132. San Antonio's Youngest Councilmember on the Future of the City

WEBVTT

00:00:03.759 --> 00:01:30.579
At 24 years old, Rick Galvan became one of the youngest people ever elected to City council, winning District 6 by just 25 votes. So what gave him the courage to run? What does he think put him over the edge? And now that he's in office, what is he going to do with the job? We'll talk about all that and some of the city's biggest debates happening right now. The $1 billion downtown arena proposal from the San Antonio spurs, the$172 million budget deficit that's looming over the city the next two years, and how council member Galvan is thinking about strategy, priorities, and what it means to lead through tight margins, both electoral and fiscal. I'm Corey Ames, and this is Big City Small Town, the podcast about the people who make San Antonio go and grow. Rick, I hope you don't mind I refer you by your first name for our conversation. Not at all. But welcome to Big City, Small Town. Thank you. Thank you for having me here today. Really excited for the conversation. Awesome. Well, I'd love to hear, first and foremost, if you could talk a little bit as to what inspired you to run for office when you did. 24 years old. I believe that's tied with the youngest member ever elected to the council. So what gave you the courage, what was the inspiration to have you leap into the race when you did? Yeah, no, I am grateful to say for everyone who thinks maybe I'm too young for council, I'm actually not the youngest. I'm just a month older or not older. But I got elected a month earlier than Ray Saldanya did. But still, nonetheless. Right. Tied for 24 years old.

00:01:30.900 --> 00:03:41.159
I got some wisdom on me a little bit, y'. All. No, I was really excited to run for this position. It wasn't something I was thinking about doing, truthfully, when I was getting involved in politics or learning more about my neighbor association or all these other pieces that I was getting involved in. But it fell into place right where I was involved in neighbor association already in Pepper's Meadow, in District 6, where. Where I grew up. So it was nice to be able to work with my neighbors who had known me since I was yay high, to advocate for our park and for better streets and all these other pieces that we all do. And then working for City Council member Terry Castillo gave me that insight. District 5 To learn more about how the city council processes works, how policy making can get done. As someone who was helping with the policy crafting pieces with District 5 as well as the constituent service side. Right answer. The phones going out door to door, doing all the work that we do in the community that I already really enjoyed doing, priority. And so it really was, I'll never forget, it was the Neighbors association meeting where council member Cabela Hafferdah's staff member maybe spilled a little too much beans a little too early, but nonetheless mentioned that councilmember Kabir Haverdev was looking at running for mayor. And so the neighborhood was, of course, excited, right? Someone that we've known for a long time running for mayor. And they shifted immediately and said, well, wait, who's going to be our council member then after this? And of course, the staff was like, that's not my thing. That's for the voters to decide. I'm just letting you know what's going on in the world. And after that meeting, a couple of them asked me afterwards and said, well, Rick, you work there, you know our community, you've been doing this work already. Why not give it a shot? I thought the same thing that you asked me, right? I don't know. I'm young. I'm just trying to live my little life over here. I'm trying to do the work that I really enjoy doing, which is the background work of it all. But, you know, if they trusted me. And I asked my family, my friends, I talked to some former teachers of mine, too, that I'm still close with from both high school and in college, even some of my former doctors from, like, my pediatrician and also my pulmonologist who, sticking to me Since I was 4 years old, shout out to Dr. Dove. And they all said, go for it. Why not give it a shot? We need energy in politics right now. We need someone who's going to be caring and who has this good optimism in their sights and who knows what they're doing, knows what they're talking about a little bit. And so they were all my first big supporters. First donors, like, went out knocking doors with me. And I knew when I had that group behind me, when I had these folks who trusted me already who were also going to be on lockstep with me, that I was going to be in a good spot throughout this campaign. And so we started early, right? We made no assumptions about we can jump in and we can hopefully figure it all out.

00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:54.639
We made sure to be a bit more methodical with it all. And so we started getting these conversations rolling pretty early in summer 2024, and then jumped right in August 2024, started raising money, and we did great without taking any corporate or real estate Pack dollars to the campaign the entire time.

00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:19.670
No charter school PAC dollars either. And we raised the second most in the entire campaign. And we're pretty often in the front in terms of fundraising, beating out some of the folks who were expected to be these big contenders in the campaign, but never seemed to get as much donations as we were able to get from grassroots dollars. So really exciting. It's exciting stuff. Of course, a lot of hard work going into it all, but again, I knew with the trust of all the folks around me that we could get it done well. And congrats on your victory, I believe. Decided by 25 votes.

00:04:19.990 --> 00:05:10.850
So clearly a tight one, but a victory nonetheless. I appreciate the humility, expressing that many of these things sort of fell into place, but there weren't a lot of neighborhood association presidents, as far as I know, in their early 20s. So I think that's a little bit assumed that that's something that anybody and everybody would do. So I'm curious, Rick, what about you? Your experiences or maybe influences and upbringing have had you interested in serving your community in that way? Yeah, it's interesting because my family has never been a political family. I mean, I remember my mom always getting very nervous whenever I talk to her about, oh, I want to go to this event, or oh, I want to go hear from Congressman Castro about affordable health care, or oh, I want to go to these things, because it was at her work or something like that. She worked at that time with, Was it Methodist? DePaul? Wesley on the south side of San Antonio was early childcare.

00:05:10.850 --> 00:06:31.800
That's her whole thing. She's been a teacher her entire life. Childcare and early childhood specifically is her main focus and her core. So I always have a big passion for education. That's why I was going to school to become a teacher at first, but then I took a little shift as I started getting more involved in politics and caring more about public policy. When I went to UT Austin, I knew it was the place I wanted to go to because the Capitol was so close. And I thought, talked about and thought about what I wanted to do in life. When it was education, the decisions made about education are often made at that building. Right. Same thing with school boards, too. Right. There's also that piece of it that's also very crucial for the more day to day stuff. But in terms of often pay or even state curriculum standards, they come from there. And so I was really excited when I went to UT Austin to learn more about those pieces that I took some time with the groups that I was organizing with and advocating with Texas Freedom Network and other ones to go make sure that we were pushing for education all the way through, whether it's for protecting public education funding or pushing for more protecting against public education standards, Changing to some of these culture work conversations rather than more research based and focused conversations and curriculum standards. All those pieces really stuck with me as looking at how can we improve the lives of everybody, right? I knew what my mom did for a lot of these kids that have grown up. And now it's funny that she's a teacher right now at Carlisle elementary in Northside isd, which is down the road from where we grew up or where I grew up. And she's teaching the kids that she once had as a daycare kids herself. And they always reference that.

00:06:32.199 --> 00:10:03.149
It was there that I got to read library books with you because my family was too busy working. It was there that I got to go experience some of these places that I never got to go to because you put in the time as an educator to take us out there. And so understanding what that can mean for personal relationships is really important. But then beyond that, at a system wide scale, how can we make sure that all the kids, whether they're in school or they're at home daycares, or they're at early childhood care centers or other places, get these opportunities to really thrive that they may not get otherwise, Right? And so that focus and that look at how can we make system wide scales for these pieces is how I really started falling in love with public policy. And then I found on the local politics rabbit hole. And I said, oh, what's this little vacant lot over here in our neighborhood been doing all this time thinking about also how can we improve our area is when I got involved in my neighbor's association. And so it was those conversations, it was those events that I would go to and just kind of absorb and soak in as a young person, right? Trying to figure out what am I doing with everything. It was Texas Freeware Network who was there to be kind of that guiding principle about. Here's how you can just jump into all of it and Texas Rising, their youth organization that really gave a lot of young folks the opportunity, and still do, the ability to learn how to organize, learn how to advocate, learn how to have these conversations about politics that are more productive than just combative conversations. Talking with people who are in politics or who are outside of politics now to learn more about what their experience was, I really just soaked it all in. And when it came time for this particular conversation, people were asking me to run and then putting in front of people to talk to about the campaign. It didn't, of course, ever feel natural to talk about myself instead of another candidate like, oh, I support this person for this reason. Now it's, oh, it's me. I'm the one I'm talking about. Okay. But it wasn't too unnatural, right? It wasn't too unfamiliar to be able to talk about these conversations and get into it all and say, no, I think there's a chance here for this 24 year old to win this election. And while everyone, you know, I think I talked to who had more experience said, we'll see how it goes, it was the sheer kind of commitment and will, not just myself, but my team around me that I was really proud to assemble, along with all the volunteers that came out and just supported us every step of the way. That gave me confidence that, no, we're doing the right thing here, because there is energy here for this kind of candidacy and for the politics we were talking about, for the issues we were talking about too. That, of course, were always helped by the kind of work I got to do at city council, too, of learning more about these issues and how our city can actually act on them, and not just kind of quote, unquote, pie in the sky ideas, but looking more so at how can we tangibly get there to these places that we think are the benchmark goals that we should have. Say more about some of that momentum or energy perhaps you felt in launching the campaign was there. I'm sure there were a lot of low moments as there might be. It might be a roller coaster both in just fatigue and mindset, but any of the early stories or anecdotes that had you really feel like, okay, may have a shot at this, that there is a chance for me in this race? Yeah, definitely. A lot of moments where I thought, what did I get myself into? Right. I knew what I was getting myself into. I was someone who worked for someone who was already a council person and then also had done some small work on campaigns wherever I could, canvassing, whatever, you know, there was definitely moments where I thought, is this really the right thing I should be doing right now? But when I was reminded that I was doing the right thing or that we had a chance and that we were able to really get this done was when I remember one of the first doors I knocked on was early in December. We had launched our campaign officially in terms of door knocking. All the actual campaign work we did some fundraising before then to get us in a good spot. But December 2024, on the 15th, we launched our campaign. We had a little conversation, rally, whatever, small group, but still, it was a pretty good group of friends, family, and people from across the district who were coming in to learn more about the campaign. Some of our endorsers were there early ones. Council member Castillo, as well as ATU Local 694, the Via Transit Workers union was there.

00:10:03.580 --> 00:10:29.980
It was great. And then it was the real work. Right? Let's go talk to voters, see what they think about this campaign. And so he went in there. I'll never forget, in the great Northwest, we were talking to. I was talking to by myself that day, older gentleman, and he had talked to all kinds of council members who come through. He was super excited because I was young, because I was from a nearby neighborhood, that I could talk really quickly about the issues. And he cut me off when I was going off through my long tangents about everything that I think was important. Da, da, da, da. And he was like, look, man, you're here.

00:10:30.139 --> 00:10:41.240
You care. It's cold. You got my vote. And I said, okay, great. Was it four months down the line, right? Yeah. Going into March, going into April, we're coming back around.

00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:55.480
We're getting close to early voting, right. And so we're see. Okay, who are our supporters? Are they still with us? What is going on here? So I go back there. I don't see my sign there anymore. It was the first sign I ever gave out. And I thought, oh, okay, well, maybe it's not meant to be, but let me go give it a shot and talk to him one more time.

00:10:55.639 --> 00:11:09.009
Knock on his door. He comes out, opens arms. Rick, you're here. I'm so glad to see you. I haven't seen you so long. I've been wondering how you've been doing. My neighbors have been mentioning you to me, and I always tell them, no, I'm with Rick the entire way. And it just made my heart so full.

00:11:09.009 --> 00:13:00.110
And I thought to myself, if this guy from December remembers me going to his door, has been talking to his neighbors about me, people I can't reach because they don't open the door. Sometimes it all happens. I don't either. Sometimes I think we have a good shot here. People from across the political spectrum would do the same thing and say, you know what? I don't agree with everything. Everything you've said to me. I agree with everything you believe in. I know you don't agree with everything I said. To you either at this door. But I know that you care because you've come back here too many times. But also because you're willing to have the conversation about it. You're never going to push back and say, I don't care what you say. I'm done with this conversation. It's you push back. Respectfully. We go through the conversation about it, we can agree to disagree, we find places to agree on, and I can tell that you're committed to doing this work here. Those conversations all just made me feel like, you know what, we have a chance here. Although I think my girlfriend would disagree with me. On the day of the election, the first round, before we got to the runoff, I remember mentioning to her, you know, maybe it's not that many people that actually came to vote for me. It just feels like a lot. And she was like, please, you're underselling yourself completely. And we got into the runoff neck and neck with the first front runner and quite ahead of everybody else, too, more than I thought we would be. And so, you know, it just shows that work was going in there. But those are the conversations I remember keeping me going the entire time of folks who never forgot 24 year old going to the door and saying, no, it's me, I'm the candidate. Well, now we're recording this at the end of July. It's a little over a month at the post officially. How does it feel? Good. I think when I first won, it felt good. But I think the way I've always operated, whether it's with graduations or it was with relationships or it's with other big monuments in my life, said, okay. Now the next thing, moving, straightforward, we keep on doing the work because that's just how I am. So I thought the same thing and I said, okay, we'll keep on going. We're going to start doing hiring. We're going to do all the work that we need to do to make sure I'm not a team of one when I get there and do all the good things you need to get done, Right. I remember how it was for council member Castillo when she won. Like it was a lot of work to get everything together. Let me try to get ahead of the curve as much as I can. And then it came to inauguration, right?

00:13:00.110 --> 00:13:31.240
And I said, okay, long day. Make sure my family's ready to go. We're all good. Making sure all the aunts and Thea's and everybody can be there. And a lot of things to manage with all that. And it was when I, of course, got into the seat. And I always think about council member Cabell Haverto joking with me about it after she congratulated me on winning, saying, it's a lot different when your butt gets that seat. And I said, yeah, no, I hear. You, I hear you. And I definitely felt it when I sat there and I thought, oh, man, this is the same spot that council member Brockhouse, council member Lopez sat in. This is where, like, decisions were made about different things around Wolf Stadium, other places, and now I'm here.

00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:52.179
That's when I really felt it set in. It was never a moment where I thought, I'm in over my head. It was because, you know, we hired a good team, folks like Nadia, who's here from the comms side of the work, but also for the constituent services. Keeping some people on from District 6, some folks in District 5 coming in as well. Derek Talowitzki, Eric kavas from District 8 coming in. People with experience, people who know what they're doing, and some folks who are new too.

00:13:52.179 --> 00:14:33.350
Right. Making sure we have a good, well rounded team with folks who have experience, but also new folks can come in and get the opportunity to thrive and learn more about how to interact with city government and support our residents in our district has been. Just makes it so much easier for me to ever feel like, no, maybe I'm in over my head. No, they got these folks around me who are making sure the district's taken care of, making sure that I'm taken care of too. Making sure that we're delivering for the residents that we have been pushing for so long. Even, you know, just a week ago, I went on a little small family vacation with my family that was set. Win or lose, we're going to Florida. We're going to have a good time. We're going to spend the time there and have a good time. And I thought to myself, we don't have a chief of staff yet. We don't have all these other things. But my team is incredibly capable and is incredibly capable. No fires broke out that I know of still.

00:14:33.830 --> 00:16:10.970
And so it made me just feel at ease that things are going to be fine until they come back. But even when I came back, everything was fine. I think that's really giving me a lot of confidence building that team that's going to really work well with me and the district to work for the residents that we have been pushing for. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing better than that. Having a good team around you. Absolutely. Well, I got to Imagine that the campaign trail was yielded just heaps and heaps of valuable qualitative research. I mean you're going to, you grew up in District 6, still a resident of District 6, obviously, but I'm sure you had hundreds if not more conversations about what were folks concerns or you know, interests and desires as it related to both the district itself and San Antonio at wide. So I'm interested to hear what, what do you feel like you learned on the campaign trail? What were the priorities of, of your constituents, both, you know, acutely locally to District 6 and how they felt about where the city's headed? Yeah, great question. And you know, I recently just did like campaign autopsy a little bit with my teen. Just finally after breathing a little bit of everything and getting more in a good spot and I learned that I knocked over 2,000 doors, which personally, everyone, the whole team did over 15,000 doors, which is incredible. But I was kind of shocked that I did that myself. Apparently. I don't know where I was doing that, but apparently I was out there. So yes, the point of qualitative research, yes, a lot of it. I think a lot about folks talk to me about public safety, of course, is always a key concern, quality of life. I say that of course, knowing it's a broad statement, but understanding that for each part of the district and how diverse District 6 is, it still came down to either I want my streets a bit better or at least my park a bit better, or I want to see this neighborhood just kind of grow a bit more connected to one another. We used to be a more connected neighborhood. Now we don't.

00:16:11.049 --> 00:18:46.990
We'd like to see ways that we can do that together in some form. And so that was a good conversation about those pieces. Then of course, thinking about, like you mentioned, where our city is going, it was interesting seeing the partisanship come into the conversations, not necessarily because of any political campaigns that were at the moment, but because of general politics at the federal level and the state level too, where we had folks who are more Democrats who were telling us I'm nervous about Trump, I'm nervous about Abbott, I'm nervous about everything going on right now. How do we get someone who's a fighter pushing back on those pieces. We had folks who were more conservative, more Republicans who are a sizable piece of that district too in terms of the electorate who would say I'm not worried about those pieces, I'm worried about this kind of liberal quote unquote woke all this other stuff coming into the our city level and impacting our services in these ways. And so it's interesting to kind of navigate those conversations as a Democrat myself and never hid from it, never did anything to say that I was otherwise, always was transparent with folks about that and say, let's get to the root of what the issue is that you're trying to talk about here. Public safety. Let's talk about public safety and what things the city government actually handles on these pieces. It's about quality of life. Let's talk about these sidewalks that you've been missing forever and why they haven't been put on the IMP list or something like that of the sort of if it's about how our city's funded right now and it's looking like it's going to get more dark, let's talk about why it's there and why that budget deficit has come to this moment. And there's multiple reasons for local decisions as well as state and federal decisions that we have to be honest about. And that was with both folks. Right. It doesn't matter what party they were with. I always try to come from a place of radical transparency and saying, well, I know you may support this person, but understand that this is what happened when they were in office for both sides. You may have supported this past mayor a long time ago, but this person also led to this piece which then led to this development. So let's talk about that. I think it's more the history major in me coming out as well as the teacher part of it, talking about let's go look at the beginnings that go all the way through this context. Right. And figure out what the solution is next. But those are the conversations that we had often about development pieces. Folks talking about data centers, talking about sprawling development outside 1604. It's impacting their traffic congestion. Going further in, talking about sometimes even the floodplain, which of course is now more relevant than ever. Right. A lot of our neighborhoods, not only the Chic 6, but across the city, are built along the creeks. Everybody loves being close to water. Who doesn't understanding too though? That means when there is a flood risk, they're going to be impacted severely. We know it's the history of San Antonio getting impacted by flooding as well as the west side of San Antonio, which includes District 6. Right. And so a lot of residents are already were dealing with some of the erosion issues, some of the flooding issues when just a regular rain hits, let alone a larger storm like we saw right after I got elected to I'll never forget going on Dhaka View Just a couple days after, partially because I had some extra time on my hands, but also because when they sent the videos, I thought, well, you know, I've seen flooding before District 5. It's not going to be too strenuous. It was a river. It was fully.

00:18:46.990 --> 00:18:54.589
You could see where the line was on people's driveways, which think they were elevated, but nonetheless you could see a dirt line across everyone's driveway almost to their doorstep.

00:18:55.230 --> 00:20:06.789
And the thought of that, if that's just one big storm, right in one day or three days, as it was kind of stretched out, imagine what it'd be like if it's a 100 year storm or 500 year storm. So those conversations were always impactful and things that stay with me the entire time. So when we talk about pieces like large economic development packages, like the sports entertainment district or other pieces, our bond packages, I think about at what point do we start getting at these long term solutions for our residents here when it comes to flooding, when it comes to housing affordability, when it comes to public safety pieces, when it comes to making sure our city services are not duplicative, but are braiding together instead and delivering on what our residents are asking for? That's what I heard at the doors. Well, it's interesting. We'll bridge to talk about Project Marvel as well as the budget deficit, both from just an educational standpoint. It's great to learn from someone with your perspective, having those conversations, reviewing various terms and challenges. But it seems hard sometimes to bridge or make the connection between the specificity of something like sidewalk improvement and Project Marvel. Although those things can be related as to how we look at them, what gets funded for what reason, and therefore what incentives there are for the city or otherwise.

00:20:07.029 --> 00:20:24.950
And so hopefully you can help to kind of bridge that divide, because I see it as those are things that almost feel reactive. It's like you didn't ask necessarily for Project Marvel or whatever, but now you're here in this moment as a council member representing your district, and that's what's at the table right now. And so you have to respond to that appropriately.

00:20:24.950 --> 00:22:27.150
But first, let's start with the budget deficit. I'm interested in the historical perspective too. You know, can you explain to us why are we at the moment that we're at? What does that look like for the city here in 2026, as we approach that fiscal year and then the year after, as far as I understand, where we're most acutely at risk? And then how are you in your office choosing to approach that, you know, so many needs and very important priorities. You stated throughout your campaign that were important to you and your constituents. So it's hard to look at a moment when we might need to, quote, unquote, take things away, so to speak, when there's so many important things that we need to progress and advance for the city. Yeah, yeah. So I love talking about historicism and all these pieces, right. One of the things for the budget conversation, right, Is thinking about the property tax and the sales tax pieces of it. All. Right. Two thirds of our budget come from those sources, right? Our general fund, looking at the ones that we directly invest in, public safety, looking at ACs, looking at parks, infrastructure, all the pieces that come out of the general fund, housing, homelessness or homeless services. And where we're at at the moment is we're seeing this kind of trend of flattening property tax revenues, flattening sales tax revenues, largely from different pieces, right? Sales tax. We can talk about the larger economy, what that looks like for recession indicators, which of course, are not in a declared recession, but typically when those are happening, sales taxes seem to either decline or stay flat. So we haven't seen a decline necessarily, but we've seen a flat plateau pretty much in the property taxes. Right. We saw the kind of, I don't want to say housing bubble, but it's similar form, right? This kind of housing market, sharp increase over the past couple years locally, but also nationally in cities, but definitely here in Texas. Right. In San Antonio, seeing one of the fastest growth, more than any other city in the country in 2025 or 2024 really led to some sharp increase in property tax revenue. We got some new supply come in that we were able to get revenue from. We had some big property value increases as well that the state has kind of looked at adjusting a bit for everybody. And so we had those big jumps in. So we were able to do a bit more than we normally had been able to. And now we're kind of hitting this plateau, whereas we're going, going, going for so long, and then says, okay, well, now the door is kind of closed on us.

00:22:27.549 --> 00:22:51.730
What do we do next to make sure that we can continue delivering these services, but understanding that we may not get this opportunity again for a little while beyond that. Right. Our state has also looked at ways to reduce property tax increases by localities, looking at ways to also reduce what can be property tax or can be taxed through property taxes. Having us cities, I mean, choose between different permitting options and what we're able to collect for revenue. Actually, whether it's in food permitting or other pieces too.

00:22:51.890 --> 00:23:56.309
Alcohol permitting, I think, is the other one. All those pieces at the state level impact our localities, right? The same way they do school boards. And the reduction they create there. They can also create it for our local governments as well, our municipal ones. So both of those pieces combined, along with some of the ARPA funding that has expired, of course, those are separate funds that we had, but the services that we provided were typically from those pieces are now also expiring or have expired already. And then some of the federal government's pieces on their budgeting reductions, too, has impacted some of the grants that we've received from Metro Health, DHS Sustainability, and all these other pieces, too, that rely a lot of these grant funds. It's almost a perfect storm with so much revenue for so long. And then it kind of hits a breaking point where we're all suspending that revenue too, right? To a degree that some folks may characterize as may too much. So all those pieces combined are now leaving us to this point where we're as a stopping point to say, okay, we can't necessarily grow as quick as we used to in terms of revenue. We're going to have to make some cuts here to make sure we're maintaining ourselves. But in the next round, 2027 is where we're going to see some of the largest cuts come in or propose cuts, I should say. And to me, what that means is we got to figure out ways to, one, make sure we're protecting some of our core services.

00:23:56.309 --> 00:26:12.390
Right? Make sure we're defending some of these, well, one, jobs, right, that our city provides, but two, these apartment programs that are provided that really support our residents, whether within dhs, Metro Health, Sustainability, other places that aren't always thought about as core services, but a lot of our residents rely on as core services, making sure those are maintained as much as they can be, along with our bigger ones too. Right. Public safety pieces, the support office managers get is crucial in making sure that those pieces are maintained. Along with our parks and our infrastructure, some of the largest parts of our budget are still being delivered upon, not just the resources provided to them to make sure that they're delivering, but then the work that they do to deliver as well is getting done effectively. So all those pieces come into play here, and our office is looking at 2026 for that kind of way of. We're going to have to bite the bullet a little bit here. Right? It's a quick turnaround from coming into office and also proving the budget. And so we're going to bite the bullet a little bit, understanding that there's going to be some reductions going to have to be made here. We're still working with city management to figure out those pieces of what's looked at as the most optimal cuts here and there. But from my conversations with City Manager Eric Walsh, we've talked about how it looks like our services are pretty much well maintained. It's just a little bit of pieces that are going to have to be reduced slightly. Of course, it's a bit vague at the moment, but it is kind of looking at. Thankfully, because it's not as big as a budget reduction or deficit at the moment, we're not going to see too many services have to be reduced to a significant degree. Quote, unquote, 2027 is the one that we're really looking at as a big one. Right. Those will require staffing positions having to be cut. Those will require programs to be cut. Those will require departments to make major reductions in the way that they operate, potentially even consolidations of departments. Right. And so my focus, along with the offices overall, is figuring out, okay, we'll go through this one, we'll see what we can do. See, we can get down. See, we can get out of it, too, and make sure that we're still shoring up some revenue, maybe with CPS funds or other pieces too. But in the long run, what is our goal here? I had this conversation with my team pretty early on in one of our team meetings when we finally started getting more than just three people and had a conversation about where do we go from here? Right. What is our city's next goal? How are we going to keep functioning? How are we going to operate as the seventh largest city with a million plus people who all have a variety of needs, understanding that we have one of the poorest cities in the nation too, right? How are we going to continue delivering for these folks who are requesting these services, who have been requesting these services since the 1970s or before in an effective way that doesn't bankrupt us, but also make sure that it's delivering for the pieces that they've been asking for for so long. Infrastructure, housing, workforce, education.

00:26:12.549 --> 00:26:51.529
All these pieces that some may think aren't part of the city government's operations, but we've seen other cities do it and do it well to the point that their cities bounce back, Quote, unquote. Whether it's Detroit or we look at Milwaukee or other places in the Midwest that face these kind of big shortfalls for different reasons, but bounce back through the investments in housing and in education and in workforce and in infrastructure and the very public services that sometimes folks take for granted. So our focus is then looking at less from an austerity view. Yes, we're impacted by austerity. Let's look at a way to shift that conversation and look back at investing in people instead of looking at just cutting services. And I think it's important to note that maybe not every dollar is spent the same, say services.

00:26:51.849 --> 00:27:58.849
And you can think about those being things that are one off or just expendable or disposable and so to speak. But many of them are should be really looked at as investments. Mental health services, for example, or likewise, as we just talk about the June floods, looking at the various flood infrastructure being that, you know, more nature based or what we've depended on more previously in the past, a little bit more mechanical, those things are very important investments. Because the expense of what happens in an event like that, both in acutely the loss of life invaluable, but beyond that, just the damage done to property and cleanup, et cetera, et cetera, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more that we have to spend otherwise where we could have been smarter about it. And so from your perspective, what do you feel like are some of the things that are the smartest investments for the city to make and continue to make that should really be safeguarded and to contextualize the deficit? And you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think 2027 is roughly 20 million, if I'm not mistaken. 2026 is closer to that number. 2027 is the bigger one, 150 million. Right.

00:27:58.849 --> 00:29:14.519
Okay. So with that in mind, what do you see as the things that are maybe most important to maintain because they could perhaps cost us more elsewhere? Yeah. And something that I'm grateful for with all that, is that there's some pieces of departments that are self funding, right. Whether you think of solid waste or dsd, the development services department with code, they have some self funds there with fees that they have. And so that's always. We're happy that they have those pieces because then it would require more funding to keep those alive too. But beyond that, right. We think about, to your point, mental health services, think about infrastructure, thinking about nature based infrastructure that's also well connected to other places to get to, whether it's destinations like schools or to libraries or to commercial spaces or throughout neighborhoods to create a different place of not only Leisure, but also connectivity for walkability and bikeability too. For folks to be able to get through their neighborhoods and get to the place they need to go to work, healthcare, et cetera. All those pieces, I think to those point about these investments can be doubling up in actual services they provide is what I'm looking at finding ways to do. When I mentioned the kind of braiding of departments is important to me. I think a lot about transportation, sustainability planning and public works. While the first three that I mentioned are very minor, minorly funded in our grand scheme of our general fund compared to public works.

00:29:14.599 --> 00:29:28.359
All those pieces should go together in my view and that necessarily consolidating them and making sure that they are working together every step of the way. When we look at some of these larger projects we're doing bond projects, we're looking at maybe larger IMP projects too, these kind of neighborhood scale investments in infrastructure.

00:29:28.359 --> 00:30:16.589
How can you make sure that we're blending all these pieces together? Where we're investing in drainage. Great. Let's also invest in some kind of nature trails if we can too. Or some pedestrian walkability pieces here too. Let's make sure that we're also implementing the stop signs and the speed bumps that we've been asking for here. So it's not another round of coming back to the same street and saying, okay, now we got to fix it again. Let's look at all these pieces together holistically and address those pieces so we can save us some costs and also deliver the service that our residents have been asking for in a long term way. Right. Rather than having to come back around multiple times and say what's going on here? What do we need? It's the same stop sign we asked for eight years ago. Things stopped for four years ago thanks to answer three years ago. Why don't we just get it done and call it a day? That's, I mean, easier said than done. Right. Well, it makes me think of South Alamo. Oh, of course, with the final four. To see that ripped up again is just. I don't imagine that was the best use of city money.

00:30:16.829 --> 00:30:24.430
Right. And before my time on calculating, but also my critique as well as a candidate. But yeah, I mean beyond that too. Right.

00:30:24.430 --> 00:31:19.549
We think about not just investments in infrastructure, but in human services. Right. To your point of mental health. Beyond that too is the systems of scale that we're trying to look at. Something I talked about on the campaign trail a lot and talked about holistic public safety was yes. We want to make sure our first responders have all the resources they need to effectively and quickly respond to emergencies as they come up in our communities. We also make sure that we're addressing the recurring causes that are happening here, the cycles of crime and violence that relate to those pieces, right? Whether they're poverty, whether they're mental health issues, whether they're workforce issues, whether they're educational issues, all these other pieces, homelessness too. At what point do we say, okay, we often need to invest in the back end, not just the front facing work, right? We talk about animal care services, we can have as many ACS officers as we want, but there's no shelter space for them for the dogs and the cats we pick up. What's the point? We can have all the DHS outreach workers, the target human services outreach workers for homelessness going out there to every single encampment we see. But there's not enough mental health beds or rehab beds or permanent supportive housing shelters. What's the point?

00:31:19.960 --> 00:32:21.490
And so some of those pieces, in terms of hsd, the housing department, DHS and Metro Health looking at ways to expand their services, even though we're in a place where we can't seem to expand as much, it's the kind of long term goals that we have the conversation about 2027 and seeing if we can shift between now and then with some of our new, I would hope we get some new revenue sources through looking at development pieces, looking at reductions in corporate subsidies, looking at ways that we can do some stuff with the TURS as well to get some more funding back in our general fund. How do you make sure that we're still getting these benchmark goals of we need this kind of scale of resources on the back end, relating with humans or connecting with humans, that they can actually be connected to these services directly and we can see these long term solutions come through. We can see the person on the street get the housing they need, get the mental health resources they need, get the healthcare and ID recovery pieces that they need so they can become stable people in the future and not have to constantly come back around and say, we're here again. This person has no place to go. They're still impacting our areas. We have another person come out, we have another person come out. How much time does staff have to go into this? Coming back and forth to this person over and over again to say, I got nothing for you, but I've been called out again, so I'm here and then it's done.

00:32:21.650 --> 00:34:21.630
Compared to we have something for you, let's see if we can get this, to build this trust with you, bring you back into this place where you feel at home, where you get a place to feel it's actually yours. You get the services you need and you can finally come into a place where you can go off and do the things that you wanted to do to begin with, right? Become a productive citizen in our community where that saves us hundreds of millions of dollars, more so than just sending folks out there to do say hello and do some services that they can do. But it's very hard to do it when people are in risky situations or out in the streets forever. So those are the kinds of pieces I'm looking at, is what things can we do that we can really invest in long term that are going to get us to these benchmark goals that we're looking at here. And if we can't do that, what can we do to reduce the services that aren't doing that? Maybe it's not the services, maybe it's the subsidies that we're giving out to large corporations or maybe the service or the property tax payments we give out to these large developments that don't yield any affordable housing pieces or community benefits that we're asking for. Maybe it's even sprawling developments further out into the outside city limits that are increasing our costs for infrastructure and maintenance on our own stuff nearby there. Can we do a development forum that looks more insular and looks more at our downtown areas and looks more in our interstates and looks more in our neighborhoods that are already established to figure out ways that we can invest in them and double up those investments, rather than vice versa going further, further out and expanding our scope of services as well as our costs that we'll never be able to recover. And so where does this all, I mean, so many things, so many different plates spinning out at once. And San Antonio's done a great job in many respects in attempting to think more proactively and act more proactively. But acutely right now, this is forcing a time to maybe do that at a much more aggressive rate than we otherwise had been. And so maybe a silver lining in that is that there's a radical opportunity. But where does this start to show up? Is it in the budgetary discussions, conversations with council and the mayor and city manager? And how do those things then become like transparent to the public? Like, where do we start to see what decisions have been made, so to speak, and what we're looking at?

00:34:21.869 --> 00:35:01.929
Yeah, so of course it's very insular in terms of July, the Month of July, we have city staff working on the budget internally and then talking to some city council members as we go through in our one on one check ins to talk about, you know, what things are important to you. We've heard from the budget goal setting meeting. We had that first meeting after we were inaugurated. So that was really nice to be able to kind of give those pieces of feedback on our first council meeting as a new council mayor and council. Right. Different perspectives than maybe were previously discussed. And so doing a bit of a shift internally is going to be important. Nothing too big, I don't think from the previous council, but there's some pieces there here and there. We will get that response back pretty much from city staff as we move into August. Going into I think early to mid August, around the 12th and 14th, we'll have those kind of council conversations.

00:35:01.929 --> 00:38:34.630
We'll get the budget memos from the city staff and the city manager's office showing what they heard from us, what they worked on throughout the month of July. And then we'll get of course, the draft budget document that's open to the public to review. Giant document. Don't recommend going through all of it, but if you want to go ahead, I'll be doing the same thing along with my staff. And we'll come back around with budget town halls too, with our residents to make sure that we're reaching out to them, connecting with them about what's going on in their neighborhoods and hearing that feedback again about not only what's going on in the neighborhoods, but also what they see the budget not having or having that they really like that we can continue pushing on and having those frank conversations too. Something that we always do as city council and city staff. When we talk about the budget town halls is city staff will ask us what are the questions you want to ask us? Right. So we're ready to go. We have the answers we need so we're not caught off foot or flat footed and say, oh, we'll come back around and we don't have time to come back around before the budget. There will be those questions, of course, whenever they come up. That's our job as city council members to then come back around with the answer to our residents as quickly as we can. Nonetheless, our questions from District 6 that we pushed really hard for, that we're going to see answered at those conversations late August are going to be around budget cuts. How are they going to impact the services that we rely on Looking at same things we talked about already, Metro, health, Parks, Infrastructure, all the other pieces, how's it going to affect the delivery of those services, let alone the funding of the programs overall. And then a bit about where do we go from here? What is city staff looking at for 2027 so our residents can be able to push and advocate too, with not only the council members, but with their neighborhoods too, and build this kind of momentum. I think is needed to say here's a different vision for what we're looking for for our budget that maybe we either haven't found ways to afford at the moment, but we need to figure out or will be impacted by budget cuts that we can't afford at the moment or that we are going to have to afford at the moment. Those questions are really exciting. I'm excited to have those conversations in public with city staff, including city management there to show that it's not just, you know, a one person support here of a council member deciding everything. It's actually a full team here that we're having these conversations with and excited to see from the city manager perspective too how they answer these questions to residents that I'm also asking for. Right. Of course, as someone who's worked at city council before, I'm familiar with some of these department budgets and all these kind of things, but some residents aren't. Right. And so let's make sure that we're being clear with our residents on what these things are. Bringing it down to everybody's level who's not super involved in politics and likes to have a normal life, but also wanted to see that normal life improved upon. Right. With city services that they know are important. And so having that conversation gonna be really important. And I'm excited for those pieces to come together and understanding and reaching out to my community throughout this time. Two in August, through our social media pieces, through our neighborhood outreach pieces, through our neighbor association HOA conversation, as well as with our field offices being in fully open in both parts of the district are gonna be the kind of crucial lifelines to get these pieces across to everybody and to hear from our residents throughout the entire time so that I can advocate for my residents as best as I possibly can. Well, and this follow up is a little bit more spec, I suppose, but you know, along those lines for how people might understand the impacts of this. Perhaps 20 million is one thing for the next fiscal year, but roughly 150 seems vastly more just in figures for 2027. How should we make sense of that? Like how grave is that? And as well, maybe what is your optimism or sense for there being a smart and effective way forward on that, like how does that affect the quality of life of San Antonians or what is the likelihood that perhaps it may not be as grave or something as we may assume? Yeah, you know, I try not to be someone who is an alarmist. I try to keep things going as much as we can, working in a deliberative form with residents at the door.

00:38:34.630 --> 00:38:39.789
Talked about all these kinds of things. Right. How do we move forward together on these different issues that are coming up? If there's a fire, what do we do?

00:38:40.360 --> 00:38:47.000
Not in just a literal fire, but in terms of political fire or in terms of a neighborhood scale kind of conversation about issues in the area. Right.

00:38:47.159 --> 00:39:00.880
How do we make sure that we're getting these results that we want without it becoming a bigger storm? Then it goes for council trying to make sure that we're all kind of keeping a level headed view on these pieces. But I will say for the budget in 2027, I think people should be concerned about it.

00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:28.449
I think residents of all incomes and all backgrounds should be concerned about what this means for the way our city is going to function for the rest of the decade. Right. It's not going to stop necessarily. 2027. Right. We're going to have to do it another time. 2028, 2029. And if property tax evaluations don't shift, if property tax revenues don't shift, if sales tax revenues don't shift, if CPS revenues don't shift, we're going to be in this kind of form for a while of reduced services. Now, of course, right. We understand that our city budget is pretty massive, right. Billions of dollars into this budget.

00:39:28.849 --> 00:41:12.409
And so while 135 million is a lot of, it's still not going to impact all of our services to a point where we're going to have no city services to effectively distribute or to actually deliver. But there are pieces that I'm worried about, right. Some of the 185 million is more than many of our city budgets, entire budgets combined or city department budgets combined. Right. Thinking about housing, thinking about health, thinking about libraries, thinking about parks, thinking about other pieces. Parks is a bit more than that. But all these other smaller ones that maybe are forgotten or taken for granted sometimes. Planning, city management budget, all the other pieces too, that are all working together in sync or trying to be in sync as much as possible to deliver for our residents, whether it's on issues of sustainability, to make sure that there are cool neighborhood programs to reduce the urban heat island in our areas. While some folks may argue that's not necessary for the city government to solve, I think it's worth the conversation about. I think it is. And I think it's worth looking at public health in this way. And that looks at urban Heat island, looks at sustainability, that looks at how nature impacts our residents lives and how our city developments have impacted our environment to then do this kind of same cycle over and over again impacting our health and so forth. So I think people should be concerned about those pieces. And I think that conversation we're having now is yes, of course important about our current budget. But looking again into the future of not only 2027 but 2030, do we either shift the way our city government collects revenue or looks at ways to distribute different revenue sources? Right. Whether if it's through tours or through large development subsidies or through large property tax abatements or exemptions, at what point do we say when we get that money back, what point do we see that return investment for our communities and let alone for our city budget to then continue delivering for our residents? We had a conversation on Friday about the Spurs Arena. I know we're going to get to that in a little bit, but one thing I want to mention about it was economic development approaches.

00:41:12.409 --> 00:41:41.800
For a long time our city has been pushing in this way of almost a small scale trickle down kind of view of it all, where we give a large subsidy to the largest corporation that will take it, large beneficiary that can take it, and hopefully they'll do this large mass scale development here in our city and it'll create a million jobs and it'll do all this cool investment around it too. And sometimes it works, right? Sometimes it's worthwhile to invest in those pieces and in some ways get those pieces done. But what we've seen in our city as well as cities across the country, it doesn't always pan out that way, right?

00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:52.929
It takes a lot more work to also develop the the housing, the workforce, education, the park space, the creek side work there too. Right. The water sources make sure there's electricity infrastructure there too.

00:41:53.329 --> 00:42:48.210
That relates to economic development. And when we don't invest those pieces, we leave our city at disadvantage for actually growing as an economy. And when we see property tax revenues stall, we see sales tax revenues stall. It comes from that investment in the public amenities and public infrastructure that creates the conditions for our economy to grow. So that's what the kind of scale that I'm looking at or the kind of scope I'm looking at for These large conversations with our city budget is are we going to say this is it, this is the most we could ever done, we're going to stop now and pull back, or are we going to say, no, let's shift our economic development views to where we can invest our public services in an effective way, in a way that doubles up on our investments and brings in the larger entities that we've been asking for for so long by investing in people first, investing in infrastructure first, to make sure that there's the conditions available for development to actually happen. That will then fund our city budget too well. And we'll just continue along with the conversation around Project Marvel and the spurs arena. I think it's critically important to see the interconnectedness of it all.

00:42:48.530 --> 00:42:55.090
There's a bit of a paradox for me, for us to be addressing a deficit at the time in which we're addressing potential record investment.

00:42:56.610 --> 00:43:41.400
I think it's a very exciting prospect. And so I think what you're saying is really critically important. Let's talk a little bit about the spurs most recent proposal which was just reported on just this last week here. This again is the end of July which we're having this conversation. The spurs were proposing 500 million for arena construction, 500 million for adjacent private development, and I believe 60 million in various community benefits, some touching on early childhood education, talking about affordable tickets available to the community, some funding for public transit services for games and a space for locally owned retail. Those are some top high level items. I'm sure there's the devil is in the details of those things.

00:43:41.880 --> 00:44:17.659
I am curious from your perspective, Rick, what's your assessment of that proposal? My understanding is that, you know, the only quote I got from you in local reporting is that you see it as a great opportunity for the spurs to commit themselves to the community, to San Antonio. And so yeah, explain to us how do you see that? What do you like about it? What more do you want to see? Because I believe the city's potential contribution was quoted at 350 to 500 million. You can correct me if that's wrong from a variety of funding sources, not through the general fund. But I'll leave it to you. What's your assessment of this currently?

00:44:18.460 --> 00:46:55.679
Yeah, I'll say from the get go when we got the news about this, right, we got some internal news about it, right, that it was coming, that we're going to get the contribution set, which I really want to note that I mentioned on the dice too. But I want to say my thanks publicly to our Mayor Jones for scheduling this special session. It was not on our schedule to have this conversation on Friday in the afternoon for quite a while, but I'm glad we did. Not only for public comment resources, but because or reasons but because also we got some answers that we've been asking for a bit sooner. I think whether it was spurs contributions or it was the kind of community benefits conversations or it was the ways that city management was looking at negotiating these pieces a bit more. So I'm grateful that we had the conversation, grateful that it opened this session, opened it up for the public to look at a bit more and for the spurs to kind of come to the table more publicly too. Right. I was a bit surprised that 500 million was on the table for the direct contribution as well as 500 million for the direct or I guess sort of indirect support for development around the area along with the 65 million ish community benefit agreement there. Right. So we're talking about a billion plus dollars in contributions from the spurs themselves. I think that's a great start to have. I think it's a great way that if we're talking about negotiating a public private partnership, this is a good way to come to the table right now. To your point about the devils in the details, I am very interested and we didn't get to a full conversation there about where the money was coming from because more focused that conversation about the cba, the community benefits agreement as well as should the city manager continue going forward on negotiating? I said yes, continue going forward because I want to get more of these details, including where's the money coming from from the Spurs. Let me see some of these sources too. And I know there's a conversation publicly as well as privately about, well, they can't share their entire financials, but I think if they're asking for our open book of financials, we should ask for their open book too. I think if they're asking for our city to open up our city coffers, whether it's our general fund or not, some of our sources of funding that we get in some forms, whether it's bond capacity or tourist capacity or PFZ capacity, all these other pieces that have been created to help fund other pieces of development or other pieces of our city funding sources, then we need to see what else is going on in your pocketbooks a bit too. What's going on in your assets, how are you going to fund this piece and what parts are we going to have to pick up there too. Right. The piece on Development was very clouded a bit. There wasn't a whole lot of details in what kind of element that would look like. Is it housing, is it adjacent, private development? It is. That's great. I hear that. Love that I too do adjacent things around my house. And I want to just know more about what does that look like, what is that going to yield for everything? And also if it's direct cash, that's not in that form. Right. If it's direct capital, can that capital then set us to go to the stadium instead? So our contribution is a bit less. I think we talk about creating economic development anchors, which I think this comes to a larger conversation about arenas and sports stadiums and financing overall. If that's the anchor here, development come naturally.

00:46:56.239 --> 00:47:42.320
We're talking about free market capitalism. We have this big anchor here, whether it's an industry, a factory or whatever it is a stadium. The idea is that the market will come and build around it too. And so I'm a bit concerned if that we're having to not only jumpstart the stadium, then we're going to jumpstart the development too. At what point do we just kind of pick and choose our economic arguments here? Of no, the state is going to bring all this economic development. Oh no. Also we're going to have to pay for the economic development. Oh no. Also we're going to have to do all these other pieces. Where is the true end of this kind of financial ask And I understand it's coming from them a little bit more, some of these contributions, but I don't believe personally that it's also going to be the end of it. Right. Not necessarily from them, but from the public side. There's not going to be some infrastructure requirement asks. Right. Of course we're talking about the streets and the walkability connectivity, which I think is fine.

00:47:42.480 --> 00:48:25.179
But when do we talk about also the utility pieces there too? Right. We're talking about the saws shutter plan, the Elmo Dome piece that maybe affect not only saws rates of utility rates for residents for the movement of the actual piece of there, but it'll also affect the infrastructure downtown overall. And so are we going to have to then subsidize that piece too a bit more with saws, so we don't impact our ratepayers as much as. Well, it just seems like we're going to have to keep kind of spiraling into these details a bit more, which I'm fine to do and happy to do, but I don't want to say that. Okay, 500 million on the table. Another 500 million doll the table. We're good to go. Keep going. Let's get it done. Because I'm kind of more interested in again, where does this stop? At some point, how long is the city going to be on the hook for this? And from the decades of research which I mentioned on the dice as well, it doesn't.

00:48:25.579 --> 00:49:14.460
And we don't really see the return on investment that we've been asking for. The economic development engine really ever kickstart to a point that it gets our economy driving forward in a different direction than we ever been. What we often see is that for stadium developments that are publicly financed in general, stadium developments that happen just shifts sales taxes and sales revenues to the area from the same city that it's in, not necessarily creating new revenue, just going from one place to another. And I challenge, is this our worthwhile investment versus investing in hemisphere overall or downtown development overall, in terms of infrastructure, to be able to have the capacity to do this work the way we did with the Pearl or Brooks or even Port sa? Port SA is a little bit different. I think that one's a bit more heavy handed in terms of direct contributions to entities to come over that area. But even the infrastructure developments were kind of the key piece there, redeveloping any kind of military base, whereas a lot of infrastructure upgrades.

00:49:14.460 --> 00:51:07.480
Same thing with the manufacturing hub, right? That the Pearl was to create housing, to create public spaces there, to create a vibrant place that doesn't feel like it's still an industrial area. I argue what was our. I would like to argue, I guess more of it. What's a better investment for a city? Investing in the public amenities that all can use, or investing in a top down approach of giving a direct contribution to an entity that maybe wants to give a direct contribution themselves but will also ask for the infrastructure and everything else too. To me it sounds like they can afford a little bit more on their side and we can do a bit more on our side and we can work collaboratively for that because we're both committed to having the spurs be in our city. Let's handle the infrastructure, let's handle the public amenities, let's handle the parks, let's handle all these other pieces, not just for them, but for everybody. Two in our city, they can handle the stadium. Well, I think that it really is an incredible opportunity for San Antonio to perhaps do something a different way than elsewhere across the country. I'm a resident originally of Washington State and I'm a basketball fan, so I'M very intimately familiar with cities losing teams. So I had the Seattle supersonics growing up and then I went to Oklahoma City and I was maybe too young to be completely savvy to all the details of that exchange, but I wasn't happy about it as a basketball fan. But at the same time, I do think you brought up brief mention of Detroit. That's a really good historical story about a city that invested in corporations in companies. And the big three motor companies is the motor city until they all left when the terms of the engagements didn't satisfy their interests. And so it's a dicey track. And especially in something like sports, the spurs, it's a cultural piece as well as a corporate piece. And so it seems like leaving as few assumptions as, as possible as to, you know, that things will be a guarantee to benefit the greatest capacity of San Antonians that it can. I think it's a wonderful opportunity and I think the spurs are the right organization to make that partnership happen for our city.

00:51:07.559 --> 00:51:24.960
So last question for you. I just want to leave the floor open. Is there anything that you feel like we didn't cover here? We're coming out of the summer, which feels like a slower period here in San Antonio. Things are going to start to pick up. We've seen a lot of these conversations getting reported on with the budget Project Marvel. Things are heating up a little bit.

00:51:25.039 --> 00:52:05.150
What else do you think people need to pay attention to? What else are priorities that you're focusing on here in the near term that we might not be keen to? Yeah, I mean, I think you always do a great job keeping track of all the other pieces that are going on and having great people as guests on this podcast, talk more about what's kind of background stuff that we're not seeing. And so one thing I would mention would be the bond conversations. Right. They're of course having it happening a little bit with the Project Marvel conversations. Right. With some pieces on infrastructure, some pieces on housing, some pieces on workforce, all these other things going on. But I also want to talk about the general 2027 bond that we typically have our five year cycles for bonds as a city. That's what I'm really looking at. Or a city council member, but also as working with the city.

00:52:05.150 --> 00:52:29.280
Right. Figuring out ways that we can include more residents into that bond conversation and address some of these long term issues we talked about today. If it's infrastructure, let's figure out ways that we can address the kind of constant flooding on Pin Road or Old Grissom Road so we don't have to worry about this again and again and again. It's housing. Let's look at the housing pieces and make sure that we're investing in not only production, but preservation too, right? So new folks, folks who are graduating from their homes like to call it when they're growing up out of their homes or looking for a new place that they can downsize in too, right?

00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:37.880
They have affordable places. Folks have affordable places to go to here in our city or they want to stay in our neighborhood, stay in the neighborhood they've known for a long time. But they want to live in dignity, as we all deserve to.

00:52:37.960 --> 00:52:56.250
They have this option and our city has the option to make sure that we're taking care of them too, keeping it affordable for them as well, and not having to have them find this big market right now for housing. That's, I think, a bit more challenging for San Antonio residents than it ever has been. We're looking at public safety, too, right. We want to make sure that our first responders have the resources they need to make sure we invest in their infrastructure directly. Right?

00:52:56.250 --> 00:54:13.050
Whether it's fire stations or substation, all the other pieces that they may need resources directly or some of the quality of life pieces. Right? We talked about that a lot, too. Residents asking about their parks, their libraries, seeing these services that are really used a ton but have been created back in the 90s and haven't seen to their view right enough services there, whether it's a bathroom or whether it's lighting or whether it's a public pool in the area. How can we make sure that we're delivering on those pieces while also doing the hard work of the budget conversations, also doing the hard work of spurs negotiations and Project Marvel conversations and all the other pieces of it, too? They're really getting back to what the city is meant to be here for, I think, which is delivering on the kind of quality of life services that our residents are asking for. Heard a lot of the doors about it. Our team is really well equipped to handle these conversations going on about it. I'm almost eager to have people come into our office more and more as the season wraps up. A bit more for residents come in and, you know, are looking to see the new council member and hear from them more directly. So I think that's one of the big ways or big conversations that is missing at the moment. But I'm excited to get into them because they're going to come sooner than later because it also gives opportunity for residents to serve on bond committees too, so they can really push for the neighborhoods and their issues that they've seen happen for a long time in the district on their own. And I'd have to rely on just City Councilmember, but they themselves can advocate. So excited for those conversations what that budget, that bond scope will look like and also where we can get some really good strong wins for the long term for our district and for our city overall. Excellent. Thank you for bringing that up.

00:54:13.289 --> 00:54:16.730
Obviously, another important piece of a rich conversation here.

00:54:16.730 --> 00:54:20.489
Councilman Galvan, District 6, thanks for coming on to Big City Small Town.

00:54:20.489 --> 00:54:22.250
Yeah, thank you for having me. Good to see you.

00:54:25.849 --> 00:55:09.389
Thanks for listening to or watching this episode of Big City Small Town. If you enjoyed it, please send it to a friend, share it with a colleague, helping us to keep telling San Antonio's most meaningful stories. And if you haven't yet, sign up for the San Antonio Something, my weekly newsletter where I share things to do, places to explore, and people to get to know in this city. Just head to coriames.com to subscribe. Also, be sure to check out Monday Musings, Bob Rivard's weekly newsletter at BigCity. Small Town.com Big City Small Town is brought to you by Weston Urban Building the city our children want to call home, and by Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Thanks again.

00:55:09.789 --> 00:55:10.989
We'll see you next time.