The Midweek #83: Mayor Jones Loses Another Council Challenge

Over the decades, Hollywood directors making Westerns have turned to a familiar slapstick scene: confused or contrarian cowboys on horseback shout and herd cattle in different directions, resulting in mayhem.

In City Slickers (1991), Billy Crystal and his fellow newbie cowboys shout tangled commands that end up dividing the herd into tail-chasing chaos. As far back as the silent film era, in Go West (1925), Buster Keaton struggled to move hundreds of cattle through downtown Los Angeles, with the resulting mayhem of city slickers and confused cattle producing the desired comic effect. There was nothing funny about the confrontation between John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River (1948) when the two leading men fought over who would lead the cattle drive and decide what direction to head the herd.

I was reminded of such scenes while watching Mayor Gina Jones and City Council members continue to bicker over the 2027 bond program and campaign and mayoral authority. I am not suggesting San Antonio voters are cattle waiting to be herded, but we are expecting to be led by elected public servants who put the interests and needs of constituents first. Petty and pointless politics have defined the first 16 months of Jones’ mayoral term, while voters are left to mill about in aimless circles as the city seemingly goes nowhere.

I delayed writing The Midweek so I could watch Wednesday morning’s Special Meeting of the San Antonio City Council that, it turns out, was held in nearly empty council chambers and lasted all of 22 minutes by my clock. It was another loss of face and influence for the mayor.

As is customary these days, the meeting was preceded by an emailed exchange of conflicting memos. Actual face-to-face engagement between the mayor and her council colleagues seems to be minimal. This is a very dysfunctional family that we see gather every week.

I tuned in a minute or two late, but only heard Jones speak to defend her choice of 2027 bond campaign tri-chairs, followed briefly by District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo disagreeing with the mayor, and then District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez siding with the mayor, calling the meeting ‘silly’ and saying his colleagues had called it ‘to create conflict.’” A seemingly resigned Jones then called for a vote, which she lost by a 7-3 margin, before adjourning the meeting without comment.

The Special Meeting was called by three council members opposed to Jones exercising a mayor’s traditional authority to appoint three co-chairs of citizen committees that will hold public meetings and recommend projects to support in the 2027 bond. Their role is advisory and their recommendations are often overruled by staff and council members.

City Manager Erik Walsh may have uttered the clearest truth during the brief meeting when he noted, “They (the tri-chairs) really don’t have any power.”

Council members Teri Castillo, Marina Alderete Gavito and Marc Whyte filed the memo requesting the meeting last week, while calling for two supportive colleagues, Sukh Kaur and Phyllis Viagran, to review the mayor’s tri-chair choices.

Following the trio’s memo last week, which Jones described as an exercise in “pettiness,” the mayor issued her own memo on Monday in anticipation of Wednesday’s special meeting. In it, she confirmed widely shared reports that she had appointed Port San Antonio CEO Jim Perschbach; Center for Health Care Services CEO Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison, who already serves as board chair of SAWS; and the San Antonio Food Bank’s Mario Obledo Jr., who serves as the nonprofit’s government and public affairs director, to be the 2027 bond tri-chairs. At least one other individual turned down the mayor’s request to serve as a tri-chair.

Jones read to her colleagues an email sent yesterday by Perschbach pledging to fulfill his tri-chair duties objectively and to recuse himself from any discussion about Port San Antonio’s $40 million bond request for badly needed street improvements. I don’t doubt Perschbach’s objectivity, but he is naive to believe he will be able to fend off critics.

Staff will prepare an ordinance for discussion and a vote giving the council review power over the mayor’s three choices and the opportunity to promote their own choices. Oddly, Jones did not successfully recruit a private sector leader as a tri-chair whose job would be to rally the business community behind the 2027 bond. Once the council settles on a final figure and list of projects, the matter will go to voters in May or November next year. The 2027 cycle is falling farther behind the traditional schedule. Normally, tri-chairs and citizen committees would already be seated and public hearings would be scheduled.

Even with strong leadership, the 2027 city bond will be problematic for city planners struggling to manage infrastructure needs in this fast-growing, sprawling city where nearly $6 billion in needed investment has been identified by staff.

Reduced tax collections have led Walsh and staff to cut back proposed infrastructure investment over the 2027-2032 bond program by an unprecedented 63%. The 2022 city bond was $1.2 billion, while a slim majority of council members appear to support staff recommendations that the next bond should only total $442 million. Council members who support a $1 billion bond favor raising taxes that service the city’s bond debt in order to avert such a drastic reduction.

In her Oct. 6 memo, Jones proposed the council direct $312 million of the $442 million, 70.6%, to Districts 1-5, the historically underserved, inner-city council districts. Only $55 million, or 12.4%, would be available for D6-10, which include the city’s fastest-growing suburban reaches. The remaining $75 million, or 17%, would go to a second housing bond half the size of the housing bond passed one month before Ron Nirenberg unseated Ivy Taylor as mayor in 2017.

By proposing a predetermined allocation of the bond funds, Jones inadvertently reduced the appointment of tri-chairs and citizen advisory committees to window dressing. Council members in the outlying districts oppose the mayor’s proposal. Inner-city council members are not aligned with the mayor, either, believing the bond should be $1 billion.

Jones, who continues to search for ways to upend the city’s negotiated term sheet with the Spurs for a new arena, opposes the staff recommendation that the bond include $35 million to fund street improvements in Hemisfair tied to the new arena and entertainment zone. You don’t have to be in the prediction market to conclude Jones will lose that vote, too, if it comes to it.

Two central questions remain: One, should the 2027 bond be devoted in the main to correct historical underinvestment in the inner city, or should investment be divided equally among the 10 districts? Two, what size should the bond be?  The issue of mayoral versus council authority over the appointment of tri-chairs remains to be settled in the coming weeks with a vote on a new ordinance.

I have one other question: Why would any of the proposed tri-chairs willingly step forward to participate in such a contentious undertaking? The absence of a recognizable private sector captain of industry can be attributed to two factors: Jones’ continuing disconnect with business leaders, despite outreach lunches and other meetings organized by CEOs, and perhaps, an unwillingness on the part of most private sector leaders to accept an appointment from Jones.

Perschbach certainly deserves to be accorded recognition as a successful business leader, and he is said to get along with Jones after joining her on an economic development trip to Taiwan, but the Port has a legitimate $40 million bond request for street improvements. His presence as a tri-chair, I fear, will inevitably lead to conflict of interest charges that will cost the Port. That’s ridiculous, in my opinion, but I’d rather see council make a much-needed investment in the Port, a major center for high-paying job creation, than watch Perschbach preside over an inconsequential citizen initiative.

By the way, amid all this melodrama, the San Antonio Spurs opened the regular season Tuesday night with a home loss to their Western Conference rivals, the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team the Spurs dominated last year in the regular season, and edged, 4-3, in the Western Conference Finals. Many pick the Thunder to win another championship this season, while others believe the time has come for Wemby & team to dominate.

The Spurs’ future new arena at Hemisfair remains the single most important city-county investment on the horizon as Jones continues to complicate the process. She seems to be playing to entities in the city that opposed partial public funding of a new arena, despite a public vote in support of the project that passed even before the Spurs went on their remarkable post-season run that saw them lose to the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.

There isn’t much question about how the Spurs and their ownership are regarded around the state. Spurs Chairman and Managing Partner Peter J. Holt will be inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual dinner Nov. 12 at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio. He’ll join other distinguished San Antonio business leaders previously inducted, including, among others, his own father Peter Holt (1994); Spurs Hall of Famer David Robinson (2024); Pearl developer Kit Goldsbury (2023); Western Urban Chairman Graham Weston (2019); Morgan’s Wonderland developer Gordon Hartman (2016); and SWBC Chairman Charlie Amato (2013), a member of the Spurs ownership group.

The new arena agreement calls for the city to invest $442 million through the sale of revenue bonds, equal to 38% of the proposed $1.3 billion arena cost. The city does not need to put its share up for a public vote, although Jones unsuccessfully sought to make that happen. Unlike general obligation bonds where the debt is serviced through a dedicated tax, these revenue bonds will be repaid through the Spurs’ annual ground lease payments and incremental tax collections from the added investment and business activity at and around Hemisfair over the ensuing 30 years. 

The county has committed to contribute $311 million, with the Spurs committing to pay $500 million and cover any and all cost overruns, and invest an even greater sum in surrounding commercial and retail development. County voters approved two propositions last November. Proposition A dedicates $192 million to redevelop the Frost Bank Center, the Freeman Coliseum and rodeo facilities. Proposition B authorized the arena investment.

There was nothing "special" about Wednesday's council meeting, other than it's timing. it took less than a half hour to remind us that under Mayor Jones, San Antonio is governed by a City Council fractured over the city's future and how best to move forward.