Good afternoon.

The time is now 113 p.m.

on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, and the City of San Antonio B session is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Present.

Councilmember Via Garan.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Galvan.

Here.

Councilmember Alderete Gavito.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Present.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White is here virtually.

Mayor Jones here.

We have quorum.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

My apologies for being a little late here.

We had a uh the ground green for Senko, which actually touches nicely on the first topic in terms of making sure that we've got good public transit that connects that side of town, all those jobs and those families that are coming.

Um so it's exciting to hear about what VIA has in store.

Um we've got two items.

That is the first one.

Um, and uh let me turn it over to the staff.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the first briefing today will provide the council an update from VIA on their different transit projects, including progress on the advanced rapid transit project.

The project is a part of the Federal Transit Administration's capital investment grant program.

This is one of the largest federal funding programs in existence, bringing substantial federal infrastructure and funding to our region.

So VIA's North South Green Line Advanced Rapid Transit Corridor Project is an example of how we can improve our mass transit system in the city.

So uh John Gary Herrera, Rod Sanchez are both here from VIA and will present on these.

But we'll first start with the board chair, Laura Cabanilla to start us.

So thank you.

Good afternoon.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Uh, I'm excited to be here today to update you on the transformation underway at Via Metropolitan Transit.

What you are seeing is not incremental.

It is a generational shift in how this agency operates, how we serve our riders, and how we compete for the future of the mobility of the region, forever changing the way we are moving San Antonio forward.

While this is a progress report, it is not a victory lap.

This is an inflection point.

The work is beginning to show real measurable results, the momentum is accelerating.

Over the past year, VIA has accelerated delivery of the Keep San Antonio Moving Plan, and we're seeing tangible improvements in service reliability and customer experience.

We intentionally timed these improvements to align with a reassignment of the one eighth sales tax that voters approved in 2020.

That new revenue is meaningful and critical, but let me be clear.

These are overdue investments catching up to real needs.

Let me give you a sense of the pace we are operating at.

On January 12th, VIA launched the largest single set of service improvements in agency history, touching approximately 30 routes simultaneously.

That was made possible by the hiring of 107 new full-time bus operators in 2025 and the accelerated progress of our better bus plan.

And we are not slowing down.

The transformation of VIA is not just about what our riders experience on the street.

That is not aspirational language.

It is a standard we hold ourselves to every day.

Every policy conversation and investment decision is anchored in our mission to be the driving force for our community's growth and success.

Last year alone, VIA delivered more than 31.6 million passenger trips.

That equivalent is moving the entire population of Texas.

That is the scale we are managing and responsible for.

VIA maintained a 98% customer satisfaction rating while growing ridership by 28%.

Via Link, our on-demand, excuse me, that was Via Trans.

Via Link, our on-demand service grew by 35%.

Park and ride ridership increased by more than 50%.

These are not abstract metrics.

They tell us when we deliver better service, people respond.

Demand is responding to quality.

I want to be direct about something.

VIA does not have the luxury of operating like a legacy government agency, waiting for the world to come to us.

We compete every day against ride share, against private automobile, against the decision by a working parent to simply not make the trip at all because the system is too slow or too unreliable.

That competitive reliability drives us at how we think about every decision.

When customers tell us what they need, shorter travel times, more frequent service, safe and dependable rides, strong connections to jobs, schools, health care.

We listen and we act.

We don't study it for three more years.

We deploy.

That is why 65% of our butter bus plan, a frequency focused redesign of our entire network, is two to three years ahead of schedule.

That kind of acceleration does not happen without a culture shift.

And a leadership team that operates with a business mindset.

And we are innovating in how we engage our community, not just re how we run buses.

VIA recently received the excellence and data-driven engagement award for a mobile canvassing approach to neighborhood outreach on the green and silver lines, reaching nearly 15,000 residents at the doorstep to ensure transit-dependent communities have a real voice in planning.

That is a kind of operational innovation that sets VA apart.

I want to emphasize the significance though, significance though, of being ahead of schedule.

The better bus plan was designed as a multi-year initiative.

We are delivering in a compressed uh comprehensive compressed timeline because of its discipline of our hiring practices, our smart service planning, and a relentless focus on getting service on the street.

All this work is anchored in disciplined financial stewardship.

Our region's transit funding remains well behind peer systems.

Many Texas agencies receive a full cent of sales tax, generating significantly higher annual revenue.

While our service area is comparable in scale to Houston Metro, our revenue is roughly a third of theirs.

That reality sharpens our focus.

It requires careful cost control, target of investment, and clear accountability to the board, our customers, and this community.

Our operating reality is clear.

VIA is a lease-funded major transit agency in Texas.

The new 1-8 sales tax revenue is completely obligated delivering the Keep San Antonio Moving Plan, advanced rapid transit, the better bus frequency improvements, and technology upgrades.

There is no surplus capacity for unfunded programs without impacting the delivery of the services our riders depend on today.

But responsible financial stewardship means being honest about where our resources can support while we are in the middle of the largest capital campaign and service transformation in our history.

Mayor and council members, what you're seeing today at VIA is intentional transformation.

It is grounded in our clear mission, disciplined investment, and a focus on outcomes that matter to this community.

Reliable service, safer systems, and access to opportunity.

We're grateful for your partnership and your leadership in strengthening transit's role in our region's growth and competitiveness.

These investments being made today are already translating into more service on the street, more people choosing transit, and a stronger organization behind the scenes delivering it.

With that foundation, I will now turn it over to our VIA president and CEO, John Gary Aretta, to walk us through how VIA is executing this foundation in everyday scenarios with the year in review and the progress delivered through our Keep Sanitarian Moving Plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And look at this.

This is awesome.

I get to raise this.

So we're going to go two short slides that I'm going to unpack a bit of what we're talking about here because we are indeed talking about results and the results we've had in one short year.

And more results to come.

So if we start walking through some of the 2025 achievements that we have seen this year, uh, first and foremost, number one customer experience in U.S.

transit.

That is something that we don't take lightly because all these investments and all the operational investments, including capital investments, are meaningless unless there's a good customer experience for the consumer to have once they start taking our service.

When we ask our customers how we're doing, they rank us consistently high.

That's an important moment for us.

But then we look for context along that rating, and we're tops in the nation.

I have other executives from other uh transit agencies calling us, calling me to say, what the heck are y'all doing down there?

Because those are some incredible numbers.

So it's my moment here to be, you know, to brag a bit for our uh employees there at VIA who are who are the best in transit at doing what they're doing.

31.6 million passenger trips that we were talking about earlier, 907 total operators.

We added over 107.

That was an all-time high for this agency to have done so in a short period of time, but that number is only going to get bigger.

Our goal is to get it about 1150, if not reaching around at about 1200.

Uh, the better bus plan was originally going to be hitting 65% at year four or five.

We've actually done that in 12 months.

Our Via Link growth, 35%.

I'm gonna put some context in there for that.

That Via Link growth, via Link produced one million ridership trips last year in 12 months.

Prior to 25, it took us about four years to get to a million trips on Via Link.

It is now producing a million a year, and we don't see that growth stopping.

Our via trans and the via trans satisfaction uh rate is also extremely high from those folks that are taking our via trans.

By by the way, also our via trans ridership is also at an all-time high, which I think is a it is reflecting our community.

It's reflecting our community that needs that extra special attention for Via Trans.

And then park and ride.

We we made an effort together with the City of San Antonio staff to really focus on park and ride and changing the behavior of consumers as they're approaching special events, especially downtown.

We've seen a 50% growth from that aspect.

If we move down to the bottom left hand quadrant here, uh this really will put into perspective what that 65% of the better bus plan implemented means.

Uh this probably is one of my favorite slides because it really drives the way we're approaching these transformative moments at our agency.

On the left hand side, you're we're asking San Antonians, not just riders, San Antonians in general, how interest would you be in via if the vehicle were to come by every 10 minutes?

The answer to that, 84%.

84%, they would be interested in that.

And then and that makes sense because their travel time is going to be reduced.

They're not waiting around for our vehicle and recognizing the reliability that that also means to the consumer as well.

That's it, that's a real positive.

So imagine our ART system will be operating in that 10-minute frequency in that 10 to 12 minute frequency.

We then take that out a bit further, go to 11 to 20 minutes, you know, interest drops to 64%, but still a really good interest from this community.

21 to 30 percent now becomes the biggest drop, it goes down to 21 percent.

And then right after 30 minutes, it just drops like a stone.

We go down to 5%.

We even get out when we get out to 60 minutes, now we're at 1%.

So a year ago, 70% of our system was 30 minutes and worse, the 30 minutes to 60 minutes, 70 percent.

Not a very attractive system, except for those that have to ride it.

Not many people are gonna choose to ride a system that is at 30 minutes or worse at 70 percent of it.

That 65 percent better bus implemented now translates one year later, we have moved now, 72 percent of our system is 31 minutes or better or 30 minutes or better.

From 70 percent shifting that over to 72 percent to 30 minutes or better.

Our goal is to have no worse than 30 minutes in our system.

So once better bus is completed, we'll have no worse than 30 minutes in our system.

San Antonio has never seen that.

That's why we keep using those words transformative, uh, because San Antonians haven't seen that.

This quality of the system that we're creating here is gonna attract more people than ever before.

So, as we're moving that 72% over to the to that green line on that ski slope, as I call it, we're gonna be attracting now folks that have never taken our system.

That's gonna take a lot of heavy lift from us to do that because there has been a historic approach to the system over the years of how one would be looking at this transportation option.

So we got a lot of work to do, but we're excited about the movement that we've done so far.

We're gonna continue to now jumping up to the right-hand corner here, continue to deliver the keep San Antonio Moving Plan.

A big chunk of that you will hear from Rod and Manjiri about the enormous capital investment that we're doing uh for the green and silver lines, the better bus plan, we're gonna continue to accelerate that.

We're going to continue to accelerate that.

And then continuing to expand our VLink service.

So I will I will leave this part of the presentation and hand it over to Rod and Manjiri.

But as a bit of context for what our chair was talking about as the most underfunded agency in Texas, I we have brought that back to this group, and for some of y'all, maybe this might be the first time you're seeing it.

But what we're doing now is that little red hatch that is not a solid red line.

That's the one eighth that's coming over in January.

So that puts it in context to what we're talking about.

Um still underfunded.

But we're gonna be creative, we're gonna be excellent in what we do, and we're gonna deliver a system that San Antonians will choose.

Let me have one more comment on that funding part as well.

This capital investment grant program that we're participating in with the federal government of attracting nearly a billion dollars in capital investment.

That's a program that's existed for 40 years.

This is San Antonio's first time in that capital investment grant program because you got to have local money in order to attract those federal dollars.

This is the first time that we've had local money to attract those federal dollars.

So we're roughly talking about a billion dollars from the federal government over the silver and green line.

Um I'll put that in perspective.

Cat Metro currently has about a six billion dollar uh plan that's going on with the CIG program, so capital investment grants.

So the leverage really matters, and that is also something that we wanted to make sure that we point out here.

So with that, oh uh Mayor, this is actually the slide that we talked to you on Monday about, Mayor.

The mayor had asked us to give a snapshot of what our 10 our top 10 routes are uh in monthly ridership, and how much of those top 10 routes uh make up our total ridership.

So on the left hand side will give you uh a sense of the those routes of where they exist in our system in our San Antonio system.

On the right hand side are the top 10 routes in in numbers, at least at least in the description.

But those together make up about 37 percent of our total ridership.

Um, but those are um those are some numbers that uh we wanted to bring uh to this discussion today, and now I'll turn it over to uh Rod.

I didn't know the podium went up this high.

It's nice.

Uh good afternoon, mayor and council.

So I'm gonna talk to you about the better bus plan and then the two ART routes uh and where we're at with those.

This first slide is the ART or the better bus plan.

Uh as John Gary told you we have accelerated that.

Uh, but but what the better bus plan is much like the plans that you adopt here at the city of San Antonio, it was just designed to be a six-year plan.

Uh, and it was a plan that we took to our customers.

We asked them, you know, what is important to you?

And they came back and said frequency.

Uh, you know, we were 70% of our routes uh had an hour frequency.

They said that's too long.

Uh so the plan calls for you know a frequency of no worse than 30 minutes.

Uh, two, they wanted us to expand our service.

So, you know, rather than frequency dropping off at seven, eight o'clock at night, we found a lot of our customers work well into the evening.

So they've asked for us to expand our surface.

So the plan calls for doing that on many of our routes, and finally, the plan asked for us to to kind of re-look at our routes and to rearrange and reroute and go to where the frequencies at, you know, go to the the apartments, uh, go to areas of of employment.

Uh so the plan has a lot of routes where we're adjusting uh, you know, the the to and from on those.

And as John Gary said it was designed to be a six-year plan, we've accelerated that.

Uh the plan was just adopted last year, and as of last year, uh, we've implemented 24% of the plan is is on the streets.

Uh, that was 15 routes that that were affected, you know, better frequency.

Uh, we've uh adjusted the routes to go where the density is at, and we've expanded the routes.

And this year uh we are planning to do 41% of the plan.

So last year and this year combined, we will be at 65% of the plan uh at the end of the year.

Uh so good movement on the plan.

Uh also in this plan uh is the via link zones, and we'll talk to you a little bit about those uh in the next slide.

And the two ART uh routes are part of this plan.

So we can't complete the plan until we complete the silver line in 2030.

Uh, but we're off to a really good start.

And here's the Via Link zones uh we were talking about.

There's 10 that you'll see on the map.

We currently have six that we have implemented today, the last one being the southeast one.

And thank you, Council Vigrant is not here, but she helped us uh cut the ribbon on that uh just a couple of months ago.

Uh the three in looks like red, uh the Heritage Park, the medical, and the Stone Oak are the ones that we have planned uh to come in the future.

Uh but via link is a really good you know on-demand service.

Uh if you're anywhere within the zone, uh you can get on your phone, uh, go to our app, or you can uh call a number uh and and and call for a ride.

Uh they'll pick you up and they'll drop you off, you know, within that zone.

Um we do about 500,000 of these uh rides uh a year.

Uh and you can see since uh we uh we started this in 2019, uh we're over 1.5 million uh rides on on our link zone.

Now for our ART lines.

Uh we'll start with the green line, and and this is just kind of a refresher uh of what the green line is.

Uh it's a 10.3 mile uh ART uh service.

Uh and on the map you can see we start uh the ART at uh ISOM, go down San Pedro all the way to Steve's, and and that's where the the ART technically ends.

Uh but you can technically take the bus on the north side uh from Isam to the airport, and on the south side, you can take that bus from Steve's all the way to the Brooks Transit Center.

Uh it is uh gonna be the fastest, most reliable route uh that we have.

The frequency is gonna be 10 minutes on that.

Uh we are adding 25 brand new stations uh to service this route.

Uh we're adding 17 new articulated vehicles, so those are those long 60-foot buses that we're adding.

And as I mentioned, uh it's 10 minute, 10 minute frequency, the best frequency that we will have on any of our routes.

Uh and on the map, it's also highlighted.

You can see some some colors.

Uh looks like uh pink to me.

Uh that is where the it's we're gonna have a dedicated route on this, and where you see it in pink, uh, that route's gonna be in the center of the street.

That's where we have enough right-of-way to put that route in the center.

Where you see it in blue or teal, the bus is gonna run on the curb line in a dedicated route.

And where you see the yellow, that is where we just didn't have enough right-of-way to get a dedicated route, so the bus is gonna run and mix traffic there.

Uh this uh ART, we have a budget of 480 million dollars.

268 of that is coming from the federal government uh to help fund this uh this project.

And and while we're building a transit project, uh there are many benefits for for other folks that are gonna be on on the corridor.

You know, for example, we're gonna add 13 new uh pedestrian signalized crossings uh along the San Pedro uh route.

Uh 58 intersections are gonna get upgraded synchronized uh signals.

Uh a lot of drainage work that we've discovered has to be done along this route.

So we're adding or we're replacing 138 uh drainage inlets and uh sidewalks.

We are adding or repairing 6.7 uh miles of uh of sidewalks.

And schedule, this is this is where we're at.

Uh we have completed uh the design, we're 100% design, uh, and we are working to finalize our contract with the contractor to do go full-blown construction.

Uh but we have started, we've issued a notice to proceed, a kind of an initial notice to proceed an early works package uh so we can finish on time uh to our uh to our contractors.

So right now they're working on utility work.

Uh so if you go along the route, you will see them adjusting the utility poles, take moving the power lines, moving the telcom lines up above.

They're also removing or moving the drainage uh and sewer lines, water and gas lines uh below the surface as well.

So that work will continue throughout the rest of uh throughout the rest of the year, and then the the real heavy construction, we're looking to start that one uh in March.

Now for the Silver Line, uh this is a smaller, a smaller project, it's 7.3 miles, uh, and it goes east to west.

You can see that uh the ART, once again, it's kind of the same thing.

The ART portion will run from General McMullen to the Frost Bank Center, but service on the west side will continue all the way to the Kellak Transit Center, and on the east side, it's gonna continue to the new.

Uh it's a newly or it's in construction right now, the East Side Transit Center.

Uh we broke ground on that last uh last month.

Uh so when the Silver Line is built, uh we're gonna have service uh that will run uh to that station.

As I said, it was a 7.3 mile ART line, but we go all the way from Kellak to the new center.

We're adding 18 stations, 14 new articulated buses.

So once again, those are the 60 footers with doors on both sides.

Same frequency as a green line, it's 10 minutes.

And we're going to run in the center where you see it in pink, which is just on the west side.

Then we go to kind of the commerce and buena vista.

They're two one-way streets, so we're going to run on the curb there.

So we're going to run in mixed traffic there.

Now once again, well, we're building a transit project.

There are many benefits to the other commuters and pedestrians along the route.

Over 25 intersections will get upgraded signals.

And about eight miles of sidewalks will be added or repaired along this route.

And this project is really is really just getting started.

70% that's when the real work starts, and when we start uh we're going to go through an audit process with the FTA, uh a risk assessment with the FTA at that point.

We will put in for the final grant uh from the FDA at that point.

Uh the schedule is is uh start construction as you can see in in 27 and to be done with this in January of uh 2030.

That's when we are scheduled uh to be up and running with this project.

So with that, uh I'm gonna bring up John Geary to close.

Thanks, Rod.

And and just in in short, to close up is is Rod did mention this uh uh a bit, but it's an important distinction here.

That our customers are telling us how to improve the system, it's not us just figuring out on our own.

They're telling us on how they would improve the system, what is important to them.

Travel time is their number one thing that they're telling us.

Those are customers and even non-customers, because every we believe everybody in San Antonio is either an existing via customer or future via customer.

But both groups are telling us the amount of travel time that it takes on our system is something that is important to them.

They want to have the least amount of time traveling on that system, and that's the way we're approaching uh this transformation is to leverage those investments and those dollars both from an operational standpoint to a capital standpoint um towards attacking that travel time and doing so in a very efficient manner.

That concludes uh our presentation, and of course, available if there's any questions or comments or need of clarification.

Great, thanks, John.

Appreciate the presentation, Laura and uh the rest of your team.

Thank you.

Um, John, did you want you have anything to add?

Okay.

Can we go back to slide four?

John, I thought you were gonna bring it up.

You didn't, so I'm just gonna look at that.

That was quite yeah, you I'm just gonna ask you.

Um I thought you were talking about the red hash there.

Um, if you would please level set for folks, uh the the telecom tax.

Oh the telecom tax.

So the one-eighth was generating for y'all for the uh ready to work, $54 million.

Now that it's coming over to us, it doesn't include the telecom.

So telecom is no longer being assessed that one-eighth.

So now that 54 is gonna be less than 54.

It's probably gonna be closer to 48, might even be closer to 47.

That's how the telecom tax issue works out from from this perspective, and what we talked about on Monday Mayor.

Okay.

Um, and if I recall correctly, uh, via would also be the only public transit in the entire state of Texas uh that doesn't uh take that if we continue with um not making you exempt, correct?

That is correct.

We're the only one who doesn't have that telecom tax assigned.

Okay.

So that money would help you.

Absolutely.

110 percent.

110 percent.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

Um I guess John, do you want to elaborate a little bit on um in case it informs anybody else's comments?

Um, kind of the history of that of that telecom tax, um, so that we can fully understand uh the issue there.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the the history's been an interesting one uh over the years.

Or Ben, if Ben's whoever is I I think I think financially we were looking at it together last year, Ben, um, and looking at the generation of what that is, but essentially what's in the one-eighth for ready to work was going to be the number that was going to be delivered or at least assessed to uh the customers uh at the end of the day because it is a sales tax.

Yeah, I think with this body's approval, Mayor, um VIA could collect that tax.

That's our understanding, correct, John Gary?

That's correct.

So I mean it's an action that uh could be looked at.

Um we could take it to a committee and have some discussion and bring it back to the full body if necessary.

Um it's something that would um apply to telecom companies here locally that applies now but would need to uh be continued for via to use it.

Okay.

I think it's and from a legal standpoint, Andy, that's just passing by via ordinance or I would need a rare framework, but yes, it would probably be through ordinance.

Thank you, Andy.

A couple of clarifications.

Um you say that you compete, actually with Laura that mentioned it though.

When you say you compete with ride share, um, and yet um many of the riders, the vast majority of the riders are in fact those that have to ride the bus.

Those two those seem like two very different groups of people, those that have the option, right, for ride share versus those that have to take the bus.

So when you say you think you compete with ride share, can you help us understand that as we are all watching these driverless whey mows in our community and and that's only increasing.

So help us understand how you think you're competing with them.

So it it is a it is a phenomenon that we've seen in this industry, and it's just not it here in San Antonio.

But when rideshare launched, every transit system in the United States saw a decline in their ridership.

Um that attraction to the quality of the service for the price that they're paying, it attracted the consumer over to go that direction because it's a door-to-door arrangement, you know, in in uh in a ride share uh moment.

Our advantage that we have when we're competing against ride share with Via Link is we're still doing it at a very affordable price.

We have elected to do so at the same fare structure that we have uh for our fixed route.

So that's a dollar thirty.

And so it's a dollar thirty to take that ride share.

But again, we're we're having it operate within a zone, so you're not taking it system-wide like you would necessarily uh an Uber or a Lyft.

But that's a competition as well.

What also has happened in the competitive uh standpoint as well, uh, is the affordability of vehicles also became the the most affordable that vehicles have ever been, you know, in this country altogether.

So we see migrations going over to vehicles as well.

But vehicles also are offering that that quality of that of that uh the quality of that transportation connection that we could not compete with.

Uh and that's why you know much of this quality discussion that we're having, Mayor, is about improving it to such a degree that at least for a dollar thirty versus what your what our community is paying for a vehicle.

Now that starts becoming a conversation that they're would have among themselves to say for $38 a month I can ride via unlimited, or whatever my you know, lease and or um uh car note is with insurance and with gas and and and so forth.

On average in San Antonio, it's about eight hundred dollars that a consumer will be paying for a vehicle.

So those are the per month.

So those are the those are the value equations that we're taking in consideration, but again, we still have to provide a reasonable service that's gonna have uh the quality of that travel time because we will still lose if it's gonna take somebody two and a half hours to travel three miles, right?

Uh so we we have work to do.

Yeah.

I didn't see it in here, but um obviously this body is still very much interested in making sure that we are um uh minimizing any um you know greenhouse effects, right?

So can you talk about the status of the clean energy infrastructure?

Um, where that is in terms of completion and kind of where we are, how much further we have to go there.

Yes, ma'am.

So our um our fleet um while they're the buses are painted red and silver, they're green on the inside.

So our entire fleet operates on compressed natural gas.

So compressed natural gas reduces the uh the oxide, which is the most dangerous for the ozone by about 95%.

Uh only electric vehicles can get you really down to zero.

We have about eight of those, but that technology is just not quite there yet to get the reliability and and and the workhorse that we need from these vehicles.

But but our entire fleet is indeed uh compressed natural gas.

We are CPS's largest um gas uh purchaser in the system for for that natural gas.

And to clarify, when you say workforce, do you mean maintenance or what what is the specific, what is a different workforce that you need for an electrical bus?

Oh, so what uh I I meant uh workhorse of the bus itself.

Yeah, that those buses will have to come in more often to charge than a C and G bus would.

Uh so we can send out a C and G bus all day long.

The electrics were having to circulate back in, so we're having to hire well, it's just not it's not as efficient as our CNG fleet at this point.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and last thing, um you may not have the numbers on you, but I I'd like to see it while um it's clear on the chart that we are underinvested uh vis-a-vis the other metropolitan areas.

Um I welcome understanding what is our cost per rider sure right um though we are significantly um fewer resources toward it if we're serving a much much smaller body than we'd like to understand.

Okay, we we'll definitely get that to you, Mayor.

But it it's a great story that you'll you'll be proud of.

Um we are uh tops in Texas on the efficiency when we measure those metrics.

So even though we have the least, we're we're uh spreading that dollar further than the rest uh when you when you break it out per uh per efficiency metrics, but we'll send that over to you and and your counsel.

Councilman Viewedon.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um of the things I want to address um is what what we can deliver and what we can support.

I know we talked about um I I know we give rates to students, and I know we give rates to seniors.

I want to I want to make it clear there that this is not, and I'm gonna date myself, so you guys are gonna have to go online.

This is not the cloak and dagger movie of 1984, where if you have not seen that movie, Henry Thomas just jumps on the bus for free.

And uh I don't know if he had a bath, but he jumps on the bus and he makes it to the airport in 15 minutes.

So uh that's how you know it's fantasy.

Um but I appreciate your efforts to try and get there.

But the thing is this is not San Antonio.

While we want it affordable, we do not we do not just jump on and off buses.

We do need to get people passes, we do need to look at our different customer base, and I think that that is something that we talked of because we I know in my district I have people taking the bus out of necessity, because there's one car in that household, or there's no cars in that that but I know in my same district along what I call the shallow south side, which is Roosevelt that I share with part of District Five, um, the Highlands area, is that some customers want to take it out of convenience and they want to be able to go downtown, hit the the events downtown, get on reliable transportation and get to the nearest bus stop in their neighborhood because we are urban dense in those areas.

So I think as we move forward, we look at those rates, and what I would like to see is maybe at the end of the year for Christmas, you're you're like buy a pass or card.

I'm gonna go card, buy a card, and you have 25 rides that will last you the entire year.

So people who want to take it during Fiesta, people that want to take it because there's a game downtown, or there's something once we get that green line done, there's something down the San Pedro corridor.

Once we get that silver line done, there's something down there uh on Military Drive that they want to attend, and they know take out their bus card, use their bus card, it gets them there and back.

And they have it, and it's just something that we as San Antonians know that it's not it's an option for everybody as we look at the the times.

And I as you look at the apps and you tell them this is going to be a 30-minute ride, this is going to be this is coming in 10 minutes to let them know what what's happening.

But I think that that's where we need to look at is that you have a market out there, and I think specifically um because I know you do park and ride for some of the big concerts, but we have weekends that are just packed downtown that people don't want to park and ride from Brooks.

They want to be able, I want to be able to find a bus stop on Flores, stop at the bus stop, and know I can get downtown and I can get back.

And I don't have to download an app.

I have the bus card that I got for Christmas or you know, uh somebody got for me, and I just use that.

The other thing I want to work in conjunction with is as we promote resiliency, sustainability, how we look at our climate action plan is that those neighborhoods that prioritize walkability, and I have a couple in um in my uh district, and I don't think Mike Shannon's here, but Roosevelt's.

I have a lot of apartments uh in along Roosevelt and VFW Boulevard, and making sure because those people use that, and and we have a lot of visitors that come that we have covered bus stops, that people know that they can get a bus pass, and they can use that to take the ride up and along Roosevelt all the way and get them all the way to uh San Pedro and the airport.

Not in the 15 minutes that it took Henry Thomas, but definitely in a good amount of time.

So um that's kind of the things I want to see.

I think I think we are going to have some issues with um where we're moving forward and how we're getting incentives back from the government because I think we are I I'm so proud of what y'all have been able to achieve and bring back from the federal government.

I think in terms of what we're doing here in South Texas and in San Antonio in particular, I would like to see them a bit more because I would like to see the via routes go further out.

And this is what might you know this speech where the county residents would like to see that more too.

So um just as we move forward and we look at that.

I I like the idea of rate restructuring and really looking at those consumers that are only using it for special events, maybe locking them in with a pass that is only used for um spring or pushing out something that is affordable or a price in um during fiesta and during the fall.

I think the other one is the Dia de los Muertos weekend that we do.

So because park and ride is great, but if you're just going to the concert, that doesn't help you if you're you're uh stuck then at hemisphere trying to catch a bus.

So let's work on that.

So thank thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, uh Laura for really setting it is making sure we have a delivery we can support and that customer service and respecting the customers that are using it currently right now.

Thank you.

Councilman White.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, Laura, John, and and the entire team at VIA thing, thank you all for the uh the presentation and all of the work.

Um just a couple of quick questions.

Um your revenue sources and where the money gets spent.

Can you just quickly outline for me what are all the revenue sources and where's the money going?

Maybe splitting it up between um actual you know delivery of service versus um administrative uh overhead uh great question, coachman.

Yo, um so essentially via has when when the state set up the Metropolitan Transit Authority in the late 70s, essentially it gave it two sources for revenue.

One is sales tax, which we've had plenty of discussion uh about here.

The other one is fares, and fares is the other revenue um moment that we have uh for our system that then translates into putting as much service out on the street as possible.

Um, and when we we look at that service level, so what we're putting out on the street versus administration, you know, it the administrative side, we have a good story there as well.

We're about nine out of nine cents out of every um cents, I should say, not a dollar, nine cents out of every 10 cents is going to get service out on the street.

We got we got about a 10% cost on on administration.

Okay, so really not a lot of wiggle room, right?

For pet projects.

This is all really going into uh the nuts and bolts of uh of delivery of of rides to the public is what it sounds like.

Yes, yes.

What about metrics?

What about metrics?

I heard um, I guess you're the I like the mayor's question on um you know cost of you know per per ride and sort of the the efficiency uh of what it costs to for one ride here in the community, but and you're gonna get back to us on that.

What other metrics do you all um use to determine you know if we're being as efficient as we can?

It's it's utilization of the system as well by the consumer uh by the by the riders.

Uh so we also track um how many how many rides we have per hour, and we track that and benchmark that against other transit agencies there.

We still do well, uh, which is telling us that where we are putting our system, it is attracting uh, you know, um it is attracting ridership.

We have those kind of metrics.

We have the metrics per mile, we have the metrics per you know, route hour, and we're we're happy to to share those uh with you and and have a an efficiency conversation because that's the other thing that's really important that for the taxpayers that are assigning this over to us, you know, in addition to what was already existing, is that we are leveraging all we can out of these dollars.

Um and those efficiency metrics are telling us that we're doing that consistently.

Yeah, we would love to see those and and uh again in terms of comparison between via and uh other um other efforts in other cities we would like to to see how we stack up there.

Uh just one last question is on um Stone Oak more from Stone Stone Oak Park Park and Ride up there.

I I know that's that's really mostly in District 9, but but I have a a lot of my folks that use it.

Well, what's going on there?

I'll let Rod take that one.

No, I'm just kidding.

Yo, Stone Oak, we know it's underutilized, council member, um councilman, and and uh we have a plan to get that more utilized.

Um I'll say this just from uh a perspective of of you know from the business of perspective.

That's an example of something you build before demand is there, and that's what's happening.

Uh but also to put that in context as well is we have another partner that is really important to the success of this program is TechSot because those flyovers and the HOV lanes make that uh make that building super attractive.

So the more they can build out those HOV lanes, the more attractive that that that uh that uh asset becomes.

Secondly, we only have two routes that serve that facility.

So put that in perspective to crossroads.

Everybody knows about crossroads here off of I-10.

I think we have 35 routes that go into that one.

So the utilization of that too is a bit of where we have to be a little more creative.

Uh one of the things that maybe uh councilman, since you're in your vehicle, you may not have seen.

We do want to make that uh okay, that Stone Oak Park and Ride as the central location for our new Stone Oak uh Vink zone.

So we'll start seeing activity there as a result of of that.

We do have a uh park and fly moment that we're dedicating a whole uh a whole um level uh of that parking garage to those individuals that want to park there for free, up to I think seven days, they can register it for longer, but they can get to the airport for a dollar 30 with their luggage.

So we've seen that utilization going up as well, especially during uh travel season to help complement what's happening.

By the way, that that connection to the airport, that's an express route.

So you get on at Stone Oak, the next stop you will have is the airport.

And then from the airport, it goes downtown, downtown it goes to Brooks, and then it comes back the other way uh from Brooks.

So uh we're seeing better utilization on that.

I think those that are on the MPO know also that's we're getting uh CMAC funding for operating that that line in particular.

Yeah.

And just to clarify, yeah.

Well, what I'm what I meant to say is I get a lot of my residents uh asking about it, right?

Um, because it it of course seems underutilized, and when they've checked into it, that they have said that the uh the routes are limited, but but that'll be good information for them.

And so thank you for that.

And uh again, thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Councilman.

John, just to to clarify, if I remember correctly from your our discussion, um, it's only five percent of your operating budget comes from Fairs, correct?

That's correct.

Okay, and what is that absolute number?

18 million dollars.

18 million dollars.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Aldra de Gabito.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for the presentation.

Um yesterday morning was awesome.

We were at the MATLAB Transit Center, and we had a busload of linear high school students come and sign up for the free student via passes.

So thank you so much to the VIA team.

Y'all made it super easy for them.

And when I was having discussions with them, you know, we were talking about how much this will really help them and their family.

So first off, thank you so much for all y'all's partnership in that because it was it was a heavy lift, but it is meaningful for for our families.

Um I did also want to say uh, you know, y'all have a killer leadership team.

Uh Laura, thank you for coming up and presenting.

I thought that was I thought a lot of the comments that you said were extremely important and spot on.

I um it it's it was crazy to think that when I served on the via board via link was just an idea, and to see that it's serving a million rides is is phenomenal.

And I think that you know, I know at the beginning we were all like waiting for the feedback from residents, but it's clear that it's taken off, and it's clear that it's it's really um adding to the services that via can offer.

So would love to see more of that.

Um definitely on the right track.

Uh, one of the things I was looking at is on this chart the for the um flipping the script.

Can we just make sure that we get some updates on on how we're reaching that 72% for 2026?

Because the underneath the 30 uh underneath 30 minutes, just because I that's a hefty goal.

Um I'm very confident in y'all's in the team to do it, but I also just want to make sure that we're um gonna reach that goal.

Actually, just for clarification, councilwoman, we're actually met that.

Okay, so that's what I was I was just gonna make sure.

Yes, okay, thank you.

Yeah, um, yeah, and we'll just want to uh thank you for that.

Um I think also too, we'll just want to make sure that we're staying on top of because you know, looking at the jump from 30 percent to 72 percent is impressive, and I just want to make sure that we're gonna continue to absolutely and that was a result of of service improvements that we did in April of last year, in August of last year, and in January of this year.

So January of this year was just in context as as our chair was saying, was the largest uh single uh uh improvement to a system in its history.

We're gonna do one in May, and we're lining up to do one in August.

So they're probably gonna be about the same sizes as January.

So it's we'll see that number continue to move.

Okay, awesome.

No, that sounds great.

And uh definitely appreciate all these updates on the investment in ART.

You know, I know that that's gonna definitely definitely help with getting people moving and also just more open uh to to public transportation.

So I am definitely excited to see that come to life.

Um one of the things I am going to talk to y'all about.

We just got done with students, but uh to councilwoman via grand's point, you know, one of the things we also need to care for is our seniors, and um we had the CCR to expand um transportation to our senior centers right now as the city serves as a five mile radius, but we want to expand that to eight mile radius because the city has grown.

Um so we're in conversations with the county, would love to pull via into those conversations as well, um, so that way we can get that going.

So more to come on that, but just putting it out there in the universe for y'all.

Seniors are some of our uh best customers.

Yeah, they are, yeah.

And and it's so important to get them into the senior centers for meals for socialization for all of the the things that happen at senior centers, and so um we're just gonna be work, you know, working to to do that um and dust off that C CR.

So um other than that, thank you.

Thanks for all y'all's work.

I know it is a heavy lift.

Um I know it is demanding on the board and board members.

So kudos to you, Laura, for for leading that the charge with the board and to you, John Gary, for leading a great team.

I'm uh looking forward to more partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation.

Um I'll start off with um I'm gonna go down the line of advanced robot transit and better bias via um with the green line.

It's my understanding that the green line is fully funded.

Is that accurate?

Yes, sir.

Wonderful.

And the silver line, uh, what is the fun I my understanding is that is not fully funded.

Uh what is the funding gap there?

So uh the last piece that we need to move on, the financial side of that equation um is currently uh in play with the federal government with the capital investment grant program.

Uh we are on the top of that list.

In fact, we are included in the president's budget and recommendation for funding of 150 million dollars.

We just need that to go through the congressional process to do so.

Um, and yes, we smile when we say that as well.

Yes.

Um but uh but similar to the green line um as well, it's that moment that if if we're doing our part and our responsibility, you know, for these CIG programs, um, and this is a brag moment on staff, uh, that we're at the top of that list, not in the middle, not in the bottom of that list, but we're at the top of that list to uh to secure that funding.

But it is currently in play, and we'll know for sure by the summer.

Thank you.

Um and for the better bus plan, primarily with the goal to achieve more frequent stops.

Uh, on slide five, I noticed that four of the top six have had increased frequency.

How do these numbers compare to ridership prior to the increase in frequency?

So I and I guess broader question is um do to do for each of these rides, because I've that percentage is not percentage of growth, it's not um how much has ridership grown for each of these routes since the changes were implemented, and then do you have a comparison of ridership in of the for this past month, January 2026, compared to say any month prior to the plan.

So sorry, that's okay.

So as we implement the service, it takes time for the service to mature to get the ridership.

Our first service change was done in April 2025, and then in August 2025, and recently in January 2026.

We have to give at least an year or more to see the increase in the ridership.

But we are already seeing the increase in ridership.

It's almost like two to three percent, I will say um in 2025 comparison.

But in 2026 January, we saw a huge increase in ridership um compared to last January.

So what we do is compare month of this year to month of the previous year, and when we see that ridership, we have already seen a five to six percent increase in the ridership.

So as we move along, we will see much more increase in ridership because um the service needs to mature in order to attract more customers.

We receive updates in say May, September, February, May, September of this year, February of next year, we would anticipate that via may see increased ridership of I'll throw out random numbers 7, 8, 9, 10 percent, but the individual routes that have been improved might see 15, 20, 30 percent.

That would be throwing random numbers out there.

I'm just guessing.

You are correct.

The routes which we are changing, improving frequency, changing the alignment.

We are seeing an average of 15 to 20 percent increase in the ridership.

But the ones which we are not changing, it's just one to two percent or probably three percent.

But on average, we are seeing if I compare to last August, it's almost more than 20, 22 percent increase in ridership for those 10 routes we have improved in August.

No, if these are unique riders or are they just numbers of rides?

No, it's number of rights.

We don't know whether it's a unique rights or not.

Sure, okay.

Um pivoting to via link.

Do you have ridership data for each of the zones on slide eight?

Yes, we do have a ridership for each each of the zones.

Um would you be able to um, I guess would you be able to tell us which of the and you'd probably say this just anecdotally, which of these are the best performing, uh, which might not be quite up there, and then I guess just starting there, yeah.

Which ones are the best performing?

Most of the zones are performing really good.

Um, so the recently implemented ones, the Randolph is doing good, mainland is pretty good also.

Nacopas is doing pretty good.

So all the zones are really performing good.

It's there is no zone other than the small downtown portion.

Um rest of the zones are really doing good because those zones covers a lot of area.

So you have to look into the square mileage of those areas.

So five of the zones has pretty like more than 15 square mile coverage.

So it covers a lot of population, and we see a lot of increase in ridership in those zones.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Do you anticipate um, I guess how would you?

I imagine you anticipate adding more zones beyond the ones that are planned, but what would dictate that?

Um it it came out of the beta bus planning process, so we know which are the zones.

So it's it's like for now it's 10 zones, but as we move along and as we implement the better bus plan, there will be more zones to be added and stuff like that.

Correct.

Um this last bit is going to be a little bit more broad, but um on slide four, you mentioned you mentioned funding.

Um I'm looking at your budget right now, the fiscal year 2026 draft budget.

So I don't know if this is the one that was actually approved, but I believe it to be.

Um, and there's four categories listed for revenue sales tax, grants, fair box, and other.

Um what makes up the other category?

What are some of the I mean, it could be a long list of tens, so maybe what are the top ones that stand out?

You know, um besides the grants, there will be um off the head, advertising revenue.

What you see on the sides of our buses, that'll be that'll be that clear channel.

Clear channel communications.

Okay.

Okay, well, I would like to see it broken down just a little bit more because I get like I said, the revenue, it's only those four categories, and the other is very broad.

So if you could share with us maybe a summary of all revenue and expenses.

Um I did think it was funny at the beginning of the presentation, someone said, you know, we cannot add any new programs without cuts to existing services, uh, which to me signaled a jab at zero fare, which I've heard you discuss a few times.

And so I would like to bring up a few things.

One is that, and this is more for my colleagues, if anything, but one is virtually a hundred percent of San Antonians pay the sales tax.

So every San Antonio resident is a contributor to VA.

Uh, they are paying a tax that allows via to operate.

Second, and this was mentioned by the mayor, but last year you came to the transportation infrastructure uh committee, if it might have had a different name at the time, uh, and brought up the telecom tax, proposed that we approve that.

Uh and at the time, for me at least, it was challenging to prove to approve such a tax when we couldn't, it wasn't told to us how much revenue it would bring to via at the time.

It sounded like uh you anticipate it to be somewhere between six to eight million dollars.

So that's new information now.

Uh but at the time it was also challenging that no one could tell us necessarily what it was gonna help accomplish other than the broader it'll help us deliver better the butt better bus plan.

And so I maintain and I'll tell everybody I will not vote to approve a telecom tax unless there is a commitment and a plan to get to zero fare.

To me, residents are being taxed via the sales tax.

We will add another tax on top of that through the telecom tax, and then we ask them to pay a fare to get on the bus.

Public goods are public goods, and we shouldn't be charging people to go to the library to access the senior centers to use their parks.

Uh, and so to me, it's goofy to expect them to pay to get on a bus that they're already paying for.

Um, and as you already mentioned earlier, the and your budget document says the actual the fare box revenue is actually about 4.6% of your revenue.

And so I don't believe that opposition to zero fare has to do with cost.

Uh the revenue that's made from it is very slim.

Um, also no, and I I don't remember if it was you who shared shared this with me or if it was in the broader research about zero fare, but most of the conflicts that happen on the bus uh are because of fare.

Uh and so if there's a way to increase safety, reduce conflicts, and make the buses more accessible to everyone, I'm confused and concerned that is this is not something that we would explore more seriously.

Uh and I worry that the concern is really about homeless people existing on the bus.

And if the fear is that homeless people are going to be sleeping on the bus or sitting on the bus for extended periods of time, I think that's missing the forest for the trees.

And so we can have a broader conversation at uh transportation infrastructure about that plan, but I want you to know how seriously I take it, and I think you would have a really difficult time getting the telecom tax through without the buy-in of a more majority of us, and I make up one of 11.

So thank you.

Johnny case, in case it informs anyone else's comments following.

Can you talk about the steps that your operators already have to address the uh challenge with um homeless folks getting on the bus?

You all have, for example, I think you shared with me there's if someone has a um strong odor, for example, like they can be turned away.

So it sounds like you have steps in place already to address what may be a concern by some.

Um but if you want to elaborate in case it helps anyone else's comments, that'd be helpful.

Yeah, it's it's it's indeed those moments of the um those that would be taking the service for not the service intention.

Um that starts a disruption of not only the operator themselves and it's the operators who actually uh approached us, management to say they hate the idea, they do not like the idea.

ATU has also gone on the record to say that they do not like the idea because of a safety issue that they've experienced personally, because these are operators themselves, that they have experienced personally uh with that.

While we have systems in the place to try to mitigate all that, part of that mitigation includes a fair charge.

It just does.

And that's one of those moments that we just have to have a conversation.

Uh, council, we had a uh a great conversation with your colleague, Councilman Galvan, earlier today.

And I think we're we're all somewhat on the same page here because we also want to make sure those that are most vulnerable in our community are not having a problem getting onto our system to transport, including the financial piece.

We have over 120 nonprofits that currently are buying discounted fare from us, and those nonprofits, mostly in the social services, they go out and hand out that those fare cards to their constituencies or those that need that for travel purposes.

But that is helping define that group and those groups that are indeed using the system for for transportation.

Um, in addition, it's that moment of 18 million dollars is still 18 million dollars.

If we put 4.5% against the city's revenue, that's 77 million dollars.

You're not gonna walk away, I would think, from 77 million dollars.

That's a it's a very important aspect of our budget, as small as it is.

Councilman Government.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, John and to Rod and Tolora for the presentation today.

Um, I want to start off uh by first uh saying some thank yous to Via for getting me around uh the entire city and up to school in Austin as well, uh, before I was here on council, and for getting me here to City Hall every single day and back home before I had a car while I was working for Council Member Castillo.

So I just want to say thank you to all the operators that made that happen and the system that's been here to help not only myself but my family and many of my friends in my community.

Um the other thing I want to say was a better plus plan, uh, some personal experience from this.

Uh late last year, uh I had to replace all my brakes from a brutal campaign season.

Um and so that was great.

Um and so I took it to uh a place along Marbach Road, and uh I'm always a big believer given the fact that I wrote via for a long time.

Um, that I can always find a way back home on via versus taking ride share just because I like to challenge myself sometimes, and because I think it's true.

And so I did.

The uh the 612 was a much faster service because of the better bus plan, and so I got home within 15 minutes uh from Marbuck Road to Richland Hills.

And so it was just a great experience, and I felt really excited to see that all coming to place, right?

We talk about the kind of big stuff here, but it impacts us directly, uh, not only as individuals on this dais, but of course, the residents that we represent.

So I want to say thank you for that.

Also, thank you for the new digital signs on a lot of the buses.

Uh very helpful to kind of see where we're going, uh, and not have to always be glued to my phone and hoping, okay, don't miss the stop.

I can look up and say, I almost there.

I got 30 more minutes.

I'm good.

Um, as well as the last quick uh thank you about the upgrades to the website.

Um, just as a personal uh thought of that a lot of the big things that go on the back end uh are not always thanked for uh for the kind of public perception of the the agency, but there's a lot of really good materials on there that are now very easily accessible, including some of this work that we're looking at with the Keep San Antonio moving plan.

So anyway, just want to give all my my roses uh out here because of course I always have different thoughts and ideas with VIA, but I always want to make sure that I'm recognizing the work y'all do every single day.

Um to my questions.

I had first and foremost of the district six specific questions I have um related to the TESL via link zone.

Uh, what did that one come online?

It was late last year, correct?

The TESOL So we are supposed to be Mike.

And by the way, if you want to introduce yourself, Sandeep, Sandeep Sen, our VP of Service Plan.

So the mainland zone.

We will as part of the beta bus plan, we are expanding the mainland zone.

Um so in order to have much more efficient via link type of service, um, it's better to always have within certain area because it's expanding so much.

Uh we have to split that zone into two zone, mainland and TZL zone, but now it's operating as mainland zone, but we'll expand and divide into two zones and it it's not yet online.

Um sometimes next year, probably uh we might have two zones.

Okay, that's helpful.

Uh a member of my team actually uh didn't have a car for a while, so he was he lives just a little further up north Tesla, and it was very difficult for him to get to the field office um because the bus lines are no longer operating through there at this moment.

And so just interesting to see when that'll be brought online, um, ways that we can continue to connect with the community who is affected there.

If you hear anything, of course, from y'all's side, let me know as well.

Um, but just something I've been keeping track of a little bit, uh, even for just folks on my team to make sure they were able to get to a field office and other places throughout the district.

I think that's ultimately not just for my own personal and like regular work, but overall, right, with a lot of the outer districts, and customer via Grand mentioned this a bit, right?

As we're growing further and further outwards, making sure that we're still connecting there.

I know it's central to y'all's work already.

Um, but still too, right?

The connections within some of these outer districts, right?

Including district six, I think a lot about, of course.

Um, but just in terms of some of the parts of our areas that have a good bus route nearby, um, but it doesn't really connect to the area within itself, if that makes sense.

So some of the neighborhoods can connect to downtown or to other places, but not to within their nearby area and their nearby scopes.

And so I know it's work that y'all are doing.

It's every work every single day of making sure that your system's planned as best as it can be, uh, given our development patterns as well.

Um that's always something I I want to highlight just because something I hear from our residents, of course, and some user experience.

Um I think a lot about including on Callahan Road as we're talking about Wolf Stadium redevelopment, right?

Potentially, even with Wolf Stadium now and some of the destination park work going on there.

Um, I mean, there is no route in Callahan, right?

Southgown going towards that way.

Um, but there is, of course, a silver line that'll be there.

So it's you know, a give and take of what we have.

Um, but I think it's just important to think about some of these big community assets within an area.

How can folks get to and fro without having to go?

And it's always just a part of the bus system planning, right?

Yeah.

How they have to go to a transit center to then go another 30 minutes somewhere else to get back to a place that was ultimately two to three miles away from them.

Um, I'll leave that where that is.

But thank you for the comments about Tesla.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um I guess some quick further question on on via link uh to Councilor McKee Rodriguez's points a little bit more.

What do we have any specific data on the ridership difference between uh each of the VLink zones and the routes that were once there?

We we do.

Uh the the good news is on the via link uh information that we get, it is very detailed because we have an interaction directly with the consumer, so we know where they're heading, how often they're using it, um, and so forth.

We've seen where we have launched it in those areas that have had routes before, it's outperforming what those routes were doing.

Okay, it it's it's which makes sense.

It does, it does.

If you look at NACO Pass, we had one route that went down the middle of NACLA Pass that was every you know 45 to 60 minutes.

Right.

Now we cover the entire zone with service that's at least 20 minutes or better.

Um, and on average the consumers walking about 400 feet to uh their virtual stop.

So we've seen that improvement, and we're doing it less than what it costs us to run that 60 minute service out there.

And what goes into that cost?

That cost savings.

What goes into that?

So one of the big factors that comes into the cost savings is we're not deploying an asset until it's needed.

So we're not running an empty vehicle.

Uh so we can be very efficient with that.

Two, you know, we are indeed still because it is ride share, but half of the half of the vans that are operating within the system are indeed uh ride sharing.

So you're sharing your ride with others.

So that also is another way to really drive that efficiency down.

I see.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um kind of a larger scope with ridership goals.

Uh, are there specific ridership goals within the keep center moving plan for better bus and airt?

Yes.

We do.

So we we are actually talking around it.

So you know, we we uh we want to go you know on the record here to say our goal is to be a 50 million ridership trips in the next um decade.

So we're at 31.6, we want to get up to 50 million passenger trips.

Got it.

That's for better bus and air to just system-wide.

All system got it, including via link, including via trans, including park and ride, everything.

Right.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Um the parking ride point, uh, I know in the first slide or so, my first second slide, there was um I mention about the parking rides increasing 50%.

Um what was contributing to that?

Well, the number of things, and and our partnership with the city was a big moment of that as well.

Uh, because when we were able to then first of all get the operators in place to for us to deliver park and ride.

I mean, that was a big part of why hiring operators is so critical uh to to our success over the last year.

Uh but once we had that, we had the buses ready, working with the city.

City was able to carve out lanes for us and our customers in order to get into the Robert Thompson Center quickly and efficiency.

That Robert Thompson Center is is designed to handle about 18 to 20,000 passengers per hour, hour and a half.

Uh so it becomes a very efficient, but getting to there and coming out of that is where we needed help.

And Eric and his team really stepped up together with your police department and and uh and helped us get in and out of there in a very efficient manner, so we're able to see that type of growth together.

Okay.

So that's specifically for that center, or is it for system-wide parking rides as well?

It's system wide, but majority of the events are happening downtown.

Right, right, of course.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um, of course, a little bit about Fair Free.

Um, not necessarily on the policy proposal, but of course, with the Green and Silver Line, well, particularly the Green Line that's coming forward, uh, due to Very County's contributions, it will be fare-free for that first year.

And I know you and I spoke just a little while ago about how we're gonna implement that is always the big question here.

But I guess one of my big my asks for that is just of course, I don't know you're gonna do it anyway, because you track data nonetheless.

Um understanding a bit more, you know, how's it impacting ridership?

How's it impacting um operated working conditions, how's it impacting um the health and safety of residents?

How's it expecting their economic mobility as well?

And then, of course, the shifts, right, to the year after what the changes are.

Yeah, and so I think that's fair.

That's gonna happen anyway.

Um but I wanted to make that clear and ask for myself.

And and just so we just for we clarify because we're all talking about that.

The county is underwriting the cost for those fairs.

Correct.

So it's not not free fare.

Well, sure, just like everything.

It's not coming from more tax dollars.

Right.

Yeah.

And um, and then uh yeah, we still got to figure out how to do it, but we can measure before and after as well.

Absolutely.

Just because it's course, I think it's gonna be our one of our biggest, I think, uh potential pilots in a way, right?

Of like what could it look like with or without um absolutely?

Yeah.

I think that's all my questions for now.

Thank you so much, John.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh, Councilmember Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, uh John, Laura, and Rod for the presentation.

But I just wanted to say hi to Rosie, the district five team really misses you.

Um so just want to be sure we acknowledged you.

Uh, in preparation for this meeting, I had my constituent services team pull some of the cases that we've received from via uh just to highlight some of the trends, but I wanted to thank Eloy for uh being very responsive and helping us address those concerns as we field them.

So thank you, Eloy.

Um, some of the trends that we see, and I was really pleased to see the via trans satisfaction at 98%.

Uh, because um the primary concern and call that we receive is um the reliability of via trans.

And uh many of the seniors in our district rely on this service.

They're grateful for it, but have shared some instances in which, if they're not out front within a specific allotted time, uh that you know, via does have to move on to the next uh rider.

Um, so they've just expressed just um you know some flexibility in terms of time, especially when they're being picked up at a doctor's office, because we all know how uh doctors' visits can sometimes go well over uh the assigned time.

Uh so just wanted to continue to bring that up to y'all's attention.

Uh the second trend was requests for bus shelters, and again, thank you, Eloy, for um helping us look into where there's opportunity for those.

Um but my understanding is in I believe 2023 or 2024 rather, um, the city of San Antonio allocated a million dollars for shade uh and shelter structures.

It can you all send a list to us in terms of where those structures have been installed or which ones are in the queue for uh installment?

They haven't been installed, they haven't been installed yet.

Okay, they haven't been installed yet.

But we have uh we have locations roughly okay.

We can get your locations and not installed yet.

All right, great.

I appreciate that.

Yes.

And uh my next the next uh uh question or concern rather that residents have brought to our attention is primarily around the 54 following the pandemic, it was one of the routes that just never returned.

Uh and this is the route that to this day we get calls from any Southside neighborhood association.

Uh, is this something that can return?

And you know, I'll continue to advocate for it because it's a bus stop that stops by the Palm Heights community center, the Normal Community Center, Collins Garden Library, uh, HEB, the Sousa Mora ETB, uh, just so many community assets and resources that uh many of the folks in the community would were relying on that route to to get to those assets and um excellent feedback, absolutely.

We we definitely want to look at that.

Thank you.

Because we want higher utilization, right?

And the consumers are telling you we're taking we want to take it, bring it back.

And for some folks, right, they have been able to reroute to the 51 to kind of get to the same area.

But when folks are calling, they're concerned about their elderly neighbor that would rely on that route, so can't walk as far as a distance.

So just appreciate how frequent the 51 is uh in the in the neighborhood.

Um, but to that and the conversation around the telecom tax, pleased to hear now we have a number and an understanding of where those dollars uh would likely go uh because that was a concern that I had had.

Uh and of course, right?

I I I need to be able to communicate to my constituents, right?

If they're going to potentially get taxed and I'm going to have to approve it before council, uh, I need to understand that their requests for the 54 and any other uh issues are being addressed.

So I hope that's something that y'all take into consideration.

Uh and lastly, just wanted to share, like my family, right?

They received this free bus pass for the month of February.

So just wanted to share and highlight, right, that the request of Councilman Calvana is possible.

Uh, and you're already doing it, right?

But how can we continue to invest in free fare?

Um, because this is similar to the pilot that was requested, but I believe was told wasn't possible, but glad to see that this month of fair in February is possible.

Um lastly, just again wanted to thank the team.

I appreciate the extensive outreach that you all have done along the green and silver line, the door-to-door outreach uh and the field offices, like right in the heart where there is ridership.

Uh, my last well, I have two last questions.

Since this slide's up, can you walk me through how you all determine where the via link sites get identified for uh via link?

And I asked that question, right?

Because uh the point was made about changing consumer behavior.

And if we know that, for example, not cutting after Stone Oak, but like if the Stone Oak parking ride wasn't being used, right?

Um, and we're now moving via link there.

Uh I I I would assume the goal would be to use the via bus, right?

Uh, to change behavior to use the bus.

So just can you walk me through how these were identified?

Sure, sure.

Um I I wanna I brought this slide up, councilwoman, just to address something on via trans because it's a very important uh service that that we offer, and I definitely appreciate the feedback that you're having.

Um of the things that we're looking at, well, not looking at one of the things that we're investing in this year, the transformation not only on a better on our bus system, the transformation on how we deliver via trans.

You know, that's a moment too, and we'd love to come and talk to your trans uh transportation and uh committee about that uh in more details than today.

But what we're looking at is those zones there uh which are run by this uh our third-party company that we contract with by Rideco, that is now the same company that's taking over the back end technology on via trans.

So now we have the ability to utilize some of these zones to help with via trans demand because the demand's at an all-time high.

So bringing that together, we're gonna see, and we expect to see uh a higher uh quality of service.

Our clients there should be able to get uh drop-off times that are more in tune with what they're trying to achieve.

Um, and it's those moments of investment that we'll be happy to come back and talk about.

The second part in terms of how we're designing the via link.

It's it at first started with the idea of the ability for us to go and cover suburban uh less dense areas of our community.

That's generally what you see up here in terms of what's there.

Think of some of these zones that they have neighborhoods with with gates, uh, they have single family homes that aren't necessarily clustered together.

Uh, but what is an efficient way for us to go and deliver that instead of running a 60 uh 60 minute route along 1604 that we we had up in the mainland TESO here on this on this route.

But we've also recognized, and I'll go come into downtown and medical as an example of that.

Is our consumers and our and our community needs to also what we uh solutions for what we call the last mile.

Think about when you get the medical center.

We're real good about getting folks to the medical center transit center, but if you have to walk that medical center, it's not an easy walk.

That's a big campus.

And so via link then gives you that last mile solution in that campus.

That's what we're doing downtown as well.

Uh because we didn't remove any routes of downtown.

Downtown's a very robust uh uh bus system, but it's helping the consumer with that last mile.

And the same thing with medical, but then the rest are helping us cover those parts of the community that we just could not afford to reach with with a uh 60-foot bus or 40-foot bus, I should say.

I appreciate that.

And then in terms of the conversation for the telecom tax, what is the timeline that you anticipate coming to council with the proposal?

Uh you y'all tell us.

I mean, I yeah, where's Tom?

Yeah.

Okay, well, well, y'all figure uh well, I guess I have some ask leading up to that, right?

Like, for example, Port San Antonio, I share with uh district four, uh there's uh a lot of workforce opportunities there, but there's not necessarily a route that will take you uh to this opportunity.

Um, a lot of my constituents also attend uh Palo Alto, AM San Antonio, and also no routes there.

So leading up to that telecom uh request, right?

I'd like to understand the plan to expand access to the South Side uh and to Port San Antonio as well.

Um and then in closing with my two minutes, uh just wanted to thank the team for briefing my entire district five staff on the silver and green line to ensure that my team's well equipped to field any questions or calls with the silver and green line.

Uh and uh what I asked then was if y'all had identified where um the sidewalks uh work and the lights were gonna be installed.

Uh, I understand that hasn't been identified.

Uh if it is, um I would like to get together with you all offline to understand where those uh intend to be placed.

All right, thank you, John.

And thank you for the feedback of Palo Alto, because we've gone out there and actively done more intentional wayfinding for our VLink zones there because you you you brought consumer feedback to us, and every time we hear that, that's a gift.

That's a gift for us to become better.

And thank you for that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um Stone Oak Park and Ride.

Yes.

Let me bring Rod back up.

Yes.

Um the feedback in my neighborhood is like, why did they build this?

Because it's my understanding that it was used by federal funding, right?

That funded that building.

It was TechStock.

Tech stop.

So when you were talking about the expansion with TechStock, can you help me understand what what you envision there?

I think it was a moment of where if uh that part of our community was seeing a lot of gridlock at the time and TextOt had approached us.

This is before my time, so I'm I'm just going based on what I've heard.

Um, and they said we we have to uh we have to invest in this corridor to offer some solutions to the gridlock that's happening along that area.

And this is one of the ideas that came up about that.

The intention still is there.

If that HOV lane uh were to be completed, if you could imagine further and become more attractive for the consumers.

Uh if you go over to Houston, you you will see Houston uh has Stone Oak Park and Ride versions.

So Stone Oak Park and Rides about 400 spots for us.

Um still big facility.

Houston has 1,200 parking spot um uh park and ride systems that are connecting straight to an HOV lane, those are highly utilized every morning and every evening uh for folks to uh to utilize.

So there's the the great N of that spectrum.

We know we're nowhere near that.

We understand that, but I think those were the concepts of of what was intended with that facility.

Uh we still see it as an opportunity at the end of the day of of how we can utilize more and bring more attention to that.

I think via link is gonna help us start growing that attention and demand.

If we can connect people to that zone and to councilman councilwoman's Castillo's point, and then get them onto the bus that comes out of that vehicle.

So I'm out of that uh park and ride.

So we have that express route that goes to the airport from there, but we also have now uh well we actually had it is a direct connection to the medical center uh from that location as well.

So there's that utilization in return.

This is also something to remember as well.

That area, you represent it, you know it better than I do, uh, has a has a number of jobs that are tracking job seekers and job employment to that location.

So what's gonna help via link's gonna help us do is go deliver them to their job locations.

JW Marriott's a great example of that.

JW Marriott has been wanting and asking us for that last mile connection, even though it's a bit more than a mile, but a way to get their employees, their employees can get out to that park and ride that that transit center, but they can't get all the way over to the JW Marriott with Via Link, they will be.

And that's those are those moments of making that connection both ways, but it's gonna start with you know, baby steps for like better term.

So this has been so I am enthusiastic about the the link expansion.

Okay, first let me ask you this question about your your chart on where you show frequency drives interest in transit.

Is there that one?

Is there uh can you tell me if there's a better benefit in are you pursuing a hundred percent of your routes under 30 minutes, or are you pursuing more uh shortening even further under the 30 minutes on the most frequented routes?

So, how are you thinking about that?

It it is indeed.

We want to go as far to that left of that chart as we can financially afford.

So that's why you know we're saying 30 minutes, but we will have 10 minute service, 15 minute service, 20 minute service, and 30 minute service.

Um, and it's it's that balance that we have among that, you know, uh based upon the routes and and the design of the routes.

Did I say that right, Sandy?

Okay.

So what I hear a lot is um about the link and the trans.

Um I I think I spoke with I met with Tom and Eloy recent earlier in January, and they were great, and we talked about a satellite link because the map for the Stone Oak expansion doesn't reach down into my senior center.

And my senior center serves all of my seniors, but it also serves a lot in one and eight just because of its proximity there.

And so that was something we discussed, and I really would like to continue to talk about that.

And to uh councilwoman Aldratti Cavito's point, um, there is a desire to see trans expanded, but my seniors are saying, no, it's gonna take them longer, we're gonna miss the event at the senior center.

So we'd need to actually be adding more vans on the street versus just going further out, just as something that their feedback where I thought, oh, that's smart, that's a great idea.

They're like, no, don't do that.

That'll take too long for us to get there and we'll miss lunch or dinner or whatever.

It it's that moment in the via link zones, it's an important uh distinction that we you know in that contract that we have with the vendor that delivers that service for us, is we will not allow them to go worse than 20 minutes on wait time.

So if they have to complement more vehicles into the zone because of the demand at a certain point, they're they have to go do that.

They have to go and deliver that.

Uh they're incentivized for for lack better term to go do that because back to your feedback, exactly what you're getting is if it's gonna take them 45 minutes to an hour to wait for it, they'll find another way, right?

Um I feel like so.

We're gonna be using an app, right, for the via link.

Is that the yes ma'am?

So I would ask that we have uh extensive education campaigns on this for my seniors and just in general, um, they're gonna want to learn to use it.

And I do talk about link a lot because it is a good deal.

And um, so a question about that is how how are you going to how would additional stops be added by based on demand or or how would that be tracked?

It it is uh a bit, you know.

The the good news is on via link, it's since it's virtual stops, those virtual stops can be can be placed depending on utilization.

So if we're having you know a high utilization in one corner or one area of a neighborhood, we can designate that as a virtual stop.

That's the flexibility that this system offers us.

Um also a comment about your senior center on the edge of this.

The the flexibility that we have even on the zone itself is things that we can look at uh because we have that type of of tool in our toolbox for the first time that we didn't have.

Yeah, because um I even while we were sitting here, we had a constituent reach out asking for better accessibility for our disabled community and our seniors to the essentials, like being able to get the grocery store work or medical centers, and we have you know our mini medical center up in Stone Oak.

So that's where I see link being really useful for I think that is the most it's used for right now, and plus schools, like I know they'll pick up students from school too and link.

Yes, so um I can appreciate that, but um I do appreciate what you said too about the intent with the park and ride.

I feel like we're just gonna have to shift gears because now the traffic's flowing really well.

So um and we just don't have the same routes, right?

Like councilwoman Castilla was talking about, there's just two routes.

I think we have the air airport route, which is great, we need it, but um, they're definitely asking me to have more for events.

They want they will use it for events, they'll come down here for um Fiesta, Spurs games, um whatever we have coming going on down here, but we just don't have it open, and so uh that's definitely something that's been on in demand for my um my residence.

So let me see if I had anything else.

I think we I think we had it active for Almobile game.

They loved it.

And and filled it up.

Yeah, and UTS told staff.

Go take a picture of it while it's filled.

Yes, yes, go put it on a website.

Put a timestamp on that for me there.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I I think this is gonna take some effort to get the community to wrap their head around it, honestly.

I think y'all know that.

And and and we just have to figure this out because um it's it's a symptom of our growth.

I mean, frankly, I mean that when you think about 1604 in all your districts, we rarely have service outside 1604.

We just can't afford to deliver.

I mean, just kind of point blank.

But where's all the growth?

Or where's the majority of the growth?

I should say, right?

And it's still gonna be those areas of this town we just can't afford to go deliver.

That area at Stone Oak is the furthest outside 1604 that I think our system exists as well.

So it's it's it's a nature of our growth.

And one more thing I forgot to mention because it is asked a lot is they do want access to I I do have a maybe a disproportionate number of churches in my district of varying faiths, which is wonderful that they all want to be able to get to their church.

Sure.

So um and we got some mega churches too.

A lot, actually.

So um, you know, anybody want to come to church in D9, let me know.

I'll hook you up.

We can take links.

Um last question about this.

I'm gonna put on the you can go on the second round because I think you're talking about it.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry, thank you.

Um Councilman Mungia.

Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me.

Uh, Councilman Mesa Gonzalez.

I won't ask about Stone Oak.

Uh just a few questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh, and I appreciate the work that uh you're doing to get butterbusts implemented.

Um and I always I'm used I'm familiar with the slides on you know comparing via and cat metro uh and Dart.

And I just wanted to know if you could expand a little bit on those in future presentations or just in a memo to us, just related to um Cat Metro, for instance, right?

You get you get a hundred million dollars less or have a million a hundred million less than Cat Metro.

But what how are you do you compare as far as service area, square miles, uh number of passengers, because that helps me better understand the need that that via has.

Um so can you expand on any of that now or on a per capita basis?

Um we can get you that that breakout, but just for the sake of the per capita, Cat Metro's service area is half the size of ours.

So they have that 398 million to use for half the size of ours.

So their quality of their system is gonna be better.

It's like you know, uh like a peanut and a peanut butter analogy on a piece of bread, you know, they're gonna have a lot of peanut butter on that bread.

I know that we're having to spread our peanut butter room.

We're done with the peanut butter, Jelly.

We use that one a lot.

Oh, yes, that's um but but I I will I will add because it's important on the Cat Metro side, because I I to be fair to Santonian native, like many of us in this room, to be fair to ourselves also on Houston Metro and Dallas and Dart, that penny, even if the full penny, we would not generate those numbers because we have a smaller economy than those two as well.

But Cat Metro, they do have a smaller economy than ours, but what they did is they ended up complementing their penny because they got the full penny uh was sell with uh property tax, and they went to the voters and the voters approved of that.

So when we got the in 2020, the initiative for the 18th to come in in 26, they actually had the property tax increase to go as far as they did.

Yeah, but we're happy to unpack that some more per capita.

Yeah, um again, the only system that's larger than ours, of at least service area, is is Houston Metro.

Sure.

Uh and uh not by a lot, I think by 70 square miles.

But we'll get you that data.

Yeah, that would just be helpful to kind of better understand the need.

Um I appreciate the questions that my colleagues have brought up regarding via link.

I had similar questions too.

So just making sure um district eight doesn't get a lot of love.

I've shared this on the silver green line.

Um we're just that kind of hole on the far left side of of the county uh photo.

So uh I appreciate via link being out there um and just want to see how we can expand those services and really uh mark it that those services are even available.

Um I have not received a postcard from Via, so that would be good to know that that's coming out to residents and going out to residents.

I appreciate that.

Um and so I think just because we have so many large employers in District 8, USAA, Valero, UTSA Medical Center.

Um, so just making sure that you guys are doing anything and everything to um market those programs to the employees that are there.

Um, how they can use via link during the day to get to and from maybe a doctor appointment or uh run an errand in between uh during lunch break, something like that.

But if there's just any ways we can um market that out, councilwoman, if I just real quickly uh comment since we've been talking about park and ride.

Uh under I 10 of 164 used to be one of our biggest parking rides.

Um currently, yeah, that that's all under construction.

Uh it's our understanding that we're gonna be able to go back there and reestablish that.

So when we do, there's a great opportunity with you and your staff and and your community members to get that re-established and get that re you know reconnected into our system uh once all that construction is done.

Okay, and then just second on uh a lot of colleagues have brought up just the um services for our seniors that is extremely important for my district, and I know everyone else brought that up.

So just want to echo uh the statements made by other colleagues.

So thank you.

That's all thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate the presentation.

So on the um the main slide that you had here, you had 35% growth in via link.

Um, and where can you attribute most of that growth uh throughout the um service areas?

You know, in terms of the zones, uh you know they've been pretty consistent.

Um I don't know off the top of my head, Sandy, if you know like if which zone generates the most rides versus if you just ethical well that but also where the growth is.

You you mentioned 35% growth.

Where are we seeing?

Well, every zone was averaging about 30 percent growth.

Uh they were fighting with each other to be number one.

So every zone that we have an active via link uh system in was doing double digit increases in ridership year over year per short.

Okay, so that's from one year to the next 35.

The Southeast zone is having the largest because we just launched it.

Right.

Yeah, percentage wise.

Okay.

But but uh in general, uh top of my head, I believe Randolph is the most active zone uh for just raw numbers of riders, but but the growth was pretty consistent with all the zones.

That's good.

And I'm very you know interested in model, obviously that's in my district.

So if y'all can give me some numbers on that, that'd be very helpful.

And I you know, I have to be honest, I think the heritage park is is new to me.

I don't think we've talked about that before.

No, no, that's brand brand spanking new.

Yeah, you unveiled it with this, right, Sandy?

Yeah, maybe we could have had a little sneak peek about that just because it's very interesting to me what we're gonna plan there.

And obviously that goes into district six too, and we've had some conversations about Petrenko and how link could be very useful there, right?

Because there's a lot of folks that are coming from their residential properties onto Petrenko and and kind of shopping, doing things there, and then getting back to their house.

So that's a really positive way, I think, to alleviate uh long-standing issue on that road.

Could be could be.

Yeah, so I appreciate some one-on-one time about that too, just to learn a little bit more, and also how we can be helpful in the outreach as well, because with Modela happening, right?

There was a lot of people who did not know when it transitioned.

Uh, and so I think they had a rough start at the beginning because of the lack of information for folks.

And where are the how many parking rides do we have and where are they located?

So consistently what we activate for an event downtown, uh, Almodome would would be the one that drives the most uh ridership.

Uh we will run out of brooks, we'll run out of crossroads, and we'll run from the frost center, uh, the Bear County facility there.

Um we're trying to keep those three as very consistent to bring to get the consumer used to us doing park and ride again, because that's also what's happening is during COVID, we we shut down park and ride.

We weren't really doing it because we we didn't have the operators to do it.

So we want to be consistent there.

Then we're gonna get into a second tranche of park and ride opportunities.

I know Madla is being discussed.

We have great parking opportunity there.

It's a big it's a big lot for us.

Um we'd like to explore that.

We'd like to also explore back to the I-10 1604 area, and then we're looking at at uh some other opportunities, even with Kellak as that option of working with the neighbor about borrowing some parking spots from him.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's a good opportunity, especially it's a very underly utilized parking area.

It's usually not full.

I know that's in district six.

Um so that's that's really good.

And I think so.

Where do you have outside of special events current park and ride stations?

Well, of course, Randolph.

We haven't really talked about that, but we do have a and it's a brand new, we rebuilt that one.

That's that's a Randolph.

Which one did you say?

Crossroads, of course, is our workhorse.

That one is is super popular.

Uh we have we have on the outskirts what we call park and pools.

Uh those are those uh inviting consumers to take their cars, you know, pool in the carpool into work or into town.

Uh if you're driving up IH 35 uh between here and your brothels, there's a park and pool right in the middle of the highway there.

But I think we touched upon all the parking pools, yes.

Yes, you only have two consistent parking rides outside of events.

Yeah, okay.

And um, so yeah, I think especially where those are geographically located and where the rest of it is, that's certainly an opportunity for more, right?

And I'm glad Mala and Kellogg are at least gonna be considered for event sharp parking rides, uh, which is helpful, but I think long-term parking opportunities is is important because I think Kill Lak it it is a lot of people try to use it kind of as a parking ride, right?

It's just not enough space for it to be designated as such.

You know, it it it would be also uh worthwhile for us to mention that once the green and silver lines are up and running, those become uh great assets for us to utilize for park and ride purposes as well.

Because not only will we be able to run a green line on it, but we can run a park and ride bus on there as well.

Um, and so think about parking outside the central business district uh that we can utilize together with partnerships.

I know we're having conversations with city staff about that, but those become those moments to bring people in and out of the business central business very efficiently.

And I know we talked about this earlier, but how many shade structures and benches have you done the past couple years, fiscal years?

Total to get you that number.

I know um we have more shade structures in our system than uh Cat Metro has in total stops.

So we we we have a number of them, but again, we're quite larger than Cat Metro.

But we'll get you that number.

Yeah, and I'm just curious in district floor, right?

Especially, you know, if you drive down Rails and you know all those benches for those stops are are slanted basically and they're falling back.

Uh and there's plenty of right-of-way to do work on there, and and part of that's gonna be a bond project for us near Valley High Elementary.

And when they showed us a picture of that location, right?

I mean, you saw a horrible bus stop at the corner falling into the Durant's culvert.

So, you know, that's right in front of an elementary school.

So I don't know how they're prioritized, but I'd like to see the locations and and how many of them you've done, just so we can get a better understanding of that.

And um I will also add that I think um earlier it kind of sounded like you almost said when going back to the to fairs that a fare is almost sort of a a barrier for some to get onto the bus, right?

So you're talking about free fares, and then you said a fare is kind of a way to prevent some people from from doing that.

Can you kind of clarify that?

It's not it's not a uh if I said barrier, I that was not my intention.

Um was the I believe the question was about security and what we're doing for security onto our bus because that that is an important.

We must address that as well.

Is uh our operator, I mean, our customers are in a confined space, so security is a major um moment for them to make sure that they feel safe in their transportation purposes.

What I was connecting to was part of that mitigation to help us with that security, is having a fair that's established that those that are using the system are paying to use the system.

Yeah, yeah.

And how much is a fair?

Just remind me how much that's a dollar thirty.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's not a high barrier to cause harm, right?

I think that's it's not you know, if someone's gonna do that.

Um so I think that's it's worth a conversation.

And you know, it's uh I will echo the comments also that if we're if and when we evaluate the telecom tax, uh, I'd expect some sort of deeper analysis into free fare.

Sure.

Uh, even if that's not your recommendation, I think it it's a serious issue that should be evaluated.

I don't consider it to be a pet project as others have described it.

So that is a real issue for a lot of families in our community.

Uh, and that is something that a lot of us are saying that and it should be taken seriously.

So I'd appreciate that analysis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you for this presentation.

Y'all know I'm gonna focus most of my time on green line.

We're really excited for the work that's happening with the green line.

I wanted to say in case my colleagues didn't know that the bus stop designs got passed by HDRC last week, I think, and so we were excited for that, Mark.

It took a little bit, but you know, I think when we work with our community and make sure that they understand what they're getting and have a real clear visual sense of it, that they can appreciate it and get on board.

And so um they you guys made um some changes to the historic designs in our historic neighborhoods, and and I think they really appreciated that because they uh they are historic and they want to be seen as such.

So um thank you for your work on that.

Um that being said, I also want to shout out Kat for the work that she's been doing on our traffic coming through the corridors that were analyzed.

Some of our neighborhoods are really concerned about the traffic that's gonna come through as a result of the green line.

And so I am excited about that work.

I am concerned that we don't have enough money to do all the things that we need to do.

And we've really only analyzed a few of the core neighborhoods.

We haven't even gotten to kind of some of the outer ones that are still going to be affected.

So I think traffic calming, at least for me, is one of the things I spend so much time on in my neighborhoods.

Even things like stop bars.

Now I'm like, why don't we have stop bars at every stop sign?

And I honestly didn't really think about it very much before, but it can be an effective traffic calming tool.

So I feel like we should just add that in any time we install a stop sign, just do a stop bar with it.

Um, anywho, that being said, I wanted to say that I think we have to figure out very quickly how much we're gonna be able to fund for traffic calming and make sure that we have enough planning ahead in our budget for this summer to include additional traffic calming for the work that needs to be done.

Um, and then along with that, uh I also wanted to talk about the drainage and sidewalks that are being done.

So on that slide, I think um where you talk about 138 stormwater drains and 6.7 miles of sidewalk.

Uh are the stuff all of yeah, are the you is that all of utility work already completed?

Is that what's being completed on the chart right now?

No, that's what we're working on right now.

So we'll we'll be doing that for the next year or so.

But we've started that's what started.

That's the hash mark line on the timeline, right?

Okay, so I heard someone say right.

Oh, yeah.

That's the that's right.

Yeah, that's so we've already started some.

So I think, and and then the 6.7 miles of sidewalk, has any of that been started yet?

No, not sidewalk, we're just doing it, it's the overhead utility.

Right now, yeah.

And the other thing is, you're on on you're on right on, I think Maul Woodlawn right now or very close to woodline.

Okay, so councilwoman Castillo kind of mentioned this.

And what I would love for you guys to do is when you go to your website and you see the segments, I would love for y'all to show on the segment piece by piece where when you can click on it, you could see what utility work is happening and which sidewalks are going to be improved.

So even though that that work is not started yet, you can at least show it because that's a new upgrade, and it's on when you click on the construction um updates, you can see segment one, segment two, segment three, but the segments don't have any detail on them.

So if you could zoom into them and just say, this is where the utility work is going on right now, and this is what sidewalk work will be coming, that'll at least be a starting point for the construction time.

Well, we'll see, yeah, we'll we'll explore that, we'll see what we can do and keep in mind uh 30 days before we hit something.

You know, Tom and his folks are out there knocking on doors, um passing out flyers letting them know that we're coming.

100%.

But what I I told you guys do, we all do, I think, a good job of letting people know something is happening.

What I'm trying to focus on is how to get the community more engaged and bought in with the long-term project.

So if they can see down the line, this is what's going to be coming on their street or their sidewalk, they might be more excited about the project in general, right?

That oh, okay, we are gonna be fixing this stormwater drain here, or we are gonna be burying this utility if that this utility pole that's preventing the sidewalk from accessing from being able to walk up and down.

Okay, I'll take a look at it.

And um, the one thing y'all I've asked I've asked about this several times, but I'd love I love to show people what they're going to be seeing.

So, one of the big questions that folks are still asking is like I'm not gonna be able to turn left.

If so, if you live on the east side of San Pedro, on a lot of those parts where there's a center running lane, you won't be able to turn left.

I'd love to have like a visual on the website that says like click on an intersection, and maybe it's not every intersection, but click on an intersection, this is what it would look like.

So if you're on um uh one of the streets, like right under Bassi, La Vera.

If you're on Livera, this and you're trying to turn left on San Pedro, this is what it would look like.

And that would yeah.

And I think there's some plan for that.

I when I talked to Tom, he mentioned that there might be an update happening on the visualization on how it's gonna work.

Yeah, just so that not the main intersections, but like on the side streets, they can be like, okay, I'll be able to turn right and go around, or et cetera.

Um and then the last thing, I was talking to a resident the other day who rides the bus from Beacon Hill, and she came to our field office, and I was like, aren't you so excited for the green line?

You're gonna be able to get here so much more quickly.

And she's like, Well, actually, not really.

And I said, Well, why not?

And she said, Well, I just don't want them to forget about all the intersecting lines.

So, going back to the better bus plan, I think that folks are just a little concerned that because to your point, right?

This is only gonna be able to go up and down and then green line.

We need to be able to get people to these stations.

Absolutely.

And so I think another visualization, if possible, if you could show like which lines are connecting and how quickly we're going to be able to get folks to where they need to get to because of the green line, right?

It's still not, and that's why we did it.

We we did this so that you could get a shorter transition time between folks coming to San Pedro and then going where they need to get to.

But that connection, I don't think it's fully, I don't even think I fully understand it, right?

So if I'm coming from the Med Center and I'm potentially coming here or from a different part of town, how am I gonna be how is this gonna make my trip faster?

Absolutely, you're absolutely right, because uh the green line and the silver line are part of the better bus plan and and they're pretty much the backbone.

And yeah, they don't go everywhere, but they connect the lines that get you to where you need to go.

Yeah, so like here's a here's a couple of ways that I think I would show that.

Like if you're currently taking this um going from this point to this point, this is your transition time.

After both Green Line and Silver Line are done, this would be your plan, this would be and through the bus plan, like giving real examples for that in an accessible way that folks can see, I think would help to see what the difference is gonna be.

Because right now, if you just look at, all right, I'm gonna go from a blake to downtown, which in some of my neighborhood meetings, they're like that time decreases by what, like a minute.

That's not what we're really trying to, if you're going on a non-traffic time, right?

So we want to try to show the whole connection route.

Got it.

Okay.

Um council member um Galvan brought up the good point about goals and targets.

So I've heard you guys say several times that when we did the Fredericksburg Road Primo line, we we hit our targets, and that's how we know we're gonna hit our targets for green line.

I'd love to see and the 50, I love the 50 million, I'd love the big picture, but I want to see green line.

What are the targets year by year?

And and maybe we have I'm gonna say dashboard again.

I should I should count every time I ask for a new dashboard.

But maybe we have a dashboard that shows, okay, this is our target for year after year, and this is how many people we want riding.

I mean, our assumptions are based on you know a 2% growth, 3%, etc.

every year, so that we can track because the biggest way to get over the skepticism of we're wasting our money is by showing actually we're not people are riding.

Absolutely.

Um, and I think we said that about Primo, but people were like, they didn't they they didn't believe it because they didn't see it.

So if we can show it, I think folks will get more excited about okay, yeah, there are people riding.

And we have that because we're required to submit that to the FDA to get the federal dollar set up.

Yeah, so maybe we can do that on on the Green Line website too.

This Green Line website's gonna be great.

Um okay, the last question that I wanted to ask, I asked this about NPS.

Um for for the NPS ratings, can you just go over really quickly about how you guys get those ratings?

So the the net promoter score is done through a survey that's randomized uh of our of our riders that are taking the service that are actively utilizing the service, it's done randomly.

It's it's done to enough of a degree of scientific, you know, blah blah blah, whatever.

Yeah, that that kind of piece.

So, what a net promoter score does is it's it's it's one thing to say that I'm satisfied with with the service.

That's the customer satisfaction score.

The net promoter score is okay.

Are you satisfied enough that you're gonna go promote via to your friends and neighbors?

So if any of us as consumers ever had that question of would you recommend the service to your friends and neighbor, you're being asked the net promoter score question.

And it you I totally know the math around it.

You take the supporters minus the detractors and you get the score.

How are we collecting the data?

Through it's through an onboard survey uh through a third party.

And it's randomized completely.

Um and it's randomized completely.

Can you send us like where those um where those respondents came from?

Is that possible?

Absolutely.

Yeah, to see.

We can cross-reference where those survey results are coming from.

I just curious about how many folks were you know how when we do the the budget surveys in the summer, they show us like these are the this is the demographics of the hundred people that we used.

I'd like to see that breakdown for them.

Absolutely.

Um, okay, so the last thing on the telecom text, and um, I also wanted to shout out councilwoman for her fare-free rides for students.

I shared this in our one-on-one.

I would love for that to, I would love for us to track.

I'm glad we are tracking.

So they have a system for tracking now that they shared with me.

It's gonna be any time someone uses it, the drivers are gonna be able to track.

Um, and then in the future, once our system becomes automated.

So I like that we can see the numbers.

Um, I'd like for us to set a target, and maybe councilman could take the lead of like, hey, if we have this target, we're gonna figure out a way.

And I know you guys don't have a plan currently to fund that, but I'd like for us to, as a collaborative community collaborative, see if there's a success for that that we make it make it possible.

Um and then for the telecom tax, that would be like everyone's putting conditions on this telecom text as my condition.

Um and I I want to echo the the comments of my colleagues, right?

No, none of us want to see fares as uh a reason why folks can't take transit.

And I totally agree uh with um Councilmember McKee Jucas' point on charging people for public utility, but we do that for a lot of things.

We do that for CPS for SAWS, we do that for solid waste.

So I just think we need to come to a way to figure out to make sure that uh the people that need this uh aren't that fair should never be a barrier.

We agree with that assessment 100%.

Uh a quick comment on the NPS score, too.

It's it's it's also because you can't compare it to other industries either.

So our NPS score, you can't go compare it to Disney.

Uh you know, two different industries all together.

Our NPS score just happens to be the highest in the transit industry, those of us that are measuring uh that NPS score.

Just so a moment of clarification there.

Councilman Goblin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a couple quick questions.

Um we're talking about with the reduced fare programs.

I just wanted to know um how many eligible writers are utilizing the reduced fare programs currently.

So we just did an analysis, I believe it's 60% of our our customers are paying full fare, so the other 40% ish are doing some type of discount on our system.

Got it.

Okay, including free, because there's a bunch that write for free, but their fare is being underwritten by somebody else.

Right.

Yeah, very right.

Uh, do we track any ridership changes with those writers?

I know someone asked earlier about like the differences between uh we're tracking per capita or per person if they're unique writers or not.

I guess my question is because it's kind of similar about if folks are folks who are using those programs.

Uh do we see any difference within their writing patterns?

Do they write more often?

Do they not?

That's a good question.

Um I don't know off the top of my head, but we can look at that.

That's things.

Yeah.

Great.

Um other questions I had, I know you mentioned a bit of was with Via Link in particular, but um what percentage of the workforce within Via is uh independent contractor versus full-time or employed directly via?

Um so we got about 2,000 employees.

You saw 907 of them are operators, you know, another big chunk of them are maintenance.

Uh uh majority of our employees are in that category.

I believe our subcontractor who subs to uh Z trip.

Okay.

So they're hiring a Z trip here locally to do the driving.

I'm gonna say it's about 50 uh or so drivers, but in the total system at once.

Okay.

I got the I got the thumbs up there on that one.

Estimate, of course.

Got it.

Okay, so we got up 50.

Sounds good.

Um, and then of course, talking about a key part of all this, right?

About making our entire system work is make sure we have operators there, right?

Who can move these buses around, get people moving.

What's the worker attention looking like at the and then what's the long-term plans with that?

So the the way we reached that all-time high and level of you know, 107 operators.

And by the way, since our fiscal year of 26, uh, we have we've hired 75 to today.

So that's we're we're seeing the growth of this continuing at an exponential rate.

Um that's giving us a good indication too that we've figured out to to slow the churn down, the the departures.

And there are a number of programs that we did to do that to give the new employees, the new operators more consistency in their family life, more consistency on even their route life of what they take.

And so there's a combination of things going on, but we would not have been able to achieve the 107 if we're having a backdoor issue of folks um leaving us at faster rates.

Right.

Got it.

Do you have any data?

Maybe this is for the city as well about how ready to work paired in with that work.

We we do have a bit of that.

Um ready to work came over um about six months ago and awarded us as being like the third highest uh utilizer, third or fourth highest utilizer of ready to work.

So some of those operators that we're talking about indeed, you know, can't do ready to work.

Got it.

My last question for sure.

Um was uh someone mentioned uh about um the kind of app for via link.

Um I know there's an app already for uh for the regular via are they gonna merge?

Is there gonna be one app?

Just wondering.

Maybe our chair wants to answer that because our chair has.

Yeah, great question because this is something that has been a pet peeve for the last couple of years, right?

As somebody that wants to share and tell the story about how to use via trans or how to uh look at the buses, it's too complicated, right, for the average user.

Um and so we have uh added money in the uh budget last year to do an integration of all apps, and it's supposed to launch as a soft lunch prior to Fiesta and be ready for Fiesta.

That is what they have shared with me, and that is what the commitment has been, right?

But we still got to test it out.

So that's why we hired Brian Diller.

That's right.

That's what we we were able to accommodate and bring over Brian.

But yes, to your question, uh Councilman, user um experience is is number one right for us from uh looking at the options to uh getting to the bus stop or waiting for your bus to the experience on the bus, the safety, the cleaniness, um, to exiting the bus and leaving.

That is all one package that we're looking at um all together.

Got it.

Thank you for that.

Let me know if you need help with any promotional materials for how to do that from district six on downtown.

I'll do that.

Uh last thing I wanted to say, this is not a question, just a comment.

Also very excited for ART.

One of my favorite memories in Austin with my one of my favorite routes in Cat Metro is 803, breezing through downtown traffic uh in less than 10 minutes while everyone else is stuck at 5 p.m.

And also, look at me, I'm on the bus.

Anyway, so hopefully we have the same experience here downtown in San Antonio.

Councilman Spears.

I just had one quick question, and Tom maybe told me this once before, and I forgot.

Can you move between the link zones?

So could I go from like Stone Oak to Randolph?

Like you know, the answer is you can, but not in that vehicle.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

So that via link zone would take you to a transfer point.

Yeah.

The transfer point, you'd get onto our fixed route, fixed route over to Randolph, and then you'd you'd end your route ideally in a via link.

But all that's still one fare, one trip.

So that's that's an yeah.

Okay.

Thanks.

That's it.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, of course, the Central Bus Station is in District 5 within the Cattleman Square community.

Uh I'm grateful that the San Antonio Housing Trust, which many of my colleagues are board members of, uh, have commissioned Corazon Ministries to conduct outreach uh with uh the unhoused community in that area, uh voting report uh and connecting them to services uh if they're comfortable accepting.

Um they also conducted a survey with uh the un-house community about things that could potentially improve uh the overall quality within the area, and they recommended a couple of things, uh water fountains and restrooms.

And I understand that via at Central has restrooms and water fountains.

Uh, can you help me understand if um that's something accessible to all folks walking around Cattleman Square?

Uh or do folks have to share fare, or does security potentially turn people away to not access the restrooms?

Can you just walk me through the the accessibility of the central restrooms?

Yeah, they're they're prioritized for those that are using the system for sure.

Uh and and I think generally enforced that way, I think it's what you're what you're getting at generally.

Okay, I appreciate that clarification.

Uh I I would hope, right?

Uh again, that there's opportunity.

I think it would improve the overall experience of the riders who may be paying a fare um because the alternative is the sidewalk across the street.

Uh and I think right having access helps uh alleviate that.

Um and then lastly, my last question uh is in terms of the the February free month of free fare, how is that underwritten?

What was the source to support that?

So that that card that you had that that's really a marketing cost of our of our agency because it's a promotional cost, so it's a defined amount of time.

Um you getting it in the mail is indicating to us that you're you're probably living within an area of a route that was improved.

So we're inviting you to come and try those new improvements.

So it's definitely uh you know from a marketing standpoint that we're uh we're doing that.

And on the mailer it says like for the operator to hit like star B.

Um, when typically is that button hidden?

Because I'm assuming you are tracking data in terms of how many people are actually using it.

Correct.

Um are there other instances beyond this uh specific mailer that uh the operators are hitting star B?

Yes, they have a number of buttons that if we're not tracking uh the utilization of a card, a credit card or even the go card or even go mobile, then they have buttons along their fare box that they're you know actively utilizing, let's say the senior discount.

Uh they're actively uh recognizing that and counting that uh as a fair.

All right, great.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Messi Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I just a quick question.

I didn't get to ask my telecoms question.

So um does the city um also collect a telecoms tax?

They do on your one percent that you get in sales tax.

Yes.

I understand.

So council, I'm gonna go uh off of memory here, but our our one percent sales tax in the general fund.

People are referring to it as a telecom tax.

Okay.

It's a sales tax on certain telecommunication services.

Years ago, state legislature passed a law that exempted that um those certain telecom services from sales tax.

Entities had to opt in to that.

Um I don't recall the time frame.

We did opt in, so the general fund is getting that sales tax on those telecom services.

There's a handful from what I remember, John Gary can correct me, but I think there's a handful of entities that didn't opt in.

Um via is one of them, although they can't opt in on their own, it's got to be the cities that um authorized a creation of via that have to do it.

Or one of those.

Um I think there's actually a comptrollers website that tracks it.

Um you can see all the cities and entities that are listed there and those that are exempted from it or that haven't opted in.

Can you share how much goes into the general fund with that?

Not now, but at some point, we can try.

I mean, my recollection is and I know the mayor was kind of asking this earlier that the my recollection we were working with via last year was that we were having a hard time defining it because it's certain telecom services, and we were trying to pull data from the comfrollers' office, we were having a hard time to do it.

But recollection is VIA had hired a um a uh economist to help kind of do a projection using uh data from the comptrollers office.

And I think that's where that estimate comes from.

And is the tax on the internet and phone, or what is the telecom?

I'm gonna have to go back and pull it.

It's it's a very specific set of services that are exempted out, unless you recall exactly what those are.

I don't remember off the top of my head.

So and what VIA is asking for too is specific telecom services.

Yes, it's okay.

It's to opt in to that so that sales tax is collected on those.

That's what's making it hard to project.

It's not all telecom services, it's it's pieces of a telecom bill.

Okay.

That's what's making it challenging.

Awesome.

Okay, that's fine.

Um, but Ben, just to clarify, maybe this helps the councilwoman, is that whatever we were getting, they would then get.

It's not like they get a different kind of dealt telecom tax.

It's the same telecom tax, either via gets it or they don't, correct?

That's correct.

Thank you.

Okay.

Councilman Corps.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to quickly add that we were on a housing trust phone call yesterday and we did so much work around transit-oriented development and the green line and the silver line are both going to be eligible for affordable housing benefits from the federal government, believe it or not, um, that's going to cut construction grants for loan periods for two years at half the cost of the Treasury.

And so this is not only going to be able to help transit, but also just affordable housing around it.

And Project DC is actually eligible, so that's going to be exciting.

All right, thanks.

Thanks.

Um I also uh received one of those cards I shared with you and with Laura.

Um, and I had the same questions as the as the councilwoman.

Um and so can you elaborate?

I mean, so it's been in there for now about a week and a half, 11 days.

Do you have any data as a result of folks using that that card?

Do we know?

But we can come back with that with our data.

Well, certainly, I think you think here there's some trust in in that.

I also want to make sure I understood the point that you made, which is um the cost for that is paid for out of a promotional account.

If I I remember reading that card and it says you can use this as many times as you want in the month of February.

And so you actually don't know if somebody used it twice or 200 times, correct?

Correct.

Okay, so you don't know what you are potentially because you're not paying per ride.

Correct.

Okay.

So all that to say certainly there's a lot more interest in in the analytics, um, but if we can if we're willing to offset it for that amount of time, I think there is value in in a pilot.

And let me get I'm gonna come back to that.

I think what you're also hearing here from some of my colleagues is that um this is this is really, I mean, this is not a matter of um like splitting atoms or molecular research.

This is fundamentally a question of do we want to help, frankly, the most cost burdened in our community or not.

As you pointed out, the vast majority of people that ride the bus have to ride the bus.

And so in this moment in time when people are so challenged with affordability in a number of ways.

I think you hear from this body great interest in understanding how we can help people more and help people faster.

Um I mean, you know, and uh we have lots of examples in our community when we want to do big things, we do them.

We want to want when we want to knock down the Institute of Texas and Cultures in like eight days, we do that, right?

And so helping people is something that I think we should also be just as a as aggressive about.

So this is um what I would like from you and the via team, please, um, is by 11 March or whatever 30 days look like.

I'd like a written product to this body that helps us understand what it would take to do a six month pilot that is fare free for the top five routes.

Um and based on your chart, which I really appreciate, it's very helpful.

That's 24 24% of your writers.

Okay.

So I'd like to understand that.

Um and then for a time frame in terms of implementation, you can aim for one July, right?

So six month pilot that is fare free for the top five routes, which affects 24% of your writers.

And if you had to implement that by one July, how would you go about doing that?

I'd like in that memo, please also outline you know your top your top five concerns as it relates to that, um, and then how you are going to you would plan to mitigate those during that during that pilot.

Um we are also, I mean, to your point, not talking about a lot of money um at the end of the day, five percent, right?

I mean, if we were asked to cut five percent of our budget, we would you know, cut out I don't know, a week's worth of Starbucks or something, right?

Like it would it be, we would find this.

Um and so what I'd also appreciate the third part of that memo would be if you had to offset five percent or three percent if you were able to collect the telecom tax.

So five percent or three percent, how would you offset that in your existing budget?

Okay.

So you you want us to include the telecom tax as that analysis.

That's so one analysis would be five percent, five percent.

Because you said if you fare free was five percent of um five the fare is five percent of your budget.

So how would you offset that within your budget?

What what would we not do to your point if we had to we we don't need a memo for that, Mayor?

We'd we'd stop the green and silver line, to be honest.

Okay.

Well, there'd be other I know there are other options, okay.

Well, so don't have to gold watch us.

No, no.

I I've seen that okay.

So what I'd like so let I mean, and and you can go back and talk to your team about some some other options that would help us.

I'm sure there's not just one thing that you would look at, right?

So please lay that out.

How would you offset the five percent?

Yeah, let me just finish.

Thank you.

So I think seeing that on paper, um, and then hearing you know how you would mitigate some of those concerns, I think would be really uh would be helpful for us.

Because what I don't want to say, that's why I was asking about the telecom tax clarification.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that that would be an offset to that five percent of the the top routes.

Well, and that's we can identify that for sure.

And that's why I asked, show us how you would offset five percent, and then show us how you would offset three percent, because it's the three percent when you are able to collect the telecom tax.

That's right, that's right.

Because what I don't want us to do is I don't know enough about your advertising budget.

But if as a result of in of fare-free, we see increased ridership, all of a sudden your advertising is much more valuable, right?

Which may actually help to further offset some of the things that you're looking at.

I also don't want us to underestimate the benefits, and I know this is not something you're gonna be able to collect, but I don't think we want to underestimate the potential benefits, of course, of less traffic, less pollution, and of course, less dwell time.

As you and I talked in the meeting with Laura, what contributes to your dwell time is the need to collect fares.

And I understand you have a solution where people may pay beforehand or what have you, but if there is less dwell time, that means more frequency.

That means more people are potentially writing it if their main concern is how long they have to wait for the bus, right?

Just and and since our conversation on Monday, I was able to S and D for an evaluation of dwell time because I think it was also a moment that you had uh a conversation with one of our vendors.

That's right.

And uh so the good news is there the investment that we did in the fare box now that folks can go and do more financial um interactions with our system at every bus now.

Our dwell time has decreased eight percent over the last uh 12 months.

So that's significant you know uh amount of dwell time savings that we're already seeing already.

So just wanted to get you that number back because you were asking for it.

Thank you.

Um I'd also um as as part of that, um, and uh the analytics piece I think is really important.

Um I I was actually struck by your response of we know who's paying and who's not paying, um, but we don't know enough about the writers, and I feel like if more people are writing it as a result of it being reduced fare or free, it being compensated from somebody else, then that means that there's more people in our community going someplace, doing something, being you know, being productive or frankly just enjoying our city, right?

So I really welcome better understanding the analytics that you all are collecting to ensure that we're best providing these these services.

And then my last two questions.

Um have you had any issues at any of your stops, certainly in certain parts of town, um, as it relates to ice activity.

I'm sorry, ICE activity, immigration enforcement.

I'm unaware of any of that.

You're not aware of any.

Okay, thank you.

And then lastly, this is point of privilege here.

Um, early Monday mornings, I drive, uh, we go down woodlawn, and there is a bus stop, and it drops them off.

I don't know who takes this, I don't know whoever gets off of it, but they stop right at a train station.

Like not, excuse me, it's not a train station, it's literally the tracks.

And I'm like, there's no and there's no sidewalk.

Um, and it's there's you're clearly coming from somewhere and going to some place.

It's just a really odd stop, and it's dangerous.

And it's because there's no we have a bus flag there, a bus stop there.

Okay.

Yes, we do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, but again, the stop is literally the train track.

There's no bench, there's no nothing.

And so I'm not sure if that's a vestige of older times, but um it's just at the end of the day, whenever I see it, it's really unsafe.

So I would I would flag that for you.

When you go from from a colour to woodline, you'd see it on the left-hand side.

Um, okay, thank you so much.

Um I think you can hear from this body just how much we appreciate your hard work, how much we know this is really important for the city.

I know we have some folks here from Centro, um, how important it is for the downtown plan, etc.

I think we also recognize there's a real opportunity to help the most cost burdened in our community already.

So I look forward to that memo.

Um, and then once we receive that, I'd ask um Councilmember McKee Rodriguez as chair of the transportation committee to agendize that um so we can have a discussion about a good way forward.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank y'all.

Thank y'all very much.

If I may, Mayor, real quickly, I just need to clarify only because we made uh representations in court.

The city was not involved in the demolition of the ITC.

Okay.

I meant we, the the royal we of the royal we.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks.

Thank you, Andy.

On to the next topic, Eric.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, our second item uh today is a uh update to the full council on a CCR that was submitted by Councilwoman Castillo on the uh creation of a joint city-county ad hoc committee to establish a centralized system for diversion and recovery.

Um that CCR went to governance in December.

Uh it was heard at public safety in January.

Uh city staff recommended in this and the public safety committee approved the city's participation in this RFP that you're going to hear about uh here shortly.

Um, and the uh public safety committee asked that this be brought to the full uh council and B session.

So Maria V Maria Maria Vargas from the integrated community safety office is going to provide the overview of the CCR and diversion centers in Texas.

We're gonna ask uh Mr.

Eric Epley from Strack, uh the executive director to uh talk very high level about uh mental health facilities and uh globally across the city, and then uh Jalen Jameson, the uh CEO of uh the Center for Healthcare Services will uh talk about specifically uh the diversion center, uh, an overview of the RFP and the feasibility that we'll be kicking off uh shortly.

So, Maria.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Maria Vargas, director of integrated community safety.

I will be briefing on the council consideration request for a centralized center for diversion and recovery.

As Eric said, this was submitted October 6, 2025 by Council District 5.

The CCR was heard by governance committee in December 2025 and heard by the public safety committee on January 20th, 2026.

The CCR makes four requests.

First, to begin the conversation on a potential mental health and intellectual developmental disabilities diversion center.

Second, to identify the necessary infrastructure staffing and procedural changes to implement the new system successfully.

Third, to review the recommendations from Dr.

Alexander Testa's Bear County Justice Intake and Assessment Annex Evaluation Study.

And finally, to create a joint city and county ad hoc committee to establish a centralized system for diversion and recovery.

I will now go over the two types of centers discussed in the CCR.

First, a diversion center, which serves as a direct alternative to incarceration for individuals with mental health conditions or intellectual and developmental disabilities abbreviated as IDD in its presentation.

Common features of a diversion center include 24-7 intake, on site assessment to identify mental health or IDD needs, facilitation of consultation with the district attorney's office, and the provision of streamlined processes for stabilization to prevent recidivism.

The other type of center discussed in the CCR is a recovery center.

This is a long-term restoration and rehabilitation center that provides centralized system of care to address the root cause of instability.

Common features of a recovery center are comprehensive on site care, such as medication management, psychiatric care, substance use disorder intervention and rehabilitation services.

They ensure continuity of care through community-based case management and permanent supportive housing.

And they may also utilize individuals with lived experience as a peer support to assist in stabilization.

There are two primary types of diversion.

First, there is pre-arrest or pre-booking diversion conceptualized as diversion or deflection.

This is primarily driven by police drop-off either from the field by an officer or being transferred from the magistrate before an arrest or charges are filed.

This drop-off would take place at a physical location where treatment begins immediately.

In contrast is post-arrest or postbooking diversion, which is conceptualized through the adjudication process.

Treatment begins as a legal process over the course of weeks or months through judicial order.

As a result of the two different mechanisms, pre-arrest or pre-booking diversion means that the charges are suspended or never filed.

As such, no arrest record is created.

Post arrest or postbooking diversion through adjudication means the charges are pending until program or treatment completion.

Some examples of San Antonio pre-arrest pre-booking diversion include the site and release program with SAPD and the Bear County DA, and the public sobering unit and crisis care center, run by CHCS.

Post arrest postbooking diversion include pretrial diversion with the Bear County DA, and the specialty courts, of which Bear County has approximately 14.

This slide visualizes the current SAPD arrest process.

It begins in the top left corner with the arrest.

The arrestees then taken to the arrestee administrative processing center at 401 South Frio, referred to as the detention center.

Here, intake and processing begins.

During this time, the arrestee goes through a mental health screening comprised of four questions.

The first question, have you ever been diagnosed as having a mental illness by a doctor or mental health professional?

Second, have you ever or are you currently taking any medication for mental health mental illness?

Third, have you ever tried to kill yourself?

And fourth, do you currently have thoughts of killing yourself?

If the arrestee answers yes to question four and they are only being charged with a class C misdemeanor, then they are taken to the hospital for emergency detention.

If they answer yes to question four but are being charged with a Class B misdemeanor or higher, then they remain at the detention center, but their ex their processing is expedited, and they have their probable cause hearing and are swiftly taken to the Justice Intake and Assessment Annex, the GIA, or also referred to as the Bear County jail.

If they answer yes to questions one through three but no to question four, they remain in the normal processing flow, have their probable cause hearing, and are taken to the GIA.

This slide describes current SAPD policy as it relates to mentally ill persons.

At pre-arrest or pre-booking, an SAPD officer with supervisor approval may detain a person with mental illness in lieu of an arrest for misdemeanors, excluding driving while intoxicated and family violence.

For driving while intoxicated in family violence, the individual must be booked on the appropriate charge.

Otherwise, if the misdemeanor is eligible, then again with supervisor approval, the officer may take the individual's information and list them as the suspect in all appropriate records.

They also notify the victim of their option to pursue charges through the follow-up unit, and the officer may conduct that warrantless emergency detention.

If the offense is not eligible, then mental health concerns are conveyed to the central magistrate upon intake.

The central magistrate and university health nurse may then determine assessment needs as appropriate.

Additionally, there are bonds and special conditions that can also be utilized post-arrest post-booking, such as a special needs unit or substance abuse treatment.

This table shows current Texas County efforts for pre-arrest diversion in the major counties, specifically Dallas, Harris, Terrant, and Travis.

The first two rows of the table describe the name and the year that the diversion program was established in the respective county.

The third row describes whether the county chose to build new infrastructure or simply renovate existing infrastructure.

And as you can see, all four counties chose to renovate existing infrastructure for their pre-arrest diversion center.

The fourth row describes the operator for the center, and all of the counties except for Dallas, the operator is the local mental health authority.

And as an example, CHCS is a local mental health authority for Bear County.

Dallas's diversion center is run by Homeward Bound Inc., a nonprofit with which Dallas County has had a long relationship with for the mental health spectrum in Dallas.

Governance Road describes how the pre-arrest diversion center is governed, with Harris and Travis County both using joint oversight committees that set policies together.

Terrent County, as a contrast, uses an ad uses an advisory committee in which the committee simply makes recommendations to the county commissioners court on policy.

And finally, in Dallas County, they use a public-private prop partnership in which uses a collaboration between the DA, the hospital district, and Homeward Bound Inc.

The final row describes the funding of the different diversion centers.

Dallas and Travis County used multiple pools of funding between the city and the county and the hospital districts to run their centers.

Tarrant County used County ARPAR funds and state and federal grants to initially launch their prearrest diversion center and have since shifted to county general fund.

Harris County is the most unique in that they receive a state allocation, which the county general fund matches along with housing authority vouchers.

The Harris Center also has a 501c3, which raises private funds through philanthropy and donations.

This slide describes Harris County reported outcomes.

From 2018 to August 2023, 8,835 individuals were diverted to the respite rehab and reentry center via the Judge Ed Emmett Diversion Center instead of the Harris County jail.

I'd like to note that in late 2020, the Judge Ed Emmett Diversion Center moved into this larger campus named the Respite Rehab and Reentry Center, where it has access to additional resources.

The visual shows how the Judge Ed Emmett Diversion Center can shift people to those other resources and their beds for the different specific needs of the client.

Additionally, for every $1 spent on jail diversion, Harris County reports that they avoid spending $5.54 on criminal justice costs.

Individuals diverted with five or more bookings were 3.1 times less likely to be booked into jail on a new offense when compared to the non-diverted comparison group.

Jail booking reductions were largest amongst black participants, male participants, and homeless participants.

Psychiatric emergency incident reductions were largest amongst people who were homeless at the time of participation.

This slide shows report Harris County reported intake demographics, with 77% of individuals being noted as homeless at time of intake.

89% of the Class B offenses were comprised of criminal trespass, and 46.5% of the individuals were diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder.

This line graph shows the change in bookings for trespass offenses among people with Harris Center treatment history.

The red line denotes the launch of the jail diversion initiative, and you can observe that bookings drop significantly for those individuals with the history of treatment at the Harris Center.

This table shows Dallas DeFlects reported outcomes, the diversion center in Dallas County.

You can see that from 2024 to 2025, the number of referrals increased from 184 to 1,087.

This increase in referrals is largely attributed to the proactive work of different teams that Dallas Deflex is utilizing.

In 2024, a mobile crisis outreach team began working with Dallas PD Dispatch to intercept eligible calls to divert clients to the center.

Also, Homeward Bound received 1.6 million dollar grant from QT for a rapid response team to primarily respond to direct calls from convenience stores to transport clients to Dallas Deflects or to the hospital.

These two means of diversion represent the greatest increase observed in 2025.

Any individual who comes to the diversion center without a law enforcement officer is classified as a walk-in.

For those calls that Dallas PD dispatch were intercepted are classified in the deferred police call category in 2025.

You may also observe in 2025 that DART PD, which is the Dallas Area Rapid Transit PD, was the most consistent agency utilizing the center, averaging 20 clients a month.

Intake was dominated by the non-law enforcement agency outreach group as described, and an underutilization of the center by municipal law enforcement agencies had been observed.

As such, Dallas County has chose to expand its efforts with the Austin Street Center.

A pilot began in October 2025, funded by the local mental health authority, and is composed of a deflection wing inside the shelter with eight beds.

It served 11 clients in the first month, and the reason for this expansion is that the 15-minute turnaround goal for law enforcement officers upon arrival is achieved at the trans transfer.

However, the overall commute for the officers can be up to two hours as they drive to and from the one entry point for the Dallas Deflex Diversion Center.

As such, Dallas County identified the need for additional points of entry for deflection.

And they're looking to create four more deflection centers across the county and to expand the Austin Street Transition Transition Center in 2026.

Per the request of the CCR, I will now review the recommendations from the Bear County Justice Intake and Assessment Annex evaluation.

The recommendations relevant to the CCR are to invest in a dedicated diversion center with the Harris County Judge Ed Emmett Center serving as a model.

Second, to unify mental health and IDD services under a single division to prevent fragmented care.

And third, to implement medical-based screening at intake.

Staff recommended in the public safety committee approved the city's participation and the Center for Health Care Services requests for a proposal for a feasibility study for a potential Bear County Jail Diversion Center.

The public safety committee also approved the request to create a city and county ad hoc committee to discuss establishment of a mental health and intellectual disability diversion center to full council discussion.

I will now return this to City Manager Eric Walsh.

I think you mean the other Garrett Keply.

The other Eric.

This is a summary of a recent meeting we've had.

Judge Sakai asked me to uh convene a group to uh of healthcare leaders to discuss this issue.

I think you'll find uh a partner uh in collaboration with the county on this issue with the CCR and this diversion center concept.

Um I reported out to him last night after um I spoke with him on the phone last night and briefed this slides out because I was going to be briefing here today as well.

Um what I the three components, the three legs of this stool, are uh a psychiatric facility, uh sort of a psych uh uh facility that would be uh able to support uh psych ER, have emergency medicine doctors, et cetera, uh, but also have all the full psychiatric capabilities of inpatient and outpatient capabilities.

Um additionally, the deflection diversion center is the second stool, but I really want to kind of concentrate on the third leg of that stool because um candidly stools without three legs kind of suck.

So it and it doesn't really work.

So if we don't have uh what I talk about is the wraparound services, including our law enforcement navigation.

So the Southwest Texas Crisis Collaborative, which uh is a program inside my organization as track, it's a division, but but it now represents half of my organization's revenue and and function.

So as a regional trauma and EMS system, I promise you the last thing I thought we would be brought into was the crisis mental health universe.

Uh but eight years ago we did become involved in that, and I'm I'm really glad we did because I don't think I realized the significant impact, the significant negative impact on the emergency health care system that the lack of a crisis mental health system uh caused.

And so I give the example.

Um we used to either take emergency detentions to jail or we took them to the emergency room.

Uh largely those emergency rooms didn't have psychiatric services.

And so what you would end up with is someone who's boarding at an emergency department for 90 hours before they're accepted to a psychiatric facility.

We now redirect those directly from the scene uh about 1400 times a month.

A law enforcement officer responds to a scene, calls Medcom, works through a screening tool, and then is routed to directly to a psychiatric facility.

We take trauma patients to the trauma center.

We take stroke patients to the stroke centers.

And you know, gosh, if we don't have any medical emergency, we should take psychiatric patients to the psych centers.

And that's what we've largely been doing for the last uh six years, and that's been uh wildly successful.

But these wraparound services, including law enforcement navigation, also include your core team, include the county's SMART team, include the PIC team or MAPS.

We have many of these efforts that are underway, but there's work yet to do.

Transitional housing is a gap, it's a real gap.

Uh permanent supportive housing is a real gap.

And so my high-level brief to you guys today is we need all three, we need all three legs to the stool if we don't want to be on the floor.

And uh, I'm happy to entertain any questions if you have any questions.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Thank you for inviting me back.

Thanks.

I want to talk to you this afternoon about the population that we're targeting and what we're proposing with this diversion center and the work ahead of us.

So currently we have about 550 inmates, and this is a point-in-time count, that are being treated for mental illness in our adult detention center or the jail.

We have a monthly average of about 152 Bear County defendants that are on a wait list for the state forensic psychiatric bed.

So I want to provide a little context there.

Our state hospital system transitioned from being available to individuals in the civil in the general population to primarily treating those forensic patients.

So the state of Texas has been moving individuals out of our prison system into all of the state hospitals.

And so we our state hospital here in San Antonio used to serve a 22 county catchment area.

Now they are open to receive individuals all over the state of Texas that are waiting for a forensic bed.

So that resource for civil beds for psychiatric treatment, long-term psychiatric treatment, is almost not available to individuals in our community to Bear County and our surrounding counties.

So you must be forensic or out of prison to get over to that brand new hospital on the state hospital grounds, which the hospital was needed.

In addition, we have approximately 300 individuals that are deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Many of these individuals need inpatient competency restoration.

Some of them are may be eligible for outpatient competency restoration, but right now they are in Bear County Detention Center waiting for competency restoration.

Of that, we work with Judge.

Tell me her name.

Lisa Rabiga.

Rodriguez.

She identifies individuals that are eligible for our jail-based competency restoration program.

So my staff, along with UH and Bear County Sheriff's Department, have a program.

We treat approximately 80 inmates.

We have 70 males and 10 females.

We restore individuals in the jail setting, and then those individuals are then ready to initiate their judicial process.

So it's been very successful, and we look forward to continuing that program.

The population that we want to focus on are the 80 to 100 individuals that are booked on a daily basis.

These individuals live with mental health, IDD, or substance use disorders.

They are booked for low-level offenses, and they are basically kept in jail.

And that is the population that we want to target initially for this initiative.

So diversion is not new to Bear County.

At one point, uh we were leaders and innovators in jail diversion.

In 2003, the state of Texas directed all of the local mental health authorities to develop jail diversion programs.

And Bear County and CHCS were a leader.

We funded an individual from the Bear County Sheriff's Office, and they responded to crisis calls, not 911 calls, but calls from the crisis call center that LMHAs are required to manage as a requirement of the state of Texas.

And our deputies would go out with our mobile outreach individuals, clinicians, and that was the first of our jail division diversion programs.

We evolved from that.

We were very active with SAPD and their mental health unit, and that has evolved to the multiple multiple disciplinary team, multidisciplinary teams that you see today, core and smart.

In 2008, we opened the sobering center at 601 Frio.

In 2010, the City of San Antonio began funding that sobering center.

Just over about 70%, maybe 65, 70% of that utilization is by SAPD and all other law enforcement agencies.

And so if an individual is engaging with law enforcement because of public intoxication, they can bring them to the sobering center and not bring not book them.

And it's a very quick turnaround for law enforcement.

They can return to service very quickly after bringing individuals there.

We still operate that on behalf of the city of San Antonio.

In 2010, we entered into a general fund contract with Bear County, and the purpose of that contract was to assess 100% of those individuals screened by law enforcement for mental health andor substance use disorder.

We would then make a recommendation to the magistrate for diversion, diversion to an outpatient treatment opportunity, or reconnect them with a community service that they were already engaged with.

That I'm missing a slide.

Let's see, sorry.

Well, it's out of order.

That process continued from 2010 to 2025, where we had CHCS clinicians embedded in the booking facility, and we were assessing as many as 1,500 individuals a month.

And I'm sharing with you the metrics from 2025.

We recommended over 486 diversions.

We as in CHCS, 285 of those individuals were assessed.

117 were had an emergency detention and remained in jail, and only 82 were actually diverted for treatment.

In 2024, a similar result.

So in you can see we have fiscal year 24, 25, and 26.

26 obviously is current currently our fiscal year, the number of admissions, the average length of stay for those respective fiscal years, the percentage of unsheltered individuals, the percentage of those diverted from the Justice Center system, and those that actually completed the sobering.

We do have a metric with the City of San Antonio.

I think we have a target of engaging individuals and moving them into our detox and then further outpatient treatment.

So you can see the utilization for our for our law enforcement.

And so it's probably time for us to make roll calls and reintroduce the sobering center to our law enforcement entities.

That assessment was conducted by UT Health out of Houston.

It recommended a number of significant improvements that are needed at our GIA, our jail intake annex.

Well, I'll stop here.

So there was a recommendation.

We mentioned earlier that there were fragmented services, but the specific recommendation was related to the non-existence of a sequential process that an individual is engaged in at the GIA.

And so it's very difficult to keep track of the detainees because they weren't sure where they were in the process.

So if someone needed to be medically cleared, but they were with us being assessed for mental health.

UH did not know that they were being assessed for mental health.

We did not know if they were medically cleared.

There was a lot of confusion that was witnessed by Dr.

Testa and his team, and he concluded that there were significant improvements, not to mention technology improvements and staffing improvements for that overall process at GIA.

In addition, in 2022, University Health commenced a study with Meadows to identify the gaps in our mental health continuum of care in Bear County.

And there were significant recommendations coming out of there.

Specifically for CHCS, they recommended that we work on our retention rate.

It was very low at the time.

Our turnover rate was very high.

And at the time that the Meadows findings came out, we were in the low 30s for retention, but we have decreased that and continue to work on that issue specifically.

In addition, it also recommended that CHCS continue the services of our assertive community treatment program and our forensic assertive community treatment program, Act and FACT or the acronyms, and they are typically for higher acuity individuals, and they encourage that we continue those programs and that we seek funding to expand those programs.

The big recommendation coming out of there was twofold.

One was to make improvements to the hospital facility within the adult detention center and to create a psychiatric hospital for our community.

And I'll explain more about that recommendation in the come in the future slides.

So I'm going to shift to talk a little bit about a diversion center.

Earlier, Maria walked through what we look like in terms of division, diversion and deflection around the state of Texas.

We are proposing this be an alternative to jail.

We want this to be a therapeutic drop-off site for adults who encounter law enforcement.

We are focused on low-level misdemeanors who have behavior health needs.

Recall the metric of 80 to 100 individuals that sit in jail today with low-level misdemeanors who live with mental health or substance use issues.

We want to perform a person-centered and trauma-informed approach to care.

We want to focus on stabilizing those individuals, provide treatment to them, focus on the prevention of relapse and recovery.

Our daily cost at Bear County right now is $1,750 a day to house these individuals and treat them.

It was referenced earlier the cost at diversion centers, and this is referenced from Harris County.

It's a little over $500 a day.

So if you use the Harris County experience against what we are spending in Bear County, there's an opportunity for savings and cost avoidance for this community going forward.

This diversion center would provide a short-term residential treatment program with stays of up to 14 days for eligible individuals.

We also have a goal of reducing the overcrowding in the jail, overcrowding unnecessary, sorry, reducing unnecessary emergency room visits at the area hospitals.

We want to stabilize individuals for outpatient treatment, and we believe by meeting these goals, we will contribute to the better to better health outcomes and extend the life expectancy of our community.

So I want to spend some time with this very high-level workflow.

The work that we're expecting out of this study will determine many of these issues for us, and obviously we will be back presenting to you and to the county.

But let's start with the first area of law enforcement.

We believe this is the best opportunity for a front door for this diversion center.

We have had much success working with law enforcement over the years because they are the ones that our community relies on for protect for protection and safety.

So everyone has been trained to call 911 when there's a need.

Earlier today, we held our South Texas Crisis Collaborative Executive Meeting, and we were talking about specifically about the criteria that is currently being implemented at our jail intake center.

And that is actually the criteria that is keeping people in jail.

And so we want to, through this study, work very closely with Bear County to develop new criteria for those individuals so that we can get them out of jail and into treatment.

So understanding those two opportunities for a front door, the individual would be brought to this center.

We would obviously check them in, go through an intake process, they would begin their comprehensive recovery service.

We anticipate this residential treatment could be up to 14 days.

And then the really important work would begin.

As we begin to initiate discharge planning, we would begin to understand the social needs associated with these individuals.

And we anticipate our biggest lift will be at discharge and aftercare for 90 days because we will need to have a very, very robust network of social service capacity in our community so that we can reconnect them to community, we can make sure they are housed, we can make sure they have a community supportive of their recovery journey, and we can meet all of their social needs.

And that will be, I think, in my opinion, the biggest lift for us to ensure that continuity of care is there for these individuals as we are initiating their long-term journey toward recovery.

So the CHCS board authorized release of an RFP for this diversion center planning.

We've closed recently on that RFP.

Dr.

Alexander Testa and his team are chosen to complete this feasibility study.

I think he has a very good operating knowledge of how we all function, and he understands the landscape of mental health services, how the roles that law enforcement plays.

He understands the capacity of our community for mental health and substance use treatment.

He will serve as the principal investigator and evaluation on this team, as he did for the evaluation of the jail intake study.

The scope of the plan is to validate the need in Bear County, determine the eligible population, work with us on the actual workflows that will be necessary, bring all of the stakeholders to the table, determine the financial justification to establish a diversion center and give us a sense of the operational costs and the economic return on our community.

The feasibility study aims to inform data-driven decisions and provide a detailed model for how a diversion center may operate, as well as the governance structure for such.

Of that, 400,000 of those residents utilize our crisis continuum.

The programs that StRAC operates on behalf of our community.

And so I think we've also shared some demographic information, but just to share of that 400,000, about 4,000 individuals are individuals that we categorize as high utilizers.

And these are individuals that engage with law enforcement more frequently.

They go through our crisis continuum, our crisis services more frequently, more than once or twice a year, and they cost this community $23 million.

The state of Texas approves about $14 million in funding to CHCS to fund fifty-two inpatient beds.

And so we contract with several hospitals to make those beds available for individuals who are unfunded or have no insurance coverage.

So what I will say is I with the current funding of local mental health agencies in the state of Texas, and with the utilization of the state hospital system, I don't see another opportunity for our community to have access to inpatient capacity without us working together as a community to solve for this issue together as a community.

We've been going for about three hours and fifteen minutes now.

So we're going to break for ten minutes and then come back.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

The time is now four thirty-nine, and we have uh come back from recess.

I saw the chief earlier, Chief McManus.

Are you still here?

Wanted to offer him the opportunity to provide a few comments if he wanted to on this topic, just given the clear intersection with SAPD.

Okay, for everyone's edification, we did let folks know that public comment is going to start at six PM.

Chief, I saw you in the back.

So Jalen, obviously, um, and we all know this this this topic is really uh important uh to how our law enforcement um uh responds and and has the resources and and frankly I always remember when we asked you during budget season, hey, what's driving your budget request?

And you said workload.

Uh and so to the extent that this helps to reduce workload uh that is not focused on the most violent criminals in our community would wanted to offer you the opportunity to share whatever you'd like to on this topic.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor.

So uh you know, I think SAPD has done pretty much everything we can do from a mental health perspective.

Just for some perspective, back in I think it was 2007 or 2008, we started the mental health unit.

We started that with two people and the two officers and a sergeant, and then we've increased over the years.

Uh we came up with SA core um with along with the fire department.

So I but I think something needs to be done, and I was just telling Jalyn that something like this is probably long overdue.

So all right, thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Um thank you, uh Jalen again for the presentation.

I think that the piece about um the longest part of this is really the aftercare services is not lost on us.

I think we all recognize um the intersections with permanent support housing, transitional housing, all of those things, um, as well as even the placement.

I think in my pre-brief, Maria mentioned um, you know, having this right next to the jail is is not ideal given the message that that sends to folks that are recovering, um, etc.

So lots for us to to consider as we um think about moving in this way, uh which I think makes a lot of sense, and I think as your chart lays out, we're behind um in light of where other communities are.

Um there are some things that are happening in the in the country though, and I'd help I'd welcome you helping us frame um the maybe increased urgency of something like this in light of some of those changes.

So the federal administration's um executive order summer of last year, uh essentially that makes it easier uh to criminalize homelessness.

Can you talk about the impact of that EO and what that may mean in terms of uh increasing the necessity of something like this?

Well, I don't have it in front of me, but it basically compelled uh individuals into treatment that were unsheltered and engaged with law enforcement.

And for now, uh our state statute requires that to be a voluntary on the individual's part, except for law enforcement having the ability to emergency detain individual that they believe is of harm to themselves or others.

Um and so um what's really important for me is to move the community forward in having a facility like this so that we can get in front of our next legislative session in the event there's interest from one of the legislators to enact or do something with that presidential executive order.

I was just getting spun up spun up on on that EO and kind of what it actually does, and the key part that stood out for me in the intersection with your for your work is that it ends funding uh for harm reduction programs um that are known to decrease negative health impact, social and and legal impact.

So um again, a very timely effort.

So thank you, and thank you to the councilwoman.

We're seeing that already and the kinds of funding and the eligibility criteria that's coming out from SAMHSA.

So right now, when we apply for grants, if there's any mention of harm reduction, it automatically makes you an eligible for funding.

Okay, thank you for that.

Can you also, as we've talked routinely here about the implementation of the one big beautiful bill, cuts to Medicare, Medicaid Chip and SNAP?

How how does that in your background analysis how how is some of that already also potentially impacting this?

And May, go ahead.

I believe on one of the slides at the end, we referenced the Medicaid population, which has grown.

Oh, I think it was this way.

Yeah.

So when you look at our safety net population, that 400,000 number are the individuals in the overall safety net population of 700,000 that engage in our crisis continuum.

And that has increased 14 percent in the previous four years.

But the Medicaid population in Texas has decreased by 15 percent, and it's about 180.

So with the future issues with Medicaid and access to care, we expect the number of unfunded individuals to decrease.

Now, just last evening, uh Mr.

Banos visited with the CHCS board and reported, I was very surprised, but it is good news that his care link numbers and his community first numbers have actually increased for this community.

So that's great news.

Um and I didn't bring those numbers with me tonight, but overall I think Texas will experience um a reduction in those with Medicaid.

The flow chart that you also, in terms of the workflow uh of the diversion center um diversion work.

Is this different in any way um from Terran County, Harris County, Dallas County?

I think they all generally focus on these specific functions.

I think they may have individual um workflows, and so the work that Dr.

Testa and his team will do, it will be to collect all of those operational standards and use them in trying to develop what is best for Bear County in a recommendation.

But I think generally in my research, each one of them has a component that looks like this.

The stays are different, uh the front door may be different, but generally they work like this.

Um I appreciate the uh the cost avoidance piece in terms of daily cost at the at the jails.

I would um if it's still possible to include in his in his numbers moving forward, um, you know, I think we hear is it maybe once a quarter uh there's something where Sheriff Salazar is talking about the need for overtime for his folks.

So cost avoidance in in terms of workload there as well would be really helpful for for us to understand.

And to the extent there's any other data regarding um uh as a result of the diversion center efforts in other counties, um, how quickly those folks were able to, frankly, I mean, like a better term, returning citizens, right?

How quickly they were able to return to community um and and be healthy and and productive.

Um, I think that would would go a long way for our context.

Thank you.

Um and just process-wise, because it's a little bit different than what the recommendation says on the slide, which is um um the the RFP is complete.

Okay, so at this point, then uh we would be potent at this point it'd be taking questions for what we would like to see as as part of what that um uh Dr.

Testa would uh would include, and then um the ad hoc committee would were to work on the the latter piece.

So we're not uh partnering more so on the um on the ad hoc committee piece because the RFP is complete.

Okay.

We are negotiating with record tests as we speak.

He has made some assumptions about stakeholders involvement, which include everybody that I mentioned earlier, um, and we're now working to look at his overall schedule and how we would report out to the committee that's being proposed and the role of the core team versus reporting out to the are you calling it ad hoc committee, the ad hoc committee that you all are contemplating.

Great.

And uh lastly, before I turn it over to my colleagues here, I think this is a really timely discussion.

Last uh week and a half ago, we had our debt management discussion where we saw about 18 percent of our property taxes we forego.

Um, and so when we think about things we want to fund in our community, um, right, do we is it uh do we forgo those property taxes or do we bring them back in because we've got important things we want to pay for?

Certainly this is something uh that we would look uh look to inform uh the upcoming budget um as well as as follow-on, and that's why that cost avoidance piece in all those areas is so important.

Thanks, Jalen.

Okay.

Let me go to Mayor, can I uh please yeah, just a um two other points.

Uh uh one, uh the the study that Jalen is uh talking about, I think it's estimated to be 100,000.

Yes.

And as part of the conversation that we had at public safety, the city will contribute, is proposing to contribute 30,000 towards that effort.

I mean, certainly you saw uh the slide that Jalyn had that talked about the community benefit um and and several of those tied directly back to things the council has prioritized.

Um I wanted to make sure the council was aware of that.

And then uh secondly, and I think Councilwoman Castillo is gonna talk about um the ad hoc committee when it during her remarks, but um the the context I probably should have provided at the beginning was that this was a path that Jelyn started as the local mental health authority separate and apart from the CCR, then the CCR happened.

And so we've we've tried to um and we have involvement in both.

We tried to join them, and and um but but this is something that I think Jillanne is in her role identified was a was a gap, and it just happened to very nicely mirror uh what councilwoman castillo authored.

Well, thank you.

It saves us a lot of time and a lot of effort uh to be able to partner and and um uh work with you on it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um let me I'll move uh councilman castillo up in light of uh she being the author.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Julian, uh Eric and Maria for the presentation.

Uh this work is important for a number of reasons, but I'd like to ground folks in the historical context of the inner west side.

Uh it's an area in which has been an epicenter of divestment uh and segregation within uh San Antonio, and it's also served as a hub for key organizations like Haven for Hope, Center for Health Care Services, the County Jail, as well as the city's magistrative uh building as well.

Um with that being said, right, this experience with the inner west side is not unique to San Antonio.

Um Harris County, Travis County all have their own version of the West Side.

Uh and what we know is typically these communities are asked to absorb uh a lot of need uh without the adequate support and/or systems.

Uh and what we see here presented uh and the work with the Center for Health Care Services is a way to help alleviate a lot of that need in our communities, um, but they're going to need assistance in terms of funding uh and ensuring that we get to materialize a geodiversion program in Bear County.

Uh and I highlight that because those key institutions in District 5 are accessible to everyone throughout Bear County.

So from all 10 of our districts off uh of the precincts, those individuals in very much need uh get sent uh to district five for services that are often limited at capacity and underfunded.

Um just like the county jail Haven for Hope's also at capacity.

I know you and your team are also doing uh the most you can with a little funding.

Um so I I think it highlights how when we take systemic approaches to systemic issues like the geodiversion uh that your team has been exploring, um, there's opportunity for us to really shift the paradigm of how we not only improve the quality of life for individuals but for communities as a whole.

Uh and that's why I believe it's important to put move forward with the ad hoc committee to ensure that all individuals that have a shared responsibility and a shared vision of improving and rehabilitating individuals, uh, that we're all at the table to ensure that our organization, uh our city is doing its appropriate share to help move this along.

Um so I'm just grateful for the work of uh Jillyn, her team, and then of course I know there's many stakeholders that were here today, but they've already headed out.

Um just really value the work that they do day in and out.

Um but to the point that was raised uh by Eric, Jillin, and uh the mayor as well.

Um, and I know Mark Carmona's here, but it's that aftercare component in the case uh management piece that's going to ensure that folks uh do not re-offend and we don't see them uh in the same cycle.

So I think with the proposed ad hoc committee, also including Mark Carmona um to serve and help us with that um permanent supportive housing and affordable housing component, uh, I think will help us uh move towards that goal of ensuring that there's accessible housing uh following the program.

Um but uh just wanted to highlight those key pieces, and I'm hopeful uh my colleagues will be supportive of the ad hoc committee uh to ensure that uh as things move along, council is uh kept up to speed, and that way we can identify ways to support um you all in materializing uh a geodiversion center.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Via Gran, and then you thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you.

Uh Councilman Castillo, I believe it was our first term when we talked when we knew that we were getting a settlement for um opiate abuse that you began having these conversations about a vision on how we were gonna address this issues and how it was impacting our communities and we would need to look towards the future.

So to come to to be here with you for this day where we're having this conversation in Jelynn.

Thank you for all your hard work and the continued efforts that you've made as the state has made adjustments to that state hospital, which six in with which sits in district three across from Brooks.

Um so where the recommendations for city participation are there, I am completely in support of that.

Um with a public safety um recommendation for ad hoc county and city ad hoc committee.

Um this is where I am in support, of course, of having Mark Carmona there, but I do believe that it is important if we are going to have elected sitting on this committee.

If the county chooses, they want to put a a representative that we have Councilman Castillo there representing us.

I'm not sure that's the direction they're gonna go because we know they're all busy, but I just want to put that forward if that's the direction they choose to go in that we we have the same um kind of representation there.

Um and that is that is what I'd like to see as we move forward to make sure that the city has a voice as we're planning.

We know, I know, as we have this conversation and we talk about ID a diversion center when we talk about locations, because we get not in my backyard for a myriad of things, but this is one that I think it's important.

The county and the city are going to have to work together to say this is this is of importance, this is a community benefit, and how do we move forward together?

So um I and uh we can sit here and make the decisions.

I just want to put that out there publicly because once it gets to the the county, it could all uh what they do we can't control, so I want to make sure that I've I've got that on the record.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor, would it be helpful if I go through the CCR and list out the folks that were identified in the original CCR?

Yeah, please, thank you.

So it's um Bear County Sheriff uh Javier Salazar, Chief McManus, um the Bear County Justice Intake and Assessment Director, uh Tony Casades, um our chief mental health officer with the city, uh Jesse Higgins, who's in the room, um Councilwoman Castillo, um Commissioner Rodriguez, um uh judge uh Judge Ron Ranhel, um the DA, Mr.

Gonzalez, um Centro, Trish Deberry.

Um again, this was contemplated without knowing uh the path that Jillin was on, but Jelyn and Center for Healthcare Services, um ACOG, um Mr.

Banos uh from uh University Health, uh the Bear County reentry program and the Bear County probation office, and and yes, Mr.

Mark Mr.

Carmona, Mark, Mark obviously has a big role in with and and in for the council um to be aware.

I mean, from from internal, it's it's likely gonna be Maria is as lead, Justina, our neighborhood housing services, Mark Carmona, uh Melody with Department of Human Services, and uh Dr.

Jacob with Metro Health, because there are a lot of there are a lot of wraparound in so internal, those are the folks that are gonna be engaged in this process.

I thank you.

I just I just want to make sure it what we we are uh equivalent with the county.

I I don't want an elected county official there and not have an elected city official.

Understood.

Councilman Alder think of you too.

Uh I just really want to thank Councilwoman Castillo listening to all of this work and also thank you, Jalen.

Um, because I know that when we push C C CRs forward, it is about finding um collaboration and partnership.

It is about recognizing also uplifting some of the work that our partners do to make sure that we can um all move forward as a community together.

So thank you to Councilwoman Castillo.

I'm fully supportive of what the CCR is recommending and forming an ad hoc committee.

So um just wanted that to be on the record.

I do have some questions, but I gotta go.

So I will make sure Councilwoman Castillo that uh you you all get them for for the ad hoc committee to go through.

Thank you.

Councilman Govan.

Thank you, Mary, and thank you to everyone who presented today.

Um and of course, thank you to Councilmember Castillo for putting this forward.

And I know it was a long time coming.

Her team has been working extremely hard to get this over the finish line over the past year plus.

Um and so just to see it here today and to be able to be supportive is very uh exciting.

Uh and excited to not only see it here today, but also see the groundbreaking, hopefully, uh sooner than later.

Um but of course, very supportive of moving forward um with the ad hoc committee, making sure that we have everybody that needs to be a part of this process together.

I often find whenever we're talking about implementing new programs, um, it's very difficult to do so.

We don't have everybody in the room who understands the inner workings of this work, and so very supportive of that, and it's one of the the list that's been provided.

Um big thing I wanted to ask about this, um it'll become through the process, I think with university health, but overall, whether maybe it's not an ask, but just a ask of me to make, uh, was making sure that our health care providers uh university health and beyond are aligned as possible as aligned as possible with this.

Just because I don't want to see happen is that folks who are trying to enter the center face a barrier with health insurance or anything of the sort, that they're able to receive that treatment.

I think that's already the focus.

But so we met earlier today at the South Texas Crisis Collaborative, and the hospital execs are there, and the participants in the crisis continuum are there, and um they're overall supportive.

It was part of the three-legged stool.

Yeah.

Right.

Thank you.

Um I think would be worthwhile, and I think we talked about it with the continuum of care, right?

Is just maybe even a little further analysis that we can either get in some kind of report of some kind.

Uh ideally, um, I don't know if we can do it before this budget, but even just throughout reoccurring budget conversations here at the city level, and I did it with the county as well, to kind of list out you know, where are we at with in terms of the transitional housing needs, uh, supportive housing needs, mental health clinics, etc.

Um so we're really evaluating that continuum of care um versus just looking at the diversion center as it comes to fruitions, needs solo, uh looking at the full spectrum of it all.

Um then one last plug I wanted to just push, I guess was uh, of course, with the looking at the stool.

Um big thing with it is of course uh SA core, right?

That component within here, the city is something that we of course have authority over.

And I think we've heard several times with this diocese trying to push that as much as we can within our own budgetary limits uh to expand and be a part of that process.

Uh something I always talked about in the community in District 6, and we talked about diversion centers and holistic public safety was it's one thing to have as many people as possible out in the streets we do for homeless outreach.

Uh it's another thing to have actually have a center to bring people into to have the place to solve this problem uh that we're experiencing.

And so I think we have to do those that multi-pronged approach.

And if it also means a 911 mental health option, that's also I think part of this conversation, or should be.

Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Mungia.

Yes, thank you again to Councilman Castillo.

This is a really great um program here, and I'm just glad to sign the CCR.

Um I just want to reflect real quick on one of the slides here.

Um, and I think it was slide four.

Of this presentation.

Yes, of this presentation.

Yeah, just the fact that 46% of the admissions were folks experiencing homelessness.

I mean, that is staggering when you think about that.

And we have I have a public town hall tomorrow about community safety, and no doubt that's gonna be a topic.

Uh and this is just a really great resource to show that once this is up and running and completed and funded the way it should be, that's a real way to help people, not just throw people in jail.

Um, and of course, we've seen the numbers of suicides happening.

It's just very, very tragic to see that happen.

So I'd be willing to bet those individuals that I talked about, the 80 to 100 that are booked daily with mental health and substance use and are there for criminal trespassing, are also unsheltered.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I think that's a really good connection there.

And I'll just go real quick to the three-legged stool rice psychiatric inpatient beds.

Um it's noted there that we lost 50 from the closure of Texas Vista, which was a huge issue in my district.

And while, you know, it seemed like it was a district four problem.

I mean, that is a system-wide effect, right?

And that's 50 less opportunities for people to do better for themselves, which is all the more reason to do more uh hospitals in our South Side and the whole system.

So I just want to highlight that.

So yeah, I I am supportive of moving forward with the ad hoc committee, and I think uh it'll lead to a really good program and success.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mesagonzale, seasonal.

Uh thank you.

Uh just quick wanted uh uh extend my support to uh councilmember Castillo for moving the CCR for uh forward.

I'm glad to hear that the city is uh participating in that study that $30,000 uh definitely goes a long way.

We see that the ROI is clear and that other cities in this state are are doing this exact same thing.

So I'm glad to see that we're also uh looking into this.

Um and I also think we it's an opportunity.

Uh some of the folks that were listed, we're gonna have a new DA, a new uh police chief, our next county judge, same county judge, next county judge.

Um, but it's all just uh I think that in itself is an opportunity to as we're um thinking through who those folks are, um, especially our police chief, um their background in this and understanding and commitment.

So uh I just see that as an opportunity.

So um I'm excited to see this move forward.

Um, if there happens to be space in that committee, I will take a stool to sit there because I'd love to be part of it.

So uh yeah, so if there's an opportunity, obviously we have the medical center in District 8.

Um, all so many medical resources there.

So um please count me in as a fill-in for uh councilmember Castillo if the opportunity presents itself.

Thank you.

Councilmember Corr.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just wanted to say thank you again for bringing this to public safety and for being here now two weeks in a row with that's for V session, different things.

You did a great job both times.

Um, I want to give a shout out to Councilman Castillo for her work.

I support her request for ad hoc committee.

As Eric was reading out all of the folks that are on that committee, it's a very impressive list.

We've got some really strong leaders, and I think it is balanced to Councilman View Grand's point.

And so um, we're happy to represent her or any fill-in, or happy to have her represent us or any fill-in um that's interested and partnering with you all.

I know sometimes collaboration across systems can be tricky, it's not always the field of room.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, but I'm confident that with her proposal, this is the right way to move forward, making sure that we are truly addressing the most important and vulnerable community in that is located in district five.

Um, the one thing that I did want to double down on is if you look at the results on the data, Harris County has the most amount of beds through with 36 beds, and if you look at their data results, they're probably the most significant as well.

And so I just think that goes to show the more investment, it's not rocket science, but the more investment that you put in, the more supports that you're able to provide, the more that you're gonna be able to accomplish.

So I would encourage the you all to as we do this RFP that we think big and we not limit ourselves to um what what might be need, but I'll give the example of the low barrier shelter that we have here where we're only operating a portion of it.

There's always a potential where if we find resources we can expand, and I love that as a as a space because when we use a space that we may not be fully operational in, but there's an opportunity for us to grow in it uh um it allows for further support down the road.

So that's the only thing I would offer.

Eric and I have a running bed on how large how many beds we're gonna have.

What's the best?

We say a public.

No, we'll we'll keep it quiet.

We'll see who wins at the end of the day.

Okay, great.

Thank you for your leadership, Jalen.

Thank you for leadership council mix.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilman Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

And yes, thank you, Councilwoman Castillo.

This is so needed, and I the vision and the um detail you went into is admirable.

So thank you for bringing this forward.

Um I had a couple of questions here.

I I was or comments, things I'd like us to focus on is uh the sensitivity surrounding veterans and first responders.

Sometimes them speaking up puts them in a precarious situation, and we got to be aware of that.

Um I don't want them losing any benefits for participating and and I just uh I want them to get help if if they need it, and we just need to think about ways we can be sensitive to that.

Um I love the makeup of the board, especially um, you know, I'm I'm happy to see ACOG on there too.

As vice chair on ACOG, I'll be looking to see what happens there.

But I would suggest that we consider including the bondsman in this.

Again, it's super important.

Stakeholders, okay, because they this infects their industry hugely, and they're and they're really important to include here.

They're helpful in this.

Um I was wondering if we had any idea.

I know this would greatly reduces recidivism.

Um, but but is there a way to like if they go through the program and should they end up back in the in the in the g in the jaya or something?

Can they go back into the diversion center or how does that flow work?

The Harris Center shared with us.

There are individuals who walk out and then they are told, well, you're going back to jail because it's a suspended sentence, and then they choose to come back to diversion.

So they've been operating for some time, and so it's really a known quantity in the community, and and we'll have to grow the brand as well.

Yeah, I don't want to treat it like an advertising opportunity, but people will need to learn about it and feel comfortable and trust it as a place to come.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good.

I'm I'm glad to see that.

Um so I know that the forensic bags are a big problem.

I would like to say that this is very this is something where the county and the city are fully in alignment, and they've already identified locations.

It's to my knowledge, they're looking at the to-dos building, possibly opening that up, um, which I know is close to the jail, and I I understand what you're saying about Mayor about that being close to the jail um being a deterrent, perhaps, but as that would just clarify that's what the staff shared indicated.

That's what the research shows, and I was just echoing that.

Yeah, okay.

I misunderstood.

Thank you.

So I visited that was so you did.

Um it does not offer the best opportunity for therapeutic treatment.

But Sheriff Salazar is aware, and he's working with us on other options.

Okay, okay.

Well, I'm just glad to see their willingness to try to try to.

They've been very supportive.

The sheriff's office has been very extremely supportive.

And I'm happy to see that, and the UHS study um is really important.

So um, but yeah, this is a huge problem.

I know we talked too about the training for the nurses and different staffing.

Maybe not being prepared to enter into this to this world.

We currently run a psychiatric emergency room.

I mean, we have a facility at 40601 for you.

You're 401 Frio.

And that's our that's our emergency room, psychiatric emergency department.

And so we have nurses and psychiatrists that are fully staffed.

And our chief medical officer ran Harris Center.

And so she's now our chief medical officer.

So we do have in house expertise for running diversion centers.

No, I'm happy to see that.

I think where I was going with that though is that maybe we can be talking to our our um you know UTS line.

Yes to make sure they're ready to to enter into this much needed field.

And because it's a gap all over the nation, and um forensic bets are really hard to get.

Um I'm anxious to see your number and then further to see how many we actually get.

So it's it's gonna be really um important moving forward.

So um those are just the things I was thinking about, but um I'm really happy that the county is so much in alignment on this, and I'm I'm really proud of the work you all done on this.

This is really great, really a great program.

Thank you.

Member Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to uh chime back in to express that I would be supportive of serving alongside Councilwoman Messagwonzales on the ad hoc committee.

If my colleagues are supportive of that, uh I'd like to collaborate.

Thank you, Mayor.

Has everyone spoken on this issue?

They'd like just you do want to come in.

Okay, council member uh McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you.

No, uh uh thank you for the presentation, thank you for the work that's being done on this.

Thank you, Councilmember Castillo for uh filing C CR calling for the ad hoc committee um and further exploration.

Um something that stood out to me in the in the presentation, and this was something that I think we probably could have uh guessed was that a large number of the people impacted are black, uh very disproportionately, um, and men, and so a large portion of these are black men.

And so I was looking at the proposed makeup of the um ad hoc committee, and I noticed just based off of what I was looking at, didn't look like there were any black people, any black men.

And so you sorry, I didn't see your name on there, but yeah, wonderful.

A black person, a black person on the full committee.

Uh would love to see uh more representation, would love to uh just if if that could be not fully baked, I'd like to propose that.

Thank you.

Has everyone spoken on this issue that'd like to speak?

Okay.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

I think you heard a lot of support uh for moving forward.

Um go ahead.

Yes, councilman.

Sorry, Mayor.

No, I am looking at the proposed list, and I do not see go scroll.

Is this on there?

Okay, goes councilwoman Castillo knew me at the at that time.

Gotcha, okay.

But I'm loud and proud right here.

Yes, ma'am.

If there's room for, I guess any of these other positions or if you know there's flexibility has sounded like Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez wanted to serve on it.

Um I wonder if Commissioner Tommy Calvert would like to serve on it.

Uh throwing out nominations.

Uh thank you.

Okay.

Um okay, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Um with that, uh, the time is now 5 14, and this meeting is adjourned.