The San Antonio Governance Committee convened on December 11, 2025, to review seven Council Consideration Requests (CCRs) and provide public testimony opportunities. The committee addressed critical issues including the Wahalote Ranch development's impact on the Edwards Aquifer, the need for a second-chance hiring initiative, the formalization of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs), and the regulation of growing data center infrastructure. Public comments highlighted significant community concerns regarding water protection, environmental justice, and criminal justice reform. The committee generally referred the proposed items to their respective functional committees for further study and policy development.
Good afternoon. The time is now 2.05 p.m. on Thursday, December 11, 2025, and the meeting of the governance committee is now called to order. Madam Clerk, please call roll. Councilmember Member Mickey Rodriguez. Present. Councilmember Viegran. Here. Councilmember Mungia. Present. Mayor Jones. Here. Mayor, we have quorum. Great. Thanks. First item on the agenda is approval of the minutes. Are there any corrections to the minutes from November 7th, 2025? Okay. Hearing none, can I get a motion and a second to approve the minutes? I make a motion to approve. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion carries. We have several members of the public signed up to speak. I will call individuals in order of sign-up for all items. The first person is Alan Montempe-Mayor. All individuals will have three minutes to speak, and groups of three or more will have a total of nine minutes. So Alan Montabayor and followed by Peter Bella. Good morning. Or I should say good afternoon. I'm Alan Montemayor, chair of the Alama Group of the Sierra Club. We represent about 3,000 people in the local area. I'm here to talk about Wahalote Ranch. Uh and uh it this has gone way too far. Uh Wahalote was originally platted to be low density development by the City of San Antonio. Wahalote came in and proposed a ridiculous density, and now it's backed off on that sum, but it's still way too dense. It's going to generate a lot of uh treated sewage that's going to go directly into Hilotus Creek and find its way into our aquifer ultimately. Southwest Research has categorically said that that is probably going to result in at least marginal uh pollution to our aquifer, which we still depend on very heavily. Uh City of San Antonio needs to do everything they can to dissuade this development and turn them to uh a development which is appropriate for the land. Um the citizens of the Hilotus area have risen up and largely been ignored. The TCEQ obviously is going to provide no protection for the citizens in this matter. Uh the state, for their part, will probably do even less if it comes to that. So I'm we're asking the city of San Antonio to really do everything they can to discourage this kind of high density development over these sensitive areas. Um, in particular, if it comes down to uh a vote to determine whether or not uh uh Lenar homes can establish a MUD, a municipal utility district, I would hope the City of San Antonio would firmly say no, we do not want this. I know that will probably just kick the can down the road, but regardless of that, we need to do everything we can to protect the quality of our water and the citizens of San Antonio. Um the um the Wahalote Ranch uh is is a huge development for that area. There are many reasons besides just the pollution of our aquifer to not do that kind of high density development.