies for her and rape crisis center, one of the charges of our public safety committee is interpersonal violence.

And what we saw after COVID was a huge spike in domestic violence cases that came up.

And that has not gone back down.

And so these organizations do amazing work and support for those survivors, and so I'm really grateful that they have funding in the budget.

However, I want to say, Eric, I know we're taking funding out of the reserve for those, but I'd like for us to look at Maria at the six over six budget to see if we can find additional funding so that we're not taking that funding from other delegate agencies for the last four months.

Um, the radar feedback signs.

I've talked about this a lot, and Misty yesterday mentioned about speeding and that how everyone complains about speeding on our streets.

And quite unfortunately, our patrol officers aren't gonna spend their whole days out there giving tickets for speeding.

And so radar feedback signs are a good way to actually just check someone to say how fast are you speeding in the neighborhood so that people can actually slow down when they see that.

So I'm grateful that we have an additional 500k for that that's going to be allocated based on need.

And so again, we have to continue to go back throughout our entire budget and make sure we're focusing on need and not just equitabing or equally distributing, excuse me, across the areas.

I also wanted to commend Eric and the team for coming up with the funding for the vacant building officer position by increasing the fine.

I think it's that's a big thing that we talked about, and so I'm glad that we were able to fund that in DSD.

And then Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez just mentioned the mental health support, and I wanted to commend the mayor for pushing Metro Health to help increase those fines to find that fee for the additional support for mental health for our kiddos, as was just mentioned.

However, we do also need the support for our our police, our fire, and ACS.

So I'm glad to know that our squad cars are getting additional support in District 1 at two sites for SAFD.

I'm I'm excited that we're getting additional police officers in the amended budget this year.

Thanks, Eric, again, also for finding the funding.

I'm hoping, Chief, that some of those officers are be safe officers because we know we need that.

So I know that wasn't specified in the amendment, and I'm just hoping that we'll use some of those 15 officers to be additional safe officers.

And then lastly, um the increase in ACS fees and code fine fees.

We have to continue.

I know we didn't focus a lot on ACS this budget.

I feel like two years ago in our first budget, Councilman Alategovita, we were ACS all the whole time, but we've had some really big wins the last few years, and we'll we'll keep helping support you all in public safety to make sure we can do a lot more spay and neuter surgeries, and we can also continue to help find homes for our furry friends as councilman likes to say.

All right, now going to Orange Cone.

I'm super excited about updates for infrastructure.

I have so many folks in the in our communities that'll be like, we want to know when our streets are gonna be done and why it's not done.

So that 500K, I'm so thankful, Eric, that you put this in the budget.

We're gonna revamp our street maintenance program, and I'm super excited about this updated dashboard, John, that you're gonna be able to click on and see all the information.

So I'm really hopeful uh that we get that progress in Transportation Infrastructure Committee.

And then I also wanted to mention one of the projects that my office has been working on is the safe passageway to schools.

And what we've been doing is taking a quarter mile radius around each school and seeing what are the crosswalks look like, what are the sidewalks look like.

I actually had a parent respond to me after my comments the other day that says, Oh my gosh, I hate having to walk my kid on broken sidewalks to school.

And so we're looking at that so that we can really show our focus for our sidewalks and for pedestrian safety.

And so I'm excited to see that we're continuing funding for our sidewalk assessment index because we don't really have a rating system for our sidewalks, um, and also putting in 17 million dollars of funding into that program.

Also, school pedestrian safety is huge.

If y'all have ever seen the kids at Fox Tech downtown trying to walk across the street on Flores after we leave home, it's hard.

And we had a meeting with them, and I wanted to thank the transportation team and public works for meeting with them.

They are so crosswalks are so tough.

And so I can't wait to continue to explore issues on making school pedestrian safety really safe so that our kiddos who um we all care so much about have the ability to walk across streets to school and um going over to affordable housing.

I wanted to commend Councilman Castillo and Councilman Via Gran for really pushing us to continue funding that additional million dollars in the major minor home rehab program.

I was uh frustrated that we're not gonna get additional units, but I love that we're still putting more money in because maybe if there's capacity, Eric, we can increase the units there.

Just gonna put that positive thinking out into the world because that work is so important.

And and it was mentioned previously in amendment sessions, but doing keeping people in their homes is the one of the biggest factors of making sure we're um keeping our housing affordable.

And then, addition, um, I'm excited to see the new department for our homeless strategies division.

I know it was mentioned by Councilman Ka uh Castillo and Guiana, who have been so grateful to sit next to you over the last few months, but the that is our number one issue, and we have to figure out how to help continue to better help support that and create more housing for them.

So I'm hopeful that that division and the focus in that division will um allow that to happen.

And then last but not least, the small business uh small business focus area.

I'm gonna talk about our capital projects department.

So Mike Shannon's already been really hard at work with me helping support our South Alamo businesses.

So we're gonna get brand new sighting.

So if you're a South Alamo business that's listening, we're focusing on making sure how can we get our capital projects done more efficiently, and how can we support the businesses while they're going through that process.

So I know the construction mitigation grant didn't make it through in the amendments, but I'll share with you guys one of the examples that we're working on right now on that project is to create new construction strip scrims for those fences that show which businesses are in the area, how you can get to them, stickers on the ground that show you how you can continue walking around areas where there is construction happening, and then even a cool idea.

We're looking to put people chefs' faces on little signs that say want the best muscles in town this way to La Frite.

And so we're trying to create more innovative ideas to help ensure that our businesses stay afloat while we do construction.

So I wanted to shout out Mike because technically the role doesn't start till October 1st, but he's definitely been hustling and uh fielding calls for me, so I'm grateful for that.

And then last but not least, I really wanted to shout out Councilman Via Gran for her leadership in getting everyone, every city employee a raise.

Um I think it's been said by all of my colleagues, but we could not do any of this without you all.

And so thank you to ask me for your leadership and thank you for Councilman Vie Gran.

She said if there's one thing I'm getting in this amendment process, it's the raise for our city employees.

And sure enough, that was the number one priority.

So I want we I hope you have heard today for all of our city employees listening that this council really appreciates the work that you all do and know that we cannot do any of the things that we do for our city without you all.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chair Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to start off with, of course, with the thank yous and just thank you to city staff, especially Maria, Justina, Ben, and Eric, of course.

Um it takes a lot to do a multi-billion dollar budget with a lot of uh requests and different departments.

So we appreciate that.

I know a lot of departments had to go through some cost cutting.

Um, and so I know those were some tough decisions that had to be made, but we appreciate the work of all those departments also.

And I want to thank the D4 team, um, everybody who works downtown at the field office who keep me informed, who read the memos, uh, who also come in early and stay late and then you know entertain my last minute requests of them.

I appreciate that.

Uh and thank you to our colleague um Councilman Castillo Aguyano for serving with us and being here with us.

I think a lot of times I looked over to you, and you were just a voice of reason and practicality, uh, and we needed that sometimes, uh, all times actually.

Uh, and I just appreciate your work and and your kindness.

Uh and you were just from day one ready to get started and do the work.

Uh, and was always about service for you, so I appreciate that.

Uh, you know, budgets are an example of scarcity, right?

We don't have limitless funds uh taxpayers have to put into this.

Uh and so that necessarily means that nobody will get everything that they want, and every line item uh is at the expense of something else.

So I think that's uh important to note.

I'm very pleased to see that our employees will be getting increases.

I think it's a very tough uh environment out there, especially with the economy.

Uh and having been an LGC staffer and working with a lot of city uh employees over my years, um, it is true that everyone says they do a lot of the extreme hard work um that makes this city go when we get to to come up here and sometimes complain or sometimes highlight, uh, but it's really a testament of you all's work.

So I just want to say I'm I'm proud to support that.

And although there's been a lot of discussion about these amendments, um, as some of my colleagues pointed out, there is continued support for critical services in the city, like NHSD, rental assistance, utility assistance, uh continued support for animal care services, which is a huge problem in District 4.

And thank you to the team and Mr.

McCarry and John Gary for working with me on some of my needs in District 4.

Uh, even though we're not increasing that budget by much, it is still consistent with the large increase over the past few years to address some of the issues.

Uh supportive services to our homeless population is still in the budget.

Uh and like Councilman Korr said, I'm very excited about what Mark Carmona is going to do with that department, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him at PCDC.

Uh and so I'm excited about that.

And also great work for continued support for some of our nonprofits that do a lot of great work uh and working with residents that some of us will never meet but have problems in their communities, and so we appreciate that.

Um great continued work with Metro Health, right?

Even though there are some changes there, uh, those are very, very important services for our community to continue on.

So I think despite some opposition up here, it's been good, and I think we have a really good consensus moving forward.

Uh and with our four-year term, it's a great opportunity for us to just do more planning uh in the fiscal year.

So just thank you to everybody, and I'm excited to vote on my very first budget.

Thank you.

We'll go into the second round of discussion.

Councilman White.

Yeah, briefly.

Um I I I failed to say in my in my first round uh when I was giving thanks to folks.

To my colleagues.

Um this budget process, we we've agreed to disagree uh a lot of times, but I I am so impressed, first of all, uh with the new council members.

Um, you guys way ahead of where where I was um two years ago.

Uh I also think the leadership from uh Councilwoman Castillo and Councilwoman Via Gran uh has been invaluable in helping us navigate a very uh difficult budget process, and then Leo, of course, being sort of thrown in and uh and getting up to speed has been amazing.

Um and then, you know, I just anecdotally I had a similar conversation with with Suk and Terry uh separately yesterday.

Um and they were like, Oh, you won on this, and I was like, whatever, you know, you won on that, you know, and and that's really what consensus government is all about, right?

You're you're never gonna win on everything, and uh you take the wins and losses as they come.

But uh, I truly appreciate each one of you and what you've brought to this process, and I think it bodes very well uh for our next four years, uh, how we were able to very civilly um debate this over the past month and and get to where we are today.

So I I appreciate all of you.

Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak in the second round?

Okay, great.

Well, let me echo my thanks, um, Eric to you and the team for all of the hard work.

Um again, saw too many of you on too many weekends, but very much appreciate all the the due diligence um and following up to help us understand again the impacts of our decisions, not only in 26, but also how we can help ourselves going into 27, um, and even thinking about some of these things in the context of some of our other major um um investments, whether it be the uh potential bond um or even um major considerations like how we're gonna think through um as Dr.

Jacob described the the fiscal cliff that Metro Health will uh will experience in September of 2026.

Um I want to thank you again for the ways in which this budget really reflects uh the guidance from this body to you all early on, which is how do we fail our uh how do we um fund our no fail missions, how do we ensure that we are minimizing any impact as a result of the changes in the budget to our most vulnerable, and how are we minimizing any long-term risks as a result of some of the changes we may need to close the gaps.

Um I do want to reiterate for those that that may be concerned and are watching very closely certain programs that are going to be handled differently.

Um we have asked uh Eric and the team to ensure that we are monitoring the implementation of those, whether you're talking about project worth or some of the community health care workers, for example, though we may do those differently, uh the spirit and intent of the services provided to the community remains the same.

And so we'll uh look to the staff to help us understand if any of the modifications in how we provide those services have in fact impacted uh the level of service as as we would expect.

Again, as those are in some of the most critical areas, mental health, public health and in particular.

Um I couldn't agree more uh with the uh you know, once you vote on once we finalize this budget, uh 2027 is upon us, uh is upon us, and I think we've got um a real opportunity to um help our our community understand how we are in fact going to tackle um many of the projects, uh many of the challenges rather that may not be immediately addressed in this budget.

I think in particular um uh top of mind uh for many, obviously, is how we're going to address uh some of our drainage challenges, and I want to thank uh my colleagues that took the time to tour those with me, 14 uh projects on the state's flood mitigation plan uh as currently scoped 411 million dollars, right?

Those are just the major projects, and I understand those um some of those estimates may need to be updated, uh, but we know uh that number is likely higher than than lower on top of some of the other drainage projects that we know uh don't rise to to that level, but are certainly um uh a public safety and and really just kind of a nuisance in in communities, whether it be you know heavy rains that that flood our sidewalks and et cetera.

So while this budget only funds um drainage projects that repair damage due to June 12th and June 13th, um uh please uh rest assured that we have um engaged with I've engaged with uh with Eric to help us understand soon after this how we're going to communicate to our community how we're going to tackle the big projects but also the other flood projects in our community in light of that much much lower bond capacity uh that we found out and uh found out about in this in this finance in this um budget season, again, nearly a quarter of what we were expecting.

Um this has also been, I think, quite illuminating as we look at helping ourselves in particular in the Metro Health space.

We're already looking, as you've heard from Mike, the the comments up here, we're already looking towards September 2026, um, where the cuts in federal funding we will experience, and in particular the 1115 waivers on top of, so while we will why we while we as a city will receive less in federal funds, um many in our community will also see less funds, um, cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, Social Security.

Um, we know that is um that is coming on on top of the continued impacts of of immigration-related policies uh as well as tariffs that make it a very challenging um economy for our most vulnerable.

So, as mentioned, I want to reiterate this has been again helpful for us to understand the types of questions that we need to be asking as we look at that tabletop exercise, which I appreciate, Eric and the staff um helping us uh facilitate uh in short order.

I also want to reiterate when we're looking at when you look at some of the amendments, um, you know, we're talking about uh again appreciate the the comments of of um chair core when we're thinking more holistically about public safety.

Um certainly, you know, we appreciate the expertise and the and the counsel of our of our chief of police, Chief McManus.

Um I think there is certainly an appetite on this body to also hear from others that can help us understand some of the invest the other investments that would be um as important and and maybe even have an a har higher ROI over over the longer term some of the things on that invest on that uh amendment list, for example, additional money for San Antonio uh kids breathe, which the data is very clear.

Thank you, Dr.

Jacob again for showing uh the immediate um impacts when it comes to students uh being their student uh um attendance rates significantly increasing on top of a uh over 90% decrease uh in the in the number of emergency department uh uh visits as a result of um asthma-related um uh asthma related um afflictions.

Well part of it starts with ensuring folks are healthy enough to even be in the classroom.

So I look forward to a more holistic conversation about not only considering those things but funding them.

And so as we have opportunities in some of the upcoming economic development deals, uh one of them in particular, obviously are uh our negotiate ongoing negotiations with with the Spurs.

Um, you know, again, this is how we can help ourselves.

We cannot think about the budget gap and not think about ways we can help ourselves.

And how do you get additional money into the general fund?

That's why things like naming rights, that's why things like a fair share from parking, from concessions, um, etc.

etc.

So um we've got to be thoughtful not only about additional resources in that vein, as well as I think you know, we're gonna build on the very good conversation we had about the uh the TURS and how we can be more thoughtful about strategic investments that address community needs.

So again, my thanks to the staff, and I appreciate a budget that reflects um the our adherence to the to the values and the priorities as we also try to set ourselves up for 27.

There being no further discussion, there is a motion and a second to approve the budget as amended and presented by the city manager today.

Save and accept for the funding for chest.

Please vote.

She's a yay.

Going to lunch, what's going on?

Okay.

The motion carries.

The next item is funding for chest, and council member Via Gran will be recusing.

Council Member Mungia.

Can I get a motion to approve the funding for chest?

I move to approve the funding for chest.

It is moved and seconded to approve the funding for chess.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

Please vote.

Okay, that's right.

Uh Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item.

Oh, mo the motion carries.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item five.

Item number five is an ordinance setting the ad valorum city property tax rate to pay the principal and interest on the funded debt of the city of San Antonio at 21.150 cents per 100 dollars of taxable valuation for the tax year beginning on January 1st, 2025 and ending on December 31st, 2025.

Okay.

I move the adoption of a maintenance and operation tax rate.

Is that one?

That's right.

Yep.

Uh 21.150 cents per 100 of taxable value valuation.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is it Galva?

Did you have Did you have one?

Okay, sure.

Did you do it or not?

Galvan did.

Galvan seconded it.

It is moved and seconded to approve item five.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

We will do a voice vote for item five.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion passes.

Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item six.

Item six is an ordinance setting the ad valorum tax rate for maintenance and operation of the city of San Antonio at 33.009 cents per 100 of taxable valuation for the tax year beginning on January 1st, 2025 and ending on December 31st, 2025.

Is there a motion and second for approval of item six?

I move the adoption of a debt service tax rate of 33.009 cents per 100 of taxable valuation.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Did you get it?

It is moved and seconded to approve item six.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

There being none.

Please vote.

Voice vote.

All approval say aye.

Aye.

Okay.

All opposed.

Okay.

Motion passes.

Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item seven.

Item seven is an ordinance amending fees as included within the fiscal year 2026 budget within the general fund and certain restricted funds and amending the city code of San Antonio, Texas to reflect such changes.

I move approve of the fee ordinance.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Okay.

It is moved and seconded to approve item seven.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay, motion passes.

Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item eight.

Item eight is an ordinance carrying forward certain fiscal year 2025 funds and amending prior appropriations, appropriating funds for requirements in city projects and departments and appropriating funds.

I move approve the fee ordinance.

Is there a second?

That was Mugia.

It is moved and seconded to approve item eight.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

The motion carries.

Okay.

We'll move to item 21, uh, which was pulled from consent for individual consideration.

Um I pulled for individual consideration based on interest in public discussion.

Uh city clerk, please read the caption.

Item 21 is an ordinance amending the city council CCR ordinance to add certain provisions.

Okay.

Is there a motion and a second for approval so that we may begin discussion?

I motion to approve item 21.

Second.

Okay.

It is moved and seconded to approve item 21.

Is there a presentation?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

We've got several um members from the public that have signed up to speak.

John Bachman.

John Bachman.

Okay.

Jack Finger.

Sir, you have three minutes.

Okay.

Madam Mayor, other members of our illustrious San Antonio City Council.

Once again, my name is Jack M.

Finger.

About two and a half centuries ago, there are a bunch of old white men.

Yeah, that's what they were.

Across the pond.

They were in merry old England.

And they uh did not like the tyranny that they were living under the king.

So they said, hey, King, we're moving.

And so they did.

They sailed about in on some leaky boats about uh two or three thousand miles to a brand new land.

Nobody there except maybe a few Indians.

And they said, hey, we now have a chance to establish our own country with our own rules.

We don't have to live under tyranny.

And so they did.

And that led to something called a declaration of independence from Mary Old England.

And the uh and later on a constitution, which incorporated the ideals that the people rule, and they rule through through their elected leaders that they they vote upon.

And those voted leaders can uh rule, they govern, yes, they govern for a certain period of time, and after a certain period of time, the people say uh we don't like the way you did it.

We're getting somebody else, or they say, hey, you're good enough, we'll keep keep you in there.

So that led to state constitutions with the same ideals and city charters with the same ideals.

So in those ideals say the people rule, we elect you the leaders, you govern, you say what goes, and you shall not be infringed by a city attorney or a city manager.

No, you will not, you you shall not they you should not be vetoed by them.

And so now sometimes, madam mayor.

I know your fellow colleagues around here up there seem as dumb as a box of rocks at times.

I mean, yeah, because of some of the decisions they make, but regardless, uh, they are your fellow boxes of rocks sitting around you, and you have to uh deal with them at times, sir.

So yeah, and I know that there are times when the city manager, city attorney need to comment on their CCRs, but until you get it codified that they that the city attorney and the city manager have a right to weigh in upon these things, uh what these boxes uh say go.

So, yeah, um I think uh you're just going to have have to deal with that fact and and just let things go.

Feel free to uh put put it in the code, but until then we we deal with it with a bunch of boxes here.

So thank you.

I'd like the record to reflect Councilwoman Castilla would like to be recognized as a box of chocolates.

Thank you.

You never know what you're gonna get.

Can attest.

Okay.

Um that's it, yeah.

That's it.

Okay, all individuals signed up to speak have spoken.

We will now move on to council discussion.

Please let me know if you'd like to speak on this item.

Okay.

Um councilman White.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, just gonna be real brief on on how we got here.

Um we we amended this process uh a year and a half ago.

Uh the reason we did it was because CCRs were being filed, getting held up, and we needed a smooth, more efficient process to get the things moving.

Um was very pleased that that we got that um done.

Uh we now come to a a new council term, and I'm gonna again say that I very much appreciate uh the mayor's interest in the CCR process uh in making it better.

And uh if there's ever a way that we can make any of our internal processes better, I'm always interested um in looking at those.

Uh however, we we had a lot of discussion on this.

We had a B session uh several weeks ago where it was really clear, and I was fully supportive of the council's consensus position that the process has really been working well uh over the past year and a half, and we need to continue um along these lines uh right now.

Um and so for that reason um we just wanted to clarify the ordinance, and that's all we've done today.

And we worked with the city attorney's office and to get language to simply clarify the ordinance, and as you all see in your um in in the in the documents, it's really just section six and then a line in section eight.

You know, section eight, we state that the CCR ordinance cannot be um amended or changed without a council vote, which is something we heard loud and clear at the B session, and then section six, we simply state that really CCRs uh don't expire.

And um, you know, somebody uh the other day gave me a great a great thought that let's take, for example, somebody in their last term of office, right?

Some of these CCRs from start to finish take a year, year and a half to get done.

So imagine being in your last term of office.

Why would you even file a CCR that could take a year, year and a half to be worked on if the minute you're gone and termed out the CCR expires and would the process would have to start over again.

I mean you may as well not even do the work at that point.

So I don't think we need to have uh anything that that would mandate that a CCR expire simply because uh the council member who authored it is not here.

Um these things need to go through the governance process, they need to go through the committee process, and if the current council members uh don't like the work that was done previously, they of course can vote it down in governance or or in the committee process.

So um, we're just clarifying that in the ordinance today.

I appreciate uh the conversation that we had several weeks ago at the B session.

Uh I appreciate uh my colleagues and uh councilwoman Spears and Aldretica Vito and Castillo for um helping get this on the agenda today.

I know we've had a lot of good conversations about it, and I'm looking forward to closing the loop on that uh with a vote today.

Thanks, Mayor.

Chair Munchio Mayor, if it's feasible, I would um defer to uh my colleague first, and then I can go after if that's okay.

Councilman to give you the right yeah, thank you.

Uh thank you.

Um just a few comments to add on to what councilman White was saying.

Uh you know, I do I do want to stress that a majority of CCRs filed are filed to you know either by feedback from our residents and to address resident concerns.

So slowing it down is problematic in and of itself.

Um I I also want to highlight a CCR that my office filed addressing cluster mailbox theft.

We filed it on October 23rd, 2024.

Then it went into governance January 15, 2025, and then public safety committee on um March 17, 2025.

So out of that uh process, uh a task force was formed.

There was multiple meetings held by SAPD.

Uh those that task force concluded on June 26th.

So August came and went, there wasn't any public safety meetings, and and here we are in September.

So to put all of that work and have the CCR go back into governance makes no sense to me.

It's disrespectful to our city staff's work, to SAPD's work, to Deputy Chief Ramos's work, to all the agencies and neighborhoods that spent their time and efforts on this.

It to disregard all of that, I think is is disrespectful.

If the concern is our new council colleagues to get brought up to speed, they can get brought up to speed pretty simply by going back and watching old meetings, by getting briefings, by talking to council colleagues to say, hey, what was the thinking process here?

And they will get input on the process by where they sit on committees, uh, by sitting in governance, by having a seat on the dais.

So the new council members' input is taken into consideration, they have a valuable role to play.

I'm often reminded uh that uh what Mayor Nuremberg said, that local government is very much like a relay team.

We hand things off to each other, and together we're getting things done on behalf of our city.

Um one other quick thing I do want to note that is you know, the the thought of well, let me take a step back.

You know, this body of government is the closest body of government to the people.

So to say that we want to mirror the state and federal government doesn't make any sense.

I mean, all of that your bureaucracy just doesn't make sense, especially when it's our taxpayer dollars on the line.

I also uh, you know, will say that in looking at it me and my offices uh work on cluster mailbox theft, we're actually working on it because the federal government can't.

So I I do want to highlight that we're we're trying to address resident concerns, and so um, you know, just want to echo we had a good we have a good CCR process, we need to keep it going.

Uh resident concerns don't start and stop when we get elected and when we get into office.

There is a pressing need to solve resident concerns.

This is the this is the body that they elected to do that, and so we got to do our job and get the this work done.

Thank you.

Chairman, thank you, Mayor.

Um definitely appreciate the conversation um, you know, since we got in on this.

And although a new council member is certainly no stranger to the CCR process, and at the time when the amendments were being changed, I I remember having some concern about some of the language there, but understanding that council members wanted some, you know, definitive timelines and some you know things to hold to be accountable uh with the policy recommendations that they were making.

I would also say, you know, we are continuing work.

I'm sure a lot of pieces of the budget we just passed were um things were championed programs, departments were championed by previous council members that we still do now.

I would also say the CCRs are not the only way for council members to be effective.

Um there's you have a vote at this council up to your very, very last meeting here.

Um and so if it's been working great, I would say also that the unofficial policy before this day was that council members who were no longer here did not have CCR's return.

That was the unofficial policy that we had.

Great example.

We talked a lot about District One.

The councilwoman's predecessor had a short-term rental CCR after her predecessor did not return.

That CCR did not come back.

It came back because my predecessor brought that item to her committee as chair to discuss.

But other than that, it was not going to come back in the CCR process.

Now, did we take a look at the CCR and say, sure, these are some things we want to continue discussing at PCDC?

Yes.

Did we get stakeholders involved?

Absolutely.

But that was the prerogative of the chair.

So it was not an automatic return.

That's what's been happening here.

So if it's been working great, that was part of the process.

I would also say that most of us probably didn't get here by saying that we are going to uphold our predecessors' work.

Yes, obviously, some of us agree with what our predecessors did.

Uh and we continue support on that, but I didn't champion saying I'm gonna uphold every single thing that all previous councils did.

We all probably run on some aspect of change.

Uh and so I think it's important to recognize that.

So uh it's been a lively discussion on this topic for for many months now.

I would like to offer something in the spirit of bipartisanship, which is a kind of a rare word sometimes uh in our country.

But with that, uh mayor, I'd like to move to amend item 21 to add language to new section six so that a CCR expires under the following conditions.

A the main sponsor of the CCR is no longer in office, or B, four out of the five signatories are no longer in office.

There's a motion and a second.

Is there any objection to discussing the item and the amendment together?

Okay.

So there being none.

Who would like to just go ahead?

That's right.

That's right.

Yes.

Is there any discussion on uh the proposed amendment?

Mayor, if I may.

Yes, go ahead.

Uh I do have copies of the proposal if anybody needs to refer to that.

Um and then I think in the spirit of this, it's just to say this is more or less what was in practice, right?

So if a majority of the body wants to continue something that was not going to return, we all still have the ability to do that.

Um this ordinance that we're discussing today came up uh not through CCR process, right, or even by the city manager mayor, it was a signatory memo that got it here.

So there are still tools available to folks if they feel like something was missed from the last term that they still want to bring it up.

So there's still plenty of options, but I'll pass this to a couple folks that want it.

Okay.

Who would like to speak on this on this amendment?

Anybody on this slide?

Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, as folks have already emphasized, local government is the closest government to having a post on our constituency.

And during my tenure on council, our team has drafted roughly 26 council consideration requests, which have resulted in creating a cost recovery fee for dangerous uh structures.

We've created a program for seniors to save on their property taxes, as well as uh we've initiated holding metal and auto recycling recyclers accountable through the CCR process.

And with a couple of these examples, we were either told that it was preempted by the state and or TCEQ had strong restrictions in which we couldn't uh take on some of these issues.

Um we've also addressed or working towards address sore and lateral uh issues with our constituencies, and we've also have so many more CCRs in the queue uh ranging from workforce development, affordable housing, worker safety, and infrastructure.

And they are all very straightforward requests uh coming straight from District 5 residents.

And the proposed changes um with the original item is to safeguard that democratic process by ensuring all legally filed policy requests have the opportunity to go through the policy making process and be voted upon uh following that process.

Uh now with the proposed amendments, all right.

I I know um our colleague from District 2 in his comments earlier mentioned that he's working on a council consideration request.

Um, if that is something that is signed and submitted and Councilman McKee Rodriguez returns, is that CCR no longer valid with this proposed amendment, Andy?

Uh, since the councilman would no longer be the councilman who submitted that CCR.

Under the amendment, that's correct, councilwoman.

Yes.

So, you know, I I value the leadership of Councilman Casillo Maggiano.

I believe he is one of the housing experts on here given his work with Thrive.

Uh and I think the value, and I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure it's a great policy that I would hope we could continue to see move along that process.

And with the proposed amendment, we wouldn't see that work uh continue to come to fruition.

Uh and I think your expertise and the work of your team value uh merits, right, going through that process.

So I won't be supporting the amendment because I think it's important that these uh CCRs continue to go through the process.

Again, our constituents voted for us to represent them and to direct um our city manager and city staff in the city attorney's office to work on a resolution.

Uh and I think the original uh item 21 helps us codify that process.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, in case it informs any other uh additional comments, um, as I shared both publicly and um directly to you, councilwoman um uh Aldrete Gavito, it wouldn't disregard the work in any way um as uh Chair Mungia's effort as well does is it's meant to reflect the will of this council.

Um so again, actually uh um getting the support of additional folks on this council um and then saying, as I asked for you, asked you directly, are there ones that you'd like to prioritize that are ready for an immediate vote?

Um those could go could be fast-tracked, in fact.

So it actually makes it much faster than the current process if it was in fact focused on um achieving something meaningful for the community.

Um Chair Galvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I want to start off just saying thank you to uh my colleagues who have been raising this issue uh over the past few months.

I think it's always worthwhile to review uh the way procedures have been done typically, the way uh things have been working or have not been working, um, to give our council an opportunity to really decide and determine how to codify some of these uh processes that we have that we may have not been formalized that may have not been formalized and see if there are any gaps uh that impact our work here.

Um I certainly value the conversations we've been able to have on these con on similar topics to this as well as this topic today.

Um something that uh I uh I I think just sticks with me on this is um there's the concerns that I have on on C CR process thinking about um not only you know what what is the process, uh I think you know, for council members who do term out or do uh phase off the dais, uh what happened to the CCRs to Councilmember Mungia's point, there wasn't an official process for that, right?

It was simply that they went away.

Uh the CCRs did not go through unless someone else wanted to pick up the work um in some other former fashion.

Um or was already going through the process as well.

And even that sometimes would also uh fade away.

But I think that's part of you know simply what city councils and generally government bodies do is that if that work's not championed, it fades away.

Uh there's plenty of things that council member or former councilwoman uh Kibel Haverta and I agree upon.

Uh we generally uh agreed on a lot of the work that she was doing, but there's some that we disagree on.

Uh one in particular I always think about is the CPS energy one.

It's no uh shade to her work ethic nor to her the issues she was hearing on the doors or from residents.

Same issue that I heard as well about uh rate increases.

Um but my approach is different, right?

I think her approach is different, and that's fine.

Um and so there's gonna be moments when we agree with our predecessors before us um on different issues, and there's gonna be ones where we don't.

Um I think it's worth talking about what happens to those policies uh and actions in place.

I mean, even today talking about uh some of the um it was yes, yeah, yesterday and well a little bit this morning um about the uh amendments to add more police officers in the relation to uh the studies cited from UTSA, um, what this council thinks about that, it may be different than what the past council thought about it.

And so the way that we act about that is the way we do different actions on it.

And so it's just understanding that some of these CCRs can give us a kind of uh a guy a roadmap in a way of what could be addressed here, but I think it's worth the city council still reviewing them in full.

That same feeling then goes to about CCRs overall.

The original CCR process was the six members signing on to uh a resolution and submitting it um or to a request and submitting it to city staff and for a city council meeting to discuss the issue at hand.

Uh it of course was changed over time in 2007 and again later on um to make it reduced to five so that we could be more work uh through the committee process, um, and then of course bring it to full council.

And what concerns me about that um is that while I s of support the idea of it going through committees, support the idea of course the city staff uh working on these uh on these issues that we raised to them, that way we have an actual kind of process of okay, here's what it can look like, here's what it can actually be if it implemented.

What I'm concerned about that is that some of these CCRs in the past have been going through without a majority approval and seem to be baked in uh either into policy actions or into um into budget items without uh the full agreement of council.

And of course, council has the opportunity to make those decisions made uh during the budget process or during another council meeting or raising it through through signature memo.

Uh my concern with that is that it it's constantly having to say, okay, well, this thing got moved through by five people and yet there was not a majority supporting it out loud or through a vote or through some kind of action.

Um the point being with all that is that I have my concerns on C CRs, period.

I have lots of things I think we should look at.

And I think the governance committee should take a look at as well, but the longer process about or longer conversation about what other city councils uh throughout our country do and how they operate with policies um and how they make that policy work uh for the bodies that they serve and their bodies that they're within.

Um that being said, I think these amendments um that we proposed today, well, sorry, the amendment first uh from Councilman Mungia, um I appreciate it.

I don't think I'll be supporting it today.

Um given the fact that I prefer that most of this work it done in the governance committee and come back out um later on, uh whether it's in a few months or next year, to have a conversation more so about the entire process of CCRs versus uh different pieces here and there, giving us the opportunity not only on the committee itself to make recommendations, but for the entire council to then consider as a full body, potentially also even uh between conversation with council members about well, I heard you all talk about this at governance, here's what I would think about that, and to bring it to full council conversation and vote uh to amend the ordinance uh with more collaborative decision making here.

And so I won't be supporting that amendment.

I will be supporting those two uh just until we look at the full review of this uh CCR process uh as a collaborative body.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman White.

Yeah, just briefly actually Rick said a bunch of what I was uh uh gonna say, but just a clarification with Andy.

Um if this passes the original uh amendments as proposed, if if they pass today the CCRs that are in the queue now, the cluster mailbox one and some of the others, those will then um move forward and and get heard.

Uh councilman, yes, it would be effective if if and when passed.

Okay.

Hold on, point of clarification.

He asked if both of them passed.

And so if both of the things are the same, no, sorry.

Sorry, let me clear.

No, just if if councilman men gia's amendment fails.

That's the c that's your clarification.

And then the original amendments that we've put forward pass, then the CCRs that are in the queue, cluster mailbox and all of the rest will move forward.

It would be applicable if if passed, yes.

Yes, okay.

Okay, thank you, Andy.

The um just to address the point that Councilman White raised in terms of you know, why would folks uh um submit so many CCRs toward the end of their terms?

Um in part because some of them were running for office.

I think that's a pretty obvious exam um explanation for some of that.

Um Chair of Vietnam.

Thank you.

Um I I appreciate the current concerns.

Uh I'm I'm looking forward to s serving on governance.

Uh while I appreciate the m amendments, I sit with District 4 on the governance committee.

So I think we can address it there.

I want to make it clear though, however, my expectation, and Andy, you can clarify, is that everything that's sitting in the queue is going to come to governance, correct?

First.

Uh no, councilwoman, the way the ordinance, I'm sorry, the way the amendments are proposed, they would stay wherever they're currently at.

So in other words, if they were already at committee, they will stay in that committee.

Okay.

So what's in committee will go to the new committee, and then those chairs will be able to make decisions regarding that.

Um is it possible that committee could decide to send them back to governance or send them to another committee?

Yes, they could.

Okay, just because I asked this question because we do now have the uh educational department.

And I I think I would like to see some of this, and then based on the direction that the mayor gave us in terms of our committees, I may want to see that encouraged.

I I'm not gonna make an amendment that we do that.

I'm just going to ask my council colleagues that are sitting on chairs, that if we move forward with this today and you have a CCR that is um I like to call it not ready for prime time, that you feel free to send it to other committees for input too.

Um there are wor I think that that is gonna be the course of action, especially now the way the mayor has set the committees.

I I feel like she's really working hard to keep us out of a uh of a walking quorum.

So I think it's important that we are we look at this as a new opportunity.

So while I I understand we need to move forward and get this pro started, I would like um Eric a list of what's currently in committees uh that could possibly come in and then maybe having new city council members weigh in on what they might like to see at a B session uh regarding some of these these C CRs.

Because I I I won't be sus supporting the amendments, do but I do want to talk about them in governance.

But I do want I do think there needs to be more work um in communication regarding some of the CCRs uh coming out because I know that there were a lot of CCRs coming out towards the end of um uh end of the year that had to do specifically with campaign-related issues.

And uh that's what I I don't want to see us moving forward with, but I think we can if they're in committees, I think we can handle it there.

I also think we can handle it in B session also because the CCR process um in the four years, Councilwoman Castillo and I have been here, we have seen it used in uh in a myriad of ways by our our former mayor.

Um so we want to make sure that we are um we are kind of having those checks and balances.

And I think uh with the mayor's current process of what that one extra educational, I think the educational committee, and then also um not having as many council members.

So there's there's that there's not that walking quorum that we get close to because that's what happens when we're at five.

And Rick mentioned six, and I was like, yeah, and we were in trouble for that, uh, because it could it could be perceived like that.

So that's what I really want to see um how we move forward with um with this process.

So I won't be supporting the amendments today.

I'm looking forward to getting into governance though and talking, and I do would like um Mayor as the chair of governance to kind of set a timeline where we come back and maybe do a bigger B session on the conversations in terms of what has worked and what has not worked.

So um I I think we've spent enough time talking about CCRs.

Thank you.

Chair Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm also happy to uh get a friendly amendment to change the amendment to add with the exception of an interim council member, because councilman Castillo is correct, that should carry over.

The other thing I would say is that even with these amendments that I proposed, your amendment, your CCRs would still continue, no matter what.

Uh and if you look at the CCRs in queue, 2025, there are two CCRs that council members submitted who are no longer here.

You look at 2024, there are five CCRs out of all the ones submitted that would be discontinued based on this.

So that is a minority of the amount of CCRs that we have.

And then, you know, basically our committees, according to this, we will be looking at CCRs filed from council members who are no longer here from two years ago.

That didn't make it anywhere.

Uh and so you are correct, it is a relay race, but now that we are here, we get to choose which batons we take forward with us.

And this amendment allows us to do that.

So I just want to add that clarification.

Thank you.

Councilman Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I d I think that council members we're we're elected to represent our constituents, and so these CCRs just are not just ideas, they are the actual voices of the people that we represent and who elect us.

And the voice the those voices shouldn't be filtered, stifled, delayed, regardless of who's sitting in the seat.

And so uh I know that the voters are gonna hold me accountable for what I do and uh not the body necessarily.

So if when these CCRs are blocked or dropped and the public doesn't see that they the accountability is lost or placed on my shoulders.

And so um I want to point out governing does not pause or stop during elections, and these do take a long time to complete, and I and I foresee an unintended consequence as councilman white mentioned, that a council member at the end of their term will just simply stop participating in the CCR process because their efforts could be few viewed as futile.

But to your point, mayor, then others might fill the pipeline.

Um but in any event, if it's the voice of our constituents, I don't see either I I I can see why we would still need to have those listened to and move through the process.

So I plan to work the entire time I'm in office, and I would really hate to see my hard work erased, and staff spends a lot of time on this.

Tax dollars are spent to move things through the process as well.

Um I think it's my job to get up to speed on the existing CCRs, and that was what I was elected to do as part of it's part of my job.

And I want to ensure that my voice is, I will ensure that my voice is heard.

And the collective voices of my constituents are heard.

And I did just have a couple of questions for you, Andy or Eric.

Um, when we when did we start the CCR process?

Because it it it's uh it's an anomaly for the city.

It's not something we do all over this rest of the state.

It's something we created is the way I understand it.

And um, how do the majority of other cities present items for discussion or agendize items throughout the state of Texas?

So you don't have if you don't know all that today.

We know one.

I can answer one councilwoman.

Uh it uh based on what uh this review of the ordinances, it looks like the CCR process was first um documented as an ordinance in 2003.

Um we uh there uh there's a host of different ways that other cities do it.

Uh we can come back to you and the council in terms of what some of the examples are or how other cities agenda is policy ideas.

And councilman, councilwoman, the um uh prior to 2003, there was another process that involved uh six signatures.

Um I think councilman Galvan mentioned that.

So over time it's changed a bit.

Um the the other thing that happened um primarily in um two thousand five or six is where council committees uh began um existing.

Prior to that, there was one uh agenda setting uh kind of a kind of a governance committee, and that was it.

Um and it was expanded to the system that we have now.

Um but we can put together some history of that if and uh and and kind of have other Texas cities are are managing these issues.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Chair Corps.

Thank you, Mayor.

I had a clarifying question, Andy.

Under the proposed amendment from Councilmember Mungia, what would happen if uh a CCR was co-authored that that's why uh I think the the amendments envision one sponsor?

So some they should uh they should identify the the primary sponsor even though they're co-authored.

Okay, that's a change that I think I don't um I think that would have to have a larger discussion because there are some that I really do like it being just co-written versus like uh someone generally there is someone's team that starts it and asks someone else to collaborate on it, but I love when we get to do collaborative CCRs that um we've had a couple with the transit-oriented development one is one of my favorites.

It didn't start in our office, but we love being have been love being able to collaborate on them.

And so I think it's a challenge if we say the sponsor is not here and we have to identify a sponsor, it essentially takes away our ability to truly say we've co-authored a CCR.

Um so for that reason, I I'm struggling with the amendment.

I like what Councilmember Gulvan said about going to governance and then bringing it to a B session, maybe we can have a discussion about what are the things that we really care about for the CCR process.

Um and then but on the amendments proposed, I do want to move forward on the work.

And so um I'm I'm still thinking through like how do we just make sure we move forward on the work.

And I know uh I'm curious, I know Councilman Via Grand just asked for which CCRs are in process right now.

Like I know as chair of public safety, Money and I have already talked about we need to uh get your the CCR about mailbox theft on.

Um we talked about it at our public safety committee meeting actually um this week to try to agendize it for October.

But I'm curious about what are the other ones that may have to go back.

Like what is I'm trying to see what the impact of not doing these amendments today and just having a strategic conversation um as uh was proposed by Councilmember Govan.

So May Mayor, um to to respond to that, j just based on the amendment uh from Councilman McGilla, um uh we were I'm looking at the list.

There are there are six that are potentially impacted right now, based on that amendment.

So in terms of scale, it's not I'm sorry, not that amendment, but the even the original, do we know like how many were already through committees?

There's 32 active, 32 active.

Yeah.

Sorry, I was answering the other question.

Sorry.

And and I think that dependent on what you all decide today.

I think we need to the staff will do kind of a table setting menu or uh memo back to the council to show where they're at, where they were at, depending on what you all decide.

And then there are a fair number um uh of CCRs that have not been to governance.

Um and and there's a fair number that'll be in the queue there, regardless of what you guys decide today.

So I think we need to do quickly back to you all kind of that table setting.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification, Eric.

Yeah, I think what I would um say is like let's not change like let's let the previous CCRs that have already been in the process just go through where they are because they were functioning under the previous ordinance.

But I would like to have a conversation.

I I'm not on governance, but if it go if it goes from governance to B session or if we can have it at B session, um, so that we can all participate and decide what are the things that really matter to us in the CCR process.

Um even going back to I know we had that conversation about whether or not we want to include core services on it, whether we wanted to get Andy's signature.

So I think there's a larger um conversation about what the things that we feel are important uh that it'll probably be uh a tough conversation going through each thing and saying, you know, if we want to include it or not.

But uh I think we can continue with the previous C CRs that were under the previous ordinance and then say anything new has to we we should have a conversation about how we want to propose anything new.

Okay, thanks, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

And to your point, one second, this is your the second round of your five minutes.

I have time to speak right second.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Um just to point out there's also part B.

That so there's five total signatures, no matter the sponsor of a CCR.

It says four of the five signatories are no longer in office.

So that is even the sponsor is not as long as the other signatories are here, it can also be.

But yeah, I don't get the co-sponsor, but as long as it it's five signatures all together, so the second part of the amendment covers that, no matter who's sponsoring or who's signing it, four out of the five.

Uh and again, to my colleagues that said that this has been working as it should have, or we like the way it's been working, it's been working with council members who no longer returning not having their CCRs return.

That's the way it's been working.

That's the way the last administration had it.

So if it's been okay that this amendment goes with what had been happening.

And again, everybody up here CCRs that you authored are still going to be here no matter what happens to this.

So I just want to add that clarification.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chair Gulvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a couple quick things.

Um I think something to that uh Councilmember Corps uh mentioned some of the original conversations, uh can't remember back in July or early August were points about uh resolutions as well and the impact those have.

And I think that's worth the conversation too in governance thinking about uh the way resolutions were before we're not always use uh in the way that other count other city councils across the country use them.

And so having that kind of review of just what processes work and don't work here, not only in our city but overall uh throughout the nation, how they can help maybe guide us a little bit, um, see what works for us as well.

Of course, we are still our own city with our own rules that we can make for ourselves a bit in terms of policymaking, that I think it's worthwhile uh to just go through those other ones, other forms, go through what was done in the past in terms of even resolutions.

Because personally, I think resolutions are really interesting to utilize as our policy making mechanism, uh given their conformance with uh even older uh city councils, um and the way that and here in our city, the way that those work, then you can kind of see the pattern in policymaking that maybe just makes it a bit more uniform.

Uh and it's sometimes more direct too on what's gonna go through and what's gonna happen versus a request, right?

A resolution says this is what we agreed to go through with and gives the council an opportunity uh to fully agree upon it and go forward with it.

Um last thing I wanted to say was uh I I'm very incredibly grateful, and this is I'm just incredibly grateful for the city clerk um and the uh the municipal archives, the digital archives.

Uh again, I think Councilmember Castillo mentioned this a while ago, and as a fellow history person, uh history major as well.

Um wish I had this uh when I was in college uh when I'm doing San Antonio research, um, because it helps just kind of think about not only uh yeah, just some questions of where did this all come from, where does it all start, but helps me think about um what are we trying to do here with this policymaking and how do other councils look at it.

Uh so these folks are still around, talk to too about why this all happened.

Um that's just the history nerd in me that wanted to talk about that uh because I knew off the dome when the CCRs were made.

Um I was three.

Anyway, thank you, Mayor.

Go ahead.

Councilwoman I I just briefly wanted to point out that this very discussion is a perfect example of how bringing an item to discussion first and then we explore it possibly in B session, or we decide it goes to committee, um, or we just pass it.

I think this is ideal and exactly how this process should work.

So thank you.

Great.

Anyone else want to speak during the second round?

Okay.

Chair Corps.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to um what you say foot stomp on Councilmember Kovan's point about resolutions.

Uh previously we don't we don't really have a format for resolutions, and I know some of us there's we're there's a couple that are being floated right now that uh uh we can talk about, but I think it'd be great to have a process for that.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilman White.

Yeah, and just real briefly, and again, Councilman Mangia, I appreciate your your your your efforts here.

Uh but regardless of how many here would be affected.

I mean, I think we have to look going forward.

And again, I mean, let's take councilwoman Castillo or Councilwoman Via Gran, right?

They get to their last year here before they term out.

They've got eight months to go.

They come up with a great idea, they get the signatures for a CCR, and it's moving forward, but it takes a while.

Then they term out.

And all that work for eight months, we're gonna go back to so that's that that's my uh that's my issue with it.

And so again, I I appreciate the effort.

I of course will not be supporting that amendment, and we should we should stick with the uh the clarifications made in the base motion.

Thanks, Mayor.

Anyone else want to speak in the second round?

Okay.

Uh let me just address a couple of these points.

Um to the idea of, you know, it's a it's a great idea that came in at the end.

Um if it's a great idea, and it's still if it'll still be a great idea.

Um it just has to get support of the most recent voters.

And so to your point, Councilwoman Spears, uh, the idea of ensuring that the voters' voices are heard.

I think that's um uh exactly what this amendment tries to do, which is ensure the most recent voters, not voters from two or three years ago, but the most recent voters, their will um is expressed as a result of their councilpersons supporting um an idea or deciding to carry it forward or not to, uh which reflects the will of this council and the priorization of of this work.

Okay.

Um I also want to foot stomp.

Uh it's a very Air Force term, by the way.

Uh foot stomp um the the good comment that Chair Viegran made, which is again, many of these actually, even the 32 C CRs that are active, many of those can go can be worked in committee directly, right?

And actually would be much much faster as Chair Mungea has highlighted in a couple of examples to me.

So again, if it's about getting the work done, the must some of the most efficient ways are in fact to not utilize a CCR.

Um and but again, for those that have that are in process, uh look forward to um ensuring that those are are worked expeditiously through governance.

Okay, with that, um we're going to vote first on uh Chair Mungia's amendment.

Do you need a voice vote or can we use the system?

One second, okay.

Please try to vote.

We'll see if the system works here.

Otherwise, we'll do voice vote.

I can't see it.

Okay.

All right.

Um all those in favor of Chair Mungia's amendment, please say aye.

Aye.

Well, do we have to raise hands then?

We'll raise hands.

One, two.

Okay.

All those opposed?

Okay.

Nine.

Okay.

The motion fails.

Was there any additional um comment on the original amendment uh by Councilman White?

Okay.

There being no further discussion, uh, we will move to a vote.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Oh, raise your hand, sorry, excuse me.

Raise your hand.

Mayor, if I may, can we can we ask for a voice vote on the main motion?

Sure.

The the main motion is to approve the amendment.

Go ahead.

You're gonna do a roll call vote?

Roll call vote.

I'm sorry, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember uh Castillangiano.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Aye.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Aye.

Councilmember Galvan.

Aye.

Councilmember Aldanete Gavito.

Aye.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Aye.

Councilmember Spears.

Aye.

Councilmember White.

Aye.

Mayor Jones.

No.

Motion carries.

Motion carries.

Next item uh is the city manager's report.

Eric, do you have a report today?

Yes, ma'am.

Two items.

Um disappointed that uh Razi didn't get any questions from you during the budget deliberations and there's still time.

Yeah, there's still I I wanted to recognize two individuals whose uh today is their last uh budget um meet I'm sorry, uh city council meeting.

So Razi will be retiring at the end of uh September with 33 years with the city and 42 years in the engineering field.

Um Razi joined the city in 1991.

And uh I was looking at a long list of projects and buildings and uh streets and bridges and airport terminals that uh uh have been constructed uh under Razi and and the list is long and he has spent a lot of time at that podium um bringing before the council uh contracts and dealing with with issues.

He was uh uh recognized in 2021 as the engineer of the year um through the uh Society of Professional Engineers.

Um Razi has uh worked and and for those of you that know him well, um has worked with integrity and teamwork um and diligence as any good engineer would, right, Razi, um and and has been dedicated.

the council uh contracts and dealing with with issues he was uh uh recognized in 2021 as the engineer of the year um through the uh Society of Professional Engers Razi has uh worked and and for those of you that know him well um has worked with integrity and teamwork um and diligence as any good engineer would right Razi um and and has been dedicated um uh I saw Razi at Costco uh a couple of months ago on a Saturday and he was work he was he was walking with uh as much intent in Costco as he does in the halls of City Hall or count and and and I was gonna go walk up and say hi to him when I the city manager is probably the last person he wants to see on a Saturday afternoon but um we're gonna miss uh Razi um um and his leadership and I want to thank you for um your dedication to our community and and our organization and then uh secondly uh today is the last council meeting uh for Lori Houston Lori Houston uh started off 23 years ago as an intern with the city so when um uh council member uh councilwoman castillo was talking about her days of being a an ambassador you never really know where you end up but she started in public works as an intern um and has progressed through our organization um uh to becoming an assistant city manager in 2015 and and like Razi I looked at the long list of things that um Lori has been instrumental as a team member and as a leader in delivering uh for this city over her tenure um and uh the probably the first big project that she was tasked with was was overseeing the design and construction of the expansion of the San Antonio River um up towards uh mission reach I'm sorry museum reach which was the first expansion um in ever in the uh history of the San Antonio River um I there's a long list and you all know them but I I'll tell you that from my perspective where Lori um worked um and delivered something that was critical to the city um and the community was the planning and implementation of our affordable housing um emergency response during COVID um we didn't have any time to figure it out um we did it better than anybody else in this country we didn't send any money back to Washington DC or the state of Texas unlike a lot of other major cities um and um she created it and led it uh with narrow neighborhood neighborhood and housing services department um practically overnight because I remember sitting in the Plaza de Armas at night trying to figure out how we're gonna be efficient and responsive and and help people um the other part of this tailed nicely into the the implementation of the 150 million dollar affordable housing bond which we had never done and we needed to create um and her work there was um instrumental to the fact that um you all have allocated the majority of that money um and and um and is so sorely needed but being able to being able to get it before you all to vote to approve requires a lot of work on the front end to make sure that what you approve can get into production and that's the hard part the hard part is not no offense to the council is the vote part the it's the doing part and uh Lori um has been creative um throughout her career um and um and there's a long list of things wonderful things you've done for the for the city and the organization more importantly um she has been a friend and incredible member of this team um because um as any sport any team sport uh you're only you're only as good as the team and um we will miss uh laurie uh as a friend and as a member of this team and I want to thank both Razzi and Lori because um they have committed themselves commit completely to this organization and the community uh in the work that they've done um this is a hard business um and they've done it um and they've both been selfless about it um and I wish you both uh the best of luck and God speed in your future endeavors and and uh remember I guess at the end of the day listening to the conversation there could be a CCR that makes them come back at some point but um I don't want to add to the C Cr list but but thank you very much to to Lori and Razi for your for your friendship and your and your work and and your commitment thank you that's it mayor yes um certainly a couple of folks would like to to chime in I think during that they were already drafting their CCRs to keep you here so Chair Corr please thank you so much Mayor I remember when I first started I think one of the first directors assistant director

That's it, Mayor.

Yes, um, certainly a couple of folks would like to chime in.

I think during that they were already drafting their CCRs to keep you here.

So Chair Chair Corps, please.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

I remember when I first started, I think one of the first directors, assistant directors, city managers, assistant city managers that was transitioning was Rod, and he transitioned over to Via, and everyone was giving such heartfelt um messages, and I liked him too, but I'd only spent a few months with them.

And I think now sitting here two and a half years later, I understand the attachment that we get to you all.

Um Rosie, I will never forget you, and you probably will never forget me, too.

But what Eric said is true.

You were always trying to find a way to make it work, even when it was difficult, even when there was barriers in the way, you were like, We'll take care of it, councilman.

Tell me what the issue is, and we'll take care of it.

And so I will appreciate you.

You had a very hard job, a very hard job, and I want you, I just wanna I loved how well you took it.

You took it with such grace, and uh you always had your head head up high, even when the community may not have been thinking the same things.

We we are thinking as highly of us as we wanted them to.

You always took it with such grace, and uh we our city is better and stronger for you, and so I'm super grateful for everything that you've done.

I wish you a lot of time and relaxation on your retirement.

Um, and then Lori, I don't even know where to start.

You have been my counsel liaison.

Lori was the first person who worked the city that I talked to before I was gonna run, and we were so careful because we didn't want to break any rules about what city city leaders could tell people running for office.

And I had no idea the strong ties that we would build.

Um, and I will never forget my cookies that I always get made.

Your daughter and is the sweetest.

She always comes up to me and gives me the the most love, and um I'm just so grateful for everything that you've done.

I've gotten so many texts from people telling me how much of a loss it is for the city that you are leaving.

Uh there are so many innovative and catalytic projects that you have led on.

I don't think River North would look the way it did without you, does without you.

Uh the how you mentioned the affordable housing program.

I could go on and on, but we are truly uh more flourishing city because of everything that you have done day in and day out.

And and you have taken it, whether it was uh working ridiculous hours.

I know over some of the years your health even was like you were working so hard, you're literally putting your blood, sweat, and tears into the city.

And I hope when you walk around relaxing in a consulting gig that you can walk knowing that you uh you have made a huge lasting impact on the city, more so than so many elected officials because of all the hard work that you put in, and it'll never be forgotten.

Thank you for everything.

Chair View.

Thank you.

Um this is really hard.

Uh I think I'm gonna start.

I think I'm gonna start with Rosie.

Um both you and Lori worked with my sister, and the job you did when I kept on asking for traffic lights because my dad did traffic.

And you're like, no, it's not warranted, it's not warranted.

And then um just to sit there just last week with what what's going on in military drive, and you're like, we'll take care of it, councilwoman, and to know that you've always taken care of it, Rossi.

And when we write the story of Team San Antonio, and whom helped make this city move forward.

Your name is gonna be in my book for sure.

Um, and you are well deserving of this retirement, even though I wanted you to stay until I turned out.

Um I am so thankful for that.

And I am thankful for the team that you have beside you because I know what could why I'm comforted is I know your team works just as hard as you, and they care just as much about the city as you do.

And so um I will miss you so much.

I don't know how I'm gonna do October when I walk around, y'all, and I'm all sad, y'all are gonna know it's because Rosie's not here.

So thank you so much, Rossi, for what you do.

Um Lori.

When I walked in the first time and you heard me talk, you froze because you thought my sister was still here.

No, the mean Diagran sister is here.

Your work, your dedication, the struggle it was, because I knew what kind of environment the city of San Antonio was towards women, women in leadership, and how you prevailed in how you brought women together that maybe not even interacted with you, but knew led support Lori Houston.

She needs support.

It made it easier for us as women to sit here on the dais and get things done.

So you are super deserving of this retirement in this time.

And I said, Yeah, she's gonna go on a beach somewhere and just enjoy life.

Because you deserve that.

Thank you so much for everything you did.

And when we tell the story of the city of San Antonio, we talk about the women that really worked, you're up there with all the women that helped save the Alamo too.

So thank you so much for this.

You're well deserving of your retirement.

But we're gonna miss you, and I'm sure we're gonna call you in a couple of years for a committee or uh or a board or just an SOS.

So thank you so much, Lori.

Thank you, thank you both.

And um, yeah, I'm I'm just gonna be really sad for a while.

So thank but thank you, and thank you for creating such an incredible team and your housing team.

You know how much I love and appreciate them.

So thank you.

Chair Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um sort of Lori.

Uh, you know, you took over um overseen NHSD at a very critical time, and I think uh you took ownership with that, right?

That's not where you started off in your career here, but housing homelessness became uh a passion for you uh and you did a lot of great work on that.

You were our PCDC buddy at there uh with all our agenda items, and I think you know, more than a lot of folks, you're you have a real long lasting legacy at the city of San Antonio.

You have projects you can point to that you helped get through the door, you helped get the financing for, and I think that just is amazing work.

Um I think you're also probably the most well-known assistant city manager for better or for worse.

Uh and you've had some some tough meetings you've had to be at, but you were very steadfast uh in the goals and trying to get things done.

So I appreciate that.

And I one thing I knew about you was that your number one uh in life is your daughter uh and how much you you care for her and um how much that guides your life.

Uh so much so that you were making a calendar of her costumes, which I thought was just adorable.

So thank you for your service, Lori.

I'm sure we'll be seeing you around nonetheless.

Uh and Rossi, my public works buddy, uh, given you so much work over the years.

Uh and you have just been fantastic, you and your team.

Um, obviously, we worked with your liaisons more than more than you, but um your commitment to public works has been a hundred percent.

And you you've also got to our neighborhood meetings, uh, getting tough questions from them, and then we come right back to City Hall and you get tough questions from me or my team all the time.

Uh, just pressing you on deadlines of where these projects are, and how can we get more money and what's happening in District 4.

Uh, so you've been a great ally for us to get projects done.

Uh, you have a long-standing career at public works.

You're gonna be extremely missed.

People very much respect you and your department.

Uh, and now that this is your last budget meeting, I think you can tell us what your f who your favorite district is.

I'll I'll hear shut up.

I don't know.

He's told me before, I'm just saying I don't know about that.

Uh, but thank you.

And even when I was just a staffer, you were always uh supportive of me and the things I was doing at public works because that was my bread and butter as a staffer.

Uh, and so you're very supportive.

And you use a couple of my ideas, which I'm very proud of.

So thank you for your time, sir.

Appreciate it.

Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Want to thank uh both Lori and Rosie for their leadership here with the city of San Antonio, of course, beginning with Lori Houston and for ensuring that whether it's at PCDC or when we're talking about uh homeless uh homelessness, rather, that we're talking about it in a perspective that demonstrates the humanity of individuals on the street.

Uh, thank you for your leadership in ensuring that we prioritize and invest in respite care for our houseless neighbors and ensuring that uh our city employees doing that work have the resources that they deserve, and of course, shepherding the 150 million dollar housing bond.

Uh, I think that structure serves as a great example of what we should continue to do.

Uh and I know you have a great team, uh, so we'll see the continuous continuation of that work, but just grateful for your leadership.

Uh, as folks have mentioned, right?

Oftentimes like women and leadership get critiqued in a specific way.

Uh, and I think you've done it uh with grace and in style for sure.

I'm always complimenting your amazing outfits.

Um, but just thank you for um your work and of course again highlighting uh the importance of investment in DHS and homeless services, and then of course, in terms of storytelling, uh talking about the need for us to um provide care uh to individuals, uh homeless or not.

Um Rosie, um extremely grateful for your leadership and just your ex experience and contributions to the city of San Antonio are just uh so impactful.

Um since 1991, uh that's the year I was born and like you've been doing this work.

Um and I know for district five residents, as I said during the budget conversation, this is the primary top concern that our constituents are walking in and calling about.

And I feel like you and I and your team, we've been through the trenches with some public meetings, and I value just the leadership of your team uh in answering those questions and of course making sure that we're being intentional with our D5 specific budget.

Uh I always share with my constituents, right?

That D5 is very good at allocating those dollars, but it's because of you and your team helping us identify how we can have the greatest impact in our communities.

Um so just very grateful.

Um was trying not to cry when the councilwoman was because I share the similar sentiment and just the impact, the leadership, the compassion that you bring.

Uh I know that D5 residents are extremely just grateful for uh the improvements that have come to our community and just extremely grateful and again going back to you have a great team, uh, and we're really gonna miss you.

I know I am um and my team in particular is also going to just uh miss your leadership.

Um, but just I can't give enough thanks to you, but I I I don't know if you have comments to share uh with counsel, but I would love to hear from Rosie's perspective.

Um so I don't know, Eric, if you're gonna call them up, but uh just grateful again for Rosie, Lori, and y'all's teams uh and all that y'all do.

Thank you, Rossi.

Man, thank you for serving our community with love.

It is not the easiest job to be a council member, mayor or city manager.

But very rewarding job.

Let me begin to thanking my wife, Gail.

She's not here today, for being wonderful partner and source of support in my life.

In addition, I want to thank my staff and co-workers working together to save our community.

Throughout the years of working with many of you and previous maid and council, we have been able to improve roadway, make safer for public to travel, build drainage project to protect flooding of the property, construct it various community centers, library, parks, fire station, police substation, and much more to improve the quality of the life for our community.

These achievements these achievements would not be possible without your support.

We always look for your support.

Thank you again for working to save our community.

It has been a incredible journey, and I deeply grateful for the opportunity to have had the uh contributed for City of San Antonio.

I will treasure the relationship I have built and grow to be have achieved together.

Keep up good work.

I will miss all of you.

Thank you, sir.

Lori, would you also like to say something?

I've been walking around City Hall for the past two days with this just amazing smile on my face.

And every time Eric sees me, he kind of laughs because he just knows how happy I am.

Um but I didn't realize I get so emotional.

Um I started with the city 23 years ago.

I was an intern in public works, and it's really beautiful that Rosie and I are being celebrated together because the first day at Public Works, it was Tom Windorf's birthday.

And we all went to La Margarita in that top room, and I knew nobody.

And I sat at a table by myself.

And Rosie came and sat with me.

And it was just the two of us together.

So he sat with a new kid for lunch.

And we talked about his family, talked about where he was from, my military roots, and we became friends from then on.

And we have been advocates for each other since.

So Rosie, thank you.

I love you, man.

Um this, I'm probably the proudest City of San Antonio employee here.

I wear my backpack in the airport when I go traveling.

This is City of San Antonio.

I wear my shirts.

I'm so proud of this organization.

And I love my team.

And you've mentioned bringing up women in this organization.

I was one of those women that Cheryl Scully saw, and I took that very seriously.

And every woman I've seen, I've made sure I bring them up.

It's Veronica Garcia, Crystal Jones, Shannon Miller, Colleen Bridger.

Those are those are that's my team, and the men are great too.

But I'm just so proud of every one of them, and just proud of my team.

Um the hardest part is leaving the executive team.

Um we have oh my gosh, this team, probably 10 years that you're working with, and um we went through the migrant resource center, SNOVID, COVID.

We've gone through everything together, and we laughed, we cried.

Eric yelled at me once, and I felt like my grandpa yelled at me or spanked me.

It was like the worst thing ever because I respect him so much.

But it was just, and then in the heat of the moments, we had arguments, but we just loved each other, and we had fun.

I mean, I remember T C and Eric, I think you were over animal care services, and TC kept sending pictures of stray dogs to Eric.

Like, what are you gonna do about this?

And then Eric's like sending pictures of broken sidewalks at DC.

Well, what are you gonna do about this?

We just had a lot of fun because we took our job seriously, and I remember one of the coolest parts of um the organization I got to work on were our um our guiding principles.

What what is it?

And it's teamwork, innovation, integrity, and professionalism, and I take those to heart every day, and I think everybody in this room embodies those, and wherever I go, and by the way, I'm not gonna go work for the Spurs, I'm not gonna go be a developer.

None of that's true.

I really am taking time off to be with my family and to be with my new lover, Daryl, who've been together for three years.

I joke when I say that because I don't want to say I have a boyfriend at 47 years old.

Um, so I just want to be with my family.

I just want to spend some time before I figure out what I'm gonna do, and that's what I'm gonna do, just spend some time with my family, and but this organization has given me so much, and I've grown tremendously during this organization.

First, when I have my child, Millie, it changes your world, and all of a sudden you say everything I'm gonna do is going to be for this child, and I hope that every child in San Antonio has a mommy that loves them as much as I love my Millie, and Millie got very comfortable up here.

She would go into previous mayor's office and borrow pencils or ask for help with homework.

Um, she would she thought souk was the coolest because she had purple hair.

Um, but that really helped me grow, and the next thing I I cannot say enough how wonderful this organization is, and one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to leave is this organization gave me back my life.

I've been sober for 14 years, and I would not have been able to do it without my faith, my strength, my family, and the city of San Antonio.

The benefits, the love.

I mean, Maria, the first time she told me I'm so proud of you, and I was one year sober, and I still remember that.

I wouldn't be here today, I wouldn't be alive.

And so when you all talk about you know making it better for our employees, keep doing that because that's what saved my life, and I can't tell you there's no better city manager who cares about his employees so much than Eric.

And um because of my experience in sobriety when Eric gave me homelessness I wasn't sure I was ready for it but I will say that the only reason I'm sober today is my faith, my strength my family and this organization.

And we think about our most vulnerable community they might have one of those.

And it took me a long time to get sober and it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

And so I just want to leave and say I'm so proud of the organization.

I'm proud of the work you all do.

We are a compassionate city and I'm gonna continue that work.

I don't know where it's gonna take me but it's been so wonderful to work here.

And um I need to end but um it's it's been great.

So thank you so much well crap how do I follow that I'll be brief Razi you said it best that you you and your team's work has created a safer San Antonio and I don't think that there's enough thank yous up here on this dais or diocese before there's not enough thank yous for the work that you have led um to make us a safer city.

You know our residents see it our residents feel it and so your impact on the city is so profound.

So thank you so much.

I remember one of my first cases that the uh there was a lot of residents who had been asking for a four-way stop forever and it was much needed and went to Razi and and you assured me we were gonna make it happen and we did we made it happen and very quickly and so all of us have those stories of us escalating our resident concerns to you and you and your team making it happen.

So thank you on on behalf of all of us but also on behalf of the residents of San Antonio thank you for making a safer community it's truly um honorable work and something that you you should be so proud of.

Lori um you know I've known Lori since before I got uh on council and I I will be PC in saying this I identified her as a get stuff done girl you know and we know each other we recognize each other as that and um so you know you have your fingerprints on such monumental projects um that really do move our city forward uh and so thank you for all your work and your blood sweat and tears on that um I do also know that um you know we've gone on life journeys together and I think raising our fierce strong girls um is one of them and we often talk about hey how are your how's you know your daughter and how are my daughters doing and as they're kind of navigating school and we're just raising them in this environment so thank you for always bringing your daughter it makes me feel comfortable in bringing my daughters here and so um you know I'm excited for you to have that time uh with them with your family and um just enjoying life so I'm I'm really excited for you.

Thank you thank you to both of y'all thanks.

Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez just quickly uh thank you I saw Andy crying so now I'm okay to cry um just thank you for your work um I not a lot of time here on council with y'all but definitely remember uh working with you while I was in the mayor's office uh during COVID and SNOVI and uh housing bond uh charter amendment and so all very pivotal times for our community and uh you can't forget any of that um and it will stay with me forever and I'm glad that you guys are a part of that and I'm just so proud of the work that you all have done.

I've never seen you not answer a question you've probably answered every single question um that has been asked of you so just thank you for your work and I hope you enjoy enjoy this time off with your family uh they deserve uh more of you so thank you so much councilman white yeah I'll be brief Razi and my phone was blowing up from my constituent services team make sure to tell Razi thank you um truly so responsive um so much hard work uh it's been a pleasure working with you the last two years um and Lori uh I mean I I don't know how many years we've known each other I kind of blame you for talking me into this I'm kidding but uh you just what you've done and meant to the city I remember I think the San it was at the San Antonio Report wrote an article on on you leaving and within a matter of a couple of hours it had like five hundred likes with all these loving comments about about Lori it was it was really amazing but uh what you've meant to the city can cannot be understated and so um thanks for all the hard work look forward to seeing what you do next Rosie and Lori um public service is a is a high calling um thank you for all that you've done to serve our city um and to make us a stronger and and a better city thank you and and best of luck and God speed to you and your families I'd ask my colleagues to remain seated until I complete reading the caveats needed uh to meet in executive

And so um thanks for all the hard work.

Look forward to seeing what you do next.

Razi and Lori, um, public service is a is a high calling.

Um thank you for all that you've done to serve our city um and to make us a stronger and and a better city.

Thank you and and best of luck and godspeed to you and your families.

Um I'd ask my colleagues to remain seated until I complete reading the caveats needed uh to meet in executive session.

The time is now 109 p.m.

on September 18th.

Um the City of Council of City of San Antonio will now meet in executive session to consult with the city attorney's office pursuant to chapter 551 of the Texas government code and to deliberate or discuss the following items.

Economic development negotiations pursuant to section 551.087, the purchase exchange lease or value of real property pursuant to section 551.072, and legal issues related to litigation involving the city emergency preparedness and collective bargaining, all pursuant to section 551.071.

The time is now 248 p.m.

on September 18th, and the San Antonio City Council will now reconvene in open session.

No official action was taken in executive session.

The time is now 2 48, and this meeting is adjourned.