Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow Speaker 2: San Antonio is a fast growing fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters round table to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on.

Speaker 1: Hi everybody.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

And this past week, San Antonio city council okayed a bond issue that we'll be voting on May 7th, record 1.2, a billion dollars worth of projects split into six different votes.

The biggest chunk of that is for infrastructure streets and drainage here to explain all of that and how it broke down, how it came to be Eric Walls, the city manager, thank you for being here and also Brandon Logan, who is the not only CEO of urban capital planners, but now you are a tri chair of the bond program.

And we're going to talk about how that works and how it works coming into may.

But first, what was the priority of the council going into this every five years, the city has a bond and this one was a little different in terms of the priority for the, Speaker 2: Yeah.

Thanks, Randy.

So the, one of the priorities we heard loud and clear was that basic infrastructure, streets and drainage obviously were a priority.

The continuation of our linear Creek way system and focus on district projects.

And with over $6 billion worth of infrastructure need in our community, we felt as we did the financial analysis that within our existing property tax rate, we could bring forward a $1.2 billion infrastructure plan for San Antonio for the next five years.

And so, you know, there are a lot of exciting parts of this public art was important to the council.

So we have increased the amount of funding for public art within the bond program, but the nuts, nuts and bolts of this are that the majority of this money is going to streets and drainage.

I also think it's really critical and, and we've worked hard to do this.

We're leveraging about $269 million in other funding sources to line up with this $1.2 billion Speaker 1: After a city charter election last year, that you could put some kind of housing initiatives within the bond.

And that's also a big priority right now, affordable housing.

It is how important is that in this bond issue, as we break down as 472 million, I think for streets and drainage streets and bridges and sidewalks drainage and flood control and other 170 billion and housing, 150 million as well as a big chunk for parks.

Tell us about that because people might wonder I've never voted on this before.

What is it?

What is it going to go to?

So when you consider the fundamental makeup of a community, this 1.2 billion bond is addressing that.

So you have 183 projects, but 150 of those 180 3 are district centered projects.

What I love about what the city recommended to us as a community who actually led this citizen driven process was they were rooted in needs.

And last week when we saw council unanimously support the certification of this election to go forward to the citizens of May 7th, that signal that we were meeting the needs.

And so when you consider the fit 3% makeup of streets, bridges, sidewalks, and drainage, the remaining 47% is allocated towards green space, housing, municipality facilities.

These are critical elements to making sure that every segment of our community can learn, grow, and thrive.

And so, And there were some changes in this and you were talking about the most input from citizens, different committees, and you're one of the tri chairs above all these committees.

City staff comes up with what your recommendations are.

It went to the committees and they made a bunch of changes.

And those changes, their recommendations then went to the city council, right?

Is this the biggest number of changes we've seen?

Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've probably hit, we we've had more community input in this bond program than ever before.

With five committees of 32 individuals, over 160 folks, we had citizens showing up to speak.

We had about $45 million worth of changes that the committees recommended back to the council and the council accepted.

And, and as Brandon mentioned, there was a lot of public engagement.

And, you know, we do bond programs every five years.

I think we've set the mark on, on how to do that.

And you know, every five years you have to recreate that.

But I I'm proud of the fact that that as Brandon mentioned, the projects are based on need.

I think we, we took a very equitable approach and looking at parts of town that have not had the type of investment that they've had over the last couple of decades and the Speaker 1: Other council districts to, for example, Speaker 2: All over really sometimes Randy, there, there are parts of town and it depends.

It depends on, on, on the type of infrastructure improvement.

It could be community facilities where we haven't invested the money where we needed to drainage was a big one.

Our F streets, our streets with the lowest score, making a really concerted effort to put on the bond program projects that will make a big difference in the communities.

And then in the neighborhoods.

Speaker 1: And now the projects were overseen by the tri chairs and the committees.

What happens now in terms of, I guess you would say selling this and what your role is.

So there's a shift.

We go from council to community and we have an opportunity now to go district by district, almost like knocking on doors, like a campaign and really sharing the value proposition.

I wouldn't consider it that we're selling.

It's really us understanding how we can make sound conservative investments in the community that has grown needs.

As Eric mentioned from the onset, you know, $1.2 billion only addresses 16% of the true value of need out in the community.

And so if us taking this significant and historic step to make these investments, we're starting to begin to address all the foundational.

Are there any of these six projects traditionally in the streets and drainage to well parks, that kind of thing, any of those six that you have heard, any feedback that you're concerned about that there might be in trouble?

I don't want to say in trouble, but Support, I would say at the beginning, because city council and members were really advocating for certain projects and it had not gone through the community funnel yet.

There was a lot of opposition to certain projects, but as the process, matured, individuals had a chance to have some public discourse.

We came to consensus that this was not going to be a bond that's driven in, wants and desires, but really rooted in need.

And, And now one of those that got a whole lot of attention was a sunken garden theater project, the 5 million that would go to that, but that has a string attached now that if you can't come to consensus, I understand the 5 million will go to the rest of Brackenridge park.

Yeah, Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right.

I mean, that, that, that proposition will be for Breckinridge park.

And the amenities of Breckenridge park Southern garden is obviously an, a major amenity.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done on that project.

And we'll work.

We'll continue to work closely with the neighborhoods and around that area, as well as the, the Breckenridge park Conservancy.

So that project needs to develop more.

We certainly have need in Breckinridge park as, as one of our, one of our core parks Speaker 1: And public facilities.

People might not realize you're going to have some new police facilities as well as new park facilities as well.

So, you know, one new police substation, but two new fire stations.

And then you start thinking about the impact of libraries.

So these are all city owned facilities, but Eric will tell you, you know, from a budget standpoint, having done a good enough job of really budgeting the maintenance of these facilities.

And so the bonds gives us a chance to start fresh in some of the areas of in dire need.

And these are essential services.

I also wonder, I should mention tax rate.

My tax is going to go up no tax rate.

You don't believe.

Speaker 2: No, not that I don't believe that our financial assumptions are that we can afford to fund this $1.2 billion within our existing property tax rate with no change to that property tax rate.

Let me, let me add that.

Also, Randy, to what Brandon, 30% of our parks are going to see some level of improvement as a result of the bond.

And we're also creating nine new parks.

That's in addition to 21 additional miles on the linear.

Speaker 1: And that was a kind of a question at one point, the linear trail, some of the council people didn't want that at first, they want another money, but it is in the bond.

Speaker 2: $3 million is in the bond for 21 miles 21, additional miles and bear county has allocated a little over $80 million for additional miles.

And that's one of those, one of those leveraged investments that we were able to Speaker 1: So secure.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

If you can get more information on this at the city website, which is cosa.gov or San Antonio, San Antonio, if you just want to make sure that you knew that that was a test in the past.

Thanks very much.

Brandon Logan and the city manager, Eric Wallace appreciate it.

This week, early voting started in the primaries across Texas.

And with that comes, sometimes you would call them endorsements.

Sometimes you call them, picks from papers, other different groups, like the express news here in San Antonio.

And with us to kind of pull back the curtain on how they do that.

Maybe talk about some of their picks or recommendations, not endorsements is a longtime column is Carrie clack, also a member of the editorial board and the editorial director board columnists as well.

The man in charge of the editorial board.

Josh Bradesco thank you very much for coming in.

Yeah.

Thanks.

First of all, now you don't call these endorsements, I guess they use, what's the difference between an endorsement and a pick a recommendation?

Speaker 2: You know, it's a recommendation.

I think it just creates a little bit of space between us and the candidate.

You know, it's, we're not on anybody's team.

You know, we're really just looking at the, like the group of candidates in one particular race or another, and, and, and recommending the one that, that we feel at that time is we think at the time it was perhaps the most, Speaker 1: And these isn't just one race or another.

You do all, all the races, really, basically the major races and you do interviews and people don't realize that you do interviews and you ask questions pretty much the same questions of everybody.

How does it Work?

How many, how many races did we do?

Oh Speaker 2: Gosh, I don't know how many hundred cities, Speaker 1: The different candidates, candidates meetings at least twice a day during the week three Saturdays of all day meetings with judicial candidates, questions change depending upon the office or, or, or particularly individuals of there's something going back and forth.

And we should say, you do recommendations for in the Republican primary, as well as in the democratic primary.

It's not just, oh, vote for this person, but what are the kinds of questions that you asked and what do you differentiate on?

Speaker 2: Right.

So, I mean, again, it depends on the race.

So if we're looking at a congressional race, we're going to be asking about border security, or we're going to be talking about, you know, mask mandates at the federal level.

You know, COVID-19 response, federal funding for key issues here in San Antonio's.

Or for example, few years ago, we were talking about the federal courthouse and funding there.

So those will be topics that, that will generally come up climate change.

You know, if we're, if we're looking at state issues, we're going to be looking at education again, COVID response.

And Speaker 1: These are in-person interviews as much as possible, but Speaker 2: Traditionally Speaker 1: All of you all for this, Speaker 2: This was over zoom.

So the editorial board is comprised of Carrie Clark and myself, as well as associated Toro, Patriot, or Nancy Pryor, Johnson and editor or writer and columnist, Brandon lingual.

And so we, in this instance, we were meeting with candidates over zoom, you know, hopefully in a general it'll be in person.

Yeah.

We did meet with Beto O'Rourke and person who he wanted to meet in person.

And we actually met him here Speaker 1: And tell us what that's like when you're, I mean, is it, is it kind of the same kind of questions that you get a speech from somebody, or you get to actually talk with them Exactly.

A conversation.

And Josh always tells them ahead of time and gives them one to three minutes to introduce themselves, tell them why they're running, make sure they don't go too long.

And then we just, we just go into a, Josh is such a, a policy wonk that we kind of let him take the lead on all the questions.

And then we'll, we'll jump in, but there's never a, a set stat standard list of questions that we're going to ask everybody.

And How about after that?

How do you decide, okay, you've gone an hour.

Thanks.

Bye.

We sit around and talk about it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

And we, we discuss, you know, we kind of way the different answers from the candidates.

Cause a lot of these meetings we'll have multiple candidates together so we can compare and contrast from there, we'll look at social media, you know, w we'll kind of review just to see what they've posted on Facebook or Twitter to make sure there are no surprises there.

In some instances, we'll reach out to sources to maybe do like more of a background check.

This could come if someone's sort of unknown, or if we have two really qualified candidates and we're really trying to kind of parse out differences Speaker 1: And people ask and have asked me and others about the balance of the editorial board or your politics.

What do you tell them?

Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think it's important to understand the editor we're journalists.

We're not tethered to any one party we're non-partisan and we're independent now that we are different from the newsroom where we're actually structurally we're separate from newsroom while we, we both, while the newsroom and the editorial board are both part of the express news, we are separate.

Speaker 1: And that's another question.

What happens when, oh, those guys are always these commie pinko liberals or wherever they want to call you.

And that, that influences the news.

Speaker 2: Well, it, it, it doesn't, and it shouldn't, I mean, look, as opinion, journalists were supposed to arrive at conclusions, that's our job, but reporters on the new side there, their mantra should be objectivity.

They should be reporting objective news.

Now, now we might look at that news and come to some type of conclusion or raise questions about it, but there are two very different functions of journalism.

So, you know what I would tell re you know, viewers or readers or listeners is, look, we are, non-partisan, we're independent.

We're not tied to any particular group.

We're just independent minded journalists.

Speaker 1: And so what are some of your big recommendations in some of the bigger races here you think?

Speaker 2: Right.

So, Speaker 1: Nope.

Nope.

Well, for governor, I mean the two obvious choices, Beto Democrats and governor Abbott for Republicans, I think the most interesting race for this county is as county commissioner and which, which was a tough one, because it was, I think of all the races.

It may have been the closest one when it came to the caliber of candidates and Hatton and had been tough to choose.

And when you kind of judge county judge Connie county judge, and it was the toughest one to decide, and then we took a few days to, So who did you come up with and, and why we, Speaker 2: We, so, yeah, for county judge in the democratic primary, we recommended, you know,, who's a state representative.

We chose her, you know, because we saw someone who had was effective in the legislature who could work with Democrats and Republicans in the legislature who had strong community ties because there's some other Speaker 1: People in there.

Well, judge Speaker 2: Peter is outstanding and we could have easily recommended him.

And I think that's a, that's a point to make about these recommendations is so often, yeah, we have to recommend one candidate because voters are choosing one candidate, but in many instances there are several outstanding candidates.

And so I've often what I, my mantra has been to, to readers is, look, this is a starting point for you.

We don't care if you agree with our recommendations or not, but hopefully this serves as a launching point, Speaker 1: The one in the COI, our race, and for Congress, you had made an endorsement of Jessica Cisneros just before the whole way our news came out.

Yeah.

We, we had met with them on a Tuesday and I think after we finished interviewing them, we had decided we wanted to go with what's narrows.

And then it was the next day that, that, that the feds invaded raided Congressman craves home.

And so when we did that a toy, we wanted people to understand that we had made this decision before that.

And now in some races you don't make recommendations.

How does that work?

Well, Dan Patrick's Lieutenant governor's race system were big names there and nobody's endorsed, Speaker 2: Right?

No recommendation there.

I think, you know, at that point I are, we've had strenuous disagreements with Lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick on a number of policy issues.

We met with several of his challengers and they frankly just did not convey meaningful policy ideas.

So to make a recommendation there, to recommend someone that we have a long track record of disagreeing with, or a challenger that frankly didn't measure up for such an important office, just Speaker 1: But see no point, there are some that you do have had disagreements within the past that you do.

That's true.

Chippewa Chippewa, Congressman ship war is someone who he disagreed with on just about everything.

But we, you know, we had met with, he didn't meet with us this time, this time, but we met with his two challenges and felt that the Congressman was what's the best choice.

And he's also as someone who, who, who vulgar to certify the, You do pull recommendations after the fact like you did this week.

Tell us about that with a, a woman on a pump Jack that you had picked running for.

And I sh I, you know, I'm not going to say anything about her as a candidate, but because of a tick dog video and you pull the recommendation.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

In this case, we had initially recommended a woman named Sarah Stagner and the Republican primary for railroad commissioner.

She's an interesting candidate.

She's an outsider to the oil and gas industry.

And she spoke quite passionately.

And at length, she's an attorney and she spoke at length with us about her concerns around the environmental impacts of a flaring and venting of hydraulic fracking, water contamination, seismic activity.

There was a lot of passion there.

And of course she called for a lot of ethics reforms.

Her policy ideas are really interesting.

So we recommended her.

But then after the recommendation came, she published this tick-tock video where she was, Speaker 1: Well, you old fogies just didn't like that because it was, these kids will do the Tik TOK videos that we feel definitely outweighs.

The, Speaker 2: I think that, you know, when we looked at that, we felt like, I think there are a couple of points to, to really think about her Tik TOK video first and foremost, there's the office itself, the standards that we expect from someone seeking public office or holding that and to pose semi-nude on a pump, Jack is beneath the office.

I think, Speaker 1: Well, if we had more time, we probably wouldn't talk more about that, but I appreciate you coming in.

I wish we had more time and you can check out their picks as well as background on the candidates that has nothing to do with whether you pick them or not on the express news website.

That's right.

And no Tik TOK videos, videos.

All right.

Thanks.

Very much.

Kerry Clark and Josh, Bradesco appreciate you coming in.

If you watch the Superbowl over the weekend, you might've seen a kind of cryptic ad about DeLorean coming back, the famous car from back to the future, back in the eighties.

And then this week, you might've read about how DeLorean's headquarters is supposed to be coming to San Antonio.

Joining us to talk about that.

The man who wrote about it for the express news, Diego Mendoza, Moyers staff writer.

Thank you very much for coming in.

You cover a lot of business stories.

This one kind of came out of the blue because there's not much of a DeLorean company right now based over near Houston.

Tell us about what we know so far about DeLorean's headquarters coming here.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

So it's obviously kind of a fun sort of splashy announcement by the city kind of tug at people's nostalgia.

And it's, it's pretty interesting, you know, that DeLorean saying, they're going to build an electric vehicle or they're going to kind of explore it.

And so the first step is they're going to establish their headquarters here.

They're saying they're going to hire 450 people and kind of upper level, you know, engineering management kind of positions that, you know, are kind of the positions that, of course the city of San Antonio is trying to grow.

So we know, you know, that the details are light.

We know that that's their plan.

And they're going to put this headquarters at port San Antonio.

We also know that the city and county are considering a package of incentives for DeLorean to establish this headquarters here.

We don't know any details on that because Speaker 1: They have said in their statement, we'll, we'll establish it here, contingent upon abatements and stuff.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Yeah.

And like I said, we don't know what the, any details of those incentives, but yeah, th this announcement is contingent on that.

And so I, you know, I'll be honest, I, I met this announcement with a little bit of skepticism because, you know, you're, you're hearing of this company kind of trying to rise from the ashes and, and start producing an electric vehicle kind of out of nowhere, you alluded this it's, it's a DeLorean.

And, you know, the last, in a really, since the mid eighties has existed really only to service current DeLoreans on the road, there's about 6,000 Dorian coupes still around.

So really it's just been a kind of small operation near Houston with kind of a showroom of DeLoreans and, you know, just a parts inventory, things like that.

Speaker 1: It would be an electric vehicle and supposedly a high concept car.

And it's also that ad as well, was in concert with the Italian design company who originally designed the DeLorean.

It wasn't John DeLorean himself.

It was this Italian design.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Yeah.

It's a firm called ETL design that you're right.

Yeah.

The, the founder that did design the original DeLorean.

And so we don't really know the funding of this company or kind of the structure of it, but we know this from this design companies behind it, you know, to some degree.

And so that should be, you know, that's that it kind of, it, it brings it kind of the historical element of it.

And one thing that was kind of interesting, we don't know anything about this, this plan for production, it's still very early, but we know ETL design last year, they entered this agreement with Williams, which is kind of the, it's a, it's a, a wing of the F1 formula one racing team.

And they, they signed this agreement.

It kind of vague to establish a production platform to produce like up to 10,000 electric vehicles, very early, very few details on that.

But that to me was a signal of maybe the scale that they're looking at.

Speaker 1: It's a serious company.

They've worked with Nissan and others over the years to come up with prototypes.

And so it's not just some far out thing, but also the 450 here that they would put in the headquarters that supposedly wouldn't include a manufacturing plant that could come here later.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

So all they said in the release is that they're looking to establish your headquarters and then they'll use that headquarters to explore potential sites for a manufacturing plant or, or just, you know, potential opportunity.

So I think it's important to note, you know, with this announcement, Dory is not making anything here.

You know, we it's, it's very early.

And so, you know, they're saying they're going to produce an electric vehicle, but you know, the, the amount of investment it's just, you know, mindbogglingly complex and costly to get into business of vehicle production.

So it's easy to say, you know, we're going to examine sites for a manufacturing plant, but I'll be very curious to see, Speaker 1: And also to get into electronic vehicles right now, because the guy who is the CEO, I guess, or one of the presidents was with Tesla and marketing and then with karma and other Evy startup, but that one's not doing as well.

There's a lot of them that aren't because the big companies are making them exactly.

Speaker 2: But yeah, so we really seen, you know, there's a real swell of excitement about electric vehicles in 2020.

And we saw a lot of startups go public, for example, you know, Lordstown motors and, and others that Nicola that really have not been, they failed to gain a lot of traction.

And really part of the reason is that we've seen big players like Ford and GM and Volkswagen commit, you know, tens of billions of dollars to produce more electric vehicles by 20 25, 20 30 Ford and GM collectively are 60 billion just through 2025.

So you're seeing these big players come in and, and really kind of crowd out some of the smaller players that were trying to get into vehicle electric vehicle production.

And so the current executive of this DeLorean iteration, yeah.

He worked for karma automotive, which makes really high price, luxury electric vehicles that really have failed to gain a lot of traction.

But as you referenced, he did, he was a former vice president of worldwide sales at Tesla.

So clearly there's some real experience there.

Speaker 1: And it also the story highlights port San Antonio's importance and what they have there to offer as well as this whole Toyota and Navistar that the, and I guess Tesla up the road in Austin as well, that there is this growing base here in Texas.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

You're seeing greater essay, Texas kind of the, the economic development wing of San Antonio and the city and county they're really, you know, going around the strategy of, of developing kind of an automotive manufacturing hub here in the San Antonio region.

Of course, like you said, Teslas, they're already producing vehicles just outside Austin.

You know, you've got the Toyota plant on the south side.

That's just got a big expansion.

That's, they're producing now the Sequoya and Tundra.

And so the, I think the city of San Antonio and kind of the economic development people here are saying, let's build a strategy where we can get good jobs that people don't necessarily need college degrees for in manufacturing and production.

And I, and I think, you know, you're seeing some verifiable wins from that strategy, this DeLorean announcement.

I don't know if I'd put it in that same category.

We'll, we'll see time will tell Speaker 1: A Hardy endorsement for Dubai one.

Speaker 2: I think I'd rather get a, maybe an electric Ford or something like that.

Right.

Speaker 1: There you go.

And we are not endorsing or anyway, thank you very much.

Diego Mendoza Moyers staff writer for the San Antonio express news.

You can read more about that and other business stories there.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see this show again, or previous shows as well at the podcast at dot org.

And we'll see if on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele do follow.