 So this is our 2015 City Council Candidate Forum. We are holding these forums for each of the 10 districts and we've had a separate forum for the Mayor already. So this district, this forum today features District 5 and District 8. So we want to be glad that we will welcome our candidates here and be willing to answer questions and talk about issues that the Chamber feels are important to the business community and to San Antonio as a whole. We also want to thank our sponsors, our partners for these events. The University of Texas at San Antonio has offered these facilities free of charge so that we can hold these in a public fashion and invite anybody who would like to come and view them. We also want to thank our partner, our media partner, Delamundo, for being here and being willing to moderate these events with us. I'll get into a little bit to who's going to be doing this for us today so please bear with me as we get to the details. So I want to introduce our moderators today. Elena Amaro is here today from Delamundo. She joined Delamundo 60 from Univision 23 in Miami where she worked as a general assignment reporter and correspondent for Noticiero Univision, Edición Lopterna y Desperta América from 2010 to 2014. I want to get it all right. Prior to this she worked at GenTV8, WGEN as a legal reporter from 2009 to 2010. Amaro also worked at AmericaCV Network in Miami as an anchor and reporter from 2007 to 2009 and at AmericaTV in Miami throughout 2007 as a reporter. She began her broadcast career in 2006 as an assistant producer for Noticiero Univision. She received her bachelor's of science degree in communications and a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish from Florida International University. She also holds a master's of arts degree in Spanish. Please welcome Elena Amaro. I don't know how to respond to that. With her today is gentleman named Joe Bray. Joe Bray is the chamber's vice chairman for legislative affairs. He's been selected by Henry Cisneros, our current chairman, to kind of handle issues around legislative affairs, everything from local, state and federal. So this year Joe has had much success in generating lots of interest and getting information to our board and to our community on all issues that affect our business community and San Antonio's done a wonderful job at it. Mr. Joe Bray is a longtime member of our chamber and certainly serves as a member of our board of directors as well. Welcome Mr. Joe Bray. I will go ahead and hand it over to our moderator so we can go over the rules. And if you have any questions feel free to ask so that we have everybody understands what we're seeing through the format today. So for now I'm going to hand it over to Elena and you can take it from here. Well, good morning to all of you and to the people in the audience. Thank you for being here so early on Friday. It's for a good cause. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and candidates. At this moment I'm going to ask the candidates to give a one minute personal opening statement, tell us who you are, where you're from and any information you can give are out on a more personal level. Like he just told my whole biography pretty much in one minute. In chronological order today we have from District 5 Incumbent and Karen Councilwoman Charly Gonzalez and one of her opponents, Allen Ward and Townsend. And from District 8 we have with us participating Yvonne Escobedo-Malvines, Robert L. Meeks, and the Incumbent and Karen Councilman Ron Mirimer. So, applause. And then from here, from my left to the right. We wanted you to give us a personal note of who you are, so those of us that don't know you will get to know me better. We'll start with you Charly. Thank you. Good morning everybody. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Charly Gonzalez and I'm the current Councilwoman for District 5. I live just a few blocks from here in the historic Prospect Hill neighborhood and normally would have taken the bus here. That's that close, just a few blocks away, given the rain. I didn't have that option this morning. So, and I have my business there at St. Simone and Commerce. My family owns Bill's Pawn and Gelverie. We've been in the same location for 54 years and recently did a large expansion to the business. And it was one of the things that inspired me to run for office was I felt the difficulty of getting my small business to expand. And in its insisting location, we were very strong in stable business and it was extremely difficult to get the necessary permits, to get the necessary lending, to expand my business. And it was one of the things that inspired me to run for office. I felt I could help other small businesses. And of course, the more I learned about it, the more I learned that the important things for the district that are not just small business and job creation, but of course public safety, basic infrastructure needs, sidewalks and drainage, which we still suffer with. I'll have a terrible time getting back home because of the flooding that still occurs in our district. So, with all of those things in mind, I went forward with my first term and I've had some priorities there that I'm especially proud of. Then perhaps I don't have the time right now to talk about that. I still serve at the community with as much enthusiasm as I always have. I wake up every morning inspired to serve and go to bed and I'm feeling like I've done a very good job. So, I hope to continue to serve the community and have my focus be on some larger bond projects in the next term. Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez. Now, Mr. Warren-Palmsett. Hello, folks. I moved to the district about 26 years ago. I live at 143 Walton Avenue. I've lived there the whole time and I love it. I think this is one of the best places you could possibly live in the world and I've lived a few other places in the world. I have a master's degree in political science from LSU and a master's degree in education from UT Austin. I worked for the Alamo Community College District at San Antonio College and at Palo Alto College for most of my working life, at least the last part of my working life, and then I'm retired. So, I'm a retired educator. I've worked in the community pretty much the whole time since I moved into District 5 and I'm president of the Palm Heights Neighborhood Association, also president of the Nogulito-Sarcimora Coalition and I was a founding member of Sidewalks Incorporated. I have served on the bond committee, the bond oversight committee, and on the rate committee for the SAWS and I've generally been involved in public affairs. So, what I bring to you is a background of education, a background of community service and I felt that it's important that we preserve our communities while moving forward because District 5 is really moving forward. We're on the verge of a big economic renaissance. So, I want to preserve our community and that's pretty much what I'm about and the questions I think will reveal that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I want to tell you that I wanted to keep it to one minute at the end of the debate and you will have two minutes for your closing arguments. Thank you. Now, Yvonne Esquivel Martinez. Well, good morning. My name is Yvonne Esquivel Martinez and I am a Santonian. I was born here. My family was Air Force and so we moved for a little bit, but then as I came back to San Antonio, I became a product of Northside District. So, I went to Columbus North, Hobie and then Clark. I graduated from St. Mary's University with a Bachelor's of Education in music and I also teach English and biology. In essence, I am a college career readiness advisor for high school students at Clark High School right now. I am a retired spouse's wife and my husband is Paul Martinez and he is running for Mayor of San Antonio also. I am excited to hear that there's going to be an opportunity for us to continue these information. Now, Mr. Valverde. Yes, ma'am. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm originally from Baltimore, Maryland, so I know the nurses don't hold that against me. Okay, I'm in San Antonio. You know, you and those are our retired veterans and our combat veteran, one officer. I've served 20 years as a military veteran, Marines and Army. My extensive career overseens in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've also had an undergraduate and master's degree in criminal justice and I'm completing my dissertation right now on antiretric psychology. Why do I want to run office? Like I said, I've been to a lot of major cities. I've been, I've seen the construction. I've seen, you know, how to know the life. Since I've moved to San Antonio, I've been here for a number of years now. What I've noticed is this is like a small, a big city with a small town feel. I don't think this city should change. I think you should keep that, keep that feel. I think that city should keep that feel. And I think I'm the best person to come here and help maintain it. I've been to the north, I've seen it. It's great. It has its buses. But I would love San Antonio. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for being here. My name is Ron Nirenberg, first and foremost. I am a father and a husband, which drives my decision as being a district-aid city councilman in significant ways. But I do want to say that prior to me becoming a full-time councilman, I taught and worked at Trinity University, which is my alma mater in San Antonio. And outside of two years of going to graduate school in Philadelphia, I've been a San Antonio residence since 1995. I've been very focused on long-term big picture in San Antonio and I've been very proud of the work that we've done. Before coming to Trinity as a professional, I worked for a decade at the Annivert Public Policy Center, working in over 20 different cities around the country on municipal research, civic engagement. And although all the issues that we worked on were different, one was the same, which is no one trusted their government anymore. So I have been focused on conduct of government, the process of government, how can we make the right decisions for our community and the best interests of our community long-term that requires transparency, accountability, and a laser focus on what's right for the long haul of San Antonio. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Annivert. I'm now with the brave going to read the rules on procedures we wanted to pay attention because we would like everyone to participate in the debate. And I want everybody to know I have this big paddle that's right next to me. There's a fraction of it. Ladies and gentlemen, before we begin the questions, I would like to go over the rules. If I could please. Questions for the candidates will be decided by the moderator. Questions will take approximately 30 seconds to ask. Each question will be limited to one topic and addressed to one candidate at a time. Candidates may or may not be asked the same question by the moderator. Answers will be 90 seconds. There will be a green, yellow, and red light or a card to assist you in following the time. At the end of the forum, each candidate, as my colleague has indicated, will have two minutes for a closing statement. Are there any questions? Let the phone begin. My colleague will ask the first question. Yes. And since you're participating in the title of Lottery, the first question that gets to answer this following question will be Allen Townsend. So be ready. Don't worry. The question has to do with the city shutter. One city shutter proposal for San Antonio voters to decide in name is whether city council members should be paid for the service they provide. Here comes the question. Do you support pay for city council members? I definitely support pay for city council members. And here's why. City council members without pay have to have some source of income. We all have to eat. And they either have to be independently wealthy or have a source of income that they can do at the same time that they're being a city council person or they may possibly get their money illegally. We don't want them to do any one of those things. What that does is squeeze out hardworking people that could be excellent city council people. So what we need to do is make sure that a person can devote full time to city council. And I know that wasn't the case in the old days, but it certainly is now. Everybody expects a city councilman to be a full time person. And we need to pay them and make sure that they can live on that and then hold them to their feet to the fire. They need to work the full time that they're there. And I promise I will. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Townsend. Now, please, Gonzalez, will you accept the pay structure if approved by voters? Oh, absolutely. And I think the council pay is really critical for the city. I'm especially proud of the council that serves now. We're especially educated people. I think we're a really professional group of people. And I think we represent the city as well as any other city can be represented anywhere in the country. But it does limit the pool of participants that can serve. And then, of course, limits the amount of people that can serve, but also the professions that can serve. So as was mentioned, one person has to be retired independently wealthy or have a small business, which I'm fortunate to have. But it does make for a very long day. I've been serving in the wings from eight to eight every day this week. And so it makes it very difficult to maintain my job and even to pay for a babysitter. And it makes it very difficult to maintain a standard of living. So I think it's especially critical that we bring this city up to what is consistent with other cities around the country. $45,000 is significantly lower than other cities get. But I think it's a good starting point. And I look forward to having the voters support that in the elections tonight. Thank you very much. And now from this debate, the first person that won the lottery was Yvonne Martinez. So you have to answer the question first. And the question will be, do you believe that city council pay will change the dynamic of who will run for city council in the future? Yes, I do believe that it will change, accordingly, to the voters' turnout. You need the voter turnout to come out and help change. I think that it is important that the voter turnout come so that the city council can change and have new blood. Thank you. Now, Mr. Leakes, the question is related to the city shelter. Will you accept the pay structure if approved by voters' demand? Yes, ma'am. And I think that's a great idea, because again, it separates the, it brings all the citizens to the table, whether they're rich, they're retired, they're retired, or they're making a moderate amount of money. Again, $40,000 isn't significant enough to survive on. But again, you're dedicating 90% of your time out here to pop up with our politicians or to out here in the rallies and the voters to orchestrate in your community and making sure that it works. So do I, do I really need a salary, a slight salary? But yes, I think it would be, I'm totally queen, so on. Now, Mr. Middleberg, do you support pay for a city council member? And do you think that that will change the dynamic of the current city council? So I've always said that no public official should give themselves a raise. But I do think it's in the domain of the public to make this decision for the long term of San Antonio. As a citizen, I do believe we need to create access and opportunity for people to pursue a career in public service. We need good people to serve. And it is an obstacle for people knowing that there is no living wage. There is no pay for council to devote full time to this. My commitment has been that no matter the outcome of this vote, and I know how I will vote personally, no matter the outcome of this vote, I'm committed 100% to serving the people of District A in the city of San Antonio. The issue, though, of whether or not we'll change the dynamic is a complex one. Paying it of itself won't do it. We need to have active and informed residents. Most San Antonians don't get involved in municipal elections not because they don't want to vote. It's because they're not informed about what they're voting for. And they're not informed about why it's important and why city council does. Most of the residents I talked to were unaware that city council doesn't get paid. The idea of new blood, that comment was made, it's great political talk. But one of the challenges on city council is that we've had so much new blood in the last two years. We have had no stability. And one of the ways that we can introduce new stability, better thinking, long-term decision making is by allowing good people to serve and serve for as long as the public will accept their decision making. Thank you, and I'll repost it on to the security. Thank you so much. My colleague did such a good job. I hope I can follow in her footsteps. Ron, I'd like, since you answered the question last, I'd just like to start with you if I could please. And the question is, San Antonio has an established city manager form of government, as we know. My question to you is, do you support Cheryl Scully as our current city manager? I do, and the reason why I do is all of the performance measures that we give city management in terms of financial management are bond rating. The fact that we want to get lean and mean as a city government, get small but get high performance. But the performance indicators for all departments in terms of service delivery and efficiency, lower in crime rate, all these things that happen under Cheryl Scully's leadership, and it's not been easy. Right, it is not been easy. And in fact, I think it's justifiable that somebody who acts as the CEO or the CEO of our city does get the criticism and the praise when things go right or they go wrong. I think based on what we brought her here to do, what she's challenged to do in a $2.4 billion organization, she's done a fabulous job for the city. We are still, as far as major cities, top 10 cities in the United States, one of the strongest economically, one of the best in terms of quality of life and our trajectory is fantastic. People want to come to San Antonio, they want to stay in San Antonio when they arrive, and I'm proud to live in a city where we can say that. Great, thank you, Ron. I'll move right over to Mr. Meeks. Before I ask you the question, Mr. Meeks, I want to thank you for your service to our country. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. My question along the same lines is, Def Elected, how would you approach your relationship to Cheryl Scully? I think it needs to be a little bit more detailed on the, I want to hit back on the budget, I know we didn't cover it a little bit, but I've covered the budget, it's like 658 pages or something like that. I think the overall management is a marginal. She can go a little more in depth, even that's probably one of the hardest things with the population. They have a hard understanding of what exactly their money is going to. Like me, everyone manages their budget at home, everyone knows exactly, where my money is going exactly. I think it's not, does the rest come back to me? Or, you know, I think who should hold like an income tax return for remaining in my state over, because you want to get the budget and who has been managed. You know, 2.2 billion dollars is what the budget is allocated, but has anyone ever ever seen a budget spent exactly to 2.2 billion dollars where it's remaining in the other? Or is it, what is it used afterwards? I know there's a charter on the next, on this kind of election, where the city manager has the ability to reallocate that money to where everybody needs to put it into. Has it been done in the past? I don't think it has been done correctly. So that falls back on the manager, the city manager. So no, I don't think she's been doing a job but she should. I think it could be done better. I think, thank you for your answer. Ms. Martinez, I'll follow up right with you and ask you, is this council manager form of government? Best for San Antonio. The council form of government is best for San Antonio. The council is in charge. Or at least that's how it was supposed to be. As far as Ms. Scully, I would definitely work with her but I think everyone needs to know that she is not the one in charge. The council is who elected her in and they should be in charge of what needs to go on. Great, thank you for your response. Mr. Townsend, same question. Do you support Cheryl Scully as our current city manager? Okay, I think Cheryl Scully is one of the best possible city managers we could have. That being said, I don't agree with everything that she's done. But I think that she really is doing a terrific job as a city manager. Now, we have a weak mayor and council system compared to the city manager. Theoretically, the city manager should be in control of the city and the council and mayor should be sort of like a board of directors. But of course that's not how it works and that's not how it should work. What I think is, instead of arguing about who's in charge and stuff, I think the people need to be in charge. We need to go beyond the city manager and beyond Cheryl Scully and put the decisions in the hands of the people in the district. And that's what I propose to do with participatory budgeting. The idea of participatory budgeting is that we take the budget and as much as possible give those budgetary decisions to the citizens who live in the district, in fact the residents of the district, get them to propose projects, vet them with the city manager and with the city staff, bring them back to councils, put them on a ballot and let them vote and the best projects win. And that is it and I promise as a city councilman that I won't do that and I'll get out of the way of the people and expedite that process. Now, it's a little bit radical, apparently. I didn't think it was all that big a deal but apparently it's fairly radical but it's the best solution and thank you. All great responses. Thank you to all candidates. And for you, Ms. Gonzalez, the same question, how would you approach your relationship with Cheryl Scully and do you feel that council manager form of government is best for San Antonio? Well, that's what we have now. And I think it's working very well for San Antonio. I think Cheryl Scully is one of the hardest working women I have ever met. And if you send her an email at five o'clock and she responds really professional and it's a very complicated budget and I think she does a wonderful job of trying to break it down whether it's for the council or whether we go out to the public when we have our budget sessions. I think that San Antonio has managed to stay strong even in the most difficult times that we experienced in the early 2000s and she's done a great job of managing that and still producing large bond projects, some of which we've never seen in our city and also maintaining the AAA bond rating which we know is critical to the success of San Antonio for our long term goals. I think Cheryl Scully is a extremely competent city manager. I absolutely think that she is top notch and I enjoy working with her especially because not only does she have a large picture, broad picture of where we need to go in the future but she can still remember even the small detail so when we discuss some of the smaller infrastructure projects in my district, she's equally aware of them as she is of the big scale, large picture of bond for the next 2017. Thank you very much. Thank you. I would like to start with Ms. Gonzalez since you are the last one to answer. The next question is about economic development. The album is the historical sharing for San Antonio, our state and the home nation. As a member of the city council, will you support the funding and actions necessary to restore the current site, to reflect its original configuration and to be very specific about it? Will you support the necessary property and business acquisition to complete social reconstruction? Well, it's been on the forefront of all of our minds. It's been one of the major topics of discussion at council given the large dollar amount that is necessary to restore the album and to make it, be it assuring that it really, what it should be, the numbers that have been thrown out are in the $500 million range and the eminent domain that's threatening is a great concern of mine. So I look forward to continued dialogue. We have a task force now on how we can restore the album. We know that there has been a lot of discussion about it. I would like for that discussion to continue further. It's a very controversial issue and something that I think needs to be taken with great sensitivity. So I look forward to the continued discussions on it. I would just like to get a full picture before we make any major decisions. A lot of that is concerning eminent domain which gives me great pause. So I would like, I'm looking forward to having the album of the focus of the city as it was intended to be, as it has been for the last 300 years. So I look forward to the task, we do have task force and tri-chairs that are looking into that issue and I look forward to hearing all of their reports. Not all of you need to answer that question, but do any of you want to answer that or do you want us to go into the next economic development action? Next to me. Okay. Again, I'm not from the original way. The one thing I've noticed since I've been here is historically, the Alamo is where, you know, the Alamo is a lot of historic, you know, historically, San Antonio is to go to the Alamo. I'm a huge history buff. When I got here, I went down and I went through every single aspect of the Alamo, every single board. That is what brings people to Alamo. Not solely to San Antonio, everyone wants to see history, history in the making. We need to reserve everything that's there and preserve it, whatever it costs, because, again, that is what I love. Everyone loves to bring events on the pass. Everyone loves to see what happened, to see what we vision were, to where we are today. If you see the sides, I mean, being in the seventh largest city in the country, it's great to know that I'm a part of history here every day in San Antonio. That's why I love the Alamo. I mean, I support the funding then. I support the funding, and I think that's great for the business. That's great as far as visitors come in here, because as far as the commercial business, always hiring people, I'm all about the Alamo Plaza, all about, you know, renewable and making sure that we maintain the history. Because at the end of the day, if you forget the history, you know, you repeat the history. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mitz. Mr. Townsend, would you like to answer that same question? Briefly, yes. First of all, I don't have any idea of what Shirley just said. But anyway, the Alamo, of course, we're the Alamo City. Everybody says we're the Alamo City. And we definitely need to take a serious role in protecting and enhancing the Alamo. Now, as far as the city taking on the full burden, no, we can't do that. We don't have the account of money. But there are organizations in the state that are interested. We need to make sure that the state takes its fair share without gobbling up the whole thing and taking away from the local people. We need to make sure that we have a coalition of people that care about the Alamo as a historical place that have a reverence for it in terms of the place where Texas basically was born. And we need to do all this with humility and with understanding. And we need to do it with money, of course, but not all of it spent by the city of San Antonio. We've got to have help. And I think we can have help. Thank you. I would like to direct the next question to Ms. Martinez and Mr. Nirenberg if you have an answer. The question is as follows. Do you support spending taxpayer dollars to promote the recruitment and relocation of a professional football and or soccer team? Do you support spending taxpayer dollars to promote the recruitment? Yes. The reason I support it is because if you go back when Katrina and people came in from New Orleans, the Alamo don't for all the different events that were set aside. If you looked across the seats, it wasn't just people from New Orleans. It was San Antonio's. And guess what? That brings jobs. It brings expansion. It brings new businesses and even businesses that are small can help out and receive profit from that. So I do believe that it's gonna take a little bit of our money to start that. But guess what? I think it could be just as big if not bigger than our spurs. And we back everything a hundred percent once we've decided to do so. So yes. It's not gonna take a little bit of money. It's gonna take a lot of money. And I think we need to be very careful. I think San Antonio is a big league city. We're an NFL ready city. But I would not support using public funds for bringing an NFL team here without a public vote. Because more than likely what is gonna be required by NFL franchise is a major overhaul of an existing facility or a complete construction of a new facility. And that's where we need to be careful. I'm an NFL fan, believe me. And I do believe that there is economic potential there if it's done right, if it's done in the right place. We've seen many cases across the country where a stadium is developed with the promise of economic development and it becomes a great big hole in downtown. We don't wanna see that. We gotta have a plan to make it a vibrant community center if we go that route. But in the end of the day, I would not support a major investment of public dollars into a private corporation like that unless there was a show of public consent through hope. Thank you. I would like to pass to Mr. Ray for more questions. Okay, thank you very much. We have so many good questions here and I wish we had time to get them all in. But we're gonna be running tight. This is one question, however, I would like each candidate to address. I'm gonna start with Mr. Mies, if I could please, because I believe this is probably one of the most important questions that you will face as a council member of the elected. The city public safety functions, police, fire and EMS are supported by the city's general fund. This fund also supports other key functions, such as libraries, parks, street repairs, and coding. Alone, the public safety departments constitute the largest general fund expenditure of the city budget, which has resulted in fewer funds being available for other city needs. You use support as city's negotiations to reduce police and fire department benefits that would limit those expenditures to no more than 66% of the city budget. Mr. Mies. Now, one thing I've excluded in my bio is I had history, I've also learned. I've already exiled my sheriff's department deputy in Oklahoma, but one thing I've noticed is is they spend time and time daily making sure that our safety is maintained. I think they're on the page. I think giving them the option to have to burden the cause of medical and dental is a hard burden because they give time and time daily to maintain our safety. I think reducing their budget will put a lot more strength. You already have about 2,700 police officers, which in a city with over a million people that's really, really tight. I think we should not decrease their budget. In fact, we should give them more. It helps them and help our community because there are more officers out there. They're doing, they're gonna have the patrol more, they're gonna keep our safety. And we have the fire department too, they'll keep our safety down. And I just think we don't do enough on, and anytime we have to, you know, and again, they already have the burden of maintaining our safety, we shouldn't have to give up more financial burden on it. I'll shift it to Ms. Gonzalez. Your comments, please. In District 5, I think there's no doubt that the greatest concern for our residents is public safety. So making sure that we have a workforce that is qualified and prepared, I think is especially critical. So with that in mind, we have to strike the right balance of public safety needs and the needs of basic infrastructure sidewalks, lighting. That being said, I feel like right now, the best way to try to get some of that under why is this dealing with the health care costs. The health care costs are through the roof, they're through the roof for everybody. And so trying to get that in check, I think is where we can start to make some improvements in that public safety budget and what is taking up so much of that. So I think that starting from there and asking them to participate in that part is reasonable. And I hope that at the end of this process, which is going on quite some time now, we can strike that right balance. I think 66% is a number that everybody's agreed is pretty stable over this consistent with not to go beyond that. But still having the qualified workforce, having sufficient workforce and having them come to their jobs every day feeling that they are protected by the city and respected by the citizens is equally important. Great, thank you so much. And I'll pass it on to Ms. Martinez, but I want to add to this just a few comments, please. And are you aware that independent studies were done that indicate that our police and fire department members are some of the highest paid in the state when compared to the major metropolitan cities? Yes, I am aware that they are the highest paid, but let me explain. You get what you pay for. And when you are in a fire or you're in an accident, you don't care how much someone is being paid when it's your life on the line or someone you love. So that in itself tells me that they are very well believed in by us, but as far as supporting, reducing their pay, no, in fact, I would not support that at all. I would take them out of the general fund and put them into the protected fund. I would remove pre-K4 and replace them with our officers, letting them know and our fire department, letting them know that we back them more than 100% because guess what? It's their lives on the line every single time we expect them to show up as soon as we need them. We do not want them to sit there and say, oh, I think about it. No, I expect them to show up. I need them to show up. Good, thank you very much. Mr. Townsend, your comments please. Okay, the first thing is of course we need heroes. We need firemen, we need policemen and we need them to do their jobs. Now, how much are we gonna compensate them for? Surely the bank can't be broken by just saying, well, they can have anything they want. It has to be a judicious process. I would have been really interested to hear how Shirley was planning to reduce health costs for the police and fire. We didn't hear that and maybe after it's over I will hear about that. But the thing is, however you get, and police and fire argue that this 66% thing is not a fair assessment because the comparisons, this is getting into the weeds, but that the comparisons are apples and oranges and so forth. All I know is this, the police and fire deserve to be compensated but there's a limit to how much money we've got and we have to balance those two things of fair compensation. Maybe we need more money and I hate to tell people this but it may be that we actually need more money to run the city. So far it looks like we don't. It looks like we're able to stay within our means and of course we have to. We can't just continue to say, well, they get everything they want. So this is a complicated subject. It really needs to be negotiated as a union agreement between fire and police and the city. And I hope by the time I'm a council person that it'll be done, but if not, I'm happy to wait into it if people ask me to do so. It is a complicated matter. I have no easy quick answer for it. I'm very much. Okay, as I did before, I'm gonna add a couple tidbits here. How do you think the civilian employees deal when they have to pay a portion of their healthcare benefits? These in fire do not, in addition to some of the other, in addition to the question I've asked. What's taking us two years to talk about the city? I'll be my best. I certainly think on the last point that there's probably some difficult feelings there. At no time, however, has this council ever said that uniformed personnel should have the same benefits as civilian personnel. So that's never been on the top of the table. And one of the challenges here, there's just tremendous amount of misinformation. And I'm hearing up here also. First thing, pre-K for SA as a sales tax initiative, there's no way we could take that off the table and use revenue for that for this. So that's one. The second is at no time has a city council or anyone else ever suggested we're gonna reduce pay for uniformed employees. In fact, every single proposal that the city has put forward following under the 66% has been increased pay in the contract. That's the second point. The third is, this is a philosophical issue. We can say all day long, yes, absolutely. If you have an emergency, we want them to get there. We want to have personnel to do it. Streets, street safety is part of that solution. 66% didn't post costs that are not contained, i.e. health care only, trending at 7% increase a year as opposed to 2.5% increase per year in the city revenues. That's the stuff we need to focus on. And that's what we're committed to do. But the talk about us reducing benefits, reducing pay, they are still gonna have absolutely the greatest package I think in the state of Texas. In fact, we are not reducing benefits. We're simply trying to adjust utilization and adjust costs. Great, well, very much. Okay, I'll turn it over to my colleague. Yes, thank you very much. The next question has to do with infrastructure. I'll start with you, Mr. Minnerberg, since you're the last one to answer. Traffic congestion continues to be a critical issue for our economy, and there are multiple solutions needed to address it. Do you support the use of managed portal lanes as one of these transportation solutions for traffic congestion? Well, count me among the people who hate congestion. Count me among the people who don't like toll roads. But count me among the people who are still waiting for a plan for building streets without the existing revenues that we have. The reality is in the MPO, in the city of San Antonio, in the state of Texas, Bear County, or in any whoever you get together, and we all have to get together to build major roads. We have to build roads and have plans to build roads with constrained finances. That's the only reason why you're seeing managed lanes as a creative alternative to do that. The day that a free system of highways that addresses congestion that helps build our infrastructure at the pace of our population growth comes before me, I will refer that plan of our over a managed lane plan, but we have yet to see that. And that's why we're pushing so hard in a multimobile comprehensive transportation plan as well, which is all free. We're building out our arterials, we're using our resources, we're trying to contain costs in other areas to help with the free options and help to get people in San Antonio and our economy moving. We want to have options for travelers, but we also might have resources. And let me clarify one thing before it's set up here, which is we will not, absolutely not. There's no politician who will approve tolling existing lanes. We're simply, the plan is to add additional capacity that will be told only for those people who use it. So the free lanes that we pay for, absolutely. I will put my name on there, but it will remain free if I have anything to do with it. Now Mr. Thompson, would you like to elaborate on that? Okay, I think Mr. Nuremberg makes a really good case and maybe that's what's gonna have to happen. The thing is, if we're gonna take care of public, I mean of transportation at all, the pollution that it is, the backups, the stops and so forth, we're gonna get cars off the road. And not the total solution to that, but at least a big part of that is to increase public transportation, increase its share of ridership. Now, in order to do that, you've got to have clean, safe, affordable, convenient public transportation. The, via has been making a good start with a tow in the water at least, with bus rapid transit. And that should be expanded. We need to have more frequent and nicer buses and they're moving in that direction. I know it's a big expense, but it's a lot cheaper than trying to build more and more highways. So I would put an emphasis on public transportation, on making it possible for people to get where they wanna go without getting in their car. And sometimes that means walkability. Those are a lot better solution than having toll roads or having, of course, we're probably gonna end up with managed lanes, given the number of people that are moving here. But let's try to keep it now and let's try to make public transportation a lot more attractive. Thank you, Mr. Townsend. And the next question will be directed to Ms. Martinez and Mr. Nix. It also has to do with infrastructure. Your district remains a high road, high demand area. What are your plans to address the infrastructure capacity as your district continues to grow at a constant rate? Thank you. The one thing we're forgetting here is, you're looking at the council, as we expand, and again, district aid is really, really dynamic. It's really diverse. It's really explosives on most of the cities. It's to give what the community, you know, when you bring in some new infrastructure and you bring in some new areas, you make sure that it's blessed off by the community because, you know, who likes high-dollar construction and then they need to, or a lot of construction? So we can pool this, you know, put a vote for the community to make sure that, you know, any new organizations coming in, any new industries coming in, and they agree with it, and it meets the community standard, then we should welcome any new advancements or any new infrastructure increases. Again, we have a lot of area out there, a lot of natural resources in the district aid. I go out every week, every so often, and walk the park every week. I love my parks, but I also love industry coming into that build and the industry coming to the community. So, again, at the end of the day, we need to pool our community because, you know, city council voting on increased industries or building infrastructure doesn't pan off very well with the communities and all about it, right? Thanks, Martinez. What would be your plans to address the infrastructure capacity as to the distance between the roads? Well, I agree with Mr. Mates. I certainly would expect to have neighborhood association meetings to find out what the constituents want and need, but first and foremost, I think that we would need to make sure that what is being taken care of now actually finishes the transparency of not knowing why the frontage roads or, because I live out towards Bernie's stage road are not being taken care of, even though it's a beautiful sunny day and you just keep going and guess what? You don't see anybody out there working. So I would like to know the reasons why. I would like to have them held accountable to know what is going on with what we have given them already. Does that make sense? Yes. But in addition to that, I think that it is important to know that our constituents who we represent, okay, who vote us in are the ones that get to say so. It's not what I want. It's what they want and what they need. That's most important. Thank you. I would like to give Ms. Gonzalez the chance of answering this question from basically from our viewers. So this is the community's interest in this answer. For high school graduates in your district, discuss the importance of higher education and how will you increase opportunities for them? District 5 still continues to have the highest dropout rates in the city. So this is a critical importance to me and to my district and to the overall long-term well-being of my community. One of the things that's been happening a lot is that we are having what is called their joint college associate high school programs where students that are in high school can go straight into an associate's degree program and graduate from high school with an associate's degree. We hope that that will then encourage them to continue on to their four-year degrees but at least gives them an opportunity to start work with an associate's degree, trained and prepared and ready to work if that is their desire. I think that the stabilization of my community is extremely dependent on the success of our public school system and we've got to work, continue to work together to advance that cause. So that's one of the programs that we're working on with the schools to help them with their associate's degree. Another thing is the workforce training that so many of our nonprofits are doing that will help students, whether it's they need help to stay in school, whether they need tutoring, whether they need all the job training at a young age and giving people job opportunities. And so we're working with some small businesses and some of the large corporations to give high school students jobs and opportunities to work, specifically CPS Energy has a program where we are getting, I think they offer internships for 50 high school students to give them opportunity to work. And so that's one of the few ways that we can help our students be more successful in their long term careers. Thank you Ms. Gonzalez. I really like the thoughts that I'm now hearing. Well thank you very much. Rana I'd like to go back to you and ask you the question that was specifically developed with Mr. Faye. Talk about the address the issues of infrastructure capacity and the issues that relate to that in your district, please. They're massive. Growth in San Antonio over the two census is 2000 to 2010 was 16%, it was 33% in district eight. Coming out of the recession, we're seeing incredible capital investment which has grabbed great economic development opportunity but incredible infrastructure challenges. So everything we're facing in the city, natural resources, supplying water, energy, as well as the basic and streets and drainage and road infrastructure we're seeing in district eight. What I focused on is delivering the projects on time. The largest voter approved roadway project in the city's history is Housman Boulevard that's on time and on budget. We're working on developing a plan with TechStock to address the worst spot corridor west of the Parkway, the west of the Parkway at La Colsomas where the city takes over it. We're also working on the medical center and improving pedestrian and vehicular safety in and around that area because not just for medical community, but this is the third RGDP, this is $31 billion annual economic impact of the city of San Antonio every year. The challenge particularly for neighborhoods and district eight has been traveling east and west, getting to and from the corridor. I hear what Yvonne was saying. In fact, I texted my frisbee the other day, the director of TCI when I was driving down I-10 and said, what are all these tech stop trucks doing here? They're not rolling, it's beautiful outside. It's 9 a.m. There is a schedule, they're falling behind. So we gotta work with TechStock also who has the authority on TechPon I-10 to help complete those projects on time as well. Great, thank you very much. Mr. Townsend, to you specifically district five, talk to us about high school graduates and education and the need to provide quality education for our high school kids. Okay, when I was working for San Antonio College, I was involved in a program called Tech Prep, which is what Shirley was just talking about, where you merge the last two years of high school with at least the first year and maybe even possibly the second year, but at least the first year of community college. And we build programs, and I think we should continue to do that. The main problem with school and people that live in our district is that they look at school and they say, well, I guess that's what I have to do until I get the chance to get a job, rather than thinking of it as a preparation for a job. So what we have to do is build bridges, make that the school that people have totally relevant to the life that they're hoping to live, and their work life after they graduate. And I've got some ideas for that. Apprenticeships are good, that's not so easy to build, but you know, the Port of San Antonio has got some really nice programs where people can work. Internships are great, and we ought to, the city ought to take an aggressive stance towards building these kinds of relationships so that small businesses even, not the gigantic ones, but even small businesses like printers and barbers and whatever can take on people as either apprentices or as interns. And that is just a step towards it. Now there's a lot more to the problem, but I haven't got time to talk about it, so thank you. You probably would like to have the time to talk about it. I would like to have it, that would be lovely. Well, if we could please. So many great questions, so many good answers. Can we go into the closing statements that if we could please. Let's start with District 8 and Ms. Martinez. Yeah, two minutes please. Well, like I said, my name is Yvonne Escortla-Martinez and I am running for District 8 because I believe that our neighborhoods need their voice back in the city government. I feel that it is important that they be heard and that we listen to all of our constituents and that they have a vote in everything that is necessary for them to go in. I know that we also are working towards advancing San Antonio and I wanna be a part of that. I have always been a leader in the service industry, whether it be a teacher or within my community or within my church or even within the military. I have a heart for service and I would greatly appreciate and consider it an honor if my constituents would vote me in. Thank you. Thank you very much. If we could please move on to District 5, the first one up would be Mr. Townsend. Two minutes please. Okay, thanks for having me here. We've had a chance to talk about a number of things. I want you to know that my basic focus is the community. We have got a precious set of communities that you can think of as a tapestry in District 5 and we have to nourish the and strengthen those communities. That's what I'm all about. Now, that doesn't mean that everything comes down to District 5, but insofar as the individuals, the citizens can be involved in making decisions. I want to see that happen. My major issue is participatory budgeting and that's sort of one prong of direct democracy. By that I mean that people, the people, the residents of the district should make decisions that affect them in terms of the infrastructure and the other things that happen during the district. We can do this. This is not a pie-in-the-sky idea. This is something that's being done all over the country. In Vallejo, California, it's city-wide. In Chicago, one person has done, Joe Moore has done his district for the last four years. In New York, in Brooklyn and so forth. We can talk about this. But anyway, this is not a weird off-the-wall idea. We can bring the people into the process and this will quicken the whole process and of course I'm interested in making it a lot more transparent to people. I think that will cause the ability to be able to understand what's happening on the part of the citizens and therefore they will become more engaged and you won't have something fiasco like the streetcar downtown where the really good-hearted, big guys decided there was gonna be a streetcar and didn't bother to ask people until it was too late. We've got to ask them initially and that's why. Thank you very much. Let's shift to District 8, Mr. Nuremberg. Two minutes, please. Great, well, I'm running for reelection because there's a lot of great work that we've done, a lot of great work left to do in District 8 throughout the city of San Antonio. My main focus is harnessing the growth of San Antonio so that all of us, every resident of San Antonio can benefit, every hard work in San Antonio can enjoy the growth and the opportunities of growth in San Antonio. I've been focused on issues of transparency. You heard me say that in the opening statement. What we've done there is we've brought these sessions, the work of City Council to the television, to the webcast so people can be more involved in that. What I've done for the District 8 community is built the District 8 Community Academy that has brought the District 8 constituent offices and all the work that we do in the neighborhoods to the neighborhoods rather than having them have to come to us. We've had town hall meetings every month. We've had quarterly HOA president's meetings and we've also brought the permitting activity, the concerns that residents raise when they see new construction in the neighborhoods. We put that online so now that they can be involved in that. Now we have to take it one step further and get people involved in their government on every decision. We've also worked on the long-term growth issues of San Antonio and infrastructure needs for our district and for San Antonio, but also through the long-term vision of building a great city here in San Antonio, Texas. We're working on building a comprehensive plan. I'm proud to chair that and we're working on a comprehensive water strategy to make sure that we finally address what has been one of the major issues in long-term growth of San Antonio and that is ensuring long-term water security. And finally, what I am trying to do is make sure that our city is healthy for the long-term in terms of our fiscal management and our long-term decision making. What I'm most proud of that we've accomplished over the last couple years is set a record in district aid that we will be thoughtful, that we will research the issue and we will make the best decisions in the best interests of our neighbors and I'm proud to serve. It's the honor of my life to serve and I look forward to being re-elected. Great, thank you so much for your response. We'll shift to district five. Ms. Gonzalez, please, two minutes. Thank you very much and I think this has been a great forum. I really appreciated the questions that we have here really diverse and at the same time specific to our district. So thank you all for the thoughtful questions. I'm Shirley Gonzalez asking to be re-elected for district five to really remain community focused. We have so many issues in district five that really still need to be addressed. I said on the MPO, which I'm hoping will bring additional funding to our district. Some of the main projects that we've still got to address in district five, I have to do with basic transportation issues at Bridge over Spree of City Road that I'm hoping we can redirect some MPO funds to. The Bridge over Spree of City Road is really critical to our community because of the increased train traffic that we expect in Eagleport Shale and we expect in the people can be delayed as long as 30 minutes just in that specific area. And so I'm looking forward to addressing some of those issues and working with the bond to get district five, all of the infrastructure that it needs, all of the basic services that we still so much need and working with our public safety team to make district five the safest community in San Antonio. I still believe and have believed that district five is the best place to live in San Antonio and getting that funding that we need for our parks, for our creeks, Elendorf Park because a great example of a $15 million investment in our community, much longer overdue, the community's been working on that project for over 10 years or just now seeing that come to fruition. So I look forward to working on those projects that we know are basic quality of life issues for our community and look forward to bringing district five up to the rest of the city which has been left behind for such a long time but still at the same time taking advantage of the great resources that we have, number one, the people but also having a walkable, sustainable quality of life community that we can all be proud of. Great, thank you so much. And last but never least, district eight, Mr. Meeks, please, two minutes. All right, on the end, thank you for attending and thank you for listening. The one thing I hear on this table consistently, granted, I'm city council member for district eight but as a district eight council, you have effects on every district in the city. It's not just district eight. You vote in on every district. Your decisions, the actions you make, the researches you do, the policies you approve affect the entire city. I'm not just here for district eight, yes. I am here voted in district eight but I affect all of the city. Everybody voted in. My thing is, I've been in a lot of cities. I love San Antonio. I love the atmosphere. I love the community relationships. I love the way we interact in the South, specifically in San Antonio. We need to keep it that way. One thing that I am a director of IT, we need to, and he did a great job at bringing it to television and internet but we need to pull it more. We need more to pull it integrated into the IT. We are in a modern age. We can do anything with a text message. Integrate and bring in a community back into the interaction with the council. Send in a text message, send in a poll. Get live feed on what's going on in the city, what's going on when they do city counseling because that's what I want to bring to the table here. I would like to bring these up to date modern technologies to home so everyone can interact daily in real time. That's something we're missing here. In education, not only educating the youth but educating the parents. I think it's the answer question on high school but I think education has to start at home even in the community and the government. So we need to start, even on the city council as an educator, educating the community so that the message gets out and you understand what is going on. I'm Robert Meeks and I'm a director of IT. What a great experience. Thank you all for participating. It is important for our community to hear from you. So thank you for taking your time, writing up early and being here sharp and answering all the questions. Now it's time to go from the chamber. Matt, we have heard a number of perspectives, ideas. I hope that you feel that we have covered a number of things that affect not just these respective districts but the city as a whole. So I want to thank you. Let's give a round of applause to our candidates. If you do want to wrap up and I will personally thank our moderators for taking the time as well to be here and be prepared for our event today. As a follow-up, let me just, I want to thank University of Texas, San Antonio, downtown for allowing us to use these facilities and serving as a partner and also with Telemundo who is serving as our media sponsor again. I want to thank them for their assistance with these programs as well. To wrap up, I will tell you that we have our next forum which will cover districts six and seven on Wednesday, April 15th. It'll be right here, same place, 8 a.m., come and learn for breakfast as well. We will have our final forum on April 29th which will cover districts nine and 10. You're welcome to attend any of these, any and all of these as well. I'll let your friends and family know as well. Again, thank you so much for everybody being here. We stand adjourned. Thank you.