Politics & Public Affairs Posts

San Antonio City Manager Erik Walsh returned this week from an annual meeting of city managers in Philadelphia. What did he learn there? “I learned we are not alone,” Walsh said after returning home to complete staff work on the city’s fiscal 2027 …

Mayor Gina Jones has sent a July 24 letter to San Antonio's business, foundation, and philanthropic leaders asking for new, three-year funding commitments to allow city budget cutters to eliminate $6.5 million in annual grants to 15 mostly local non…

No major U.S. city does more to address homelessness than San Antonio, yet ask any member of City Council and they will tell you their constituents list “the homeless problem” as a leading concern, right up there with crime and potholes. Is percept…

This week, The Midweek honors our nation’s birth 250 years ago on July 4, 1776, with the publication of an essay by the Honorable Fred Biery, U.S. District Judge in the Western District and the longest serving federal judge in San Antonio. Judge Bi…

Is it news when a planned mass shooting actually never happens? Bad news travels fast. Good news, not so fast. I’d like to share one story about good people acting in the best interests of society. Last week, I attended a criminal trial in the cour…

It’s official: Gina Jones has survived her first year in office as mayor of San Antonio. It’s been a cage fight at city hall, at times painful for citizens, the media, and other onlookers to watch, and for the mayor and the 10 council members in the…

San Antonio will be looking for a few good men and women to fill some big shoes. The search is already on for a new police chief to replace this week’s bigcitysmalltown podcast guest, San Antonio Police Chief William “Bill” McManus, who will retire…

I do not envy City Manager Erik Walsh and his senior team as they address budget deficits that began with a $30 million shortfall in the current fiscal year budget and are predicted to grow to $130 million by fiscal year 2028. Mayor Gina Jones and …

Mayor Gina Jones and Council members Edward Mungia (D4), Ric Galvan (D6), Ivalis Meza Gonzalez (D8) and Misty Spears (D9), all elected in 2025, did not run campaigns promising multiyear spending cuts to balance the General Fund or rate increases for…

People, more of you turned out to vote, here and across Texas! Bravo. Looks like about 15% of the county’s 1,294,973 registered voters went to the polls. Media reports led me to expect an even higher number. Let’s hope it portends a robust November …

If you thought things couldn’t get worse at City Council under Mayor Gina Jones, think again. As you read this on Monday morning, the City Council is meeting in executive session to decide whether to censure the embattled mayor for her latest destru…

Mayor Gina Jones should sense gathering storm clouds on the near horizon when the San Antonio Express-News publishes an editorial, as it did Saturday, that calls her a “jerk” and renews the conversation about her lack of fitness to hold public offic…

After 37 years living and working in San Antonio as a journalist, I’ve met just about every newsmaker who has made a difference in this city. The people who have had the most profound and positive impact on me, and I would argue, the community and b…

Bigcitysmalltown started the new year with a bang in the Geekdom Podcast Studio, featuring individual episodes with Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who is seeking to unseat Sakai in the March 3 Democratic p…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I still like wishing people well in the season, although some people seem to approach those words as if they are walking on eggshells. Happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays to all the people of other faiths who don’t…

Mayor Gina Jones may have found an issue that will deliver a significant, much-needed win with her colleagues on City Council. The mayor wants to move city elections in odd-numbered years from May to November in an attempt to overcome dismal voter t…

Sporting an out-of-office, salt-and-pepper beard, former mayor Ron Nirenberg moved through the crowd at the River North Icehouse on Election Night, shaking hands and exchanging abrazos as Spurs-crazy fans celebrated the passage of Propositions A & B…

Let me say what San Antonio Spurs Chairman and Managing Partner Peter J. Holt is too pro-San Antonio to say: If Bexar County voters fail to pass Propositions A & B on Nov. 4, other big city mayors and billionaires will be falling all over each other…

Gina Ortiz Jones was sworn in as mayor of San Antonio on June 18, 2025 after one of the most ridiculous campaigns in city history with a clown car total of 27 candidates on the ballot, at least 20 of them lacking credibility. Jones, a Democrat, fini…

Last week, I promised a more in-depth take on the Alamodome and its importance to San Antonio’s urban profile, big-city offerings and its visitor economy. I did so after hearing Mayor Gina Jones repeat the often-misleading claim that Mayor Henry Cis…

I actually had plans to multitask Thursday, but another marathon City Council session featuring more than 100 citizens to be heard kept me glued, post-shoulder surgery, to the laptop screen for what seemed like an entire day. The outcome, as expect…

It was a strong week for the San Antonio City Council majority, which delivered a lesson in governance to Mayor Gina Jones in her first 100 days. The lesson learned? Respecting the “process” after a successful challenge of the mayor’s unilateral and…

In four decades of observing newly-elected mayors take office in San Antonio, I have never seen one struggle so unsuccessfully to hit the ground running, to lead the City Council effectively and collaboratively, or to assemble a reliable professiona…

Congratulations, Mayor-elect Gina Ortiz Jones. This week’s newsletter begins with those welcoming words, and the wry acknowledgement that I stand 0-2 in the endorsement category. I focused my first-round support on tech company founder Beto Altamir…