 you to Northside Neighborhood's floor guys development meet the mayor forum and we had three candidates scheduled. One of the candidates will not be here until the following the formal session the follow-up session Mr. Medina will be here and you'll be able to speak with them from 8.30 to 9 o'clock if you want to stay for that. Mayor Taylor we're so happy to have you here with us this evening and we're I've spoken with her and we decided that we're going to take and go ahead and begin she has other commitments to change to make and so with that Mr. Nuremberg, Councilman Nuremberg will be here and will interject him into the process once he arrives. He's apparently had a conflict. The procedure that we will use are that candidates will speak and they order their listed one at this point done but it would be Mrs. Taylor because she's the first one that appears on the ballot. Not so significant here tonight but when you go to the ballot many times it's hard to find the candidate you want to vote for on the ballot particularly when it's like 14th from here. Fortunately she's at the top of this so she will not be hard to identify but when we were doing the councils last month that was a very revealing situation. Questions have been solicited from not members in advance and they will be asked first in priority. We have asked those of you here to to complete questions if you want to for those not members and not not members. We need to turn those in at this point in time and we'll take in and see that they're considered. A lot of them that we're getting are being consolidated with other comments because it's the one that we've received from the email process to begin with. Candidates will be allowed to introduce themselves or the one candidate will be allowed to introduce herself and we'll have four minutes to do that and then questions will be asked and there will be a three-minute time limit on the questions and if we're not going to hold too tightly to the three minutes because at this point in time why Mayor Taylor is the only one present. Questions could be asked of each of you. And candidates will each have four minutes for closing remarks. Out of courtesy of the candidates we ask that you refrain from talking during the comments. After the candidates have spoken they will be available of course Mayor Taylor has been here available beforehand but the others will be available here afterward to talk to you. That should be in the period of 8 30 to 9 o'clock. At 9 o'clock we must exit the building and we invite you to those tables and also to a couple of other tables. We have a table at the back of the room which has you can find out not membership over here. I will be over at the 1 SA table to answer questions about the bond program should you have any. We have Yard Science available. We will pin it to Animal Community College. Derrick is in the back and she can answer the questions relative to their bond program. We also have at the back a now cast San Antonio and she has a neighborhood diversity guard sign that some of you might be interested in obtaining. So if you might want to start by your table. So with that let's begin and I mean if you would be willing to share with us your Taylor some comments. Thank you everyone. Thanks so much for being here taking time out of your schedules. It has been a privilege and an honor for me to serve as your Mayor for almost three years now. I appreciate the partnership with Neighborhood Associations. I want to thank you all for the work that you all do every day to maintain and improve quality of life where you live. For my entire professional career in San Antonio since 1998 I've been working to connect San Antonio families to opportunity while I've been building a life with my husband Rodney and our daughter Morton who is 13 years old and Moody as I was commenting to someone in the back also that's a 13-year-old. But in any case I'm going to show her out of her poutiness and I want the San Antonio tomorrow to be a city where Morgan and all of our children can thrive and they can build productive lives. It is an exciting time in San Antonio right now where 21st century city where anyone can have the opportunities to succeed to start a business to build a home and family and improve their education and lives. I think many of you have talked about my vision for San Antonio that we're a globally competitive city where every single resident no matter where they live in our community is connected to opportunities for prosperity. To make that vision a reality we have some work to do including some of the gaps and getting our basics right. You might remember that when I entered the Mayor's office back in 2014 we had some big problems that needed our attention. We had a city divided over a street car project, police union refusing to negotiate on a contract and we were uncertain about our city's water supply for the future. Working together with my leadership we've been able to address each of those issues in a very significant way. These basic issues transparency, accountability, sensible investments in public safety, transportation and utilities those are my priorities. I believe that through planning for the future that we can reduce congestion, keep our taxes low and preserve quality of life in our neighborhoods without San Antonio. I focus on those basics as your Mayor investing in our streets, drainage parks, libraries and senior centers and so I'm asking for your support to allow me to continue to provide that strong leadership. I come to you very prepared for the job as an urban planner who spent six years as a city employee so I've been behind the scenes and I've seen the nuts and bolts behind the scenes served as a city employee worked as a non-proper affordable housing provider and also was a lecturer at UTSA engaging with our young people as they look to plan their futures served as a council member for five years and now for mayor as mayor for almost three years so I certainly come to you well prepared and happy experience to continue providing that great leadership for our community. I also believe that I have the temperament and focus on bringing people with different views together from around town so that we can all work towards achieving that vision of our city so again I thank you all for your time and attention and look forward to the questions and the dialogue. We've just begun, you have about four minutes to introduce yourself. Good afternoon this evening. My name is Ron Nuremberg. Most important thing about me that you should know is that I'm the very proud father of an eight-year-old son named Jonah and also the very proud husband of Erica Prosper who herself is a community servant and a business leader should be the 2018 Chairwoman of the Board of the Hispanic Chamber. You know me, we've worked together for the last four years up in New York City Council in the district eight which is one of the fastest-growing places in the entire city if not particularly safe. It's also the place where the diversity most closely matches the diversity of our city as a whole from socioeconomics to demographics to politics. I have enjoyed every moment of it and it has been the honor and privilege of my life to serve as you know district eight is full of big issues from growth to transportation to water security and I've worked around the city with many different people from civic leaders to business leaders and community leaders and neighbors and they're all saying the same thing about our city is that we're doing all right we're doing just okay in my opinion for doing just okay is not good enough for the city of Stantonio especially when you consider that the demographic reality is that we will be a size in Chicago population-wise within the next 35 years. Status quo has resulted in several challenges that are really important for our city to address. One, our violent crime rate is at the highest point it's been in three decades. Two, we have made no forward progress on truly building a modern transportation system for the city of Stantonio. Three, we have seen our wages wage growth slow to the point where our affordability gap is widened or the average Stantonio family can no longer afford the average home in Stantonio. When you think about it doing just okay is not doing very well at all and I think you deserve a better city than that. A city that is physically responsible with your tax dollars, a city where you feel safe from the pure violent crime in your neighborhoods and on your streets and many public places, a city that has a booming economy that's creating great pain jobs and hall sectors for all Stantonians to benefit from. And first and foremost a city where you can trust that your elected officials are being held to the highest technical standards and who face real consequences when they violate the public trust. It's a city that you would choose even if you could live anywhere else on earth and that's my standard and make no mistake even though politics is focused on the next election the short term future success in today's prosperity go hand in hand we cannot have one without the other and all you have to do is sit in traffic to realize that. My campaign is based on the same kind of independent leadership you've come to know from me. I am an independent so my campaign will be focused on those big issues that we can tackle together to move our city forward not partisan politics not wedge issues that grab headlines that don't move us forward and certainly not the bombast that you've been hearing far too much from elected officials it is simply those issues that we can work on together to make sure that you have a great community a city you can be proud of no matter where you live no matter what you do no matter what your last name is but see it we can all be proud to leave our children and our grandchildren thank you very much. I see that Mr. Medina has joined us even though I have been told that he would be able to. I think that in fairness to the process of the citizens I would say that and not membership that we need to have a vote of the membership as to whether Mr. Medina can participate in the process or not. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed say nay. You may participate Mr. Medina if you will have three minutes for opening comments after that we will be going to two minute response to questions in order to fit the timing yet. Thank you. Ron you got here to her we were having a bedroom in the government and he got here real quick. Let me introduce myself. My name is Ron Webberney. I'm a successful businessman a dedicated family man and a man of faiths. I graduated from University of Texas at Austin with a master's degree in electrical engineering. Once I graduated I would turn to San Antonio and I got to work. Over the last 50 years I managed three successful businesses. The first, a call center technology and infrastructure company that began with five employees and blossomed to 500 employees. I've also managed a political consultant. I'm interested in mines across the country throughout the nation you know and even in the international industry. Over the next I run a real estate company mainly managing properties that I own and the truth is my wife does most of the work and I'm just trying to take a little bit of credit. So I'm a successful businessman a dedicated family man. I've known my wife Jeanette for over 20 years. We live with our daughters Michelle Marie and Sarah Sophia here on the north side in the community. I like to tell people that I wasn't born in the community but I certainly worked hard, studied hard, played by the rules and got there. That's sort of like it. I'm Anna Fates. I pray every night and I believe that the Bucchia di Guadalupe, the patron saint of the Americas, got to meet in my campaign. When it comes to the city of San Antonio there are three fundamental reasons why I'm running. We need a mayor that's independent of specialist. We need a mayor that's focused on today and we need a mayor that will be the voice for fiscal responsibility. When it comes to independence, well the truth is we have a pay-to-play full-trip city hall where candidates get their contributions, specialists get their special favors and taxpayers get stuff with the bill. We need to address that when you do the dressing room now. There's a legitimate concern in the community that this council pays too much attention to tomorrow, that they talk about the million people coming to San Antonio over the next 25 years, their jobs, their infrastructure, their safety. Well how about the 1.5 million that are here today? Our jobs, our safety, our infrastructure and no one expects the mayor to solve these problems overnight but they do want a mayor who starts today. And when it comes to fiscal responsibility, everyone will tell you they didn't increase their tax rate but you saw your appraisals rise and your tax bill rise. So my standing rule will be that if your appraisal rise, your tax rate will go down. I will challenge every solid CPS rate increase because I believe that we already have too many six-figure salaries and pet problems at city hall. I will rein in the Barrick County appraisal district and I'll tell you how we move forward on that as we move forward for my time. Mayor Taylor is first response to a question. Each of you will have three minutes. What I would ask is Mayor, two minutes, I'm sorry, now to get out of here in time. Mayor Taylor and then Ron Irver and then Mr. Medina. We will then reverse the order so that we have as little movement as necessary. And obviously we had quite a lot of questions and had to combine some. Some were a little too broad to answer in a short amount of time and some were too specific in their request. So they've been broken down in categories. The first one is governance. Mayor Taylor has always been a champion of ethical, open and transparent government. What would you do to improve transparency and how do you intend to strengthen the ethics review board? Do you support changing the city chart to provide for a auditor who reports to the board rather than the city council or city staff? I certainly understand that how critical it is for our citizens to have trust in their local government. I'm open to looking at what the structure should be for the ethics review board and the possibility of having someone who would be viewed as more independent as far as an ethics officer. However, I do also feel strongly that ethics is not something that can be legislated and that you have to be very careful in setting up these boards because oftentimes they have focus on a Gaussian mentality instead of serving as a resource for the folks who have been elected to govern. So I definitely believe that there's a balance. I certainly ask folks to very carefully consider the people that they are looking at electing both for the mayor and the city council see what their backgrounds are, what their records show, their personal integrity. All those things I think is very important for people to thoughtfully consider while we also look at how we can improve the structure and systems that we have in place so that we can ensure that we have the confidence of the citizenry. Well, I think this is a vital conversation for the sole reason that we know where San Antonio was in 2000-2003 as we were watching members of council be pull off in handcuffs. We don't want to get back to that. And the fact of the matter is there is a direct correlation between accountability and public confidence and how many people actually turn out to vote. So this is an extremely important issue which is why I have champion issues of or measures to improve transparency in City Hall. It's also why I've been very forceful with the improvement of the ethics code to get a real T and to give an ethics order to be independent. The ethics review board for instance needs to be autonomous and independent from the city council and the city staff. It is charged with overseeing. Otherwise the public doesn't have confidence that the process works. We also need to make sure that the ethics review board has sanction authority to deliver the kinds of punch sanctions that are necessary to give the ethics code a T. Since my time on council I've worked very hard to make sure that we have more accessibility and transparency within our processes. One of the first things I did as a member of council is to bring our work sessions where policymaking is actually done by council to broadcast and webcast so people can watch. And not necessarily that you all want to watch that stuff. It's not that interesting or high drama but it's important that your elected officials know that it's being reported that there's a record of what they say and what they do. So I think I am certainly supportive of it. Not open to it. I think it has to happen for the public to have confidence in the working of their council and their elected officials to ensure that we are working in your best interests and those interests alone. If those of you who just arrived I was asked that I asked everyone to not make your comments or applause during the presentation. We certainly need an independent ethics art. Independent with the authority to follow all the corruption charges as well. I've outlined a seven point plan on how do we address this on my website Medina4SAMayor.com. But this is an issue not because of things that happened 10-15 years ago. It's because of issues that are happening today. Under this council we've had three corruption scandals for the last three or four years. We had a deputy city manager negotiating his job at the same time bidding out a 305 million dollar contract with the company that ultimately won the contract and which was actually got him the job he was looking for. That's the problem today. We have a mayor with all due respect that was involved in what they call the Ivan Taylor housing scandal related to section 8 housing and how she was benefiting from that as well. But nothing happened. No recommend. Just a month ago we had the issue of the bar contract. A process that began six months ago where companies competed and at the last moment the whole process was taken down because of issues that the mayor had yet to outline. To this day we still don't know why there's no recommend. But also when it comes to the bond we talk about corruption. There's hard corruption. There's soft corruption. The appointment of people is conflict of interest to these committees. It's corruption and I won't go too far. Phil Harbour Park three board members were appointed by the councilman to the committee that was looking at how they were going to go out a hundred million dollars in parks money. I'm sure they reviewed all the proposals across town but at the end of the day these three individuals voted for $15,000 for Phil Harbour Park. That's soft corruption too. Our next question is cities can choose to employ either a strong city manager or a strong mayor council form of government. Which form do you support and why? The one we have today because in theory the balance is up. Right? But what we have today is a city manager that is up here and here is your elected official down here. So while both of my friends here on stage are supportive of Cheryl Stelly continue, I'm not. Why? It goes beyond her pay. Yes she makes more than the president and the governor of the United States combined but it goes beyond her pay. It goes into her politics. She should be in her office administrating staff directing departments. But instead she's on the street holding rallies microphone in hand pushing an agenda. That's not her job. Additionally to her pay and her politics well her accumulation of power and when someone goes against her wishes she has express news to tear them down. She has a chamber to fund other candidates. That's why over the next 20 days every single day you'll be an art you'll read an article expressing news against Manuel Medina that will be related with half-truths false insinuations because I've been clear that we need a new city manager. My mantra has been may sevens new mayor may eight to may six new mayor may sevens new city manager may eight we level the playing field in the city of San Antonio so that we can keep the former government that the people buys to have. Officially when it comes to Sharon I think that she's done some good things over time. She has but she's not the only one that can do that and the truth is that we talk about term limits for council term limit for mayor we should also talk about term limits for city managers. Thank you very much. Council manager former government and the reason is it helps remove some of the politics out of every day to day every day decisions day to day operational decisions like contractor procurement and so forth. When you have a city manager who is charged with being a good executive to make sure that the operations of the city are sound we tend to have the politics kept where the politics should be which is policy making. Unfortunately right now I think you have a lack of leadership in the mayor's office and I don't think we need to change the structure of government just because we need a new mayor. It's very important that we exert our authority as a city council to develop good policy when there's something going on in the city of San Antonio that you don't like that you'd like to see change usually points back to that policy making or it needs to be adjusted with policy making that's my position. I know city manager Scully gets a lot of arrows especially during political campaigns but the fact of the matter is this is a two and a half billion dollar budget with 11,000 employees plus and while it doesn't make anyone sleep well at night to know that we have public sector employees anywhere making that much money the fact of the matter is that's what the market bears and I'll be darned if San Antonio should take second place to anyone. We want the very best and Cheryl Scully has been the very best. We have a AAA bond rating which saves you and I money every single day. We are one of the most well financially managed big cities in the country in fact the only big city in the country that has a AAA bond rating that's important for our community our size. Cheryl Scully has done an excellent job and when people ask me you know what's you know how how do you feel about their pay you know I often tell them what Babe Ruth told the reporter when he was asked about him making more money than the president. Babe Ruth replied well it's because I had a better year. Cheryl Scully it should be correct if a lot of the successes we have in the city it does not excuse poor policy making though because the city council and the mayor are the bosses for the accepted team. Wow let me start out by saying that there is no lack of leadership in the mayor's office. I think if you look at the issues that I've addressed street car police contract dealing with the union, Vista Ridge, even the size of the bond which I pushed for to be this large I think that we can all agree that I have provided strong leadership in the mayor's office and I actually question why these gentlemen tack me on that particular issue but in any case I mentioned that I taught at UTSA for six years and so every semester I would teach the public administration students about the forms of government so I can talk about both sides. On the side of council managers certainly it provides continuity of leadership especially since we have such short terms for the political offices. It is focused on reducing the political influence on important decisions and does provide for operational and administrative excellence. On the strong mayor side most of the large cities that have populations over one million people do use the strong mayor form of government and I think there are probably some reasons for that and my work in this in this office and as council member what I believe is that strong mayor acknowledges the real in an honest way political impact on the policy making process. Having said that, I think that it's something that the citizens should decide which is why I've been very focused on ensuring that we continue to improve our governance by re-establishing a charter commission. That's a topic that the charter commission could take up. I certainly have provided the leadership that we need given the form of government that we have and recognize the city manager's role and my leadership role as well not just over the manager but also working as a team leader with the city council as well. Our next group of questions is in regard to finances. There's concern about the degree of city oversight of our public utilities. The actions of CPS and SALS directly impact both rates paid by users and the city budget. How would you ensure SALS users are fairly billed based on timely accurate readings and that CPS projects are in the best long-term interest of rate payers of the city? Thank you for the question. I serve as a member of both the CPS board and the SALS board so I have the opportunity to be engaged probably more substantively than the council members do on these issues but in addition to that we have staff at the city who are very focused on vetting any information that comes to us from the utilities to ensure that we're getting the story straight. So I have confidence in the information that we're receiving both from the staffs at the executive leadership staff at CPS and SALS as well as the staff that we have at the city hall. In addition we have improved the frequency of the communication between those utilities because there was some frustration that we thought we were mainly being approached when it's time for a rate increase. So we do have regular update sessions from the utilities and also I transform one of the council committees to also have an emphasis on utilities so that there's an opportunity for the council members on that committee to also be frequently briefed and engaged with the utilities as well. We recognize how important it is for us to keep those rates as low as possible and I think we've done a good job where rates are amongst the lowest in Texas but we'll continue to provide the oversight that's necessary and have that constant communication so that we stay on top of what's happening at those utilities. I think one of the key motivations is the fact that we since we own CPS in particular we own both but CPS provides a healthy portion of our city budget so we wouldn't be good fiscal stewards if we weren't keeping on top of what's happening over there. Well it's an extraordinary question and by design the boards of both CPS and SALS because they are publicly owned have a member of the board being the mayor. We have a fiduciary responsibility every member of council has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that both utilities are well managed and while the position on the board of SALS and CPS is ex officio it is an engaged board level member. I plan to be very engaged as I have been on the issues of CPS and especially SALS and water security and I think this is an area that needs to drastically improve case in point being the handling of this to Rich. I'm making it very clear that we don't have the SALS the board of SALS and the board of CPS need to understand that our goals are slightly different in CPS the board level and city council. We need to ensure that both of us see eye to eye in the sense that the mission of SALS and the mission of CPS is to make sure that we are delivering water in an affordable manner with regard to Mr. Rich. This is a clear example of what I don't think is going well right now. We have several changes made to the council to the contract for Mr. Rich that have been done without council consent that for any situation where it is less confident where we have less confidence that the pipe in the ground is going to deliver water at the end of the day. Changes that are made to accelerate the construction of the pipeline. This is a very concerning matter when we have a mayor who does not inform council when these contract changes are made. These are very important decisions because when it comes down to the responsibilities of council for both CPS and both CPS and SALS our job is to make sure that they are delivering affordable and effective services to the citizens of San Antonio. As I stated in my opening statement I will challenge every single SALS and CPS rate increase because we already have too many six-figure salaries at City Hall and too many pet projects. In fact whenever SALS or CPS asks for a one percent increase I'm going to challenge them and will not approve it unless they find a one percent savings in efficiencies. We need to look out after the tax fair because when it comes to CPS lately they've been installing these smart meters that putting aside privacy issues putting aside whether they're measuring correctly or too much just the cost of its implementation have been an issue. In theory it was going to cost A for example but reality numbers show that's going to be two times A so it's an issue because special interests act CPS pushed it through CPS court and council have got an issue with that because all of a sudden now they have enough money to buy a hundred and twenty million dollar headquarters but they say it's not going to cost anything. I wish they told me how so I could do one too. When it comes to SALS there's three point four billion dollar pipeline that both people here next to me voted twice for. Now as we're campaigning well only one of them is worth the other one all of a sudden has problems with it. It was fast track on council it was fast track on council and as a result of these two individuals not building their home six months into the contract the finance company went back broke. There again special interests get their special favors candidates get their contributions and taxpayer at the end of the day gets stuck with the bill. Our next question is given the growing concern about San Antonio's long-term debt what other mechanisms can be employed to provide resources to fund the ongoing needs of the city. When it comes to our finances we have a two point four billion dollar budget one point one million dollar general fund. The biggest component of that income has to do with CPS revenue the second one has to do with property taxes third sales and the other one series of other C's and others. Well on the table just so you know half of what you pay in property taxes the city goes to pay down the local debt that means previous bonds. We have a bond on the table if you want to do something about your debt your property tax debt today then you can simply vote no because what this step this bond is going to do is at eight hundred fifty million dollars to our local debt and it's a shame because there's some good stuff in there that we need to address I mean 650 million dollar that adjusted sidewalks and streets that helps with maintenance libraries and parks drainage and flood control but let me share with you stuff people don't know this bond also has 200 million dollars impact projects now we need to question ourselves what were our elected officials thinking 50 million dollars to beautify Broadway. I mean Broadway is pretty nice already and all they're going to do is tear down two lanes is going to create even traffic but they want to beautify Broadway because there's a lot of special interest in town that want to make sure that they win off that. Exactly corporations going to get 25 million dollars to build a hotel and have a fair park they want to build a break but why do we have to pay for it? Then we have 15 million dollars with all due respect to Phil Harbor Park where we're at today do we really need to spend 15 million dollars on a land bridge do we need to give UTSA 10 million dollars so they can build a gym on campus you already have an ice cream and take a step back UTSA is part of the UT system one of the wealthiest universities in the world and we're going to give you 10 million dollars so we're serious about property values property tax revenue well this is something we could go yes or no for. Given growing concern about San Antonio's long-term debt what other mechanisms can be employed to provide resources to fund the ongoing needs of the city? Well I think some of this is a little bit of red meat from people who don't understand where we are financially San Antonio is doing very well in debt service management that's one of the reasons why we have such a strong credit rating that's one of the reasons why it's not different it's not easy to talk about but the performance of city management has to do with helping manage our finances and they've been doing a very good job of that to the envy of many major cities in the United States I think one area where we can improve the management of money though is at the homeowner level we know that in three weeks you're going to get your property tax assessment and while we can't look for you know fancy shining objects that give you you know seven dollars on average of relief and call that relief that's what Senate bill two will do we have to look for actual meaningful relief you may remember in 2013 the council had an opportunity or the council took an opportunity to add a one dollar per month fee to your CPS bill call it an environmental services fee because we are short seven million dollars to take care of some things in the general fund I voted no because that amounted to a regressive tax we have to keep ourselves from being persuaded to do those things when we can do better within living within our means of the current budget and I also think we need to be using our city's voice to push for meaningful appraisal reform we have to start appraising properties for what they're worth and not what the government thinks of these they are missing appraisals so that you can be sure that when you go and get you get your appraisal that you are being treated the same as any other neighbor a commercial neighbor or a residential neighbor in addition to that we also have to work with our legislature to address meaningful school finance reform that is the bulk of what is hitting your tax bill and without a focused effort on that we are not going to see relief for homeowners in San Antonio. In answer to the question I'll say that we can and will pursue federal and state grants to help us pay for infrastructure I think we're all eager to see what the new administration is really going to provide as they voice that they're interested in infrastructure so certainly we will pursue those dollars however the question implies that we're somehow in a shaky position in relation to our debt management and I certainly would reject that and we are very very far below what the state cap is on what we can borrow and borrow just a fraction of what we're allowed to and in relation to the bond program I would just underscore how important and critical this bond program is for our community it allows us to provide basic infrastructure streets so that we can improve traffic and flow drainage so that we can get homes out of floodplains sidewalks so that kids can have a sidewalk to walk to school in addition to other projects that enhance the quality of life like parks and libraries and we're doing that without a property tax rate increase and because of the city's credit rating we're able to borrow at the lowest interest rates possible which means that we're able to invest the maximum amount of dollars from the bond program into actual projects so you're getting more banking a buck on the projects so again we're in a strong financial position and I don't have any qualms about as far as $850 million invested in our community because I believe that will allow a platform for our city's future economic growth. How does San Antonio meet the future demands of the police and fire department union contracts without raising property taxes? Okay that is an excellent question so we began on this journey I guess probably about three years ago to renegotiate contracts for police and fire we do have a new contract for police for fire we don't have a contract yet they were very reluctant to come to the table and did not do so for quite some time. What we're able to do with the negotiation that occurred with the police department is actually to adjust the health insurance options that are provided so that we were able to save 87.5 million dollars over five years with the health care option where officers are now sharing in the cost of health care for their family so that was really our major policy goal to achieve because we knew that for the future as health care costs continue to escalate and as we're in an uncertain environment in relation to health care that we wanted to adjust that so that we could plan for the future and our our hope and our goal is to do the same thing for the fire department as well so we do need to have take a critical look at you know what level of service is provided what where we see other increase in cost may occur in the future and continue to budget appropriately but at the end of the day we have to have a growing economy so that we can continue to pay for for the services that are needed and at the risk of I guess sounding flip also those hot summers they help us too because CPS kicks in a little bit into the general fund so I mean there are many factors that will contribute to the size of the budget but we do our best to provide strong fiscal management so that we'll be able to accommodate that need for continued public safety. I have to disagree with the mayor on this primarily because hope is not a plan the goal of the contract negotiation was not better health care or more payment into health care that is something we achieved it was one of the ways we were trying to achieve the goal the goal was to strike a contract agreement that was structurally balanced currently in the city of San Antonio our expenses in public safety are growing far faster than the city's revenues and that creates a situation with the old contract that we were headed towards increasing amounts from the general fund having to be used for public safety expenses the same thing exists today when the mayor ended the mediation and struck a contract it is now going to be 20 million dollars over budget by year five that is structurally imbalanced it's going to it's going to be a challenge to overcome that and do what we need to do with public safety which is to right sides of the department we have one of the lower capita lower per capita officers officers per capita of major cities in the united states that will continue to be a challenge with our primary that will continue to be a challenge when we have to manage policing from one crisis to another crisis when we have to move resources away when we see property crime outbreaks in other parts of town we need to make sure that we have a contract that is structurally balanced so we can continue to grow the department the way it fought to with regard to doing that how do we get more revenue what we have to approach the negotiation with a clear sense of what that objective is which is what we were trying to do and again we have to begin that negotiation now because we know how challenging it was with regard to this contract negotiations to even get people to speak the same language we have to begin to approach the next contract negotiation now because the objective is to achieve structural balance I mentioned earlier that our general fund which is where we pay for public safety is approximately 1.1 billion dollars and approximately 66 percent of that fund is going to fund public safety operations and I think that's it should go there because we have some basic city functions to provide core functions if you will with the police fire and street maintenance so it should meet the line of share of the general fund I've been very clear that I will balance our budget I will keep it in the 1.1 billion dollar range but I won't do it on the back the fire police I simply won't do it because that's our number one responsibility we need to go in there and look at what else we can cut first whether it's some of these six-year salaries or whether some of these pet projects but we need to do that first we do that we show good face we go to the table with fire and say look this is what we're willing to cut where can we meet halfway the problem with the whole negotiations from the very beginning is that there was no good face on behalf of the mayor police came in the table looked at this strike a deal that worked for them and worked for the city but next thing you know they were being characterized the media as public economy number one they were being they were the mayor were negotiating their contract in the meeting as a result police had to take a step back and take up win-win off the table and win for me situation only that's what got us to the contract we have today and we still have to fire a contract before us well we need to take the step back sit down on this fire and come look we'll meet you halfway we're willing to cut here we're willing to cut there because public safety is our number one priority we're going to meet us halfway so good face negotiations is what we have not had good face negotiations is where we need to go the next group of questions is on neighborhoods environment and transit as the city moves towards increasing housing density what are your views on increasing impervious color and providing parks natural areas and green spaces how would you propose funding the services you mentioned transit and i associate transportation with that i've said that from the very beginning that i'm going to be the transportation major as transportation major i've outlined five specific items but first we're going to take up top 50 quarters in the city and improve drive times by 10 in the first six months secondly we will actually fund the race of danya via a minimum resolution that is where we were providing 10 million dollars so that we could expand around and increase frequency therefore more people are on the bus that's people out in the highway that's people polluting our community additionally we talked about working with business to incentivize them on how incentive providing incentives so that more than employed work from home how they can let their employees out outside the peak hour come in outside the peak hours so we can address traffic and congestion and then we've also talked about building rail from san Antonio to Austin but railroad actually gets built because for the last 10 years we've talked about it and we've got to know we need a mayor that will take the leadership role on this issue a mayor that will say they're ready to build it mayor who will go out with our partners and tell them we're going to put our fair share on the table as well unlike what's happened in the past and the specific timeline budget and past within the first year that i'm there additionally we go out with federal government try to identify federal grants and loans to finance the project additionally go out to the state i'm resourcing out there and they complemented with public money so yes it'll be a degree and then we move forward when it comes to transportation financing it we're going to do so by transportation economies that develop not with a taxpayer we've already got today since since you were addressing transit that was really a group of questions that at this category so i'll go ahead with my next question that does have to do with transit that way we'll hear about transit from altering at the same time what can be done short and long term to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality do you support toll roads and what other forms of transit do you see as viable for our city i was really getting excited to answer the important question transportation is probably the top infrastructure challenge of our time we're adding 150 cars to our roads every single day and we simply do not have the space or the money to do all the capacity building that we would like to do my plan for transportation is to focus on the major bottlenecks first to address where we can add the capacity that will help with that traffic relief but beyond that we have to actually leverage a multi-mobile transportation system we have many elements of that multi-mobile system already in place voter approved the first one is the greenway trail system we have to continue to watch that expand and allow that to expand to a point where it's not just one path to a park from a park to a park but also as an option for people to get from a neighborhood to a community center or from a workplace to a school and so forth we have to advance the safe bike routes bicycle master plan for the city of san antonio and build safe bike routes around town not just painting strikes on roads like we see on workspot but actually making safe bike lanes possible in san antonio so people have the option we have to continue to watch it to move forward on vision zero so that people can use the original mode of transportation which is using your feet to move from one place to another as an option and then ultimately san antonio has to build a modern transportation system for the city of san antonio i support a mass transit system for the city of san antonio because we have a citizen driven one in the s a tomorrow plan the comprehensive multi-mobile transportation plan that i was proud and chair for 18 months now we need to make sure it is voter approved we know where the routes need to go all 13 of those activity areas where high density commercial residential activity is happening all around town we just need to put a plan in place and implement that plan and it will require a vote to do that i plan to give you that vote implementation of our s a tomorrow plan really is going to be critical in order for us to plan for the future growth and to manage congestion in the future it includes a transportation component and so i am looking forward to us moving forward on a implementation of that plan which includes is one of those key ideas the idea of creating regional centers where people live work and play so that hopefully we can have nodes where people can achieve and accomplish their daily activities without always having to take long trips on the expressway of course we have to continue to advocate for dollars from the state federal government in order to expand lane capacity on our roads but i don't think ultimately that that will get us out of congestion because i think more cars will go on the road again we have to make it easier for people to be able to accomplish their daily activities maybe outside of the car and also take shorter trips on our personal note you know i reflect on my own experience i live on the near east side and i live less than three miles from my place of employment and my husband does as well that's a conscious choice that we've made i think that we can make the inner city more attractive for more families then that means we don't we have less families moving out into the area where there's already strain and congestion and then finally we have to improve our public transit system via metropolitan transit which is structurally underfunded that's a tough topic that we as a community need to tackle and figure out how we can get via to be able to expand and be the modern system that we need of development is a priority has been a priority and it's something that we need to continue to stay focused on uh encouraging alternative development uh methods that are environmentally friendly make it easier through our development code for people to actually employ those methods we're going to be having a review of our unified development code coming up in the next couple years and i think those are issues that we need to look at closely as they certainly impact our environment and say tomorrow does have a sustainability component within the plan which i think is important to a lot of these issues as well but on the issue of parks that is something i feel very strongly about we need to ensure that folks in every part of san antonio can have access to open space in order for us to continue to be able to develop those and manage them we will have to get creative as far as looking at public private partnerships and to a certain extent getting the philanthropic community to provide more support for our parks as well last year i went to a conference in houston which i just can't believe has turned into a green city they have this huge project to redevelop the bodies but they have tremendous support from the philanthropic community that has allowed them to position themselves in that way and that's an area where i would like to dig in and so in my official conversations the impression is that the philanthropic community here feels that it's just the same responsibility maintenance of parks but in order for us to have that wonderful city that we aspire to and have parks in every single part of the community i believe we will need to have a strong partnership in order to be able to support and maintain those parks for the future i think we need to get serious about a smarter development pattern in the city of san antonio and make sure our policies reflect that sprawl has created challenges for the entire community from our infrastructure to our public services to our public safety and when we have an opportunity to build a comprehensive plan a sustainability plan i want it to be as strong on those issues as possible and that's what got the mayor myself to do a little bit of a conflict i think it could have been a stronger plan granted now we have a plan it's a good plan but the plan is only good as the paper it's written on if we don't implement it and so i've been very clear on the decisions that are made at the zoning and planning commission with regard to impervious cover situations with the unified development code on the strength of our dark skies and our impervious covered policies we need to be as strong as possible to make sure that we have less growth in the areas that is unsustainable and we encourage more growth in the places that it is i want to do a top-down review of development policies and regulations to ensure that we turn the page on a system of development that makes it more profitable for people to do green space development in the areas of sprawl and less profitable to do it in the urban core where we actually want to see it happen we also have a dearth of affordable housing like i said the average family in san antonio can no longer afford the average home in san antonio and the answer is not incentives and tax evasion to change that the answer is to make sure that we have development in these sustainable areas that is more profitable to do when the private sector sees a market for the kind of growth and development that we want to see in our san antonio areas that's when it will happen and that's how i think we create a smarter development community for our city this has been something we've been talking about on the cap day trade a lot i mean uh spot tomorrow but what i've tried to do is refocus the conversation on essay today because there are really issues that citizens face today crime which is skyrocketed last year poverty 20 percent of the people here in san antonio live in poverty when it comes to basic infrastructure we have issues today not in our traffic that's here today so when we've had this conversation of what today and tomorrow i always try to break it back today but when it comes to essay tomorrow the plan there's there's certainly a number of very good ideas there's no specific projects in there there's an objective but there's no specific projects but some of the ideas certainly pick competing interests like the councilman just said the components of the dark skies pervious covers restrictions building over the head was aquifer a number of environmentally sensitive issues that that were included in uh in essay tomorrow lots of people came together but they said but then these issues were stripped once they came to committee that council because special interests run these committees special interests are the ones who uh at the end of it get their way so we need to do something about that and i think we need to do that about today when it comes to green spaces when it comes to specific development certainly we need to share in the benefits of growth and we need to spread it across not just on the north side we need to find ways to spread it across the county but that way we share it in the challenge in the challenges of growth whether it's traffic whether it's housing or just pressure on our environment so sharing the challenges and benefits it's how we address this issue and when it comes to funding i mean you did the building paperwork so that we can ensure that all of the candidates have time to give us some closing statements this will be our last question neighborhoods throughout the city have expressed that they are being ignored or neglected by city ordinances and actions how can communications to and input from neighborhoods be improved prior to council action well first of all we need to sit in that because when this city manager came to san Antonio she spread out all our neighborhood plants neighborhood associations would get together design a master plan for their neighborhood and then they would submit it to the city and then that would be the next step in having master plan but when this city manager came to san Antonio she spread all of that and she put neighborhood associations aside that had been one of the criticisms of this essay tomorrow i know people participate but one of the major criticisms of essay tomorrow is that neighborhood associations homeowner associations groups within the community didn't have enough say in this development so what we need to do franken speaking and get a decent match and this really cuts to the heart of quality of life because it like i said it is those individual decisions that make or break in community that make or break the neighborhood as i've done as a district council member we have expanded the responsibilities of our office to reach out to neighborhoods that are going to be impacted by zoning and planning commissions right now there's a 200 foot radius rule that your neighborhood is within a 200 foot radius of an application you're notified by the city staff we have told zoning applications you have to notify everyone in an area uh anyone who is going to be impacted because we all know we have to live with those impacts in addition to that i think that the zoning and planning commission uh we need to do a review of the seats on those commissions as i have supported we need to make sure that they are balanced of interest that we don't have just the industries that are going to be that are going to be benefiting from or you know being subject to those applications be part of those boards and commissions we need to make sure that there is a balance of interest and perspective on those boards and commissions in addition to that this is something not just for those committee meetings but also for city council in general we do have to look at the timing of these meetings many times a if you have a zoning application and i remember what happened here at hardware park with walmart that was a big deal for the for community it was a hyper local issue i maybe didn't reach the radar of most city council members but that's a big deal for anybody that has to live in the neighborhood who wants to come to the park we need to make sure that when there are those meetings that are happening they're scheduled at the time that people who are at work can go to them to me it doesn't make any sense that you know in the middle of the afternoon the middle of a work day you miss schedule of finding your zoning commission when the the folks that are really going to be impacted have to be at work that doesn't make a whole lot of sense so i believe that there needs to be a review of all the front procedures with regard to zoning and finding the process to ensure that that the citizens who are going to be impacted are able to be part of the process well this certainly is a very critical issue i started out by thanking you all for the many hours that i know you spend working to ensure quality of life in your neighborhoods i do believe that we can do a better job at the city as far as our outreach to neighborhood associations and that's why i pushed the city manager to recreate a department that would be focused on neighborhoods and neighborhood services when i was a city employee i worked for such a department it was called the introduction some of you may remember the neighborhood suites program and so many other outreach that we had so the manager has recreated a department that's just title housing and neighborhood services and i think it has the opportunity to really provide a great portal and point of contact for neighborhood associations and i'm looking forward to shaping how that department will communicate with citizens as part of the essay tomorrow implementation one of the things that i'm extremely excited about is the fact that we'll be convening a huge neighborhood conference next year and so i'm looking forward to that as an opportunity to learn more about what the challenges are that face neighborhood associations and figure out how we can better engage with the city especially in relation to implementation of essay tomorrow i would encourage my council colleagues to have strong communication through their offices they're a key communication point for neighborhood association as well and we do tend to focus down the city hall on using digital resources to reach out to folks social media and the like but i also think it's very important that we don't forget that there are folks out there who don't use those resources and sometimes a good old-fashioned phone call really can mean a difference as far as a group being informed of what's going on versus not so you have my commitment that i will continue to work to improve communication it is time to have closing remarks officially we really want to thank you and along the river sure well thank you again for taking time out of your schedules to be to learn about the candidates that are running for mayor i am asking for your support to allow me to continue to provide strong leadership for our city council and for our city as i mentioned to you i come really well prepared for the job and i think that those skills that i bring to bear will be particularly important for us at this time because we know that there is going to be a changeover in many of the council seats as some of the candidates have chosen not to run again and some folks are term-limited we will have at least four new council members and so i believe in support for us to have a steady hand in leadership down at city hall because there are still many important issues that face us i believe if you look at my record you cannot challenge the fact that i have provided strong leadership i don't you know have a problem that folks have a different vision of you know where the city should go but there's no denying that i have provided leadership on issues again ranging from the water supply to planning for tomorrow even as we deal with the challenges of today to really focusing on how we can ensure that all San Antonians are connected to opportunity we didn't talk about it much tonight but workforce development it's something that i'm extremely passionate about because i believe that's going to be with what will make sense until you stand out for the future ensuring that we have a workforce that's prepared for jobs that are being created every single day and our city and ensuring that people who have bypassed the k through 16 educational pipeline have the opportunity to reconnect to skills development and short-term training that will allow them to qualify for these jobs and i've been working diligently with many partners including animal colleges and and others the private industry in order to create a system where everyone can be connected and as far as the special interests down at city hall let me tell you the special interests that i have is the citizens in every single corner of the city of san antonio living in neighborhoods where they enjoy a strong quality of life and where they can be connected to opportunities for prosperity that's what i work towards every single day when i go down to city hall i know who i answered you i know that i'm accountable to the citizens of san antonio uh believe me i'm not down there trying to focus on on anything else so i am asking that you would um uh support me in my bid to continue providing leadership for our community so that we can deal with the challenges that come with the growth that we are experiencing here in our wonderful city thank you now here tonight and to uh and for inviting me to join you uh i'm still the name of the same neighbor uh who was walking around these streets uh trying to make the community a better place when i was an HOA board member up here i'm still the same neighbor who's trying to look for ways that i can be more involved to make our community a better place i've enjoyed being your city councilman in district eight we've gotten into some pretty tough battles together uh and i'll tell you that uh you know it's not lost on me that people are calling me ambitious the truth of the matter is i am very ambitious about the future of the city because i think we deserve to have a great city a city that you can be confident that a good paying job is waiting for you or your family a place where you know when you get out on the road you're not stepping gridlock because we've done our jobs as leaders to build a modern transportation system a place where you're not sitting in fear of crime that is on the rise as it is today a place where you know that you can trust the elected officials who are asking for your vote and that we see our neighbors and and uh and people in all parts of town voting in higher numbers because they have the confidence that those elected leaders have delivered that's my vision of san antonio and i'm making the apologies about it i also am very bold about the decisions that we make that make or break that vision on a daily basis some of the biggest strengths i've gotten into are in the battles that i've had to stand alone are ones that depend neighbor and i don't think the apologies about that too because i think what people want whether it's in the city of san antonio the state of texas or anywhere in this country is leadership that will stand with the average that's what i'm about uh i do that because i get home and i get the one true test i get every single day from my son and to the extent that i can look him in the eye and say that as the you know when i had the opportunity to make a difference in my community in an elected position i didn't think about politics i thought just thought about what's the right side of the issue to stand on and i stood on hit uh i will be a happy man and so far this has been uh the job that i've been uh very proud to have and has been made it has made me a happy man because i know we're working to build a greater san antonio for us all my vision is very clear i want to make sure that no matter who you are no matter what area of town you live in no matter what you do for a living you can be a city you can have confidence that we are delivering a great san antonio that is physically responsible but it's one that you can be proud of you your children and grandchildren uh thank you so much for being here tonight uh i do invite you to join me if you want to learn more about our campaign and our vision it's at please come and join us for a saturday or sunday block walk please come and meet our team it's a phenomenal team and i look forward to being your next mayor thank you very much i mean first thank you for the invitation uh to be with you all this evening that you may not know but there are actually 14 candidates are running for mayor and uh being uh the three invited i'm just glad i made the first cup thank you very much ron and i very good people and they care about a lot about the city san antonio so do i we just have a difference of opinion on very critical issues when it comes to fire and police ought to balance our budget but not on their backs when it comes to senator two that limits the growth of local government i support it they oppose when it comes to taxpayers i believe we need to rein in the very time your federal district challenge every solid cps grade increase well they simply have it i'm opposed to maxing out our city's credit card we're borrowing eight hundred fifty million dollars under our current structure our current tax rate and financial situation that's the most we can borrow if we want to borrow more if we can but it's just going to increase taxes but under our current financial situation we're maxing out the city's credit card like you're getting a credit card in the mail for three thousand dollars for jc penny then the same day running to jc penny mind yourself two thousand dollars was close might need a lot of clothes but it would be physically responsible same thing here we have a lot of needs but it is not basically responsible to max out our city's credit card when it comes to this rich three point four billion dollar project that at the end of the day we're going to get if we get water we're going to get the most expensive water in america salt themselves said this project was not good and they wanted to instead invest in desalination plants but no special interest rule today and therefore in six fast track contract in city council and we have this project who's financed here when bankrupt this month i pulled the tow roads i pulled the hob lanes we're going to have an hob lane from here in district eight just in the matter of a year and a half i don't support hob lanes and i think they're the first steps when it's tow roads then in a day though in my way with you and as mayor i will buy independent leadership let's focus on today who will be a voice for fiscal responsibility i respectfully ask for your vote i also respectfully ask that you join our movement because we're building a coalition of democrats and republicans across the state who wouldn't have you seen a proud democrat myself being endorsed by the leadership of the tea party and republican leaders i call this old it's because we're coming together can we've had enough in city hall there are democrats and republicans who are gaining the system and stacking the deck well it's incumbent on democrats and republicans outside to come together challenge that quote and address the issues that need to be addressed in the best fiscal manner plus again i want to thank the candidates for coming this evening and uh they're a commitment to public service for our community without them lying we would be the really in bad shape and in a great loss i would encourage you as not members to take in go to the websites uh continue to have dialogue with them so that you're prepared to go to the polls and you make a knowledgeable valuable decision i would also encourage you to uh to contact your neighbors and friends to help inform them help them become more educated on the candidates themselves and get them to the polls i want to thank the nod members for submitting questions this evening we had a lot of them i also want to thank the three uh board members that assisted with the questions took care of it really in total uh to take all of the different questions they got to consolidate them and we got through the majority of them i think tonight i want to thank all of you for your presence i want to encourage you to uh to vote early voting is from april 24th through may 2nd and election day of course is may 6th it's very very important you get that out there though and i want to thank you and hope that you all have a great evening i have one comment i must make though and that is because it's only fitting that we're we're in the phil harbor park i happen to be very deeply committed to phil harbor park i keep hearing that the land bridge is going to cost 15 million dollars that is totally in error i was part of the bar park bond today that uh that negotiated we gave up to two million dollars voluntarily to another council district so that they could have money for a needed park there uh so you know check out the facts be aware i also tell you that i will be over the one uh sa 4 i'm i'm a speaker for one essay about the bond program and if you have questions or i can assist in any way with your organization to provide information about the mod program or answer your questions please let me know again thank you very much