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S.A.

All right.

Good morning.

The time is now 9 15 AM on December 18th, 2025.

And the meeting of the San Antonio City Council is now called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corr.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Present.

Councilmember Aldarete Gavito.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Present.

Councilmember Spears.

Councilmember White.

Here.

Mayor Jones.

Here.

Mayor, we have quorum.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning again.

I'd like to recognize Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez to introduce today's invocator.

Thank you, Mayor.

Pastor Parker Zimmerman comes to us today from University Methodist Methodist Church in District Eight.

He graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2011 and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2014.

After serving local churches in the Houston area for seven years, he and his family moved to University Methodist Church in Northwest San Antonio in the summer of 2021.

He and his wife Hannah enjoy being outside biking, playing guitar, fishing, and cooking with their three young children.

University Methodist Church is a great friend and partner to not just District 8, but the entire city.

Let us in true humility and poverty of spirit remain ever ready to move at the impulse of your love and paths of your design.

You alone, O God, have power to knit our imperfect hearts, our weaknesses, our strengths, our stories and our gifts to one to another.

So unite your people and multiply our humble offerings, O Lord, that all might resound to your glory.

May our acts of service and creation, frail and wanting as they are, be met and multiplied by the mysterious workings of your spirit who weaves all things together toward a redemption more good and more glorious than we yet have eyes to see or courage to even hope for.

May our love and our labors now echo in your love and your labors, O Lord.

Now shape our hearts, guide our hands, and now build your kingdom among us.

It's in the name of Jesus that we live and pray.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor.

Please remain standing.

Join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States.

Okay.

Item three is approval of the minutes for the city council meetings of December 3rd and December 4th.

Are there any changes to the minutes?

Okay.

Hearing none, is there a motion and a second for approval of the minutes?

I motion to approve meeting minutes.

It is moved and seconded to approve the amenits.

Please vote.

The motion carries.

Thank you, Mayor.

It is my honor today to actually bring up two of our community members, actually, District 5 resident, Igo Mendoza.

So, Igo, if you want to come up with your team.

Thank you very much, Honorable Council.

We had a long, kind of long presentation, but we'll do away with it because, and I'll tell you what, I am very much in favor of moving the elections, okay?

My name is Henry Rodriguez.

I'm the executive director for Lulet Concilio Zapatista, and I'm also have been uh appointed as the civil rights chairman for the National League of United Latin American Citizens.

We're here today, very basically to tell you that on this new uh adventure that we're going into with the San Antonio Spurs, that you I we know that you know that the Mexican American community is about the most loyal fan base that you could have anyway.

We are truly loyal to our Spurs.

When they win, it's like a championship every time.

When they really win, we we parade around in our neighborhood, okay?

And we, I mean, we're we go crazy.

And it's a great thing because when we go to the games, it's just taken away from all the problems that are out there.

It really uh is the time to even meditate for a little while and say, well, once we get out of there, the problems will still be there.

But we are loyal to our spurs.

And here we have this group of people here.

Uh, one of them, Mr.

Igo Mendoza, who has done, I mean, he's a prolific songwriter, very talented.

He can write a song about anything.

But the Spurs, he's reading now quite a few, and it's gone viral in many Latin American countries, and they know about him, and they know about our spurs because of him.

And it's and it, and he has a song called Go as Spurs Go.

We're very good at saying this first or especial, but we are loyal, and that's what my presentation here is all about, and you we send it to you.

You have it, and I want you to look at it real closely again, and please be with us like we are with you.

And I want to pass it on to Mr.

Joe Flores here.

Thank you, thank you, Henry.

Hi, my name is Joe Flores.

I'm a local San Antonian.

I've been here for 70 years.

But one of the things that I want to do is simply introduce Ego.

And I'm going to read a little something that's been written about Ego and relative to what impact he's had with writing songs about the Spurs.

He gained widespread attention as voice behind the popular San Antonio's Spurs fan song, Go as Spurs Go.

It was originally recorded in 2008.

He's recorded at least seven Spurs-related songs over the past decade, including titles like Back to Back and Puto San Antonio Spurs Rule Number One.

His music blends fan enthusiasm with Tejano and Merengo Merengue influences, and he's been recognized as a talented Latino composer, capable of creating songs efficiently and creatively.

His album library of the Spurs released in 2024.

It features 18 songs, totaling approximately 55 minutes.

The whole reason for us to be here today before you, Council and Mayor, is to just give you a little friendly reminder of the fan base.

You've seen these shirts all over town.

I've got an old shirt from the 2005 Spurs Championship.

It's 20 years old.

I've got a rainbow hat that's been very popular.

So the whole idea is that in moving forward in our relationship, the great close relationship that the Spurs have enjoyed with the Mexican American Hispanic community, not only the citizens, but business owners.

As they succeed financially, hopefully the city and our community members will also grow with it.

Thank you for your time.

And I believe Ego has a few words in Spanish.

No, daddy.

Specifically, we want to thank uh councilwoman core and councilwoman Terry Castillo for this.

And also we have here Mr.

He's not gonna speak, but this man here is the driving force behind our effort.

He is a historian, Tejano historian, and uh quite an activist for many years.

As a matter of fact, he's like I used to be.

I would come out swinging every time, not anymore.

Thank you so much.

We're gonna play it.

So I just want to say thank you guys for coming.

Thank you, Councilman Castillo, for working with us on this.

And uh just to summarize what Igo was sharing that his his song has been heard across the world, across many areas, and he's from the West Side, and really excited to have his music and his background and story being shown here, and he has a lot of pride for being here today, and he's feeling really honored.

Just wanted to summarize that for folks because I didn't know I know you didn't get a chance to.

But we have your song cued up, so we're gonna play it for just a few seconds.

Going for number five.

San Antonio is Baby Brown.

And happy for the time.

Going for number five.

San Antonio is Fetty Brown.

And happy for the time.

Going for a thank you so much.

Thank you.

Again, I want to think this power.

Who is the catalyst for this privilege that we're honored with?

And Ms.

Castillo, hopefully the rest of the board can understand how important it is for Eagle Mendoza to be recognized in the community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmembers Cor and Castillo.

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

Okay.

Item six through 28 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 items council members would like to pull from the consent agenda to be heard individually?

We will do highlights a little later.

Okay.

Okay.

Item number 16 is pulled by council member uh Mesa Gonzalez for individual consideration.

Thank you, Mayor.

Oh, later.

After, okay.

Uh we have several members uh from the community signed up uh for to speak on the consent agenda.

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

The first individual is Olivia Del Garza.

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

Um Olivia Delagarza, please.

Um Rick Sinkfeld will be followed, will follow her.

So if you'd please line up behind her, and then Jack Finger will be the final speaker.

Yes, hello, uh, Mayor Jones.

Thank you so much.

My name is Olivia De La Garza, and I'm very honored to be here.

Just to especially to thank you for your amazing work.

Everything that you're putting forth in our city is all are all the important issues that my family and I really care about.

So you are doing an amazing job and keep up the amazing work.

Thank you so much, Mayor Jones.

Second of all, I just want to say that I really appreciate councilwoman Gavito.

Um I've never had the pleasure of meeting you, but I just want to let you know that your advocacy um take into heart a lot of my family who lives in your district about a safety in the streets.

She went ahead and proposed to lower the speed limit uh five miles per hour, and I really appreciate you because my daughter tries to make it home every night from her overnight job as a supervisor, and there are street racers that take over the highway in your district and the streets while she's trying to take my grandkids to school.

Because of your um, instead of just talking the talk, you walk the walk.

You actually take your constituents uh uh whatever we address to you, you you immediately address it.

So I appreciate that, and I hope that goes forward.

Also, thank you so much for allocating money to uh so students do not miss school.

Um, because of that, you are making a big difference.

Um, some of my children, while they were going to school, even college, use the via bus to make it, and they're very successful now.

So, what you introduced to the city is something that will not prevent will will prevent students from missing school.

So, thank you for for everything you're doing.

Continue the amazing work.

My family in your district appreciates it, as well as Mrs.

Castillo.

Thank you so much, ma'am, for your work.

Some of my family lives in your district, and because of your trying to put speed bumps in the in your district, it's gonna help so that people actually don't speed.

And it's gonna uh just put it this way.

Thank you for all your work.

You do amazing work.

So thank you so much if y'all could please vote no again it was a pleasure to meet you ma'am thank you mayor and thank you Ms.

Castillo thank you Rick Sinkfeld followed by Jack Finger good morning uh my name is Rick Sinkfield I'm a uh retired lieutenant colonel from uh the Air Force and uh I'm here to uh support our idea of uh supplementing the name of Iowa Street to Tuskegee Airman way and so that's that's what we've been working on for quite some time there's several cities around the country that uh are done that way uh to give you a little background on the Tuskegee Airmen uh there were 992 uh pilot trainees and there were about 1400 um support personnel that include uh blacks whites uh uh browns everybody from all over uh were really part of this uh idea so we wanted to memorialize the idea of what they stood for uh during world war two and that's that's how it all came about so uh what we what we've learned is uh as I said I'm with the San Antonio chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated uh we researched uh a lot of what happened in World War II and how people got together to uh defend the nation so uh as far as we can tell uh there are about there's just over 20 individuals that joined uh the military to fight for the cut uh country uh at that time and uh many of them lived on the east side so we wanted to uh memorialize that idea that uh these folks that are sanio uh people uh uh would be memorialized in some way and we chose Iowa Street because that was one of the main pedestrian connectors from the east side to downtown so we we thought that would be a good place to start and so uh with the council and the council's help and uh particularly uh district two councilman uh put together uh the procedure for uh getting such a a name change uh approved and we went through I I'm not even familiar with all the things we went through but there are several uh um procedures that had to go through and we had to and and uh even the uh community was involved in that and making sure that they supported the whole idea as well so thank you for uh and I I want to want to say that uh Clayton Wallace from the uh development section and uh several of the other uh folks that helped us uh get it through so thank you so that's basically where we are thank you thank you ma'am Jack Finger Mayor Tees other members of our illustrious San Antonio City Council for the record my name is Jack M.

Finger well and wish all of you a very merry christmas yeah you you'll enjoy it what I have to say here item number 24 Mr.

Munga this is in your district it's about uh well about what I call welfare housing I mentioned this before and uh you live in one of the poor did districts here in San Antonio and quite frankly it's about to get even poorer uh yeah uh I mean if you item number 24 is sails through like as fast as Santa's leave it's all that's that's what's going to happen unless you pull it for a deliberation here yeah um and I I don't say these words lightly I I looked at the backup documents for for this item and uh well it's just chalk full with a lot of uh incriminating evidence here Mr.

Area AMI stands for area median income.

About the average income a person has there.

And and uh it's based on and what goes into this is a number of things here.

Housing tax credit, comma or HTCs here, or comma, affordable housing are code words for yes, welfare housing.

That's and this is all throughout the cities, not just you, Mr.

Mungee.

But especially if you are a viewer looking at it along who happened to live along Somerset Road, you'll especially want to learn about some of the welfare recipients who are going to be living uh next to you.

But um in a certain complex near nearby, you Mr.

Mungia, you're gonna be supporting so-called housing tax credits for well, people who um live get get only about um well scroll down a little, Mr.

Audiovisual man.

This is what's it say uh the AMI served as meant people who are only about 30 percent of the area median income or 60 percent of the area median income, and then as shown by those little circles there.

And yeah, once again you see the word affordable housing in the next paragraph.

And further on, you see the the phrase census tracts where more than 20 percent of the total household units are supported by the HTC.

That's 20 percent of them are on welfare, Mr.

Mungia.

Yeah, further on the paragraph says currently 453 units of the with the 1,000 plus units in the census tract, or 39 percent, almost 40 percent are with the with the HTCs with the proposed development by of units of 437 total house was around 5152 percent, sir.

Do you really, Mr.

Mungia?

Do you really want to go down this pathway even further?

Uh you you say yes.

Jesus, Christmas.

Mr.

Munghill, I our city will only get poor as a result.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda minus item 16.

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

Okay, councilman Court.

I just quickly like to highlight item number 18B, which is appointing Natalie Garza to the Linear Creekway Parks Advisory Board.

This is a super important Natalie, if you want to stand, this is an incredibly important board as we think about how we can continue to grow our linear creekway and continue to support and preserve it.

So thank you for your service.

And I know also a teammate team member and supporter of Councilmember Mungia who wanted to share just a couple words about you as well.

Thank you very much, Natalie.

Congratulations on this year in District 1.

But uh we're good friends we met when we were council aides back in the day, and you are the main reason why I'm sitting up here today, so you can either thank her or blame her for that.

So thank you very much, Natalie.

Appreciate it.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, today I am extremely excited to highlight item 22, the designation of a portion of Iowa Street as Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Way.

We filed the CCR in April of this year in partnership with the San Antonio chapter of uh the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Rick uh Sinkfield, who you all heard from earlier.

Uh the Tuskegee Airmen were legendary black pilots and support personnel in the U.S.

Armed Forces who overcame many racist and oppressive barriers to become pioneers during World War II due to their excellence in combat, the military was subsequently desegregated.

We honor the Tuskegee Airmen and all those who have who have served with honor and resilience in this designation is one way we continue their legacy.

In January of this year, you'll remember this history was beef briefly removed from the Air Force's training courses as part of a presidential executive order to suspend DEI uh and accessibility initiatives.

Of course, this was soon reversed as it was proved an outrageous betrayal of our values as Americans.

It is my hope that if by chance someone does not know about this important history, the road designation offers a new touch point.

I would like to thank D SD for their help guiding us through this very, very long process as was described earlier.

And of course, I want to thank Lieutenant Colonel Singfield in the San Antonio chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen for both this idea and for your leadership.

I see y'all in the crowd if y'all wouldn't mind standing and receiving a round of applause.

Oh I mostly meant just them, but thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yep.

Councilman Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I was just reminded actually to highlight item number 24.

So I'm very pleased to see some new units coming to Somerset, a much needed area.

Thank you to NHSD and the department for facilitating that.

And all are welcome to move into these new units, including anyone who spoke against them.

So thank you very much.

Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

This morning I would like to highlight item 25, which is a major policy improvement that will help improve the quality of lives for many district five residents.

Many D5 residents who experienced the unfortunate house fire then face financial difficulties of rebuilding their homes.

And I want to thank uh Rachel Tucker from my team and of course the district four team uh Yohani who met together and to discuss trends that we're seeing in our in our communities.

And what we saw is there are many barriers for our residents to rebuild their home when they're uninsured.

So what we see here is uh more support after a house fire.

So I'm grateful for the NHSD team for their quick work to make this policy policy change a reality.

I would also like to highlight item 27, uh, which is for third party partners.

And I want to highlight a quick anecdote.

When constituents call our office because they need uh ramps, rails, so on and so forth.

These are the third parties that our teams reach out to.

And blue pin blueprint ministries, for example, is one that we connected a resident to.

We had a resident where her son had an unfortunate experience with a gun, so we connected them to Blueprint Ministries to go and see where rails can be installed.

And after doing inventory and walking through the home, they saw that the family needed so much more than rails and ramps.

So, what Blueprint Ministries did is they fully rehab this home.

Uh, and I highlight that to highlight the importance of these partnerships, but also the advocacy and how these organizations go above and beyond.

So, again, grateful for the neighborhood and housing services department for facilitating this work.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Altrate Gavito.

Thank you.

Um, really quick, just also wanted to give a shout out to Natalie.

She's an amazing, I'm sure she'll be an amazing appointment, and we'll continue to do so much great work in our community.

I also want to quickly highlight item number nine, which is approving a construction contract for the Abe Lincoln shared use path in District 7.

I am so excited to see this project moving forward in coordination with the neighbors in Alamo Farmstead Neighborhood Association.

This improvement will make it easier to walk, run, or bike through the neighborhood and connect Opishneva Park with the Leon Creek Greenway.

I'm proud to have approved state dollars for this project last year, and I cannot wait to see it come to life.

Thank you.

I want to thank um Councilman McKee Rodriguez for his leadership on the uh Tuskegee Urban Way.

Um, when I walked into my office as the undersecretary of the Air Force, there was a huge picture uh that hung on my wall.

And at the time it was signed by all the living um uh pilots of the Tuskegee Airmen, and to think that um those men, as they were all men, um that they were looking over uh the first woman of color and the first out lesbian to serve as the under-secretary of any military department, it just shows that our progress builds upon each other's service and sacrifice and demonstration of excellence.

So thank you for including that in our community military city USA.

Okay.

There being no further discussion, there's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda.

Please vote.

Okay, the motion carries.

Is there any objection to taking item 16, which is only for eminent domain before the individual item?

Okay, great.

Uh Madam Clerk, please read the caption for item 16.

Item number 16 is an ordinance approving the acquisition through negotiation or condemnation of interests and land sufficient for project purposes of privately owned real property and declaring the Leon Creek Greenway project from the rim to Raymond Russell Park, a 2015 proposition to sales tax initiative funded project to be a public use project and a public necessity for the acquisition of 1.321 acres of land located in New City Block 34760 along Leon Creek.

Okay.

Is there a motion and second for approval so we may begin discussion?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I move the City of San Antonio authorized the use of the power of eminent domain to acquire property for the public use project for the Leon Creek Greenway project, Rim to Raymond Russell County Park by acquiring the following property described by the city clerk and incorporated as part of this motion.

The privately owned property, including two tracts of land in NCB 34760 for a total of 1.321 acres to be acquired as a permanent easement interest for the Leon Creek Greenway project from the rim to Raymond Russell County Park located in City Council District 8.

These properties are more particularly described by the exhibit attached and incorporated as a part of this motion.

Second is there any discussion?

Okay.

Hearing none, it's been moved and seconded to approve item 16.

Please vote.

Okay.

Motion carries.

Moving on to item 4.

Madam Clerk, please read the caption.

Item number four is a resolution to move the city of San Antonio's general election for city council and mayor from May to November in odd numbered years as recently authorized by an amendment to Texas Election Code Section 41-004 41.0052 during the 89th legislative session.

Thank you.

Is there a staff presentation?

Ready to present.

Good morning, Mayor and Council John Pateric, Assistant City Manager.

Good to be with you this morning.

I'm going to step us through a brief presentation for the item before you this morning.

So currently, City of San Antonio municipal elections take place in May of odd number years.

This item would move, if approved, the elections from May to November of odd number years.

This is possible because of a change in state law during this last legislative session.

So SB 1494 was filed by four Dallas area legislators, Senators Johnson, West, and Representatives and Chia and Rose.

This is after Dallas voters approved proposition D, which amended the city charter to hold elections according to state law.

So their charter allowed them to be ready for this change rather than in May.

The intent was to move to November, but state law at the time would not allow the change.

So the previous deadline of December 20 uh 30 31st, 2016 had expired.

So moving the election date required a change to state law.

So this this law did that.

Moving the city election was not a part of the City of San Antonio's most recent charter provisions and charter review commission.

And so this is something that's before you and something that you can do.

It will stand in opposition of the charter at this point until we can amend the charter in the future.

As this bill was considered, no other cities supported or opposed this bill.

A Dallas City Council member testified on his own behalf.

The bill is permissive, though, meaning that it did not mandate any change, but rather it extended a previous deadline and allows for cities and the state to move their election date.

So you can see the the articulated history there, it changed in 2009, 2011, 2015, 2025.

I would point out that if the council today passes this resolution by by the deadline of the 31st, um we cannot change back.

So if we we move today to November, we can't undo that after this change is made.

So currently the city charter has a couple of references to our current election cycle.

So just point those out so we have them in in in our heads.

So in section five, it references that the term will begin on the first day of June.

So that would need to be amended if this change happens to your term beginning on the first day of December.

Additionally, in section 20 of Article 3, um, there's a temporary provision based on us changing to four-year terms that references a May election that would need to be updated because we're going to need a special election in November of 2032.

Runoffs associated with any election are run by the Secretary of State's office.

So if this change happens, um runoffs will happen no earlier than the 30th day nor later than the 40th, 45th day after the general elections, excluding holidays.

So the Secretary of State will set out those calendars as the years come to us.

And so I just want to point out that that's when those elections for runoffs will happen.

Some other examples that you've heard lots about.

Austin currently took office in January of 2025 after a November 24 election.

So these are just examples of when you would take office if this change happens.

Currently had elections in November of 25.

They took office November 17th, so uh pretty quickly.

So a little broader there.

So currently North Side ISD, St.

Antonio ISD, Judson ISD, Alamo Heights ISD, Harland L ISD, South Side ISD, and Medina Valley ISD.

I would point out that there are requirements for joint elections for independent school districts.

So they would need a partner in which to have an election.

So the election of their governing body, um, they would need either a a state partner, a county partner, a hospital district partner, um, some sort of governing body of a junior college district or a community college that's um within their boundaries to partner with.

There were some questions about costs.

So this slide reviews our cost from our elections in 2023, 24, and 25.

Additionally, this change, if enacted, would need for you all to serve an additional six months.

So the move from May to November would necessitate each of you to serve an additional six months.

That's signified in the the the purplish pink color here on the far right hand of each set of members.

So those elections are illustrated for each of you and when you were elected and when you would need those extra six months.

The provision from state law allows for this, so the holdover is enacted in the state law, so no issue here, just simply pointing it out.

So for this change to happen, it must happen by the 31st of this month.

Um the statute um requires a resolution from you all, and that's what's before you today.

The resolution will supersede the city charter in this case until we can amend the charter.

And if this resolution is passed, the communications and engagement team would do a public awareness campaign ahead of the May 29 time frame when the election is currently scheduled, and then ahead of the November 29 time frame uh when the election would happen if this change is enacted.

Mayor, we're here.

Um, the full team is here to answer any questions that are are and were available.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um, if anyone was curious, um, when the two bills that passed, Senate Bill 1494 and House Bill 3546 passed that allowed for us to have this opportunity, every single member of the Bear County delegation, regardless of party, every single one of them voted to support this, uh support these bills.

Um okay, we have several uh members of our community signed up to speak.

I will call um individuals up in the I'm sorry, point of order.

Did he get a motion in a second to discuss this?

We're at public comment.

Oh we're not gonna take it.

Um so the first, I know some folks have also flagged though that they have um other things that they need to get back to, for example, teachers that need to get back to the classroom.

So I will um take uh a liberty to move some of those up.

Um the first speaker that we have is the Honorable Dolores Huerta.

Um, my understanding is that Ruben Arcinega and Jess Contreras will yield their time to Miss Huerta.

Uh Ms.

Huerta, please, you have nine minutes.

Um, Mayor Jones and City Council members for uh giving me the privilege of addressing you today.

Uh I am so happy to be here with you again in Texas.

Um my connections in Texas go way back to the Mellon strike in Rio Grande City, Stark County in the 60s, and also over the years supporting my colleague Rebecca Flotis in all of her efforts uh to pass legislation for farm workers.

And most recently, I participated in the giant rally that we had at the this last summer at the uh Capitol in Austin to support the uh Texas Congress people uh who were championing democracy.

Uh what happens in Texas affects the nation.

We saw with the redistricting policies that were adopted in Texas, Californians had to spend millions of dollars to counteract the policies uh which affect the nation and of course the state of California.

And it affected even our nonprofit organizations uh who do civic action work because we had to use our limited resources uh to be able to counteract uh this attack on our democracy, and by passing proposition 50 in California, changing our own state's redistricting policies.

Uh in these critical times when our democracy is under attack, we really have to instill in all constituents the importance of voting.

My own personal story, and I do like to share this, is when I uh turned 21 years old, back in the day you had to be 21 to vote.

My mother, you know, dressed me up and took me down to the county clerk's office and registered me to vote, you know.

Uh, and of course, we've had that custom in my family, and I remember my grandfather uh dressing up with his uh please.

Um for the remaining seven minutes and eleven seconds, there's not going to be any speaking on this dais.

We're all going to listen to Ms.

Huerta.

Thank you.

Um my grandfather dressing up with his uh Pelzo Umbrero and his white shirt and uh his cane and going down to to the ballot box uh to vote to the polling place, you know.

So voting has been a ritual in my family.

But it uh like the act of reading nourishes our physical bodies, the act of voting nourishes and keeps alive our democracy.

Uh we acknowledge we acknowledge that Texans uh have suffered uh suppression as voters as other people in the South.

Uh overcoming the stigma of this punishment for voting, like the poll taxes that they had here in Texas, it it has not been easy to overcome that.

And although we know that Texas has produced great many great political leaders uh like uh Congressman Henry Gonzalez and others who uh also are uh giving you uh their opinions today.

Uh but Texas, like other states, has not fulfilled its potential.

Voting in Texas is far less than other states, and especially when it comes uh to the voting of the Latino community.

So somehow we must make voting a habit in Texas.

The challenge for political leaders is to make voting a positive habit uh to feed democracy, like eating is a habit to nourish our physical bodies.

There's only one option on the proposal first today.

An I vote will automatically increase the voter turnout as voters are more in the habit of voting in the first week of November, and this will give elected officials a greater mandate to govern.

I like to say that the most important day in your life is election day, next to your birthday, because election day is the day that you choose who will govern you and your family's life.

So, as I said before, the I vote today, it uh will automatically double the vote.

So, a vote is a vote for democracy, especially now because we know that we are all uh worried about our democracy right now and we can actually save it.

So it is extremely important that you use your power that the voters have given you to be able to increase the voter turnout here.

And I do want to say that uh San Antonio is such a symbolic place, especially for the Latino community, not only in Texas, but throughout throughout the United States of America.

So what you do here today, it actually will have an amplification uh all over the country.

So it is really, really important.

So you might say that this is a very historical moment.

And I think we all know right from wrong, you know, and we know that the right thing to do is to try to enhance and increase the voter turnout, that we want more people uh to be able to go to the polls.

And by the power of your vote, you're actually extending that power to your constituents and making it easier for them to vote because we know that most again again, most people think of November as a time to vote and not in May.

And in addition, and I know there will be many, many testimonies with uh many more details that will come before you uh that again to uh convince you why this vote is important.

So this is kind of a historical moment because we know that all of us the talk in the nation is about how do we save our democracy.

Well, this is one way that you can really prove that this is this is how you make it happen by elected people like you who sit on the council that are going to take the action that you have to take uh to increase the democracy in your own city, and a kid that will set the example for the state.

You know, uh St.

Anthony in the Catholic religion, that is a person that you pray to uh when you lose something, right?

So by your symbolic vote, you're gonna be able to help many of the lost voters find their way to the ballot box.

So uh I think that is a very good symbol, and one that other people will follow.

So again, I wish to ask you all uh make it unanimous, you know.

Uh put this on the record, because it will be on the record, it will be part of the history of Texas, and again, it will help not only you, the city of San Antonio, this is the state of Texas, but all of our country.

Yes, we can do it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Andrew McBurney, followed by Mike Gallagher.

Mayor, council members.

I've been a high school teacher for several years, and for most of those years I've taught government.

And one of the most important things that we teach students in high school uh is civic engagement.

Uh, we definitely want to encourage students to register to vote.

In fact, it is a there's a state law that requires us to offer um eligible students um voter registration cards to get them registered to vote.

And we have a history uh in this country and in this state of wanting to increase voter registration and wanting to increase voter turnout.

For as long as I've been a teacher for presidential election years, voter turnout is usually around 55 percent.

Off-year elections, it's usually around 33 percent.

And in Texas, it's usually lower than that.

In off-year elections, for us, it's not really off year.

That's when we vote for governor and that sort of thing.

Sometimes it's in the 20s.

In one of the more recent ones in May of 2023, voter turnout in San Antonio is 15 percent.

Okay, and that was election for council members and other positions.

We have in a city of 1.5 million, we have over a million registered voters, and that's good.

But in that election, 150,000 turned out to vote.

There was a higher voter turnout rate this past November in an odd-numbered year.

And so generally we don't want to have anything in place that is going to inhibit or discourage voter turnout.

And so when we grow up, we learn that elections are in November.

Okay.

And growing up in San Antonio, you know, you know, elections are in November, and it's almost an afterthought that oh, wait, but city elections are in May, and city elections have always had lower voter turnout.

And so this is an opportunity to increase participation, uh, increase civic engagement.

And you know, in a sense, you know, why why wouldn't we do that?

Um people have to be responsible, that's part of civic engagement.

They have to register to vote, they have to inform themselves about issues, uh, and then they have to get out and vote, which is perhaps the most important element of civic engagement.

And so we should, and I am speaking in favor of moving the elections, the city elections to November, because not only would that be something that would increase voter turnout, but it would also increase awareness of the issues that are before the city, and that is something that we would certainly want as well.

Thank you very much.

Mike Gallagher, followed by Dennis Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council.

I certainly do appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today on this very important issue.

Unfortunately, uh what I'm about to say is not going to go well with some of the people that are attending this meeting, but it is understandable.

I am now, even though I tried to retire, I'm the president of the Northeast Neighborhood Alliance.

That's an alliance of neighborhoods, of course, of District 10, but also District 2, and also from District 9.

And all of these people who are in this alliance, the one thing they do is they spread the word.

And if you look at where voter turnouts the best, it's amazing how those neighborhood leaders have so much to do with that.

One of the blessings that we've had as a city is we've been able to concentrate on who's running for office, what are their qualifications.

We have these candidate and ballot forums where people are allowed to talk over those issues.

The League of Women Voters has been very helpful at this.

They have turned out and helped us understand.

Take a look now at what happened in our last November election.

Think about it for a minute.

I had people come up to me and saying they almost went to sleep trying to vote.

Think of all of those state um amendments that they had to learn about and go through.

Think about uh you know our own props that we had, think about what our uh school districts had to put up, you know, as far as bond issues go.

Let's keep the process simple.

Think about we would have had to have added the election of our mayor and our council to that ballot that took forever just to get through.

We can't do that.

We have to stay much more focused as we possibly can.

Let's keep it simple for our voters.

Yes, there are complaints about voter turnout, but you know what?

We need the leadership of our city and our county and state to tell people to get out and vote.

Let's educate our voters so that they do a good job.

They're not gonna do a good job if they've got a packed ballot that's very, very difficult to get through.

How are they going to know how to separate all those issues and all of those candidates?

It's going to be very difficult.

So I really do appreciate the idea that for the mayoral election, which by the way, the mayor had to turn out for for our candidate forum, and for the council elections, we want our voters to be able to concentrate on those particular issues that are on that ballot.

So we would strongly recommend that that occur by not approving a quick decision here that should be made by our voters.

So please, please consider that.

And the last thing I just want to do is.

The rest of the comments you can submit for the record.

Okay.

Thank you.

You bet.

And just remember, take a look at those statistics.

Sir, are you looking at the right way to do that?

The rest of your comments you can submit for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Daniel uh Dennis Gonzalez, followed by Mia Baldas.

Good morning.

Um is Dennis Gonzalez, and I'm here on behalf of Voto Latino to speak in support of the effort to move municipal elections from May to November.

So as a former resident of San Antonio and a former UTSA employee, uh, this is an issue that's very near dear to my heart as somebody who was very engaged with the community.

Um I worked in the Office of P20 Initiatives when I worked at UTSA, so I worked very intimately with a lot of young people and their families all across San Antonio.

So from like Cafe College to the Guadalupe Community Center to Barbara Jordan Community Center, so north side, east side, south side, west side.

What I think is really important is that we understand that uh folks have a lot of challenges in San Antonio, which you all are all aware of.

Um in voting access and uh voter engagement are two of those issues.

Um San Antonio represents a large opportunity for Latino voters to make their voice heard at the ballot box.

San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the United States in the United States, and nearly two-thirds of those citizens are Latino.

In a city that is large and culturally diverse, San Antonio, elections carry significant weight uh behind them, especially municipal elections.

The turnout rate for the most recent municipal election that took place in May was incredibly low, as others have discussed.

Bear County election department reported 116,483 people cast ballots out of 1.2 million registered voters in Bear County.

This is very telling.

This roughly represents 9.7% of all registered voters that were in Bear County.

And only 116,000 of them were actually able to decide how their government is working for them.

Shifting municipal elections from May to November, as other people have discussed, is not just good policy, but a strategically important to ensure that all San Antonio voices are heard.

San Antonio is the last major city in Texas still holding municipal elections in May.

Um and as I mentioned before, voter turnout in May was extremely low.

I don't want to beat that to the ground.

With municipal elections in May, many young voters, working families and communities of color are often left out of the conversation because of lack of awareness, a lack of structure, lack of knowledge about voting.

On the other hand, November elections have consistently shown higher participation rates.

When we align ourselves with November elections, we are creating a cadence in which more voters show up, allowing the city to truly reflect the will of its residents.

In a city as diverse as San Antonio, every community deserves an electoral system that truly reflects and uplifts their voices.

Continuing to hold municipal elections in May keeps uh participation low and leaves too many residents out of the process.

By moving municipal elections to May to November, this council can take a meaningful step forward towards a more representative city and one that works for everyone, not just a few.

San Antonio deserves an electoral system that reflects the full diverse nature of its people, with the Texas legislator having already established bipartisan framework.

We uh strongly encourage the city council passes resolution, and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Mia Balderas, followed by Mia Duran.

41.

Good morning, Mayor Jones and fellow city council members.

My name is Mia Banderas, and I am the interim executive director of Move Texas, a statewide nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to building the political power of young people through civic engagement, issue advocacy, and leadership development.

I was born and raised in San Antonio and am a current resident of District One.

I want us all to go on a journey of what it would be like to be one, a new voter, a first-time voter, and a newly registered voter in 2026.

So I'm going to be speaking from the perspective of that young person.

So I'm getting registered to vote for the first time.

Let me search up how.

Okay, wait.

I can't do this online.

A quick Google search has told me I need to do this in person, and I have to find someone, a teacher, coworker, or politically engaged friend that can walk me through what seems to be, again, a very in-person process.

So I finally found someone.

So they're gonna walk me through this form, and they'll make sure that it gets turned in by the deadline to register to vote.

They're telling me I really need to consider where I will be when the voting time comes.

And so I made the decision that I'm gonna come back to San Antonio, that's my home.

I'm gonna register in Bear County.

So I'm officially registered, they're turning in my form.

Now what happens?

When's the next election?

I heard people talking about major seats being up for election in 2026.

I know it's a governor, attorney general.

I don't really have more than that.

Those are the big ticket items, and then but where do I actually go vote?

And where, like, when do I even have to go vote?

Let me look this up now.

In Bear County, it's saying that there's a May election two.

And I'm now pulling up articles that say that the city council did entertain the idea to move to November.

So now am I voting in May or am I only voting in November?

Is it one or the other?

Do I'm not sure really what's happening.

And so I also now have to figure out when the election is and where I can go vote.

I know that there's multiple places where voting does happen.

I'm getting a full list of locations, but I don't know, I don't know where I should really go.

What do I have to bring with me?

I know I was successfully registered through that organization.

They just look up my name.

Do well, I do I need to bring anything with me.

So right now I'm getting super confused, and I'll have to sort this out later.

I'll either probably have to reach back out to the people who registered me to vote, and then we'll start there.

So this is a condensed version of the level of questions that can arise through the registration and turnout process for young people, especially first-time voters.

There is a step in this process and a question in this process that this council right now has the ability to clear up even a little bit by making it so that elections in 2026 are moved to November, and we have one clear answer as to when people should go and show up to the polls.

You have the research, you have the testimony, you have the authority.

Let's make it easier for people to turn out in 2026.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Hello, Mayor and Council.

I'm Valerie, and as you all know, I run a voter registration and civic education nonprofit here in San Antonio, where we are out in the community speaking with residents, citizens, and your constituents.

Earlier this year, when we were speaking to people about the upcoming election, resoundingly they were like, what election?

What's happening?

They don't really know what's going on as big elections and big elections and big decisions are made in November.

That is what people equate it to.

Councilwoman Castillo, I know you brought up wanting to take this to a vote, but like I recall only a handful of us showed up to vote for y'all earlier this year, and the people who did vote, like were here.

We're the ones who are here.

We're emailing, we're doing surveys, we're calling, we're telling our community and friends and family to do the same because we want the elections moved to November.

And while we don't have time to take it to a vote, there is time to prepare the citizens and the community for this change.

Too bad he's not here because Councilman White was one of the biggest advocates for Project Marvel, this billion dollar project to be pushed across the finish line so fast that yet this is the councilman who wants us to move very slowly on moving an election, something that can potentially save us money.

Thank you.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Like it really makes me wonder like where this is coming from because this would be a win for San Antonio.

And when it comes to the ISDs, I agree.

I believe that they should move as well or pay the cost, right?

But like they're gonna have to decide what to do with this limited funding.

And will it go to the students or will it go to maintaining status quo?

So I just feel like that this would be.

Thank you.

I feel like this would be uh the best move for the citizens of San Antonio as this is what we are asking for.

And then Project Marvel, right?

Like that's going to take years of construction, years of traffic.

We are talking about moving an election date from May to November, which is what the people are wanting.

It is what we are asking for, it is what we are saying that we are wanting this.

Um, in conclusion, I really was expecting a bit more from this side of the dais six through one.

I was really expecting a bit more from you guys over here, and I really hope that hearts and minds can change and do what's best for your constituents and what's best for San Antonio, which is moving these elections.

Thank you.

Um, but are experts on this issue.

Uh, Commissioner Calvert, if you're still here.

Followed by Mike Villa Villarreal.

Well, Merry Christmas seasons greetings to everyone.

Uh I wanted to send a little holiday cheer.

I think it's important to start with that because it's been a little tense around here at City Hall.

Even Stevie Wonder can see that.

And we're praying that this will be a season of unexpected gifts.

Everything at the national level happens at the local level.

Macro, micro.

Nationally, we've seen division affect us.

Affect us in moving things forward and having things that are counterproductive in policy.

And locally.

San Antonio, in my opinion, has struggled more than any other big city in Texas with releasing the grip of the big money establishment on our body politics.

From my perspective, we start with the city that only paid its council members twenty dollars a meeting.

And that meant that the wealthy and only those who were employed by the wealthy were able to serve at City Hall.

We have a stronger than many big cities, city manager system, because it does take power away from your ability, representing a majority minority city from clearly moving forward, a lot of the policy initiatives of the people.

When civil rights ushered in, minorities to council, God forbid that we didn't have term limits.

We put in term limits.

We had the homeowners taxpayers association talk about spending caps all of a sudden when the inclusion of our community came in single member districts.

Making sure the people are the winners has always been the best path forward.

But we have weapons of mass distraction that keep us from turning towards progress.

I've had some really well publicized disagreements with Judge Wolfe over affordable housing, pretty famous disagreements when Judge Sakai put spending caps on the commissioner's court.

But when it came to initiatives that they wanted to see passed, that were good for the people, I still supported them.

Efficiency, convenience, non-duplication of services have traditionally been the hallmark of best practices and governance.

So I just stand today to ask this council to join Representative Anchia, Senator Wess, and Dolores Huerta in making our democracy more inclusive.

Thank you very much.

Mike Villarial, followed by Manuel Larza.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council.

Though I serve as a trustee of the San Antonio School Board, I'm here speaking for myself.

Last Monday, Councilman Corr convened school leaders to discuss moving our elections to November.

I thank her for advocating for our public schools.

And Councilman McKee Rodriguez for attending the meeting.

I believe we should move all elections to November of odd years.

Not because it saves money, but because democracy requires participation.

And our current system makes participation nearly impossible.

Consider the challenge.

Each spring we ask citizens to engage complex local issues, school budgets, city infrastructure, leadership choices during our most distracting months, March through May, attention fragments across Fiesta, Easter, spring break, March Madness, and pro-basketball if the Spurs are winning.

Against this backdrop, we expect voters to focus on elections.

It's not working.

Nearly 90% of eligible voters skip our local elections.

The elections that matter most to their daily lives.

When nine out of ten don't vote, we're witnessing a crisis of self-governance.

Democracy doesn't function as intended with such low participation.

Self-governance requires practice and accessible opportunities.

Moving local elections to November creates a predictable rhythm.

Imagine we're voting every November, year after year after year.

This consistency builds civic habits, regular patterns become routines.

Voting joins filing taxes or back to school nights as annual civic rituals.

I've heard concerns that this costs schools.

Monday's meeting revealed that the impact on school budgets is unclear.

It depends on unpredictable factors.

Here's what we do know.

Higher turnout means communicating with more voters, which does cost more.

But that's exactly the problem we should want.

Spending more.

Yes.

Spending more is not a bug in the system.

It's the feature of a functioning democracy.

My friends, here's what's truly at stake.

If we increase countywide voter turnout by 50 percent in our community, there wouldn't be a single state official determined to defund our public schools or tear away our local control.

So the question isn't whether we can afford this change, it's whether we can afford not to.

Manuel Garza, followed by Lydia Camarillo.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council members.

My name is Manuel Garza, and uh I'm a field director and senior advisor with the South East Water Registration Education Project.

But I'm here to speak on my behalf, and uh so my family is of 12th generation family here in Texas and in San Antonio.

I started working on improving my neighborhood when I was five years old, because we didn't have running water.

Our water was delivered in wooden barrels.

And that continued on until the 1960s.

And so from there, you know, I became even engaged some more when I was in high school in the age of 16.

I was registering people to vote.

Even though I was in eligible to vote, I would tell people you are my voice if you vote and register.

And so that is one of the things that I I've been doing.

Uh when I was 24 years old, I came before city council to ask for Singapore districts.

I was fired the next day from my job.

So the struggle to improve our democracy, I have taken a long road to get to where we're at.

I'm in support of changing the from May to November.

And um I urge all of you to really think about what you're doing and the vote that you're gonna cast.

So really put your mind and your heart into it, not just trivial things that you have heard or that you think that are important.

It's about our democracy, it's about our country, it's about our city, it's about our communities.

So please vote yes.

Thank you.

Lydia Camarillo, followed by Nicolette Ardiente Good morning.

I've submitted a written report for you all, uh my comments, so I will try to be uh fast.

I'm Lydia Camarillo, president of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

I've had the pleasure and honor of working for Southwest Voter for 28 years.

I am a district nine uh resident.

Uh I'm a voter, and my job at South East Voter is to organize, mobilize voters uh in San Antonio, in Bear County, in Texas, and across the United States to make sure that we vote.

We have before us an opportunity to ensure that more people will vote.

Will they vote only if we make the opportunity available for them?

When you move an election from May to November, you can guarantee there will be a double or more significant significant increase of turnout.

Why?

Because people are used to voting in November, because it's efficient, because we have all year where we start thinking about the elections, and you make an opportunity to do that.

So where I'm asking you to think about why that is important.

Are you worried and concerned about the school districts?

So are we.

We care about our children, we care about their future.

We want to make sure that they have the best possible education so they can fulfill their destiny, a destiny that has to be about dreams and aspirations where they have a real voice and real choices.

The school districts can change their elections later.

They don't have a deadline.

They have as long as they want to.

And they we, South East Voter promises to work with all the school districts to engage their constituencies, the stakeholders, to make this happen.

We have an actual bill that allows them to do that.

And frankly speaking, we already have Edgewood School District doing that.

And they have increased significantly their turnout, and people need to vote.

On the question about whether or not in November, if we have too many things going on, there's other communities do this, including California.

Have you ever seen their ballot?

Their ballots are enormous, and yet there is no complaint.

We should not be complaining about more things being on a ballot, but rather making sure that more people turn out to vote to those ballots.

On the bonds, I know there was some concern about people with bonds.

When you have more Latinos voting, Latinos voted 83% to pass bonds.

They understand that they themselves cannot pay for the new schools, the new votes, anything that has to do.

My time is over, but I want to tell you that we're here.

We need to support.

I'm asking you, I'm urging you, I'm imploring you.

I'm gonna beg.

Vote yes.

Let the people stand with you, and let's vote.

Gracias.

Nicolette Ardiente, followed by Michelle Los morning, council.

Um my name is Nicolette Ardiente.

I am a proud San Antonio resident, and I'm here representing Asian Texans for Justice.

We are statewide nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, really uplifting and amplifying the two million Asian American Pacific Islanders who call Texas home.

We do voter engagement and civic engagement all throughout the state, especially in Houston, Austin, Dallas, and of course here in San Antonio.

We don't guess what voters need, we look at the data.

So according to ATJ's research, the API community is incredibly motivated.

In fact, our polling shows that roughly two-thirds of Asian voters in Texas are highly motivated to vote.

However, there's a massive gap between motivation and access.

In San Antonio and across the state, one third of AAPI adults have limited English proficiency.

When we keep elections in May, we lose that safety in numbers that November provides.

Data shows that language assistance and poll monitoring are far more robust in November.

When we force our community to vote in isolated May elections, we're effectively cutting them off from the resources they need to navigate the ballot.

From our work in Houston and Austin, we've seen how consolidating elections solves that information gap.

It is simply more efficient for one major event than for several smaller ones sprinkled out throughout the calendar.

Dallas recently recognized that logic, and the time is now for San Antonio to do the same.

In Texas, the API population has grown three and a half times faster than the overall population.

We are the deciding margin in many elections.

But ATJ's coalition building report highlights that perpetual foreigner syndrome and a lack of outreach to our community keeps our people on the margins.

Moving the November elections, moving to November, brings these voters to the fold of the general civic conversation.

This isn't just about, you know, uh one community, it's about San Antonio's collective voice.

Data from similar shifts across the country shows that moving to November can increase local election turnout by 10% points or more.

It will also save our city elections and office administrative costs, money that could be better spent on the very community education we are here to provide.

So the data is clear.

Asian Texans are ready to show up, but the current fragment fragmented system acts as a barrier by aligning San Antonio with the November cycle, just as Houston, Austin, and Dallas have.

We make our democracy more accessible, more educated, and more representative.

So let's listen to the data.

Let's support our voters, and let's move to November.

Thank you.

Michelle Lowe Solis, followed by Jill Torbert.

Morning, Mayor, morning, City Council members.

My name is Michelle O'Slee.

I'm the chair of the Bear County Democratic Party.

I'm also a member of the Bear County Elections Commission.

Um, however, I'm here as a very interested citizen.

Um, this law passed the Texas legislature.

Um, this is Senate Bill 1494.

It was authored by a Democrat.

All of the co-sponsors were Democrats, but it had overwhelming bipartisan support.

It passed the Texas Senate unanimously.

No small feat.

It passed the Texas House with 125 out of 150 votes.

And you know why?

Because it makes sense.

Voter turnout for our May election is appallingly low.

Here in San Antonio, these elections are never going to compete with Fiesta.

The last election, almost the entire early voting period coincided with Fiesta.

Election Day was the same day as the Flambeau Parade.

We had over a million attendees at the Fiesta events.

We only had 116,000 voters out of 1.2 million registered voters in San Antonio come out to vote in May, less than 10%.

As someone who has knocked on doors to get out the vote, I cannot tell you how many times that I have heard another election.

What are we voting on this time?

When elections are spread across multiple dates in a single year, it creates confusion.

It lowers voter turnout and it makes civic participation harder for everyone.

This had overwhelming support in the Texas legislature, as the mayor said, unanimous among the Bear delegation.

I urge you to move San Antonio Municipal Elections to November so more people can have a voice in San Antonio.

Su voto Suvos Jill Torbert, followed by Julia Grizzard.

Mayor and City Council.

We are a nonpartisan organization.

We do not support or endorse candidates or political parties.

As we have heard time and a time again this morning, San Antonio has a voter turnout problem.

And you sitting here on council know that all too well.

When you ran for office, only 9% of the registered voters turned out to vote during Fiesta, and for the runoff in June, only 17% of the registered voters showed up.

We are out in the community every day during the year.

Many times when we ask people, are you ready for the next election?

Their response to us is a question.

What election?

What's on the ballot, and when is the election?

The league believes that moving the municipal election can help increase voter turnout.

Why?

It will move the election to a month that is so that is associated with voting, November.

It will move it away from Fiesta, graduation, Mother's Day, and the beginning of many people's summer's vacations.

And by consolidating with other entities, which we believe should be done, we gain momentum from issues that drive people to the polls, and we saw that in November.

We also have the potential to eliminate voter fatigue by having fewer elections.

In the spring of 2026, we will have three elections in three months.

We will have the primary on March 3rd.

We will have local elections on May 2nd, and that which also includes school board elections, and on May 26, we had the primary runoff.

Some council members are reluctant to move the elections.

They say that they want more time for voter input.

To that I say two things.

So we have seen that 80 to 90 percent of the people do not go to the polls to vote.

They are telling us that something is wrong.

We need a change.

There is no reason to think that voters in other cities would think differently than those voters here in San Antonio.

We don't need to delay when delay means a lost opportunity.

Another argument against moving the election is.

Is there somebody that would like to yield their time to Ms.

Torbert?

I don't think I have anyone else up here.

So thank you very much.

And please vote for democracy, vote to move to November.

Thank you.

Julia Grizzard, followed by Maria Antoneta Berriazoval.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Julia Grizzard, and I am here on behalf of the Bear County Education Coalition.

I'd like to steal a phrase from my former boss to start my comments today that democracy is a garden.

And we are so excited to continue this conversation about how we can work with the city to ensure that we are expanding democracy for all of our families, for our students.

And we recognize that we have a responsibility to ensure its growth.

Again, is not a resistance to this, but it is a reaction to an unexpected what they feel as a forced conversation at the end of an incredibly difficult and bitter year of political battles that continue to hope hurt our most vulnerable children.

That is not a Julia number.

That's not a uh a think tank number, that is a TEA number.

We currently are spent are uh funded at $10 for every $100 that our districts spend on school safety.

And in spite of minor raises that were given this last legislative session, our teachers are still in the bottom quartile of pay for the country.

I want to remind everybody that property tax raises do not equate to more school funding.

That is a formula that is set by the state and not unfortunately by uh the property taxes that we see.

Um, in partner, we want to continue our partnerships with organizations that vote uh that focus on voter access.

We continue to have in-class practice sessions on registration and voting, and if this vote goes through today, we will figure it out because that's what school districts do.

We figure it out.

And as a former neighborhood president who served for a year and a half, I who had the cell phone number of my city council person, code compliance, safe officer.

I know that we can work on communication with our 16 area districts.

Um, I have a chart that has a full review of when our districts do have their elections, including the seven, only two of which will be forced to move because of terms.

Julia, you can um submit the rest of your stuff for curve for the record.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um Maria Antonata Beriozbal followed by Sakeeb Sheikh.

Madam Mayor, I wrote some um some comments and um we heard my time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jasmine Errera.

Jasmina.

And also Susana Seguda.

You can stand.

Yeah.

Because I think this is an historic vote.

Uh I wanted to make sure that I spoke, and I'm missing some council members.

And one is leaving.

Just want to make note of that.

Uh what I was saying is that this is a historic vote.

People will read about this for a long time because many of us are making sure that we documented.

I am happy to be in the middle with so many young people.

And I'm happy with our democratic system right now.

The history of voting as it affects communities of color and women, and their struggle to obtain the vote cannot be separated from today's action.

The right to vote is a civil right.

That San Antonio's majority population is Hispanic as defined by the census, makes this a major issue of democracy.

It took 70 years of the suffrage movement for women to get the vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Before that, women were jailed, beaten simply for marching for the right to vote.

And today I am so proud that we have a council with seven women serving.

That effort, sadly, did not include men or women of color.

For African Americans, the journey has been painful and bloody.

We cannot forget the struggles of the civil rights movement in the 1960s for the right to an education and to vote.

It was not until the passage of the civil of the voting rights act in 1964 that literacy tests, poll taxes, and new government oversight made it easier to vote.

But that was not the end of the problem.

It was not until 1975, with the extension of the voting rights act for language minorities that Hispanics received better opportunities to vote.

San Antonio is part of this struggle because it was Willie Velazquez, founder of Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project in 1964, who led the effort to educate and increase voter participation of Latinos and Latinas.

Southwest voter, together with a Mexican American legal defense and education fund, accomplished this with legal actions against unfair practices in voting.

There certainly was progress, but existing structural impediments to voting continue to exist sometimes in rather creative ways.

In San Antonio, our city charter was created in 1951 by the Good Government League, whose members were white men.

At a time when Hispanics were beginning to elect people from our communities for county and national office, Albert Peña and Henry Cisneros, I mean Henry Gonzalez through the Democratic Party, the city charter they wrote made our elections non-partisan.

They established the City Council City Manager form of government with at-large elections.

Thereby the votes in the East, West, South could not elect our chosen representatives until 1977 because of that election system.

That is what it took to have the diverse council that we have today.

The new voting system was implemented for the first time in the election of 1977, resulting in a city council representing the population of the city racially and ethnically.

However, there were only two women.

Today, we are stepping backwards.

There has been legislation limiting the voting rights act, particularly as it applies to language minorities, and weakening the pre-clearance laws.

A myriad of legislation and policies have been passed that make voting more difficult.

Much of the election code has been rewritten to accomplish this.

Language assistance and help for people with disabilities is now limited.

Voting by mail has been made more difficult and probably or possibly could be eliminated.

Millions of voters have been removed from the voting list with a very messy system.

A Supreme Court ruling on the side of government to permit unfair redistricting in Texas has sided with the with a state.

That is a sign that our highest court is not on the people's side.

There are limits on numbers of polling places, and there are ridiculous changes in voter registry identification and others.

We at the local at the local level cannot do much about state and federal laws violating our democracy.

But our local officials have been given the power to change when we vote.

Because data shows that more people, including minorities whose rights have been so attacked, voted in larger numbers in November.

This is one step that we can take.

Other issues that have risen as impediments to accepting November elections should be taken care of with respect, collaboration, collegiality, and a sincere desire to do the best for the common good.

Because we have a precedent, a Congress, and a Supreme Court who are unraveling our civil rights, and a state administration who is following orders from the top.

It is my hope that we can count on our local leaders, our city council members who have benefited by the work of generations before you to vote yes on this issue.

I trust you will use your vote to say yes to one action over which you have power.

Your vote will be a significant message for all of us who have hope in you.

Thank you.

Sakeeb Sheikh followed by Trisha Gronevik.

Mayor, Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm here because San Antonio is at its best, its strongest, and its brightest.

When we open the doors of democracy wide, not for a few, not for the lucky, but for everyone who calls the city home.

Thomas Jefferson once said, we do not have government by the majority.

We have government by the majority who participate.

And right now, too many of our neighbors are locked out of that process.

May elections collide with Fiesta, with graduations, with chaos of the school year, the end of the school year, and with the pressures that working families already carry every single day.

And when turnout falls, representation falls, trust falls, belief in the system falls.

And I say this as especially as someone connected to District 8, a district filled with immigrants, with refugees, with families who have crossed oceans and continents for the chance to partake in a real democracy.

For them, November is familiar.

November is accessible.

November is when they know their voices belong.

Civic groups are ready in November.

Language support is ready in November.

New voters feel ready in November.

And the data backs this up.

Across more than 2,000 cities in the United States, average turnout in November odd-year elections is around 30%.

But in cities that hold their municipal elections in May, like ours, turnout averages under 17%.

That is a nearly 50% jump in participation simply by aligning elections with the months Americans already understand with voting season.

So this change, the simple reasonable change, doesn't just feel right, it works.

It brings more people in.

Every person, a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

And I believe that, and I know you believe that.

Ready to participate and ready to shape the future of the city we all love.

This isn't a partisan question.

It's a values question.

It's about who we are and who we aspire to be.

If we believe in democracy, let's expand it.

If we believe in representation, let's strengthen it.

If we believe the city belongs to all its people, then let's open the doors wide and welcome them in.

Because at the end of the day, when we strip everything else away, the truth is clear.

Participation isn't a side effect of democracy.

It's the point.

Thank you.

Trisha Gronovic, followed by Nina Perales.

Hi, good morning and happy holidays.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Mayor Jones and Council members, thank you all so much for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Trisha Gronovic.

I am a fourth generation San Antonian, and I have lived in District 8 for 20 years.

I took off work this morning because I felt it was imperative to be here to urge the council to consider and move our elections from May to November, as we've all heard this morning so much about voter turnout being abysmally low.

Nine percent recently for the mayoral election turnout only reached 70 per 17 percent in the runoff.

Um elections should reflect the full voices of our community and not just a small fraction of voters.

Across Texas and the country, turnout in May municipal elections is consistently much lower than turnout in November.

When elections are held off-cycle, fewer people are aware an election is happening, fewer people participate, and important decisions end up being made by a very small segment of the population.

We heard earlier in a city with over a million registered voters, less than 150,000 cast ballots.

Keeping multiple election dates, especially in May when fewer people accept them or are busy with Fiesta and summer plans makes it harder for residents to stay informed.

Aligning with the November schedule simplifies the voting calendar and it makes it easier for people to participate.

No other major city in Texas still has municipal elections in May.

This is a no-brainer.

This change will be consistent with other Texas metro areas.

Additionally, we should all care about being wise stewards of our tax dollars.

Moving our elections to November's would moving our election to November would also reduce the cost of administering elections.

Running a standalone May election requires additional staffing, equipment, ballots, and operational expenses.

It's already been projected to save us nearly one million dollars by moving to November from May.

But most importantly, democracy works best when more of our citizens are being represented.

Shifting our elections to November increases equity and representation and ensures these voices are heard.

Higher turnout means we hear from a broader cross-section of our community, working families, young voters, seniors, residents across all neighborhoods.

Decisions about our city should be made with input from as many people as possible, not determined by the small number of voters who just happen to participate in May.

For all these reasons, higher turnout, lower costs, clearer communication, and stronger representation.

Thank you all so much for your time and consideration today.

Nina Paradas Parales, followed by Jacqueline Tacorante.

Good morning.

My name is Nina Perales.

I'm the vice president of litigation for MALDEF, the Mexican-American legal defense and educational fund.

Founded in 1968 in San Antonio, Texas, MALDEF is the nation's leading Latino legal civil rights law firm.

Among MALDEF's many courtroom victories are a significant number of voting rights cases, including U.S.

Supreme Court wins in 2006 and 2018 on behalf of Texas voters.

I'm also a constituent of District 8.

Maldives supports the proposal to move San Antonio's general election from May to November in odd numbered years.

Moving the election date presents the city with an opportunity to increase voter participation in municipal officer elections by reducing the number of election dates that voters have to keep track of, and also by offering the city savings that can be used to conduct more voter outreach.

San Antonio is the second largest city in Texas.

A number of Texas's largest cities have already moved their municipal officer elections from May to November in odd numbered years, including Houston and Dallas.

In addition, Austin, El Paso, and Corpus Christi are among other large cities that have moved their municipal officer elections from November from May.

The highest voter turnout is in November.

Other speakers have already covered that, and I won't go over it again.

There was an earlier speaker in opposition to this move that talked about simplifying the process and talked about the fact that if the election is moved to November of odd numbered years, the ballot with constitutional amendments on it might be longer.

And it's true, a voter may have to stay another minute or two to vote additional offices on the ballot.

But think about all of the time and the use of resources that voter has to make to get in front of the ballot with a completely different election on a completely different day.

That voter has to do what all of you do when you have to anticipate the election.

Plan, am I going to leave for work a little bit earlier to swing by the poll on my way in?

Do I have to leave work a little bit earlier to vote on my way home?

These are all sort of what we call opportunity costs, right?

And they exist every time we have an independent election.

So I would say that simplification focus means moving the election date to November.

Thank you.

Jacqueline Tacorante, followed by Susan Corbell.

Good morning, Mayor Jones and City Council members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning before we hit lunch, so we can get a taco or a chicken on a stick.

My name is Jacqueline Adrete Tacarante.

I'm the vice president of advocacy for the National Association of Women Business Owners and the New York City chapter and a proud small business champion through the United States Small Business Administration.

I've spent my entire career advocating for policies that expand access, access to capital, access to opportunity, and access to participation.

Unfortunately, some of the other city council members do not feel the same.

Today I'm speaking on behalf of JMT Media and La Prensa, Texas newspaper that's here.

I also stand before you as someone who grew up right here in San Antonio, first in the Creek, then in Heritage Park.

I'm a proud graduate of Southwest High School, Go Dragons Go, and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

This community has raised me, shaped me, and taught me the power of showing up.

After relocating back home following my father's untimely passing, I made a commitment to listen before I speak.

I've been sitting at many of the tables this past year, attending gallas, attending meetings behind closed doors, showing up to numerous public meetings, and assessing how I can be best, how I can best continue to support small businesses, veterans, and children who lack access and opportunity.

This is my first public commit comments since moving back home, and I look forward to making many more.

I'm additionally honored to be joined by Yvette Deo, the newest publisher and owner of La Prensa, Texas, who's committed to ensuring community voices are heard.

Today I'm here to advocate for moving local elections from May to November, because access to democracy should never depend on convenience, awareness, or even privilege.

May elections suppress participation.

We already know that.

They limit turnout for work in families, seniors, young voters, and plenty of communities of color.

And when elections are held outside the national cycle, fewer people know that they're happening.

Fewer people can take time off of work and fewer voices are heard.

That's not democracy.

It's exclusion by design.

I've seen what intentional policy change can do.

In New York City, I played a direct role in advocating for local legislation tied to economic development initiatives that generated over 24 million dollars in revenue, expanding workforce pipelines and creating real opportunity for underserved communities.

Policy matters, process matters, and access certainly matters.

I was astonished to learn that over the last three election cycles, turnout in each district has dropped anywhere from 20 to 35% compared to the previous cycle every two years.

When we pass this today, because I'm speaking this into existence, both La Prensa and JMT Media and everyone we collaborate with will continue to support and educate rollout efforts.

Thank you for your time.

Susan Corbell, followed by Dr.

Danette Bloom.

Susan Corbell.

Okay.

Dr.

Bloom, followed by Cecilia Cross.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

I am Maria Dunett La Peace Bloom.

It's an honor to speak before you, Mayor Jones and the rest of the city council on my thoughts about this.

And I support this resolution, but I'm here to yield this floor to my son, who is who has recently been appointed to the city of San Antonio Youth Commission regarding this resolution.

His name is Dane Bloom.

This is Dane's message.

Good morning.

I am Dane Bloom.

I have the honor of being appointed to the San Antonio Youth Commission.

I personally think that this resolution could save the city money as well as increase voter turnout, especially for first-time voters and young people, as we only have to remember and attend to one election.

As a young boy, I have accompanied my mom when she voted and proudly wore those I voted stickers.

I've also been often asked by her to remind her to vote and her dismay when she remembers after early voting that she had to make time during her busy schedule to go and vote during election day.

Resulting in one election period in the year.

The reasons for support include that it is easier to remember one election.

This could potentially increase voter turnout, as we only have to carve out one time to go to the pulse once in the year.

They agree that this could save the city money, as they don't have to prepare for the logistics of another election.

There were also some of my friends who wanted two election days, and they reasoned that they wanted two paid time off days.

They also reasoned that the consolidation could potentially result in too many items in the ballot to consider when everything is consolidated.

But I think that with preparation, this could really be resolved.

In summary, I and majority of my peers support the resolution.

And we are high school students from different districts of the city of San Antonio, and I hope you would hear our voice.

Thank you very much.

Cecilia Cross, followed by Rachel Melendez.

Hello, Mayor Jones, City Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Cecilia Cross.

I am born and raised a San Antonio resident, and I'm here as a representative of Disability SA, which is a nonprofit that is dedicated to making San Antonio the number one place for people with disabilities to live, work, learn, play, and thrive.

And I'm speaking in support of moving our municipal elections in odd years to November while encouraging the careful planning to avoid creating new barriers for voters with disabilities.

So for the disability community, November elections offer several clear benefits.

They're aligning aligning local elections with federal and state dates means one consistent election rhythm, which of course reduces confusion and the cognitive load of tracking multiple low turnout election days.

It also increases overall uh turnout and public attention, which can amplify the voices of people with disabilities, um, the voices of disabled voters, their family members and caregivers who are already engaged in November elections, um, but may miss the opportunity to be unable to prioritize a separate May election.

Um, and finally, consolidating elections can help focus resources on making our elections more accessible, especially in the area of poll worker training and transportation coordination, um, instead of spreading those efforts then over multiple dates.

However, at the same time, moving municipal elections in November without intentional planning could unintentionally create new barriers.

So just to consider a few examples.

Longer ballots can increase physical and cognitive fatigue for many disabled voters, especially those using assistive technology or needing more time to navigate each contest.

Crowded polling locations, longer lines, and more complex ballot layouts can be particularly challenging for people with mobile mobility disabilities, chronic pain, sensory sensitivities, or personal care needs.

And if communication about the change is not accessible and multilingual, disabled voters who may rely on plain language, ASL or alternative formats, or support staff may be left confused about when and how to participate.

So for these reasons, disability focused groups strongly support this move and that this move be paired with a robust accessibility plan.

So this plan should include intentional ballot and signage design that is clear, consistent, and easy to navigate with assistive technology, expanded uh accessible early voting options and curbside voting spaces, training for poll workers that focuses on sensitivity and awareness, transportation coordination with paratransit and other mobility providers, and targeted outreach in accessible formats to disability service providers, advocates, and self-advocacy networks to ensure voters with disabilities know their rights.

It should also include meaningful consultation with voters with disabilities and organizing organizations during implementation of problems arise.

Thank you.

You can submit the rest of your comments for the record if you'd like to.

Okay, thank you.

Rachel Melendez followed by Amanda Mosley.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning, council.

My name is Rachel Melendez.

I'm the political director for Local 23 Unite here.

We're the hospitality workers union.

And I'm joined here today by our members who work both at the Grand Hyde and the Hyatt Regency.

We support moving the San Antonio municipal elections to November.

And as most people know, and I think probably as Miss Huerta would attest to, uh, unions are grounded in the democratic process.

We are fundamentally a democratic organization.

We believe the more participation from our members, the stronger our union, and the more we can win.

Our members here actually just proved that last week when they won a new contract, making them the highest paid hotel workers in this city.

And so we believe for the city it's the same thing, right?

The more participation, the stronger our democracy.

I've knocked on thousands of doors.

I've called hundreds, less, not as many, hundreds of voters in this city to talk to them about voting.

And oftentimes the first thing I hear is again, I just voted in November.

And I say, that's great.

There is another one, right?

And so I won't repeat everything that everybody has said, but we agree with them.

This needs to happen.

This is good for our community, this is good for our city, and it just makes sense.

So please pass this resolution.

Thank you.

Amanda Mosley, followed by Romlet Metz.

Amanda Mosley.

Romlet Metz.

Romlet Metz.

Graciela Sanchez, followed by Ananda Thomas.

Can we add Amy Castelly to another three minutes and Sherry Campos for another three minutes?

And I have up here with me Gloria Ramides, one of our board members living in district one.

Yes.

What happened to Sandra Martinez?

She's in district four.

Okay.

You have nine minutes.

Yes, ma'am.

Nine minutes, right.

We're here to speak in favor of the proposal to change city elections from May to November.

Although there are only four or five people here, Esperanza represents thousands of people throughout the entire city.

We're almost 39 years come January, and we've always spoken for social, economic, environmental, and gender justice.

First, we want to thank all of you who have publicly supported this change.

This is a time of massive, massive voter suppression.

Your support for this proposal is a step towards protecting the voting rights of your constituents.

To those of you who have publicly opposed the proposal or who are still undecided, it is understandable that you may want to keep the city election system as it is, because after all, this is the system under which you were elected and you feel comfortable with.

Why didn't council members concerned with the cold and dark days vote to delay that vote?

November elections have been part of the US tradition for hundreds of years.

And suddenly we want to warn folks about the problem with November elections and December runoff elections.

Isn't this problem, if it is one, already solved by the 10 days of early voting currently available?

Finally, several of you have complained that there wasn't enough time to talk with constituents about this proposed move of elections to November.

But of course, this is a flimsy argument.

You have had time, and more importantly, your constituents overwhelmingly support the change.

Several TV reports included interviews with Ron the Streets and essentially everyone who was asked supported the change.

Social media buses also predominantly in favor of moving the date.

People would rather vote once or twice a year and not in March, May, June, and November and December.

We might not be able to change our national and state primary elections, but we can work to consolidate all others.

Please support this proposal.

Please reaffirm San Antonio's commitment to progressive democracy and make clear that we will resist voter suppression in whatever form.

This decision is not just about your personal preference.

Decades of years, millions of people in the civil rights movement understand voter suppression more deeply than you possibly can at this moment.

If you will ever be able to learn from your elders, or to honor and respect those of the civil rights movement, now is the time.

Stand tall and vote yes, or accept that your ego is too large to join those who have given so much.

Ananda Tomas, followed by Leticia Sanchez.

Good morning, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Ananda Thomas, and I'm the executive director of Act for SA, a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the overcriminalization of marginalized communities and reimagining public safety.

We've been on the front lines of ballot initiatives and charter amendments since 2021, because we know real change doesn't just come from inside City Hall.

It comes from the people who show up, organize, and demand it.

And that's why we are here today to strongly support moving San Antonio's municipal elections from May to November.

This isn't about convenience.

First, the charter amendment that moved city council to four-year terms did create a misalignment with school district elections.

Certain school districts will have board seats up for election in May when the city won't be holding those elections, meaning lower voter turnout.

Other school districts already hold elections in different months, and as mentioned before, they do have the ability to change when they hold elections.

By moving city elections to November of odd numbered years, we create a clear path for school districts to follow.

This isn't just about cost savings, it's about giving voters a chance to weigh in on the future of their schools and their city at the same time.

A win for representative democracy.

And doing it now gives districts time to adjust before 2027.

Second, this change aligns with the city budget cycle, which matters for accountability.

Right now, new council members get elected in May and must jump into the budget process by June, with only a few months to learn the ropes to hear from constituents and advocate for change.

That's not enough time.

Moving elections to November gives new council members a full year to understand the budget, to gather community input, and build real policy before their first budget vote.

That means voters can trust their voices will be heard, and city staff won't have to scramble when priorities shift because of election results.

It also opens the door for candidates to talk about budgets and policy before they're sworn in, not after.

Our young people are being shut out.

Over 150,000 college students live in San Antonio, many of them eligible to vote.

But May is finals week.

It's graduation, it's move out day.

Students are not showing up to the polls because of this.

November is mid-semester.

It's when students are settled, engaged, and more likely to participate.

Here's what else we're asking for.

If this change saves the city money, and we believe it well, those savings must be reinvested in the community, not police budgets, but into voter education, civic engagement, housing, mental health care, youth development, and more.

Let's fund workshops in schools and libraries that teach young people how to vote, how to run for office.

Let's fund community.

Thank you.

Leticia Sanchez, followed by Carlos Raymond.

Hi, uh, before I give begin with my formal comments, I want to say how honored I feel to be in the presence of great leaders such as Dolores Huerta and Maria Berio Salvo.

Thank you for being here.

And for all the work you've done for us.

And some who are senior citizens or individuals with disabilities.

These things make it difficult and limit our residents' participation in our society's supposedly democratic process.

When most city committees and commissions meet during working hours or require residents to find their way to city council to participate.

Participating in elections is one way that our residents feel that they have access to engaging in the democratic process.

However, statistics show that our residents have a poor turnout at elections, and most people who don't know our residents would attribute that to apathy.

But if you take the time to speak to our residents, they will tell you that a large reason for not participating in elections is because they're very busy working and trying to take care of their families.

So now our city has the opportunity to provide access to our residents by changing the election date.

So our electron our association asks that you support the resolution because it is burdensome for many of our residents to make arrangements to participate in elections.

Thank you very much for your time.

Carlos Raymond, followed by Norma Avitua Ovaya.

Good morning, Mayor Jones, members of the City Council, Councilman Rick Galvan, City Council this city councilman.

My name is Carlos Antonio Raymond.

I'm a Vietnam era veteran and a longtime resident of Bear County, living in City Council District number six.

I think it is odd years.

But I experienced, but what I experienced as a candidate and as a voter was discouraging.

Turn out was extremely low.

Why?

Because our election was scheduled on May the 3rd of 2025.

It was scheduled in the middle of Fiesta on other major community, other major community events.

Two many residents chose celebration over civic participation.

Not because they don't care, but because the date made it hard, extremely hard for them to show up.

Low turnout.

Sorry.

Low turnout votes not represent the rich diversity of San Antonio.

It benefits only the most motivated field.

As a veteran who travels to school across Bear County to teach young people about the importance of voting.

Every vote matters, and that our election schedule should encourage participation, not to discourage it.

We are not alone in this thinking.

Cities like Houston and Dallas, which I have had the opportunity to live there for several years.

More working families can participate without sacrificing income or time.

It's about strengthening democracy in San Antonio.

Thank you, Mr.

Raymond.

You can uh share the question.

We want parents, professionals, seniors, and especially veterans to be a part of the process they heard about.

Moving election to November will mean more voices, more presentation, and a council that reflects the fabric of our city.

Thank you, Mr.

Raymond.

You can share your remarks with the with the clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Norma Abitua Avaya.

Good afternoon.

My name is uh Dr.

Norma Avito Ovay, and I'm the current president for the National Association of Hispanic Nurses for San Antonio chapter.

I'm also full-time faculty, uh, assistant clinical professor at the School of Nursing at um for the University of Texas at San Antonio.

In my profession, I have worked shift schedules from 6 30 in the morning to 7 30, 8 o'clock at night for the last 24 years as a nurse administrator in a hospital in the medical center.

In my experience, I have had the misfortune to not be able to vote due to work hours and schedule shifts during early voting as well as May and November elections.

One thing nurses must do is they must enter their work schedules 30 days in advance.

I believe the opportunity by having elections in November will allow nurses and health care workers to focus and make it a scheduled day to go vote.

I urge the city of San Antonio, the council to support the resolution to move the general elections, which will provide for municipal elections to be moved to November to uniform the election states and the odd numbered years.

Currently, nurse professionals shifts begin prior to voting polls opening and closing due to their shift hours.

These are potential voters whose vote goes unaccounted for.

These health care personnels are interested in our city and the outcomes that come from these elections.

Further, according to the city manager, this could save San Antonio anywhere from 800,000 to an estimated $1 million per election cycle in which those funds could be utilized otherwise.

In closing, I urge the City of San Antonio to pass the general elections resolutions to implement this legit legislation, the San Antonio City Council and my district six councilmen, the honorable Rick Gavon, to approve the municipal elections to meet move from May to November by December 31st of 2025.

And also I'd like to thank uh Mayor uh Gina Ortiz Jones for supporting the San Antonio Nursing Consortium.

Thank you so much.

Gabriela Ibada, followed by Triste Ordex.

Gabriela Ibada.

My name is Gabriela Ibarra.

I am a Latina leader in our community, a current PhD uh candidate and a proud mujer fuerte.

I grew up on the West side and now reside in District 4.

I stand here representing working mothers, working students, and la comunidad.

Neighbors who deserve a real opportunity for meaningful voter participation in order for process to change.

We must invest in the people, la gente.

Invest in San Antonio by moving the elections to November.

Invest in our working mothers and fathers.

Invest in our working students.

Invest in our senior citizens, invest in our city, and lastly, invest in us.

People like myself who work, study, and take care of a family, have a busy schedule.

I believe moving the elections was give them a better flexibility of voting.

I emphasize the importance of giving the city, our city a chance for higher voter turnout, moving elections to November, allowing working families, students, and everyday residents a better chance to plan, educate themselves while people, while all the people are balancing their job, their jobs in life.

This will give them time and access needed to be informed, engaged and present.

It gives our community the import the opportunity to understand who is on the ballot before casting their vote.

As a community leader, I respectfully encourage the council to vote in favor of moving our elections to November.

This is about access, equity, participation, and investment in our city.

Thank you.

Triste Ordex, followed by Petra Mata.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Tristesa Ordex.

I'm a Marine Corps veteran, a Texas voter based out of Dallas, and the organizing director at Vet Voice Foundation.

I'm also part of a military family that votes in every election.

Because of my work, I'm able to stay connected and up to date on election dates and voting information that makes it possible for my family to participate consistently.

But for many military and veteran families, especially those without someone actively engaged in civic work, it could be much harder to keep track of changing election dates and requirements, particularly when elections are held outside of the November cycle.

This year, the Dallas City Council voted to move its municipal elections to the November uniform election date, recognizing that aligning elections to help reduce confusion and makes it so that we can partition participate in a more accessible in a more accessible way and so that working families and seniors and young people could turn out at greater numbers.

Across the nation, including here in San Antonio, we work to ensure that veterans, military service members, and military families and their communities have clear and transparent pathways to vote.

Veterans understand the importance of strong local leadership and civic participation.

Aligning municipal elections with the November election date is a practical step that strengthens the democratic values we served to protect.

So on behalf of Vet Voice Foundation, I respectfully ask for your support in this resolution.

Thank you.

Petra Mata, followed by Amanda Lee Kemer.

Petra Mata.

Okay.

Amanda Lee Kemer.

Followed by Carmen Gomez.

Hello.

Good morning.

I have notes on my phone, so bear with me.

My name is Amanda Lee Kemer.

I'm a district five resident of Councilmember Castillo.

I grew up off Blanco and Basi.

I'm an SISD kid.

All the things go on and on.

I'm here in my role as a cybersecurity professional.

I'm a nationally recognized national security leader.

And so coming with that perspective today that I feel like is missing from this conversation about moving the elections from May to November.

So for those who don't live in cybersecurity and election security and national security world, election infrastructure is considered critical infrastructure subsector under protecting government facilities.

So that includes things like voter registration databases, IT systems, IT infrastructure and systems to manage elections, such as counting, auditing, and displaying election results, voting systems, associated infrastructure, storage facilities, and polling places, physical polling places, including early voting locations.

That is a lot of ground to cover.

That's a lot of things to protect, uh, both virtually as well as in person.

So in the environment that we're in today, we are proud to be Military City USA, and I'm proud to be a military family member.

My brother served in the Marine Corps.

We come from a long history of military family members.

We are in an environment where we have a lot of threats.

So as much as we're proud to be Military City USA, we're also a target, and we don't talk about that a lot.

We talk about all the things that we love about our veterans, our military bases, and things like that, but we're also a target.

And so as much as I'm an optimistic, happy person, we need to prepare for these threats as they evolve and increase with the influence of AI.

And so by moving the elections from May to November, we can pull our resources and make sure that we're protecting voters, protecting sites, protecting poll workers, no matter what side of the aisle that they're on, no matter who's running for office.

Everybody deserves to vote in a safe and secure way.

When it comes to the safety of and security of our students, if the ISDs were also to follow and move their elections, we can use gyms and other ways to facilitate safe voting while school is in session.

There's also an issue of morale.

When it comes to poll workers and recruiting poll workers and folks to work at the polls, there are security concerns.

So as we pull resources and move the November, the May November May elections to November, we can share and work together.

One thing I want to leave y'all with is from General Nakasoni, who used to run the NSA, that uh voting is an enduring no-fail mission.

So, not just for the US, but for all of us.

And so together we can bring speed and unity, unity underscore, of effort against any foreign adversaries who might seek to undermine our democratic institutions.

So I hope that we can count on y'all to protect our elections uh at the municipal level and move them to November.

Thank you.

Carmen Gomez, followed by Kareli Guevara.

Good morning.

Um Madam Mayor and Council members.

My name is Carmen Gomez.

I'm a lifelong resident of San Antonio and uh resident of District 8.

I looked around this room, and first I just want to commend all of the prior city officials and county officials who came, civic leaders.

I guess that's why my husband Joe and I love this community so much.

Because speaking to this council today and voicing how we feel and making sure our voice is heard is very important.

I want to begin by saying that I appreciate the seriousness with which the council is approaching this issue.

I also understand that some concerns have been raised about the potential impact on school districts.

These concerns deserve to be heard, however, respectfully believe they should not be the guiding principle.

One second, Ms.

Gomez, please quiet quiet on the dais.

Thank you.

The guiding principle must be voter participation.

For too long, San Antonio's municipal elections have produced extremely low turnout, especially among working people, young voters, and communities that already face barriers to participation.

May elections hurt during fiesta, graduations, and peak work session seasons make it harder, not easier, for people to vote.

As a city with a long and painful history of discrimination against Mexican Americans and black communities, we must be honest with ourselves.

Systems that depress turnout do not affect everyone equally.

And for some of you that are currently on the council to be elected today.

Changing our elections to November is not about copying other cities or creating inconvenience for any institution.

It is about removing barriers and aligning our civic process with when people already expect to vote.

I have also heard discussion about possibly delaying this change to a later date.

I want to be clear and respectful.

I do not support a delay.

We have the data.

We have the community input.

We have decades of lived experience telling us that May elections do not work for most San Antonians.

Delay only preserves a system that already now excludes too many people.

School districts, like other institutions, are capable of adapting as they have in cities across Texas.

But the city of San Antonio must first do what is right for its own voters and people.

I'm proud to stand today with former mayors, with the League of Women Voters, with the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, and with generations of organizers who fought to expand democracies.

She's very God sent.

Thank you to all of nature wonderful.

Victoria Delion, followed by Faye Sufencia.

I'm sorry, I'm my mistake.

And then Victoria Delion, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members for letting me speak up here.

I know it is your duty to listen to your constituents, but thank you regardless.

My name is Carelli.

I was born and raised in South Texas, if you couldn't tell.

And I work for radical registrars, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to upping the numbers of registered voters here in our San Antonio community.

I support moving the elections from May to November in odd numbered years because at the end of the day, this vote is about removing barriers to the ballot box.

Texas already makes it incredibly difficult to vote.

No online voter registration, voting by mail restrictions, and strict voter registration deadlines 30 days before each election.

That's a lot of people to keep up with.

That's a lot for people to keep up with and makes fighting voter fatigue a huge challenge for our community.

For working families, students, and people juggling multiple jobs, remembering multiple election dates in a single year can mean the difference between voting and sitting out.

If you look around the room, the people in here will not be the ones most affected by this vote.

You shouldn't have to be a political activist to feel participation in every vote.

We're out registering college students.

We see how energized they are each time they get registered for participating.

They understand that voting is a way to build communities they want to live in.

And motion is about giving more people that opportunity to participate.

Now, the numbers, as we heard a lot of people talk about, um, 17% in May is for the runoff.

You guys don't sit up here and vote for changes that affect 17% of San Antonians.

You vote for stuff that affects everybody.

Now I understand we're not we're never gonna have 100% voter turnout in any election, but moving this election from May to November is going to increase our voter turnout.

That's what the numbers say.

I don't understand the I I understand maybe the uh school districts.

I get that that's uh a bit difficult to look at and see that they might struggle, uh, but that shouldn't affect us doing something good for the rest of San Antonio.

Um I urge you guys to please listen to I believe what was 63 people who signed up to speak today.

Um pretty sure the majority of that is in favor to this vote.

I, you know, we're we're out here begging you guys to vote for it, to have our voices heard, to have more San Antonians vote in these elections.

Uh so please consider that.

Thank you.

Victoria Delion, followed by Faye Suffisin Suvencia.

Hi, good morning.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Victoria de Leon, and I'm a resident of District 7.

I'm here today in strong support of moving San Antonio's elections from May to November because bottom line, this is about increasing access to participation and making it easier for voters.

This would especially be a win for working families, those balancing work, child care, and everything else that life throws at them.

Many people in our community are in survival mode, and when that's the reality, staying informed and engaged in local elections can feel impossible or just bottom line, just doesn't take priority.

I'm the first person in my family, and I have a very big family to have the luxury of time to volunteer, to learn about the issues, and to show up in civic spaces.

The single mother who raised me didn't have that opportunity.

She was raising four kids, working to pay the bills and caring for my grandparents and great grandparents, all living under one roof.

There was no time to track election dates or listen to politicians.

She didn't believe cared about her family.

She truly felt her voice and her vote didn't matter, and it pains me to know that so many people in our community feel that way.

That sense of exclusion is especially real in our low-income communities of color where the very valid distrust in government keeps people from engaging in politics.

And in a state with some of the strictest voting laws in the nation, any step towards a more inclusive democracy matters.

Consolidating elections can help reduce voter fatigue and allow more time for us, more time and energy for us to be spent on educating voters, engaging communities, and building trust and systems that should be working for them and not against them.

I also proudly serve as board chair for radical registrars, again, a nonpartisan civic engagement nonprofit.

Supporting this move from an organizational standpoint was an easy decision informed by the conversations our team has with voters across the city nearly every day.

So I urge you to vote yes on this motion and help give more families and individuals a real opportunity to participate in our local democracy.

Thank you.

Faye Suficiencia, followed by Luis Vasquez.

Good morning, Mary Jones and City Council members.

My name is Faye Suficiencia, and I'm here representing Lead Filipino.

We are a community-based organization that has spent over a decade building civic leadership and voter engagement pipelines for Filipino and Asian Americans across the country.

At Lead Filipino, we don't just talk about voter participation, we organize it.

And for years we've knocked on doors, hosted voter registration drives, organized on college campuses, and engaged working families.

Through this work, we've learned one simple truth, and that is when access is there, engagement from our communities follows.

Asian American voters are a growing community in San Antonio, but one of the least represented at the ballot box.

Here in San Antonio, many of our families work on the front lines of the industries that keeps the city running.

They work in healthcare, education, hospitality, and the military.

These are essential workers.

They work long, unpredictable shifts.

So when elections are held in May, they're much harder to track, harder to access, and harder to prioritize, not because our communities don't care, but because the structure of these elections makes participation harder.

In civic organizing spaces here in San Antonio, with many of the folks in this room would know, we're often told that low turnout is just the reality in San Antonio.

But last month proved otherwise.

With nearly a 10 point increase in turnout compared to the May and June elections, San Antonio showed us that when elections are accessible, then our communities will show up.

So with that, I respectfully urge you to vote yes on moving San Antonio's municipal elections to November.

Thank you and Salamet.

Patricia Castillo, followed by Carmina Cardona, Luis, and then Patricia Castillo.

Thank you.

Well, it's almost good afternoon, uh, Mary Jones and members of the city council.

And I'd like to take uh just a few seconds of privilege to shout out to the YWL YWLA Young Women's Leadership Academy.

Uh, students who are watching us live right now on my sister's uh senior there, so uh I am joined by Keek Kenitra Heights.

She is the board president of the San Antonio LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, um, who will be uh delivering remarks.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Kenitra Heikes.

I am the vice president of the San Antonio LGBTQ plus Chamber of Commerce and a current resident of District 10.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of item four, the resolution to move the city of San Antonio's general election for mayor and city council from May to November in odd numbered years as authorized by the Texas legislature.

The chamber represents LGBTQ plus and allied small businesses, entrepreneurs, and professionals across our city.

From our perspective, this proposal is about participation, access, and a stronger local economy.

May elections consistently produce lower voter turnout, particularly among families, small business owners, young voters, and communities that already face barriers to civic engagement.

When fewer residents participate, the decisions shaping our city do not fully reflect the people who live, work, and build their businesses here.

Moving municipal elections to November is a practical step to reduce voter fatigue, increase awareness, and make participation easier for people balancing work, family, and education.

Higher turnout strengthens public trust, improves representation, and creates a more stable environment for businesses and economic growth.

From a business standpoint, civic engagement matters.

Entrepreneurs thrive in communities where residents feel connected to their local government and confident that their voices do count.

Aligning city elections with November election cycles removes unnecessary barriers while also creating cost efficiencies by sharing election expenses with other entities.

The San Antonio LGBTQ plus Chamber of Commerce respectfully urges City Council to support this resolution as a policy decision that expands across strengthens the max strengthens democracy and benefits the long-term economic health of our city.

Thank you all for your leadership and for your continued service to San Antonio.

Patricia Castillo, followed by Carmina Cardona.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members.

Patricia Castillo.

I have spent 46 years serving the city of San Antonio, mainly in positions that have dealt with people losing their right to speak, their right to have an opinion, their right to have a voice because I've worked in family violence those 46 years.

So I've witnessed what it feels like and what it means to be denied having a voice throughout my whole career, my whole life's work.

Very, in some cases, it kills.

Okay.

Thank you.

Carmina Cardona followed by Father Richard Aguilar.

Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, Council members, and city manager.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I am a night shift nurse of 10 years, and I am a district two constituent.

I am speaking in support of the resolution to move our city's general election from May to November in odd numbered years.

I love what I do.

I love caring for the people of San Antonio.

However, I face real challenges to civic participation.

Many healthcare workers are in the same boat as me and experience long overnight hours, rotating schedules, and spend our daytime hours recovering so that we can return to work to safely care for our patients.

Moving elections to November will better allow us to plan ahead to vote and engage.

It will improve access and participation for working professionals, especially us healthcare professionals who were live in different districts.

Thank you for your time and service to our community.

Father Aguilar, followed by William Ripto.

When I start this, Mayor Jones, members of City Council.

I'm here to speak as you have heard from the great majority of the persons speaking today.

I've been in the chamber about 90% of the time, and I've heard only one person speak against this suggestion that you vote to change the elections from May to November.

I say to you, we live in a constitutional crisis right now.

And the question that all of us need to ask ourselves every day is it what can I do for democracy?

You representatives of our city.

That's the question you're being asked.

What will you do for democracy today?

When I received my voter registration card in 1975, my mother came to me at the door when I got home from school, and she said, your poll tax arrived.

She grew up in a time as a lot of your grandparents and parents and persons in this chamber, where you had there was voter suppression.

And your vote and it was simply called the poll tax by persons of color.

You have an opportunity to not be complicit with the voter suppression that's occurring now in 2025.

I have a friend named Desmond Mead in Florida, who's in charge of an organization called Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

And Desmond's slogan for his organization is Let My People Vote.

Clearly a reference to Moses, let my people go.

And that's what we're asking you to let the people vote.

That's what will happen if you move these elections.

The other that Desmond has said is that persons closest to a pain are closest to a solution.

All morning and now into the early afternoon, you have heard from persons who know the pain, who know the pain of being denied the vote, who've been denied rights, who be denied the opportunity to be a participant.

I'm proud to be from San Antonio.

I've one of my family when I was born, my family lived in the Alazan courts.

So in my lifetime, I lived in this, what is now district five.

My mother's a single parent, acquired a house that still belongs to the family in District 9.

And upon my retirement, my wife and I lived in District 3 and now in District 10.

You have heard from citizens from each of your districts this morning and this afternoon.

Please make this change.

A gift to make it well for San Antonio.

Thank you very much.

William Ripto, followed by Adriana Addoc.

William Ripto.

Okay.

Adriana Addocks, followed by Rebecca Flores.

Good morning, Council members and community.

I am standing in for Adriana Addocks.

My name is Malodia Gutierrez.

I use she, her A pronouns, and I am a part of the human rights campaign and the human rights campaign of San Antonio.

So today we face a choice.

You face a choice.

Continue holding city elections at a time when most of our neighbors don't vote, or we have an opportunity we can grab right now to uniformly shift our elections to November.

When turnout historically surges and more people are civically engaged.

And as many have said, San Antonio is the only city who doesn't allow this and offer this opportunity.

Especially for LGBTQ plus and by communities who work hard to be seen and heard, the low turnout translates into low influence.

This means crucial decisions about police practices, housing, health care, human services, dignity in public spaces, and representation at City Hall are made by a fraction of the population.

The current situation is not equitable and it is not representative.

Moving to November is not a cure out, cure all to the turnout challenges we are faced with, but it is a clear and correct step towards fairness.

It aligns city elections with the date San Antonians and the nation at large are familiar with, expect and plan for.

It also increases the likelihood that neighbors, including queer flokes, black voters, Latina families, and others will show up.

And the bonus is that this move saves the city millions, which can instead support community programs.

Some are raising process concerns or are asking for more time.

That is reasonable, but this deadline isn't a bureaucratic squeeze.

It is a simple call to act for basic inclusion.

And we cannot let this opportunity pass us by as we will not get another easily accessible window soon.

If this opportunity is lost, we risk leaving another generation without a strong voice.

And another generation without a strong voice, even more importantly in local government.

Our time is now and we must act boldly and justly.

Council members, the power to make San Antonio more just more just does not start with rhetoric, it starts with action, which means access to the ballot.

Aligning our municipal elections with November is not just smart governance, it's about equity and action.

It's saying that in San Antonio, everyone, especially those historically excluded, counts.

I urge you to vote for practical access to voting.

I urge you to vote yes.

Thank you.

Rebecca Flores, followed by Christine Drennan.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

I live in the district five, and I have a petition that I want to give you, uh Councilmember Castillo from our from my neighbors.

But the majority of them, you know, not everyone answers their doors or they they go to sleep early or whatever.

They all said they would appreciate the move from May to November, every one of them.

And most of them recon considered the fact that it would save money.

And they talked about local issues that were going on in our neighborhood.

And let me just tell you, Terry, a couple of things.

We need speed bumps.

There's so many accidents on the corner where I live, where your mama lives too.

And that would decrease their car repairs and their car insurance.

So it's speed bumps.

So a lot of the money that you're gonna save here might go into back into the neighborhoods.

And my neighbor just said that her landlady was increasing her rent because of the water, uh the water fees that are going to be increased.

And so we're all suffering, right?

That neighborhood is suffering.

And so when you look at the maybe, hopefully, the uh the cost that we could save with the May election, the May runoff, and all of that.

Dig it back into our communities.

If not for this, then at least for civic uh education uh engagement.

You know, the Project Marvel vote did something.

It really, I saw so much interest in this vote, so much interest.

I could not believe the numbers of people who are going to the district district meetings, right, and talking and asking questions that were so pertinent to this Project Marvel election.

Project Marvel did not have a mandate when they when they won this election.

Even though they put in 12 million dollars or 15 million dollars, uh the other side did the Spurs side did.

These are the billionaires who are who own this company.

They wanted to win.

And the question, of course, is always why.

And of course, the reason, of course, is always that they want more and more money for themselves.

So Project Marvel was marvelous for us because it really engaged people.

So now instead of focusing on this, vote on it, vote on the motion, vote for it, but then focus your energies on what's gonna be the next steps for Project Marvel, because we are interested, very interested in where our taxpayer money is going to.

And I think that we have to do every we have to watch every step, every step, all of you of this term agreement, so that we make sure that the taxpayers in the city of San Antonio don't get continuously built by the billionaires in the city.

So please vote for the motion, Terry.

I leave you the petitions, okay?

Thank you.

Christine Drennan, followed by Dr.

Carmen Tefola, good afternoon.

Hold on.

My name is Christine Drenan.

I'm a resident of District One, and I chair the urban studies program at Trinity University.

Elections are the one opportunity in which most of us are able to participate in the political process.

Yet our political climate nationwide is not conducive to voting or to participation.

In fact, it's discouraged.

Moving and eliminating voting places, changing voting requirements, introducing additional identification requirements are intended to discourage participation nationwide.

And now the city of San Antonio seems to join the game.

Rather than extending the franchise to include more people, we choose to maintain a confusing obfuscating calendar that discourages participation.

Since the 1970s, the city of San Antonio has extended the franchise.

And the people who fought and implemented that that are here now in this room.

And now this council wants to reverse that trend and go backwards.

And why?

To a lot of us, it seems that this is self-preservation for you alone.

San Antonio has been a safe haven during this otherwise tumultuous years, dictated by a national administration, and now it feels like we're falling in line.

And I'm it and it's embarrassing that the city, which has been a forefront in inclusion and in equity and and in and in just um extending this franchise to all to all members of the of the community now seems to be following the national trend of backing up and reversing that and inotional, but it in minimizing voter participation.

Thank you.

She's not here.

Okay.

Deanne Quayer, followed by Isabel Galvan.

Hello.

Help me.

Hi.

Hi, my name is uh Deanne Quare.

I'm a district one resident.

Um I'm here today's the fourth day of my vacation.

Uh haven had a vacation in a really long time, just saying that because you know, I'm not here for work.

And I decided today to talk about time since I'm here um on my vacation.

Um I said that because um I was thinking about that what I wanted to say last night.

I was thinking about how often as an elitist act activists we make fun of people who stand in line for chicken on a stick or stand in line to get an autograph by somebody at Comic Con.

Or we just make fun of people who stand in line instead of standing in line for voting.

And then I was thinking about how precious time is, um, and that those people are staying in time because they're they're saying in time for an experience with their family, and um kind of like the same way we stand in time to vote because that's how much how important that experience is.

And I was thinking about the economy of moving the election.

I was just thinking about how you can't buy time, you know.

And there's people in this room today, um, and there's people in my life who all they want is more time, you know.

So I just feel like as a San Antonian, time is something we cannot put a price on.

And as a Jew and as a queer person, I think about even though I'm not might not be always practicing Sabbath on every Friday and every Saturday, I really value my Saturdays off and the opportunity and privilege and the power that I have to take that Saturday off.

And so I'm wondering by moving the election that we're giving back San Antonians something that doesn't have a price, which is an extra day.

It's time.

Um, anyway, I'll end with this.

I'm that my talking points about time is also about how um I'm emotionally makes me feel about this issue.

Um, as someone who's lost time due to my health and my disabilities.

So I'm here because I'm concerned about the city moving on from this election and voting no.

I also want to stop when I think about time at all.

Dolores Huerta's not here.

I was actually thinking about her too last night, was washing dishes because she gave me a piece of advice a long time ago that said, like, um, you know, just do the dishes, they don't have to be clean, but at least they're done.

Um, right?

She's like, you know, um, so I feel like if we don't vote yes for this, that we are not saying that people in our community are not important, that they that we're reserving this time for the few.

Um, and I I think that um that there's evidence and the data exists that we should support this.

And I feel like election timing is not a scheduling detail, it's a power choice.

And voting no is choosing a rig system and a status quo.

And historically, San Antonians, our leaders have worked to expand the circle of who counts, and I trust that you will continue to do so.

Thank you.

Isabel Galván, followed by Kate Sanchez, Isabel Galvan.

Kate Sanchez.

Followed by Michael Valdez.

Oh my gosh, we made it.

I need some matcha and some tacos.

Um I guess didn't anticipate that many people to sign up, so that's amazing to see that people care.

Um, yeah, my name is Kate Sanchez.

I am the senior manager of organizing and advocacy for Planned Parenthood South Texas.

Um, I'm a uh current uh a resident of district two.

Uh but we have clinics in districts one, three, six, seven, and ten.

Um, still waiting to hear back from a couple of you on the tours.

So I'll keep I'll keep my inbox open.

Um, but yeah, I wanted to come here today to speak in support of the potential of moving municipal elections to November.

Um, our passion is providing health care and health education to the community, of course.

We also very much engage in nonpartisan get out the vote efforts.

Uh, we do this because we know that voting is the voting process, excuse me, must be made clear, easily accessible, timely, relevant, and that's if we want all people, including people with marginalized identities, to participate in the democratic process.

Data from several universities and research institutes show that off-cycle elections are likely not an accurate representation of the community at large.

They tend to see turnout from affluent voters and special interest groups.

For Texas, San Antonio actually has a higher voter turnout uh than other cities, as has been said by multiple people here, but we still only see 10 to 15% of registered voters coming out.

So that's 80 to 90% of people not having their voice heard or making their voice heard.

Uh data also shows that when major Texas cities move their municipal elections, they saw um higher voter turnout.

So our city will become more vibrant and it will be it's just a better, tighter knit community when more people engage in the democratic process.

Um right now, in the moment we're living in with great frequency, we're seeing a pattern in legislation that restricts and silences uh groups who are marginalized, and this includes healthcare that we're very familiar with at Planned Parenthood, but also gerrymandering that we're seeing at the state level.

Um when we're living in an environment that is this hostile, we understand and very much appreciate the urgency, Mayor Jones.

Thank you for bringing this up.

Um we want San Antonio voters to be engaged in creating a community that we all want to see.

We also very much appreciate council members wanting to hear from their constituents and get them involved.

Um we remain curious and optimistic about that.

Ultimately, if the goal is for San Antonio to see higher voter turnout and civic engagement, this initiative might provide that, then Planned Parenthood South Texas stands in support of it in the hopes that will help us reach um a more representative vote and community.

So thank you all.

Michael Valdez, followed by Pete Bernal.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

My name is Michael Valdez.

I'm speaking on behalf of myself, but I'm also a UTSA student, and I live in District 6 in the beautiful Edward Independent School District.

I'm here today for this important conversation regarding the proposal to move the city of San Antonio elections from May to November in odd years.

I support this proposal, and I believe it presents an opportunity to strengthen local democracy.

It is also important to acknowledge that we have a lot of work to do to align seven local school districts that are not aligned in the November odd year election cycle and the Southwest Independent School District, who is not on the present presentation provided by the city staff and school districts that are in the presidential and governor election, such as Edgewood, South SAN, and East Central.

Cities and school districts serve the same communities and the same voters.

Some school districts even have November election days off for students.

This is an opportunity for young people and their families to learn about being civically engaged.

And our public schools are the ones that open their doors as polling sites.

Less elections means safer schools because anyone can walk into a school during a polling site, and that means less disruption to improve student success.

The city has a role to play as a partner in strengthening local democracy across all institutions.

There are also cost considerations of consolidated elections can reduce per voter costs, and if this change results in savings, those resources should be reinvested in youth services and civic engagement efforts so young people are better equipped and encouraged to participate in our democratic process.

Ultimately, this decision should be about collaboration, alignment, and a shared commitment to improving democratic participation at every level of local governance, including our schools and our community colleges.

I also think we always have to be in the mindset of looking at our city and our school systems together.

San Antonio is different from places like Dallas or Houston that mainly work with one large school district.

We have more than 16 independent school districts, which make collaboration harder, but it also is important.

If we are serious about improving democracy and civic engagement, the city has to work with school districts as partners and treat local governance as one connected system.

I also want to thank and amplify the young youth commissioner whose speech was read today and supported this measure.

Thank you for your time.

Right now, he just spoke on Southwest ISD.

Let me tell you about a veteran who ran for the Southwest ISD board and was a victim of the not aligning with the city.

When when that currently uh the elections in 2020, we had we were forcefully Southwest ISD was forceful to go to elections in November.

In November, one of the board, uh, one of the person that ran was a vet.

And this vet won with 30,800 votes.

He won that election, beating incumbent of over 40 years.

The next thing that happened was three years later, they choose to go with another municipality, not San Antonio, which they didn't want their voters.

They say there was those voters shouldn't uh don't have the same uh perspective as Southwest.

So therefore, I lost me being the vet, I lost my election with 400 votes.

This I'm telling you, this is a way that creates barriers.

Now, this is your opportunity to fix this.

This is a time for you all of you to come together and afford opportunity to all voices to be heard.

This is a time for opportunity, not just for don't make it personal.

If you're gonna be personal about something else, be a person about another issue, but let people vote.

The issue is right now we shouldn't be it's focusing on the people being able to vote and be able to go to the polls.

Right now, Southwest IZ creates barriers in creating uh a different ballot, a different place to vote, a different place, even to vote for uh Mr.

Mujia as a councilman.

It's it's crazy how they can use this and don't use this to do that.

Don't be Southwest ISD.

Be the city of San Antonio, be your own people and move the elections to to November.

Thank you.

Lupita Gonzalez, followed by Selena Montoya.

Thank you.

Before my clock begins, I need uh support with slides.

Thank you.

Mayor, City Council.

Um, I provided some slides for you.

The very first page has a pie chart.

So uh my name is Lupita Gonzalez, and I'm with the Thrive Advisory specializing in the intersection of policy analysis, effective governance, and strategy development.

According to the 2024 status of poverty report, one in two San Antans struggle to afford basic necessities, or are one emergency away from financial instability?

I'm gonna repeat that again.

According to the 2024 status of poverty report, one in two San Antonians struggle to afford basic necessities or are one emergency away from financial instability instability.

I work with think tanks, policy organizations, and public institutions to evaluate how policy design affects access, legitimacy, and outcomes, especially for residents facing predictable barriers.

I'm here to offer an equity impact perspective on the question of election timing.

Not as a political argument, but as a governance one.

May municipal elections consistently produce very low turnout.

When participation is this limited, election outcomes reflect who can overcome barriers, and it's not the full city of San Antonio.

That is not a failure of civic responsibility, it's a predictable outcome of system design, and that fails our wide citizenry.

Can you go back to the chart?

Thank you.

Yes.

Um, if you look at this chart, I'm not gonna go word for word, but um, there's some populations that already uh representatives of these populations spoke.

For example, disability.

Um the May election timing, um, it's there's more barriers for people with disabilities.

Um, it's a straight green light for the November election for uh people from the different populations that uh experience barriers from the May election as opposed to the uh November election.

So feel free to dive in as I speak.

Um the residents most affected by May elections, meaning who are excluded due to systemic barriers are hourly and low-wage workers, care let's keep it there, please on the chart.

Sorry.

Um systemic barriers are hourly and low-wage workers, caregivers and single parents, public transit-dependent residents and younger voters.

Um simply look at the slides, and um I think that uh in order to honor our democracy, we need to have our elections moved to November.

Thank you.

Selina Montoya, followed by Debbie Jennings.

Good morning.

My name is Selena Montoya, and normally right about now I would actually be um singing jingle bells with the classroom of four-year-olds.

So in this case, I felt being here this morning was a little bit more important.

Um I'm an active voter, a frequent volunteer, and a sometimes consultant for candidates running for office ranging from school board to national races.

I'm also the board chair of a statewide organization called Annie's List.

There we support women who are running for office while also recruiting and training individuals who support them.

This year alone, we supported more than 150 such candidates across the state.

I'm here today to speak in support of holding municipal elections in November.

This move has significant potential benefits, not only for the city, but for candidates and especially for voters.

We've heard that from the city that there are potential cost savings approaching a million dollars, and in this case, I'll note that in Dallas, where they recently passed this, they passed a unana support for this, their cost savings were about half that.

In my world, I focus on candidates, especially first-time candidates.

Let me remind there are people just like you who maybe ran for the first time recently.

They are like myself as well.

They're homeroom parents, PTA volunteers, parents and grandparents of public school students.

They're running because they want to make a significant contribution to their communities.

Many find that when they knock on doors for their first time, their potential constituents are often unaware that there even is an election.

In my own community of Almo Heights, half the time the election is canceled for lack of candidates to consider.

Making this move has the capacity to increase voter awareness and candidate enthusiasm, which in turn leads to greater community engagement and connection.

Our first speaker, the Honorable Delar Suerte, named states like California, where municipalities experienced turnout rates as low as ours, have in fact mandated to hold their elections in November.

And I can tell you that personally in precincts with even the highest voter turnout, we see a market decrease in May elections.

This year the state legislature has given us an unexpected opportunity, albeit with the deadline, to make an evidence-based change toward easing voter confusion, increasing turnout, and promoting democracy.

So to summarize cost savings, candidate support, community engagement, and voter turnout are all compelling reasons to support moving municipal elections to November, and to do so by the state mandate mandated deadline of December 31st.

I know we're all giving up something today, being here today, whether that's paid time off, family obligations, or in my case, the joyful sounds of a class of four-year-olds.

So in closing, I hope in voting to approve this change, you'll also accept the gift of time you will each receive as a result.

Thank you for your consideration.

Debbie Jennings, followed by Larry Romo.

Debbie Jennings.

Okay.

Larry Romo, followed by Jack Finger.

Good afternoon, Mayor Jones, City Council members.

My name is Larry Romo.

I'm a proud born and raised military city USA, San Antonian, Hindside School graduate, United States Air Force Academy graduate, 28 years of military service veteran, former United States Selective Service System Director, and currently serve as a LULAC National Vice President for Military and Veterans, and a former National American GF Forum commander.

We salute your service, Mayor and Council members to you for our city by your service to the city by ensuring you're optimizing our community wellness.

When I and other military members join the military, we take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, like you did, Mayor Mayor Jones, to be patriots and warriors to support democracy.

Clearly, most take this oath seriously.

You all took a similar oath of office support to support the laws of Texas and the United States and the United States Constitution.

You are the domestic warriors and patriots for the city of San Antonio, and to approve and defend our democracy.

Here's your opportunity to be an honored patriot and do what is right for the citizens of San Antonio.

Please support enhancing our democracy for our community.

Thank you.

Jack Finger, followed by our final speaker, Renee Gonzalez.

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

My name is Jack Finger, and uh you're taking up the idea of moving elections from May to November.

I see uh oh a couple of advantages, but mostly negatives in this one.

The uh it would yes, it would definitely avoid the fiesta area of time.

It would also avoid the Texas legislature, in case you need to go up and back and forth in Austin.

But um I also see whereby this is going to place pressure on putting in these elections, city council elections as partisan elections.

Republican and Democrat, Ms.

Gonzalez.

Yeah.

Um, but I also see uh a few many many negatives.

You say this is going to increase voter participation.

I really do not see how.

Why?

Because of this.

What do we have now?

We have May elections.

They're coupled with school board elections where you at least have names and faces of people running for school boards.

What would you have in November?

Maybe uh some bland state constitution amendments.

Maybe uh same you say it's going to save money.

Uh no.

Uh I say the same reason.

You've got the the call cost of service here coupled with school board elections.

What would you have in November?

Maybe some constitutional amendments.

It doesn't work.

No.

But the biggest bugaboo I see is this, ladies and gentlemen.

You are going to serve an extra six months in office.

We, the voters did not vote for four and a half year terms for you.

No, we didn't.

So what are you going?

What you're gonna say, well, Jack, the state legislature gave us this option.

What are we going to do about it, Jack?

We can't you want us to just quit?

Well, that might be an idea.

Here's a suggestion.

Add an amendment to this resolution saying everyone who is in office and in May 2029 shall resign.

Yeah.

Resign.

Why not?

You said you're only going to run for four years.

We expected that.

Yeah, in a random, random act of character and integrity and truthfulness.

Yes, Mayor Jones, I suggest you say I hear by Mayor Jones.

I resigned here in May 2029.

Followed by Dr.

Councilwoman Carr and Jalen and Phyllis and Edward and every single one of you.

Yeah.

Resigned in 2029.

You're going to say, well, Jack, what's going to happen there?

We couldn't have any council meetings.

Right.

I would finally get a six-month vacation.

Renee Gonzalez.

Good afternoon.

I'm sure you're glad to see the last speaker up here.

My name is René Gonzalez.

I am a district seven resident.

I have attended the town hall meetings.

I have spoken to neighbors, friends, colleagues.

And the positives have all been laid out uh before me by the scores of speakers.

The concerns I heard uh the council members had were due to cost, had to do with the school districts, had to do with extended terms and community input.

I think it's been shown today that you have plenty of community input.

You've had plenty of community organizations speaking for the resolution.

I am also for the resolution.

One of the things that upset me the most today about the testimony in front of you was when the one speaker that was speaking against the resolution mentioned that we shouldn't have it because that's too much information for the voters.

When I was a little boy, I went with my grandfather.

I remember him paying the poll tax.

It was two to four dollars then.

When I was 15, I went to work in the fields, working the watermelons.

Two hours into it, I realized that I was getting paid one dollar an hour and what it must have cost my grandfather to pay that money to vote.

I made myself a promise then that I would vote as often as I could.

My grandfather was 78.

He was still working in the fields at 78 when I was 15.

The opportunity to get more people to vote is something that we should not let pass.

And by the way, that timer should be up front to facilitate us keeping track.

But I am for getting more people to vote.

I think you have the opportunity to push this forward.

It's an opportunity of rare bipartisanship at the state legislature.

If you have some issues, personal issues with your fellow council people, put them aside.

Think of the people that are going to be benefiting from this, both in terms of cost, in terms of time, and in terms of participation.

And it's our responsibility, your responsibility to make sure that the voters know what they're voting for.

That's what we have to focus on for the next election.

Thank you.

Uh do we have a translator?

Mayor we do just give us one moment.

Okay.

Um momento, por favor.

Um Deborah Ponce, do you want to speak first while we await the translator?

Thank you.

Hello, thank you.

Um my name is Deborah Ponce.

I'm a district four resident.

Um also climate or uh climate justice organizer for a group nonprofit called public citizen and member of ECOSA.

Um my perspective as a parent and a community organizer is what I wanted to share today.

I'm speaking today, both as well as both.

I have a 24 25, 25 year old son who grew up voting with me.

From the time he was young, he was part of the process coming with me to polls to see the civic engagement as something that we just do as a family.

Um it's something that matters, and I think all of his parents, uh a lot of the ones in my circle try to do this.

Um of this continue to happen until he went off to college.

At that time, city elections had been have been in May, and so my son was studying at UT Austin during the finals, which is May season.

He simply couldn't afford the time to come home and vote.

Um November elections on the other hand were doable.

It's at the beginning of the semester, and he could plan for it.

Um so that's something I wanted y'all to think about.

Now I want to speak for about my other role as a climate justice organizer.

Texas weather is no longer what it used to be.

With climate change, extreme heat has become unsafe and very common, especially in May.

Holding elections during the hottest months creates real barriers for voters, especially parents with young children and seniors.

Um there's also a new legal issue that has popped up in our state in Texas.

Um it has become a felony for anybody to hand water to a hot voter in line during the May extreme heat.

Um it's dangerous.

And I mean, if your intent to give the water isn't to influence the vote, that's not you know that's not illegal, but how are you gonna be able to prove that intent?

So it continues to be um dangerous.

And last thing I'd like for you to consider is um business owners.

Um many business owners offer paid voting hours.

My my company does, my nonprofit does.

We get paid four hours.

So our companies are paying four hours to all of their employees twice a year.

And now that's gonna be reduced to once a year for all the voters, all the business owners throughout our city.

Um that's huge savings for business owners who are a lot of them are struggling right now.

Um those are a few of the other ideas that I thought of that weren't said earlier, and thank you for allowing me the time to vote.

I mean to speak.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Well, for the migrant community, very poor and forgotten, but very hard working.

Today, more than ever is a very important election.

Because we are being um we are um being hit by facing hostile policies, even because even ICE has permission to kill us.

Yes, that is to kill to be killed with uh being frightened.

The commun the hard working community, the consumers.

We all um I'm I'm asking you that we only have one date, just one election, so that we don't miss any vote.

Because we need a change in policies.

We need equality, human rights, equity, to make just one election in November is going to help us survive.

Sobrevivir que vamos a tener cambios porque hoy solo resistemos.

Estamos siendo golpeadas because we are being hit because everything is very expensive.

We have to make choices and see if we're going to pay the rent or we're going to eat.

If we buy medication, or we pay everything that we have to pay.

That was our final speaker.

Is there a motion and a second for approval so we may begin discussion?

I make a motion to approve.

Okay.

Councilwoman Via Grania recognized.

Thank you, Mayor.

I want to thank all the speakers who came out today to speak.

And to understand that there are many reasons I'm here, but one of them is because seeing her in a video, watching her use her voice, I knew I could too.

So I remember the first time I saw her, and I was like, she's a brown girl like me.

And to come full circle here to be able to sit and have her speak and ask us to vote and to vote unanimously on this decision.

And what we have right now is an opportunity to move an election to November in the odd years for the time being in the odd years and have the opportunity not have not to not have to go to the state and lobby for this in the next session or the session after that.

We could work something out with a charter amendment if if the people want to.

This is what children learn, this is what they understand, this is what they're programmed to do.

Whether it's an odd year or an even year, they know that there's an election day in November.

So this is about voter turnout at its heart.

The state of Texas needs to do a better job of getting voters out.

This is not a party issue.

This is a getting people out issue.

We in the state of Texas are falling behind other states that are smaller than us, but get more attention.

Why?

Because they have a larger voter turnout.

And that is what whether wherever you sit, and we're independent here, or you know, this is a nonpartisan race up here, uh, and I'm Team Texas, Texas needs to do better.

And if we can help the state of Texas to do better by moving our municipal elections to November because we know people will go come out and vote for a municipal election, we should do that.

I understand this feels rushed.

And I've you know, I've got um Harlandell, San Antonio, and South Tide to contend with, and I'm willing to help anybody on the dais with their school districts that sit outside also.

But I sent out a poll, and it was it was a very it was three questions.

You know, three questions, and the answer was yes, no, or unsure, it doesn't matter if we move the elections.

And it was it was a week, maybe plus a few days, and it ended.

And of my voters, because this is holiday season, um, of voters or community members, because we didn't ask, a hundred and twenty-four responded, and ninety-one said move it to November.

So that's 73%.

So I am sure mathematically, and this is a small universe, and I didn't and I was I did not even poll my seniors, and I had my senior party with over 400 people, but I did not take them the survey because I felt it would be slanted.

Because they were having a party.

But I'm sure if we go in or we do this, and I know y'all want input, but the input is going to be the same.

It is just gonna be the same.

What we have right now is opportunity.

So I hear your concerns.

I'm here to help, and I ask that you vote, and we can get this unanimously, that everybody sitting on the dais that takes a vote, votes to move the elections to November.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who came out today.

Uh it was a long session, so please give yourselves a round of applause.

And I want to especially recognize all of those who have been doing this work on the ground for a very long time.

Uh, and I'd especially like to extend my gratitude to Miss Uloda Sueta, an icon in the civil rights and labor movement.

I also remember in uh high school watching a video about uh various civil rights movements and watching her play such a major role, and so it was an honor to uh get to hear her speak.

She has put in her time and made our state and country much stronger and much more equitable, and I feel it very deeply in my heart and spirit that she felt our community here in San Antonio was worth her time, effort, and presence.

It means something to me that organizations like League of Women Voters, Move Texas, Radical Registrars, Southwest Voters Registration Education Project, Cops Metro, Act for SA, Texas Organizing Project, Unite Here, former councilwoman uh Barrio Sobal, who has also put in her time to make our community better and pave the way for many of us to be here today.

Uh and I know this list is not exhaustive, there are so many more.

It means something to me that the people who have committed their lives to this work that they want this move.

I want to say I I've previously heard my colleagues dismiss some of the arguments that we heard today because a few of you have referenced turnout in November of even years, which isn't on the table.

So I want to be clear, y'all know this will be in November of odd years, right?

Yes, okay.

So y'all are still supportive?

Okay.

Just wanted to do that double check real quick.

If we convened a stakeholder group, it would consist of members of all of these organizations.

Many of us have put out surveys, like we just heard from Councilman of Via Grande.

We're seeing that the vast majority of our residents want to see these elections be moved.

Sure, we may prefer elections to be consolidated on cycle, but that's not on the table, and it will not be for the foreseeable future.

A charter amendment where we ask voters to vote on a change that then relies on us to go lobby for state action and then asking the state to approve the change and extend the deadline for us again, only for us to take another vote, is not only unlikely, but it is also passing the buck.

And it'll be passing the buck to each of these organizations who made time to be here today to organize again and again when we could make their jobs so much easier right now.

Voters elected us to do all of the little day-to-day things, be knowledgeable and cast votes on the mundane, but they also expect that we will vote in their best interest even on a time crunch when it matters most.

Future action is hypothetical and it is not on the table.

What is on the table was what we saw this past November.

Over a hundred thousand voters who otherwise would not have shown up to the polls, cast their votes for not just our county propositions, but for statewide constitutional amendments.

We have an opportunity to not just increase the number of people voting on city council and mayors and some school board seats, but they'll also be voting on statewide issues.

It was asked earlier if it was an option for another city to move their elections from November to May, would they?

And the answer is probably no.

So I want to share a little anecdote with y'all.

In 2010, a majority black board was elected to the Sumter County School Board for the first time in history.

Black residents showed up in record numbers to have their voices heard, and it worked.

However, one month after the election and before the new candidates could take office, the board voted to change the district lines, add two new at large districts, and move the elections from November to May.

Now, why would they do that?

Because voters in May are wider and more affluent, and you'll often hear the claim that this is an informed electorate.

But what it really means is these are the preferred voters, and they are the historical voters who have been targeted time and time again.

And anyone else who is going to show up in that election will have to go out of their way to become informed and have to go out of their way to vote.

Candidates will have to knock on doors twice as often to get unlikely voters to turn out, and it's because of every barrier designed to prevent them from coming out in May.

May elections occur outside of what we know to be voting season, and most voters do not know an election is happening.

We hear it at the doors constantly.

Every May.

Oh, there's an election happening.

I just voted in November.

You heard it how many times today for speakers.

May elections also directly conflict with academic calendars and impose higher opportunity costs for, as we've heard previously, working class voters navigating end-of-school schedules, child care disruptions, and summer transitions in a way that does not exist the first week of November.

You heard about the heat, you heard from healthcare workers who expressed from their perspective the barriers that May elections pose.

And I want to end with some numbers for y'all.

We put out a survey to District 2 residents asking for their thoughts, and 82% said yes.

Over 300 responses.

82% said yes.

I don't know of a single survey with that many respondents that gets that kind of that kind of answer unless you've just said, Do you want more money for District 2?

And everybody would say yes.

I also looked at turnout from 2015 to 2025 for odd May elections, even May elections, an odd November election.

So bear with me.

Our odd year May elections, which include our city council elections, yield an average of 12.8% turnout.

Even numbered May elections, which feature bonds, primary runoffs, Alamo Colamo community college trustees, and state propositions see 5.18% turnout.

November of odd years, largely with just constitutional amendments on the ballot, sees almost 10% turnout, double that of a May election with damn near nothing on the ballot.

Our constituents will show up in November of odd years at a rate that rivals our May elections, our city council elections.

I also looked at turnout in nine precincts at each of the six colleges, UIW, Trinity, Olu, Tamoosa, St.

Mary's, and UTSA.

These are the nine precincts in the city made up primarily of students.

We see turnout double in November of odd years for constitutional amendments compared to May of even years, even when there is even more to vote for, such as, again, like I said, primary runoffs, constitutional amendments in Alamo Colleges, uh trustees in the bonds.

So if we give voters something to vote for, could you imagine the turnout that would happen organically, all because we eliminated the barriers that exist in May?

I know many of my colleagues.

Thank you.

I know many of my colleagues came here with an idea of how they'd vote, and I do hope that many of you were moved by by the comments that we heard today.

I would hate to return to the city to the days of citizens to be ignored.

I hope my colleagues who champion issues of human rights, labor, and civic engagement recognize this as the opportunity it is.

So for me, this is a very easy decision.

I will be voting yes.

And I hope that today this council does the right thing and follows suit.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo, thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to all the members of the public.

And as I mentioned during last week's conversation, elections are pillar to our democracy, and discussion and action on changing when our residents participate in elections requires thorough due diligence.

There is power in convening, debating, disagreement, and et cetera.

And one area of concern uh was hit on by Julia.

What we know that four out of the five ISCs that have their elections in May uh of odd years are in district five, which is very unique in comparison to other city council districts that we have four that would be impacted by this decision.

Um, with the exception of Edgewood, but theirs is an even years as cited.

They have higher participation, but it's in an even year, not an odd year.

Now, as a council member who supports public education and has gone far enough to the Texas Capitol to challenge the defunding of our schools.

This is a discussion that we should be having in coalition and in coordination with our independent school districts.

Again, my area uh of concern was hit on by a couple of members of the public who touched on the importance of public education.

And further, when attending SEIC closure meetings, as an observer, because I'm not a school board member, um, there were several instances in which members of the public, district five parents raised their hand and said, Where's our councilwoman?

We need our councilwoman to fight along our public schools.

And luckily, I was there to say, here, taking note, ready to fight alongside you all.

So what's important is that District 5 residents are tired of electeds passing the book.

And me saying SIC, Harland know they could figure that out on their own is unacceptable, especially when we know the state of public education in the state of Texas and how we continue to see public education defunded by the state.

You know, the school board member that gave public comment today, uh he emphasized that uh it's unclear, it's it's it's not clear the costs associated with this action today.

But what is clear was the conversation that I had at a Roosevelt Neighborhood Association meeting last night with a parent who said, Terry, I need to sit down with you because they're having conversations about the nearby feeder school on closure within the west side of District 5.

And we're also concerned, and what's clear is that because of the defunding by the state, this parent has seen her school going from having one librarian to one librarian she's sharing with multiple campuses to no librarian within her child to elementary school.

And that's unacceptable.

And what's clear is that we cannot throw our independent school districts to figure and fend on their own.

Yes, they will figure it out, but we owe it to the children of this city that we collaborate and bring all stakeholders together to come upon a decision in coalition in coordination.

And I cannot serve on an educational opportunities committee while taking an action that's going to potentially take dollars out of our public schools.

Now, going back to the point that this is unclear, there's opportunity for us to get the data and input from our superintendents from our school board members to ensure that we are not going to leave them to take funding out of the classrooms and into uh other parts of the budget.

I believe we owe it to San Antonio residents to work in coalition and in coordination again for the betterment of our schools.

You know, what's also important to highlight is that through this conversation, I agree with the overall intent of today's deliberation.

I agree with some of the speakers who gave comment today that highlighted there's a lot of community members who are missing from this room.

And I value that there's district five residents who did have a one-on-one conversation with the mayor in terms of this initiative.

But all District 5 residents, all 146 residents that I represent, deserve and expect and demand that same conversation.

So I believe it's important that we continue to have these conversations, work with our state delegation on how we can materialize changing the election dates.

But this is something that should not be made without the masses.

I do find it quite ironic that we're talking about uh voting, but saying we don't need to take this to a vote.

And I think there's importance in ensuring that we have the conversations with residents all throughout the city about what this means to their to their elections and ultimately how they elect their representatives.

This is a representative government, and I do not take lightly having such a hasty 2218-day conversation about how we elect our representatives.

A couple of other pieces I think that are a value to highlighting.

Uh, I want to thank Rebecca for giving me the survey, and this is something that we've also heard from District 5 residents who are supportive of this change is that it's going to save 800 to 1 million dollars.

Uh so I did uh have a question for city staff or Debbie, our city clerk who oversees elections uh in terms of cost savings with analysis and looking at the history, will we be saving 800 to 1 million dollars with action today?

And just for clarity, that was a question I posed to the city manager, and that was his initial response.

So with that.

Yes, councilwoman.

So the anticipated savings or estimated savings that the city manager provided to the mayor was anywhere between 800 and 1 million dollars.

That said, it is difficult to determine what those savings will be, as we don't know what entities will be participating during that election.

So that was just an estimate that the city manager provided at the time.

And thank you for that, because as Eric mentioned, right, it's uncertain, and as our ISUs have mentioned, it's unclear.

And when we're taking such a huge action, like changing our elections, it should be very clear.

We should have those solid core numbers in front of us and making a decision like we are proposed to make today.

Uh now, again, I do share uh the intent of this conversation.

Um, I appreciate all the academics who gave public comment today.

There's this really good book called Mastery Adrift, Professional Class Liberals since the 1960s, and it talks about the invisible and the the rather the disappearing voter, right?

And this made me think about something my colleague brought up uh last week in terms of low voter turnout in terms of marginalized communities.

And it made me think about in May when I was knocking on doors to a registered voter who said, I'm not participating this time, because I have a mixed status family, and I'm worried that my action somehow will put me on a list to be targeted by Homeland Security, right?

So highlighting that yes, we could go to folks who are engaged, but there's a lot of concerns in why people are not participating in municipal elections.

Further, we also know that the United States and Texas incarcerates more folks than Russia, Korea, and any other uh nation.

And what that comes are groups of individuals, classes of individuals that we see in District 5 in particular that are excluded from participating in elections.

And while the state of Texas is unique in that if you're uh done with parole, two years off of pro, you can't participate.

The majority of folks don't have that understanding.

And I was talking to someone in the historic West Side off of Vadelupe, just introducing myself, catching up, uh, shared what I did.

They asked how I got my job.

I said, you know, like knock on doors, right?

And we talked to engaged voters and get them to participate in the process.

And I asked if he was registered to vote, and he said, No, I'm a felon.

And I'm like, well, are you off the papers?

He's like, yeah.

And I'm like, well, if you're off of papers, two years off the papers, you can register and participate in the process.

He's like, I'm not gonna touch that, not risking going back, not gonna touch that.

So I think while we're talking about engaging low voter turnout, we have to talk about the disappearing voters.

And I know many of y'all touched in terms of folks uh the voter suppression with the ID laws, so on and so forth.

Um, but I believe you know that's where we should continue to advocate to ensure that we could bring more individuals into the process.

Um, but I believe going back to the key point, it should be done in collaboration, in coalition, uh, with key organizations and institutions, especially our independent school districts, given how we continue to see them divested, defunded.

And again, going back to the conversation with the parent yesterday, not only did she highlight that the librarian uh no longer existed uh at Rodriguez Elementary School, and it's the parents that now have to stalk the shelves, but she also pointed to the asbestos in the windows, right?

So again, this is something that our kids are inhaling, breathing, and then of course not having access to libraries within their schools in district five.

Uh so I look forward uh to having more conversations about if this is a priority uh for council to continue to work with uh our state delegated agency.

Um but I did have some more questions that I'll circle back in terms of how council comes up with our legislative agenda, how councils prioritize what are our priorities, and again, emphasizing that through that practice and process, our team works with Jeff, works with Sally on what our priorities are, and then we follow those bills and we track them so that way we're not caught off guard and left with 18 days to make an important decision.

Um but I'll circle back to ask those questions.

Thank you, Mary.

Councilman Galvania.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you to everybody who signed up to speak today and folks who have filled out the district six survey as well as reached out to my office directly and to myself directly by phone call, by email in person.

Uh I really appreciate the conversation we're having uh here and overall about this comp about this particular point, uh, because it's something that uh I'm very close to.

Uh as I talked about last week during our B session, uh, prior to being on council, a lot of my work uh was being uh a deputy field organizer for Techstream Network, doing a lot of voter registration, canvassing, voter turnout, getting the pledge to vote cards writing, making sure that people were going out to vote, particularly young voters, whether they're at college or not, uh on campus or not.

That was the work that I've done.

And it was just until last year that I stopped being a VDR because I started doing this thing called campaigning, and it became very tough to make some time for that.

But uh it is still something that's very important to me, and I still have VDRs who work for me in my office because we are committed to making sure that people have access to vote uh here in our community at any election that comes around.

I uh I really appreciate the the whole conversation about the data in the turn.

I think that is our goal.

That is my goal is making sure that as we are, if we are looking to move elections, no matter whether it's an even year or an odd year or whatever it is, that we are moving elections so that we have increased voter turnout, not just in a election that is already low turnout, but in the actual number of participants that we're looking for here, right?

That means people who don't traditionally vote.

To me, that means looking for working class voters, means making sure that uh voters of color, making sure renters, making sure young people, people who again who don't traditionally vote in our local elections do turn out.

And what does that based on the research, including the ones uh from common cause from is uh from Dr.

Marchell's uh research from the University of Chicago's research from Tufts University's research, what we know turns people out, particularly folks who are not uh engaged in the process or who don't typically vote in local elections.

There's a couple different things.

One, it is timing, right?

We know for sure in November elections, people do turn out more.

It is also resources and competitive elections.

There's races that are more interesting because of more competition, folks turn out to vote.

There's more inspiring candidates, people turn out to vote when people with a lot of resources or the elections themselves have more resources to turn people out, mailers, phone calls, door knocking, people turn out more.

It's also polling access, right?

Having a voter, having a polling site nearby you where you live in your community is very critical to make sure that you go out to vote as well.

Um today we're talking about the timing, right?

And on the timing point, as I mentioned, the November election is when we know turnout is higher.

When it's in an even year, we know that for a fact.

Well, this past election was a big different, right?

We knew uh we know that the November 2025 election that we had was a lot higher than our own municipal election and any other constitutional amendment election in the past probably 10 plus years, um, primarily because there was resources invested in it, 12, 13 million dollars invested there to bring out canvasers to bring out more folks.

It was a competitive election, high media attention, high interest in this conversation.

So we saw more turnout, which is great.

The same thing can happen in an even year election, regardless, because there is always that media attention.

There is always that focus.

There is always that voter engagement.

There is all those things happening at the same time during an even year because it's aligned with the federal election, or at least uh a state election, a statewide election, with a candidate on there.

That's what the data shows.

In the is timing uh is timing everything uh report by Dr.

Marshall uh and Dr.

Lapy, it states very clearly, like other studies, we find that turnout is dramatically higher in mayoral elections held concurrently with midterm and especially presidential elections compared to those of off-cycle years.

That's just clear.

It doesn't matter when it's November or if it's in May or if it's in the summer, it's in odd years that we see the same typical regular voters who always vote in these elections, a small amount turn out to vote in them versus young voters versus working class voters versus people of color versus renters.

And so that's what continues to make me struggle on this issue is that point.

If our intent is to get folks out to vote who don't traditionally vote, we have to look at even years.

And of course, we know our options are limited.

We know that.

The state law is very limited, making sure that's only odd year election that we can do.

And I guess my my point there on that is that no matter what happens today, whether this motion fails or goes forward, I believe it's critical.

And I'm asking everybody on this council, all of my colleagues, as well as folks in the public, folks I've worked with in the past, folks who I continue to work with every single day, that we keep pushing.

We don't settle for this one.

As difficult as it may be, getting our state state delegation together is gonna be critical in that moment.

But it's important that we continue moving forward to move to an even year election.

If we want to see turnout increase, what I don't want to do is I don't want to sell people this idea that we'll see a massive turnout because the data does not show that.

It does not show that we'll see a massive turnout in November.

We may see marginal increase, and that's fine, and we can have that conversation about that, and I think it's an okay thing to talk about.

But if our focus is to get these folks who traditionally don't vote in these elections to turn out in our local elections, we've seen it done already.

Just last year, when we had this election about uh our city charter amendments, right?

About these things that were not candidates, they're ballot propositions, they're about our terms, they're about our pay, they're about city workers being able to vote or being able to politically participate uh in elections on their own time.

When we had that in November of 2024, an even year, a presidential year, 400,000 people voted on those, each of one of those propositions.

That is a four times roughly increase of what we normally see in our own May elections.

Compare that to when we see any other kind of November odd elections, it's completely down.

9%, 2%.

And so I'm I'm hopeful that by moving this election, we can see an increase there, but I'm worried that's gonna be the same group of people.

That's my big concern.

Is that a win for us?

Saying that this election that's already low turnout is gonna now have new turnout, but it's the same people who were just voting in May earlier that year.

If that's the case, what did we effectively do here?

Am I hopeful that it will create that culture of voting?

Yes, I do believe that.

I participated and organized national voteration days, last day registered to vote, Constitution Day actions at UT, at UTSA, at SAC.

Uh, I've been part of that work before.

Uh, even at Texas AM University, where there was a lot of pushback from the uh administration to allow us to even register voters on campus.

And we still did it.

And we did the pledge to vote cards, and we did the turnout.

And because there wasn't the resources there on the focus of the election, because it wasn't competitive, because it was uh in an odd year election, we didn't see the youth turn out in that same way.

And I want that to happen.

That's the reason I'm here.

I want to see that happen.

But we know when it happens is when it's a big election in an even year.

2018, 2022, 2020, 2024.

It just isn't in those other elections.

And and it frustrates me that that's the kind of the focus here, and that's it's become that conversation about this will be the the not silver bullet, but it'll be a big step in that direction.

I I don't know if that's true.

And it pains me to say that because I just I don't think it's true.

I don't see the data on it.

Uh we have limited amount.

I know mesquite's the one kind of exception, and I appreciate that one too.

And it's still even then 10% of their turnout.

The increase was double, but it was the 10%.

And so I'm just trying to make this best decision here on this with the data that we have.

And the information that we have.

With the data we've had for 40 plus years from multiple researchers from across the country, from organizations that do this work every single day, who have identified this issue already, and it's always been about even years.

And we're stuck with the solution.

I get it's a tough it's not our cho a choice to have this one.

Uh but I don't know if it if it's worth moving on that point for that very reason.

I think I I felt the same way earlier this year with one of my first big votes around uh the term sheet for the the sports stadium, sports entertainment district.

And during that conversation, I had to weigh the kind of feeling that I have now of my love for this particular entity, right?

This is the Spurs for this, it's voting right to making sure that we're doing this.

But is this the most effective way to do this?

Is the data clear that we're looking at?

Are we gonna be responsible to our community by doing this this action?

At that point, I said no for that point.

No data supported the fact that municipal municipalities funding stadiums uh would bring economic development.

I still think that's true.

I still have not seen data change on that.

If anything, I've seen it increase on that.

For this issue, too.

I think it's very similar.

Maybe not the same thing.

I think there's different things we can do here, right?

We can do a lot more on this than we can done with that one.

But I think it's the same kind of thought process I've been going through about what kind of data are we using here?

What are we looking at to make our informed decision?

And so I that's why I've been torn with it.

The ISDs are important to me as well.

That's something that I talked about frequently about my role at the education opportunities committee.

But the the real the real heart of this has been the turnout piece.

I'll leave my comments there and I may come back around just to make my decision, but that that's where I'm at.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

Um Councilwoman Alderate Gabito.

Thank you.

Uh, I also want to thank the speakers who uh came out today.

Thank you for y'all's engagement on on this important issue.

I want to start off by saying this.

Uh uh every single person on this day has a shared goal of increasing voter turnout.

No matter where we're at on this argument, all of us want to increase voter turnout.

I think there's a I hate this phrase, but there's a couple different ways to skin a cat.

Um I need another phrase.

Um but but we do have all of that in mind.

You know, I think about my past um my previous role as board chair for Move Texas, and I know Councilwoman Castillo, Councilman Galvan, uh several of us, uh Councilman McKee Rodriguez have a background in organizing and registering young voters.

So again, no matter where we're falling at on this argument, we all want to increase voter turnout.

That being said, you know, I I did host a town hall two weeks ago.

Uh we did get resident feedback on it.

There were we all left with more questions and answers.

Uh we had a B session last week, and and as Councilwoman Castillo asked, um, and I had asked last week, we can see that the cost savings is there's a big question mark there.

You know, so if we're doing this, it is not to to save money or for the city budget.

Um the other concern I had that I've shared is that I feel very uncomfortable extending all of us unilaterally voting to extend our own terms by six months.

We're here at the will of the people, and so for us to just extend our terms from four years to four and a half years feels extremely icky and wrong to me.

This it's not transparent, and I think that that contributes to residents feeling that local government isn't transparent.

Um one of the big things that I feel that has been missing, one of the big pieces of um uh data that I feel has been missing is that when we do talk about other major Texas cities who have voted on or who have looked at this, it was voter approved.

And so for us to rush through this decision and not have our residents' voices at the table, um, also feels wrong.

I I feel that we we should and figure out a way that we can get residents input, not just through our one Z2Z surveys and not just through our ones E2Z town hall, truly get residents input on this change.

Um I I do have a few more um questions, Jeff uh Coyle, if I can call call you up.

If um if the council if the council decided not to approve this, but to take it to the voters, would we still need approval from the state legislature?

If the council if you took it to voters in the chart, yes, you would still need a legislative change after the deadline at the end of this calendar year.

Okay, and how would we go about getting that approval?

Well, and maybe this answers the question, Councilwoman Castillo said she was gonna answer.

We we the the next legislative session starts January 1st of 27.

During this calendar year, we will be putting together a proposed legislative agenda to bring to you.

I know you all know this, but for the public's uh standpoint, we we at staff don't advocate on the positions we think are right or wrong.

We go with the direction that this body has given us.

So the mayor has established the governance committee as the council committee to have those initial conversations.

We usually do a B session, we then bring it to full council.

You you approve.

And if this were an item that were was in that, then we would go out uh and seek uh authors to file a bill and and work all session to shepherd it through the process.

Okay.

Would the process be the same to try to move to to try to move our elections to November of even number of years, like Austin did?

So when Austin moved it in 2012, I believe, the the legislation that passed in 2011 actually didn't specify odd or even, it just talked about moving from May to November.

So they chose to move it to the even year.

The bill that passed this year, this past session specifically said odd numbered years.

So if it were a desire of the body to move it to even years in November, we would just seek to have that language filed.

Got it.

So we could take this to the voters in May of 2027 in a charter election and simultaneously work with our Barrett County delegation to get a bill passed so that this would be complete in time for the 2029 election.

Is that correct?

I think that works right.

Uh well, Andy looks like he's uh councilwoman uh because of the recent charter vote, the nearest uh election we can have for a charter change is November of 2022.

No, it's May.

That's not May of 2027.

Yeah, May of 27th, Councilwoman.

So because of the date at which the election happened in 2024, the November date, two years, the next you know, two years away, your November date happens before that date.

So you have to wait till May of 27 for the next charter election.

Yeah.

Okay.

So so then so then that is correct that we could complete this in time for 2029 elections.

That's correct, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um and and to that end, you know, I this has been a very rushed process.

I think you know, I I think the newspaper cited that between uh the mayor's town hall and my town hall, we had a hundred people there.

Um, you know, we've been doing surveys, um, we've all been getting some emails, but you know, I have not had time to talk at my monthly coffees with the councilwoman um to residents about this.

I have not had time to to talk at neighborhood associations.

We've only been able, you know, December's busy with holiday events and holiday parties, and so we we haven't had a uh uh a well-informed discussion with residents about this.

Again, at my town hall, all of us left with more questions and answers.

And I do think, and Julia, thank you so much for being here because I do think that um, and as councilwoman uh Dr.

Secor hosted that town hall with our our school districts, we're also still left with more questions and answers.

We don't have complete or firm information to make one decision one way or the other.

So, you know, I I want to be clear.

I'm not necessarily opposed to moving our elections in November.

You know, I think it it's it's a worthy ideal.

Let's let's hash it out, let's work through it.

But more importantly, let's work in partnership with our stakeholders, such as the independent school districts, to say, how can we do this together?

How can we do this right?

It doesn't need to be rushed, as y'all just heard, we could still do this in time for the 2029 elections.

And so I think it's it's San Antonio is built on relationships, San Antonio is built on partnerships.

It doesn't make sense for for me for us to rush through this change when we could take time to do it right with our with our um extremely important partners um in the school districts.

Um I'll be voting no today, but I'm open to continuing this conversation and making sure we do this the right way.

Thank you.

Councilman Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I also want to thank um Dolores Huerta for being here today.

It was an honor to have her in our our chambers here at City Hall.

And today I noticed um there are probably more D4 residents or connected people to District 4 that came to speak today than any other time since I've been here, and there weren't that many.

And that just shows me what's interested to our folks there in D4.

You know, the former councilman spoke, and I do respect the Colonel uh Colonel Gallagher, and he talked about um the fact that May is good for District 9 and 10, and that's great.

We want high voter turnout for everybody in San Antonio.

But basically he said it works for us in May.

We have a great voter turnout.

It doesn't need to change.

And D4 is historically the second lowest voter turnout, voter turnout district in San Antonio.

Historically speaking.

May elections represent a status quo that simply just doesn't work for my people in District 4.

And half of the city, geographically speaking, actually.

So I have a responsibility to try to do something to make it better.

And you know, I started off before this was even an option for us, right?

I got elected, and I told all my interns I said, okay, guys, we're gonna go block walk, not for the campaign, but to let people know who we are.

We didn't look at voter data, we went to neighborhoods, maybe some neighbors that felt ignored and knocked on doors and passed out information.

We hit about 5,000 doors, which was almost equivalent to the people that turned out for my election for District 4.

And so community engagement, it has to be one of my top priorities always in D4.

And so we have to try to do something, right?

So I did a poll as well, like everybody else.

Uh, you know, I got pretty minimal responses, but vast majority said yes.

Uh attended about five neighborhood meetings that I got to go to this month.

It was a common sense solution to all those folks.

Right?

And that's a minority of my district.

Of course, that's a percentage of uh of one percent.

But these are people that go to neighbor associations every month that try to do the work to get the rest of their community on board.

And so I truly value their input also.

Former ISD trustee, I completely get the concern for our ISDs.

I'm very sensitive to that also.

I had to pass a budget when I was in an ISD, and it was uh, as a superintendent put it, the hardest budget he had ever seen my first year there.

Uh and so I understand that.

Um, but you know, something that's interesting to me is the city council has never turned down a utility rate increase.

Over the past 10 years, all these rate increases we have passed, what's been that cost ISDs.

We've never ever, we've never ever brought up Northside ISD to the podium and say, Dr.

Kraft, tell us how the CPS rate increase is gonna affect all your schools.

Tell us how the SAWs increase is gonna affect all your schools.

It's never been done.

I imagine it will be done this upcoming time, but it hasn't been done before.

When we pass um affordable housing development projects that are Light Tech or PFC, and our property tax exempt for school districts, we don't ask the superintendents in the schools, right?

What that impact does to them.

Now, of course, these projects can mean additional students to their school.

Of course, we we recognize that and they're typically supportive, but we don't talk about the fact that that's a decrease of tax revenue that they're going to get.

And um, so I I completely understand that, and I understand you know, IZ's coming and saying they're concerned, and it's it's not easy for us to just say, well, figure it out and move it.

I understand that point also.

But I also need ISDs to be equally as concerned about voter registration in their own high schools.

Every high school in Bear County needs to have voter registration tables at their school.

And I know from several folks that I know here who do that work, a lot of schools are not cooperative with that.

They don't want that, they think it's too much of a burden, they don't want to deal with it.

So I understand when elections impact the bottom line, and we have to do a fiscal impact analysis and some fiscal responsibility, but we also have to care for folks in the schools to register to vote and become citizens and participate in their own schools.

We had a great student, uh former student here from Edgewood ISD, who now is on the board of Edgewood ISD and ran as soon as he graduated high school.

We need that in more places in San Antonio.

And so, you know, for me, this decision was actually pretty easy to make.

It's about trying to give a chance, it's about hope, it's about opportunity to move an election from May to November, just a few months away.

But we know that folks know November is the time to vote.

Uh and so I appreciate you know, everybody, the stakeholders, they're here, they've spoken.

These are people that do this work every single day.

Uh, and so, you know, I heard the question about you know voter approval.

All of us up here are technically voter approved, right?

And we just passed a consent agenda with over 20 items.

How many of us went to our community and talked to them about all these items that we pass every single day?

So, you know, I understand voter, you know, input, and there will never be enough for any decision really, if you really think about it.

Uh, but I think this is a chance and an opportunity that's given to us, and I think we have to meet the moment.

And I think we have to do our best to try to make change.

And the status changing the status quo isn't easy.

Uh and there's a lot of things that go along with it.

But when you make the right decision and you do what's right, everything else kind of comes into place.

Right.

And so, you know, there's been concerns about oh, well, the bond market's gonna flood if we change the date.

We can make that happen.

We can coordinate that.

Right.

Northside ISD, you know, I think they passed their bonds in even year May.

Uh, when the last city council and voters decided to change the term limits from two years to four years, we and that omitted an election participation with North Side IZ and other school districts.

That topic did not come up at that point.

We wanted they wanted the four years, not the two years, it made it happen.

ISDs were not considered in that decision.

So we always have to think about our public schools.

We always have to watch out for them.

We always have to do our best to help them.

They also have great leaders and school board members, also, right?

And there's sometimes decisions come upon us that you gotta make something a decision.

And we all know our districts very well, we all represent them.

Sometimes you've got to make a call.

And you gotta do your best with engagement, but you have to make the call.

And so, you know, I'll be supportive of this today.

I hope my other colleagues will as well.

Uh but I think it's a step in the right direction.

It's not perfection, but we can't let trying to be perfect ruin a good opportunity for us.

Uh and so that's where my head is.

I respect all of my colleagues.

I think everybody is very intentional and has some really good thoughts and intentions behind them, and we all want the same thing.

We all want our districts to be a hundred percent voter turnout, even if that means maybe we don't come back.

Um, but I think we owe it to half of the city to try to do something better.

So thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate it.

Councilmember Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to everyone that came out and spoke, and everyone that's still here listening to our conversation continue.

So, as I'm hearing my council colleagues talk, and I'm sure as you guys are hearing it too, I think what we're debating about is not what we care about in terms of democratic participation, but how we govern.

And to me, how we govern is just as important in making sure that we are being a collaborative entity with our local partners.

When I got a chance to host the meeting with the ISDs on Monday, one of the comments that was made from a school district leader was thank you so much for asking what we think, because we don't do that enough.

Unfortunately, we have operated as separate entities for so long, which is actually one of the reasons why I ran for this position.

Because coming from public schools, there are so many school districts.

So, as was mentioned earlier, some of us represent multiple school districts, and it makes it much harder to collaborate and work because each of those has their own governing bodies.

But at the same time, when I ran, I was running on the parti on the principle that it is important for us as a city to work together with our school districts to make sure that we move together as a community.

And so what we heard from them was uncertain.

We don't know up until last week, we didn't even know how the we were paying for our what the breakdown was for these elections.

We were told actually one thing initially that it was based on number of registered voters, and it turns out it's actually the number of precincts.

So there was so much misinformation that we just didn't have because we haven't really dug into this before.

We kind of we get our bill, and so we know what we're paying for our elections, but we've never looked at what every other governmental entity is paying.

And so it took us a little while to even get that research to understand even just what the impact would be to them.

And I think we owe it to our local partners to help all of us understand impact before making decisions that affect all of us.

So that being said, I talked about this last week, and I had a couple of things that I wanted to really look into and make sure we fully understand before making this decision.

And so obviously the first one was costs.

It didn't come up today a lot from the presenters because I think we've come to an understanding that the costs were misunderstood unintentionally or not, and they're not we don't actually know how much we're gonna save.

We only spent 470,000 on our May election this year, and that's because there was an Alamo City bond election, the max May of 2023, we spent 630,000.

So the likelihood that we save 800 to a million by moving to November is very unlikely.

But in fact, November elections for the last two years have costed more because they're trying to increase voter access.

So the last two November elections have costed between 3.3 and $4 million.

So our percentage was actually higher for the November 2024 elections rather than lower.

Going back to the initial point where it just depends upon what's on the ballot.

So potentially we could save some money, but potentially we could be paying more.

But even if we're paying more, if we're increasing democratic voter participation, that would be worth it if we were paying more.

But at the same time, we also have to look at what this does to the school districts.

So if the school districts don't move, their costs could be it could increase, but more than likely what they would do is decrease the number of polling sites available.

If it's just north side on the ballot, they're probably not gonna open up all the polling sites on the south side, which means we're just minimizing voter access in the sense that you can't vote on the south side if you live in the north side, for example.

So again, what one of the trustees said, it's uncertain.

We don't know what the impact is, and I think we we should work with them to truly figure out what would this mean for them.

And the second thing when it comes to is turnout.

So I spent days digging into this data, looking precinct by precinct, because if it truly just meant that in November you vote more, we would see that across election to election.

And unfortunately, we don't see that.

We don't see in November off-year election an increase in voter turnout in the city, aside from this past year, which was because of the props.

So what we see is that people come out when there's money being spent for an issue they care about, and not just because it's November.

And I dug into the 2023 data again, precinct by precinct, because the numbers of registered voters that were shared here today, some people were saying 1.2 million, that's actually registered voters for the total county.

So we COSA is a small, not a small, a good chunk of Bear County, but not the whole.

So Bear County voters was 1.2 million registered, but we actually only have about 830,000 registered for November of 2023.

And our vote voter turnout was still 11%.

So all of that to be said, voter turnout in November, I could not find any data that would show that just because it's November that people automatically come out without as a reason to.

Now our voters would definitely move.

So we I asked for studies.

I said, so anybody send me data that we could prove this.

And when I talked to Professor Marshall and Zoli, thankfully Councilmember McKee Rodriguez helped set that up for us yesterday, and we talked to the two professors, because I actually looked up their studies as well.

And the definition that they use for off-cycle elections is principally defined as those that are separate a local elections from the intense atmosphere of national elections.

And all they could show us to say that you would see an increase was what we see in our even year elections.

We saw a huge bump in our charter turnout because it was on a November even year election.

So the one city that council member mentioned that we did find was Mesquite.

That's the one place that we could say, okay, it was May before and now November after in an odd year.

And we looked at their turnout, and their school district didn't go with them.

So both the school district and the city of Mesquite in 2017 before they moved, had a turnout of 7% from what we calculated.

So it cut in half because their city left, which goes back to the question that I asked to Professor Marshall last week.

It's not just about cost for ISDs, because as council member said, I agree, if it's an additional 50K that they have to take on, there are sometimes situations where we have to make votes that yes, it's unfortunate, but they figure out a way to take that on.

But if we truly care about democratic voter participation, that should be across the board for our local governments and not just for our cities.

Because what we know right now is that we are trying to see a state mandated control of our local school districts.

So imagine if our SAISD voter turnout now cut in half.

So that's what I saw from Mesquite, which worried me the most.

It's not just the cost, but it's also us taking our voter base from our school districts and moving them to November where they may not go out and vote for their trustees who do really important work.

So those were the concerns that I saw.

I wasn't able to, and like council member, if we were able to change this to a November 2024 election, I think there are other things we would need to consider, like how we raise funding.

I think we need to go back to the Charter Commission and see if there's a way that we can address some of the other issues that have come up in the Charter Commission, but at the end of the day, to just increase voter turnout for City of San Antonio and isolating our school districts doesn't seem to me like we are caring about local elections as a whole.

And as we would hate if the state preempted us, I would hate to be the entity preempting our school districts to move because that's what we decide is the right thing to do.

I think we should be working together with them to say, hey, let's do this together.

Let's truly cut our May election out, figure out the right time to move, but let's collaborate rather than saying, sorry, this is what we decide today, so you gotta deal with it.

And that's why where I am today.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilman White.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um democracy is is built upon the idea of free and fair elections.

And as has already been stated here, every single person on this dais wants increased participation in our local elections without question.

But I want to really talk about the different elections that we're actually talking about.

First moving our local elections from May to November.

First, I want to compliment everybody on this dais because the work that I've seen put in and the research that I've seen put in by every council member leading up to today in making their decision has has truly been remarkable.

And that probably goes doubly for uh for councilwoman Corps because she has really dug in to the data, and I don't think anybody up here um knows and understands you know the data and and has looked at the data between May and November elections in odd number of years more than she has.

And so I think when we look at moving from May to November, could it slightly increase the turnout?

Maybe, um maybe not.

Um, could it save us money?

Um maybe uh maybe not.

The issue here for me though is the elections that we've had this past May and the election that we had last November.

Because last November we had a charter election where the voters of San Antonio said that our terms should be four years, not four and a half years.

And this May, the voters of San Antonio went to the polls and they elected us to be here through May of 2029.

And what's ironic to me is that we are here today to talk about elections and getting people to participate because we all know that elections matter, the will of the voters matter.

What voters say should be the final word.

And yet, if this council were to move forward on this today, we would all be without any voter participation, giving ourselves six more months in office.

A 12.5% increase in our term without ever having the voters say, yes, you can be up here for another six months.

We would then be allowed to participate and vote in the 2029 budget when no voter went to the polls this past May and contemplated any of us being here to vote on that budget.

I have not heard one argument today as to why it's okay for this body to give ourselves six more months in office.

And when we talk about voting, I think that the biggest reason folks don't go out to vote is because they think it doesn't really matter.

What's my vote gonna do?

What does it matter who's sit sitting up there?

And if we if they can't even rely on the fact that when they go to the polls, we're only gonna stay in office for the amount of time that they're there to vote on, that we can just unilaterally give ourselves more time in office, I think that is going to further the distrust in the voting process.

Um pointed out.

You know, somebody said earlier um we got this unexpected gift from the legislature that would allow us to do it this year.

Well, last week at the B session, um, I think it was Mr.

Peterik who was giving the presentation, and he told us that in 11 out of the last 17 legislative sessions, somebody's gone to the legislature and asked them to do the same thing the legislature did here to allow a city to uh to move their elections, and 11 times the legislature has said yes.

What happened this past legislative session, people were actually calling it the Dallas bill, right?

Because what happened in Dallas, I think it's really important to note.

What happened in Dallas is they had a vote.

More than 300,000 people voted in November of 2024 in Dallas on their proposition D, where the voters went to the polls and said, okay, council, we're okay with you moving the elections uh to November, even if it extends your terms.

They took it to the voters.

Then they went to the legislature, asked the legislature to put this bill into place and pass it.

The legislature did, and then Dallas went and moved their elections.

As Councilwoman Aldrette Gavito mentioned, that's the exact same thing that we could do here.

The voters deserve an opportunity to weigh in.

And you know, there's been this talk about about, and I hear people talking about the arena vote, right?

The arena was first brought up, I think 10 months it was before the vote on the term sheet.

Ten months it was out there for the community to discuss and debate.

Then after the term sheet was approved, every single person on this dais had I think six weeks or so and held multiple town hall meetings in their communities in their districts where they could hear from the voters.

And then there was a vote.

The people of Bear County got to go to the polls and vote basically on whether they wanted the arena project to move forward or not.

None of that is present here.

We got an email, I think it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when this whole idea was brought up.

And now a few weeks later, we're supposed to vote to change how our citizens elect our local officials and give ourselves six more months in office.

Um I think this is a worthwhile discussion.

Uh, and as my colleague um councilman Galvan has brought up and how um Councilwoman Spears brought up last week, you know, maybe we should be looking at moving this to November of even number years when we know for a fact that the voter turnout will be greater.

I'm not sure.

And I'm not sure what the citizens of San Antonio think about that either.

But what we should do is take the next year, talk about it with our residents, see what they what they think.

And then if this is something we want to move forward on, if we want to ask our citizens about November of odd number years or November of even number years, let's take it to our voters.

Let's see what they say, and then I will, if they're for it, let's go to the legislature.

You know, do what these other cities have done, get it passed there, and then we can come back and have this conversation after we've had adequate time for community input and after the citizens of San Antonio have gotten to have a say.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilman Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to everybody that's uh been here.

It's been a long day for a lot of us, and uh really long 21 days that we've been talking about this with residents.

I've had a number of phone calls um with community leaders.

I've talked to residents as much as I could.

I was just at a holiday lunch with a number of my residents that are appointees to my boards and commissions.

Um there was a lot of misunderstanding of dates and time and money, and it was uh to me a uh a good um just a reminder of how complex this conversation is.

Um, and for me, my concerns that I've thought about in these last 21 days is around the process that we have laid out for folks, uh, the lack of community input, uh, the impact that this has on our ISDs.

I'm in district eight.

We have got a good portion of Northside ISD in that.

I share that with 678, maybe a little bit of nine, no, not nine.

Uh six, seven, and eight, but that is the fourth largest school district in the state of Texas.

Uh so bringing them in, I think is key.

Um I will say I I have heard uh school districts complain about rate increases.

They may not do it here, but they do it at CPS.

Uh they do have voter registration tables with youth to vote.

Um, and so they are participating in any way that they can, and it's not to point out what they're not doing, but I think this is an example too of a democracy that maybe they weren't brought into the conversation two, three years ago, but this council is bringing them in.

And we should res I I think that's a big deal when you've got a lot of council members here who are saying, hey, what are they thinking?

And we have an education committee that I'm so supportive of.

I'm glad to see it here because um I think that that is important as we grow as a city, especially again with these large school districts, and two of the largest ones that are on this May cycle with us, San Antonio ISD and Northside ISD.

Um I think obviously we've talked about the lack of clear cost savings here.

If you were to look at the May 2025 election and the November 2025 election, that is a you could send that to any political science class and you can dissect that thing through and through.

Um, there's a lot to learn from that in that our May 2025 election had over 20 mayoral candidates and 116,000 people participated in that.

That's voter fatigue.

It's a lot of folks, and folks stay out because they're gonna say, oh, let me just wait till there's a runoff.

Two people are obviously gonna make it, let me see what happens there.

And we saw that turnout in June.

142,000 people came out in that June election.

Uh, we saw November 2025 election that folks point to, but it is I I set this last speech session, and I'll say it again, it is an anomaly because of the money that was spent in that election.

Again, another to me, another proof of if you take that to any political science class, they can just run through those two elections and really talk about um how do we not just focus on moving an election date, but everything that encompasses that.

Um, whether when we talk about um filing fees, when we talk about dollars that we can uh ask for donations, all of that matters.

Houston, I know we talk about Houston having a November odd year.

Houston is also double our size and has a strong mayor form of government.

So and and different in a whole lot of other ways.

Umskite, Texas has been brought up.

I have more residents in my district than Mesquite, Texas.

Um, and so there's just a lot of questions here.

Um, and I think for me, I believe in a democracy that communicates with our community, um, especially when it comes to something that will have an impact, not might have an impact, it will have an impact on our voting rights.

Um, I think these are conversations uh, and we've I've seen Austin, uh, Houston, Dallas.

I actually watched uh the Dallas Council meeting last night, uh, November 12th.

They started this conversation in 2023 with the Charter Commission.

And that vote took them about 45 minutes.

It was quick and it was unanimous.

And a lot of the same concerns were raised.

I mean really, it was it was interesting because what you think you hear in San Antonio, you're not sure if you're gonna hear it somewhere else.

And it was almost verbatim, the concerns that folks had.

For me, I think this is you know, voter-led charter changes should occur through our charter commission, uh, rightfully so because we want the community to tell us what they want.

When they want a uh raise our salary, we want to ask them when they want to change our term limits, we should ask them, and when we want to change election dates, we should ask them.

Um, and so that's what I'm trying to wrap my brain around right now.

Uh, we have a very important vote here, but we also have a lot of other business that that's the city needs to tend to.

And we've got a lot happening in this next new year, and I hope we get this same amount of interest um as we tackle through a sports and entertainment district, uh, bond elections, baseball stadiums, convention center expansion.

There is a lot on the table, plus my own district eight neighborhood, which I do not want to forget about uh because that's who that's who who who put me here, um, and that's where my focus needs to be and will continue to be.

So uh thank you to everybody that came that participated that had conversations with me that I called, that they called.

I'm still getting text messages right now.

Um, and so uh I'm I'm wrapping my head around all that, and um that's where I am right now.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um John, I have a quick question for you.

Sorry.

So what what steps can or are we planning if this were to go through regarding how candidate filing, voter education, election administration.

Have we looked at any of those things?

Yeah, so absolutely we would do some voter education outreach.

The last slide kind of highlights that that we'd work with CNE to ensure that folks know that there would not be an election in May of 29, but there would be an election in in November.

And so that public education campaign would need to be planned.

It hasn't happened, right?

But we know we need to do that.

Um the election filings would need to shift a little bit.

Uh uh that work has not been done yet, though, councilwoman.

Okay.

So I've put an enormous amount of time.

Um you can said thanks, John.

Um, I put an enormous amount of time and thought into this topic.

And I've been solely focused on what my district is telling me and what they want to see.

I'm solely focused on increased voter participation.

I did reach out to my constituents.

We did a survey on starting on Friday, a district-wide survey, and we received 743 responses.

And this is telling me so much that my constituents are paying a lot of attention to this, and they really care about this decision.

I happen to have a mornings with Misty scheduled, and I did get to talk with constituents face to face.

I did talk to my community leaders, and I was shocked at the result.

Only 13% of the respondents said that they opposed changing this election schedule at all.

And this means that nearly nine out of ten of the participants supported moving away from May elections.

When my voters told us that they preferred instead the message was clear, November elections made more sense.

There was an even split between even and odd numbered years.

November itself received very strong support.

Moving elections from May to November puts municipal races in a time of year when voters are engaged, already informed, and are in the habit of showing up.

I don't think this is a perfect solution.

We are under some serious constraints from Texas law.

I do think that this is a practical step in the right direction.

I think this vote will reflect the best option available to us today, but it does not close the door on future legislative changes.

I know I'm going to work tirelessly to advocate to move this to even years.

I think that that is clearly the right move.

But my constituents said they want November.

And this is what we can do right now.

I think it's a responsible incremental reform.

It aligns with what my voters told me and what we can legally do today.

And I'm willing to reassess that as needed.

But at the end of the day, I think this does reflect constituent input and demonstrates that I am listening and responding to the people that I represent in District 9.

And I think this will force us to make serious changes to move us to even year November elections.

Thank you.

Councilman Viegeron.

Thank you, Mayor.

Great discussion.

Appreciate everything that was heard.

But Jeff, I want to bring you up here because we we alluded a lot to Dallas, and as I mentioned in the first speak, this is about opportunity.

Yes, the charter election happened first and then they went to the legislature.

So I want I want a full timeline for this council.

So what it would look like for us is we'd have to do a charter, and John, you can step in if I'm wrong, but what I'm looking at is the earliest we can do another charter vote would be next November.

No, no, so the next available uh chance to amend the charter would be in May of 27.

So May of 2027.

Correct.

And then the legislative session starts when?

When's the next legislative session start?

January of 27, ma'am.

In Jan.

So we wouldn't we wouldn't even be able to go in the 27th session.

We'd have to wait till the 29 session to see and get this moved.

No, no, a bill can be filed.

A bill could be filed, but how an election to change the charter wouldn't happen until May.

So that would be almost to the end of the session.

But what would it look like if we put a bill forward and then the charter failed?

That's I I am just trying to figure out when the earliest this can go, and I would rather go to the legislation the state ledge with a charter amendment in hand, and that would be 2029.

Because if what would be the point of having an election in 27 if the state says no?

Right, I'm following your timeline.

So if you wanted a uh a voter-approved charter change first before entertaining the idea that's what with the legislature, then you're right.

The next session will start January of 29th.

So we're looking at January 29.

Okay.

Uh and again, that's that's my whole point in terms of opportunity.

The other thing, and I don't know, uh Jeff or John, if you could answer this, these school districts.

We've got 16.

If we move and we're like, we want to help you move, their school board could say, no, thank you, we're staying in May.

Is that correct?

We we can't force a school district to move with us in November.

It is up to the school district when they have their election.

There is a state requirement that they have their election with one of the other entities I listed earlier, right?

But and so the the only I can read those again if that would be helpful.

No, no, I've I've got it here.

Okay.

Um, and that that is the um that is the kind of crux.

Is it it would be different if we had two or three large school districts?

We've got 16.

And I I mean I hear Councilman Castillo's uh concern also um, and it and granted it's a lot easier for me to look at my three school districts that I have and say, I I'll go out there and help them rally and get what they need to to move to November.

But I know it's harder for others.

But I just wanted that clarified, uh, Jeff, because so what's the guarantee?

Let's say we move it to 2029.

Is this gonna pass?

Do we get do I get what I do?

I get what I won and we move to November.

What are the odds?

Are you asking uh the will the would the bill pass?

Yeah.

What are the odds?

There's never a guarantee with the legislature.

We've all seen that over the years.

So uh I mean historically, this this has not been a controversial issue, as was said before, it has passed many other sessions, but there's a saying at the Capitol that there are a hundred ways to kill a bill and only one way to pass it.

So it there no, there's certainly no guarantee uh that the legislature approves it again.

Yeah, and I just wanted to make that clear because I didn't want people walking out and saying, Oh, before this is gonna happen in 2027.

I think we I I would think that we would really want that charter amendment in hand before we go to the state ledge and and let them know that we're serious.

Uh because you know how busy they get, and I don't think they're gonna take us seriously if we're just like we're we're eventually gonna do a vote.

So um thank you, thank you for that.

Thank you for all the input, and I look forward to voting on this very soon.

Okay.

Has everybody spoken on this issue that'd like to speak?

Councilman uh McKee Rodriguez.

Sure.

I um there's a few hmm.

I'll do it this way.

So I think that there is an opportunity here, if we were to vote yes on this, there's at least four years between now and our next election.

If it were to be in November of 2029 and this passes.

During that time, during those four years, we have plenty of time to figure out a way to address any of the concerns of the school districts, this the four or five that will be impacted.

They can stay where stay in May if they would like, they can move to November if they would like, uh, except for those, of course, that uh we're the only municipal body that uh that they align with.

Then we have an opportunity, I think, to do what we ultimately want to do, and I think this was this comes from Councilman Spears, right?

Is that it'll be odd if we if one, we don't know if the state will let will say you can move it to November of any year.

And so if we go to voters with a charter amendment that says we want to move it to even year of November, and it's less likely that the state legislature will pass that, then one, we've just confuse our voters because they voted yes to moving to November of even years, and then but then the election happens in May of odd years anyway.

And so here I think if we were to move towards November of odd years, we know that it's a marginal improvement.

I would make the I would make the case that we are here for as much good as we can get, whether it's transformative change or it's marginal improvement upon a system that is built to disenfranchise us.

We can then focus our efforts on moving the election from November of odd years to November of May of even years.

And I think it will be significantly easier.

I think it addresses the concerns that we have.

I I want to touch on this one issue just because it bothers me.